Speaker 1: When we recently recapped the season five episode Fraternity Row,
Speaker 1: we found ourselves slightly focused on one featured background actor
Speaker 1: used for an underdeveloped gag involving a Magnum Pi shirt.
Speaker 2: You guys remember this, Oh yeah, Mega Pie.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we assumed this guy had a bit of
Speaker 1: a story as to why it felt so awkward, and.
Speaker 3: Guess what, we were right.
Speaker 1: We got an email from that background actor, one Robin Hunter,
Speaker 1: who lives now in Canada, and Jensen asked him to
Speaker 1: record some of his memories from that day and maybe
Speaker 1: shed some light on the weirdness that was happening, and
Speaker 1: thankfully he delivered. Here are Robin Hunter's memories of being
Speaker 1: on our show, the Magnum Pie shirt, and probably why
Speaker 1: it didn't end up making a ton of sense.
Speaker 4: Hey, gang, I am the Magnum Pie T shirt guy,
Speaker 4: Robin Hunter. I check out the podcast from time to
Speaker 4: time and started listening to the Fraternity Row episode and
Speaker 4: it made me cringe immediately when my name was mentioned.
Speaker 4: After my work visa ran out, I moved back to Canada.
Speaker 4: I moved to Toronto and I used to use Boy
Speaker 4: Meets World to pad my resume, and I hadn't really
Speaker 4: thought of it much until Your Guys' podcast. It was
Speaker 4: a lot of fun doing background when you first are
Speaker 4: starting out, just to kind of get a feeling for
Speaker 4: the business and everything. And I was fresh off my
Speaker 4: first acting gig, dancing with Shania Twain in one of videos.
Speaker 4: If You're not in It for Love, I'm out of here.
Speaker 4: I basically just kind of act like an idiot and
Speaker 4: got paid for it. So Fraternity Row Episode I was
Speaker 4: picked as a feature extras. It's funny to think of
Speaker 4: how excited I was at the time, because you're like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, oh maybe I'll get a line, maybe
Speaker 4: I'll get whatever. And one thing I remember is I
Speaker 4: had to stand incredibly awkward so that the T shirt
Speaker 4: was featured and all that, and as we either did
Speaker 4: rehearsals or we did a couple takes, somebody I don't
Speaker 4: know who it was suggested that, oh I would just
Speaker 4: tell him to say no, or I.
Speaker 2: Can't suggest a line or something.
Speaker 4: But I remember it was like shot down immediately, So
Speaker 4: going from like, oh my god, yes too, Oh that's
Speaker 4: that's terrible. And then that episode there was supposed to
Speaker 4: be two T shirt gags. I watched the episode again
Speaker 4: and I'm guessing it was a love boat T shirt,
Speaker 4: so I imagine the same type of thing. But from
Speaker 4: what I gather from some of the podcasts, I was
Speaker 4: maybe a pawn in the uh Paul and Alan feud.
Speaker 4: I was waiting backstage for my cue to go on.
Speaker 4: Paul took me aside and gave me direction to do,
Speaker 4: and you're like, oh, oh yeah, for sure. Like the
Speaker 4: guy the Breakfast Club is is telling me what to do,
Speaker 4: I'll do that, and so I go out and do
Speaker 4: it and it was totally different than Alan's direction, and
Speaker 4: He's like no, no, no, no no, and then he
Speaker 4: tells me what to do.
Speaker 2: I go back.
Speaker 4: Paul's at me again, convinces me to do it his way,
Speaker 4: and I think it happened like two or three times,
Speaker 4: and Alan was quite annoyed, and basically I was cut
Speaker 4: from the scene, but I was pretty bummed out.
Speaker 5: You're sitting there and you're like, oh, I was.
Speaker 4: I was gonna have my big chance. Maybe the second
Speaker 4: one I would have got a line. Who knows I
Speaker 4: was on like some of the weird episodes. I was
Speaker 4: on the World War II one. I may even have
Speaker 4: a picture of me in wardrobe and like, you know, like, oh,
Speaker 4: I'm dressed.
Speaker 2: In World War two.
Speaker 4: I remember on that episode we had to stand like
Speaker 4: that Sabrina cat was there, and we had to stand
Speaker 4: like completely still while the real cat went there. And
Speaker 4: the handler had like a special spoon that had cat
Speaker 4: food and a bowl.
Speaker 5: On it, and so I had to stay.
