Speaker 1: Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red Table Pop Podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Speaker 1: Facebook Watch show in audio, produced by Westbrook Audio and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. It's a Red Table Talk event with
Speaker 1: a very special reunion after thirty five years. The stars
Speaker 1: of a Different World are coming together right here at
Speaker 1: the Red Tables a special. It was a groundbreaking series
Speaker 1: that inspired generations and launched countless careers, including Mine Heilman
Speaker 1: home Coming kicks off in five chop pleadings four, three eights,
Speaker 1: two one. Come on out, God, this is so beautiful.
Speaker 1: I found him in another country. This is like in
Speaker 1: a different world. Burst onto the NBC's must see TV lineup,
Speaker 1: Change to make it. The ratings were huge, with tens
Speaker 1: of millions tuning in each week. It was a spinoff
Speaker 1: of The Cosby Show, following Denise Huxtable's life at Hillman College,
Speaker 1: a fictional version of a historically black college. The Brilliant
Speaker 1: Jasmine Guy played Whitley Gilbert, the opinionated Southern bell who
Speaker 1: was bad and bougie before there was bad and Bougie
Speaker 1: And the next time you got me a panther, Bougie,
Speaker 1: Princess Julien. It prepared for a damn how may Kadeem
Speaker 1: Hardison was Dwayne Wayne with those trademark flip up glasses
Speaker 1: who made it cool to be smart. I quit, I
Speaker 1: quit with the legendary b Allen was the creative genius
Speaker 1: behind the show. She's won five Emmy's, a Golden Globe
Speaker 1: and has given wings to many careers, including mine. A
Speaker 1: Different World was laugh out loud, funny, took on tough
Speaker 1: topics and welcome to iconic guest stars like Halle Berry,
Speaker 1: Whoopie Goldberg, Diane Carroll, Patti LaBelle, Lena Horn to Pop
Speaker 1: and more. We got missed Debbie here. We're gonna start
Speaker 1: with you first. I want you to I want you
Speaker 1: to tell us what it was like the first time
Speaker 1: you met Debbie. Oh, well, the first time I met Debbie.
Speaker 1: I mean, like most of us had watched Debbie on Fame.
Speaker 1: She was like the proto type, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I was like, I want to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to sing dance that. I
Speaker 1: want a triple quadruple threat. So when I first got
Speaker 1: to meet Debbie, it was crazy because I came to
Speaker 1: audition for a guest are just a guest role? The
Speaker 1: age episode? She walked in, Wait, let me just say this.
Speaker 1: She walked in, she already had all that, and I said, wow,
Speaker 1: you are a wonderful So where you I'm the next
Speaker 1: Debbie al I'm like she said it said, and I
Speaker 1: loved her from that minute. I said her now, so
Speaker 1: I said, let's make a series regularly. She sure did happened,
Speaker 1: But I mean, what what a dream come true? To
Speaker 1: be seen by somebody you had idolized and she sees
Speaker 1: me right away so much so she was like, we're
Speaker 1: gonna put you on this show. She recognized she did,
Speaker 1: but I think she did for both of us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so just tell your story. Yeah, I tracked a debt
Speaker 1: be down. I was at the school. I'm glad I
Speaker 1: didn't know any better. I was very naive just to
Speaker 1: think I could go see her. It was an eight
Speaker 1: hour dance audition. Yeah, fam was like that. And let
Speaker 1: me tell you, I never danced so good. I looked if,
Speaker 1: I said, is that my foot? All I knew was
Speaker 1: I gotta get this part. You know. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be on that show and work with you so bad,
Speaker 1: so I became the ninth dancer. Yes you did, but Debbie,
Speaker 1: you have started so many careers, and all my career.
Speaker 1: Whenever people told me no, oh you're a dancer, you
Speaker 1: can't be an actress, or you're a comedian, you can't
Speaker 1: do drama, or yeah, I was like, did whatever you
Speaker 1: say I can't do? She already done it that part.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that'd be just she could see us.
Speaker 1: We were all her children. This one was my child
Speaker 1: from way back when he was a little boy. I
Speaker 1: went to my mom took me to the theater um
Speaker 1: and afterwards she knew Debbie. So we went back to
Speaker 1: Debbie's house for like a little after party, and I
Speaker 1: must have been like, because I remember you jumping on
Speaker 1: my water. Codeine went on to become an actor. He
Speaker 1: and Debbie didn't see each other for many years, and
Speaker 1: then we were already on a different You were already there,
Speaker 1: and she came the second year and didn't remember. You
Speaker 1: know what happened? Was he grown? I said Hi? He said,
Speaker 1: it's me Debbie. Me, it's me Cadeine. Then I said,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you Mike Codean. I didn't know till
Speaker 1: just until we had that moment. But then that was
Speaker 1: so good. We were all so yeah, we would look
Speaker 1: like that baby. You remember she had her birthday on
Speaker 1: the set and she was like eighteen. That said, how
Speaker 1: old are you? Like? Why am I hanging out with
Speaker 1: no idea? She was that young? Yes, I was a baby.
