Speaker 1: Hey, fan, Rito's welcome to how Rude Tanaritos, our guest today,
Speaker 1: is a phenomenal director and producer who we were lucky
Speaker 1: enough to work with on both Full House and Fuller House.
Speaker 2: He has a.
Speaker 1: Wide array of TV shows, films, and Broadway shows under
Speaker 1: his belt, with his career spanning over four decades. We
Speaker 1: can't wait to talk to him about his memories from
Speaker 1: that very first episode of full House all the way
Speaker 1: to his time on Fuller House.
Speaker 2: Please welcome.
Speaker 1: Joel's a wick, Hi, Joel.
Speaker 2: Or look at you, as handsome as ever.
Speaker 3: I'm younger, younger, I'm working on being younger.
Speaker 4: Indeed you are Benjamin Button. Actually you're a completely in reverse.
Speaker 3: At some point, I'm going to start to diminish myself
Speaker 3: by one year at every birthday and see how long
Speaker 3: I can go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. I like it.
Speaker 3: Good idea.
Speaker 2: Hi, it's so good to see you.
Speaker 4: So just so you know, we kind of just jump
Speaker 4: right into the interview, so we're just gonna welcome to
Speaker 4: the show, Joel.
Speaker 3: I think it's great. I think it's so fabulous that
Speaker 3: the legend of full House has existed this many years.
Speaker 3: I mean, how many years ago do we do this
Speaker 3: thirty five years or something like that.
Speaker 1: Thirty thirty seven, thirty seven, I think, yeah, yes.
Speaker 3: Andrew, when did you come into the series. I'm trying
Speaker 3: to think, is I don't believe I directed your first appearance?
Speaker 3: Do you believe I did? I don't.
Speaker 1: I should know this, but my first episode was the
Speaker 1: first day of school, Stephanie's first day of kindergarten and
Speaker 1: DJ and Kimmy's first day of fifth grade.
Speaker 2: We just looked at it. Was it episode two to three?
Speaker 2: It is episode three, first season.
Speaker 3: I could have been there for the first few before
Speaker 3: I had to go back to Perfect Strangers, which was.
Speaker 2: Much's right, that's right right next door.
Speaker 4: We have been telling everyone about your storied career of
Speaker 4: directing and everything, and it's really I mean, it's super impressive,
Speaker 4: but Perfect Strangers family matters. You directed the movie My
Speaker 4: Big Fat Greek Wedding, which is just such a hit.
Speaker 4: We love of second sight, Fat Albert, and you started
Speaker 4: in theater?
Speaker 2: Really was where you came from? Uh?
Speaker 4: And I just I would love to hear a little
Speaker 4: bit about the background of Joel's Wick.
Speaker 3: Well, boy, okay, you ready for this?
Speaker 2: Like how did you start?
Speaker 4: Like what made you decide to come to Hollywood and
Speaker 4: get in this crazy business, and then how did you
Speaker 4: eventually wind up with this weird family?
Speaker 3: Okay, I can. I got a system here, I've how
Speaker 3: to tell I've been trying. As you get older, you
Speaker 3: start to try to desperately put together the pieces of
Speaker 3: your life as to what exactly, and that made the difference.
Speaker 3: And for me, it came down to connections. It was
Speaker 3: all about the luck of connections, because connections sometimes have
Speaker 3: nothing to do with who you are, but where you
Speaker 3: are at what time you're there, and those kind of things.
Speaker 3: So basically I started out at three and a half
Speaker 3: years old. My mother tells me I used to sing
Speaker 3: Jimmy Durant the imitations for their Marjon game, and the
Speaker 3: women loved that, so they'd invite me every time they
Speaker 3: started a Majong game to sing a little bit of
Speaker 3: Inky Dinky doo or something like that.
Speaker 4: And then when I wish I could have seen that,
Speaker 4: to be a fly on the wall of three and
Speaker 4: a half year old joels Wick singing in a majong game,
Speaker 4: please stop it.
Speaker 2: And then this is already amazing.
Speaker 3: Junior High School went on to Junior High School where
Speaker 3: I was very lucky. There was a teacher there who
Speaker 3: loved operettas, and she decided on her own wasn't part
Speaker 3: of the school program. She would put on an operetta
Speaker 3: every year. So I was in the for two years there.
Speaker 3: In the first year I did the Mercado and I
Speaker 3: played Coco, and the second year I played Si Slick
Speaker 3: in Nordy Marietta. And there was a young girl who
Speaker 3: was in the cast, not one of the stars, one
Speaker 3: of the three little maids from school are we purpose
Speaker 3: one of those girls. And we came to Madison High
Speaker 3: School and rock and roll hit nineteen fifty three. We
Speaker 3: entered Madison High School and rock and roll was starting
Speaker 3: to explode, and babe, wait, this little girl decided she
Speaker 3: was going to be a rock and roll singer end
Speaker 3: of it, and she was going to have a do
Speaker 3: op group at Madison High School, just like virtually every
Speaker 3: high school in Brooklyn had a due op group. And
Speaker 3: so we had a do op group. We called ourselves
Speaker 3: the co Signs. We met in a math class, the
Speaker 3: Yes And then eventually this young lady who was Carol
Speaker 3: Klein separated from the group and became Carol King. So
Speaker 3: I wash my god, Carol King, Yeah, I understand that
Speaker 3: to your.
Speaker 4: Like great one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
Speaker 3: But that's that's coincidence. I mean, how does that happened?
Speaker 4: I did not realize you were in a do wop
Speaker 4: group in high school with Carol King.
Speaker 3: Joe.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: So any rate, So Carol we went and all we
Speaker 3: moved on to in high school, she introduced me to
Speaker 3: this very this guy became my best friend, Roy Levine.
Speaker 3: Roy Levine directs mcbird in nineteen sixty seven, which was
Speaker 3: a major off Broadway hit and problem because it basically
Speaker 3: made the claim that Lyndon Johnson was responsible for the
Speaker 3: death of John F. Kennedy. So that was pretty political
Speaker 3: and basically my phone was tapped for the seven months
Speaker 3: I was in that show, and I was basically, you know,
Speaker 3: an aide or a crony of a cronies that would
Speaker 3: come on stage and say, sire, they're waiting for you,
Speaker 3: you know that kind of stay. And I sat there
Speaker 3: and at that point I thought maybe I was going
Speaker 3: to be an actor. I really never thought about it
Speaker 3: much because in sheep said, baby Brooklyn, you didn't have
Speaker 3: any dreams of that kind. Of stuff going on other
Speaker 3: than Carol, who knew she was going to be a star.
Speaker 3: God bless her. But anyway, so they sent me off
Speaker 3: to with Roy Levine to Midbird. In Midbird I met
Speaker 3: an actor named Andy Robinson who played the Aquarius killer
Speaker 3: in Dirty Harry. That was his big right and we
Speaker 3: became very good friends. And he one day was going
Speaker 3: to join a LaMaMa troop at Lomama, which was one
Speaker 3: of the great experimental theaters. Yes, yes, so he called
Speaker 3: me up and said, come on, you want to join
Speaker 3: LaMaMa with me? And I at that point had had
Speaker 3: a nervous breakdown because I realized I couldn't become an actor.