Speaker 4: Completely, completely still while this cat ran across the thing
Speaker 4: for their you know, couple second shot. I don't even
Speaker 4: know other memories. I didn't have a lot of interaction
Speaker 4: with you guys. I wasn't one of the background kids
Speaker 4: that were like all chatty with you, and I don't know,
Speaker 4: it seemed like a lot of people were trying to
Speaker 4: talk to you guys every two minutes. I do remember
Speaker 4: Matthew Lawrence being really nice. He seemingly remembered me from
Speaker 4: other episodes and would say hi. I remember Rider being
Speaker 4: a bit intense and maybe sort of over it all,
Speaker 4: and the only really interaction I remember talking with him
Speaker 4: and maybe a couple other people about some indie movie
Speaker 4: that came out. A couple other memories that I have
Speaker 4: of the show when you're in the background holding everyone's
Speaker 4: telling these tall tales about how how bigger they are,
Speaker 4: or they've got this project or they've got that kind
Speaker 4: of going on, and you know, blowing smoke a little bit.
Speaker 4: And one girl kept saying that she was Jennifer Love
Speaker 4: Hewitt's stand in or something like that, and she would
Speaker 4: talk about it NonStop, and she kind of looked vaguely
Speaker 4: like Jennifer Love HEWITTT But you didn't really notice unless
Speaker 4: she didn't. If she didn't say anything, you.
Speaker 5: Wouldn't you wouldn't notice.
Speaker 4: Well, while I was waiting for Paul to sabotage my
Speaker 4: my T shirt moment, I remember looking over and I
Speaker 4: saw this extra I saw her all done up, and
Speaker 4: I remember thinking, oh my god. I was like, she
Speaker 4: really does look like Jennifer Love Hewitt. I was like,
Speaker 4: I kept staring at her and like amazed at like
Speaker 4: whoever did the transformation of her? And then she looked
Speaker 4: at me and saw me staring, and then smiled and
Speaker 4: said hello. And I smiled at her and said hello,
Speaker 4: as I realized, oh my god, that is Jennifer Dward,
Speaker 4: the background performer that was rambling NonStop. So I just
Speaker 4: like said hello and stopped staring at her. I have
Speaker 4: a lot of fond memories of being slightly involved in
Speaker 4: the show.
Speaker 5: You know, learned a lot.
Speaker 4: I still act mostly commercials. I'm a member of Extra,
Speaker 4: which is Canadian SAG. I also work a lot of
Speaker 4: behind the scenes. Just kind of a mixed bag, especially
Speaker 4: in Canada. You kind of have to I wish you
Speaker 4: guys all the best and thanks for the good memories
Speaker 4: for early in my career.
Speaker 2: Wow, that is so cool.
Speaker 6: First of all, he sounds just like Canadian Adam Scott. Yes,
Speaker 6: that's what was going through my head. And secondly, that's
Speaker 6: a big no no for an actor to direct.
Speaker 3: Another actor giving him no.
Speaker 6: Like what obviously not the man's passed away, not trying
Speaker 6: to bash somebody who's not here anymore, but kind of
Speaker 6: the nerve that was like his second episode. He's a
Speaker 6: guest star. He's going against our director and directing another actor.
Speaker 2: That is very uncool. Yeah, and unfortunately this young man
Speaker 2: took the brunt of it.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's funny that there were you know, two t
Speaker 1: shirt bits, probably one where he was in Magnum Pie
Speaker 1: and another one where he was wearing a love boat shirt.
Speaker 2: Well, it would have made the love Boat makes sense.
Speaker 7: I was going to say, yeah, we needed that love
Speaker 7: boat moment because otherwise it just comes out of nowhere.
Speaker 7: It's so funny that they just decided to shelve that
Speaker 7: logic and they were like, oh, let's go for a
Speaker 7: magnum pie joke instead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so weird, so funny.
Speaker 1: It's so cool to hear other povs, you know, like
Speaker 1: from we were All there, we all and just to
Speaker 1: have someone chime in and say, here's my POV. So
Speaker 1: fun So Robin, thank you so much for reaching out
Speaker 1: to Thank.
Speaker 7: You, Robin.
Speaker 5: So cool.
Speaker 2: I don't remember Ryder being intense as a kid.
Speaker 6: I don't know what you're talking about and talking about
Speaker 6: indie movies while being over the show.
Speaker 1: Wrong person, Matthew Lawrence, nice guy, never heard of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 3: Well, welcome to pod Meets World. I'm Daniel Fischel, I'm
Speaker 3: rather strong, and I'm Wilfordell.
