Speaker 1: Will.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: I am devastated that I have to ask you this
Speaker 3: question because I was supposed to be there with you
Speaker 3: to enjoy it myself, I know, but Jensen and I
Speaker 3: were not able to join you and Susan on the
Speaker 3: double date to Yamava. Jensen had surgery earlier in the
Speaker 3: week and was not ready for a long drive. I know,
Speaker 3: Nate bargatzi at Yammava with you. Tell me how was it?
Speaker 1: How one? How was the steakhouse? Two? How was the show? Three?
Speaker 1: How was the venue?
Speaker 4: You missed? You both missed them?
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 4: It was a pretty great night. It really was.
Speaker 5: Because first of all, I'd never been to the Amavah before.
Speaker 5: Huh me neither, And it's like two or three years old,
Speaker 5: so it's brand new. I mean when I say there
Speaker 5: was not a piece of paper on the floor. It
Speaker 5: was the cleanest casino I've ever been in in my life.
Speaker 5: It is spotless, The rooms gorgeous. They took care of us,
Speaker 5: you know, checked us in and we get right to
Speaker 5: our room, and then they brought us up to this
Speaker 5: bar and that's where we got to meet everybody that
Speaker 5: everybody from the Yamavas staff, and it was just so cool.
Speaker 5: I was thinking of both of you the whole time
Speaker 5: I was there, because the first thing they're like, they
Speaker 5: came in and they said, oh, we've got this.
Speaker 4: I think it's called the eighty three.
Speaker 5: It's like this list of all of these top shelf
Speaker 5: alcohols that have been collected all around the world, so
Speaker 5: it's like some of them are from one hundred years ago.
Speaker 5: Someone's like they're working on cultivating this list of really
Speaker 5: specialty drinks where they told us, they go, oh, no,
Speaker 5: we have a five thousand dollars margarita what where it's
Speaker 5: like a specialty kind of you know, old school tequila
Speaker 5: in with the gold rimmed and the glass. You get
Speaker 5: to keep the glass and it's like a Versace glass
Speaker 5: or Gucci glass, like some specific kind of handcut thing.
Speaker 4: And then as we're leaving, a.
Speaker 5: Guy's like, excuse me, but I love the podcast, big
Speaker 5: fan of the show, and I thought you would really
Speaker 5: like to see this because I think this is something
Speaker 5: Rider would love. And they go to so they have
Speaker 5: these lockers all set up with you can join this
Speaker 5: club where if you have specialty alcohol, they go into
Speaker 5: the locker thing and.
Speaker 4: They'll save it for you. But then he goes watch this, and.
Speaker 5: He reaches behind this thing and he presses a button,
Speaker 5: the secret button, and the whole front opens up and
Speaker 5: there's a speakeasy inside that's Now you're in a walk
Speaker 5: in humidor with cigars from all over the world that's
Speaker 5: only has four little tables in there.
Speaker 4: And oh, this is the rider Strong room right here.
Speaker 5: And then we go down to the casino and I'm like,
Speaker 5: and now we're in Daniel, so top of the line
Speaker 5: spa it was, we could they then they brought us
Speaker 5: to the steakhouse and they were doing the first the
Speaker 5: specialty they thing they had that night was it was
Speaker 5: a pasta courus that's cooked and burned off in the
Speaker 5: cheese wheel.
Speaker 1: Oh, I love it when they do it in the
Speaker 1: cheese wheel.
Speaker 5: So they brought the big parmesan wheel out in front
Speaker 5: of our table. Yeah, they burn off the vodkas, homemade
Speaker 5: pichi bukatini, which is like my favorite, like the thick
Speaker 5: kind of spaghetti, all just in this amazing possible. That
Speaker 5: was our appetizer, and then you're picking all the steaks
Speaker 5: you want. We had these perfectly cooked steaks, and then
Speaker 5: we went to the show twenty five hundred seat theater.
Speaker 5: Gorgeous theater, wonderful seats right at the top. Nate Bargatzi.
Speaker 5: This is the end of his tour. He'd been doing
Speaker 5: this big, long tour and this is the very last episode.
Speaker 5: His openers were great, but then he got on.
Speaker 4: He did like a ninety minute set. He was up
Speaker 4: there forever, just by himself.
Speaker 5: He crushed it soon and I then tried to gamble,
Speaker 5: which we suck at. I mean, we walked around with
Speaker 5: money in our hands, going, I don't know what to
Speaker 5: play because when we go to the slot machines, all
Speaker 5: the slot machines are just you put your money and
Speaker 5: it sucks it in like you've never owned it. And
Speaker 5: then I don't know what's happening, and then all the
Speaker 5: money's God, it was like, I don't know what the
Speaker 5: hell just happened. So we were tried to sit at
Speaker 5: a few tables, but we're just we realized we're just
Speaker 5: not We're like not gamblers, right, But it got even
Speaker 5: you know, so we're sitting at dinner and you know,
Speaker 5: we were all supposed to go together, the four of us,
Speaker 5: but a couple of the women who set this whole
Speaker 5: thing up said do you mind if we have dinner
Speaker 5: with you at soon? We're like, yes, please. We just
Speaker 5: talked to each other all the time. We're sick of
Speaker 5: each other, so yes, other people at the table will
Speaker 5: be great. And they sat down with us, and halfway
Speaker 5: through the meal, she looked over and she said, Okay,
Speaker 5: we would really love to have you guys come and
Speaker 5: do the pod here.
Speaker 4: We will take care of you.
Speaker 5: Do we want the spa all as like the spa,
Speaker 5: the casino, the Rider Strong Room. I was like, I
Speaker 5: don't think it's gonna be too much of an arm
Speaker 5: twist to have us go there and record a couple
Speaker 5: of episodes at this gorgeous casino. The property is absolutely stunning.
Speaker 5: Like we'll take you down to the spot, we'll do
Speaker 5: all this stuff, Like we'll totally take prid of you.
Speaker 5: Co We would love for you to come and do
Speaker 5: the podcast here at the al that's something we have
Speaker 5: to do. And they said, we can pick a show
Speaker 5: that it'll be around and the entertainment they're getting Mariah
Speaker 5: Carey ed Sheeran in this twenty five hundred seat theater.
Speaker 5: So you're seeing what seems like a you know, arena,
Speaker 5: huge but right, but it's this this.
Speaker 1: I'm saying arena show, intimate.
Speaker 5: Intimate venue. And so it's just one banger after the
Speaker 5: next that are going there. So they're like, pick a
Speaker 5: show we can, We'll have you guys, come to the show.
Speaker 5: You'll go to the casino, will comp everything, we will
Speaker 5: do podcasts.
Speaker 4: You're gonna love it. We're gonna have so much fun.
Speaker 4: Go to the steakhouse.
Speaker 5: The steakhouse they ate we ate at just won the
Speaker 5: number one casino restaurant in the country, like beat all
Speaker 5: the Vegas restaurants.
Speaker 1: Everything them in will I'm in.
Speaker 5: You missed you both missed out on a seriously fun night.
Speaker 4: And again it was an hour and it took a
Speaker 4: while to get there.
Speaker 5: We left in a Friday, but the drive back on
Speaker 5: Saturday it was like an hour and fifteen minutes home.
Speaker 2: It was nothing.
Speaker 4: And so it was it was great. Well, thank you,
Speaker 4: it was awesome.
Speaker 1: We will have to make a trip there. A family trend.
Speaker 5: Oh look at you, which, by the way, like even
Speaker 5: when they deliver your car the next day, you walk
Speaker 5: it in and there's two waters sitting in your car too,
Speaker 5: yamava waters waiting for you.
Speaker 4: Top of the line. This is awesome.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod meets World. I'm Daniel Fishl, I'm writer strong,
Speaker 1: and I do not know how to gamble.
Speaker 4: I'm Wilford.
Speaker 1: I'll teach you well, I'll teach you please.
Speaker 2: It's awful.
Speaker 1: When we are.
Speaker 3: Recapping an episode and we see a writer's name who
Speaker 3: we remember. It's a nice feeling of nostalgia. But you
Speaker 3: know what else is kind of a cool feeling when
Speaker 3: a writer's name pops up and we don't remember them
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 1: It's a mystery.
