July 29, 2024 • 55 mins
There are so many people, doing many different jobs to bring an episode of Boy Meets World to life, and this week we’re getting to know one of the most crucial parts of the process, Production Coordinator for all 7 seasons of the show, Russell Dague!
Russell had a unique perspective while making BMW, as everything went through his office, and the gang now gets to hear all the BTS details! You might be surprised with how smoothly everything ran… until it didn’t.
While giving us advice on how to break into the industry on the production side, he also graciously let us know how to avoid almost getting run over by a disgruntled PA, on an all-new, "how the sausage was made," installment of Pod Meets World!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
My sister in law is visiting and she's staying with us,
and one of it like, she's a huge movie buff
and so whenever we see each other, we immediately like
start comparing what we've seen lately, and then we invariably
stay up until like two in the morning every night
that she's here watching movies. Now, but it's reminded me
of something that like one of my favorite things about
(00:42):
my wife and my wife's entire family is watching movies
with them. Oh God, is the fun greatest time. They
all vocalize and talk, and it is like it is
so not the strong family tradition. You're like, I grew
up in a very sort of like while we watched
the movie and then if it's a comedy, you laugh,
(01:03):
but like and it's my wife does it with just
the two of us, like if we put on anything,
and it just fills me with so much joy to
like share in the experience of what she's reacting to,
and it's it gets I mean, I also make fun
of her because she also does the thing where she
asks like, well, why would he do that? And it's like, well,
that's the question the movie's making you ask, Like the
(01:27):
thing that like you're not supposed to know, you're supposed
to be asking that, and so we I teas her
all the time about that, but it's it's actually like
it goes pretty deep for me in that, Like she's
the first person to watch anything I make and to
read anything that I write. And her transparency, her like
vulnerability and like openness to respond like she's this. It's
(01:48):
so helpful because she tracks like how the audience is feeling,
and you can all like she just can't hide her emotions.
She actually got kicked out of dance when she was
a kid because she would just make faces in the
mirror and like and she she does it all. I
have to like hold her back from Indie because she
just reacts to whatever is happening. It's like she can't
fake it. She can't hide her emotions anyway. It's just
(02:09):
like I love going to movies with a crowd. I
love and sitting with my in laws like it's my
when we the first holidays I spent with them when
we went back to Florida and there roy all got
together and we watched They found out I had never
seen the movie Rocky and they were like, we have
to watch writers like Rocky not then. This was fifteen
(02:29):
years ago or whatever, and it was like so important
to her family, Like we are all watching Rocky for
Rider and it was so much and it's like now
it's just a tradition. Like when we get together, you know,
for the holidays, we watch really bad horror films together
and everybody's shouting at the screen. It's just like, it's
my favorite thing in the world. So shout out to
everybody who like vocalizes, and like, let's let's.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Do it in the movie theater.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
No. No, in the movie theater, we're pretty calm.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
No, that's like, isn't that weird? It's like a weird contradiction.
It's like you want to do.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yeah, you don't want to mess with the people you
don't know, right, But Susan does this thing where we'll
turn on a movie that neither of us will scene
and she'll go, why do you do that?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I'll be like, babe, I'm as.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Far into this as you are, I know, seconds in
and I don't know either, Like.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I can't do that.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
We just started it, I know.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
So writer, another question for you, does she do it
about things that are because I can be kind of similar.
If I'm at home and Jensen and I are watching something,
I also want to talk through, Like if I find
something so particularly funny one of them, you know, oh,
I think it's so funny because and then I'll talk
about it. But I have a very hard time doing
it for something that makes me very choked up. But
(03:43):
I did it quite a bit during What's that movie
we both love? After Sun when she puts her feet
down on the rug and I started sobbing, and I said.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
That's the logo, God Bob.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
I couldn't. I couldn't get this. I couldn't because I
just had my entire heart in my throat. Does she
also vocalized through things that are making her choked up?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
And why all of it?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
All of it?
Speaker 1 (04:07):
It's so lovely. I mean what I love is just
the little like, oh, like all the little like she's
just on a journey and she's it's happening and it
helps me or like you know, especially I mean like
one of the you know, when we first started dating,
I made my first short film, Irish Twins, with my brother,
and you know, we were only three months into a
(04:30):
relationship or whatever. So by the time I edited, we
had been dating for probably six months, and so she's like,
I'm showing her the first rough cut, you know, and
it was like hearing those things and then she just
just fell apart and was crying holding me and was
so moved, and it was like, Okay, I know I
did the job like I made a movie, you know,
because she because she can also be very honest and
(04:51):
it's not working, you know, Like I give her scripts
all the time and she's like, no, I just I
wrote two scripts last year that, you know. She's like sorry,
And that's like we've developed this this you know, comfort
and this confidence in each other as readers and watchers.
But it's it's so built around her vulnerability and her
openness and her willingness to just express and to react.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Does she vocalize the same way by herself when she's
reading books? Yes, okay, so she's like talking to the book.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And that's why I like, I literally like watching her
read stuff I've written. It's like part of the process.
Like if I walk by her office while she's reading
something that I've given or I'm like secretly listening for oh, you.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
Should put a camera in there that she knows about
I'm just gonna put this camera here. I don't want
you to feel me watching you, but I want to
go back and watch it to see the moments. Yeah,
that's really cool. Well I love that. Shout out to
spouse's who let us talk during movies.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Welcome to podmeets World.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I'm Daniel Fishel, I'm Rider Strong, and I'm Wilfordell.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
One thing that has definitely changed since our first time
around on Boy Meets World when we were filming it
in nineteen ninety seven is selfish slightly dramatic teens. Is
our understanding of how complex and intricate the making of
a TV show can be. It's not just the faces
you see on camera, or the director's, showrunners and executive producers,
who over the past two decades have become stars in
(06:23):
their own right. It's every single name you see in
the credits, each holding their own, vital and mostly thankless
job that make sure the program you love stays afloat
week after week. It's the titles you don't fully understand,
like Key Grip or best Boy or assistant to mister
big Shot.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
These jobs are critical.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
And without a good employee hired to take care of
these positions, you might as well pack it up and
go home, because it'll show on the screen. One of
our favorite parts of making Podmets World has been shining
a light on some of these people who worked behind
the scenes on our show, and we didn't really know
how great they were when we were kids. We were
pining over boys at our regular high school, or figuring
(07:05):
out how you can safely ship one white rose back
to your high school girlfriend, or just scoping the new
studio a lot to find a safe place to smoke.
But now we realize their hard work and it's time
to give them their flowers. And today we're hoping to
do just that with one of our favorite faces from
that time, who When Jensen asked me what he did
exactly on Boy Meet's World, my answer was it was
(07:27):
very important, and I'm excited to find out.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
That's about right.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
What I do know is he was the production coordinator
on the show, starting in season one and running through
the finale in season seven, and that wasn't his first
Michael Jacob's production. He had already worked on My Two
Dads and The Torkulsns. He'd later branch out, gaining a
ton of experience under his belt, with many titles on
shows like Swingtown and CIS Los Angeles and The Ten
(07:53):
Things I Hate About You TV adaptation. So now please
welcome to the podcast production coordinator and all around great
guy Russell dag Hey.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Russell, Well, how are you look at you?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
How y'all? Hello, beautiful people.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I'm here too. I'm here too. I don't know if
you can tell.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Yeah, I see you.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
We saw you recently at our Pod meets World first
half party, and your interview was only like a week
after our party, so it was a bit of a technicality,
but we make the rules.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So we are thrilled to see you.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
We have not stopped talking about how great it was.
Do you leave this impression on everybody you meet thirty
years ago? Does everybody feel this way about you?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Oh? I mean, I hope so, yeah, it's probably. You know.
First of all, I felt like one of the kids
kind of growing up. I grew up on Boy Meets World.
You know, I've been around. I'm not a kid, and
I wasn't a kid back then, either, but I just
had so much fun, you know, and it's like family. Yeah, really,
(09:06):
you know, I mean, and I just yeah, I guess
that's love, right, yeah, each other. Yeah, it's true really
what it was about.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
So, your first job was on a Michael Jacob show
My Two Dads as part of the production staff in
nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
How did you get that job?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
You know, it's really I have before I get too
far into this, Lynn McCracken friends. And at the time,
I was a struggling would be dancer. That's really what
I wanted to really, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I had
studied dance and I was I was doing you know,
nightly shows at Magic Mountain believe it or not, man real,
(09:51):
and it was that was the greatest gig, by the way.
It was a fireworks spectacular and it was all like
George Kersh music and it was tap dancing and you know,
jazz hands and.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
The Magic even did stuff awesome.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Here was the great thing about doing that show. It
was during the summer, and it was on Mystic Lake
and it was a fireworks show, so they could only
do it once. So we were in and out of
there and we were like drunk at Marie Calendar.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Were you in a costume?
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Oh yeah, I was doing Yeah, I was like in
several costumes believe it or not. And it was. It
was a lot of fun anyway, but it was a
short lived gig, you know, that's the way Joe biz is,
you know. And I just was like, you know what,
I don't think And I would go to auditions. I
would go to auditions as a dancer, and they would
be hiring maybe three boys, you know, and there would
(10:47):
be five hundred amazing dancers there, and I was just like,
you know, I'm not sure that I want to do this.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yeah, being a dancer is just the hardest because it's
like all the same insecurity and like performance anxiety of
being an actor, plus the athletic demands, like you're also
an athlete. So it's like I can't imagine something harder
than taking on me.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
And I say that it's kind of a short lived
thing too, you know you've ever been injured or whatever.
But I you know, I mean I I did it
for you know. I was like the only boy in
my high school who did modern dance, you know, very
popular with all the girls and the cheer leaders and
all that stuff. But you know, it was it was
(11:33):
just something that I was good at and I love
doing and but so Linda Krachen and I were friends,
and we'll go back to I Digress. Lenny was my
friend and she was working on the show as Michael
Jacob's assistant on My Two Dads, and they were hiring
a PA, like a night PA. So that was my
first gig and it was such a great thing to
(11:55):
see Stacy Keenan just recently too. Yeah, party and so
Lynn McCracken got me this job, got me an interview
with Arlene Grayson. Yeah. He became my mentor by the way.
So so thank you Lenny McCracken for getting me that gig.