Speaker 1: Today we are very excited to have a special guest
Speaker 1: with us during our rewatch. Some of the most fun
Speaker 1: we've had involves checking out our surroundings. It's the little
Speaker 1: items on set that sometime bring us the most nostalgia
Speaker 1: or even the most laughs. Now, thirty years later, and
Speaker 1: though there was a team a village even that made
Speaker 1: sure the environment of Boy Meets World was as deep
Speaker 1: and as smart as the show. It was prop master
Speaker 1: David Glazer who worked on all seven seasons of Boy
Speaker 1: Meets World and led the way the prop master in
Speaker 1: film or TV is responsible for purchasing, acquiring, manufacturing, properly, placing,
Speaker 1: and or overseeing any props needed for a production. It's
Speaker 1: high stress, high pressure, and of very high importance. And
Speaker 1: if our listeners have learned anything about the typical weekly
Speaker 1: schedule of a Boy Meets World episode, things were changing constantly.
Speaker 1: So just because we needed a sad looking salad for
Speaker 1: Foeni in the script doesn't mean it'll be in the
Speaker 1: scene come tape day. So some of your hardest and
Speaker 1: best work never even ends up on the screen. In
Speaker 1: addition to the entire run of our show, David worked
Speaker 1: on classic films like When Harry Met Sally Scrooged, and
Speaker 1: National Treasure, while also contributing to other TV shows like
Speaker 1: Sex and the City, Carnival, and long runs on Cold
Speaker 1: Case and Melissa and Joey. But today we are forcing
Speaker 1: him to sit with us and talk about what exactly
Speaker 1: was in that red drink we were forced to drink.
Speaker 1: Take after take in the cafeteria as children. And if
Speaker 1: that's the reason we're so weird. Now, welcome to Pod
Speaker 1: meets World. The Master of the Props, David Glazer, diavu.
Speaker 5: Hi guys.
Speaker 3: I can already tell you're wearing a boy met jacket.
Speaker 5: Yes, I am.
Speaker 3: The baseball jacket.
Speaker 5: Yes, all of my swag from all the years.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. You probably have more of it than I do.
Speaker 1: I have most, but I definitely lost.
Speaker 3: A few things. Yeah, I don't know how that happens.
Speaker 3: I still have the mug.
Speaker 5: I uh, I'm drinking my coffee out of it right now.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's the one thing I don't have, the mug.
Speaker 5: I have everything else.
Speaker 2: I don't have the mug.
Speaker 1: Oh, you geared up for us. We are so appreciative.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us. It would have been impossible
Speaker 1: to recap our time on boy Meets World without talking
Speaker 1: to you. We gave a little description in the intro,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to let you give a description of
Speaker 1: your job for our listeners. What exactly are the responsibilities
Speaker 1: of a prop master right?
Speaker 5: Well, a prop master is responsible for anything that an
Speaker 5: actor handles or touches. It could be anything from a
Speaker 5: pencil to a machine gun. It includes food and food
Speaker 5: eaten by the actors on the set. Watches such as
Speaker 5: Michael Jacob's watch that he gave me at the end
Speaker 5: of the show.
Speaker 2: Yes they still have that too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And eyeglasses, wedding rings, police belts, badges, when we
Speaker 5: interfaced with wardrobe and and makeup and hair all the time.
Speaker 1: Wow, so cool. So I like thinking, that's a really
Speaker 1: simple way of thinking about it. Anything an actor has
Speaker 1: to touch and interact with.
Speaker 5: But we work very closely with set deck because times
Speaker 5: the set decoration becomes a prop, and sometimes the prop
Speaker 5: becomes a set decoration, and we have to we have
Speaker 5: to work closely together. And Robinson Royce, who was the
Speaker 5: set decorator world, I mean he and I. He and
Speaker 5: I had a great relationship which really helped a lot.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: Well, then I'm going to jump right to a very
Speaker 1: hot topic on our show that we segued here. We
Speaker 1: have been paying attention to all of the changing images
Speaker 1: above the sink in the boys apartment, all the food pictures,
Speaker 1: and we understand that this is a set deck thing.
Speaker 1: But since you mentioned set Deck, and since you mentioned
Speaker 1: your close relationship with them, could you maybe enlighten us.
Speaker 1: We had no memory of this going on, and then
Speaker 1: we saw it and we were like, maybe.
Speaker 3: I have a vague memory of us talking about the food.
Speaker 2: It's hamburgers.
Speaker 3: What's going on?
Speaker 2: What's happening?
