Speaker 1: Hey, fan Arritos, Welcome back to How Rude Taneritos. If
Speaker 1: you've been listening to this podcast long enough, you've definitely
Speaker 1: heard us mention Lenny Rips a time or two. Lenny
Speaker 1: was a writer on Full House during seasons one through three,
Speaker 1: creating some unforgettable episodes, including the Sea Crews, which we
Speaker 1: can't wait.
Speaker 2: We won't hold him, we won't hold him responsible for that.
Speaker 3: We forgive him and can't wait to talk to him
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 1: Yes, I personally have a personal affection for Lenny because
Speaker 1: he is the writer who created Kimmy Gibbler and I
Speaker 1: cannot wait to pick his brain about this. He's known
Speaker 1: us since the very beginning, and we're so excited to
Speaker 1: walk down memory lane with him.
Speaker 3: Here he is, Lenny Rips.
Speaker 1: Lenny, we haven't seen you since the original Full House,
Speaker 1: like for thirty something years, we haven't seen you.
Speaker 4: It's really extraordinary because full House is with me all
Speaker 4: the time. I get upgrades and and I cut the line.
Speaker 1: See people, Hey, that's that's it, you know it was.
Speaker 2: It was good for a lot of line cutting.
Speaker 5: There you go, And it's interesting how beloved.
Speaker 2: It is, so so beloved.
Speaker 6: I yes, we just went to I just went to
Speaker 6: nineties Con this weekend where they do a bunch of
Speaker 6: different shows. Oh my gosh, Like the fans absolutely lose
Speaker 6: their mind over Full House. It's it's so great and
Speaker 6: it's such a it's such a crazy thing that it's
Speaker 6: still going after all these years.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting because it was such a struggle to
Speaker 4: figure it out.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the first season we were like, oh, I don't know, guys.
Speaker 4: The issues were that we were not used to writing
Speaker 4: family shows, you know, I mean I came The first
Speaker 4: people I wrote for was Joan Rivers and Rodney Daangerfield
Speaker 4: and Bette Middller.
Speaker 5: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I mean that blows my mind.
Speaker 1: Wait, you got to tell this story because this is
Speaker 1: crazy how you met Joan Rivers.
Speaker 6: I'm getting everyone's history because yeah, things that we didn't
Speaker 6: know about when we were kids that now were like,
Speaker 6: oh my god. We were like everyone was legendary that
Speaker 6: we were working with and we had no idea.
Speaker 2: We're just bopping around.
Speaker 5: Like, well, okay, I'll tell you.
Speaker 4: I got out of college with a degree in film history,
Speaker 4: which is worthless, but it's but for four years you got.
Speaker 2: But for four years you love it right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like getting a degree in show.
Speaker 2: And tell you know right, right, which is also called
Speaker 2: a theater degree.
Speaker 5: But so I got out of school and it was
Speaker 5: a recession.
Speaker 4: There weren't a lot of jobs, so I moved back
Speaker 4: to Baltimore just to look for work.
Speaker 5: I did eight different things, and I became a social worker.
Speaker 6: Really yeah, my husband's a social worker, so I love it, yea.
Speaker 4: So I did that for three years, and in the interim,
Speaker 4: some friends of mine and I started a downtown newspaper okay,
Speaker 4: and I wrote restaurant reviews and a boxing column and
Speaker 4: it was pretty funny. And a woman who worked for
Speaker 4: the state of Maryland read it and was doing bicycle
Speaker 4: training films for children, okay, and hired me to write
Speaker 4: these little films. And in the interim, Joan Rivers came
Speaker 4: to Baltimore and this friend of mine, this woman is
Speaker 4: the most aggressive person I've ever met. And she walked
Speaker 4: backstage and she said to Joan Rivers, I have a
Speaker 4: friend who's really funny. John says, great to have him
Speaker 4: come tomorrow night for the show. I'd like to read
Speaker 4: his jokes.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: This friend of mine called me the next morning and
Speaker 4: said John wants to read your jokes, says I've never
Speaker 4: written a joke.
Speaker 2: Is that I don't have any order to read.
Speaker 4: But yeah, but but but I mean I was funny
Speaker 4: and then super funny, but they weren't.
Speaker 5: She was so stupid that he was so fat.