Speaker 1: You were so grown. You look like a baby when
Speaker 1: I look at it, I willow. Yes, yeah, it's all
Speaker 1: rebellious and just young and grown. But it was great.
Speaker 1: Think about those stories we did a different world's groundbreaking
Speaker 1: episodes were ahead of its time, taking on controversial topics
Speaker 1: that are still relevant today like domestic violence, sex. How
Speaker 1: did you know it was time to be weird? That
Speaker 1: from one team? Pregnancy, aids, consent and race. You know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how many degrees I get. All you
Speaker 1: people see his color. I was thinking about Mammy DearS
Speaker 1: because you were the one that told Weddley that her
Speaker 1: family had owned slaves. Yeah, that was one of my favorite.
Speaker 1: And then everybody was really having a meltdown off camera
Speaker 1: for real. Imagine coming from an African American family that
Speaker 1: owned over one hundred slaves. They are my space some mistake. No,
Speaker 1: this doesn't look like in the stage. It's a reproduction
Speaker 1: of a bill of sale. Your great great granddaddy had
Speaker 1: just bought ten new slaves that he was a freeman
Speaker 1: of color, but he was also a black master. But
Speaker 1: why not. I didn't know that black people owned other
Speaker 1: black people. Only if you did. Now we know why
Speaker 1: you're so bossy. It's d n a them, no good ancestor.
Speaker 1: I still get a cheer from this. Look at your
Speaker 1: little face. It was really hard. It was hard. And
Speaker 1: when we embraced it, and then we changed that around
Speaker 1: because you were dancing. You made me do African dance.
Speaker 1: I don't want you gonna dance. You went back to
Speaker 1: the motherland. You're gonna You're gonna be all right. And
Speaker 1: then she put me in that little I was like, heavy, bladdy,
Speaker 1: come on, stop it. Let them see everything. That's how
Speaker 1: you were. You were like, you're gonna be fine. Now,
Speaker 1: I'll come on. Now, I'll stop it with all that. Now,
Speaker 1: come on, want to three, let's go. I remember when
Speaker 1: you came. I was a little jealous because you brought
Speaker 1: that that energy, that edge. I was like, damn, she
Speaker 1: gets to be home attitude. She was like at the police,
Speaker 1: that is the beauty everybody was coming from a different
Speaker 1: place and engage such a real view of who we
Speaker 1: are as the people. Absolutely, we don't all think alike,
Speaker 1: we don't look alike, don't think alike, but at some
Speaker 1: point we come together, because at some point we have
Speaker 1: to come together. Absolutely. I want to ask you, Debbie,
Speaker 1: because it seems like when you came on the show,
Speaker 1: the flavor of the show changed definitely. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: why they brought me. Actually, I had come from Fame
Speaker 1: and then I got this call from Carson Earner and
Speaker 1: Bill Cosmi, we need you to come over here and
Speaker 1: look at it different world because I had gone to
Speaker 1: Howard and I don't know if anybody else had really
Speaker 1: gone an HBCU. So I brought that experience in that reality.
Speaker 1: So we just had to put hot sauce on the table.
Speaker 1: We had to make it real because the Black University
Speaker 1: College voice is strong. Yeah, I gave my two weeks
Speaker 1: noticed during the first series before I said yeah, because
Speaker 1: you were oh yeah, it was Booty. I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be in this anymore, and and
Speaker 1: I didn't like the way they were treating the cast,
Speaker 1: and so I went in there and I said, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for this opportunity, and I've I've learned
Speaker 1: so much and they're probably like, Okay, well did something
Speaker 1: happen to you? I said, well, you know, I feel like, uh,
Speaker 1: Lisa bon is disrespected in front of the audience. Well,
Speaker 1: has it ever happened to you? I said, if it
Speaker 1: happens to her, it happens to me. You're disrespecting the cast,
Speaker 1: You're disrespecting some bad It doesn't have to happen to me.
Speaker 1: I felt like it was happening to me. I thought
Speaker 1: we could leave. You didn't read print that said six years.
Speaker 1: We have you for seven years. This was a time
Speaker 1: where there was the separation between the writers and the actors.
Speaker 1: If they said oh instead of ah, they had to
Speaker 1: stop the cameras and do it again. I worked really
Speaker 1: hard to break down that barrier between the writers and
Speaker 1: the actors day one. So you gave the cast a
Speaker 1: voice that I gave them a voice, and you felt
Speaker 1: like you didn't have a voice before. We just get
Speaker 1: your blinds, do the best and hope they don't make you.
Speaker 1: We were filming till one in the morning. I was like,
Speaker 1: why are we doing this again? I don't even know
Speaker 1: what I'm doing wrong, Like why are we just doing
Speaker 1: things over and over until the if it was funny?
