November 18, 2024 • 57 mins
Even after 2 years of weekly podcasts, somehow the gang is still learning about how their show was made! And this week is no different when they talk to Andy Guerdat, an emergency freelance writer hired when the room ran out of ideas.
Andy shares the stories behind his two Season 5 scripts, “A Very Topanga Christmas” and “Fraternity Row,” and takes us into the writer’s room to explain his unorthodox addition.
We hear all about Andy’s contribution to another iconic sitcom and his continuing legacy on kids’ shows like Paw Patrol & Fancy Nancy. It’s time to dig into a writer whose time on BMW may have been short, but his impact has lasted forever.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:19):
Will.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I am devastated that I have to ask you this
question because I was supposed to be there with you
to enjoy it myself, I know, but Jensen and I
were not able to join you and Susan on the
double date to Yamava. Jensen had surgery earlier in the
week and was not ready for a long drive. I know,
Nate bargatzi at Yammava with you. Tell me how was it?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
How one? How was the steakhouse? Two? How was the show? Three?
How was the venue?
Speaker 4 (00:47):
You missed? You both missed them?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It was.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
It was a pretty great night. It really was.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
Because first of all, I'd never been to the Amavah before.
Huh me neither, And it's like two or three years old,
so it's brand new. I mean when I say there
was not a piece of paper on the floor. It
was the cleanest casino I've ever been in in my life.
It is spotless, The rooms gorgeous. They took care of us,
(01:12):
you know, checked us in and we get right to
our room, and then they brought us up to this
bar and that's where we got to meet everybody that
everybody from the Yamavas staff, and it was just so cool.
I was thinking of both of you the whole time
I was there, because the first thing they're like, they
came in and they said, oh, we've got this.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
I think it's called the eighty three.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
It's like this list of all of these top shelf
alcohols that have been collected all around the world, so
it's like some of them are from one hundred years ago.
Someone's like they're working on cultivating this list of really
specialty drinks where they told us, they go, oh, no,
we have a five thousand dollars margarita what where it's
(01:51):
like a specialty kind of you know, old school tequila
in with the gold rimmed and the glass. You get
to keep the glass and it's like a Versace glass
or Gucci glass, like some specific kind of handcut thing.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
And then as we're leaving, a.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Guy's like, excuse me, but I love the podcast, big
fan of the show, and I thought you would really
like to see this because I think this is something
Rider would love. And they go to so they have
these lockers all set up with you can join this
club where if you have specialty alcohol, they go into
the locker thing and.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
They'll save it for you. But then he goes watch this, and.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
He reaches behind this thing and he presses a button,
the secret button, and the whole front opens up and
there's a speakeasy inside that's Now you're in a walk
in humidor with cigars from all over the world that's
only has four little tables in there.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
And oh, this is the rider Strong room right here.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
And then we go down to the casino and I'm like,
and now we're in Daniel, so top of the line
spa it was, we could they then they brought us
to the steakhouse and they were doing the first the
specialty they thing they had that night was it was
a pasta courus that's cooked and burned off in the
(03:05):
cheese wheel.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Oh, I love it when they do it in the
cheese wheel.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
So they brought the big parmesan wheel out in front
of our table. Yeah, they burn off the vodkas, homemade
pichi bukatini, which is like my favorite, like the thick
kind of spaghetti, all just in this amazing possible. That
was our appetizer, and then you're picking all the steaks
you want. We had these perfectly cooked steaks, and then
(03:28):
we went to the show twenty five hundred seat theater.
Gorgeous theater, wonderful seats right at the top. Nate Bargatzi.
This is the end of his tour. He'd been doing
this big, long tour and this is the very last episode.
His openers were great, but then he got on.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
He did like a ninety minute set. He was up
there forever, just by himself.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
He crushed it soon and I then tried to gamble,
which we suck at. I mean, we walked around with
money in our hands, going, I don't know what to
play because when we go to the slot machines, all
the slot machines are just you put your money and
it sucks it in like you've never owned it. And
then I don't know what's happening, and then all the
money's God, it was like, I don't know what the
(04:07):
hell just happened. So we were tried to sit at
a few tables, but we're just we realized we're just
not We're like not gamblers, right, But it got even
you know, so we're sitting at dinner and you know,
we were all supposed to go together, the four of us,
but a couple of the women who set this whole
thing up said do you mind if we have dinner
with you at soon? We're like, yes, please. We just
(04:27):
talked to each other all the time. We're sick of
each other, so yes, other people at the table will
be great. And they sat down with us, and halfway
through the meal, she looked over and she said, Okay,
we would really love to have you guys come and
do the pod here.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
We will take care of you.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Do we want the spa all as like the spa,
the casino, the Rider Strong Room. I was like, I
don't think it's gonna be too much of an arm
twist to have us go there and record a couple
of episodes at this gorgeous casino. The property is absolutely stunning.
Like we'll take you down to the spot, we'll do
all this stuff, Like we'll totally take prid of you.
Co We would love for you to come and do
(05:06):
the podcast here at the al that's something we have
to do. And they said, we can pick a show
that it'll be around and the entertainment they're getting Mariah
Carey ed Sheeran in this twenty five hundred seat theater.
So you're seeing what seems like a you know, arena,
huge but right, but it's this this.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I'm saying arena show, intimate.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
Intimate venue. And so it's just one banger after the
next that are going there. So they're like, pick a
show we can, We'll have you guys, come to the show.
You'll go to the casino, will comp everything, we will
do podcasts.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
You're gonna love it. We're gonna have so much fun.
Go to the steakhouse.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
The steakhouse they ate we ate at just won the
number one casino restaurant in the country, like beat all
the Vegas restaurants.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Everything them in will I'm in.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
You missed you both missed out on a seriously fun night.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
And again it was an hour and it took a
while to get there.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
We left in a Friday, but the drive back on
Saturday it was like an hour and fifteen minutes home.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
It was nothing.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
And so it was it was great. Well, thank you,
it was awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
We will have to make a trip there. A family trend.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
Oh look at you, which, by the way, like even
when they deliver your car the next day, you walk
it in and there's two waters sitting in your car too,
yamava waters waiting for you.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Top of the line. This is awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Welcome to Pod meets World. I'm Daniel Fishl, I'm writer strong,
and I do not know how to gamble.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
I'm Wilford.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I'll teach you well, I'll teach you please.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
It's awful.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
When we are.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Recapping an episode and we see a writer's name who
we remember. It's a nice feeling of nostalgia. But you
know what else is kind of a cool feeling when
a writer's name pops up and we don't remember them
at all.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
It's a mystery.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
We want Saul immediately, and that is the case with
season five's Andy Gerdat. Andy wrote two episodes in season five,
Fraternity Row and a very Topanga Christmas, then mysteriously didn't
have another script for the rest of the season or
the run of the show. He already had quite a
resume before he joined Boymet's World somehow, beginning his career
(07:20):
in the Jefferson's Writer's Room as a first job, and
then working on Morcan Mindy, Head of the Class, Empty Nest,
Full House, Sister Sister, and his own show that he
co created for Fox, Herman's.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Head Great Show, Such a Yes.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
And after this outstanding sitcom run, he jumped headfirst into
animated kids shows, entering a third and Emmy nominated category
of his career on shows like Sheriff Cally's Wild West,
super Normal, Fancy Nancy, and Paw Patrol, working NonStop even
after a whopping thirty five years in the business. To
(07:58):
say that is rare for a TV writer would be
an incredible understatement. And so today we welcome a very
esteemed TV writer whose work we all know, yet we
don't know him at all. It's time to talk to
season five Boy Meets World writer and the man who
could introduce Marshall and Chase to my kids. It's Andy Gridatt. Andy,
(08:19):
thank you so much for joining us. We are honored
that you said, yes, I know Jensen tracked you down
with an old home phone number to mind you, so
I hope we didn't scare you.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Kale five.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Very very interesting and exciting. Yeah that I don't even
know how he got the old We're about to get
rid of the landline anyway, and.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Well now you definitely have to because Jensen is your number. Well,
one of the many reasons we wanted to have you
on the podcast is you spent just season five on
Boy Meets World in what has been in an incredibly
impressive career in TV, and though your name was familiar,
(09:05):
we could not place your face. Did they keep you
away from us in some sort of don't feed the
animals situation?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Or they very much did. I think they were saving
you guys from me. It was an odd thing I was.
I was a freelance writer, so I was not there
every day. I never met you guys.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Have a pretty good memory, and I was like, I don't.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Remember even for writers. Yeah, I kind of disappeared in
the wall. Well would work there, but yeah, no they
I never met you guys because they I'm not even
sure they invited me to the taping. Wow, I remember,
But it was one of those situations back then. It's
(09:50):
different now, but in those days, they a typical network
show would use some freelance freelance writers, right so that
the staff couldn't keep up with the pace without some help.
And so I had worked with Bob Tishler on Empty Nest.
I've done four episodes of Empty Nest work and he
needed some help, and so he called me in and
(10:11):
so I just did them. You know. I came in
and I met with the staff, but I never met
with anybody else. So I have no good stories. I'm sorry,
I have no I'm not going to be any entertaining stories.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Listen, we don't even need entertaining stories about our set.
We'll just take any entertaining stories you have period.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Okay, I'll try to manage those.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Well, before we get into your non stories of Boy
Meets World, I want to talk about the genesis of
your writing career and how someone ends up with The
Jeffersons as their first writer's room.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Yeah. Like I say, that was it seems like another
It was another era in television. There were three networks
when I came out to LA writing. So, and I've
mentioned this to any times the people when I started writing,
there were there was one black sitcom writer in all
of Hollywood, guy named Thad Mumford, who I never worked with.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Uh, Sad was great. Sad wrote for mash all the time.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
You say, yes, he was a very good writer. Yeah,
but there was just so. I mean, all these shows
like The Jeffersons, which now would have a primarily black
writing staff, didn't have any black writers. So it was
and because the show had been on the air for
quite a while at that point, what happens is you know,
they get the writing staff just gets runs out of stories.
(11:31):
They just can't think of anything new, so they bring
in freelancers to try to sort of come up with
something fresh. And so that's that's how that I. You know,
I was just pounding my just bear was a kid.
I was twenty six, I think five even maybe, and
I was just pounding on doors trying to get in.
And that was a place you could get in because
they'd they'd run out of stories, right. I pitched them
(11:54):
some stories and sold one. But I have an entertaining
story about that Jefferson's Please Please Okay, So it was
called Florence's Union. I don't know if you remember the show,
but Florence was Marla Gibbons made right. So it was
a story where she formed a union of maids in
the building. Okay, you can comedy high jinks and sue. Okay.
So we write it, my late partner and I wrote
(12:17):
it many years later. If you remember the movie Basic Instinct,
Michael j Okay, so infamous movie. So there's a scene
when Michael Douglas has been fired from the police force
and he's and he's laying on his couch, you know,
with a Battle of Scotch or something, and the TV's
going in the background and it was playing our episode.
(12:38):
And the only reason we knew because on the screen
for like a second was Marla Gibbs was holding a
sign that said on strike. And so my partner and
I happened to see the movie together in a theater.
We that's we called the writers Guild, and I think
we got a couple hundred bucks out of it. I
like to say to the people I co wrote basic.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Who now at the time, who's running the Jefferson's writers room?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Oh? God, Bernie Ross And I can't remember his partner's
name we worked with. God, are their names of going
out of my head? Sorry, I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
That's okay.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
So The Jeffersons was a spin off, right, It was
a spinoff of All in the.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Family family, which I then ironically worked for worked on
for three seasons. I did Archie Bunker's Place a few
years later, which was the actual spinoff of All in
the Family.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
So these are all Norman Lear shows, correct, Norman Lear shows,
who is the essentially the godfather of the American.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Sitcom Yes, to a large degree, he is of the
modern sitcom.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
Right, correct, Right, I mean he didn't he didn't do
stuff like The Honeymooners, which I guess you could go
back and say was the start of the family sitcom.