(12:18):
And I was the night PA. Oh I was talking
about Stacy Keenan. Yeah, So Stacy Keenan. I saw her
at your at your party and uh she said her
name and I was like, wait a minute, I know
that voice. I know that name. I was a PA
on My Two Dads and we just had a laugh.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
And I delivered your scripts at Yes the Morning the
roughest gig.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
But you so you actually learned how to do production though,
I mean, you worked, You did the thing that so
many pas think they're going to do and then they
just get the crap being out of them. Because it's
such a hard job and they run screaming from the business,
but you stuck it out.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I remember things fights that
I got into in those days, you know. And also
working really closely with Michael Jacobs because being the night PA,
I had to wait for him to finish that rewriter,
you know, because it wasn't there was a writer's room
on that show. But primarily in those days, in those
(13:20):
olden days, Michael would stay and write at night and
I had he was done, and then I would xerox
the script and then I would get under copies. The
Thomas Guides.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Talk about them all the time.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Yeah, so I had to do the Thomas Guide map,
and there it is the guest.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Daniel got us. These these are Thomas Guides.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
I got him a Thomas Guide with where Disney, Where
we met.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Disney, where we met right there?
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Yeah, yeah, I so the Thomas Brothers. Yeah, delivery scripts
in the middle of the night. Michael Jack Michael Jacobs
would occasionally start watching television or something and I would be.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Like, Michael, can you get.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
A great movie? But you know, you know, I made
a lot of money to deliver scripts and delivering scripts
all night, you know. But that's how I started, was
on that show. And you know, God bless Arlene Grayson.
She took me under her wing. She became like a
mentor to me, you know, and she you know, and
(14:23):
I kind of got bumped up to an assistant to
the producers and and then became a production coordinator and
worked on shows. You know. From there, I worked on
a lot of Columbia television shows and you know, I
did a show with George Clooney called Baby Talk. That
(14:44):
was my first job as a production coordinator.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Okay, well before hold on, before we get into that,
you move on. Then from My Two Dads onto the
Torkl Sens in nineteen ninety one, and at that time
you were then a co producer in post production. Did
Arlene get you from My Two Dads to the Toal
Sins Or was that Michael?
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, it was really, you know, it was it was
our lean who kind of took me. But I have
I owe a debt of gratitude to Michael Jacobs, who really,
you know, took care of me and took me along
with him from show to show, and you know, gave
me a lot of opportunities and I think you know,
all I had to do really is to pay attention,
(15:24):
you know, and that's certainly what our lean stressed was, like,
you know, just you know, pay attention and be present
and you know, words slip by, right, and uh yeah,
so if I did tole sins and that was a blast.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
But I think that's a credit to you that, you know,
so many people get those entry level positions on a
production and just shut down because it's such hard work.
And of course all the glamor of show business that's
interesting is like actors and exciting stunt scenes are special effects,
and none of that really happens, right, that's like the
(16:02):
the one minute a day where that stuff's going on.
The rest of it is real work. It's like you know,
it's it's office work, it's coordinating different people, it's you know,
dealing with personalities cruise. So like a lot of people
just bail at that point, and you stuck it out
and that you you and learned how how the sausage
is made, right, Like, I mean, that's and you only
(16:24):
do that if you're willing to like put the time
in and and and yeah, listen, it's yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
And to the credit of that that particular group, Michael's
you know, Michael's little uh what do we used to
call it? His not his playpen, but his sand his
sand pit whatever we call sandbox box. Thank you Michael
sandbox and all those people that inhabited that was that
(16:49):
you know, it was about having fun too, you know,
and uh, you know, if it hadn't been fun, you know,
there's no way you can survive those kind of hours.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And totally yeah, so much.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Okay, So then you move on to being a production coordinator.
Can you tell everyone exactly what do you do as
a production coordinator?
Speaker 4 (17:08):
What the hell is the Russell is the question I'd
like to ask. I think Daniel's being more polite about it,
but what the hell is that?
Speaker 3 (17:17):
You know, it's a lot of a lot of things,
and you know it here, you know what I printed
out my resume because there's so much that I can't remember.
But under this I have like this kind of general responsibilities.
And I've been an associate producer, I've been a production manager,
I've been a production supervisor and a production coordinator and
(17:41):
you know, and I kind of have to remind myself
a because you know, I'm you know, elderly and forget things,
but here to answer your question in all sincerity. You know,
it's a million things, and it's different for every production.
But basically, the production coordinator is that worker bee who
(18:02):
is kind of doing making all the nuts and bolts happen,
all the logistics, all the communications for the show. If
it's it's sending out call sheets to the actors crew,
it's you know, making a million calls to people to
tell them the schedule has changed. Were sending schedules, being
(18:22):
kind of the liaison for the network and the studio
and the facility where we were shooting. So you know,
you remember we on Boing Meet's World, we went to
three different places. We started out at Disney for a
couple of years, then we went to kt LA for
a couple of years, Then we were at Radford for
a couple of years, and then back to Disney for
the last season. And I was kind of the person
(18:45):
who was the liaison between all of those those folks
that worked in those back those departments like moving in,
setting up offices and getting parking spaces and setting up
dressing rooms and and all that good stuff.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Were you not to interrupt, but just because you talked
about it, And this is something we've brought up a
bunch of times because we talked about all the time.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
But do you know why we were shuffled around from
studio to studio to studio and why we weren't just
say able to stay at Disney for all seven years?
Speaker 3 (19:14):
You know, I don't know specifically. I know that probably
had something to do with well, where Michael wanted to be,
right and also what stages were available. So you know,
I don't know what happened between season two and three
that moved us to KTLA, but it could be that.
(19:36):
You know, it's also a budget thing too, Okay, you
know different places.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
You know, there's no doubt that KTLA had to have
cost significantly then.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yes, yes, wow. I also I want to hear what
was the difference like for you in terms of the
two companies, like or the studio lots. Were they different vibes,
different people working for them? Like what was I imagine there?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean obviously Disney Studios, I mean with
all of its history and it's lush beauty and historic
buildings and squirrels yeah, I mean, just yeah, squirrels that were.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Yeah, KTLA had a lot of lushes. They were just
kind of hanging out in the parking lot, that's right.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Drinking out of a paper bag, a different kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, remember we I think it was our first day
that the cast was on kt LA proper, like you
guys came in for a rehearsal or and there was
like a sniper from the across the street. Do you
remember that?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I do?
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Yeah. The hood now, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Like everybody's shelter in place.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah, you know. And for me it was more about
I learned. Part of my growing up in this business
was really about how to relationships and being that liaison,
that person that had to go and ask for things.
You know, we need more air conditioning, or I need
you know this, favor this you know, or I got
(21:12):
good at negotiating. But it was about learning how to
build relationships. And I don't know if you were Pat
who ran Pat Do you remember Pat, Pat Jackson? Or yeah?
So Pat was kind of like the lot manager and
he was like my main guy.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
Oh wait, I remember Pat so familiar.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I have a fun well tell us about Pat.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Pat was great, but I remember well, after Arlene passed away,
Karen McCain became the producer and she really became my
work wife and we you know, I was her lieutenant.
I was, you know, we were kind of inseparable. We
kind of did the show. We all the all the
logistics of the show, the budget, the crew, the facilities,
(22:00):
all of that stuff we kind of did together. And
you know, I remember she had to take me to
lunch once and said, you know, Russell, you really need
to make friends with Pat because he's going to be
the person you know that we you know, it's having
that relationship is going to make it a lot easier. Yeah,
(22:22):
you know, and I was, I was still sort of
up and coming and learning, and I thought, well, I
had to be a hard ass, you know, I needed
to stand my ground and be you know, the boss.
And you know that just doesn't that doesn't work. I
mean obviously you get so much more with a little honey, right.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
So yeah, I mean that was one lesson that I
learned that going from place to place was that it
was about you know, making friends and having people that
were going to take care of us.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
But you also seem to be I mean, were you
also a liaison for people on the set because you
also seem to be on the set a lot of time.
We hung out all the time. You were with us constantly,
that's right.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yeah. I eventually kind of moved from the office, you know.
I think it was probably season four. I became the
associate producer, so I was bumped up to what in
multi camera in this sort of format of television, the
(23:23):
associate producers sort of like the production manager. So if
you're doing like a movie or single camera, which I
eventually went to work in, that would be the UPM
or the unit production manager. So I then became responsible
for the person who would create the episodic budget, dealing
with all the departments. So I'd go to set, dressing,
(23:45):
set deck, and say, hey, Robin, what's this episode going
to cost you? You know, after the production meeting, they
would go and they would create their budgets and then
they would give them to me, and then I would
create what was called the episodic budget, and and then
that would be often a phone call over to Disney
that said this episode is going to cost us X
(24:07):
amount of dollars. So I so I was a lot
of it was a lot of communication with the departments props,
that deck, hair and makeup. I just listened to the
Lori heaps hair and they all hated me. They did.
They would sometimes come in and would have to be
(24:29):
the person that would say, hey, you know, do you
really need the sextra person or you know, can we
do without this or whatever? And so yeah, so then
I just became you know, and a and again it
was about you know, making friends with these people, and
we did. We had a great time.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
What I love, Russell is that everything you're describing your
entire existence back then was everything that we took for
granted totally. It's literally all the stuff that we we
never had to think about because it was always taken
care of. And like you know, it wasn't until I
worked on other shows or other where I could see,
(25:10):
oh that the production, like the trains don't run on time,
things are not happening. It's because you guys did such
a good job that we always felt we just totally
took it for granted. We just always felt like everything
that we never needed was there. Yes, And so I'm
curious what I want to hear. I want to hear
about a disaster or things that didn't go wrong because
(25:31):
we never felt it. I don't remember, or maybe you
can remind me of a time when something wasn't there,
but it always felt like things were going smoothly and
that our production was just flying along. So I want
to hear, do you have a memory of like a
time when something just did not come together?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Uh? Oh, boy, things would have I'm trying to remember,
you know, like some sort of weird I think about,
you know, natural disasters of course, like yeah, like earthquake, Yeah,
the north Ridge earthquake, when you know, you'd walk on
stage for days after and it was like everything was
sort of shut down, I think, and it was like
(26:09):
you'd be you know, under lights and everything would be rattling. Yes, honestly,
I would have to think, and I don't. I don't
really have a particular story about things going completely.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Well that should be.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
I mean, with that right there tells you exactly how
the production was going. If one doesn't just pop in immediately, yeah,
because that's what it was.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Without without naming names, did you ever have to let
people go or lose whole apartments or switch things over?
