Marc Summers Meets World

There was absolutely nothing cooler in the ‘90s than slime. And the gang is sitting down with the main reason: former host of Double Dare, Marc Summers!

 

The Nickelodeon legend explains how a fateful audition led to a legendary career, while Marc and Will share a bonding moment over their time together on “Don’t Just Sit There!”

 

Plus, find out how people got “de-slimed” after being on the show and the casual way producers came up with ideas like “booger-filled giant nose.”

 

So climb aboard the One Ton Human Hamster Wheel and slide with us down the Big Scoop, it’s a brand new Pod Meets World!

 

Follow @podmeetsworldshow on Instagram and TikTok!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:20):
So the last time we recorded, we had Ernie on
Ernie Ray Henry Rays Junior talking about his incredible martial
arts background and experience, and it reminded me of a
story I don't think I've ever.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Told you guys. Do you know about my audition for
the three inches No?

Speaker 1 (00:39):
No, no, Technically it was three inches kickback, which if
you look up you might notice my old friend Sean
Fox is one.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Of the three inches and three inches kickback. He is the.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Story behind that is we both got the audition. So
this would have been pre Boy Mets World. I guess
I was eleven or twelve. We're at the oak Woods.
He was staying with my family at the time, and
he was a genuine martial artist. Sean had taken martial
arts since he was six seven, had done multiple forms,

(01:15):
was really good.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
I had not thanks to karate kid at six. I
got really into kung.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Fu for a year a year, and I made it
to an orange belt, I think, which is a second belt,
right you go white belt orange belt, and I got
two stripes on my orange belt and then quit so
I could not.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Kick or punch to save my life.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Okay, but whole year of kung fu and you still
couldn't kick her punch.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
No I could.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
I'm being you know, I'm exaggerated, right, But what I
did love to do, which my son Indy also loves
to do now, is stunts like I throwing my body around,
pretending to be hurt, pratt falls, all that stuff, hitting
your a door.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
You were famous with that.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, So Sean and I were both we both had
auditions for the Three Ninjas Kick Back. The other three
ninchs had just come out and been a huge hits,
and this one was going to Japan.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
So we were like, we want this movie.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
We could both be in this movie if we're both great,
because the brother is maybe one of us, you know.
So we decide rather than going in for the audition
where you just do the audition, and then they wanted
a martial arts demonstration, we're going to do a demonstration together.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
So we found the room at the Oakwood Apartments, like
there was like a main lobby area or whatever, like
a even know what it was. It was a gathering
space and we cleared it out and uh spent like
five hours developing a fight, which quickly became just Sean
kicking the crap.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
And then you throw me over here, and then you
get up and kick.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Me and then I fall here. It right, but it
was so much fun. So we finished this up and
we're like, all right, we got our thing. It's tomorrow morning.
We've gone our audition, and that night my brother Sean's
staying with us at the oak Woods. My brother decides
it's the night we're gonna sneak out.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh, go and go.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
See Haley, the girl that my brother is in love with,
who lives down the hall at the oak Woods. But
if we sneak out the window, my mom will never
know that we went out.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
And Haley has a friend visiting, so all three of
us should.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Go and like hang out with Haley all night, right,
and like nobody's even kissed Haley. This is just But
Haley is sixteen, has her own apartment where Shiloh's maybe fourteen.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
I'm twelve. So we're like, okay, okay, shylt we'll sneak out.
So we push the screen out of our window. We
sneak out. We go down the hall building q I
think we were in or down the.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Outside area, like the little pathway to get to her window,
knock on her window.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
She lets us in. We end up staying there until
six in the morning.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
Night.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, no sleep.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Sean and I have to do this physical audition for
producers and the this is like producers we maybe had
already read and this was the producer's callback to do
our demonstration.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
So we get back to the room at six a m.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
And our auditions in like two hours, and I am
just exhausted and I'm like, I have to I have
to go to sleep, and Sean is why is beyond
his years, is like writer At this point, we just
need to stay awake.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Ye, it's gonna be worse, and I don't care. I'm
going right later.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
My mom's like, gods, get up, let's have some cereal,
let's go to the audition. And I am literally falling
asleep in my bowl of cheerios.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
And Sean's doing fine, He's ready to go. Oh well
it was his martial arts training. Yeah, so we go.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Uh, we do this audition and one of the most
embarrassing experiences. Now, the fight was fine, like, Okay, I
don't even remember the actual reading. I'm sure we read
and did like acting part, but of course, what the
big thing was that we he did this fight and
sure enough. Like when it was over, they just looked
at us and they were like, well, we know who

(05:06):
probably choreographed this one. She just made Sean look so good.
It was like yeah, okay. And then they're like, now
can you guys do and they named some kind of
kick and I was like uh and Sean was just
like and it was a jumping It was like he
jumped and just spun and did some kind of kick,
but he just they just said something and he was

(05:28):
like sure and did it and then they were like
can you I was like, uh, sure, good, good good
actor with you know everything on my I can juggle,
I can speak another language, I can whatever.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
What do you need? What do you so? I tried?

Speaker 1 (05:41):
And I mean just when I think about me jumping
the air and trying to spin and do this kick, I.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Mean I can't. I can't see myself can fully picture it?

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Oh so you can feel the cringe.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Ye when I look.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
Back, I'm all I'm outside of my body watching the
little rider flail and all all I wanted.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
To do was sleep.

Speaker 5 (06:01):
Oh you want to My guess is it's a flying
roundhouse kick or a jumping roundhouse kick, is.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
What they asked for her to do just for that.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah, but see, I feel like I would have known
what that is. Right you say that, I'm like, I
can't imagine what that is. Whatever they said, I was like, Uh, anyway,
Sean got the part, Sean booked it.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Sean booked it. Did you to find out make the movie?

Speaker 6 (06:24):
You just said?

Speaker 5 (06:25):
Because you're right? There was a three three ninjas? One
the three Ninjas? So do you know why they ended
up recasting all three of the ninjas?

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Were they different? Yeah, they just got older, they were so.

Speaker 5 (06:35):
But was the family and the second one supposed to
be three different ninjas or was it supposed to be.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
The same characters characters?

Speaker 1 (06:41):
But I think it was just long enough after that
they wanted to keep the kids the same age.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
And you know, I think it was the error where
it was like kids are replaceable.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
But I actually Sean when he got cast, they signed
him for three films, so maybe they didn't have contracts
with those first kids, and then those kids were like, well,
now you got to pay us.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Right for you, we can just replace you.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, and that first one, the first one is not bad.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
The one that Sean is in, it's not great Bendy
ninjenjoys it because Uncle Sewan is in it. Let's put
it there, we go.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Indy was really into it because Uncle Sean was in it. Yeah,
and you know he had a lot of fun. He
got to go to Japan to make this movie.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Uh and yeah, that one didn't do as well.

Speaker 5 (07:26):
No, that was my So horror movies for you as
a kid, or like those kind of movies for you
as a kid were karate and ninja movies.

Speaker 6 (07:33):
For me, that's all I watched.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
You never took martial arts, you never did it.

Speaker 5 (07:36):
I in my head didn't need it because I was
already a trained assassin. So yeah, my dad, my nickname
from my father to this day is still Ninja because
that's all I ever wanted.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
And you called your dad ninja.

Speaker 5 (07:49):
My dad calls me Ninja to this day because when
I was a little kid, he would tell me Ninja stories,
and you know, he would always we'd be you know,
he'd tuck me in and go, all right, who do
you want to save tonight? And this was you know,
first grade, what ever, kindergarten, and I'd picked the cutest
girl in class, and my dad would tell me a
story like Okay, so she's walking home from school and
they were always ruffians.

Speaker 6 (08:06):
She was always attacked by ruffians.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Ruffians.

Speaker 6 (08:09):
Of course they were probably doing they.

Speaker 5 (08:10):
Were doing a j these ruffians, and then I would
jump out of the trees because of course I was
secretly trained by a ninja clan in Japan, even though
I was six.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
See, you would have loved three Kickback. That's exactly the story.
They took my dad's ninja stories.

Speaker 5 (08:27):
Because it was I mean, those movies were Sho Kasugi
was my god growing up. He was in all the
ninja movies, Revenge of the Ninja, Return of the Ninja.