Speaker 3: I wasn't good enough. I had no idea what these
Speaker 3: people were doing that made them so good. But it
Speaker 3: was a hell of a cast that had Stacy Keach
Speaker 3: and Rue McClanahan and cleveonn Little and Bill Devane at
Speaker 3: Bardy who were just coming out of colleges all over
Speaker 3: America who were politically inspired to do this particular show
Speaker 3: about Lyndon Johnson. So that was that. So Andy got
Speaker 3: me to LaMaMa. And Andy was also the key to
Speaker 3: something I didn't so I couldn't really act much at
Speaker 3: LaMaMa because even in the troop I was in, I
Speaker 3: was not one of the good actors. So Andy at
Speaker 3: one point wrote a play called Last Chance Saloon, and
Speaker 3: he decided I was going to direct it. Now he
Speaker 3: had never seen me direct anything. I had only directed
Speaker 3: one thing in my life, and I thought that if
Speaker 3: I didn't direct this, the troop was going to break up,
Speaker 3: and Lumama was becoming very important to me. So I said, okay,
Speaker 3: I'll direct it. Well, the damn thing played the west
Speaker 3: coast of London, it played all over Europe. It became
Speaker 3: a major hit. I came back to America. I was
Speaker 3: a director. Oh my go now I was directing. I
Speaker 3: still had no goals. There were just no goals involved
Speaker 3: with this. I didn't know that there was any place
Speaker 3: you could go with this kind of a thing. But
Speaker 3: I was a director, and I directed the LaMaMa Plexus group.
Speaker 3: We were called in a number of shows, and one
Speaker 3: of the shows I was also teaching at the time,
Speaker 3: and I was teaching at Queen's College and Wheaton College
Speaker 3: and Brooklyn College and all over the place. This theoretical
Speaker 3: work that my LaMaMa troop was doing, which if you
Speaker 3: know or don't know. It's based on the work of
Speaker 3: Jersey Grotowsky, who were in the Polish lab theater, and
Speaker 3: he had this idea that if you trained actors like athletes,
Speaker 3: so they could stay in the moment and not think
Speaker 3: about whether they have craft or no craft, or what
Speaker 3: their craft is about. Somehow, that's what you aspired to
Speaker 3: get him in the moment, which was one of the
Speaker 3: things that was phenomenal with you guys, because you were
Speaker 3: always in the moment. You had no idea, there wasn't
Speaker 3: a moment.
Speaker 4: I mean as kids, that's that I look at kids
Speaker 4: all the time and I just there.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I was out at a restaurant the other day and
Speaker 4: this kid was just twirling around.
Speaker 2: What I was like, Oh, to be so in the moment,
Speaker 2: and but.
Speaker 4: Like, that's the goal as an actor, right is to
Speaker 4: just be so free.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. So basically, once I had picked up that
Speaker 3: little information, I realized that I would say I became
Speaker 3: a director and directed a number of shows for US
Speaker 3: and taught at various colleges. In one of the colleges
Speaker 3: I taught at was Queen's College, and one of the
Speaker 3: kids who am a student of mind three of them.
Speaker 3: Actually students of mind were Lowe Gans, Mark Rothman, and
Speaker 3: Greg Antonacci. Now they Greg Antonacci, who was a tough
Speaker 3: little Italian kid, basically just infused himself into my Lemama workshops.
Speaker 3: He wasn't invited, He just showed up and basically Greg
Speaker 3: wrote a show called Dance with Me, which I directed, choreographed,
Speaker 3: and was in. By the way, that's something you want
Speaker 3: to do again? It was really questionable.
Speaker 4: Yeah that's I'm like, wow that that yeah.
Speaker 3: The hill rate. I got a Tony nomination for Best
Speaker 3: Choreography and a Drama Desk nomination for Best Director of
Speaker 3: a Musical. So but and Greg. Meanwhile, through Mark Rothman
Speaker 3: and Lowell Gans, who had already made it out to
Speaker 3: Hollywood with their own story of connections, he went out
Speaker 3: to Hollywood to play a running role in Laverne and Shirley,
Speaker 3: and eventually he moved on to a continuing role in
Speaker 3: It was an Adam Arkham Adam Arkhams show a past
Speaker 3: eighty you Lose names, but it was an Adam busting.
Speaker 4: Busting lotten screwed then because I can't remember now, I
Speaker 4: know you were in good shape.
Speaker 3: So we did Busting Loose together and I came out
Speaker 3: to visit him because I had done a show a
Speaker 3: review that was playing in Chicago for a year and
Speaker 3: then moved on to Las Vegas in another production. So
Speaker 3: I was about forty minutes out of Los Angeles by playing,
Speaker 3: and I had some time, so I thought I'd come
Speaker 3: out and visit Greg and see what's going on. And
Speaker 3: at that point, so Greg, so, I'm watching these rehearsals
Speaker 3: for a couple of weeks in the stand, just watching
Speaker 3: these rehearsals, and doesn't seem like it seems like a
Speaker 3: little play for a twenty two minute play. So basically
Speaker 3: Greg gets in his head you that I should direct
Speaker 3: the sitcom. And I said to Greg, wait a second,
Speaker 3: I'm a theater director. I don't direct sitcom.
Speaker 2: And he said, well, if sitcom really is theater theater.
Speaker 3: I finally found that out as I got myself inebriated
Speaker 3: that night and got myself thinking, wait a second. First
Speaker 3: of all, you don't know if they're going to get
Speaker 3: the job, too. You don't know if you'd like the
Speaker 3: job once you get it. So basically they got to
Speaker 3: do the paint. One of my major beliefs was that
Speaker 3: you just got to take the shots. You can't turn
Speaker 3: down opportunities because it may not be in exactly the
Speaker 3: direction you wanted to go, but it may eventually get
Speaker 3: you to that place just taking a different route. But
Speaker 3: the fact that since I didn't have any goals anyway,
Speaker 3: it didn't make any difference to me what I was doing.
Speaker 3: So he set me up at this meeting at Paramount
Speaker 3: with this lady named Judy Copage, a very nice lady
Speaker 3: who was running casting for Powamount for directors getting them
Speaker 3: placed on the Paramount shows in that day. So I
Speaker 3: went into her and literally, this is an interview you
Speaker 3: cannot do today. And I'm not sure how I got
Speaker 3: away with it at that time, but I walked in.
Speaker 3: I said, listen, I'm not going to tell you that
Speaker 3: I can direct sitcom because I've never directed a sitcom,
Speaker 3: but I was watching for the last couple of weeks
Speaker 3: and in my estimation and monkey can direct sitcoms. And
Speaker 3: she looked at me, she said and made a call
Speaker 3: immediately to this guy Tony bar at CBS and said,
Speaker 3: I've got this guy. I wanted to direct an episode
Speaker 3: of Busting Loose. And that was my interview, and I
Speaker 3: basically had this episode of Busting Loose, and now the
Speaker 3: producers were concerned, well, you know, he's never done anything.