And why would that happen?
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Yeah, you know, I mean I in my day, I
can't even recall what shows, but probably a lot with
boy not so maybe not so much with Boy because
it was such a it just it just was a dream.
Let me tell you. It's just it worked well. There
weren't there There wasn't a lot of turnover. It was
kind of a love best.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
I mean I have had to let people go. And
you know, I had one guy who was hired as
a as a PA, and I can't remember what the
problem was, but I had to let him go. And
I remembered that he when he was leaving the office,
he threatened to run me over in his car. And yeah,
(27:28):
so I had hired let go this PA and he, yeah,
I think either when he was leaving or I was
outside and he was still there, and he threatened to
run me over with his car because I was such
a piece of work, and and I was like, you know,
I'm I'm sorry, you know, please don't run me over.
But you know, things like that. But in terms of
(27:51):
the crew for Boy, I mean, we just we just
got lucky, you know. I know, I just took just
texted Karen and I was telling her that that I
was doing this and I and that i'd seen you
all recently, and I said, you know, we're we are
so blessed and lucky to have those seven years. It
was probably the beast seven years of my my time,
(28:14):
my career. I've been doing this for a long time
now you're all directing and writing and and you know
it's uh, it widens your perspective for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Right, makes you realize how rare it was. Okay Russell,
very important question. Okay, Will has a memory that prisoners
were brought in to watch our show as an audience.
(28:51):
Is there any truth to this?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
He doesn't. He thinks they were out on like good beha.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yes, I think it was, like I was told at
the beginning of the show, anyone knew what the show was,
that one of the groups they would bring in would
be like work release prisoners to fill audiences.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
I you know, I can't imagine the show that that
would get it, But I don't. I sort of remember.
I sort of remember mail coming from prisons.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Oh yeah, that happens all the time.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah, and that and that was when you were all
a certain age was very was taken very seriously, and
I don't think it ever got to you, right, Yeah,
I don't remember prisoners every.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Still not still knocked up.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
I know, we gotta we gotta interview. We got to
interview the woman who ran the audience, Janna Ja Yeah, right, yeah, Okay,
So let's go. It's nineteen ninety three, season one. You
have this job for a new program Friday nights. It's
called Boy Meets World. What do you remember thinking about, like,
what were your impressions of the show?
Speaker 3 (30:00):
What were my impressions in the show? Okay, so I
have to say that it wasn't a show that I
would probably watch, honestly, because it just wasn't. But then
there were times when watching that I don't think that
I ever really watched it all that much on the air,
(30:21):
but watching it shot, I will be honest, there were
many times when I was in tears, really moved, and
you know, I think back then the jury was still out.
I mean, I I loved you kids, I mean I
really did. I thought, God, how lucky we are at
these these are you know, well grounded. I loved your
(30:44):
parents so lucky. You know, it was just like down
to earth they raised you right, you know. I had
done and just going back, I had done a pilot
with Ben when he was nine, so I already had
this love affair with Joanne Savage his mom.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
What was that pilot we did.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
I did a pilot. It was Columbia Television. It was
called Hurricane Sam. And he was like nine years old.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Uh. It was with Ray Walston man and I was
I think I was a p A on it. I
think because I drove Ray Walston back. Yeah, I was
a p A. I drove Ray Walston at home every night.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
That's cool.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Yeah, it was very cool. He was talking. He would
talk about Brando and all this.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Oh man.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yeah, and then he like gave me a thousand dollars
at the end of the shoot, like seriously, like just
here's a thousand bucks, you know, thanks for driving me.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
It was school actor.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Yeah, but it was with Ray Wilston, Karen Valentine, Frand Dresser,
Oh my god. And was Hurricane Sam. He was the
he was so he was.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
The lead of the show.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, around him.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I never even heard of this there.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
It didn't get picked up obviously, you know, it was.
I did a lot of stuff like that. You know
a lot of little shows. The pilots they're on my
on my resume. I have. It starts with Point Meets World,
I mean, because I mean, you know, there's a little
bit of agism in this business, you know. So it's
like I can send my resume out to people who
(32:20):
probably grew up watching the show and they probably don't
want to work with Grandpa. You know.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
Did you work out the schedules for us when we
went to other than Will when we went to Orlando?
Did you do you remember the Disney World trip?
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Yeah? I do, and I remember I was so jealous
and I didn get to go. Yeah, but yeah, I
probably did the travel. I probably did all the travel stuff. Yeah,
I'm not sure that I did the actual schedule. That
would probably have been Karen and was it was it
Kendall that directed that or I think it was mc McCracken. Okay,
(32:59):
so probably Aaron and Jeff got together and did the
schedule once you got there. Why was there a story
to this?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
No, we just wondered.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
We just always talk about like those, you know, those
big production weeks when everything works.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
To bring it up all the time.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
I love to point out to Will that he didn't
get to go.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Will got to go to Lake Placids.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Oh yeah, Potato, same Florida. It's very similar.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Lake Flaccid Disney World.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Everyone knows it's the same state with Nancy Kerrigan, which
was cool as hell. That was awesome, but come on,
it's Disney.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
It's Disney Disney World. I didn't need to go either.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Okay, we should have hung out, Russell, we should have
hung out.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Now.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Something we talk about a lot is how we always
felt like in between seasons that we were regularly on
the bubble. Did you find out well before us when
we were picked up or did you also worry we
were getting canceled every year?
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah? That was always everybody's worried. Yeah, it's only been
once my career, and that was when I did n
CIS Los Angeles four years and we got picked up
for two years. I think too. I think we got
picked up for several years anyway, just keep it going.
(34:16):
And it was sort of like, wow, what are you relaxed? Okay,
I'm going to buy a new car.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
That's so cool.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
So but yeah, no, we were. We were always on
that same bubble with you, I think.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Do you have a preference because you've done and I
know we'll get into the single camera stuff that you've
done as well, But if you had to choose between
working on multi caam or single cam, do you have
a preference between the two.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
Uh, sitcom give me Yeah, seven years would take me
into retirement.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Much easier production. Yeah, yeah, everything's so streamlined. It's you know,
it's more like producing a live show than it is.
I mean, single camera is so every day is like
new problem solving.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
It's just were we were home by well, not the writers.
The writers were slaving away, you know, making making this,
you know, adding the heart and the funny to this show,
which there was so much, but you know, I would
say that sitcoms. Yeah, we were home at what six o'clock?
(35:20):
I know. It was such a great you have a life,
you know.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
It was the best. Yeah, it really was the best.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
Is it true that since after COVID you were also
able to produce on like the health and safety side,
which was obviously a very important and stressful managerial job
during that time.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
What was that like?
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Uh? It was yeah, it was a lot. And I
I probably worked on like five of their shows and uh,
just going from one show to the next, creating the
budget and over and hiring a staff of all those
COVID people. If you, if you, if any of you
(36:04):
worked on camera during the pandemic, it was really important
that the crew be you know, masked and tested. I
mean we it was the upshots. I did the Upshaw
season two, and we tested the cast five days a week,
and a lot of those red zone people, the people
(36:26):
that were closest to the cast, hair and makeup, the ads, uh,
they all had to be tested five days a week.
And everybody in the crew was in masks. So it
was a lot of criteria that you had to take on.
You had to understand, you know, working closely with with
medical people. And it was great, I tell you, I
(36:46):
was so lucky to get that job and and and
to be there through at a time when a lot
of people were not working. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
Yeah, Well, and especially over the last few weeks, people
all over the world now have been reading articles in
the La Times and Variety detailing an epic decrease in
employment opportunities in Hollywood, especially on the production side, since
COVID and then the strike and a bit of a
strategy pivot for streaming services. So, with you on the
front lines of production, what is your opinion on the
(37:18):
current state of the industry retirement.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
I you know, I mean, I know that if if
I were in Atlanta, I'd probably work all the time.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
So everybody says Atlanta and Nashville, everybody's moving.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Yeah. I just sort of feel like I think that
our state government needs to get on board more tax incentives,
more incentives to bring production back here. I mean, I
can't imagine anybody wants to go to Vancouver or to
you know, anywhere, to work elsewhere. I mean, this is
our home and this is LA's one. You know, I
(37:58):
love living here. You know, I don't really want to
go anywhere else. So those are my thoughts. I have
to tell you that there's part of me that that
does think about early retirement, that thinks about doing something else.
I mean I would I would love to keep working
and and and and growing that pension and having having
(38:20):
a full career in this business. I just, you know,
I think I shared with you certainly a writer, we've
talked about you know, what else I might do if, if,
if this continues, AM close to retirement. I'm not quite
good yet, but I have these kind of thoughts about,
(38:41):
you know, going away part time, not not really like
not moving completely away from Los Angeles. But my dream
would be to like open up a bed and breakfast
in Costa Rica. Wow. So and writer. You and I
have talked about that. Yeah, I really I'm actually going
next month. Yes, and I go for check it out
(39:04):
and kind of get the vibe you're gonna love it.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Were you always so?
Speaker 4 (39:21):
Here's there's some people that are just their entire lives.
Danielle's one of them, for instance, that are very good
at planning things, very good at coordinating things.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Have you?
Speaker 4 (39:32):
Was that always what you were like growing up? I
mean it seems almost like a mindset for certain people
and you Did you have that when you were growing up?
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Were you just always the person planning?
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Planning? I'm not sure planning is the right thing. I
think being able to cross keys and dot I like
sort of somebody who's kind of methodic, high functioning, you know,
like I CA, I care about what I'm.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Doing, Attention to detail, yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Yeah, you know, and and also just pay like paying attention,
you know, learning those early lessons from Karen and Arlen,
great teachers that I had that just was like, you know,
pay attention and and you know, be kind and care
about what it is that you're doing. I think, And
(40:24):
so I don't think I'm great at planning things. I mean,
sure I worked I worked when not in production. I've
done several events, like big special events, and I've been
hired by these big companies that you know, kind of
close streets and they're seven days long and it's thousands
of people, and I've had that opportunity to kind of
(40:45):
do that kind of planning and preparing. And again, it's
just it's sort of the same idea. You just sort
of for me. You know, I think I was a
great PA because I would I'd set up, like, I
know this sounds silly, but I would set up the
craft service table in the office for the writers, and
(41:06):
I would think about like what do you what do
you need? Like if I was going to come here
and make a cup of coffee, I mean, is that
kind of right?