Speaker 4: That right, So I sat down and I wrote ten
Speaker 4: jokes and I went backstage and she didn't went on
Speaker 4: stage and killed and she used it interact for five years.
Speaker 5: Oh my god. My first joke was my mother's allows
Speaker 5: the cook she serves ketchup as a vegetable. It was
Speaker 5: a big joke. That's great, And I got seven dollars
Speaker 5: and fifty cents.
Speaker 2: Wow, and every week, which is still a lot for
Speaker 2: comedy these days.
Speaker 4: Right, So every week I sent her fifty jokes, okay,
Speaker 4: and she would buy one or two.
Speaker 5: But in turning them down you begin to understand waiting
Speaker 5: jokes is about syntax and vocabulary, and John Rivers wouldn't
Speaker 5: say those words are not in that order.
Speaker 3: Right, you still find her voice?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and stand up. Do you have a very very
Speaker 2: definite way you tell jokes you tell stories?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 4: But great line for the old comedy writers was I
Speaker 4: think Jewish rage gentown. Well, you know, which means put
Speaker 4: your sensibility.
Speaker 6: I mean, so many of the best comedians comedy writers
Speaker 6: are Jewish and there is a certain.
Speaker 5: You.
Speaker 2: I find that it's great writing, so but not a ca.
Speaker 4: Can't came out here. And I hung out with the
Speaker 4: comedy story in the ambrov and started writing jokes. And
Speaker 4: Joan Rivers was out of town for the for three
Speaker 4: months and so, and when she came back and down,
Speaker 4: she got me a few interviews. And I started in
Speaker 4: variety televisions okay with uh for for Dick Van Dyke
Speaker 4: and Captain and t'aneil who you I.
Speaker 2: Guess Captain and t'anil muskrat Love come on.
Speaker 4: And all of these hockey shows, right, And I wrote
Speaker 4: the Star Wars Holiday special.
Speaker 3: Oh, well, we're going to get to that.
Speaker 2: We're going to get to that because Andrea watched it.
Speaker 2: Well try to, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: So then after that I was doing pretty well in variety,
Speaker 4: and my agent said, Vriety is dying.
Speaker 5: You got to this sitcom.
Speaker 4: And so I took a pay kind of half to
Speaker 4: get back into sitcom. And so that's how I got started.
Speaker 4: And then I wrote features and other things. I wrote
Speaker 4: Full House.
Speaker 1: So how did you get involved with Full House? Did
Speaker 1: you meet Jeff Franklin.
Speaker 5: And he put and I were doing Bosom Buddies.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, was doing Buddies.
Speaker 5: Jeff was a.
Speaker 4: Consultant one Buddies, Okay, so he would come in a
Speaker 4: few days a week to punch up and look at stories,
Speaker 4: you know, I mean, he was very helpful obviously.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's where we met.
Speaker 2: How did you wind up on Bosom Buddies? Just through
Speaker 2: the the.
Speaker 5: In the business, I had done a show for Paramount.
Speaker 2: With Angie who was in Saturday Night Fever.
Speaker 5: Donna was the girl in the backseat and really really
Speaker 5: talented person.
Speaker 4: So that was my first full time sit coup there
Speaker 4: and Paramount was very much a family then everybody knew everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and when some Buddies came up, I was young and
Speaker 4: was and Buddies at the time was a very very
Speaker 4: hip show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh gosh huge.
Speaker 5: So I was new blood or.
Speaker 4: The Paramount a lot, and I got an interview and
Speaker 4: it worked out. And again, guys, that was the difficulty.
Speaker 4: You go from some Buddies where we're doing tattooed jokes
Speaker 4: and sexual jokes to a full house you've got to
Speaker 4: figure out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he has a lot.
Speaker 3: Actually, that explains a lot about the season one.
Speaker 5: Well, we were just trying to find our way with
Speaker 5: kids without writing adult jokes that kids are.
Speaker 6: Saying, right, And also, like the show, you know, originally
Speaker 6: was the about three comics, and it really was kind
Speaker 6: of more focused on the adults on the guys, which
Speaker 6: was most show. Most shows that had kids in it
Speaker 6: were about the adults and the kids were kind of
Speaker 6: the side pieces. And Full House was one of the first,
Speaker 6: like real big family sitcoms that the kids were just
Speaker 6: as important I feel like in the storylines and in
Speaker 6: what was going on in the house and the scenes
Speaker 6: as the adults were. And I feel like that that
Speaker 6: wasn't the case always with a lot of.