Speaker 6 (08:35):
It was just, oh god, those are the best.

Speaker 5 (08:36):
So those three Ninja movies were great. I never saw Kickback.
I gotta be honest with you, I tapped out after
the first one.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Welcome to pod Meets World.

Speaker 6 (08:44):
I'm Daniel fishl, I'm Writer Strong, and I'm Wilfrid.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
As a nostalgia podcast deeply rooted in the eighties and nineties,
there are certain subjects we find ourselves frequently circling. Obviously TGIF,
the programming block we all called home for seven seasons,
and the Disney Channel, another network where our show later
aired in syndication. I mean, one of us has an
entire podcast dedicated to just the original films that channel aired.

(09:23):
But when we take a step back, there is one
entire outlet of kids entertainment that we often neglect. And
that same guy with the dcom podcast, well, he started
his career there. I'm talking about Nickelodeon. Launched in nineteen
seventy nine, commercial free for its first five years, it
became a powerhouse in the industry with things you normally
can't do on television, all in the form of scripted series,

(09:47):
variety shows, animated classics, preschool targeted programming, and one very
disgusting game show. It was called Doubledare and it ran
from nineteen eighty six to nineteen ninety three, forcing teams
to compete for cash and prizes by answering trivia questions
and completing messy physical challenges. Almost instantly, the presence of

(10:07):
Doubledare tripled viewership for the channel and became the most
watched original daily programming on all of cable TV. And
at the front and center of this phenomenon was the
show's host, a man who somehow kept it all together,
dodging slime whit Cream Pies, Boogers, Eggs, shaving Cream, Seltzer,
and child size Chocolate Sundays from the traditional school of

(10:30):
broadcasters and became a Hall of Fame host in one
of the least traditional game shows ever. He since enjoyed
even more success on the Food Network and in a
one man show all about his life and career, all
Endeavors involving a little less chaos. This week on Podmeat's World,
we are honored to sit down with an icon of
our childhood. It's the host of Doubledare and so much more.

(10:52):
Please welcome Mark Summers, who.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Hy it's hard to see you, Mark to be seen.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
Thank you for spending some time with us today.

Speaker 4 (11:05):
My pleasure looking forward to it.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
So Will Fredell here was on Nickelodeon with you at
the same time, and Will spent so much time trying
to find a clip or somewhere where he worked with you,
because he knows he did.

Speaker 6 (11:22):
Oh, I know, I did. I mean we did.

Speaker 5 (11:23):
Nick takes over your school and all that kind of
stuff together. So I was on, don't just sit there back.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
In the day you did. Don't just sit there.

Speaker 5 (11:30):
I did, don't just sit there? So I was one
of the hosts of Don't You Sit There? So we
saw you all the time, I mean, I think.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
And produced a week of that when the regular guy
couldn't be there, okay, were in some horrible spot on
like A thirty third and eleventh.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
It was amazing that, yeah you that was at the
first I started.

Speaker 5 (11:45):
Second season, we were at fifty fifth, were at Unitel
at fifty fifth and ninth.

Speaker 4 (11:48):
Which was much nicer by yes, yes, there were there
were fewer hookers there nice, but oh my god. I
always love that show. But for some reason it didn't
catch on. I think we're a little ahead of our
time back then.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
I think so too. Yeah, we were.

Speaker 5 (12:04):
I think we did two or three seasons, but it
was And then we went down to Florida and we
opened up the Universal Studios Florida. There, you know, we
had that big three hour live spectacular. So I was
there with you for all of it, and I can't
find a single clip of the two of us together.

Speaker 4 (12:17):
It was do you say, Josh with the other people
from Don't You Sit There?

Speaker 2 (12:20):
I do.

Speaker 5 (12:21):
We Actually, we had our was like forty or thirty
year reunion here in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Everybody flew out and stayed at the house last year.

Speaker 5 (12:27):
So I was with Matt Matt Brown and Ali Smith
and Wendy Douglass wasn't here, but she zoomed in and
the whole band and everybody.

Speaker 6 (12:35):
Yeah was we had a great time.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
That was so much fun. And yeah, you know, book
some great guests on that show, you know.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
We did.

Speaker 5 (12:40):
We had new kids on the block when they were
just starting, and I think Neil Patrick Harris came on.
I mean, we had really yeah, we're My first interview
ever was weird Al Yankovic, which is and Michael Richards
for UHF.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
So we had it was a for anybody who doesn't
know what Don't You Sit There?

Speaker 4 (12:54):
Was?

Speaker 2 (12:54):
We were like a kids Saturday Night Live.

Speaker 5 (12:56):
We had special guests and a band and and did
skits and was just a ton of fun.

Speaker 4 (13:01):
So one time I was on with Harvey and our
producers and writers and we pretended to come up with
a theme song, don't just Sit There, And it was
me dressed as Elvis just saying for two and a
half minutes, don't just sit there? No, don't.

Speaker 6 (13:18):
Nickelodeon in the eighties.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
It was the best. But that's such a.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Great like, you know, the idea of doing like a
kid's variety show is really sore smart, Like my son
would love to watch that, Like I'm I want that.
I know that now, like we need this, you know,
right now everything is so you know, because of streaming,
like everybody's in their own little thing. The idea of
like a live show or show that even just with
a live audience that brings kids together, like Doubledare, you know,

(13:43):
like those were so fun back in.

Speaker 5 (13:45):
The day, and they they did things that they don't
do anymore. Like, you know, an audience member was our announcer.
So every every week we'd pick a new audience member
who would stand up and say, like, you know, hey,
I'm John from Secaucus, New Jersey, and welcome.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Don't just sit there.

Speaker 5 (13:58):
And it was always somebody different every week, and then
the band would come on.

Speaker 6 (14:01):
It was really really cool.

Speaker 4 (14:03):
The impact that Nickelodeon had back in the day was
pretty amazing. Doesn't sadly have that same sort of impact anymore,
you know, because kids watch their phones and their iPads,
and if you say to them, you know, what's Nickelodeon,
they don't even know. It's a whole different world.

Speaker 5 (14:18):
They'll know the shows they'll know individual shows like oh,
I know Phineas and ferb for Disney something like that.
They'll know, But the network itself is just kind of
not a thing anymore.

Speaker 4 (14:28):
It's really not. If it wasn't for SpongeBob, I'm not
sure they'd still be around, you know exactly.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
Well, Mark, while researching your life, we learned that you
faced a very common and relatable fork in the road
for those of us who decided to pursue a career
in Hollywood. You had to decide do I become an
actor or a rabbi? Who among us has not with
this decision.

Speaker 4 (14:53):
Requisite as you've got to be Jewish, so I guess
you could be something else that still want to be
a rabbi. But you know, after my bar mitsva to me,
it felt like performing up there the pulpit, as we
used to say, and it made me think, oh my gosh,
well maybe this is a direction I should go. And
I was rather confused, and I knew the assistant rabbi,
Rabbi Weismann, and I rode my bike over the temple

(15:15):
when I was about thirteen years old, and I knocked
on the door, and I knew that the rabbi had
started off majoring in radio and television and then became
a rabbi. And he said, why do you want to
become a rabbi? And I said, because I want to
help people. And he said, if you go to the
entertainment business, you can help a lot of people a little,
but if you're a rabbi, you can help a small
amount of people a lot. So whatever you do, you'll

(15:35):
be fine. And I chose entertainment.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
It's great analogy. Yeah, well put yeah, yeah wow.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
And so then you ended up making the move from
to Los Angeles from Indianapolis, right, No, I.

Speaker 4 (15:47):
Actually went to Boston for two years. I went to
a school called Graham Junior College, which was a school
of misfits. None of us wanted to go to college,
but it was sort of the thing to do for
two reasons, want to improve our education and to day
out of the draft. And no thing called Vietnam was
going on back in the day. And while I was there,
there was a guy by the name of Bert du
Brow who was still one of my dearest friends, who

(16:10):
ended up being the execu producer Sally Jess who Rafiela
Jerry Springer, a guy by the name of Andy Kaufman
who did what he did, and another guy by the
name of Paul Fusco who created alf So we have
talented group of humans.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Wow, were you guys all friends like hanging out?

