Speaker 1: I couldn't have loved my costumes on Dancing with the
Speaker 1: Stars anymore as you can imagine. I mean, the whole
Speaker 1: process of being involved in you know.
Speaker 2: Do they bring you options like how does it work?
Speaker 3: Okay? So here's how it works.
Speaker 1: A week before you are doing a dance, there's the
Speaker 1: production meeting. You meet with the production team and they
Speaker 1: show you what they're thinking of. They go, okay, so
Speaker 1: here are the lights. We're going to use these lasers.
Speaker 1: We're going to have a smoke. We're going to try
Speaker 1: a smoke thing maybe. And it isn't like we're going
Speaker 1: to try the smoke thing because now that we've heard
Speaker 1: your idea for the dance it works in It's just
Speaker 1: like we have the ability this week to use this
Speaker 1: cool smoke or fog machine, and so we're going to
Speaker 1: try to put it into as many dances as we can.
Speaker 1: And then you know, knowing that, is there a way
Speaker 1: for you to incorporate it somehow?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: And part of this production meeting is then a wardrobe
Speaker 1: page where Daniella and Steven the male and female. You know,
Speaker 1: Stephen does all the guy's costumes and so even for
Speaker 1: the pros and Daniella does all of the celeb costumes.
Speaker 2: They I'm sorry, is this a different Daniella than dancer Daniella. Correct,
Speaker 2: there was multiple Daniella's.
Speaker 1: Yes, Daniella Cara Gosh, Pasha's wife is a Daniella spelled
Speaker 1: like my name, but with so two l's and an
Speaker 1: a at the end, Daniella Goschwender. The wardrobe is Daniella
Speaker 1: with one L, and then there's me Danielle Williams on
Speaker 1: Board Meets World. Okay, yes, it was rather confusing, especially
Speaker 1: for Pasha. I like, but so then they get a
Speaker 1: page and Daniella is a wonderful artist, and so she
Speaker 1: has drawn a sketch of what she wants your dress
Speaker 1: to look like, and then there's usually already a fabric
Speaker 1: swatch attached to it, so she can tell you made
Speaker 1: out of this material. And you know, I literally never once,
Speaker 1: That's not true, I literally all but once.
Speaker 3: It just was like.
Speaker 1: Gorgeous lovel And then one one week I was like,
Speaker 1: can we make the cha cha Halter? Because I had
Speaker 1: just worn that hot pink dress for my promo photo
Speaker 1: shoot that was somebody else's. It was like another dancers
Speaker 1: and it just happened to fit me, and then they
Speaker 1: added more fringe to it and mine it was yours exactly,
Speaker 1: and so I had just worn it and it was halter,
Speaker 1: and I felt really comfortable in it.
Speaker 3: I felt very confident.
Speaker 1: I felt attractive, and I was like, if we're doing
Speaker 1: another hot pink dress for cha, Cha, I'm gonna let's
Speaker 1: make it a halter.
Speaker 3: And she was like okay, and she was like, I was.
Speaker 1: You know, doing these straps, and she kind of explains
Speaker 1: to me why, and I listened to it, and I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, but I think I want a halter.
Speaker 1: And then I try the dress on and it's a
Speaker 1: halter and I go to do my chat chaf for
Speaker 1: the first time during the dress rehearsal and it weighs,
Speaker 1: no joke, thirty pounds.
Speaker 2: Oh god.
Speaker 3: It has so much fringe and so much beating.
Speaker 1: And because it's halter and the only thing it has
Speaker 1: to hang on is my neck, it is pulling on
Speaker 1: my neck.
Speaker 3: The whole thing. Now it feels like a diaper. My
Speaker 3: it's slipping off of me. I'm wiggling it up and
Speaker 3: I have to take it off after dress rehearsal.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I cannot physically do the dance of this,
Speaker 1: and she goes, I'll change the straps.
Speaker 3: Sure enough, she.
Speaker 1: Does the straps she originally wants in between dress rehearsal,
Speaker 1: which goes from two to four, and then the live
Speaker 1: show's five to seven. So I take it off at four,
Speaker 1: and somehow before the live show at five, they've already
Speaker 1: changed it from a halter to two thicker straps that
Speaker 1: then fit me perfectly.
Speaker 2: Wait a second, I'm sorry, I just I want to
Speaker 2: talk very quickly about something you said. She for every
Speaker 2: contestant every week draws a picture of the dress correct
Speaker 2: and puts a swatch on everything. So she's drawing fashion
Speaker 2: every single week for every contestant. Such a cool job. Yeah, yikes,
Speaker 2: that's a lot of work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's the so like when you talk about
Speaker 1: the fact that it's a whole team of people, that's
Speaker 1: the majority of kind of what she does. She's not
Speaker 1: if a fought is the person who's actually the seamstress,
Speaker 1: and then there are other people who are putting on
Speaker 1: all the jewels. But Daniella is the one who's saying
Speaker 1: she knows exactly the conceptual artist of what this should be,
Speaker 1: knowing the dances at this point, well, having been on
Speaker 1: the show for so many years, knowing the dances, knowing
Speaker 1: what works well, and also being so familiar with what
Speaker 1: fabrics are out there.
Speaker 4: I mean, if that's your skill set, that's probably the
Speaker 4: greatest job for you, you know what I mean, like honestly,
Speaker 4: because if you're a costume designer, like and you want
Speaker 4: to do that kind of show.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's what a cool gig?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what a cool.
Speaker 4: I mean it would be my nightmare because I can't
Speaker 4: draw and would never I'd be.
Speaker 5: Like pretty dross.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I found out then by one Miss Jordan Chiles, that
Speaker 1: you can buy your Dancing with the Stars costumes.
Speaker 3: At the end of the season.
Speaker 2: What did you get?
Speaker 3: And I was like, wait, what, you can buy them?
Speaker 1: And she goes, yeah, I think I'm gonna buy them
Speaker 1: all and I was like, I want also want to
Speaker 1: buy them all. I didn't even know anything about this,
Speaker 1: so that at my next fitting, I say to Danielle,
Speaker 1: what is this I hear about us being able to
Speaker 1: buy our costumes and she goes, yeah, if you want to,
Speaker 1: you want to buy your costumes, you can buy your costumes,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, I do so. At the end
Speaker 1: of the season, I get an email that says, Hey, Danielle,
Speaker 1: do you want to buy We hear you want to
Speaker 1: buy some of your costumes? Can you tell us which
Speaker 1: ones you're interested in? And I'm like, well, maybe all
Speaker 1: of them. Like meanwhile, I say this to Jensen, and
Speaker 1: Jensen's like, what what are you going to do with these?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I want a museum of my own.
Speaker 1: I just want to Dancing with the Stars and museum
Speaker 1: of my my experience on.
Speaker 5: It, like just the Danielle Official Museum.
Speaker 4: We have the hair from Tapanga, you have the outfits
Speaker 4: from Dancing with the Stars.
Speaker 3: It will be my dance with Lance. Like I just
Speaker 3: I want my stuff.
Speaker 2: I just Will's got his museum already. I know. What
Speaker 2: can you think about? What what would be the greatest
Speaker 2: thing about the Daniel Fisher Museum. It would have the
Speaker 2: best cafeteria for lunch.
Speaker 4: Oh you know it, That's what That's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 1: Panda Express too, and also have islands.
Speaker 3: Tuesdays. If Chang's would be.
Speaker 2: There dying to know what they.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they right back, Oh okay, you're interested in
Speaker 1: possibly all of them.
Speaker 3: Will let you know what they all cost. I want
Speaker 3: to know.
Speaker 1: I want you, guys, let's go through already. Week one
Speaker 1: my tango. It was a strapless teal pleated gown with
Speaker 1: a nude waiste insert rhinestone trim and a stoned nude panty.
Speaker 2: Wait, so like real rhinestones?
Speaker 5: Is that like?
Speaker 2: R No? No, I don't know what a stone is.
Speaker 2: Is it from stones?
Speaker 1: It's just a It's a thing that reflects light, that
Speaker 1: makes it look sparkly, and you can buy them by
Speaker 1: the thousand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: Thousand dollars dress.
Speaker 3: You think that's one thousand dollars, I.
Speaker 2: Will say it's worth money. I'm seven hundred.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's kind of right in between you guys, it's
Speaker 1: an eight hundred dollars dress.
Speaker 2: Okay, that works. Seems like a lot though, but okay, don't.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, that's the thing is that I could
Speaker 3: never wear it again.
Speaker 4: Yes, but is it like a prom dress? Like one
Speaker 4: thousand dollars for like a nice problem?
Speaker 1: I guess this is hard for me to answer because
Speaker 1: I grew up in the nineties where you know, you
Speaker 1: could go to Jessica mcclintalk, and I think I think
Speaker 1: my dress was like three or four hundred dollars and
Speaker 1: it felt like it.
Speaker 4: Was so much money, right, right, But this dress has
Speaker 4: been on TV, this dress.
Speaker 3: Is this is a famous dress, This is a this
Speaker 3: is a it's the famous because of you.
Speaker 2: So that is there not a official So.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about is are they making money on the costumes.
Speaker 2: Because they're still in the coast?
Speaker 3: Did it how they pay eight hundred dollars to make it?
Speaker 1: I guess if you're thinking the wage, if exactly mari
Speaker 1: wage labor, then the answer is yes. Because the dress itself,
Speaker 1: there's no way this the fabric is you know.
Speaker 2: But the first one's eight hundred, The first one's eight hundred.
Speaker 1: Week two, my chat chat I was a hot pink
Speaker 1: beaded fringe dress with nude mesh inserts and rhinestone trim.
Speaker 3: What do you think that one is?
Speaker 2: I say, right around that same price Center Bucks.
Speaker 3: It was eleven was eleven hundred, okkay, so.
Speaker 2: We're at almost two grand right fringe? Wait, we're still
Speaker 2: going nineteen hundred bucks a week?
