Speaker 1: I have have a question people. So, with our schedule and
Speaker 1: everything we're doing in conventions and some other fun stuff,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be traveling an awful lot. HM, very excited.
Speaker 1: How do you guys pack? Are you willy nilly throw
Speaker 1: it in the bag? Packers? Are you lay everything out? Packers?
Speaker 1: Is the toilet kit as important as everything else? Walk
Speaker 1: me through it? Do you think I seem like a
Speaker 1: willy nilly anything? I'm waiting. I know, I was waiting
Speaker 1: for you to be like, you know, what's funny? Hold on,
Speaker 1: I can prick. Let's see. Danielle uses uh like actual
Speaker 1: bags within the bag, like those little divid eight bags
Speaker 1: whatever they're called. I thought maybe she vacuum sealed it.
Speaker 1: That's too much work, too much time. I don't have
Speaker 1: that kind of time. So how far? How far in
Speaker 1: advance would you say you packed Danielle for a trip?
Speaker 1: Usually the night before, but I will start thinking about
Speaker 1: the outfits I want to bring, like in this case,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about packing for a con I know
Speaker 1: I need three distinct outfits because we're going to be
Speaker 1: photographed every day. That doesn't mean I can't rewear a
Speaker 1: pair of pants if I wanted to like, if I'm
Speaker 1: gonna like this weekend, I'm bringing a pair of black
Speaker 1: jeans and I'm bringing my Harley shirt. That's the only
Speaker 1: outfit I know for sure, is that I'm bringing my
Speaker 1: Harley shirt and a pair of black jeans. And then
Speaker 1: I usually try to bring two pairs of shoes, one
Speaker 1: I wear and one that goes in my suitcase, and
Speaker 1: that always goes on the bottom, and then I covered
Speaker 1: the shoes with some sort of bag or like put
Speaker 1: the shoes in a bag if I can, like so
Speaker 1: that the shoes aren't touching my clothes. And then I
Speaker 1: only will bring me a carry on size because if
Speaker 1: I'm only going for a weekend, I do not want
Speaker 1: to wait for a checked bag. So I have all
Speaker 1: my toiletries and small carry on sizes and um, I
Speaker 1: also like get my hair done before I go and
Speaker 1: then try not to have to do anything special to
Speaker 1: my hair while I'm there. Just my hair is what
Speaker 1: my hair is, uh, and yeah, so that's that's pretty
Speaker 1: much it. I do try to bring two pairs of shoes,
Speaker 1: so luckily I've got small feet, so they fit nicely
Speaker 1: in my carry on size bag and I don't need
Speaker 1: to worry about too much. But what about now, let
Speaker 1: me throw a wrinkle at you. What about because we
Speaker 1: go to hotels and stuff like that, do you throw
Speaker 1: in workout clothes in case you want to hit the gym?
Speaker 1: Or no, well I have not worked out in four years.
Speaker 1: I do not know why I would choose to start
Speaker 1: day No, I mean no, I would never That sounds
Speaker 1: like the opposite of fun for me. I've been very
Speaker 1: optimistic in the past, packed like a pair of running
Speaker 1: shoes and sweatpaths, and then they just sit in my
Speaker 1: bag and like, why did I do this? The only
Speaker 1: thing I would do is bring bathing suit because then
Speaker 1: you could swim and you don't have to pack as much.
Speaker 1: Are you? Are you a chuck it in the bag
Speaker 1: kind of like oh that's right, I'm leaving this morning,
Speaker 1: or do you plan? Yes? I pack very quickly. But
Speaker 1: that's actually a conscious thing, not because I it's because
Speaker 1: if I think too much about it, I overpack. And
Speaker 1: I've realized I have never ever felt underpacked. I've always
Speaker 1: felt overpacked. So in other words, if I forced myself
Speaker 1: to only bring two shirts and a pair of pants,
Speaker 1: I'm fine, Like once I'm there, and like even in
Speaker 1: the worst case scenario where like I've been at sundance
Speaker 1: and wasn't warm enough. You can buy a sweatshirt, you know,
Speaker 1: for twenty bucks or whatever if you really need it,
Speaker 1: Like you can figure out your situation. And like, especially
Speaker 1: now in the age of phones, like you don't the
Speaker 1: thing I do pack too much of his books. I
Speaker 1: always pack four or five books, and I never allowed
Speaker 1: one carry on. Yeah, it's reminders there, the whole other
Speaker 1: thing a book. But like, yeah, when it comes to clothing,
Speaker 1: I try and do it within five to ten minutes,
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible and just as bare bones, because
Speaker 1: every time I've brought too many clothes, I end up
Speaker 1: having like less fun because I'm paralyzed by choosing what
Speaker 1: to wear or you know, whereas and then you're dealing
Speaker 1: with it all the time, Whereas like if you just
Speaker 1: force yourself to pack very light, you're fun. You always
Speaker 1: end up okay. So that's my little loss. What about you, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm right in the middle of both of you. I
Speaker 1: will I, you know, have one specific bag I pack.
Speaker 1: I kind of know what I'm doing now, I've kind
Speaker 1: of got it down to a science. But Sue got
Speaker 1: me a new dop kit for Christmas and it's awesome.
Speaker 1: So that's I'm almost having. I'm one of those people
Speaker 1: where I almost spend more time packing my carry on
Speaker 1: for the stuff that I want to bring with me.
Speaker 1: That's more fun than clothes, where I'm like, I always
Speaker 1: kind of wear the same pair of jeans and you know,
Speaker 1: throw on a shirt, have a sweater. I do go
Speaker 1: to the gym when I'm at the I try to
Speaker 1: go every day when I'm at the hotel, so I
Speaker 1: have to bring one or two different sets of workout
Speaker 1: clothes and then workout choose. But yeah, other than that,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of in the middle of both of you.
Speaker 1: So I was curious. Hmm, I'm looking forward to the gym. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're good at that. You'd like to run. You run
Speaker 1: outside my house every day you're you're at Daniel usually
Speaker 1: you used to see Adler out there before Adler was
Speaker 1: in school. Yeah, he was always out there raking or
Speaker 1: shoveling or you'd like to keep him literally and he'd wave.
Speaker 1: He'd wave like like you were running by the guy
Speaker 1: who's just you know, he's raking it, and he'd just
Speaker 1: go hey, like hey, how you doing like the middle
Speaker 1: of the work day. You caught me, buddy. Um. He
Speaker 1: was really cute. Yesterday we were in the car and
Speaker 1: I was listening to a recap episode that I'm editing,
Speaker 1: and he goes, Mommy, that's you, and I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's me. And he goes, this is your work
Speaker 1: and I said, yeah, this is this is one of
Speaker 1: this is one of my jobs. And he goes, and
Speaker 1: your friends and I said, yes, writer and will and
Speaker 1: he goes wow. And then he was really happy about that.
Speaker 1: And then at night last night before bed, he wanted
Speaker 1: me to read him like a third book. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: which book do you want me to read you? And
Speaker 1: he said Frog and Toad And I said, oh, Frog
Speaker 1: and Toad. I said, as a matter of fact, Addler,
Speaker 1: you just today we're talking about writer Writer Alex and
Speaker 1: Indie gave you this book. And he went like so
Speaker 1: excited that I was like, yes, Indie. So anyway, you
Speaker 1: guys have been the others starting to understand our work.
Speaker 1: It's very cute. Well, welcome to Pod Meets World. I'm
Speaker 1: Danielle Fischel, I'm writer Strong, and I'm Wilfride. So throughout
Speaker 1: our time on Boy Meets World. We had the honor
Speaker 1: of working with writers, directors, and producers who single handedly
Speaker 1: changed family television, creatives whose body of work is expansive
Speaker 1: and legendary, and this week we are talking to one
Speaker 1: of those types. David Kendall was the executive producer and
Speaker 1: showrunner of Boy Meets World for seasons two and three
Speaker 1: and would go on to direct thirteen episodes right up
Speaker 1: until the end. He wrote one episode, back to School,
Speaker 1: which is a script we will definitely want to talk
Speaker 1: to him about. And before joining us, he was an
Speaker 1: EP on a little show called Growing Pains, which he
Speaker 1: wrote thirty three episodes of Isn't That Incredible? Since then,
Speaker 1: he has directed episodes of I Carle Victorious, Ned's Declassified
Speaker 1: School Survival Guide, Even Stevens, Hannah Montana, and he co
Speaker 1: created Melissa and Joey, a show that ran for over
Speaker 1: one hundred episodes on ABC Family Slash free Form. He's
Speaker 1: directed two pilots on Disney Channel, both shows I had
Speaker 1: the honor of directing myself Coop and Cammy, Asked the
Speaker 1: World and Sydney to the Max. We genuinely had to
Speaker 1: ignore a ton of his credits for this intro or
Speaker 1: we would be here all day. He's worked directly with
Speaker 1: all the actors now running Hollywood, from Austin Butler to
Speaker 1: Ariana to Miley to the Joe Bros. To Zendaiah and
Speaker 1: over forty different series, six hundred episodes of TV and
Speaker 1: two hundred plus as a director. If only he was
Speaker 1: given a chance, you know, such a shame. Please welcome
Speaker 1: to Pod meets World. The impressive David Kendall. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, he can hear you. Goodness. Okay, you
Speaker 1: want to see me too? I do, Yes, your face
Speaker 1: hear them. Hey David, Hey, David, Hey, how are you doing?
Speaker 1: Oh good? I wish I could hug you guys. This
Speaker 1: is no virtus a hugmout. I'll put a hug in
Speaker 1: the chat there. You put a link to a hug chat.
