Speaker 1: Yesterday I went and got a lymphatic massage. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you guys have ever heard of one.
Speaker 2: Yes, blood from your face.
Speaker 1: No, No, it's just a it's not a like a
Speaker 1: super enjoyable massage, like a massage where they're working on
Speaker 1: your muscles. It is literally to help move things through
Speaker 1: your lymphatic system. And so it's like getting rid of
Speaker 1: trapped gas, sexy or helping just helping get rid of toxins.
Speaker 1: So since I you can, yeah, it can happen. This
Speaker 1: was my first lymphatic massage, and one of the reasons
Speaker 1: I'm having it is because now that I've had a
Speaker 1: lymph node removed, I have noticed some lymphidema. I have
Speaker 1: a little bit of swelling. And the heart part is,
Speaker 1: now that I have a lymph node removed, it's like
Speaker 1: that one won't work, so I have to find other.
Speaker 1: I just need to keep everything moving lymphatic wise. And
Speaker 1: they're very popular right now. It's kind of like they've
Speaker 1: always existed. But you know, sometimes all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: just something gets in the zeitgeist and you can't stop
Speaker 1: hearing about them. I have been hearing about lymphatic massage
Speaker 1: for a long time, and I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I need one of those. I'm going to go get
Speaker 1: a lymphatic massage. And so I had my first one
Speaker 1: yesterday and I'm on the table and I'm a little
Speaker 1: uncomfortable because it's, like I said, it's not like a
Speaker 1: super enjoyable massage. It's really just kind of like moving
Speaker 1: things through. And all of a sudden, the cell phone
Speaker 1: rings of the therapist and she leaves the room. And
Speaker 1: then she comes running back and she's like, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: no problem, and she's flipping on the lights and she
Speaker 1: is she is rather panicked, and I'm just still laying
Speaker 1: on the table and I go, what's going on? And
Speaker 1: she goes, the building is on fire. We have to
Speaker 1: go right now. And I go, really, yes. She goes,
Speaker 1: get up, get dressed. I throw I throw off the sheets,
Speaker 1: I pull.
Speaker 3: On all my.
Speaker 2: Yes terrifying, Oh my god, the building.
Speaker 1: Is on fire. We have to go. I throw on
Speaker 1: all my clothes. I grab my purse, I grab my
Speaker 1: bottle of water. I have everything I need within seconds.
Speaker 1: And she is it's the only the two of us
Speaker 1: in this tiny little place, and she's like having to
Speaker 1: check things, and I'm like I'm not leaving without you.
Speaker 1: She's like, oh go, I said, I'm not leaving without you.
Speaker 1: She's like okay, thank you. And she's like turning, She's
Speaker 1: turning off lights and gathering things. I'm like, let's go,
Speaker 1: let's go. We run out the fire sprinklers. The sprinklers
Speaker 1: in the building are going off, so it is raining
Speaker 1: inside the building. I see people coming out of other
Speaker 1: offices exiting, also frantic, but there's no alarms going off
Speaker 1: in the building, like there's no fire alarm. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: why is it so quiet in here? I just hear
Speaker 1: the sound of the water and and like door is closing.
Speaker 1: We go running through the hallway to the staircase, which
Speaker 1: happens to be right next to the elevator, and there's
Speaker 1: a woman standing there and she did not want the
Speaker 1: area in front of the elevator didn't have sprinklers, so
Speaker 1: it was dry right there. And she was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna take the elevator. And I was like, you are
Speaker 1: not taking the elevator. You are not the you cannot
Speaker 1: take the.
Speaker 2: Elevator, take the stairs.
Speaker 1: Let me go. And we're like grabbing hands and three
Speaker 1: of us running down the staircase getting sprinkled on. I
Speaker 1: run past a firefighter who's running in, and I go,
Speaker 1: what's going on? He's like, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm like, all right, I'm getting.
Speaker 1: I go running out. There are dozens of people who
Speaker 1: had been inside the building standing there.
Speaker 2: Recording on their phones to see.
Speaker 1: I guess. I don't know what's behind me? Is the
Speaker 1: building up in flames? I have no idea, but all
Speaker 1: I could picture when I ran out to like a
Speaker 1: wall of people with their cell phone to someone having
Speaker 1: footage of like to.
Speaker 4: Penga fleas building with me, get out of the way, granny,
Speaker 4: I are their first class boats.
Speaker 1: Literally just walked out, turned around, saw that the building
Speaker 1: didn't have like giant flames coming out of it, just
Speaker 1: walked right to my car my garden drove.
Speaker 2: Oh that's it. So you never found out what happened.
Speaker 1: What happened. Later, the woman who booked me for the
Speaker 1: Limbatck massage was like, I'm sorry, it turns out there
Speaker 1: wasn't a fire, but honestly, I smelled smoke. I truly
Speaker 1: smelled smoke. She said there was a gas leak, okay,
Speaker 1: but why would the fire sprinklers on if there was
Speaker 1: just the alarm.
Speaker 5: But even if you pull the alarm, the sprinklers I
Speaker 5: think are activated by heat correct.
Speaker 1: Or smoke of some kind. So I'm not sure about
Speaker 1: this gasleak situation. I also need to investigate it now
Speaker 1: today that they have more information, she texted me that
Speaker 1: it was gas leak. Like when I was still in
Speaker 1: the car having fleed, I was waited for it to
Speaker 1: be like.
Speaker 2: This was all part of your massage.
Speaker 6: What I was gonna say is that massage is first
Speaker 6: we massage you where it's really unpleasant, and then we're
Speaker 6: scared and relaxed, and that normal life just feels amazing.
Speaker 2: Dongratulations, It's like the game. It's like a movie. Oh
Speaker 2: my gosh.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I just I couldn't believe it. I called
Speaker 1: Jensen Johnsen was like, hey, what's up. I was like,
Speaker 1: I just ran out of what I was told was
Speaker 1: a burning building and now I'm at homemade in a salad.
Speaker 2: So are you going to go back and have them
Speaker 2: do the other half of the body? Does that work?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 1: They did offer me a free one to make up
Speaker 1: for this one, so yeah, I'll probably go back and
Speaker 1: give it a chance. But I'm wondering if I'm ever
Speaker 1: going to be able to relax in a massage, I couldn't. Never,
Speaker 1: of course not. I think that's like such a worst
Speaker 1: case scenario of like what happens if you're laying naked
Speaker 1: in a room? Like, what's the worst scenario?
Speaker 4: All the building is on fire, and you wait, do
Speaker 4: you go full naked when.
Speaker 2: You get massages?
Speaker 1: I wear my underwear?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, so you don't, that's what I was.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, but I mean it's close enough.
Speaker 7: It is is no, But I was running because I
Speaker 7: know some people go full Monty when they're I find that.
Speaker 1: It's just a personal decision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, but.
Speaker 7: Yeah, now you'd want to run running out of the building,
Speaker 7: and I'm gonna I'm gonna do everything in pants and
Speaker 7: T shirts.
Speaker 1: And yeah exactly, I'm gonna be like, just let me
Speaker 1: just hold my purse just in case. I'm just gonna Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was anyway, it was a really fun experience. And
Speaker 1: the minute it happened to said, can't wait to tell
Speaker 1: the guys about this.
Speaker 7: This is.
Speaker 2: My life.
Speaker 1: Now my life is making a pre show. Welcome to
Speaker 1: pod meets World. I'm run from a burning building Danielle.
Speaker 2: Fisher, I'm Right or Strong, and I'm wilfredll.
Speaker 7: So.
Speaker 1: One thing we noticed during our season five Rewatch was
Speaker 1: a slew of new names joining the writer's room, either
Speaker 1: full time or in a freelance position. The show had
Speaker 1: become easier to produce, and past familiar faces had gone
Speaker 1: on to get their own deals or join other developing
Speaker 1: Michael Jacob's shows, So it makes sense that with a
Speaker 1: twenty four episode order, it was time to get some
Speaker 1: new hands on deck. Some of these additions would stick
Speaker 1: around till closing time, while some just swung by to
Speaker 1: help with workload and never even stepped foot on set.
Speaker 1: But one thing they all seem to have in common
Speaker 1: is an impressive IMDb page filled with project after project,
Speaker 1: even now basically thirty years later. Whether it's Andy Gerdatt,
Speaker 1: who spent forty years in the business helping shape Paw
Speaker 1: Patrol and Fancy Nancy in what was the third act
Speaker 1: of his career, or Laura Olson, currently working on the
Speaker 1: modern day reboot of Baywatch, a show that's got us
Speaker 1: all tiresly working out while we wait for her call.
Speaker 1: And this week's guest is another impressive example. We knew
Speaker 1: her as Barbie Feldman, a first time writer with a
Speaker 1: very cool name, joining Boy Meets World in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: eight and staying with us till the bitter end. But
Speaker 1: talk about a first impression. She had two scripts in
Speaker 1: her first season of her first writing job, and those
Speaker 1: two scripts raging Corey and Eric Hollywood suow some Bangs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got both of those on my list. It
Speaker 2: didn't both of those on my list. Yeah, I got
Speaker 2: the Feldman list.
Speaker 1: But if you followed Barbie's career since writing for us, Goofballs,
Speaker 1: those impressive episodes shouldn't surprise you. Now, Barbie Adler, she'd
Speaker 1: add shows like Evan Stevens, My Name Is Earl Up
Speaker 1: All Night, How I Met Your Mother, Life in Pieces,
Speaker 1: and Bless this Mess to her resume, while creating the
Speaker 1: sitcom Kevin from Work and winning an Emmy for the
Speaker 1: absolute classic Arrested Development, where she wrote seven episode odes
Speaker 1: and she's still making hits. Just last year, she wrote
Speaker 1: and produced on the Netflix water cooler phenomenon Nobody Wants This,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure she's working on something right now that
Speaker 1: is much funnier than our podcast. This week, we are
Speaker 1: honored to welcome Barbie Adler to Pod Meets World.
Speaker 7: Hi.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it's so great to see you, So.
Speaker 3: Great to see you, guys. Oh, this is so exciting.
Speaker 1: It's so exciting.
Speaker 2: For a ten minutes, I as I feel.