Speaker 3: Three?
Speaker 1: Fox Trot light blue mesh bodice with silk chiffon skirt, lace,
Speaker 1: rhinestone and feather trims, those feather trims.
Speaker 2: Man, fifty, I'm going to say less.
Speaker 6: I'm going to say six fifty, twelve hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 6: The most expensive dress so far. Yeah, okay, okay, the
Speaker 6: Week four quick step. You guys are gonna love this.
Speaker 1: A fully rhinestone silver body suit, silver fringe pants. Yea
Speaker 1: with attached rhinestone belt.
Speaker 4: Fifteen hundred bucks.
Speaker 2: Oh good, now, she just said the one before was
Speaker 2: the most expensive dress.
Speaker 1: It's no, no, up to that point. Oh five fourteen
Speaker 1: hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: That's how they get you so now.
Speaker 1: So now we're at like thirty two fifty plus fourteen hundred.
Speaker 1: We're at like fifty five hundred.
Speaker 2: Dollars for dresses you can't wear, for dresses I.
Speaker 1: Can't wear ever again. Week five Jive it was a
Speaker 1: brown Cittrin tan graphic printed collar dress, matching attached belt.
Speaker 2: That was the Feenie dance.
Speaker 3: That's the Feenie dance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that can't be as expensive. Eight fifty. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna say right around there, eight hundred.
Speaker 1: Bucks, seven hundred dollars. Okay, rider's pretty good at it.
Speaker 2: And I still want Pasha's shirt from that night. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: because it was like a Cory shirt, but like a
Speaker 2: big dazzled Cory shirt.
Speaker 1: It was a bedazzled Cory shirt and made of dance
Speaker 1: shirt materials, so super stretchy.
Speaker 2: I want that, And again that was his favorite. He
Speaker 2: and I are very similar body style, so I'm guessing
Speaker 2: I could fit into absolutely sure, not a problem at all.
Speaker 2: I couldn't get a sleeve and my arm couldn't get
Speaker 2: into that thing. But that was a cool shirt. That
Speaker 2: was a great shows were at sixty five hundred dish.
Speaker 3: Yeah, something like that, okay.
Speaker 1: And then week six my Argentine Tango, the black mock Neck.
Speaker 1: It was a great dress, asymmetrical skirt, black mesh dressed
Speaker 1: with rhinestones.
Speaker 2: That's going to be an expensive one. I'm going to
Speaker 2: sixteen hundred, fourteen hundred.
Speaker 3: Eight hundred and fifty. What a bargain, right, yes, okay.
Speaker 1: And then there's my Viennese wallt Stress, which is the
Speaker 1: white lace bodice with pearl trim, silk chaffon skirt and
Speaker 1: a pleated belt and it's got a blood stain.
Speaker 2: I'm going to say, this is covered in blood.
Speaker 3: You covered in blood. We're in the museum yeah, following,
Speaker 3: Oh my god, you're right.
Speaker 2: Nine eleven hundred, five hundred bucks. What it's the blood.
Speaker 2: It's the blood that does it. That's the thing. That's
Speaker 2: why when you get like you can get like murder cars,
Speaker 2: they're way cheaper. Like eight people were killed in here,
Speaker 2: Like that's I'll take it.
Speaker 1: Then my my eliminated dress, my Week eight contemporary metallic
Speaker 1: silver halter dress with roosed bodice and rhinestone trim.
Speaker 2: With a rooshed bodice.
Speaker 4: I mean it's gonna be now you're talking a rooshed Yeah,
Speaker 4: come on, how rooshed?
Speaker 2: That's the worst joke.
Speaker 3: It's great, what is the joke?
Speaker 5: How o?
Speaker 2: How rude? How rooshed? Danner Rito's how rushed.
Speaker 3: Wooshed?
Speaker 2: Seven ninety five.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, yeah, eight fifty.
Speaker 2: I'll say it again.
Speaker 3: It will work this time. Six hundred dollars.
Speaker 5: God.
Speaker 1: And then there was the team Week that eight, the
Speaker 1: team dance, which was just a sleeveless yeah, black jacket
Speaker 1: and black wool pants and a white sleeveless bodice.
Speaker 3: I don't want that one, but three.
Speaker 2: P fifty okay, so we're at like ten grand, I
Speaker 2: mean exactly, you can't wear anywhere. And you bought it all,
Speaker 2: didn't you.
Speaker 3: I haven't yet. I have to now now that I
Speaker 3: know how expensive.
Speaker 1: All of it is, I do feel like I have
Speaker 1: to pick. And I was thinking, I think I should
Speaker 1: take the Jive dress because that was my dedication. It's
Speaker 1: the Topanga callback dress, even though like I think, I
Speaker 1: and that one's seven hundred dollars. I have to have
Speaker 1: my Argentine Tango dress, my dress that was for my
Speaker 1: best dance, my most like fun fun week of everything,
Speaker 1: like Argentine Tango. And then now that writer said I
Speaker 1: could wear that my my white laced bodice with the
Speaker 1: bloodstain for Halloween. I could be like a bloody bride
Speaker 1: anytime I have somewhere I need to go and to
Speaker 1: be like, this is my Dancing with the Stars dress,
Speaker 1: and that one's five hundred dollars, I feel.
Speaker 3: Like I need those three.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, you're not going to take like the pants,
Speaker 4: didn't you have like samba ish pants with the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the fringe pants fans, it's a fourteen dollars outfit that.
Speaker 2: You can't wear those, they can't wear those.
Speaker 4: You can't anywhere. It's worth it, Yeah, it comes out.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that's like it's like the wine. It's like, you
Speaker 2: don't open the wine for the special occasion, special case.
Speaker 2: I got you interest.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of when I was in eighth grade
Speaker 1: and my mom and I went to Melrose to look
Speaker 1: for my eighth grade graduation dress.
Speaker 3: Don't know why.
Speaker 1: We thought that was a fun Yeah, that's where we went.
Speaker 1: And uh Cosmo, who is now actually famous on TikTok.
Speaker 1: You guys may know who Cosmo is, but he owns
Speaker 1: a store on Melrose and my mom and I walked
Speaker 1: in there and he.
Speaker 3: Has a voice like this, he talks like this, and
Speaker 3: he pulled something up for me to wear.
Speaker 2: Any great graduation I got you covered.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It was a hot pink rhinestone mini skirt. It was
Speaker 3: about this big.
Speaker 1: Oh god, it was so little and I put it
Speaker 1: on and my mom was like, oh, I mean, you
Speaker 1: look so cute in that, but I don't think that's
Speaker 1: good for eighth grade graduation.
Speaker 3: And I said, yeah, I don't really know where i'd
Speaker 3: wear this, and he goes, girl, you wear it to Ralph's.
Speaker 2: You wear it to Ralps.
Speaker 3: And you walk up and down the aisles and you say, look,
Speaker 3: at me.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's what you do?
Speaker 3: You wear it to Ralph's And I wow.
Speaker 1: I've thought about it forever anytime I.
Speaker 2: Have like something only rock and roll. Ralphs on Sunset though,
Speaker 2: and that's.
Speaker 3: The one he was talking about.
Speaker 2: Can I can I ask a question that's going to
Speaker 2: be weird and off putting. Why would one need a
Speaker 2: nude panty? So?
Speaker 1: Because there's lots of kicks and the dress is very high,
Speaker 1: so it's it's basically like a one piece body suit
Speaker 1: under there, so that when we kick that nothing's seen
Speaker 1: on TV.
Speaker 3: Right, So they rhymes done.
Speaker 2: It they wanted to. But nude means like a brown color,
Speaker 2: doesn't it? Like, wouldn't they match.
Speaker 1: The Technically technically nude is whatever color you're skin is
Speaker 1: so naked it blends into your skin. So like Jordan
Speaker 1: and I would have two different versions of nude, okay.
Speaker 2: But then why wouldn't Why wouldn't it just the crotch,
Speaker 2: which is one of the greatest words ever. Just match
Speaker 2: the color of your.
Speaker 1: Dress because then it then it looks like so like
Speaker 1: my in that case, my dress was teal. So if
Speaker 1: I had a teal thing on under and then I
Speaker 1: kicked you would then like your eye would be to
Speaker 1: like my crotch is teal as opposed to flesh colored.
Speaker 3: It just you don't really notice anything.
Speaker 5: Is that your favorite?
Speaker 3: Instead? I had a rhymestoned crotch.
Speaker 2: That rhinos. It was exactly, it was vegasized. That's nice,
Speaker 2: that's perfect, It's perfect.
Speaker 3: How roached.
Speaker 2: Did I?
Speaker 1: That?
Speaker 2: Just do it for every catchphrase.
Speaker 3: Oh, welcome to pod Meets World. I'm Danielle Fischel, I'm
Speaker 3: Rider Strong.
Speaker 2: And I'm wil Fordell.
Speaker 1: As much as it pains me to say this, after
Speaker 1: today's episode, I will no longer be the best dancer
Speaker 1: who has appeared on Podnet's World. Sure, we've talked to Sabrina,
Speaker 1: Bryan Danaka mckeller, Candace Cameron, Jody Sweet and Lance Bass,
Speaker 1: Ernie ray Is Junior, Julia White, Montel, Jordan Hell, even
Speaker 1: Patrick Renna, and they all could be considered better natural
Speaker 1: dancers than I. But the truth is I could probably
Speaker 1: create an optimistic argument and convince myself I stood a
Speaker 1: chance against these guests. But today that illogical facade dies.
