Speaker 1: Have either of you started reading my book? Okay, I
Speaker 1: also have not started reading my book club selection. I
Speaker 1: have Cities Crazy it is on. Well here you want
Speaker 1: to know the truth? Can I be honest with you guys?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Okay.
Speaker 1: So the day that I had to pick it, the
Speaker 1: day that we did our interview with the wonderful office ladies,
Speaker 1: I completely forgot that I was going to need to
Speaker 1: pick the book. And so right before we did the
Speaker 1: interview and I needed to say it, I like googled
Speaker 1: best books of twenty twenty five or something, and I
Speaker 1: read a list of books, saw the name of it,
Speaker 1: read the description of it, and was like, this sounds
Speaker 1: like something I would really like. I'm gonna pick it.
Speaker 1: And then we announced it and so many people were like,
Speaker 1: this book sucks. Couldn't get through it. A bunch of
Speaker 1: comments saying this book was not It's not what you
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be. It's not good, and it really
Speaker 1: scared me. Now I'm like I every time I think
Speaker 1: of picking it up, I'm like, oh no, once I start,
Speaker 1: I have to commit to the whole thing. So now
Speaker 1: I've just been afraid to start it. And then there
Speaker 1: was a puss I was like, do I do I
Speaker 1: just listen to those people and pick a new body.
Speaker 1: I guess if we.
Speaker 2: Don't like it, then we get to have a conversation
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: Detective story.
Speaker 1: I thought it was going to be a murder like
Speaker 1: a like a murder like a thriller, like a murder
Speaker 1: mystery thriller. And I think that's still what it is.
Speaker 1: But I I don't know why. Some people just said
Speaker 1: it seemed it was very what's the word they used
Speaker 1: to describe it, Yes, something like that. Anyway, I'm a
Speaker 1: little nervous. And then anyway, so we could love it.
Speaker 3: You never know, you never know sometime to do, but
Speaker 3: you never know, never know.
Speaker 1: All right, well, anyway, we have a.
Speaker 3: Good six months before we do that episode.
Speaker 1: Let's just get a.
Speaker 4: Date and then we'll all do it because it will
Speaker 4: be our homework.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm not going to be on an airplane where
Speaker 5: I don't like to fly reading something called death takes me.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 1: I'll read it next to you.
Speaker 5: Oh, just does it make it better? Let's you know,
Speaker 5: you know, our next book, we're gonna read it. We're
Speaker 5: gonna read a live the next time for when we
Speaker 5: start flying everywhere.
Speaker 3: I think it's a great idea. Who would you eat
Speaker 3: on this plane?
Speaker 4: And if so, that's a positive upplication to.
Speaker 3: Most of them didn't survive accomplishment. No, godikes, it's called alive.
Speaker 2: They stayed alive.
Speaker 6: I remember, I remember, I remember when writer we were
Speaker 6: shooting our video for At the End of the Boy
Speaker 6: and we were interviewing everybody, and one of the questions
Speaker 6: they asked was we asked them is if a plane
Speaker 6: went down, who would you eat first?
Speaker 3: And why?
Speaker 2: On this On the Matt.
Speaker 3: Lawrence said, I'll never forget Lawrence's answer.
Speaker 5: He said, I thought the whole point was you you
Speaker 5: were supposed to flip them over, so you didn't know
Speaker 5: who they were.
Speaker 1: You just grab a piece.
Speaker 2: I remember that.
Speaker 1: Did we put that in the video?
Speaker 2: We did?
Speaker 5: Why that sticks out because you're not you turn them over,
Speaker 5: so you know, you're not supposed to know who you're eating.
Speaker 2: We have some great answers.
Speaker 3: People were hysterical, Oh god, it's so funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we need to we need to find some
Speaker 1: snippets from that play them for people.
Speaker 3: I got them, I got them all.
Speaker 1: I'm high as a kite right now.
Speaker 3: Sorry, high as a kite right now?
Speaker 1: What is going on?
Speaker 3: I'm having the house painted and there.
Speaker 5: I don't know what they're doing, but it's all filtering
Speaker 5: into my little room and it's like I'm in the
Speaker 5: huffing bag itself.
Speaker 3: My fingers are tingling like Mike. It's the best meet world.
Speaker 3: I'm Daniel Fishl, I'm right strong, and I'm will for Dill.
Speaker 1: When people are deciding who the face of nineties television
Speaker 1: was in activity, I'm sure many of our listeners find
Speaker 1: themselves engaged in at house parties, local concerts, and HA meetings.
Speaker 1: I'm sure the expected and most obvious names are thrown around.
Speaker 1: Jerry Seinfeld, George Clooney, Jennifer Aniston, the cat from Sabrina.
Speaker 1: But I would like to throw another name into the mix,
Speaker 1: and it's none other than our guest this week, best
Speaker 1: known as the beloved sidekick, Al Borland from The Jugger,
Speaker 1: not known as Home Improvement, one of the most recognizable
Speaker 1: faces of the decade. The co host of tool Time
Speaker 1: was the safety conscious straight man to the grunting machismo
Speaker 1: of Tim Taylor, and his contributions to the show made
Speaker 1: you feel as warm as the flannels he wore. On
Speaker 1: every episode, and he also appeared on an episode of
Speaker 1: Boy Meets World No Doubt, an unavoidable ask by the
Speaker 1: network to spike our ratings during sweeps, playing an animal
Speaker 1: control officer ready to contain Little Corey, a pig at
Speaker 1: the center of the season three episode This Little Piggy.
Speaker 1: Will he remember being in the episode or will he
Speaker 1: bleeth it? Your guess is as good as ours. He
Speaker 1: go on to host Family Feud, a gig at least
Speaker 1: two of us on this Zoom would commit a felony
Speaker 1: to Land and has popped up on everything from That
Speaker 1: seventy Show and Last Man Standing to Detroiter's and the
Speaker 1: truly Genius Penn fifteen. But yes, he hammered his way
Speaker 1: into America's heart on Home Improvement, a show that once
Speaker 1: found itself atop the Nielsen ratings, clocking in over thirty
Speaker 1: million viewers per episode, a feat now impossible unless you're
Speaker 1: part of a football team attempting to win an important trophy.
Speaker 1: He was an integral part of one of the biggest
Speaker 1: sitcoms of the decade, and now he's an integral part
Speaker 1: of a popular niche rewatch podcast of this decade. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Pod Meets World Richard carn Yes, yes, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: good Richard, thank you so much for being here, just
Speaker 1: like in nineteen ninety five, you are bringing some much
Speaker 1: needed star power to our show. So thank you.
Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety five. I can't I can't even imagine, you know.
Speaker 2: And it's so funny because in ninety five, I don't
Speaker 2: think I had done very many other TV shows.
Speaker 1: Just Home Improvement.
Speaker 2: Well, I've done Home Improvement, the just the one show
Speaker 2: that everybody was watching, the biggest show on television, just
Speaker 2: that one. And I knew that, I knew how our
Speaker 2: set works, but I wasn't sure how another set would
Speaker 2: work when I go over there. But you guys were
Speaker 2: so welcoming, so wonderful, and you know you were very young.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we were. We were all very young. I
Speaker 1: in ninety I was fourteen, no way, yeah right then.
Speaker 1: And I would have been fourteen.
Speaker 2: He would have been fourteen.
