Touch of Magic

Sherwood Schwartz, who wrote for Bob Hope, tells a story in his Archive of American Television videotaped reminiscence about how every night Hope would send Schwartz out to pick up an ice cream sundae for him during late conferences with his writers, which Hope would then proceed to consume in front of his starving staff without offering them anything. A couple of years later, Schwartz was on leave from the Army and decided to drop by to see his co-workers, assuming that Hope and the others would be in a typical late-night brainstorming session. He noticed that the drug store where he got the sundaes was still in the same location so he picked one up for Hope to surprise him. He sauntered into the conference, set the sundae down in front of Hope as he'd done countless times before in previous years. Hope looked up and said, "What took you so long?"