Speaker 3: So Greg said, I'll tell you what. I'll write a
Speaker 3: script and he'll direct my script. And so he was
Speaker 3: living at that time with Annie Potts Lovely any yes,
Speaker 3: oh yes, And so basically was a showby that was
Speaker 3: hopefully going to be a pilot for her for Annie
Speaker 3: Potts and Greg and Tanacci. So I directed it and
Speaker 3: it went fairly well, and I icily started to figure
Speaker 3: out the craft. I worked with the editor. I couldn't
Speaker 3: care about anybody else. The editor would tell me, no, no,
Speaker 3: you can't go from that shot to that shot. You
Speaker 3: can't do that. This is the way it goes. Because
Speaker 3: in those days we were using what was called the
Speaker 3: three headed movieola because it was all film and tape.
Speaker 3: Yet by the time you got around we were on tape.
Speaker 3: But essentially and basically was just three things learned. He'd
Speaker 3: mark out the cuts from from from real to real,
Speaker 3: and so I learned the idea of how this was supposed.
Speaker 4: To go, which I mean that for directing for TV
Speaker 4: and film, that's really what it is is knowing what
Speaker 4: you what shot you have to get because you're like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: we can go from here to hear. But if you
Speaker 4: have no connective tissue and you don't see how the
Speaker 4: person got from over here over here, all of a
Speaker 4: sudden they teleport and it looks really weird. And those
Speaker 4: are the things that like, you don't think about that
Speaker 4: you have to. It's not the theater where you can
Speaker 4: see everything. You have to make sure that people's eyes
Speaker 4: are going, where the action is.
Speaker 3: In the right direction, absolutely correct. So basically I realized
Speaker 3: that what I've always been was I finally realized that
Speaker 3: I was a systems person. I was in a visionary.
Speaker 3: You don't have to be a visionary to do Full
Speaker 3: House Family Matters or any of those shows, but a
Speaker 3: system person helps finding out the most efficient way to
Speaker 3: do the work that needs to be done. And part
Speaker 3: of that was I started to believe that the key
Speaker 3: was to let everybody be the best they can be,
Speaker 3: not to tell them what to do, but enable them
Speaker 3: to be the best. They could be very easy with
Speaker 3: kids because they're gonna do what they're gonna do, you know,
Speaker 3: But when it gets to adults, Yeah, how do you
Speaker 3: don't direct John Stamos or Bob Dagger or Coo Yer.
Speaker 3: There's no direct for these people.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, for many reasons, there was no directing them.
Speaker 2: But I actually I told the story.
Speaker 4: To someone the other day of the time, that that you,
Speaker 4: we all got in trouble, and that yes, yes, you
Speaker 4: were so pissed at every well you were so pissed
Speaker 4: at the adults, but.
Speaker 2: You you know, you went that's it.
Speaker 4: Everybody upstairs up to the you know, to the conference room,
Speaker 4: and so the whole cast.
Speaker 2: Went bitting around, including the baby. Everyone was like, okay,
Speaker 2: so we showed up. Joel walks in the room, He's like,
Speaker 2: not the kids, not the kids. They're fine, The kids
Speaker 2: are doing fine.
Speaker 3: To the adults, I couldn't do what I wanted to
Speaker 3: do the kids were in the room. But the fact
Speaker 3: is I had a great story about you, Jody. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you're aware of the story, because it's
Speaker 3: a wonderful story. It was basically, we were doing an
Speaker 3: episode of something at this time. You couldn't have been
Speaker 3: much more than five and a half years old. Maxim
Speaker 3: so his first season kind of stuff, and we're about
Speaker 3: to do your scene you were in and I get
Speaker 3: a quote she's not available she's in the bathroom. I said,
Speaker 3: what do you mean, she's in the bathroom. I'm about
Speaker 3: to do a scene. Go go knock on the door
Speaker 3: and tell her to get out of the bathroom. So
Speaker 3: somebody goes to knocks on the door and Jody get
Speaker 3: out of the bathroom. I'm not finished, that's what they hear.
Speaker 3: I'm not finished. So basically he came back out and said,
Speaker 3: she says she's not finished. I said, well, you go
Speaker 3: tell her to get finished and come out immediately. And
Speaker 3: they went back and he knocked again, and you said
Speaker 3: to the door, listen, if you come by to knock
Speaker 3: one more time, I'm not coming out at all. And
Speaker 3: it was at that point that I realized that the
Speaker 3: entire industry was run by the children. That basically, if
Speaker 3: a child is in a bathroom and needs to go potty,
Speaker 3: you cannot see this. The scene is over.
Speaker 4: You're working with children and animals. What needs to happen
Speaker 4: needs to happen, and.
Speaker 3: That's in the order that it needs to happen. So
Speaker 3: that was, yes, that was it taught me the loss.
Speaker 2: My god, that's hilarious.
Speaker 3: The enormous industry is running and this one girl is
Speaker 3: stopping the industry simply because she's going to the bathroom.
Speaker 2: I had to go, yeah, I guess a good potty.
Speaker 2: You'll call it a ten to one.
Speaker 1: But maybe you were taking a ten too.
Speaker 2: I mean, who knows. I was five and a half.
Speaker 2: Whatever needed to happen, he happened.
Speaker 3: That's right. But I loved your attitude about the fact
Speaker 3: you knock one more time.
Speaker 4: I'm not knock one more time, and you know on
Speaker 4: that that's just who I am. You've asked me one
Speaker 4: more time, didn't see how it goes one more time.
Speaker 2: You haven't changed to Joe. It's good to know, though.
Speaker 4: It's good to hear those stories where I go, oh, no,
Speaker 4: this is that's just my true self.