Speaker 1: At any point it was gone, well, i'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: By the time I got there, it was already a
Speaker 1: groove happening because we go to Debbie and go, this
Speaker 1: is not working. No, Debbie, can we do this? Like
Speaker 1: I felt like I had a voice, so going anyplace
Speaker 1: else and not having a voice was like, what, wait
Speaker 1: a minute? Did I learned the hard way on other sets,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, actors don't like to get notes
Speaker 1: from the other actors. Because Kadem and I talked about everything.
Speaker 1: It was like this didn't work and this funny blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. But when I did that with other actors,
Speaker 1: there was a brace and I said, oh, I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I wasn't supposed to listen. I have to say that
Speaker 1: I remember the first time watching a different world and
Speaker 1: looking at you and saying, you can do that, And
Speaker 1: then I remember the day that she was gonna premiere
Speaker 1: on the show. I can remember sitting in the living
Speaker 1: room with my family, Uh, we got a flag girl,
Speaker 1: Reach here nine Lina James class. I really liked the
Speaker 1: way that sounds. I was so excited. I was so
Speaker 1: excited for her. I'll just never forget. I mean, just
Speaker 1: the whole thing, Debbie, just the whole thing. It was
Speaker 1: just amazing because when she auditioned and she said she's
Speaker 1: gonna write apart from me, I was like, what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we owe everything to you. You don't owe me because
Speaker 1: she walked in. Ready. That's what it is. That's the
Speaker 1: thing that young people need to understand. They need to
Speaker 1: train the young people today. They're watching TikTok that last
Speaker 1: ten seconds they do this? Do they have craft? I
Speaker 1: remember hiring somebody that was a dancer who was on
Speaker 1: the competition circuit. That child could not dance past one minute.
Speaker 1: He needed a respiraate to child. He was not in shape.
Speaker 1: He was just used to doing his best seconds. That
Speaker 1: was it, right, But Debbie, that's such an important point
Speaker 1: for Instagram talent, TikTok talent, a lot of talent out there.
Speaker 1: But you're right, it's gotta it's gotta go further than
Speaker 1: that minute. And can you do a ten twelve hour day?
Speaker 1: Can you do eight shows a week? Break it down? Yes,
Speaker 1: you introduce yourselves to us, but now what now? What jazz?
Speaker 1: What would you say? Your favorite moment was There were
Speaker 1: many moving moments because there was a lot of um
Speaker 1: real feelings in our episodes, and I was happy that
Speaker 1: we could be funny, of course, but I love the
Speaker 1: more meaningful shows and real issues. And even though my
Speaker 1: character was a lot younger than me, I was like parallel,
Speaker 1: Like when I got married, there was things happening in
Speaker 1: my personal life. I was breaking up with Dominant, so
Speaker 1: there were always like this kind of juxtaposing situations. But
Speaker 1: we were are professional, didn't let things affect the work,
Speaker 1: but we were going through things, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: There were real life was happening, and we were kind
Speaker 1: of growing up to other two because none of us
Speaker 1: were from LA and didn't have like roots, Like I
Speaker 1: felt like that was my family. You know. I can
Speaker 1: relate to that to Jasmine because even me sending Jada
Speaker 1: to come out to California, I was back in Baltimore
Speaker 1: just getting myself together right in my recovery process. I
Speaker 1: was very early on, but I felt safe knowing that
Speaker 1: Debbie was there. We talked to you a lot about stuff, Debbie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and I felt like you you had Jada's back,
Speaker 1: and that was important for me. Very important important for me.
Speaker 1: I know she had her hands full with just me alone. Like,
Speaker 1: but you had a very adventurous life, but you were
Speaker 1: always so patient. You would never judgmental, You would never like, look,
Speaker 1: you need to get your together, but you would just
Speaker 1: be like, now, look, you know you got a nice future,
Speaker 1: that opportunity. Let's just let's try to stay focused. What
Speaker 1: about you can deem? Did you have a special episode
Speaker 1: or a particular episode that really stuck out always, like
Speaker 1: all the deep stuff. Yeah, like we did the racism
Speaker 1: episode where he sprayed and word on and I had
Speaker 1: to deal with that dude. This acting you hired. This
Speaker 1: dude was so strong and grabbed me and pushed me
Speaker 1: against the wall. If you see it, you can see
Speaker 1: the set shake the only way like a hundred and seventeen. Yes,
Speaker 1: through all I went flying, think you are brother, come
Speaker 1: around here acting, Let you all that I'm taking care
Speaker 1: of my boy. Shoot what I'm saying. My father wasn't
Speaker 1: even around for me. Cheirs off me. But that was
Speaker 1: one of my favorite moments, just because you know, I
Speaker 1: always thought I was gonna be action here right right
Speaker 1: kind of start. I wanted to be the romance dude
Speaker 1: and action Dude and horror films and Debbie in this
Speaker 1: show gave me a chance to do a little bit
Speaker 1: of everything. We have so much fun. Do you remember
Speaker 1: what we had those Browns. You didn't make your flight.