Speaker 4 (16:26):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yes, gosh?

Speaker 5 (16:27):
How was I have to ask because he can be
controversial when it comes to is he funny?

Speaker 2 (16:33):
Is he not funny?

Speaker 6 (16:34):
What was just hanging out with Andy Kaufman?

Speaker 4 (16:36):
Like? Okay, I will say this and sorry for anybody
who cares. I never found Andy funny a day in
my life. Okay. He was a stranger scene in the
history of the world. When I was finally over here,
I became a regular at the Comedy Starre in nineteen
seventy six, and then you'd walk over to the improv
over on Melrose and I'd walk in some nights and
Andy go, hey, Mark, how you doing fine? Well are

(16:57):
you doing? Oh? Let's go at dinner. So I'd go
have dinner with Andy and I walk in two nights
later and I say, Hendy, how are you going to go?
Do we know each other?

Speaker 3 (17:05):
God?

Speaker 4 (17:06):
So he was always playing mind games and I had
no use for it, quite honestly, and so I was
not the biggest fan I think the wrestling thing was,
you know, not for me. You know, there are people
who think he's a genius and good for them, that's
what makes the world go around, but it never worked
for me. I just didn't get it.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yes, I didn't.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
Was living a bit is just not for me.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
It's hard to be around.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah, okay, So from Boston, then you make the move
to la I did, and.

Speaker 4 (17:35):
I became a page at CBS Television City and I
worked on Sonny and Share, All in the Family Carol Burnett.
I got the tail end of real show business and
got to hang out with all those people. I met
my wife while I was an usher on the Mary
Tyler Moore show. I worked on Rhoda. I mean, I
worked on all those shows. I worked the last episode

(17:55):
of Sonny and Share, where it was so intense because
the announcement had been made that they were getting a divorce,
and Sunny didn't want to stop shooting and shared this
want to get it over with. I think we got
out of there about two o'clock in the morning finally,
So it was an interesting time to be there. And

(18:15):
I eventually became a writer on a show called tru
or Consequences which is another show that Bob Barker used
to host. And I became a regular at a place
called the Magic Castle because I was a professional magician
and worked there from nineteen seventy three until let's see,
my son was born in nineteen eighty so like eighty
one eighty two. Became a regular at the store in

(18:36):
seventy six and then started doing warm ups on shows
like Star Search and Alison, What's Happening Now? And Soap
and She. You know, I paid my dues from the
time I landed in Los Angeles until I got doubled there.
It was thirteen years, so I really put in my time.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
Good for you. How did you get the job as
a page? Did you just apply?

Speaker 4 (18:57):
No, that's an interesting story as well. I have all
sorts of crazy stories. Nothing I did in my life
was normal. I had gone to a wedding before in
Indianapolis and somebody said, we know the associate producer Michael
Zenberg of Bob Newhart Show. Why don't you go meet
with him? So I called him up and I said,
you don't know who I am, but I was at
a wedding and I knew your relatives. And he said,
if you have the nerve to make that phone call

(19:18):
I'll see you. And I met with him and he said,
why don't I send you over to become a page
at CBS. So I went out there and had a meeting,
and I met with a guy who was in charge
of hiring pages. And he said to me, you won't
last here too long because you're too smart and you
have too much energy. But there's a thing called cable TV.
Now this is nineteen seventy four. I didn't know what

(19:38):
cable TV was, but they're looking for a producer and
somebody to be a newsreader. So I drove a million
miles out to see me Valley, which I didn't even
know what that was at the time, and got the job.
And I was so thankful that I drove back to
CBS Television City to the guy who recommended me. I said,
I can't thank you enough. I was hired on the
spot and I have a job. Thank you so much.

(19:58):
And he said, will tell me about it, and I
explained it to him and he said, well, congratulations. Two
hours later, I went home, my phone rang and it
was the company that hired me, and said, I don't
know what you did, but you went back and sold
this job so well to the guy who sent you,
that he had more experience, and we're going to hire
him instead of you. My first screw you in show business.
So I drove back to CBS Television City, barged into

(20:21):
the guy's office and I said, you a hole. I
can't believe after you know me thanking you, you did that.
And so he said, well, I feel so bad, I'll
get your job as a page. And so that's how
I began. Yeah, yeah, gosh.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
Well you explain for our listeners what a page is.
By the way, I don't know that everybody knows what
a page does. So what was your job?

Speaker 4 (20:41):
My job was to seat the audiences and to make
sure that everybody, you know, ended up where they were
supposed to end up. To run errands for the people
on the production companies, and answer phones for the producers
and the directors and stuff like that. So it was
a lot of counting tickets, telling people where the bathroom was,
and making sure that they were laughing when they should
be laughing and being quiet when the other time was

(21:03):
happening for them. And so you were a jack of
all trades and a master of none, and the whole
point was to sort of weasele your way in to
meet the people who were putting on these shows to
get the job that you wanted to be a producer
or writer for me talent.

Speaker 5 (21:16):
Right, Okay, So, as our resident television fan, I'm just
the shows you mentioned that you were working on are
some of the most legendary television shows in the history
of Hollywood.

Speaker 6 (21:27):
What was your favorite one to work on?

Speaker 4 (21:29):
Well, Soap, I think because it was controversial at the time.
You know, Billy Crystal was playing the first gay character
on television. Imagine that, how silly that old thing is.
But sometimes you'd be out there for hours at a time,
and after you've told every joke and asked everybody where
they were from, you didn't have much you could say.
But on that show, I had Billy Crystal, Jay Johnson

(21:50):
who did the ventriloquism thing with Chuck and Bob, and
a terrific comedian called John Binder, And so if I
would go on the toilet, I could say, hey, John,
why don't you get them? Do you know what's on
the Sullivan Show? And they could feel, you know, my fear,
and they would get up and help me and so
it was a fun show, entertaining as hell, and all
those people to help me. Here's the thing, So many

(22:11):
of us started off doing warm ups, and the stage
next to me was a show called Barney Miller, and
the warm up on that was David Letterman. To the
right of me was a show called Bus and Buddies,
and Bob Saget was the entertainer and the warm up
guy in that. So it's how we all sort of
cut our teeth and got in because you would be
in front of people who could hire you either as

(22:32):
a talent or something else. And that's what we were
all doing back in the day.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
Wow, unbelievable, so cool.

Speaker 5 (22:39):
So just in a regular day you would run into
you know, Tom Hanks and Peter Scalari and oh man,
I couldn't.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
And at this point is your goal to be a comedian,
a stand up comedian, or is it to eventually write
produce or is it acting.

Speaker 4 (22:56):
I never wanted to write and produce ever ever, Ever,
I fell into that, but I wanted to host television
shows and I came out and I wanted to be
a game show host, which back when I moved out
here in seventy three, seventy four. That was a profession
you could actually pursue and have happened. Now unless you're
you know, you know, a star of celebrity. Yeah, celebrity.

(23:16):
You can't even apply for those jobs. And so I
did warm ups on game shows and then I did
some announcing on some game and game shows. That did
a show called Bruce Forthside's Hotstreak, which was on ABC.
I did some pilots for people, and so you keep
taking baby steps until you kind of get where you
want to go, and Doubledare was a mistake as well.
I was never called to audition for that show. A

(23:38):
friend of mine, Dave Garrison, who was a vent triloquist
that I knew in Indianapolis, got the call and he
was tired of sort of beating the bushers and not
getting forward. So he said to me, there's some network
called me. I've never heard of them, called Nickelodeon. They
want me to audition for some game show. I don't
want to go. Why don't you go instead of me?
So I went over there and they said Dave Garrison,
I said, he's not here. My name is Mark Summers

(24:00):
audition instead of m They said sure, which by the way.
I don't think you can even do that today. No,
And I did the first audition and got three callbacks.
And the one thing I always learned that auditions was
get the name of the exec producer and a phone
number because there was no email back then. And so
I got the head of casting, who brought me in
eventually and the exec producer, and I knew the show

(24:21):
was going to start shooting on September, and right around
Labor Day, I called Mike Klinghoffer, who was the exec producer,
and said, have you guys made a decision or not?
And they said, well, it's down between you and another guy,
and we can't see him to decide. I said, well,
what's the deciding factor and they said, well, we've never
actually seen you with kids, because when I did the audition,
they had grown up playing the part of kids. And

(24:41):
I said, well, I have kids, and they said, well
that doesn't mean anything. And I said, well I used
to do magic shows for kids, and they said, well
that doesn't mean anything. So I suggested, why don't you
fly me and whoever this other guy is into LA,
let us do this show in the New York brother
and do a show with kids playing the game and
let the best man win, and they said, we'll call
you back. They called me back. I auditioned, and the

(25:02):
way I got the job was at the end of it,
they called me and they said, congratulations, you're the host
of Double Dare. And I said, well, what separated me
from the other guy? And they said, you were both
both about the same. But at the end of his audition,
he looked in the camera and said, is that it
or do you guys want me to do something else?
And I looked in the camera and I said, we'll
be back with more Double Dare right after this. And
because they threw it a commercial, they thought that was

(25:23):
more of a professional professional and that changed my life. Wow.