Speaker 1: We are talking to a triple threat nineties icon who
Speaker 1: not only played a crucial part in building the phenomenon
Speaker 1: that was the Mighty morphin Power Rangers. But he also
Speaker 1: became the first black superhero in television history, a title
Speaker 1: absolutely no one should take lightly. And further extending his
Speaker 1: retro lore, he starred in The Quintessential d com Brink,
Speaker 1: a beloved roller bleeding film that will somehow found a
Speaker 1: way to hate. He'd also complete a perfect TV guest
Speaker 1: star cycle, finding himself on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Step
Speaker 1: by Step, The Parenthood, Moesha, Buffy and Family Matters. And yes,
Speaker 1: he's a phenomenal dancer Latin hip hop, jazz, ballet, modern tap.
Speaker 1: He performed at the nineteen ninety two Olympics and won
Speaker 1: the title of World Champion in Salsa in two thousand
Speaker 1: and four.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: He taught Hollywood stars like Vin Diesel and Jada Pinkett Smith.
Speaker 3: But did he finish eighth on a very popular season
Speaker 3: of Dancing with the Stars?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Did he do the Argentinean tengo?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 3: He did know.
Speaker 1: But he's here with us today and we are so
Speaker 1: excited to talk to him about everything. Please welcome to
Speaker 1: pod Meats World. A pioneering superhero and better dancer than
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 3: Walter Immanuel Jones, how are you.
Speaker 5: I'm good.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Walter, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1: We much mentioned you on Pod Meets World before. Will
Speaker 1: also mentioned you during his Brink Magical rewind episode. And
Speaker 1: so I am assuming this is a little like Beetlejuice.
Speaker 1: And now that we've said your name three times, you
Speaker 1: here and we love it. That's the way we manifested you.
Speaker 5: I love that. I like being manifested. Let's go.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: Let's first talk about where it all started for you.
Speaker 1: It was far far away from Hollywood in Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 1: And when do you start showing signs of wanting to
Speaker 1: be an entertainer?
Speaker 5: You know what I started when I was a kid,
Speaker 5: like in church. I used to go to church and
Speaker 5: my my cousin was in the Coor ensemble. So I
Speaker 5: got into Korn someble and like the family was singing
Speaker 5: in the Kor ensemble. And then I was like the
Speaker 5: third shepherd on the left, you know, And so it
Speaker 5: started there. My father was a minister, so I got
Speaker 5: used to see my dad in church speak to people,
Speaker 5: and and you know, he was a great orator, and
Speaker 5: and I will look at him and be like, Wow,
Speaker 5: my dad's speaking all these people and and he was
Speaker 5: very friendly, would just like talk to any stranger about
Speaker 5: you know, God or whatever, and and uh, A lot
Speaker 5: of that rubbed up on me, you know, listen to
Speaker 5: them sing. And then we'd be in the car and
Speaker 5: be like, hey, what can you do any impressions? And
Speaker 5: I'm like, uh, no, you would And I would try it,
Speaker 5: and then he goes, do howurd co sale? And I
Speaker 5: would try it and he would laugh, and I would
Speaker 5: be like, then I wanted to get better at it,
Speaker 5: and I don't know. He went from there to talent shows,
Speaker 5: dancing and uh and singing, and then I joined Uh,
Speaker 5: I started acting. I started taking speech in high school.
Speaker 5: Then I joined actors class. Class of acting. My teacher
Speaker 5: took us a Thesbian conference and my senior year and
Speaker 5: I took a two minute monologue and audi ship for
Speaker 5: twenty colleges and I got three scholarships. So as it
Speaker 5: changed my old trajectory because I at the time, I
Speaker 5: wasn't sure what I was gonna do. I was like,
Speaker 5: I I like acting, but I hadn't really considered it
Speaker 5: a possibility of being a career. Not in Detroit, there
Speaker 5: wasn't a lot of opportunity. I mean there was some theater.
Speaker 5: There's a street theater. I did street theater, you know,
Speaker 5: but I didn't, you know, television was so far away
Speaker 5: from me. But I got a scholarship at Amateur in
Speaker 5: New York. I got a scholarship at months to Indiana,
Speaker 5: and I got a scholarship at us i U, which
Speaker 5: was United States Cincinnati University School performing in Visual Arts
Speaker 5: in Los Angeles and San Diego, California. So I picked
Speaker 5: California because it sound good. I was like, California, you know.
Speaker 5: And then I got out there and I started going
Speaker 5: to school, and I recognized that the winter was just rain,
Speaker 5: and I was like, I am never going back to Detroit.
Speaker 2: Yep, I do it with no more.
Speaker 5: So, man, I'm done with that. So after getting my
Speaker 5: four year degree Bachelor of Fine Arts and Musical Theater,
Speaker 5: I you know, I decided to jump into the world
Speaker 5: and I started working on cruise ships. I worked on
Speaker 5: the love boat Princess.
Speaker 3: Did you have an agent? How did you get that gig?
Speaker 5: You know what it was in the trades is back
Speaker 5: in the day they told you about auditions and and
Speaker 5: also I had a friend I worked at City World, uh,
Speaker 5: in a show called City Street. One of my friends
Speaker 5: there had taken off and started working on cruise ships,
Speaker 5: and he came back and was telling me about all
Speaker 5: these adventures he had where he'd been, these activities that
Speaker 5: he had been involved with, and I was like, man,
Speaker 5: that sounds amazing. I want to do it. He said
Speaker 5: you should audition, and I was like, you think I
Speaker 5: could do it? It was like and so I, Uh,
Speaker 5: the next audition came up. He let me know about it,
Speaker 5: and I went up to l A. I auditioned and
Speaker 5: I was hired. So I worked on Princess Cruise Lines.
Speaker 5: I went on and so you're doing you're doing everything.
Speaker 2: You're singing, you're dancing.
Speaker 5: Dancing, acting. Yeah that I was doing singing telegrams and.
Speaker 2: You were just doing it all the Wait were you
Speaker 2: doing mar were you because we'll get into this toobe.
Speaker 2: Were you already doing martial arts?
Speaker 5: I was a martial arts when I was a kid,
Speaker 5: So I studied Ishan ru and I was the peewee
Speaker 5: Michigan state champion. I made up for brown be.
Speaker 3: So everything you do, you're very very.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you, thank you. I think i I've always
Speaker 5: been physically talented. I've always been able to dance. Dancing
Speaker 5: one of my passions. Uh. I grew up watching Michael
Speaker 5: Jackson and wanted to be like him, and so uh
Speaker 5: seeing him dance motivating me to dance. And then Detroit
Speaker 5: is a dance city, you know, and there's all these
Speaker 5: popular dances that will come out. Uh. In middle school,
Speaker 5: my my friend Eric Charles, Uh, he was a bit
Speaker 5: older than me, but he was super confident and we
Speaker 5: went in middletoe to one side, the girls one side. Well,
Speaker 5: he would go, let's go, ask him to go to dance,
Speaker 5: and I'll follow him, and before you know it, we'd
Speaker 5: have four girls dancing around us. And then we're doing
Speaker 5: routines where I would fall, he would pick me up,
Speaker 5: throw me back up, and I would dance and yeah,
Speaker 5: a whole so uh that opened up my eyes to
Speaker 5: to to just dancing and dancing kind of been my
Speaker 5: friend throughout life.
Speaker 1: I in your intro, I went through all of the
Speaker 1: types of dance you know how to do, which is
Speaker 1: basically everything tap and Latin.
Speaker 3: You were a salsa champion in two thousand and four.
Speaker 5: I won a world championship in two thousand four. Of
Speaker 5: my end, But it was a street. It wasn't like ballroom,
Speaker 5: not like you not like you don't.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, thank you for seeing that.
Speaker 7: Like ballroom dancing with the stage is one of my
Speaker 7: One of my dreams too, is that you went on
Speaker 7: that show and you did well. You can thank you,
Speaker 7: you know, I mean, I understand that you started from
Speaker 7: the beginning.
Speaker 3: To write You're like, yeah, I had zero zero, literally zero.
Speaker 3: I dance at weddings. That's the extent of my dance experience.
Speaker 3: Do you still do you still dance?
Speaker 5: I go dancing, so its street. It's not like ballroom,
Speaker 5: Like I said, A dance sasabatata, zamba, zuk marenga, chatcha.
Speaker 5: I dance a little bit of everything, but it's all
Speaker 5: like you know, it's the sabor of it. It's like,
Speaker 5: you know, the flavor. I I dance probably two or
Speaker 5: three times a week.
Speaker 3: Why you go? Because I need to? I'm looking for him.
Speaker 3: I would love to.
Speaker 5: Yes, Yes, I went dancing last night. I'm so sure,
Speaker 5: celebrating my birthday.
Speaker 2: Happy birthday.
Speaker 3: How old are you?
Speaker 5: Very much? I am fifty nine. If you no, you're not, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm an old dude. I'm like fifty nine, I'm going
Speaker 5: to be sixty next year, next year, give me.
Speaker 3: I refuse to believe this.
Speaker 5: I know, I know.
Speaker 4: I was adding it up when he was talking about
Speaker 4: what years though, I was like, how is he that
Speaker 4: much older than us?
Speaker 2: Like, dude, that's great. I don't buy that, But I
Speaker 2: don't want.
Speaker 1: To assault international World championship in two thousand and four.
Speaker 3: That's twenty one years ago.
Speaker 1: You like, that's no offense, but that's old. To be
Speaker 1: winning world championships.
Speaker 5: I gotta go. I mean, like you know, and I
Speaker 5: probably was. I was in my late thirties at the time.
Speaker 5: So ooh in ninety three when we were all doing
Speaker 5: our shows Power Rangers and yeah, when this World, I
Speaker 5: was twenty six playing sixteen Wow. So you guys were
Speaker 5: actually like little kids, and I was actually already I
Speaker 5: finished cruise ships and got to LA, started auditioning and
Speaker 5: booked power Agers and play a teenager.
Speaker 3: So that is unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I never would again. I would have lost that instantly.
Speaker 2: If somebody asked me to guess your age, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: have been anywhere close. I thought we were the same age.
Speaker 2: I thought you were going to be.
Speaker 3: You were younger than I was. Yeah, you were younger
Speaker 3: than I.