Speaker 3: Like I think I saw you during the strike, right, like, yeah, quick,
Speaker 3: hugging the law and the yeah, the in a marching line. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us once we entered
Speaker 1: season five. We have been dying to get you on
Speaker 1: and reunite, but you are so busy. Kudos to you
Speaker 1: for staying so busy in a really hard time. And
Speaker 1: so now before we take all the credit Boy Meets
Speaker 1: World for your incredibly successful writing career, let's talk about
Speaker 1: out how Boy Meets World was your first ever writing job.
Speaker 1: How did this happen?
Speaker 3: You can take credit for a.
Speaker 2: Lot of Yes, you're welcome.
Speaker 3: How do you feel as fair? I so that was
Speaker 3: my very first writing job, and I I will say,
Speaker 3: if I was trying to get a job now at
Speaker 3: that level, with you know, like starting out with the
Speaker 3: skill level I had at the time, there's no chance
Speaker 3: in hell I would have gotten a job. There's just
Speaker 3: no way. People have to be so much better now
Speaker 3: from the jump, like when you get to you know,
Speaker 3: you should know everything. I didn't know anything, and I
Speaker 3: really learned like everything at Boy means World, Like that's
Speaker 3: where I started. And that was because I had been
Speaker 3: you know, i'd been in the offices and like an
Speaker 3: assistant and I was Michael's you know, second assistant for
Speaker 3: a while.
Speaker 1: And so that's how you got the job.
Speaker 3: Well I got that. So do want me go back?
Speaker 1: Yes, you still didn't actually know that. We didn't know
Speaker 1: that you were michael second assistant.
Speaker 3: Here's here's I'll tell you the story. So I so
Speaker 3: I'm from the Midwest. I came out here. I went
Speaker 3: to school in San Diego, but I didn't know anybody
Speaker 3: out here, like no connections, nothing. I didn't even know
Speaker 3: what every different job did on a TV show. Like
Speaker 3: I was so disconnected from like, hey, what's real here?
Speaker 3: And I kind of was just really fearless at that
Speaker 3: time where I was. I was and this is back
Speaker 3: in the day. You're on the phone all the time.
Speaker 3: So I'm like back at the Hollywood reporter calling everybody
Speaker 3: doing everything like going and I somehow, you know, I
Speaker 3: would call people and I somehow got put on the
Speaker 3: name on a list of the internal like PA, the
Speaker 3: pas that had been approved for Disney, and I didn't
Speaker 3: even know I was on this list. So then so
Speaker 3: then somebody called me. It was Mitch, I don't know
Speaker 3: you talk about Midge Bang called me and he was like,
Speaker 3: you know doing this. It was about a pilot and
Speaker 3: it wasn't was of Michael Jacob's pilot and you're starting
Speaker 3: up and whatever and you're on this list and do it.
Speaker 3: And I had the whole thing. And then at the
Speaker 3: we were talking and talking and talking and then he's like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. I meant to call the name under
Speaker 3: your name and I was like, no, dude, So what
Speaker 3: I'm on the phone, I'm yeah, and I yeah, and
Speaker 3: I'm like that's I'm getting this job. So basically I
Speaker 3: got that job. Was on a pilot ESPA that didn't go.
Speaker 3: Michael made me the second assistant, which was the he
Speaker 3: had the major assistant. This is back in the day,
Speaker 3: and then a second asidant who was like mostly doing
Speaker 3: personal stuff. Lots of running around town and this is
Speaker 3: again pre internet, so you're like running everywhere to do everything.
Speaker 3: And that was my day. There's a lot of you know,
Speaker 3: filling his car with gas, or going in talking out
Speaker 3: these gifts and doing this and a lot of that.
Speaker 2: Softball bats Go buy a softball bat form?
Speaker 3: Oh no, go buy twelve which one I like? And
Speaker 3: then take back?
Speaker 2: Did you go comic book shopping? Did you have to
Speaker 2: go get comic book?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yes, oh yes, you just brought that back.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, don't you remember that?
Speaker 7: The baseball anytime we started anything, ping pong, paddles, baseball gloves,
Speaker 7: any of that stuff, that's what Michael would get.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yourts.
Speaker 1: Did you ever have to iron his jeans?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 3: I think I would have been a I think we
Speaker 3: crossed the line. They did not do that. I did
Speaker 3: picking up gifts, lots of returning, lots of watches, lots
Speaker 3: of clothes, lots of run this over. I would have
Speaker 3: to help like other like it's beyond just the person,
Speaker 3: it's like their family.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: It was a lot, and then I sort of But
Speaker 3: the good thing was about Michael. Even I'm sure you
Speaker 3: guys have talked to this subject to death. But he
Speaker 3: wanted to like he wanted to know what I wanted
Speaker 3: to do, Like, what do you want to do? He
Speaker 3: knows you don't like doing.
Speaker 2: Right, sure.
Speaker 3: So he was like, what do you want to do?
Speaker 3: And I had been on the set of Boyman's World
Speaker 3: a little bit, going to run through, you know, bringing
Speaker 3: him things. And I come down there and I was like,
Speaker 3: I was a TV kid growing up, nothing but a
Speaker 3: TV and I was like, I think I can do this.
Speaker 3: I think I can write. I want to write. And
Speaker 3: he was like, okay, go pitch me. Come back with
Speaker 3: pitches for three Boy Means World episode ideas, and then
Speaker 3: you all picked the one and you can write that spec. Like,
Speaker 3: just write as a spec as a sample.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wrote one.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember what it was about.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you remember what the pitch was.
Speaker 3: I was just I'm sitting here. I'm like, bring it back,
Speaker 3: bring it back. I think it was maybe Corey had
Speaker 3: was it a penpals something was uh and the name
Speaker 3: was just uh. He thought it was a boy, ended
Speaker 3: up being a girl. It ended up being a date.
Speaker 3: Benga didn't like that, you know, it was just like, oh,
Speaker 3: that was the thing. I think that was the one
Speaker 3: I ended up doing.
Speaker 7: It's very yeah, cool story.
Speaker 3: So so I did that. It turned in and he
Speaker 3: was like, okay, you know back in the day, you
Speaker 3: would be able to you'd have these episodes, you know,
Speaker 3: you'd get twenty two episodes of season or more. And
Speaker 3: the guild, I believe it was a guild rule that
Speaker 3: every thirteen I think you'd have to or maybe one
Speaker 3: out of the season you'd have to farm out to
Speaker 3: a writer who wasn't in your staff.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that so he's like, okay, i'll give you for
Speaker 3: the next season Boy Means World. We were in hiatus.
Speaker 3: He's like, I'll give you an outside of writing assignment.
Speaker 3: I mean, that was like everything to me. I couldn't
Speaker 3: believe it. It was so much. It was like it was
Speaker 3: life changing, that opportunity for me. At the time, I
Speaker 3: was sitting in this bullpen area. You guys remember that
Speaker 3: all the deaths were up there, and we kind of
Speaker 3: are all talking and they were trying to staff Boy
Speaker 3: Meets World for the next season where they had a
Speaker 3: couple of spots and another show, another pilot that he
Speaker 3: had that had gotten picked up the series. And they're like,
Speaker 3: I'm in this bullpen areo and exact. You know, He's
Speaker 3: walking back and forth with all these people and they're
Speaker 3: talking whatever, and he I keep hearing they said all
Speaker 3: we need we just need a low level woman.
Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah, again, is that's going to
Speaker 2: be the name of your memoir.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's kind of great.
Speaker 3: It's like a picture like, yeah, I'm a low level woman.
Speaker 3: So I went, I was like, what do I have again?
Speaker 3: Fearless that age, you have to try, you try. I
Speaker 3: went into his office and I was like, hey, are
Speaker 3: you hearing all this conversation about low level woman? Said
Speaker 3: what about me? And he goes, okay, knows it.
Speaker 1: So this is this is at the end of season four,
Speaker 1: before season five.
Speaker 3: This is like during they had just gotten a pilot
Speaker 3: picked up, so that would have been in May, you know,
Speaker 3: and they're staffing in June, you know, you staff for
Speaker 3: the start in June for the so it's in that area.
Speaker 2: There's the other pilot, Zoe duncan track.
Speaker 8: That was maybe this time, wasn't No, you have more
Speaker 8: gap guesses, Zoe you wish?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Genie one you got.
Speaker 7: You got you guys, But wait a second, you were
Speaker 7: you were on the set for the whole time though
Speaker 7: for the first four seasons, weren't you?
Speaker 3: I was, well, so I went not the beginning, not
Speaker 3: the first season. I think I might have come in.
Speaker 3: I was did like maybe ten months. So so I
Speaker 3: was Michael's second assistant and then I was Susan Jansen's assistant.
Speaker 3: I forgot that part okay almost, It's interesting and with
Speaker 3: her for like maybe you're you know, it was like
Speaker 3: when we were shooting. I remember were shooting at K
Speaker 3: T l A obviously you know, like over there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so I was probably there maybe third and fourth.
Speaker 1: Ye, third and fourth, Okay, so you were you were
Speaker 1: for third and fourth and then staffed on season five?
Speaker 3: Yes, And again had no idea what I was doing,
Speaker 3: like other than being like an avid TV watcher and
Speaker 3: obviously knowing the show very well. I was like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, what am I doing?
Speaker 1: Did you watch the show outside of having seen it
Speaker 1: when you were visiting on set.
Speaker 3: I had seen it when it first came on when
Speaker 3: in its first season. This is when I was like,
Speaker 3: I don't even know if i'd moved out here yet.
Speaker 3: I mean, I went to school in Staniago. Then came
Speaker 3: up and I had seen episodes of it.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a cute show.
Speaker 3: And so I knew of it, and I didn't know
Speaker 3: his whole you know, you know, all the shows that
Speaker 3: Michael had done. I didn't know all that until I
Speaker 3: got there and realized it was all this stuff. And
Speaker 3: how you know, he had such a young start and
Speaker 3: you know, he was really prolific, and that was the
Speaker 3: time when they would have, you know, these giant overall
Speaker 3: deals for these guys, more shows, more shows, and and
Speaker 3: it was it was a really good So then back
Speaker 3: to your question, you know about like getting in there
Speaker 3: and learning and learning everything I know from Weman's world.
Speaker 3: I'm and because I went back and I looked at
Speaker 3: I watched a couple of episodes just in prep for this,
Speaker 3: and I was like, you know, it really teaches you
Speaker 3: the basics. Not to be saying that it's a basic show,
Speaker 3: but it teaches you the basics. It teaches you you
Speaker 3: learned structure, setting things up, paying things up, you know,
Speaker 3: the acts, how to you know, the emotional part, the
Speaker 3: funny part, how to come up. It really kind of
Speaker 3: is gives you your one oh one class in TV writing.
