March 21, 2024 • 47 mins
Jodie & Andrea talk to legendary TV and stage director, Joel Zwick, to find out about how he became thee man who wrote the book on directing (no, really. He did).
From Laverne & Shirley to Bosom Buddies to a little show called Full House, Joel has done it all and has countless stories to tell.
Ready to fall in love with the man who called all the shots on your favorite shows? Then this episode of How Rude, Tanneritos is for you!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hey, fan, Rito's welcome to how Rude Tanaritos, our guest today,
is a phenomenal director and producer who we were lucky
enough to work with on both Full House and Fuller House.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
He has a.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Wide array of TV shows, films, and Broadway shows under
his belt, with his career spanning over four decades. We
can't wait to talk to him about his memories from
that very first episode of full House all the way
to his time on Fuller House.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Please welcome.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Joel's a wick, Hi, Joel.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Or look at you, as handsome as ever.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I'm younger, younger, I'm working on being younger.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Indeed you are Benjamin Button. Actually you're a completely in reverse.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
At some point, I'm going to start to diminish myself
by one year at every birthday and see how long
I can go.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, I love it. I like it.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Good idea.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Hi, it's so good to see you.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
So just so you know, we kind of just jump
right into the interview, so we're just gonna welcome to
the show, Joel.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I think it's great. I think it's so fabulous that
the legend of full House has existed this many years.
I mean, how many years ago do we do this
thirty five years or something like that.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Thirty thirty seven, thirty seven, I think, yeah, yes.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Andrew, when did you come into the series. I'm trying
to think, is I don't believe I directed your first appearance?
Do you believe I did? I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
I should know this, but my first episode was the
first day of school, Stephanie's first day of kindergarten and
DJ and Kimmy's first day of fifth grade.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
We just looked at it. Was it episode two to three?
It is episode three, first season.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I could have been there for the first few before
I had to go back to Perfect Strangers, which was.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Much's right, that's right right next door.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
We have been telling everyone about your storied career of
directing and everything, and it's really I mean, it's super impressive,
but Perfect Strangers family matters. You directed the movie My
Big Fat Greek Wedding, which is just such a hit.
We love of second sight, Fat Albert, and you started
(02:28):
in theater?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Really was where you came from? Uh?
Speaker 4 (02:32):
And I just I would love to hear a little
bit about the background of Joel's Wick.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Well, boy, okay, you ready for this?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Like how did you start?
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Like what made you decide to come to Hollywood and
get in this crazy business, and then how did you
eventually wind up with this weird family?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Okay, I can. I got a system here, I've how
to tell I've been trying. As you get older, you
start to try to desperately put together the pieces of
your life as to what exactly, and that made the difference.
And for me, it came down to connections. It was
all about the luck of connections, because connections sometimes have
nothing to do with who you are, but where you
are at what time you're there, and those kind of things.
(03:13):
So basically I started out at three and a half
years old. My mother tells me I used to sing
Jimmy Durant the imitations for their Marjon game, and the
women loved that, so they'd invite me every time they
started a Majong game to sing a little bit of
Inky Dinky doo or something like that.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
And then when I wish I could have seen that,
to be a fly on the wall of three and
a half year old joels Wick singing in a majong game,
please stop it.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And then this is already amazing.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Junior High School went on to Junior High School where
I was very lucky. There was a teacher there who
loved operettas, and she decided on her own wasn't part
of the school program. She would put on an operetta
every year. So I was in the for two years there.
In the first year I did the Mercado and I
played Coco, and the second year I played Si Slick
(04:00):
in Nordy Marietta. And there was a young girl who
was in the cast, not one of the stars, one
of the three little maids from school are we purpose
one of those girls. And we came to Madison High
School and rock and roll hit nineteen fifty three. We
entered Madison High School and rock and roll was starting
to explode, and babe, wait, this little girl decided she
(04:22):
was going to be a rock and roll singer end
of it, and she was going to have a do
op group at Madison High School, just like virtually every
high school in Brooklyn had a due op group. And
so we had a do op group. We called ourselves
the co Signs. We met in a math class, the
Yes And then eventually this young lady who was Carol
(04:44):
Klein separated from the group and became Carol King. So
I wash my god, Carol King, Yeah, I understand that
to your.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Like great one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
But that's that's coincidence. I mean, how does that happened?
Speaker 4 (05:00):
I did not realize you were in a do wop
group in high school with Carol King.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Joe.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
So any rate, So Carol we went and all we
moved on to in high school, she introduced me to
this very this guy became my best friend, Roy Levine.
Roy Levine directs mcbird in nineteen sixty seven, which was
a major off Broadway hit and problem because it basically
made the claim that Lyndon Johnson was responsible for the
(05:27):
death of John F. Kennedy. So that was pretty political
and basically my phone was tapped for the seven months
I was in that show, and I was basically, you know,
an aide or a crony of a cronies that would
come on stage and say, sire, they're waiting for you,
you know that kind of stay. And I sat there
and at that point I thought maybe I was going
to be an actor. I really never thought about it
(05:48):
much because in sheep said, baby Brooklyn, you didn't have
any dreams of that kind. Of stuff going on other
than Carol, who knew she was going to be a star.
God bless her. But anyway, so they sent me off
to with Roy Levine to Midbird. In Midbird I met
an actor named Andy Robinson who played the Aquarius killer
in Dirty Harry. That was his big right and we
(06:11):
became very good friends. And he one day was going
to join a LaMaMa troop at Lomama, which was one
of the great experimental theaters. Yes, yes, so he called
me up and said, come on, you want to join
LaMaMa with me? And I at that point had had
a nervous breakdown because I realized I couldn't become an actor.
I wasn't good enough. I had no idea what these
people were doing that made them so good. But it
(06:32):
was a hell of a cast that had Stacy Keach
and Rue McClanahan and cleveonn Little and Bill Devane at
Bardy who were just coming out of colleges all over
America who were politically inspired to do this particular show
about Lyndon Johnson. So that was that. So Andy got
me to LaMaMa. And Andy was also the key to
something I didn't so I couldn't really act much at
(06:54):
LaMaMa because even in the troop I was in, I
was not one of the good actors. So Andy at
one point wrote a play called Last Chance Saloon, and
he decided I was going to direct it. Now he
had never seen me direct anything. I had only directed
one thing in my life, and I thought that if
I didn't direct this, the troop was going to break up,
and Lumama was becoming very important to me. So I said, okay,
(07:15):
I'll direct it. Well, the damn thing played the west
coast of London, it played all over Europe. It became
a major hit. I came back to America. I was
a director. Oh my go now I was directing. I
still had no goals. There were just no goals involved
with this. I didn't know that there was any place
you could go with this kind of a thing. But
I was a director, and I directed the LaMaMa Plexus group.
(07:36):
We were called in a number of shows, and one
of the shows I was also teaching at the time,
and I was teaching at Queen's College and Wheaton College
and Brooklyn College and all over the place. This theoretical
work that my LaMaMa troop was doing, which if you
know or don't know. It's based on the work of
Jersey Grotowsky, who were in the Polish lab theater, and
he had this idea that if you trained actors like athletes,
(07:59):
so they could stay in the moment and not think
about whether they have craft or no craft, or what
their craft is about. Somehow, that's what you aspired to
get him in the moment, which was one of the
things that was phenomenal with you guys, because you were
always in the moment. You had no idea, there wasn't
a moment.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
I mean as kids, that's that I look at kids
all the time and I just there.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
I was out at a restaurant the other day and
this kid was just twirling around.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
What I was like, Oh, to be so in the moment,
and but.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Like, that's the goal as an actor, right is to
just be so free.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
That's amazing. So basically, once I had picked up that
little information, I realized that I would say I became
a director and directed a number of shows for US
and taught at various colleges. In one of the colleges
I taught at was Queen's College, and one of the
kids who am a student of mind three of them.
Actually students of mind were Lowe Gans, Mark Rothman, and
Greg Antonacci. Now they Greg Antonacci, who was a tough
(08:52):
little Italian kid, basically just infused himself into my Lemama workshops.
He wasn't invited, He just showed up and basically Greg
wrote a show called Dance with Me, which I directed, choreographed,
and was in. By the way, that's something you want
to do again? It was really questionable.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Yeah that's I'm like, wow that that yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
The hill rate. I got a Tony nomination for Best
Choreography and a Drama Desk nomination for Best Director of
a Musical. So but and Greg. Meanwhile, through Mark Rothman
and Lowell Gans, who had already made it out to
Hollywood with their own story of connections, he went out
to Hollywood to play a running role in Laverne and Shirley,
and eventually he moved on to a continuing role in
(09:36):
It was an Adam Arkham Adam Arkhams show a past
eighty you Lose names, but it was an Adam busting.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Busting lotten screwed then because I can't remember now, I
know you were in good shape.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
So we did Busting Loose together and I came out
to visit him because I had done a show a
review that was playing in Chicago for a year and
then moved on to Las Vegas in another production. So
I was about forty minutes out of Los Angeles by playing,
and I had some time, so I thought I'd come
out and visit Greg and see what's going on. And
at that point, so Greg, so, I'm watching these rehearsals
(10:10):
for a couple of weeks in the stand, just watching
these rehearsals, and doesn't seem like it seems like a
little play for a twenty two minute play. So basically
Greg gets in his head you that I should direct
the sitcom. And I said to Greg, wait a second,
I'm a theater director. I don't direct sitcom.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
And he said, well, if sitcom really is theater theater.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
I finally found that out as I got myself inebriated
that night and got myself thinking, wait a second. First
of all, you don't know if they're going to get
the job, too. You don't know if you'd like the
job once you get it. So basically they got to
do the paint. One of my major beliefs was that
you just got to take the shots. You can't turn
down opportunities because it may not be in exactly the
(10:57):
direction you wanted to go, but it may eventually get
you to that place just taking a different route. But
the fact that since I didn't have any goals anyway,
it didn't make any difference to me what I was doing.
So he set me up at this meeting at Paramount
with this lady named Judy Copage, a very nice lady
who was running casting for Powamount for directors getting them
placed on the Paramount shows in that day. So I
(11:19):
went into her and literally, this is an interview you
cannot do today. And I'm not sure how I got
away with it at that time, but I walked in.