But the modern day family sitcom, the all in the families,
the Vernon Shirley's all, that's all Norman lear right.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, it stems to a large degree from Norman. Yes,
I mean he was the one who's that who just
sort of decided, you know, a sitcom doesn't have to
be soft, it could be a g it could be outrageous,
and you know people been doing that ever since.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Right, I'm sorry, I take it back. I think Levernon
Shirley was Gary Marshall.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
That was Gary Marshall.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Yeah, that was not Yes, geez, some of the biggest ever.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
With your writing partner who you mentioned. What was his name?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
His name was Steve Crimberg. He's passed away since, but yeah,
we started out together in nineteen seventy eight, I think
was our first credit even and worked together for quite
a while and then he sort of got fed up
with the business and moved away, and then I went
on solo for quite a while, and then I started
(14:44):
writing again with a partner then Steve Sullivan. Yeah, and
we wrote a lot of cartoons together.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
So well, you went on to Mork and Mindy, Archie
Bunker's Place as well as you mentioned, and TV version
of nine to five.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
The list goes on on. But I wanted to ask
you also about Head of the Class.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, it was a massive ratings hit, but allegedly had
a lot of egos and issues on set.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
What was that experience like.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Well, Head of the Class I'm very friendly with I've
stayed friendly with most most of the people the writing
staff because it was it was sort of like a
Bunker mentality, because it was a very difficult show to do.
It was a bit too big of a cast. You
guys know from you know when you're when you're structuring
a sitcom, you don't want to add too many characters
(15:33):
because then everybody gets a little bit less and then
you can't keep all the actors busy. It makes everything difficult.
But for whatever reason, the guys who they were very
good writers, but they missed they misconceived the show originally,
so we had this huge classroom of kids and then
Howard Hessman was the star. But but we just couldn't
(15:55):
keep everybody busy, so the set was always in turmoil.
The writer's room was fine.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Though very close with Tony Odell, who is a dialogue
coach and I work with a lot on my Disney
Channel shows, and Tony Odell is a gem of a
human being, and I can't imagine that he was any
different back then.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I again spent very little time on the set, right
because I was the guy stuck in the writer's room
trying to crank out next week's exactly devising producer on it,
and Tony was always fine. I don't know if he
if he would confirm or deny some of the difficulties,
but I think it was mostly stemmed from actors who
(16:36):
were unhappy. Yeah, they didn't have enough to do, which
is understandable. And then you have two lines and one
of them what happened next, mister Moore?
Speaker 5 (16:44):
Right right, Hessman's first show after Karp wasn't it?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yes? It was?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Yeah, so he was he was coming on. He was
a big star by that point.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
He was a pretty big star, and he was also
frankly a bit of a grouch and was not happy
he'd been sold the idea of the show, which is
to say you're the there's two stars you and then
the class, but you're going to be the co star
of every episode. And it really didn't quite lay out
that right.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Well, they probably pitched him like it was welcome back Catter,
like this is your year, mister Catter essentially, but it didn't.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Quite plan now, and he was not particularly happy with
that aspect of it, and probably some other things. I
always liked Howard personally whenever I would talk to him
off off the set, but on the set he could
be pretty grouchy. And anyway it was, it was what
it was. You know, it's it's water under the bridge.
I look back on that stuff now and just think,
oh my god, I cannot believe we were all fighting
(17:37):
over Yeah, that joke really well.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
And then you get to create your very own show
with Herman's Head one of Fox's first big swings when
it came to original sitcoms. What did it feel like
going from writer's room to suddenly being your own showrunner
and EP?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Well, first of all, I never eat heat it, which
is okay, there's a long story to that which I
will not give you the whole ugly story. But Herman's
Head was an idea that my white partner and I
came up with and we sold to ABC. Back in
the god it would have been nineteen eighty three or something.
It was ahead of its time. It was ahead of
the curve for obvious reasons and because it took place
(18:18):
inside a guy's head, and so ABC passed on it,
but it became kind of a famous unsold pilot and
we got work off of it forever. And then in
nineteen ninety I think eighty nine maybe our agency CIA,
which was super powerful then, more much more powerful than
than it is now, and they called us and said,
(18:39):
by the way, Herman's Head just sold a Fox, which
was like, wait what yeah, because we were producing out
of the Class and we just signed a two year
deal to continue producing Head of the Class, so we
couldn't back out of it. And it was like we
got sort of blindsided, and so we made it a
deal to be a creative consultants on it, but we
got epe the show. It was for us extremely frustrating
(19:01):
because yes, it was a funny show, there's no quest
remember it very fondly, but it wasn't quite the show
he and I had imagined we'd imagined something, uh that
would be funny, but also you know win Emmy's because
that it could be about the human thought process. You
could dramatize what it's like to be a human being
(19:21):
and those important decisions we all make.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
Basically what inside out and made a billion dollars. Yeah,
when I first heard of inside Out, I was like,
this is just Herman's Head. I remember Herman's Head so well,
and I loved the concept as a kid. I only
saw a few episodes, but I remember thinking, this is brilliant,
this idea, and then inside Out just took it to
the they never gave I never made a penny on
(19:46):
inside Out.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
That yeah, inside out, but it certainly did take it
closer to what he and I had imagined than the
actual show was. So it was, it was it was
nice to have a show in the air. We would
go in every week as consultants, but we weren't able
to run the show because we were running out of
the class, and so it was it was a frustrating experience,
(20:08):
I would say in general, I mean I was pleased
that pleased that it was on the air, and proud
of it, and I'm glad. I'm thrilled that people seem
to remember it so fondly because you can't watch it anywhere.
They've never it's They didn't even do a DVD set, nothing.
I mean, it was just you can't watch it, but
it turns up periodically. I noticed it. They did a
little thing on Only Murders in the Building.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
They did a head piece on one of those shows
where I said, hey, you remember that show Herman's Head
and then they showed clips from the show. Well, sometimes
my head feels like that, and I was low. Somehow
we're still in the cultural zeitgeist. Yeah, it wasn't. It
was rewarding in its way, but also had a downside
for us personally.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
So some other jobs you worked on, and you worked
on Saved by the Bell, The College Years, Empty Nest,
The Parenthood, Sister Sister, Full House, Step by Step, and
also Boy Meets were Ald And so you mentioned that
Bob Tishler brought you in as a freelancer to write
some episodes for us. Had you ever seen Boy Meets
World before getting the job?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Oh? Sure, sure, And I had interviewed with Michael Jacobs
on other shows, but I never worked I knew him
but I didn't really. We never be interviewed, I think
for the Torkulsen's and some other show he had with
Elliott Gould and Dee Wallace Stone. I forget what it
was called. Anyway, so I knew I knew him a
little bit, but Bob was the one who brought me in.
(21:31):
No I had seen the show, of course, Yeah, it was.
It was a highly regarded show. It was considered a
step among writers in the business. It was considered a
step up from the say of the Bells and that
kind of thing was It was definitely you guys. Did
you know the stories that were about something? They weren't
twenty two minutes of chit chat most of the time
(21:53):
until I got there. No I seen I was, And
if memory served, I think Bob said, oh, come in
and pitch some stuff, and we're looking for a Christmas
episode if you have any Christmas ideas. So I came
up with this that story and they and they liked it,
and and then I wrote that one, and then I
(22:14):
think I wrote the second one, which was not my idea.
I think they gave that to me.
Speaker 6 (22:18):
So, wait, what was your pitch? Do you remember? Was
was your pitch? The very time the Panga and Corey
or was the pitch that do Christmas Carol with them?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Know, the pitch was kids at that age, you know,
teenagers often they were raised everybody's raised with this is
the way you do Christmas? Yes, and your way of
doing Christmas isn't always the way my family does Christmas.
And we open up Christmas, well we do it. Oh
you put tinsel on your tree. That's great and all that,
(22:47):
all those little family traditions are that it'd be funny
if we can coct a reason why, you know, to
Peg and Corey had you know, we're going to spend
Christmas together and it's like, wait a minute, she does
it all wrong. It was a real issue between them
and that's what they sparked to, and that's what I like.
I thought it was kind of a fresh way to
do a Christmas story that I had not seen and
it seemed rooted and character, yeah, and character and stuff
(23:11):
that relatable for.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Yeah, I was gonna say very relatable. Who hasn't had
those conversations with their friends were like what.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Do you do?
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Oh no, that's not what we really like.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
The whole conversation with the three of us going like,
wait a minute, wait, whoa you open your present?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Wait?
Speaker 1 (23:25):
You call it Christmas eve Day?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Actually, yeah, who plays the elf? And you do one
at the time, because everybody get one present.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
On Santa's Last But you did that, so you were
like seventeen.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
That's weird.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
We were in our twenties. Yeah. So you mentioned that
you were never you never got to meet any of us.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
I'm assuming that meant you never met Bill Daniels or
any of the adult actors as well.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Never. Now, in fact, you guys can tell me. Did
you used to shoot partly in front of an audience
but then stuff other stuff you just block and tape? Right?
Speaker 3 (24:06):
We had a block and tape day, which was always Wednesday,
and then Thursday we would shoot in front of a
live studio audience, right right, Anything that wasn't block and tape.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, And I don't remember. I was kind of busy
in those days. They may have invited me, but I
just couldn't make the the schedule, or they may never
have invited me. I don't remember.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
But did you come to the run throughs?
Speaker 2 (24:25):
No? No? Nothing, Wow, nothing, I was nothing. It was
I think it was also frankly a little bit of a.
It was kind of an emergency thing where it's like,
as I say, they were for whatever reason they were,
they'd gotten behind schedule, and yeah, they just needed somebody
to come in and knock out a couple of scripts quickly.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
You're just in a big glass case. It did a
little hammer next to it in case of story break,
break glass anything like that.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
Okay, yeah, so it was.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
It was. It was. It was a fine thing. It
was just it was. It was odd because usually you
do go to the taping and I would have looked
forward to it normally. I just can't remember why it
didn't work. I also had two young children at the time.
Oh yeah, that may have been part of the problem.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
I have two young children now, and I don't remember
any aspect of any part of my day ever. So
I can tell you it's life is just.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
One giant blur.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
You know you're here and you're safe. I don't think.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
I'm pretty sure this is a dream.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
You have you watched the episodes, and can you see
if any of your actual scripts survived?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
I mean, I have not watched them. I'm sorry to say.
I did reread. I look, I even found it. I
found my old script for what a very topanga Christmas.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
Original draft, original draft, original draft.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
It's actual paper. Wow. I read it. I was like,
oh god, yeah, it was pretty funny. I connously. What
happens is you've write so many things over the years.
I can't remember what was mine and adjusted by the
staff or so.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Do you think that's the first Is that like a
table read version? Is that the first thing we read?
Or is that truly like the first version you wrote
entirely yourself?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Oh no, this is your this is a this is
what you guys read. This went through the went through
the staff. So I don't have my original. It's probably
written on a scriptware or something, one of those programs
you know, it's it's a floppy disk, this big about
in my basement. But no, it's funny. I don't. I don't.
(26:25):
It's it's it's often difficult for me to remember which
are my jokes or what was I just I had
a weird experience them a few months ago. My daughter
was little, she was like eight when I was producing
Sister Sister, and so we had a Halloween episode, right,
and so we need a trigger treater. So you want, honey,
you want to come and be a tricker treater. Sure,
(26:47):
so she got to be a tricker treater and say
trick or treat and squirt Tmoor in the face with
silly string. Right, Okay, so she got a SAG card
for but she had gone on. She's not in the business.
She lives elsewhere, has a wonderful life, and I have
two grandchildren with her. So, but we were up there
(27:08):
a while ago and I somehow came up and her
husband didn't even know she'd been in this because she
never tells anybody, right, So, being being a typical millennial,
he said, okay, let's find it. So he found it
in like three seconds on Hulu or Amazon or something,
and we sat and watched it together, and it was
so interesting because I hadn't seen it in twenty plus years,
(27:29):
and it was actually pretty funny. But I was sort
of I kind of remember writing that joke, and oh, yeah,
I think it's funny. You do enough of them and
they kind of bore together.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
Is there one joke you've written that sticks in your
mind in any show you've done, like's the what's the
best joke you've ever reten?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Oh? Man, now you're setting me up for total failure.
I cannot. I was having this conversation with somebody the
other day. I can't remember, Like most of the time,
I can't even remember the jokes, but I can remember
that I can tell you this. This is the first
joke I ever pitched in a room. Okay, I had
done freelance for three or four years forever got on staff.
(28:08):
And so the first shows on staff was Archie Bunker's place.
And in those days, Carol O'Connor had owned half the show.