Speaker 4: I would have been fifteen.
Speaker 2: That makes me about eighteen then. Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Think Will was also about eighteen. I was eighteen or nineteen.
Speaker 3: I was the old guy at the time.
Speaker 1: Wow, that makes us feel good.
Speaker 2: It was a big year. There was a lot going on.
Speaker 2: I went back to my calendar, my old school calendar
Speaker 2: where I wrote everything down on a.
Speaker 1: You still have it.
Speaker 2: I found it. I had to go looking for it,
Speaker 2: and I found I had, like I don't know, eight
Speaker 2: nine years of those different books for each year, and
Speaker 2: I'm amazed at the stuff I was doing. You know
Speaker 2: this week, this this week that there were there were
Speaker 2: a lot of things.
Speaker 1: Well, knowing then how busy you were. Do you remember
Speaker 1: your week on Boy Meets World.
Speaker 2: I remember meeting you, guys, I vaguely remember the show,
Speaker 2: And to be honest with you, I haven't seen the
Speaker 2: show since.
Speaker 1: Okay, and I wasn't going.
Speaker 2: To watch it before this podcast because I want to
Speaker 2: be surprised.
Speaker 1: Too, you want to Okay, well, we're not going to
Speaker 1: watch it today, so let me refresh your memory and
Speaker 1: all of our memories. As a reminder, it is season
Speaker 1: three called the season three episode called This Little Piggy,
Speaker 1: where you play Victor, the animal control officer concerned with
Speaker 1: the presence of a pig in the Matthews home. No,
Speaker 1: it's in.
Speaker 4: It's apartment, but the scene it takes place in the
Speaker 4: Matthews I don't know why.
Speaker 2: Who ratted you out? Who told who? Totally.
Speaker 1: Penga did me. I know I she was first of
Speaker 1: all to Panga was the biggest animal lover. She's a vegetarian,
Speaker 1: so I know she was doing it because she thought
Speaker 1: the pig was somehow a danger. Yes, because pigs don't
Speaker 1: belong in apartments or homes. But still, Sean loved, loved
Speaker 1: this pig. I would never have let anything happen to
Speaker 1: the pig. I really, I really disagreed with Topanga that week.
Speaker 3: Yeah I did too.
Speaker 1: We definitely. One thing we all remember about the week
Speaker 1: is that working with pigs is the worst.
Speaker 2: Animals I do. And I have since worked with another pig.
Speaker 1: Were these the little squeaky ones or are they big.
Speaker 2: With animals with with a little pop belly? You know,
Speaker 2: that was all over the place, and he was supposed
Speaker 2: to be all over the place, So that was fun.
Speaker 2: And I've worked with a monkey, I've worked with dogs,
Speaker 2: I've worked with Tim Allen is like.
Speaker 1: You actually you're on your show.
Speaker 2: You would do lots of set pieces.
Speaker 4: Right like there would always be some big physical stunt
Speaker 4: or like a machinery going crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean, you guys were doing we went set. When
Speaker 2: we would go to a what would be considered a
Speaker 2: working job site or something like that. It was actually
Speaker 2: the ABC buildings being built on the Disney lot. Okay,
Speaker 2: so you like the animation building, like the other buildings,
Speaker 2: these were you know before when we dropped the beam
Speaker 2: on the Nomad, you know, that was the foundation of
Speaker 2: all those buildings.
Speaker 3: Wow, geez, you know what I remember.
Speaker 5: One of the things I remember most is I used
Speaker 5: to get my parking space, which I thought was the
Speaker 5: coolest thing in the world. Was near Tim Allen's and
Speaker 5: he is two or three, and every single day there
Speaker 5: was like three different cars, a different car and always
Speaker 5: the coolest thing in the world, and different every single time.
Speaker 3: And I would just be like, what that that's that's
Speaker 3: what I want. I want that thing right there.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, every every car on tool Time or
Speaker 2: on Home Improvement was one of Tim's cars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's very similarly now on Shifting Gears. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've watched Shifting Gears, but every single
Speaker 1: every single car is one of his cars.
Speaker 2: Is well, he needs another revenue stream, I know.
Speaker 1: Because he charges it to the production.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course he does. That's brilliant.
Speaker 1: I directed an episode of Shifting Gears and.
Speaker 2: I thought that was fun. I bet that was a
Speaker 2: lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It was so much fun. But one of our guest
Speaker 1: star actors, everyone's told like, these are real cars. There's
Speaker 1: like a big meeting before the day starts. These are
Speaker 1: real cars. They are actually from the year. They are
Speaker 1: Tim Allen's property. Please do not lean, do not scratch,
Speaker 1: do not walk too close to now you know you're
Speaker 1: you're Some of the scenes are in a shop and
Speaker 1: one of one of our actors leaned all of his
Speaker 1: body weight while he was doing stuff in the engine
Speaker 1: and it dented the car. And yeah, there was there
Speaker 1: was a dent. And everyone's like, okay, we have done
Speaker 1: at a meeting.
Speaker 2: What are we going to do? There's a dent.
Speaker 1: There's a dent in the car. And one of the
Speaker 1: guys who works for Tim, who deals with the cars,
Speaker 1: came over and looked at it and he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is absolutely nothing. We'll be able to this out.
Speaker 1: It's going to be about seventy five dollars to fix.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh over it. That came over,
Speaker 2: Yes it was. He was seventy five years old and
Speaker 2: fully jacked.
Speaker 1: Oh, fully jacked. I know. He's like an incredible shape.
Speaker 2: So is Tim.
Speaker 1: Though Tim is like, I don't know, it was it's
Speaker 1: it was incredible. I was like, wow, yeah, he's in
Speaker 1: such good shape.
Speaker 2: Well we have to be because we're.
Speaker 1: Older, I know, don't. We don't have the option anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm no longer fourteen. I don't know if you know this,
Speaker 1: but I'm also very old.
Speaker 2: In You're in my heart. You're still fortunate.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about the Disney lot and our
Speaker 1: little section of the stages, because we in ninety two
Speaker 1: ninety or ninety three ninety four were on the stage
Speaker 1: right next to you. We were on Stage two on
Speaker 1: the Disney lot, right next to Home Improvement, and we
Speaker 1: had a little area outside that I'm wondering if you
Speaker 1: also remember. We call it the cage, but it's we
Speaker 1: used to do our pe our recreation activity outside with
Speaker 1: all the kids.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, you, I mean we we had stuff for
Speaker 2: our kids. But you know, I was an adult, so
Speaker 2: I didn't really go over there and check out.
Speaker 1: You didn't play football with us. But do you remember
Speaker 1: do you remember seeing us running around in the cage
Speaker 1: or me coming by to visit your set to hang
Speaker 1: out with Jonathan.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely, I do. Yes, that was very cool. I'll
Speaker 2: tell you what there was. There was one year where
Speaker 2: I was walking around the Disney lot. I stumbled upon
Speaker 2: this this stage and I walk in and the stage
Speaker 2: has been dug out like three levels down.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 2: And there was this huge like moon service with stillag
Speaker 2: tites and stuff. It was the most amazing set. And
Speaker 2: I go in there and and I go what is this?
Speaker 2: It was the set for Armageddon, you know when they
Speaker 2: go along with the meteor. Yes, I and I go
Speaker 2: back and I go, Tim, we got to use this set.
