Speaker 1: Danielle.
Speaker 2: I'm a little nervous to start my lego set, really, yes,
Speaker 2: I just because I haven't done legos in a long time,
Speaker 2: and I'm not a huge puzzle guy. Susan loves puzzles,
Speaker 2: so it seems like a daunting task to me.
Speaker 3: Do you want to come over? We can start it together.
Speaker 1: Sure, you've got so much free time.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it don't have to be at midnight.
Speaker 2: But I no, I haven't done legos in so long,
Speaker 2: and I like the box is literally sitting next to
Speaker 2: the table and I keep walking by it, like do
Speaker 2: I want to do this?
Speaker 1: I want to do this?
Speaker 4: No, legos are super easy there, like puzzles.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because like puzzles, really, you know, it's like it
Speaker 5: starts off so overwhelming. Yes, it only gets easier as
Speaker 5: it goes, Like by hour six of a puzzle, you're
Speaker 5: finally like, oh now, no, but but legos, you really
Speaker 5: it does go bag by bag and it's.
Speaker 1: The face of constru Did you do your lego thing yet?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: I haven't done it.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: Indy and I we did a lot of legos back
Speaker 4: in the day, which meant I did a lot of legos.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 5: He sat next to me, and then he got obsessed
Speaker 5: with just the characters. He just wanted to play with
Speaker 5: the figures and dress them up, so he was like
Speaker 5: a doll lego player, you know. He never really did
Speaker 5: the sets. So I've been telling him. I'm like, dude,
Speaker 5: we have to do the Jaws thing. We have to
Speaker 5: sit down and do it. So, yeah, you reminded me.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna bring it.
Speaker 2: I was going to do it the other day and
Speaker 2: I walked by it and I'm like, oh, it seems
Speaker 2: like a lot of pieces and a lot of stuff,
Speaker 2: and then I get I'm like, I'm not opening the bus.
Speaker 7: Because, like writer said, you can sit down and say
Speaker 7: I'm just going to do one bag right now, and
Speaker 7: you just just complete the one bag and then you're like, okay,
Speaker 7: I did my lego for today. And of course, if
Speaker 7: you're on a roll and you love it, you can
Speaker 7: open up the second bag. But I I especially those
Speaker 7: big ones, I don't sit and do it unless I
Speaker 7: can say like, okay, I'm going to commit to at
Speaker 7: least this many bags. But then it's great because that's
Speaker 7: a good stopping point, you know, and there's like it's
Speaker 7: it's really easy.
Speaker 5: I did super soothing. It's not like puzzle, like there's
Speaker 5: no anxiety.
Speaker 2: It's just all right because I get my soothing from
Speaker 2: like when I painted Minis, I got soothing, so hopefully.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, that's.
Speaker 3: I will also come over and and just.
Speaker 2: Start, you know, just get to door at midnight, like,
Speaker 2: come on, let's start with I'm exhausted.
Speaker 3: Come on, I've had two hours of sleep. I'm ready
Speaker 3: to start another project.
Speaker 2: I think we should start another podcast about like, my gosh,
Speaker 2: does everybody think let's start the Lego podcast Pod meets Lego.
Speaker 7: Lego meets World, leg meets World, Lego Pod Meets World.
Speaker 1: Nice?
Speaker 4: World's nice?
Speaker 1: I think that job? Have they? Has anybody ever done?
Speaker 2: Haven't I seen somewhere somebody did a Lego boy Meets World.
Speaker 7: The guy was trying to get Yeah, you can get
Speaker 7: enough votes, they Lego will take it into consideration. Somebody
Speaker 7: had had done a really cool boy Meet's World set.
Speaker 3: I know I did like that. That would be fun.
Speaker 2: Well again, Pop came out with Corey and Tapanga and
Speaker 2: we signed Pops Everywhere And okay, all right, should there
Speaker 2: be an Eric and Sean?
Speaker 4: Of course?
Speaker 1: Should there be a place with squirrels?
Speaker 2: Of course, but how do you not do a Feenie?
Speaker 2: I know, how do you not have Corey Topanga and
Speaker 2: Feenie as another pop?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 1: I don't again, I'm the pop guy.
Speaker 2: You see him behind me, and I keep all the
Speaker 2: characters I've ever done, and so I of course want
Speaker 2: an Eric pop or a place with.
Speaker 1: Girrels podest But how is PHOENI not the next one?
Speaker 1: You do like you've gotta be kidding, you gotta be
Speaker 1: kidding me.
Speaker 2: Let's get it together. Funko love you. I love you
Speaker 2: more than anything.
Speaker 1: Funko. You are my favorite.
Speaker 3: You're around, reach out to them, will reach out to them.
Speaker 4: You are the people.
Speaker 2: See every time you and Jensen, every time you could
Speaker 2: say the most esoteric thing and you're like, oh, I
Speaker 2: know a guy were I don't know anybody at Funko.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what, it doesn't matter what it is
Speaker 2: for you and Jensen, you know the person and to
Speaker 2: get it done.
Speaker 7: I'm not like that, but like, just look up google Funko,
Speaker 7: pr or and and search some names.
Speaker 3: Random cold email.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, just so just cold call Funko. In my head,
Speaker 2: there's a tiny little body with a giant head answering
Speaker 2: the phone, like, can I help you?
Speaker 3: I do know someone who used to work at Funko.
Speaker 6: There you go.
Speaker 1: That's I told you, told you.
Speaker 6: There you go.
Speaker 1: Reach out to this joke.
Speaker 2: Susan and I always joked that if there's a phone
Speaker 2: call in the middle of the night asking for something
Speaker 2: like you got to get this or you're gonna die,
Speaker 2: you and Jensen are our first call because you always
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter what it is. I need a golden
Speaker 2: drumstick that's actually made of pez and Gens' is like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I know, I got the best golden drumstick.
Speaker 2: Guy Like, it's ridiculous, everybody, So get it, get it done.
Speaker 2: Danielle and Kay all right, all right, all right, the
Speaker 2: lego set and I need some Funko pops, So let's go.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Von World.
Speaker 2: I'm daniel Fischle, I'm writer strong, and I know Danielle Fischle,
Speaker 2: I'm gol for do.
Speaker 7: As we find ourselves winding down with recaps slightly confused
Speaker 7: with the final season of Boy Meets World, we know
Speaker 7: the only way to fully understand our show's last few
Speaker 7: heartbeats is to dig even deeper into the writer's room,
Speaker 7: and somehow even after hundreds of episodes, we still have
Speaker 7: some unturned stones.
Speaker 3: I can't believe it either.
Speaker 7: And while some of our guests have Boy Meets World
Speaker 7: as the shining centerpiece of their IMDb page, our guest
Speaker 7: this week went right from Feenie's teary eyed classroom to
Speaker 7: creating Reba, her own smash hit sitcom within a year.
Speaker 7: But before that, she wrote four Boy Meets World episodes.
Speaker 7: Season six is Cutting the Cord and the Truth about Honesty,
Speaker 7: and season seven, You Light Up My Union, and the
Speaker 7: yet to be reviewed The War, which we may have
Speaker 7: to bring her back for. Her other credits include Home Improvement,
Speaker 7: Sister Sister, Two Guys, A Girl in a Pizza Place,
Speaker 7: and most recently, Awkward. But today we are asking her
Speaker 7: to rewind twenty five years and recall everything she can
Speaker 7: about the TGIF show where she decided to have me
Speaker 7: sing war for a tag. Welcome to Podmeats World. Writer
Speaker 7: and producer Allison M.
Speaker 3: Gibson.
Speaker 7: Hi, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 6: I'm so happy to see you guys again. Last time
Speaker 6: I saw you, we were carrying little signs and walking
Speaker 6: around the block.
Speaker 3: This is so much more enjoyable.
Speaker 7: We are knee deep in season seven, and we have
Speaker 7: a lot of lay of the land questions, so we
Speaker 7: hope you have a superhuman memory.
Speaker 6: You know, I have a superhuman memory. I rewatched and
Speaker 6: I even took notes. Yes, loved us. There were things
Speaker 6: that surprised me, so I needed to go back and
Speaker 6: go what I can't believe that?
Speaker 7: Okay, well, first let's talk about your start in these writers' rooms.
Speaker 3: Was your career goal to always be a comedy writer.
Speaker 6: I came out to Los Angeles to write television, so
Speaker 6: I actually got jobs writing as a or as a
Speaker 6: writer's assistant in drama rooms first. So I was writing
Speaker 6: spec scripts on my nights and weekends, and I wrote
Speaker 6: drama specs and comedy specs, and I just got my
Speaker 6: break in comedy. But I think I always wanted to
Speaker 6: be in comedy. A big fan of the Mary Tyler
Speaker 6: Moore Show and a lot of those genre where she
Speaker 6: sort of like broke the world open for women and
Speaker 6: being independent in the entertainment industry. So I loved comedy,
Speaker 6: and a lot of comedy writers transition into drama, but
Speaker 6: usually the drama writers don't go the other way. So
Speaker 6: I felt like I had that option right, So it
Speaker 6: translates a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, they do say it's easier to make somebody
Speaker 2: cry than it is to make them laugh, but who
Speaker 2: knows if it's the same in the writing world.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I can make myself cry and laugh sitting
Speaker 6: at the computer, and that's what I love to do.
