For a couple of years in the late seventies, early eighties, Steve Allen's PBS series "Meeting of Minds" was, for me, appointment television. Thinking of Allen's show made me wonder who (living or deceased) I would want to have on a panel discussing, in roundtable fashion, one of my favorite subjects: ideas and the creative process.
For my panel, I would choose only people who lived, at least some years, into the television age (so certain frames of reference were understood, otherwise I'd have Mozart "at the table"):
Rod Serling Nat Hiken (creator of The Phil Silvers Show and Car 54, Where Are You?) Steven Bochco Thomas Ades (contemporary composer from the UK) Aaron Copland Howard Ashman Paul Simon
Who would comprise your panel? What would be your subject of choice?
Taking in consideration without being snobbish a diverse bunch of people wise in many different ways, some I would like are MORT ADLER, LOU BUSCAGLIA, WILLIAM BUCKLEY JR,ROBERT WISE,MOTHER TERESA,RAY BRADBURY ETC. AMONG OTHERS
I know this isn't quite what you're after, but permit me to recommend an actual real-life one. I think it just might qualify:
It's sweaty-looking Orson Welles, Danish-prince-haircut Peter O'Toole (in Woody Allen glasses) and fellow veteran actor Ernest Milton discussing the finer points of "Hamlet" on the BBC in 1963 (O'Toole played the role onstage in London under the direction of Olivier around that same period). I think it's lightning-in-a-bottle fascinating.