Speaker 2: He goes, what are you talking about? Come on, come
Speaker 2: with me. We gotta go use this to and he
Speaker 2: goes over there and we walk in and he goes, yes, absolutely,
Speaker 2: And so he goes to Bob Igert or Bob Eisner, you.
Speaker 3: Know he's a Michael Eisner at the time, probably.
Speaker 2: It was Michael Eisner at the time. He goes, can
Speaker 2: we use this? And Michael Eisner was like, oh, Michael
Speaker 2: Nann's the director. I don't know. And so we had
Speaker 2: to go to the director and the director Hamden had
Speaker 2: and he wasn't like happy about this, but he goes, Okay,
Speaker 2: you can use it, but you have to bank it
Speaker 2: for three months, and after the movie has aired, after
Speaker 2: the movie has come out, you can't show anything before that, right,
Speaker 2: So they bank. We banked a scene where Tim goes
Speaker 2: next door to Wilson's house and he goes, you know,
Speaker 2: well where he goes. I'm down here, Tim, He's in
Speaker 2: his basement and you open the door to the basement
Speaker 2: and here's this giant set.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. I love it.
Speaker 2: And the irony, or the sad news, is that I
Speaker 2: didn't get to be in that scene.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, it was your idea. It was your idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that was that was grossly you know, that
Speaker 2: was mean. Yeah, we did get to use that said,
Speaker 2: and so I was glad that we did that.
Speaker 4: That's so cool.
Speaker 1: One of the ways we like to start some of
Speaker 1: our getting to know some of our guests is by
Speaker 1: asking about their origin story. I read in preparation for
Speaker 1: this meeting. I read on your Wikipedia page one of
Speaker 1: the most incredible stories about how you ended up becoming
Speaker 1: an actor. And I don't know if it's true, because
Speaker 1: my Wikipedia page used to say I was a chef,
Speaker 1: and I've never I can't. I could barely make chicken nuggets,
Speaker 1: so I know that they're not It's not always correct,
Speaker 1: But is it true that you got a citation and
Speaker 1: that's what ended up leading to you becoming an actor?
Speaker 1: And if some will you tell us the story, I'll.
Speaker 2: Tell you what there are. And you must know this.
Speaker 2: There are certain things in your life where when you
Speaker 2: get them, you can walk it back and you can go.
Speaker 2: You know. This led to this, which led to this,
Speaker 2: which led to that. And so when I started thinking
Speaker 2: about how how home improvement came about, everything was linked
Speaker 2: primarily back to doing summerstock in Holland, Michigan, in like
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how old were you in eighty three?
Speaker 2: Well, I had moved to New York in nineteen seventy nine, okay,
Speaker 2: and I was twenty three. Okay, So I was twenty
Speaker 2: five or six something like that, and I was doing
Speaker 2: summerstock because that's what you do. You know. I did
Speaker 2: a lot of theater before doing TV, in film or
Speaker 2: film or whatever like that. And that's where that's why
Speaker 2: I went to New York instead of California. I'm from Seattle,
Speaker 2: grew up in Seattle, and I went through the training program,
Speaker 2: a professional actor training program at the University of Washington, Okay.
Speaker 2: And at the time, the University of Washington had was
Speaker 2: part of the League of Schools, and they had auditions
Speaker 2: for us in New York and that's why I ended
Speaker 2: up up in New York, Okay.
Speaker 1: So you were doing theater and that's where that's why
Speaker 1: you were. You were always an actor from from the
Speaker 1: time of starting theater.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And I went off to Holland, Michigan to
Speaker 2: do this five shows, five plays for the season in
Speaker 2: rotating rep and one of them was a was a
Speaker 2: play called Oh Gosh, Strider. It was a play with
Speaker 2: music and people played animals and hit there you go
Speaker 2: animals again. And I worked with this director who happened
Speaker 2: to be the director of theater at Evansville College in Indiana,
Speaker 2: and he had done this play earlier in the year
Speaker 2: and he was trying to direct this play kind of
Speaker 2: like he had already done. And all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: I'm caught between I don't know what he why would
Speaker 2: you want me to do that? It had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with my you know what I was thinking, And
Speaker 2: he's going, well, you know, we did this and wait,
Speaker 2: you did this already. I go, yeah, we've we Well,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do what some other guy did.
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like this is this is where
Speaker 2: my trajectory's going. And you know, blah blah blah blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. And we kind of, you know, we really
Speaker 2: butted heads a lot during rehearsal until opening night. And
Speaker 2: then opening night everything worked. You know, my stuff worked,
Speaker 2: his stuff worked, everything worked, and he was like really
Speaker 2: happy and we became friends after that. And then a
Speaker 2: few years later he calls for me and goes, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a playwrights conference in New Harmony, Indiana, and we
Speaker 2: need actors to read the scripts while the while the
Speaker 2: playwrights rewrite them and dramatics help them rewrite them, kind
Speaker 2: of like you know, after your Monday table read, you go.
Speaker 2: You writers go back and they rewrite and puff up
Speaker 2: jokes or restructure the you know, the A story, the
Speaker 2: B story, whatever. And he said, we can pay you
Speaker 2: one hundred dollars a week, but we'll put you up.
Speaker 2: We'll you know, we'll feed you, we'll put you up.
Speaker 2: And I'm living in New York at the time, and
Speaker 2: I go, one hundred dollars a week. Huh okay, h yes,
Speaker 2: you know that was that was my response at that
Speaker 2: point in my life was yes to everything, because you
Speaker 2: don't know what. Yeah, you don't know what. So I
Speaker 2: go down there and I meet these guys, Matt Williams,
Speaker 2: David mcfadzyan, and Carmen Finestra, and they had just come
Speaker 2: off the first season of Roseanne, okay, and they were
Speaker 2: they were fired. They were fired by Roseanne for telling
Speaker 2: her not to be mean to John Goodman. And she's going, well,
Speaker 2: this is my this is what I do, this is
Speaker 2: my gig. I go, well, America loves John Goodman. They're
Speaker 2: not going to like you. She fired them, and then
Speaker 2: she she took her advice. But so I'm meeting these
Speaker 2: guys and I, you know, I don't know how TV
Speaker 2: works or whatever, and I, you know, I cohersed them
Speaker 2: into writing a skit for the end of the two
Speaker 2: weeks of all these funny rectors, writers, actors, and we
Speaker 2: do this amazing skit and we're up till like two
Speaker 2: three o'clock in the morning writing the stuff. And if
Speaker 2: I had any idea of what these guys had gone
Speaker 2: through and what they go through, you know, doing a
Speaker 2: half hour TV sitcom every week where they you know,
Speaker 2: they're up to two and three o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2: This is their vacation. And I'm making that, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, like this is always And we did,
Speaker 2: we had we had a great time. I stayed in
Speaker 2: touch with them when I when I finally moved to
Speaker 2: California a few years later, I called them up and
Speaker 2: they were doing a show called Carolyn Company with Carol
Speaker 2: Burnette and they said, well, you know, there's there might
Speaker 2: be something and they and a few weeks later they
Speaker 2: call me and go, well, there's this little role we have.
Speaker 2: You know, Carolyn Company had a group of actors, you know,
Speaker 2: an ensemble of actors. Richard Kind was one of them.