Speaker 1: Really did. Okay, so you're in LA. So you're doing
Speaker 1: the cruise ships. After cruise ships, do you go back, like,
Speaker 1: how many years are you on the tradition?
Speaker 5: Three years old cruise ships and I and I thought, well,
Speaker 5: you know, I got this degree in musical theater. I
Speaker 5: want to be an actor on television and film and theater.
Speaker 5: I should give LA a shot. Let me get off
Speaker 5: the ships. Because I was enjoying myself. I was traveling
Speaker 5: all around the world and it these Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Alaska, Mexico,
Speaker 5: just all these places, and I loved every part of it.
Speaker 5: And I thought I could come back to this and
Speaker 5: at the end of the day, I could become a
Speaker 5: cruise director, run the entertainment and this could be my life.
Speaker 5: I could be happy with this. But I was like,
Speaker 5: let me give LA a shot. So I came back
Speaker 5: to LA and got an agent, a dance agent actually,
Speaker 5: and started auditioning and do it X your work on
Speaker 5: like nine two one oh and just trying to get
Speaker 5: acclimated to the industry and seeing what it was like.
Speaker 5: I remember going on nine o two one oh and
Speaker 5: I was I was I was like right next to
Speaker 5: the other actors, and I was like, I could do this.
Speaker 5: I got this. I'm like I see what they're doing
Speaker 5: and I had that talent I could Yeah, I could
Speaker 5: do this. I can see myself doing this. And I
Speaker 5: was on a show. What was it, ed McMahon.
Speaker 3: It was a star search, right, So I went.
Speaker 5: To star search with a band, a singer, and on
Speaker 5: the way there, my agent called me on the plane, Hey,
Speaker 5: there's an audition for this show called it was called
Speaker 5: something different, uh, phantoms, a show called Phantoms. They're looking
Speaker 5: for a teenage superhero that can dance to martial arts
Speaker 5: and gymnastics. And I was like, I could do that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: it sounds like me. Got to be sick. I could
Speaker 5: play sixty easily because I've always looked ten years under
Speaker 5: my U. And they said they want to see you tomorrow,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, I'm on a plane. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 5: going to do star starts. I'm on the plane right now.
Speaker 5: And they're like, I want's a bummer and it looks
Speaker 5: if it gets picked up and gets picked up for
Speaker 5: forty episodes, and I'm like forty episodes, Oh, man, I
Speaker 5: can't believe I'm missing this opportunity, and the plane takes off.
Speaker 5: I go. I landed in Florida. When I land, I
Speaker 5: lose my voice. So I'm the lead singer in this band.
Speaker 5: Oh no, yeah, And I'm like I'm talking like this
Speaker 5: now and I'm like, oh my god. So I trade
Speaker 5: places with one of the guys that is doing the
Speaker 5: backup singing. He becomes the lead singer. I become the background.
Speaker 5: We do our thing. We compete against Beyonce, who also loses,
Speaker 5: and and it's time to go home. So I know,
Speaker 5: I don't even know. I can't even remember, but yeah,
Speaker 5: finished Out also competed and they lost, which is so
Speaker 5: crazy because I was like, they were so good. And
Speaker 5: so I got back to LA and I'm bummed because
Speaker 5: I missed this audition. I start starting work and I
Speaker 5: get a call from my agent and they still want
Speaker 5: to see you. Can you go in UH tomorrow And
Speaker 5: I'm like yes, yes, So I go in and after
Speaker 5: about two weeks of auditioning, they finally send us to
Speaker 5: UH to the network and they send three groups. There's
Speaker 5: a tall group, a short group. I'm in the short
Speaker 5: group and kind of an older group of actors all
Speaker 5: you know, five Rangers in each and and we all
Speaker 5: you know, show what we you know what what what
Speaker 5: we're going to be. And so uh, at the end
Speaker 5: of the day they picked my group and uh, Power
Speaker 5: Rangers began.
Speaker 2: It's crazy now, So I think probably I know a
Speaker 2: little bit more about this world than my fellow co hosts,
Speaker 2: just because I'm I'm a nerd, So I I know
Speaker 2: the not not to be cliche, but the power of
Speaker 2: the Power Rangers. And so obviously nobody knew what you
Speaker 2: were stepping into originally, as you you you done the mask,
Speaker 2: so as you start to go. First of all, I've
Speaker 2: heard the schedule for shooting was ridiculous, crazy.
Speaker 5: Sometimes we did fifteen hour days. Sometimes not always, but
Speaker 5: right it was. It was stupid. It was like, you know,
Speaker 5: we be up you know call times at six am,
Speaker 5: and then we worked till seven, you know, typically with lunch,
Speaker 5: and then you had to come home study for the
Speaker 5: next day. And we were shooting course scripts every two weeks.
Speaker 5: So it was and it's all physical. It's all physical,
Speaker 5: and we're shooting according to sets. So can imagine how
Speaker 5: confusing that is. It's like, wait, are we with we
Speaker 5: must we fighting? What am I wearing? You know, like
Speaker 5: what just happened?
Speaker 2: You know, like all that, And you're doing all your
Speaker 2: own stunts, aren't you. Aren't you essentially doing everything you're
Speaker 2: You're also your own stunt people.
Speaker 5: Well, the first fifteen minutes of the show is us
Speaker 5: as teenagers dealing with normal life and you know, situations,
Speaker 5: and then things escalate. That enemy comes. We try to
Speaker 5: fight them as our teenage selves. The enemy gets bigger,
Speaker 5: so then we morph into our suits and then they
Speaker 5: get stronger, and then we call on our zwords or
Speaker 5: become the Megazord, and we pull off the sword and
Speaker 5: we win. That's what it works, Yes, except for we
Speaker 5: have we had a lot of cliffhangers. Yeah, Like our
Speaker 5: show was like the soap opera for kids is like
Speaker 5: tune in tomorrow and find out will the Rangers lose
Speaker 5: their zords? Right? You know, kids were racing home from
Speaker 5: school or yah school because it was like they had
Speaker 5: to know what was gonna happen, you know.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean this became a global phenomenon.
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, forty hundreds.
Speaker 5: Around the world and the shows were running for thirty
Speaker 5: two years, which is pretty amazing. Wow, yes, I just
Speaker 5: went back for the thirtieth anniversary.
Speaker 2: Did you now I have to ask, and my co
Speaker 2: hosts are gonna go, huh. And if you don't want
Speaker 2: to talk about this, I totally understand, But do you
Speaker 2: believe in the Red Ranger Curse?
Speaker 5: There's no Red Ranger Curse.
Speaker 2: There is not.
Speaker 5: That's just some stuff somebody threw together and was like, Oh,
Speaker 5: I mean, when you consider the fact this show's run
Speaker 5: for thirty two years, there's been at least one hundred
Speaker 5: ten actors associated to the Power Rangers just bound the
Speaker 5: Beasts some course, some you know, some bad luck involved it,
Speaker 5: of course, some people you know, like, it's not just
Speaker 5: a cast of six people. Yes, it's a lot of folks.
Speaker 5: And and even though they're not the original Mighty Morphem
Speaker 5: Power Rangers, they're still still associated to the brand. So
Speaker 5: I imagine if you you know, like there's people get
Speaker 5: in trouble, it happens, yeah, you know, and people, you know,
Speaker 5: people make mistakes.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it seems like good nerd clickbait more than
Speaker 2: actually yes, yes, have any sense of reality behind it.
Speaker 5: I mean, think about how much things have changed over
Speaker 5: the last thirty years, right, I mean, like, that's three
Speaker 5: different generations and with three different attitudes about everything, and
Speaker 5: so you know, what was normal at one point is
Speaker 5: now like you know, people are like looking their those
Speaker 5: and they're like, I can't believe that that happened, right,
Speaker 5: that was? You know. I'm like when I when I
Speaker 5: did Power Rangers, I was it was one of the
Speaker 5: first diverse casts that I can remember, and I was
Speaker 5: the first black superhero and live at your TV. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so that is that in itself was like a whole thing.
Speaker 5: I mean, but then I had to deal with makeup
Speaker 5: and air. They didn't know how to do my makeup
Speaker 5: or hair. They didn't they were used to doing things
Speaker 5: for people that were not black. And so you know,
Speaker 5: when I got on the set, you when you hired
Speaker 5: your makeup or your wardrobe, you hire for the majority,
Speaker 5: and the majority was not me. So I ended up
Speaker 5: having do my own hair. Sometimes I didn't. Luckily, my
Speaker 5: my complexion has always been good. I didn't have a
Speaker 5: lot of bumps, so I barely wore your makeup. I
Speaker 5: was like, just give me powder, because they put makeup
Speaker 5: on me.
Speaker 3: They may be green or gray.
Speaker 5: That doesn't look good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all right.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So I mean a lot of things have changed
Speaker 5: from from then till now. I mean, I know, you know,
Speaker 5: I was the first black superhero, but I was also
Speaker 5: a black actor, so uh at that point for me,
Speaker 5: I grew up in Detroit. I was like, that's powerful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you knew you felt it at the time, right, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I thought it.
Speaker 5: I mean, as the first black superhero, I was like, yes,
Speaker 5: I am wearing I'm a black superherol and I'm wearing
Speaker 5: a black suit, and I'm like, let's go. I mean
Speaker 5: that may mean proud. But then over years, over decades,
Speaker 5: then people were, hey, that was weird, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: that's strange. Hey, that was prejudiced. The Black Reacher was
Speaker 5: in a black suit. And then also, originally the Yellow
Speaker 5: Ranger was Latina, but she asked for more money after
Speaker 5: the pilot and they fired her, and the next talented
Speaker 5: person they hired was Asian. So now it's a little weird. Oh,
Speaker 5: the black actors in a black suit and the Asian
Speaker 5: actress is in a yellow suit.