Speaker 7: We've talked with a few of the other female writers,
Speaker 7: like Barbie Feldman, Susan Estelle Jansen, who have all detailed
Speaker 7: about how difficult it was for women to break into these.
Speaker 3: Boys clubs back then.
Speaker 7: It's almost like you had a second job just to
Speaker 7: assimilate and go along with the fart jokes.
Speaker 3: Was that difficult in your experience?
Speaker 6: You know? It's very interesting. I speak fluent sports, and
Speaker 6: I remember I had interviewed for this show twice one
Speaker 6: year earlier. A few years on. I remember coming in
Speaker 6: and there was like seven women, ten women in the hallway,
Speaker 6: and I thought, oh, that's going to be interesting. And
Speaker 6: I was ill prepared for that meeting for a variety
Speaker 6: of reasons. Back then you had to just sit down
Speaker 6: and you could didn't necessarily have all the tapes, and
Speaker 6: you hadn't seen everything. And when I came in for
Speaker 6: this interview. I remember they were all talking about the Lakers,
Speaker 6: Tishlar and Jacobs and Manel and I'm a rabid sports
Speaker 6: fan and my dad had season tickets to the Rockets,
Speaker 6: and I went to football games since I was two
Speaker 6: years old. So I just walked in talking sports, And
Speaker 6: to be honest, I think that helps. And I'm comfortable
Speaker 6: in that environment. So you look back now in the
Speaker 6: lens about some of the ways we turned ourselves a
Speaker 6: little pretzeled ourselves to fit in, and I see that now.
Speaker 6: I didn't see it then. I just thought, this is
Speaker 6: mostly a man's world. This is what these guys talk about.
Speaker 6: I've been around this. It doesn't scare me. And so
Speaker 6: I'm coming and strong with that. Yeah, and I really
Speaker 6: think I got the job. I mean, they had great
Speaker 6: staff that read people ahead of time before you got
Speaker 6: in these meetings. But I also thought I walked in
Speaker 6: and I can hang with the boys, and that that
Speaker 6: really was a requirement. Yeah. However, that's the show with
Speaker 6: the most women I've ever had on a staff in
Speaker 6: my entire career.
Speaker 7: So yeah, those later seasons had the most amount of women.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and now I came in at co producer and
Speaker 6: I believe I was the highest level woman for both
Speaker 6: of those two years, which is not that high when
Speaker 6: you think about it, right, right, So, but yeah, but
Speaker 6: there were a lot of us, and so there was
Speaker 6: you know, that voice was in there. Yeah, But I
Speaker 6: came in at a time too, so come in in
Speaker 6: a season six. There was a bit of a boys
Speaker 6: club there, right, and all of those men had been
Speaker 6: there forever, and frankly, you guys had been there forever.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Like I felt like, I don't even know if we
Speaker 6: ever got properly introduced. You just sort of get thrown
Speaker 6: into the soup of a show. In my in my mind,
Speaker 6: you guys were these frizzled veterans that were like half
Speaker 6: your life, you've been on this show and you know,
Speaker 6: get started. I know, God hats the absolute professionals. And
Speaker 6: I felt like, you know, I'm what's in fifteen years older,
Speaker 6: and I feel like the newbie coming in. You know,
Speaker 6: I'm a third or four show I've been on or
Speaker 6: something like that, and just like, you know, come on
Speaker 6: ride for the show. These people know what they're doing.
Speaker 6: Let's don't get it up in the next Excuse me,
Speaker 6: I don't know if I s anyway, So it's sort
Speaker 6: of an interesting feeling coming into that you have a
Speaker 6: show that has that's very successful, it's evolving. Yeah, because
Speaker 6: obviously I didn't get to come in and write you guys,
Speaker 6: you know, in elementary school classes with mister Feenie. But
Speaker 6: it definitely feels like the train is on the track
Speaker 6: and it's moving and you have a responsibility, you know,
Speaker 6: to move it forward but also maintain it. And it's
Speaker 6: loyalty and and I just thought you guys were, you know,
Speaker 6: the ultimate pros and I was sort of, you know,
Speaker 6: one of the rookies coming in to kind of try
Speaker 6: to keep the train on the track.
Speaker 2: Now you said that, so for the first meeting, and
Speaker 2: again you're right, it was if you didn't watch the
Speaker 2: show at the time, there were I think TVO was
Speaker 2: maybe just starting to come around. But had you seen
Speaker 2: or heard of Boy Mets World before the first time
Speaker 2: you interviewed.
Speaker 6: The I had seen it when it premiered, but you know,
Speaker 6: as a working television writer, I wasn't home in those hours, right,
Speaker 6: wrote Tom Riders Multi caam writers are you know, we
Speaker 6: worked till ten pm on a good night, so I
Speaker 6: was never home to see I certainly wasn't home on
Speaker 6: Friday nights, so I had seen it occasionally caught it
Speaker 6: on a rerun here or there. But what they did
Speaker 6: back in that day, if your agent was good, is
Speaker 6: they would uh messenger to your house a VHS tape
Speaker 6: with three episodes on it, right, and so you would
Speaker 6: watch that. And I remember, I don't remember what year
Speaker 6: I came in, but it was another time I was
Speaker 6: in being jobs and they asked me about the Sean
Speaker 6: arc and I had seen three episodes and I not
Speaker 6: know pretty embarrassing that I didn't know that, But honestly,
Speaker 6: often you would just get a call or messenger in
Speaker 6: your tape tonight there's three episodes going tomorrow, and you know,
Speaker 6: sometimes you're prepared for that and sometimes you aren't. So
Speaker 6: I think second time coming in when they're talking Lakers,
Speaker 6: that's my lane. I'm ready to go the show. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I love the show. I love the characters. William Daniels like, oh,
Speaker 6: one of my favorite people in the world. I was
Speaker 6: the big Saint Elsewhere fan, so I just was like
Speaker 6: thrilled to meet him, although he wasn't in many of
Speaker 6: my shows, oddly enough for my episodes, but I was
Speaker 6: thrilled to work with him and super excited. And I'm
Speaker 6: old enough that I remember when Seen seventeen seventy six.
Speaker 6: The movie came out in nineteen seventy six, and I
Speaker 6: had the soundtrack for that, and anyway, I just I
Speaker 6: just thought he was the craziest thing in the world.
Speaker 6: So that was super exciting for me.
Speaker 7: Your first TV gig was the TV adaptation of Parenthood,
Speaker 7: not the Jason Cadoms one from twenty ten, but this
Speaker 7: was in nineteen ninety. So guys listen to this cast
Speaker 7: ed Begley Junior, Jane Atkinson, Ken Ober, David Arquette, Thora Birch,
Speaker 7: and a young Leonardo DiCaprio.
Speaker 3: How did this only go one season?
Speaker 6: Isn't that insane? It's just crazy when you look back
Speaker 6: on it in that time period, and this was my
Speaker 6: first staff job, my first yeah, stat job as a writer.
Speaker 6: There were mostly multi caams live audience. Then they didn't
Speaker 6: have a single cam. You know, now that's the cool
Speaker 6: thing to do, and you know, even some people critically
Speaker 6: they always liked the single cams though. The multicams that
Speaker 6: last forever. Yeah, but I don't think NBC knew what
Speaker 6: to do with it. They made a one hour pilot
Speaker 6: that was written by Lolganza Bably Mendel, who was a parent,
Speaker 6: had movie and a million other movies, and NBC bought
Speaker 6: it as an hour. I don't know what happened, and
Speaker 6: then they decided and they made a wonderful hour pilot
Speaker 6: that felt more like the Jason Cadum version later and
Speaker 6: then someone said, let's do it as a half hour
Speaker 6: single camera, and they buried it on a Saturday night
Speaker 6: between two multi cams. And to be honest, I don't
Speaker 6: think the audience knew what to do with it. I
Speaker 6: don't think they quite understood it. And so we were
Speaker 6: an instant bomb, did very poorly. And I wrote the
Speaker 6: last episode that was shot, and so, you know, pre
Speaker 6: social media whatever, I sent out a little postcard to
Speaker 6: all my family and friends telling them and I think
Speaker 6: it's like December thirteenth, my show's gonna run or whatever.
Speaker 6: And the day before they preempted it said, oh, we're
Speaker 6: going to bury the rest of the shows where we
Speaker 6: run one more time in the spring.