Speaker 3: And I didn't even think about that until I just
Speaker 3: rewatched them. I was like, oh, yeah, this is basic structure,
Speaker 3: basic in a good way, you know. And it was
Speaker 3: something that, uh, it was also great because I was there,
Speaker 3: so I was a writer for the last three seasons.
Speaker 3: But I had this sort of gift of having jobs
Speaker 3: secure because I knew he would never fire me because
Speaker 3: he wanted me to succeed. I knew him so well,
Speaker 3: hit all the keys to his house, but you know,
Speaker 3: like he wanted he It was I think people don't
Speaker 3: always get that chance anymore to sort of settle in,
Speaker 3: sit back, observe, learn, participate when you know you can
Speaker 3: successfully when you know you should. When it's as opposed
Speaker 3: to the pressure I see now, which is just like
Speaker 3: everyone's got to be an a plus plus from the
Speaker 3: day they start, and you don't know anything when on
Speaker 3: the day you start. So I completely like, I appreciate
Speaker 3: that time so much. I think of it because the
Speaker 3: show really did give me everything. It gave me three
Speaker 3: years on a show, which was a huge thing to have.
Speaker 3: It let me go out and be, you know, go
Speaker 3: on something else, get offers, be you know, just sort
Speaker 3: of protected for three years so I could get to
Speaker 3: be a good actually you know writer. Yeah, it was
Speaker 3: everything that it was great, and I'm that is really
Speaker 3: really an important part of the process that I feel
Speaker 3: doesn't happen.
Speaker 2: Before we get to.
Speaker 7: Because you're speaking my language with kind of loving TV
Speaker 7: and being raised on TV. I'm just curious what your
Speaker 7: shows were that you loved so much that really brought
Speaker 7: you into the TV world when you were growing up.
Speaker 3: Well, that would be Thursday night on NBC primarily, that
Speaker 3: would be the Cosby Show.
Speaker 2: Show Family Ties and Cheers. Yeah, okay, kind of that night.
Speaker 3: It was that, And I really would I mean I
Speaker 3: was an indoor kid, let's say, so I would always lash,
Speaker 3: you know, like whatever I was, the TV was there
Speaker 3: and I would watch everything. And I would also watch
Speaker 3: like my mom you know, was great about sort of
Speaker 3: even though I was in the middle of the Midwest,
Speaker 3: like the broadening sort of my entertainment whatever horizons, and
Speaker 3: so I'd watch a lot of movie and there was
Speaker 3: just so much to fit into it. But it really
Speaker 3: was I would say Cheers was probably the one that
Speaker 3: really really made it. I mean, I love that show
Speaker 3: so much, hand Family Ties, those were really spoke to me. H, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I loved I loved Also, if I remember Moonlighting, loving
Speaker 3: and just like kind of loving just the dialogue falling
Speaker 3: in love, which sort of the idea of like dialogue
Speaker 3: and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we had talked about the fact that the
Speaker 1: first couple of seasons or few seasons of Boy Meets
Speaker 1: World were not necessarily known for its feminine touch, and
Speaker 1: then we noticed, like around season five, there seemed to
Speaker 1: be a nice uptick in women writers. What was your
Speaker 1: experience coming in and did it ever feel like a
Speaker 1: boy's club or did you feel very welcome right from
Speaker 1: the beginning?
Speaker 3: Yes, boys club? Okay. Also yes, yes, welcome because he
Speaker 3: wanted me to be there, and I had known these
Speaker 3: guys for a couple of years because remember a lot
Speaker 3: of these guys had just been you know, they were
Speaker 3: the whole time. So I had already brought everyone there
Speaker 3: lunch and then all the cougar Oh, I actually we're
Speaker 3: going to get it back.
Speaker 2: We're getting it back. We're going to figure out how
Speaker 2: to get.
Speaker 3: Kid sand it too soon. We all know they had problems. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I uh so I felt like I was very welcome there,
Speaker 3: and I didn't really feel the you know, the wait,
Speaker 3: we're considering you to be an assistant sort of thing,
Speaker 3: we're considering this person, you're coming in here. I kind
Speaker 3: of just felt welcome and that again it comes from
Speaker 3: Michael welcoming me in there. I didn't boys club. I
Speaker 3: didn't know it was a boys club. It was just
Speaker 3: a bunch of men and they were kind of you know,
Speaker 3: I had a lot of them have known each other forever,
Speaker 3: and it was the camaraderie there. But they all had wives,
Speaker 3: and they all had kids, and you know, they all
Speaker 3: had women in their lives that I feel, you know,
Speaker 3: we would hear about and positive stuff. So it wasn't
Speaker 3: like some of the rooms that are very difficult for women,
Speaker 3: which but it wasn't one of those because I feel like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I guess this isn't necessarily the case
Speaker 3: with all but I was just going to say the
Speaker 3: show and the content of the show, it was such
Speaker 3: a warm y though. It wasn't like we were doing,
Speaker 3: you know, such negative stuff or whatever.
Speaker 2: It wasn't cynical, right, and.
Speaker 3: Michael and they knew I was Michael. I was Michael's person,
Speaker 3: and they all liked me. I liked all them. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's like menel it's in there and all those guys,
Speaker 3: so you know, yeah, group and the other women. I
Speaker 3: feel like there was a team that came in and
Speaker 3: then after that, and another woman a couple, and that
Speaker 3: I think it was all positive in that area, to
Speaker 3: their credit, because it was a time when it wasn't
Speaker 3: really always like that. But before I had gotten in
Speaker 3: that room, you know, I'm on shows now and you
Speaker 3: welcome the writers distance in the room and you're kind
Speaker 3: of just everybody can kind of come in and sit
Speaker 3: and listen. It was a very very closed door room.
Speaker 3: So I never even sat in the writer's room before
Speaker 3: I became a writer. Never wow, which is so different
Speaker 3: from now. I feel like when they really it was
Speaker 3: it was doors closed, don't go in. So who knows
Speaker 3: what happened before I got there, But while I was there,
Speaker 3: it was never something. And I also can hang with
Speaker 3: the guys anyways, I'm not, you know, And it was
Speaker 3: a different time when you were sort of expected to yes,
Speaker 3: and you're expected to and you're you're kind of tuned
Speaker 3: differently where you're not like it is now. And I'm
Speaker 3: sure some of the things that did go on. If
Speaker 3: I were to plot myself in that room right now,
Speaker 3: I'd be like, whoa, oh my god, You're.
Speaker 1: Like you'd yeah, you'd you'd hear it differently now than
Speaker 1: you heard it.
Speaker 3: Then absolutely and you and you would also, you know,
Speaker 3: you were I was supposed to tolerate it, like you're saying,
Speaker 3: you're supposed to like sort of hang with it, and
Speaker 3: I and that was And I was also so junior,
Speaker 3: So a lot of factors may have affected my perspective
Speaker 3: at the time that I wonder how I feel now.
Speaker 1: But you'll be happy to hear. I'm sure that your episode,
Speaker 1: Raging Corey is quite possibly writer's number one favorite episode
Speaker 1: of the series thus far.
Speaker 2: Me too, And it's in the arguments.
Speaker 1: It's in at least the top two. It's top two
Speaker 1: for me. We absolutely love it. We are obsessed with it.
Speaker 1: It is a perfect episode of television.
Speaker 2: Yo.
Speaker 3: All right, well, and I guess we're done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: I'm creating for us.
Speaker 1: I had no idea, Yeah, massive, massive fans. We to
Speaker 1: recap for anyone who doesn't remember. It focuses on Allan
Speaker 1: as a father and his strained relationships with Corey and Eric.
Speaker 1: Where did the origin of the idea come from? For you?
Speaker 3: Well, I think that the top So it was everybody
Speaker 3: you know and you talked about this, I'm sure a bunch,
Speaker 3: But like everybody's ideas, kind of go into one pot
Speaker 3: and then every the room, so it wasn't all solely mine.
Speaker 3: Of course I contributed over about the first draft, but
Speaker 3: what you see on TV often is very different. And
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if we had the story broken like
Speaker 3: that when I wrote it. But I remember in the
Speaker 3: initial conception it was boxing. That's why. So they didn't
Speaker 3: change the title, you know, So that's why, And it
Speaker 3: was that, and for some reason it got changed, probably
Speaker 3: because that's extraordinarily difficult and it didn't quite work. We
Speaker 3: didn't quite need it, and so I can't remember the
Speaker 3: original structure. I could find my old draft, I'm sure
Speaker 3: that would.
Speaker 1: Be so we would love to read it.
Speaker 3: Yes, I had to look really far somewhere over here
Speaker 3: because I'm like, oh, the file cabins over there, like
Speaker 3: almost me to go over to it. And so I
Speaker 3: think what I I the episode that I what I
Speaker 3: love about the episode is that it feels over in
Speaker 3: a weird way and then it keeps going into the
Speaker 3: part of it, which was something that I'm so proud
Speaker 3: of having that in an episode with my perfect Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and the perfection is all due to the writers as
Speaker 3: a group and Michael and everybody I just got lucky
Speaker 3: enough to have my name on it.
Speaker 5: But it's just a perfect sitcom in that it's like
Speaker 5: everything is character based, it's every you know, everybody feels motivated,
Speaker 5: and then just like you said, spins the story into
Speaker 5: a new chapter. So it's like Alan has this experience
Speaker 5: with Corey, and Corey goes to talk to Sean, and
Speaker 5: Sean has experience with his brother.
Speaker 2: It's like it's all just keeps.
Speaker 5: Spinning, and it's like it's you know, it's one of
Speaker 5: these things where no one's lives are really changed by
Speaker 5: it's per ec sitcom.
Speaker 2: It's like and yet we've seen them all.
Speaker 5: Illustrate who they are, try and change, come back to
Speaker 5: who they really fundamentally are they it also but it.
Speaker 7: Also goes with something we were talking about, which is
Speaker 7: it became a joke on the podcast because as we
Speaker 7: were watching, especially the first season, in a little bit
Speaker 7: in the second season, it wasn't until like episode three
Speaker 7: or four of the second season that Alan realized he
Speaker 7: had two sons.
Speaker 2: So there there's that that That episode also.