Speaker 1: First question, you famously ruined boy meats. Where I'll talk
Speaker 1: about that? Yes, well, I'd like to call a drop shock. Yes,
Speaker 1: actually we should really start with that since you wrote
Speaker 1: the episode. Is the only episode that I wrote? That?
Speaker 1: Is that true? Only episode that has my name on it? Right? Oh?
Speaker 1: You know, when you're running a show, it's it's I
Speaker 1: think you know you should let the staff write the episodes.
Speaker 1: I think. So that was my philosophy. So, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you you came in as an ep right away.
Speaker 1: I came in. Um. If you remember, there was a
Speaker 1: first season, and probably something that you guys didn't know
Speaker 1: is that the second subsequent subsequent seasons weren't exactly a lock.
Speaker 1: You know. They the network wanted to make sure that, um,
Speaker 1: the show had a longer life, and they kind of, um,
Speaker 1: kiddeyness for one of a better term. I'll find a
Speaker 1: better term when we really do this. This is the
Speaker 1: practice recording. Um. They didn't think that could sustain And Um,
Speaker 1: I was on a show for six years called Growing Pains, Yes,
Speaker 1: and which was a little show called Growing Only. The
Speaker 1: entire reason Boys World existed, yeah because of the success
Speaker 1: of Growing that is, well, I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: entirely but um yeah, Michael told me. Michael Jacobs told
Speaker 1: me at one point, because he has many different versions
Speaker 1: of stories, was that he had pitched uh boy Meet's
Speaker 1: World as Growing Pains from the point of view of
Speaker 1: the youngest kid that's heard. So uh. When Michael started
Speaker 1: uh creating some other shows, they needed a showrunner for
Speaker 1: the second season, I had growing pains as my credentials
Speaker 1: and the network like me and they wanted to age up.
Speaker 1: Was the was the mantra and it was no no
Speaker 1: means uh secure the future of Boy's World. In fact,
Speaker 1: I was in a meeting with the network in the studio.
Speaker 1: They hated the title. Everybody hated the title. We all
Speaker 1: hated the title. Wow. And it's like, what can we
Speaker 1: call the show that's not Boy Mee's World because it
Speaker 1: just sounds you know, it's hard to imagine, like now
Speaker 1: that it's iconic now, but then it was just kind
Speaker 1: of this awkward phrase. And it's like when I first
Speaker 1: heard wait a second, Wait a second. They wanted to
Speaker 1: change the title after season one. I know, that's what
Speaker 1: I say. They were willing to change it into Yes,
Speaker 1: they talked about it. They love it. Well, I guess
Speaker 1: it's like it's going from Torkelson's to almost Home. It's
Speaker 1: kind of just right branding. We could just rebrand the show.
Speaker 1: Ellen de Generes. Show was called these Friends of Mine
Speaker 1: or some friends of Mine or something in the first
Speaker 1: season and if you came so and also it's let
Speaker 1: me just speak globally. It's just amazing that we're talking
Speaker 1: about Boy Meets World in twenty twenty three. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it was I was producing the show. What shows that?
Speaker 1: What's that? Right? What? Everything you're saying touches on exactly
Speaker 1: what we have said and the way based on the
Speaker 1: way we felt at the time, which was we always
Speaker 1: felt like we were on the bubble, like we were
Speaker 1: at any point in time going to be canceled. It
Speaker 1: was there was no security job security for anybody anywhere. Um.
Speaker 1: And also we felt like we were recording a show
Speaker 1: for our grandparents because no one really knew the show,
Speaker 1: what the show was, Yes, and we didn't know that
Speaker 1: there were young people whose lives we were forming and
Speaker 1: it's just so cool. Uh. And yeah, we did have
Speaker 1: a show where every season we waited for a call
Speaker 1: from the governor to pardon us for the next season,
Speaker 1: they're about to flip the switch, and then it was like, well,
Speaker 1: we'll give them one more. Well, but so I actually
Speaker 1: asked this question when we're recording a couple weeks ago,
Speaker 1: but dude, are were we picked up for the full
Speaker 1: order for second season? Where were we only? But it
Speaker 1: still was they wanted the show to have a longer
Speaker 1: future like growing pains, and so that was part of
Speaker 1: the reason or a big reason that well aging it up,
Speaker 1: and h you know, I've heard you guys talk about
Speaker 1: the drop shock of second season, but I think even
Speaker 1: all the changes we did, we still stayed true or
Speaker 1: true ish to the characters and people were watching the
Speaker 1: same characters. And I do listen to your podcast, and
Speaker 1: it's nice to hear that you guys are more comfortable
Speaker 1: and liking the stuff in the second season, because honestly,
Speaker 1: you know, I was listening to the the episode where
Speaker 1: you're talking about the show I wrote the only one
Speaker 1: with my name owners writer, and it's just I could
Speaker 1: hear you guys, you're mentally throwing up. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: super disoriented, it was, for sure, it was. But also
Speaker 1: one of the things we loved about it was how
Speaker 1: many new character characters you guys were able to introduce
Speaker 1: in that first episode and still make it all makes sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was very disorienting, but it was still
Speaker 1: a great episode with introducing so many new iconic characters. Well, writer,
Speaker 1: you're disoriented when the classroom faces the other way, so
Speaker 1: everything everything. Did you remember that first episode because it
Speaker 1: seemed like when we we we were talking about it,
Speaker 1: I was like, this must have been crazy behind the
Speaker 1: scenes because we had like nine new characters and so
Speaker 1: many storylines and new sets. It was just it seemed
Speaker 1: like a lot. Yeah, I watched it last night actually
Speaker 1: to to rewatch, and some things I remember crisply and precisely,
Speaker 1: and some things was was I there, I don't remember right,
Speaker 1: But you know, we tried a lot of things that
Speaker 1: the stuff with the Thugs worked great, H and H.
Speaker 1: Introducing Tony Quinn it just worked great. That was a
Speaker 1: great way to meet him, a great way to set
Speaker 1: up the relationship with Phoene, and the relationship between Turner
Speaker 1: and Uh and Ben was great. And so many things worked.
Speaker 1: I was looking at it last night saying, so many
Speaker 1: things worked. But yeah, it was like that was the
Speaker 1: charge age up the show, introduced new characters, put it
Speaker 1: in a different world. There were influences. UH Friends was
Speaker 1: an influence just to have to flesh out the the
Speaker 1: twenty something characters that that Tony represented and Um also
Speaker 1: there was another tremendously successful show called Happy Days, and
Speaker 1: it was just a flavor of that element with the
Speaker 1: show and make it a fun place for kids to
Speaker 1: hang out and grow up in in the show and
Speaker 1: in the audience. So Happy Days was a conscious reference
Speaker 1: that you were told. Okay, because because we've talked about
Speaker 1: how the Thugs have the sort of throwback vibe to them.
Speaker 1: He's sort of old school high school bully, and we've
Speaker 1: said it's like a happy Day's ish thing. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: we're interesting. Yeah, I have a I have a question. Um,
Speaker 1: so in all these meetings before season two starts, you're
Speaker 1: getting all your marching orders from the network and we
Speaker 1: want to age it up. We want to do all
Speaker 1: this stuff. Ever a talk of dropping any or all
Speaker 1: of the three of us. Oh, no, okay, just checking
Speaker 1: his dad to be you're very badly in some ways.
Speaker 1: I am Will's dad. Do they know that story? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't know this story yet. We will get into
Speaker 1: that story of David still being my dad. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but no, was if they were like, we don't you
Speaker 1: know the Eric it's the Chucky Cunningham the Eric character,
Speaker 1: or we're not gonna get bring to Panga back. I mean,
Speaker 1: Ryder was probably fine well with Corey and Sean, but
Speaker 1: we did you know, because you're physically related to it's
Speaker 1: usually you have that established bond between best friends where
Speaker 1: they're not gonna you know, they tried so hard to
Speaker 1: bring in a third best friend. They weren't going to
Speaker 1: bring in you know, somebody else. But especially with Eric
Speaker 1: in the first season kind of lifted out to Panga
Speaker 1: could have disappeared. Yeah, I mean we saw it happen,
Speaker 1: So it was I was wondering if that if that
Speaker 1: had been discussed at any level. Well, no, the the
Speaker 1: discussions were well, Michael said something on very stage, you said,
Speaker 1: the show is about how Ben and Ryder are, Corey
Speaker 1: and and un shown are the same and how they're different.
Speaker 1: It's about their differences in their similarities, which was a
Speaker 1: template for for the show and it's template for for
Speaker 1: finding stories. And then Uh, we were all very serious
Speaker 1: about making to Panga integral to the show and that
Speaker 1: it was about Corey having a friend and a girlfriend
Speaker 1: and watching those relationships developed. And that's really what the
Speaker 1: show was about. To me, those best episodes are uh
Speaker 1: in that in that arc in that you know Trio
Speaker 1: and uh and but we loved the way that will
Speaker 1: that you evolved. It was like, we got to find
Speaker 1: a place for this guy. This guy punted this guy
Speaker 1: so funny that that's quere that we got to find
Speaker 1: something for this guy to do and a little bit
Speaker 1: more than just the um. See. I hate when you say, oh,
Speaker 1: that's the dumb guy, that's the dumb character. I always
Speaker 1: say they think differently. They're either a beat behind that
Speaker 1: take come to it that way. You don't want to
Speaker 1: make a joke that's dumb. You want to make a
Speaker 1: joke that sees that's different. There's a great joke where
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think you've done the episode. It's
Speaker 1: the radio station one where Phoenie opens the door and
Speaker 1: sees you know, Benn and Rider, and Rider says, don't move,
Speaker 1: maybe he doesn't see us. Yeah, And that's that's to me.
