Allen died on October 30, 2000, at the age of 78. At first, it was suspected he had suffered a fatal heart attack while napping at his son's Los Angeles area home. However, a Los Angeles Coroner's spokesperson later said autopsy results showed the real cause of death was a ruptured blood vessel caused by chest injuries he did not realize he had sustained in a minor traffic accident earlier in the day.[40] According to Jayne Meadows, "Typical of Steve, [who] was the dearest, sweetest man: He was hit by a man, backing into him, breaking all of his ribs, that pierced his heart ... and when he got out of the car, he said to the man, 'What some people will do to get my autograph'." What a cool guy

"People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around - the music and the ideas. This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway." - Bob Dylan

Oh man, Steve Allen, what an unexpected surprise. And of course a great and insightful interview. Nice to hear him talk about what was good of the hippies as well.

Steve Allen was a truly amazing man. Smart, musical, funny, self-deprecating. What a great guy!

Hadn't thought of Steve Allen in a while, nice guy. Listen to him speak grammatically, in thoughtful complete sentences. Let's make that hip again?

Regarding school. Now, nobody actually LEARNS anything about European history at all. They learn how to take tests and complete assignments on time. They learn how to complete tasks exactly as described in the time allotted. I don't think ideas or thought carry much weight in education any more.

I find it really honest of him to talk so openly about his memory, so we can understand more about his reasoning and take something on our way, thank you for sharing!

Incredibly articulate and insightful! Can you imagine how he would feel about our school systems today?

Another great interview... what a balanced perspective. Did a really good job noticing the problems and the good in that movement

i could listen to steve allen forever

I don't now how these Steve Allen interviews haven't blown up and gone viral - this guy is great! What a great archive!

Always loved Steve Allen.

The hippies in the 50's were Beatniks!

These interviews have shown that Steve Allen was more of a human being than a celebrity.

Steve Allen! aAways liked that guy. Contemplative, thoughtful, & was willing to question the “norms” of his times, including his own fatherhood. Seems like that rare sort of person in the entertainment business that is genuine. Not that I agree w/ some of his beliefs, but he was definitely a product of the times he grew up in, as are we all, to varying extents. I’m a Gen Xr. Thx for this. It was very interesting!

As someone who’s not in contact with his WW2-generation grandparents NOR my boomer parents, I love these videos. I’m so hungry to know about personal experiences from these times. But since I can’t get it from family these videos are good enough.

Mr. Allen all Class and real cultured and stylish too! suave and debonaire.

This is a man I feel like I would disagree with a lot of things on but is definitely one who would only argue in good faith.

Steve was right on! ✌️❤️😊

Aliens in the 60s saw the human race and they said "humans are a weird bunch" and then they left us LOL

I grew up with the Steve Allen show. So glad you captured this

Steve Allen 21 years since he checked out. Class act! 1954, he achieved national fame as the co-creator and first host of The Tonight Show, which was the first late-night television talk show

Hippies in the 50s were called "beatniks."

Thank you David, for another great reflection!

I was hip and now i just hurt in my hip

The guy you used in the thumbnail was actually a friend of mine. Fast Eddy. Sadly, he passed away. I still hang out with his brother.

I remember steve allen. He was terrific!

In the 1950's there were a lot of "Think" signs in offices and on desks and such. Now I see "Believe" signs in households and public spaces and in decorating departments, thinking is now discouraged?.. that cant be a good thing.

“if we assume there is a god, why he, and personally, she’s black.” loved that line, that feels so progressive for 1989? what a cool guy. and truly feels like someone who is so wise and insightful. wish i was born sooner to watch his shows back in the day. so cool.

great clip!

Nature is still one of God's beautiful gifts. He truly is an amazing painter. I'm so happy that God has granted me the ability to see the beauty in his creation, without extra help. May God bless you sir. 🤗🙏 Merry Christmas 🎄🧡

I'm still laughing at them. This looks like Steve being interviewed in the '90's.

Since discovering Steve Allen on your channel, I've been looking at other interviews and content of his. Songs, books, comedy and talk shows. This man was truly talented and erudite. It's a shame I didn't know of him earlier (I'm 24) but now that I do know I'll be sure to read his books since they look interesting. Thanks for this gem!