Speaker 7: Worked great because it leant into oh, that's right, I've
Speaker 7: got two kids. That and you know, that's what Amy says,
Speaker 7: she's like she literally says, along the way you had
Speaker 7: two kids are two boys and a girl like and
Speaker 7: and so we love that it leaned into the fact
Speaker 7: that we were like, hey, I wonder when they're going
Speaker 7: to realize that Eric's their kid too, and then boom,
Speaker 7: it was part of Yeah, and then you're.
Speaker 5: The great set piece of the skydiving. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: like it's a it's a it seems like a big
Speaker 5: set piece, but it's actually just a very simple scene
Speaker 5: and these guys just get to yell at each other
Speaker 5: and it's so funny.
Speaker 1: And there's a beautiful tag with Morgan at the end
Speaker 1: where even earlier in.
Speaker 3: The episode you see a little Morgan. I'm like, she's
Speaker 3: coming back, huh.
Speaker 8: So good.
Speaker 3: And the girls with you know, like the daughters and
Speaker 3: the sons, and I love that that that piece in
Speaker 3: the plane. It's so funny because it's so it's so
Speaker 3: long to be yelling this.
Speaker 2: Entire but it gets funnier.
Speaker 5: It's one of those things it's like the more you
Speaker 5: lead into it, then it does.
Speaker 3: It does, and it's able, which which is great because
Speaker 3: it's like that thing where you're like, they can't still be.
Speaker 5: You still young, You're getting more emotional, right, it's getting
Speaker 5: more personal as good.
Speaker 3: And it's it's and it was funny and different and
Speaker 3: it was different from the show. It just felt like
Speaker 3: it was the show in uh creative like you're saying,
Speaker 3: like things like spinning, they don't really end up they
Speaker 3: end up having learn and grown, but it's not a
Speaker 3: significant Oh now we're going to go in this direction.
Speaker 3: I'm now I'm going to school and you know, it's
Speaker 3: it was a fun emotional parenting, you know, parent sun
Speaker 3: story and super relatable.
Speaker 5: And it brought Alan back into the show, which you know,
Speaker 5: at the point sort of getting you know, compared to
Speaker 5: the first season, they were already starting to fade away.
Speaker 2: But it's just so interesting because I feel like.
Speaker 5: You know, so often we tend to look back and
Speaker 5: be like the serialized episodes of Boys One, the ones
Speaker 5: that like created this relationship or broke up this relationship,
Speaker 5: And here's one that was just like no, it was
Speaker 5: like it was a great maintenance episode of boy Meets
Speaker 5: World and just so yeah, one of the funniest.
Speaker 3: So, oh, thank you guys, that's a nice Again, I
Speaker 3: can't take credit everybody's credit of course, but I am
Speaker 3: lucky enough to have I mean, that is exciting and
Speaker 3: it was so exciting for me. And like I said,
Speaker 3: it started off and into a really different place. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it ends up like that and that's the process
Speaker 3: and and you never know what's going to end up
Speaker 3: on television.
Speaker 2: I mean it was then next is Eric tell us
Speaker 2: about that? What was going on? It's so good?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that one that is just so That
Speaker 3: one's so crazy and so funny. I mean, I'm I
Speaker 3: was laughing out loud on that one with you know,
Speaker 3: it was Will Will, You had me laughing. It was
Speaker 3: later do you feel Will did they let you?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 3: Was were you like unleashed on those scenes? Because I
Speaker 3: feel like like I feel like you were so dependably
Speaker 3: rock solid, funny and creative, interesting fun ways and then
Speaker 3: like Corey could still go back and be like, oh
Speaker 3: this is like a real guy. But in that one,
Speaker 3: all of that, I was like this, it was like crazy,
Speaker 3: it was crazy.
Speaker 2: We had it was fun.
Speaker 7: It was just fun all the way around. And it
Speaker 7: was it was I don't know, unleashed. I mean it
Speaker 7: was like when you get the material and the materials
Speaker 7: there and you get you're given the chance to play,
Speaker 7: then great things can happen.
Speaker 2: And it was just so much.
Speaker 1: Fun and maybe the best will has ever been all
Speaker 1: the different moments he was able to hit. It was,
Speaker 1: writer had commented when we watched it, the journey he
Speaker 1: takes the viewer on even just in one scene, You're like,
Speaker 1: this guy can reel you in with anything he.
Speaker 5: Does, all the different styles of acting, and yeah, and
Speaker 5: setting the tone for from beat to beat he's setting
Speaker 5: it's just incredible.
Speaker 3: So true and and big laughs and always you know,
Speaker 3: something different, and and then it's sort of like meta meta,
Speaker 3: and it was it's so it's such it's a weird one,
Speaker 3: but so incredibly fun.
Speaker 5: And that Do you remember the conversations, the creative conversations
Speaker 5: that led to it.
Speaker 3: Probably not, not really.
Speaker 2: Do you do you remember?
Speaker 7: One of the things that writer seems to remember is
Speaker 7: that originally other actors were cast to play the characters.
Speaker 2: They weren't going to play them.
Speaker 3: That's right, Yeah, I know. And when I was I
Speaker 3: was watching it too, I watched it on again, just
Speaker 3: like prep for this. I was like, it is a
Speaker 3: huge swing. So that so then there must have been
Speaker 3: something that was another direction first that didn't quite work,
Speaker 3: and they were like, let's just do this and try it.
Speaker 3: But it was such a big, broad, fun episode that
Speaker 3: it was kind of all bets are off.
Speaker 1: Where did the idea come from to poke fun at
Speaker 1: the writer's room with the young kids as the writer's room?
Speaker 3: Probably that's probably Michael. I mean, I mean that table
Speaker 3: was Michael's family. Yes, yes, I have Yeah, so funny,
Speaker 3: I think probably, I know that was I like that,
Speaker 3: that's funny. I mean it did. It gets so it
Speaker 3: was such a weird meta. But by the way, that
Speaker 3: is also the luxury of twenty two episodes.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, do that.
Speaker 3: They're not all so precious, not that that one's you know,
Speaker 3: that one is a great one, But you wouldn't really
Speaker 3: do that one. If you're like, oh, we have thirteen,
Speaker 3: we have to advance this. You're just like this, let's
Speaker 3: let's have a fun episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, I mean we were doing twenty four, so
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, you really, how do you.
Speaker 2: Do twenty four and not end up in World War two?
Speaker 2: Come on? You know, come on, I mean, seriously.
Speaker 5: I'm traveling, cat, Let's do something.
Speaker 3: You got to do something because you got to get
Speaker 3: to that finish line. But that's part of the fun
Speaker 3: because those episodes that are a little more out there,
Speaker 3: you know, you know, taking a shot at something or
Speaker 3: something that's a little more absurd or what somebody is
Speaker 3: some just somebody has an itch they want to scratch
Speaker 3: in the writing room, when you indulge it, like, that's
Speaker 3: so fun. That's the freedom of having all those episodes too.
Speaker 1: Did you have a character you particularly liked writing for?
Speaker 1: Both Raging Corey and Eric Hollywood have some pretty good
Speaker 1: Eric stuff. Did you have a character you liked writing
Speaker 1: for more than others?
Speaker 2: And why was it?
Speaker 7: Me?
Speaker 3: Okay, well, well you go. I loved writing. I love
Speaker 3: jokes like I love That's why I love the show.
Speaker 3: I love hard jokes. I love not like obvious hackey jokes.
Speaker 3: I love smart I love things creative jokes. And so
Speaker 3: I loved writing for all you guys. I loved seeing
Speaker 3: what you did with what was written. I can tell
Speaker 3: you that that was really really fun for me seeing,
Speaker 3: like I said, well, you know, just doing something. I
Speaker 3: was watching another one last what was the one I
Speaker 3: was watching my episodes? It was from the season later.
Speaker 3: It was when Feenie was in college, and like that's
Speaker 3: when his wife was, you know, his real and you
Speaker 3: did something where you're like in a space about something
Speaker 3: and it's just that was kind of not really written
Speaker 3: like that, but then you do with it and like
Speaker 3: all of you guys did and giving like such good performances.
Speaker 3: I feel like people don't realize that it's so hard
Speaker 3: to find awesome kid actors who then can get even
Speaker 3: better like young adult actors. And that's what was so great.
Speaker 3: A lot of shows you write and you're like, okay, well,
Speaker 3: let's just kind of limit this person because by season whatever,
Speaker 3: you're like, this isn't this great as we thought it
Speaker 3: would be, but we're stuck whatever it is. It's like,
Speaker 3: oh no, no, everyone everyone is a home run hitter
Speaker 3: in this show, like it was you. That's what I
Speaker 3: loved about writing for you guys. You didn't worry like, okay, well,
Speaker 3: she's never gonna be able to get this joke right right,
Speaker 3: like your timing Danielle. It's like it was so good
Speaker 3: and your jokes and your ability to like tolerate like
Speaker 3: madness around me with like whenever Corey's being silly or
Speaker 3: just too juvenile or whatever is and still be like
Speaker 3: your character maintain person and keep us buying that relationship
Speaker 3: was so is so hard. I don't know how people
Speaker 3: People may not really realize, like that's so hard to
Speaker 3: play all that and and the believability and in a
Speaker 3: comedy and still hit hard jokes very rare. Writer your next.
Speaker 2: You don't have to know that.
Speaker 3: And writer, I think people would probably think of like
Speaker 3: all like the emotional stuff for you, Like what a
Speaker 3: dramatic life that kid had, you know, to play all
Speaker 3: that and to be so young and play it with
Speaker 3: a light touch. And it was again, I don't think
Speaker 3: people realize the quality of the acting is better than
Speaker 3: many adults. Luck. It was just magic and fat. It
Speaker 3: was really really and that was what my fun was
Speaker 3: that you didn't have to write so that a character
Speaker 3: could handle it. You could write to see the character
Speaker 3: ascend to it or put their spin on it, and
Speaker 3: you knew it would be better. That was what was fun.
Speaker 7: How did you so we would often see because obviously
Speaker 7: one of the things we've talked about a whole bunch
Speaker 7: of times is how we were separated from the writer's room.
Speaker 7: We didn't really get to see what was going on.
