https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPZ8UyqEXdA
Last week, Henry Winkler, William Shatner, Jeff Dye, George Foreman and Terry Bradshaw all traveled to Tokyo with Better Late Than Never and tonight at 10p on NBC they go to Kyoto, Japan and Hong Kong. Looks like some of them might’ve had a little too much Sake and that doesn’t sucke for us.
Kyoto also didn’t sucke for Dye because he told us at a recent press day, it was his favorite city out of the six that they went to while there were there for a month. He explained why, “Because I think, in my brain, when I travel, I want it to be different than anything I know. So any city that reminds me of something I already know, I kind of go, oh, this just reminds me of New York, or this just so I was quick to not dismiss, but to be, like, Tokyo is beautiful, but it feels like something I know.” Then he added, “And Kyoto felt like nothing I’ve ever known before. It was like a very I don’t know, like, it was a small city, and it was rich with tradition. Everyone was so excited to share with us things that I’ve never even heard of. It was just very cool.”
For Winkler what was cool, was the kids. He happily shared, “We met families, we met children everywhere that we went, and there was no language between us…George would sit down, and all of a sudden it was like these children, who had no idea who this gigantic human being was, didn’t understand him, they could have been his grandchildren. They found games to play, and punching, and sitting and jumping. It was truly emotional.”
As The Fonz said, they didn’t know who George Foreman was, but he wasn’t the only one they didn’t know. Even though the four older men on this journey are legends here in the United States, Shatner said it was a different story over there. He revealed that, “They didn’t know who we were, because the shows, certainly the shows I’ve been in, weren’t playing in Asia. And it was interesting. The only people that recognized most of us were American tourists, which we found plenty of, going place to place.” The natives might not have known who there were, but they were all still very friendly to them.
Believe it or not, before the show the octogenarian Captain Kirk had never been to Japan. Why? He joked the tickets were too expensive and no one else bought them for him. Then he got serious as he disclosed what an actor’s life on the road is like, “You know, actors go like, fly someplace, and they go to a hotel, and they do the job, and then you think, the lumpy mattresses and bad food; I want to get home. And you don’t see the location. We go on locations all the time, but never see the location. What you see is where you’re filming and the hotel you’re in, and you go there at 6 o’clock in the morning, and you get out of there at 8 o’clock at night. And I want to get home. My dogs. My dogs.”
My dogs, is how he might refer to his four new friends that he will have for the rest of his life. Dye had to this say about his now old buddies, “I learned something from each of these guys, which is my favorite thing. And maybe that’s just good casting by these guys, or whatever. But everyone had something so much different that I really enjoyed.” The comedian enjoyed learning that Shatner was the bravest and Bradshaw was afraid of everything.
Thankfully, Sake was not one of the things that Bradshaw was scared of because that makes tonight’s episode even more endearing.
Better Late Than Never has proven to be a wonderful show that takes us on heartwarming journey with five men who all got to experience many new things in several new places and came out stronger from it. We get to go along for the ride and laugh with them as we all get to learn things we never knew before about these six cities we have never been to before but will consider in the future. Plus, we get to learn more about some of our favorite actors, athletes and Jeff Dye as they discover each other in a continent of discovery.