Speaker 5 (41:14):
And in which order do you want? You don't want
to grab the bagel and have the plate at the end.
You've got to have the plates at the top right.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
You know, you just think about it like what what
is the order here? And uh and and how can
I make it better? Always sort of approached the work
and yeah, and to have fun, you know, it's important
to you know, keep it light.
Speaker 5 (41:39):
We definitely had a lot of fun on Boy meets world,
that's for sure. What do you think is in the
future for traditional TV? What do you if you had
to look into the future, what do you think it's
going to look like.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Traditional TV redesigned? You know, I would? For me, I would.
That's a difficult question to end. I think that I
what I'd like to see is more kind of a live,
spontaneous uh live performances that get recorded and or broadcast.
(42:16):
I mean, I just think, you know, I love these things.
Maybe not the answer to your question, but like I
love going to the the movies to see uh live
theater like the National Theater will have showings of of
their their theater bright you know, and I'm a big
theater queen. You know. I love theater and I love
(42:38):
you know, dance, and I love so I mean, I
would love to see more live meets television.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, I mean Netflix has actually been going in that direction.
They've been doing their their live comedy events and doing Yeah,
it's it's interesting. I think people are craving a little
bit of something a little more exciting that isn't just
always available, always made and your binge watch, but like
keep you on the edge of your seat and keep
you Yeah, I mean the sitcom was doing that for
(43:08):
a little while too.
Speaker 4 (43:08):
You know, ABC was doing the live episodes of you
know what was Free His Company, or they would throw
throw some all in the family, they'd recast it do
a live show. You'd get that energy, that kind of
that who are the actors going to mess up? Is
it going to be different on the East coast than
it is on the West coast? I mean it was
kind of an event onto itself to go and check
it out, so that, Yeah, that's interesting to see more
(43:31):
more live stuff.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
I like that concept. I think realistically, you know, you
kind of wonder about you know this the scrolling of
your telephone and and and how fast paced that fast
pace everything is, and then with you know, with TikTok
(43:52):
and all this other stuff. So I kind of wonder
how traditional broadcast television is going to move to that
realm or it's mine in some way. So, you know,
I'm not really sure the answer, but I'm pretty sure
that somehow, you know, social media is going to take over.
Speaker 5 (44:13):
Right, Yeah, well, thirty years later, why do you think
it is that out of all the shows you've worked on,
why do you think that boy Meets World is still
so relevant. Why are people still talking about it?
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Well, you know, a lot of credit has to go
to the writers, Michael and his team of writers, and
the cast. The beautiful I mean, it had such heart,
I think is the best word to say. It just
you know, I think that's what made it special. And
I you know, the experience of working on the show
(44:52):
was wonderful. But I think that just from a holistic thing.
I mean, it just had to do with the fact
that it it was it was a special thing. It
was it was funny, it was fun, it was educational,
but it also had a certain kind of I guess
(45:12):
heart and emotion and we loved those people and it
was just you know, yeah, so that's it. It just
it had heart. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
I think the relationships that we all had really came through,
you know, the friendships we had between the cast and
the crew and the production. I mean, you know, the
fact that we had as many people as we did
who lasted for all seven seasons. There are quite a
few people that were there for all seven years. And
of course we had people who we had you know,
(45:44):
we had some turnover, but it wasn't a ton and
I think those you know, those bonds and those relationships, and.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
You know, we got really lucky.
Speaker 5 (45:52):
It was a I know you mentioned to me at
the party and you said it here too that just
of your careers, Boy meets World were the best seven years.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
And you know, I think we can.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
All agree that, like what we would do now to
have another seven years like that?
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Yes, you know.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
I think.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
It's also it's it's what it's the other thing is.
And we've talked about this a lot. You get that combination.
It's a rare combination of us all getting along, really
caring about each other, the writers caring about the project.
And then you have Michael Jacobs at the Helm, who
is a genius when it comes to family sitcom.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
I mean he just was.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
And so you put all that together and yeah, that's
it was pretty magical.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Yeah, big shout out to Michael Jacobs and what he creates.
And because it is about finding the heart.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
And yeah, he could do it. He really could do it.
Speaker 3 (46:47):
Yeah, And as you said, it's about those relationships. I mean,
they were real and we've all been we've all been
on projects where it's just it's hateful, right, absolutely, Like
you know, you know, I won't mention any names, but
I mean I've been on sets where and the shows
(47:09):
were kind of brilliant, like HBO series that I did
that I loved, and I loved watching it. It was
just so good. But let me tell you, those people
hated each other, yeah, you know, and there was a
lot of shouting and I was just really ugly to
be around. So how they made good television, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (47:31):
Right, Well, Russell, it's so great to see you. Thank
you for coming on our little podcast and sharing your
experiences with us. And we're going to be interviewing Karen
McCain as well, so we'll get to have your one
of your mentors. I wish we could. I wish we
could interview Arlene I. Her name has come up so
(47:51):
many times on this podcast with such fond memories of
all of us, and she's missed, and you.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Know, here we are, thirty years later, still talking about her.
Speaker 5 (47:59):
So she made a mark.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
That's right, that's right. You know, I was such a
debt of gratitude to her. She was she was a
good egg and she taught me what was important and uh,
you know, I I've gotten into writing recently and I'm
just just creative writing. And I wrote a short story
about her and about a whole lot of stuff about
(48:23):
you know, living through you know, about loss and faith
and but it all it goes to the most amazing
story that I have and that it has to do
with Arlene and the Miracle Bear. Probably the best thing
I've ever written. I mean, I joined a writers group
and I'm just doing it for creative reasons, and it's
(48:44):
and it's really.
Speaker 5 (48:45):
Is there a spot where we can read it?
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (48:50):
Yeah, it's a very personal story. But yes, I would
let you, I would let you read it. I actually
I'm quite proud of it. It's a it's a very
personal story about loss and faith and my relationship. Yeah,
it's kind of the most amazing story that I tell
and it's a true story about that involves her, and
(49:13):
so yeah, I would Yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
Well yeah, Russell, these both these guys know that as
I sit here and record when I first moved out
to l A, Arlene to make sure that I wouldn't
be alone, wrote her name, her address, and her phone
number down and it's in her handwriting, and it's I
look at it every day. It's literally right over my computer,
and it just it sits there, so I know that
she's there if I ever need her, if I'm still lost,
(49:35):
I can give her a call.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
I have a shelf in my room that has well
the title Miracle Bear is about a teddy bear, and
so it's her, one of her old teddy bears, and
it's there's next too is the picture of her laughing,
and she's just like.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
That's how I remember her. She was always laughing, big smile.
Speaker 4 (50:01):
Yeah, that was That was just a big smile, big
big laugh time.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
But I just have to tell you about a funny
little story about that, because Arlene was super funny. She
would do crazy crazy like she just was funny. But
I was really good friends, really tight with and I
still am with Jerylyn Shafey Schaeffer, who was Michael's assistant
of course, and Carlos Aragon who was Don Perrapsi's assistant
(50:27):
but then became, I guess became a writer on the show. Uh,
And so we were the three of us were was
when we were at kat l a and and Arlene
had passed away, and we were talking about her and
just laughing about how funny she was. Whether it was
whether she was walking down the halls and she would
be she she would sing as this sort of tone
(50:50):
deaf opera singer. I was like, I shot the sheriff.
We were like, what, I shot the sheriff, you know,
like no reason. But so one of the things that
she used to do was she take she'd take a
drink and then she'd let it slob her out of
Oh my gosh, you know, crazy. So we were kind
(51:12):
of channeling Arlene that that night while we were shooting
the show at kat La and there was Jarrelen and
Carlos and I kind of mimicking her. We were kind
of spitting up on the floor of the hallway and
then we looked up and we realized there was a
camera in the way and that that our friend Pat,
the lot manager, was probably seeing this or would see it,
(51:36):
and we, I mean we just died laughing. That was
a moment of Arlene kind of just staying with us,
you know, bringing us joy and that's funny.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
I love it. Well, thank you so much for being
with us, Russell.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
Thank you for including me. I appreciate it. I really do.
Speaker 5 (51:55):
I look forward to hearing what your thoughts are in
Costa Rica.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
I look forward to seeing what the next step is,
of course, I.
Speaker 5 (52:05):
Of course I also selfishly want you to continue working
here because I want to work with you.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
With you, So yeah, all right, you guys, thank.
Speaker 5 (52:16):
You, thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
Great to see you.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
What a what a guy.
Speaker 5 (52:24):
He has the same the same energy that I remember
him having, although I never saw him doing his job.
He was in a different office, you know, he wasn't
on stage. He was in the production office, so I
never like saw him working.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
He was always working, but I wasn't. I didn't see
what he did.
Speaker 5 (52:41):
And like you said, writer, just he did all the
things we completely took for granted.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
But I remember wanted her to.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
Be more drama for the podcast. I wanted things to
would be always on the edge of falling apart. But
it sounds like our show really, I know, pretty.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Smooth, like a well oiled machine.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
It was because of Karen and him, you know, like
on the on the actual production side. Obviously, we we
we spend so much time with this show talking about
the creative side, which was also running pretty darn smoothly,
but the production, like we just never had any real problems.
That's crazy to me when I think about the jobs
I've worked on since you know, stuff's always falling apart
(53:21):
or on the verge of falling apart, and people are
mean to each other, people are angry, people are bitter,
and we just didn't have that culture all right. When
we get Karen mccainnon on here, I want, I want,
I'm hoping so correct drama, drama.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
Ahead of time start like I.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Just love production stories like you know, challenges like I
just love like you know, we didn't even get into
the wrestling episode or you know, times and it. I mean,
I think multi camera sitcom, especially back then when we
had like good budgets, they did go pretty smoothly, you know,
I think they were pretty cushy jobs actually in Hollywood terms,
(53:59):
you know, whither other jobs like single camera shows. There's
just so much more problem solving is so much more
you know work, So there's a lot, lot lot more drama.
Speaker 5 (54:10):
Well, thank you all for joining us for this episode
of Podmeets World. As always, you can follow us on
Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your
emails Podmeets World Show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
And we have merch writer wants the Drama March.