I said, listen, I'm not going to tell you that
I can direct sitcom because I've never directed a sitcom,
but I was watching for the last couple of weeks
and in my estimation and monkey can direct sitcoms. And
she looked at me, she said and made a call
immediately to this guy Tony bar at CBS and said,
(11:41):
I've got this guy. I wanted to direct an episode
of Busting Loose. And that was my interview, and I
basically had this episode of Busting Loose, and now the
producers were concerned, well, you know, he's never done anything.
So Greg said, I'll tell you what. I'll write a
script and he'll direct my script. And so he was
living at that time with Annie Potts Lovely any yes,
(12:02):
oh yes, And so basically was a showby that was
hopefully going to be a pilot for her for Annie
Potts and Greg and Tanacci. So I directed it and
it went fairly well, and I icily started to figure
out the craft. I worked with the editor. I couldn't
care about anybody else. The editor would tell me, no, no,
you can't go from that shot to that shot. You
can't do that. This is the way it goes. Because
(12:22):
in those days we were using what was called the
three headed movieola because it was all film and tape.
Yet by the time you got around we were on tape.
But essentially and basically was just three things learned. He'd
mark out the cuts from from from real to real,
and so I learned the idea of how this was supposed.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
To go, which I mean that for directing for TV
and film, that's really what it is is knowing what
you what shot you have to get because you're like, oh, well,
we can go from here to hear. But if you
have no connective tissue and you don't see how the
person got from over here over here, all of a
sudden they teleport and it looks really weird. And those
are the things that like, you don't think about that
(12:59):
you have to. It's not the theater where you can
see everything. You have to make sure that people's eyes
are going, where the action is.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
In the right direction, absolutely correct. So basically I realized
that what I've always been was I finally realized that
I was a systems person. I was in a visionary.
You don't have to be a visionary to do Full
House Family Matters or any of those shows, but a
system person helps finding out the most efficient way to
do the work that needs to be done. And part
(13:28):
of that was I started to believe that the key
was to let everybody be the best they can be,
not to tell them what to do, but enable them
to be the best. They could be very easy with
kids because they're gonna do what they're gonna do, you know,
But when it gets to adults, Yeah, how do you
don't direct John Stamos or Bob Dagger or Coo Yer.
There's no direct for these people.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Well, I mean, for many reasons, there was no directing them.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
But I actually I told the story.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
To someone the other day of the time, that that you,
we all got in trouble, and that yes, yes, you
were so pissed at every well you were so pissed
at the adults, but.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
You you know, you went that's it.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Everybody upstairs up to the you know, to the conference room,
and so the whole cast.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Went bitting around, including the baby. Everyone was like, okay,
so we showed up. Joel walks in the room, He's like,
not the kids, not the kids. They're fine, The kids
are doing fine.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
To the adults, I couldn't do what I wanted to
do the kids were in the room. But the fact
is I had a great story about you, Jody. I
don't know if you're aware of the story, because it's
a wonderful story. It was basically, we were doing an
episode of something at this time. You couldn't have been
much more than five and a half years old. Maxim
so his first season kind of stuff, and we're about
to do your scene you were in and I get
(14:49):
a quote she's not available she's in the bathroom. I said,
what do you mean, she's in the bathroom. I'm about
to do a scene. Go go knock on the door
and tell her to get out of the bathroom. So
somebody goes to knocks on the door and Jody get
out of the bathroom. I'm not finished, that's what they hear.
I'm not finished. So basically he came back out and said,
she says she's not finished. I said, well, you go
(15:10):
tell her to get finished and come out immediately. And
they went back and he knocked again, and you said
to the door, listen, if you come by to knock
one more time, I'm not coming out at all. And
it was at that point that I realized that the
entire industry was run by the children. That basically, if
a child is in a bathroom and needs to go potty,
you cannot see this. The scene is over.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
You're working with children and animals. What needs to happen
needs to happen, and.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
That's in the order that it needs to happen. So
that was, yes, that was it taught me the loss.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
My god, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
The enormous industry is running and this one girl is
stopping the industry simply because she's going to the bathroom.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I had to go, yeah, I guess a good potty.
You'll call it a ten to one.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
But maybe you were taking a ten too.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I mean, who knows. I was five and a half.
Whatever needed to happen, he happened.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
That's right. But I loved your attitude about the fact
you knock one more time.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
I'm not knock one more time, and you know on
that that's just who I am. You've asked me one
more time, didn't see how it goes one more time.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
You haven't changed to Joe. It's good to know, though.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
It's good to hear those stories where I go, oh, no,
this is that's just my true self.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
That's exactly who you were at any rate. So that
was it. So I started working sitcoms primarily because I
was lucky in that the first thing I got to
do was busting loose and pretty much out of the
Gary Marshall chain, right, and so so I was doing
there was nothing else for me to do. I went
back to New York, I did a play, which was
(16:34):
a disaster, and then I came back to California because
I wrote to Lowe gans and Mark Ruthman saying, listen,
I'm thinking of coming out again. You're think you got
any work for me, because they thought they did pretty
good on The Busting Loose and they were doing at
that time a new show that Ted Knight was doing,
coming off of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, right the
Ted Night Show, And so basically they gave me an
(16:54):
episode to direct and to keep me around. They allowed
me to actually act in an episode where I played
a bunny farmer, Yes, a bunny farmer, a farmer that
actually raises bunnies. And it was a dating show, you know,
one of those things. So basically, so I was doing
some various there's ten minute things we used to do
that were to try to sell a pilot before we
(17:17):
did the entire thing. And I was doing something that
eventually turned out to be Angie but when I with
Donna pescal But when I did it, it was just
a ten minute No, I don't know what the hell
it was, but I did it. And at the end
of the thing, I came out and this big tall
man comes up to me and says, I let you work,
and I said, well, thank you. I had no idea
who he was. He says, I'm going to give you
a shot with the girls next season. And I had
(17:40):
no idea who the girls were, and I still had
no idea who this guy was. But it was Gary
Marshall offering me a chance to direct Laverne and Shirley,
And so I found out, Oh yeah, So I had
to go home and I had to research what the
hell all this was because I'd never seen a sitcom,
particularly a theater. Person in New York is not sitting
home watching, you know, the Merry Time the More Show. Particularly,
(18:01):
So they gave me a shot and I went back
and I was directing the first the third season of
Lavernon Shirley when it was the number one show in America. Wow,
I mean that you can't that when that happens, it's
just what are the art? But at any rate, it
worked out well for me because the girls, who you
don't tell what to do either. You didn't tell Penny
and Cindy how to make I mean, you had to
(18:23):
be out of your mind to try to do that.
So they liked me because I had a New York energy,
and they taught me the system, especially Penny Marshall taught
me the system. She would walk on to a stage
or they were never around because of the fact that
they were in the middle of the fight of the
lives for women, they were not getting equal salaries with men.
Suzanne Seckers had started a huge fura and Penny and
(18:46):
Cindy joined in, and they were in major fights with
Power Amount and with ABC about the fact that they
were the number one show in America and were making
half the salary of Henry Winkler and Ron Howard. Right. Wow.
They were never around for rehearsals. So basically there was
no rehearsals in the morning. They come in at that
we come into twelve o'clock and we work from twelve
to one, and then we do the run through at
(19:08):
two o'clock and that was it. So Penny would come in,
the scene would be said. He'd come in, She'd say, Okay,
this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put my
bag here, I'm putting my jacket here, I'm going to
the kitchen. I'm getting a coc and milk or whatever
that pepsi and milk things she used to drink. And
then I'm going to pick up my coat, pick up
my bag and out the door, and Cindy knew to
just follow along, and that's what she did. And she
(19:29):
never walked on a joke. She always walked on the laugh.
She waited for the laugh and walked laugh and walk
laugh and hit every mark and then was out the
door and it was all over, and basically the same
thing happened. You can't tell Lenny and Squiggy what to
do with the hell well Lenny and Squiggy anyway. You
know that the only people I honestly believed at that point,
(19:50):
the first people that got the rights to their own
names in order to should Penny it's Penny, because Penny
was dating Rob Marshall, Rob Ryan and they were friends
of Rob Reiners. So she went to see a show
with Lenny and Squiggy and said, oh, I want them
on lavern and Shirley. So she came back to the
network and said, I want these guys on Laverne and Shirley.
(20:11):
And the guys would only do it if they could
maintain the rights to the names Lenny and Squiggy, and
they did, and when the show was over, they went
out and toured as Lenny and the squig Tones, and.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Oh, that's wow.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
And then was it through doing Laverne and Shirley then
that you made some of the connections that led you
to Full House.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Yes, basically that's exactly how it transferred. I did to
Laverne and Shirley, and then during that period of time
I did a few Mork and Mindy's and then went
on and did the pilot of Boos and Buddies, and
that was pretty interesting because Tom Hanks was a wonderer.
I had no idea how a guy twenty one years
old with absolutely no credits, he was working as an
(20:53):
understudy in an off Broadway theater in a cold water flat,
he used to say, and basically he got an audition
and they got he got the role. But he we
saw myself. I don't understand how somebody at twenty one
with no work. He wasn't a.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Child, but you know, probably the same way that somebody
with no directing experience walking and says, I don't know
what I'm doing, but hey, let's give it a shot.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
So basically, so I did. Those are the big three
that I did at that particular first juncture of my career,
and then through that i'd met Gary Marshall. Of course,
because they'd done some stuff with him and Barbo yet
and they were going to launch Full House, and I
got they told me they wanted me to direct the pilot,
and I thought, oh wow, okay, this is going to
(21:36):
be fun. You know, children and all. But it was
a great show for me because remember I was raising
Jamie and Hillary at the same rate and the same age.
You paperwork, so every one of your classrooms my kids
are in. Oh yeah, virtually every executive who would.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Jamie and Hillary's wick should have gotten a title card
at some point in one of the seasons.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Really for that special appearance by.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Where your seek was, because it was always next.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
To Hill, exactly right and right there.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, she could make faces and do stuff that she
needed to do to staill alive in the scenes, you know,
like when Michelle comes in climbing under the desks and
she's you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
What do you do you remember anything about directing the pilot,
Like do you remember thinking this show is going to
be a hit or the like, or this show is
going to tank?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Like what were what did you.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
I thought the reputation of Miller boy Y had had
a real good chance because at that time the major
producers could pretty well get their shows on the air.