Speaker 5: I think sometimes it's just that they forget from season
Speaker 5: to season what they're doing, honestly, and sometimes it's a joke.
Speaker 5: I mean sometimes, Yeah, we have done things where we've
Speaker 5: put things in a set just to see did anybody
Speaker 5: notice that? You know?
Speaker 1: And this must have been one of those, because it's
Speaker 1: not changed from season to season.
Speaker 3: It's week to week.
Speaker 1: There's a new picture of food, right, every episode there's
Speaker 1: a new picture of food.
Speaker 5: Right. That's obviously an end joke that I actually wasn't
Speaker 5: of joke by the set dressers, and maybe just a
Speaker 5: little something so they would watch the show and get
Speaker 5: a good laugh. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, our mystery somewhat continues.
Speaker 1: We're still on the hunt for the story about the
Speaker 1: changing food pictures. How did you find yourself first working
Speaker 1: in Hollywood art departments?
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I originally wanted to be an actor
Speaker 5: and junior high high school college, I did community theater.
Speaker 5: I even had an agent, and after about one year
Speaker 5: I realized that I did not have the stomach for it.
Speaker 5: I didn't have that fire in my belly. And I
Speaker 5: started at cal State Northwich. I was a theater major,
Speaker 5: and then I switched over to what they called at
Speaker 5: the time radio TV film. Unfortunately, at the time, all
Speaker 5: they taught was how to be a director. They didn't
Speaker 5: teach you anything else. So I got out of college
Speaker 5: and had one friend who worked in the business who
Speaker 5: did not go to college, so he was four years
Speaker 5: ahead of me, and he was a non union art
Speaker 5: director prop master, and he hired me at a couple
Speaker 5: of jobs, and from there I just made more and
Speaker 5: more connections and I was in the non union world
Speaker 5: for eight years, and then I finally got into the
Speaker 5: Union in about nineteen eighty five eighty six.
Speaker 3: And so, how did you end up on Boy Meets
Speaker 3: World with us?
Speaker 5: It's a good story, you know. I had only ever
Speaker 5: done feature films, and I had done mostly non union
Speaker 5: and then when I got into the Union, I started
Speaker 5: getting on better and better pictures. Well, my wife at
Speaker 5: the time was really unhappy with the movie business. She
Speaker 5: hated it. I was gone all the time I was
Speaker 5: on the location. She said, you better find a way to
Speaker 5: stay home. And coincidentally, at the time, my friends Gary
Speaker 5: Ramirez and Pilar Ronaldo had done the pilot on Boy
Speaker 5: Meets World, and when Pillar was asked to come and
Speaker 5: be the prop master, she wasn't available, so she recommended
Speaker 5: me to Uri Grayson and I had an interview, and
Speaker 5: interestingly enough, you know there's there's there was. I don't
Speaker 5: know how it is at the time, there was prejudice
Speaker 5: then against people that did features versus TV, because Arlene's
Speaker 5: opinion was, well, you know, feature people, you know they
Speaker 5: get eight weeks to prep a show, and you know,
Speaker 5: we've got three days, and we're not sure you'd be
Speaker 5: fast enough. And I had to convince her that yes,
Speaker 5: I could be resourceful and fast enough to not have
Speaker 5: to read a script for six weeks, and she hired me,
Speaker 5: and it was the best decision that I ever made,
Speaker 5: taking that job, and I think Arlene and I became
Speaker 5: close friends, as I did with with Karen McCain. But
Speaker 5: that's how I ended up on the show. And I
Speaker 5: got to say my first few my first few rehearsals
Speaker 5: and shows, I was really baffled because I didn't get
Speaker 5: the sitcom format. I'd never worked on a sitcom ever.
Speaker 5: And at the time, if you remember, Mark Absen was
Speaker 5: my assistant, he was a sitcom king at the time.
Speaker 5: So the very very first run through, you know, I
Speaker 5: had prepped everything, but I had no idea what the
Speaker 5: run through was. So I said to him, what what
Speaker 5: what would you like me to do? He says, go
Speaker 5: sit over there and stay out of the wa And
Speaker 5: you know, I learned how to work on a sitcom
Speaker 5: and that was my lesson, my baptism of fire. And
Speaker 5: and I was a little surprised because I know that
Speaker 5: the writers are really have to support their own writing
Speaker 5: and their script, and you know, the first draft maybe
Speaker 5: isn't the best. And all these people were laughing hysterically,
Speaker 5: and I was at the run through, and I'm going,
Speaker 5: what are they laughing at? It be funny, but it's not.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's there's no laugh like a writer laughing at his.