Speaker 5 (54:25):
Podmeetsworldshow dot Com writer send us out.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
We Love You All pod dismissed. Podmeets World is an
iHeart podcast producer hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfridell and Ryder
Strong Executive producers Jensen Karp and Amy Sugarman Executive in
charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Tarasubasch producer,
Maddi Moore engineer and Boy Meets World Superman Easton All.
Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow
(54:51):
us on Instagram at podmets World Show or email us
at Podmeats World Show at gmail dot com
My sister in law is visiting and she's staying with us,
and one of it like, she's a huge movie buff
and so whenever we see each other, we immediately like
start comparing what we've seen lately, and then we invariably
stay up until like two in the morning every night
that she's here watching movies. Now, but it's reminded me
of something that like one of my favorite things about
(00:42):
my wife and my wife's entire family is watching movies
with them. Oh God, is the fun greatest time. They
all vocalize and talk, and it is like it is
so not the strong family tradition. You're like, I grew
up in a very sort of like while we watched
the movie and then if it's a comedy, you laugh,
(01:03):
but like and it's my wife does it with just
the two of us, like if we put on anything,
and it just fills me with so much joy to
like share in the experience of what she's reacting to,
and it's it gets I mean, I also make fun
of her because she also does the thing where she
asks like, well, why would he do that? And it's like, well,
that's the question the movie's making you ask, Like the
(01:27):
thing that like you're not supposed to know, you're supposed
to be asking that, and so we I teas her
all the time about that, but it's it's actually like
it goes pretty deep for me in that, Like she's
the first person to watch anything I make and to
read anything that I write. And her transparency, her like
vulnerability and like openness to respond like she's this. It's
(01:48):
so helpful because she tracks like how the audience is feeling,
and you can all like she just can't hide her emotions.
She actually got kicked out of dance when she was
a kid because she would just make faces in the
mirror and like and she she does it all. I
have to like hold her back from Indie because she
just reacts to whatever is happening. It's like she can't
fake it. She can't hide her emotions anyway. It's just
(02:09):
like I love going to movies with a crowd. I
love and sitting with my in laws like it's my
when we the first holidays I spent with them when
we went back to Florida and there roy all got
together and we watched They found out I had never
seen the movie Rocky and they were like, we have
to watch writers like Rocky not then. This was fifteen
(02:29):
years ago or whatever, and it was like so important
to her family, Like we are all watching Rocky for
Rider and it was so much and it's like now
it's just a tradition. Like when we get together, you know,
for the holidays, we watch really bad horror films together
and everybody's shouting at the screen. It's just like, it's
my favorite thing in the world. So shout out to
everybody who like vocalizes, and like, let's let's.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Do it in the movie theater.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
No. No, in the movie theater, we're pretty calm.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
No, that's like, isn't that weird? It's like a weird contradiction.
It's like you want to do.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yeah, you don't want to mess with the people you
don't know, right, But Susan does this thing where we'll
turn on a movie that neither of us will scene
and she'll go, why do you do that?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I'll be like, babe, I'm as.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Far into this as you are, I know, seconds in
and I don't know either, Like.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I can't do that.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
We just started it, I know.
Speaker 5 (03:21):
So writer, another question for you, does she do it
about things that are because I can be kind of similar.
If I'm at home and Jensen and I are watching something,
I also want to talk through, Like if I find
something so particularly funny one of them, you know, oh,
I think it's so funny because and then I'll talk
about it. But I have a very hard time doing
it for something that makes me very choked up. But
(03:43):
I did it quite a bit during What's that movie
we both love? After Sun when she puts her feet
down on the rug and I started sobbing, and I said.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
That's the logo, God Bob.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
I couldn't. I couldn't get this. I couldn't because I
just had my entire heart in my throat. Does she
also vocalized through things that are making her choked up?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
And why all of it?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
All of it?
Speaker 1 (04:07):
It's so lovely. I mean what I love is just
the little like, oh, like all the little like she's
just on a journey and she's it's happening and it
helps me or like you know, especially I mean like
one of the you know, when we first started dating,
I made my first short film, Irish Twins, with my brother,
and you know, we were only three months into a
(04:30):
relationship or whatever. So by the time I edited, we
had been dating for probably six months, and so she's like,
I'm showing her the first rough cut, you know, and
it was like hearing those things and then she just
just fell apart and was crying holding me and was
so moved, and it was like, Okay, I know I
did the job like I made a movie, you know,
because she because she can also be very honest and
(04:51):
it's not working, you know, Like I give her scripts
all the time and she's like, no, I just I
wrote two scripts last year that, you know. She's like sorry,
And that's like we've developed this this you know, comfort
and this confidence in each other as readers and watchers.
But it's it's so built around her vulnerability and her
openness and her willingness to just express and to react.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Does she vocalize the same way by herself when she's
reading books? Yes, okay, so she's like talking to the book.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And that's why I like, I literally like watching her
read stuff I've written. It's like part of the process.
Like if I walk by her office while she's reading
something that I've given or I'm like secretly listening for oh, you.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
Should put a camera in there that she knows about
I'm just gonna put this camera here. I don't want
you to feel me watching you, but I want to
go back and watch it to see the moments. Yeah,
that's really cool. Well I love that. Shout out to
spouse's who let us talk during movies.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Welcome to podmeets World.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I'm Daniel Fishel, I'm Rider Strong, and I'm Wilfordell.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
One thing that has definitely changed since our first time
around on Boy Meets World when we were filming it
in nineteen ninety seven is selfish slightly dramatic teens. Is
our understanding of how complex and intricate the making of
a TV show can be. It's not just the faces
you see on camera, or the director's, showrunners and executive producers,
who over the past two decades have become stars in
(06:23):
their own right. It's every single name you see in
the credits, each holding their own, vital and mostly thankless
job that make sure the program you love stays afloat
week after week. It's the titles you don't fully understand,
like Key Grip or best Boy or assistant to mister
big Shot.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
These jobs are critical.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
And without a good employee hired to take care of
these positions, you might as well pack it up and
go home, because it'll show on the screen. One of
our favorite parts of making Podmets World has been shining
a light on some of these people who worked behind
the scenes on our show, and we didn't really know
how great they were when we were kids. We were
pining over boys at our regular high school, or figuring
(07:05):
out how you can safely ship one white rose back
to your high school girlfriend, or just scoping the new
studio a lot to find a safe place to smoke.
But now we realize their hard work and it's time
to give them their flowers. And today we're hoping to
do just that with one of our favorite faces from
that time, who When Jensen asked me what he did
exactly on Boy Meet's World, my answer was it was
(07:27):
very important, and I'm excited to find out.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
That's about right.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
What I do know is he was the production coordinator
on the show, starting in season one and running through
the finale in season seven, and that wasn't his first
Michael Jacob's production. He had already worked on My Two
Dads and The Torkulsns. He'd later branch out, gaining a
ton of experience under his belt, with many titles on
shows like Swingtown and CIS Los Angeles and The Ten
(07:53):
Things I Hate About You TV adaptation. So now please
welcome to the podcast production coordinator and all around great
guy Russell dag Hey.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Russell, Well, how are you look at you?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
How y'all? Hello, beautiful people.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I'm here too. I'm here too. I don't know if
you can tell.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Yeah, I see you.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
We saw you recently at our Pod meets World first
half party, and your interview was only like a week
after our party, so it was a bit of a technicality,
but we make the rules.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So we are thrilled to see you.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
We have not stopped talking about how great it was.
Do you leave this impression on everybody you meet thirty
years ago? Does everybody feel this way about you?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Oh? I mean, I hope so, yeah, it's probably. You know.
First of all, I felt like one of the kids
kind of growing up. I grew up on Boy Meets World.
You know, I've been around. I'm not a kid, and
I wasn't a kid back then, either, but I just
had so much fun, you know, and it's like family. Yeah, really,
(09:06):
you know, I mean, and I just yeah, I guess
that's love, right, yeah, each other. Yeah, it's true really
what it was about.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
So, your first job was on a Michael Jacob show
My Two Dads as part of the production staff in
nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
How did you get that job?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
You know, it's really I have before I get too
far into this, Lynn McCracken friends. And at the time,
I was a struggling would be dancer. That's really what
I wanted to really, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I had
studied dance and I was I was doing you know,
nightly shows at Magic Mountain believe it or not, man real,
(09:51):
and it was that was the greatest gig, by the way.
It was a fireworks spectacular and it was all like
George Kersh music and it was tap dancing and you know,
jazz hands and.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
The Magic even did stuff awesome.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Here was the great thing about doing that show. It
was during the summer, and it was on Mystic Lake
and it was a fireworks show, so they could only
do it once. So we were in and out of
there and we were like drunk at Marie Calendar.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Were you in a costume?
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Oh yeah, I was doing Yeah, I was like in
several costumes believe it or not. And it was. It
was a lot of fun anyway, but it was a
short lived gig, you know, that's the way Joe biz is,
you know. And I just was like, you know what,
I don't think And I would go to auditions. I
would go to auditions as a dancer, and they would
be hiring maybe three boys, you know, and there would
(10:47):
be five hundred amazing dancers there, and I was just like,
you know, I'm not sure that I want to do this.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yeah, being a dancer is just the hardest because it's
like all the same insecurity and like performance anxiety of
being an actor, plus the athletic demands, like you're also
an athlete. So it's like I can't imagine something harder
than taking on me.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
And I say that it's kind of a short lived
thing too, you know you've ever been injured or whatever.
But I you know, I mean I I did it
for you know. I was like the only boy in
my high school who did modern dance, you know, very
popular with all the girls and the cheer leaders and
all that stuff. But you know, it was it was
(11:33):
just something that I was good at and I love
doing and but so Linda Krachen and I were friends,
and we'll go back to I Digress. Lenny was my
friend and she was working on the show as Michael
Jacob's assistant on My Two Dads, and they were hiring
a PA, like a night PA. So that was my
first gig and it was such a great thing to
(11:55):
see Stacy Keenan just recently too. Yeah, party and so
Lynn McCracken got me this job, got me an interview
with Arlene Grayson. Yeah. He became my mentor by the way.
So so thank you Lenny McCracken for getting me that gig.
