Don Bellisario:

I just wanna thank you all for the past four years.  You're the people who kept us on the air.  They were gonna cancel us at the end of the first year, and now it looks like we're going on to the fifth.  [A RIOT – A VERITABLE RIOT].  And I'm not supposed to forget this.  [He chooses a name for a drawing for a trip to Orlando which may be the location of the next convention – it goes to Christie Keith of Sacramento, CA.]

Don:

I put that first episode on, and I don't know how many of you even saw the first episode.  I wanted to do that scene because that scene is very important to me.  I just thought that typified what the show was going to be about, what the show has been about.  It couldn't have been performed any better by anyone.  I wanna bring the actors out now, so let's bring out Scott and Dean.  [The roar was deafening and the camera flashes non-stop for several minutes.]

Dean Stockwell:

Thank you all for coming.

Scott Bakula:

Can you all hear us?  HELLO, EVERYBODY!  You havin' a good time?

Don:

Okay, fire away!

Q:

Scott, although '8 1/2 Months' wasn't my favorite episode, I thought you did the best job at being pregnant.  What is your favorite character, one that meant the most to you?

Scott:

Oh, boy!  See, that's how bad it is.  I didn't even do that on purpose!  I think the first words my son is gonna speak are "Oh, boy!"  We're teaching him.  We're working on that.  There was an episode that we did very early on, actually during that first year, the "Volare" episode that Don wrote, that was wonderfully comedic.  I loved that whole show.  There was also a show, "Play It Again, Seymour," which was really fun.  Those are two of my favorite comedic episodes.

Q:

Dean, what is it like talking to the air as a hologram?

Dean:

Yeah, I have to talk to the air sometimes when we do what's called blue screen to make the hologram walk through things and stuff.  When I'm in a blue screen, I'm the only one there.  The scene we've already shot I see on a screen.  So that's the only time I ever talk to nobody, but Scott does it a lot, because whenever I'm there and somebody else looks, I'm not there, so maybe we should get his reaction to that.  He's probably glad I'm not there!

Scott:

It's hard.  You get used to it.  Sometimes we are better at it than other times.  If we had more time to do it really, really well, but I think all things considered, with what we try and do in eight days of television making, with new shows every week, I think it comes out really well.  And Dean's really excellent at it!

Q:

This question's for Dean.  [Note:  during this exchange, the little lady asking the question gives Dean a HUGE birthday card, which he eventually opens and shows to the crowd.]

Dean:

Thank you.

Q:

Dean, are you an angel?

Dean:

Boy, this is some weekend for me!

Scott:

Can I answer that question?

Dean:

[reading the envelope]  Handle with Care.

Scott:

You didn't answer the question. 

Dean:

What was the question? . . . No, I'm a star!  I want to share something with you, something also that was given to me yesterday.  It's unbelievable, this thing.  The fans that raised the money for my star through recycling were of course all down on the boulevard, and the top money earners came in from all over the country, the top 10.  They had a luncheon and at the luncheon, they were very sweet to me . . . [laughs himself] . . . I can't believe this, they gave me a star, but they gave me a real star.  A real one in the heavens [points upward].  They gave it to me, and I am so grateful to them.  [Top contributor, Lyndell Netherton was responsible for the 'heavenly' star.]

Q:

Will Scott and Dean sign autographs after the con?

Scott:

You know, let me say something about that.  I would love to sign autographs for everybody all the time, but when we get into a situation like this, and this is just me, if I can't sign autographs for everybody and I have to stop at a certain time, then I'd rather not sign it for anybody.  I don't mean that in a bad way, but I'd rather do it for everybody.  And really, there's so many people here today, it's wonderful, but the timing how it is we can't do that.  So I apologize for that.  But again, if you send stuff to Universal, we will sign it and get it back to you.

Q:

Love the show.  Can I take a photo of you all?

Don:

You can go to the end of the runway and take a picture, but if everybody starts doin' it, we'll never get done.

Q:

[British fan]  We're only on the second season.  Has your quest gotten deeper as you went on?