Speaker 3: We want Saul immediately, and that is the case with
Speaker 3: season five's Andy Gerdat. Andy wrote two episodes in season five,
Speaker 3: Fraternity Row and a very Topanga Christmas, then mysteriously didn't
Speaker 3: have another script for the rest of the season or
Speaker 3: the run of the show. He already had quite a
Speaker 3: resume before he joined Boymet's World somehow, beginning his career
Speaker 3: in the Jefferson's Writer's Room as a first job, and
Speaker 3: then working on Morcan Mindy, Head of the Class, Empty Nest,
Speaker 3: Full House, Sister Sister, and his own show that he
Speaker 3: co created for Fox, Herman's.
Speaker 4: Head Great Show, Such a Yes.
Speaker 3: And after this outstanding sitcom run, he jumped headfirst into
Speaker 3: animated kids shows, entering a third and Emmy nominated category
Speaker 3: of his career on shows like Sheriff Cally's Wild West,
Speaker 3: super Normal, Fancy Nancy, and Paw Patrol, working NonStop even
Speaker 3: after a whopping thirty five years in the business. To
Speaker 3: say that is rare for a TV writer would be
Speaker 3: an incredible understatement. And so today we welcome a very
Speaker 3: esteemed TV writer whose work we all know, yet we
Speaker 3: don't know him at all. It's time to talk to
Speaker 3: season five Boy Meets World writer and the man who
Speaker 3: could introduce Marshall and Chase to my kids. It's Andy Gridatt. Andy,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for joining us. We are honored
Speaker 3: that you said, yes, I know Jensen tracked you down
Speaker 3: with an old home phone number to mind you, so
Speaker 3: I hope we didn't scare you.
Speaker 4: Kale five.
Speaker 2: Very very interesting and exciting. Yeah that I don't even
Speaker 2: know how he got the old We're about to get
Speaker 2: rid of the landline anyway, and.
Speaker 3: Well now you definitely have to because Jensen is your number. Well,
Speaker 3: one of the many reasons we wanted to have you
Speaker 3: on the podcast is you spent just season five on
Speaker 3: Boy Meets World in what has been in an incredibly
Speaker 3: impressive career in TV, and though your name was familiar,
Speaker 3: we could not place your face. Did they keep you
Speaker 3: away from us in some sort of don't feed the
Speaker 3: animals situation?
Speaker 2: Or they very much did. I think they were saving
Speaker 2: you guys from me. It was an odd thing I was.
Speaker 2: I was a freelance writer, so I was not there
Speaker 2: every day. I never met you guys.
Speaker 4: Have a pretty good memory, and I was like, I don't.
Speaker 2: Remember even for writers. Yeah, I kind of disappeared in
Speaker 2: the wall. Well would work there, but yeah, no they
Speaker 2: I never met you guys because they I'm not even
Speaker 2: sure they invited me to the taping. Wow, I remember,
Speaker 2: But it was one of those situations back then. It's
Speaker 2: different now, but in those days, they a typical network
Speaker 2: show would use some freelance freelance writers, right so that
Speaker 2: the staff couldn't keep up with the pace without some help.
Speaker 2: And so I had worked with Bob Tishler on Empty Nest.
Speaker 2: I've done four episodes of Empty Nest work and he
Speaker 2: needed some help, and so he called me in and
Speaker 2: so I just did them. You know. I came in
Speaker 2: and I met with the staff, but I never met
Speaker 2: with anybody else. So I have no good stories. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I have no I'm not going to be any entertaining stories.
Speaker 3: Listen, we don't even need entertaining stories about our set.
Speaker 3: We'll just take any entertaining stories you have period.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll try to manage those.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Well, before we get into your non stories of Boy
Speaker 3: Meets World, I want to talk about the genesis of
Speaker 3: your writing career and how someone ends up with The
Speaker 3: Jeffersons as their first writer's room.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like I say, that was it seems like another
Speaker 2: It was another era in television. There were three networks
Speaker 2: when I came out to LA writing. So, and I've
Speaker 2: mentioned this to any times the people when I started writing,
Speaker 2: there were there was one black sitcom writer in all
Speaker 2: of Hollywood, guy named Thad Mumford, who I never worked with.
Speaker 4: Uh, Sad was great. Sad wrote for mash all the time.
Speaker 2: You say, yes, he was a very good writer. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but there was just so. I mean, all these shows
Speaker 2: like The Jeffersons, which now would have a primarily black
Speaker 2: writing staff, didn't have any black writers. So it was
Speaker 2: and because the show had been on the air for
Speaker 2: quite a while at that point, what happens is you know,
Speaker 2: they get the writing staff just gets runs out of stories.
Speaker 2: They just can't think of anything new, so they bring
Speaker 2: in freelancers to try to sort of come up with
Speaker 2: something fresh. And so that's that's how that I. You know,
Speaker 2: I was just pounding my just bear was a kid.
Speaker 2: I was twenty six, I think five even maybe, and
Speaker 2: I was just pounding on doors trying to get in.
Speaker 2: And that was a place you could get in because
Speaker 2: they'd they'd run out of stories, right. I pitched them
Speaker 2: some stories and sold one. But I have an entertaining
Speaker 2: story about that Jefferson's Please Please Okay, So it was
Speaker 2: called Florence's Union. I don't know if you remember the show,
Speaker 2: but Florence was Marla Gibbons made right. So it was
Speaker 2: a story where she formed a union of maids in
Speaker 2: the building. Okay, you can comedy high jinks and sue. Okay.
Speaker 2: So we write it, my late partner and I wrote
Speaker 2: it many years later. If you remember the movie Basic Instinct,
Speaker 2: Michael j Okay, so infamous movie. So there's a scene
Speaker 2: when Michael Douglas has been fired from the police force
Speaker 2: and he's and he's laying on his couch, you know,
Speaker 2: with a Battle of Scotch or something, and the TV's
Speaker 2: going in the background and it was playing our episode.
Speaker 2: And the only reason we knew because on the screen
Speaker 2: for like a second was Marla Gibbs was holding a
Speaker 2: sign that said on strike. And so my partner and
Speaker 2: I happened to see the movie together in a theater.
Speaker 2: We that's we called the writers Guild, and I think
Speaker 2: we got a couple hundred bucks out of it. I
Speaker 2: like to say to the people I co wrote basic.
Speaker 5: Who now at the time, who's running the Jefferson's writers room?
Speaker 2: Oh? God, Bernie Ross And I can't remember his partner's
Speaker 2: name we worked with. God, are their names of going
Speaker 2: out of my head? Sorry, I don't remember.
Speaker 1: That's okay.
Speaker 5: So The Jeffersons was a spin off, right, It was
Speaker 5: a spinoff of All in the.
Speaker 2: Family family, which I then ironically worked for worked on
Speaker 2: for three seasons. I did Archie Bunker's Place a few
Speaker 2: years later, which was the actual spinoff of All in
Speaker 2: the Family.
Speaker 5: So these are all Norman Lear shows, correct, Norman Lear shows,
Speaker 5: who is the essentially the godfather of the American.
Speaker 2: Sitcom Yes, to a large degree, he is of the
Speaker 2: modern sitcom.
Speaker 5: Right, correct, Right, I mean he didn't he didn't do
Speaker 5: stuff like The Honeymooners, which I guess you could go
Speaker 5: back and say was the start of the family sitcom.
Speaker 5: But the modern day family sitcom, the all in the families,
Speaker 5: the Vernon Shirley's all, that's all Norman lear right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it stems to a large degree from Norman. Yes,
Speaker 2: I mean he was the one who's that who just
Speaker 2: sort of decided, you know, a sitcom doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be soft, it could be a g it could be outrageous,
Speaker 2: and you know people been doing that ever since.
Speaker 4: Right, I'm sorry, I take it back. I think Levernon
Speaker 4: Shirley was Gary Marshall.
Speaker 2: That was Gary Marshall.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was not Yes, geez, some of the biggest ever.