Speaker 2: They had like five or six ensembles. But this was
Speaker 2: like a smaller role that the ensemble didn't care about
Speaker 2: or whatever. So I went and I did my few
Speaker 2: lines with Carol Burnett and I'm going, wow, this is
Speaker 2: this is the big time. This is pretty cool. And
Speaker 2: you know, we did the curtain call at the end
Speaker 2: of the show on Friday night and I'm holding Carol
Speaker 2: Burnett's hand, I'm going, wow, thank you guys. Thank you.
Speaker 2: And and then a year later, yes, I get a
Speaker 2: traffic citation.
Speaker 1: Driving around Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: I am doing a production of and you know, I'm
Speaker 2: not in a theater, but I still don't like to
Speaker 2: say it. I'm doing the Scottish Play in Shakespeare's Scottish Play,
Speaker 2: which has a lot of bad jujuka associated with it.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can read books on people who have died,
Speaker 2: who have gotten deathly sick, who have had accidents. There
Speaker 2: are stuff going on in that play because there apparently
Speaker 2: are real witch incantations associated with that play, The Three Witches.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 2: So I've finished rehearsal, I'm driving home and I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm on side streets and I you know,
Speaker 2: I know there's a stop sign, but then you know,
Speaker 2: my peripheral I see there's nothing going on. It's a
Speaker 2: side street, and I kind of roll through it. And
Speaker 2: the next thing I know, there's a cop behind me, Like, oh,
Speaker 2: oh god, I'm doing this play. This is my bad luck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, here it is it.
Speaker 2: I've you know, and I get a traffic ticket. And
Speaker 2: back then you couldn't do it online. There was no
Speaker 2: online to go to traffic school, which is an eight hour.
Speaker 1: School, yep, all day, and I sat next.
Speaker 2: To this woman who turned out to be an agent
Speaker 2: at the Girsch Agency, and we're talking, you know, we're
Speaker 2: talking about, oh who we know? You know, well, I
Speaker 2: did this thing with these guys. You know Matt Williams. Go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: we know Matt Williams. He's in fact, he's he's doing
Speaker 2: a new show right now. They're casting a new show
Speaker 2: called Home Improvement with this comic named Tim Melan. I go, well,
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think they would have called me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm talking to her. I'm not trying to get an
Speaker 2: age without trying to get an agent. But any I
Speaker 2: don't have an agent at this point. I'm doing a play.
Speaker 2: I'm just you know, in LA And I call up David.
Speaker 2: I go, David, I hear you guys are are auditioning
Speaker 2: for this new show. He goes, Rick, were there's nothing
Speaker 2: for you in this show. We know you. You're too much
Speaker 2: like Tim Allen. You're too much lik him. You're the
Speaker 2: same size, you're roughly the same age. You're just we
Speaker 2: needed somebody, you know, a little different, and we've already
Speaker 2: cast Stephen Tobolowski. You know, a life insurance salesman. And
Speaker 2: so he goes, but anyway, you know, you don't know
Speaker 2: our casting director, you know, So come in and meet
Speaker 2: Deborah Brolski and I go, great, I thank you. I
Speaker 2: would love that. And so they send me the scene,
Speaker 2: which is, you know the character of Glenn, Tim's assistant,
Speaker 2: Glenn doing this thing with a lathe. And I ask
Speaker 2: a friend, you know, can you kind of help me
Speaker 2: work on this. I never really had done that before,
Speaker 2: worked on an audition scene that intensely. And we worked
Speaker 2: it out and I go, oh, you know what, I'm
Speaker 2: working with the lathe. I think I'll make noises, you know,
Speaker 2: I'll go you know, you know when you're work with,
Speaker 2: when you work with Yah, you know, I did all
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. And I go in and there's
Speaker 2: Matt David Carmen. I know those guys. John passed when
Speaker 2: the director I'd been a reader for him for the
Speaker 2: Arena stage ten years earlier in New York. The only
Speaker 2: person in the room I didn't know was Deborah Brosky
Speaker 2: and I, you know, this is a scene they've seen
Speaker 2: a million times, it's already cast. They don't care, but
Speaker 2: they laugh. They you know, I'm doing this scene, they're laughing.
Speaker 2: I'm going I'm doing my job. And then John goes,
Speaker 2: can you make the lathes sound like a question? And
Speaker 2: I go, yes, I can because I have, you know,
Speaker 2: professional actor training, and so in my head I'm going, Okay,
Speaker 2: the lady's got a question. So I goes, you know
Speaker 2: when you work, when you're like that, and they were
Speaker 2: like falling on the ground. I have no idea. It
Speaker 2: wasn't that funny, but it was funny. But until later,
Speaker 2: when you know, I hear Tim and his grunts and
Speaker 2: his and then he has the yeah, good question. They
Speaker 2: were just you know, playing with me. They were screwing around.
Speaker 2: But I did it and they call me like three
Speaker 2: weeks later, and Carmen actually calls me. And I don't
Speaker 2: know if you know Carmen Finestra. He's about five one,
Speaker 2: five to two, he's he's he's and funniest guy. I mean,
Speaker 2: he worked on the Cosby Show, he worked on with
Speaker 2: Steve Marty's worked all these shows. And he calls me.
Speaker 2: He goes, so, Rick, do you still have that beard?
Speaker 2: And I had grown a beard for the Scottish play
Speaker 2: and I go yeah. I go, well, it seems that
Speaker 2: Steven is doing a play in New York and he
Speaker 2: can't do the pilot, and we were wondering if you could, yes, man,
Speaker 2: let him get it out. I go, yes, I can
Speaker 2: do that. He goes, well, now if the show gets
Speaker 2: picked up, we would still bring Steven in. And I go,
Speaker 2: I don't care. I don't have a I don't have
Speaker 2: a pilot on my resume. I you know, I've never
Speaker 2: done anything like that. I would love to do that,
Speaker 2: thank you. And the corner where I got that traffic
Speaker 2: ticket is where that agent lived. And the woman who
Speaker 2: played Lady M her husband was was comedy liaison at ABC.
Speaker 2: My god, there were always little, these little satellites around
Speaker 2: this job that. And I'm doing the job and we
Speaker 2: have ten days rehearsal, and the whole time, I'm going, God,
Speaker 2: this is so, this is this is gonna be a
Speaker 2: great show. It hasn't aired. You know, the audience is
Speaker 2: laving that hasn't aired, but I'm going, oh God, I
Speaker 2: wish I could be part of the Okay, but anyway,
Speaker 2: I get to do this and this is very cool.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if you knew this, but they
Speaker 2: changed the lead actress three days into rehearsals.
Speaker 1: No, I did not know that. So it wasn't Patricia's.
Speaker 2: It was and Im. And I'm blanking on her name
Speaker 2: right now. She was the mother in.
Speaker 1: Titanic, Francis Fisher.
Speaker 2: Francis Fisher, and that's why the boys are blonde, because
Speaker 2: Francis was a strawberry blonde.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. And so three days into rehearsal, or
Speaker 1: three days before shooting. So a week into rehearsal.
Speaker 2: Three days into rehearsal, we still had seven more days. Oh,
Speaker 2: and we have this little audience. They bring in an
Speaker 2: audience of, like, I don't know, fifteen people to watch
Speaker 2: a run through. And the next day Francis is gone.