Speaker 3: That's exactly who you were at any rate. So that
Speaker 3: was it. So I started working sitcoms primarily because I
Speaker 3: was lucky in that the first thing I got to
Speaker 3: do was busting loose and pretty much out of the
Speaker 3: Gary Marshall chain, right, and so so I was doing
Speaker 3: there was nothing else for me to do. I went
Speaker 3: back to New York, I did a play, which was
Speaker 3: a disaster, and then I came back to California because
Speaker 3: I wrote to Lowe gans and Mark Ruthman saying, listen,
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of coming out again. You're think you got
Speaker 3: any work for me, because they thought they did pretty
Speaker 3: good on The Busting Loose and they were doing at
Speaker 3: that time a new show that Ted Knight was doing,
Speaker 3: coming off of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, right the
Speaker 3: Ted Night Show, And so basically they gave me an
Speaker 3: episode to direct and to keep me around. They allowed
Speaker 3: me to actually act in an episode where I played
Speaker 3: a bunny farmer, Yes, a bunny farmer, a farmer that
Speaker 3: actually raises bunnies. And it was a dating show, you know,
Speaker 3: one of those things. So basically, so I was doing
Speaker 3: some various there's ten minute things we used to do
Speaker 3: that were to try to sell a pilot before we
Speaker 3: did the entire thing. And I was doing something that
Speaker 3: eventually turned out to be Angie but when I with
Speaker 3: Donna pescal But when I did it, it was just
Speaker 3: a ten minute No, I don't know what the hell
Speaker 3: it was, but I did it. And at the end
Speaker 3: of the thing, I came out and this big tall
Speaker 3: man comes up to me and says, I let you work,
Speaker 3: and I said, well, thank you. I had no idea
Speaker 3: who he was. He says, I'm going to give you
Speaker 3: a shot with the girls next season. And I had
Speaker 3: no idea who the girls were, and I still had
Speaker 3: no idea who this guy was. But it was Gary
Speaker 3: Marshall offering me a chance to direct Laverne and Shirley,
Speaker 3: And so I found out, Oh yeah, So I had
Speaker 3: to go home and I had to research what the
Speaker 3: hell all this was because I'd never seen a sitcom,
Speaker 3: particularly a theater. Person in New York is not sitting
Speaker 3: home watching, you know, the Merry Time the More Show. Particularly,
Speaker 3: So they gave me a shot and I went back
Speaker 3: and I was directing the first the third season of
Speaker 3: Lavernon Shirley when it was the number one show in America. Wow,
Speaker 3: I mean that you can't that when that happens, it's
Speaker 3: just what are the art? But at any rate, it
Speaker 3: worked out well for me because the girls, who you
Speaker 3: don't tell what to do either. You didn't tell Penny
Speaker 3: and Cindy how to make I mean, you had to
Speaker 3: be out of your mind to try to do that.
Speaker 3: So they liked me because I had a New York energy,
Speaker 3: and they taught me the system, especially Penny Marshall taught
Speaker 3: me the system. She would walk on to a stage
Speaker 3: or they were never around because of the fact that
Speaker 3: they were in the middle of the fight of the
Speaker 3: lives for women, they were not getting equal salaries with men.
Speaker 3: Suzanne Seckers had started a huge fura and Penny and
Speaker 3: Cindy joined in, and they were in major fights with
Speaker 3: Power Amount and with ABC about the fact that they
Speaker 3: were the number one show in America and were making
Speaker 3: half the salary of Henry Winkler and Ron Howard. Right. Wow.
Speaker 3: They were never around for rehearsals. So basically there was
Speaker 3: no rehearsals in the morning. They come in at that
Speaker 3: we come into twelve o'clock and we work from twelve
Speaker 3: to one, and then we do the run through at
Speaker 3: two o'clock and that was it. So Penny would come in,
Speaker 3: the scene would be said. He'd come in, She'd say, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put my
Speaker 3: bag here, I'm putting my jacket here, I'm going to
Speaker 3: the kitchen. I'm getting a coc and milk or whatever
Speaker 3: that pepsi and milk things she used to drink. And
Speaker 3: then I'm going to pick up my coat, pick up
Speaker 3: my bag and out the door, and Cindy knew to
Speaker 3: just follow along, and that's what she did. And she
Speaker 3: never walked on a joke. She always walked on the laugh.
Speaker 3: She waited for the laugh and walked laugh and walk
Speaker 3: laugh and hit every mark and then was out the
Speaker 3: door and it was all over, and basically the same
Speaker 3: thing happened. You can't tell Lenny and Squiggy what to
Speaker 3: do with the hell well Lenny and Squiggy anyway. You
Speaker 3: know that the only people I honestly believed at that point,
Speaker 3: the first people that got the rights to their own
Speaker 3: names in order to should Penny it's Penny, because Penny
Speaker 3: was dating Rob Marshall, Rob Ryan and they were friends
Speaker 3: of Rob Reiners. So she went to see a show
Speaker 3: with Lenny and Squiggy and said, oh, I want them
Speaker 3: on lavern and Shirley. So she came back to the
Speaker 3: network and said, I want these guys on Laverne and Shirley.
Speaker 3: And the guys would only do it if they could
Speaker 3: maintain the rights to the names Lenny and Squiggy, and
Speaker 3: they did, and when the show was over, they went
Speaker 3: out and toured as Lenny and the squig Tones, and.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's wow.
Speaker 4: And then was it through doing Laverne and Shirley then
Speaker 4: that you made some of the connections that led you
Speaker 4: to Full House.
Speaker 3: Yes, basically that's exactly how it transferred. I did to
Speaker 3: Laverne and Shirley, and then during that period of time
Speaker 3: I did a few Mork and Mindy's and then went
Speaker 3: on and did the pilot of Boos and Buddies, and
Speaker 3: that was pretty interesting because Tom Hanks was a wonderer.
Speaker 3: I had no idea how a guy twenty one years
Speaker 3: old with absolutely no credits, he was working as an
Speaker 3: understudy in an off Broadway theater in a cold water flat,
Speaker 3: he used to say, and basically he got an audition
Speaker 3: and they got he got the role. But he we
Speaker 3: saw myself. I don't understand how somebody at twenty one
Speaker 3: with no work. He wasn't a.
Speaker 4: Child, but you know, probably the same way that somebody
Speaker 4: with no directing experience walking and says, I don't know
Speaker 4: what I'm doing, but hey, let's give it a shot.
Speaker 3: So basically, so I did. Those are the big three
Speaker 3: that I did at that particular first juncture of my career,
Speaker 3: and then through that i'd met Gary Marshall. Of course,
Speaker 3: because they'd done some stuff with him and Barbo yet
Speaker 3: and they were going to launch Full House, and I
Speaker 3: got they told me they wanted me to direct the pilot,
Speaker 3: and I thought, oh wow, okay, this is going to
Speaker 3: be fun. You know, children and all. But it was
Speaker 3: a great show for me because remember I was raising
Speaker 3: Jamie and Hillary at the same rate and the same age.
Speaker 3: You paperwork, so every one of your classrooms my kids
Speaker 3: are in. Oh yeah, virtually every executive who would.
Speaker 4: Jamie and Hillary's wick should have gotten a title card
Speaker 4: at some point in one of the seasons.
Speaker 2: Really for that special appearance by.
Speaker 3: Where your seek was, because it was always next.
Speaker 2: To Hill, exactly right and right there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she could make faces and do stuff that she
Speaker 3: needed to do to staill alive in the scenes, you know,
Speaker 3: like when Michelle comes in climbing under the desks and
Speaker 3: she's you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: What do you do you remember anything about directing the pilot,
Speaker 4: Like do you remember thinking this show is going to
Speaker 4: be a hit or the like, or this show is
Speaker 4: going to tank?
Speaker 2: Like what were what did you.
Speaker 3: I thought the reputation of Miller boy Y had had
Speaker 3: a real good chance because at that time the major
Speaker 3: producers could pretty well get their shows on the air.
Speaker 3: How long they lasted is another thing. But remember we
Speaker 3: started that pilot. You should know that without Bob Saggett
Speaker 3: did that pilot with a different actor, a very nice
Speaker 3: actor by the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah we have, Yeah, we talked about it. We've shown
Speaker 2: his picture we had.