The guy in the thumbnail is Fast Eddie from Schenectady NY. I knew him well from Dead tour. He passed away a few years ago unfortunately.

Great content. Glad to see these open honest interviews.

I absolutely love your interviews. They are windows to the past, and if more people took the time to listen to what previous generations had to say we would be better off. It's like everyone has horse blinders on anymore.

Brilliant commentaries. His statements are still true

Dave not many people like yourself can can bring out the best in people well done great interview

He was a very insightful and wise person.

Wonderful documentary with Steve Allen.

"Personally, she's black," Okay, that got me. This cats hip, dig it.

HE WAS MAGNIFICENTLY BRIGHT AND ARTICULATE.THANK YOU SIR HOFFMAN.

Another amazing, poignant and enlightening interview. As I was 'coming of age' in '68-'69, the menu I got to choose from was overflowing with music, love, peace, drugs, and so much more.

Smart man. His attitude indicates the ingredients of his success. And it's mostly just common sense. Or maybe uncommon sense.

An incredibly insightful man, great interview!

I Love You Alice B. Toklas is a good film about a middle aged man's attempt to become a hippy, and his eventual rejection of hippy culture. It is fairly well balanced in portraying the good and the bad of hippy culture in a gently humorous way ."Flower in the crannied wall..."

He was such an clear minded intelligent and articulate person, leaning somewhat liberal but with both feet on the ground and a great talent in comedy and music.

And now we have the " Rat-race " what a good time we have now !!!!! fun fun, lets work 14 hours a day, thank ( god ???? ) for that.

Stevereno! Always liked him.

What a very thoughtful man. Makes sense that a talk show host would be good at talking though :p

“It just means anyone who is, by nature, ‘hip’.” Meaning, ‘someone who wants to know about what new things are happening’. Steve seems to mix the meanings, but I look at ‘cool’ as being more of a feeling, and ‘hip’ is more about knowing what’s going on: ‘Are you hip to this yet?’ Lots of hippies don’t do drugs, and are personally clean individuals, but of course that doesn’t fit in with square stereotypes doled out by people who only feel important if they’re shaking their finger at somebody. A lot of people seem to judge everyone almost exclusively on their appearance, even some people who kinda need the benefit of the doubt regarding their own appearance but don’t have much patience or basic acceptance for others.

David Hoffman, making 'even' more sense of the 60's- absolute GEM!

7:11 he said Jesus is black✊🏿 Yessss homie preach!

Pay close attention to how progressive and self-aware Steve Allen is in this interview.

Steve Allen is my hero, also the hippie pictured on the video title page is Fast Eddie, a long time Grateful Dead follower and drug dealer in the lot scene

Mr. Steve Allen, Extremely Funny, A Thoroughly Thinking Man. And One Cool 😎 😺 Cat

I like how the Doctor and Taxes thing is still an argument.....Bro-if you let a dentist put a guitar pick in your mouth--you might have trust issues. I always think of this saying "What do they call a Dr. who graduated at the bottom of his class??? Doctor."

Smart man.

Steve Allen ran a show, Meeting of Minds, which should be on DVD.

Commenting so more people see this content cause your videos are really insightful into a world I didnt grow up in.

"What's the time, man?" Time for change, dude, SNAFU o'clock.

I'm not in agreement that hippies changed school curriculum which resulted education adeficiencies.

Steverino had Jack Kerouac on his show, and the plan was for Steve to play jazz on the piano to go with Kerouac's readings of his works. Kerouac claimed that his writings were influenced by bop music and uses its spontaneous style. Need I say, Kerouac showed up drunk.

The term "Laid back", if you don't know is political correctness for "lazy". [ 4:08 ] The 'Hippy" term started out on South Street, don'cha know... That's where all the hippies meet...

You are as high level as anyone who makes Documentaries. Your catalog is undeniable.