Speaker 4: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: With your writing partner who you mentioned. What was his name?
Speaker 2: His name was Steve Crimberg. He's passed away since, but yeah,
Speaker 2: we started out together in nineteen seventy eight, I think
Speaker 2: was our first credit even and worked together for quite
Speaker 2: a while and then he sort of got fed up
Speaker 2: with the business and moved away, and then I went
Speaker 2: on solo for quite a while, and then I started
Speaker 2: writing again with a partner then Steve Sullivan. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: we wrote a lot of cartoons together.
Speaker 3: So well, you went on to Mork and Mindy, Archie
Speaker 3: Bunker's Place as well as you mentioned, and TV version
Speaker 3: of nine to five.
Speaker 1: The list goes on on. But I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you also about Head of the Class.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a massive ratings hit, but allegedly had
Speaker 3: a lot of egos and issues on set.
Speaker 1: What was that experience like.
Speaker 2: Well, Head of the Class I'm very friendly with I've
Speaker 2: stayed friendly with most most of the people the writing
Speaker 2: staff because it was it was sort of like a
Speaker 2: Bunker mentality, because it was a very difficult show to do.
Speaker 2: It was a bit too big of a cast. You
Speaker 2: guys know from you know when you're when you're structuring
Speaker 2: a sitcom, you don't want to add too many characters
Speaker 2: because then everybody gets a little bit less and then
Speaker 2: you can't keep all the actors busy. It makes everything difficult.
Speaker 2: But for whatever reason, the guys who they were very
Speaker 2: good writers, but they missed they misconceived the show originally,
Speaker 2: so we had this huge classroom of kids and then
Speaker 2: Howard Hessman was the star. But but we just couldn't
Speaker 2: keep everybody busy, so the set was always in turmoil.
Speaker 2: The writer's room was fine.
Speaker 3: Though very close with Tony Odell, who is a dialogue
Speaker 3: coach and I work with a lot on my Disney
Speaker 3: Channel shows, and Tony Odell is a gem of a
Speaker 3: human being, and I can't imagine that he was any
Speaker 3: different back then.
Speaker 2: I again spent very little time on the set, right
Speaker 2: because I was the guy stuck in the writer's room
Speaker 2: trying to crank out next week's exactly devising producer on it,
Speaker 2: and Tony was always fine. I don't know if he
Speaker 2: if he would confirm or deny some of the difficulties,
Speaker 2: but I think it was mostly stemmed from actors who
Speaker 2: were unhappy. Yeah, they didn't have enough to do, which
Speaker 2: is understandable. And then you have two lines and one
Speaker 2: of them what happened next, mister Moore?
Speaker 5: Right right, Hessman's first show after Karp wasn't it?
Speaker 2: Yes? It was?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so he was he was coming on. He was
Speaker 4: a big star by that point.
Speaker 2: He was a pretty big star, and he was also
Speaker 2: frankly a bit of a grouch and was not happy
Speaker 2: he'd been sold the idea of the show, which is
Speaker 2: to say you're the there's two stars you and then
Speaker 2: the class, but you're going to be the co star
Speaker 2: of every episode. And it really didn't quite lay out
Speaker 2: that right.
Speaker 5: Well, they probably pitched him like it was welcome back Catter,
Speaker 5: like this is your year, mister Catter essentially, but it didn't.
Speaker 2: Quite plan now, and he was not particularly happy with
Speaker 2: that aspect of it, and probably some other things. I
Speaker 2: always liked Howard personally whenever I would talk to him
Speaker 2: off off the set, but on the set he could
Speaker 2: be pretty grouchy. And anyway it was, it was what
Speaker 2: it was. You know, it's it's water under the bridge.
Speaker 2: I look back on that stuff now and just think,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I cannot believe we were all fighting
Speaker 2: over Yeah, that joke really well.
Speaker 3: And then you get to create your very own show
Speaker 3: with Herman's Head one of Fox's first big swings when
Speaker 3: it came to original sitcoms. What did it feel like
Speaker 3: going from writer's room to suddenly being your own showrunner
Speaker 3: and EP?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I never eat heat it, which
Speaker 2: is okay, there's a long story to that which I
Speaker 2: will not give you the whole ugly story. But Herman's
Speaker 2: Head was an idea that my white partner and I
Speaker 2: came up with and we sold to ABC. Back in
Speaker 2: the god it would have been nineteen eighty three or something.
Speaker 2: It was ahead of its time. It was ahead of
Speaker 2: the curve for obvious reasons and because it took place
Speaker 2: inside a guy's head, and so ABC passed on it,
Speaker 2: but it became kind of a famous unsold pilot and
Speaker 2: we got work off of it forever. And then in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety I think eighty nine maybe our agency CIA,
Speaker 2: which was super powerful then, more much more powerful than
Speaker 2: than it is now, and they called us and said,
Speaker 2: by the way, Herman's Head just sold a Fox, which
Speaker 2: was like, wait what yeah, because we were producing out
Speaker 2: of the Class and we just signed a two year
Speaker 2: deal to continue producing Head of the Class, so we
Speaker 2: couldn't back out of it. And it was like we
Speaker 2: got sort of blindsided, and so we made it a
Speaker 2: deal to be a creative consultants on it, but we
Speaker 2: got epe the show. It was for us extremely frustrating
Speaker 2: because yes, it was a funny show, there's no quest
Speaker 2: remember it very fondly, but it wasn't quite the show
Speaker 2: he and I had imagined we'd imagined something, uh that
Speaker 2: would be funny, but also you know win Emmy's because
Speaker 2: that it could be about the human thought process. You
Speaker 2: could dramatize what it's like to be a human being
Speaker 2: and those important decisions we all make.
Speaker 6: Basically what inside out and made a billion dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 6: when I first heard of inside Out, I was like,
Speaker 6: this is just Herman's Head. I remember Herman's Head so well,
Speaker 6: and I loved the concept as a kid. I only
Speaker 6: saw a few episodes, but I remember thinking, this is brilliant,
Speaker 6: this idea, and then inside Out just took it to
Speaker 6: the they never gave I never made a penny on
Speaker 6: inside Out.
Speaker 2: That yeah, inside out, but it certainly did take it
Speaker 2: closer to what he and I had imagined than the
Speaker 2: actual show was. So it was, it was it was
Speaker 2: nice to have a show in the air. We would
Speaker 2: go in every week as consultants, but we weren't able
Speaker 2: to run the show because we were running out of
Speaker 2: the class, and so it was it was a frustrating experience,
Speaker 2: I would say in general, I mean I was pleased
Speaker 2: that pleased that it was on the air, and proud
Speaker 2: of it, and I'm glad. I'm thrilled that people seem
Speaker 2: to remember it so fondly because you can't watch it anywhere.
Speaker 2: They've never it's They didn't even do a DVD set, nothing.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was just you can't watch it, but
Speaker 2: it turns up periodically. I noticed it. They did a
Speaker 2: little thing on Only Murders in the Building.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: They did a head piece on one of those shows
Speaker 2: where I said, hey, you remember that show Herman's Head
Speaker 2: and then they showed clips from the show. Well, sometimes
Speaker 2: my head feels like that, and I was low. Somehow
Speaker 2: we're still in the cultural zeitgeist. Yeah, it wasn't. It
Speaker 2: was rewarding in its way, but also had a downside
Speaker 2: for us personally.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So some other jobs you worked on, and you worked
Speaker 3: on Saved by the Bell, The College Years, Empty Nest,
Speaker 3: The Parenthood, Sister Sister, Full House, Step by Step, and
Speaker 3: also Boy Meets were Ald And so you mentioned that
Speaker 3: Bob Tishler brought you in as a freelancer to write
Speaker 3: some episodes for us. Had you ever seen Boy Meets
Speaker 3: World before getting the job?
Speaker 2: Oh? Sure, sure, And I had interviewed with Michael Jacobs
Speaker 2: on other shows, but I never worked I knew him
Speaker 2: but I didn't really. We never be interviewed, I think
Speaker 2: for the Torkulsen's and some other show he had with
Speaker 2: Elliott Gould and Dee Wallace Stone. I forget what it
Speaker 2: was called. Anyway, so I knew I knew him a
Speaker 2: little bit, but Bob was the one who brought me in.