Speaker 4: I found an original picture from the pilot that we
Speaker 4: had taken with John Posey, like all in character that
Speaker 4: was sitting on the mantle and it was John Posey,
Speaker 4: the woman who played Pam, and a random not an
Speaker 4: Olsen twin and me and Candae. That was like a
Speaker 4: family photo that was on the mantle in the very
Speaker 4: first But yeah, we were looking through it we found
Speaker 4: that on the show.
Speaker 3: I actually have that pilot.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I actually.
Speaker 3: Have the pilot. So what happened was when when when
Speaker 3: when our friend Jeff Franklin went to the network said,
Speaker 3: I've always written this thing for Bob Saggot, and Saggot
Speaker 3: wasn't available when we did Department because he was doing
Speaker 3: some comedy shtick for CBS or something five minutes of
Speaker 3: news in the morning. So once he was available, Jeff said,
Speaker 3: I want to put Saggott in the role even though yeah,
Speaker 3: Posey was a very fine actor, but Saggot was the
Speaker 3: key he wanted.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, and you know, it's interesting, like going back and
Speaker 4: starting and watching the show from the beginning, it really
Speaker 4: like it. You see it It was Bob was the
Speaker 4: right he had that he had that sort of nerd but.
Speaker 2: Loving but like he just was a dad. Like he was.
Speaker 2: He was the epitome of like dad jokes, you know, funny.
Speaker 3: He knew how to do funny.
Speaker 4: And he knew yes, exactly funny. He knew how to
Speaker 4: do funny. But yeah, what I mean he.
Speaker 2: Was the heart.
Speaker 4: Had you, uh, directed kids often in your career up
Speaker 4: until that point because everything I'm hearing herring more community,
Speaker 4: I'm not hearing a lot of kids and.
Speaker 3: Kids at that point. I do not think they were
Speaker 3: kids at that point. But we were, you know, we
Speaker 3: had some big help on the kids that had Adria.
Speaker 4: We had Adria was our last guest on the show
Speaker 4: we had and all of her amazingness.
Speaker 2: But yeah, what was it like working with kids? Were
Speaker 2: was it like.
Speaker 4: A whole new like oh this is I mean, you
Speaker 4: had kids, but like trying to direct kids, we.
Speaker 3: Had a system and the system was very smart. We
Speaker 3: had stand ins for every one of you kids, and
Speaker 3: the scenes would be rehearsed with the stand ins. You know,
Speaker 3: he knew the scene means. And then the stand ins
Speaker 3: would give you your blocking for this, and then you
Speaker 3: had we had Brian Cale was there as a dialog approach.
Speaker 3: We have.
Speaker 4: Yes, we've talked about the infamous Brian Kle that's right.
Speaker 3: And Brian was the one who basically had to pass
Speaker 3: on to you information that I thought you needed, right,
Speaker 3: information that he notes. Yep, I have a good story
Speaker 3: with Brian to you in a second. The fact is
Speaker 3: that so you had we packaged up, well, there was
Speaker 3: a system that was in place that really was smart.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I find sitcoms tend to I mean
Speaker 4: that's you know, the joke has always never take a
Speaker 4: sitcom out of the stage, because sitcoms have we it
Speaker 4: is like a it's a it's a system.
Speaker 2: You've got this rehearsal, you've got you know, you.
Speaker 4: Kind of always know what you're doing where and how
Speaker 4: and what Your schedule is very much.
Speaker 3: Very organized down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of great.
Speaker 3: If we were all in school till noon, Yeah, nobody.
Speaker 3: I didn't see any of you till noon. Now I
Speaker 3: didn't see any of you till after lunch was about
Speaker 3: one o'clock. We'd start to put together and eventually we
Speaker 3: were able to give run throughs at like three o'clock.
Speaker 3: They were used to five o'clock run throughs because we
Speaker 3: do it scene twice and move on scene twice, because
Speaker 3: I believe the actors should take responsibility for the work
Speaker 3: they're gonna do, and beating him to death by having
Speaker 3: a scene being done three, four or five times in rehearsal,
Speaker 3: you've lost it by the time they want to get
Speaker 3: on cameras. So yeah, I decided being fresh could do
Speaker 3: some things, you know. But anyway, Brian Cale, this is
Speaker 3: an interesting story about Brian Kale actually auditioned for a
Speaker 3: role in mcbird, and I was an assistant stage manager,
Speaker 3: so I'd been in his auditions and I thought, what
Speaker 3: is an interesting guy? You know? And then it has
Speaker 3: to be fifteen twenty years later, I'm now on stage
Speaker 3: doing Dance with Me, a show, like I said, A directed, choreographed,
Speaker 3: and was basically had the third lead in and I
Speaker 3: had to get out of that show because once again
Speaker 3: I knew I wasn't an actor. I mean, Dance with
Speaker 3: Me was if nineteen fifties throwback musical. So we did
Speaker 3: all the work I did with Carol and the co signs,
Speaker 3: all the songs we did. Matter of fact, I used
Speaker 3: two of Carol's songs, not even know where there were
Speaker 3: Carol songs at the time. But I looked at Brian
Speaker 3: and I said, you you're going to replace me. He said, huh.
Speaker 3: I said you're going to replace me and dance with me?
Speaker 3: He said what? I said, Yes, You're going on to Broadway.
Speaker 3: Get ready, we're going into rehearsals tomorrow. So he was
Speaker 3: a He was a much better actor than I was,
Speaker 3: for sure, And it was so interesting to see a
Speaker 3: role that I just naturally did because I just did it. Actually,
Speaker 3: Brian had acted. He had to find the acting route
Speaker 3: that had to play the character. He knew the staging,
Speaker 3: he knew the dance numbers, he knew everything, but he
Speaker 3: had to find an active route playing the character. I
Speaker 3: just opened my mouth and I was the character. But
Speaker 3: I did find out and in watching the run through
Speaker 3: with Brian in the thing, I looked at that show
Speaker 3: and I said, oh my god, if I wasn't in
Speaker 3: it to begin with, there's at least five things that
Speaker 3: would never show up on stage. There were some stuff
Speaker 3: that I had in that show that I would have
Speaker 3: never allowed if I was watching it as a director,
Speaker 3: you know, but we survived.
Speaker 4: The perspective is interesting, you know, like when you kind
Speaker 4: of shit, you're like, oh, it looks very different on
Speaker 4: this side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ooh does it ever? Because from the inside it
Speaker 3: felt like everything was moving along smoothly. It was a
Speaker 3: little it was a wild show. It was a bit
Speaker 3: out of control. I mean, there was times that things
Speaker 3: got out of hand, but the fact is that I
Speaker 3: was on stage, so I get them under control. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'd want one actor who came a wonderful writer in Hollywood, Steu' Silver.