Norman had nothing to do with it anymore, and so
Carol ran the room. So when you were sitting in
a writer's room, you guys, know what that's like, at
least you know what it's like. It's it's a it's
a very.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
High octane, yes, high pressure.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And instead of pitching to like a showrunner, like a
writer who's all usually kind of an egomaniac anyway, and this, guys,
you're pitching to Carol O'Connor. I mean, his chair was
already in the Smithsonian Institution. Yeah, so when you pitched
him was like pitching to Mount Rushmore. And so I
was very kind of shy anyway, it was very reticent,
(28:52):
but I knew after two three weeks, I'm gonna have
to say something to say, And so there was a
here's what, here's the joke. It's not a great joke.
I'm just saying because it's the one I remember. But
the situation was Archie had a he was always he
ran this bar and he was always getting sued or
being He's either suing somebody or being sued all the time.
(29:12):
So he had this fly by night attorney, local attorney
who is who is his who is his representative? And
so the guy was sick of dealing with him, so
he's going to fob him off onto a younger lawyer.
So the scene was Archie's coming in to complain about
something and the and the older attorney's gonna going to
tell him this young guy is going to now take
over for me. And so Archie comes in and he
(29:35):
goes to his normal seat and he almost sits on
the attorney because the guy's sitting in a chair. He
almost sits on his play by Barry Gordon and uh.
And so the older attorney says, oh, uh, you know,
mister Bunker, don't you, And then the attorney just had
a line like yes, wow or something. So I kind
of go, you know, page six, whatever it is, I
think we can maybe better that. And the guy wrote
(29:58):
the script gives me a look like, kid, you better
have something, don't you say script unless you can better
my script? And so I said, well what if? What if?
He goes almost sits on him, and the attorney says,
you know, mister Bunker, don't you And the guy says, well,
not from that angle, it's worth that much of a juggle.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Yeah, it is better than yes.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
And I remember the look on Carol's face because I
was like, I'm terrified, and he like, yeah, okay, and
he turns to the writers, just nods and says, which
means put on the script. It's going on the script.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I was like, I can be quiet again.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Three years later, I pitched you that's great.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I love that.
Speaker 6 (30:51):
I would be so bad in a writer's room, like
there's nothing that terrifies me more like I love writing,
I love talking about writing, and I would enjoy being
in the room to just watch the process. But I
would never want to pitch a joke. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
It was very it's a very tense thing. And I
ran writer's rooms to it. Not at that point of course,
but later in my career I was running the writer's room.
Of course, you're dealing with usually six eight, ten, twelve,
even really smart, really funny, and usually really screwed up people.
Your job is to try. It's like being an orchestra conductor.
You've got to figure out, Okay, that person needs to
(31:27):
be encouraged more of that person shut up more, and
you've got to try. And when you get it right,
it's a it's a magic because somebody will just say
one thing, and I'll put and it just spirals into
this amazing creation that nobody would.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Have come up with on their own.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
But if somebody, if the person running the room is
mean spirited, and a lot of them are, it can
be really, really difficult. I was amazed I was able
to not only survive, but to thrive as well as
I did, because, as I say, when I came out
here was very shy.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
All right, So year then, in all the years you've done,
all the rooms you've done.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
Not to put you on the spot again, but who
do you think is the uh, who's the best writer
you've ever worked with?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Oh? God, I've worked with so many wonderful writers. The
people I remember the most of the certainly the funniest writers,
the punch up guys. I worked with a guy named
Ray Jessel who's passed away. He was older when I
worked with him on Head of the Class, and he
was unbelievably funny. I mean he just but not funny,
(32:28):
just like Sticky. If there was a situation where you know,
we're two o'clock in the morning and we're trying to
get a joke to get out of scene three right,
and he could come up with it. It was astounding.
I worked with some great punch up guys. Jim Valley
was very good. Chris Thompson, Uh, it's it would be
(32:51):
very difficult for me to say one person was the first.
But and my mentor, Hal Dresner was a great writer.
I worked with just so many wonderful It was a joy.
It was absolute joy. I would say that to drive
home two o'clock in the morning after a punch up night,
you are I never took drugs in my life because
(33:12):
I didn't need to. It was just like I was
flying from the adrenaline rush of being in a room.
These are the funniest people on planet Earth. I mean,
the funniest people in the world come to Hollywood to
be funny for a living, and you get to be
in a room with them. It was a joy, and
there was you know there. Jeff Dutiel was a great writer.
Guy worked with now Steve Sullivan is a great writer.
(33:32):
A lot of it. But they all have different strengths
and some are better with story and others are better
with jokes.
Speaker 6 (33:37):
But you mentioned your mentor, Howl Dresner. Yeah, how did
he become your mentor? What was that relationship?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I did early early after the Jeffersons. The next show
after the Jeffersons was a show called Husbands, Wives and Lovers,
which I'm convinced absolutely nobody ever watched. That lasted thirteen episodes.
Help was the executive producer on it, and it was
a very odd show in that it was an hour
long multi camera sitcom which nobody had ever tried. And
(34:06):
there's a reason why it doesn't work. It doesn't work,
you know, even I'm sure when you guys are doing them,
there's a sort of a rhythm. Yeah, twenty two minute,
it just sort of feels like it's over, you know,
well this was forty four minutes.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
It just just keeps going.
Speaker 6 (34:22):
Ten as what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Well? We had had there there was a story about
five couples, five different married couples, so you'd cut around
from from a couple to couple. It was it was
I didn't know at the time. I was too young
and stupid, but it was based on company, you know,
the Broadway music. But it just didn't work. But I
did two episodes that for Hal and he we never
(34:47):
really worked much together after that. We did a couple
of pilots, I think, but we just stayed friends because
I just it was like being in a room with
a He was the wittiest person I ever met in
my life. I did a pilot. I remember we sold
a pilot once. I think it was CBS, and we
went in and pitched it and the guy whoever it
was didn't particularly like it, and he was just he
(35:09):
was starting to think of a reason to reject it.
And Hal was so witty he just cut him to a.
He just was so smart and funny, and if you
dared to say something, you know, negative, he would find
a way to turn it back on. So the guy
just bought the pilot, I think, So how would not
make fun? It wasn't a very good idea, but I
think we sold the pilot just because Hell was so scary.
(35:32):
But I knew him to be a sweetheart. He died
a couple of years ago, but the wittiest person I
ever met. It was like amazing.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Your first episode of Boy Meets World that aired was
Fraternity Row, which was season five, episode four, where A
decides to start his own fraternity, Magnum Pie to get girls.
We have Paul Gleeson in that episode, as well as
some acid trip cameos from Love Boats, Ted Lange and
Bernie Kapell.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
What do you remember from that episode?
Speaker 2 (36:16):
I got, God, don you not a thing. I remember
almost nothing. I remember it was a sign to me.
And here's the thing. I know nothing about fraternities. I
was never in a fraternity. I love it, like you
could not pick a worst person to write this draft.
But I remember giving up my all. But again, that
(36:37):
was the second one i'd done.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
So okay, so you wrote a Christmas first.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
So honestly, I have no I have almost no memory
other than working really hard to try to try to
make it work. But it was not my idea. It's
not an idea I ever would have pitched. I don't think.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
So you can't remember.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
You can't remember if if Ted Lange and Bernie Coppel
were part of the script originally, or it was just
who they could get. We're trying to figure out if
it was if that was part of the original pitch.
It was like, this is just who we can get,
so we're going to write them in.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah. No, it was certainly not part of my original concept. No.
I think they just enjoyed casting these kind of fun
right stunt casting things. But no, I'm sorry. I have
no other than how do I write this damn thing?
How do I do this? I know nothing about fraternities?
Speaker 3 (37:33):
So funny, Well, after Boy Meets World, you enter a
universe that many of our listeners and myself will be
very impressed with the world of animated kids TV. Yeah,
how do you make that transition?
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Desperation? Don I was trying to keep my house the
you know the there was a weird thing that happens.
Happened then, is that my generation. I had reached a
certain age about my mid forties, which is a pretty
good run. I started my mid twenties. I had a
twenty year run in sitcoms, and it just there was
(38:08):
an iron gate just suddenly came down and nobody in
my generation could get hired anymore. And so, in fact,
there was a major class action lawsuit by that I
was part of, and we won an ageism lawsuit, and
we all got like, I don't know, dependent on your income,
but you know, you get people got fifty sixty grand,
which is a nice thing, but didn't change the business anyway.
(38:31):
I could. Most of my friends who are of my vintage,
who had been sitcom writers, just got out of the business.
They sold their houses, they took their pensions early, and
they moved someplace cheaper. But I didn't really want to
do that. I felt like I was still I love writing,
I love television. I love what I do. So I
(38:51):
an animation a friend. We had a friend who had
been sitcom writers and said, hey, you want We're doing
a cartoon show. You want to do a couple episodes? Well? Sure,
or why not? And it was some weird Swedish cartoon
called The World of Tosh. You've heard of it?
Speaker 4 (39:08):
Sure? Oh, I've been doing I'm a voiceover actor. I
have been for twenty five years.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Oh so you know it? Okay, I do I Yeah?
Speaker 4 (39:15):
To kick Animation is kind of My World.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Oh okay, you didn't do that show though, No.
Speaker 4 (39:20):
I didn't do that show, but no, I've certainly heard
of it.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Yeah, okay. So anyway, we wrote I think six episodes
or something, and it was the money is lousy, but
it's better than nothing. And so that's how that was
our entree and from there we just kept expanding and
an animation, unlike in live action, most of it has
done freelance, so you can make a living. I wrote
for Swedish shows and Korean shows and Italian shows and
(39:44):
French shows and then American shows as well, and so
if because I had all that experience as a sitcom
writer where you have to knock things out. I mean,
you know, you guys know it's likely you do a
Monday morning read through with the script stinks. Hell yeah,
the writers are back in that room until they are right,
and you have to do it fast. Because I had
all that experience, I could knock out cartoon scripts really fast.
(40:08):
And so you have to indore to make a living.
And so I worked with Steve Sullivan and a lot
of them some have been done solo. But yeah, it
was like the second career and I miss the camaraderie
of being on a set, you know, with actors and
the director. That's so much fun. But it certainly is
(40:29):
less stressful. And so I was able to build a
second career doing animation.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Well, I want to talk more about that, and I'm
going to name some of the shows you've worked on,
but I want to go back briefly to this lawsuit.
Who did you sue and how did that come together?
I'm so curious about that.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
But it was because suddenly everybody who hit their early
forties suddenly who'd been working for years couldn't get it hired.
And you know, you know, writers who were sitting on
grousing to each other all the time. Anyway, wait a minute,
why are we taking this? That's obviously agism. And so somebody,
I don't know exactly who started this, went to an
attorney and started a class action lawsuit against all the
(41:11):
major studios, networks and agencies three together, and everybody at
first thought and I came in, like the second wave
of writers who came in and joined it, and then
there were more followed me. But and all you had
to do is, you know, here's my information. You have.
I give you the right for you to look at
my writer's guild incomes and so on, and so you
(41:33):
can see I'm making this much money and then all
of a sudden, I'm making that much money. So uh.
And it was the same as two of everybody. So
they took it in front of a judge and the
judge said, looked at that information, at the data, and said,
to the to the to the defendants, to the to
the studios and networks, you guys better settle because that's
all I need to see. Wow, everybody in Hollywood didn't
(41:56):
suddenly get untalented when they reached forty five, so lose.
And so they quickly settled the case. And as I said,
it was a nice little it was a nice little bonus.
My wife is a writer too, and she she got
a check and I got a check, and it was nice.
But it doesn't you know. Yeah, it's not a career, right.
That's what animation allowed me to allow me to keep
(42:17):
my house.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Yes, well, the list of kids shows you've written and
produced is so vast you have been nominated for multiple
Emmys for it.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
But here is just a small taste.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Sheriff Calli's Wild West, Tons of Fancy Nancy which you
also wrote a song.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
For Oh more than One? Yes?
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Really?
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Oh yeah?
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Okay, Well I think one of the songs you wrote
for was nominated for an Emmy, though, which is why
I'm familiar with that one, Unbelievable, super Normal Whitch and
my personal favorite, Paw Patrol. How I mean, how did
you so you just all freelance? You just got so
once you started writing for one? Did it seem like
you just were up for a while.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Well, people hire you. If they like your work, then
they hire you or they commend you, and that's kind
of how it usually works. It wasn't all freelance. What
happened was it was mostly freelanced up until gosh, about
ten years ago. And then he got a call from
a producer friend who was doing Sir Calli's Wild West,
which is a Disney show, and said, hey, you want
(43:16):
to be on staff? What? As far as I knew,
there were no staff on animation shows, but Disney does
have staff. Yeah, they most of their shows have like
a four person staff. And so then I wound up
on staff there and also on Chicken Squad and Fancy Nancy,
which was a joyous experience. And then I just finished doing.