Speaker 7: And I think that was done on purpose. It was
Speaker 7: kind of we were shielded from a lot of things,
Speaker 7: which was a good thing in the long run. But
Speaker 7: there was a lot of times we would do run
Speaker 7: throughs and then there'd be a massive rewrite, and I'm curious,
Speaker 7: how did you determine if it faults not the right word,
Speaker 7: but if it was us or the material, because there
Speaker 7: had to be a time where the writing was there.
Speaker 7: You knew the writing was there, and we just didn't
Speaker 7: hit it a run through. I mean, how do you
Speaker 7: determine whether no, the materials there, they just had an
Speaker 7: off day as opposed to okay, they gave it their all,
Speaker 7: and it's the material. Where do you pick that up?
Speaker 3: I would say that it's most it's almost always the material.
Speaker 3: It's something that you try that you finally get to hear,
Speaker 3: you know, like it's on its feet, as they say,
Speaker 3: you know, you hear it, and it's like, oh no,
Speaker 3: that's not that's not what we want, or it's not
Speaker 3: funny enough. It was really not. Because anything that was
Speaker 3: performance related could be there were notes for that. You
Speaker 3: guys want little notes or try to play it this way,
Speaker 3: or different takes where you could try different things or whatever.
Speaker 3: But if it's usually those notes were about the story,
Speaker 3: the story. You know, Michael had a interesting way about
Speaker 3: taking notes at these run throughs. Have you guys talked
Speaker 3: about this in my covering this stuff you guys talked
Speaker 3: about it was he would then, so you have all
Speaker 3: the executives out there, and did you guys ever hear
Speaker 3: the notes after the runthroughs or anything? Were you guys
Speaker 3: were gone? Yeah? So did he do the same thing
Speaker 3: where he would he just tell them what he's fixing
Speaker 3: before they'd give him any Yeah, which was an interesting thing.
Speaker 3: It was almost like if you do wait for those notes,
Speaker 3: you know, if you do hear those notes, usually they're
Speaker 3: about probably the things that he was fixing. Anyways, this
Speaker 3: needs a better ending. This felt too long. This isn't working.
Speaker 3: You know, we don't feel the emotion. We haven't set
Speaker 3: up something that we're trying to pay off at the end,
Speaker 3: or the payoff doesn't fit the setup, those kind of things.
Speaker 3: It's like just tidying up what it is. When it's
Speaker 3: a big rewrite, it's story's not working, or Michael wants
Speaker 3: to just get in there and rip it up. He
Speaker 3: has another idea he wants to do, but more often
Speaker 3: than not, I would say it was just you know,
Speaker 3: it's story stuff, but also like emotional stuff because, like
Speaker 3: I said, if that's why it was so great, you
Speaker 3: guys are so great because if you guys aren't hitting
Speaker 3: it it usually it wasn't because of you guys, unless
Speaker 3: you guys were you know, there's always the question of sometimes.
Speaker 1: They do they not understand themselves or do they not
Speaker 1: believe it and so it's a play, or maybe they didn't.
Speaker 3: Love that one because they it sounds and you guys
Speaker 3: can signal to us to sort of, you know, we
Speaker 3: don't like this by kind of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Which is which is you know, is something in your
Speaker 3: toolbox that you guys can use to sort of be
Speaker 3: like this doesn't work, but you know any notes? Did
Speaker 3: you guys give notes? Did you ever were you able
Speaker 3: to give notes like hey, I feel like no, no.
Speaker 5: No, so interesting listening to what you were saying, because
Speaker 5: I feel like that was kind of our only tool
Speaker 5: was to like sort of either take performance or like yeah,
Speaker 5: because I never I mean, in some cases I felt comfortable,
Speaker 5: but no, like there was creatively, I did not feel
Speaker 5: like I had the right to say I think Sean
Speaker 5: should be this or I think maybe the scene would
Speaker 5: be better that way.
Speaker 2: No, No, you know it.
Speaker 5: Was, which I think if as an adult actor, I
Speaker 5: would feel that is the point, you.
Speaker 2: Know, it's like, oh, this scene's not working for me.
Speaker 2: Here's why.
Speaker 5: Let me give you my input, let me give you
Speaker 5: my perspective. Back then, I never felt comfortable saying that.
Speaker 7: Well, we talked about that, We learned about that on
Speaker 7: you know, on mash they would have their table read
Speaker 7: and then the producers would open it up to the actors.
Speaker 2: Okay, what do you think? What do you what do you?
Speaker 2: How do your would your character do this?
Speaker 7: And looking back, as you know, an adult, the idea
Speaker 7: of having that kind of freedom as an actor would
Speaker 7: be amazing, right.
Speaker 2: Because you don't do it now Monday morning Quarterback. But
Speaker 2: you also don't offer that to twelve years old.
Speaker 5: We're talking now season five, we're eighteen, nineteen years old,
Speaker 5: and we've been doing this.
Speaker 2: We're pros now, we should we should have probably felt comfortable,
Speaker 2: you know, but at that point I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: in college, I'm I'm gonna happa. Definitely yeah, and it's.
Speaker 3: You should have been invited to do that, you know, like,
Speaker 3: and it certainly earned at that point. You know, it
Speaker 3: wasn't like you guys, you know so that yeah, so
Speaker 3: so we could tell, you know, when something is getting
Speaker 3: tanged you don't like it, and it's it's so interesting
Speaker 3: because some of the stuff you just don't like. Because
Speaker 3: some of the stuff I didn't like, sometimes do it
Speaker 3: and sometimes you have a voice to change it. Sometimes
Speaker 3: it'll change or not. But you know, and I'm so
Speaker 3: low on the totem pole and again just kind of
Speaker 3: sitting back and learning, learning what's going on. Okay, this
Speaker 3: is what we felt. I felt this too in this
Speaker 3: scene and when we're watching this run through in all this,
Speaker 3: but I wish you guys had been able to so
Speaker 3: I'm sure, I mean as adults, it must be so
Speaker 3: weird looking back, like hmm, I should have said I
Speaker 3: didn't like that part when I was uncomfortable playing it
Speaker 3: and it was on TV or stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, speaking of things people either like or do
Speaker 1: not like. We just finished season five and we saw
Speaker 1: Tapega propose to Corey and decide against Yale. Do you
Speaker 1: remember any of the conversations around that. Were you a
Speaker 1: fan of the decision? What did you think about the
Speaker 1: proposal storyline?
Speaker 3: I mean it's tough because now I mean this is
Speaker 3: like these are kids, these are you know, these things.
Speaker 3: It was always it was hard, But you have to
Speaker 3: get yourself into the world of the show. I'll say that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've talked about that doing this podcast. But there
Speaker 1: are just certain things about the world of the show
Speaker 1: you have to buy into to enjoy the show.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you have to be in this. You have to
Speaker 3: be in this story, which is ultimately this you know,
Speaker 3: love story. You know, these two destined to.
Speaker 2: Be together, faded together.
Speaker 3: Yes, they have to be together. I mean, I was
Speaker 3: auto another episode of mine. It was something where everyone's
Speaker 3: so invested, you know, them being together. It's just such
Speaker 3: a it was such the you know, it was the
Speaker 3: thing that moved the show everywhere. It was that was it,
Speaker 3: that was the engine. Once you know, that started to
Speaker 3: be something and they were in love and they were
Speaker 3: a couple of them okay, and it there was so
Speaker 3: there really wasn't a way to choose anything else.
Speaker 1: There really was.
Speaker 3: It was never going to be anything else. It was
Speaker 3: always going to be the two of them together. They
Speaker 3: were never going to do that. And so they're kind
Speaker 3: of false stakes because the audience in many ways knows
Speaker 3: she's not going to choose that, choose that too. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it it was you know, I wouldn't recommend that
Speaker 3: to my daughters. No, we've talked about that and and
Speaker 3: then either you know, like I would never have thought
Speaker 3: that's It's very I was coming from the Midwest where
Speaker 3: most people did that, and I was I chose not to.
Speaker 3: So that was my opinion, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, we to be honest, we had been. We've
Speaker 1: been a little surprised about the way Topanga was written
Speaker 1: this season, especially because, as I mentioned, going into season five,
Speaker 1: there hadn't been a ton of women writers, and now
Speaker 1: in season five there were, and yet Topanga was was
Speaker 1: kind of written as a bit of a one dimensional
Speaker 1: kind of I mean, in my opinion, I'm very bored
Speaker 1: by her in season five. I'm like, even the storyline
Speaker 1: of the Yale situation, it's like the way the Yale's
Speaker 1: even brought up, the way she talks about it, we
Speaker 1: don't even know why she's interested in Yale. She mentions
Speaker 1: it the only reason she even thought about it is
Speaker 1: because her and her and Corey were broken up. And
Speaker 1: then she has this this wonder I'm waiting for a
Speaker 1: moment where she has a scene with mister Feenie and
Speaker 1: then he doesn't really give her any He just like says,
Speaker 1: if there was any good reason not to go to Yale,
Speaker 1: then otherwise you should go. And I don't know, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if there was any sort of conversation
Speaker 1: around the way Topanga was represented or written for what
Speaker 1: was there any sort of dialogue about that other than
Speaker 1: in relation to what Corey is destined to have for
Speaker 1: his life.
Speaker 3: Right, I would say yes, but not, uh, not a
Speaker 3: lot and it and it wasn't you know, like this.
Speaker 3: We can get back to the sort of the mail
Speaker 3: room and Michael and the way it was and it
Speaker 3: was really his voice, his everything and the folk. I
Speaker 3: don't know how he would reflect now back, but I
Speaker 3: don't think at the time there he thought it wasn't
Speaker 3: a full, like fleshed out character like it kind of
Speaker 3: It's it is silly because it should have been exactly
Speaker 3: all these things we're saying, like what and it would
Speaker 3: be now. I can't imagine it wouldn't be like that now, But.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think, you know, I was thinking back to
Speaker 5: season four where you have the Topanga care cutting episode,
Speaker 5: you have Topanga moving away to Pittsburgh and her making
Speaker 5: the decision to come back. She was more of an
Speaker 5: active sort of side of that equation. And for whatever reason,
Speaker 5: the fifth season was so much more focused on Corey,
Speaker 5: you know, Laura and Corey making you know, and and
Speaker 5: it just it feels like, but you know, I don't
Speaker 5: remember him.
Speaker 3: I don't remember the conversation. But you're right, because it's
Speaker 3: anything even in those little scenes that you can talk about
Speaker 3: with mister Feenie, like that could have been something that
Speaker 3: at least, you know, gave her more character, you know,
Speaker 3: true to like a character and world around in character.