Speaker 1: That's not a dumb jokes to me, it's a guy
Speaker 1: thinking differently. So uh. But anyway, Will's character Eric is like,
Speaker 1: what can we well can we what can we do?
Speaker 1: How can we fit in and just have a guy
Speaker 1: who can just go nuts and just be big and
Speaker 1: make you believe it. I mean a lot of times
Speaker 1: actors can go big and you just don't believe it.
Speaker 1: But you know, commitment is what makes the beat, the
Speaker 1: bit makes at work and you know will fredellt Uh.
Speaker 1: He knows how to commit. It makes something. No one
Speaker 1: is more committed than Will truly, it's middle name, it's
Speaker 1: William Allen. Because I was going to say, anybody one
Speaker 1: of us needs to be committed. Yea, when the straight
Speaker 1: lines are hanging out there, it's hard. So I think
Speaker 1: you kind of answered this, but I want to ask
Speaker 1: Larry specifically. Were you brought in by Michael first and
Speaker 1: then approved by the network, or were you by the network.
Speaker 1: I had not met Michael, I had not known Michael,
Speaker 1: so I was the network's choice, and uh, you know
Speaker 1: he accepted. We got along guys who had been roughly
Speaker 1: doing that I did in the first season. We're Ed
Speaker 1: Dector and John Strauss and they are like my best friends.
Speaker 1: We talk all the time. Really yeah. Yeah, I went
Speaker 1: to college with Ed. Uh. John and I've lived close
Speaker 1: to each other for a while, and like I had
Speaker 1: breakfast every day for you know, millions of years. I
Speaker 1: have very fond memories of that. I haven't seen them
Speaker 1: for years, but I thought to Ed yesterday, oh please,
Speaker 1: we have to we have to reach out. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a great guy. And uh. And so they were kind
Speaker 1: of happy to get out, honestly, and I was looking
Speaker 1: forward to running that show. I'd seen the episodes. I
Speaker 1: thought I didn't like all the stories because I thought
Speaker 1: that these aren't the type of stories that are going
Speaker 1: to sustain a primetime show for for years and years,
Speaker 1: And that's what ABC wanted. And I was, you know,
Speaker 1: I was installed by ABC and you know, with Michael's approval,
Speaker 1: and we met. Yeah, And at the time, if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, Michael was also trying to start other shows.
Speaker 1: Ye see right, so he was off. Actually he would
Speaker 1: like leave our set for a week or two because
Speaker 1: he would be working another show. Right. So what were
Speaker 1: those shows? Do you guys remember what they were? Was
Speaker 1: it maybe this time? Was it maybe this time? At
Speaker 1: that point? Yet every year for like two or three
Speaker 1: years there, he was creating the Genie Show. At one point,
Speaker 1: you wish maybe maybe next time or whatever that was
Speaker 1: maybe this time? Um, but yeah, he was he Loves Company,
Speaker 1: Misery Loves Company. He also did Zoe Duncan, Jack and Jane.
Speaker 1: I mean, he had a bunch of shows while we
Speaker 1: were going, um, which which was yeah, we never he
Speaker 1: would kind of pop in and pop out during that
Speaker 1: second season in the third season when we moved down
Speaker 1: to KTLA, we didn't see him that much. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so that was where he really Yeah, well, because I
Speaker 1: remember there was a period where you were giving notes
Speaker 1: and like, yeah, you were running the show, and it
Speaker 1: was like, well we would see Michael every couple of
Speaker 1: weeks or maybe on tape night. But to be fair,
Speaker 1: who wants to go to KTLA? Yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: rough That was a rough time. You hadn't started yet
Speaker 1: because we were in writer's mode when we went there
Speaker 1: and got the new offices, and it was either the
Speaker 1: first or second day where someone said, everybody staying inside
Speaker 1: their offices. There's a shooting in the building across the street,
Speaker 1: so everybody, you know, getting their offices, and it was
Speaker 1: we sit there and look at each other and be like,
Speaker 1: which strip club should these kids go to to have
Speaker 1: a lot today. That's where we started getting lunch delivered, right,
Speaker 1: because at Disney we would go to the commissary, yeah,
Speaker 1: or there would be stuff. There was literally and the
Speaker 1: two I got the Tuesday morning buffet at the local
Speaker 1: strip club is really sad. I got to be totally
Speaker 1: honest with you. It's gotten better. They've redone those studios, right,
Speaker 1: they're called something Else now I'm secure. Yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: they have a nice commissary because their Netflix. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: thank god. Okay, So I also I'm dying to know.
Speaker 1: I want to know how did you get growing paints?
Speaker 1: How did you start there? Okay? My career, I was uh,
Speaker 1: living in New York and wanted to work in film
Speaker 1: and TV. Wanted to direct on everybody wants to direct.
Speaker 1: I can see nods in these boxes. Yeah, nut will
Speaker 1: no desire yea. And it was nineteen eighty five and
Speaker 1: I wrote an episode of a show called The Cosby Show.
Speaker 1: And saying Cosby in nineteen eighty five is very different
Speaker 1: from saying Cosby now. So I wrote a spec Cosby script.
Speaker 1: Through social contacts, I met an agent and she her
Speaker 1: name is Phillis Wonder. We're still in touch even though
Speaker 1: she's retired. And she said, I have some contacts in LA.
Speaker 1: And I realized that at some point, if I was
Speaker 1: going to stay in the industry, I needed to know
Speaker 1: what LA was like. So I came out with my
Speaker 1: spec Cosby script. Stayed on Ed Dector's couch and other
Speaker 1: ed and Lightning Struck and the first producer that read
Speaker 1: it hired me and it was for this show called
Speaker 1: Growing the aforementioned Growing Pains, and I went in with
Speaker 1: as a green writer with no credits, and I stayed
Speaker 1: there six years. I went, you know, all the way
Speaker 1: up the food chain, and I ended up being a
Speaker 1: co executive producer and your first ever projects project. But
Speaker 1: I sometimes leary to tell that story because then people
Speaker 1: will hate me. But I can assure you I've been
Speaker 1: beaten up and have had many uh lump's career wise,
Speaker 1: but that was a that was a hell of a peak. Yes,
Speaker 1: but and that was great fun because it was a
Speaker 1: great show. I had wonderful mentors. Did The show runner,
Speaker 1: head writer Dan Gunselman, just taught me everything. Another executive producer,
Speaker 1: Mike Sulliman. He came from the network, so I learned
Speaker 1: network stuff from these two guys. They were amazing mentors
Speaker 1: and they said, you're not a story editor, you're in
Speaker 1: producer school. So that was kind of what I've tried
Speaker 1: to do when I've run shows is just treat the
Speaker 1: staff as if they're in producer school. But it was amazing.
Speaker 1: I left there knowing multi camera production inside and out.
Speaker 1: It was great. And then had a development deal where
Speaker 1: I failed miserably. So I wrote some pilots, shot some pilots,
Speaker 1: nothing out on the air. So at the end of that,
Speaker 1: I hear ABC. You know, they still like you, they
Speaker 1: want you on the show called the Boy Meets World,
Speaker 1: and I looked at it. I said, this could be fun. Wow. Okay,
Speaker 1: So then you come to Boy Meets World. Yes, do
Speaker 1: you like the episodes you've seen, but you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: love all the stories. What are your first impressions of
Speaker 1: all of the cast? How professional you guys were, How
Speaker 1: you seem very real, How you seem to intuitively understand
Speaker 1: your characters. And it was kind of I won't say
Speaker 1: easy to write for, but it's like, oh, okay, they
Speaker 1: can do this. This is great. So it was you
Speaker 1: gotta love your characters. Yeah, and it helps if you
Speaker 1: love your actors and and you guys are great. And hey,
Speaker 1: look we're still talking. It's twenty five years later and
Speaker 1: we got long. I'm still in touch with all you guys,
Speaker 1: you know, so it's amazing. A little known fact David Kendall.
Speaker 1: I shadowed David Kendall, and David Kendall was very instrumental
Speaker 1: in me starting my directing career because after Girl Meets World,
Speaker 1: where I had directed four episodes, I tried for two
Speaker 1: straight years basically for people to take me seriously as
Speaker 1: a director, and nobody really wanted to. Nobody was willing
Speaker 1: to take the risk on me. And then Mark Reasman,
Speaker 1: who created the show Sydney to the Max for Disney Channel,
Speaker 1: was willing to take a chance on me. But he
Speaker 1: flat out told me in our meeting David Kendall directed
Speaker 1: my pilot and if it were up to me, David
Speaker 1: Kendall would direct every single one of my episodes, but
Speaker 1: they won't let me do that. So and then we,
Speaker 1: you know, spent a long time talking and he ended
Speaker 1: up deciding he was going to give me a couple
Speaker 1: episodes to direct, but he very in the nicest way possible,
Speaker 1: told me he would feel a lot more comfortable if
Speaker 1: I came and shadowed David Kendall. And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: the good news is I know David Kendall very well,
Speaker 1: and so David is one of my mentors. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw too. You didn't know I was shadowing you. It's
Speaker 1: called stalking. Will right done with the place, Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Yeah, yeah, no, I shouted, David too.
Speaker 1: I you know, it's funny. You're one of the few
Speaker 1: people I know of that has worked in television on
Speaker 1: both sides, like whereas a writer, producer and a director.
Speaker 1: Most people usually, you know, stay on one side of
Speaker 1: that line, but you've crossed it a bunch of times,
Speaker 1: and in fact, more than anything, you mostly consider yourself
Speaker 1: a director nowadays. Right if you my DNA, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a writer, and I think writer is the most important
Speaker 1: thing because without a script, nothing but um, it's more
Speaker 1: fun to direct. And uh, I have a blast directing.