Speaker 5 (25:28):
Mike Klinghoffer hearing these names out loud again that I
haven't heard since I was on your show, He was,
it was really amazing to hear all these names.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Oh yeah, did you remember Roseanne le Popolo?

Speaker 6 (25:39):
Was she also there at the time.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
She was there and sadly passed away about a year ago.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
I went to her and they had something for her out.

Speaker 4 (25:46):
Here and very smart and entertaining to be around, that's
for sure.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yes, definitely, Oh yes, man, I.

Speaker 4 (25:53):
Knew her very well. Oh just Collingwood was your director?

Speaker 5 (25:57):
Oh my god, Dan, I have heard that name since
I was twelve years I'm.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
Still in touch with all these guys. We're all still friends.

Speaker 5 (26:04):
Oh mavery Darby, Jef Darby, these Oh I can't even
I can't even who now.

Speaker 6 (26:09):
Who was president of Nickelodeon at the time.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Was it Jerry?

Speaker 6 (26:12):
It was Jerry at the time.

Speaker 5 (26:13):
So one of the stories that I have about Jerry Laborne,
and she was an incredible I mean, she was president
of the network and I think one of the first
female presidents of any network at the time.

Speaker 4 (26:24):
And I was doing USA Network and Jerry was second.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
And Jerry was sat. Yeah. So she's there and I'd
never met her.

Speaker 5 (26:29):
And we're down in Florida and we're opening the studio
and somebody comes up to me and says my co host,
a girl at the time comes up and says, do
you know where the bathroom is? And I said, I
don't know. And I see this woman walk up. I'm like,
can you, hey, lady, can you walk her to the bathroom?

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (26:43):
It was.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
This is the first time I met Jerry Laborne. Network.

Speaker 4 (26:48):
A train trip down from New York to Florida.

Speaker 5 (26:50):
To No I missed the train trip. They flew us
down to do that for the opening. So this is
such a shows the synergy of the of the network.
When they moved Matt, Ally, Wendy and I down to
Florida to do the three hour opening of Nickelodeon Studios,
we all needed a legal guardian, and Robin was our

(27:11):
legal guardian.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
No, yes, assistant. Robin was our legal guardian down there.

Speaker 6 (27:18):
We all had our own apartments.

Speaker 5 (27:19):
It's like I was twelve or thirteen, Wow, and they
shut down Universal Studios and my job at thirteen was
to go on the rides over and over and over
again while they filmed us in a closed park.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
My three friends, my three best friends and I.

Speaker 5 (27:33):
At the time had an amusement park to ourselves six
weeks and Robin was our guide.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Was our guardian.

Speaker 4 (27:40):
Because many of us took a train from New York
down to Nickelodeon and Orlando, and we would stop in
various cities and yeah, you know, like Canada's be on
the back of a train telling people about this fantastic
thing that's opening in Orlando for Nickelodeon. It was such
a cool thing.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
It was so cool.

Speaker 5 (27:55):
Everything we would do, Nick takes over your school. I
mean that whole just being and all that stuff was
the coolest thing ever.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah, man, Yeah, So I want to go back to
the friend whose audition you took when the show ended
up becoming massively successful. Was your friend a little bitter?

Speaker 4 (28:11):
No. He became a very successful producer in Los Angeles
and liked being behind the camera. He you know, I
used to host audition I at the Improv and you know,
you would go every Monday night and hope that somebody
would see you in ninety nine times out one hundred,
they didn't. And he got tired of doing that. And
that's the difference between, you know, folks who make it

(28:31):
and folks who are going He made it in the
different side of the industry, but most I had a
guy called me once from college and say, I'm going
to go to LA for six weeks and try it out.
And I said, don't even bother six weeks. You can't
do anything. So you got to put in. You know,
very rarely somebody will come into town and just instantaneously.
Dave Letterman made it about twelve seconds when he came here.
But there was something special about him. Robin Williams also

(28:53):
another guy who came into town and instantaneously hit it.
But that's like finding a needle in a haystack generally,
you know.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
Yeah, So what was your approach for this job? It's
obviously not an easy task to keep it on the rails.
Did you have a plan for how you were going
to do that?

Speaker 4 (29:08):
I was just going to be myself. Here was the deal.
I never wanted to host a kid's game show. I
wanted to do a grown up show, and so I
treated the kids like grownups. I never said, hey, Boby,
do you have a girlfriend? I like, I was never
trying to sending and I would screw around with the
kids and they got that right away, and they would
screw around back with me. And when they did focus groups,
they said I was kind of like a crazy uncle

(29:30):
or a big brother, as opposed to some you know,
hoity toity big guy, you know, trying to be authoritative.
And there was a fine line, but I think I
found it, and that's what was magical. We shot five
and twenty five episodes of that show.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Oh my gosh, how many episodes would you shoot in
a day?

Speaker 4 (29:46):
I got up to six a day, six day.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
So you're hired as the host and producer of Doubledare
what is established for this show when you get there
on day one? How fleshed out was it versus? How
much did you have to create?

Speaker 4 (30:01):
Not very because most of the people who were there
from the Nickelodeon side had never done a game show
in their life. I was the only one who had
any game show experience. And so the first episode that
took eight hours. Okay, it was just one mistake after another.
They forgot to put the flags in the places to
get the flags for the optical course, and it was
a nightmare. And I just remember Jerry Layborne grabbing her

(30:23):
head in the director's move and going, what the hell
have we done here? You know, there was something back
then called playground talk, and at the time UHF stations
were popular and facts of life in different strokes with
the number one and two shows, and all of a sudden,
kids would go home and watch our show and then
go on the playground the next day and said, I
saw this show where if you jump into five thousand

(30:44):
pounds of baked beans, they send you to dizzy And
they went, what the hell is that, and all of
a sudden the ratings dropped off of new facts and
different strokes, and they found us and our ratings were
off the charts. I mean, now, if you get a
point two or point three in the rate on television,
that's big. We were getting fives and six's. You know,
we get gigantic numbers and they contribute the sale of

(31:07):
a cable to families to three people. One Larry King
on CNN could nobody had seen what he had done?
A Gallagher who was doing comedy specials on Showtime and
me and Nickelodeon and putting Nicoletin do on the map
because Doubledare was this thing that nobody had ever seen.
It was the first kid's game show and you know,
right place, right time.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
Wow, So are you just sitting around on the brainstorming
ridiculously gross ideas for physically challenges as a job.