Speaker 3: I don't remember that. I do know that. I'm trying
Speaker 3: to think. I was in there. Two other women were
Speaker 3: in there. We were all staff writers, so we're all young,
Speaker 3: h uh huh. Yeah, and Patty.
Speaker 2: Carr Patty Carr, yeah.
Speaker 3: And then another woman was a little bit uh.
Speaker 1: And Susan Jansen was there, right, she wasn't no, she had.
Speaker 2: Left, she was gone. And then Erica Montalvo didn't come.
Speaker 3: She came also a staff writer, you know, and we
Speaker 3: were all independent women. Oh yeah, and uh Ellen Eilson
Speaker 3: was there, that's right. Yeah, and uh and and then
Speaker 3: another woman. I'm swim blanking her name. This is terrible.
Speaker 3: So we we were all junior, yeah, and those guys
Speaker 3: were just kind of the old right, like the old
Speaker 3: card like they were just there there. So it wasn't
Speaker 3: I'm sure we brought it up. I mean we had to.
Speaker 3: There was four of us that probably looking at each
Speaker 3: other like right, really.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I to be fair, the show is
Speaker 1: called boy Meets World. It is a it is boy POV.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that the show needed change to be about,
Speaker 1: but you know, it seems as though we've been really
Speaker 1: pleasantly surprised on how many different boy povs there are.
Speaker 1: We thought, oh, going into this, every episode's going to
Speaker 1: be a Cory episode, and there's a few that are
Speaker 1: given to Sean and a few that are given to Eric,
Speaker 1: and then we've been like, oh my gosh, almost exclusively
Speaker 1: seasons would revolve entirely around Seawan's family, and then there's
Speaker 1: lots of great Eric storylines, and then the Tapanga storylines,
Speaker 1: especially in season five, just seemed to really revolve around
Speaker 1: a decision to Panga may or may not make, and
Speaker 1: how that decision is ultimately going to affect Cory and
Speaker 1: what Cory wants and so yeah, I kind of just
Speaker 1: wondered if there was any if you remember any of
Speaker 1: those discussions. But everything you're saying makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you I feel like at the time this
Speaker 3: or now this?
Speaker 1: I don't remember feeling it at the time. I remember
Speaker 1: I remember at the time thinking that it was I
Speaker 1: didn't really think of Tapanga outside of being Corey's girlfriend,
Speaker 1: and I didn't necessarily have a problem with it, I
Speaker 1: think because the memories of Tapanga being such a wonderful, quirky,
Speaker 1: unique character in the first season were still so fresh
Speaker 1: in my mind, and like writer had mentioned where he
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I'm going to college and whatever. I also,
Speaker 1: at this point felt pretty comfortable in my job. I
Speaker 1: still enjoyed my job, but I was so focused on,
Speaker 1: like my personal life outside of the show that I
Speaker 1: don't think I gave a ton of thought to being like,
Speaker 1: what is going on for this thing I'm doing, this
Speaker 1: work that I'm doing. It was just the job I
Speaker 1: went to and I was happy to have the job.
Speaker 1: But boy, I couldn't wait to get back to the
Speaker 1: high school football games and my high school boyfriend and
Speaker 1: all of that stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you end up saying on the show through
Speaker 1: ceas and seven, what would you say you if you
Speaker 1: had like, I mean, you mentioned the basics that you
Speaker 1: really learned the basics on Boy Meets World, But after
Speaker 1: three full seasons there, what would you say you really
Speaker 1: learned as a writer on Boy Meets World?
Speaker 3: Well, I would say I learned that it's a lot
Speaker 3: of work, and I learned that h that I really
Speaker 3: loved it, Like I loved the job. Like you know,
Speaker 3: you're like, do I want to do this? And I
Speaker 3: loved it. I loved it. I and I after I
Speaker 3: was done, you know, that was like the So the
Speaker 3: contracts for writers are three seasons long. This happened to
Speaker 3: be the last three seasons of the show. So there
Speaker 3: was no option, like in my company to know what
Speaker 3: was going on. And it was right when you know,
Speaker 3: it was a lot of single cams were starting. That
Speaker 3: was when the single cams were coming out, and it
Speaker 3: was that was the cool thing to be on. So
Speaker 3: I was a young writer who was going to go
Speaker 3: get my next credit, and it was like you it
Speaker 3: was seen as like kind of not a hot I
Speaker 3: guess a hot credit to come off even the good
Speaker 3: part was that it was just such a long, consistent
Speaker 3: job that you know, I can stay at and it
Speaker 3: was whatever. But it wasn't seen as like, oh, who's
Speaker 3: as hot you're coming off this, So there was that
Speaker 3: conversation with agents like, well, how do you know we're
Speaker 3: making you like more like an edgy or whatever. But
Speaker 3: I would never trade it. I would never trade something
Speaker 3: in the like the tone of this show as my
Speaker 3: first job for anything, because I guess I'm going back
Speaker 3: to the same thing it was. You know, I learned
Speaker 3: about character. I didn't know anything and other than being
Speaker 3: a TV fan, and I learned, you know, not to
Speaker 3: be offended when everything that you wrote changes. Yes, like
Speaker 3: skin I guess came some of that, and also just
Speaker 3: to be like it's different now a little bit. But
Speaker 3: the hours are terrible. You work a lot, you're you're
Speaker 3: you're kind of a victim of the showrunner's process, and
Speaker 3: it was it was a wild process at different times,
Speaker 3: and there were a lot of hours times when you
Speaker 3: would just be like, what are we doing? You're just
Speaker 3: everyone's just messing around, not accomplishing everything.
Speaker 2: That was throwing tiktoks at each other.
Speaker 5: What's that throwing throwing tik taks at each other. I
Speaker 5: just remember Michael and who was a man. Now they
Speaker 5: would just always be throwing tictack.
Speaker 3: Now they usually be picked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mark Blutman and Michael Jacobs throwing tic TACs at Manela.
Speaker 5: Did you did you ever even have to write another
Speaker 5: spec then or did you just go right.
Speaker 3: To I did because they wanted me to write something
Speaker 3: a camera. Oh I did. I read something anti and
Speaker 3: to compliment this, but I think I wouldn't have. It
Speaker 3: made me be able to go to these other edge
Speaker 3: of your shows where the story is a little bit
Speaker 3: looser or it is kind of like more convoluted, and
Speaker 3: still always know like it again, it was just such
Speaker 3: a good foundation, and it was such a good and
Speaker 3: I learned a lesson also in just like I was
Speaker 3: given a chance, you know, and it's a lesson in that,
Speaker 3: and to support people who you know, who want to
Speaker 3: do this. A lot of people reach out about it,
Speaker 3: and it's just a lesson in just like, you know,
Speaker 3: being kind of giving people a chance, giving them a
Speaker 3: chance to Like, I probably wasn't great at the beginning.
Speaker 3: I'm sure I wasn't, and they stuck with me. All that.
Speaker 3: I mean those and just to be I would say,
Speaker 3: also just to be happy to be there. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: can get pretty bad and pretty grueling on any show.
Speaker 3: I'm not talking specifically when means world, and you are
Speaker 3: happy to be there and tolerant of as crazy as
Speaker 3: it gets. And that's it because it's it's hard to do.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So what do you I'm just curious, what do
Speaker 7: you think the recipe is for a show that lasts
Speaker 7: the test of time, it sustains Because you've seen so
Speaker 7: many different versions of shows. You've seen single camera, you've
Speaker 7: seen multi camera. What do you think it takes to
Speaker 7: have a show that people are still talking about thirty
Speaker 7: years later?
Speaker 3: Character mhmm. Character story is born from character things that
Speaker 3: are real emotions that you're tapping into something real, something relatable,
Speaker 3: making it relatable if anybody can see themselves in a
Speaker 3: character or you know, I'm sure for so many kids
Speaker 3: is a wish fulfillment show. Yeah, look at kids who
Speaker 3: care about each other and those things I think are
Speaker 3: super important. It has to be some you have to
Speaker 3: be able to connect with it on some level, and
Speaker 3: it can be anything. I can see myself in this character.
Speaker 3: This is my this happened to.
Speaker 4: Me or.
Speaker 3: You know this, I really relate to the tone of
Speaker 3: this show. This is a crazy workpl that's my workplace.
Speaker 3: Anything like that. You just have to be able to
Speaker 3: see yourself in something, you know, uh, the connection, and
Speaker 3: then I just really like And the other thing I
Speaker 3: would say is specificity. Specificity of character, I think is
Speaker 3: what makes a show really good, like Seinfeld and some
Speaker 3: of that, which was so different at the time, which
Speaker 3: I another one of my huge obviously, that's one of
Speaker 3: my absolute phaves, you know, and it's so different, but
Speaker 3: those characters are so specific and so funny, and I
Speaker 3: love hard funny.
Speaker 1: So with your career, I like to think that maybe
Speaker 1: we were the Staten Island stop on your long ride
Speaker 1: to Times Square. You'd stop at Evan Stevens and Jason
Speaker 1: Alexander Seinfeld, follow up Bob Patterson, and then you would
Speaker 1: find yourself on a little show called Arrested Development, where
Speaker 1: you wrote even episodes and one an emmy.
Speaker 2: So I know, are they filled with chocolate? Are they
Speaker 2: filled with chocolate in your life? Because they look like chocolate.
Speaker 3: It's over there.
Speaker 1: Do you want to get it? Do you want to
Speaker 1: get it?
Speaker 7: Go?
Speaker 3: Get it? I start over there, you can tell me
Speaker 3: it's there.
Speaker 2: It's right there. I'm looking at it, right.
Speaker 1: You had to look at it to make sure it
Speaker 1: wasn't filled with chocolate.
Speaker 3: It's by the window, and I would know it would
Speaker 3: be it'd be melted.
Speaker 1: Okay, good point.
Speaker 2: I'm a little disappointed. I'm a little disappointed.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that was Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did you know that show was special from day one?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, because back in the day, when you were
Speaker 3: getting a job, you would be able to view the
Speaker 3: pilot and so I was like, what.
Speaker 2: What is this?
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 2: What is this?