Speaker 1: I never have a bad day directing. Often writing and
Speaker 1: producing running a show, you'll have many bad days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you get the bad phone calls if you're an episodic
Speaker 1: director where it's someone else's show, it's just the you know.
Speaker 1: I joke that it's the difference moved parenting and grandparenting,
Speaker 1: that writing and producing a show is like parenting with
Speaker 1: all the stresses, and it's you know, it's miserable, but
Speaker 1: you'll love your kids so much and you do anything
Speaker 1: for him, and grandparenting is like, yeah, they're done at
Speaker 1: the end of the week. The head I'm not there,
Speaker 1: but that's how I like him. Yeah, that's how you
Speaker 1: think of it. Yeah, that's great. Wow, that's amazing. Did
Speaker 1: you ever bring in any guest stars from Growing Pains? Like,
Speaker 1: did you ever? We talk a lot about how Michael
Speaker 1: was really loved to reuse actors that he was familiar
Speaker 1: with and that he knew when you started running, boy
Speaker 1: meant world, did you have like a group of people
Speaker 1: you went to for things. I can't remember if we
Speaker 1: had anybody. I don't know, I have to yeah, I
Speaker 1: can nothing. Nothing at top of mind. Nothing, I don't
Speaker 1: think so. Actually, I'm thinking of the cast of Growing
Speaker 1: going through the cast of Growing Pains in my head,
Speaker 1: and I don't think we had anybody. I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: somebody that had done both shows, you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: not a guest cast, but no, but none of the
Speaker 1: none of the regulars I don't think came on. And
Speaker 1: also that I think that a lot of the the
Speaker 1: cast of Growing Pains it didn't do another ABC Family
Speaker 1: show for a while. It was like, let's get out
Speaker 1: of this for a while. I have a question when
Speaker 1: when you got the marching orders, everybody got the marching
Speaker 1: orders to age up the show. Was anybody against that?
Speaker 1: Did anybody say no, we don't want to do that
Speaker 1: or did it? It sounds like it would make sense
Speaker 1: to kind of age it up a little bit. And yeah,
Speaker 1: the stories in the tone of the first season was
Speaker 1: not sustainable for a primetime show, right, and you know
Speaker 1: the show ran seven years. You know, I don't I
Speaker 1: can't imagine those stories. You know, we had the show
Speaker 1: had to grow up, everybody to grow up, and it
Speaker 1: was a little bit of a of a big change,
Speaker 1: but I think it was I think it was worth it.
Speaker 1: And uh um, yeah, last night I looked at the
Speaker 1: first one, the only one I wrote, and the first
Speaker 1: one I directed, which was the end of the first
Speaker 1: season where writers starts, uh, Sean starts living with the
Speaker 1: Matthews and then ends up at Turners. Anyway, it was
Speaker 1: a lovely episode. Is at the end of second season
Speaker 1: the end of second season? Yeah, the second season is
Speaker 1: he's uh, I'm getting ahead of your rewatch. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't realize Sean was already running
Speaker 1: away second season end of the Sea. I guess it
Speaker 1: makes sense because Tony was only there for what two
Speaker 1: three season until the end of the third or so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's we were trying to figure out all the
Speaker 1: timeline and that was the first episode you had ever directed, right, Oh, no,
Speaker 1: I had when I was on Growing Pains. There was
Speaker 1: a spinoff of Growing Pains called Just the Ten of Us, okay,
Speaker 1: and we had a house director for Growing Pains, John Tracy,
Speaker 1: who directed the Past and so h we did not
Speaker 1: have a house director for Just a ten of Us.
Speaker 1: And so I got my first directing assignment at Just
Speaker 1: the Ten of Us and that was my first and
Speaker 1: and then directing you guys was my second. Wow. When
Speaker 1: I came back after running the show and I came
Speaker 1: back in the directing rotation, that's when I really started
Speaker 1: to direct a lot more. And you guys were so
Speaker 1: important to me as as developing as a director because
Speaker 1: I knew you guys, you trusted me, you could I
Speaker 1: could talk to you guys, and so it just allowed
Speaker 1: me the freedom and the security in this your environment
Speaker 1: to direct. So I felt after directing a bunch of
Speaker 1: those blomous world it really helped me and gave me
Speaker 1: confidence and gave me fluency in directing. So thank you,
Speaker 1: And you've done now two hundred plus episodes of television.
Speaker 1: I have directed two hundred plus episodes of television, all
Speaker 1: told as a writer, producer, director, six hundred hundred television
Speaker 1: over forty different series. Because I am very old, Wow,
Speaker 1: and we're still We're still your favorite. Yes, we should
Speaker 1: also talk a little bit about how this was the
Speaker 1: end of an era when it came to television, because
Speaker 1: the idea of a network coming in and saying, we
Speaker 1: really like this show, we want to change it a
Speaker 1: bit and tweak it because we wanted to have longevity
Speaker 1: and we want it to grow. That doesn't just anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't let stuff grow anymore. You do a few
Speaker 1: episodes of something, we hated it and they cancel it.
Speaker 1: I mean it's so rare nowadays to see something that
Speaker 1: you know they believe in and they want they want
Speaker 1: to have grow, they want to have change, they want
Speaker 1: to build a night. That's something that is so old
Speaker 1: school TV. And I think we caught that right at
Speaker 1: the end. All the biggest shows in television history, Mash Cheers,
Speaker 1: I mean, you name it, The Office, even new stuff,
Speaker 1: they were gonna be canceled, but the network went, no,
Speaker 1: let's let's change it. I think we can find an audience.
Speaker 1: We're gonna move a night. We're gonna do this, We're
Speaker 1: gonna do that. That's just gone. So I mean that's it.
Speaker 1: It shows. I mean, it just shows what you can
Speaker 1: find when you give something a chance to find itself
Speaker 1: and find its audience. Yeah. Giving show a chance to
Speaker 1: grow is not what we do so much anymore. So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is a shame. Yeah. Yeah. What were your experiences
Speaker 1: with Bill Daniels? Like Bill was, Bill can be tough.
Speaker 1: I eventually bonded and I love him and I'm still
Speaker 1: in touch with Bill and Annie And did you see
Speaker 1: my uh I saw it? Yes, So for those listening,
Speaker 1: it's there's a prop from the show where new principle
Speaker 1: is Weenie. So yes, and that's the origin, that's the
Speaker 1: original one. That's well, I guess it's one of the
Speaker 1: original ones. Yes, yes, I'm sure they made a bunch.
Speaker 1: I can keep it in my bedroom so I can
Speaker 1: be reminded every day. So Bill eventually, because Bill, I think,
Speaker 1: likes to test people a little bit or make sure
Speaker 1: that they're they're savvy. And so once we got past that,
Speaker 1: it was It's a great relationship and it still is.
Speaker 1: And um, you know, there's just to direct Bill Daniels
Speaker 1: is just great into and to give him an idea
Speaker 1: or a thought and to see that he thinks, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll do that because this person's not an idiot is
Speaker 1: a great sense of satisfaction. So yes, yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a Bild's amazing. Bill's amazing. Do you have a favorite
Speaker 1: episode of Boy Meets World? I do not. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just I remember scenes in moments and and also attached
Speaker 1: them to the experiences in the writer's room. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: which is an amazing thing. And if you haven't been
Speaker 1: a part of it in a in a series, it's
Speaker 1: really one of those things it's impossible to describe. But
Speaker 1: you know, we had a great writer's room too. We
Speaker 1: had just great people. That's I think enough. Part of
Speaker 1: the reason of the show's success, in addition to how
Speaker 1: how great you guys are, is we had people who
Speaker 1: just worked hard and love the show. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: was it was a good It was a good group. Well,
Speaker 1: we mentioned in your intro that you have gone on
Speaker 1: to direct all A listers when they were kids, Austin
Speaker 1: Butler's and diah Miley, Ariana Grande. What do those stars
Speaker 1: haven't have in common when they were kids? Liked what
Speaker 1: was the secret sauce of those kids. I think the
Speaker 1: secret sauces is stay secret. But but you can tell
Speaker 1: if someone really got it. Well sometimes sometimes, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: like with Miley Cyrus, who I did the first few
Speaker 1: episodes of Hannah Montana and she was very green. She
Speaker 1: didn't know what a fifty fifty was, she didn't know
Speaker 1: where to stand, and she she didn't know how to cheat
Speaker 1: it out. And but you know, you just talked to
Speaker 1: her and you just see the progress bar going, you know, quickly,
Speaker 1: and then you just watch a run through where it's
Speaker 1: time to perform, and there's just that little extra, just
Speaker 1: that little extra, and you know that was not a
Speaker 1: surprise that she became big. I mean, who knows how
Speaker 1: big she was gonna be the same with Ariana, just
Speaker 1: there's a little extra spark that sometimes sometimes you can
Speaker 1: tell and it's uh, some people and I won't name names,
Speaker 1: so it's just like I can't believe they're huge. But
Speaker 1: a lot of times, a lot of times it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's no surprise. Yeah. I mean Brad Pitt was on
Speaker 1: Growing Pains and yeah, yeah he was, and that was like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, three one Superstar yeah, but Leo Leonardo DiCaprio
Speaker 1: also on Growing Pains. Yeah, Leo, I was not. I
Speaker 1: did six of the seven years I had left in
Speaker 1: Leo k Man. You know, I was still at Warner Brothers,
Speaker 1: so you know, I met him a few times with
Speaker 1: the other cast, but Leo was there not my year.