The term "Hippie" was used by jazz musicians to sneer the greenhorn hipsters, it wouldn't come into prominence until the mid 1960s, there's a line in the song "South St", that goes "Where do all the Hippies meet?".😊✌

Gold 👏 Thanks again Hoff

appreciating things does take a bit of personal courage which is simultaneously present and lacking at all times

1969 thought I was hip. 2019 thought I was woke. Turns out it's all an illusion. Just be authentic

Steve Allen is correct about the 60's attitude that dumbed down education. We continue to notice that too many people don't know anything about European history and also don't want to know anything beyond their own neighbourhood.

Man I miss Steve Allen!!!

Steve is spot on....our people dropped the soap and bent over.

Though Steve Allen, was before my time, I totally enjoy his point of view! He had the "Tonight Show, before Johnny Carson took it over!" I remember that his wife and Jackie Gleason's T.V. wife Trixie, were sisters! Now, that was Cool and Hip! Hip probably was a state of mind! A place to lose yourself; as you got high! Flower Power and laughing your way through "Laugh- In!" Escaping reality and hoping that you don't "check out!" Another way of escapism! The reality of using your mind and being creative, is hip today! (But, no one uses the word anymore!)

A great one. Thank you.

Hippies helps cause what's happening today....good job

"I can't get no satisfaction" .....explained by Steve Allen. Check it out!

The MK ultra program is why the hippies existed lol. The LSD warped their minds

In _The Autobiography of Malcolm X,_ Malcolm says that the white guys who hung out with black ppl in 1940s Harlem were called "hippies." He said they acted "more negro than negroes."

Steve hosted Frank Zappa dressed in a suit and tie. A few years later Frank was a full blown hippie. Steve was a musician himself as well as a comedian, so he kind of falls in line with guys like Allan Sherman, who also trashed hippies and Beatles lovers but was himself cool too. Dick Cavett on the other hand seemed really awkward and out of place in a room full of hippies, but didn't trash them. Speaking of Frank, Frank seemed to prefer the old guys smoking cigars in the early 60's to the smug, know it all new age hippies that were taking over the music business in the 70's. The later actually stifled his artistic creativity more than the former. Kind of ironic, but maybe another example of why Frank, whom many saw as the archetypical hippie, actually disliked them. George Carlin was also a bit of an anomoly, or at least someone that wouldn't have been embraced by west coast hippies. West coast hippiedom eventually morphed into the widely criticized "hippie subculture" that you see today at countless festivals out here. What started out as more of a marketing gimmick than anything slowly turned into an embarrassing orgy of clown outfits, dubious spiritual, healing & health and other practices, and a good dose of irrelevant music and other so called "art" thrown in for good measure. And the general message in all this? This shows the world that you are "kind, gentle, tolerant, peace loving, and compassionate" while the rest of us aren't? Call it an insulting type of identity politics OK, so fine, whatever......just don't forget how you left the real hippies behind to fend for themselves. And I know that a big part of this is just to sell merchandise and put money in the pockets of the venders. All good fun, right, and so whats the harm? Other than the fact that the whole world is watching and judging you, no harm at all. But rather than build barriers between yourself and others, try reaching out instead. The important messages are getting bottled up in the pipeline otherwise because no one is inclined to take you seriously when you dress like medieval fairies. Instead, they take Trump seriously, who at least dresses for success even though he's actually an idiot. LMAO, how did the world get so twisted like this? It is also well known that in the 60's, some of the biggest hippie haters were musicians brought up on older traditions. In other words, people who should have been accepted into the movement. It was generally only acceptable to play the blues though, something many could not tolerate. Today, the blues has mostly disappeared and is not embraced by todays younger musicians. Too bad for deadheads everywhere... So much for my take on the hippie movement, as in "your worst enemy has always been yourself".

I’m still laughing at hippies in 2022.

Thank you!

No one speaks like Steve Allen or David Letterman anymore.

One reason young fringe people of that era stopped studying history was they had realized how much of it was deliberately inaccurate and resented the propaganda they had learned to recognize. This is awareness is another effect of some of the drugs popularly used, but the environment became conducive even without.