(43:40):
I was the head writer for a show that's not
in the air yet but it will be in January
I think called Robo Gobo for Disney Fun. So yeah,
so I did. The last ten years have been mostly
as a staff writer and headwriter.
Speaker 6 (43:54):
Sometimes is that which do you prefer? Do you prefer
sitcom or animated? At this point, like, if you look back,
what are the differences really as a writer in which
do you?
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Yeah? The difference is it's so much more stressful being
on a live action sitcom. I mean it's for I
don't know what it's like for the I do sort of,
but not as well as you guys do. But to
be an actor, I'm sure it has its stresses, but
to to writers, trying to keep ahead of the of
the schedule is just brutal. And the fact that you know,
(44:24):
you go to the table Monday morning, as I say,
if that script doesn't work, it's gonna work by Friday,
or you're gonna be looking for it work. You're looking
for a job. So so you really have to buckle
down and you week after week after week. It's very stressful.
But the upside is it's like doing an opening night
every Friday, night Thursday. But it was like, oh, that's
(44:45):
kind of cool. You know, it was called It's great fun.
It's just I think it's more of a young person's game.
And I think if somebody said to me right now, oh,
we'd like you to run a sitcom, I would my
wife would say yes, and I would say I can't
do it. I don't have the energy to do that anymore.
But an animation is is is more of a writer's
(45:06):
medium in a weird way, because the voice cast. I
rarely even meet the voice cast, and so you're you're
just dealing with just it's just you and the and
the episode director or the episode storyboard artists, and you're
kind of together deciding everything. You know, where's the metaphorical
camera going to be, with the color of the walls, everything,
(45:28):
and so it's it's much much more control over the
finished product. On the other hand, most of what I did,
not all of it, but most of this preschool stuff,
which I found very stifling after a while. I worked
very hard to try to make them something that an
adult could stand to sit in the room and write
and watch.
Speaker 4 (45:46):
But it was But that's that's hugely difficult to write.
Speaker 5 (45:49):
I mean, a preschool show where you're I mean, that's
could be one of the most difficult things to write
in all of Hollywood is keeping preschoolers entertain.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
My god, oh my god, you're you're right, And and
people like I would talk to like writers who I
knew from live action adult days, and they would say, oh,
I would I need some money, I'll do that, said
you you think you would really sit down and try
and write a speck, and you'll see I'll start telling
you all the things you can't do. You can't do
(46:19):
that joke, you can't use that reference, you can't, right,
It's very, very difficult.
Speaker 5 (46:23):
Well, so I did a little I did a little
bit of animation writing. And the thing that amazed me
was the first job I got was I was under
the impression, well, it's animation.
Speaker 4 (46:33):
If I can think it, they can do it. And
that's just not the case at all. It's it's amazing
if you can think of Pixar can do it, right, Yeah, right, exactly.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Not on the but if you go see a Pixar movie,
as we all do, one shot in a Pixar movie
costs the same amount about as what my entire episode
would be on a typical eleven minutes. I mean, we
don't have anywhere near their kind of luxury of No.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
I mean, so same kind of thing.
Speaker 5 (47:00):
They're like, no, we need to reuse storyboards from older
and we need to use backgrounds of older thing. It's like, oh, okay,
so I can't just write whatever I want and you
go draw it Like, Nope, that's not how it works. No.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I mean, you know, he picks up a he picks
up a book and they haven't already created especially if
it's three three D you know, CGI animation, they have
guy has to build build that literally in the computer.
If they haven't already done it. That means some schmuck's
got to go sit in front of his cynique and
law a book and yeah, in the computer, just for
that one thing. And you better make sure that you
(47:34):
really want the.
Speaker 4 (47:35):
Book, that it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
Well, I think one of the things that is most
impressive about your career is your ability to move from
elite late night sitcoms, then into kids and family sitcoms,
and then into preschool and animated. I mean basically, as
you got older, the people you were writing for gott younger.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
Yeah, and so did you ever consciously notice those transitions.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Or yeah wow, oh yeah. Well luckily, you know, I
had two kids, so I knew from them what they
responded to. And then now, uh, well, my oldest grand
son is six, and I have a six year old,
a three year old, a two year old, and a
four month old. So between all of them, I'm pretty
cute into what preschool I watched them. I love I
(48:23):
love to watch them watch yeah, because I learned so much.
They just they don't do it the same way. Yeah,
they respond to things, and I have arguments all the
time with Disney about it. Of course I lose, but
that they that they that they respond My little two
year old just loves Frozen, you know, and she loves
a pig, but they seize on something when you can't
(48:45):
quite figure out why is she like that? But not this.
It's very weird. And my six year old, when he
was like three or four, his favorite show on Disney
Plus was Hamilton Hamilton over. You don't know who Hamilton is,
what the United States of Americas, But they just respond
to certain things and you try to figure out what
is it about that he loved watching that King George
(49:07):
come out with you know, with a red yes. Yeah,
the patter song. I loved it.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
I don't know, so funny.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
So for someone listening now who wants to be a writer,
and here's all the different mediums you've worked in, what
advice do you give?
Speaker 1 (49:24):
And because I think you you teach, do you do?
Speaker 2 (49:26):
I taught for many years at UCLA and also at
Pepperdine screen and television writing. And I have a YouTube
channel now called the Go Draft.
Speaker 6 (49:36):
Which your videos are great, man, I was watching some
of them. They're really really good.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Oh, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 6 (49:43):
Really insightful stuff. And it's like short enough that you
can you pack a lot in there.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
It's really I tried to. It's but it's all practical.
It's all it's not that theory. It's technique. It's about
this is how I do it, and I'm still doing
it and have done it for forty five years. So
you can choose to follow that path or not. But
it's I think it's all practical and useful. Yeah, so yeah,
I Oh, the advice I would give it. The business
(50:10):
at this particular moment, when we're doing this segment, is
in a state, as you all know, of tremendous flucks.
Especially television, and up until a year or two ago,
if somebody had a screenplay, they're representatives saying, is there
any way you can turn it into a limited series?
And now it's exactly the opposite. Somebody writes a limited
(50:30):
series pilot and they say, is there any way you
can turn into a screenplay because they can't get they
can't get anybody to green light limited series anymore, and
so it's in a state of flux because they don't
know the people in charge, the people writing the checks,
aren't sure how they're going to make money on things anymore.
Streaming has just turned the world upside down. We do
(50:52):
know that there's always a market for entertainment, probably now
more than any time, so that it will it will
find its balance. But the young clients I have who
are students or just friends who've had success, have almost
all had success and features. They've broken into the feature
business quicker than they not like I'm talking at Marvel movies,
(51:17):
but I'm like little indie teachers, some of which do
very well, and get them a career and get them
started much easier now at this moment than trying to
break into television. It is very tough to break into
television at this moment, because television just doesn't know what
it is anymore. Yeah, but I will say this, and
this is absolutely true. Over the years of been doing
(51:38):
this and teaching, I have never ever met anybody who
had talent and perseverance who didn't eventually have some level
of success. Might not have been what they dreamt of.
They may not have become the next Steven Spielberg. That's
what I want to do. I'm not the next Steven Spielberg,
but I had some success. But if you hang in
there long enough and if you have talent, so somebody
(52:01):
will find it. That's the one nice thing you say
about Hollywood is it really is to a large degree
of meritocracy and people who can do it. And that's
what I used a lot about television because in movies
you can kind of get by if you're not kind
of hide behind, hide under the radar screen. But in television,
if you can't produce, they find out really quickly and
you're out and somebody else is brought in you can
(52:23):
do it, and so it is kind of a meritocracy.
So there's that to take heart in.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
Well, that's good advice.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
And finally, as a bit of a TV historian, did
you ever think people would still be talking about Boy
Meets World thirty years later?
Speaker 2 (52:40):
No, I do, I did not, and I'm delighted that
you are. I mean, I think it's wonderful that people
are still watching it and still excited by it. I
think it's so interesting, fascinating that kids, I mean, you
guys must know that. You know that the people watching
(53:01):
the episodes are probably roughly the same age as the
audience who watched it originally, and they still respond to
the same stuff, and even though the references have changed
and change and all the rest of it. It's fascinating
to me. They will sit and watch I've seen them
watch Sister Sister episodes and say to the Bell episodes,
and they like them just as much. It's very very interesting.
(53:23):
And also there's something about multi camera sitcoms. I can't
figure it out that there's a sense of because I
guess of the fourth wall. The audience feels like they're
part of it, part of it. It felt like they
were in Corey's living room, and.
Speaker 4 (53:36):
It's comfortable.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
It is it is, and people will watch them and
rewatch them and watch them twenty times and they know
all the jokes by heart. It doesn't seem to matter anyway.
I think it's lovely and it makes me feel good
to know that it wasn't. We weren't producing stuff that
just went into avoid Some of it did go into
avoid lovers.
Speaker 4 (54:00):
Literally the guessing the actors on the show didn't remember
they were on the show.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
I don't think they're doing a podcast.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
Andy, Thank you so much for spending your time with us.
Thank you for letting us hunt you down home phone
and all. Never get rid of it. It brings surprises
around the corner.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
We so appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
And thank you for solving the mystery for us of
why we were like, how come we don't remember him?
Speaker 1 (54:26):
Thank you for solving the mystery.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
Yeah, I'm not terribly memorable, but I'm better than that.
Speaker 3 (54:33):
We knew it must be something, so you did. You
solved that memory. You saw that mystery for us, and
we appreciate you and thank you. Tell everyone again where
they can find you on your YouTube channel.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
It's the go draft. The go draft, which is a
term that used to mean maybe they still say it
meant the person who wrote the draft that got the
green light, that was the go draft, and so that's cool,
is trying to get people from the level of being
promising to actually getting your work produced.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Well, I love that.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Thank you so much for being here with us, and yeah,
we wish you nice. Thanks for your contribution to a
show we know and love and our audience knows and love,
and so yeah, thank you for being with us. We
wish you many more years of success and health and
and love and enjoy your grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Thank you very much. Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (55:23):
Okay, so we don't have to feel bad. So bad
we did know whit. We never even possibly came to set.
Speaker 4 (55:31):
It's so strange. It's so strange that you write these
two episodes are not there. You don't get to just.
Speaker 6 (55:36):
Can't believe that our staff was that far beyond like,
because it seems like we had a big staff, especially
by season five, that they would have been, you know,
been able to account. But I guess not like I
mean get outside.
Speaker 1 (55:48):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 3 (55:50):
I do think you know writer, you mostly right features
Will You've written a couple episodes of TV. I think
the pace at which they have to come up with
this stuff, it's just something we can't possibly understand because
we've never been in it. For a long term, because
I see it now on shows I direct, where I'll
(56:11):
talk to people and I'll be like, so, how's it going,
And everyone will look so tired, you're just underwater, and
they're just like, we are here so late, and and
we're writing the episode we're doing next week, and and
it's just it's so high pressure and so well it
never ends.
Speaker 6 (56:30):
Never.
Speaker 4 (56:30):
I mean I mean literally never. Just the show just stops.
That's or you die. That's it. Otherwise you're writing the
whole time.
Speaker 5 (56:38):
It's the episode you're doing, it's next week's episodes, rewriting now,
last episode.
Speaker 4 (56:41):
It just never stopped.
Speaker 3 (56:42):
I go crazy, so crazy, Well it makes sense anyway.
Thank you all for joining us for this episode of
Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us on
Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your
emails pod meets World Show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (56:54):
And we have merch.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
Merch that to me, not membing. Oh the merch, got it.
Speaker 5 (57:03):
You never met the merch, don't worry, Yeah exactly, I
never met the merch, so I thought, like I thought.
Speaker 1 (57:07):
We were merch.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
You can find our merch at Podmeets worldshow dot com.
Will send us out.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
We Love You All, pod dismissed.