Speaker 2: Own joke.
Speaker 7: Trying to keep it in the script, doesn't it.
Speaker 5: That's because the thing is, you know, after every take,
Speaker 5: you know that we would do, the writers would all
Speaker 5: scurry together and they'd be you know, that didn't work,
Speaker 5: that didn't work.
Speaker 1: Yes, so funny, Okay, So for Boy Meets World. Can
Speaker 1: you walk us through what maybe a week looked like
Speaker 1: for you. It's obviously very fast paced. As you mentioned,
Speaker 1: you may only have like three days of prep. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of moving parts. So how did when did
Speaker 1: you get the first draft of a script? And when
Speaker 1: and how did you start prepping for your week?
Speaker 5: If I was lucky and there was a complicated prop,
Speaker 5: either Bob Young or David Kendall would call me a
Speaker 5: couple of weeks ahead of time and give me. They
Speaker 5: might give me a heads up and say, hey, we're
Speaker 5: writing a script, and you know, I'm thinking of Quiz
Speaker 5: Show where we had those brains. Yes, hey, we're thinking
Speaker 5: we got a show coming up. You know we have
Speaker 5: this idea or if you remember the one about the
Speaker 5: gazillions of sprinkles falling from the sky, Yeah, yoga.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: He gave me a heads up and that help. But
Speaker 5: in general, mostly I would get a script on show night,
Speaker 5: the final script. So that's why you wouldn't see me
Speaker 5: very much on show night, because we'd be starting the
Speaker 5: show on Friday night, I guess, and we'd start working.
Speaker 5: They would deliver or was it Thursday nights? Thursday nights
Speaker 5: because the production meeting was Friday, so we'd start the
Speaker 5: show and then as soon as the show started, they
Speaker 5: would start distributing the script for the next episode that night.
Speaker 5: Wow the production meetings the next morning at ten am,
Speaker 5: you know, so I would generally not be on the
Speaker 5: set unless there was a big deal going on, and
Speaker 5: I'd have to be going through that script so that
Speaker 5: I could be ready at ten am with some answers
Speaker 5: or questions, you know, and then Friday would come and
Speaker 5: you know, we'd start that first read through with practically
Speaker 5: no props, or we would use stand in props, just
Speaker 5: stuff that we're laying around. But by Monday I was
Speaker 5: expected to have a lot of the props, so Fridays
Speaker 5: were extremely busy. I would just zoom out. I would
Speaker 5: hit the prop houses or my printer, the manufacturers. I'd
Speaker 5: be zooming around and try to get as much there
Speaker 5: as possible by Monday for rehearsal, and as the days
Speaker 5: were on, I had to get more and more of
Speaker 5: everything and make sure it was all camera ready because
Speaker 5: a lot of times, you know, you're come in with
Speaker 5: something that was not painted and then the first question
Speaker 5: you would get is, hey, is that going to be painted.
Speaker 5: I only made it this morning. We would rush and hurry,
Speaker 5: and I'd be out shopping, and of course during rehearsals
Speaker 5: director would come up with ideas. The actors would ask
Speaker 5: for things, and I'd get a phone call from Mark
Speaker 5: or one of the other assistants and say, hey, they
Speaker 5: just asked for you know, twelve dozen, which is not
Speaker 5: a big deal, you know, but it divert me over
Speaker 5: to the market, you know. And or they'd ask for
Speaker 5: something else and I'd have to or worse, they call
Speaker 5: me up and say, hey, guess what this is cut
Speaker 5: and I'm already making it.
Speaker 6: So wait a second, I'm sorry. I'm trying to understand this.
Speaker 6: The props didn't just magically appear for you the way
Speaker 6: they did for us.
Speaker 5: To understand that the elves would bring them.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's what we thought, essentially at the time.
Speaker 6: We're so oblivious to what everybody else is doing that
Speaker 6: we just assume they magically appeared for you as they
Speaker 6: did for us.
Speaker 5: You know, people would ask us, do you have this?
Speaker 5: I say, let me, let me check my other ass
Speaker 5: you know, do.
Speaker 6: You recall do you ever recall a time where you
Speaker 6: said no? I said no, I can't. This is impossible,
Speaker 6: we can't do it.
Speaker 5: It's a pretty tough answer in TV to do that.
Speaker 5: But the answer to that would be I learned by lessons. Obviously,
Speaker 5: especially with Michael Jacobs, you could never say no.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm just going to say.