Speaker 2: And man, was it was it based on the Was
Speaker 2: it the same characters as the film or was it
Speaker 2: a different family?
Speaker 6: No, it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: It was okay, okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Ed Bagley was was Steve Martin in the
Speaker 2: show Gotcha.
Speaker 6: And another guy I love Ed Begley, so he's also
Speaker 6: was a Saint Elsewhere stars. So I got to work
Speaker 6: with Ed Begley and then William Daniels, you know, a
Speaker 6: few years later. It was like there was a dream
Speaker 6: for me from Texas coming to Hollywood working with my idols.
Speaker 7: It was a big trend at the time to make
Speaker 7: TV shows out of movies, and all of them failed.
Speaker 7: Some other ones from that same year were Baby Talk,
Speaker 7: which was based on Who's Talking, Ferris Bueller and Uncle Buck.
Speaker 7: So it just seemed like something that just didn't take
Speaker 7: off with the audience.
Speaker 6: Movies great, great, great movies. And oh that cast William Wyndham,
Speaker 6: I mean it was phenomenal, And yeah, I keep always
Speaker 6: wanted to run into Leo and tell him how we met,
Speaker 6: and but I have it. It worked with Dave Arquette
Speaker 6: later again and Ed Begley as well. But Leo, he's
Speaker 6: been busy. Apparently he's all right, He's doing okay.
Speaker 2: Okay, So was he the Leaf at the time, Leaf
Speaker 2: Phoenix character young, Yes, troubled kid Gotcha okay, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: trying to put the cast together.
Speaker 6: In my head.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to see yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 7: Okay, So after that show gets canceled, you find yourself
Speaker 7: on America's number one show, Home Improvement. I mean, really
Speaker 7: a case of landing on your feet. I'm sure this
Speaker 7: room had some heavyweights in it, and you're still, at
Speaker 7: this point pretty green. How did you, or did you
Speaker 7: ever experience any sort of imposter syndrome or just nerves
Speaker 7: in general?
Speaker 6: I think early on I was a little too naive
Speaker 6: to know to be as nervous as I probably should
Speaker 6: have been. I will say it was an extreme I
Speaker 6: did work with Susan the year. It was an extremely
Speaker 6: difficult room. Yeah, and there was a lot of hierarchy,
Speaker 6: so we were not even on the stage when the
Speaker 6: show shot, so they had a writer's room and a
Speaker 6: TV screen up for us, so we weren't involved at
Speaker 6: all in the shooting unless it was your episode. And
Speaker 6: even then you sat in the audience. So it was
Speaker 6: very much run by the top three guys.
Speaker 1: You sat in the audience for your own episode.
Speaker 6: For your own episode, yes, now and now, remember too,
Speaker 6: My early jobs were hour longs, so and then my
Speaker 6: first half hour is a single camera, so I didn't
Speaker 6: know how weird it was. Again, I didn't know how
Speaker 6: naive and how strange things were done there. But it
Speaker 6: was done very strange, you know what I learned later,
Speaker 6: And we were kept out of things. There were generally
Speaker 6: two writers rooms often at the time, basically the three
Speaker 6: head writers and a couple of people working, and then
Speaker 6: everyone would rotate out. It was a very strange situation,
Speaker 6: it was. Yeah, it was not. It was not a
Speaker 6: great situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, how long were you on that show?
Speaker 6: Just the first year?
Speaker 3: Just that first year.
Speaker 6: It's funny. I got I got engaged while I was
Speaker 6: on that show, which was on the Disney lot, and
Speaker 6: then I got pregnant while I was on the Disney
Speaker 6: lot while I was on your show. So I do
Speaker 6: have fond, fond memories of the Disney line.
Speaker 3: So we we love the Disney lot.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it's a great lot.
Speaker 7: After Home Improvement, you make a few stops on shows
Speaker 7: like Sister Sister and another one called Fudge that sounds delicious,
Speaker 7: and then Boy Meets World. How did Boy Meets World
Speaker 7: end up in your orbit? I know you had said
Speaker 7: you had that first interview that you didn't feel prepared for.
Speaker 3: How did you Who called you about the second interview?
Speaker 6: Okay, we missed a couple of draps. Also show called
Speaker 6: Kirk and I worked on Kirk.
Speaker 1: Oh you did you were Kirk?
Speaker 3: I did a guest star a guest star on Kirk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I take it to It's Kirk Cameron, Kirk.
Speaker 6: Cameron, Yeah, and Migo with Bronson Franchot. Okay, So and
Speaker 6: now you have to remind me of the question, how
Speaker 6: did I end up there?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Who called you for that second? For that second interview?
Speaker 6: You know, your agent just calls and says, we're sending
Speaker 6: three things over go over there? Okay, and I'm Don
Speaker 6: Tarnowsky end Yeah. She was Michael's head of development. Yes,
Speaker 6: and she had had me on her radar for a while. Great,
Speaker 6: and so I think that was part of how that,
Speaker 6: you know, she had me a slack came open again
Speaker 6: and so I came over for that and Don was great.
Speaker 6: She's a really smart woman and went on to do
Speaker 6: a million amazing things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we loved Don.
Speaker 7: And so what was entering the Boy Meets World writer's
Speaker 7: room in season six? Like you mentioned, they were talking
Speaker 7: a lot of sports. What what we had heard from Manel,
Speaker 7: especially about season seven, that there was maybe a lot
Speaker 7: of tennis being played.
Speaker 6: I guess Michael was tennis. I played tennis, but out
Speaker 6: there there was a lot of sports talk. And so
Speaker 6: when I came in in season six, I took over
Speaker 6: the sports pool. So I ran the sports so cool.
Speaker 6: I passed out the NFL games and the spread. I
Speaker 6: think I started season six, I know I did it
Speaker 6: season seven over. Once a week we put that out
Speaker 6: and everyone put their pick and figured out who wanted
Speaker 6: the end of the week, and we had a pool
Speaker 6: at the end of the season. I think it was
Speaker 6: a pretty friendly room. I feel like there was a
Speaker 6: group that really knew each other very well, sure, and
Speaker 6: the rest of us that were sort of working our
Speaker 6: way in. But it was a fun group. They had
Speaker 6: their routines, they had the way they liked to do,
Speaker 6: where they liked to eat, what they did, and so
Speaker 6: it felt like you were trying to Sometimes, you know,
Speaker 6: staff comes together and sort of coalesce and find your rhythm,
Speaker 6: and I felt like those of us coming in it
Speaker 6: was our job to sort of find that rhythm. And
Speaker 6: seeing seven's you know, they knew it wasn't going to
Speaker 6: go past that unless there was some evolvement, and so,
Speaker 6: you know, those are the most fun times. And I
Speaker 6: remember we we had I think my episode was next,
Speaker 6: and Michael said, we're going to do a table read,
Speaker 6: and then he said his way of saying, if it's
Speaker 6: in English, we're going to the movies, meaning if it's
Speaker 6: not the worst thing ever on the world. We were
Speaker 6: headed to the movies that afternoon. And so that's you know,
Speaker 6: sort of at the end of seasons. That was really
Speaker 6: those were fun times because you weren't working ahead on
Speaker 6: the next season. I remember that, and thank goodness, my
Speaker 6: script was an English and on We Move.
Speaker 7: Yes, your first script was Cutting the Cord, which was
Speaker 7: focused on some Sean and Angela drama, but it included
Speaker 7: the somewhat infamous karaoke scene. Sort of a heavy world
Speaker 7: to start with. What do you remember from that episode?
Speaker 6: Well, I'm pretty sure I got that one because I
Speaker 6: was pregnant. Yeah, so, and I don't remember whether I
Speaker 6: had started birthing classes or not, but I'm sure that's
Speaker 6: why that episode ended up with mine being mine. And
Speaker 6: I thought that was super fun and I loved everything
Speaker 6: you got to do in their will that was so cute.
Speaker 2: That was a lama's class, right, Yeah, that so that.
Speaker 6: Was super fun. And the Angela, you know, we always
Speaker 6: loved the drama of the Angela and Sean and it
Speaker 6: was fun. I just and I watched it again recently
Speaker 6: and I laughed out loud with the restraining order because
Speaker 6: I thought that was so appropriate. There's so many things
Speaker 6: that can show up in later seasons that because we
Speaker 6: know you and what you've done in the history, that
Speaker 6: all that plays. That's fun, that plays. But when shows
Speaker 6: start becoming not just about the episode but also about
Speaker 6: the history of them in those later seasons and they
Speaker 6: sort of play on each other, I think that's really fun.
Speaker 6: So I loved it. I loved the karaoke I I
Speaker 6: and the tag when you and Ben are like killing
Speaker 6: war was just serious. I loved it.
Speaker 7: We had a big conversation about what that original tag
Speaker 7: was that what were we just breaking were you know, like,
Speaker 7: what was it always supposed to be us laughing? Like,
Speaker 7: we talked a lot about what that original tag was
Speaker 7: written as.