How long they lasted is another thing. But remember we
started that pilot. You should know that without Bob Saggett
did that pilot with a different actor, a very nice
actor by the way.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah we have, Yeah, we talked about it. We've shown
his picture we had.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
I found an original picture from the pilot that we
had taken with John Posey, like all in character that
was sitting on the mantle and it was John Posey,
the woman who played Pam, and a random not an
Olsen twin and me and Candae. That was like a
family photo that was on the mantle in the very
first But yeah, we were looking through it we found
(23:19):
that on the show.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I actually have that pilot.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Oh yeah, yeah, I actually.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Have the pilot. So what happened was when when when
when our friend Jeff Franklin went to the network said,
I've always written this thing for Bob Saggot, and Saggot
wasn't available when we did Department because he was doing
some comedy shtick for CBS or something five minutes of
news in the morning. So once he was available, Jeff said,
I want to put Saggott in the role even though yeah,
Posey was a very fine actor, but Saggot was the
(23:45):
key he wanted.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
So, and you know, it's interesting, like going back and
starting and watching the show from the beginning, it really
like it. You see it It was Bob was the
right he had that he had that sort of nerd but.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Loving but like he just was a dad. Like he was.
He was the epitome of like dad jokes, you know, funny.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
He knew how to do funny.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
And he knew yes, exactly funny. He knew how to
do funny. But yeah, what I mean he.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Was the heart.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
Had you, uh, directed kids often in your career up
until that point because everything I'm hearing herring more community,
I'm not hearing a lot of kids and.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Kids at that point. I do not think they were
kids at that point. But we were, you know, we
had some big help on the kids that had Adria.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
We had Adria was our last guest on the show
we had and all of her amazingness.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
But yeah, what was it like working with kids? Were
was it like.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
A whole new like oh this is I mean, you
had kids, but like trying to direct kids, we.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Had a system and the system was very smart. We
had stand ins for every one of you kids, and
the scenes would be rehearsed with the stand ins. You know,
he knew the scene means. And then the stand ins
would give you your blocking for this, and then you
had we had Brian Cale was there as a dialog approach.
We have.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Yes, we've talked about the infamous Brian Kle that's right.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
And Brian was the one who basically had to pass
on to you information that I thought you needed, right,
information that he notes. Yep, I have a good story
with Brian to you in a second. The fact is
that so you had we packaged up, well, there was
a system that was in place that really was smart.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
Well, you know, I find sitcoms tend to I mean
that's you know, the joke has always never take a
sitcom out of the stage, because sitcoms have we it
is like a it's a it's a system.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
You've got this rehearsal, you've got you know, you.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Kind of always know what you're doing where and how
and what Your schedule is very much.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Very organized down.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, it's kind of great.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
If we were all in school till noon, Yeah, nobody.
I didn't see any of you till noon. Now I
didn't see any of you till after lunch was about
one o'clock. We'd start to put together and eventually we
were able to give run throughs at like three o'clock.
They were used to five o'clock run throughs because we
do it scene twice and move on scene twice, because
I believe the actors should take responsibility for the work
(26:10):
they're gonna do, and beating him to death by having
a scene being done three, four or five times in rehearsal,
you've lost it by the time they want to get
on cameras. So yeah, I decided being fresh could do
some things, you know. But anyway, Brian Cale, this is
an interesting story about Brian Kale actually auditioned for a
role in mcbird, and I was an assistant stage manager,
(26:31):
so I'd been in his auditions and I thought, what
is an interesting guy? You know? And then it has
to be fifteen twenty years later, I'm now on stage
doing Dance with Me, a show, like I said, A directed, choreographed,
and was basically had the third lead in and I
had to get out of that show because once again
I knew I wasn't an actor. I mean, Dance with
(26:51):
Me was if nineteen fifties throwback musical. So we did
all the work I did with Carol and the co signs,
all the songs we did. Matter of fact, I used
two of Carol's songs, not even know where there were
Carol songs at the time. But I looked at Brian
and I said, you you're going to replace me. He said, huh.
I said you're going to replace me and dance with me?
(27:11):
He said what? I said, Yes, You're going on to Broadway.
Get ready, we're going into rehearsals tomorrow. So he was
a He was a much better actor than I was,
for sure, And it was so interesting to see a
role that I just naturally did because I just did it. Actually,
Brian had acted. He had to find the acting route
that had to play the character. He knew the staging,
(27:33):
he knew the dance numbers, he knew everything, but he
had to find an active route playing the character. I
just opened my mouth and I was the character. But
I did find out and in watching the run through
with Brian in the thing, I looked at that show
and I said, oh my god, if I wasn't in
it to begin with, there's at least five things that
would never show up on stage. There were some stuff
(27:54):
that I had in that show that I would have
never allowed if I was watching it as a director,
you know, but we survived.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
The perspective is interesting, you know, like when you kind
of shit, you're like, oh, it looks very different on
this side.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, ooh does it ever? Because from the inside it
felt like everything was moving along smoothly. It was a
little it was a wild show. It was a bit
out of control. I mean, there was times that things
got out of hand, but the fact is that I
was on stage, so I get them under control. I mean,
I'd want one actor who came a wonderful writer in Hollywood, Steu' Silver.
Stuve Silver wrote for a number of shows and created
(28:30):
a number of shows himself. Webster was one of his
shows he created. But anyway, Wow, So Stu was outrageously funny,
but trutally out of control. So the only way I
could get him in control was and he started to
go into one of his this crazy monologues about being
a blind man, and he put up one finger and say,
what do I know? This could be a three? And
(28:52):
you just go on and on until I walked over
and basically smacked him in the face to shut him up,
and we go on with the show and the great
moment on dancing. I have to tell this, when I
got the nomination for the choreography, Tony and I didn't
have a dancer in that company. There was nobody in
that company could dance their way out of anything. So
(29:12):
I remember the dressing room saying before the show tonight,
we're gonna go out there and we're gonna dance like
we've never danced before. We are going to give this
audience the dances they've never seen before. And we went
out on the show and the first number we do
is based a Carol King number called the Locomotion. Everybody's
doing the brand in a train heading downtown. So chugging
(29:34):
downstage and I chugged right off the front of the stage,
out of sight, turned around, made a one eighty, and
when chugged being back with the rest of the cast.
But the cast couldn't look at me for the rest
of the show. They all remember they saw this.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
So you're like, this is gonna be the greatest show ever.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
And then what it was. It was a good moment
at any rate that was the dance from period of time.
And then then sitcoms took over, and look like I said,
ran into the Marshall organization with Boyette and Miller, right,
and I got a chance to do their shows, which
was you know, perfect, strangest family matters, step by step,
that whole TG I f lineup. I kept on moving along,
(30:16):
you know, and we brought in Rich Correll, who became
a very good friend because Rich, you know, was a
producer on the pilot A full House.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Yeah, that's right, because he was produced I remember he.
I met Rich when I did Valerie because he was
a producer on Valerie.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
So I met him then.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
And then basically when basically I was stuck with I
don't know, I don't know. Did he do full houses
at the beginning? I don't remember, because I do, Yeah,
yeah he did.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
He was the one that went up and scouted the
house and found out it was the it was the
his sister's ex boyfriend or something that owned the house
that they randomly knocked on the door that became the
full house house.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
So again, connections, connections, connections.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
So anyway that I knew he took when I couldn't
when I moved from Family Matters to to Full House.
In the last four years, I took over the final
four or five seasons of Full House. He went on
too Family Matters and basically and I saw basically we
were together for a long time, and then we both
go into Disney Channel in the later years. It's another
(31:18):
story because basically I decided that I was watching the
careers and the name of the business changed. The change
when we went to videotape. When you were on a
three camera film thing, the only people who knew what
being shot was the directors and the camera operators, and
at the end of every scene, the camera opera would
say I missed that close, sup, I missed this, I
need that again, or they'd say perfectly me, it's gone.
(31:40):
And the producers had no idea what was in the
can or not in the camp Then tape.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
Yeah, because there's no I mean, there's no video village,
there's no monitors.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Then all of a sudden, the tape comes along and
the concept of video village comes along, and at that
point the producers are.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
I want to see right then, I want to see
what's happening right now. I have ideas and thought oh yeah, No.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
That made it very tough that all of a sudden,
the producers were all sitting there saying, well, you need
a close up someone, So I said, I shot it already.
No you didn't. I didn't see it. But because you
didn't see it didn't mean I didn't shoot it. No, no,
but they shoot it again. So the number of things
that we reshot that had no business to be reshot
because they couldn't see all four cameras particularly well that fast. Yet,
(32:21):
and as they got better and better, it became apparent
that they didn't really want to have a consistent director
on their shows. They wanted directors.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
It became it became a producers mediums.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
And because of that, if you didn't do the work
that the producers wanted, you just didn't get to do
that directing job again.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Which is a film is much more directing media it's
the director is in control, but TV it's all about
the producers.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Yeah, and if the producers are the writers, it's even worse.
But the fact that they started to take it on,
you didn't find that there were too many people that
were going to be directing every episode of shows anymore.
You would do three of three of that and two
of this and two of that. You just move along.
And I had spent the first whatever twenty years doing
sitcoms being the director of the series, so I was
(33:10):
not particularly overjoyed with that kind of thing, and it
kind of felt that the career, which had leveled off,
was starting to see its beginning of its dip. So
I was I thought, maybe it's time to get the
hell out. So I remember calling up Hanks and I
said to Hanks, I got an idea that I think
maybe I want to go into directing movies, comedy movies,
(33:30):
because maybe a comedy director in a comedy movie might
be funny. And I sent him a script I wanted
him to read, and he read it and gave me
dutiful notes and said, but why are you doing this?
I said, because I'm getting out of TV Tom, And
he said, oh, really, that's great, because I have something
I want you to direct. And I said what, And
he sends me the script of my big fat Greek Wedding. Wow,
(33:52):
sends me the script of my Big Factory. I would
have directed the phone Book if he asked me.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
To, right, Yeah, So those connections, I I think Tom
Hanks came to I think he came to set one
day to visit you actually say hi.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yeah, yeah. Truly as nice a man as he was
purported to be, you couldn't act that level of niceness.
