Bradshaw, Foreman, Winkler, Shatner bond on European TV trip

LOS ANGELES » George Foreman connected with the family of his first Olympic opponent in Lithuania. Henry Winkler made peace with his family history in Berlin. William Shatner rode majestic horses in Madrid. And Terry Bradshaw strode through a Munich city park wearing nothing but a cowboy hat and sneakers.

“That was not a good moment for me,” the 69-year-old former football star said.

After traipsing across Asia in the first season of their travelogue reality show, “Better Late Than Never,” the sports and entertainment icons, along with comedian Jeff Dye, reunite for a tour of Europe in season two, which premieres New Year’s Day on NBC.

The five-some has such a friendly chemistry that corralling them for a conversation about their travel experiences is a comic endeavor. They all talk over each other with equal numbers of barbs and compliments.

“The first shows, we were, in effect, being paid to be friends... Essentially, nobody knew each other,” Shatner, 86, said. “This time, everybody suddenly relaxed. And now, if we were to do it again, it would go to another level.”

All five said they’d do a third season without hesitation.

“This is like a gift out of the heavens that fell in our laps,” 72-year-old Winkler said. “We got to do things in the last two years that we would never have done.”

“There’s a picture of us riding camels in the Sahara and dancing with a Bedouin tribe,” Shatner said.

Modeled after an unscripted Korean TV series called “Grandpas Over Flowers,” which brought a group of actors in their 70s into playful situations in foreign settings, “Better Late Than Never” was a hit when it premiered in the summer of 2016. There are twice as many episodes — eight — in season two.

Some of the guys’ adventures across the seven cities and five countries they visit include: Being treated at a “hangover hospital” during Oktoberfest in Munich, suffering through pickled herring in Stockholm, parasailing in Barcelona and motor-biking in Marrakesh.

“I’ve traveled all over the place, but I never saw the world the way we saw it together,” Foreman, 68, said. “The difference is we saw things.”