Speaker 6: I cannot remember.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so funny.
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't know, you know, the way it
Speaker 6: was edited, we didn't get much of it. In the
Speaker 6: first past, so I would whether there was another tag
Speaker 6: written or we just said we have to get more
Speaker 6: of that moment it's gold. Yeah, that's that's likely what
Speaker 6: was what happened. I don't remember whether it was from
Speaker 6: the toper Again, I didn't I wouldn't watch the scripts,
Speaker 6: but I didn't actually look for him. So yeah, curious
Speaker 6: to see if there was a first draft different tag.
Speaker 3: Oh, I would love that. If you can find it,
Speaker 3: we would love to see it.
Speaker 2: The other thing, I'm so curious about it. There's writers
Speaker 2: filtering in and out kind of every season. And when
Speaker 2: you're on a long running show, when you join the
Speaker 2: writing staff, do they sit you in a room or
Speaker 2: tell you, like, start from episode one, watch the pilot
Speaker 2: and move forward, watch every episode of the show so
Speaker 2: you get here. Because we've noticed you come to season
Speaker 2: seven and our characters are so different than what they
Speaker 2: used to be.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like everything was thrown out the window.
Speaker 2: So we're wondering, I mean again, is it the kind
Speaker 2: of thing where you've got to learn about the history
Speaker 2: of Tapanga, You've got to learn about the history of
Speaker 2: Corey and Tepanga, you've got to learn about Sean or
Speaker 2: are you just thrown in.
Speaker 1: And let's write the characters from here.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, it's very different than today, because today
Speaker 6: you'd get on a streaming service and you'd watch every
Speaker 6: episode and you would show up way more prepared. I
Speaker 6: learned things about your characters and about your personal experiences
Speaker 6: by listening to Pod meets World that I didn't know.
Speaker 6: I didn't know we violated in season six. However, I
Speaker 6: wasn't there to say that, But there was plenty of
Speaker 6: men in that room. I could have say that doesn't
Speaker 6: that doesn't.
Speaker 3: You know, drive around?
Speaker 6: Yeah, So I also think there's a couple you know,
Speaker 6: we brought uh Maitland came in in season six, and
Speaker 6: I do think that there was a a push. And
Speaker 6: you're saying you mostly noticed it in seven, and look,
Speaker 6: sharks happened in seven. Look, I don't know if we're
Speaker 6: going to get there. I mean, but you know, I
Speaker 6: didn't even know what an organ grinder was, and I
Speaker 6: had one in the episode. If that's if that's not
Speaker 6: a shark jump, I love the emotion of it. But sure,
Speaker 6: but yeah, and he was dressed like he came off
Speaker 6: the set of Naisan's play. I know, yeah, I can
Speaker 6: promise you. In the room, someone pitched what if it's
Speaker 6: an organ grinder? And because we didn't have Google, then
Speaker 6: I went to say what because I had no I
Speaker 6: mean once someone told me what it was. But I
Speaker 6: don't know how that came about.
Speaker 1: I think we all it's the second monkey that sold it.
Speaker 5: Yeah's girlfriend exactly, that's the one that really Now we're there.
Speaker 6: And Eric Christmas is just a legend and incredible rest
Speaker 6: in peace, fantastic actor. But as I watched that, he
Speaker 6: played the whole thing as a scam.
Speaker 1: Without yes that it wasn't.
Speaker 6: And so to me, I'm like, what are we doing
Speaker 6: to I mean, you know, overall thematically, and I think
Speaker 6: that's what people gravitate. And I think people you overlurt
Speaker 6: certain things when you know the history we show, you
Speaker 6: know the fact that Eric's charm has a place in
Speaker 6: this world and a place in business and shouldn't be overlooked.
Speaker 6: I thought was wonderful, and ye watched it, I went, oh,
Speaker 6: thank goodness, we got to a nice place. But when
Speaker 6: I watched that, you know performance and the other thing,
Speaker 6: Matthew took that money and gave it to us. Ranger,
Speaker 6: what's no way to pay it back now Eric, Eric
Speaker 6: thinks that the monkey's going to come back and give
Speaker 6: him the money. Matthew thinking it's just absolutely bizarre. So yeah, again,
Speaker 6: you know, was there a great theme there that we
Speaker 6: had that somehow we got bigger and bigger with I
Speaker 6: don't know. There's another thing that happens when shows get
Speaker 6: into that six and seventh year. You know, Will you
Speaker 6: could walk out there and say holy bananas out of context,
Speaker 6: and the audience is just going to go, you know,
Speaker 6: they they just you know, there's so much history and
Speaker 6: if you and you know, Danielle, you and Corey bicker
Speaker 6: whatever you say to each other, if it's meaningless, we'd
Speaker 6: laugh because we're just invested in you and we love
Speaker 6: you and you can pretty much do no wrong. And
Speaker 6: that helps to show and it also for it's a
Speaker 6: show because writers can get very lazy because you go
Speaker 6: to a run through and like, are you getting that
Speaker 6: joke killed? Let's go home tonight. You know, I don't
Speaker 6: want to accuse anyone of that, but I just it
Speaker 6: gets more complicated in those late later years. Also in
Speaker 6: season six, Bob Tishler ran the room more and I
Speaker 6: think I what I detect from the shows I watched
Speaker 6: and whatever. I think that season had a little bit
Speaker 6: of a different feel to it. Yeah, and one of
Speaker 6: the things that was going on they were trying to
Speaker 6: get a little more friends like, and I think the
Speaker 6: apartment was set up and you know, trying to have
Speaker 6: them be just more like this multi group of friends
Speaker 6: making it out in the world. And I think there
Speaker 6: was there was a concerted effort to sort of set
Speaker 6: that up. I know one of my episodes with the
Speaker 6: Dinner Party was sort of approaching that sort of that tone,
Speaker 6: which I think my memory was a network directive starting
Speaker 6: of the year, and I think Michael had another project.
Speaker 6: And so my first experience with the show was that
Speaker 6: Bob Tisha ran the room almost all the time, and
Speaker 6: season seven that switched and Michael ran the room always.
Speaker 2: I want to say season six, Michael was gone for Zoe, Duncan,
Speaker 2: Jack and Jane. Okay, I was pretty sure that's the
Speaker 2: one because I did an episode of it and I
Speaker 2: had the long hair, So my guess is that's the
Speaker 2: season he was gone, and yeah, and Bob was running
Speaker 2: the room. That makes sense, but yes, different, yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And that was my first experience of the show.
Speaker 6: Is that Michael came in for some table reads and
Speaker 6: some notes, but that Bob ran and Bob also Rip
Speaker 6: was a super funny man, a delight to work with always.
Speaker 6: I just love the way he ran the room. It
Speaker 6: was very egalitarian the way he did it, and he
Speaker 6: had always had a great spirit. I don't think I
Speaker 6: ever saw Bob in a bad mood yep, which is
Speaker 6: certainly I can't say for every show I've ever been on.
Speaker 6: So yeah, he was a delight And that might have
Speaker 6: just been a little bit of a different tone because
Speaker 6: he was, you know, the head writer at that time.
Speaker 3: Right. Do you think Corey and Topanga were a good couple?
Speaker 6: Well, I would have to ask you what good means. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean, certainly the audience loved you together, was petting together.
Speaker 6: And I think it's a falseness of Hollywood storytelling that
Speaker 6: we want people who meet at young ages to stay
Speaker 6: together forever, to evolve together and make all life choices together.
Speaker 6: I remember when my daughter cried when the Twilight couple
Speaker 6: broke up, because gosh, they were together in the movie
Speaker 6: and through all four and then they broke up, you know.
Speaker 6: But it's also I remember when his aunt in England
Speaker 6: said they're twenty two. Yeah, and they've been together like
Speaker 6: six years. What were they going to stay together their
Speaker 6: whole lives? So, you know, I think there's audience expectation
Speaker 6: for couples and then there's realistic writing, and I don't
Speaker 6: know that that's necessarily what the multicams are based for.
Speaker 6: I have to say, when I went back and watched
Speaker 6: the Yale discussion and that being reminded that Topanga gave
Speaker 6: up Yale to be near Corey, would that show and
Speaker 6: be written that way ten years later? I'm not sure?
Speaker 3: Right right?
Speaker 7: The episode you mentioned, the dinner party episode is the
Speaker 7: Truth about Honesty, and it's Tapanga's drama around sharing a
Speaker 7: toothbrush with Corey. That is one of the three episodes
Speaker 7: that was banned from the Disney Channel during syndication.
Speaker 3: Were you surprised to hear that.
Speaker 6: Oh wow, I didn't know that I'm missing checks?
Speaker 3: Yes, Disney Channel Chess, Yes, you know.