Speaker 1: I didn't make my flight, but I was trying. I
Speaker 1: was done. I was trying to drive, and you guys
Speaker 1: were like something, you took my gear. Jasmine was like, now, look,
Speaker 1: you know you can't drive. Stop And I was like,
Speaker 1: I gotta gown and I had to stay. We put
Speaker 1: you in the bed. You passed out. Have mercy. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I was tore down. I had never had.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Oh my god. I was trying to drive.
Speaker 1: Jasmine was like, you need to just go lay now. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Oh man. Oh I remember one night with you, Debbie,
Speaker 1: which one Oh god, I threw up all over her house.
Speaker 1: It's okay, it's all right. All I remember is just
Speaker 1: throwing up everywhere, and Debbie's like, it's okay, you can
Speaker 1: stay here. You're gonna be all right. You know you
Speaker 1: raised you raised a lot of us. Well, we got
Speaker 1: some of our other alumnis that I would love for
Speaker 1: you to see. Well, hello boys. So many favorite memories
Speaker 1: I know that they probably involved Jasmine because we were
Speaker 1: always up to no good. We called ourselves hot and bothered.
Speaker 1: But I think one of my favorite moments would probably
Speaker 1: be the No Means No episode when Kadeem has rescued me.
Speaker 1: The two of us are in the dorm and we
Speaker 1: just sit down together for a moment and I thank
Speaker 1: him for being my friend. Even thinking about it makes
Speaker 1: me want to tear up because it was a very
Speaker 1: real moment between us. I'll never forget that that really
Speaker 1: moved me. I got a memory of Jazzy. I call
Speaker 1: her Princess Peach fuzz my Jasmine. One day we were
Speaker 1: doing a scene and I had to look for something
Speaker 1: in the drawer and in between takes, she said, girl,
Speaker 1: what are you looking for? And I said, uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know, and she said, it shows And it was
Speaker 1: such a lightbulb moment. I was eighteen years old. She
Speaker 1: really helped me to be a better actress. My favorite
Speaker 1: scene who Chaw. I love when we got to do
Speaker 1: the Step show. I love that Freddie was so raggedy
Speaker 1: in the beginning, and I love that I got to
Speaker 1: pull it together in the end. What does the show
Speaker 1: mean to me so much? It's a defining moment in
Speaker 1: my life and my career. It brought me Cadeem, my
Speaker 1: first true love. I am from Saskatchewan, Canada. We don't
Speaker 1: have any HBC used in Canada, and I got to
Speaker 1: experience the side of black life I probably never would
Speaker 1: have earned. I got to work with Debbie Allen, who
Speaker 1: changed me profoundly, taught me so much, and I made
Speaker 1: forever friends. I'm keeping all of y'all your mind, and
Speaker 1: how much do I love all of you? This goddamn
Speaker 1: so we got some more special folks joining the table.
Speaker 1: Good She played student who was the mother of the group,
Speaker 1: Don Lewis, and he played funny musician Roy Johnson. It
Speaker 1: was the winds ride on Dogs. Best Friend we got
Speaker 1: d V Darren Bell. I've been listening to y'all tell
Speaker 1: all the good stories. I know you have some good
Speaker 1: stories to tell. We'll start with you, Daryl, Like, what
Speaker 1: was some of your favorite moments on the show. Well, one,
Speaker 1: everybody talks about the wedding episode, right, but my favorite
Speaker 1: scene from the wedding zone is actually when you because
Speaker 1: it's from the bachelor party when Ron made the slamming
Speaker 1: pinion Cold Lady in the House, But you did ain't
Speaker 1: buy seeing you milk and refrigerator. Oh yeah, I used
Speaker 1: that to make this slamming pen. That was best milk
Speaker 1: raw Restu milk. That's one of my favorite moments. The
Speaker 1: jail episode was, without a doubt, you know, one of
Speaker 1: my favorite episodesically told Roschmon style from everybody's point in view.
Speaker 1: I remember it was hard for cademon I because it
Speaker 1: was Dean Kaine's first job and we had to really
Speaker 1: get into each other's face about a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: They have no respect, They don't care about this country
Speaker 1: at all. All they do is ship on their butt
Speaker 1: and complain. And what do they have to complain about.
Speaker 1: It's because of them and their quotas that I'm not
Speaker 1: in the ivy league where I belong. You all had
Speaker 1: quotas for centuries. You call them legacies, restricted country clubs,
Speaker 1: the law. Oh hey, my grandfather came to this country
Speaker 1: with nothing. He couldn't even speak the language, but he
Speaker 1: worked hard and he made a place for himself and
Speaker 1: his family. Now, why can't you people do the same.