Speaker 4: You know, I think what we discovered is if the
Speaker 4: story was not while the family was important, it was
Speaker 4: the journey of the kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I think the success was it was a time
Speaker 4: in America when families were falling apart and everything was
Speaker 4: very very different, that kids didn't have moms and dads
Speaker 4: like they always did. Everything was changed, and Full House,
Speaker 4: I think, in a positive way, gave validation and approval
Speaker 4: to that. It says you can have an unc medicinal
Speaker 4: family and still have a wonderful, loving family.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and that's that is a message that so many
Speaker 6: fans like reiterate to us over and over and over again.
Speaker 6: How impactful that was because of how many people out
Speaker 6: there that don't have families that look like you know,
Speaker 6: quote unquote what yeah they think it's supposed to and
Speaker 6: being raised by grandparents or uncles with this and I'm
Speaker 6: so glad that full House that we got to be
Speaker 6: a voice for making people who maybe didn't feel like
Speaker 6: they saw their family on TV feel a little more like, No,
Speaker 6: this is family.
Speaker 2: Is who you, who you love, and who raises you,
Speaker 2: and that's what that's what counts.
Speaker 4: And it all seem very normal. Yes, you know, I
Speaker 4: mean that that's the other thing that I worked for.
Speaker 4: This is a very normal family. Although the situation is odd, right,
Speaker 4: the family is real.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and I.
Speaker 4: Think we wanted without knowing it, probably it's something that
Speaker 4: we wanted to say. Yeah, I mean, my parents stayed together,
Speaker 4: but that was just for the sake of the dog.
Speaker 4: But by and large, kids needed to see there's life
Speaker 4: after divorce. Life yea of a parent.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you could so fine and be stupid and
Speaker 5: be dopey and have a great.
Speaker 6: Time, but there was definitely there was still heart to
Speaker 6: the family that really like was you know, despite all
Speaker 6: the ridiculous situations, that they really cared about each other
Speaker 6: and it was genuine and and also you know, the
Speaker 6: because the cast really cared about each other, that sort
Speaker 6: of genuine love and affection was a lot easier to
Speaker 6: portray and to write for because we actually enjoyed each other.
Speaker 4: Sometimes the conflict for me and other writers was not
Speaker 4: everything ends happy right, right? And we I don't know
Speaker 4: if when I was there, we never got the answer,
Speaker 4: but we never figured it out. But I wanted some
Speaker 4: shows to end unhappy. Well, problems weren't solved.
Speaker 2: In a little more realism, right, I haven't wanted.
Speaker 4: To tell this story even a problems learned solve, people
Speaker 4: still have each other in life goes on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's an important message.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but this was a different time in the world
Speaker 5: and they didn't want to tell that story.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it was right.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: People definitely wanted things to like, particularly sitcoms, Like I
Speaker 6: wanted to kind of wrap up and know that there's
Speaker 6: an ending and know that everything's going to be okay.
Speaker 6: I'm also like you and a little more like well,
Speaker 6: but sometimes you know, it's not all tied up in
Speaker 6: a nice little bow in twenty two minutes. But I
Speaker 6: think there was also something really appealing about that to
Speaker 6: people that because you don't get that, people were like,
Speaker 6: oh great, I just want to see some family look
Speaker 6: like they're getting it together.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying that was right, by the way, I'm
Speaker 4: saying that that was something that we sometimes talked about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh I bet, because you know, Full House was.
Speaker 6: Everything worked out okay and everyone ended with a hug,
Speaker 6: and that's you know, that's not life, but it was.
Speaker 5: But that's okay, it is. But my ratulation was that
Speaker 5: fantasy is okay to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6: And I think that that fantasy of family always sticking
Speaker 6: together and working it out and ending it with a
Speaker 6: hug and nobody getting really ever that mad like that
Speaker 6: was a huge appeal of the show because so many
Speaker 6: kids tell us like, I grew up in a in
Speaker 6: an absolute absolutely chaotic household and everyone was screaming and
Speaker 6: everyone was this, and so to see a family that
Speaker 6: like can be upset at each other or something, but
Speaker 6: then work it out and it's not it doesn't turn
Speaker 6: into a big thing, and they hug it out and
Speaker 6: everyone like that gave so many people hope that like,
Speaker 6: you know what, my family might be kind of crazy,
Speaker 6: but like, this is possible. It is possible to talk
Speaker 6: through things and work it out. And I'm that's awesome.