Speaker 6: Okay. So I sat down to watch it, and my
Speaker 6: older sister had an issue with using her husband's razor
Speaker 6: and they had fights about that. So I believe that
Speaker 6: this story started out of a real thing from my
Speaker 6: life love that which is a lot of what I
Speaker 6: think really good stuff comes from. I had forgotten about
Speaker 6: the toothbrush thing, to be honest, And although that's an
Speaker 6: issue because I forget my toothbrush sometimes and I'll use
Speaker 6: my husband's and he's a good sport about that. But
Speaker 6: when I saw this exchange, no tushy, no brushy, I
Speaker 6: really almost gasped, Right, I'm going to be honest, I went,
Speaker 6: are you? I was like, what I will say? No tushy,
Speaker 6: no brushy is not my personal voice, so.
Speaker 3: I didn't think it.
Speaker 4: That's not your voice.
Speaker 1: If you want to find drinking game, though, take a shot.
Speaker 2: Every time we say tushy in the last two seasons
Speaker 2: is a big favorite word, So.
Speaker 6: I mean, and you know, come in out of Corey.
Speaker 6: It's cute, but well, you know what, it's a cute
Speaker 6: word except in what he's trying to get you do,
Speaker 6: which frankly, I just don't think is right. And I
Speaker 6: think and the compromise she made at the end, I
Speaker 6: was trying to like, where did the first draft of
Speaker 6: this go? And how did it get because yeah, I
Speaker 6: was not proud of that ending at all, and it's
Speaker 6: too bad because I was watching it. I really liked
Speaker 6: the episode. Yeah, I like I think I identified a
Speaker 6: little bit with Rachel in the sense that she was
Speaker 6: coming into this arty group of friends, got all these relationships,
Speaker 6: all these histories, and now she's got to fit in
Speaker 6: and find herself. So I had I liked writing for
Speaker 6: in the episodes.
Speaker 5: Which is also a nice for Rachel because so often
Speaker 5: she's just been the object of Eric and Jack's scrambling
Speaker 5: love triangle, you know, and so for her to have
Speaker 5: her own I.
Speaker 6: Guess she's Yeah, she's in lingerie far too much for
Speaker 6: my Again, that's not a decision that I was in
Speaker 6: charge of.
Speaker 7: Yeah, for all of the women that we had in
Speaker 7: the writer's room season six and seven especially, there are
Speaker 7: still a lot of choices made in those episodes where
Speaker 7: you go, oh, I can I can tell where some
Speaker 7: someone was overwritten, like where there was some Eli.
Speaker 4: It's very clearly a male POV.
Speaker 5: Yeah right, I mean, because the show is driven by
Speaker 5: a male POV, and it's.
Speaker 6: Called boy Meets World, it is boy's world, and all
Speaker 6: the final says are from men. And then again, I again,
Speaker 6: I think you become a victim of your success because
Speaker 6: while I can go guys, I don't know, are you
Speaker 6: sure you go down to set, no tushy, no brushyet
Speaker 6: I'm sure everyone roared right, So you go, oh, well,
Speaker 6: maybe I didn't see it right, or you take a
Speaker 6: question right, Well, it's funny, but it's yeah, I had Anyway,
Speaker 6: it's too bad because I actually liked her. I think
Speaker 6: there's that what we were trying to do a little bit.
Speaker 6: You know, there's coming out of college and what is
Speaker 6: a party. Well, we got the six packs of wine
Speaker 6: and we have chips and dip. That's a party, right,
Speaker 6: And then when you start getting a little later into
Speaker 6: your twenties, you think I might actually serve a meal
Speaker 6: and we you know, we could sit down and be civilized,
Speaker 6: and you're sort of trying to find yourself. And I thought,
Speaker 6: you know, I liked Rachel trying to find her identity
Speaker 6: and who is she in this? And can we be
Speaker 6: a little more grown up instead of acting like the
Speaker 6: sort of kids we did? And I liked that, and
Speaker 6: I liked the way it was shot and it played
Speaker 6: through there, and I like the idea of is true
Speaker 6: honesty good in a relationship and is it not? And
Speaker 6: I think I think Topanga's thoughts on that was a
Speaker 6: tiny bit naive because it's great, we want on a steep.
Speaker 6: On the other hands, you know again, I think that's
Speaker 6: a very young point of view. You get a little
Speaker 6: older and you go, you know what, a little a
Speaker 6: little distance or a little perspective on what people need
Speaker 6: to know and don't need to know is better.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Not every thought that enters my head needs to be
Speaker 7: said out loud.
Speaker 1: That's not a lie, that's not a lie.
Speaker 6: But I think that's a very young girl. We've been
Speaker 6: taught honesty is important and that's what makes relationships laugh.
Speaker 6: So I totally buy her point of view in that.
Speaker 6: And but how it went to tushy brushy, And how
Speaker 6: did you feel about walking back in the room saying
Speaker 6: you had shown him your tush?
Speaker 7: I know, I mean, I really we've talked about it now,
Speaker 7: especially with season seven, but I had I don't know
Speaker 7: exactly when it was that had happened, but there was
Speaker 7: a certain point where I where I checked out, where
Speaker 7: I realized, like they're in the Korean topanga dynamic had
Speaker 7: just become him badgering her and trying to wear her down.
Speaker 7: And uh, you know, I even though, to be totally fair,
Speaker 7: I think at the time. I also thought, yeah, why
Speaker 7: is Tapanga such a prude?
Speaker 3: Why is Topanga?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 7: There there I was judgmental of her as a character
Speaker 7: because I you know, our set was very male dominated.
Speaker 3: It was a boy pov.
Speaker 7: And I think I did have that feeling of like,
Speaker 7: to Panga is withholding from this? You know they're in
Speaker 7: They're in a committed relationship. What's the big deal.
Speaker 3: So I don't remember.
Speaker 7: Exactly how I felt, but I do remember feeling like,
Speaker 7: oh man, this is just going to keep being this
Speaker 7: conversation back and forth until they get married.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think it was. It's definitely a disservice
Speaker 6: to your character in the sense you're right you were
Speaker 6: in a committed, long term relationship. But it did feel
Speaker 6: like a withholding. It's very stereotypical. Yes, not that this
Speaker 6: doesn't go on. I mean, look at every episode of
Speaker 6: you Know, everybody loves Raymond. You know he won sex.
Speaker 6: She's like and you know, I do feel like I
Speaker 6: didn't feel good about it. I didn't think it was great.
Speaker 6: I felt like I felt like a lot of things.
Speaker 6: I found the inner theme where I feel like it started,
Speaker 6: and then there was where it went to. Yeah, and
Speaker 6: the idea that somehow also revealing a tush was somehow.
Speaker 1: A step in the right direction.
Speaker 6: So that was a nerotic and somehow got them closer
Speaker 6: and a willing exchange for the situation. It's just bizarre.
Speaker 6: It's just bizarre. So I guess I'm glad I'm banned,
Speaker 6: but darn it, the money in my money out of
Speaker 6: my bank.
Speaker 7: Do you remember, maybe especially in season seven, because you
Speaker 7: spoke so highly of the writer's in season six, do
Speaker 7: you remember any moments of conflict over storylines or character development.
Speaker 7: Was there ever big back and forth about what an
Speaker 7: episode was going to be about.
Speaker 6: I think there was a lot of debate about the
Speaker 6: getting married. I think there was a lot of debate.
Speaker 6: I guess Yale was season six or was it seven.
Speaker 6: I think there was a lot of debate about Yale.
Speaker 6: I think there's a lot of debate about should we
Speaker 6: get them married. I think Michael absolutely had the vision
Speaker 6: on We're going to have the baby come in, and
Speaker 6: he wanted it to be a premature baby, like one
Speaker 6: of those sus was, Yeah, that train was going. There
Speaker 6: was no you know, there was no stopping that. And
Speaker 6: I remember I asked one time, I think I was
Speaker 6: again if again best rest recollection possible could be wrong.
Speaker 6: But I think I was wondering why if they were
Speaker 6: going to get married that maybe they didn't even move
Speaker 6: home or something like, where were they going to get
Speaker 6: the money for that situation? And I'll confess, I said,
Speaker 6: how are they going to get the money? And they
Speaker 6: said they're going to get the money from the wedding.
Speaker 6: And I said, how do they get money from a wedding?
Speaker 6: And it was because it was a tradition to give
Speaker 6: cash for a wedding. But I had not experienced that
Speaker 6: where I grew up in the South, where you you know,
Speaker 6: you gave a plate set instead of money. Nobody get cash. Yeah,
Speaker 6: but Michael, that experience was very important and traditional, and
Speaker 6: so I remember I think he was he was mad
Speaker 6: at me for questioning that situation. And it was again,
Speaker 6: you know, again something I'm been accused of a lot.
Speaker 6: It was my own naive t. I didn't know that
Speaker 6: was a tradition.