Speaker 5 (57:17):
Podmets World is nheart podcast producer and hosted by Danielle Fischel,
Wilfredell and Ryder Strong executive producers, Jensen Carp and Amy
Sugarman Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor,
Tara sudbachsch producer, Maddie Moore, engineer and Boy Meets World
super fan Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle
Morton of Typhoon and you can follow us on Instagram
(57:37):
at Podmeats World Show or email us at Podmeats Worldshow
at gmail dot com
Will.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I am devastated that I have to ask you this
question because I was supposed to be there with you
to enjoy it myself, I know, but Jensen and I
were not able to join you and Susan on the
double date to Yamava. Jensen had surgery earlier in the
week and was not ready for a long drive. I know,
Nate bargatzi at Yammava with you. Tell me how was it?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
How one? How was the steakhouse? Two? How was the show? Three?
How was the venue?
Speaker 4 (00:47):
You missed? You both missed them?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It was.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
It was a pretty great night. It really was.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
Because first of all, I'd never been to the Amavah before.
Huh me neither, And it's like two or three years old,
so it's brand new. I mean when I say there
was not a piece of paper on the floor. It
was the cleanest casino I've ever been in in my life.
It is spotless, The rooms gorgeous. They took care of us,
(01:12):
you know, checked us in and we get right to
our room, and then they brought us up to this
bar and that's where we got to meet everybody that
everybody from the Yamavas staff, and it was just so cool.
I was thinking of both of you the whole time
I was there, because the first thing they're like, they
came in and they said, oh, we've got this.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
I think it's called the eighty three.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
It's like this list of all of these top shelf
alcohols that have been collected all around the world, so
it's like some of them are from one hundred years ago.
Someone's like they're working on cultivating this list of really
specialty drinks where they told us, they go, oh, no,
we have a five thousand dollars margarita what where it's
(01:51):
like a specialty kind of you know, old school tequila
in with the gold rimmed and the glass. You get
to keep the glass and it's like a Versace glass
or Gucci glass, like some specific kind of handcut thing.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
And then as we're leaving, a.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Guy's like, excuse me, but I love the podcast, big
fan of the show, and I thought you would really
like to see this because I think this is something
Rider would love. And they go to so they have
these lockers all set up with you can join this
club where if you have specialty alcohol, they go into
the locker thing and.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
They'll save it for you. But then he goes watch this, and.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
He reaches behind this thing and he presses a button,
the secret button, and the whole front opens up and
there's a speakeasy inside that's Now you're in a walk
in humidor with cigars from all over the world that's
only has four little tables in there.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
And oh, this is the rider Strong room right here.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
And then we go down to the casino and I'm like,
and now we're in Daniel, so top of the line
spa it was, we could they then they brought us
to the steakhouse and they were doing the first the
specialty they thing they had that night was it was
a pasta courus that's cooked and burned off in the
(03:05):
cheese wheel.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Oh, I love it when they do it in the
cheese wheel.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
So they brought the big parmesan wheel out in front
of our table. Yeah, they burn off the vodkas, homemade
pichi bukatini, which is like my favorite, like the thick
kind of spaghetti, all just in this amazing possible. That
was our appetizer, and then you're picking all the steaks
you want. We had these perfectly cooked steaks, and then
(03:28):
we went to the show twenty five hundred seat theater.
Gorgeous theater, wonderful seats right at the top. Nate Bargatzi.
This is the end of his tour. He'd been doing
this big, long tour and this is the very last episode.
His openers were great, but then he got on.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
He did like a ninety minute set. He was up
there forever, just by himself.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
He crushed it soon and I then tried to gamble,
which we suck at. I mean, we walked around with
money in our hands, going, I don't know what to
play because when we go to the slot machines, all
the slot machines are just you put your money and
it sucks it in like you've never owned it. And
then I don't know what's happening, and then all the
money's God, it was like, I don't know what the
(04:07):
hell just happened. So we were tried to sit at
a few tables, but we're just we realized we're just
not We're like not gamblers, right, But it got even
you know, so we're sitting at dinner and you know,
we were all supposed to go together, the four of us,
but a couple of the women who set this whole
thing up said do you mind if we have dinner
with you at soon? We're like, yes, please. We just
(04:27):
talked to each other all the time. We're sick of
each other, so yes, other people at the table will
be great. And they sat down with us, and halfway
through the meal, she looked over and she said, Okay,
we would really love to have you guys come and
do the pod here.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
We will take care of you.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Do we want the spa all as like the spa,
the casino, the Rider Strong Room. I was like, I
don't think it's gonna be too much of an arm
twist to have us go there and record a couple
of episodes at this gorgeous casino. The property is absolutely stunning.
Like we'll take you down to the spot, we'll do
all this stuff, Like we'll totally take prid of you.
Co We would love for you to come and do
(05:06):
the podcast here at the al that's something we have
to do. And they said, we can pick a show
that it'll be around and the entertainment they're getting Mariah
Carey ed Sheeran in this twenty five hundred seat theater.
So you're seeing what seems like a you know, arena,
huge but right, but it's this this.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I'm saying arena show, intimate.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
Intimate venue. And so it's just one banger after the
next that are going there. So they're like, pick a
show we can, We'll have you guys, come to the show.
You'll go to the casino, will comp everything, we will
do podcasts.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
You're gonna love it. We're gonna have so much fun.
Go to the steakhouse.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
The steakhouse they ate we ate at just won the
number one casino restaurant in the country, like beat all
the Vegas restaurants.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Everything them in will I'm in.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
You missed you both missed out on a seriously fun night.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
And again it was an hour and it took a
while to get there.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
We left in a Friday, but the drive back on
Saturday it was like an hour and fifteen minutes home.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
It was nothing.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
And so it was it was great. Well, thank you,
it was awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
We will have to make a trip there. A family trend.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
Oh look at you, which, by the way, like even
when they deliver your car the next day, you walk
it in and there's two waters sitting in your car too,
yamava waters waiting for you.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Top of the line. This is awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Welcome to Pod meets World. I'm Daniel Fishl, I'm writer strong,
and I do not know how to gamble.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
I'm Wilford.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I'll teach you well, I'll teach you please.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
It's awful.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
When we are.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Recapping an episode and we see a writer's name who
we remember. It's a nice feeling of nostalgia. But you
know what else is kind of a cool feeling when
a writer's name pops up and we don't remember them
at all.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
It's a mystery.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
We want Saul immediately, and that is the case with
season five's Andy Gerdat. Andy wrote two episodes in season five,
Fraternity Row and a very Topanga Christmas, then mysteriously didn't
have another script for the rest of the season or
the run of the show. He already had quite a
resume before he joined Boymet's World somehow, beginning his career
(07:20):
in the Jefferson's Writer's Room as a first job, and
then working on Morcan Mindy, Head of the Class, Empty Nest,
Full House, Sister Sister, and his own show that he
co created for Fox, Herman's.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Head Great Show, Such a Yes.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
And after this outstanding sitcom run, he jumped headfirst into
animated kids shows, entering a third and Emmy nominated category
of his career on shows like Sheriff Cally's Wild West,
super Normal, Fancy Nancy, and Paw Patrol, working NonStop even
after a whopping thirty five years in the business. To
(07:58):
say that is rare for a TV writer would be
an incredible understatement. And so today we welcome a very
esteemed TV writer whose work we all know, yet we
don't know him at all. It's time to talk to
season five Boy Meets World writer and the man who
could introduce Marshall and Chase to my kids. It's Andy Gridatt. Andy,
(08:19):
thank you so much for joining us. We are honored
that you said, yes, I know Jensen tracked you down
with an old home phone number to mind you, so
I hope we didn't scare you.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Kale five.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Very very interesting and exciting. Yeah that I don't even
know how he got the old We're about to get
rid of the landline anyway, and.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Well now you definitely have to because Jensen is your number. Well,
one of the many reasons we wanted to have you
on the podcast is you spent just season five on
Boy Meets World in what has been in an incredibly
impressive career in TV, and though your name was familiar,
(09:05):
we could not place your face. Did they keep you
away from us in some sort of don't feed the
animals situation?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Or they very much did. I think they were saving
you guys from me. It was an odd thing I was.
I was a freelance writer, so I was not there
every day. I never met you guys.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Have a pretty good memory, and I was like, I don't.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Remember even for writers. Yeah, I kind of disappeared in
the wall. Well would work there, but yeah, no they
I never met you guys because they I'm not even
sure they invited me to the taping. Wow, I remember,
But it was one of those situations back then. It's
(09:50):
different now, but in those days, they a typical network
show would use some freelance freelance writers, right so that
the staff couldn't keep up with the pace without some help.
And so I had worked with Bob Tishler on Empty Nest.
I've done four episodes of Empty Nest work and he
needed some help, and so he called me in and
(10:11):
so I just did them. You know. I came in
and I met with the staff, but I never met
with anybody else. So I have no good stories. I'm sorry,
I have no I'm not going to be any entertaining stories.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Listen, we don't even need entertaining stories about our set.
We'll just take any entertaining stories you have period.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Okay, I'll try to manage those.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Well, before we get into your non stories of Boy
Meets World, I want to talk about the genesis of
your writing career and how someone ends up with The
Jeffersons as their first writer's room.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Yeah. Like I say, that was it seems like another
It was another era in television. There were three networks
when I came out to LA writing. So, and I've
mentioned this to any times the people when I started writing,
there were there was one black sitcom writer in all
of Hollywood, guy named Thad Mumford, who I never worked with.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Uh, Sad was great. Sad wrote for mash all the time.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
You say, yes, he was a very good writer. Yeah,
but there was just so. I mean, all these shows
like The Jeffersons, which now would have a primarily black
writing staff, didn't have any black writers. So it was
and because the show had been on the air for
quite a while at that point, what happens is you know,
they get the writing staff just gets runs out of stories.
(11:31):
They just can't think of anything new, so they bring
in freelancers to try to sort of come up with
something fresh. And so that's that's how that I. You know,
I was just pounding my just bear was a kid.
I was twenty six, I think five even maybe, and
I was just pounding on doors trying to get in.
And that was a place you could get in because
they'd they'd run out of stories, right. I pitched them
(11:54):
some stories and sold one. But I have an entertaining
story about that Jefferson's Please Please Okay, So it was
called Florence's Union. I don't know if you remember the show,
but Florence was Marla Gibbons made right. So it was
a story where she formed a union of maids in
the building. Okay, you can comedy high jinks and sue. Okay.
So we write it, my late partner and I wrote
(12:17):
it many years later. If you remember the movie Basic Instinct,
Michael j Okay, so infamous movie. So there's a scene
when Michael Douglas has been fired from the police force
and he's and he's laying on his couch, you know,
with a Battle of Scotch or something, and the TV's
going in the background and it was playing our episode.
(12:38):
And the only reason we knew because on the screen
for like a second was Marla Gibbs was holding a
sign that said on strike. And so my partner and
I happened to see the movie together in a theater.
We that's we called the writers Guild, and I think
we got a couple hundred bucks out of it. I
like to say to the people I co wrote basic.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Who now at the time, who's running the Jefferson's writers room?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Oh? God, Bernie Ross And I can't remember his partner's
name we worked with. God, are their names of going
out of my head? Sorry, I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
That's okay.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
So The Jeffersons was a spin off, right, It was
a spinoff of All in the.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Family family, which I then ironically worked for worked on
for three seasons. I did Archie Bunker's Place a few
years later, which was the actual spinoff of All in
the Family.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
So these are all Norman Lear shows, correct, Norman Lear shows,
who is the essentially the godfather of the American.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Sitcom Yes, to a large degree, he is of the
modern sitcom.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
Right, correct, Right, I mean he didn't he didn't do
stuff like The Honeymooners, which I guess you could go
back and say was the start of the family sitcom.
But the modern day family sitcom, the all in the families,
the Vernon Shirley's all, that's all Norman lear right.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, it stems to a large degree from Norman. Yes,
I mean he was the one who's that who just
sort of decided, you know, a sitcom doesn't have to
be soft, it could be a g it could be outrageous,
and you know people been doing that ever since.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Right, I'm sorry, I take it back. I think Levernon
Shirley was Gary Marshall.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
That was Gary Marshall.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Yeah, that was not Yes, geez, some of the biggest ever.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
With your writing partner who you mentioned. What was his name?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
His name was Steve Crimberg. He's passed away since, but yeah,
we started out together in nineteen seventy eight, I think
was our first credit even and worked together for quite
a while and then he sort of got fed up
with the business and moved away, and then I went
on solo for quite a while, and then I started
(14:44):
writing again with a partner then Steve Sullivan. Yeah, and
we wrote a lot of cartoons together.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
So well, you went on to Mork and Mindy, Archie
Bunker's Place as well as you mentioned, and TV version
of nine to five.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
The list goes on on. But I wanted to ask
you also about Head of the Class.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, it was a massive ratings hit, but allegedly had
a lot of egos and issues on set.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
What was that experience like.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Well, Head of the Class I'm very friendly with I've
stayed friendly with most most of the people the writing
staff because it was it was sort of like a
Bunker mentality, because it was a very difficult show to do.