Scott:

I do.  I think Don is really a better person to field that, because he has a better sense of the scope of the whole thing, but I think that as everyone has had input into the show since we began, including Dean and myself, and Don, and other writers, and people like yourselves from all over that mention things and talk about things, I think the show changes focus.  It moves.  It has the lovely quality of being different every week, so we can experiment with things.  We experimented this year with some shows that were controversial, and I think that was a step for us in many ways.  I think those shows came off wonderfully well.  So I think the show continues to evolve, and certainly continues to amaze me, what these wonderful writers can think up.

Q:

[Brad, from "Jimmy"] Scott, the crew, the cast, every Quantum Leap I've seen, Don, Dean, and the directors have put a lot of inspiration and wonderful moments into Quantum Leap.  You have here a lot of devoted fans, and maybe you don't realize that each of you up there are the most wonderful people I have seen . . . you guys are the most wonderful, loving, caring, inspirations.  You're wonderful.

Q:

[Joyce Hatcher, who did the hundred yard dash from one side of the auditorium to the other with the microphone]  Dean, I know how hard it is to rap.  How hard was it for you to rap?

[Scott laughs]

Dean:

It wasn't easy!  It wasn't easy, and I gotta tell you why, and you can all have a good yock on this one.  I happen to be blessed with a certain kind of memory configuration, and it works very well for me in the business I'm in.  I can remember dialogue like that, big long speeches, whole plays, very quickly.  So can Scott.  But when I was doing that song, I was supposed to listen to the music in my ear and everything – I couldn't remember the alphabet.  We did like eight takes, 'cause I kept forgetting the alphabet.

Q:

Scott, I think you're adorable.

Dean:

Am I chopped liver over here?

Scott:

More like liver pate!

Q:

Answering for each other's character, how much are you guys like the characters?

Dean:

I'll tell you what.  Scott is a bright, deep guy, but he's not that complicated!

Q:

[A man speaks with his 'very pregnant' wife next to him].  We're here against doctor's orders.  We're having a baby any minute.  [Gasp from audience].

Dean:

I hope there's a doctor here.

Scott:

I'm not a real doctor.

Q:

Since this is our first child, and she's nine months pregnant, could you rub her tummy for luck?

Scott:

You gotta be nine months pregnant to get this done.  Now, nobody who says, "I conceived yesterday . . . ."  [The guys give the mommy-to-be and baby a good luck rub.]

Q:

I understand you're directing an episode . . . .

Scott:

I did already.

Q:

Was it easier or harder than you expected?

Scott:

The directing was wonderful except for having to work with Dean.  [The ribbing doesn't stop – and is a source of amusement for everyone, audience and guests alike].

Q:

How come Al can't tell Sam about Donna?

Dean:

Don is gonna tell me the answer and then I'm gonna tell you.

Don:

What was the question?  Why is he not supposed to tell Sam about his wife?  Because then we've blown the series.  No; if he told him, he would be plagued by that knowledge and then going through the leap after leap as he went from one leap to another he wouldn't be really a free agent to operate as he needed to operate, to do what has to be done.  So Al can't tell him.  That means that he can sometimes get involved with other ladies and still be . . . most television series would never do that.  We're the only one that had the opportunity to get him married, then get him out of it and keep him married.

Q:

Scott, can you take off your coat for my mother?  [He does.]

Don:

We just finished an episode where Scott stripped to his skivvy shorts!

Q:

Does Dean add environmental lines to episodes?

Dean:

Yeah, I do.

Q:

Scott, you're very sexy.  Did you really sing in "Glitter Rock," and was it fun being a punk rocker?

Scott:

Yeah, I do all the singing on the show.  We had great music; Chris Rupenthal wrote some wild lyrics [Scott gets Chris to stand up and take a bow].  You know how he wrote those great lyrics?  He's got a geetar [sic]!  I walked into the studio singing and we had a really great time on that.

Q:

When is Scott gonna release an album?

Scott:

Actually, if I get some time, sometime, whenever, I may do that.  I released a couple of show albums from shows that I've done, but I haven't had time individually.  Universal's talked about something for over a year, so maybe next year.  We certainly have enough material now for an album.

Q:

In addition to recycling halon and battling CFCs, what else can we do?