Speaker 1: I did not work with Leo. Were you involved in
Speaker 1: the casting process of all the new people in the
Speaker 1: episode you wrote back to School? Yeah, I mean all
Speaker 1: all the producers where I mean, Sally Steiner, You're wonderful
Speaker 1: casting director. I'm still in touch with them. And then
Speaker 1: I think Barbie didn't Barbie Block didn't start with her
Speaker 1: till this season. After that, I think, yeah, yeah, she
Speaker 1: brought in people and it was you know, me and
Speaker 1: Michael and a couple of the other producers and then
Speaker 1: of course the networking studio input. But yeah, I was
Speaker 1: in on it. It was a you know, a group decision, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and network has always gone away and especially
Speaker 1: about important things like who mister Turner was going to be.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you said that. Okay, I just want
Speaker 1: one quick question. So the you're talking about, like the
Speaker 1: network and notes from the network, did did you get
Speaker 1: any I mean, obviously they wanted to make a radical
Speaker 1: change or what what would appear to be a radical
Speaker 1: change between season one and season two. Were there any
Speaker 1: overall network notes between seas in two in season three
Speaker 1: that they wanted changes for or was it kind of like, no,
Speaker 1: you guys have found it now, just keep doing what
Speaker 1: you're doing. It was that was it? No, you guys
Speaker 1: have found it now, and and and I think we did.
Speaker 1: And I think that to me, usually in a show,
Speaker 1: third season is often the creative peak. It's like the
Speaker 1: first season it starts to get off the grounds, the
Speaker 1: second season, at Gail's, third season at peaks, fourth season,
Speaker 1: it's a little off peak. Fifth season, it's, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: still some good in there. In sixth season, it's like,
Speaker 1: why are we still doing this? So not always not
Speaker 1: always the case, you know, but that seems to be
Speaker 1: a general pattern of of of television. But but you know,
Speaker 1: you can survive if you're starting to do if you
Speaker 1: open up the world, which boy means world did wonderfully,
Speaker 1: you know, with you and uh and Matt and Maitland.
Speaker 1: I mean that was great and just kind of expanding
Speaker 1: the worlds that you know, exploring the college in general. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was great because that was it was still the
Speaker 1: same show. Sometimes when a show becomes a different show,
Speaker 1: it doesn't quite work. Let's do something really different. It
Speaker 1: usually doesn't work, but let's take the dynamics that work
Speaker 1: and just put them in different arenas. So we were
Speaker 1: also two seasons in before they even made Corey and
Speaker 1: Topango a thing, So that then took the show in
Speaker 1: an entirely different direction. That kind of became the core
Speaker 1: of the show. So we didn't even find that until
Speaker 1: what thirty forty five episodes. In fifty episodes in, it
Speaker 1: was found is maybe the not the best work because
Speaker 1: it was like, we're waiting to do that. We knew
Speaker 1: we were going to go, so you do you knew
Speaker 1: you were gonna go. So even with Danielle when she was,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of a guest cast quote unquote guest cast,
Speaker 1: um you, Corey and Topango was already planned. That was
Speaker 1: a thing at the start of the second season. It
Speaker 1: was I don't know what about the first season, but
Speaker 1: the second season, let's let's do this slowly because we
Speaker 1: want to you know, the show run for a while. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're really good together. Danielle really pops. She's fantastic and
Speaker 1: their chemistry is good and uh, let's do this slowly
Speaker 1: and one step forward, one step back, to step sward,
Speaker 1: one step back. Cool. Yeah, yeah yeah. What can you
Speaker 1: tell us And what do you remember about the casting
Speaker 1: of Tony for mister Turner. I remember a lot of
Speaker 1: guys came in and just Tony just nailed it. He
Speaker 1: was warm, he was funny, he had a great presence,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't like, well, how about this guy? Was
Speaker 1: like Tony came in and read and I can't remember
Speaker 1: the other names, but it was like, okay, Tony, it's
Speaker 1: it's going to be Tony. I didn't realize that Michael
Speaker 1: had worked with him before, honestly, right, so he just
Speaker 1: he just nailed it. And so how much of mister
Speaker 1: Turner's character and getting involved with Sean's character and that
Speaker 1: story arc that ends up happening, how much of that
Speaker 1: was planned from the beginning, and how much of that
Speaker 1: was like natural evolution? I think it was natural evolution
Speaker 1: because also you don't know how the new character is
Speaker 1: going to click and how the chemistry is going to be,
Speaker 1: and then I can't remember all of the thinking that
Speaker 1: went into it. But you know, if we established Sean's
Speaker 1: home life as being kind of weird and not necessarily
Speaker 1: healthy and taking the approach of walking the line of
Speaker 1: making that funny and also taking the character seriously, and
Speaker 1: it was like, this is a good relationship. Let's let's
Speaker 1: try this right. Wow, Now, as you're coming up with
Speaker 1: these stories, I'm curious because Michael is kind of popping
Speaker 1: in and out right. You know, is the room and
Speaker 1: knew are you kind of guiding where the stories are
Speaker 1: going and Michael's coming in and kind of saying like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that works, or is he coming in and saying no,
Speaker 1: We're going to switch this up? Or I mean, would
Speaker 1: he come in and change things? Would he help guide?
Speaker 1: I mean what was kind of what was he doing
Speaker 1: at the time, because I knew it was involved with
Speaker 1: other projects. For most of what I remember is I'm
Speaker 1: running the room and it's like, let's talk about story areas,
Speaker 1: let's talk about arcs, let's talk about general directions. Let's
Speaker 1: write up a beat sheet to get Michael on board
Speaker 1: and then get the network to improve it, in the
Speaker 1: studio to improve it. So it was really you know,
Speaker 1: lots of steps, but in the day to day. I
Speaker 1: was running the room. Sometimes Michael would be there, but
Speaker 1: it was it was mostly me and you know, and
Speaker 1: and the great our great writing staff. Wow, it wasn't
Speaker 1: great staff. Yeah, we had we had um we got along.
Speaker 1: It was just a fun energy. There was one story
Speaker 1: that because I was thinking about this, where um, we
Speaker 1: all know Jeff Minell, he's been a guest, yes, and um,
Speaker 1: I can't remember who started it. It was he was
Speaker 1: being picked on for maybe eating more than he should
Speaker 1: and it's just you know, Jeff, you gotta watch your cholesterol.
Speaker 1: So there was a writer's room pool on pick Mannell's cholesterol.
Speaker 1: Who come cholesterol? So we got one of those home
Speaker 1: tests and we all you know, write that, wrote down
Speaker 1: our numbers, and I remember I won. And so with
Speaker 1: the money that I won, I wrote a check to
Speaker 1: the American Heart Association because I told Jeff, I don't
Speaker 1: want your blood money. So that's amazing. So that was
Speaker 1: kind of the energy of the writer's room. Did you
Speaker 1: ever feel I mean, I'm sure you felt pressure, but
Speaker 1: did that pressure like, did you ever feel I don't
Speaker 1: know how knowing that it was basically handed to you.
Speaker 1: Your job is to turn this season one kiddie show,
Speaker 1: turn the ship around, turn it into a more aged
Speaker 1: up show that's going to get us many many years.
Speaker 1: Like did you ever feel the pressure of that? Did
Speaker 1: that ever get to you? Or did you did you
Speaker 1: just have so much confidence that you knew what to
Speaker 1: do that it was fine. Well, you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: me solo. You know, Michael's there, the network's there, we
Speaker 1: had a good staff, and but I was confident that
Speaker 1: I think I know how to do this. So um,
Speaker 1: but it's it's always pressure. It's always pressure. It's it's
Speaker 1: no matter what if you're if you're running a show,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, you're going to be the person who
Speaker 1: picks the words that will fuel this machine that spends
Speaker 1: millions and millions of dollars and oh yeah, and be funny, right,
Speaker 1: universally funny something we can all agree is funny. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So yeah, there was pressure. And you know it's uh
Speaker 1: staying on budget. The way it worked at the time
Speaker 1: at the at Disney as every quarter I would be
Speaker 1: summoned to Disney and and uh they look at the
Speaker 1: budget and say you're you're you're four percent over budget,
Speaker 1: where you'd wow, and i'd say, you know, it's ninety
Speaker 1: six percent good. You know, I'd like anything am doing. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we'll use it one less guest star and have
Speaker 1: less trees, Okay, you know, okay, Right, well, that's what
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask. I mean often we guest guest cast.
Speaker 1: Just cast must have been the most expensive component, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: there was there. That was you were we were limited
Speaker 1: until who we could. I mean I've heard you guys
Speaker 1: to discuss, you know, where's where Stepango this week? What happened?
Speaker 1: How come this person come back? Money is a factor,
Speaker 1: but it's also pages. It's you know, it's if the
Speaker 1: sitcom script, it's forty five pages and a story. The
Speaker 1: a story is going to take thirty pages, and it's
Speaker 1: about you know, uh, Eric and Corey, and it's just
Speaker 1: uh uh we have to make sure that Sean is
Speaker 1: something to do, so let's find that and uh and
Speaker 1: of course you have to find something for a Bill
Speaker 1: to do, and Resty and Batsy, the parents so character
Speaker 1: it's it's a lot of things to uh to fit in.