You truly couldn't. But essentially, so that was it, and
I got Greek Wedding, and then I spent about ten
years doing I did Greek Wedding, fat Albert and Elvis
had left the building. The best one was probably Elvis. Well,
(34:32):
other than Greek Wedding, Elvis left the Building was a
very good show. But the problem was the producers of
this show got sick and so they couldn't spend any
time trying to sell the show. So they sold it
off to markets where it could be on airports and
airplanes and stuff like that. Never got its share. But
so it was over and I don't know what he
(34:53):
was going to do. And then all of a sudden,
I go and take Hillary to lunch. At this point,
Hillary is working as an executive secretary of for the
guy who is doing all the hiring at the at
the Disney Channel, and basically, so I took it to
lunch and we brought her in and I said hello
to the guy, and then I left and he says
to Hillary, Hillary, you never mentioned that your father was
(35:15):
Joel's wick and she said, yeah, yeah, here's my father, Joel.
Do you think you can get Joel to direct some
episodes of sitcoms for the Disney Channel? So she said,
I'll try, and so she calls me up. She says, Dad,
they're wondering if you would direct any episodes of any
whatever the show is going to be at that particular
point for the Disney Channel. And I said, Hillary, do
(35:36):
you think it's going to help your career? And she
said I think it made I said, well, if you
think it might, you tell them that I will direct
anything you tell me to direct. There you go, and
there I was starting to work for the Disney Channel
until about, oh, I guess about five or six months
into the run, when they found out that Hillary was
my daughter, and that was a no no at Disney.
(35:59):
I must have been put in simply because I was
her father, right, And so they called up IRV and
said I think we have to let him go and
her said why. He said, well because family. I said
have you seen his IMDb? And they said, well no,
I said, check his IMDb. They checked my IMDb and
they said, okay, I think we can make it work.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
I'd never mind, actually mind.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
This would be work on. And then I just hung on.
And luckily my biggest thing was Zendia Zendaya. I had
Zendea for seven years.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
That's right, you did that. You did her show?
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah, I did both Shake it Up and then I
did Casey Undercover. So I watched her move from a
fourteen year old to a twenty one year old essentially
during that time, and knew that this was a very
nice lady, super bright, great parents, all that kind of stuff,
and she had talent she.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Could, yeah, super talented.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
So I thought, let's see where this takes her. Because
she was told she was beautiful. You know, we were
afraid in doing the show that she she edged out
at five ten and a half. Her father six two,
her mother is six four and a half.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Oh wow, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
It's so told that she'd be out of the business
by being just too tall for the business, right, But
luckily she never grew pissed.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Zoe is five to ten now, by the way, my
older daughter, Oh my, she just grew a little bit
more shot. Yeah, maybe five nine and three quarter, but
she's tall.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Yeah, that's tall. That is tall for me, virtually anybody's.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I know, Well, that's true. Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
I had the great Dantagy.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
But you pack a lot of punch in a small package,
you know what I mean. There's everyone knows when Joel's entered.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
The room speaking.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
So speaking of so, I have a story, and I
wonder if you remember this triggered something when you said
talked about disney World, because we you were our director
for the episodes that we shot disney World, which I
would love to hear about two because I'm sure that
was its own special kind of hell, trying to shoot
in an amusement park with everyone standing there watching and
(38:06):
not make it look like everyone's standing there watching. Yes,
but I remember, I don't know you you you had
flown off the handle about something you were passed about
because you were dealing with people and us and cast
and and just an all manner of things, and I
don't know, you screamed about something, and I remember I was,
(38:27):
I was like.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Joe's so mean, He's so I just hate him. I
would hate to be his kid. I hate to be
Hillary or Jamie Famous hate him. And like they went
on in this whole thing.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
And then I believe it was might have been Brian
Cale came over and gently reminded me that I was miked.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
I all video village, could hear you?
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Yeah, And I was like whoops.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
I was like yeah, and I but I remember that
I was yeah and uh.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
At some point I think I I was like, sorry.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Y, yeah, I was. I was capable of going off
the handle on small things. Anything large has to be handled.
You don't have the time, you know what.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I totally relate to that.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Like little things, I'm like, oh my god, ah, but
like the entire world's falling apart.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
I'm like, all right, cool, let's do this exactly right,
same thing, exactly what it was. You just didn't have
any time for nonsense. If there was a real problem,
I mean there was just you know quotes, I would
do it. And I do remember that going to tape
and I'd be up in a booth. And Jay Sandrich
basically who directed Mary Tyler Moore, who's one of the
major directors in the just the generation before us, he
(39:42):
used to use a clicker, little clicker.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
I remember, oh, I remember your clicker.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
And yes, snapping and I remember that I got the
clicker down and I thought that was pretty By.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
The way, the clicker, just for those who are listening,
the clicker is the thing, and some people snap, but
it's what you as a director, you used.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Signal in between shots.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Yes, cut hats is what you used to cut with.
So I remember Jimmy Burrows, who turned out to be
the dean as far as concern of sitcom directing. He
was working me over about oh, misters, Wick can't snap,
he has to use a clicker, has to use a clicker.
And then one day he gets to do his first
taped pilot and he's in the booth and his fingers freeze.
(40:22):
He can no longer click. It's all gone. He's gotten
through one scene and his fingers as jammed up on him.
He got a call in the booth work I think
I was doing Webster at the time, and he said, Joel,
do you have an extra clicker and go over to
his booth and hand him my second clicker because you
had to have a backup clicker, right right, But that
was an interesting period.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Of Oh yeah, I remember, I remember just hearing that.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
Little that's right. But the background, Lauren, it was so
interesting in a number of instances because remember we didn't
have anything any kind of internet, no capability. There was
no way of noting what the hell was going on
for the moment.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
This is all yeah, pre cell phone, pre internet days.
It was like when we shot in Hawaii and we
all went to the wrong.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Beach, but nobody knew because there was no way.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
To call anybody from one place on the other end.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
So like half of us went to the wrong beach.
It was the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
And that was in Hawaii, But yeah, I can only
imagine in Disney World trying to communicate things well.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
So basically we were there and it was interesting because
it was the first time I think the cast understood that,
certainly the children understood that they were stars. All of
a sudden, there's places surrounded by people who were just watching,
where everything you do and we're on the front line
of every rod we wanted to go on. All those
things are being treated, and even the big scenes where
(41:43):
the public was watching, and I was begging and.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Getting this, please keep walking, stop staring.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
All I let them stare or make believe you're talking
to each other, and then I'd shoot because our children,
you know, I think that was the one where that
was the one where Michelle decided she was wandering off
because she was not happy with what was going on.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
She becomes Princess for the day or whatever.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
She becomes prince and we had the tea party. And
I don't know, I don't know whether you would know
about this or not. But wait, the guy playing pass out. Yes,
the white rabbit passed out. The white rabbit passed out.
And you cannot take off the costume of a Disney
employee playing a character.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
Until they are well backstage and away from the view
of the public.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
That's exactly right. So they take this guy and they
brought in a replacement white rabbit, and the scene with
his right rabbit from the lat.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
From from Bunny Farmer to white Rabbit. Letok, you go.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
You weren't allowed to tell these Disney characters what to do.
I remember the one scene where Laurie was on a
thing waiting with Chippendale. She's talking to Kipndale about the
fact that she's waiting for stay mus and Uncle Jesse
has not arrived or something. And basically I couldn't tell
Chippendale what to do. There would except no direction. They
would stay.
Speaker 4 (43:01):
The direction would just chatter off, you know, I've heard,
I've heard chipmunks are notoriously difficult.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
To deal That's right, very difficult. Even after chipmunks are difficult.
That was a tough scene because they just wanted they
would just jabber and Laurie did great. She just held
on to the whole thing pretty good. But that was
that was a good experience. That particular thing down there
that was fun was.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
Was that, like, I mean, as far as like location shoots,
was that one of your well, now you've done like
big fat Greek wedding and stuff, but up until that point,
like Greek one was after, but up until that point,
had you done a bit pretty much.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
That was pretty much the biggest location thing. We did
another one at the Tanka Verdi Dude Ranch. There was
a Tanka Verdi show where that was also outside location
kind of a thing. And then the sitcoms and were
starting to develop where they would get one seed case.
Seinfeld did that kite quite well with the coffee shop
(44:01):
and then the walks on the streets leading to the
So basically people start to write as used to write
in one scene or something that might be on some
kind of a location, so you did. But basically I
shot him like a sitcom.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
I no, yeah, I feel like most of our unless
we went out for something very specific, we were usually
on the stage and again in our little system and
in our.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Going right from school to your lunch, where all three
of you used to follow Bob Saggi around just like
his own three kids. It was a funny thing in
the world. You know, famous had a great relationship with Mary,
Kate and Ashley. But the fact was that Sagged was
the father of the group and if he was something,
you see all the three of you in size place
order marching along to Bob's to something or other, and
(44:50):
that was kind of cool. And the fact that he
had three daughters exactly the same aid because you was
insane and that had something for Andrew to the thing
that struck me with Anne, which she was the first
person that I knew that was being put into put
being put into full house whose entire responsibility was to
be funny. Everybody else had stories to tell. Everybody else
(45:13):
was a real child of something or other. Uh. Yes,
Cooier was a bit out of his mind and was
being given the freedom to kind of go with certain things.
That made him happy. But the fact is, when Andrew
came in, it was the first one who came in.
Simply the job was you gotta be funny. Other than that,
you had some stories that were interesting.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
But you did.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
We kind of mention this that Kimmy was a slightly
underdeveloped character, but she had some great singers.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
She had fabulous dingers, and yes, every once in a
while you'd see her in her relationship with Candace where
you could see that there was a story that was
worth being told. But the is that she was still
a nut job in the story, you know, because she
stood up for so many things. You know there's anything
wrong to be said, Angie, Barbara got to say it
(45:58):
is Kimmy, you know, so I do remember that was
a big help. All of a sudden, you knew that
when she was coming in she's fighting you all the time.
You're consistent documents.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Yeah, very true. Frenemies in this Yes, in the show.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
We feel extremely lucky to have worked with a director
as talented as Joel and we are so glad we
had this opportunity to ask him all about his career,
his time on full House and Fuller House and everything
else in between, so make sure and join us for
part two of our interview with Joel's Wick.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
We're very excited to tell.