Dean:

You can bring it up as often as you can when you feel it's appropriate, and disseminate information to your fellow citizens.  It's shocking, but there are a lot of people who don't know what you're talking about.  There are a lot of people that didn't see the last Time magazine with the ozone on the cover.  It's an alteration of consciousness that's going on, that has to go on wider and wider until it's on a vast global scale, and that's taking the corporate consciousness along too, which is difficult with an entrenched consciousness, it's difficult.  But people like you and anybody else that's conscious of it has to help people to realize that what we're talking about when we're talking about environmental changes is REAL.

Q:

How long will we have to wait before we see Quantum Leap: The Movie?

Don:

Funny you should say that.  I honestly can tell you, I don't know.  Except I will tell you that I'm having a meeting in the next few weeks to discuss just that.  It would be something very special, where we'd go into the future as well as the past.  To give Dean something to do!

Q:

How nervous are you in front of all these people who obviously love you, and are there any taboos, things you won't do?  Also with all the conspiracy things that are going around now, would Sam leap into Marilyn Monroe?

Dean:

I wish he would leap into Marilyn Monroe!

Don:

And all Dean could do is look!  Again, it's really very difficult to leap Sam, or Scott, the character Sam, into someone that is a known character because, you know, the one rule in creating the show was that we are going to alter history.  Everybody that had ever done a time-travel show said "You can't change history, you can't change history," as part of the format, and we decided that you could change history.  So you have to leap him into characters that all of you don't know, because then you don't know what the real history is.  If we leaped into Jack Kennedy in November of 1963, there's no way we can ever alter or change that.  However, if I leap him into an individual that you don't know, we can change the history any way we want to.  That's why we don't leap into known characters, except maybe in a kiss with history, we might do it then – or in the movie.

Scott:

I just wanted to complete that.  It feels really great to be here in front of all of you, it's really wonderful.  Dean's nervous; he's never been on . . . he came to me backstage and said 'I don't know what they want!'  It's really wonderful for a lot of the people on our staff, and people that you know, and the writers and Joe Napolitano.  They don't get to get out and meet you, and I think it's wonderful that you get to see them too because they are really terrific people.  It's great to work with them and being here in front of you all today.

Scott:

[While Dean gets a birthday hug]  I'm not sure whether everybody knows this, but Donald P. Bellisario has been nominated by the Writer's Guild for an episode of Quantum Leap, "The Leap Home."  It's about time!

Q:

Do you ever ad-lib lines and if so, what's your favorites?

Scott:

[pointing at Dean]  If you ever ad-lib.  If Mr. Ad-Lib ever ad-libs.  I think it's safer to ask does Dean ever say any of the lines that are in the script.  I think he does, but he doesn't remember them!  Go ahead, Mr. Funny!  Mr. Never-Can-Finish-a-Scene-Straight-With-a-Straight-Face, Mr. Never-Says-What-He's-S'pozed-To-Say-To-Me, Mr. Hasta-Have-The-Last-Little-Funny-Thing-on-Camera.  Go ahead, answer her question!

Dean:

It's so easy – it's so easy! I made one ad-lib about Styrofoam once, that I think was my favorite. I said – what did I say?

Scott:

You expect US to remember that?

Dean:

[ignoring him]  "That comes straight from Hell!" – we improvise!

Q:

Scott, will you ever be a centerfold for Playgirl?

Scott:

[pointing at Dean]  I will if he will!

Q:

What was your least favorite costume?

Scott:

I think probably the pants in the "Glitter Rock" episode, which weighed about 30 pounds.  And ran, so they had holes in them the entire time.  But it looked fabulous!

Q:

[Young girl]  Dean, how old are you?

Dean:

About 10 years older than Jack Benny.  Jack Benny always said his whole lifetime, even when he was an old, old man they asked him how old he was and he said 39.  So I'm 10 years older than him!

Q:

I need a clarification.  Did I hear we've been renewed?

Don:

AH . . . .

Audience:

SAY IT!

Don:

I wish I could say it, I wish I could say we've been renewed.  All I can tell you is that NBC wants the show again, and it looks like we're gonna get renewal.  I'll know something in the next week or two weeks, but it looks positive.

Q:

With "The Leap Home," did Don ever consider bringing Tom back rather than Donna?