It was a bit too big of a cast. You
guys know from you know when you're when you're structuring
a sitcom, you don't want to add too many characters
(15:33):
because then everybody gets a little bit less and then
you can't keep all the actors busy. It makes everything difficult.
But for whatever reason, the guys who they were very
good writers, but they missed they misconceived the show originally,
so we had this huge classroom of kids and then
Howard Hessman was the star. But but we just couldn't
(15:55):
keep everybody busy, so the set was always in turmoil.
The writer's room was fine.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Though very close with Tony Odell, who is a dialogue
coach and I work with a lot on my Disney
Channel shows, and Tony Odell is a gem of a
human being, and I can't imagine that he was any
different back then.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I again spent very little time on the set, right
because I was the guy stuck in the writer's room
trying to crank out next week's exactly devising producer on it,
and Tony was always fine. I don't know if he
if he would confirm or deny some of the difficulties,
but I think it was mostly stemmed from actors who
(16:36):
were unhappy. Yeah, they didn't have enough to do, which
is understandable. And then you have two lines and one
of them what happened next, mister Moore?
Speaker 5 (16:44):
Right right, Hessman's first show after Karp wasn't it?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yes? It was?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Yeah, so he was he was coming on. He was
a big star by that point.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
He was a pretty big star, and he was also
frankly a bit of a grouch and was not happy
he'd been sold the idea of the show, which is
to say you're the there's two stars you and then
the class, but you're going to be the co star
of every episode. And it really didn't quite lay out
that right.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Well, they probably pitched him like it was welcome back Catter,
like this is your year, mister Catter essentially, but it didn't.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Quite plan now, and he was not particularly happy with
that aspect of it, and probably some other things. I
always liked Howard personally whenever I would talk to him
off off the set, but on the set he could
be pretty grouchy. And anyway it was, it was what
it was. You know, it's it's water under the bridge.
I look back on that stuff now and just think,
oh my god, I cannot believe we were all fighting
(17:37):
over Yeah, that joke really well.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
And then you get to create your very own show
with Herman's Head one of Fox's first big swings when
it came to original sitcoms. What did it feel like
going from writer's room to suddenly being your own showrunner
and EP?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Well, first of all, I never eat heat it, which
is okay, there's a long story to that which I
will not give you the whole ugly story. But Herman's
Head was an idea that my white partner and I
came up with and we sold to ABC. Back in
the god it would have been nineteen eighty three or something.
It was ahead of its time. It was ahead of
the curve for obvious reasons and because it took place
(18:18):
inside a guy's head, and so ABC passed on it,
but it became kind of a famous unsold pilot and
we got work off of it forever. And then in
nineteen ninety I think eighty nine maybe our agency CIA,
which was super powerful then, more much more powerful than
than it is now, and they called us and said,
(18:39):
by the way, Herman's Head just sold a Fox, which
was like, wait what yeah, because we were producing out
of the Class and we just signed a two year
deal to continue producing Head of the Class, so we
couldn't back out of it. And it was like we
got sort of blindsided, and so we made it a
deal to be a creative consultants on it, but we
got epe the show. It was for us extremely frustrating
(19:01):
because yes, it was a funny show, there's no quest
remember it very fondly, but it wasn't quite the show
he and I had imagined we'd imagined something, uh that
would be funny, but also you know win Emmy's because
that it could be about the human thought process. You
could dramatize what it's like to be a human being
(19:21):
and those important decisions we all make.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
Basically what inside out and made a billion dollars. Yeah,
when I first heard of inside Out, I was like,
this is just Herman's Head. I remember Herman's Head so well,
and I loved the concept as a kid. I only
saw a few episodes, but I remember thinking, this is brilliant,
this idea, and then inside Out just took it to
the they never gave I never made a penny on
(19:46):
inside Out.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
That yeah, inside out, but it certainly did take it
closer to what he and I had imagined than the
actual show was. So it was, it was it was
nice to have a show in the air. We would
go in every week as consultants, but we weren't able
to run the show because we were running out of
the class, and so it was it was a frustrating experience,
(20:08):
I would say in general, I mean I was pleased
that pleased that it was on the air, and proud
of it, and I'm glad. I'm thrilled that people seem
to remember it so fondly because you can't watch it anywhere.
They've never it's They didn't even do a DVD set, nothing.
I mean, it was just you can't watch it, but
it turns up periodically. I noticed it. They did a
little thing on Only Murders in the Building.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
They did a head piece on one of those shows
where I said, hey, you remember that show Herman's Head
and then they showed clips from the show. Well, sometimes
my head feels like that, and I was low. Somehow
we're still in the cultural zeitgeist. Yeah, it wasn't. It
was rewarding in its way, but also had a downside
for us personally.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
So some other jobs you worked on, and you worked
on Saved by the Bell, The College Years, Empty Nest,
The Parenthood, Sister Sister, Full House, Step by Step, and
also Boy Meets were Ald And so you mentioned that
Bob Tishler brought you in as a freelancer to write
some episodes for us. Had you ever seen Boy Meets
World before getting the job?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Oh? Sure, sure, And I had interviewed with Michael Jacobs
on other shows, but I never worked I knew him
but I didn't really. We never be interviewed, I think
for the Torkulsen's and some other show he had with
Elliott Gould and Dee Wallace Stone. I forget what it
was called. Anyway, so I knew I knew him a
little bit, but Bob was the one who brought me in.
(21:31):
No I had seen the show, of course, Yeah, it was.
It was a highly regarded show. It was considered a
step among writers in the business. It was considered a
step up from the say of the Bells and that
kind of thing was It was definitely you guys. Did
you know the stories that were about something? They weren't
twenty two minutes of chit chat most of the time
(21:53):
until I got there. No I seen I was, And
if memory served, I think Bob said, oh, come in
and pitch some stuff, and we're looking for a Christmas
episode if you have any Christmas ideas. So I came
up with this that story and they and they liked it,
and and then I wrote that one, and then I
(22:14):
think I wrote the second one, which was not my idea.
I think they gave that to me.
Speaker 6 (22:18):
So, wait, what was your pitch? Do you remember? Was
was your pitch? The very time the Panga and Corey
or was the pitch that do Christmas Carol with them?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Know, the pitch was kids at that age, you know,
teenagers often they were raised everybody's raised with this is
the way you do Christmas? Yes, and your way of
doing Christmas isn't always the way my family does Christmas.
And we open up Christmas, well we do it. Oh
you put tinsel on your tree. That's great and all that,
(22:47):
all those little family traditions are that it'd be funny
if we can coct a reason why, you know, to
Peg and Corey had you know, we're going to spend
Christmas together and it's like, wait a minute, she does
it all wrong. It was a real issue between them
and that's what they sparked to, and that's what I like.
I thought it was kind of a fresh way to
do a Christmas story that I had not seen and
it seemed rooted and character, yeah, and character and stuff
(23:11):
that relatable for.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Yeah, I was gonna say very relatable. Who hasn't had
those conversations with their friends were like what.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Do you do?
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Oh no, that's not what we really like.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
The whole conversation with the three of us going like,
wait a minute, wait, whoa you open your present?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Wait?
Speaker 1 (23:25):
You call it Christmas eve Day?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Actually, yeah, who plays the elf? And you do one
at the time, because everybody get one present.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
On Santa's Last But you did that, so you were
like seventeen.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
That's weird.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
We were in our twenties. Yeah. So you mentioned that
you were never you never got to meet any of us.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
I'm assuming that meant you never met Bill Daniels or
any of the adult actors as well.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Never. Now, in fact, you guys can tell me. Did
you used to shoot partly in front of an audience
but then stuff other stuff you just block and tape? Right?
Speaker 3 (24:06):
We had a block and tape day, which was always Wednesday,
and then Thursday we would shoot in front of a
live studio audience, right right, Anything that wasn't block and tape.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, And I don't remember. I was kind of busy
in those days. They may have invited me, but I
just couldn't make the the schedule, or they may never
have invited me. I don't remember.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
But did you come to the run throughs?
Speaker 2 (24:25):
No? No? Nothing, Wow, nothing, I was nothing. It was
I think it was also frankly a little bit of a.
It was kind of an emergency thing where it's like,
as I say, they were for whatever reason they were,
they'd gotten behind schedule, and yeah, they just needed somebody
to come in and knock out a couple of scripts quickly.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
You're just in a big glass case. It did a
little hammer next to it in case of story break,
break glass anything like that.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
Okay, yeah, so it was.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
It was. It was. It was a fine thing. It
was just it was. It was odd because usually you
do go to the taping and I would have looked
forward to it normally. I just can't remember why it
didn't work. I also had two young children at the time.
Oh yeah, that may have been part of the problem.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
I have two young children now, and I don't remember
any aspect of any part of my day ever. So
I can tell you it's life is just.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
One giant blur.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
You know you're here and you're safe. I don't think.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
I'm pretty sure this is a dream.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
You have you watched the episodes, and can you see
if any of your actual scripts survived?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
I mean, I have not watched them. I'm sorry to say.
I did reread. I look, I even found it. I
found my old script for what a very topanga Christmas.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
Original draft, original draft, original draft.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
It's actual paper. Wow. I read it. I was like,
oh god, yeah, it was pretty funny. I connously. What
happens is you've write so many things over the years.
I can't remember what was mine and adjusted by the
staff or so.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Do you think that's the first Is that like a
table read version? Is that the first thing we read?
Or is that truly like the first version you wrote
entirely yourself?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Oh no, this is your this is a this is
what you guys read. This went through the went through
the staff. So I don't have my original. It's probably
written on a scriptware or something, one of those programs
you know, it's it's a floppy disk, this big about
in my basement. But no, it's funny. I don't. I don't.
(26:25):
It's it's it's often difficult for me to remember which
are my jokes or what was I just I had
a weird experience them a few months ago. My daughter
was little, she was like eight when I was producing
Sister Sister, and so we had a Halloween episode, right,
and so we need a trigger treater. So you want, honey,
you want to come and be a tricker treater. Sure,
(26:47):
so she got to be a tricker treater and say
trick or treat and squirt Tmoor in the face with
silly string. Right, Okay, so she got a SAG card
for but she had gone on. She's not in the business.
She lives elsewhere, has a wonderful life, and I have
two grandchildren with her. So, but we were up there
(27:08):
a while ago and I somehow came up and her
husband didn't even know she'd been in this because she
never tells anybody, right, So, being being a typical millennial,
he said, okay, let's find it. So he found it
in like three seconds on Hulu or Amazon or something,
and we sat and watched it together, and it was
so interesting because I hadn't seen it in twenty plus years,
(27:29):
and it was actually pretty funny. But I was sort
of I kind of remember writing that joke, and oh, yeah,
I think it's funny. You do enough of them and
they kind of bore together.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
Is there one joke you've written that sticks in your
mind in any show you've done, like's the what's the
best joke you've ever reten?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Oh? Man, now you're setting me up for total failure.
I cannot. I was having this conversation with somebody the
other day. I can't remember, Like most of the time,
I can't even remember the jokes, but I can remember
that I can tell you this. This is the first
joke I ever pitched in a room. Okay, I had
done freelance for three or four years forever got on staff.
(28:08):
And so the first shows on staff was Archie Bunker's place.
And in those days, Carol O'Connor had owned half the show.
Norman had nothing to do with it anymore, and so
Carol ran the room. So when you were sitting in
a writer's room, you guys, know what that's like, at
least you know what it's like. It's it's a it's
a very.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
High octane, yes, high pressure.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And instead of pitching to like a showrunner, like a
writer who's all usually kind of an egomaniac anyway, and this, guys,
you're pitching to Carol O'Connor. I mean, his chair was
already in the Smithsonian Institution. Yeah, so when you pitched
him was like pitching to Mount Rushmore. And so I
was very kind of shy anyway, it was very reticent,
(28:52):
but I knew after two three weeks, I'm gonna have
to say something to say, And so there was a
here's what, here's the joke. It's not a great joke.