Speaker 2: And the pretty girl is in the pink suit and
Speaker 2: all the Yeah, the pup in any suit of course.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And because he came from Japanese footage the Pink
Speaker 5: Ranger had a skirt, and the Japanese footage the pink Ranger.
Speaker 5: The Yellow Ranger was a guy, so he didn't have
Speaker 5: a skirt, right, but we had two girls pinky yellow
Speaker 5: and yeah. So but I mean, if you go along
Speaker 5: with the logic of the colors matched everything, Yeah, the
Speaker 5: Pink Ranger was a pretty girl. The Red Ranger was white.
Speaker 5: He wasn't he was just a young dude. And then
Speaker 5: the Green Ranger wasn't green. He wasn't.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like major was you know, Yes, coincidence
Speaker 1: does exist, like you said, especially.
Speaker 2: If you go back and you try to find it.
Speaker 2: That's the thing. If you go back looking looking for something,
Speaker 2: you know, with something already in your head, you're gonna
Speaker 2: find it somewhere.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and so you're on that, you're in your
Speaker 1: late twenties, you find yourself on this international phenomenon, you're
Speaker 1: playing a sixteen year old.
Speaker 3: You're on now like one of the biggest kid properties
Speaker 3: of all time. Are you? Are you like shocked that?
Speaker 3: Does this feel like a dream come true? What's your
Speaker 3: family think?
Speaker 5: Oh? Yeah, I mean, uh, when I show my family
Speaker 5: the pilot, I show them the pilot and they were
Speaker 5: all like, it's okay, something's gonna come along. Oh yeah.
Speaker 5: They hated it. They were like they looked at it
Speaker 5: and they were like, what a piece of.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, what you know, Like, no one's gonna
Speaker 1: watch this, honey, right right.
Speaker 5: This is this is Yeah, no, I don't know what
Speaker 5: you did, but don't do it again. And but then
Speaker 5: we did the pilot again and again. We did three
Speaker 5: pilots and finally the final one is what made it
Speaker 5: hit and it clicked and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 5: my answer machine, that's what we used to have back
Speaker 5: in the day. I remember the answer machine was full
Speaker 5: with like seventy five messages. You have seventy five messages,
Speaker 5: and I was like, yo, it was like family going, hey, guys,
Speaker 5: like we gotta hang out. Oh man, everybody's to congratulatory
Speaker 5: at that point. But it was it was amazing to
Speaker 5: to go from not being anybody in the world necessarily.
Speaker 5: I mean, of course people love you and cruise ships,
Speaker 5: but to go into my grocery store and look to
Speaker 5: the side and see I'm on the on the face
Speaker 5: of Disney Adventure and TV Guide and Team Beat, and
Speaker 5: I'm like that's me. That's so weird. Yeah. The only
Speaker 5: thing was I was broke, right, I couldn't buy the magazine.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, that was the other thing they
Speaker 2: were kind of famous for was not paying the actors
Speaker 2: particularly well. Yeah, so you weren't getting paid like regular
Speaker 2: SAG network.
Speaker 5: No, not even close, not even it was. It was
Speaker 5: pretty bad. And when we signed the contracts we knew
Speaker 5: it was a non union contract. At me being twenty six,
Speaker 5: I knew that it was a bad contract. But forty
Speaker 5: episodes it was a good trade. It was like, you know,
Speaker 5: I'll take this as an experience, uh, and it's gonna
Speaker 5: help me grow, and it's gonna get me a real
Speaker 5: and it allowed me to get an industry and enjoy SAG.
Speaker 5: It'd be cool, you know, sou But it hit. It
Speaker 5: became the biggest kids show in forty countries, and and
Speaker 5: they made a billion dollars in the first season, and
Speaker 5: it was like wow, So second season, you figure they
Speaker 5: made a billion dollars, they gonna take a share, yeah,
Speaker 5: and they were like, nah, you get a little bit.
Speaker 5: It's a little bump, you know. But it was still
Speaker 5: under SAG wages, way under SAG wages. Uh, and then
Speaker 5: and then uh, then it was then we got the movie.
Speaker 5: They say, hey, guys, twenty one century Fox, they want
Speaker 5: to do movie. They want to use all you guys.
Speaker 5: We've already guaranteed them. You we're gonna say, yeah, you
Speaker 5: guys are gonna be the guys they want you, and
Speaker 5: they're gonna do new suits. It's gonna be this multi
Speaker 5: million dollar movie. And it's gonna be amazing. We're so excited. Uh,
Speaker 5: we's gonna get our contracts, see you and you guys
Speaker 5: gotta sign them and we're good. And it was like,
Speaker 5: oh man, here we go a movie. We're doing a
Speaker 5: movie like you know, and with a real budget, with
Speaker 5: a real budget exactly. It's so exciting. And then we
Speaker 5: got the contract and the contract was for three movies,
Speaker 5: not just and the first. The first movie was like
Speaker 5: seventeen five hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: Oh we a movie.
Speaker 5: Yeah. The second was gonna be like twenty three thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: The third was twenty seven dollars. And I was like, nah, man,
Speaker 5: you'all doing way too much. It's like you made a
Speaker 5: billion dollars. You can't even make it sag, make it sad.
Speaker 5: So it's fair. Yes it is there, then we'll be happy.
Speaker 5: We don't need it. I don't need to be a multimillionaire.
Speaker 2: Although, yeah, you're not asking for five million dollars, I'm
Speaker 2: not doing that.
Speaker 5: I'm not asking for five that you know, one hundred
Speaker 5: and twenty five million dollar budget. I'm like, just give
Speaker 5: me what you would give a lead actor in a
Speaker 5: in a TV show and a popular show, a popular movie. Yes,
Speaker 5: And it didn't work out. So we tried to get
Speaker 5: a lawyer to negotiate for the contract as a whole
Speaker 5: for everybody. So let's stay together, let's get away smart,
Speaker 5: because we can't negotiate for ourselves. You know, they don't
Speaker 5: see us that way. So let's get a lawyer. And
Speaker 5: we ended up finding a lawyer and a manager that
Speaker 5: was working with that was working with three of us,
Speaker 5: and we asked the other guys to join and deciding
Speaker 5: not to. And at the end of the day when
Speaker 5: our season, our first season was over, we walked off
Speaker 5: the set and negotiation to h to get a better
Speaker 5: contract and we started doing car shows. And we would
Speaker 5: do a car show and we would make more in
Speaker 5: that weekend than we made an entire season. We went
Speaker 5: back to the gether. Guys, we're doing these car shows.
Speaker 5: We got fans everywhere like they're out to do it
Speaker 5: around the plot. You know, we had already done Universal Studios,
Speaker 5: so which was you know, it's crazy. We had up
Speaker 5: to the park and uh, at that point we realized, Wow,
Speaker 5: this is a lot bigger than what we know. Because
Speaker 5: it's one thing to be said, to have it said
Speaker 5: to you you're the number one kid show in the world.
Speaker 5: But if you haven't explored the world and the people
Speaker 5: in it, you don't know that. You just know that's
Speaker 5: what they said.
Speaker 3: You know, that's a stack.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, we're pulling in the share. It's amazing. You know,
Speaker 5: that's cool, but we're not feeling it. You know, like
Speaker 5: to be that famous and that popular, have toys and
Speaker 5: and everything else, have people sleeping outside at that at
Speaker 5: Toys r Us to get your action figure is a
Speaker 5: wild thing. And it's crazy because they didn't even give
Speaker 5: us the action figures. I didn't even get them. I
Speaker 5: got them later on a life. You're like, I wasn't
Speaker 5: gonna go stand it Toys r Us. It was weird,
Speaker 5: Like I'm not gonna go sleep outside, although I'm sure
Speaker 5: it could have walked up, but the pandemodium that would
Speaker 5: have created it would have probably been very pressworthy. And
Speaker 5: I didn't. I didn't do it, but I mean, overall,
Speaker 5: it was a wild experience. I wouldn't trade it. I wouldn't.
Speaker 5: I would do it again if I had to. Uh,
Speaker 5: I would have again try to renegotiate a contract and
Speaker 5: convince everybody to do it with us because we had
Speaker 5: standing power to.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I was at that premiere. I went. I
Speaker 2: went to that premier premiere. Yeah, I went to the
Speaker 2: premiere of the film, and I was just kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 2: because if we didn't know, you don't didn't Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: That's the thing is you don't know beforehand. You don't
Speaker 2: hear till years later, where it's like, wow, they made
Speaker 2: like nothing to do this, and your break and it's
Speaker 2: not just you're not just acting, you're also stunt performing body.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm like doing I'm like, I'm you know,
Speaker 5: I'm doing all this physical activity that you would pay
Speaker 5: a stump man to do, and you get stump bumps
Speaker 5: and so forth and so on. I did some That
Speaker 5: was one of the funnest parts of the job for me, though.
Speaker 5: Really honestly, I did a sum one time where I
Speaker 5: went I was being chased by some putties. Those are
Speaker 5: the lower level bad guys. I'm being chased by a
Speaker 5: putty and there's a putty standing in front of the
Speaker 5: swing set, and I dived through the chains of the swing.
Speaker 5: I do a front flip over the puddy. I land.
Speaker 5: I kick him in the stomach. He falls into the swing,
Speaker 5: swings back against the puddy behind me. Now that's when
Speaker 5: Jackie chan level. And I was so impressed with myself
Speaker 5: that I was able to do it. In fact, the
Speaker 5: first time I did it, my leg got caught in
Speaker 5: the chain and I'm hanging upside down like it's.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me look again. We're doing it.
Speaker 5: Back Toronto, and uh and but and then even when
Speaker 5: they showed it, you don't even really see it because
Speaker 5: the time wasn't taken to make sure you could see
Speaker 5: that the chain. I went to do the change like
Speaker 5: you see me do it, and you go.
Speaker 1: Didn't look like maybe he went through the chains. Possibly, yeah,
Speaker 1: right right right.