Don:

We did that episode; it was very controversial.

Q:

[She tries to clarify her question.]

Don:

He saved his brother, right, and he knows his brother's alive now.  I don't get what she's asking – and I wrote it!

Scott:

I don't think that would have been a whole other way to go in that episode, I think.  Really, the force of that episode was finding out that there was indeed a woman back at home that I had not known about.  I think if you got into bringing his brother to New Mexico, why is he there at that time?  I was only there for about a night, so it would have been more than that episode . . . well, maybe next time it will be a two-hour, and we'll get out.

Q:

How'd you get your parts?

Scott:

The old-fashioned way . . . .

Q:

A cattle call?

Scott:

It wasn't quite a cattle call; Don doesn't do those much anymore.  But I'd never met Don before, I don't know, had you met?  [gesturing at Don and Dean]

Don:

No, Dean and I had never met.  And Scott came in and read for the part and I immediately felt that, boy, this was Sam, and I didn't want to let my enthusiasm get away because we hadn't made a deal yet.

Scott:

So he didn't!

Don:

So I kept quiet until he went out the door, and then I went [yelling] "YEAH!  THAT'S HIM!"  And Dean, I guess your agent called me and said you'd heard about the part.  There were a number of fine actors that wanted that part, and we took Dean . . . and we're very happy we did!

Q:

Congrats to all, especially Scott on the Golden Globe.

Scott:

Thank you.

Don:

The Emmy's next!  If anybody deserves it, he does.

Q:

[Lady from Montreal who mentions that she speaks French]

Scott:

That's great, because Dean speaks French, so ask him the question in French!  [He's teasing Dean.]

Q:

All Canada loves you!

Scott:

Thank you.  We have great fans in Canada.  I don't know if you all know, but we have an incredible following in Canada.

Q:

When Sam looks at the sky and he's talking, who's he talking to?

Don:

He looks up and talks to someone?  Well, he could be talking to Time, Fate, God . . . .

Scott:

Dean says now that his star's up there, I'm talking to him!

Don:

He's talking to whoever you really want him to.

Q:

Scott, what was your favorite episode in which you were undressed?

Scott:

The chimp episode.

Don:

Wait till we leap him in as a baby.

Q:

If Dean could leap Sam into anything, what would it be?

Dean:

Well, now, it's funny.  Even as you were composing that question, I was already reflecting on that very possibility.  Because Donald just said something about he's writing an episode where he's a baby.  And I think he'd be great for it.  He could probably win the Emmy with this one, because that's what he really is – a big BABY!

Don:

Scott will get his revenge, because the episode that I'm writing now, at the end of the season, he leaps into Dean.

Dean:

And he better not mess it up!

Q:

[A very little questioner asks Dean about being a hologram]

Dean:

I go through the door.  When we're making the movie, I'm standing there, the cameraman's there and Scott's there, and everyone's there.  And the director says "freeze" and everyone has to freeze.  No matter what they're doing, they stop like that.  I just go like this, and run off.  Then everybody says 'unfreeze' and everybody starts to move again.  And then later on they just take that little piece of film out, and they all freeze and I'm gone.  And then they have to put the light and the door in, and we have some really nice people that do that for us with paintbrushes . . . .

Q:

That's weird!

Dean:

You guys are great, just great!

Q:

Will there be a last episode?

Don:

There will BE no last episode!

Q:

I wanted to thank you guys very much for making the show, especially for my Special Ed. classes.  Because we really got into when he jumped into that young man Jimmy.  When you did that episode, we had a ton of discussions on that.  And when you did "Another Mother," we talked about the young by talking about his virginity the way you handled it was beautiful.  Your episodes have taught my kids so much . . . thank you so much!

Q:

Why there aren't any recycling bins around the convention?

Dean:

The convention organizers should listen to the people who are here.  It just takes a little planning ahead to organize ahead of time to have some separate containers.  So I think Creation should do that, and not have Styrofoam . . . .

Scott:

Wait, wait a second!  Cameron Birnie, come back here for a second!  Come back here!  Cameron Birnie, our art director on the show, Cameron Birnie, he sets up everything you see on the show.  He's great, whatever we need, he's done, Cameron Birnie, every week!  [Cameron promises to come back in a minute.]