Speaker 2: And this freaks me out as an actor. I'm going,
Speaker 2: are we that disposables? And I go to Karmen and go, Karmen,
Speaker 2: what just happened? What just happened? And I felt like
Speaker 2: I could do that because I'm going to be gone
Speaker 2: in a week. Doesn't I go, Carmen, you just fired.
Speaker 2: She's really good? He goes. I know she's good, but
Speaker 2: she wasn't getting the right laugh. I go, but she's
Speaker 2: an actress, she can get that laugh. All you just
Speaker 2: have to tell her, but no, no, it's something deeper
Speaker 2: than that. There's there's a scene. There's this scene where
Speaker 2: Tim is, uh, you know, the dishwasher that was the pilot.
Speaker 2: The dishwasher isn't cleaning well enough, and so he soups
Speaker 2: up the dishwasher. And so when Francis goes, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going out to the store, don't touch the dishwasher.
Speaker 2: And there was a laugh, but it was like it
Speaker 2: was it was a laugh like, oh, yeah, you better
Speaker 2: not touch the dishwall, right, and and Carmen goes, it
Speaker 2: wasn't the right kind of laugh, and I go, really
Speaker 2: you know this? I go and he goes, yes, I
Speaker 2: know this, And they bring Pat in and when she
Speaker 2: does that line with the next audience we have don't
Speaker 2: touch the dishwasher, they yeah.
Speaker 4: You're going to do that.
Speaker 2: This is going to be so great. It was it
Speaker 2: was like she was his equal. It wasn't a victim
Speaker 2: to Tim. She was his equal. And that's why it worked. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But you know, as a young actor, I couldn't have
Speaker 2: seen that. I didn't know what that meant, you know,
Speaker 2: but they they had, you know, they had time in
Speaker 2: this business to realize those kind of things.
Speaker 1: But those are the moments that I think of when
Speaker 1: I think of the biggest acting lessons of my career
Speaker 1: have all been watching someone else go through something like
Speaker 1: a director working with another actor and being like, oh,
Speaker 1: look the way they're doing that, and that they're giving
Speaker 1: that note, then watching the tweaks they make, and then
Speaker 1: you're able to.
Speaker 2: Like giving them a line reading.
Speaker 7: Yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a delicate balance.
Speaker 2: It's a very delicate balance. Yeah it is.
Speaker 1: So wait then how long?
Speaker 3: So you finished the pilot?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it's going to be amazing.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's amazing, it's hysterically amazing.
Speaker 3: But you also are told you're not going to be
Speaker 3: part of the show moving forward.
Speaker 1: Get it? Yeah, when do you find out?
Speaker 2: I go back. You know, I'm I'm the apartment manager
Speaker 2: at my building, oddly enough because I get free rent.
Speaker 1: Right, great, But you know, I don't think about this.
Speaker 2: Twenty years down the line, all of a sudden, I
Speaker 2: think I find of, go, huh, I'm getting paid nine
Speaker 2: hundred dollars a month to be the apartment manager. Well
Speaker 2: that was a pretty good deal for them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're retroactively pissed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I go back to my job and
Speaker 2: my auditions and this and that, and I go, god,
Speaker 2: you know, and now it's on my resume. I actually
Speaker 2: I call up the agent. I go, hey, I did
Speaker 2: the pilot for Home Improvement, thank you very much for
Speaker 2: telling me about that, and do you think you'd like
Speaker 2: to work with me? And go, well, you know, we
Speaker 2: have a lot of people like you. We have a
Speaker 2: lot of your type. And I don't think it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's not it's not you. It's us.
Speaker 1: Right, it's not you.
Speaker 2: It's not you, it's us. We have a lot like you.
Speaker 2: And I go okay, right, But like a month later
Speaker 2: or so, this, you know, we did. We rehearsed this
Speaker 2: in April, and I think they started up the show
Speaker 2: sometime in July, late July, late mid July. And I
Speaker 2: get another call and they go, Rick, apparently Stephen took
Speaker 2: another job and he can't do maybe the first two
Speaker 2: or three episodes. And I go, great, I'm there, no problem.
Speaker 2: I am so there. And I show up and I'm
Speaker 2: a guest star. I'm not you know, I'm just a
Speaker 2: guest star. And they everything is kind of like written down.
Speaker 2: There's no you know, there's no exploratory part of who this,
Speaker 2: who this guy is, who this is? Because I'm not
Speaker 2: going to be there for very long. So all of
Speaker 2: my early first few episodes was really just kind of
Speaker 2: you know, listening body language, reacting to Tim not doing
Speaker 2: a lot. But the audience was getting it. The audience
Speaker 2: was laughing at our kind of subliminal relationship going on there.
Speaker 2: And there came a point third episode maybe or something
Speaker 2: like that, where Tim had had this joke and I
Speaker 2: think it was something like, hey, al yeah, you think
Speaker 2: they call it molding because it's been a the refrigerator
Speaker 2: too long, you know. And I'm just there to let
Speaker 2: Tim have that laugh, you know, So I let the
Speaker 2: audience laugh. You know, I don't do anything. I just
Speaker 2: I just relaxed my face. I don't do anything. And
Speaker 2: then I'm about to say my line, my retort line,
Speaker 2: which was nothing really and before I say that, the
Speaker 2: audience laughs again, and I go, oh, no, I wasn't
Speaker 2: milking that. I didn't mean to melk that. But that's
Speaker 2: a nice laugh. That's a really that's a relationships laugh,
Speaker 2: you know. And then I went, I don't think so
Speaker 2: Tim and Mack got a big laugh, and all day long,
Speaker 2: the writers would walk by me and go, you did
Speaker 2: yourself a favor there. So I had like three lines
Speaker 2: and I go, yeah, thank you, thank you. That felt good,
Speaker 2: you know. And the audience hasn't seen the show yet,
Speaker 2: it hasn't hired, so all of these things are happening
Speaker 2: because it's funny. And that's the audience knew who we
Speaker 2: were before we knew who we were. And the writers
Speaker 2: were watching that, watching them watch us, and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden it just clicked for them. They went, you
Speaker 2: know what this is. This is working. Yeah, this is working.
Speaker 2: We do you know, I'm sorry, Steven, but we we
Speaker 2: found this and and you know, later on when I
Speaker 2: cognizantly the thing back on on. You know, the early
Speaker 2: stuff was like I got to help create the character
Speaker 2: without having to be placed into a character that was
Speaker 2: already written.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they were watching the audience watch us, they were
Speaker 2: watching me. I was doing stuff. I did what they
Speaker 2: did they did, you know, they played off mine what
Speaker 2: I was doing, and you know, it was like it
Speaker 2: was the best of all worlds. It's the best way
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 4: I mean that's yeah, workshopping basically, right, like workshopping account
Speaker 4: I was workshopped that's so.
Speaker 1: Great, so fun, and all the pressure was off because
Speaker 1: you didn't think you had the job. You thought, there's
Speaker 1: no there's no chance this is mine. It's I didn't
Speaker 1: have to.
Speaker 2: Go through the gauntlet of a network. I didn't have
Speaker 2: to go through the network auditions where they look at
Speaker 2: you and go, oh, he's not tall, I don't know
Speaker 2: his face doesn't work with the Canada well whatever it
Speaker 2: is that you know, the network would say. I didn't
Speaker 2: have to do any of that. I was just I
Speaker 2: was already there. Wow.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. And of course Steven Tablowski has gone on to
Speaker 1: also have an incredible career there working.