Speaker 2: But so yeah, your physicality though, so I have to
Speaker 2: tell a very quick story. I think you and I
Speaker 2: talked about this at one point at a convention. So
Speaker 2: I had always been attracted to martial arts my whole life,
Speaker 2: but I'm just not very good at it. But I
Speaker 2: liked it. I liked the discipline. I liked taking two
Speaker 2: classes and then quitting. That's kind of my thing. I'm
Speaker 2: I'm two classes into multiple disciplines. So there's a martial
Speaker 2: arts studio up the street from our we're shooting at,
Speaker 2: not KTLA, but at the Radford Radford at the Radford,
Speaker 2: and I drive by and I keep seeing this martial
Speaker 2: arts studio there, so I'm like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 2: going to go? Yes, Grandmaster Songs hop Keto. So I
Speaker 2: go in and I start taking private lessons with Grandmaster
Speaker 2: Song and he's the nicest guy and he's a great teacher.
Speaker 2: And he says, I want you to come tonight. We're
Speaker 2: doing black belt tests and I want you to sit
Speaker 2: there and watch and hold people's clothes because obviously I'm
Speaker 2: not going to be testing for anything. So I get
Speaker 2: there and he says, we're all the classes, we're all
Speaker 2: kneeling there, we're sitting there, and he says, and now
Speaker 2: I would like somebody to come in and give us
Speaker 2: a demonstration. And it was you and you walked into
Speaker 2: the class and the first thing you did was run
Speaker 2: down the mat, do a front flip, and then jump
Speaker 2: into a giant, spinning back kick. And I remember going like, oh,
Speaker 2: I can't do this. I will never ever be able
Speaker 2: to do this. It was the most there's probably ten
Speaker 2: of us there in the class, and you gave this
Speaker 2: demonstration that was just like that, that's what I want.
Speaker 2: I want to be able to do and just knowing
Speaker 2: that I've never ever have a chance to do it,
Speaker 2: but you were so nice to me, and but it
Speaker 2: was just one of those things where you just saw
Speaker 2: the physicality was on such another level that you're just
Speaker 2: kind of like, oh, some people can do it like that,
Speaker 2: and some people hurt themselves kneeling like I'd been kneeling
Speaker 2: for too long and it wasn't gonna be able to
Speaker 2: get up, and so it was. Yeah, it was just that.
Speaker 2: Remember watching that and then learning after that kind of
Speaker 2: took me in the deep dive down the Power Rangers
Speaker 2: hole because I was like, oh, are they all this skilled?
Speaker 2: Which you weren't all as skilled as you were, let's
Speaker 2: be honest, but the idea that it was like they're
Speaker 2: actors and stunt people and they're doing all this together,
Speaker 2: they're fighting, they're probably doing some of the fight coordinations themselves,
Speaker 2: Like this is amazing. And then to find out the
Speaker 2: work schedule and the compensation for it as a fellow actor,
Speaker 2: it was like, oh man, it was just that moment
Speaker 2: of that's not cool, you know. So it was now
Speaker 2: seeing everybody at the convention, seeing the lines you have
Speaker 2: at the conventions, and people come in showing you the love,
Speaker 2: and actually you're getting some good compensation for the work
Speaker 2: that you've put in over the years. Thank god, because
Speaker 2: we as fans and we as fellow actors, when we
Speaker 2: knew it was like, that's man, that's not cool. So
Speaker 2: but yeah, thank you for that. That was you really
Speaker 2: let me know that I would never be a martial artist.
Speaker 2: So I'd like to.
Speaker 5: Really happy that you were there to witness that, because
Speaker 5: I remember doing that Grandmaster's song asked me to come
Speaker 5: in and do it. I don't think it was my
Speaker 5: black belt test, but I did do a showcase there
Speaker 5: and I put off the stop so I was like,
Speaker 5: oh sick the cakes. And I had a lot of talent,
Speaker 5: so I was able to do things and incorporate you know,
Speaker 5: hip hop, keto, hip hop into it and uh, and
Speaker 5: it was fun. It was a lot of fun. And
Speaker 5: it's cool to remember that you were there.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it was great. It was totally I'll never
Speaker 2: forget that. Yep, that was great.
Speaker 5: And yes, the fans that we have now are amazing. Uh,
Speaker 5: we have the best fans in the world. Uh. You know,
Speaker 5: I get to travel. It's so weird that I get
Speaker 5: to travel to so many places because the shows everywhere. Uh,
Speaker 5: and and some places where I can't even speak the language,
Speaker 5: and I got so much love. Like I just got
Speaker 5: back from Brazil. I was in I went to Santos,
Speaker 5: which is like this little town by South Paolo, and
Speaker 5: I did a festival there and everybody was there so
Speaker 5: much love and and they're speaking Portuguese and I can't speak.
Speaker 5: But I'm going, oh to d Bain and they look
Speaker 5: crazy and it's like actually dance zook, which is a
Speaker 5: Brazilian style dance. So that's that's amazing. Uh. And then
Speaker 5: I've been to Ireland and Scotland and I mean, you
Speaker 5: know what it's like, you know, all these different places. Colombia.
Speaker 5: I was in Colombia recently for my birthday last year
Speaker 5: and that was amazing. Uh, you know, it's just it's
Speaker 5: so cool. I went to Indonesia actually once and I,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm there and I don't speak the same language,
Speaker 5: so I have an interpreter. That's always fun interpreter. But
Speaker 5: just you know, the love is the same, it's the
Speaker 5: same from the people and to feel that and know
Speaker 5: that it exists in the world without me even knowing.
Speaker 5: W and I, I mean, you know what it's like.
Speaker 5: Sometimes you hear the stories from people that are so
Speaker 5: heartwarming to know that I was positive in their life
Speaker 5: and motivated them in some way to get through a situation.
Speaker 5: And they and maybe that happened to them when they
Speaker 5: were five or seven, and they carried that through like
Speaker 5: their life. They carried that story when I was seven,
Speaker 5: I had to go through this such and such and
Speaker 5: then I thought about the black manager and so I
Speaker 5: stood up for myself and I did that. And they've
Speaker 5: been telling the story to everybody they know for like
Speaker 5: five years. And then they meet me and they're like,
Speaker 5: I gotta tell you what I get to tell you,
Speaker 5: And I'm like, and I'm so excited for them, Like
Speaker 5: that happened, wold that so I'm so happy that it
Speaker 5: was that was part of it.
Speaker 2: You know, being an actor on anything and obviously being
Speaker 2: able to make a career out of it is a
Speaker 2: wonderful gift. But when you're doing something that you're focused
Speaker 2: on children and you're the hero and you're the hero,
Speaker 2: it's really amazing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And what sound is the fans our We have
Speaker 5: a lot of fans that are forty now and so
Speaker 5: you know, spend thirty two years. So if you were
Speaker 5: eight you were watching parlor Agers our key audience. Then
Speaker 5: now you're forty or you're forty three or forty four,
Speaker 5: you got a family of your own, you got kids,
Speaker 5: and some of you got grandkids. And it's like and
Speaker 5: you come up to my line and you go from
Speaker 5: being grandpa or papa to a little boy that yo,
Speaker 5: and they're like they're trying to be cool and they're like, oh,
Speaker 5: and the kids are happy because their kids watch the show.
Speaker 5: But then they're even they're staying to me, I don't
Speaker 5: like this, Like oh my god, okay, control it. Yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, and it's so amazing just just to have
Speaker 5: generations and know that I'm that this will live beyond myself,
Speaker 5: you know, that's that's awesome.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you about the ones and always
Speaker 3: special too.
Speaker 1: Yes, what was it like putting back on the suit
Speaker 1: thirty years later now doing this role as an adult?
Speaker 5: What was that like?
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 5: You ever go back to your high school or your
Speaker 5: your elementary school after you've gotten much bigger and you
Speaker 5: go back.
Speaker 3: In the lock everything so small?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, the hallways like, yeah, I remember the colors,
Speaker 5: like these stairs used to seem like so many stairs
Speaker 5: and it's now as simple. It's like it was like
Speaker 5: that to go back, very surreal, except for everything saying.
Speaker 5: So I'm going back and looking at the history of
Speaker 5: what's happened late twenty eight years later, Like when I
Speaker 5: was on the show and the Command Center, we had
Speaker 5: Zordan and we had this, you know, the viewing globe.
Speaker 5: And now I'm in the Command Center and Jordan's gone.
Speaker 5: And see there's a crack where it used to be,
Speaker 5: and there's no more viewing globe, and there's a different
Speaker 5: Alpha five it's Alpha nine. Now it's like it's all weird.
Speaker 5: It's like weird but familiar because even though it had
Speaker 5: been twenty eight years since I've been on the show.
Speaker 5: Every day of my life, I've had somebody walk up
Speaker 5: to me and call me Zach. He's that, you know,
Speaker 5: And so Zach has never left me. And and thank God,
Speaker 5: thank God, that I still have the energy and the
Speaker 5: training to be able to do the things that I
Speaker 5: used to do. I haven't needed to do a backflip
Speaker 5: in a long time, but I did it. I did
Speaker 5: it on Power Rangers once in all Ways. So I
Speaker 5: pulled out a backflip and did jump split kicks and
Speaker 5: went to the ground and did hip hop keto. And
Speaker 5: I was so excited that I was able to do
Speaker 5: that for you know, that for my fans that have
Speaker 5: been with me since you know, ninety three, to their
Speaker 5: kids and their kids. To be able to go back
Speaker 5: and reprise the role was amazing. And it was also
Speaker 5: a bit of closure that I never knew that I needed,
Speaker 5: because you know, when you when you when you work
Speaker 5: on a series or a TV show and at the end,
Speaker 5: you get that wrap, all right, that's a wrapper Walter Jones.
Speaker 5: You know I didn't get that because we walked off
Speaker 5: the show hoping to negotiate a contract and come back
Speaker 5: and do the movie and finish doing some more shows.