Speaker 2: No I had seen the show, of course, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was a highly regarded show. It was considered a
Speaker 2: step among writers in the business. It was considered a
Speaker 2: step up from the say of the Bells and that
Speaker 2: kind of thing was It was definitely you guys. Did
Speaker 2: you know the stories that were about something? They weren't
Speaker 2: twenty two minutes of chit chat most of the time
Speaker 2: until I got there. No I seen I was, And
Speaker 2: if memory served, I think Bob said, oh, come in
Speaker 2: and pitch some stuff, and we're looking for a Christmas
Speaker 2: episode if you have any Christmas ideas. So I came
Speaker 2: up with this that story and they and they liked it,
Speaker 2: and and then I wrote that one, and then I
Speaker 2: think I wrote the second one, which was not my idea.
Speaker 2: I think they gave that to me.
Speaker 6: So, wait, what was your pitch? Do you remember? Was
Speaker 6: was your pitch? The very time the Panga and Corey
Speaker 6: or was the pitch that do Christmas Carol with them?
Speaker 2: Know, the pitch was kids at that age, you know,
Speaker 2: teenagers often they were raised everybody's raised with this is
Speaker 2: the way you do Christmas? Yes, and your way of
Speaker 2: doing Christmas isn't always the way my family does Christmas.
Speaker 2: And we open up Christmas, well we do it. Oh
Speaker 2: you put tinsel on your tree. That's great and all that,
Speaker 2: all those little family traditions are that it'd be funny
Speaker 2: if we can coct a reason why, you know, to
Speaker 2: Peg and Corey had you know, we're going to spend
Speaker 2: Christmas together and it's like, wait a minute, she does
Speaker 2: it all wrong. It was a real issue between them
Speaker 2: and that's what they sparked to, and that's what I like.
Speaker 2: I thought it was kind of a fresh way to
Speaker 2: do a Christmas story that I had not seen and
Speaker 2: it seemed rooted and character, yeah, and character and stuff
Speaker 2: that relatable for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna say very relatable. Who hasn't had
Speaker 3: those conversations with their friends were like what.
Speaker 2: Do you do?
Speaker 1: Oh no, that's not what we really like.
Speaker 5: The whole conversation with the three of us going like,
Speaker 5: wait a minute, wait, whoa you open your present?
Speaker 2: Wait?
Speaker 1: You call it Christmas eve Day?
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, who plays the elf? And you do one
Speaker 2: at the time, because everybody get one present.
Speaker 1: On Santa's Last But you did that, so you were
Speaker 1: like seventeen.
Speaker 2: That's weird.
Speaker 1: We were in our twenties. Yeah. So you mentioned that
Speaker 1: you were never you never got to meet any of us.
Speaker 3: I'm assuming that meant you never met Bill Daniels or
Speaker 3: any of the adult actors as well.
Speaker 2: Never. Now, in fact, you guys can tell me. Did
Speaker 2: you used to shoot partly in front of an audience
Speaker 2: but then stuff other stuff you just block and tape? Right?
Speaker 3: We had a block and tape day, which was always Wednesday,
Speaker 3: and then Thursday we would shoot in front of a
Speaker 3: live studio audience, right right, Anything that wasn't block and tape.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't remember. I was kind of busy
Speaker 2: in those days. They may have invited me, but I
Speaker 2: just couldn't make the the schedule, or they may never
Speaker 2: have invited me. I don't remember.
Speaker 4: But did you come to the run throughs?
Speaker 2: No? No? Nothing, Wow, nothing, I was nothing. It was
Speaker 2: I think it was also frankly a little bit of a.
Speaker 2: It was kind of an emergency thing where it's like,
Speaker 2: as I say, they were for whatever reason they were,
Speaker 2: they'd gotten behind schedule, and yeah, they just needed somebody
Speaker 2: to come in and knock out a couple of scripts quickly.
Speaker 5: You're just in a big glass case. It did a
Speaker 5: little hammer next to it in case of story break,
Speaker 5: break glass anything like that.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, so it was.
Speaker 2: It was. It was. It was a fine thing. It
Speaker 2: was just it was. It was odd because usually you
Speaker 2: do go to the taping and I would have looked
Speaker 2: forward to it normally. I just can't remember why it
Speaker 2: didn't work. I also had two young children at the time.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that may have been part of the problem.
Speaker 3: I have two young children now, and I don't remember
Speaker 3: any aspect of any part of my day ever. So
Speaker 3: I can tell you it's life is just.
Speaker 1: One giant blur.
Speaker 4: You know you're here and you're safe. I don't think.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure this is a dream.
Speaker 6: You have you watched the episodes, and can you see
Speaker 6: if any of your actual scripts survived?
Speaker 2: I mean, I have not watched them. I'm sorry to say.
Speaker 2: I did reread. I look, I even found it. I
Speaker 2: found my old script for what a very topanga Christmas.
Speaker 5: Original draft, original draft, original draft.
Speaker 2: It's actual paper. Wow. I read it. I was like,
Speaker 2: oh god, yeah, it was pretty funny. I connously. What
Speaker 2: happens is you've write so many things over the years.
Speaker 2: I can't remember what was mine and adjusted by the
Speaker 2: staff or so.
Speaker 3: Do you think that's the first Is that like a
Speaker 3: table read version? Is that the first thing we read?
Speaker 3: Or is that truly like the first version you wrote
Speaker 3: entirely yourself?
Speaker 2: Oh no, this is your this is a this is
Speaker 2: what you guys read. This went through the went through
Speaker 2: the staff. So I don't have my original. It's probably
Speaker 2: written on a scriptware or something, one of those programs
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's a floppy disk, this big about
Speaker 2: in my basement. But no, it's funny. I don't. I don't.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's often difficult for me to remember which
Speaker 2: are my jokes or what was I just I had
Speaker 2: a weird experience them a few months ago. My daughter
Speaker 2: was little, she was like eight when I was producing
Speaker 2: Sister Sister, and so we had a Halloween episode, right,
Speaker 2: and so we need a trigger treater. So you want, honey,
Speaker 2: you want to come and be a tricker treater. Sure,
Speaker 2: so she got to be a tricker treater and say
Speaker 2: trick or treat and squirt Tmoor in the face with
Speaker 2: silly string. Right, Okay, so she got a SAG card
Speaker 2: for but she had gone on. She's not in the business.
Speaker 2: She lives elsewhere, has a wonderful life, and I have
Speaker 2: two grandchildren with her. So, but we were up there
Speaker 2: a while ago and I somehow came up and her
Speaker 2: husband didn't even know she'd been in this because she
Speaker 2: never tells anybody, right, So, being being a typical millennial,
Speaker 2: he said, okay, let's find it. So he found it
Speaker 2: in like three seconds on Hulu or Amazon or something,
Speaker 2: and we sat and watched it together, and it was
Speaker 2: so interesting because I hadn't seen it in twenty plus years,
Speaker 2: and it was actually pretty funny. But I was sort
Speaker 2: of I kind of remember writing that joke, and oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it's funny. You do enough of them and
Speaker 2: they kind of bore together.
Speaker 5: Is there one joke you've written that sticks in your
Speaker 5: mind in any show you've done, like's the what's the
Speaker 5: best joke you've ever reten?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, now you're setting me up for total failure.
Speaker 2: I cannot. I was having this conversation with somebody the
Speaker 2: other day. I can't remember, Like most of the time,
Speaker 2: I can't even remember the jokes, but I can remember
Speaker 2: that I can tell you this. This is the first
Speaker 2: joke I ever pitched in a room. Okay, I had
Speaker 2: done freelance for three or four years forever got on staff.
Speaker 2: And so the first shows on staff was Archie Bunker's place.
Speaker 2: And in those days, Carol O'Connor had owned half the show.
Speaker 2: Norman had nothing to do with it anymore, and so
Speaker 2: Carol ran the room. So when you were sitting in
Speaker 2: a writer's room, you guys, know what that's like, at
Speaker 2: least you know what it's like. It's it's a it's
Speaker 2: a very.