Speaker 4 (46:29):
You more, and in the meantime, make sure you're following
us on Instagram at how Rude Podcast. Make sure you're
liking and subscribing to the podcast wherever you're listening so
that you can make sure and get the newest episodes
as soon as they come out. And we will see
you next time for another episode of How Rude. Tanner
Rito's and remember the world is small, but the house
(46:49):
is full.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Boom. That was a little too polished. I don't even
know who you are right now. I don't either,
Hey, fan, Rito's welcome to how Rude Tanaritos, our guest today,
is a phenomenal director and producer who we were lucky
enough to work with on both Full House and Fuller House.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
He has a.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Wide array of TV shows, films, and Broadway shows under
his belt, with his career spanning over four decades. We
can't wait to talk to him about his memories from
that very first episode of full House all the way
to his time on Fuller House.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Please welcome.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Joel's a wick, Hi, Joel.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Or look at you, as handsome as ever.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
I'm younger, younger, I'm working on being younger.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Indeed you are Benjamin Button. Actually you're a completely in reverse.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
At some point, I'm going to start to diminish myself
by one year at every birthday and see how long
I can go.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, I love it. I like it.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Good idea.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Hi, it's so good to see you.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
So just so you know, we kind of just jump
right into the interview, so we're just gonna welcome to
the show, Joel.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I think it's great. I think it's so fabulous that
the legend of full House has existed this many years.
I mean, how many years ago do we do this
thirty five years or something like that.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Thirty thirty seven, thirty seven, I think, yeah, yes.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Andrew, when did you come into the series. I'm trying
to think, is I don't believe I directed your first appearance?
Do you believe I did? I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
I should know this, but my first episode was the
first day of school, Stephanie's first day of kindergarten and
DJ and Kimmy's first day of fifth grade.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
We just looked at it. Was it episode two to three?
It is episode three, first season.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I could have been there for the first few before
I had to go back to Perfect Strangers, which was.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Much's right, that's right right next door.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
We have been telling everyone about your storied career of
directing and everything, and it's really I mean, it's super impressive,
but Perfect Strangers family matters. You directed the movie My
Big Fat Greek Wedding, which is just such a hit.
We love of second sight, Fat Albert, and you started
(02:28):
in theater?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Really was where you came from? Uh?
Speaker 4 (02:32):
And I just I would love to hear a little
bit about the background of Joel's Wick.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Well, boy, okay, you ready for this?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Like how did you start?
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Like what made you decide to come to Hollywood and
get in this crazy business, and then how did you
eventually wind up with this weird family?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Okay, I can. I got a system here, I've how
to tell I've been trying. As you get older, you
start to try to desperately put together the pieces of
your life as to what exactly, and that made the difference.
And for me, it came down to connections. It was
all about the luck of connections, because connections sometimes have
nothing to do with who you are, but where you
are at what time you're there, and those kind of things.
(03:13):
So basically I started out at three and a half
years old. My mother tells me I used to sing
Jimmy Durant the imitations for their Marjon game, and the
women loved that, so they'd invite me every time they
started a Majong game to sing a little bit of
Inky Dinky doo or something like that.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
And then when I wish I could have seen that,
to be a fly on the wall of three and
a half year old joels Wick singing in a majong game,
please stop it.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And then this is already amazing.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Junior High School went on to Junior High School where
I was very lucky. There was a teacher there who
loved operettas, and she decided on her own wasn't part
of the school program. She would put on an operetta
every year. So I was in the for two years there.
In the first year I did the Mercado and I
played Coco, and the second year I played Si Slick
(04:00):
in Nordy Marietta. And there was a young girl who
was in the cast, not one of the stars, one
of the three little maids from school are we purpose
one of those girls. And we came to Madison High
School and rock and roll hit nineteen fifty three. We
entered Madison High School and rock and roll was starting
to explode, and babe, wait, this little girl decided she
(04:22):
was going to be a rock and roll singer end
of it, and she was going to have a do
op group at Madison High School, just like virtually every
high school in Brooklyn had a due op group. And
so we had a do op group. We called ourselves
the co Signs. We met in a math class, the
Yes And then eventually this young lady who was Carol
(04:44):
Klein separated from the group and became Carol King. So
I wash my god, Carol King, Yeah, I understand that
to your.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Like great one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
But that's that's coincidence. I mean, how does that happened?
Speaker 4 (05:00):
I did not realize you were in a do wop
group in high school with Carol King.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Joe.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
So any rate, So Carol we went and all we
moved on to in high school, she introduced me to
this very this guy became my best friend, Roy Levine.
Roy Levine directs mcbird in nineteen sixty seven, which was
a major off Broadway hit and problem because it basically
made the claim that Lyndon Johnson was responsible for the
(05:27):
death of John F. Kennedy. So that was pretty political
and basically my phone was tapped for the seven months
I was in that show, and I was basically, you know,
an aide or a crony of a cronies that would
come on stage and say, sire, they're waiting for you,
you know that kind of stay. And I sat there
and at that point I thought maybe I was going
to be an actor. I really never thought about it
(05:48):
much because in sheep said, baby Brooklyn, you didn't have
any dreams of that kind. Of stuff going on other
than Carol, who knew she was going to be a star.
God bless her. But anyway, so they sent me off
to with Roy Levine to Midbird. In Midbird I met
an actor named Andy Robinson who played the Aquarius killer
in Dirty Harry. That was his big right and we
(06:11):
became very good friends. And he one day was going
to join a LaMaMa troop at Lomama, which was one
of the great experimental theaters. Yes, yes, so he called
me up and said, come on, you want to join
LaMaMa with me? And I at that point had had
a nervous breakdown because I realized I couldn't become an actor.
I wasn't good enough. I had no idea what these
people were doing that made them so good. But it
(06:32):
was a hell of a cast that had Stacy Keach
and Rue McClanahan and cleveonn Little and Bill Devane at
Bardy who were just coming out of colleges all over
America who were politically inspired to do this particular show
about Lyndon Johnson. So that was that. So Andy got
me to LaMaMa. And Andy was also the key to
something I didn't so I couldn't really act much at
(06:54):
LaMaMa because even in the troop I was in, I
was not one of the good actors. So Andy at
one point wrote a play called Last Chance Saloon, and
he decided I was going to direct it. Now he
had never seen me direct anything. I had only directed
one thing in my life, and I thought that if
I didn't direct this, the troop was going to break up,
and Lumama was becoming very important to me. So I said, okay,
(07:15):
I'll direct it. Well, the damn thing played the west
coast of London, it played all over Europe. It became
a major hit. I came back to America. I was
a director. Oh my go now I was directing. I
still had no goals. There were just no goals involved
with this. I didn't know that there was any place
you could go with this kind of a thing. But
I was a director, and I directed the LaMaMa Plexus group.
(07:36):
We were called in a number of shows, and one
of the shows I was also teaching at the time,
and I was teaching at Queen's College and Wheaton College
and Brooklyn College and all over the place. This theoretical
work that my LaMaMa troop was doing, which if you
know or don't know. It's based on the work of
Jersey Grotowsky, who were in the Polish lab theater, and
he had this idea that if you trained actors like athletes,
(07:59):
so they could stay in the moment and not think
about whether they have craft or no craft, or what
their craft is about. Somehow, that's what you aspired to
get him in the moment, which was one of the
things that was phenomenal with you guys, because you were
always in the moment. You had no idea, there wasn't
a moment.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
I mean as kids, that's that I look at kids
all the time and I just there.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
I was out at a restaurant the other day and
this kid was just twirling around.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
What I was like, Oh, to be so in the moment,
and but.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Like, that's the goal as an actor, right is to
just be so free.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
That's amazing. So basically, once I had picked up that
little information, I realized that I would say I became
a director and directed a number of shows for US
and taught at various colleges. In one of the colleges
I taught at was Queen's College, and one of the
kids who am a student of mind three of them.
Actually students of mind were Lowe Gans, Mark Rothman, and
Greg Antonacci. Now they Greg Antonacci, who was a tough
(08:52):
little Italian kid, basically just infused himself into my Lemama workshops.
He wasn't invited, He just showed up and basically Greg
wrote a show called Dance with Me, which I directed, choreographed,
and was in. By the way, that's something you want
to do again? It was really questionable.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Yeah that's I'm like, wow that that yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
The hill rate. I got a Tony nomination for Best
Choreography and a Drama Desk nomination for Best Director of
a Musical. So but and Greg. Meanwhile, through Mark Rothman
and Lowell Gans, who had already made it out to
Hollywood with their own story of connections, he went out
to Hollywood to play a running role in Laverne and Shirley,
and eventually he moved on to a continuing role in
(09:36):
It was an Adam Arkham Adam Arkhams show a past
eighty you Lose names, but it was an Adam busting.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Busting lotten screwed then because I can't remember now, I
know you were in good shape.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
So we did Busting Loose together and I came out
to visit him because I had done a show a
review that was playing in Chicago for a year and
then moved on to Las Vegas in another production. So
I was about forty minutes out of Los Angeles by playing,
and I had some time, so I thought I'd come
out and visit Greg and see what's going on. And
at that point, so Greg, so, I'm watching these rehearsals
(10:10):
for a couple of weeks in the stand, just watching
these rehearsals, and doesn't seem like it seems like a
little play for a twenty two minute play. So basically
Greg gets in his head you that I should direct
the sitcom. And I said to Greg, wait a second,
I'm a theater director. I don't direct sitcom.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
And he said, well, if sitcom really is theater theater.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
I finally found that out as I got myself inebriated
that night and got myself thinking, wait a second. First
of all, you don't know if they're going to get
the job, too. You don't know if you'd like the
job once you get it. So basically they got to
do the paint. One of my major beliefs was that
you just got to take the shots. You can't turn
down opportunities because it may not be in exactly the
(10:57):
direction you wanted to go, but it may eventually get
you to that place just taking a different route. But
the fact that since I didn't have any goals anyway,
it didn't make any difference to me what I was doing.
So he set me up at this meeting at Paramount
with this lady named Judy Copage, a very nice lady
who was running casting for Powamount for directors getting them
placed on the Paramount shows in that day. So I
(11:19):
went into her and literally, this is an interview you
cannot do today. And I'm not sure how I got
away with it at that time, but I walked in.
I said, listen, I'm not going to tell you that
I can direct sitcom because I've never directed a sitcom,
but I was watching for the last couple of weeks
and in my estimation and monkey can direct sitcoms. And
she looked at me, she said and made a call
immediately to this guy Tony bar at CBS and said,
(11:41):
I've got this guy. I wanted to direct an episode
of Busting Loose. And that was my interview, and I
basically had this episode of Busting Loose, and now the
producers were concerned, well, you know, he's never done anything.