Q:

If you really had the ability to quantum leap, would you?

Don:

If we actually had the ability to do what we could do on the show . . . you play the character who leaps, you're asking Dean if he'd like to be a hologram?  He could use it a lot.  In ladies rooms . . . .  I'll tell ya, I'll answer for the writer and then I'll let Scott answer . . . .  I would love to do it because I have parents who are dead, and I'd love to see them again.  Scott, when he leaped back in "The Leap Home," found that he couldn't change his home until of course he got to Vietnam and saved his brother's life.  So there's real ambivalent feelings about it on my part, but I'd like to try it.  I don't know how Scott would feel.

Scott:

I think there's a big part of me that attracts me to a show like this.  I love the fantasy idea of the show.  I would love to walk out here into a little room and be in New York without having to fly across the country.  Those kinds of things, if we could really do this would be wonderful.  You know, we could get into a big discussion forever about fate and about . . . some can answer it?  Please step up, Deborah, please come and answer this!

Dean:

Deborah Pratt, our co-executive producer, and one of our fine writers.

Deborah:

I think that in a way, we do change history.  From the letters that we've gotten from people, just like this woman was saying over here, to teach and to share and a lot of people have gotten in touch with things from the programs that we've been able to put on.  So, through Don's creation of this show, and Scott and Dean's performance of it, I think we've had the opportunity to change history for people.  And I'm proud to say that I hope we keep doing it.

Q:

How do Scott and Dean feel being in front of the camera?

Scott:

I like it.  Actually, I've gotten to like it more and more.  I feel very lucky to spend most of my hours in front of a camera with that guy [indicating Dean] and I learn so much from him.  I'm really . . . .  My roots are from the theatre, and it was very hard when I first came out here to stand still and I'm constantly learning new things because we have a – everybody turns over in terms of cast every eight days.  I've been able to work with a lot of wonderful actors in the last three and a half years.  And if you look at the number of actors we've had on our show in three and a half years, we've had some just incredibly wonderful, gifted actors.  They give so much to us and to the show and to you, that I'm learning all the time.

Dean:

I feel very comfortable, because I've been around them so long, for so many years, so it's a very comfortable situation for me.  More so than theatre, say, although I'm comfortable with that too.

Q:

Al's accomplishments – it's kinda a full life for a single person.

Dean:

Well, I've been married five times.  Yeah, and I'm not tired – I like a fast pace!  Sometimes there are problems when they come up, but then they get resolved.  We have to figure out how to employ a new wrinkle in the character's past, and we have to figure out how to work it into what I've been doing all along.  But everything that's happened so far, I love.

Don:

And the writers have to sit down and we have a bible, and Dean has about five pages in there on his life history and everybody has to always check and say, "Where was he in 1968, and who was he married to and when?" to keep things straight.

Dean:

I can't remember them.

Q:

Are you a vet?  And thank you for the positive image of the vet.

Don:

I'm not a Vietnam vet.  I was in the Marine Corps for four years and it was right before the Vietnam conflict, so I was right in between.  But many of my friends were, and because of that, I adopted that theme.

Q:

Scott and Dean get along so well, but does Dean ever get the chance to razz Scott about dressing as a woman?

Dean:

It's incessant.  But not only me, the whole crew.  It's like we have a cake for the run of the show, and we just eat our fill, and take advantage of Scott, you know in his dress and everything, the idea of it.  And I coined the phrase, 'hunk in a dress.'  That right?  Hunk in a dress?  And he hates it, of course, so it's doubly enjoyable.

Q:

Any social issue too big to tackle?  I'm thinking particularly about child abuse.

Don:

No, I don't think there's any social issue that's too difficult to tackle.  Networks may not agree with that, but I think we can – especially something like child abuse should be tackled.

Q:

I would like to see you do something about it.  I am a victim of child abuse, and for the thousands and thousands of people out there who feel so alone and stigmatized by that, I think it would be a really important thing for you to do.  [Panel is moved by this statement.]

Q:

[Man, with clinging children, wants to thank Don, Dean and Scott very, very much.]  Wednesday night's been very special for my family of eight over the past several years.  [Asks about Scott's background in dance and/or martial arts in light of the martial arts stuff on Leap.]