Speaker 4: If I had to do it now, I think I
Speaker 4: might make Because the world's a different place. I think
Speaker 4: you could tell all those works complicate the stories and
Speaker 4: now for.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 6: And I think on Fuller we were able to do
Speaker 6: a little bit more right because the sensibility is a
Speaker 6: little bit different. People are kind of like, look, you
Speaker 6: can't everything isn't perfect. But and also you were adults, Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 6: How so had you written for any kids before?
Speaker 5: Well, as I say, I mean the.
Speaker 2: Bicycle videos that you had started with, but that was
Speaker 2: really well.
Speaker 5: But being a social.
Speaker 4: Worker, I worked with the kids, so I hadn't necessarily
Speaker 4: written for them. I knew how to listen to them.
Speaker 6: You really did, You really did, and you you wrote
Speaker 6: some of the greatest, no really, some of the greatest
Speaker 6: episodes for the kids in those in those early seasons.
Speaker 2: You really like brought a voice to the young people
Speaker 2: of this show.
Speaker 6: And your and your humor and all of that, Like
Speaker 6: so much of that is evident in Steph and you
Speaker 6: know kind of the smart ass comments and stuff.
Speaker 2: It's really well helped shaper. I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you wrote some of my favorite episodes, like the
Speaker 1: chicken pox episode, so season one, the oat boat commercial,
Speaker 1: you wrote that one. Just one of the guys with
Speaker 1: Kirk Cameron, you wrote that one, Like all of my
Speaker 1: favorite episodes.
Speaker 5: Say wow wow, So thank you for residuals. I still
Speaker 5: get them.
Speaker 2: You're welcome. Well, well, those were a thing too, you know,
Speaker 2: the gifts that keeps on giving me and I.
Speaker 5: Made friends on the show that are still friends today.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that.
Speaker 6: That is That's the one like common thing throughout the
Speaker 6: cast and the crew, As everyone says, I like, I
Speaker 6: still talk to people that I met thirty some odd
Speaker 6: years ago on that set and we just clicked.
Speaker 2: It was just such a family.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: We were really really fortunate.
Speaker 5: In terms of the writer's staff. We were there eighty
Speaker 5: hours a week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you guys were That's the thing writers packed.
Speaker 6: You know, nobody knows it, but writers are like, are
Speaker 6: there all hours of the day and night. They're in
Speaker 6: the writer's room. They they're basically trapped in there. They're
Speaker 6: fed pizza and crusts of bread, no.
Speaker 3: Energy drinks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're locked in a room.
Speaker 4: No, but it is.
Speaker 6: I mean the writing staff is put in heavy, heavy,
Speaker 6: heavy hours and really spends a lot of time in.
Speaker 5: The being in battle. These are your comrades.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was kind of juggling you have to do
Speaker 1: because you're writing scripts that are coming up in the
Speaker 1: future while revising the current script that we're shooting this week.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of manipulation of your brain. You
Speaker 1: have to thinking forward but staying you know, current as well.
Speaker 6: Benny, I don't know if you know this, but Andrea
Speaker 6: actually wrote an episode of Fuller House at the end.
Speaker 6: Is an incredible writer, and so she got to write
Speaker 6: an episode. So she she was was there in the
Speaker 6: writer's room.
Speaker 3: With well and it blew my mind.
Speaker 1: It was so great to get experience because as actors,
Speaker 1: we don't see the script until it's the table draft,
Speaker 1: you know, till we're there for the table reading.
Speaker 3: So I had no idea.
Speaker 1: This process starts like three months in advance, where you
Speaker 1: have to submit an idea and then you know, a
Speaker 1: one pager and then an outline, and every single step
Speaker 1: has to get approved by the network and the studio.
Speaker 1: It's a very involved process and.
Speaker 4: The pus at the end of the day, we don't
Speaker 4: want the audience to see how you make the sausage right.
Speaker 6: Because the sausage does not usually look good in the
Speaker 6: very beginning. The sausage, the sausage that we start with
Speaker 6: looks nothing like what's put on the plate, you.