So Greg said, I'll tell you what. I'll write a
script and he'll direct my script. And so he was
living at that time with Annie Potts Lovely any yes,
(12:02):
oh yes, And so basically was a showby that was
hopefully going to be a pilot for her for Annie
Potts and Greg and Tanacci. So I directed it and
it went fairly well, and I icily started to figure
out the craft. I worked with the editor. I couldn't
care about anybody else. The editor would tell me, no, no,
you can't go from that shot to that shot. You
can't do that. This is the way it goes. Because
(12:22):
in those days we were using what was called the
three headed movieola because it was all film and tape.
Yet by the time you got around we were on tape.
But essentially and basically was just three things learned. He'd
mark out the cuts from from from real to real,
and so I learned the idea of how this was supposed.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
To go, which I mean that for directing for TV
and film, that's really what it is is knowing what
you what shot you have to get because you're like, oh, well,
we can go from here to hear. But if you
have no connective tissue and you don't see how the
person got from over here over here, all of a
sudden they teleport and it looks really weird. And those
are the things that like, you don't think about that
(12:59):
you have to. It's not the theater where you can
see everything. You have to make sure that people's eyes
are going, where the action is.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
In the right direction, absolutely correct. So basically I realized
that what I've always been was I finally realized that
I was a systems person. I was in a visionary.
You don't have to be a visionary to do Full
House Family Matters or any of those shows, but a
system person helps finding out the most efficient way to
do the work that needs to be done. And part
(13:28):
of that was I started to believe that the key
was to let everybody be the best they can be,
not to tell them what to do, but enable them
to be the best. They could be very easy with
kids because they're gonna do what they're gonna do, you know,
But when it gets to adults, Yeah, how do you
don't direct John Stamos or Bob Dagger or Coo Yer.
There's no direct for these people.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Well, I mean, for many reasons, there was no directing them.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
But I actually I told the story.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
To someone the other day of the time, that that you,
we all got in trouble, and that yes, yes, you
were so pissed at every well you were so pissed
at the adults, but.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
You you know, you went that's it.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Everybody upstairs up to the you know, to the conference room,
and so the whole cast.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Went bitting around, including the baby. Everyone was like, okay,
so we showed up. Joel walks in the room, He's like,
not the kids, not the kids. They're fine, The kids
are doing fine.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
To the adults, I couldn't do what I wanted to
do the kids were in the room. But the fact
is I had a great story about you, Jody. I
don't know if you're aware of the story, because it's
a wonderful story. It was basically, we were doing an
episode of something at this time. You couldn't have been
much more than five and a half years old. Maxim
so his first season kind of stuff, and we're about
to do your scene you were in and I get
(14:49):
a quote she's not available she's in the bathroom. I said,
what do you mean, she's in the bathroom. I'm about
to do a scene. Go go knock on the door
and tell her to get out of the bathroom. So
somebody goes to knocks on the door and Jody get
out of the bathroom. I'm not finished, that's what they hear.
I'm not finished. So basically he came back out and said,
she says she's not finished. I said, well, you go
(15:10):
tell her to get finished and come out immediately. And
they went back and he knocked again, and you said
to the door, listen, if you come by to knock
one more time, I'm not coming out at all. And
it was at that point that I realized that the
entire industry was run by the children. That basically, if
a child is in a bathroom and needs to go potty,
you cannot see this. The scene is over.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
You're working with children and animals. What needs to happen
needs to happen, and.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
That's in the order that it needs to happen. So
that was, yes, that was it taught me the loss.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
My god, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
The enormous industry is running and this one girl is
stopping the industry simply because she's going to the bathroom.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
I had to go, yeah, I guess a good potty.
You'll call it a ten to one.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
But maybe you were taking a ten too.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I mean, who knows. I was five and a half.
Whatever needed to happen, he happened.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
That's right. But I loved your attitude about the fact
you knock one more time.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
I'm not knock one more time, and you know on
that that's just who I am. You've asked me one
more time, didn't see how it goes one more time.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
You haven't changed to Joe. It's good to know, though.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
It's good to hear those stories where I go, oh, no,
this is that's just my true self.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
That's exactly who you were at any rate. So that
was it. So I started working sitcoms primarily because I
was lucky in that the first thing I got to
do was busting loose and pretty much out of the
Gary Marshall chain, right, and so so I was doing
there was nothing else for me to do. I went
back to New York, I did a play, which was
(16:34):
a disaster, and then I came back to California because
I wrote to Lowe gans and Mark Ruthman saying, listen,
I'm thinking of coming out again. You're think you got
any work for me, because they thought they did pretty
good on The Busting Loose and they were doing at
that time a new show that Ted Knight was doing,
coming off of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, right the
Ted Night Show, And so basically they gave me an
(16:54):
episode to direct and to keep me around. They allowed
me to actually act in an episode where I played
a bunny farmer, Yes, a bunny farmer, a farmer that
actually raises bunnies. And it was a dating show, you know,
one of those things. So basically, so I was doing
some various there's ten minute things we used to do
that were to try to sell a pilot before we
(17:17):
did the entire thing. And I was doing something that
eventually turned out to be Angie but when I with
Donna pescal But when I did it, it was just
a ten minute No, I don't know what the hell
it was, but I did it. And at the end
of the thing, I came out and this big tall
man comes up to me and says, I let you work,
and I said, well, thank you. I had no idea
who he was. He says, I'm going to give you
a shot with the girls next season. And I had
(17:40):
no idea who the girls were, and I still had
no idea who this guy was. But it was Gary
Marshall offering me a chance to direct Laverne and Shirley,
And so I found out, Oh yeah, So I had
to go home and I had to research what the
hell all this was because I'd never seen a sitcom,
particularly a theater. Person in New York is not sitting
home watching, you know, the Merry Time the More Show. Particularly,
(18:01):
So they gave me a shot and I went back
and I was directing the first the third season of
Lavernon Shirley when it was the number one show in America. Wow,
I mean that you can't that when that happens, it's
just what are the art? But at any rate, it
worked out well for me because the girls, who you
don't tell what to do either. You didn't tell Penny
and Cindy how to make I mean, you had to
(18:23):
be out of your mind to try to do that.
So they liked me because I had a New York energy,
and they taught me the system, especially Penny Marshall taught
me the system. She would walk on to a stage
or they were never around because of the fact that
they were in the middle of the fight of the
lives for women, they were not getting equal salaries with men.
Suzanne Seckers had started a huge fura and Penny and
(18:46):
Cindy joined in, and they were in major fights with
Power Amount and with ABC about the fact that they
were the number one show in America and were making
half the salary of Henry Winkler and Ron Howard. Right. Wow.
They were never around for rehearsals. So basically there was
no rehearsals in the morning. They come in at that
we come into twelve o'clock and we work from twelve
to one, and then we do the run through at
(19:08):
two o'clock and that was it. So Penny would come in,
the scene would be said. He'd come in, She'd say, Okay,
this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put my
bag here, I'm putting my jacket here, I'm going to
the kitchen. I'm getting a coc and milk or whatever
that pepsi and milk things she used to drink. And
then I'm going to pick up my coat, pick up
my bag and out the door, and Cindy knew to
just follow along, and that's what she did. And she
(19:29):
never walked on a joke. She always walked on the laugh.
She waited for the laugh and walked laugh and walk
laugh and hit every mark and then was out the
door and it was all over, and basically the same
thing happened. You can't tell Lenny and Squiggy what to
do with the hell well Lenny and Squiggy anyway. You
know that the only people I honestly believed at that point,
(19:50):
the first people that got the rights to their own
names in order to should Penny it's Penny, because Penny
was dating Rob Marshall, Rob Ryan and they were friends
of Rob Reiners. So she went to see a show
with Lenny and Squiggy and said, oh, I want them
on lavern and Shirley. So she came back to the
network and said, I want these guys on Laverne and Shirley.
(20:11):
And the guys would only do it if they could
maintain the rights to the names Lenny and Squiggy, and
they did, and when the show was over, they went
out and toured as Lenny and the squig Tones, and.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Oh, that's wow.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
And then was it through doing Laverne and Shirley then
that you made some of the connections that led you
to Full House.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Yes, basically that's exactly how it transferred. I did to
Laverne and Shirley, and then during that period of time
I did a few Mork and Mindy's and then went
on and did the pilot of Boos and Buddies, and
that was pretty interesting because Tom Hanks was a wonderer.
I had no idea how a guy twenty one years
old with absolutely no credits, he was working as an
(20:53):
understudy in an off Broadway theater in a cold water flat,
he used to say, and basically he got an audition
and they got he got the role. But he we
saw myself. I don't understand how somebody at twenty one
with no work. He wasn't a.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Child, but you know, probably the same way that somebody
with no directing experience walking and says, I don't know
what I'm doing, but hey, let's give it a shot.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
So basically, so I did. Those are the big three
that I did at that particular first juncture of my career,
and then through that i'd met Gary Marshall. Of course,
because they'd done some stuff with him and Barbo yet
and they were going to launch Full House, and I
got they told me they wanted me to direct the pilot,
and I thought, oh wow, okay, this is going to
(21:36):
be fun. You know, children and all. But it was
a great show for me because remember I was raising
Jamie and Hillary at the same rate and the same age.
You paperwork, so every one of your classrooms my kids
are in. Oh yeah, virtually every executive who would.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Jamie and Hillary's wick should have gotten a title card
at some point in one of the seasons.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Really for that special appearance by.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Where your seek was, because it was always next.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
To Hill, exactly right and right there.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, she could make faces and do stuff that she
needed to do to staill alive in the scenes, you know,
like when Michelle comes in climbing under the desks and
she's you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
What do you do you remember anything about directing the pilot,
Like do you remember thinking this show is going to
be a hit or the like, or this show is
going to tank?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Like what were what did you.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
I thought the reputation of Miller boy Y had had
a real good chance because at that time the major
producers could pretty well get their shows on the air.