(12:18):
And I was the night PA. Oh I was talking
about Stacy Keenan. Yeah, So Stacy Keenan. I saw her
at your at your party and uh she said her
name and I was like, wait a minute, I know
that voice. I know that name. I was a PA
on My Two Dads and we just had a laugh.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
And I delivered your scripts at Yes the Morning the
roughest gig.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
But you so you actually learned how to do production though,
I mean, you worked, You did the thing that so
many pas think they're going to do and then they
just get the crap being out of them. Because it's
such a hard job and they run screaming from the business,
but you stuck it out.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I remember things fights that
I got into in those days, you know. And also
working really closely with Michael Jacobs because being the night PA,
I had to wait for him to finish that rewriter,
you know, because it wasn't there was a writer's room
on that show. But primarily in those days, in those
(13:20):
olden days, Michael would stay and write at night and
I had he was done, and then I would xerox
the script and then I would get under copies. The
Thomas Guides.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Talk about them all the time.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Yeah, so I had to do the Thomas Guide map,
and there it is the guest.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Daniel got us. These these are Thomas Guides.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
I got him a Thomas Guide with where Disney, Where
we met.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Disney, where we met right there?
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Yeah, yeah, I so the Thomas Brothers. Yeah, delivery scripts
in the middle of the night. Michael Jack Michael Jacobs
would occasionally start watching television or something and I would be.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Like, Michael, can you get.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
A great movie? But you know, you know, I made
a lot of money to deliver scripts and delivering scripts
all night, you know. But that's how I started, was
on that show. And you know, God bless Arlene Grayson.
She took me under her wing. She became like a
mentor to me, you know, and she you know, and
(14:23):
I kind of got bumped up to an assistant to
the producers and and then became a production coordinator and
worked on shows. You know. From there, I worked on
a lot of Columbia television shows and you know, I
did a show with George Clooney called Baby Talk. That
(14:44):
was my first job as a production coordinator.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Okay, well before hold on, before we get into that,
you move on. Then from My Two Dads onto the
Torkl Sens in nineteen ninety one, and at that time
you were then a co producer in post production. Did
Arlene get you from My Two Dads to the Toal
Sins Or was that Michael?
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, it was really, you know, it was it was
our lean who kind of took me. But I have
I owe a debt of gratitude to Michael Jacobs, who really,
you know, took care of me and took me along
with him from show to show, and you know, gave
me a lot of opportunities and I think you know,
all I had to do really is to pay attention,
(15:24):
you know, and that's certainly what our lean stressed was, like,
you know, just you know, pay attention and be present
and you know, words slip by, right, and uh yeah,
so if I did tole sins and that was a blast.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
But I think that's a credit to you that, you know,
so many people get those entry level positions on a
production and just shut down because it's such hard work.
And of course all the glamor of show business that's
interesting is like actors and exciting stunt scenes are special effects,
and none of that really happens, right, that's like the
(16:02):
the one minute a day where that stuff's going on.
The rest of it is real work. It's like you know,
it's it's office work, it's coordinating different people, it's you know,
dealing with personalities cruise. So like a lot of people
just bail at that point, and you stuck it out
and that you you and learned how how the sausage
is made, right, Like, I mean, that's and you only
(16:24):
do that if you're willing to like put the time
in and and and yeah, listen, it's yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
And to the credit of that that particular group, Michael's
you know, Michael's little uh what do we used to
call it? His not his playpen, but his sand his
sand pit whatever we call sandbox box. Thank you Michael
sandbox and all those people that inhabited that was that
(16:49):
you know, it was about having fun too, you know,
and uh, you know, if it hadn't been fun, you know,
there's no way you can survive those kind of hours.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And totally yeah, so much.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
Okay, So then you move on to being a production coordinator.
Can you tell everyone exactly what do you do as
a production coordinator?
Speaker 4 (17:08):
What the hell is the Russell is the question I'd
like to ask. I think Daniel's being more polite about it,
but what the hell is that?
Speaker 3 (17:17):
You know, it's a lot of a lot of things,
and you know it here, you know what I printed
out my resume because there's so much that I can't remember.
But under this I have like this kind of general responsibilities.
And I've been an associate producer, I've been a production manager,
I've been a production supervisor and a production coordinator and
(17:41):
you know, and I kind of have to remind myself
a because you know, I'm you know, elderly and forget things,
but here to answer your question in all sincerity. You know,
it's a million things, and it's different for every production.
But basically, the production coordinator is that worker bee who
(18:02):
is kind of doing making all the nuts and bolts happen,
all the logistics, all the communications for the show. If
it's it's sending out call sheets to the actors crew,
it's you know, making a million calls to people to
tell them the schedule has changed. Were sending schedules, being
(18:22):
kind of the liaison for the network and the studio
and the facility where we were shooting. So you know,
you remember we on Boing Meet's World, we went to
three different places. We started out at Disney for a
couple of years, then we went to kt LA for
a couple of years, Then we were at Radford for
a couple of years, and then back to Disney for
the last season. And I was kind of the person
(18:45):
who was the liaison between all of those those folks
that worked in those back those departments like moving in,
setting up offices and getting parking spaces and setting up
dressing rooms and and all that good stuff.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Were you not to interrupt, but just because you talked
about it, And this is something we've brought up a
bunch of times because we talked about all the time.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
But do you know why we were shuffled around from
studio to studio to studio and why we weren't just
say able to stay at Disney for all seven years?
Speaker 3 (19:14):
You know, I don't know specifically. I know that probably
had something to do with well, where Michael wanted to be,
right and also what stages were available. So you know,
I don't know what happened between season two and three
that moved us to KTLA, but it could be that.
(19:36):
You know, it's also a budget thing too, Okay, you
know different places.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
You know, there's no doubt that KTLA had to have
cost significantly then.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yes, yes, wow. I also I want to hear what
was the difference like for you in terms of the
two companies, like or the studio lots. Were they different vibes,
different people working for them? Like what was I imagine there?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean obviously Disney Studios, I mean with
all of its history and it's lush beauty and historic
buildings and squirrels yeah, I mean, just yeah, squirrels that were.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Yeah, KTLA had a lot of lushes. They were just
kind of hanging out in the parking lot, that's right.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Drinking out of a paper bag, a different kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, remember we I think it was our first day
that the cast was on kt LA proper, like you
guys came in for a rehearsal or and there was
like a sniper from the across the street. Do you
remember that?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I do?
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Yeah. The hood now, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Like everybody's shelter in place.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah, you know. And for me it was more about
I learned. Part of my growing up in this business
was really about how to relationships and being that liaison,
that person that had to go and ask for things.
You know, we need more air conditioning, or I need
you know this, favor this you know, or I got
(21:12):
good at negotiating. But it was about learning how to
build relationships. And I don't know if you were Pat
who ran Pat Do you remember Pat, Pat Jackson? Or yeah?
So Pat was kind of like the lot manager and
he was like my main guy.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
Oh wait, I remember Pat so familiar.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I have a fun well tell us about Pat.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Pat was great, but I remember well, after Arlene passed away,
Karen McCain became the producer and she really became my
work wife and we you know, I was her lieutenant.
I was, you know, we were kind of inseparable. We
kind of did the show. We all the all the
logistics of the show, the budget, the crew, the facilities,
(22:00):
all of that stuff we kind of did together. And
you know, I remember she had to take me to
lunch once and said, you know, Russell, you really need
to make friends with Pat because he's going to be
the person you know that we you know, it's having
that relationship is going to make it a lot easier. Yeah,
(22:22):
you know, and I was, I was still sort of
up and coming and learning, and I thought, well, I
had to be a hard ass, you know, I needed
to stand my ground and be you know, the boss.
And you know that just doesn't that doesn't work. I
mean obviously you get so much more with a little honey, right.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
So yeah, I mean that was one lesson that I
learned that going from place to place was that it
was about you know, making friends and having people that
were going to take care of us.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
But you also seem to be I mean, were you
also a liaison for people on the set because you
also seem to be on the set a lot of time.
We hung out all the time. You were with us constantly,
that's right.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yeah. I eventually kind of moved from the office, you know.
I think it was probably season four. I became the
associate producer, so I was bumped up to what in
multi camera in this sort of format of television, the
(23:23):
associate producers sort of like the production manager. So if
you're doing like a movie or single camera, which I
eventually went to work in, that would be the UPM
or the unit production manager. So I then became responsible
for the person who would create the episodic budget, dealing
with all the departments. So I'd go to set, dressing,
(23:45):
set deck, and say, hey, Robin, what's this episode going
to cost you? You know, after the production meeting, they
would go and they would create their budgets and then
they would give them to me, and then I would
create what was called the episodic budget, and and then
that would be often a phone call over to Disney
that said this episode is going to cost us X
(24:07):
amount of dollars. So I so I was a lot
of it was a lot of communication with the departments props,
that deck, hair and makeup. I just listened to the
Lori heaps hair and they all hated me. They did.
They would sometimes come in and would have to be
(24:29):
the person that would say, hey, you know, do you
really need the sextra person or you know, can we
do without this or whatever? And so yeah, so then
I just became you know, and a and again it
was about you know, making friends with these people, and
we did. We had a great time.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
What I love, Russell is that everything you're describing your
entire existence back then was everything that we took for
granted totally. It's literally all the stuff that we we
never had to think about because it was always taken
care of. And like you know, it wasn't until I
worked on other shows or other where I could see,
(25:10):
oh that the production, like the trains don't run on time,
things are not happening. It's because you guys did such
a good job that we always felt we just totally
took it for granted. We just always felt like everything
that we never needed was there. Yes, And so I'm
curious what I want to hear. I want to hear
about a disaster or things that didn't go wrong because
(25:31):
we never felt it. I don't remember, or maybe you
can remind me of a time when something wasn't there,
but it always felt like things were going smoothly and
that our production was just flying along. So I want
to hear, do you have a memory of like a
time when something just did not come together?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Uh? Oh, boy, things would have I'm trying to remember,
you know, like some sort of weird I think about,
you know, natural disasters of course, like yeah, like earthquake, Yeah,
the north Ridge earthquake, when you know, you'd walk on
stage for days after and it was like everything was
sort of shut down, I think, and it was like
(26:09):
you'd be you know, under lights and everything would be rattling. Yes, honestly,
I would have to think, and I don't. I don't
really have a particular story about things going completely.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Well that should be.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
I mean, with that right there tells you exactly how
the production was going. If one doesn't just pop in immediately, yeah,
because that's what it was.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Without without naming names, did you ever have to let
people go or lose whole apartments or switch things over?
And why would that happen?
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Yeah, you know, I mean I in my day, I
can't even recall what shows, but probably a lot with
boy not so maybe not so much with Boy because
it was such a it just it just was a dream.