Speaker 4 (31:34):
That's very funny that you bring that up, because we
would do stunt testing. We would shoot six shows a
day and wouldn't even go to dinner. We would bring
in kids from the Philadelphia area where we first started
in New Jersey, and we would test physical challenges and
come up with the craziest things in the world, and
unless they worked three times, they never got on the show.
And the famous one was we had a mailbox, typical mailbox,

(31:57):
old school mailbox, and they made paper planes, and the
physical challenge was, you have thirty seconds to get one
paper plane in the mailbox. And I said, this is
the dumbest thing I've ever seen. It will never happen.
And they said, just because you said that, we're going
to do it tomorrow on the show. So we come
to that physical challenge and I looked in the camera
and I said, okay, look, I don't agree with this
physical challenge. I think it's so stupid. They want me

(32:18):
to get this kid over here to send that paper
airplane into the mailbox. And I looked at the kid
and I said, and if you can do that, I'll
give you my house. Okay, so I'm your mark. Get
set go. The first time he threw a plane, it
went right, so you sh'd never know. And I know

(32:38):
I didn't give my house.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
Oh my gosh, I have to know. When does the
huge nose filled with boogers and one flag come into play.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
That was about our second season, because at one point,
you know, you try to top yourself, because there were
so many people watching, and they went, well, now what
can we do? And you know, certainly, as a kid,
you would get your hands lapped for sticking your hand
up your nose and picking up bogogers. So we thought, well,
let's reward the kids and do that. And you know,
we had the tank. Initially it was filled with styrofoam,
and then it was filled with water, and Mike Klinghoffer,

(33:11):
I believe, was the one who said, well, why don't
we fill it with baked beans? And trying to find
enough baked beans to fill that tank is insane. The
harder part was, you know, after a while, baked beans
in a studio with hot light starts to smell like
the most prancid cafeteria you've ever been in your entire life.
And we tried to get them out by shoveling them
into these big plastic bags, but the bags kept breaking.

(33:33):
So you know, the guys should come in and clean
out your sewers. We called in a guy who cleans
out sewers and septic tanks. He came in and hip
waiters and took one of those big sort of vacuum
things and suck the beans up. So I have stories
that go on forever with this.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Oh I never once thought of the smell. And I
also never thought i'd hear suck the beans out. And
now I'm just really.

Speaker 4 (33:53):
Together ready, one, two, three out? Yeah. I used to
pay me to do that, so that was fantastic.

Speaker 5 (33:59):
That's the thing I always remember about being on shows
like this, especially back in the eighties, was they would
be you would do these things that on paper it's like,
oh my god, I get to have a giant food
fight today.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
I get it.

Speaker 5 (34:10):
And then by the third hour, when you're covered in
the stuff, it's slippery, you've already fallen twice, everything stinks.
You're kind of going, oh, this looks a lot better
on TV than actually exactly editing, yeah exactly.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
Was there ever a challenge that you absolutely hated every
time it was wheeled out?

Speaker 4 (34:28):
No, but there were certain things they would try. They
wanted to do a physical challenge with dog food, and
if you open up a can of dog food, I
started puking, and they said, well, let's try it, and
they brought out the thing and opened up the dog
and I stopped tape and ran outside and I said,
get that stuff off the stage. I'm going to throw
up here in a second. So that was not fun.
But no, it was all fun. Look, ye are you
kidding me? I was thirty four years old, wanting to

(34:49):
do this my entire life and they were paying me
to tell kids to go grab flags out of large noses.
You know how bad could that have been? It was amazing?

Speaker 5 (34:58):
So wait, you said that, said you were bringing in
kids locally from the Philadelphia and New Jersey area.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Where were you shooting when you first.

Speaker 4 (35:04):
Started WHYY, which was the PBS station in Philadelphia, because
Nickelodeon had no money and they didn't want to spend
any money in New York. And believe it or not,
in nineteen eighty six, we were spending nine thousand dollars
an episode You Couldn't Do Anything Today for nine thousand
dollars house, and then we kicked it up to twelve thousand,
and then it got to twenty five thousand, and then
all of a sudden, Funhouse came on and they were

(35:27):
going to, you know, try and beat us, and so
Warner Brothers was pouring a bunch of dough into Funhouse.
So Nickelodeon decided, well, we better pour some money in
as well, and when the budgets became fifty thousand dollars
an episode, which still is nothing compared to today's budgets,
Jeffrey Darby called me and thought, we were out of
our mind. Why are we spending so much money on
these episodes? But you know, if you wanted to compete
and say it, because there were like seventeen lookalike shows

(35:49):
and we wanted to stay number one, and we did so.

Speaker 5 (35:52):
When you started, were they was Nickelodeon already established at
the Viacom building in New York.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
They weren't even there yet.

Speaker 4 (35:58):
No, they ran a different Vicon building that is there now.
They were down the street closer to Central Park, then
finally moved down. But you know, the thing I remember
about Nickelodeon was the only reason I even knew what
the hell they were was I had babies at the time,
and they had a horrible puppet show that ran, you know,
eighteen hours a day called Pinwheel Publish Worst Everything, And

(36:19):
I would be up at three in the morning to
feed my kids and I would be watching Pinwheel. That's
all I knew about Nickeoloeon. They did a talk show
for a while that was sort of Donahue esque for
kids didn't work at all. It wasn't until we came
on the air.

Speaker 6 (36:32):
Although don't you can't do that on television a kid?

Speaker 4 (36:36):
Yeah, that was the show that I think really started
the whole thing and all probably we get credit, but
they got did they were? They were great?

Speaker 6 (36:43):
Was Doubledare before you? Because I know you can't do
that on television.

Speaker 5 (36:45):
It was a Canadian show that was on YTV that
then Nickelodeon brought to the States where you was doubled
air first Double Their was first? Right, No, oh, you
can't do that on television?

Speaker 2 (36:55):
Was first?

Speaker 4 (36:55):
Was first?

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Okay?

Speaker 5 (36:56):
Yeah, because that's where Nickelodeon really got the idea of
that's where slime came in.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
And they used to start kids the money on that
show if they would let them slime them.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
I cannot stand slime. I don't even allow my children
to have it. Did you literally just come home with
the feeling of slime every day?

Speaker 4 (37:13):
Well, it depends and show business that's a regular thing.
But we had showers. There needs to say, and so
I would. After the first sixty five episodes, I learned,
first of all, I never wore tennis shoes. I wore
penny loafers, and I didn't want that mess on me
at all because I had obsessive compulsive disorder. Of course,
nobody knew what I didn't even know what it was
at the time. And they went to focus groups and
the kids said, they love the show, but they want

(37:34):
to get you messy. And I said why and they said, well,
they just think it would be fun. So starting season
two on, the kids would say, well, if we win
the optical course, can we throw a pie in your face?
Or can we slime you? Or can we throw you
into you know this or that.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
And that dog food?

Speaker 4 (37:49):
Yes? Yeah, yeah, and so yes. I would take a
shower after every show and put on, you know, a
new pair of jeans and a new tie and a
new sports jacket, and go ahead and do it again.

Speaker 5 (37:58):
Man, Well it might have been it might not have
meant too much to you at thirty four, but I
can tell you at twelve, because I went up with
the with the don't you sit there? Sent me with
the producer and I went up to you can't do
that on television and went to the set and got
to come out of the lockers and did everything and
it culminated with me getting slimed on the set.

Speaker 6 (38:14):
And it's still one of the coolest things I've ever
done in mine.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yes, it was great. It's not what you expect.

Speaker 5 (38:19):
It was a guy standing behind you with a ladder
and a cigar hanging out, just dumping a bucket on
your head. It was wasn't magically from the ceilings, but
it was still like one of the coolest things I
got to do in my career.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
I was spoken a cigar. That was a key point
of that old.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
S Yeah exactly, but.

Speaker 4 (38:34):
Half the time that was exactly.

Speaker 5 (38:37):
It was magical though as a kid it was being
a Nickelodeon was absolutely magical.

Speaker 4 (38:40):
How old do you know?

Speaker 6 (38:41):
I'm I just turned forty nine.

Speaker 4 (38:43):
Oh are you really?

Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (38:45):
Good for you?

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Oh thank you? So yeah. So it was.

Speaker 5 (38:47):
I got cast when I was twelve, and I was
on Nickelodeon from twelve to fifteen and did a bunch
of shows for them, and then at sixteen I got
boy me throw to move out to LA But yeah,
I was there opening this the You and I. That's
the thing I was trying to find is I think
you and I both were there and we co hosted
the opening of the Slime Geyser.

Speaker 4 (39:03):
Yes, yes we did.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
So that was one.

Speaker 5 (39:06):
I think by that point I was fourteen and I
was like, oh my god, I get to work with
Mark and it was just the.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Cool because well, you were the face.