Speaker 1: High octane, yes, high pressure.
Speaker 2: And instead of pitching to like a showrunner, like a
Speaker 2: writer who's all usually kind of an egomaniac anyway, and this, guys,
Speaker 2: you're pitching to Carol O'Connor. I mean, his chair was
Speaker 2: already in the Smithsonian Institution. Yeah, so when you pitched
Speaker 2: him was like pitching to Mount Rushmore. And so I
Speaker 2: was very kind of shy anyway, it was very reticent,
Speaker 2: but I knew after two three weeks, I'm gonna have
Speaker 2: to say something to say, And so there was a
Speaker 2: here's what, here's the joke. It's not a great joke.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying because it's the one I remember. But
Speaker 2: the situation was Archie had a he was always he
Speaker 2: ran this bar and he was always getting sued or
Speaker 2: being He's either suing somebody or being sued all the time.
Speaker 2: So he had this fly by night attorney, local attorney
Speaker 2: who is who is his who is his representative? And
Speaker 2: so the guy was sick of dealing with him, so
Speaker 2: he's going to fob him off onto a younger lawyer.
Speaker 2: So the scene was Archie's coming in to complain about
Speaker 2: something and the and the older attorney's gonna going to
Speaker 2: tell him this young guy is going to now take
Speaker 2: over for me. And so Archie comes in and he
Speaker 2: goes to his normal seat and he almost sits on
Speaker 2: the attorney because the guy's sitting in a chair. He
Speaker 2: almost sits on his play by Barry Gordon and uh.
Speaker 2: And so the older attorney says, oh, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: mister Bunker, don't you, And then the attorney just had
Speaker 2: a line like yes, wow or something. So I kind
Speaker 2: of go, you know, page six, whatever it is, I
Speaker 2: think we can maybe better that. And the guy wrote
Speaker 2: the script gives me a look like, kid, you better
Speaker 2: have something, don't you say script unless you can better
Speaker 2: my script? And so I said, well what if? What if?
Speaker 2: He goes almost sits on him, and the attorney says,
Speaker 2: you know, mister Bunker, don't you And the guy says, well,
Speaker 2: not from that angle, it's worth that much of a juggle.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is better than yes.
Speaker 2: And I remember the look on Carol's face because I
Speaker 2: was like, I'm terrified, and he like, yeah, okay, and
Speaker 2: he turns to the writers, just nods and says, which
Speaker 2: means put on the script. It's going on the script.
Speaker 1: I was like, I can be quiet again.
Speaker 2: Three years later, I pitched you that's great.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 6: I would be so bad in a writer's room, like
Speaker 6: there's nothing that terrifies me more like I love writing,
Speaker 6: I love talking about writing, and I would enjoy being
Speaker 6: in the room to just watch the process. But I
Speaker 6: would never want to pitch a joke. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: It was very it's a very tense thing. And I
Speaker 2: ran writer's rooms to it. Not at that point of course,
Speaker 2: but later in my career I was running the writer's room.
Speaker 2: Of course, you're dealing with usually six eight, ten, twelve,
Speaker 2: even really smart, really funny, and usually really screwed up people.
Speaker 2: Your job is to try. It's like being an orchestra conductor.
Speaker 2: You've got to figure out, Okay, that person needs to
Speaker 2: be encouraged more of that person shut up more, and
Speaker 2: you've got to try. And when you get it right,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a magic because somebody will just say
Speaker 2: one thing, and I'll put and it just spirals into
Speaker 2: this amazing creation that nobody would.
Speaker 1: Have come up with on their own.
Speaker 2: But if somebody, if the person running the room is
Speaker 2: mean spirited, and a lot of them are, it can
Speaker 2: be really, really difficult. I was amazed I was able
Speaker 2: to not only survive, but to thrive as well as
Speaker 2: I did, because, as I say, when I came out
Speaker 2: here was very shy.
Speaker 4: All right, So year then, in all the years you've done,
Speaker 4: all the rooms you've done.
Speaker 5: Not to put you on the spot again, but who
Speaker 5: do you think is the uh, who's the best writer
Speaker 5: you've ever worked with?
Speaker 2: Oh? God, I've worked with so many wonderful writers. The
Speaker 2: people I remember the most of the certainly the funniest writers,
Speaker 2: the punch up guys. I worked with a guy named
Speaker 2: Ray Jessel who's passed away. He was older when I
Speaker 2: worked with him on Head of the Class, and he
Speaker 2: was unbelievably funny. I mean he just but not funny,
Speaker 2: just like Sticky. If there was a situation where you know,
Speaker 2: we're two o'clock in the morning and we're trying to
Speaker 2: get a joke to get out of scene three right,
Speaker 2: and he could come up with it. It was astounding.
Speaker 2: I worked with some great punch up guys. Jim Valley
Speaker 2: was very good. Chris Thompson, Uh, it's it would be
Speaker 2: very difficult for me to say one person was the first.
Speaker 2: But and my mentor, Hal Dresner was a great writer.
Speaker 2: I worked with just so many wonderful It was a joy.
Speaker 2: It was absolute joy. I would say that to drive
Speaker 2: home two o'clock in the morning after a punch up night,
Speaker 2: you are I never took drugs in my life because
Speaker 2: I didn't need to. It was just like I was
Speaker 2: flying from the adrenaline rush of being in a room.
Speaker 2: These are the funniest people on planet Earth. I mean,
Speaker 2: the funniest people in the world come to Hollywood to
Speaker 2: be funny for a living, and you get to be
Speaker 2: in a room with them. It was a joy, and
Speaker 2: there was you know there. Jeff Dutiel was a great writer.
Speaker 2: Guy worked with now Steve Sullivan is a great writer.
Speaker 2: A lot of it. But they all have different strengths
Speaker 2: and some are better with story and others are better
Speaker 2: with jokes.
Speaker 6: But you mentioned your mentor, Howl Dresner. Yeah, how did
Speaker 6: he become your mentor? What was that relationship?
Speaker 2: I did early early after the Jeffersons. The next show
Speaker 2: after the Jeffersons was a show called Husbands, Wives and Lovers,
Speaker 2: which I'm convinced absolutely nobody ever watched. That lasted thirteen episodes.
Speaker 2: Help was the executive producer on it, and it was
Speaker 2: a very odd show in that it was an hour
Speaker 2: long multi camera sitcom which nobody had ever tried. And
Speaker 2: there's a reason why it doesn't work. It doesn't work,
Speaker 2: you know, even I'm sure when you guys are doing them,
Speaker 2: there's a sort of a rhythm. Yeah, twenty two minute,
Speaker 2: it just sort of feels like it's over, you know,
Speaker 2: well this was forty four minutes.
Speaker 1: It just just keeps going.
Speaker 6: Ten as what are you doing?
Speaker 2: Well? We had had there there was a story about
Speaker 2: five couples, five different married couples, so you'd cut around
Speaker 2: from from a couple to couple. It was it was
Speaker 2: I didn't know at the time. I was too young
Speaker 2: and stupid, but it was based on company, you know,
Speaker 2: the Broadway music. But it just didn't work. But I
Speaker 2: did two episodes that for Hal and he we never
Speaker 2: really worked much together after that. We did a couple
Speaker 2: of pilots, I think, but we just stayed friends because
Speaker 2: I just it was like being in a room with
Speaker 2: a He was the wittiest person I ever met in
Speaker 2: my life. I did a pilot. I remember we sold
Speaker 2: a pilot once. I think it was CBS, and we
Speaker 2: went in and pitched it and the guy whoever it
Speaker 2: was didn't particularly like it, and he was just he
Speaker 2: was starting to think of a reason to reject it.
Speaker 2: And Hal was so witty he just cut him to a.
Speaker 2: He just was so smart and funny, and if you
Speaker 2: dared to say something, you know, negative, he would find
Speaker 2: a way to turn it back on. So the guy
Speaker 2: just bought the pilot, I think, So how would not
Speaker 2: make fun? It wasn't a very good idea, but I
Speaker 2: think we sold the pilot just because Hell was so scary.