Speaker 5: And that never happened. And so when I finished the series,
Speaker 5: when we finished Once in Always, they said, all right,
Speaker 5: that's a wrapper Walter Jones, and I just lost it.
Speaker 5: I tried to be cool. I was trying to be cool.
Speaker 5: It was like, yeah, I was like, I just went
Speaker 5: in and the voice went way high, id' I couldn't talk.
Speaker 2: I was like.
Speaker 5: Like tearing up, and it was but I realized it
Speaker 5: was healing for me to finally hear that on something
Speaker 5: that I helped create and that I've seen, you know,
Speaker 5: I've seen just like do so well in the world
Speaker 5: with movies and TV shows and the comic books and
Speaker 5: Always and the cards, all this stuff that I see
Speaker 5: lives in the world because it's something that I helped
Speaker 5: create in the very beginning. To now be able to
Speaker 5: finally get a thank you, right, yeah, which is which
Speaker 5: is awesome. I mean I always get to thank you
Speaker 5: from the fans, but from the production.
Speaker 1: Itself, you know, yes, to be given your flowers from
Speaker 1: the from the other people who have helped create, you know,
Speaker 1: the legacy that you helped create.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's twenty eight years later, so it's barely
Speaker 5: any of them left. But yeah, you know, it's like Yeah,
Speaker 5: that was that was enough. To work with David Yost again,
Speaker 5: one of the also one of the original Rangers, the
Speaker 5: Blue Ranger. To work with him on the show was awesome.
Speaker 5: It was a very surreal thing because working with David,
Speaker 5: David and I are our characters are kind of similar
Speaker 5: to our characters on the show. David is a little
Speaker 5: more reserved. He's a little more you know, like he's
Speaker 5: welcome together on energy and bouncy and and spontaneous and
Speaker 5: fun and even as adults, we are a certain odd couple,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. But we have this love
Speaker 5: for each other because we've known each other for so
Speaker 5: long and we've gone through this whole thing together. It's
Speaker 5: that's that's amazing. And then to be we were paying
Speaker 5: tribute to the Yellow Ranger, who was my friend tweet
Speaker 5: train and who also left with me, so she knew
Speaker 5: my experience of leaving because we were holding each other up.
Speaker 5: Now it's gonna be okay, we're gonna get through the contract,
Speaker 5: we're gonna go back, and then we'll be through the movie.
Speaker 5: And then when it fell through, the heartbreak was only
Speaker 5: what we experienced, you know, myself and and uh and
Speaker 5: Austin Saint John and tweet training. So then to see
Speaker 5: tweet go on and do movies. She did the pro
Speaker 5: her career is starting to prosper. She was doing well,
Speaker 5: and then she passed away and she was in a
Speaker 5: car accident, a tragic car accident, and we lost her.
Speaker 5: And that was before she got to experience any of
Speaker 5: the fandom of people that were kids that are now
Speaker 5: grown to tell you stories about how you inspired their
Speaker 5: life to go and do this show. We're paying tribute
Speaker 5: to her and Jason Frank, but her who had not
Speaker 5: experienced any of this. Yeah, it was weird because I
Speaker 5: am mourning in the in the movie, in the TV show,
Speaker 5: I'm I'm Zach mourning Triny who's passed, but I'm also
Speaker 5: Walter who's warning tweet And to look at her pictures
Speaker 5: in the in the scene there's a picture where I'm
Speaker 5: looking at her pictures and I'm, you know, having this
Speaker 5: this memory moment of her. It's like, it's wow, talking
Speaker 5: about you know, living in a moment. It was like
Speaker 5: it was it was wild, it was cool, it was
Speaker 5: very cool.
Speaker 3: That's beautiful.
Speaker 1: I think our fans would absolutely kill us if we
Speaker 1: did not talk about Brink, and I know that this
Speaker 1: is I'm stepping on Will's toes here with magical rewind.
Speaker 1: I have to know.
Speaker 3: Was Brink as fun to film as it looked?
Speaker 5: It was so much fun? Yeah, I mean think about
Speaker 5: it X X X games, right, it was very dominant
Speaker 5: at that time, so you had all these amazing athletes
Speaker 5: doing cool things on skateboards and bikes and rollerblades and
Speaker 5: so forth and so on, and it was in the
Speaker 5: vein of that. So when I was offered to me
Speaker 5: that the role was offered to me, I was twenty
Speaker 5: nine at the time, and the other actors were truly fifteen,
Speaker 5: Like everyone is fifteen, yeah, and they're like fifteen fourteen,
Speaker 5: they're really kids. And here I am, my twenty nine
Speaker 5: year old self, like playing a kid again on a
Speaker 5: Disney movie. And I rollerbladed, So it was cool. I
Speaker 5: we got on there and we started training with uh,
Speaker 5: some of the guys from Xploit from X Games, and
Speaker 5: We're learning to go down ramps and all this stuff.
Speaker 5: And I'm courageous in my own way, but didn't really
Speaker 5: know how to do stunts on rollerblades. And I'll tell you,
Speaker 5: when you go down a ramp on blades. It's pretty terrifying.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I even just the thought of it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like it's okay, you're there on on edge,
Speaker 5: like okay, how do I do this? And you have
Speaker 5: to learn to put forward, like leaning into it forward
Speaker 5: because if you lean back at all, you fall. Yes,
Speaker 5: it's like yeah the way. Yeah, So that was it
Speaker 5: was trauma, but it was fun and we trained. We
Speaker 5: trained from about a week or two down at Santa
Speaker 5: Monica Beach.
Speaker 3: Oh, they gave you a whole week.
Speaker 5: Yeah, are you kidding?
Speaker 2: You're lucky, You're lucky you got offered the role. I've
Speaker 2: interviewed a bunch of the cast who said part of
Speaker 2: the audition process was they put them in rollerblades and
Speaker 2: pushed them down a hill.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: So so it was like, I mean literally just like
Speaker 2: go there you go. I mean, this is back in
Speaker 2: the day when Disney's like, hey, the four kids that
Speaker 2: survive are gonna be in the movie. So yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Didn't even know how they did that, but yeah, it
Speaker 5: was It was a lot of fun to film. Those
Speaker 5: guys were great. Uh. I still talk to the guy
Speaker 5: that played Boo all the time, and uh, and yeah,
Speaker 5: it was it was a great time. Unfortunately, again, uh,
Speaker 5: the hairdresser they did a job on me, which my
Speaker 5: fans love to talk about. Now. I had this hairline
Speaker 5: that was like a bowl, and uh, the hair hairdresser
Speaker 5: was like, no, no, no, no, I know how to
Speaker 5: do black hair. And I was like sure, you know.
Speaker 5: He's like, yeah, no, I do black hair all the time. Okay,
Speaker 5: all right, can you line me up? Can you? It
Speaker 5: was a diaster, you know. And and although it was clean,
Speaker 5: it was clean, I mean I looked, I look clean,
Speaker 5: but it was wrong. It was definitely wrong. And to
Speaker 5: this day on mine, on any of my social media,
Speaker 5: people are hitting yelling what about the hairline, I'm like, ago,
Speaker 5: let it go, it go.
Speaker 2: I am on the brink, yes.
Speaker 5: Right, some of them excuse me, and I'm like, let
Speaker 5: me see your hairline and.
Speaker 3: Exactly get rid of that cat in your profile picture.
Speaker 1: You also made the rounds of nineties classic TV shows
Speaker 1: Family Matters, Step by Step, Parenthood Sabrina. But I want
Speaker 1: to ask you about something a little more obscure. You
Speaker 1: starred on a show called Space Cases, part of the
Speaker 1: snack programming block that seemed way.
Speaker 3: Ahead of its time. Can you tell us a little
Speaker 3: bit about that.
Speaker 5: It was the first show and I booked series that
Speaker 5: I booked after Power Rangers. It was called Space Cases.
Speaker 5: It was created by Bill Mooney, who was in Lost
Speaker 5: in Space. I'm named after That's what you're named after.
Speaker 2: So his character in Lost in Space was Will Robinson,
Speaker 2: and I was supposed to be Billy, but because my
Speaker 2: brother's favorite show was Lost in Space, I was named
Speaker 2: after his character, Will Robinson. I met Bill. He's a
Speaker 2: very cool guy.
Speaker 5: Amazing guy, amazing guy. Yeah, So they hired me to
Speaker 5: be on the show. And again I was twenty twenty
Speaker 5: eight or I was older twenty eight with actual fifteen
Speaker 5: year olds, and I think there was a nine year old,
Speaker 5: an eleven year old, thirteen year old, and a fifteen
Speaker 5: year old and you and me and I we're playing
Speaker 5: a bunch of kids in a space university, a galactic
Speaker 5: university for prospering officers on ships. And this ship comes
Speaker 5: in and we decided to go explore it because I'm
Speaker 5: the guy that's like, hey, let's go check it out.
Speaker 5: And they're like, we can't do that. I'm like, we
Speaker 5: could do whatever, we want to do this goal. So
Speaker 5: we go, we get on the ship. The ship logs
Speaker 5: us on as the crew, and the teacher and a captain,
Speaker 5: a former captain come on to take us off, and
Speaker 5: they get logged on as the passengers. Ship goes off
Speaker 5: into space because something's wrong. We're playing with the controls
Speaker 5: and we get lost in space ourselves.
Speaker 2: And so lost in space meets space camp. This is
Speaker 2: the great idea.
Speaker 5: Yes, it was awesome. It was an awesome show. We
Speaker 5: had two great seasons. The show was doing really well.