I'm just saying because it's the one I remember. But
the situation was Archie had a he was always he
ran this bar and he was always getting sued or
being He's either suing somebody or being sued all the time.
(29:12):
So he had this fly by night attorney, local attorney
who is who is his who is his representative? And
so the guy was sick of dealing with him, so
he's going to fob him off onto a younger lawyer.
So the scene was Archie's coming in to complain about
something and the and the older attorney's gonna going to
tell him this young guy is going to now take
over for me. And so Archie comes in and he
(29:35):
goes to his normal seat and he almost sits on
the attorney because the guy's sitting in a chair. He
almost sits on his play by Barry Gordon and uh.
And so the older attorney says, oh, uh, you know,
mister Bunker, don't you, And then the attorney just had
a line like yes, wow or something. So I kind
of go, you know, page six, whatever it is, I
think we can maybe better that. And the guy wrote
(29:58):
the script gives me a look like, kid, you better
have something, don't you say script unless you can better
my script? And so I said, well what if? What if?
He goes almost sits on him, and the attorney says,
you know, mister Bunker, don't you And the guy says, well,
not from that angle, it's worth that much of a juggle.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Yeah, it is better than yes.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
And I remember the look on Carol's face because I
was like, I'm terrified, and he like, yeah, okay, and
he turns to the writers, just nods and says, which
means put on the script. It's going on the script.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I was like, I can be quiet again.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Three years later, I pitched you that's great.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I love that.
Speaker 6 (30:51):
I would be so bad in a writer's room, like
there's nothing that terrifies me more like I love writing,
I love talking about writing, and I would enjoy being
in the room to just watch the process. But I
would never want to pitch a joke. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
It was very it's a very tense thing. And I
ran writer's rooms to it. Not at that point of course,
but later in my career I was running the writer's room.
Of course, you're dealing with usually six eight, ten, twelve,
even really smart, really funny, and usually really screwed up people.
Your job is to try. It's like being an orchestra conductor.
You've got to figure out, Okay, that person needs to
(31:27):
be encouraged more of that person shut up more, and
you've got to try. And when you get it right,
it's a it's a magic because somebody will just say
one thing, and I'll put and it just spirals into
this amazing creation that nobody would.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Have come up with on their own.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
But if somebody, if the person running the room is
mean spirited, and a lot of them are, it can
be really, really difficult. I was amazed I was able
to not only survive, but to thrive as well as
I did, because, as I say, when I came out
here was very shy.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
All right, So year then, in all the years you've done,
all the rooms you've done.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
Not to put you on the spot again, but who
do you think is the uh, who's the best writer
you've ever worked with?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Oh? God, I've worked with so many wonderful writers. The
people I remember the most of the certainly the funniest writers,
the punch up guys. I worked with a guy named
Ray Jessel who's passed away. He was older when I
worked with him on Head of the Class, and he
was unbelievably funny. I mean he just but not funny,
(32:28):
just like Sticky. If there was a situation where you know,
we're two o'clock in the morning and we're trying to
get a joke to get out of scene three right,
and he could come up with it. It was astounding.
I worked with some great punch up guys. Jim Valley
was very good. Chris Thompson, Uh, it's it would be
(32:51):
very difficult for me to say one person was the first.
But and my mentor, Hal Dresner was a great writer.
I worked with just so many wonderful It was a joy.
It was absolute joy. I would say that to drive
home two o'clock in the morning after a punch up night,
you are I never took drugs in my life because
(33:12):
I didn't need to. It was just like I was
flying from the adrenaline rush of being in a room.
These are the funniest people on planet Earth. I mean,
the funniest people in the world come to Hollywood to
be funny for a living, and you get to be
in a room with them. It was a joy, and
there was you know there. Jeff Dutiel was a great writer.
Guy worked with now Steve Sullivan is a great writer.
(33:32):
A lot of it. But they all have different strengths
and some are better with story and others are better
with jokes.
Speaker 6 (33:37):
But you mentioned your mentor, Howl Dresner. Yeah, how did
he become your mentor? What was that relationship?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I did early early after the Jeffersons. The next show
after the Jeffersons was a show called Husbands, Wives and Lovers,
which I'm convinced absolutely nobody ever watched. That lasted thirteen episodes.
Help was the executive producer on it, and it was
a very odd show in that it was an hour
long multi camera sitcom which nobody had ever tried. And
(34:06):
there's a reason why it doesn't work. It doesn't work,
you know, even I'm sure when you guys are doing them,
there's a sort of a rhythm. Yeah, twenty two minute,
it just sort of feels like it's over, you know,
well this was forty four minutes.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
It just just keeps going.
Speaker 6 (34:22):
Ten as what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Well? We had had there there was a story about
five couples, five different married couples, so you'd cut around
from from a couple to couple. It was it was
I didn't know at the time. I was too young
and stupid, but it was based on company, you know,
the Broadway music. But it just didn't work. But I
did two episodes that for Hal and he we never
(34:47):
really worked much together after that. We did a couple
of pilots, I think, but we just stayed friends because
I just it was like being in a room with
a He was the wittiest person I ever met in
my life. I did a pilot. I remember we sold
a pilot once. I think it was CBS, and we
went in and pitched it and the guy whoever it
was didn't particularly like it, and he was just he
(35:09):
was starting to think of a reason to reject it.
And Hal was so witty he just cut him to a.
He just was so smart and funny, and if you
dared to say something, you know, negative, he would find
a way to turn it back on. So the guy
just bought the pilot, I think, So how would not
make fun? It wasn't a very good idea, but I
think we sold the pilot just because Hell was so scary.
(35:32):
But I knew him to be a sweetheart. He died
a couple of years ago, but the wittiest person I
ever met. It was like amazing.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Your first episode of Boy Meets World that aired was
Fraternity Row, which was season five, episode four, where A
decides to start his own fraternity, Magnum Pie to get girls.
We have Paul Gleeson in that episode, as well as
some acid trip cameos from Love Boats, Ted Lange and
Bernie Kapell.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
What do you remember from that episode?
Speaker 2 (36:16):
I got, God, don you not a thing. I remember
almost nothing. I remember it was a sign to me.
And here's the thing. I know nothing about fraternities. I
was never in a fraternity. I love it, like you
could not pick a worst person to write this draft.
But I remember giving up my all. But again, that
(36:37):
was the second one i'd done.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
So okay, so you wrote a Christmas first.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
So honestly, I have no I have almost no memory
other than working really hard to try to try to
make it work. But it was not my idea. It's
not an idea I ever would have pitched. I don't think.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
So you can't remember.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
You can't remember if if Ted Lange and Bernie Coppel
were part of the script originally, or it was just
who they could get. We're trying to figure out if
it was if that was part of the original pitch.
It was like, this is just who we can get,
so we're going to write them in.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah. No, it was certainly not part of my original concept. No.
I think they just enjoyed casting these kind of fun
right stunt casting things. But no, I'm sorry. I have
no other than how do I write this damn thing?
How do I do this? I know nothing about fraternities?
Speaker 3 (37:33):
So funny, Well, after Boy Meets World, you enter a
universe that many of our listeners and myself will be
very impressed with the world of animated kids TV. Yeah,
how do you make that transition?
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Desperation? Don I was trying to keep my house the
you know the there was a weird thing that happens.
Happened then, is that my generation. I had reached a
certain age about my mid forties, which is a pretty
good run. I started my mid twenties. I had a
twenty year run in sitcoms, and it just there was
(38:08):
an iron gate just suddenly came down and nobody in
my generation could get hired anymore. And so, in fact,
there was a major class action lawsuit by that I
was part of, and we won an ageism lawsuit, and
we all got like, I don't know, dependent on your income,
but you know, you get people got fifty sixty grand,
which is a nice thing, but didn't change the business anyway.
(38:31):
I could. Most of my friends who are of my vintage,
who had been sitcom writers, just got out of the business.
They sold their houses, they took their pensions early, and
they moved someplace cheaper. But I didn't really want to
do that. I felt like I was still I love writing,
I love television. I love what I do. So I
(38:51):
an animation a friend. We had a friend who had
been sitcom writers and said, hey, you want We're doing
a cartoon show. You want to do a couple episodes? Well? Sure,
or why not? And it was some weird Swedish cartoon
called The World of Tosh. You've heard of it?
Speaker 4 (39:08):
Sure? Oh, I've been doing I'm a voiceover actor. I
have been for twenty five years.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Oh so you know it? Okay, I do I Yeah?
Speaker 4 (39:15):
To kick Animation is kind of My World.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Oh okay, you didn't do that show though, No.
Speaker 4 (39:20):
I didn't do that show, but no, I've certainly heard
of it.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Yeah, okay. So anyway, we wrote I think six episodes
or something, and it was the money is lousy, but
it's better than nothing. And so that's how that was
our entree and from there we just kept expanding and
an animation, unlike in live action, most of it has
done freelance, so you can make a living. I wrote
for Swedish shows and Korean shows and Italian shows and
(39:44):
French shows and then American shows as well, and so
if because I had all that experience as a sitcom
writer where you have to knock things out. I mean,
you know, you guys know it's likely you do a
Monday morning read through with the script stinks. Hell yeah,
the writers are back in that room until they are right,
and you have to do it fast. Because I had
all that experience, I could knock out cartoon scripts really fast.
(40:08):
And so you have to indore to make a living.
And so I worked with Steve Sullivan and a lot
of them some have been done solo. But yeah, it
was like the second career and I miss the camaraderie
of being on a set, you know, with actors and
the director. That's so much fun. But it certainly is
(40:29):
less stressful. And so I was able to build a
second career doing animation.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Well, I want to talk more about that, and I'm
going to name some of the shows you've worked on,
but I want to go back briefly to this lawsuit.
Who did you sue and how did that come together?
I'm so curious about that.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
But it was because suddenly everybody who hit their early
forties suddenly who'd been working for years couldn't get it hired.
And you know, you know, writers who were sitting on
grousing to each other all the time. Anyway, wait a minute,
why are we taking this? That's obviously agism. And so somebody,
I don't know exactly who started this, went to an
attorney and started a class action lawsuit against all the
(41:11):
major studios, networks and agencies three together, and everybody at
first thought and I came in, like the second wave
of writers who came in and joined it, and then
there were more followed me. But and all you had
to do is, you know, here's my information. You have.
I give you the right for you to look at
my writer's guild incomes and so on, and so you
(41:33):
can see I'm making this much money and then all
of a sudden, I'm making that much money. So uh.
And it was the same as two of everybody. So
they took it in front of a judge and the
judge said, looked at that information, at the data, and said,
to the to the to the defendants, to the to
the studios and networks, you guys better settle because that's
all I need to see. Wow, everybody in Hollywood didn't
(41:56):
suddenly get untalented when they reached forty five, so lose.
And so they quickly settled the case. And as I said,
it was a nice little it was a nice little bonus.
My wife is a writer too, and she she got
a check and I got a check, and it was nice.
But it doesn't you know. Yeah, it's not a career, right.
That's what animation allowed me to allow me to keep
(42:17):
my house.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Yes, well, the list of kids shows you've written and
produced is so vast you have been nominated for multiple
Emmys for it.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
But here is just a small taste.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Sheriff Calli's Wild West, Tons of Fancy Nancy which you
also wrote a song.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
For Oh more than One? Yes?
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Really?
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Oh yeah?
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Okay, Well I think one of the songs you wrote
for was nominated for an Emmy, though, which is why
I'm familiar with that one, Unbelievable, super Normal Whitch and
my personal favorite, Paw Patrol. How I mean, how did
you so you just all freelance? You just got so
once you started writing for one? Did it seem like
you just were up for a while.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Well, people hire you. If they like your work, then
they hire you or they commend you, and that's kind
of how it usually works. It wasn't all freelance. What
happened was it was mostly freelanced up until gosh, about
ten years ago. And then he got a call from
a producer friend who was doing Sir Calli's Wild West,
which is a Disney show, and said, hey, you want
(43:16):
to be on staff? What? As far as I knew,
there were no staff on animation shows, but Disney does
have staff. Yeah, they most of their shows have like
a four person staff. And so then I wound up
on staff there and also on Chicken Squad and Fancy Nancy,
which was a joyous experience. And then I just finished doing.