Speaker 3: And it was just so different and so laugh out
Speaker 3: all the funny and just you know, and I've been
Speaker 3: coming off of like those shows that you mentioned were
Speaker 3: largely you know, they did funny things, and they were
Speaker 3: great and I love them all, and they were you know,
Speaker 3: but they were network shows. This show, if you were
Speaker 3: thinking of it now, would not be considered a network show.
Speaker 3: A rest right, And you know, I remember pitching stuff
Speaker 3: even like The Boyman's World Room. I wish I could
Speaker 3: remember what it was, but I remember something and it
Speaker 3: was like that was too weird or something like tangential
Speaker 3: or too weird and this room, the rest of room.
Speaker 3: Every tangent was indulged. There was nothing too weird. There
Speaker 3: was nothing, and so you really felt a freedom of
Speaker 3: creativity there where you and there was always a character.
Speaker 3: There's always something where these things would fit in. Or
Speaker 3: you could build it. I mean you could build things
Speaker 3: around the craziest stuff. I mean, if you guys have
Speaker 3: seen it, it's like I was only there for the
Speaker 3: first two seasons because it was really crazy. It was
Speaker 3: a lot. That was a lot of hours. I had
Speaker 3: just gotten married, I want to have kids, and I
Speaker 3: was We're there like seven days a week, and I
Speaker 3: was like, I need to switch, I need some time.
Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite episode or a favorite storyline
Speaker 1: you wrote?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, oh no, no, it's hard. It's a
Speaker 3: big jumble. Everybody did everything my episode. My episode I love,
Speaker 3: I mean, everyone loves Never Nude. I love the cutoff, Tobuias,
Speaker 3: I love all those characters were so fun to write for.
Speaker 3: That was what was so good. I don't I mean
Speaker 3: specific stuff. I liked it when it was to Buas
Speaker 3: in one of my episodes, I think he took a
Speaker 3: photo of himself in the tub and it was the
Speaker 3: the they thought it was this, what was it something
Speaker 3: that Sadam was saying, like in Iraq or something like that.
Speaker 3: They thought something like that, some weird thing about a phototape.
Speaker 3: I thought that was really funny. That was funny to do.
Speaker 3: All of it was funny him. It was. It was
Speaker 3: all so funny and so crazy that I can't even
Speaker 3: bring myself to watch the third season or any of
Speaker 3: the Netflix seasons because I'm like, I don't want to
Speaker 3: see what I missed out on. I don't want I
Speaker 3: really love that show. It was really hard, really really
Speaker 3: fun creatively for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is there one you preferred? Do you prefer multicam
Speaker 2: or single cam?
Speaker 3: I think I would. I vastly back and forth, so
Speaker 3: I would be multiicam multicamp. And remember everything I grew
Speaker 3: up on was multicam, so I always have except for
Speaker 3: you know, like the Seinfeld, but I always have that
Speaker 3: love for multicam. But there was like the period of
Speaker 3: time creatively where you know, everything was going single camp,
Speaker 3: so it was like I like that. I like that.
Speaker 3: I like that, But I still love the multicam because
Speaker 3: there's I like the there's something about having it like
Speaker 3: on a proscenium you know, you're just sitting there watching
Speaker 3: this thing unfold the live audience like that stuff is fun.
Speaker 3: The hours were generally better, but then the single cams
Speaker 3: I love because you can do more things, go more places,
Speaker 3: get out more. I worked at How I Met Your Mother,
Speaker 3: which was a hybrid, and that's kind of ye, that's
Speaker 3: kind of a nice combo where I feel like, well,
Speaker 3: we want to go out and shoot this thing outside. Great,
Speaker 3: But also you had these standing sets that you knew. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 3: for How I Met Your Mother.
Speaker 1: You were there for the last two seasons, and it's
Speaker 1: never easy landing a perfectly flown plane. What was crafting
Speaker 1: the finale? Like, did you feel a lot of pressure?
Speaker 3: Well, what was interesting was that season, that ninth season,
Speaker 3: it was potentially ending after season eight, and so it
Speaker 3: kind of this ninth season was born from not ending
Speaker 3: in season eight. So that's when you got we were
Speaker 3: actually meeting the mother, right, Because I originally it was
Speaker 3: not supposed to be that. The guys who wrote it,
Speaker 3: Bays and Times were great. The had the idea for
Speaker 3: the end at the very beginning, so they had already
Speaker 3: shot at the very beginning. They had shot the kids young,
Speaker 3: you know, saying the ending. They had it all, it
Speaker 3: was all in their brain. They eventually got to that place,
Speaker 3: but it was with this little stop in between of
Speaker 3: twenty two for whatever episode, Oh right, now we have
Speaker 3: like the Mother, So it was kind of like a
Speaker 3: and I think they were almost going to do maybe
Speaker 3: they were going to do a season ten almost it was.
Speaker 3: It was unclear at that time, so it was really
Speaker 3: born from having on this bonus episode at the end,
Speaker 3: but we all knew that it was going to end
Speaker 3: the way they wanted it, and it was really interesting
Speaker 3: in that time seeing that finale, we kind of all
Speaker 3: just sat back and been like, they kind of are
Speaker 3: doing their thing, because I think it was like sort
Speaker 3: of a whole emotional thing for these guys too. I
Speaker 3: mean it was their whole courseties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. Well your IMDb reads like a murderer's
Speaker 1: row of sitcoms. You have never stopped working. My name
Speaker 1: is Earl, How I met your mother, Life in Pieces
Speaker 1: or any other act as talented as we were. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I did just want to just want to get that out.
Speaker 2: She's not glancing over to the arrested development em nobody.
Speaker 3: No, not at all.
Speaker 2: No, I never went on to do anything else.
Speaker 7: How I met your mother cast didn't go on to
Speaker 7: do anything else, just us, Jason.
Speaker 2: It's pronounced bodymen. Everybody knows that. So yeah, come.
Speaker 3: On, you guys, really and I mean it. And even
Speaker 3: watching those episodes like these guys were not oh you
Speaker 3: were seasoned by that point, but you and it was.
Speaker 3: It was amazing and it's amazing you got you know,
Speaker 3: through all of that and are what you are.
Speaker 2: It really was.
Speaker 3: I really took me watching these episodes again now to
Speaker 3: appreciate that that you guys were doing high level stuff,
Speaker 3: hard turns, emotional stuff that was hard to play, not
Speaker 3: necessarily always always you know, set up one hundred percent
Speaker 3: real stretching, and you guys made it all believable somehow,
Speaker 3: a little a little sweet music and we had an episode.
Speaker 1: We got Did your stories about working on Boy Meets
Speaker 1: World ever come up in these other incredible writer's.
Speaker 3: Rooms you were a part of, First Jobs come up? Yeah,
Speaker 3: a lot of my assistants, the assistant stuff comes up.
Speaker 3: But yeah, definitely, And and I do always, you know,
Speaker 3: because we have the young writers coming in, and I
Speaker 3: always do think about my experience compared to what theirs
Speaker 3: is my experience getting there to compare to what theirs
Speaker 3: is and it's it's so I again, like I said,
Speaker 3: I would never probably have gotten the chance like been
Speaker 3: you know, like had this career and like yeah, unless
Speaker 3: I was given the chance to sort of really really
Speaker 3: learn and you learn by doing. And it was it
Speaker 3: was great. It was I really have just such positive
Speaker 3: even with the negative stuff. And there was stuff with
Speaker 3: you know, the hours and different things I had to
Speaker 3: do or whatever whatever time, so much waste of time.
Speaker 3: I'm like a super efficient person even with all that stuff.
Speaker 3: It really was a perfect experience for me because it
Speaker 3: taught me everything really well.
Speaker 1: Before we let you go, I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about twenty twenty four because you continue to be
Speaker 1: a premier name when it comes to staffing writers and
Speaker 1: you just worked on the massive Netflix hit Nobody Wants This,
Speaker 1: which was one of the few high points in TV
Speaker 1: this year. What was it that drew you to that project?
Speaker 3: So that project, I was not there at the beginning
Speaker 3: they were shooting, So that was a pro that was
Speaker 3: started before the strike, even shooting before right and then
Speaker 3: it had a big break and then came back and
Speaker 3: so they had done the first few it was going well,
Speaker 3: and I think there were some issues with Netflix and
Speaker 3: the stories and things kind of blew up a little
Speaker 3: bit as it was portrayed to me. And then I
Speaker 3: joined on episode. I was there for the last half,
Speaker 3: the last five episodes. That was the first season it had, yes,
Speaker 3: and they just wanted some more write support, I know.
Speaker 3: I think what happened too is that they had lost
Speaker 3: some writers and they were some turnaround. Anyways, that's so
Speaker 3: I joined it, and it was really about I had
Speaker 3: read the script a long time before, because they would
Speaker 3: look hed look for a showrunner, like I honestly think
Speaker 3: it was maybe at least a year plus that before
Speaker 3: that even or maybe I don't know, a long time.
Speaker 3: And I loved the script already, so I already knew it.
Speaker 3: I'd you know, met some of the people in charge
Speaker 3: of that. I already already loved it. And I loved
Speaker 3: that it was a rom com. I mean, it was
Speaker 3: so it seems so roundbreaking up. It was a real
Speaker 3: wrong com on TV. But that used that was such
Speaker 3: a people forget the rom com a genre is that's
Speaker 3: like so pure wrong com. And I liked I could
Speaker 3: you know, relate to it? Uh and you know, obviously
Speaker 3: it was already stacked with like a great cast, and
Speaker 3: then when I got there, it was incredibly, incredibly fun.
Speaker 3: Now that was an all female room except for one person.
Speaker 3: When I got there, it had gone through different iterations.
Speaker 3: People had come and go, there were men and more
Speaker 3: men previously, you know, things had shifted around, people had
Speaker 3: left or other jobs because they had gone on for
Speaker 3: so long, and that was all women and that was great.
Speaker 3: That was so cool for me.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 7: So another typical Hollywood female writers room. If I have
Speaker 7: to hear that story one more time about that, the
Speaker 7: stereotypical all women's writers room, come.
Speaker 3: On exactly, that's right, right, writing like questionably degrading things.
Speaker 2: About men, and like right, you got.
Speaker 3: But it was col it was efficient, it was supportive,
Speaker 3: it great.
Speaker 1: Were you surprised at all by the mainstream response to
Speaker 1: like a romantic story about a rabbi.
Speaker 3: Yes, but also no, because it was almost the answer
Speaker 3: to the hot priest from.
Speaker 1: Uh right, yeah, flee back.