Speaker 3: Stuve Silver wrote for a number of shows and created
Speaker 3: a number of shows himself. Webster was one of his
Speaker 3: shows he created. But anyway, Wow, So Stu was outrageously funny,
Speaker 3: but trutally out of control. So the only way I
Speaker 3: could get him in control was and he started to
Speaker 3: go into one of his this crazy monologues about being
Speaker 3: a blind man, and he put up one finger and say,
Speaker 3: what do I know? This could be a three? And
Speaker 3: you just go on and on until I walked over
Speaker 3: and basically smacked him in the face to shut him up,
Speaker 3: and we go on with the show and the great
Speaker 3: moment on dancing. I have to tell this, when I
Speaker 3: got the nomination for the choreography, Tony and I didn't
Speaker 3: have a dancer in that company. There was nobody in
Speaker 3: that company could dance their way out of anything. So
Speaker 3: I remember the dressing room saying before the show tonight,
Speaker 3: we're gonna go out there and we're gonna dance like
Speaker 3: we've never danced before. We are going to give this
Speaker 3: audience the dances they've never seen before. And we went
Speaker 3: out on the show and the first number we do
Speaker 3: is based a Carol King number called the Locomotion. Everybody's
Speaker 3: doing the brand in a train heading downtown. So chugging
Speaker 3: downstage and I chugged right off the front of the stage,
Speaker 3: out of sight, turned around, made a one eighty, and
Speaker 3: when chugged being back with the rest of the cast.
Speaker 3: But the cast couldn't look at me for the rest
Speaker 3: of the show. They all remember they saw this.
Speaker 2: So you're like, this is gonna be the greatest show ever.
Speaker 3: And then what it was. It was a good moment
Speaker 3: at any rate that was the dance from period of time.
Speaker 3: And then then sitcoms took over, and look like I said,
Speaker 3: ran into the Marshall organization with Boyette and Miller, right,
Speaker 3: and I got a chance to do their shows, which
Speaker 3: was you know, perfect, strangest family matters, step by step,
Speaker 3: that whole TG I f lineup. I kept on moving along,
Speaker 3: you know, and we brought in Rich Correll, who became
Speaker 3: a very good friend because Rich, you know, was a
Speaker 3: producer on the pilot A full House.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right, because he was produced I remember he.
Speaker 4: I met Rich when I did Valerie because he was
Speaker 4: a producer on Valerie.
Speaker 2: So I met him then.
Speaker 3: And then basically when basically I was stuck with I
Speaker 3: don't know, I don't know. Did he do full houses
Speaker 3: at the beginning? I don't remember, because I do, Yeah,
Speaker 3: yeah he did.
Speaker 4: He was the one that went up and scouted the
Speaker 4: house and found out it was the it was the
Speaker 4: his sister's ex boyfriend or something that owned the house
Speaker 4: that they randomly knocked on the door that became the
Speaker 4: full house house.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So again, connections, connections, connections.
Speaker 3: So anyway that I knew he took when I couldn't
Speaker 3: when I moved from Family Matters to to Full House.
Speaker 3: In the last four years, I took over the final
Speaker 3: four or five seasons of Full House. He went on
Speaker 3: too Family Matters and basically and I saw basically we
Speaker 3: were together for a long time, and then we both
Speaker 3: go into Disney Channel in the later years. It's another
Speaker 3: story because basically I decided that I was watching the
Speaker 3: careers and the name of the business changed. The change
Speaker 3: when we went to videotape. When you were on a
Speaker 3: three camera film thing, the only people who knew what
Speaker 3: being shot was the directors and the camera operators, and
Speaker 3: at the end of every scene, the camera opera would
Speaker 3: say I missed that close, sup, I missed this, I
Speaker 3: need that again, or they'd say perfectly me, it's gone.
Speaker 3: And the producers had no idea what was in the
Speaker 3: can or not in the camp Then tape.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because there's no I mean, there's no video village,
Speaker 4: there's no monitors.
Speaker 3: Then all of a sudden, the tape comes along and
Speaker 3: the concept of video village comes along, and at that
Speaker 3: point the producers are.
Speaker 4: I want to see right then, I want to see
Speaker 4: what's happening right now. I have ideas and thought oh yeah, No.
Speaker 3: That made it very tough that all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: the producers were all sitting there saying, well, you need
Speaker 3: a close up someone, So I said, I shot it already.
Speaker 3: No you didn't. I didn't see it. But because you
Speaker 3: didn't see it didn't mean I didn't shoot it. No, no,
Speaker 3: but they shoot it again. So the number of things
Speaker 3: that we reshot that had no business to be reshot
Speaker 3: because they couldn't see all four cameras particularly well that fast. Yet,
Speaker 3: and as they got better and better, it became apparent
Speaker 3: that they didn't really want to have a consistent director
Speaker 3: on their shows. They wanted directors.
Speaker 2: It became it became a producers mediums.
Speaker 3: And because of that, if you didn't do the work
Speaker 3: that the producers wanted, you just didn't get to do
Speaker 3: that directing job again.
Speaker 4: Which is a film is much more directing media it's
Speaker 4: the director is in control, but TV it's all about
Speaker 4: the producers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if the producers are the writers, it's even worse.
Speaker 3: But the fact that they started to take it on,
Speaker 3: you didn't find that there were too many people that
Speaker 3: were going to be directing every episode of shows anymore.
Speaker 3: You would do three of three of that and two
Speaker 3: of this and two of that. You just move along.
Speaker 3: And I had spent the first whatever twenty years doing
Speaker 3: sitcoms being the director of the series, so I was
Speaker 3: not particularly overjoyed with that kind of thing, and it
Speaker 3: kind of felt that the career, which had leveled off,
Speaker 3: was starting to see its beginning of its dip. So
Speaker 3: I was I thought, maybe it's time to get the
Speaker 3: hell out. So I remember calling up Hanks and I
Speaker 3: said to Hanks, I got an idea that I think
Speaker 3: maybe I want to go into directing movies, comedy movies,
Speaker 3: because maybe a comedy director in a comedy movie might
Speaker 3: be funny. And I sent him a script I wanted
Speaker 3: him to read, and he read it and gave me
Speaker 3: dutiful notes and said, but why are you doing this?
Speaker 3: I said, because I'm getting out of TV Tom, And
Speaker 3: he said, oh, really, that's great, because I have something
Speaker 3: I want you to direct. And I said what, And
Speaker 3: he sends me the script of my big fat Greek Wedding. Wow,
Speaker 3: sends me the script of my Big Factory. I would
Speaker 3: have directed the phone Book if he asked me.
Speaker 5: To, right, Yeah, So those connections, I I think Tom
Speaker 5: Hanks came to I think he came to set one
Speaker 5: day to visit you actually say hi.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Truly as nice a man as he was
Speaker 3: purported to be, you couldn't act that level of niceness.
Speaker 3: You truly couldn't. But essentially, so that was it, and
Speaker 3: I got Greek Wedding, and then I spent about ten
Speaker 3: years doing I did Greek Wedding, fat Albert and Elvis
Speaker 3: had left the building. The best one was probably Elvis. Well,
Speaker 3: other than Greek Wedding, Elvis left the Building was a
Speaker 3: very good show. But the problem was the producers of
Speaker 3: this show got sick and so they couldn't spend any
Speaker 3: time trying to sell the show. So they sold it
Speaker 3: off to markets where it could be on airports and
Speaker 3: airplanes and stuff like that. Never got its share. But
Speaker 3: so it was over and I don't know what he
Speaker 3: was going to do. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I go and take Hillary to lunch. At this point,
Speaker 3: Hillary is working as an executive secretary of for the
Speaker 3: guy who is doing all the hiring at the at
Speaker 3: the Disney Channel, and basically, so I took it to
Speaker 3: lunch and we brought her in and I said hello
Speaker 3: to the guy, and then I left and he says
Speaker 3: to Hillary, Hillary, you never mentioned that your father was
Speaker 3: Joel's wick and she said, yeah, yeah, here's my father, Joel.