Let me tell you. It's just it worked well. There
weren't there There wasn't a lot of turnover. It was
kind of a love best.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
I mean I have had to let people go. And
you know, I had one guy who was hired as
a as a PA, and I can't remember what the
problem was, but I had to let him go. And
I remembered that he when he was leaving the office,
he threatened to run me over in his car. And yeah,
(27:28):
so I had hired let go this PA and he, yeah,
I think either when he was leaving or I was
outside and he was still there, and he threatened to
run me over with his car because I was such
a piece of work, and and I was like, you know,
I'm I'm sorry, you know, please don't run me over.
But you know, things like that. But in terms of
(27:51):
the crew for Boy, I mean, we just we just
got lucky, you know. I know, I just took just
texted Karen and I was telling her that that I
was doing this and I and that i'd seen you
all recently, and I said, you know, we're we are
so blessed and lucky to have those seven years. It
was probably the beast seven years of my my time,
(28:14):
my career. I've been doing this for a long time
now you're all directing and writing and and you know
it's uh, it widens your perspective for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Right, makes you realize how rare it was. Okay Russell,
very important question. Okay, Will has a memory that prisoners
were brought in to watch our show as an audience.
(28:51):
Is there any truth to this?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
He doesn't. He thinks they were out on like good beha.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yes, I think it was, like I was told at
the beginning of the show, anyone knew what the show was,
that one of the groups they would bring in would
be like work release prisoners to fill audiences.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
I you know, I can't imagine the show that that
would get it, But I don't. I sort of remember.
I sort of remember mail coming from prisons.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Oh yeah, that happens all the time.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah, and that and that was when you were all
a certain age was very was taken very seriously, and
I don't think it ever got to you, right, Yeah,
I don't remember prisoners every.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Still not still knocked up.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
I know, we gotta we gotta interview. We got to
interview the woman who ran the audience, Janna Ja Yeah, right, yeah, Okay,
So let's go. It's nineteen ninety three, season one. You
have this job for a new program Friday nights. It's
called Boy Meets World. What do you remember thinking about, like,
what were your impressions of the show?
Speaker 3 (30:00):
What were my impressions in the show? Okay, so I
have to say that it wasn't a show that I
would probably watch, honestly, because it just wasn't. But then
there were times when watching that I don't think that
I ever really watched it all that much on the air,
(30:21):
but watching it shot, I will be honest, there were
many times when I was in tears, really moved, and
you know, I think back then the jury was still out.
I mean, I I loved you kids, I mean I
really did. I thought, God, how lucky we are at
these these are you know, well grounded. I loved your
(30:44):
parents so lucky. You know, it was just like down
to earth they raised you right, you know. I had
done and just going back, I had done a pilot
with Ben when he was nine, so I already had
this love affair with Joanne Savage his mom.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
What was that pilot we did.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
I did a pilot. It was Columbia Television. It was
called Hurricane Sam. And he was like nine years old.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Uh. It was with Ray Walston man and I was
I think I was a p A on it. I
think because I drove Ray Walston back. Yeah, I was
a p A. I drove Ray Walston at home every night.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
That's cool.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Yeah, it was very cool. He was talking. He would
talk about Brando and all this.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Oh man.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yeah, and then he like gave me a thousand dollars
at the end of the shoot, like seriously, like just
here's a thousand bucks, you know, thanks for driving me.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
It was school actor.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Yeah, but it was with Ray Wilston, Karen Valentine, Frand Dresser,
Oh my god. And was Hurricane Sam. He was the
he was so he was.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
The lead of the show.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, around him.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I never even heard of this there.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
It didn't get picked up obviously, you know, it was.
I did a lot of stuff like that. You know
a lot of little shows. The pilots they're on my
on my resume. I have. It starts with Point Meets World,
I mean, because I mean, you know, there's a little
bit of agism in this business, you know. So it's
like I can send my resume out to people who
(32:20):
probably grew up watching the show and they probably don't
want to work with Grandpa. You know.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
Did you work out the schedules for us when we
went to other than Will when we went to Orlando?
Did you do you remember the Disney World trip?
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Yeah? I do, and I remember I was so jealous
and I didn get to go. Yeah, but yeah, I
probably did the travel. I probably did all the travel stuff. Yeah,
I'm not sure that I did the actual schedule. That
would probably have been Karen and was it was it
Kendall that directed that or I think it was mc McCracken. Okay,
(32:59):
so probably Aaron and Jeff got together and did the
schedule once you got there. Why was there a story
to this?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
No, we just wondered.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
We just always talk about like those, you know, those
big production weeks when everything works.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
To bring it up all the time.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
I love to point out to Will that he didn't
get to go.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Will got to go to Lake Placids.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Oh yeah, Potato, same Florida. It's very similar.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Lake Flaccid Disney World.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Everyone knows it's the same state with Nancy Kerrigan, which
was cool as hell. That was awesome, but come on,
it's Disney.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
It's Disney Disney World. I didn't need to go either.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Okay, we should have hung out, Russell, we should have
hung out.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Now.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Something we talk about a lot is how we always
felt like in between seasons that we were regularly on
the bubble. Did you find out well before us when
we were picked up or did you also worry we
were getting canceled every year?
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah? That was always everybody's worried. Yeah, it's only been
once my career, and that was when I did n
CIS Los Angeles four years and we got picked up
for two years. I think too. I think we got
picked up for several years anyway, just keep it going.
(34:16):
And it was sort of like, wow, what are you relaxed? Okay,
I'm going to buy a new car.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
That's so cool.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
So but yeah, no, we were. We were always on
that same bubble with you, I think.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Do you have a preference because you've done and I
know we'll get into the single camera stuff that you've
done as well, But if you had to choose between
working on multi caam or single cam, do you have
a preference between the two.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
Uh, sitcom give me Yeah, seven years would take me
into retirement.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Much easier production. Yeah, yeah, everything's so streamlined. It's you know,
it's more like producing a live show than it is.
I mean, single camera is so every day is like
new problem solving.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
It's just were we were home by well, not the writers.
The writers were slaving away, you know, making making this,
you know, adding the heart and the funny to this show,
which there was so much, but you know, I would
say that sitcoms. Yeah, we were home at what six o'clock?
(35:20):
I know. It was such a great you have a life,
you know.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
It was the best. Yeah, it really was the best.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
Is it true that since after COVID you were also
able to produce on like the health and safety side,
which was obviously a very important and stressful managerial job
during that time.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
What was that like?
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Uh? It was yeah, it was a lot. And I
I probably worked on like five of their shows and uh,
just going from one show to the next, creating the
budget and over and hiring a staff of all those
COVID people. If you, if you, if any of you
(36:04):
worked on camera during the pandemic, it was really important
that the crew be you know, masked and tested. I
mean we it was the upshots. I did the Upshaw
season two, and we tested the cast five days a week,
and a lot of those red zone people, the people
(36:26):
that were closest to the cast, hair and makeup, the ads, uh,
they all had to be tested five days a week.
And everybody in the crew was in masks. So it
was a lot of criteria that you had to take on.
You had to understand, you know, working closely with with
medical people. And it was great, I tell you, I
(36:46):
was so lucky to get that job and and and
to be there through at a time when a lot
of people were not working. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
Yeah, Well, and especially over the last few weeks, people
all over the world now have been reading articles in
the La Times and Variety detailing an epic decrease in
employment opportunities in Hollywood, especially on the production side, since
COVID and then the strike and a bit of a
strategy pivot for streaming services. So, with you on the
front lines of production, what is your opinion on the
(37:18):
current state of the industry retirement.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
I you know, I mean, I know that if if
I were in Atlanta, I'd probably work all the time.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
So everybody says Atlanta and Nashville, everybody's moving.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Yeah. I just sort of feel like I think that
our state government needs to get on board more tax incentives,
more incentives to bring production back here. I mean, I
can't imagine anybody wants to go to Vancouver or to
you know, anywhere, to work elsewhere. I mean, this is
our home and this is LA's one. You know, I
(37:58):
love living here. You know, I don't really want to
go anywhere else. So those are my thoughts. I have
to tell you that there's part of me that that
does think about early retirement, that thinks about doing something else.
I mean I would I would love to keep working
and and and and growing that pension and having having
(38:20):
a full career in this business. I just, you know,
I think I shared with you certainly a writer, we've
talked about you know, what else I might do if, if,
if this continues, AM close to retirement. I'm not quite
good yet, but I have these kind of thoughts about,
(38:41):
you know, going away part time, not not really like
not moving completely away from Los Angeles. But my dream
would be to like open up a bed and breakfast
in Costa Rica. Wow. So and writer. You and I
have talked about that. Yeah, I really I'm actually going
next month. Yes, and I go for check it out
(39:04):
and kind of get the vibe you're gonna love it.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Were you always so?
Speaker 4 (39:21):
Here's there's some people that are just their entire lives.
Danielle's one of them, for instance, that are very good
at planning things, very good at coordinating things.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Have you?
Speaker 4 (39:32):
Was that always what you were like growing up? I
mean it seems almost like a mindset for certain people
and you Did you have that when you were growing up?
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Were you just always the person planning?
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Planning? I'm not sure planning is the right thing. I
think being able to cross keys and dot I like
sort of somebody who's kind of methodic, high functioning, you know,
like I CA, I care about what I'm.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Doing, Attention to detail, yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Yeah, you know, and and also just pay like paying attention,
you know, learning those early lessons from Karen and Arlen,
great teachers that I had that just was like, you know,
pay attention and and you know, be kind and care
about what it is that you're doing. I think, And
(40:24):
so I don't think I'm great at planning things. I mean,
sure I worked I worked when not in production. I've
done several events, like big special events, and I've been
hired by these big companies that you know, kind of
close streets and they're seven days long and it's thousands
of people, and I've had that opportunity to kind of
(40:45):
do that kind of planning and preparing. And again, it's
just it's sort of the same idea. You just sort
of for me. You know, I think I was a
great PA because I would I'd set up, like, I
know this sounds silly, but I would set up the
craft service table in the office for the writers, and
(41:06):
I would think about like what do you what do
you need? Like if I was going to come here
and make a cup of coffee, I mean, is that
kind of right?
Speaker 5 (41:14):
And in which order do you want? You don't want
to grab the bagel and have the plate at the end.