Speaker 1: Now that that's you mentioned Bill. So that's one one
Speaker 1: question I wanted to ask you because it seems like
Speaker 1: you know, he's brought on as the principal essentially in
Speaker 1: the in the second season, so he's not in the classroom. Um,
Speaker 1: and it seems like he has kind of a smaller
Speaker 1: role this year than he did season one. Was that
Speaker 1: also something that was planned or I mean, because again
Speaker 1: you want to age it up, but you want to
Speaker 1: you know, age it up for the kids. Was it
Speaker 1: was it kind of like, hey, we're gonna just move
Speaker 1: Bill to the side a little bit more than we
Speaker 1: did last year. It was more like when you have
Speaker 1: to other characters to service. If you're going to go
Speaker 1: to school, you'll have that many scenes and pages in school,
Speaker 1: and if you're going to do the faculty, you have
Speaker 1: another faculty member to serve and introduce. And I'd like
Speaker 1: to think, yeah, if you probably looked at the screen
Speaker 1: time that Bill had first versus second season, he had
Speaker 1: less than the second season. But I'd like to think
Speaker 1: that the stuff he did was as meaningful. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that his presence, I mean, Bill could be in seven
Speaker 1: pages and you'd feel him through the whole show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that just that stronger presence. But there was
Speaker 1: never anything else, you know, we need less Bill. It
Speaker 1: was never that it's just this is what we have
Speaker 1: to do to make the show run lots of years,
Speaker 1: and it's what we have to introduce. And uh uh,
Speaker 1: you know after the third season, you know, I was
Speaker 1: not the air, so I don't know what it was
Speaker 1: in the you know, Tony and other parts and who
Speaker 1: was coming and who was going. You know, I would
Speaker 1: come back to direct. Yeah, I came back to direct.
Speaker 1: But it's like, okay, here's the strip, right, all right,
Speaker 1: So why why did you leave? I had other opportunities
Speaker 1: to do stuff and led to my own show that
Speaker 1: got on the air that didn't last. But it was
Speaker 1: a tough decision because I, you know, missed and bonded
Speaker 1: with you guys. That's why I was. It was real happy,
Speaker 1: very happy. When Blackman and bus Gang, who were running
Speaker 1: it after I had left, Mark and Howard said would
Speaker 1: you want to come back and do it was like
Speaker 1: hell yeah. Before they got the end of the sentence
Speaker 1: and and you guys welcome me back. It wasn't like,
Speaker 1: you know, what the hell are you doing here? Grudge
Speaker 1: holders you Yeah, yeah, I didn't. I didn't sense any
Speaker 1: of that. If you, if you did, you hit it, well,
Speaker 1: I'm curious how much of our conscious brains, like understood
Speaker 1: like director. I mean, we definitely knew directors versus writers
Speaker 1: versus producers, but like you showing up to direct we
Speaker 1: were probably like, oh, you've been here this whole time. Yea, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't at least to another thing. I've heard you
Speaker 1: guys talk about things that happened that you are not
Speaker 1: privy too, or things not being explained or just hey
Speaker 1: you gotta kiss this personnel, and I apologize for not
Speaker 1: being sensitive to that, and uh, it's just I listened
Speaker 1: to it. I go, man, why did I think of that?
Speaker 1: So though, sorry for being part of putting you guys
Speaker 1: through that. So no, it's it's all part of the
Speaker 1: culture at the time, you know. It's it's definitely it's
Speaker 1: hard to you can't really single any one personnel responsibility
Speaker 1: for that sort of thing. It was just the vibe,
Speaker 1: you know. And that's yeah, that's why being a child
Speaker 1: actor's hard. Yeah, you don't have control over sometimes we
Speaker 1: treated the child actors like there were children, so yes,
Speaker 1: but also in an adult in an adult role, so's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a very it's a it's a strange balance that
Speaker 1: we again when you're in it and you've been doing
Speaker 1: it for we all started when we were so young
Speaker 1: that it was just normal. For it was all just
Speaker 1: a normal kind of thing. It's looking back with the
Speaker 1: eyes of an adult that you kind of go, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe that wasn't normal for a twelve year old, you
Speaker 1: know that kind of stuff. So well, also, there was
Speaker 1: definitely there There's always been an idea of well, that's
Speaker 1: their job, that's what actors do. Well, you do whatever's
Speaker 1: on the page, and and it's only you know, like
Speaker 1: Will said, now as adults looking back on it and
Speaker 1: it being us, uh that I think, you know, we're
Speaker 1: able to go, hey, yeah, it was our job. But
Speaker 1: also first before professionals were children. Um, and I think
Speaker 1: now people think about that, you know, way from the beginning, like,
Speaker 1: these are people, these are real children, and let's address
Speaker 1: those concerns and needs first and then we can talk
Speaker 1: about the professional aspect of it and the job aspect
Speaker 1: of it. But that's just you know time. But yeah,
Speaker 1: things that we're talking about, we've talked about it on
Speaker 1: this podcast. How for the life of the child actor
Speaker 1: is constantly growing, evolving and getting better. Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: from back in the day when you're when the kids
Speaker 1: were on set for twenty five hours and doing their
Speaker 1: own stunts and and too. You know what we went through,
Speaker 1: which was was mostly a very positive experience all the
Speaker 1: way around to now where it's very much about making
Speaker 1: sure that everybody's safe and healthy and working with kids
Speaker 1: it's its own thing. You have to treat them, remember
Speaker 1: their kids, treat them respectfully like adults. But we are
Speaker 1: here to work and I feel really good. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're all still in touch. And yeah, absolutely, you know absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know I've said this before. I feel like I've
Speaker 1: about forty nieces and nephews out there from the shows
Speaker 1: I've done. And one son, I was gonna say, on
Speaker 1: one son with me, can you guys tell the story?
Speaker 1: Well you want me to tell? Well, yes, how I
Speaker 1: remember so, I remember we were so the Nancy Kerrigan
Speaker 1: was coming on to do the dream sequence, and of
Speaker 1: course we had to go and shoot the sequence in
Speaker 1: Lake Placid where you guys got to go in the
Speaker 1: field together. Yes, it was beautifully warm, sunny, happy time.
Speaker 1: It was like negative sixty degrees um and we flew there.
Speaker 1: It was it was David and Karen McCain. McCain the
Speaker 1: line producer, wonderful line producer, incredible line producer, and the
Speaker 1: three of us went and was it at a restaurant?
Speaker 1: Was it in the airport? Where did this happen? It
Speaker 1: was in the airplane because you were I was sitting
Speaker 1: with Karen and you were a row ahead of us,
Speaker 1: and they asked it didn't did they ask you or
Speaker 1: they asked you tell the stories. I can't remember exactly
Speaker 1: what happened. The steward, Uh, clearly he fancied Will, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure that it Will was alone
Speaker 1: before pursuing further conversation, and said, is that your father
Speaker 1: referring to me? And I was not his father. So
Speaker 1: from that moment, that moment on, yeah, he's being what
Speaker 1: always like, how you doing, son? I'm like, I'm good, Dad,
Speaker 1: I'm good. Happy birthday. Yeah, I really get Happy birthday, Son.
Speaker 1: I get all this stuff. So David Kendall is my
Speaker 1: producer TV daddy. Yeah, okay, you guys bonded on that trip.
Speaker 1: I remember you guys came back and you were like
Speaker 1: fast friends for the rest of the show. Was so funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had inside so jealous because it's such a good time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It wasn't It was just because it was an experience
Speaker 1: just being in the field, you know, it was an experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but Will didn't get to go to Disney World, so
Speaker 1: let's not bring up the fun Lake Plastic trip because
Speaker 1: he didn't get to go to Disney. I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to bring it up. Danielle. It was going to be
Speaker 1: water under a really cold bridge. Okay, David, I have
Speaker 1: a very important question for you, and I think you're
Speaker 1: the perfect person to answer it. Would Danielle Harris who
Speaker 1: played t K? Would Danielle Harris have been back had
Speaker 1: Danny McNulty stuck around for longer? Like would was their
Speaker 1: potential for Danielle Harris to be more of a recurring
Speaker 1: guest cast because she was so incredible as TK. She
Speaker 1: was great. But I it was a wonderful one off story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but if we had to honor that character and bring
Speaker 1: her back, it would have taken up a lot of
Speaker 1: pages and a lot of stories. Yeah, I can't remember
Speaker 1: that being as wonderful as it was. There's sometimes there's
Speaker 1: great one off stories that hum when you're in the
Speaker 1: room trying to come up with stories that keeps the
Speaker 1: the engine going in the main dynamics. That was not
Speaker 1: one of them. That would have been that's a spin off,
Speaker 1: that's right. I also, you know, a couple since we
Speaker 1: watched that episode and talked about a couple of people
Speaker 1: have sent us behind the scenes Danielle Harris, Like there's
Speaker 1: some YouTube video of like hole behind the scenes about her,
Speaker 1: And I feel like in some ways we were kind
Speaker 1: of lucky to get her. Yeah, I feel like she
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't you know, she was like it was she
Speaker 1: came on as a guest star to like do her
Speaker 1: one big episode, but I feel like she was doing
Speaker 1: movie after movie after show after. I feel like she's
Speaker 1: the kind of person that you would have had to
Speaker 1: like create an entire show. She wouldn't have wanted us.
Speaker 1: She wouldn't have wanted us. Yeah, to be a secondary
Speaker 1: or tertiary character in our show, and there's filming people
Speaker 1: to serve. It would have been a lot of story
Speaker 1: and a lot of pages. And if someone's talking, someone
Speaker 1: else isn't, you know, right, So I have a question
Speaker 1: for you, because you're obviously you've done the six hundred
Speaker 1: episodes of television, been involved in and being a television
Speaker 1: to hallic myself. Is there a show that you really
Speaker 1: wanted to direct or beyond that you didn't get a
Speaker 1: chance to where it was like that's oh man, I
Speaker 1: wanted to do that. A lot of shows, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh I could. I couldn't make that work?