Scott:

I have a wonderful instructor named Pat Johnson, am I right?  Yes.  Pat Johnson, who has come in since, I think the first time we ever used it was in a script called "Another Mother."  Is that right, Deborah?

Deborah:

Right.

Scott:

In Deborah's script, "Another Mother."  And he has worked with me.  He is most famous for all the Karate Kid movies.  Most recently, and the Ninja Turtle stuff.  He's a wonderful man.  And no, I do not study, but it's something I'd like to do someday.  I attribute my kicks to playing soccer from the age of about five.

Michael Bellisario:

[To Scott]  Are you going to do a "Bloopers and Practical Jokes" on Dean?

Scott:

This is it!  I wanted to steal his star yesterday, but that would've been a great shock.  You never know, Michael, you never know what'll happen.  And neither does he.  I owe him 10 pies in the face still.

Q:

Scott, I've found a way to get you to sing.  Can you sing "Happy Birthday" to Dean?

Scott:

We'll all sing this . . . ready?  [Stares at Joyce Hatcher who gives him a low note.]  You're pickin' that key?  See, if we had a little crown and some roses, he could walk down the runway.  [We all sing].

Q:

Which character have you learned the most from?

Scott:

Gee, you know . . . this is really terrible.  I'm really a big fan of the show, okay, so I really learn something almost every week about people or situations in life or something that I have to do.  So I am continually being educated and my horizons and my envelope is being pushed out all the time.  Because now that I've been a woman.  I've been black.  I've been all these different things, I haven't really been it, but I'm forced to think like that way.  And think that if we all spent a little more time thinking like the other guy thinks, it would be a whole better place.

Q:

We know that Dean's interest is in recycling and the environment.  What would Scott like fans to help with in terms of HIS social agenda?

Scott:

My social agenda?

Q:

Dean's is the environment, yours is?

Scott:

Yeah, well, I am very much following in Dean's footsteps.  It's just one of the wonderful things about being associated with him as long as I have.  He has compelled me to become much more environmentally aware, which I thank him for, and I've been trying to pass that on.  I am unfortunately, because of great association with a number of people, I'm professionally involved in the whole AIDS issue, so anything you or anyone can do for those folks.  The only other thing we all need to get re-involved politically with the people that we're electing these days.

Q:

How old is Scott?

Scott:

[Immediately] 37.  [Counts his fingers]  Hey look, I'm telling the truth about my age!  "You're not 37," he says.  You mean me in real life or Sam?

Q:

You.

Scott:

Me in real life.  37.  Sam is 39, I think.  He was born in '52.

Audience:

'53!

Don:

He got a little confused.  He was conceived in '52.

Q:

What's happening with Tequila And Bonetti?

Don:

It's back on the air on Friday nights.  The show has not changed.  It's the same show, just refined a little bit.  You know, this show [QL] started out on Friday night and almost died on Friday night.  And we got moved to Wednesday night, and I think that show may need to move to Wednesday, too.

Audience:

Not at 10PM!

Don:

9 o'clock on Wednesday night!

Q:

Is Scott working on anything else?

Scott:

I don't have anything planned.  [Moans from crowd.]  I'm trying to get through these last three episodes of the year, and then I may have to go and I say this word because I'm hoping it's true, on this hiatus.

Q:

When's Dean gonna wear the dress?

Dean:

[Laughs]  In a dress?

Scott:

Tommy, you leavin'?

Tommy Thompson:

No, I'm going to the bathroom!

Scott:

OK.  Say goodbye to Tommy Thompson, on his way to the bathroom.  All wave 'bye.

Tommy:

We're a very close family!

Scott:

The family that runs . . . .

Q:

I started watching late in the game – how come sometimes Al pops in and sometimes he used the door?

Don:

The way it works is, if he's leaving the Imaging Chamber, he uses the door, but he has the ability to pop in and out of where he's out in our period of time with Scott.  He can pop down the street someplace else to see what's going on; in these cases, he just disappears and reappears.  But if he's leaving the Imaging Chamber, he uses the door.