Speaker 5: We were the number two kids number one, number two
Speaker 5: show on Nickelodeon behind Keenan Nickel, So Keenan Keel was
Speaker 5: number one. We were number two. We had a great cast,
Speaker 5: and then the third season was coming around, which I
Speaker 5: wish we had it under third season we left it
Speaker 5: on this cliffhanger was crazy. I mean I was crying, like,
Speaker 5: you know, balling because we lost one of one of
Speaker 5: my co stars and her visible friend ended up coming
Speaker 5: back to be to be to play her part. But
Speaker 5: I got booked by Aaron Spelling to do a show
Speaker 5: called Malibu Shores. Yeah, and Aaron Spelling is the man,
Speaker 5: and I you know, I thought, well, I got the
Speaker 5: number one kids show in the world. I want to
Speaker 5: do prime time. I want to get out of this
Speaker 5: kid's stuff, and so I got to take it. I
Speaker 5: got to take the chance. So I ended up leaving
Speaker 5: my show to go do Malibu Shores and we did
Speaker 5: one season and it was it. It was done. It
Speaker 5: was done. But I did get to be when Aaron
Speaker 5: and Aaron was making me promises like I'm gonna put
Speaker 5: you in every show I do, you know, Like I
Speaker 5: was going over and hanging out of the house with
Speaker 5: Aaron Spelling with Tori and Randy, like sitting by the
Speaker 5: pool alley in the basement. I was like, life is good.
Speaker 5: I was like here come, you know, because Aaron Spelling
Speaker 5: was like just some master. I mean everything he touched
Speaker 5: turned to go, yeah, all these angels, Duke's hazards, so
Speaker 5: forth and so on, and like melrose Place, like he
Speaker 5: he was God. So I took a chance to do
Speaker 5: it and it didn't work out, and now I'm depressed
Speaker 5: and I left my show because it was a good show.
Speaker 5: It was fun and a lot of people loved it,
Speaker 5: and because we only did two seasons, it didn't it
Speaker 5: didn't get to you know, continue, like it didn't go
Speaker 5: into uh, it didn't get like, what, what's the word
Speaker 5: I'm looking for? It didn't go into.
Speaker 2: Syndication, dedication, thanking ding ding ding ding.
Speaker 5: My brain was I am getting older. I was like,
Speaker 5: but it was a lot of fun. That was a
Speaker 5: lot of fun to the show. Uh and and uh
Speaker 5: I was really grateful. I mean and I was actually
Speaker 5: finally paid well, So.
Speaker 2: That was exactly not to go backwards. But you mentioned
Speaker 2: the cruise ship, and I just we don't have to
Speaker 2: get too much into it, but is it true that
Speaker 2: working on a cruise ship is kind of like a
Speaker 2: party the entire time you're there, for all the people
Speaker 2: that are working, it's just you kind of don't know
Speaker 2: what cabin you're gonna wake up in.
Speaker 5: That's a little that one's I wouldn't every weekend, every
Speaker 5: week there's a new Yeah, there's no cool people to
Speaker 5: come on board that are partying and are on vacation,
Speaker 5: and I mean there is, there's possibilities to meet people,
Speaker 5: and I met some people. But also I had a
Speaker 5: girlfriend on the ship. Okay, I ended up having a
Speaker 5: girlfriend on the ship, and and that way when we
Speaker 5: had adventures. We go to Alaska and we go hiking
Speaker 5: on the glaciers or we go kayaking or if we
Speaker 5: did what horseback biting or jet skiing in Mexico. We
Speaker 5: did stuff like that together, So which is nice to you?
Speaker 5: That's so great doing that with somebody that you don't
Speaker 5: know so well is uh? Is cool, But it's not
Speaker 5: the same as really been able to share some thing
Speaker 5: with somebody. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Can I ask what is your craziest passenger experience that
Speaker 2: you had with somebody on the cruise ship.
Speaker 5: Well, I didn't happen to have a romantic occasion on
Speaker 5: the top of the ship in the middle of a storm,
Speaker 5: a storm, lightning and thunder, and I'm on the top
Speaker 5: deck with this young lady and we had an adventure
Speaker 5: and it was just adventurous. It was definitely adventures. The
Speaker 5: thing is is, after we were done, she told me
Speaker 5: it was the first time, and I thought that.
Speaker 1: Was She told me, listen, there are very few people
Speaker 1: who can say their first time was on the top
Speaker 1: floor of a ship.
Speaker 2: No future. Yes, I thought you were gonna be like
Speaker 2: somebody got really drunk and almost fell off the boat.
Speaker 2: But I like the way your story went better.
Speaker 5: That was the Walter adventure. Actually I did go.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 5: I was riding a horse and and uh, whatever you
Speaker 5: are done. And you know, on these tours, the horses
Speaker 5: kind of know where they're going because they've been taking
Speaker 5: people all day and day. And so I'm riding this horse,
Speaker 5: and I like riding horses. I've been to the horses
Speaker 5: for a while. And I got this horse and I'm like,
Speaker 5: I'm running them. You know, we were running and and
Speaker 5: this horse tries to knock me into a branch, a
Speaker 5: low hanging branch, and I'm like, man, what are you doing?
Speaker 5: And then he takes off running and he turns a
Speaker 5: corner and right there is a brick wall corner and
Speaker 5: he stops and I'm flaying off the horse and his
Speaker 5: neck and I'm holding on something like this and I'm
Speaker 5: like this course, he's trying to kid, You're not my
Speaker 5: friend anymore. Horse. I think he was gonna show me.
Speaker 5: He was like this, this gringo, I'm gonna show in
Speaker 5: the hold on. Oh I have and I survived. Oh man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, horses will try to kill you.
Speaker 5: You will.
Speaker 1: Everyone who's not like a professional horse rider has some
Speaker 1: sort of like this horse tried to kill me once.
Speaker 3: Sorry, Yeah it happens. Well, Walter, thank you so much
Speaker 3: for being here with us.
Speaker 1: Thank you for all of the contributions you have given
Speaker 1: to kids, TV, the entertainment industry. You are truly a legend,
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad that you feel the love even
Speaker 1: though you were not compensated fairly for the incredible work
Speaker 1: that you did for all those years. I hope you
Speaker 1: know how much you mean to multiple generations of people,
Speaker 1: including us. So thank you for all your contributions, and
Speaker 1: we hope you feel the love.
Speaker 5: Oh, you know what. I feel the love. It's amazing,
Speaker 5: and I thank you everybody for knstrict continuing to support me.
Speaker 5: Check out my film war Dogs. It's all right right now.
Speaker 5: I got to music out under the name Trey Emanuel.
Speaker 5: I got two songs, walk in the Park and Dance.
Speaker 5: Check me out on Spotify or anything that streaming. And
Speaker 5: if you go to my my Instagram Walter at Walter E. Jones,
Speaker 5: it's all there in the bio.
Speaker 2: Perfect everything you do.
Speaker 5: Everything.
Speaker 3: I'm going to take you up on going dancing.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll ask our producers for your contact information and
Speaker 1: I'll reach out to you because I really do want to.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'll convince these guys to go.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you.
Speaker 3: Put in the chat. Thank you so much, Walter, thank
Speaker 3: you for being here.
Speaker 5: We'll see outside somewhere.
Speaker 1: I'll definitely see out by man when every time we
Speaker 1: talk about how they were treated, I mean, there's just
Speaker 1: no way around it, even if they're too polite to
Speaker 1: say it.
Speaker 3: They were just absolutely exploited.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's the only word for it. And we
Speaker 2: have truly no idea the phenomenon.
Speaker 3: That nods around it.
Speaker 2: It was insane and they were they were literally making
Speaker 2: billions of dollars, and they anytime any of the actors said, hey,
Speaker 2: I can't make my rent, they got fired and they
Speaker 2: put somebody else in the suit. It was just incredible,
Speaker 2: absolutely incredible.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and it's so frustrating to hear too that, like
Speaker 1: you know, he he kind of decided, let's get a lawyer.
Speaker 1: Let's and three of the five agreed to doing it,
Speaker 1: and the other two just said, I think I can
Speaker 1: do better without or whether or not I think I
Speaker 1: can do better without being in the group, I'm willing
Speaker 1: to accept it in order to not.
Speaker 3: Possibly lose my job.
Speaker 1: Where you know, as everyone really saw, I remember the
Speaker 1: Friends renegotiation being I mean the biggest news ever that
Speaker 1: the five of them banded together and said, we are
Speaker 1: an ensemble. We want to and we know how much
Speaker 1: money you're making. We want to make this amount of money.
Speaker 1: And they all got it because they were in the number, yeah,
Speaker 1: six of them. What harmony was so yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: just such a bummer that like, basically they were punished
Speaker 1: for doing this.
Speaker 2: Is also one of the problems though with non union
Speaker 2: contracts you have you have when you're sometimes with the union,
Speaker 2: the union is there to make sure stuff like this
Speaker 2: doesn't happen, because again, these were not just actors. They
Speaker 2: were doing all of the stunts. It was there were
Speaker 2: times where it was pretty dangerous on the set as well,
Speaker 2: and they just weren't weren't getting compensated. But it's another
Speaker 2: one of those ips though that's just been around for
Speaker 2: thirty something years and is still going strong. I mean,
Speaker 2: at one point when they redid the movie in Zordan
Speaker 2: Brian Cranston played Zordan. I mean, these are starting to
Speaker 2: get very big actors that were like, I want to
Speaker 2: be involved in this, in this franchise because they were
Speaker 2: it's it's the Power Rangers, So I mean, writer, you
Speaker 2: and I one of our close friends is the one
Speaker 2: who took the comic books to a whole another level.
Speaker 2: Kyle Higgins took the whole the comic books to a
Speaker 2: different place. And yeah, it's been We see them at
Speaker 2: the conventions. I mean they have lines around the block
Speaker 2: at the conventions.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: Huge. Yeah. Bill Hayter was Alpha five in the new one.
Speaker 2: There you go, so they are. Yeah, it's it's quite
Speaker 2: the franchise.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you all for joining us for this episode
Speaker 1: of Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us
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Speaker 2: It's merchant time on that one worked pretty well. Actually,
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