How long they lasted is another thing. But remember we
started that pilot. You should know that without Bob Saggett
did that pilot with a different actor, a very nice
actor by the way.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah we have, Yeah, we talked about it. We've shown
his picture we had.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
I found an original picture from the pilot that we
had taken with John Posey, like all in character that
was sitting on the mantle and it was John Posey,
the woman who played Pam, and a random not an
Olsen twin and me and Candae. That was like a
family photo that was on the mantle in the very
first But yeah, we were looking through it we found
(23:19):
that on the show.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I actually have that pilot.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Oh yeah, yeah, I actually.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Have the pilot. So what happened was when when when
when our friend Jeff Franklin went to the network said,
I've always written this thing for Bob Saggot, and Saggot
wasn't available when we did Department because he was doing
some comedy shtick for CBS or something five minutes of
news in the morning. So once he was available, Jeff said,
I want to put Saggott in the role even though yeah,
Posey was a very fine actor, but Saggot was the
(23:45):
key he wanted.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
So, and you know, it's interesting, like going back and
starting and watching the show from the beginning, it really
like it. You see it It was Bob was the
right he had that he had that sort of nerd but.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Loving but like he just was a dad. Like he was.
He was the epitome of like dad jokes, you know, funny.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
He knew how to do funny.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
And he knew yes, exactly funny. He knew how to
do funny. But yeah, what I mean he.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Was the heart.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
Had you, uh, directed kids often in your career up
until that point because everything I'm hearing herring more community,
I'm not hearing a lot of kids and.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Kids at that point. I do not think they were
kids at that point. But we were, you know, we
had some big help on the kids that had Adria.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
We had Adria was our last guest on the show
we had and all of her amazingness.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
But yeah, what was it like working with kids? Were
was it like.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
A whole new like oh this is I mean, you
had kids, but like trying to direct kids, we.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Had a system and the system was very smart. We
had stand ins for every one of you kids, and
the scenes would be rehearsed with the stand ins. You know,
he knew the scene means. And then the stand ins
would give you your blocking for this, and then you
had we had Brian Cale was there as a dialog approach.
We have.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Yes, we've talked about the infamous Brian Kle that's right.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
And Brian was the one who basically had to pass
on to you information that I thought you needed, right,
information that he notes. Yep, I have a good story
with Brian to you in a second. The fact is
that so you had we packaged up, well, there was
a system that was in place that really was smart.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
Well, you know, I find sitcoms tend to I mean
that's you know, the joke has always never take a
sitcom out of the stage, because sitcoms have we it
is like a it's a it's a system.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
You've got this rehearsal, you've got you know, you.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Kind of always know what you're doing where and how
and what Your schedule is very much.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Very organized down.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, it's kind of great.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
If we were all in school till noon, Yeah, nobody.
I didn't see any of you till noon. Now I
didn't see any of you till after lunch was about
one o'clock. We'd start to put together and eventually we
were able to give run throughs at like three o'clock.
They were used to five o'clock run throughs because we
do it scene twice and move on scene twice, because
I believe the actors should take responsibility for the work
(26:10):
they're gonna do, and beating him to death by having
a scene being done three, four or five times in rehearsal,
you've lost it by the time they want to get
on cameras. So yeah, I decided being fresh could do
some things, you know. But anyway, Brian Cale, this is
an interesting story about Brian Kale actually auditioned for a
role in mcbird, and I was an assistant stage manager,
(26:31):
so I'd been in his auditions and I thought, what
is an interesting guy? You know? And then it has
to be fifteen twenty years later, I'm now on stage
doing Dance with Me, a show, like I said, A directed, choreographed,
and was basically had the third lead in and I
had to get out of that show because once again
I knew I wasn't an actor. I mean, Dance with
(26:51):
Me was if nineteen fifties throwback musical. So we did
all the work I did with Carol and the co signs,
all the songs we did. Matter of fact, I used
two of Carol's songs, not even know where there were
Carol songs at the time. But I looked at Brian
and I said, you you're going to replace me. He said, huh.
I said you're going to replace me and dance with me?
(27:11):
He said what? I said, Yes, You're going on to Broadway.
Get ready, we're going into rehearsals tomorrow. So he was
a He was a much better actor than I was,
for sure, And it was so interesting to see a
role that I just naturally did because I just did it. Actually,
Brian had acted. He had to find the acting route
that had to play the character. He knew the staging,
(27:33):
he knew the dance numbers, he knew everything, but he
had to find an active route playing the character. I
just opened my mouth and I was the character. But
I did find out and in watching the run through
with Brian in the thing, I looked at that show
and I said, oh my god, if I wasn't in
it to begin with, there's at least five things that
would never show up on stage. There were some stuff
(27:54):
that I had in that show that I would have
never allowed if I was watching it as a director,
you know, but we survived.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
The perspective is interesting, you know, like when you kind
of shit, you're like, oh, it looks very different on
this side.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, ooh does it ever? Because from the inside it
felt like everything was moving along smoothly. It was a
little it was a wild show. It was a bit
out of control. I mean, there was times that things
got out of hand, but the fact is that I
was on stage, so I get them under control. I mean,
I'd want one actor who came a wonderful writer in Hollywood, Steu' Silver.
Stuve Silver wrote for a number of shows and created
(28:30):
a number of shows himself. Webster was one of his
shows he created. But anyway, Wow, So Stu was outrageously funny,
but trutally out of control. So the only way I
could get him in control was and he started to
go into one of his this crazy monologues about being
a blind man, and he put up one finger and say,
what do I know? This could be a three? And
(28:52):
you just go on and on until I walked over
and basically smacked him in the face to shut him up,
and we go on with the show and the great
moment on dancing. I have to tell this, when I
got the nomination for the choreography, Tony and I didn't
have a dancer in that company. There was nobody in
that company could dance their way out of anything. So
(29:12):
I remember the dressing room saying before the show tonight,
we're gonna go out there and we're gonna dance like
we've never danced before. We are going to give this
audience the dances they've never seen before. And we went
out on the show and the first number we do
is based a Carol King number called the Locomotion. Everybody's
doing the brand in a train heading downtown. So chugging
(29:34):
downstage and I chugged right off the front of the stage,
out of sight, turned around, made a one eighty, and
when chugged being back with the rest of the cast.
But the cast couldn't look at me for the rest
of the show. They all remember they saw this.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
So you're like, this is gonna be the greatest show ever.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
And then what it was. It was a good moment
at any rate that was the dance from period of time.
And then then sitcoms took over, and look like I said,
ran into the Marshall organization with Boyette and Miller, right,
and I got a chance to do their shows, which
was you know, perfect, strangest family matters, step by step,
that whole TG I f lineup. I kept on moving along,
(30:16):
you know, and we brought in Rich Correll, who became
a very good friend because Rich, you know, was a
producer on the pilot A full House.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Yeah, that's right, because he was produced I remember he.
I met Rich when I did Valerie because he was
a producer on Valerie.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
So I met him then.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
And then basically when basically I was stuck with I
don't know, I don't know. Did he do full houses
at the beginning? I don't remember, because I do, Yeah,
yeah he did.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
He was the one that went up and scouted the
house and found out it was the it was the
his sister's ex boyfriend or something that owned the house
that they randomly knocked on the door that became the
full house house.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
So again, connections, connections, connections.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
So anyway that I knew he took when I couldn't
when I moved from Family Matters to to Full House.
In the last four years, I took over the final
four or five seasons of Full House. He went on
too Family Matters and basically and I saw basically we
were together for a long time, and then we both
go into Disney Channel in the later years. It's another
(31:18):
story because basically I decided that I was watching the
careers and the name of the business changed. The change
when we went to videotape. When you were on a
three camera film thing, the only people who knew what
being shot was the directors and the camera operators, and
at the end of every scene, the camera opera would
say I missed that close, sup, I missed this, I
need that again, or they'd say perfectly me, it's gone.
(31:40):
And the producers had no idea what was in the
can or not in the camp Then tape.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
Yeah, because there's no I mean, there's no video village,
there's no monitors.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Then all of a sudden, the tape comes along and
the concept of video village comes along, and at that
point the producers are.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
I want to see right then, I want to see
what's happening right now. I have ideas and thought oh yeah, No.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
That made it very tough that all of a sudden,
the producers were all sitting there saying, well, you need
a close up someone, So I said, I shot it already.
No you didn't. I didn't see it. But because you
didn't see it didn't mean I didn't shoot it. No, no,
but they shoot it again. So the number of things
that we reshot that had no business to be reshot
because they couldn't see all four cameras particularly well that fast. Yet,
(32:21):
and as they got better and better, it became apparent
that they didn't really want to have a consistent director
on their shows. They wanted directors.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
It became it became a producers mediums.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
And because of that, if you didn't do the work
that the producers wanted, you just didn't get to do
that directing job again.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Which is a film is much more directing media it's
the director is in control, but TV it's all about
the producers.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Yeah, and if the producers are the writers, it's even worse.
But the fact that they started to take it on,
you didn't find that there were too many people that
were going to be directing every episode of shows anymore.
You would do three of three of that and two
of this and two of that. You just move along.
And I had spent the first whatever twenty years doing
sitcoms being the director of the series, so I was
(33:10):
not particularly overjoyed with that kind of thing, and it
kind of felt that the career, which had leveled off,
was starting to see its beginning of its dip. So
I was I thought, maybe it's time to get the
hell out. So I remember calling up Hanks and I
said to Hanks, I got an idea that I think
maybe I want to go into directing movies, comedy movies,
(33:30):
because maybe a comedy director in a comedy movie might
be funny. And I sent him a script I wanted
him to read, and he read it and gave me
dutiful notes and said, but why are you doing this?
I said, because I'm getting out of TV Tom, And
he said, oh, really, that's great, because I have something
I want you to direct. And I said what, And
he sends me the script of my big fat Greek Wedding. Wow,
(33:52):
sends me the script of my Big Factory. I would
have directed the phone Book if he asked me.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
To, right, Yeah, So those connections, I I think Tom
Hanks came to I think he came to set one
day to visit you actually say hi.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yeah, yeah. Truly as nice a man as he was
purported to be, you couldn't act that level of niceness.
