This was taped on the set of his K-Tel infomercial. The interview is presented in its entirety.
ELAINE: Well, welcome to Toronto!!.
BOBBY: Thanks, Elaine, after all these years. Elaine and I....(THEN, OFF THE RECORD) Oh, we're waiting for Chris. (The Cameraman)
CHRIS (VOICE): No, go ahead.
BOBBY:: (LAUGHING) But, we're shooting the bar! (THEN, BACK TO CAMERA) Well, Elaine and I go back many, many years...so enough said.
ELAINE: That's right!. I want to ask you about the book. You said you talked for about a year. Is that about how long it took?
B: Actually, I had trouble writing my own name, so Dena Hill who actually wrote the book, came to me with the idea and the publishing company. And they said "we think the time would be absolutely perfect". We said, "I don't know" and didn't think it would happen. But they convinced us. So I talked for a year, and she wrote for a year. And believe me, no one is more surprised than I that it's doing so well. It's selling out. Thank God for the fans out there, because they're buying it and it's happening.
E: The interesting thing is, you don't do it just from your own perspective. You've got your mom in there, you've got Ward in there, you've got Bridget Hanley...
B: Everybody that I could think of that were close at hand and wanted to give their comments. So, it does give an overview of the people I worked with; the people I knew.
E: For a few of us die hard fans there are a few surprises in there...like the age thing...(LAUGHING) I don't know if you want to talk about that or not.
B: (LAUGHING) Let's not talk about the age thing, Elaine...
E: Well, YOU wrote about it!
B: I didn't write it...it was a slip of the tongue. But, we both were children when we first met, anyway.
(THEY BOTH LAUGH HARD)
E: That's right...exactly! But, there's a lot of things...I'll give you an example as a fan - the handwritten stuff you had for Fave and Tiger Beat; you did hand write the stuff, but it wasn't always your personal thoughts.
B: Well, no - Generally they would give me things then I would proof read them.I would say "yeah, that looks right"...then I would write it out between shots when I was doing "Here Come The Brides." I didn't sit and make those things up, but they knew me well enough. And they really had the best interest of the fans at heart. So they kept it straight and narrow, and fairly accurate. And I trusted them. The Faves, Tiger Beats, Sixteen's; those were the bibles of the fans. They were the magazines the fans would gravitate toward because they could read about the people they cared about.
E: You spoke on The Rosie O'Donnell show about a person who had herself sent to you in a box.
B: Yes, well actually she didn't go thru the mail. Her friends basically lugged her to outside of the hotel room - so it looked like a package delivered. It turned up to be a little girl in there, who probably took a week to iron herself out. But, she was gutsy.
E: Well, being a fan who would do almost anything to break thru the barriers to get in there and find out where you were... Do you think things are tougher now in terms of a fan getting to a star?
B: It's a lot more difficult now in that respect because it's more dangerous for some reason. In my era, it was an interesting time because it was innocent. It was slower. Now a days you go from birth to puberty - there's nothing in between. Kid's don't really have a chance to have slumber parties and exchange those kind of things they did when they got excited about a personality. Now they're very blaze about it. They don't get excited like they used to. That's why they don't have teen aged idols anymore. The world has shrunk to such a point via computers and the internet and all kinds of stuff. It's real hard to be young in today's world.
E: Did you know you're on the computers and internet? Have you ever found yourself on it?
B: I haven't seen it myself, but someone came up to me and said there were just about as many questions about me as there were sightings of Elvis. So, I was second to Elvis sightings.
E: Well what I found funny were people who were selling things like the lunch boxes. They'd mark the condition of them from one to ten to decide how much it was worth.
B: Yeah - they're a collector's item. I never got any, so I didn't have a chance..There was a lot of commercial merchandise out there. I know I participated in it one way or another, but really didn't have any. That was the machinery behind the Rock and Roll, teenage idol, kind of thing.
E: One of the funny things that really made me laugh in the book was a picture of your two kids going off to school and they were holding the lunch boxes. And underneath the picture it said: "Groovy lunch boxes."
B: Yeah, they wound up with them too. I think they sold them for a couple 'a hundred bucks.
E: You have to be enterprising when you're young.
B: They are! Two of my best friends but, you know, money comes first.
E: I actually want to talk about the kids. Just a little bit about what they're doing now. A lot of fans remember the early pictures of what they looked like and now they're twenty-two and twenty-three.
B: Twenty-two and twenty-three - fourteen months apart. I delivered them both. Actually, it was really uneventful....I don't know what all the screams are about...(LAUGHING)...found it painless!!! But, they are two great kids. Christopher is a drummer...an extremely good drummer. And Tyler is a keyboard player - extremely good keyboard player. Actually, they've got a group. They're putting together a CD and they're opening for the group "Fix" back in Los Angeles...so they're starting to get some headway. It's a group called "Whatever" is what they call themselves. And I'm hoping if I go out ... There's a possibility I might go out next summer on a concert tour...and if I do I'm going to see if I can get them to be part of my back up group, which I think would be kind of a novelty - it would be fun, actually.