Speaker 3: Do you think you can get Joel to direct some
Speaker 3: episodes of sitcoms for the Disney Channel? So she said,
Speaker 3: I'll try, and so she calls me up. She says, Dad,
Speaker 3: they're wondering if you would direct any episodes of any
Speaker 3: whatever the show is going to be at that particular
Speaker 3: point for the Disney Channel. And I said, Hillary, do
Speaker 3: you think it's going to help your career? And she
Speaker 3: said I think it made I said, well, if you
Speaker 3: think it might, you tell them that I will direct
Speaker 3: anything you tell me to direct. There you go, and
Speaker 3: there I was starting to work for the Disney Channel
Speaker 3: until about, oh, I guess about five or six months
Speaker 3: into the run, when they found out that Hillary was
Speaker 3: my daughter, and that was a no no at Disney.
Speaker 3: I must have been put in simply because I was
Speaker 3: her father, right, And so they called up IRV and
Speaker 3: said I think we have to let him go and
Speaker 3: her said why. He said, well because family. I said
Speaker 3: have you seen his IMDb? And they said, well no,
Speaker 3: I said, check his IMDb. They checked my IMDb and
Speaker 3: they said, okay, I think we can make it work.
Speaker 2: I'd never mind, actually mind.
Speaker 3: This would be work on. And then I just hung on.
Speaker 3: And luckily my biggest thing was Zendia Zendaya. I had
Speaker 3: Zendea for seven years.
Speaker 2: That's right, you did that. You did her show?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did both Shake it Up and then I
Speaker 3: did Casey Undercover. So I watched her move from a
Speaker 3: fourteen year old to a twenty one year old essentially
Speaker 3: during that time, and knew that this was a very
Speaker 3: nice lady, super bright, great parents, all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: and she had talent she.
Speaker 2: Could, yeah, super talented.
Speaker 3: So I thought, let's see where this takes her. Because
Speaker 3: she was told she was beautiful. You know, we were
Speaker 3: afraid in doing the show that she she edged out
Speaker 3: at five ten and a half. Her father six two,
Speaker 3: her mother is six four and a half.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: It's so told that she'd be out of the business
Speaker 3: by being just too tall for the business, right, But
Speaker 3: luckily she never grew pissed.
Speaker 4: Zoe is five to ten now, by the way, my
Speaker 4: older daughter, Oh my, she just grew a little bit
Speaker 4: more shot. Yeah, maybe five nine and three quarter, but
Speaker 4: she's tall.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's tall. That is tall for me, virtually anybody's.
Speaker 2: I know, Well, that's true. Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3: I had the great Dantagy.
Speaker 4: But you pack a lot of punch in a small package,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. There's everyone knows when Joel's entered.
Speaker 2: The room speaking.
Speaker 4: So speaking of so, I have a story, and I
Speaker 4: wonder if you remember this triggered something when you said
Speaker 4: talked about disney World, because we you were our director
Speaker 4: for the episodes that we shot disney World, which I
Speaker 4: would love to hear about two because I'm sure that
Speaker 4: was its own special kind of hell, trying to shoot
Speaker 4: in an amusement park with everyone standing there watching and
Speaker 4: not make it look like everyone's standing there watching. Yes,
Speaker 4: but I remember, I don't know you you you had
Speaker 4: flown off the handle about something you were passed about
Speaker 4: because you were dealing with people and us and cast
Speaker 4: and and just an all manner of things, and I
Speaker 4: don't know, you screamed about something, and I remember I was,
Speaker 4: I was like.
Speaker 2: Joe's so mean, He's so I just hate him. I
Speaker 2: would hate to be his kid. I hate to be
Speaker 2: Hillary or Jamie Famous hate him. And like they went
Speaker 2: on in this whole thing.
Speaker 4: And then I believe it was might have been Brian
Speaker 4: Cale came over and gently reminded me that I was miked.
Speaker 2: I all video village, could hear you?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I was like whoops.
Speaker 4: I was like yeah, and I but I remember that
Speaker 4: I was yeah and uh.
Speaker 2: At some point I think I I was like, sorry.
Speaker 3: Y, yeah, I was. I was capable of going off
Speaker 3: the handle on small things. Anything large has to be handled.
Speaker 3: You don't have the time, you know what.
Speaker 2: I totally relate to that.
Speaker 4: Like little things, I'm like, oh my god, ah, but
Speaker 4: like the entire world's falling apart.
Speaker 3: I'm like, all right, cool, let's do this exactly right,
Speaker 3: same thing, exactly what it was. You just didn't have
Speaker 3: any time for nonsense. If there was a real problem,
Speaker 3: I mean there was just you know quotes, I would
Speaker 3: do it. And I do remember that going to tape
Speaker 3: and I'd be up in a booth. And Jay Sandrich
Speaker 3: basically who directed Mary Tyler Moore, who's one of the
Speaker 3: major directors in the just the generation before us, he
Speaker 3: used to use a clicker, little clicker.
Speaker 2: I remember, oh, I remember your clicker.
Speaker 3: And yes, snapping and I remember that I got the
Speaker 3: clicker down and I thought that was pretty By.
Speaker 4: The way, the clicker, just for those who are listening,
Speaker 4: the clicker is the thing, and some people snap, but
Speaker 4: it's what you as a director, you used.
Speaker 2: Signal in between shots.
Speaker 3: Yes, cut hats is what you used to cut with.
Speaker 3: So I remember Jimmy Burrows, who turned out to be
Speaker 3: the dean as far as concern of sitcom directing. He
Speaker 3: was working me over about oh, misters, Wick can't snap,
Speaker 3: he has to use a clicker, has to use a clicker.
Speaker 3: And then one day he gets to do his first
Speaker 3: taped pilot and he's in the booth and his fingers freeze.
Speaker 3: He can no longer click. It's all gone. He's gotten
Speaker 3: through one scene and his fingers as jammed up on him.
Speaker 3: He got a call in the booth work I think
Speaker 3: I was doing Webster at the time, and he said, Joel,
Speaker 3: do you have an extra clicker and go over to
Speaker 3: his booth and hand him my second clicker because you
Speaker 3: had to have a backup clicker, right right, But that
Speaker 3: was an interesting period.
Speaker 2: Of Oh yeah, I remember, I remember just hearing that.
Speaker 3: Little that's right. But the background, Lauren, it was so
Speaker 3: interesting in a number of instances because remember we didn't
Speaker 3: have anything any kind of internet, no capability. There was
Speaker 3: no way of noting what the hell was going on
Speaker 3: for the moment.