Speaker 5 (39:12):
I mean, you were truly the face of the network,
and I was when you thought of Nickelodeon, you thought
of you and Double Dare. That was what put Nickelodeon
on the map. Was was that? And I remember distinctly
being upset because when they I was recast.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
On Don't You Sit There?

Speaker 5 (39:27):
So I took over for one of the hosts set
left and when they brought me on, I missed. I
guess the entire cast of Don't You Sit There? Went
on Doubledare and got to run the obstacle course like
two days before they brought me home man. And so
I was it is because again I watched Nickelodeon, and
that meant watching Doubledare, That's what you watched, and it
was I had friends. We would sit on the playground

(39:49):
talking about, well, what do we have to do to
get on the show?

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Do you send in?

Speaker 5 (39:51):
At the time, it was I think somebody said you
could VHS tape you could send in yourself, or you
had to make a phone call. But we actively tried
to find out how to get on the show as kids.

Speaker 4 (40:01):
We had to tour the country and do auditions, you know,
all over the country as well.

Speaker 6 (40:05):
So that, I mean, that's a good question.

Speaker 5 (40:07):
How did if you were a kid, what was the
best way to get on Double Dare? How did I mean,
what was the audition process?

Speaker 4 (40:13):
Like in Philadelphia? We picked from Philly, New Jersey area,
and then got into New York and we moved on
to Orlando. This was the best part. We would hold
up signs and say who wants to audition for Double Dare?
And in a day we had a bazillion people there
and we would turn the audiences over. It sat about
five in Philly, we only shot abou sat about ninety people,

(40:34):
but in Orlando we had about five hundred, and we
would turn the audiences over. You saw Round one, got
redmend brought in a new group, see round two, get
rid of them, bring people in. Watched you know, a
couple obstacle courses. Because there were so many people who
came to Orlando and came to Universal Studios just to
see our show. And we tried to get as many
people in as possible, and that's where we'd be in

(40:55):
Audis because we were doing family double there at the time. Yeah,
we were psheing moms and dads and kids and we
did already doubled air with Weird Al and Luf Farigno
and you name it, we did them. You know, they
all wanted to be on the show.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
Oh man, Well it's just so much.

Speaker 3 (41:08):
It's a massive hit pretty quickly. Does your entire life change?
Do kids recognize you everywhere you go?

Speaker 4 (41:15):
Yeah, you know that was pretty instantaneous. That was so
bizarre to me to be, you know, having dinner at
a you know, McDonald's with my family and you know,
fourteen people come up to you. Now cell phones didn't exist. Yeah,
you know, they couldn't take pictures, so to speak, but
they all wanted autographs and they wanted to talk to you.
And yeah, it changed a lot. And you know, nobody

(41:35):
can prepare you for that, because you just don't have
any idea what it's like when you're you know, trying
to go to the bathroom between an intermission on a
Broadway show and so many points to you as you're
going to the bathroom, they go, aren't you. Yeah, it
just happens in weird spots.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Yep, did your kids think it was cool? I actually
went to high school with your son. Oh did you
really yes, Calabasas High.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
Oh my god. Yes, they thought it was cool because
I got to do all sorts of things. I you know,
I hosted Easter at the White House, so they got
to go there and hang out at the White House.
You know, I was always going to you know, throwing
out first pitches at Major League Baseball games, and so
they got to participate in all that stuff and got
to tour with me when I was out on the road,
you know, doing Doubledare Live and stuff. So yeah, it's

(42:21):
they had a lot of fun doing that stuff.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
So I want to talk to you about your one
man show, The Life and Slimes of Mark Summers. How
did this come about?

Speaker 4 (42:41):
In nineteen sixty four, I went to New York for
the first time and saw Fiddler on the Road with
Herschel Bernardi, and I thought, oh my god, I've never
seen anything like this growing up in Indiana. My parents
never took me to Broadway shows, touring shows, and I said,
this is what I want to do so when I
saw that at age thirteen, I tried to figure it
out well. I took a bunch of other paths, obviously,

(43:01):
from magic to stand up comedy to hosting and whatever,
but it was always in the back of my head.
And first I was diagnosed with cancer and got through that.
And then I was in a car accident where I
broke every bone in my face. And I met with
a guy who was starring in Hairspray Bruce Flanche at
the time, and I had lunch with him one afternoon
and I said, you know, someday I want to do this,

(43:23):
and he said, summer. Stopped talking about it and do
it already. And so I met a producer who had
a summer theater in Long Beach Island, New Jersey, and
I said, hey, I'd love to be on Broadway. But
I know you're not going to give me that job
right away. But if there's any job I can get
to sort of work my way in, and he said,
give me your number. I don't know. I just bought
the summerstock theater and let me see. And he called

(43:44):
me about a month later and I said, we're doing Greece.
Would you like to play Vince Fontagne. I said, do
I have to audition? He said no, it's yours and
I took it. And so that was about twelve thirteen
summers ago, and I played Vince Fontaine and Greece. While
I was there, I met a guy by the name
of Drew Gasperini who introduced me to a guy by
the name of Alex Brightman, and they become fast friends.

(44:04):
Brightman has since started in School of Rock and Beetlejuice
and numerous other things, and drew as a writer of
several Broadway shows and musicals. And I said one day
I want to do a one man show, and they
wrote it for me. We started it in Bloomington, Indiana.
Then we went and did the at around at Theater Festival.
We did a place in Pennsylvania, and we did Buffalo,

(44:24):
New York. And while we were playing Buffalo a couple
summers ago, the Missus Doubtfire tour had opened next to us,
and the director of that show came, unbeknownst to me
on his day off to see it. Came backstage afterwards
and said, have you ever thought about doing this on Broadway?
And I said, well, anywhere in New York would be great,
and he said, well, I know people, why don't I
connect you. He set up a meeting a couple of

(44:46):
weeks later in New York, and three months later I
opened my show six months off Broadway called The Life
and Times of Mark summer Man Ough. Yeah, it was
so much fun. I did the show.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Change it all going to Broadway or was pretty much.

Speaker 4 (45:01):
Yeah, it got better. I became more relaxed. When I
first started doing it, I was nervous at trouble remembering lines.
And things changed in my life from the twelve years
we started it to where it ended up. And plus
I had, you know, real people behind me now with
a real stage and real lights and real everything. And

(45:21):
it was Chadra Benovitz, who was our director, who initially
took the bull by the horns and said, this is
something that I like and we should be doing. So
the original team Chad and Me and Drew and Alex
and a guy by the name of Mike Nappie. From
day one we worked together and we ended up doing
it in New York together and it was one of
the biggest thrills in my life. And then from there

(45:43):
somebody from Hallmark saw me and I start in a
Hallmark movie called Hanegun the Rocks that aired last December,
which we'll airn now forever.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
So yeah, that's that's amazing.

Speaker 5 (45:57):
So wait, you mentioned that your your family never took
you to like Broadway shows or things like that. Was
anybody in your family in the entertainment business?

Speaker 3 (46:05):
How?

Speaker 2 (46:06):
A brother the love start.

Speaker 4 (46:08):
My brother was a musician and he was a prodigy,
and at age fifteen he was being picked up from
our house and driven to Chicago to play drums with
Henry Mancini and Johnny Mathis, for God's sake. So he
was in the industry doing that, still doing it today,
believe it or not, in his late seventies and doing
orchestras and stuff. He was Marvin Hamlish's conductor for ten years.
I mean he's he was in the industry, but in

(46:30):
a different form, more behind the scenes. And you know,
my dad was in the insurance business, and my parents said,
you know, you should go in the insurance business with
your father. You'd be a great, you know, guy who
could do that. And I had no interest. All I
ever wanted to do. I came out of the world
wanted to be in the entertainment industry. I never took
a job in a restaurant. I never worked at Macy's.
Not there's anything wrong with that, but I went with

(46:50):
the idea that if you do that, then chances of
you going where you want to go is going to happen.
So I never took a job outside the business. The
worst job I ever had was at a restaurant called
The Hungry Tiger and Los Angeles, and I was a
disc jockey and a disco that they had for a while,
and I hated that job. But that was as far
outside show business I ever got.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
Man, you mentioned that you had been diagnosed with cancer
a long time ago. How is your health now.