E: And will you include Toronto?
B: I did Toronto I think a couple of times. The Exhibition and I think we did one other place.
E: The Okeefe Center.
B: Thank you...Elaine knows it all.
E: Yes...I know it all!
(NOTE TO ELAINE FROM FRANELLE....YOU FORGOT THE TWO SHOWS AT MASSEY HALL!!!!)
B: And so, it's always been a wonderful town for me so I'd definitely like to come back.
E: You talk in the book about your early days, delivering milk and doing all these things with your dad how shy you were. And now when I see what you've accomplished with your life and I sit down and talk with you, it's hard to believe you could ever be shy. I wondered if there was anything that turned you around. What was it that made you a gregarious, social person?
B: I'll be honest, Elaine, I don't think I really ever DID get out of that shyness. I just found that show business gave me for an opportunity to pretend I wasn't shy. So, it was really more of a show. It didn't really get over anything. It was a way to overcome for the moment. But, I still think that when I'm not performing or whatever the case, I still find myself kind of coiling back a bit. I don't think that ever really went away. But, anything was better than getting up at three o'clock in the morning to deliver milk is what it came down to. ..even though I love my dad and what he did was remarkable...but I tell you, those cold bottles of milk at three o'clock in the morning was enough for me. Show business is where I'm going.
E: The worst part was when you had to go in and yell "Milkman"
B: Oh, yeah, but I did it very quietly...I'd say (WHISPERING) Milkman...
E: Now, near the end of the book, you say that life during this time was fast and furious. But, the life you have now is fast and furious in a different way.
B: Well, it's a little more orchestrated now...I mean, I have a little more time to reflect on the things that are going on. The book is a pleasant surprise, but I can reel that in. When I was doing "Here Come the Brides" I was filming Monday thru Friday...getting on a plane Friday night...going some place to do a Saturday matinee..going someplace and doing a Saturday evening show...go on a plane for a Sunday manatee show, then on the plane to get back in order to do "Here Come the Brides " on Monday morning. It was like that from Shindig, during touring, plus going through "Here Come The Brides" plus "Getting Together." I never knew what was home. I mean, I never really had any idea where I was at a given time. I'd sleep with the night light on because I'd say "where am I?" before getting out of bed. So it was a very difficult time for me...not having a home life and all. Now I can reflect on it all. I still do the things I want to do, but feel it's more controllable and am enjoying it more. Now I'm seeing the fans later on, like yourself - you have kids, it's really fun to reflect back. In those days we had the proverbial "Love In" and it was fun. It was a great time and I miss that part...dealing with the fans on a one on one and seeing them. I'm hoping that if I go back on a concert tour it will give me the opportunity to have that communication again - because it's fun.
E: In your book, you talk about a woman who was revived and her husband tells her who you are and she says, "Oh my gosh, I don't have any makeup on!" My joke was you pass out, you wake up, see it's Bobby Sherman and you
BOBBY & ELAINE: pass out again!
B: I always felt it would get in the way, being Bobby Sherman. I thought they'd say "what are you doing?" and I'd say "Well, I'm a medic and I'm here to take care of you." "Don't touch me! I don't trust you." It turned out to be just the opposite. I think I mentioned it...maybe it was on Rosie...I had a grandmother, for example, that had a broken ankle, and she was in tremendous pain. I was in the E.R. waiting for an x-ray room and she's in absolute agony. I asked "is there anything I can do?" ... not much I can do, but I'm asking "is there anything I can do?" She said, "No, no, no." Then she looked at me, then she looked at my name tag, then looked at me, then looked at my name tag...then said (IMITATING) "You know my granddaughters had your pictures all over their walls." It was unbelievable! I mean, she didn't remember she had an ankle, much less there was any pain. I couldn't believe it! I thought this was great! Basically I feel like a human placebo because when they lock into that, they forget their problems.
E: It would work for me!
B: Well, thank you Elaine!
E: Another thing I wanted to ask you...you talked a little about "Here Come The Brides"...you talked a bit about Bridget Hanley and the very first episode when the fans saw that relationship between the two characters. They seemed to lock into it right away. Did you know from the first episode, with the mail you were getting, that this was something special between Candy and Jeremy?
B: No not at first. We were averaging about 25,000 letters a week. Really, it was more that they were locked in on Jeremy and what was going on in Seattle, so to speak. Then about midseason they started recognizing that romance between Jeremy and Candy. Some of them said "I don't like that idea" because they didn't want Jeremy to be hooked up with anybody. And, some liked it because they knew it was a television show and they were living vicariously through Candy. I think that if we had gone on to a third season, we were all debating on whether Candy and Jeremy should have gotten married or else it would start looking a little strange.
E: That's right...look at the name of the show.
B: That's right, "Here Comes the Bachelor."
E: Well, I thank you very much, Bobby.
B: Thanks Elaine...good to see you again. (TO CAMERA) She hasn't changed a bit! Give everybody my best. And to all your viewers and that, peace, love. And every man, woman and child should take the time to learn a little CPR and first aid 'cause it really works. Saving lives is what it's all about.