Speaker 4: Know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for the hell of it, I was doing an
Speaker 5: episode of bos and Buddy.
Speaker 4: I saved everything from the first page to the final
Speaker 4: shooting strip, and it's a document.
Speaker 5: This big, Oh my gods, and there's many colors.
Speaker 2: And right, yeah, there's oh yeah, there's the whole color
Speaker 2: of you know, rainbow of pages you go through. But
Speaker 2: what a cool process to like see.
Speaker 6: Really how you know, you you don't quite think you're like, oh,
Speaker 6: there's a revision, there's this, but like it's constant going over,
Speaker 6: No this doesn't work, and we get it and put
Speaker 6: it up on our feet and we're like, no, this
Speaker 6: doesn't work, you know, and like it's just a constant
Speaker 6: process of like that Now that sucked.
Speaker 2: Don't do that. Now try this? Now that sucked too,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: People would ask me how long does it take to
Speaker 4: do a script? My answer is until you shoot it.
Speaker 2: Right, and even then you may go back and shoot
Speaker 2: it again.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 4: I mean I've worked on plenty of shows where we
Speaker 4: would redo entire acts on a Friday evening.
Speaker 5: It was not great for the actors.
Speaker 6: No, No, I think we've had to do that a
Speaker 6: couple times, where we had to go back and shoot
Speaker 6: something from like a couple of weeks previous or whatever.
Speaker 2: And yeah, you're like, oh, I've already let this out
Speaker 2: of my brain. I can't go back.
Speaker 1: It's also a very collaborative process. Once you get to
Speaker 1: a certain draft of your script, then it's turned over
Speaker 1: to the writer's room where you all got to collaborate
Speaker 1: and pitch your jokes. Can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about writer's room dynamics.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, the writer's room is my favorite place. If
Speaker 4: I have any skill at all is that I'm a
Speaker 4: pretty decent joke writer.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, and I'm very.
Speaker 4: Fast and I stutter. So my joke always was I'm
Speaker 4: faster than you, and I stutter. And I get more
Speaker 4: jokes in. But the writer's room is sports.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, you're tableful of people who are all friends
Speaker 5: until you sit at the table and becomes competitive. Right.
Speaker 4: I mean, you all say you're working, you all say
Speaker 4: you're working for the same script, and you're all part
Speaker 4: of the same team. But I want to get my
Speaker 4: damn joke in right, and I want to get as
Speaker 4: many jokes that I wrote into that script as possible, right,
Speaker 4: Because writers have egos the same way actors do. We
Speaker 4: express our our egos is when you write a script
Speaker 4: and you hear your joke right, and he gets laughs.
Speaker 4: So the writers is at full house. Jeff Franklin, because
Speaker 4: it was he ran the show, you would sit in
Speaker 4: the room and you'd The process is from the first outline.
Speaker 5: You go everything line by line.
Speaker 4: And so you do the outline and you like it,
Speaker 4: and then you write a second draft and you like it,
Speaker 4: and then you send the outline out to the producers
Speaker 4: and the executives and the studio and other people who
Speaker 4: know nothing.
Speaker 2: And and then that you have to incorporate all you
Speaker 2: got to figure out how do you do notes?
Speaker 5: You don't have to do everybody's notes.
Speaker 4: What I would do is do the really stupid easy
Speaker 4: notes and someoneuld say this, characters should change, you should
Speaker 4: do that line, and we need a green vase. I
Speaker 4: changed the vase, and I tell them what a brilliant
Speaker 4: idea was. Now the vase makes it work?
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, there was tell them it was their idea.
Speaker 2: That's brilliant. It's great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it makes sense because listen, everybody wants to
Speaker 4: feel part of it. Yeah, right, I mean, every idiot
Speaker 4: executive wants to sit home with his family.
Speaker 5: And say that was my idea. Yep. And so you
Speaker 5: do that, you know, because you.
Speaker 4: Want to stay in the air, right, and you don't
Speaker 4: want to give into anything that's substantial, right, So you know,
Speaker 4: let him change the decoration on the tree.
Speaker 2: Right as much as you can, right, You let that
Speaker 2: And it's it's very much a like, okay, what you know.
Speaker 6: I think a lot of people think, especially when you
Speaker 6: are a super successful writer, actor, and.