Speaker 1: My grandfather built this country. Man. Now, the writing on
Speaker 1: that show was brilliant and it was without a filter. Yes,
Speaker 1: that still holds up about the stuff we did. As
Speaker 1: much as they let us push the envelope, they still
Speaker 1: kept rain on everything. Like the AIDS episode, we couldn't
Speaker 1: show the card. We had to refer to it in
Speaker 1: the Yeah, there were so many things that we could
Speaker 1: just get so far and in expressing what it was
Speaker 1: we wanted to express without them trying to put all
Speaker 1: kind of constraints. Well, I remember also when we addressed
Speaker 1: the presidential campaign, we we satilized it. That thought of
Speaker 1: jameson back on the cross, our candidates President Georgia much,
Speaker 1: I'm on the ballot. It's taddy duty can offer. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was always going into the principal's office buets. So
Speaker 1: Murphy Brown gets to be on the cover of Time
Speaker 1: magazine for being saying what she says about politics are
Speaker 1: abortion or whatever. But we can't even do this. I said, guys,
Speaker 1: have you ever watched Saturday Night Live? Have you ever
Speaker 1: watched in living color? We're a show that bridges that world.
Speaker 1: And that's a good thing for y'all. Stop it already. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you are always in the principal's office. This always was
Speaker 1: always And here's our math professor and favorite colonel. You
Speaker 1: haven't seen each other in a while, though I've seen you, Dawn,
Speaker 1: because you know, ever since Dawn and I were married
Speaker 1: on the show, I have not been able to get
Speaker 1: rid of her, right Joe Anne. On the test of that,
Speaker 1: Dawn was at our wedding. She ended up singing and
Speaker 1: she have been me now. So uh, I still want
Speaker 1: to get Darry Belle back out on the golf course.
Speaker 1: I owe him a bud whipping out there. Debbie Allen,
Speaker 1: you were so instrumental in changing the outlook of the
Speaker 1: show itself. The final wedding scene where Dwayne Wayne Uh
Speaker 1: breaks in, I think that was one of the most
Speaker 1: romantic scenes we've never seen on television. Jasmine Whitley, who
Speaker 1: was just never more beautiful. That was probably one of
Speaker 1: my favorite scenes because it was talking about what the
Speaker 1: show was was saying all along, don't give up on love.
Speaker 1: Love always wins. Hey you guys, hope to see you
Speaker 1: soon and God bless Okay, So Lena say something I
Speaker 1: remember during the wedding episode, and Diane Carroll came over
Speaker 1: and said, y'all, don't realize what you are. You're twenty
Speaker 1: something years old. You're starting on the hit television series.
Speaker 1: And when I was your age, black people weren't even
Speaker 1: allowed on this lot, right, And I don't mean actors.
Speaker 1: I mean you couldn't have a black janitor here at
Speaker 1: CBS RAP And now here you are twenty years old
Speaker 1: starting on the show. And this is my first time,
Speaker 1: Diane Julia Carroll said, my first time working on the
Speaker 1: show starring black women, written by black women, directed by
Speaker 1: black women, and produced by black boy. Yeah. Yeah, magnificent moment.
Speaker 1: And we just have that veteran seasoned insight. You know,
Speaker 1: we had some faces that were prominent. I'm Patty LaBelle
Speaker 1: and I have such great memories of a different world.
Speaker 1: I mean when Diane Carroll got rest her soul and
Speaker 1: I did the Turkey Day, that was priceless because she
Speaker 1: was so glad and I was so ghetto. This is
Speaker 1: a a junior farm fed turkey. Oh that's why it's
Speaker 1: got that little scrawny chest. This is a double D company.
Speaker 1: And my mad prove power for Chipmunk. It was really blueberries,
Speaker 1: not probes, because it was problems. It would have been
Speaker 1: all over. But that was a fun moment with my son,
Speaker 1: Chipmunk mom that I learned a lot from Debby you know,
Speaker 1: doing a different moral for the things that I'm doing now.
Speaker 1: A lot of it is because of Debbie Allen being
Speaker 1: so great at what she does. It was a great,
Speaker 1: great show and you you co wrote the theme song
Speaker 1: I did. I was originally singing it. They didn't know
Speaker 1: they had hired the same person to write the theme
Speaker 1: song that they had hired to be in the show,
Speaker 1: so I was no longer allowed to sing it. Why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you allowed to sing it because you are on
Speaker 1: the show? Because because I wasn't the start, it was
Speaker 1: Lisa's show, and they thought it would be too much
Speaker 1: a tent to on on me, and so they brought
Speaker 1: in Phoebe Snow So the first voice that everyone heard
Speaker 1: was Phoebe's version. Then they thought, let's redo this every year,
Speaker 1: we'll revamp it. So season two they had a wreath
Speaker 1: to do it right? Okay, here we go, run love
Speaker 1: Sam behind come what man? I know that I'm ready. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a little different, bro. Then where you come from? Then?