Speaker 2: I never ever I ran into a met arts DELI
Speaker 2: did you I did, And I went up to it
Speaker 2: and I go excuse me, and I didn't know what
Speaker 2: to say. Mister Dolblowska is. I just said excuse me
Speaker 2: and he looks up and he goes, oh my god, oh.
Speaker 1: Job.
Speaker 2: Believe I didn't take that job, And I thank you
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 1: I so great. I worked with him on Lopez Versus Lopez.
Speaker 1: I got to direct him on that show, and man,
Speaker 1: is he ever just the nicest, funniest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's really funny. He's really funny.
Speaker 2: Well, he would have been funny. It would have been
Speaker 2: a very.
Speaker 5: Different show, totally different, way different, the way different.
Speaker 1: You know, everything worked out the way it was supposed to.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, So the.
Speaker 1: Show remained in the Nielsen top ten for six straight years,
Speaker 1: and in its third season, it was the number one
Speaker 1: show in America, averaging thirty four point one million viewers. No,
Speaker 1: I mean a number that's truly laughable now, considering you're
Speaker 1: lucky to get you know, three million.
Speaker 2: You know, we were up against Seinfelder in the first season. Really,
Speaker 2: they moved Seinfeld. They moved them to Thursday night and
Speaker 2: created musty Thursday Night TV. Yeah right, right. We stayed
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays or Wednesdays whenever we were.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, you owned that night. I mean that was
Speaker 5: Improvement at Night. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2: But later they put Fraser up against us. Oh okay,
Speaker 2: you know why they would do that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's just they make they make when networks make weird
Speaker 1: decisions sometimes. Yeah. So, how does life change for you?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 1: In that after that first season of Home Improvement, are
Speaker 1: you just recognized everywhere you go? How does life change?
Speaker 2: It's like a snowball. It just gets bigger and bigger. Well,
Speaker 2: like I said, I was an apartment manager and into
Speaker 2: into you know the show has aired, and I get
Speaker 2: a phone call one night and then you know, our
Speaker 2: our kitchen sink is stopped up. Can you come take
Speaker 2: a look at it? And I go down there and
Speaker 2: there's like fifteen people in their apartment and going you
Speaker 2: see el Borland's our apartment manager. And I just looked
Speaker 2: at it. I went, oh my god, I don't need
Speaker 2: this job anymore. I can get another.
Speaker 1: I can give up this nine hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I can pay for rent now. And my
Speaker 2: son was born the first season. Cooper was born in
Speaker 2: March of our first season.
Speaker 3: Oh and that was what year was the first season?
Speaker 2: Was it ninety Well we did the pilot in ninety one,
Speaker 2: but it was ninety one ninety two season.
Speaker 3: Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 1: And so March of ninety two, your son.
Speaker 2: March of ninety two. Cooper marched fourth on March.
Speaker 5: So I have I have a quick story for you.
Speaker 5: It's I don't know if you're if you have any
Speaker 5: of these in your life, but there are moments in
Speaker 5: your life that stick with you because when you think
Speaker 5: about them, you get embarrassed all over again.
Speaker 2: Yeah you go, oh my god, I hope no one's
Speaker 2: looking at me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you you were one of mine.
Speaker 5: You are so uh the first so as you remember ABC,
Speaker 5: the coolest things is they would have the opening party
Speaker 5: every year and they would like send us all there
Speaker 5: the party be some cool place. And the first year
Speaker 5: I think I went, it was at the Librea tar Pits,
Speaker 5: and it was like the coolest thing in the world.
Speaker 5: And I was new to Hollywood.
Speaker 3: I just got in here. We just gotten boy Mes World.
Speaker 3: It hadn't aired yet, its just shooting.
Speaker 5: I was a huge home improvement fan and I at
Speaker 5: one point I'm talking to somebody and I look over
Speaker 5: and you're standing there, and so I'm seventeen, I think
Speaker 5: at the time, and I just stare at you in
Speaker 5: such a creepy way and for so long that eventually
Speaker 5: you look at me and walk over and extend your
Speaker 5: hand to introduce yourself, because I was just the creepy
Speaker 5: kid staring at you. And to this day, every time
Speaker 5: I think about it, I still get retroactively embarrassed for
Speaker 5: myself and how nice you were to walk over that
Speaker 5: It was a good fifteen to me, just staring and
Speaker 5: it was, hey, kids, stop staring to where you left
Speaker 5: your conversation to walk over to shake my hand in
Speaker 5: such a nice way. But I know the subtext was
Speaker 5: if I don't do this, this creep is going to
Speaker 5: follow me home.
Speaker 7: Yes, so, oh my god, still embarrassed, but so thank
Speaker 7: you for taking the time to at least come over
Speaker 7: and shake a seventeen year old kid's hand who was
Speaker 7: wide eyed and just staring at you from across the room.
Speaker 3: So I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: And you guys know the process of accumulating celebritiness or recognizability.
Speaker 2: And you know, I realized early on that you know,
Speaker 2: you either have to be okay with this or you're
Speaker 2: gonna be upset all the time.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, you know.
Speaker 2: And I'm I don't want to be upset all the
Speaker 2: time totally. You know, I'm wanting other people, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: have fights or or you know, punch out a camera
Speaker 2: man or something that and like, wow, you know, just
Speaker 2: just own up, just you.
Speaker 3: Know, be nice, Go do something else.
Speaker 5: If this, if you're gonna be if you're gonna be
Speaker 5: mean to your own fans, go pick another job.
Speaker 3: Go do something else.
Speaker 2: Well, when I did theater, you know, and I'd go
Speaker 2: off to Actors Theater Louisville or Players Theater and Columbus
Speaker 2: where people would come up to me and they say, oh,
Speaker 2: we saw the play last week. It was really fun,
Speaker 2: you know, and they'd be like maybe one two people.
Speaker 2: And then it just started to accumulate more and more
Speaker 2: and I and at first I was a little embarrassed
Speaker 2: about it by it. I'm you know, I'm not worthy.
Speaker 2: I don't you know, I'm I'm in my little bubble,
Speaker 2: my little you know. We're on the show, and we
Speaker 2: were rehearsed, and we're doing our job and and people
Speaker 2: are all of a sudden watching us with their families,
Speaker 2: and it's becoming more than just us. It's becoming it's
Speaker 2: becomeing their you know, their childhood, their memory of a
Speaker 2: simpler time where they sat with their grandparents or their
Speaker 2: parents or brothers and sisters. And that's what it is now.
Speaker 2: It's not it's not me, it's their memory of our show.
Speaker 1: In the off season. Would you ever shave just to
Speaker 1: be able to not be as recognizable?
Speaker 2: I didn't know. And this is why it was, because
Speaker 2: I was getting commercials and I was like, of the
Speaker 2: mind Cooper's just born college, I'm going to do these commercials.
Speaker 2: And I go and if I do these commercials, you know,
Speaker 2: most major emotion pictures might be out of the I'm
Speaker 2: okay with that, you know. I make this decision like
Speaker 2: I'm okay without having to be Tom Cruise like I
Speaker 2: would be Cruise. You know. I made this decision, and
Speaker 2: I had like major companies. You know. I represented a
Speaker 2: garage door company. I represented Orchard Support that was big, yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, and they needed me to look like
Speaker 2: me now on the business side of the of the thing.