Speaker 2: You know there's a little more pull. But there's always
Speaker 2: a committee of people above you going yes, no, we
Speaker 2: like it, we don't like it. This sucks?
Speaker 4: Can it?
Speaker 5: We're all free.
Speaker 6: No matter where you are on the ladder, there's always
Speaker 6: someone about you going nope, you know, and that's this
Speaker 6: business is like you have to learn, like, Okay, what
Speaker 6: are my battles, what are the things that I really
Speaker 6: want to pick? What are the things that I have
Speaker 6: to do to make some other people happy because they're
Speaker 6: here and I've got to all kind of work together.
Speaker 6: And it is it's just such a collaborative process, and
Speaker 6: sometimes it's so difficult because it's a collaborative process with
Speaker 6: a bunch of really creative people.
Speaker 5: Who take the collatter process.
Speaker 4: On stage, Yes, when I would get notes from the
Speaker 4: guys or you that made sense, Okay, the words were
Speaker 4: in your mouth, you know, if they work better than
Speaker 4: I do. As long as you get the ideas right,
Speaker 4: you're want to change words, that's okay. If the ideas
Speaker 4: don't work with your character, let's talk about it. These
Speaker 4: are valid conversations.
Speaker 3: Usually, right, I agree.
Speaker 4: So, so there's this process you're juggling, so you're working
Speaker 4: when ideas and outlines and drafts, you knowing it's all
Speaker 4: of this at the same time.
Speaker 5: That's really exciting.
Speaker 6: It's super exciting, and you guys don't really see it
Speaker 6: like on its feet until.
Speaker 2: Well into the process.
Speaker 5: Do you remember when I brought in the violinist, what
Speaker 5: you did wait for what reason?
Speaker 4: At a Monday reading, we always in the show act
Speaker 4: in the last act, in.
Speaker 5: The heart scene was always right right. One Monday at
Speaker 5: a reading, I hired a violinist.
Speaker 2: No you did not. I think I do remember that
Speaker 2: scene you.
Speaker 5: Want the violin as you were doing the table.
Speaker 2: I really I do remember this that you bring it.
Speaker 2: That is genius. That is I didn't we think that
Speaker 2: ourselves for fl brilliant.
Speaker 6: It was like on Fuller we had one of the
Speaker 6: who was it that dressed up once and to do
Speaker 6: like a they one of the writers was was reading
Speaker 6: one of the guests starring Rolls, and they like showed
Speaker 6: up as.
Speaker 3: Just as the Russian woman in the dressing room.
Speaker 6: The dress root right right right, but they showed up
Speaker 6: like and just saying like the writers still love, they
Speaker 6: love coming in and doing something fun and ridiculous that
Speaker 6: are reading like, but that's brilliant.
Speaker 2: Just hiring a violinist.
Speaker 5: I mean, people get so angry.
Speaker 1: Oh man, if you if you did that today, there
Speaker 1: would be one hundred social media videos about it.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I wish we had evidence of this all.
Speaker 6: All I'm saying is I'm finding someone who plays violin,
Speaker 6: and I'm just gonna have that number on me at
Speaker 6: all times.
Speaker 5: So and everything is always changing.
Speaker 4: And then so the first day they read the script,
Speaker 4: you get everybody's notes, you redo those notes. So sometimes
Speaker 4: it's a couple of hours. Sometimes someone looks in and says,
Speaker 4: who wrote this ship and throws it away, and right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: The evening that's the goes out to the actors, the director.
Speaker 4: The next day, the writers come in and start working
Speaker 4: on next week script as you guys are rehearsing that
Speaker 4: Tuesday afternoon, we come and see the rehearsal. We start
Speaker 4: hearing from you guys what works, what doesn't work. The
Speaker 4: director has a meeting with us. We do the rewrite
Speaker 4: one Tuesday night. That could be small or big depending
Speaker 4: on Wednesday, we're working on the next leek script. You
Speaker 4: guys are rehearsing and sending us notes saying that the right,
Speaker 4: this joke didn't.
Speaker 5: Work, or this move it we're doing that right.
Speaker 4: Thursday is camera blocking, where one of us is in
Speaker 4: the studio watching a essentially a dress rehearsal with the cameras.
Speaker 4: At that point we try to do as little rewriting
Speaker 4: as possible. I think on Thursday night you got very
Speaker 4: few notes.