Speaker 1: Where you come from? Yeah? Oh that was so great
Speaker 1: getting a wreathe here? You know we got a bust Behindney. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't find where? Right? It was yest we thanked
Speaker 1: friends for life. After that time, I called her, Yeah
Speaker 1: I knew her, I said, Retha, what Dabbie? I said,
Speaker 1: do you know the show different? Oh? I like that show,
Speaker 1: I said, if we want to redo the title, uh um,
Speaker 1: I don't fly away whist in the bus. My personal
Speaker 1: favorite Fund episode was when Gladys Knight came on the
Speaker 1: show and we got to be pips her being on
Speaker 1: the show and us being able to sing behind her.
Speaker 1: That was like if I never do anything again, to
Speaker 1: be able to share a stage with her new choreographers.
Speaker 1: Love her, love her, love her. Yeah alright, what was
Speaker 1: your favorite episode? What was my favorite? Maybe it was
Speaker 1: the one that could deem directed, the one in my pocket. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll be down to scoop you up late in life.
Speaker 1: You ain't shriveled up, be like Ozzy Davis and Ruby
Speaker 1: d You know, you always got a place of my heart.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize you directed that that was a good episode.
Speaker 1: That was so easy to direct. Yeah, I was like, damn,
Speaker 1: that was great. But that was the beauty of it
Speaker 1: that you all got to do these things. You got
Speaker 1: your directed because that's where the you, you all had
Speaker 1: it in you. I can't just do it if you
Speaker 1: don't have the craft, you said, and the sensibility. You
Speaker 1: better get it in your contract, right. So, Debbie, you
Speaker 1: had Kadeem put it in this contract to have a
Speaker 1: certain amount of directing jazz. Right. It's so important to
Speaker 1: hear you guys talk about this stuff because I think
Speaker 1: the audience sometimes they just see the actors in front
Speaker 1: of the camera and they don't understand the importance of
Speaker 1: producing and writing and directing. Behind the scene is where
Speaker 1: a lot of the power is, yeah, for sure, and
Speaker 1: a lot of creative brilliance, you know. And so we
Speaker 1: have three more special Hillman alumni. Charnell Brown played pre
Speaker 1: med major Kim, the girl everyone went to for advice,
Speaker 1: and one of my roommates at Hillman, A J. Sanders,
Speaker 1: a sorority girl, brought the bunny. And we also have
Speaker 1: missed Karen Molina, always studying and sometimes annoying girl on
Speaker 1: the campus. He Charnelle, where are you? I am in Houston,
Speaker 1: Texas my hometown, Debbie. I I have an acting school
Speaker 1: here and I find myself saying things that you said
Speaker 1: to us and morphing into you, which I don't know.
Speaker 1: If you don't know but I was watching, and I
Speaker 1: thank you for that because my actors right now, a
Speaker 1: Prisca them are working because of you. Compressed Charlie. That's
Speaker 1: I want to time to visit me, Mama, I must say, like,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here listening to you guys, and it brings
Speaker 1: me back to the feeling that I felt when I
Speaker 1: first came onto the show. I was so intimidated, but
Speaker 1: I was also star struck by every single last one
Speaker 1: of y'all. And I was homeless before I got the job,
Speaker 1: and I was supposed to only be there for like
Speaker 1: one episode, and I remember thinking, if I don't get this,
Speaker 1: then I'm just gonna go back home and rethinking this
Speaker 1: whole thing. And the first person that I met was Jasmine,
Speaker 1: and she walked up to me and said, Hi, my
Speaker 1: name is Jasmine, and welcome to the show. And I'll
Speaker 1: never forget what that felt like. Yeah, And so I
Speaker 1: just want to thank you all for giving me a
Speaker 1: life and a career. And I mean, there are no
Speaker 1: words that I didn't even think about that yet, because
Speaker 1: it's the superstar struck, you know what I mean. Because
Speaker 1: we had been watching you guys, you know, and I
Speaker 1: had never worked in TV before, Like I didn't even
Speaker 1: know what a mark was. I just followed. I just
Speaker 1: did what y'all did? You get better than me? Because
Speaker 1: Davy was on the now speaker and that was all
Speaker 1: over the place. She was like miss saying, I'm sending
Speaker 1: your behind back the Broadway. I was like, uh, jasper high, Princess,
Speaker 1: Hi Darling took me aside and taught me those cameras
Speaker 1: and I want to thank you, princess for that, because
Speaker 1: I didn't know where the hell to go. And my
Speaker 1: favorite is the wedding um seeing baby Please Baby, It
Speaker 1: just took me over, baby, Please please, I do. But
Speaker 1: I just love that we were living. That's why I
Speaker 1: loved that episode because we all were living. We weren't acting,
Speaker 1: we were living. Yeah, that's really caring. Jay, How are
Speaker 1: you doing? I'm good. I have to just echo what
Speaker 1: everybody said. I knew what I was coming into a
Speaker 1: tight ship and I didn't know how I was gonna
Speaker 1: fit in, But y'all just welcomed me. I mean, I
Speaker 1: remember you hung out the Dame's Rum. All I did
Speaker 1: was like mad, but I just hung out there, and
Speaker 1: you know, just everybody just welcomed me with open arms.