Speaker 4 (47:14):
I'm on medication on a daily basis. I take a
pill that only cost eighteen thousand thousand a month.

Speaker 3 (47:20):
Oh wow, that's it.

Speaker 4 (47:21):
Huh, Yeah, that's it. I was in chemo three times.
First time for two years and it was good for
a few years. It took it again for a year,
it was good for a year or two. Took it
again and it wasn't good and they were really going
to have to blast me with some really intense stuff.
Or if this pill works and it doesn't work on everybody,
you're in pretty good shape.

Speaker 6 (47:38):
And so is it to Griso?

Speaker 4 (47:40):
Pardon me?

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Is it to Griso?

Speaker 4 (47:42):
No, It's called IMBRUVCA okay, And I've been on it
for almost five years now and it's keeping me alive.
You know, I'll be seventy four in about eight weeks,
and you know, still feel like a million bucks.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
Good for you. I also wanted to talk to you
about something else you had mentioned, and we kind of
glossed right over it. But I know people like to
focus on your OCD now and how you hosted the
messiest show on TV. My husband also suffers from OCD,
but he has more of the obsessive thoughts rather than
the truth. Yes, exactly. And so what was it like

(48:15):
for you doing double there and having OCD and not
even knowing it at the time.

Speaker 4 (48:21):
Well, I knew I didn't like get messy, and I
knew I liked everything organized, but you wait your whole
life to get a job. Little did I know it
was going to be the Miss MESSI show on television.
And so I had to have a conversation with myself.
You finally got where you want to go? Are you
going to let this stand in your way? And so
nobody knew I had it. I didn't even know what
it was called. And then when I was diagnosed, I

(48:42):
was hosting a talk show on Lifetime called Biggers and
Summers and doctor Eric Hollander was on, and I read
the research the night before and found out, Oh my god,
all the stuff I've been doing as a name. And
I had to decide we were live. Do I lie
and go on that show and pretend I don't have it,
or do I come out and say, hey, this is
what I have. And I said, this is what I
have and made the announcement. Well, the next thing I know,

(49:03):
I'm on Oprah and Dateline and Jerry Labor and the
president of the network called me and apologized. I said,
you have nothing to apologize for. It changed my life
in a positive way, you know, but who knew. So
it's about I have a podcast called March and Summers
on wraps. And here's the deal. You go to a movie,
you see a movie star, you watch somebody on TV,
go to a Broadway show and see somebody and you say, well,

(49:24):
they have the best life in the world. How did
that happen? And it's about having a passion and why
do some people give up on that passion and go
sell shoes or you know, working in the insurance business
and others. Keep moving. And I've had everybody on my show.
We just had Jay Leno on this past week. I've
got George Klepper coming on in the next couple of weeks,

(49:44):
Michael Simon, who was a chef on Food Network. We've
been fascinating people on the show. We've been doing it
for a couple of years, and those are where the
stories are really interesting. Is what made you decide to
keep going forward? Because the word that you generally hear
in the entertainment industry, as you all know, is no,
you didn't get the job. Why do you keep moving forward?
Then you either have to have a hell of a

(50:04):
lot of confidence in yourself or be out of your mind,
or combination of the two. You know, and all of
us here are talking today kind of have that in
our bodies. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (50:12):
Well, it's also what you said about you were born
wanting to be an entertainer. I think those are the
people that you meet more often than not. Out Here
are people that we've talked about this Danielle Ryder and
I where you can't see yourself doing anything else.

Speaker 6 (50:27):
Ever, you can't not be in the entertainment industry.

Speaker 4 (50:31):
And I felt like I've never worked a day in
my life. I can achieve that I get a check
to do what I do, you know, And I've done
talk shows and I've done game shows, and you know,
I've done a little bit of everything, and at the
end of the week, I get a check for that.
It's like, are you kidding me out? Have done this
for free? You know?

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 5 (50:50):
Is there any talk anywhere about bringing back Doubledare?

Speaker 4 (50:55):
I doubt it because you know, as you know, Nickelodeon
was just sold in the whole CBS Paramount deal. When
we came back seven eight years ago, the show was
doing great, but new management came in and the first
thing new management does is cancel things, whether they're successful
or not. Could I still do the show? Absolutely. I
went out and did a tour a few years ago,
and you know, we had more adults and kids because

(51:15):
they wanted to relive their childhood. But I can't imagine
in a million years two things a that they would
even bring it back, or anybody who's running Nickelodeon these
days even knows what double there is. And I'm sure,
they would be very hesitant to take a seventy four
year old man and put them on that position. I
could do it. We had an influencer do it last time.
She did an okay job. But you know, I always

(51:36):
say this, and it's true. She was sick one day
and I filled in, and when I did, the ratings
went up twenty five percent. So there's something I bring
to the show that of course.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
Of course.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Yeah. Man.

Speaker 3 (51:46):
One thing I wanted to ask you about too, that
is properly viral in twenty twenty five, especially with TikTok
is your encounter with Burt Reynolds on The Tonight Show.
Are you surprised that this clip is running rampant more
than thirty years later?

Speaker 4 (52:01):
Thirty years later and it doesn't go away? You know,
every six weeks there's a debate online about me and
Bert and everybody says, oh, it was all set up,
And as I always say, I'm not that good of
an actor. I couldn't have done that. He just hated
me for the minute I walked out there, and what
happened is what happened. Jay, you know, called me the
next day and was going out between you and Bert.
You know, you had no idea that I was going

(52:22):
to turn into what it turned into. But it never
seems to go away. And when they do the you
know classic moments of the Tonight Show, I'm in that
thing every darn time.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
Did you ever run into Bert again?

Speaker 4 (52:34):
No? I would have run him over if I could,
But I didn't run into No. I did not. And
I was at a French house the next day who
knew his publicist and said, why don't we call him
and see what the publicist says. And the publicist said,
Bert thought I was a bottom feeder of show business,
and I didn't show the movie star any respect. And
here's the thing you'll ask yourself, how does the guy

(52:54):
who was the number one box office star for five
years in a row die with no money? Not not
the smartest bulb in the pack. And there's all sorts
of other stories I can tell you that I won't,
But nonetheless it was great for my career, and it
was part of the downward turn of his I believe.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
Yeah, yeah, I did two episodes of Evening Shape before
I did Boy Me, so you know they were the
worst experiences. Like I was so terrified of him, and
he was so awful.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
He was so mean.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
I have multiple and it's like, you know, people have
asked like, how was it working with Burt Reynolds. I'm like, awful,
Like like he's like one of those few people.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
And then I had a friend.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
Who did the Dukes of Hazzard reboot movie with him
years later and they became friendly and I was like, really,
you're getting along with Bertie. He's like, well he was
grumpy back in those days, back in the evening. I
was like, I don't care, man, you treat you treat
like you know, I watched him treat a prop a
prop master so horribly and like that's you know, you
don't treat your crew like that.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
He was drinking an episode two like he.

Speaker 4 (53:52):
Was those people making it look good every day. You know,
if anybody should be you should be nice to. It's
all those lighting gaffer every folks who do it on
a daily basis. But yeah, that never goes away, and
that's fine. And every time I go in and I
say it wasn't set up and I went, oh, yeah,
why do they have pies? And I've given this explanation
a million times and I'm sort of done with it.
But you know, because of the Internet and everybody thinks

(54:15):
they're an expert on everything. Don't waste your time, you
and get into an argument because these people, you know,
live in their mother's basements, and you know they're the
ones who call you on your phone when it says spam,
And those are the people I'm debating with. And I
realized I'm done with that.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
Yeah, good for you, man, looking back on your career,
which has been so long, and you've you've never worked
a job outside of the entertainment industry. If you could
go back to young, young Mark, just starting out and
tell him one thing about his future, what would you
tell him?