Speaker 7: Well, I don't think the majority of people come away
Speaker 7: from weddings feeling like they have suddenly a lot of money.
Speaker 3: You feel like, wow, we just spent so much money
Speaker 3: on a wedding.
Speaker 7: Now we've got to rebuild our life because we spent
Speaker 7: it on the wedding.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was so, you know, I do think there
Speaker 6: was discussions about that. I certainly wouldn't have been in
Speaker 6: favor of her not going to Yale, and I would
Speaker 6: guess we talked about that. But I also again, you know,
Speaker 6: I started as a co producer season six. I was
Speaker 6: producer on seven. That was the highest level woman in
Speaker 6: the room. And there were two supervising, two co exec
Speaker 6: and exac. You know, it was a a consulting all,
Speaker 6: you know, five or six men higher than me at
Speaker 6: the time. And I'm not saying that in a judgmental way.
Speaker 6: I'm just saying the final say was not in the
Speaker 6: female voices. Yep. We were allowed to speak, you know,
Speaker 6: we were allowed to speak, but ultimately we did not
Speaker 6: have final say. Right so, and I obviously I didn't
Speaker 6: walk off and say, you know, no Tushy, no Brushie,
Speaker 6: I don't want to do the show. But my guess
Speaker 6: is I sat there kind of like you, Danielle, and
Speaker 6: I went people laughing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it must be good.
Speaker 6: I guess maybe I'm a little prude.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it wouldn't be my taste, but what
Speaker 3: do I know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is that then kind of can we can
Speaker 2: we kind of attribute that to how then Eric turned
Speaker 2: into season seven Eric, who's.
Speaker 1: So big and so off the rails.
Speaker 2: I mean, was it just kind of like, well, let's
Speaker 2: write it big and it's funny.
Speaker 6: You know. I think there's a laziness to later season
Speaker 6: story writing, and I think that's more common when you
Speaker 6: have people that have been there the whole time. I
Speaker 6: actually don't attribute that to the people coming in. If
Speaker 6: you if you've got to really dive in and find
Speaker 6: the stories and the character growth, or you just write
Speaker 6: what is already a winning formula.
Speaker 4: You're just reiterating as opposed to the same degree. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, you can either get in and write
Speaker 6: and find layers to Eric, or like I said, you
Speaker 6: could say anything and people laughed and loved you. And
Speaker 6: so I think it's so unless you have someone that
Speaker 6: is really raining that in and you know, and also
Speaker 6: going to run through some whatever and like let's find
Speaker 6: the meat of this scene and let's make it work
Speaker 6: and not get an easy laugh, because you can go
Speaker 6: down and you have a bad scene and if you
Speaker 6: get a great blow and people are tired and want
Speaker 6: to go. It doesn't get the work it needs right,
Speaker 6: and that's really important, not to get the cheap laughs
Speaker 6: because and it's again it's you know, later seasons versus
Speaker 6: earlier seasons, because you could all say anything we gave
Speaker 6: you and make it work and get a laugh. There's,
Speaker 6: as you know, there's a rhythm to multiicam and we
Speaker 6: the audience knows those rhythms and they laugh. I remember
Speaker 6: when my father came out and watched a one of
Speaker 6: my first multiicams and he's saw us standing behind the
Speaker 6: cameras laughing, and he'd see us, you know me laugh
Speaker 6: on first take, third take, whatever, and he goes, you
Speaker 6: know what the punchline is, why do you keep laughing?
Speaker 6: And I said, well, because they delivered it well and
Speaker 6: had the right rhythm, and I want them to feel it,
Speaker 6: and because they it is a funny joke. But audiences
Speaker 6: are like that too, and they're laughing and they love you,
Speaker 6: and they'll laugh at a good joke, and they'll laugh
Speaker 6: at a terrible joke because you gave a terrible joke
Speaker 6: and you maybe rolled your eyes at them or whatever.
Speaker 6: So was there a conscious discussion in the room let's
Speaker 6: make Eric bigger. I don't believe that's the case. But
Speaker 6: did I see a monkey and Nessie? Why couldn't they
Speaker 6: Disney ban that one?
Speaker 1: Because again, there's two monkeys. That's what makes it work.
Speaker 6: I hope they're getting their residuals because.
Speaker 2: They were well that was Marcel, It was Marcel from
Speaker 2: Marcel was yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: Well we had a friend's crossover. How about that?
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, there you go for season seven.
Speaker 7: We have already seen one of your two episodes so far.
Speaker 7: We have seen you light up My Union, which is
Speaker 7: a wild episode. I think we got most hung up
Speaker 7: on the invasion of Rachel's privacy. Do you have any
Speaker 7: memories of developing her character or maybe lack thereof developing
Speaker 7: her character?
Speaker 6: So that was another moment for me watching it. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and I try, I was trying to put it in context.
Speaker 6: If you this was an early season of a show.
Speaker 6: I don't think you're forgiven. You're forgiven the men for
Speaker 6: what they did, for crossing those boundaries and all of that.
Speaker 6: And I also think it's just such a cheap again,
Speaker 6: it's this voyeuristic women are withholding men or you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, or such a trope in the nineties though
Speaker 2: it definitely is.
Speaker 6: Yeah, But so to me, I find what, you know,
Speaker 6: what was done reprehensible. But I think what happens is
Speaker 6: it's the time we we know Corey and Sean. Ye've
Speaker 6: seen them since they're kids. They don't have ill intentions.
Speaker 6: They're just sweet, crazy boys. Crazy boy like you overlook
Speaker 6: stuff because we know them. So for new generations that
Speaker 6: watch it from the beginning and binge it, they're probably like, oh,
Speaker 6: that's creepy, but oh my god, they're sweet. She needs
Speaker 6: to get over it, right. But if you just stopped
Speaker 6: and watched the show like I did, out of context,
Speaker 6: you're like, oh what, yeh wrong? This is what and
Speaker 6: why are the girls like overgiving it and not defending
Speaker 6: her right because this is an ultimate invasion of privacy
Speaker 6: and boundaries. But again, I think it's because you're trapped
Speaker 6: in the same story. You've known them forever. You know
Speaker 6: they're not creepy guys who you know go out and
Speaker 6: do this, and so you overlook it. But that said,
Speaker 6: I think it's a story flaw and I you know,
Speaker 6: I don't think it's a good message.
Speaker 2: That's true, though you do get that with with long
Speaker 2: term television shows, the long running series where you bank
Speaker 2: so much goodwill with the characters that you can dip
Speaker 2: into that bank and have them do some pretty horrible
Speaker 2: things and it's okay because of the history will. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's really interesting to look at it that way, because
Speaker 2: it's true you are your that. We had one guest
Speaker 2: come on who said that Eric could Eric could even
Speaker 2: say the worst things in the world, but people like
Speaker 2: him so much and he has such that that bank
Speaker 2: of goodwill all that you can dip into that whenever
Speaker 2: you need to kind of take them in another direction.
Speaker 2: So it really is an interesting way to look at
Speaker 2: that where it is it's disgusting, reprehensible, but you're right.
Speaker 1: Even Topanga goes like, how do you not look.
Speaker 2: So it is you're using that kind of the goodwill
Speaker 2: you've banked over that number of seasons.
Speaker 1: It's a really interesting way to look at it.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah, And the audience knows, if they've been watching
Speaker 6: from the beginning, you know, these are not bad guys.
Speaker 6: They're just you know, they made a mistake or they
Speaker 6: did a prank, or it was silly, but you know
Speaker 6: they're not creepers. Right. But if you watch it out
Speaker 6: of context, you don't have that good will, Like, what
Speaker 6: the what? That's yeah, it is reprehensible. And again it's
Speaker 6: sort of the flaw of this long term storytelling that
Speaker 6: we with characters, we fall in love with, you get
Speaker 6: away with a lot. Yeah. So yeah, not not thrilled
Speaker 6: with that either.
Speaker 7: We all we have that, we have those moments. A
Speaker 7: year after Boy Meets World ended, you created Reba, a
Speaker 7: massive sitcom both Emmy and Golden Globe nominated, and apparently
Speaker 7: there were no parts for us.
Speaker 2: So it sounds like fun, Alison sounds.
Speaker 3: Like that sounds great, amazing.
Speaker 7: How were you paired with Reva McIntyre and how did
Speaker 7: it kind of overlap with Boy Meets World?
Speaker 6: Well, it did overlap Boy Meets World, I'll tell you that.
Speaker 6: So in the season seven, in the fall, I had
Speaker 6: my newborn because my daughter was born March thirty one.
Speaker 6: At the end of season six, and the word was
Speaker 6: coming down the show may do an eight season or
Speaker 6: be morphed into something else. I think the rumor was
Speaker 6: Michael was going to take it to New York and
Speaker 6: they were in apartments there or something like that. So
Speaker 6: my agent was like, you know, you need to write
Speaker 6: another spec. You don't need a job, you know, I'm like, okay.