Speaker 2: But I knew him to be a sweetheart. He died
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago, but the wittiest person I
Speaker 2: ever met. It was like amazing.
Speaker 3: Your first episode of Boy Meets World that aired was
Speaker 3: Fraternity Row, which was season five, episode four, where A
Speaker 3: decides to start his own fraternity, Magnum Pie to get girls.
Speaker 3: We have Paul Gleeson in that episode, as well as
Speaker 3: some acid trip cameos from Love Boats, Ted Lange and
Speaker 3: Bernie Kapell.
Speaker 1: What do you remember from that episode?
Speaker 2: I got, God, don you not a thing. I remember
Speaker 2: almost nothing. I remember it was a sign to me.
Speaker 2: And here's the thing. I know nothing about fraternities. I
Speaker 2: was never in a fraternity. I love it, like you
Speaker 2: could not pick a worst person to write this draft.
Speaker 2: But I remember giving up my all. But again, that
Speaker 2: was the second one i'd done.
Speaker 1: So okay, so you wrote a Christmas first.
Speaker 2: So honestly, I have no I have almost no memory
Speaker 2: other than working really hard to try to try to
Speaker 2: make it work. But it was not my idea. It's
Speaker 2: not an idea I ever would have pitched. I don't think.
Speaker 4: So you can't remember.
Speaker 5: You can't remember if if Ted Lange and Bernie Coppel
Speaker 5: were part of the script originally, or it was just
Speaker 5: who they could get. We're trying to figure out if
Speaker 5: it was if that was part of the original pitch.
Speaker 5: It was like, this is just who we can get,
Speaker 5: so we're going to write them in.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it was certainly not part of my original concept. No.
Speaker 2: I think they just enjoyed casting these kind of fun
Speaker 2: right stunt casting things. But no, I'm sorry. I have
Speaker 2: no other than how do I write this damn thing?
Speaker 2: How do I do this? I know nothing about fraternities?
Speaker 3: So funny, Well, after Boy Meets World, you enter a
Speaker 3: universe that many of our listeners and myself will be
Speaker 3: very impressed with the world of animated kids TV. Yeah,
Speaker 3: how do you make that transition?
Speaker 2: Desperation? Don I was trying to keep my house the
Speaker 2: you know the there was a weird thing that happens.
Speaker 2: Happened then, is that my generation. I had reached a
Speaker 2: certain age about my mid forties, which is a pretty
Speaker 2: good run. I started my mid twenties. I had a
Speaker 2: twenty year run in sitcoms, and it just there was
Speaker 2: an iron gate just suddenly came down and nobody in
Speaker 2: my generation could get hired anymore. And so, in fact,
Speaker 2: there was a major class action lawsuit by that I
Speaker 2: was part of, and we won an ageism lawsuit, and
Speaker 2: we all got like, I don't know, dependent on your income,
Speaker 2: but you know, you get people got fifty sixty grand,
Speaker 2: which is a nice thing, but didn't change the business anyway.
Speaker 2: I could. Most of my friends who are of my vintage,
Speaker 2: who had been sitcom writers, just got out of the business.
Speaker 2: They sold their houses, they took their pensions early, and
Speaker 2: they moved someplace cheaper. But I didn't really want to
Speaker 2: do that. I felt like I was still I love writing,
Speaker 2: I love television. I love what I do. So I
Speaker 2: an animation a friend. We had a friend who had
Speaker 2: been sitcom writers and said, hey, you want We're doing
Speaker 2: a cartoon show. You want to do a couple episodes? Well? Sure,
Speaker 2: or why not? And it was some weird Swedish cartoon
Speaker 2: called The World of Tosh. You've heard of it?
Speaker 4: Sure? Oh, I've been doing I'm a voiceover actor. I
Speaker 4: have been for twenty five years.
Speaker 2: Oh so you know it? Okay, I do I Yeah?
Speaker 4: To kick Animation is kind of My World.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, you didn't do that show though, No.
Speaker 4: I didn't do that show, but no, I've certainly heard
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. So anyway, we wrote I think six episodes
Speaker 2: or something, and it was the money is lousy, but
Speaker 2: it's better than nothing. And so that's how that was
Speaker 2: our entree and from there we just kept expanding and
Speaker 2: an animation, unlike in live action, most of it has
Speaker 2: done freelance, so you can make a living. I wrote
Speaker 2: for Swedish shows and Korean shows and Italian shows and
Speaker 2: French shows and then American shows as well, and so
Speaker 2: if because I had all that experience as a sitcom
Speaker 2: writer where you have to knock things out. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, you guys know it's likely you do a
Speaker 2: Monday morning read through with the script stinks. Hell yeah,
Speaker 2: the writers are back in that room until they are right,
Speaker 2: and you have to do it fast. Because I had
Speaker 2: all that experience, I could knock out cartoon scripts really fast.
Speaker 2: And so you have to indore to make a living.
Speaker 2: And so I worked with Steve Sullivan and a lot
Speaker 2: of them some have been done solo. But yeah, it
Speaker 2: was like the second career and I miss the camaraderie
Speaker 2: of being on a set, you know, with actors and
Speaker 2: the director. That's so much fun. But it certainly is
Speaker 2: less stressful. And so I was able to build a
Speaker 2: second career doing animation.
Speaker 3: Well, I want to talk more about that, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to name some of the shows you've worked on,
Speaker 3: but I want to go back briefly to this lawsuit.
Speaker 3: Who did you sue and how did that come together?
Speaker 3: I'm so curious about that.
Speaker 2: But it was because suddenly everybody who hit their early
Speaker 2: forties suddenly who'd been working for years couldn't get it hired.
Speaker 2: And you know, you know, writers who were sitting on
Speaker 2: grousing to each other all the time. Anyway, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: why are we taking this? That's obviously agism. And so somebody,
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly who started this, went to an
Speaker 2: attorney and started a class action lawsuit against all the
Speaker 2: major studios, networks and agencies three together, and everybody at
Speaker 2: first thought and I came in, like the second wave
Speaker 2: of writers who came in and joined it, and then
Speaker 2: there were more followed me. But and all you had
Speaker 2: to do is, you know, here's my information. You have.
Speaker 2: I give you the right for you to look at
Speaker 2: my writer's guild incomes and so on, and so you
Speaker 2: can see I'm making this much money and then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, I'm making that much money. So uh.
Speaker 2: And it was the same as two of everybody. So
Speaker 2: they took it in front of a judge and the
Speaker 2: judge said, looked at that information, at the data, and said,
Speaker 2: to the to the to the defendants, to the to
Speaker 2: the studios and networks, you guys better settle because that's
Speaker 2: all I need to see. Wow, everybody in Hollywood didn't
Speaker 2: suddenly get untalented when they reached forty five, so lose.
Speaker 2: And so they quickly settled the case. And as I said,
Speaker 2: it was a nice little it was a nice little bonus.
Speaker 2: My wife is a writer too, and she she got
Speaker 2: a check and I got a check, and it was nice.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't you know. Yeah, it's not a career, right.
Speaker 2: That's what animation allowed me to allow me to keep
Speaker 2: my house.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, the list of kids shows you've written and
Speaker 3: produced is so vast you have been nominated for multiple
Speaker 3: Emmys for it.
Speaker 1: But here is just a small taste.
Speaker 3: Sheriff Calli's Wild West, Tons of Fancy Nancy which you
Speaker 3: also wrote a song.
Speaker 2: For Oh more than One? Yes?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay, Well I think one of the songs you wrote
Speaker 3: for was nominated for an Emmy, though, which is why
Speaker 3: I'm familiar with that one, Unbelievable, super Normal Whitch and
Speaker 3: my personal favorite, Paw Patrol. How I mean, how did
Speaker 3: you so you just all freelance? You just got so
Speaker 3: once you started writing for one? Did it seem like
Speaker 3: you just were up for a while.