Speaker 4: This is all yeah, pre cell phone, pre internet days.
Speaker 4: It was like when we shot in Hawaii and we
Speaker 4: all went to the wrong.
Speaker 2: Beach, but nobody knew because there was no way.
Speaker 4: To call anybody from one place on the other end.
Speaker 2: So like half of us went to the wrong beach.
Speaker 2: It was the whole thing.
Speaker 4: And that was in Hawaii, But yeah, I can only
Speaker 4: imagine in Disney World trying to communicate things well.
Speaker 3: So basically we were there and it was interesting because
Speaker 3: it was the first time I think the cast understood that,
Speaker 3: certainly the children understood that they were stars. All of
Speaker 3: a sudden, there's places surrounded by people who were just watching,
Speaker 3: where everything you do and we're on the front line
Speaker 3: of every rod we wanted to go on. All those
Speaker 3: things are being treated, and even the big scenes where
Speaker 3: the public was watching, and I was begging and.
Speaker 2: Getting this, please keep walking, stop staring.
Speaker 3: All I let them stare or make believe you're talking
Speaker 3: to each other, and then I'd shoot because our children,
Speaker 3: you know, I think that was the one where that
Speaker 3: was the one where Michelle decided she was wandering off
Speaker 3: because she was not happy with what was going on.
Speaker 2: She becomes Princess for the day or whatever.
Speaker 3: She becomes prince and we had the tea party. And
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know whether you would know
Speaker 3: about this or not. But wait, the guy playing pass out. Yes,
Speaker 3: the white rabbit passed out. The white rabbit passed out.
Speaker 3: And you cannot take off the costume of a Disney
Speaker 3: employee playing a character.
Speaker 4: Until they are well backstage and away from the view
Speaker 4: of the public.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. So they take this guy and they
Speaker 3: brought in a replacement white rabbit, and the scene with
Speaker 3: his right rabbit from the lat.
Speaker 2: From from Bunny Farmer to white Rabbit. Letok, you go.
Speaker 3: You weren't allowed to tell these Disney characters what to do.
Speaker 3: I remember the one scene where Laurie was on a
Speaker 3: thing waiting with Chippendale. She's talking to Kipndale about the
Speaker 3: fact that she's waiting for stay mus and Uncle Jesse
Speaker 3: has not arrived or something. And basically I couldn't tell
Speaker 3: Chippendale what to do. There would except no direction. They
Speaker 3: would stay.
Speaker 4: The direction would just chatter off, you know, I've heard,
Speaker 4: I've heard chipmunks are notoriously difficult.
Speaker 3: To deal That's right, very difficult. Even after chipmunks are difficult.
Speaker 3: That was a tough scene because they just wanted they
Speaker 3: would just jabber and Laurie did great. She just held
Speaker 3: on to the whole thing pretty good. But that was
Speaker 3: that was a good experience. That particular thing down there
Speaker 3: that was fun was.
Speaker 4: Was that, like, I mean, as far as like location shoots,
Speaker 4: was that one of your well, now you've done like
Speaker 4: big fat Greek wedding and stuff, but up until that point,
Speaker 4: like Greek one was after, but up until that point,
Speaker 4: had you done a bit pretty much.
Speaker 3: That was pretty much the biggest location thing. We did
Speaker 3: another one at the Tanka Verdi Dude Ranch. There was
Speaker 3: a Tanka Verdi show where that was also outside location
Speaker 3: kind of a thing. And then the sitcoms and were
Speaker 3: starting to develop where they would get one seed case.
Speaker 3: Seinfeld did that kite quite well with the coffee shop
Speaker 3: and then the walks on the streets leading to the
Speaker 3: So basically people start to write as used to write
Speaker 3: in one scene or something that might be on some
Speaker 3: kind of a location, so you did. But basically I
Speaker 3: shot him like a sitcom.
Speaker 4: I no, yeah, I feel like most of our unless
Speaker 4: we went out for something very specific, we were usually
Speaker 4: on the stage and again in our little system and
Speaker 4: in our.
Speaker 3: Going right from school to your lunch, where all three
Speaker 3: of you used to follow Bob Saggi around just like
Speaker 3: his own three kids. It was a funny thing in
Speaker 3: the world. You know, famous had a great relationship with Mary,
Speaker 3: Kate and Ashley. But the fact was that Sagged was
Speaker 3: the father of the group and if he was something,
Speaker 3: you see all the three of you in size place
Speaker 3: order marching along to Bob's to something or other, and
Speaker 3: that was kind of cool. And the fact that he
Speaker 3: had three daughters exactly the same aid because you was
Speaker 3: insane and that had something for Andrew to the thing
Speaker 3: that struck me with Anne, which she was the first
Speaker 3: person that I knew that was being put into put
Speaker 3: being put into full house whose entire responsibility was to
Speaker 3: be funny. Everybody else had stories to tell. Everybody else
Speaker 3: was a real child of something or other. Uh. Yes,
Speaker 3: Cooier was a bit out of his mind and was
Speaker 3: being given the freedom to kind of go with certain things.
Speaker 3: That made him happy. But the fact is, when Andrew
Speaker 3: came in, it was the first one who came in.
Speaker 3: Simply the job was you gotta be funny. Other than that,
Speaker 3: you had some stories that were interesting.
Speaker 2: But you did.
Speaker 4: We kind of mention this that Kimmy was a slightly
Speaker 4: underdeveloped character, but she had some great singers.
Speaker 3: She had fabulous dingers, and yes, every once in a
Speaker 3: while you'd see her in her relationship with Candace where
Speaker 3: you could see that there was a story that was
Speaker 3: worth being told. But the is that she was still
Speaker 3: a nut job in the story, you know, because she
Speaker 3: stood up for so many things. You know there's anything
Speaker 3: wrong to be said, Angie, Barbara got to say it
Speaker 3: is Kimmy, you know, so I do remember that was
Speaker 3: a big help. All of a sudden, you knew that
Speaker 3: when she was coming in she's fighting you all the time.
Speaker 3: You're consistent documents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very true. Frenemies in this Yes, in the show.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: We feel extremely lucky to have worked with a director
Speaker 4: as talented as Joel and we are so glad we
Speaker 4: had this opportunity to ask him all about his career,
Speaker 4: his time on full House and Fuller House and everything
Speaker 4: else in between, so make sure and join us for
Speaker 4: part two of our interview with Joel's Wick.
Speaker 2: We're very excited to tell.
Speaker 4: You more, and in the meantime, make sure you're following
Speaker 4: us on Instagram at how Rude Podcast. Make sure you're
Speaker 4: liking and subscribing to the podcast wherever you're listening so
Speaker 4: that you can make sure and get the newest episodes
Speaker 4: as soon as they come out. And we will see
Speaker 4: you next time for another episode of How Rude. Tanner
Speaker 4: Rito's and remember the world is small, but the house
Speaker 4: is full.
Speaker 2: Boom. That was a little too polished. I don't even
Speaker 2: know who you are right now. I don't either,