Speaker 1: I really feel like the three of us, you know,
Speaker 1: clicked up pretty nice, Me and you and a j.
Speaker 1: It was almost like it was an instant, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just an instant posse. I love the episode
Speaker 1: when we discovered Billy Dee Williams in the basement MS Page,
Speaker 1: Mr Page, anybody ever taken you for simple? Jason? We
Speaker 1: had no accident. I said that, yeah, I'm just spent
Speaker 1: off or something. Maybe yes, and Billy that was my
Speaker 1: mother's icon what I called and told her I was
Speaker 1: gonna be seen with Billy d She was like, I
Speaker 1: need to come out there. I was like, no, you
Speaker 1: need to keep your job right now. I'm not a
Speaker 1: regular yet. It was so cool because Karen was so
Speaker 1: down for whatever, and so I was like, Okay, when
Speaker 1: we get on the staff, let's just do the wave.
Speaker 1: And so she just followed up. She was just she
Speaker 1: just she just subscribed to all my craziness. We had
Speaker 1: so much fun, Karen, can you think of a favorite
Speaker 1: moment a favorite show? When Lena Horn, Yes, I admire
Speaker 1: your style as a songstress. You see, I'm a musician
Speaker 1: trumping about trading. If I can never deck a little
Speaker 1: diddle for you, just have to be using in front
Speaker 1: of his horn. But my name is Lena, and I'm
Speaker 1: so proud to be named after you. I have met
Speaker 1: her a couple of years before she came on our show.
Speaker 1: I couldn't wait to tell miss Horn how inspirational she
Speaker 1: was and how what she meant to me. So I
Speaker 1: walked over her and she held my face in her
Speaker 1: hands and said you on that show, aren't you? And
Speaker 1: I said yeah. She says your name is Dawn. You
Speaker 1: good at je Lisa, and I started crying. She said,
Speaker 1: y'all are doing such a good job. Y'all keep that up.
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of you. But it flips me to
Speaker 1: now who we have become, to people to walk up
Speaker 1: to us and say, you don't know how you inspired me,
Speaker 1: How you empowered me to get an education, to speak
Speaker 1: up for myself when I feel abused or violated or minimized.
Speaker 1: Speaking of that, I'm just remembering when we had that
Speaker 1: show about domestic abuse with um, how did you get
Speaker 1: that bruise on your life? I told you I bumped
Speaker 1: into my desk, Gina. I thought you said coffee table.
Speaker 1: Looking it was just an accident. Okay, He's just nervous
Speaker 1: about the concert. Oh so that gives him reason to
Speaker 1: hit you. I'm not asking you to understand. Just promise me,
Speaker 1: if you want to be my friend, just keep this quiet. Gina,
Speaker 1: you are in trouble. It's m trouble, not yours, not
Speaker 1: anybody else's. Okay, you got it. I wrote that that
Speaker 1: was something that happened in the in our circle circle,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to address it without calling any names.
Speaker 1: Somebody in point to somebody. I'm so proud of what
Speaker 1: we have accomplished together, and everybody needs to step up
Speaker 1: right now. This is now the time to be quiet.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of feathers that can ruffle,
Speaker 1: but so what So that's it. That's it. We got
Speaker 1: one more Helmet alumni, okay that wants to say Hi,
Speaker 1: Hi there. I know, I cannot believe that it's been
Speaker 1: thirty five years. What Those were some of the best
Speaker 1: times I've had as a working actor. I loved being
Speaker 1: with you all. I loved the spirit of that show.
Speaker 1: I just love that we were young and having parties,
Speaker 1: and that we were so focused on our work, and
Speaker 1: that it was about something so different from what we
Speaker 1: had been seeing on television. In general, and I felt really,
Speaker 1: really lucky to be there with you all. I remember
Speaker 1: that Kadeem and I wanted to have a story where
Speaker 1: our characters got together. The kabosh was put on that,
Speaker 1: but not because of my extremely bad haircut that was
Speaker 1: given to me. They were great times and I still
Speaker 1: want to do another show like that. That would be
Speaker 1: so wonderful. I love you all, Thanks for including me today. Wow. Me, Lisa,
Speaker 1: and Marissa were in New York. Lisa and I were
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, Marissa was in Lower Manhattan, and all of
Speaker 1: us came out thinking we were going to be filming
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn because I lived in Brooklyn. It was like
Speaker 1: ten fifteen minutes from my house and they're like, no,
Speaker 1: y'all are moving in California. All three of us were like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go. You wanna go? No, I
Speaker 1: don't want to go. But there we were, and uh,
Speaker 1: it was just wonderful. And her life and career has
Speaker 1: gone through the roof since, and she was She's just
Speaker 1: a beautiful person. It was magical the little group that
Speaker 1: we had. They liked us right, and if they had
Speaker 1: the right person behind the scene to direct me. Towns
Speaker 1: like having the right, coach, right, we could win. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's why I worked out. That's what happened, all right,
Speaker 1: lasted are y'all talk about how Different World impacted generations,
Speaker 1: here's just a few who wanted to ship in Journey Hey,
Speaker 1: A Different World cast. Growing up seeing Kim and Dwayne
Speaker 1: studies STEM inspired me to do the same. I ultimately
Speaker 1: earned a pH d and biomechanics and today I'm working
Speaker 1: at a science palsy analysts. A Different World was more
Speaker 1: than just entertainment, and I decided to create the podcast
Speaker 1: Him and Class Reunion with the premise that A Different
Speaker 1: World is the most important sitcom ever. I just have
Speaker 1: to thank you all because of the show. I went
Speaker 1: to an h b C U and I'm my best
Speaker 1: life because of it. Seeing it on my television, I
Speaker 1: was like, you know what that is for me? I
Speaker 1: want the full HBC experience, So I started applying to
Speaker 1: all the h b c s and thank you to
Speaker 1: the Throne Cooking University for setting me up for success.