Speaker 2: Usually yeah, Thursday night.
Speaker 6: Usually between like pre tape day which was Thursday and
Speaker 6: show day, there was we didn't do too much.
Speaker 3: Re because the actors have already memorized.
Speaker 6: On Fuller, I feel like we did a few times.
Speaker 6: There was a couple of times that we did a
Speaker 6: lot of big rewrites. I think usually when the when
Speaker 6: the legacy cast was there, I think Thursday and Friday
Speaker 6: was always like they were like, ah, we don't like
Speaker 6: any of this because John Well, John was always rewriting his.
Speaker 2: Life, would rewrite everything. Were like the seventeen new pages
Speaker 2: right like on show night and we're like, what is this.
Speaker 5: We felt that with a young cast that just right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, you can't be changing It's it's really hard
Speaker 6: to change all of that on the on the kids
Speaker 6: that that was when we were older.
Speaker 2: Then we could adapt to it. I mean we still
Speaker 2: were like, what the hell is all these new pages?
Speaker 4: But oh, by the way, you do a joke better
Speaker 4: if you're practiced for a week then if you heard
Speaker 4: it ten minutes ago. So I don't think it gets better.
Speaker 5: I think it just gets different, right, I agree, which.
Speaker 4: Is always the challenge for writers. We love jokes because
Speaker 4: they're fresh, right, Well, if you hurt them five times,
Speaker 4: they don't seem funny, so you change them. But they
Speaker 4: are finding thought, it's just never heard them before. So
Speaker 4: how do you trust your material?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's trusting the material.
Speaker 6: And it's also I find as an actor finding something
Speaker 6: in it that I find amusing, or that I can
Speaker 6: that that I can pick out and do something different
Speaker 6: with or or you know, a different emphasis or a
Speaker 6: different something to make a joke stay fresh.
Speaker 4: And but that's also the art of the comment writer
Speaker 4: is to put it in those words right, so it
Speaker 4: sounds like you thought of it, not like you read
Speaker 4: it right.
Speaker 5: And with characters like Jody and Him, those characters led
Speaker 5: themselves to big jokes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yes, right, I mean they were always easy
Speaker 4: to write for because basically you got bunchlines.
Speaker 2: Yeah we were.
Speaker 6: We were the zingy punchlines, the sarcastic, you know, one liners,
Speaker 6: the all.
Speaker 5: Of that, and uh, and Kimmy didn't have to be realistic.
Speaker 3: No, Kimmy was anything. Anything goes with Kimmy Gibbler.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Kimmy was you could be she was a wild
Speaker 6: card and could say or do her family could you
Speaker 6: never saw them, so they were that you could make
Speaker 6: fun of them all you wanted with ridiculous stuff like
Speaker 6: it was.
Speaker 5: She was.
Speaker 2: It must have been such a fun character to write
Speaker 2: for because it was like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was in many ways the freest character.
Speaker 2: Yell and you you.
Speaker 1: Wrote the first episode that I appeared in the first
Speaker 1: day of I created, So.
Speaker 2: You created Kimmy Gibbler.
Speaker 5: Yes, that was my idea.
Speaker 1: Like, oh my gosh, I have so many questions I've
Speaker 1: never asked you, like I tell me the like tell
Speaker 1: me these conversations you had in the writer's room. What
Speaker 1: notes did you get about Kimmy Gibbler, How did you
Speaker 1: shape this character?
Speaker 3: What was in your brain? Tell me everything.
Speaker 4: No, we just wanted someone really funny and stupid without
Speaker 4: any responsibility.
Speaker 5: Okay, just as any character.
Speaker 4: Yeah, everybody was so conventional, true, and it was important
Speaker 4: to us that an unconventional character.
Speaker 3: A contrast to the Tanners.
Speaker 5: And that's always been part of it comes.
Speaker 2: Right, is the weird neighbor.
Speaker 6: Well, it sort of presents itself as a foil, like
Speaker 6: you said, to the conventionalism. And also it's now an
Speaker 6: outside observer that's constantly in the Tanner House that can
Speaker 6: kind of say the things that maybe the audience is thinking.
Speaker 3: Or maybe like you know, the Greek Greek chorus way.