You've got to have the plates at the top right.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
You know, you just think about it like what what
is the order here? And uh and and how can
I make it better? Always sort of approached the work
and yeah, and to have fun, you know, it's important
to you know, keep it light.
Speaker 5 (41:39):
We definitely had a lot of fun on Boy meets world,
that's for sure. What do you think is in the
future for traditional TV? What do you if you had
to look into the future, what do you think it's
going to look like.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Traditional TV redesigned? You know, I would? For me, I would.
That's a difficult question to end. I think that I
what I'd like to see is more kind of a live,
spontaneous uh live performances that get recorded and or broadcast.
(42:16):
I mean, I just think, you know, I love these things.
Maybe not the answer to your question, but like I
love going to the the movies to see uh live
theater like the National Theater will have showings of of
their their theater bright you know, and I'm a big
theater queen. You know. I love theater and I love
(42:38):
you know, dance, and I love so I mean, I
would love to see more live meets television.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, I mean Netflix has actually been going in that direction.
They've been doing their their live comedy events and doing Yeah,
it's it's interesting. I think people are craving a little
bit of something a little more exciting that isn't just
always available, always made and your binge watch, but like
keep you on the edge of your seat and keep
you Yeah, I mean the sitcom was doing that for
(43:08):
a little while too.
Speaker 4 (43:08):
You know, ABC was doing the live episodes of you
know what was Free His Company, or they would throw
throw some all in the family, they'd recast it do
a live show. You'd get that energy, that kind of
that who are the actors going to mess up? Is
it going to be different on the East coast than
it is on the West coast? I mean it was
kind of an event onto itself to go and check
it out, so that, Yeah, that's interesting to see more
(43:31):
more live stuff.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
I like that concept. I think realistically, you know, you
kind of wonder about you know this the scrolling of
your telephone and and and how fast paced that fast
pace everything is, and then with you know, with TikTok
(43:52):
and all this other stuff. So I kind of wonder
how traditional broadcast television is going to move to that
realm or it's mine in some way. So, you know,
I'm not really sure the answer, but I'm pretty sure
that somehow, you know, social media is going to take over.
Speaker 5 (44:13):
Right, Yeah, well, thirty years later, why do you think
it is that out of all the shows you've worked on,
why do you think that boy Meets World is still
so relevant. Why are people still talking about it?
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Well, you know, a lot of credit has to go
to the writers, Michael and his team of writers, and
the cast. The beautiful I mean, it had such heart,
I think is the best word to say. It just
you know, I think that's what made it special. And
I you know, the experience of working on the show
(44:52):
was wonderful. But I think that just from a holistic thing.
I mean, it just had to do with the fact
that it it was it was a special thing. It
was it was funny, it was fun, it was educational,
but it also had a certain kind of I guess
(45:12):
heart and emotion and we loved those people and it
was just you know, yeah, so that's it. It just
it had heart. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
I think the relationships that we all had really came through,
you know, the friendships we had between the cast and
the crew and the production. I mean, you know, the
fact that we had as many people as we did
who lasted for all seven seasons. There are quite a
few people that were there for all seven years. And
of course we had people who we had you know,
(45:44):
we had some turnover, but it wasn't a ton and
I think those you know, those bonds and those relationships, and.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
You know, we got really lucky.
Speaker 5 (45:52):
It was a I know you mentioned to me at
the party and you said it here too that just
of your careers, Boy meets World were the best seven years.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
And you know, I think we can.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
All agree that, like what we would do now to
have another seven years like that?
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Yes, you know.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
I think.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
It's also it's it's what it's the other thing is.
And we've talked about this a lot. You get that combination.
It's a rare combination of us all getting along, really
caring about each other, the writers caring about the project.
And then you have Michael Jacobs at the Helm, who
is a genius when it comes to family sitcom.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
I mean he just was.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
And so you put all that together and yeah, that's
it was pretty magical.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Yeah, big shout out to Michael Jacobs and what he creates.
And because it is about finding the heart.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
And yeah, he could do it. He really could do it.
Speaker 3 (46:47):
Yeah, And as you said, it's about those relationships. I mean,
they were real and we've all been we've all been
on projects where it's just it's hateful, right, absolutely, Like
you know, you know, I won't mention any names, but
I mean I've been on sets where and the shows
(47:09):
were kind of brilliant, like HBO series that I did
that I loved, and I loved watching it. It was
just so good. But let me tell you, those people
hated each other, yeah, you know, and there was a
lot of shouting and I was just really ugly to
be around. So how they made good television, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (47:31):
Right, Well, Russell, it's so great to see you. Thank
you for coming on our little podcast and sharing your
experiences with us. And we're going to be interviewing Karen
McCain as well, so we'll get to have your one
of your mentors. I wish we could. I wish we
could interview Arlene I. Her name has come up so
(47:51):
many times on this podcast with such fond memories of
all of us, and she's missed, and you.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Know, here we are, thirty years later, still talking about her.
Speaker 5 (47:59):
So she made a mark.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
That's right, that's right. You know, I was such a
debt of gratitude to her. She was she was a
good egg and she taught me what was important and uh,
you know, I I've gotten into writing recently and I'm
just just creative writing. And I wrote a short story
about her and about a whole lot of stuff about
(48:23):
you know, living through you know, about loss and faith
and but it all it goes to the most amazing
story that I have and that it has to do
with Arlene and the Miracle Bear. Probably the best thing
I've ever written. I mean, I joined a writers group
and I'm just doing it for creative reasons, and it's
(48:44):
and it's really.
Speaker 5 (48:45):
Is there a spot where we can read it?
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (48:50):
Yeah, it's a very personal story. But yes, I would
let you, I would let you read it. I actually
I'm quite proud of it. It's a it's a very
personal story about loss and faith and my relationship. Yeah,
it's kind of the most amazing story that I tell
and it's a true story about that involves her, and
(49:13):
so yeah, I would Yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
Well yeah, Russell, these both these guys know that as
I sit here and record when I first moved out
to l A, Arlene to make sure that I wouldn't
be alone, wrote her name, her address, and her phone
number down and it's in her handwriting, and it's I
look at it every day. It's literally right over my computer,
and it just it sits there, so I know that
she's there if I ever need her, if I'm still lost,
(49:35):
I can give her a call.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
I have a shelf in my room that has well
the title Miracle Bear is about a teddy bear, and
so it's her, one of her old teddy bears, and
it's there's next too is the picture of her laughing,
and she's just like.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
That's how I remember her. She was always laughing, big smile.
Speaker 4 (50:01):
Yeah, that was That was just a big smile, big
big laugh time.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
But I just have to tell you about a funny
little story about that, because Arlene was super funny. She
would do crazy crazy like she just was funny. But
I was really good friends, really tight with and I
still am with Jerylyn Shafey Schaeffer, who was Michael's assistant
of course, and Carlos Aragon who was Don Perrapsi's assistant
(50:27):
but then became, I guess became a writer on the show. Uh,
And so we were the three of us were was
when we were at kat l a and and Arlene
had passed away, and we were talking about her and
just laughing about how funny she was. Whether it was
whether she was walking down the halls and she would
be she she would sing as this sort of tone
(50:50):
deaf opera singer. I was like, I shot the sheriff.
We were like, what, I shot the sheriff, you know,
like no reason. But so one of the things that
she used to do was she take she'd take a
drink and then she'd let it slob her out of
Oh my gosh, you know, crazy. So we were kind
(51:12):
of channeling Arlene that that night while we were shooting
the show at kat La and there was Jarrelen and
Carlos and I kind of mimicking her. We were kind
of spitting up on the floor of the hallway and
then we looked up and we realized there was a
camera in the way and that that our friend Pat,
the lot manager, was probably seeing this or would see it,
(51:36):
and we, I mean we just died laughing. That was
a moment of Arlene kind of just staying with us,
you know, bringing us joy and that's funny.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
I love it. Well, thank you so much for being
with us, Russell.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
Thank you for including me. I appreciate it. I really do.
Speaker 5 (51:55):
I look forward to hearing what your thoughts are in
Costa Rica.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
I look forward to seeing what the next step is,
of course, I.
Speaker 5 (52:05):
Of course I also selfishly want you to continue working
here because I want to work with you.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
With you, So yeah, all right, you guys, thank.
Speaker 5 (52:16):
You, thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
Great to see you.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
What a what a guy.
Speaker 5 (52:24):
He has the same the same energy that I remember
him having, although I never saw him doing his job.
He was in a different office, you know, he wasn't
on stage. He was in the production office, so I
never like saw him working.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
He was always working, but I wasn't. I didn't see
what he did.
Speaker 5 (52:41):
And like you said, writer, just he did all the
things we completely took for granted.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
But I remember wanted her to.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
Be more drama for the podcast. I wanted things to
would be always on the edge of falling apart. But
it sounds like our show really, I know, pretty.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Smooth, like a well oiled machine.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
It was because of Karen and him, you know, like
on the on the actual production side. Obviously, we we
we spend so much time with this show talking about
the creative side, which was also running pretty darn smoothly,
but the production, like we just never had any real problems.
That's crazy to me when I think about the jobs
I've worked on since you know, stuff's always falling apart
(53:21):
or on the verge of falling apart, and people are
mean to each other, people are angry, people are bitter,
and we just didn't have that culture all right. When
we get Karen mccainnon on here, I want, I want,
I'm hoping so correct drama, drama.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
Ahead of time start like I.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Just love production stories like you know, challenges like I
just love like you know, we didn't even get into
the wrestling episode or you know, times and it. I mean,
I think multi camera sitcom, especially back then when we
had like good budgets, they did go pretty smoothly, you know,
I think they were pretty cushy jobs actually in Hollywood terms,
(53:59):
you know, whither other jobs like single camera shows. There's
just so much more problem solving is so much more
you know work, So there's a lot, lot lot more drama.
Speaker 5 (54:10):
Well, thank you all for joining us for this episode
of Podmeets World. As always, you can follow us on
Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your
emails Podmeets World Show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
And we have merch writer wants the Drama March.
Speaker 5 (54:25):
Podmeetsworldshow dot Com writer send us out.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
We Love You All pod dismissed. Podmeets World is an
iHeart podcast producer hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfridell and Ryder
Strong Executive producers Jensen Karp and Amy Sugarman Executive in
charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Tarasubasch producer,
Maddi Moore engineer and Boy Meets World Superman Easton All.
Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.