Speaker 3: But it was That's what people are saying is that
Speaker 3: it's the answer to that. But I was surprised at
Speaker 3: the Oh my god, because it's very rare that you're
Speaker 3: writing on a show that everybody's seen. Yeah, everybody that show,
Speaker 3: and it's very very rare. When they showed the first
Speaker 3: episode to us when I had finally gotten finished, you know,
Speaker 3: right almost when we were done, we watched it and
Speaker 3: we were giving thoughts on that kissing scene, that the
Speaker 3: one where they am playing it famous because I feel
Speaker 3: like people are talking about it. They finally kissed, and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, people are gonna love this. It
Speaker 3: was so good. Their chemistry was so good. And that
Speaker 3: speaks to again, something you guys also had on your show,
Speaker 3: Like there was so much chemistry cast chemistry that obviously
Speaker 3: was sexual chemistry, but like just chemistry, Like I believe this.
Speaker 3: It's really saying I believe this. I' me in the
Speaker 3: moment with these these characters and I believe what they're
Speaker 3: doing is real and that I saw that, and I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: people are gonna like this.
Speaker 7: Do you think I have I have one more question
Speaker 7: I've asked the people in the know in the industry
Speaker 7: because of just my love. Do you think sitcom and
Speaker 7: multiicam is going to make a comeback at any point?
Speaker 3: A comeback you mean be dominant?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it used to be.
Speaker 3: I think it is coming back. There are things. There's
Speaker 3: a few now, and I do think that it is
Speaker 3: going to It's it's cheaper, so I feel like that
Speaker 3: will help, and I feel like what's interesting about it,
Speaker 3: I find is that when people who are coming up
Speaker 3: don't know how to do it, it's a different skill
Speaker 3: set than a single cam writer. As a writer, it's not.
Speaker 3: It's just a different genre almost, And so you know,
Speaker 3: and not only as a writer to write the script,
Speaker 3: but also like the run through is that's all you know? Yeah,
Speaker 3: you do like little obviously in the single cam you know,
Speaker 3: you're watching it rehearse, but a run through the show
Speaker 3: night where you're on the you know, in the moment,
Speaker 3: coming up with jokes, jokes, jokes, that's not as prevalent
Speaker 3: of a writer's skill set. Right now, many more writers
Speaker 3: are doing the sort of the edgy or I would
Speaker 3: call it stuff. I think that it will always survive
Speaker 3: because I think it's cheaper and I think I think
Speaker 3: it appeals. I think it's appealing in so many ways
Speaker 3: to so many audiences. And if when it comes to
Speaker 3: network TV, I mean, you know, I feel like they'll
Speaker 3: keep doing it too. I really do do you guys
Speaker 3: think so?
Speaker 1: I think I think so.
Speaker 5: I think I think if it's framed correctly, you know,
Speaker 5: I think it's sort of like when you ask you
Speaker 5: think like you could have been asking this question about
Speaker 5: you know, radio radio plays and you can say like,
Speaker 5: well they died and as a form, but then you're like,
Speaker 5: but podcasts right like they So it comes back but
Speaker 5: in a new sort of framed way. And I think
Speaker 5: there will always be a place for multicam.
Speaker 2: It's just too you know. And like when you mentioned Cheers,
Speaker 2: I was like, right, that was that's still like one
Speaker 2: of the.
Speaker 5: Perfect ones, brilliant because it made sense of the proscenium right, like,
Speaker 5: it made sense of the actual place itself as to
Speaker 5: why this this this should only be a multicamer show.
Speaker 5: You couldn't do it as a non multigam, you know.
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 5: I think there's always going to be a way to
Speaker 5: find a way in that that makes it make sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so too. And I think, you know,
Speaker 3: cracking that, like there has to be a way to
Speaker 3: sort of modernize that in a way that people feel
Speaker 3: like they're and they do do some of that stuff,
Speaker 3: I feel like, and the acting I don't think is
Speaker 3: as much like as it. You know, I feel like
Speaker 3: you can do more subtle acting than something. If you
Speaker 3: watch a lot of old shows, there's not yes, it
Speaker 3: just feels false. So I think they need to feel real.
Speaker 3: I think there has to be a way too, because
Speaker 3: some you know, when you're thinking of ideas too, and
Speaker 3: as a writer and store in your different series ideas
Speaker 3: or whatever, some of them you're like they used you
Speaker 3: used to have to when you were writing a script
Speaker 3: or pitching something and you wanted to pitch it as
Speaker 3: a single cam right when these single cams came out,
Speaker 3: you know, and it was really popular. So of course
Speaker 3: you're pitching signal cams single cam, but you'd have to
Speaker 3: think of a reason why it warrants a single cam.
Speaker 3: Why does this be single Like, Okay, they're jumping time,
Speaker 3: they're doing this, they're doing crazy, ever it is, I
Speaker 3: get that. But if it's just takes place at an office,
Speaker 3: well that can also be a multicam, Like what is it?
Speaker 3: Is it the tone that makes you know? What is
Speaker 3: it that? And if it's the tone that makes it, say,
Speaker 3: is there a way to update the tone of a
Speaker 3: multi camp? But does it feel like that. You know
Speaker 3: that's the challenge.
Speaker 7: Well, how I met your mother kind of did that
Speaker 7: with like you're saying with the hybrid might be the
Speaker 7: kind of the new the new wave.
Speaker 3: And if you look at something like like Friends is
Speaker 3: more popular than ever, I mean as popular, I would say,
Speaker 3: but continues popular with new audiences. And so there is
Speaker 3: something that still works. And I would say when that shoe,
Speaker 3: you know, that's the chemistry they did kind of some
Speaker 3: weird stories. They let the character bizarre things as opposed
Speaker 3: to sort of being like very straight family or whatever.
Speaker 3: It was the typical one. So I do think it
Speaker 3: can come back.
Speaker 1: Final question for you now, looking back nearly thirty years
Speaker 1: later on The Boy Meets World, your first job, in
Speaker 1: your prolific credits, what would Barbie Adler tell Barbie Feldman?
Speaker 3: Now, Oh wow, I would say prepare for ups and downs,
Speaker 3: and that there always will be en up and to
Speaker 3: not always be true to what you think if the
Speaker 3: prevailing opinion goes another way, or if someone doesn't like
Speaker 3: your idea, because people can be pretty blunt or you know,
Speaker 3: just dismissive or whatever. That that's an opinion that I
Speaker 3: learned later, which I would tell my young self. There's
Speaker 3: a million ways to go in these stories. Every story
Speaker 3: is kind have been told before. There's a million ways
Speaker 3: to go. Just because you pitched something that isn't liked
Speaker 3: or used, don't be afraid to pitch it. And who
Speaker 3: cares if they don't use it. It doesn't mean it's
Speaker 3: not good. It just means it didn't go. So it's
Speaker 3: really I guess it would be confidence based. Don't let
Speaker 3: because you don't. You're working with different people from different backgrounds,
Speaker 3: and you change your job so often. You have to
Speaker 3: get used to those dynamics. So have faith in what
Speaker 3: you know is good and funny.
Speaker 1: I love that. Thank you so much for spending your
Speaker 1: very precious time with us. It's been so nice reconnecting
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you guys are great. I appreciate you having me
Speaker 3: on here. It's really been sow much fun.
Speaker 1: Thank you, wonderful reconnecting with you. Thank you so much, Barbie,
Speaker 1: it was great to see you.
Speaker 3: Bye you guys, Bye Barbie.
Speaker 1: She's so great man, so cool.
Speaker 7: Oh wow, I remember see I knew that she was
Speaker 7: there before she was a writer, souse. I remember seeing
Speaker 7: her because you're right, we weren't all that different in age.
Speaker 7: I know she's likes to say she's a lot older
Speaker 7: than me, but she's not. I think we're not all
Speaker 7: that different in age. And yeah, she would always be
Speaker 7: with Carlos and they'd always be on the said and
Speaker 7: and it was rare for me to have people around
Speaker 7: my age at that time. So always always loved Barbie
Speaker 7: and Carlos to too great.
Speaker 1: I know we still we have to interview Carlos, I
Speaker 1: don't we.
Speaker 2: Have what we do?
Speaker 7: We do?
Speaker 2: We got to bring he wrote an episode in seasons Okay.
Speaker 1: Great, so maybe we can do it. We can bring him.
Speaker 2: We also keep saying Mitch Bank, we gotta bring Mitch
Speaker 2: on as well. That's another one.
Speaker 7: That's a big one as well, because he'll be able
Speaker 7: to maybe verify the audience. Prisoners, Yeah, and Janna, Jana,
Speaker 7: Janna who booked the prisoners.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about? Or he's going to be like, yeah,
Speaker 2: there was a couple of times we had you just you.
Speaker 2: But even if the prisoners were coming in, they were
Speaker 2: coming in on Wednesday, not for tape.
Speaker 7: Really, we're going to get into a sumantic debate about
Speaker 7: what day the prisoners were there.
Speaker 2: Well, because then Mitch wouldn't have been doing the warm up.
Speaker 2: He would only do the war did.
Speaker 7: He not do?
Speaker 5: Did we have any warm up to Wednesday? Tom Right Wednesday?
Speaker 5: I remember, yes, Yes, we started taking over the Wednesday
Speaker 5: warr and.
Speaker 2: Then when did Wednesday go away? Do we only do
Speaker 2: that first thing?
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean I don't even remember doing it.
Speaker 5: They brought it in third or fourth season and then
Speaker 5: kept doing it, but we would only do it every
Speaker 5: We wouldn't do it every week because anytime there was
Speaker 5: too complicated of a swing set or a scene that,
Speaker 5: you know, we wouldn't have a Wednesday audience.
Speaker 2: We would just pretape Wednesday. But we had a Wednesday
Speaker 2: audience like season six and seven. As far as I
Speaker 2: remember it, really, I don't remember that at all.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: It was a small audience. It wasn't the full crowd.
Speaker 2: It was mostly school children. I remembered it early, but
Speaker 2: then I didn't remember it later. Wowkme weird?
Speaker 1: Interesting? Well, thank you all for listening to this episode
Speaker 1: of Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us
Speaker 1: your emails pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com,
Speaker 1: and we've got.
Speaker 2: Merch I still think Emmys are filled with chocolate.
Speaker 1: March. Pod Meets Worldshow dot com we love you all,
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