Speaker 6: So I had had this idea for quite a while
Speaker 6: and I would get up and you know, breastfeed my
Speaker 6: child in the middle of the night, or feed my
Speaker 6: you know, two four in the morning, and I would
Speaker 6: watch reruns on Nickelodeon, and I kind of got this
Speaker 6: idea a little bit fleshed out in my head and
Speaker 6: I started writing it on spec on while I was
Speaker 6: on the show. So I wrote an outline and turned
Speaker 6: it into my agent sometime around Thanksgiving break, and then
Speaker 6: he said, I just write the whole thing as a
Speaker 6: spec don't. Let's don't. We were going to pitch it
Speaker 6: at first, I think, and I think the idea is
Speaker 6: you'll never sell a show with a pregnant teenager. So
Speaker 6: I had him write it because he felt like I
Speaker 6: could write it in a way that someone might consider
Speaker 6: buying it. And I wrote it over Christmas break season seven,
Speaker 6: and I sold it. I got a multiple studios interested
Speaker 6: and sold it in I think it closed sometime around
Speaker 6: mid February.
Speaker 1: So Riba wasn't attached. You didn't write this for her.
Speaker 6: No, in fact, wow, in fact it was called Sally.
Speaker 6: I was definitely playing on the Roseanne. You know, I
Speaker 6: wanted to be a strong family show with a mom
Speaker 6: at the center of it. And I in one of
Speaker 6: those late night sessions feeding my daughter, Sally Field had
Speaker 6: popped on an episode of Murphy Brown that was rerunning
Speaker 6: at like three or four in the morning that I
Speaker 6: was watching, and I really thought she was perfect for
Speaker 6: this role. So in the ultimate suck up, I called
Speaker 6: the it was called Sally and yeah at Sally, and
Speaker 6: then the pilot title was Life and Other Indignities, And
Speaker 6: I wrote it as a spec like that, and it
Speaker 6: sold as a spec. And it's a little backwards now.
Speaker 6: Usually the studio gets involved after it's bought by a network,
Speaker 6: but we were bought by the studio first, and then
Speaker 6: they actually went out to Sally Field. We waited six
Speaker 6: that I went on two guys and a girl on
Speaker 6: the overall deal at Fox while they were casting. Sally
Speaker 6: Field was not interested in doing television at the time,
Speaker 6: so we started casting about midway through the casting process
Speaker 6: in that fall. The next fall, after Boemi's World, Reba
Speaker 6: McIntyre came in and I just I'm a Southern girl
Speaker 6: and I have you know her music. I was a
Speaker 6: fan of and she had star quality. As you know,
Speaker 6: you've got to be able to hold a camp stage
Speaker 6: and you guys all have it. She had it. She
Speaker 6: you know, all eyes turned when she walks in the room,
Speaker 6: and so yeah, we she was.
Speaker 1: Did she read for it?
Speaker 6: Yeah, she read for it.
Speaker 2: So she auditioned for the show that eventually was named
Speaker 2: after her.
Speaker 6: Yes, well yes, and that there's a great story about
Speaker 6: how it ended up being named by her. But yes,
Speaker 6: that's true. She came in as an audition for Sally
Speaker 6: Schlndwine I believe was the name at the time. Ye,
Speaker 6: she flew herself in from Nashville. There's I've heard a
Speaker 6: couple of different stories. One that her manager found it.
Speaker 6: Another my I was talking to my casting recently and
Speaker 6: he was saying that he had reached out to her
Speaker 6: manager and that's how her manager found it. Greg orson
Speaker 6: Magnificent casting director. So probably whatever he says is exactly right. Yeah,
Speaker 6: but yeah, she came in and read for me, and
Speaker 6: then over Christmas time she came in and read for
Speaker 6: the studio and network and then she opened on Broadway
Speaker 6: in any Gets Your Gun in January, and probably she
Speaker 6: was such a big hit in that we probably couldn't
Speaker 6: have gotten her had the studio not made the deal
Speaker 6: prior to that.
Speaker 3: Wow. So yeah, and then how did she end up
Speaker 3: naming the show Reba?
Speaker 6: Well, so she had wanted to, and I agree, we
Speaker 6: were trying to do a Roseanne thing. Why wouldn't we
Speaker 6: call the show Riba? Then network was concerned it might
Speaker 6: give her too much power. The network was all about,
Speaker 6: we're the show about young people, and you know, we
Speaker 6: think it's better to sell it as the young people
Speaker 6: than as a show of about the mom. But I
Speaker 6: always knew the show was centered and run by the mom,
Speaker 6: so I was fine with changing her name. So what
Speaker 6: I said, well, look, okay, well we'll change the name
Speaker 6: of the show. Let me just change her character name
Speaker 6: because that made Riba happy. So we changed it and
Speaker 6: made her Riba Heart. And then we still hadn't found
Speaker 6: a title for the show, and I had a friend
Speaker 6: pitch Deep in the Heart, which I kind of like
Speaker 6: because it sounds like Texas and you could play with
Speaker 6: the heart of the fact that their last name was Heart,
Speaker 6: and that kind of worked. So that's what it was
Speaker 6: when we got picked up and went to New York.
Speaker 6: And then there was some kind of publicity dust up,
Speaker 6: and I don't know all the details, but they did
Speaker 6: something not right in New York that offended a few people,
Speaker 6: and all of a sudden, the show was named Reba.
Speaker 2: I wonder if that's ever happened in television history. Somebody
Speaker 2: comes into audition for a role, they still have to
Speaker 2: screen test for studio and for network, and then the
Speaker 2: show's named after them afterwards. I don't know if that
Speaker 2: has ever happened before, because you think about it, Seinfeld
Speaker 2: or Roseanne, any of these shows, Grace, I mean, these
Speaker 2: are all Grace Underfire. These are all shows that were
Speaker 2: created for the lead of the show. So I wonder
Speaker 2: that the reverse has ever happened. That might be the
Speaker 2: only time in television history that's ever happened. That's really cool.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and she, you know, she was right for the role,
Speaker 6: and she does own and center the show, so it
Speaker 6: made perfect sense. I never had any problem with the
Speaker 6: show being named yeah Ria.
Speaker 7: So yeah, we noticed quite a few familiar names on
Speaker 7: that show.
Speaker 3: Patty Carr, Runnold's Gary Miller.
Speaker 7: Were you trying to bring some boy meets World friends
Speaker 7: over to the Reva room?
Speaker 6: I was, I was. I would have I would have
Speaker 6: brought more if I could have. I also doored working
Speaker 6: with David Brownfield and oh yeah, and and and Barbie
Speaker 6: and Erica. Yeah, I mean I had a I enjoyed
Speaker 6: my experience at Boy Meets World, and I thought there
Speaker 6: was some smart, good writers there, and so I brought
Speaker 6: some over, And yeah I had I would again. I
Speaker 6: it's you never should bring everybody over because you need
Speaker 6: more diversity in the rooms, and you need to get
Speaker 6: new voices, and you get you know, you become a
Speaker 6: writing family, and you're a little you know, you've become
Speaker 6: more insular than you even know you are. But it
Speaker 6: was fun to bring a couple of people I knew
Speaker 6: that were talented, and you know, again, I would have
Speaker 6: brought them all over. It wasn't. But that's not the
Speaker 6: smartest thing to do, right.
Speaker 3: What did you think about running a room?
Speaker 7: Were there are there specific things you thought, I'm gonna
Speaker 7: I had seen this done boy meets World, I'm going
Speaker 7: to take this with me, And were there are other
Speaker 7: things where you were like, I have seen.
Speaker 3: This done on Boy Meets World. I am not going
Speaker 3: to do that, but it's there.
Speaker 4: Believe the word tushy out of every sing.
Speaker 6: You know, I think you can watch every season and
Speaker 6: I don't believe we have tushy. So, you know, I
Speaker 6: wish I had been on more rooms before I ran
Speaker 6: a room. And I will have to say, there are
Speaker 6: things I learned about your situation from the podcast that
Speaker 6: I didn't know, and there's just certain things as a
Speaker 6: mid level rider, you just don't know what's going on. Danielle.