Speaker 4: To say the unrealistic crazy stuff, right. You know, she
Speaker 4: didn't have to be logical, it didn't have to be
Speaker 4: this family person tried to make a go. She said
Speaker 4: whatever she wanted.
Speaker 3: To say, and to the adults too.
Speaker 1: I was very snappy with the adults and Bob Saggett
Speaker 1: in particular, Kimmy, Kimmy and Danny had that dynamic where
Speaker 1: they were just lob barbs at each other.
Speaker 5: But that evolved. That happened because we saw, you kid,
Speaker 5: Kimmy and Saggot we're good together. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We we were about to review an episode where it's
Speaker 1: one of the first interactions between Kimmy and Danny where
Speaker 1: it's just like, oh.
Speaker 3: My gosh, here it is the genesis.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it really like you see it starting and you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: they kind of start off with like, oh, Kimmy's annoying,
Speaker 6: but and you kind of see like Kimmy's annoying, but
Speaker 6: also like they kind of they tolerator but like toss
Speaker 6: jokes back and forth.
Speaker 4: You know, like it's a But at first we just
Speaker 4: wondered her to be funny, right, and then finds up, well,
Speaker 4: you know, we got to give him more.
Speaker 5: Let's make him more of a person.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 5: Do you remember early when she walked in, gave a zinger,
Speaker 5: and left.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was in one scene, the first scene, and
Speaker 1: then I was out for the rest of the episode.
Speaker 1: In those in the first season.
Speaker 5: Kimmy was an eight year old Don Rickles.
Speaker 2: That's a great, great discrimation.
Speaker 5: I mean that's how I saw her. I always saw
Speaker 5: her as Don Rickles.
Speaker 3: His personality. What a compliment.
Speaker 1: So did you ever wish we would have met Kimmy's parents?
Speaker 1: Like I know, we meet her brother in Fuller House,
Speaker 1: but we never met Garth. We never met mister and
Speaker 1: missus Gibbler. Was there any talk about introducing the Gibblers?
Speaker 5: But when I was there, there was no talk about it.
Speaker 5: It's awesome. I think it's funnier to have sometimes have
Speaker 5: imaginary characters.
Speaker 3: I'll accept that answer.
Speaker 5: I'm not saying that's truthful for all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but sometimes you can reference people that are Yeah, but.
Speaker 5: When I was there was a pretty big cast, so
Speaker 5: we never talked about that.
Speaker 2: We only we just like, yeah, how that house was?
Speaker 2: There was just too many damn people in that house.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 3: I love Lenny so much.
Speaker 6: What a pleasure to talk to him after all this time,
Speaker 6: and he is still funny and witty and sharp as ever.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, He's just that was so special.
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to ask him about how he come
Speaker 1: he came up with Kimmy Gibbler in that character, right,
Speaker 1: that was so special, so special.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad.
Speaker 6: I'm so glad we got to have him on the
Speaker 6: show so that you and our audience could finally have
Speaker 6: all of the answers that they wanted about the creation
Speaker 6: of Kimmy Gibler Kimberly Gibbler. Well, thank you everyone for
Speaker 6: joining us today for another fantastic episode of How Rude
Speaker 6: Tanna Readers were Tanner readers?
Speaker 4: I kind of like that.
Speaker 2: How Rude Tanner. Rito's such a pleasure to have you
Speaker 2: all here.
Speaker 6: Make sure that you are following us on Instagram at
Speaker 6: how Rude Podcast. You can also email us at Howard
Speaker 6: podcast at gmail dot com. You can send us questions
Speaker 6: for some of our minisodes, more questions that hopefully we
Speaker 6: can answer with some of our guests and wonderful things
Speaker 6: that we talk about. And also make sure that you're
Speaker 6: liking and subscribing the pod to the podcast wherever you're
Speaker 6: listening to it so that you can make sure and
Speaker 6: get the newest episodes as soon as they come out.
Speaker 6: So thank you everyone for being here another week and
Speaker 6: having fun. And remember the world is small, but the
Speaker 6: house is full.
Speaker 1: Oh you, and you delivered it with attitude like I
Speaker 1: can hear it in your voice.
Speaker 3: You are confident.
Speaker 2: It's on a bracelet.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, someone put it on a bracelet that's brilliant,
Speaker 3: so you can wear it like a cheat sheet. Ye
Speaker 3: bat at inks nights gone
Speaker 2: H