Speaker 2: Well, people hire you. If they like your work, then
Speaker 2: they hire you or they commend you, and that's kind
Speaker 2: of how it usually works. It wasn't all freelance. What
Speaker 2: happened was it was mostly freelanced up until gosh, about
Speaker 2: ten years ago. And then he got a call from
Speaker 2: a producer friend who was doing Sir Calli's Wild West,
Speaker 2: which is a Disney show, and said, hey, you want
Speaker 2: to be on staff? What? As far as I knew,
Speaker 2: there were no staff on animation shows, but Disney does
Speaker 2: have staff. Yeah, they most of their shows have like
Speaker 2: a four person staff. And so then I wound up
Speaker 2: on staff there and also on Chicken Squad and Fancy Nancy,
Speaker 2: which was a joyous experience. And then I just finished doing.
Speaker 2: I was the head writer for a show that's not
Speaker 2: in the air yet but it will be in January
Speaker 2: I think called Robo Gobo for Disney Fun. So yeah,
Speaker 2: so I did. The last ten years have been mostly
Speaker 2: as a staff writer and headwriter.
Speaker 6: Sometimes is that which do you prefer? Do you prefer
Speaker 6: sitcom or animated? At this point, like, if you look back,
Speaker 6: what are the differences really as a writer in which
Speaker 6: do you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? The difference is it's so much more stressful being
Speaker 2: on a live action sitcom. I mean it's for I
Speaker 2: don't know what it's like for the I do sort of,
Speaker 2: but not as well as you guys do. But to
Speaker 2: be an actor, I'm sure it has its stresses, but
Speaker 2: to to writers, trying to keep ahead of the of
Speaker 2: the schedule is just brutal. And the fact that you know,
Speaker 2: you go to the table Monday morning, as I say,
Speaker 2: if that script doesn't work, it's gonna work by Friday,
Speaker 2: or you're gonna be looking for it work. You're looking
Speaker 2: for a job. So so you really have to buckle
Speaker 2: down and you week after week after week. It's very stressful.
Speaker 2: But the upside is it's like doing an opening night
Speaker 2: every Friday, night Thursday. But it was like, oh, that's
Speaker 2: kind of cool. You know, it was called It's great fun.
Speaker 2: It's just I think it's more of a young person's game.
Speaker 2: And I think if somebody said to me right now, oh,
Speaker 2: we'd like you to run a sitcom, I would my
Speaker 2: wife would say yes, and I would say I can't
Speaker 2: do it. I don't have the energy to do that anymore.
Speaker 2: But an animation is is is more of a writer's
Speaker 2: medium in a weird way, because the voice cast. I
Speaker 2: rarely even meet the voice cast, and so you're you're
Speaker 2: just dealing with just it's just you and the and
Speaker 2: the episode director or the episode storyboard artists, and you're
Speaker 2: kind of together deciding everything. You know, where's the metaphorical
Speaker 2: camera going to be, with the color of the walls, everything,
Speaker 2: and so it's it's much much more control over the
Speaker 2: finished product. On the other hand, most of what I did,
Speaker 2: not all of it, but most of this preschool stuff,
Speaker 2: which I found very stifling after a while. I worked
Speaker 2: very hard to try to make them something that an
Speaker 2: adult could stand to sit in the room and write
Speaker 2: and watch.
Speaker 4: But it was But that's that's hugely difficult to write.
Speaker 5: I mean, a preschool show where you're I mean, that's
Speaker 5: could be one of the most difficult things to write
Speaker 5: in all of Hollywood is keeping preschoolers entertain.
Speaker 2: My god, oh my god, you're you're right, And and
Speaker 2: people like I would talk to like writers who I
Speaker 2: knew from live action adult days, and they would say, oh,
Speaker 2: I would I need some money, I'll do that, said
Speaker 2: you you think you would really sit down and try
Speaker 2: and write a speck, and you'll see I'll start telling
Speaker 2: you all the things you can't do. You can't do
Speaker 2: that joke, you can't use that reference, you can't, right,
Speaker 2: It's very, very difficult.
Speaker 5: Well, so I did a little I did a little
Speaker 5: bit of animation writing. And the thing that amazed me
Speaker 5: was the first job I got was I was under
Speaker 5: the impression, well, it's animation.
Speaker 4: If I can think it, they can do it. And
Speaker 4: that's just not the case at all. It's it's amazing
Speaker 4: if you can think of Pixar can do it, right, Yeah, right, exactly.
Speaker 2: Not on the but if you go see a Pixar movie,
Speaker 2: as we all do, one shot in a Pixar movie
Speaker 2: costs the same amount about as what my entire episode
Speaker 2: would be on a typical eleven minutes. I mean, we
Speaker 2: don't have anywhere near their kind of luxury of No.
Speaker 4: I mean, so same kind of thing.
Speaker 5: They're like, no, we need to reuse storyboards from older
Speaker 5: and we need to use backgrounds of older thing. It's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 5: so I can't just write whatever I want and you
Speaker 5: go draw it Like, Nope, that's not how it works. No.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, he picks up a he picks
Speaker 2: up a book and they haven't already created especially if
Speaker 2: it's three three D you know, CGI animation, they have
Speaker 2: guy has to build build that literally in the computer.
Speaker 2: If they haven't already done it. That means some schmuck's
Speaker 2: got to go sit in front of his cynique and
Speaker 2: law a book and yeah, in the computer, just for
Speaker 2: that one thing. And you better make sure that you
Speaker 2: really want the.
Speaker 4: Book, that it's worth it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I think one of the things that is most
Speaker 3: impressive about your career is your ability to move from
Speaker 3: elite late night sitcoms, then into kids and family sitcoms,
Speaker 3: and then into preschool and animated. I mean basically, as
Speaker 3: you got older, the people you were writing for gott younger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so did you ever consciously notice those transitions.
Speaker 2: Or yeah wow, oh yeah. Well luckily, you know, I
Speaker 2: had two kids, so I knew from them what they
Speaker 2: responded to. And then now, uh, well, my oldest grand
Speaker 2: son is six, and I have a six year old,
Speaker 2: a three year old, a two year old, and a
Speaker 2: four month old. So between all of them, I'm pretty
Speaker 2: cute into what preschool I watched them. I love I
Speaker 2: love to watch them watch yeah, because I learned so much.
Speaker 2: They just they don't do it the same way. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they respond to things, and I have arguments all the
Speaker 2: time with Disney about it. Of course I lose, but
Speaker 2: that they that they that they respond My little two
Speaker 2: year old just loves Frozen, you know, and she loves
Speaker 2: a pig, but they seize on something when you can't
Speaker 2: quite figure out why is she like that? But not this.
Speaker 2: It's very weird. And my six year old, when he
Speaker 2: was like three or four, his favorite show on Disney
Speaker 2: Plus was Hamilton Hamilton over. You don't know who Hamilton is,
Speaker 2: what the United States of Americas, But they just respond
Speaker 2: to certain things and you try to figure out what
Speaker 2: is it about that he loved watching that King George
Speaker 2: come out with you know, with a red yes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the patter song. I loved it.
Speaker 1: I don't know, so funny.
Speaker 3: So for someone listening now who wants to be a writer,
Speaker 3: and here's all the different mediums you've worked in, what
Speaker 3: advice do you give?
Speaker 1: And because I think you you teach, do you do?
Speaker 2: I taught for many years at UCLA and also at
Speaker 2: Pepperdine screen and television writing. And I have a YouTube
Speaker 2: channel now called the Go Draft.
Speaker 6: Which your videos are great, man, I was watching some
Speaker 6: of them. They're really really good.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 6: Really insightful stuff. And it's like short enough that you
Speaker 6: can you pack a lot in there.
Speaker 2: It's really I tried to. It's but it's all practical.
Speaker 2: It's all it's not that theory. It's technique. It's about
Speaker 2: this is how I do it, and I'm still doing
Speaker 2: it and have done it for forty five years. So
Speaker 2: you can choose to follow that path or not. But
Speaker 2: it's I think it's all practical and useful. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 2: I Oh, the advice I would give it. The business
Speaker 2: at this particular moment, when we're doing this segment, is
Speaker 2: in a state, as you all know, of tremendous flucks.
Speaker 2: Especially television, and up until a year or two ago,
Speaker 2: if somebody had a screenplay, they're representatives saying, is there
Speaker 2: any way you can turn it into a limited series?