Speaker 6: I wanted to cry when I heard about you, you know,
Speaker 6: having to do your hair before you came in, Like
Speaker 6: that was crazy. And also Michael's technique of giving notes
Speaker 6: in front of everyone and sort of like, you know,
Speaker 6: I felt very lectury maybe to you, I don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean there was you know, it was interesting to
Speaker 6: me as I told you, we were completely left out
Speaker 6: of everything in home improvement. It was a very very
Speaker 6: higherarchical room and so you don't necessarily hear network notes,
Speaker 6: studio notes, whatever. So while I appreciated the chance to
Speaker 6: being able to listen to that and see how certain
Speaker 6: notes evolve and why we were making certain choices in rewrites,
Speaker 6: I don't think that was a great method method of
Speaker 6: giving notes in front of everybody. The way that was done,
Speaker 6: and that is one thing I did take from Michael. Now,
Speaker 6: I don't think my notes were ever harsh, but I
Speaker 6: don't necessarily think cast notes like that is necessarily the
Speaker 6: way to go. And another thing I did, and I
Speaker 6: specifically did this to not be like Boy Meets World
Speaker 6: in the sense I really felt like sitcom directors were
Speaker 6: not given quite the respect that they should be, and
Speaker 6: so I thought, who am I to give an actor's note, right,
Speaker 6: I know how I want it to play on screen,
Speaker 6: but let me tell this person who works with them
Speaker 6: all day long, I don't like this, this is too heavy,
Speaker 6: or to this, or can we try something different? Whatever.
Speaker 6: So I did that. I made a real effort to
Speaker 6: let my directors do all the talking to the actors,
Speaker 6: and I think I think that served me to a point.
Speaker 6: And then I also think the relationship is very important
Speaker 6: to have with the actors. So there's some pleasant and
Speaker 6: minus with that. But that's one thing I definitely did differently.
Speaker 6: You know, you learn other things the showrunners that want
Speaker 6: to fix a joke on page three when you're fresh
Speaker 6: at eight pm, and then you get to the real
Speaker 6: meaty problem with the script on page twenty five at
Speaker 6: two in the morning. You're exhausted. So you up to
Speaker 6: a four or five in the morning on home improvement
Speaker 6: all the time, and all the time. Get in my
Speaker 6: car at five in the morning, drive over the hill
Speaker 6: back to my apartments. Sudden, my god, noon, get up,
Speaker 6: be back at one, and we do it. We did
Speaker 6: seven days a week's absolutely crazy. I can remember like
Speaker 6: there was pre uber like thinking, I don't know if
Speaker 6: I can drive home. I might just need to sleep
Speaker 6: on the sofa. Oh yeah, So I made an effort
Speaker 6: that I didn't want. You know, we tried to get
Speaker 6: the work done. If we need to fix a joke,
Speaker 6: let's let's work on the hard stuff first and jokes
Speaker 6: later and things like that. So I try to take
Speaker 6: little tips from different writers. I've worked good showrunners that
Speaker 6: I've worked for. But yeah, and you know, I remember
Speaker 6: you guys said you were talking about directors you really loved,
Speaker 6: and I don't think we ever talked about that. The
Speaker 6: way writers look at directors is who's ready on time?
Speaker 5: Oh wow, right, yeah, well that's why we see in
Speaker 5: season seven they were just giving us so many different directors.
Speaker 5: Like you're looking at the list and we're like, oh, Steve,
Speaker 5: have got an episode and and it's like and we
Speaker 5: love those people and they I'm glad they got a chance.
Speaker 4: But it was also like sort of like, let's just
Speaker 4: give everybody a chance.
Speaker 5: Like it's not because I don't think it's because Michael
Speaker 5: thinks that a director does is an essential element. I
Speaker 5: think it was just oh, we can do a favor
Speaker 5: for a friend, let them do that. And but yeah,
Speaker 5: he yeah, definitely does not did not consider directors.
Speaker 2: And he also wanted to be I think in his
Speaker 2: heart he always wanted to be an actor. So his notes,
Speaker 2: his note sessions were him on stage. It was him
Speaker 2: performing for everybody around.
Speaker 6: So and I'm sure somebody has talked to how we
Speaker 6: did Writer's Table reads? Anyone bring that up? Yeah? Yeah, never,
Speaker 6: I've never been on. I mean I've been over a
Speaker 6: lot of shows and nobody that was really because we're
Speaker 6: not actors and you know you and you could cast
Speaker 6: your script with everyone around the room, and if like
Speaker 6: someone killed one of your jokes, you're like, oh, we're
Speaker 6: going to be here after that because you couldn't deliver that,
Speaker 6: you know, right writer. Yeah, one thing I wanted to
Speaker 6: bring up. Have you guys talked about the the dance routines.
Speaker 3: No, that's I mean a little bit dancroutine that.
Speaker 6: We have.
Speaker 3: What what are your memories of it?
Speaker 6: I have to say that was so much fun. That
Speaker 6: is a eight season.
Speaker 5: When you said, I have to say, but yeah, like
Speaker 5: we were just like we were making your life hell
Speaker 5: by shutting on the show, like okay.
Speaker 6: No, no, no. I thought it was no because again
Speaker 6: late season season one, season two, Guys season six, season seven,
Speaker 6: they Love You. It was hilarious. I've never I always
Speaker 6: like wherever I was, I had to run out and
Speaker 6: see it and to see the audience just like you.
Speaker 3: Were, like they were the Beatles, they were the Battery Boys.
Speaker 6: It was crazy and rip off his shirt and whatever.
Speaker 6: I just thought that was absolutely hilarious and and just
Speaker 6: a golden, weird, funny moment that we only did a
Speaker 6: show that's a beloved show that's been on for a
Speaker 6: long time.
Speaker 1: So you didn't do that. You didn't have a dance
Speaker 1: break on Reba.
Speaker 6: We did not have a dance lot.
Speaker 4: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: We had we had been taking his shirt off. They
Speaker 1: had awards.
Speaker 8: Yeah, are you surprised at all that thirty years later
Speaker 8: people are still discovering Boy Meets World.
Speaker 6: I am, and I'm not. I'm actually thrilled for it.
Speaker 6: I just think I think shows with resonance that they
Speaker 6: hit a certain time period and they become beloved and
Speaker 6: and they're important, and so I just think that's really
Speaker 6: just amazing. I'm thrilled to be a part of it.
Speaker 6: It's been fun, I because I have it. Like I said,
Speaker 6: Home Improvements a number one show at the time and whatever,
Speaker 6: and but Reba and Boy Meet's World have both had
Speaker 6: a huge resurgence, and particularly over through the COVID time
Speaker 6: when people found stuff on streaming and whatever. And no
Speaker 6: matter where I go, I've I judged some film festivals
Speaker 6: and did some different stuff from whatever. It's the two
Speaker 6: shows people always bring up to me, and they always
Speaker 6: come up and ask you about you guys, and my
Speaker 6: experience there and this and and and that. They grew
Speaker 6: up with it and they love it and it's beloved
Speaker 6: and so I mean, did I know that after I
Speaker 6: wrote the Organ Grinder episode and the Future Band episode,
Speaker 6: No tushing, no Brushing? I will say at the time,
Speaker 6: I did not know. But I'm proud to be associated
Speaker 6: with it, and I'm really happy for you guys, and
Speaker 6: I'm glad people are seeing it. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Well, thank you so much for being here with us
Speaker 7: and for sharing your wisdom and your insight. It's nice
Speaker 7: to catch up with you. We should get together and
Speaker 7: have lunch and share stories. Thank you just so much
Speaker 7: for coming and sharing your experience with us.
Speaker 6: That'd be great. It's great to see you guys. It
Speaker 6: really is great to see you. Oh man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't. I still just being a television fanatic.
Speaker 2: I cannot get over the fact that a show called
Speaker 2: Rebayah was called something else. Somebody came in went through
Speaker 2: the entire audition process, not a I had a meeting
Speaker 2: and decided, okay, I'll do the show, went through the
Speaker 2: entire audition.
Speaker 3: Wasn't even courted. Just yeah.
Speaker 2: I didn't know the screen test, and then I have
Speaker 2: to screen test and then we're going to name the
Speaker 2: show up.
Speaker 7: I'm dying to know what happened during that publicity.
Speaker 3: What happened? What did someone do to Riba that made
Speaker 3: her go? We are calling this show Reba oh.
Speaker 1: Man, but you do it with an accident. We're calling
Speaker 1: the show Raba. We're calling there you go nice?
Speaker 6: Nice.
Speaker 7: Thank you all for joining us for this episode of
Speaker 7: Podmeets World as always. You can follow us on Instagram
Speaker 7: pod Meets World Show. You can send us your emails
Speaker 7: Podmeets World Show.
Speaker 3: At gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: And we've got merch no tushy, no merchie.
Speaker 3: Podmeetsworldshow dot com. A writer send us out.
Speaker 4: We love you all, pod dismissed.
Speaker 5: Podmeets World is an iHeart podcast producer hosted by Danielle Fischel,
Speaker 5: Wilfridell and Ryder Strong executive producers Jensen Karp and Amy
Speaker 5: Sugarman Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor,
Speaker 5: Tarasubasch producer, Maddie Moore engineer and Boy Meets World Superman
Speaker 5: Easton Out. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon.
Speaker 5: Follow us on Instagram at podmets World Show, or email
Speaker 5: us at Podmeats World Show at gmail dot com