Speaker 1: I could, I could do that. I don't really think
Speaker 1: like that that hard because it's just, you know, what's
Speaker 1: in front of me. What am I getting to do?
Speaker 1: Because it's a great privilege to be on a set
Speaker 1: and talk to the actors and work the story and
Speaker 1: make it work visual. But it's not like there's at
Speaker 1: this holy grail or work thing. I just don't think
Speaker 1: like that. Sorry for the disappointing answer. No, No, not
Speaker 1: at all. It's a great answer. It's a great answer.
Speaker 1: How far ahead were scripts done? Like three or four weeks?
Speaker 1: They're probably you know, you have your outlines, you have
Speaker 1: your first drafts, you have revised drafts, so we're probably
Speaker 1: six or eight ahead. I like to be ahead a
Speaker 1: lot because I don't like that less minute stuff. So
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be uber organized and meticulous and let's
Speaker 1: get ahead, Let's get ahead, let's get ahead. So usually
Speaker 1: six to eight and the whole season is outlined before
Speaker 1: we start, right like, no, no, no, it's not ideas,
Speaker 1: some ideas and some sense of where the arcs are.
Speaker 1: But you know, nowadays in the world of binging, you
Speaker 1: want to go in with with the arcs set and
Speaker 1: really firm, so you know where the kind of milestone
Speaker 1: and the big moments are so you can, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: keep the audience through. But in our world where we
Speaker 1: had just general arcs mostly about Corey and to Pang
Speaker 1: in terms of their relationship, and then another not so
Speaker 1: much an arc, but just kind of diving deep into
Speaker 1: what Shahn's going through and how that's affecting him and
Speaker 1: what stories we can get it out of that. So
Speaker 1: it was it's like we had room to see what
Speaker 1: was working and you know, who knew that that the
Speaker 1: thugs were going to work in episode one, you know, right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and how much they added to the show and uh,
Speaker 1: I bought my Harley T shirt yesterday. Yeah. Were there
Speaker 1: any ideas that you remember for the show that like
Speaker 1: you really wanted that then didn't end up going through.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we had a really nice um episode in
Speaker 1: the first season. I think Mark Bleatman might have mentioned it,
Speaker 1: but he remembered it a little bit differently, where Corey
Speaker 1: gets to throw out the first pitch at the Phillies
Speaker 1: game and injures, you know, Lenny Deistro, the star Philly,
Speaker 1: so he's like Verboating and he's like the goat of Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: So I thought that was a nice story, but that
Speaker 1: would have involved using actual major league uniforms and Disney
Speaker 1: didn't want to pay for that in the logos. The
Speaker 1: story died because we couldn't use major league uniforms. But
Speaker 1: I always thought, especially early on, you know it's my
Speaker 1: first year, it's like, this is a great story. This
Speaker 1: is about It's about Philadelphia. It's about the kid that
Speaker 1: love sports. It's just the comically funny that with the
Speaker 1: greatest honor the kids ever had in his life, turns
Speaker 1: into you know, he's the the the goat of the city.
Speaker 1: So that was a fun story that we never got
Speaker 1: to do because they would have had to be Major
Speaker 1: League Baseball licensing fees. Wow. So funny how that works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: We've talked about Will's development a little bit, but I
Speaker 1: want to hear like because by the end of the
Speaker 1: second season, was he as crazy as he got or no,
Speaker 1: like I think second third season is when the ramp
Speaker 1: up into crazy happened and into just way out there,
Speaker 1: and you had inherited Jason Marsden as the best friend,
Speaker 1: because that would happen in first season, right, I don't
Speaker 1: remember Jason's first Yeah I was, he was in first season. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Yeah, so the Lobster, which is the
Speaker 1: Lobster was first season and his first season, and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I guess I'm just curious. Did you ever feel
Speaker 1: this sort of with with Will's character, Like were you
Speaker 1: guys consciously developing Eric or was it like always no,
Speaker 1: we know, we just got to write funny scenes for Will.
Speaker 1: It's just gonna be. It was like, you know what's working.
Speaker 1: And also comedy writers, if something's funny, we will gravitate
Speaker 1: to it, sometimes to a default. It's like, Wow, he's
Speaker 1: making the out there stuff really worked. It's like we
Speaker 1: have our own Jim Carrey. Let's let's say it was
Speaker 1: really about his Let's feed him stuff to see if
Speaker 1: he can do it. Holy crap, he can do it.
Speaker 1: He can do more like beat it, Let's feed it.
Speaker 1: Let's and with Rusty and Betsy. What was that dynamic?
Speaker 1: Do you guys, do you remember the conversations you guys
Speaker 1: were having, because we've seen their relationship change a little
Speaker 1: bit second season, it seemed maybe a little more adult
Speaker 1: in the second season. I don't know, but but it
Speaker 1: was really you know, the show is called boy Meets
Speaker 1: World and it's on the kids point of view. It's
Speaker 1: always the kids' point of view, so the parents will
Speaker 1: always be secondary. But you need, you know, grounding parents.
Speaker 1: And they did such a great job. I mean, you
Speaker 1: totally believe that their parents, and you totally believe you know,
Speaker 1: they're both great TV parents. They're they're not your standard.
Speaker 1: I mean, Rusty had had a has a wonderful edge,
Speaker 1: but also it has a loving and warm so he
Speaker 1: was like the perfect TV dad. But you know, there
Speaker 1: were stories occasionally about them, but they were always involved
Speaker 1: with the with the kids. Oh we did do when
Speaker 1: he gets his band together, we did do that one
Speaker 1: tons good yeah, yeah, four guitarists, four guitars. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: did do that. But that was it was always secondary.
Speaker 1: Pants are always going to be secondary, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: life on a kid show for the adult actors was
Speaker 1: continuity ever talked about in the writer's room, like, we
Speaker 1: obviously notice a bunch of continuity things now because we're
Speaker 1: binging it, but you weren't binging back then, and so like,
Speaker 1: where's the yard a front yard, back yard nela sisters? Stay? Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think anybody ever watched the show
Speaker 1: and just mommy, mommy, that's not the hallway. And also
Speaker 1: I said this in Jess, but I'll use it now.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, the they the door on the
Speaker 1: camera right, sometimes the bloyer's room. Sometimes it's the history classroom.
Speaker 1: Sometimes this their PHOENI well, the school is about seven
Speaker 1: stories tall. Every floor parent has the same layout, so
Speaker 1: they're just on different floors. I like how they put
Speaker 1: the same posters on the on every floor, just to
Speaker 1: remind everything. Mister Turner's classroom is also on the always
Speaker 1: got on all seven floors. I got mister Turner's classroom.
Speaker 1: I love that. Clearly I didn't test this theory before.
Speaker 1: There's no theory you can throw our way that we
Speaker 1: will not rip to shreds immediately. The show was designed
Speaker 1: to be twenty two minutes a week, right, Um, I'd
Speaker 1: like to know why we are so much better than
Speaker 1: Growing Pains? Do you think we are I've never watched
Speaker 1: Growing Pains. All my children will and they can't have it.
Speaker 1: I can't favor. Growing Pains was good. Growing Pains was
Speaker 1: a solid sitcom. It really solid eighties family sitcom. It
Speaker 1: really was Yeah, really okay. But here is maybe a
Speaker 1: more realistic way of framing that similar that same question.
Speaker 1: Did you ever think when you were doing season two
Speaker 1: in season three of Boy Meat's World that you would
Speaker 1: be talking about this show thirty years later? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: I mean it was really like I said, it was
Speaker 1: what show? Is that? Boy? What? And then you know,
Speaker 1: when it ran forever, it was like is that still long?
Speaker 1: So we went from what's that show? To is that?
Speaker 1: And we didn't know that we were just you know,
Speaker 1: people were loving it. I mean, I had no idea
Speaker 1: that that was the level of affection for the show,
Speaker 1: and that, you know, go to when my kids were
Speaker 1: in high school, I go to pick them up and
Speaker 1: you'd see a sign, well it means the world trivia night,
Speaker 1: Friday night. You know. Cool? Now, I know I'm hoping,
Speaker 1: but I doubt I doubt it because I'm sure it
Speaker 1: was thrown around everywhere. You said they talked about the
Speaker 1: idea of changing the name. Do you buy any chance
Speaker 1: to remember any of the alternatives? Did anybody throw anything
Speaker 1: out Corey's World, Wow, Corri's World, Okay, didn't work for
Speaker 1: Dave's World. No, Courey's World wouldn't have been a horror,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have been terrible. No. No, I feel like
Speaker 1: the awkwardness of Boy Meets World is the reason why
Speaker 1: it's been ended up being a good title, do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like it's one of those things,
Speaker 1: it's like, we got through it, and so now you
Speaker 1: can't say boy meets something without associating with this show
Speaker 1: in a weird way, and that's branded. Yeah, it's yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I think you're right. The the dissonance or awkwardness of
Speaker 1: the world's words together kind of gel and and they
Speaker 1: have stuck. Yeah. But I don't think there's a single
Speaker 1: one of us. I'll just speak for me. But I know, writer,
Speaker 1: you already said this where the first time you heard
Speaker 1: the title, you weren't like it's a terrible title. It's
Speaker 1: terrible title. So when people recognize us on the street,
Speaker 1: they never get it right. No, Boys meets the World World,
Speaker 1: It's always Boys meet World, or it's like boy I
Speaker 1: used it gets becomes word slide all the time. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: But I remember because when we all got the pilot,
Speaker 1: well you know it was it was then they send
Speaker 1: the script. It was at the untitled Ben Savage Project,
Speaker 1: which in a strange way, was a better title to
Speaker 1: me than boy Me Tworld. It was like a little
Speaker 1: weird on the show Jack led led Ken. How do
Speaker 1: you feel about the state of sitcom now? Like because
Speaker 1: it has changed, right, I mean because of Ben Jane
Speaker 1: and because of the like where are you at? Like
Speaker 1: do you miss the old days where you could just
Speaker 1: do twenty two minutes and throw away a character or
Speaker 1: do you do you like where it's going? As long
Speaker 1: as there's stuff that they'll hire me, I'm good. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like. I love multicams. I know I've heard Will
Speaker 1: talk about this a lot. I love multicams. There's just
Speaker 1: something so exciting about the live audience and doing a
Speaker 1: runthrough and and have it work great. But comedy doesn't
Speaker 1: really seem to work much on the networks now. Multicam
Speaker 1: they always say they say they want it, and I
Speaker 1: think they kind of want it. And the moment one
Speaker 1: shows up and is a hit, everybody will say, see, yep,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what's going to happen. And you know, the
Speaker 1: the Nickelodeon and Disney Channel shows. I've done a lot
Speaker 1: of those past bunch of years, and that's a lot
Speaker 1: of fun because like, they're not afraid to be funny.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes comedy is afraid to be funny and
Speaker 1: out there, and that's where that's like kind of the
Speaker 1: last bashion of sitcom. There's actually, you know, some of
Speaker 1: the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon shows that are out there,
Speaker 1: they might be skewed much younger, but it's a real
Speaker 1: sick it's it's it's it's nice to see that people
Speaker 1: are still doing good kind of TV like that. And
Speaker 1: you know when you see a Sydney to the Max
Speaker 1: sort of the kind of shows that are out there,
Speaker 1: they're really good. So it's yeah, it's it's they're what
Speaker 1: do you mean by they're not afraid to be funny?