Speaker 2: Disney equated that with them giving me a raise, Like
Speaker 2: we don't need to give you a raise because we're
Speaker 2: letting you do commercials.
Speaker 3: Yo, that's so Disney.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. I mean I eventually got a raise,
Speaker 2: and you know, I didn't get my likeness back in
Speaker 2: a plaid shirt till the final season.
Speaker 1: They allowed you weren't allowed to wear a plaid shirt.
Speaker 2: Well, I had to get permission. Wow, Yeah, that's the.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I still don't have my likeness.
Speaker 5: So I uh, none of us do I know?
Speaker 1: Perfect that's what we get?
Speaker 2: Are you guys? Worried about AI. Can they Can they
Speaker 2: just do that? Or do you have some some authority
Speaker 2: over that?
Speaker 1: No, you're probably right. I think I think my actual
Speaker 1: contact my contract, I did get that. I got a
Speaker 1: I got my original contract, and it says that they
Speaker 1: own my likeness in on any planet, in any universe.
Speaker 3: Any university.
Speaker 1: Yeah literally beyond. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's good with
Speaker 1: those tie it all together.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I wasn't a talk show I mean
Speaker 2: a game show host.
Speaker 1: So Will and I would commit a felony to have
Speaker 1: had your job that.
Speaker 5: Oh man, two seconds, Danielle and I have to host
Speaker 5: some sort of a game show?
Speaker 1: Yes, oh my gosh, what is that experience?
Speaker 2: Like? I you know, I kind of turned it down
Speaker 2: at first, why because it was so in that field.
Speaker 2: It was like a game show. I'm an Antley Feud,
Speaker 2: I know, I know. But this is the thing I had.
Speaker 2: I had done a pilot of to tell the Truth
Speaker 2: as one of the panelists, you know, with Paula Pattone
Speaker 2: and me and two other you know, I can't think
Speaker 2: of their names, but and John O'Hurley was the host.
Speaker 2: They were they were really bringing out to tell the truth.
Speaker 2: And I did that, and the pilot got picked up.
Speaker 2: The show got picked up, and they asked me if
Speaker 2: I'd like to continue with it, and I went, now,
Speaker 2: I don't think I want to do a game show.
Speaker 2: And then a year later they called me and said,
Speaker 2: would you like to host Family Feud? And I go wow,
Speaker 2: really gosh, And I'm like, I'm doing something for Orchard
Speaker 2: Hardware up near San Francisco, somewhere yet up there, and
Speaker 2: I'm in a bar and I turned to this person
Speaker 2: next to me at the bar and I go, hey,
Speaker 2: how you doing. They go, oh my god, you're Richard Carr.
Speaker 2: I go, yeah, what would you think if I did
Speaker 2: a game show? And they went, well, nah, you don't
Speaker 2: want to do that, you know, just some random person, right.
Speaker 2: They go, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1: I think I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2: You're right, you know. And I go back and I
Speaker 2: say no, I don't like and then it's like they
Speaker 2: all it's not like they ganged up on me, but
Speaker 2: they all went, well, you know, you've been doing family TV,
Speaker 2: you did family movies. This is just another family venue
Speaker 2: you can do, which might be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: And I'm and I'm thinking, uh, yeah, okay, all right,
Speaker 2: I'm in. I'm in. I'm good it. You know, I'll
Speaker 2: do it, and you know, if I decide to do it,
Speaker 2: I'm doing it.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm you're committing.
Speaker 2: I'm committing. And so in the other side of my brain,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, okay, this is me. Uh, I gotta be funny.
Speaker 2: I got to come up with stuff, and they had writers,
Speaker 2: they had a writer, you know, to come up with things.
Speaker 2: It doesn't work for that show because everything happens in
Speaker 2: the moment. Yeah, you can't. You know, you can't predecide
Speaker 2: what you know. You can write a joke about that question,
Speaker 2: but it might not have anything to do with their answer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's what's it called the crowd work. It's crowd
Speaker 1: work basically the people directly in front of you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So you know you just have to go, Okay,
Speaker 2: I can't. These jokes aren't working for me. I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna you know, I'll try and be funny. If I'm not,
Speaker 2: we'll just play the game, you know. So, so it
Speaker 2: was like stand up with a safety net. If I
Speaker 2: couldn't think of something, we just played the game. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but there was always something and it happened in real time,
Speaker 2: so I could never remember it because my mind is
Speaker 2: working in real time, so I you know, I would
Speaker 2: clock that something was funny at the end of the show,
Speaker 2: go there was something funny. Can I don't remember what
Speaker 2: it was? And they go, oh, it was you know.
Speaker 2: So I never had a firm grasp on all the
Speaker 2: funny little things that happened until I made them go back.
Speaker 2: And you know, I said, you guys should do bloopers
Speaker 2: or something, you know, you know, and come up with
Speaker 2: the funny stuff.
Speaker 1: So that's did you good to have any hand in
Speaker 1: the editing? Because sometimes I think about, like if you
Speaker 1: were making like when you're it's like improv and stand
Speaker 1: up comedy mixed with also hosting job and sometimes when
Speaker 1: you're just talking off the cuff like that, did you
Speaker 1: have any saying like you know what, I may have
Speaker 1: said that, oh, you didn't have any sation.
Speaker 2: But you know I had replaced Louis Anderson. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: Louie is a very very funny guy, but he's also
Speaker 2: a very large guy. He couldn't move. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: why he stayed at the podium so much. He couldn't
Speaker 2: get around, and all of his comedy took time, and
Speaker 2: so a lot of it got edited out. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: and I realized that, you know, we don't have a
Speaker 2: lot of time. We have three minutes less than Network
Speaker 2: because we were already syndicated, so we instead of twenty
Speaker 2: two minutes, we had nineteen. So all of all of
Speaker 2: what I was trying to do was speed up the
Speaker 2: game part or the stuff so that I would have
Speaker 2: time like it looked like I had time to be
Speaker 2: you know, conversationally and off the cup and this and that.
Speaker 2: You know, I kind of worked on that in a
Speaker 2: in a weird kind of a way, but I didn't
Speaker 2: get to help edit or that was that was a
Speaker 2: whole nother thing. And you know, bravo to you for
Speaker 2: you know, becoming a director, because that much authority was
Speaker 2: just too much to a weight on my on my mind.
Speaker 2: That's why I never, you know, really truly did that. Well.
Speaker 1: The good the good news is, at least in sitcom,
Speaker 1: although you are the leader on the set, ultimately it's
Speaker 1: not the director's medium. I'm I'm making the showrunners dreams
Speaker 1: come true, and I'm working with the actors to make
Speaker 1: that happen. And so unlike on a movie set where
Speaker 1: it's just all in your hands and your vision. There's
Speaker 1: a there's a nice happy medium where I still have
Speaker 1: to answer to somebody else on a on a sitcom set.
Speaker 1: Are you I noticed.
Speaker 2: That that John pass One was was a step of that.
Speaker 2: I mean he had he had a lot more pull
Speaker 2: and how things got got edited and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Pasquin is amazing. I was interviewed by him in order
Speaker 1: to get the job over at Shifting Gears. Uh, And
Speaker 1: he he came by and and would watch me work
Speaker 1: and ask me questions about why I was doing things
Speaker 1: the way I was doing them, and he he gave
Speaker 1: me input. He made my episode better. Yeah, Pasquin is.