(43:40):
I was the head writer for a show that's not
in the air yet but it will be in January
I think called Robo Gobo for Disney Fun. So yeah,
so I did. The last ten years have been mostly
as a staff writer and headwriter.
Speaker 6 (43:54):
Sometimes is that which do you prefer? Do you prefer
sitcom or animated? At this point, like, if you look back,
what are the differences really as a writer in which
do you?
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Yeah? The difference is it's so much more stressful being
on a live action sitcom. I mean it's for I
don't know what it's like for the I do sort of,
but not as well as you guys do. But to
be an actor, I'm sure it has its stresses, but
to to writers, trying to keep ahead of the of
the schedule is just brutal. And the fact that you know,
(44:24):
you go to the table Monday morning, as I say,
if that script doesn't work, it's gonna work by Friday,
or you're gonna be looking for it work. You're looking
for a job. So so you really have to buckle
down and you week after week after week. It's very stressful.
But the upside is it's like doing an opening night
every Friday, night Thursday. But it was like, oh, that's
(44:45):
kind of cool. You know, it was called It's great fun.
It's just I think it's more of a young person's game.
And I think if somebody said to me right now, oh,
we'd like you to run a sitcom, I would my
wife would say yes, and I would say I can't
do it. I don't have the energy to do that anymore.
But an animation is is is more of a writer's
(45:06):
medium in a weird way, because the voice cast. I
rarely even meet the voice cast, and so you're you're
just dealing with just it's just you and the and
the episode director or the episode storyboard artists, and you're
kind of together deciding everything. You know, where's the metaphorical
camera going to be, with the color of the walls, everything,
(45:28):
and so it's it's much much more control over the
finished product. On the other hand, most of what I did,
not all of it, but most of this preschool stuff,
which I found very stifling after a while. I worked
very hard to try to make them something that an
adult could stand to sit in the room and write
and watch.
Speaker 4 (45:46):
But it was But that's that's hugely difficult to write.
Speaker 5 (45:49):
I mean, a preschool show where you're I mean, that's
could be one of the most difficult things to write
in all of Hollywood is keeping preschoolers entertain.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
My god, oh my god, you're you're right, And and
people like I would talk to like writers who I
knew from live action adult days, and they would say, oh,
I would I need some money, I'll do that, said
you you think you would really sit down and try
and write a speck, and you'll see I'll start telling
you all the things you can't do. You can't do
(46:19):
that joke, you can't use that reference, you can't, right,
It's very, very difficult.
Speaker 5 (46:23):
Well, so I did a little I did a little
bit of animation writing. And the thing that amazed me
was the first job I got was I was under
the impression, well, it's animation.
Speaker 4 (46:33):
If I can think it, they can do it. And
that's just not the case at all. It's it's amazing
if you can think of Pixar can do it, right, Yeah, right, exactly.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Not on the but if you go see a Pixar movie,
as we all do, one shot in a Pixar movie
costs the same amount about as what my entire episode
would be on a typical eleven minutes. I mean, we
don't have anywhere near their kind of luxury of No.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
I mean, so same kind of thing.
Speaker 5 (47:00):
They're like, no, we need to reuse storyboards from older
and we need to use backgrounds of older thing. It's like, oh, okay,
so I can't just write whatever I want and you
go draw it Like, Nope, that's not how it works. No.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I mean, you know, he picks up a he picks
up a book and they haven't already created especially if
it's three three D you know, CGI animation, they have
guy has to build build that literally in the computer.
If they haven't already done it. That means some schmuck's
got to go sit in front of his cynique and
law a book and yeah, in the computer, just for
that one thing. And you better make sure that you
(47:34):
really want the.
Speaker 4 (47:35):
Book, that it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
Well, I think one of the things that is most
impressive about your career is your ability to move from
elite late night sitcoms, then into kids and family sitcoms,
and then into preschool and animated. I mean basically, as
you got older, the people you were writing for gott younger.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
Yeah, and so did you ever consciously notice those transitions.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Or yeah wow, oh yeah. Well luckily, you know, I
had two kids, so I knew from them what they
responded to. And then now, uh, well, my oldest grand
son is six, and I have a six year old,
a three year old, a two year old, and a
four month old. So between all of them, I'm pretty
cute into what preschool I watched them. I love I
(48:23):
love to watch them watch yeah, because I learned so much.
They just they don't do it the same way. Yeah,
they respond to things, and I have arguments all the
time with Disney about it. Of course I lose, but
that they that they that they respond My little two
year old just loves Frozen, you know, and she loves
a pig, but they seize on something when you can't
(48:45):
quite figure out why is she like that? But not this.
It's very weird. And my six year old, when he
was like three or four, his favorite show on Disney
Plus was Hamilton Hamilton over. You don't know who Hamilton is,
what the United States of Americas, But they just respond
to certain things and you try to figure out what
is it about that he loved watching that King George
(49:07):
come out with you know, with a red yes. Yeah,
the patter song. I loved it.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
I don't know, so funny.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
So for someone listening now who wants to be a writer,
and here's all the different mediums you've worked in, what
advice do you give?
Speaker 1 (49:24):
And because I think you you teach, do you do?
Speaker 2 (49:26):
I taught for many years at UCLA and also at
Pepperdine screen and television writing. And I have a YouTube
channel now called the Go Draft.
Speaker 6 (49:36):
Which your videos are great, man, I was watching some
of them. They're really really good.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Oh, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 6 (49:43):
Really insightful stuff. And it's like short enough that you
can you pack a lot in there.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
It's really I tried to. It's but it's all practical.
It's all it's not that theory. It's technique. It's about
this is how I do it, and I'm still doing
it and have done it for forty five years. So
you can choose to follow that path or not. But
it's I think it's all practical and useful. Yeah, so yeah,
I Oh, the advice I would give it. The business
(50:10):
at this particular moment, when we're doing this segment, is
in a state, as you all know, of tremendous flucks.
Especially television, and up until a year or two ago,
if somebody had a screenplay, they're representatives saying, is there
any way you can turn it into a limited series?
And now it's exactly the opposite. Somebody writes a limited
(50:30):
series pilot and they say, is there any way you
can turn into a screenplay because they can't get they
can't get anybody to green light limited series anymore, and
so it's in a state of flux because they don't
know the people in charge, the people writing the checks,
aren't sure how they're going to make money on things anymore.
Streaming has just turned the world upside down. We do
(50:52):
know that there's always a market for entertainment, probably now
more than any time, so that it will it will
find its balance. But the young clients I have who
are students or just friends who've had success, have almost
all had success and features. They've broken into the feature
business quicker than they not like I'm talking at Marvel movies,
(51:17):
but I'm like little indie teachers, some of which do
very well, and get them a career and get them
started much easier now at this moment than trying to
break into television. It is very tough to break into
television at this moment, because television just doesn't know what
it is anymore. Yeah, but I will say this, and
this is absolutely true. Over the years of been doing
(51:38):
this and teaching, I have never ever met anybody who
had talent and perseverance who didn't eventually have some level
of success. Might not have been what they dreamt of.
They may not have become the next Steven Spielberg. That's
what I want to do. I'm not the next Steven Spielberg,
but I had some success. But if you hang in
there long enough and if you have talent, so somebody
(52:01):
will find it. That's the one nice thing you say
about Hollywood is it really is to a large degree
of meritocracy and people who can do it. And that's
what I used a lot about television because in movies
you can kind of get by if you're not kind
of hide behind, hide under the radar screen. But in television,
if you can't produce, they find out really quickly and
you're out and somebody else is brought in you can
(52:23):
do it, and so it is kind of a meritocracy.
So there's that to take heart in.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
Well, that's good advice.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
And finally, as a bit of a TV historian, did
you ever think people would still be talking about Boy
Meets World thirty years later?
Speaker 2 (52:40):
No, I do, I did not, and I'm delighted that
you are. I mean, I think it's wonderful that people
are still watching it and still excited by it. I
think it's so interesting, fascinating that kids, I mean, you
guys must know that. You know that the people watching
(53:01):
the episodes are probably roughly the same age as the
audience who watched it originally, and they still respond to
the same stuff, and even though the references have changed
and change and all the rest of it. It's fascinating
to me. They will sit and watch I've seen them
watch Sister Sister episodes and say to the Bell episodes,
and they like them just as much. It's very very interesting.
(53:23):
And also there's something about multi camera sitcoms. I can't
figure it out that there's a sense of because I
guess of the fourth wall. The audience feels like they're
part of it, part of it. It felt like they
were in Corey's living room, and.
Speaker 4 (53:36):
It's comfortable.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
It is it is, and people will watch them and
rewatch them and watch them twenty times and they know
all the jokes by heart. It doesn't seem to matter anyway.
I think it's lovely and it makes me feel good
to know that it wasn't. We weren't producing stuff that
just went into avoid Some of it did go into
avoid lovers.
Speaker 4 (54:00):
Literally the guessing the actors on the show didn't remember
they were on the show.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
I don't think they're doing a podcast.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
Andy, Thank you so much for spending your time with us.
Thank you for letting us hunt you down home phone
and all. Never get rid of it. It brings surprises
around the corner.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
We so appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
And thank you for solving the mystery for us of
why we were like, how come we don't remember him?
Speaker 1 (54:26):
Thank you for solving the mystery.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
Yeah, I'm not terribly memorable, but I'm better than that.
Speaker 3 (54:33):
We knew it must be something, so you did. You
solved that memory. You saw that mystery for us, and
we appreciate you and thank you. Tell everyone again where
they can find you on your YouTube channel.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
It's the go draft. The go draft, which is a
term that used to mean maybe they still say it
meant the person who wrote the draft that got the
green light, that was the go draft, and so that's cool,
is trying to get people from the level of being
promising to actually getting your work produced.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Well, I love that.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Thank you so much for being here with us, and yeah,
we wish you nice. Thanks for your contribution to a
show we know and love and our audience knows and love,
and so yeah, thank you for being with us. We
wish you many more years of success and health and
and love and enjoy your grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Thank you very much. Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (55:23):
Okay, so we don't have to feel bad. So bad
we did know whit. We never even possibly came to set.
Speaker 4 (55:31):
It's so strange. It's so strange that you write these
two episodes are not there. You don't get to just.
Speaker 6 (55:36):
Can't believe that our staff was that far beyond like,
because it seems like we had a big staff, especially
by season five, that they would have been, you know,
been able to account. But I guess not like I
mean get outside.
Speaker 1 (55:48):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 3 (55:50):
I do think you know writer, you mostly right features
Will You've written a couple episodes of TV. I think
the pace at which they have to come up with
this stuff, it's just something we can't possibly understand because
we've never been in it. For a long term, because
I see it now on shows I direct, where I'll
(56:11):
talk to people and I'll be like, so, how's it going,
And everyone will look so tired, you're just underwater, and
they're just like, we are here so late, and and
we're writing the episode we're doing next week, and and
it's just it's so high pressure and so well it
never ends.
Speaker 6 (56:30):
Never.
Speaker 4 (56:30):
I mean I mean literally never. Just the show just stops.
That's or you die. That's it. Otherwise you're writing the
whole time.
Speaker 5 (56:38):
It's the episode you're doing, it's next week's episodes, rewriting now,
last episode.
Speaker 4 (56:41):
It just never stopped.
Speaker 3 (56:42):
I go crazy, so crazy, Well it makes sense anyway.
Thank you all for joining us for this episode of
Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us on
Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your
emails pod meets World Show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (56:54):
And we have merch.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
Merch that to me, not membing. Oh the merch, got it.
Speaker 5 (57:03):
You never met the merch, don't worry, Yeah exactly, I
never met the merch, so I thought, like I thought.
Speaker 1 (57:07):
We were merch.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
You can find our merch at Podmeets worldshow dot com.
Will send us out.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
We Love You All, pod dismissed.
Speaker 5 (57:17):
Podmets World is nheart podcast producer and hosted by Danielle Fischel,
Wilfredell and Ryder Strong executive producers, Jensen Carp and Amy
Sugarman Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor,
Tara sudbachsch producer, Maddie Moore, engineer and Boy Meets World
super fan Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle
Morton of Typhoon and you can follow us on Instagram
(57:37):
at Podmeats World Show or email us at Podmeats Worldshow
at gmail dot com
Hosts And Creators
Will Friedle
Danielle Fishel
Rider Strong
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