FRED DRYER: TELEVISION’S “HUNTER,” VANNA WHITE, AND ME

One exciting day in Houston!

My first day in the TriStar Pictures office as a Vice President of Marketing for the partnership of TriStar and Stephen J. Cannell called TeleVentures, I found out that one of our first television series to be brought into syndication would be NBC’s popular TV action series “Hunter.” The series was a hit on the network and would prove to be one in syndication reruns as well. My job was to let hundreds of television stations around the country know about it (while our sales staff would close the deals).

In addition to the usual methods of print ads in the trade magazines, a promotional video produced for the sales staff to present in person to station program directors, and an actual life-size cutout of Dryer we sent to hundreds of station program directors, one of the best ways for us to pitch the show was to bring the stars involved to the annual television programming convention, NATPE.

My efforts to bring Fred Dryer and his “Hunter” co-star Stepfanie Kramer to 1987’s annual confab in Houston, Texas, started months before the event. I knew I was supposed to go through the proper channels to invite them, when an unexpected opportunity arose.

From my Journal, November 18, 1987:

Had lunch with Susan Baker at Nate ‘n Al’s Deli in Beverly Hills; we were waiting to be seated and talking about “Hunter” when, believe it or not, in walks Fred Dryer, the actor/ex-jock who plays Hunter! At 6-foot-6, he sure stands out in a crowd. Suddenly my mind raced, do I go over and introduce myself and invite him to NATPE, or introduce myself and not mention NATPE?

What to do? What to do? I ended up skipping the chance to introduce myself, figuring he wouldn’t really care who I was (just another fan bothering him at lunch?), nor would I make enough of an impression for it to count. And I’ll make more of an impression anyway when someone like Cannell or Mike Dubelko can introduce me to him in person, when that first meeting will give me some executive heft.

It was just as well. My first attempt at an official invitation to NATPE came on December 8 when I penned a letter to him and Stepfanie Kramer with an overview of the conference. I outlined what would be expected and the benefits that would ensue from their appearances.

Weeks went by and I hadn’t received a reply. Well into the new year, we were still without a commitment, but the NATPE advertising deadline was quickly approaching. I decided to roll the dice and start a campaign anyway, with the assumption Fred Dryer would be there, if not both Fred and Stepfanie.

One of the ideas I had to draw potential buyers to our booth, aside simply from the celebrity appearance, was to give away a “walk-on” role to a future episode of “Hunter” for one lucky station executive. We’d set up a blackjack table in our booth and play with “Hunter Bucks,” fake money with Fred’s picture on it, and every Hunter Buck the players walk away from the table with would be an entry into a random drawing. The challenge was getting Hunter Bucks to all the television execs prior to the conference.

January 28, 1988:

Solved an interesting problem today --- getting the “Hunter Bucks” we’re producing for use at the blackjack table in our NATPE booth distributed to the appropriate executives’ hotel rooms was almost gonna be impossible. Seven thousand rooms in two dozen hotels…with each hotel charging one buck a room. Not in our budget. But luck was on our side…I made a deal with one of the show dailies, “Extra Extra,” to stuff our Hunter Bucks into their first day issue for nothing except the cost of an ad they’ve been bugging us to run for months. Everyone at NATPE will get our Hunter bucks under their door on Friday morning!

One problem was solved. But a few others were about to present themselves, right up until the day the conference opened.

February 5, 1988:

A few interesting developments at TeleVentures today. Someone at Cannell finally convinced Fred Dryer to make an appearance at NATPE, so now I have to scramble to find a two-bedroom suite, first class air reservations (which are impossible since everything’s been booked solid by our competitors months ago), and a limo. It’s great for TeleVentures --- more headaches for me, but it gives us a little competitive edge having a major celebrity in our booth.

February 19, 1988:

Friday. Last day in the office before heading to Houston and NATPE, and I knew it was going to be a busy one. It went rather well, actually, up until 5pm, at which time I had packed up everything for my trip and was only awaiting the arrival of our “Hunter Bucks” for blackjack next week.