Speaker 2: That is so cool, phenomenal. I learned Jonathan is trying
Speaker 2: to do that too.
Speaker 1: I know Jonathan came to set with me when I
Speaker 1: directed my episode of Shifting Gears and he's he absolutely
Speaker 1: would want me to tell you hello, I'm still very
Speaker 1: close to Jonathan. I don't know when the last time
Speaker 1: was you saw or spoke to him, but we're still
Speaker 1: very good friends. Yeah. Yeah, you guys need to have
Speaker 1: a reunion. Do you have When was the last time
Speaker 1: you saw or spoke to Tim?
Speaker 2: Well, how don't you seen the internet. A CBS is
Speaker 2: offering us a billion dollars?
Speaker 1: What what? Oh, yeah, I've see this.
Speaker 2: Oh it's clickbait. It's it's totally clear. Ba nice. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like, really a billion dollars.
Speaker 3: We're not familiar with the clickbait articles. We don't know
Speaker 3: it too well.
Speaker 2: Go on, go on to Facebook or whatever and say
Speaker 2: CBS home Improvement one billion dollars and it'll come.
Speaker 1: It'll come out.
Speaker 2: Love it.
Speaker 1: Well. One other thing I wanted to talk to you about.
Speaker 1: We had Debbie Dunning on the show recently, and I
Speaker 1: know you too are doing some conventions together and golf
Speaker 1: tournaments together with new fans all around the world. Did
Speaker 1: you ever think you would still be talking about home
Speaker 1: improvement thirty years later, the same way we are still
Speaker 1: talking about Boy Meets World thirty years later.
Speaker 2: I don't think I that did not compute. You know.
Speaker 2: It was like, because we don't have that in our life.
Speaker 2: We don't, you know now that we're now that I'm older,
Speaker 2: I can look back and go, oh, yeah, okay, I
Speaker 2: can see how all that is. But you know, trying
Speaker 2: to project that for thirty years people, you know, we
Speaker 2: we I started out without social media without the Internet,
Speaker 2: and then it happened after Home Improvement, right, right, So
Speaker 2: all of these actors from okay, we'll say two thousand
Speaker 2: and five on on all these new shows had the
Speaker 2: benefit of our experience because we'll throw it up there
Speaker 2: online and go, you know, this is how I fell out.
Speaker 2: This is what happened, and they can learn from that.
Speaker 2: We had nothing to learn from except, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: some articles in Pop teen magazine or whatever. But I
Speaker 2: didn't read those, and so I didn't really have a
Speaker 2: you know, context for what this was going to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I can tell you in Team Beat, all
Speaker 1: they really talked about was our favorite pizza toppings. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: It wasn't some real you know, education journalism articles.
Speaker 2: So you know, did you read any of Jonathan's Because
Speaker 2: he was like a fifty year old man in a
Speaker 2: twelve year old body. He might have thrown some of
Speaker 2: that stuff in there.
Speaker 1: I know. Jonathan wanted us to get matching minivans as
Speaker 1: our first cars. Jonathan, No, I do not want a minivan.
Speaker 1: Let alone won that matches none of mine he got
Speaker 1: he got we did. I got a Forerunner and he
Speaker 1: got the Toyota Land cruiser, So we did get mad.
Speaker 1: They were they were like, you know, his and hers.
Speaker 3: Not not not bashing minivans by the way.
Speaker 1: You know, you know I where loves min He keeps
Speaker 1: telling me that he wants me to get a minivan.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, Scooby Doo had the mystery machine he
Speaker 2: did exactly.
Speaker 1: Richard, Where can people see you?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: What are you working on? What do people what do
Speaker 1: you want people to know? Where can where can we
Speaker 1: send people who want to catch over you?
Speaker 2: Okay, I've become an influencer for Natty Light, doing stuff
Speaker 2: for do my own, which is yard maintenance. I'm doing
Speaker 2: the pocket hose. I'm doing a little movie in Michigan
Speaker 2: in September where I play a sheriff that's kind of
Speaker 2: on the shady side. You know, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: just I show up and do stuff.
Speaker 1: But you know, what's a pocket hose?
Speaker 3: Pocket hocket hose, pucket hose? O, my god, what.
Speaker 2: Pock Totally different podcast?
Speaker 5: Okay, it's a tiny prostitute you carry around?
Speaker 1: How do you not know.
Speaker 3: This in your pocket?
Speaker 1: When you guys are saying pocket hose, Like that's much
Speaker 1: more clear. What is a pocket?
Speaker 2: It's a small hose that you get, a hose that
Speaker 2: expands when you put water through it.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's tiny and so it can fit in your pocket.
Speaker 1: It's a pocket hose in their pocket.
Speaker 2: Well, now you're you know now because you've talked about
Speaker 2: it around your phone, it's gonna it's gonna pop up
Speaker 2: in all your Oh.
Speaker 1: Have tiny little prostitutes coming in your house.
Speaker 2: Listen, I have to go. I have to go be
Speaker 2: an important actor right now. I gotta go.
Speaker 1: So much for being here with us. It's always a
Speaker 1: joy to see you, so much fun to talk about.
Speaker 1: You have an incredible career, an incredible story. Thank you
Speaker 1: for being with us.
Speaker 2: We'll call me back and we can finish the conversation
Speaker 2: at some other point.
Speaker 1: I would love that. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Take care. Bye.
Speaker 1: You guys said pocket it's a pocket hose. You gotta know.
Speaker 5: A pocket You just saw these tiny little prostitutes anything.
Speaker 1: He was saying after it.
Speaker 2: Like what I mean?
Speaker 4: It actually just sounds like the name for a great
Speaker 4: sex toy, right, like a pocket a pocket hoe.
Speaker 1: Why would you need a hose in your pocket?
Speaker 5: No, it's just it it comes in a little like
Speaker 5: it the entire hose.
Speaker 1: Again, what is the what how does this benefit means
Speaker 1: a hose be normal sized because then it takes.
Speaker 5: Up a ton of space, whereas this one takes up
Speaker 5: this amount of space and you hit the water and
Speaker 5: then it inflates to like full size. And then when
Speaker 5: you put water in a regular size prostitute and it
Speaker 5: gets to be a big sized prostitute like that same
Speaker 5: thing exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, thank you all for joining us for this
Speaker 1: episode of Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send
Speaker 1: us your emails Podmeets World Show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: And we've gotten merched.
Speaker 3: Well, it's got to be pocket hose, I mean not,
Speaker 3: can it not be? You know, little prostitutes from all
Speaker 3: around the world pocket hose merch.
Speaker 5: Daniel still cannot wrap her head around a tiny little
Speaker 5: prostitute just hanging out, just sitting there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Podmeets Worldshow dot com writer, send us out. We
Speaker 1: love you all, pod dismissed.
Speaker 4: Pod Meets World is an iHeart podcast producer hosted by
Speaker 4: Danielle Fischel, Wilfordell and Ryder Strong Executive producers Jensen Karp
Speaker 4: and Amy Sugarman Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo,
Speaker 4: producer and editor, Tarasubash producer, Maddie Moore engineer and Boy
Speaker 4: Meets World Superman Easton out. Our theme song is by
Speaker 4: Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at Podmets
Speaker 4: World Show or email us at podmetsworldshowat gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: M