Speaker 1: Though sometimes you know there's like too cool, you know,
Speaker 1: a really cool joke, and it's like let's go for
Speaker 1: you know, let's go for a smart a joke and
Speaker 1: not big and broad. I mean, you can be too broad.
Speaker 1: You can be too silly, sure, but uh, you know
Speaker 1: you watch you watch Friends, it's really broad. Sometimes it's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and I think sometimes people are afraid of that
Speaker 1: in the networks. I mean, I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know what's what what what they know what they're thinking.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, there's always going to be comedy. Uh,
Speaker 1: and uh, I don't know if it's always going to
Speaker 1: be on on the networks. I don't know if there's
Speaker 1: always gonna be networks. Yeah. There's one other thing. In
Speaker 1: hearing you guys doing podcasts, I want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about Arlene Grayson, who is our line producer
Speaker 1: who passed away at the end of the second season,
Speaker 1: about the love she had for the show and maybe
Speaker 1: things that you guys didn't know is when we were
Speaker 1: aging up the show, taking it to high school, Arlene
Speaker 1: sat and interviewed people for background. So she met and
Speaker 1: talked to and interviews with everybody, like sitting one to
Speaker 1: one with people, and then they had to pass the
Speaker 1: Arlene test before they came a part of our background.
Speaker 1: I hear you guys talk with affection about a lot
Speaker 1: of the background and Veil's Arlene that's how much she cared. Wow,
Speaker 1: was just calling some background people. It's like, these people
Speaker 1: are going to be part of our show, you know,
Speaker 1: part of the world, part of the family. I'm going
Speaker 1: to meet them and I want to make sure that
Speaker 1: they they're okay. So that one of the many great
Speaker 1: things about the late Arlene Grayson. So that's incredible. I
Speaker 1: did not know that at all. Well, David, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being here with us. I hope this
Speaker 1: will not be your only appearance. I hope you'll come back,
Speaker 1: and maybe you determine that, not me, so you know,
Speaker 1: well you have to agree. So I hope that you'll
Speaker 1: come back for an episode you directed, and we can
Speaker 1: maybe do a recap with you and talk about when
Speaker 1: you you directed. No, it's been fun talking to you.
Speaker 1: But after thirty years, there's something I've finally wanted to say.
Speaker 1: I have some notes. I will put them in the
Speaker 1: chat next to the Hugay, get them right away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you know it's funny is that
Speaker 1: I we are all still well. I can't I won't
Speaker 1: speak for anybody else. I'm still in such I'm still
Speaker 1: in such close contact with you. It feels like this
Speaker 1: is just another conversation I get to have with you
Speaker 1: where you once again enlightened me and educated me on
Speaker 1: some things. And um, I always love talking to you.
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough for everything you've you've brought
Speaker 1: to my life over the years and continue to bring
Speaker 1: to my life. So thank you for joining us. And
Speaker 1: we can't wait to have you you guys, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it is great. It is great to
Speaker 1: see you. Man, you believe we're doing this. It's fun. No, no,
Speaker 1: all right, we're very monkey another virtual hug. Virtual hug.
Speaker 1: Ry Kendall is such a pro. Yeah, it's like just
Speaker 1: one of those consummate pros. And when I shadowed him,
Speaker 1: it was on a show. It was very it was
Speaker 1: a single camera show. Its very hectic, very tough, no
Speaker 1: budget kind of situation. And man, he kept as cool,
Speaker 1: like he's just unbelievable, like and he makes sure that
Speaker 1: you know, watching him that week when I was following
Speaker 1: him around and seeing what he had to deal with
Speaker 1: and the kind of choices and the pressures he was under,
Speaker 1: never made anybody else's problem, you know, And like I
Speaker 1: could see it because I was shadowing, so I was
Speaker 1: alone in the room with him looking at a shot
Speaker 1: list going you're never gonna make that day, you know,
Speaker 1: And he knew it, and he would be like, what,
Speaker 1: we gotta show up, we gotta do it, we gotta
Speaker 1: do our best, we gotta you know. It was just
Speaker 1: like unbelievable. Um. Yeah, And that's why he's always worked,
Speaker 1: because he's so great. And he's also the perfect person
Speaker 1: to work with younger actors. Yeah, because of that patience
Speaker 1: and that steadfast kind of resolve that he has. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's a great person to put the helm of a
Speaker 1: show that involved young people. I can't believe that he
Speaker 1: was kind of still I mean, it's it's like we
Speaker 1: keep saying it, but like that he was still kind
Speaker 1: of new to the industry. Magaz he had done six years.
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, that the fact that he hadn't directed
Speaker 1: like one hundred episodes of television when he was doing
Speaker 1: Boy just were his second episode. But going from writing
Speaker 1: a spec script to then getting hired by your first
Speaker 1: producer and staying on that show up to then being
Speaker 1: a coep is insane. I never happens. I know it is.
Speaker 1: I mean to say it's not. The norm is like
Speaker 1: the biggest understatement, yet job in television, let alone, let
Speaker 1: your first script getting your job, let alone leading to
Speaker 1: a six year season round. Yeah, it's at a big
Speaker 1: at a big smash hit show. I mean that's insane,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. Well, I think we learned more in that
Speaker 1: episode than any other for our dear listeners. I think
Speaker 1: he explained things very well too. I mean, I find
Speaker 1: six to eight episodes ahead. Yeah, that's what I figured. Actually, wow.
Speaker 1: But I also think I also think that was when
Speaker 1: Kendall wasn't sure right right right. I think he said
Speaker 1: he was very good about making sure that we were
Speaker 1: six and eight out. I don't think that ends up
Speaker 1: being the case after he leaves. Also, Corey's World, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have to change much. Yeah, still be throwing
Speaker 1: us globes at every every photo shoot. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: Corey's World. I wonder what the other run disgusting writers,
Speaker 1: Oh why I really dislike it. I get, I mean
Speaker 1: it's weird because I mean, obviously boy is in the title.
Speaker 1: But I think something about making it Corey only seems
Speaker 1: a little bit of a bummer. It seems limiting to me,
Speaker 1: you know, but I guess it was. I mean it
Speaker 1: was really the whole show is Ben and around Corey.
Speaker 1: But for some reason, Boy Meet's World has a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a thematic. I mean, even though it's
Speaker 1: awkward phrasing, it sounds bigger than Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: more people can identify with Corey when it's called boy
Speaker 1: Meets World, if that makes sense, And if it's just
Speaker 1: Corey it's like a specific person, uh that I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's a little more limited. Maybe. Well, thank you all
Speaker 1: for joining us for this episode of Pod Meets World.
Speaker 1: As always, you can follow us on Instagram pod Meets
Speaker 1: World Show. You can send us your emails pod Meets
Speaker 1: World Show at gmail dot com. And we have merch
Speaker 1: Daddy Daddy if I missed some merchandise Daddy, Pod Meets
Speaker 1: World Show not to the point where you're just doing
Speaker 1: a monologue the night of merchandise. By the end, it's
Speaker 1: just going to be forty minutes. Law the amount of
Speaker 1: people who have asked us to just compile those together,
Speaker 1: we will have to do it. We are absolutely going
Speaker 1: to have to do it. Maybe by the end of
Speaker 1: season two. Yeah, anyway, we'll send us out. We love
Speaker 1: you all. Pod dismissed Pod Meets World is an eye
Speaker 1: heart podcast produced and hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfordelle and
Speaker 1: Ryder Strong. Executive producers Jensen Karp and Amy Sugarman, executive
Speaker 1: in Charger Production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Tara Supbach, producer,
Speaker 1: Jackie Rodriguez, engineer and Boy Meets World superfan Easton Allen.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon and
Speaker 1: you can follow us on Instagram at Pod Meets World
Speaker 1: Show or email us at Pod Meets World Show at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com