When they arrived, I screamed; they had misspelled NATPE (how about “N.A.P.T.E.?) and now we are going to incur thousands of dollars in extra costs for reprinting this weekend. I had proofed the copy before printing and changed other errors --- because I had received handwritten copy I hadn’t looked at it the same way I’d have if it had been typeset. Argggh!

February 25, 1988:

NATPE MINUS ONE…the show opens tomorrow.

Received word up in Bill Kunkel’s that today NBC announced it is moving Hunter back to Saturday nights after its failed attempts to beat “Moonlighting” on Tuesdays; it’s incredibly bad timing because it just points to the show’s failure the day before we are bragging how strong it is.

And in other Hunter news, Maryann Ridini (Stephen J. Cannell Productions’ publicist) went to pick up Fred Dryer at the airport (his appearance is tomorrow in our booth) but missed his flight by three minutes. Fred didn’t wait for her (those were the days before cell phones…no way for him to know she’d be there two minutes later), took a cab into town, and poor Maryann was a basket case. She called me at 2:30am near tears, and we commiserated for an hour.

The first day of the conference was sheer hell for me as a series of convention center and vendor-related screw-ups took place, all worthy of a future Substack column on their own. On top of those, our location on the show floor was off in a corner of the convention center, with very little foot traffic. Related to all those other crises, I’ll limit what I share here to “Hunter.”

February 26, 1988:

The extra Hunter Bucks which were supposed to arrive by 11am from Extra Extra were hours late; our lovely blackjack dealer had to improvise a little, but she did a “lovely” job all afternoon.

Fred Dryer made his grand appearance around 2:15 and was quite amiable, being very gracious with the potential buyers, although the booth was not crowded and there were moments where all Fred could do to keep busy was play blackjack. There should have been people lined up around the corner, but as we had no cross traffic, it couldn’t mushroom, and I have to conclude it was a wasted opportunity.

There were a number of notable visitors, however, including celebrities who knew Fred already and made sure to stop by. Wheel of Fortune’s Vanna White was one who drew the most attention.

Most interesting was seeing Fred Dryer’s reaction to our “Hunter” sales materials; he marveled at the 6’6” brochure --- took a picture with it --- told Gerry Rosen he did a great job on the print ad, and after all that he even liked our sales tape! It was good for him to see all we’re doing to sell the show in syndication; perhaps now he’ll help us out a bit more when we make a request.

Our “Hunter Bucks” (above), and our blackjack table with station execs (below)

Took an hour to relax (after the convention floor closed for the day) before getting back into gear for dinner; drove Bill Kunkel, Maury & Nancy Lanken over to Tony’s in the Galleria area, where we met Fred Dryer, manager Larry Kubik, Maryann Ridini, and potential “Hunter” buyer Harvey Cohen, GM at WDZL Miami.

Tony’s is the restaurant I couldn’t get a table at for tonight all the way back in June, and only through Coca Cola Telecommunications’ folding were we able to get their reservations. It’s the nicest restaurant in Houston according to critics and was as fine as billed. Fred was very entertaining; he got along surprisingly well with Bill ---took a real liking to him; again, that works in our favor next time we have a request for his help.

I had a wonderful time observing Maury and Bill with Harvey, who was obviously thrilled to be seated next to Fred Dryer --- if they don’t close a deal with him for “Hunter” tomorrow it will all have been in vain.

I don’t recall if Harvey bought “Hunter” for WDZL, or much else specifically about Fred or the series during that weekend in Houston. But the small crowd size aside, it was a successful conference for TeleVentures.

Over the following year I would indeed ask for and get Fred Dryer’s assistance as we continued to market “Hunter” to television stations across the country, including along with Stepfanie, personalized videos sent to program directors and GM’s.

Our life-size 6’6” brochure promoting “Hunter” (front and back, above) came with a hook to hang from the ceiling, and many station executives did just that!

I learned a lot that year about the care and nurturing of celebrities at trade shows, which would come in handy in future years (1988 in Houston was the first of ten annual conferences I was responsible for overseeing on behalf of my employers). Even with that knowledge, as I’ve written about before and will write about again, it doesn’t always go well.

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