Q:

Which episode was the most difficult emotionally?

Dean:

Well, I personally don't find emotional difficulty as a performer.  I don't get involved in it in that way; it's not part of the craft in acting.  It's the real lives that we all know that affects me emotionally.  Acting doesn't.  Although I use my emotions, the minute the acting is done, I'm not emotionally different than before I did the scene or the show.

Scott:

I think, again, we're creating situations, or we're recreating them.  As much as I can get involved, and this is where we can get into a long story about how you act, but whenever we get into a situation where you get a glimpse into somebody else's soul, another soul and oftentimes you get it through the other actor you're working with in a scene, oftentimes it comes from something that got me when I wasn't really prepared for, and oftentimes it comes out of him, although he'll say that answer, but stuff sneaks out.  You don't know when it's gonna happen.  You don't know, you could have the most emotional script with the most intense storyline, but if it's not fulfilled in all the areas . . . .  Which makes this process so amazing.  If by some chance it were to be miscast, or if it was directed incorrectly, or whatever, you can take a wonderful moment and kill it.  And so you never know.  It's like, you just find gems sometimes that you're not even expecting, and those are quite often the most lovely things.

Q:

Dean – what was it like to star with Gregory Peck in Gentlemen's Agreement?  Scott – what's your musical background?

Scott:

I had a lot of music in my life.  I played the piano very young.  I sang in a lot of different organizations growing up, I had rock bands, church choir, all kinds of different things that I was involved in before I was here.  So I've had a lot of background.

Dean:

Gregory Peck is a man of great stature.  Of course we were young at the time, but physically he's a commanding figure, and I was very little.  And the image and impression we had of him was like a statue of someone of huge importance of some sort or another.  I realize now that it was his stardom, the magnetism of a star.  I didn't realize it then.  Other than that, I had a rotten time in that movie, to tell the truth, I really did.  And I'll tell you why.  The man that directed it, a very famous film director, Elia Kazan, he made many classic movies.  He has a way of working with actors that evolved from the famous Actor's Studio in New York and Lee Strasberg and everything, which was the absolute opposite of the way I worked, because I had a way of working even when I was six or seven.  And so he was constantly trying to deal with me on this Actor's Studio level, and saying "feel this; think that your dog is dead or something, your mommy got hurt":  and I would have to sit and listen to him.  The minute he would stop and I'm trying to give the impression of "OK, OK" and go off onto something else, I would just do it the way I would do it.  I'd pull at the corner of my eyes to make them tear and come in and play the scene.  I didn't need to do all that stuff.  So that was a very tough movie.  He's the only Method director I ever worked with.

Q:

Scott, how many women have you kissed?

Scott:

Wow!  We'll have done 75 hours of television at the end of this year, and I kissed somewhere between 75 and 100 women in that time.

Don:

We'll only be able to take three more questions.

Q:

Great family show, just wish it were on a little earlier so kids could learn more from it.  I'd also like to say that you have extremely good taste in picking leading men!

Q:

[Little kid]  I really like your jackets.

Dean:

Thank you.

Q:

What do you do with them after the show?

Don:

He takes them home and puts them in his closet.

Dean:

No, I don't.  There is a whole section of wardrobe near Jean-Pierre Dorleac, our wonderful designer who does all my stuff, he's got this big voluminous cache of clothes there that we keep using.  We've been mixing and matching different pieces for upcoming shows.  So most of it stays there.

Q:

What's the scoop on syndication?

Don:

It's gonna be on USA Cable.

Q:

Other shows that have gone into syndication have been canceled, and I hope that doesn't happen with Leap.

Don:

That's not going to happen.  Cheers is in syndication.  No, the show is going on cable, and I hope that's going to even get more enthusiasm for the show.  We've made some plans in the wings for some episodes that are going to be very interesting which we're working on.  Deborah Pratt came up with an idea of doing an episode that's animated.  And now I need you for one second – they need to take a photograph of all of you.  It's for Associated Press.  And if you'd just let us take this photograph, we thank you.

[The three guys walk to the end of the runway, turn their backs and the photographers take a photo of Scott, Dean, Don and fans.]

Don:

And on behalf of the show – we'll see you next year!  [End Convention.]