You truly couldn't. But essentially, so that was it, and
I got Greek Wedding, and then I spent about ten
years doing I did Greek Wedding, fat Albert and Elvis
had left the building. The best one was probably Elvis. Well,
(34:32):
other than Greek Wedding, Elvis left the Building was a
very good show. But the problem was the producers of
this show got sick and so they couldn't spend any
time trying to sell the show. So they sold it
off to markets where it could be on airports and
airplanes and stuff like that. Never got its share. But
so it was over and I don't know what he
(34:53):
was going to do. And then all of a sudden,
I go and take Hillary to lunch. At this point,
Hillary is working as an executive secretary of for the
guy who is doing all the hiring at the at
the Disney Channel, and basically, so I took it to
lunch and we brought her in and I said hello
to the guy, and then I left and he says
to Hillary, Hillary, you never mentioned that your father was
(35:15):
Joel's wick and she said, yeah, yeah, here's my father, Joel.
Do you think you can get Joel to direct some
episodes of sitcoms for the Disney Channel? So she said,
I'll try, and so she calls me up. She says, Dad,
they're wondering if you would direct any episodes of any
whatever the show is going to be at that particular
point for the Disney Channel. And I said, Hillary, do
(35:36):
you think it's going to help your career? And she
said I think it made I said, well, if you
think it might, you tell them that I will direct
anything you tell me to direct. There you go, and
there I was starting to work for the Disney Channel
until about, oh, I guess about five or six months
into the run, when they found out that Hillary was
my daughter, and that was a no no at Disney.
(35:59):
I must have been put in simply because I was
her father, right, And so they called up IRV and
said I think we have to let him go and
her said why. He said, well because family. I said
have you seen his IMDb? And they said, well no,
I said, check his IMDb. They checked my IMDb and
they said, okay, I think we can make it work.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
I'd never mind, actually mind.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
This would be work on. And then I just hung on.
And luckily my biggest thing was Zendia Zendaya. I had
Zendea for seven years.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
That's right, you did that. You did her show?
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah, I did both Shake it Up and then I
did Casey Undercover. So I watched her move from a
fourteen year old to a twenty one year old essentially
during that time, and knew that this was a very
nice lady, super bright, great parents, all that kind of stuff,
and she had talent she.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Could, yeah, super talented.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
So I thought, let's see where this takes her. Because
she was told she was beautiful. You know, we were
afraid in doing the show that she she edged out
at five ten and a half. Her father six two,
her mother is six four and a half.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Oh wow, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
It's so told that she'd be out of the business
by being just too tall for the business, right, But
luckily she never grew pissed.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
Zoe is five to ten now, by the way, my
older daughter, Oh my, she just grew a little bit
more shot. Yeah, maybe five nine and three quarter, but
she's tall.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Yeah, that's tall. That is tall for me, virtually anybody's.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I know, Well, that's true. Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
I had the great Dantagy.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
But you pack a lot of punch in a small package,
you know what I mean. There's everyone knows when Joel's entered.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
The room speaking.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
So speaking of so, I have a story, and I
wonder if you remember this triggered something when you said
talked about disney World, because we you were our director
for the episodes that we shot disney World, which I
would love to hear about two because I'm sure that
was its own special kind of hell, trying to shoot
in an amusement park with everyone standing there watching and
(38:06):
not make it look like everyone's standing there watching. Yes,
but I remember, I don't know you you you had
flown off the handle about something you were passed about
because you were dealing with people and us and cast
and and just an all manner of things, and I
don't know, you screamed about something, and I remember I was,
(38:27):
I was like.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Joe's so mean, He's so I just hate him. I
would hate to be his kid. I hate to be
Hillary or Jamie Famous hate him. And like they went
on in this whole thing.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
And then I believe it was might have been Brian
Cale came over and gently reminded me that I was miked.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
I all video village, could hear you?
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Yeah, And I was like whoops.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
I was like yeah, and I but I remember that
I was yeah and uh.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
At some point I think I I was like, sorry.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Y, yeah, I was. I was capable of going off
the handle on small things. Anything large has to be handled.
You don't have the time, you know what.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
I totally relate to that.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Like little things, I'm like, oh my god, ah, but
like the entire world's falling apart.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
I'm like, all right, cool, let's do this exactly right,
same thing, exactly what it was. You just didn't have
any time for nonsense. If there was a real problem,
I mean there was just you know quotes, I would
do it. And I do remember that going to tape
and I'd be up in a booth. And Jay Sandrich
basically who directed Mary Tyler Moore, who's one of the
major directors in the just the generation before us, he
(39:42):
used to use a clicker, little clicker.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
I remember, oh, I remember your clicker.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
And yes, snapping and I remember that I got the
clicker down and I thought that was pretty By.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
The way, the clicker, just for those who are listening,
the clicker is the thing, and some people snap, but
it's what you as a director, you used.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Signal in between shots.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Yes, cut hats is what you used to cut with.
So I remember Jimmy Burrows, who turned out to be
the dean as far as concern of sitcom directing. He
was working me over about oh, misters, Wick can't snap,
he has to use a clicker, has to use a clicker.
And then one day he gets to do his first
taped pilot and he's in the booth and his fingers freeze.
(40:22):
He can no longer click. It's all gone. He's gotten
through one scene and his fingers as jammed up on him.
He got a call in the booth work I think
I was doing Webster at the time, and he said, Joel,
do you have an extra clicker and go over to
his booth and hand him my second clicker because you
had to have a backup clicker, right right, But that
was an interesting period.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Of Oh yeah, I remember, I remember just hearing that.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
Little that's right. But the background, Lauren, it was so
interesting in a number of instances because remember we didn't
have anything any kind of internet, no capability. There was
no way of noting what the hell was going on
for the moment.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
This is all yeah, pre cell phone, pre internet days.
It was like when we shot in Hawaii and we
all went to the wrong.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Beach, but nobody knew because there was no way.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
To call anybody from one place on the other end.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
So like half of us went to the wrong beach.
It was the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
And that was in Hawaii, But yeah, I can only
imagine in Disney World trying to communicate things well.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
So basically we were there and it was interesting because
it was the first time I think the cast understood that,
certainly the children understood that they were stars. All of
a sudden, there's places surrounded by people who were just watching,
where everything you do and we're on the front line
of every rod we wanted to go on. All those
things are being treated, and even the big scenes where
(41:43):
the public was watching, and I was begging and.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Getting this, please keep walking, stop staring.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
All I let them stare or make believe you're talking
to each other, and then I'd shoot because our children,
you know, I think that was the one where that
was the one where Michelle decided she was wandering off
because she was not happy with what was going on.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
She becomes Princess for the day or whatever.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
She becomes prince and we had the tea party. And
I don't know, I don't know whether you would know
about this or not. But wait, the guy playing pass out. Yes,
the white rabbit passed out. The white rabbit passed out.
And you cannot take off the costume of a Disney
employee playing a character.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
Until they are well backstage and away from the view
of the public.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
That's exactly right. So they take this guy and they
brought in a replacement white rabbit, and the scene with
his right rabbit from the lat.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
From from Bunny Farmer to white Rabbit. Letok, you go.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
You weren't allowed to tell these Disney characters what to do.
I remember the one scene where Laurie was on a
thing waiting with Chippendale. She's talking to Kipndale about the
fact that she's waiting for stay mus and Uncle Jesse
has not arrived or something. And basically I couldn't tell
Chippendale what to do. There would except no direction. They
would stay.
Speaker 4 (43:01):
The direction would just chatter off, you know, I've heard,
I've heard chipmunks are notoriously difficult.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
To deal That's right, very difficult. Even after chipmunks are difficult.
That was a tough scene because they just wanted they
would just jabber and Laurie did great. She just held
on to the whole thing pretty good. But that was
that was a good experience. That particular thing down there
that was fun was.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
Was that, like, I mean, as far as like location shoots,
was that one of your well, now you've done like
big fat Greek wedding and stuff, but up until that point,
like Greek one was after, but up until that point,
had you done a bit pretty much.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
That was pretty much the biggest location thing. We did
another one at the Tanka Verdi Dude Ranch. There was
a Tanka Verdi show where that was also outside location
kind of a thing. And then the sitcoms and were
starting to develop where they would get one seed case.
Seinfeld did that kite quite well with the coffee shop
(44:01):
and then the walks on the streets leading to the
So basically people start to write as used to write
in one scene or something that might be on some
kind of a location, so you did. But basically I
shot him like a sitcom.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
I no, yeah, I feel like most of our unless
we went out for something very specific, we were usually
on the stage and again in our little system and
in our.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Going right from school to your lunch, where all three
of you used to follow Bob Saggi around just like
his own three kids. It was a funny thing in
the world. You know, famous had a great relationship with Mary,
Kate and Ashley. But the fact was that Sagged was
the father of the group and if he was something,
you see all the three of you in size place
order marching along to Bob's to something or other, and
(44:50):
that was kind of cool. And the fact that he
had three daughters exactly the same aid because you was
insane and that had something for Andrew to the thing
that struck me with Anne, which she was the first
person that I knew that was being put into put
being put into full house whose entire responsibility was to
be funny. Everybody else had stories to tell. Everybody else
(45:13):
was a real child of something or other. Uh. Yes,
Cooier was a bit out of his mind and was
being given the freedom to kind of go with certain things.
That made him happy. But the fact is, when Andrew
came in, it was the first one who came in.
Simply the job was you gotta be funny. Other than that,
you had some stories that were interesting.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
But you did.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
We kind of mention this that Kimmy was a slightly
underdeveloped character, but she had some great singers.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
She had fabulous dingers, and yes, every once in a
while you'd see her in her relationship with Candace where
you could see that there was a story that was
worth being told. But the is that she was still
a nut job in the story, you know, because she
stood up for so many things. You know there's anything
wrong to be said, Angie, Barbara got to say it
(45:58):
is Kimmy, you know, so I do remember that was
a big help. All of a sudden, you knew that
when she was coming in she's fighting you all the time.
You're consistent documents.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Yeah, very true. Frenemies in this Yes, in the show.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
We feel extremely lucky to have worked with a director
as talented as Joel and we are so glad we
had this opportunity to ask him all about his career,
his time on full House and Fuller House and everything
else in between, so make sure and join us for
part two of our interview with Joel's Wick.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
We're very excited to tell.
Speaker 4 (46:29):
You more, and in the meantime, make sure you're following
us on Instagram at how Rude Podcast. Make sure you're
liking and subscribing to the podcast wherever you're listening so
that you can make sure and get the newest episodes
as soon as they come out. And we will see
you next time for another episode of How Rude. Tanner
Rito's and remember the world is small, but the house
(46:49):
is full.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Boom. That was a little too polished. I don't even
know who you are right now. I don't either,
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