Such a landmark guy, Steve Allen. Speaking of 'hipness' - I feel like we all missed out a bit on what he could have brought to various important conversations about Who We Were and where we were all going. By the time the 70s arrived, he was already being seen (in my opinion) as sort of 'old news' -- as in, who needs an earnest guy to spin a homily about the ways we think or dream or have sex or connect to others... as if by virtue of the fact that he'd been on television since the mid-50s he HAD to be irrelevant... when in fact, he was ALWAYS tuned in, as this interview shows. I think we missed out. ~ David Hoffman, two questions for you, if you don't mind: 1. Since you come at this subject (Steve Allen) from a different perspective/age than I do, do you have similar feelings about Allen and how he was perceived as I describe above? How did he fit in to your world view of what was going on? Though it's clear now (to me) that he had some good insights, did you pause or wonder about the effect of including him in the documentary? (My recollection of the series is that he was not in the final production - which may or may not be true.) ~ And 2. I've been wondering this for a while, as I watch more & more clips you've posted, of interviews which did and did not make it into _Making Sense of the Sixties_ ... What was your process for finding the many people you interviewed? I assume you sat down with a producer/s (or... someone else?) and made a wish list etc. But the overall breadth of interviewees you spoke to makes me wonder who tracked down people who would bring so much perspective to various topics and episodes. Was some of it done by casting a wide net, just looking for people with stories? Or was it all done based on initial 'wish lists' and then the natural daisy chain outcropping from that, where one interviewee says, "You know, you should really talk to is xyz..." Or some hybrid thereof? I hope my questions are clear. I'm being a bit verbose tonight. : )

1:19 I loved his report on Clayton Bigsby. One if the best journalist ever.. Do yourself a favor and watch it guarantee you will love it

Woops, the word was "hep" and was used when talking about drug users who use needles and get hepatitis in the earlier part of the 20th century. If there were some cool guys talking about doing some "partying" and a goof like Steve was there wanting to 'go to a party', they would know he does not understand what they mean (as partying is a term among people who do drugs together). If someone smirked and asked if he was "hep" (positive for hepatitis) and he replied not knowing what they mean, he would instantly not get to go to their "party". He would recall the word as "hip" because he did not get the drug users reference, and think it to mean something mysteriously cool, that only some guys get. Conservative minded people would use the term "heppy's" as a derogatory term for the dirty drug addicts, and that is what the counter culture of the 60's looked like to them. Steve was no hep (wise to cool counter culture) guy.

7:10 Hell yeah brother

They were funny then...in 2019, the leftovers are not pretty.

Yes it changed from actual hip to comodification, the industry of cool.

Steve Allen funny guy

He compared 4 scotchs to getting high.. but then describes how hallucinogens were enlightening, or could be. If he hung around jazz musicians and even was one, he had to come in contact with marijuana, He probably smoked some, but was denying it for his TV show owners.

What? Nobody mentioning that the hippies stopped the Vietnam war. "Hell no we won't go!" God Bless them for showing American public what sick joke that was.

Wow! I admire the people presented, but his man has overshadowed every opinion and piece seen before. As a young man who never got to watch or recognize Mr. Allen, I have never related more to someone, outside of my own family, as strongly as with him and not specifically to his subjection's but instead to his tone, his way of reasoning, his acceptance of human nature, and the empathy. He seems to be at a struggle with words to rationalize what he sees versus how he can explain it without being offensive, disrespected, or disconnected with the people/culture he is not a part from. He understands his place and how others are displaced from it. With that said, though, his opinions do come from a sense of superiority. He understands, even sympathizes with, the hippies while simultaneously removing himself from their movement and what I think he perceives as a radical existence.

One could say that The Beatniks were the Hippies of the 1950s, they paved the way for the Hippies of the mid to late 1960s & early '70s.The Beatniks & Hippies were different in appearance, the Beatniks (mostly ) dressed in black, whereas the Hippies were colorful, both were antiestablishment, both indulged in sex & drugs, but one were more brooding, & the other were more outgoing. Both hailed from California & spread throughout the country & the world. One is more jazz, some folk, & poetry oriented, whereas the Hippies were folk oriented too, but Rock music was their go to jam. 😐

What a fair minded thinker

I remember the "old hippies". Was sadly hilarious to see them.

allen may have thought he coined the term, but as the terms hipster had been in use since the 40s, he probably didnt

the geat and sorely missed steve allen

I liked Steve Allen.

I love the John Ward homage to you sir. It must be highly activating. Use it well!