Speaker 4 (54:50):
Never accept the word known no matter what they say,
and just keep believing in yourself because you're good. Now,
here's the thing that's interesting. When I started the comedy
store in the Magic Castle, I thought I was pretty good.
But the first night I went to the comedy store
and I saw Jay and Dave and Robin and those

(55:11):
kinds of people, and I went, oh, my god, I
have so much work to do. And here's a funny story.
So I was engaged. And my wife didn't quite understand
the entertainment industry. She was a dental assistant, and I
brought her to the Magic Castle to see my show
and I thought I killed. I thought, man, I couldn't

(55:32):
have done a better job. And I'm so glad that
she saw that show. And she came backstage afterwards and
I said, so, what do you think And she said
to me, it got a lot of work to the
years later.

Speaker 5 (55:50):
She was the ones that are honest, you stick with
the ones that are honest.

Speaker 4 (55:54):
Yeah, she was undred percent right. You know, there's something
that we used to call in the comedy store days
laugh ears. You tell a joke and the audience doesn't laugh,
but in your mind you say, wow, they love that
joke when they really didn't. And so you have to
get to a reality point in your life where you go,
you know, when Robin Williams walk on stage, and it
would take them, you know, twenty five minutes to say hello,

(56:15):
and by the time you walk sometimes I'd have to
follow Robin at the Comedy Store. Of course, after Robin
was on what could you do? In my opening line,
they say you not welcome to comedy Mark Summers, and
I'd say, oh, thank you, Lisien John walking ovation because
everybody was leaving the column.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
Store Finally, my last question for you. Have you ever
wondered what life is a rabbi would have looked like?

Speaker 4 (56:40):
You know, I don't. I found out, you know, after
the fact that it would not have been good for me.
I'm not good one on one even to this day
as far as you know, doing that kind of thing.
Maybe I would have been, you know, sort of bred
into that lifestyle. But you know, when we were touring
the Nickelodeon show and doing Double There at the Palace

(57:01):
of Auburn Hills and selling out twenty thousand seedars on
a regular basis for years, it's all different feel And
I really like the fact of helping a lot of
people a little as opposed to the other view. And
you learn a lot from people as well. And I mean,
I can tell you endless stories. We used to do
weeks on Double There that had various themes, and we

(57:23):
did a cancer week once and I was in the
makeup room and it kid came after me and said, Hey, Mark,
you know how I got on Double There. I've got
cancer And I said, I kind of think there's easier
ways to get on this. But you know, we did
a lot of you know, last wish kind of situations
as well, because the show had so much impact and
the fact that you, you know, would bring these kids

(57:44):
in and they'd you know, run the course, and the
parents would be sitting in your dressing room watching the
kids have the best time in their life, and they'd
have tears in their eyes. But for that moment, it
was the most important thing to those kids. So I
was able to provide a lot of happiness as well.
And you know, I've had a charmed existence and I
am just thankful that I was in the situation I
was and got to do everything I got to do well.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
Mark, Thank you so much for being here with us today.
You've been such a pleasure and a delight, and you
have so many interesting stories. I feel like we could
keep you here for another hour and just listen to everything.

Speaker 4 (58:19):
I know.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
I know for sure Will has a million questions.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
But I've been good.

Speaker 6 (58:23):
I've been good. I've been good.

Speaker 4 (58:26):
I do these fairly often, and I don't get to
work with pros like you guys that much. You are spectacular,
and I appreciate the hard work you put in and
the fantastic job you do in the interviews with Thank
you for that.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
Thank you Thank you so much. Mark, It was really
wonderful to have you here. Really means a lot to
all of us.

Speaker 4 (58:41):
You guys have a great day. Thanks so much, you
too too.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
Bye bye bye.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
Man. That guy's life, what.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
A career, legend. I love it. Legend. He was the
face of the entire network.

Speaker 5 (58:55):
I mean when we were on the on Nickelodeon, it
didn't matter what show you are, no matter what you
were doing.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
It was if he walked into the room, the network was.

Speaker 6 (59:03):
There, Mark was there.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
It would have been incredibly rude to ask. But if
they're only paying nine thousand dollars in an episode, he is.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
Not making a whole lot of kid is doing that
for the love.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
And he is, and he's doing I mean even if
he's getting I mean he was making method Yeah, and
yet he like he said he would have done it
for free.

Speaker 5 (59:19):
Well, I can tell you when I started on Don't
Just Sit There, I was making eleven hundred dollars a
week and we would do something like twenty episodes.

Speaker 6 (59:26):
I mean it was like we were doing a ton
of you.

Speaker 3 (59:28):
Were just making it per week, not per episode, No.

Speaker 6 (59:30):
Not per episode. It was eleven hundred dollars a week.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
In New York since six episodes a day, he was
probably making about that and.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
For you as a kid, you're like, this is d
was the greatest thing in the world.

Speaker 5 (59:40):
It was, And we shot during the summers because obviously
they didn't want to put us in school, so it
was you know, they would throw in as much as
they possibly could. But that's so, you know, that was
I think I started on Nickelodeon in eighty seven eighty eight,
and that was big money back then to make that
kind of cash, especially as.

Speaker 6 (59:58):
A twelve year old.

Speaker 5 (59:59):
But it didn't matter what we were doing where we were.
There were two things you wanted when you were working
at Nickelodeon. The first was, when you got to a
certain level, they gave you a Nickelodeon watch. It was
awesome that it was I'm sure I'm somewhere, yes, of course.

Speaker 6 (01:00:14):
And the other thing was to meet Mark Summers, that's
just all.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
And to get slimed.

Speaker 5 (01:00:17):
Those are the three things that were like, if you
could do that, you you you made it. And now
to this day still regret that I missed being able
to run the Obstacle course by like a week.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
You know what, such a such an incredible thing that
like things work out the way they do sometimes in
the sense that someone like Mark Summers, obviously an incredibly
kind and nice person, is the person who ends up
working with kids. Imagine if Burt Reynolds had gotten the.

Speaker 5 (01:00:46):
Job run the double there, Come on, what's going on?
Who's gonna double there?

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
It's happening.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
Yeah, there's you know, the problem with someone like Burt
Renalds is he's so disappointed in his own career.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
It's like ego is so fragile that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
He's not you know, he's always comparing himself to you know,
I guess probably Marlon Brando, like he's.

Speaker 5 (01:01:07):
Just like again he was Mark is right, he was
the number one draw for cinema for like what four
years or five years now, but.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Then he maybe felt like he let himself down by
I don't know what.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
But you look at somebody like Mark who just I
always wanted He just wanted to be a talk show
or a game show host and got there, and like
every step of the way getting there was not beating
himself up or disappointed.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
Just how much harder do I have to work? What's next?

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
And then you know, eventually get in a Broadway show.
But how many years did that take. It's like, you
have to have such.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
A good attitude about these things because otherwise you give up.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
Well, even just hearing him say before he got doubled
there from the time he moved to La to getting
double there was thirteen years years, thirteen years.

Speaker 5 (01:01:45):
Oh the stories that guy must have about being the
page and.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
All the different shows.

Speaker 5 (01:01:49):
No, oh, man, that's like, please write a book, Please
write a book.

Speaker 4 (01:01:54):
You know what.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
You got to go check out the One Man Show.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Yeah, that's true too. You wonder how much he holds
back there?

Speaker 5 (01:01:58):
You wonder, like I will tell you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
Yes, all right, we're taking Mark summers lunch. Let's go.

Speaker 5 (01:02:09):
Well, he lives near us, Danielle, because I saw him
at the local grocery store like a year ago.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
So he said, he said, you have my number, so
will well, we'll make sure you have his number and
if you could arrange a lunch, we'll do it. Like
I said, I know we live somewhat close to him
because we went to high school with I went to
high school with this.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
Man, anyway, that was such a fun interview. Thank you
so much 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 and we've
got merch.

Speaker 6 (01:02:40):
Nick Nick Nick Nick n Nick Nick Nick Nick.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
Old School March I love.

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
It Podmeets Worldshow dot com writer, send us out.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
We love you all, pod dismissed.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
Pod Meets World is an iHeart podcast producer and hosted
by Danielle Fischl Wilfordell and Strong. Executive producers Jensen Karp
and Amy Sugarman Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo,
producer and editor, Taras Sudbasch, producer, Maddi Moore, engineer and
Boy Meets World Superman Easton Allen. Our theme song is
by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at

(01:03:15):
Podmets World Show or email us at Podmeats Worldshow at
gmail dot com