Speaker 2: And now it's exactly the opposite. Somebody writes a limited
Speaker 2: series pilot and they say, is there any way you
Speaker 2: can turn into a screenplay because they can't get they
Speaker 2: can't get anybody to green light limited series anymore, and
Speaker 2: so it's in a state of flux because they don't
Speaker 2: know the people in charge, the people writing the checks,
Speaker 2: aren't sure how they're going to make money on things anymore.
Speaker 2: Streaming has just turned the world upside down. We do
Speaker 2: know that there's always a market for entertainment, probably now
Speaker 2: more than any time, so that it will it will
Speaker 2: find its balance. But the young clients I have who
Speaker 2: are students or just friends who've had success, have almost
Speaker 2: all had success and features. They've broken into the feature
Speaker 2: business quicker than they not like I'm talking at Marvel movies,
Speaker 2: but I'm like little indie teachers, some of which do
Speaker 2: very well, and get them a career and get them
Speaker 2: started much easier now at this moment than trying to
Speaker 2: break into television. It is very tough to break into
Speaker 2: television at this moment, because television just doesn't know what
Speaker 2: it is anymore. Yeah, but I will say this, and
Speaker 2: this is absolutely true. Over the years of been doing
Speaker 2: this and teaching, I have never ever met anybody who
Speaker 2: had talent and perseverance who didn't eventually have some level
Speaker 2: of success. Might not have been what they dreamt of.
Speaker 2: They may not have become the next Steven Spielberg. That's
Speaker 2: what I want to do. I'm not the next Steven Spielberg,
Speaker 2: but I had some success. But if you hang in
Speaker 2: there long enough and if you have talent, so somebody
Speaker 2: will find it. That's the one nice thing you say
Speaker 2: about Hollywood is it really is to a large degree
Speaker 2: of meritocracy and people who can do it. And that's
Speaker 2: what I used a lot about television because in movies
Speaker 2: you can kind of get by if you're not kind
Speaker 2: of hide behind, hide under the radar screen. But in television,
Speaker 2: if you can't produce, they find out really quickly and
Speaker 2: you're out and somebody else is brought in you can
Speaker 2: do it, and so it is kind of a meritocracy.
Speaker 2: So there's that to take heart in.
Speaker 1: Well, that's good advice.
Speaker 3: And finally, as a bit of a TV historian, did
Speaker 3: you ever think people would still be talking about Boy
Speaker 3: Meets World thirty years later?
Speaker 2: No, I do, I did not, and I'm delighted that
Speaker 2: you are. I mean, I think it's wonderful that people
Speaker 2: are still watching it and still excited by it. I
Speaker 2: think it's so interesting, fascinating that kids, I mean, you
Speaker 2: guys must know that. You know that the people watching
Speaker 2: the episodes are probably roughly the same age as the
Speaker 2: audience who watched it originally, and they still respond to
Speaker 2: the same stuff, and even though the references have changed
Speaker 2: and change and all the rest of it. It's fascinating
Speaker 2: to me. They will sit and watch I've seen them
Speaker 2: watch Sister Sister episodes and say to the Bell episodes,
Speaker 2: and they like them just as much. It's very very interesting.
Speaker 2: And also there's something about multi camera sitcoms. I can't
Speaker 2: figure it out that there's a sense of because I
Speaker 2: guess of the fourth wall. The audience feels like they're
Speaker 2: part of it, part of it. It felt like they
Speaker 2: were in Corey's living room, and.
Speaker 4: It's comfortable.
Speaker 2: It is it is, and people will watch them and
Speaker 2: rewatch them and watch them twenty times and they know
Speaker 2: all the jokes by heart. It doesn't seem to matter anyway.
Speaker 2: I think it's lovely and it makes me feel good
Speaker 2: to know that it wasn't. We weren't producing stuff that
Speaker 2: just went into avoid Some of it did go into
Speaker 2: avoid lovers.
Speaker 4: Literally the guessing the actors on the show didn't remember
Speaker 4: they were on the show.
Speaker 2: I don't think they're doing a podcast.
Speaker 3: Andy, Thank you so much for spending your time with us.
Speaker 3: Thank you for letting us hunt you down home phone
Speaker 3: and all. Never get rid of it. It brings surprises
Speaker 3: around the corner.
Speaker 1: We so appreciate you.
Speaker 3: And thank you for solving the mystery for us of
Speaker 3: why we were like, how come we don't remember him?
Speaker 1: Thank you for solving the mystery.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not terribly memorable, but I'm better than that.
Speaker 3: We knew it must be something, so you did. You
Speaker 3: solved that memory. You saw that mystery for us, and
Speaker 3: we appreciate you and thank you. Tell everyone again where
Speaker 3: they can find you on your YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: It's the go draft. The go draft, which is a
Speaker 2: term that used to mean maybe they still say it
Speaker 2: meant the person who wrote the draft that got the
Speaker 2: green light, that was the go draft, and so that's cool,
Speaker 2: is trying to get people from the level of being
Speaker 2: promising to actually getting your work produced.
Speaker 1: Well, I love that.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for being here with us, and yeah,
Speaker 3: we wish you nice. Thanks for your contribution to a
Speaker 3: show we know and love and our audience knows and love,
Speaker 3: and so yeah, thank you for being with us. We
Speaker 3: wish you many more years of success and health and
Speaker 3: and love and enjoy your grandchildren.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Bye bye.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we don't have to feel bad. So bad
Speaker 1: we did know whit. We never even possibly came to set.
Speaker 4: It's so strange. It's so strange that you write these
Speaker 4: two episodes are not there. You don't get to just.
Speaker 6: Can't believe that our staff was that far beyond like,
Speaker 6: because it seems like we had a big staff, especially
Speaker 6: by season five, that they would have been, you know,
Speaker 6: been able to account. But I guess not like I
Speaker 6: mean get outside.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is.
Speaker 3: I do think you know writer, you mostly right features
Speaker 3: Will You've written a couple episodes of TV. I think
Speaker 3: the pace at which they have to come up with
Speaker 3: this stuff, it's just something we can't possibly understand because
Speaker 3: we've never been in it. For a long term, because
Speaker 3: I see it now on shows I direct, where I'll
Speaker 3: talk to people and I'll be like, so, how's it going,
Speaker 3: And everyone will look so tired, you're just underwater, and
Speaker 3: they're just like, we are here so late, and and
Speaker 3: we're writing the episode we're doing next week, and and
Speaker 3: it's just it's so high pressure and so well it
Speaker 3: never ends.
Speaker 6: Never.
Speaker 4: I mean I mean literally never. Just the show just stops.
Speaker 4: That's or you die. That's it. Otherwise you're writing the
Speaker 4: whole time.
Speaker 5: It's the episode you're doing, it's next week's episodes, rewriting now,
Speaker 5: last episode.
Speaker 4: It just never stopped.
Speaker 3: I go crazy, so crazy, Well it makes sense anyway.
Speaker 3: Thank you all for joining us for this episode of
Speaker 3: Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us on
Speaker 3: Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your
Speaker 3: emails pod meets World Show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: And we have merch.
Speaker 4: Merch that to me, not membing. Oh the merch, got it.
Speaker 5: You never met the merch, don't worry, Yeah exactly, I
Speaker 5: never met the merch, so I thought, like I thought.
Speaker 1: We were merch.
Speaker 3: You can find our merch at Podmeets worldshow dot com.
Speaker 3: Will send us out.
Speaker 4: We Love You All, pod dismissed.
Speaker 5: Podmets World is nheart podcast producer and hosted by Danielle Fischel,
Speaker 5: Wilfredell and Ryder Strong executive producers, Jensen Carp and Amy
Speaker 5: Sugarman Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor,
Speaker 5: Tara sudbachsch producer, Maddie Moore, engineer and Boy Meets World
Speaker 5: super fan Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle
Speaker 5: Morton of Typhoon and you can follow us on Instagram
Speaker 5: at Podmeats World Show or email us at Podmeats Worldshow
Speaker 5: at gmail dot com