Speaker 1: Go Wildcats. As a Californian originally from Compton, first in
Speaker 1: family to go to college and watching a Different World
Speaker 1: on a weekly basis, I could see myself in those
Speaker 1: characters and this comedy and this beauty of every form
Speaker 1: of blackness was just something that was amazing. Then came
Speaker 1: Jada's character and she was from the hood, so like
Speaker 1: everything that I felt like I was was represented on
Speaker 1: that show. And I think of a different world. I
Speaker 1: think of how that show, Um, it's the inspiration for
Speaker 1: a lot of us who have gone to HBCUs. I
Speaker 1: am a proud graduate of Baby University, Louisiana. I am
Speaker 1: someone who was born with a learning disability, and if
Speaker 1: it wasn't for uh Xavier, I wouldn't be where I
Speaker 1: am today in my career. When it just goes to
Speaker 1: show you how much of an impact the show has had.
Speaker 1: And just a huge shout out to all of the
Speaker 1: actors on the show. Of course, Dabby Allen, you are
Speaker 1: the goat. You are the goat for creating such an
Speaker 1: amazing masterpiece. I mean my master thesis on the show.
Speaker 1: Since then, I've gone on to receive my PhD. I
Speaker 1: am also now a professor. I really want to say
Speaker 1: thank you to the cast of a Different World and
Speaker 1: Debbie Allen for showing me the power of education. Thank
Speaker 1: you for everything You're important. See your respective roles am
Speaker 1: the lasting fact you had in the culture A different
Speaker 1: world can be rooted and well rounded. I felt seen
Speaker 1: because of that show. Like Whitley, I had my own
Speaker 1: awakening of sources. I got older, I found my voice
Speaker 1: and learned to love myself and others. For me, A
Speaker 1: Different World gave me the courage that I needed to
Speaker 1: embrace my differences and embrace my identity. And A Different
Speaker 1: World was and is my blue print, and I feel
Speaker 1: grateful to have a show that I can return to
Speaker 1: to see myself represented in such a rich and a
Speaker 1: timeless way. I was so excited to go to Hillman
Speaker 1: Um because I thought that was a real play. I
Speaker 1: thought that the only thing was just amazing and just
Speaker 1: such a great reflection of black excellence. Thank you for
Speaker 1: your impact on television, black culture, and just leaving your mIRC.
Speaker 1: I remember vividly growing up UM watching A Different World
Speaker 1: and asking my parents where can I attend a college
Speaker 1: like Himan. So they sent me on a HBCU college
Speaker 1: tour as a student at More House. It literally changed
Speaker 1: my life tremendously. So thank you so much. A Different World, Um,
Speaker 1: shout out to your thirty five years and shout out
Speaker 1: to my RTT family and of course shout out to
Speaker 1: more House College. That's right, that the Red Table Talk.
Speaker 1: I feel really like I'm in high cotton that we
Speaker 1: got invited. What do you know? The thing about it is,
Speaker 1: we were like, this is such tough times and the
Speaker 1: nostalgia of having us all come together and just to
Speaker 1: feel good of it. It's been good for my soul today,
Speaker 1: and I think it's gonna be so nice, you know,
Speaker 1: for the holidays. Just that piece of like that love
Speaker 1: that we brought to television for that particular error. Let's
Speaker 1: have a moment. Handle have a moment with your two
Speaker 1: Let's have a moment, A moment, a moment. Yes, And
Speaker 1: thanks to God, the powers of the universe, and our
Speaker 1: ancestors for being the wind that I'm back and the
Speaker 1: light before our footsteps. We are privileged for the work
Speaker 1: we have done, and we are challenged for the work
Speaker 1: we must continue to do. Unified, don't divide us. Amen, Amen,
Speaker 1: Crockle Mama Debbie. To join the Red Table Talk family
Speaker 1: and become a part of the conversation, follow us at
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast. Produced by Facebook, Watch,
Speaker 1: Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.