Speaker 5: It only took one time to say I'm not sure
Speaker 5: we can do that, and I learned my lesson. So
Speaker 5: the answer always was how much time do I have?
Speaker 5: And then I would say, well, it's going to cost
Speaker 5: this much. And so that was the politest way of
Speaker 5: saying no. And it wasn't always no, it was well
Speaker 5: what can we do? Differently, because if they would call
Speaker 5: me on you know, Tuesday, and say from the writer's office,
Speaker 5: say hey, we need this for run through for tomorrow,
Speaker 5: I'd say, well, you know, that only gives me a
Speaker 5: day to get this printed and I've got to hire
Speaker 5: a photographer. Maybe it's a newspaper or a magazine. How
Speaker 5: much money do you want to spend? We got to
Speaker 5: hire a photographer. Those were the ways. But I got
Speaker 5: to say, my greatest champions, we're Bob Young and David Kendall.
Speaker 5: They were very astute producers. They they didn't they weren't
Speaker 5: pie in the sky because I'd get called to the
Speaker 5: writer's office all the time. I'd get called up there
Speaker 5: to say, Okay, this is what we have in mind,
Speaker 5: or I'd be bringing them a show and tell and
Speaker 5: we'd get in there, I'd bring in the show and tell,
Speaker 5: and you know, the writer's room had fifteen people in
Speaker 5: it at the time, and everybody be shouting out ideas,
Speaker 5: why don't you do this, well, why don't you make
Speaker 5: it that? Have it be this and problem Hold on
Speaker 5: a second, guys, you know days to make this. Let's
Speaker 5: try to get it something that is possible for our
Speaker 5: show within budget, because unfortunately, the bottom line always was budget.
Speaker 3: Yeahah, of course, exactly.
Speaker 1: Geez, do you remember having a favorite set in all
Speaker 1: seven seasons? Was there a particular set you really loved
Speaker 1: providing props for.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I'd have to say that Chubbies was
Speaker 5: actually a lot of fun. Chubbies was a lot of fun.
Speaker 5: You know, it wasn't you didn't really see any gourmet
Speaker 5: food or anything. But I always enjoyed those scenes because,
Speaker 5: you know, whatever it was that they wrote, you know,
Speaker 5: sometimes it was funny props and you'd get to come
Speaker 5: up with funny props. Every time we did a restaurant scene,
Speaker 5: we'd have funny props. I mean, I don't know if
Speaker 5: you remember. Once we had to have Michael asked for
Speaker 5: gigantic menus once. I don't know why he asked for
Speaker 5: gigantic menus, so we had to have gigantic menus made.
Speaker 5: Those were always a lot of fun you know.
Speaker 7: Oh my gosh, and you said funny props. I just
Speaker 7: had the memory. Do you guys remember the when when
Speaker 7: is a knife? Funny thing?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you know?
Speaker 7: Not funny? Not funny, funny, funny funny funny, not funny,
Speaker 7: funny funny.
Speaker 5: I went into David Kendall recently. It was a show
Speaker 5: that a mutual friend of ours was doing called An
Speaker 5: Evening with Groucho by Frank Ferrante. It's a one person
Speaker 5: show where he portrays Groucho, and David Kendall was a
Speaker 5: friend of him. Anyway, we ran into each other at
Speaker 5: the performance and we talked about that. We talked about back.
Speaker 5: There was a production meeting once where I made a
Speaker 5: prop illustrating that. It was a fold out card and
Speaker 5: I'd written funny, funny, funny, as I asked, I opened
Speaker 5: it up bigger and bigger.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 6: Okay, So wait, so before we get deeper into borm
Speaker 6: me thorl, because I know we all have other questions,
Speaker 6: I want to go back to the films a little bit,
Speaker 6: because you did some pretty amazing films and I'm curious
Speaker 6: A what your favorite film was, and B do you
Speaker 6: prefer doing films or sitcom.
Speaker 5: I'll start back with this with the second question. Honestly,
Speaker 5: I preferred sitcoms, okay, even more than I did lots
Speaker 5: of episodic TV too. Sitcoms are the dream job in
Speaker 5: the industry. I'm not sure how it is now time
Speaker 5: seven years, but at the time, first of all, Boyme's
Speaker 5: World was the best job I'd ever had. We had
Speaker 5: Jewish holidays off with pay. We had Christmas two weeks off,
Speaker 5: we had Thanksgiving two weeks off. And when you kids
Speaker 5: were young, we could only work eight hours a day.
Speaker 5: We didn't make a ton of money like you might
Speaker 5: make on a movie, but it was much more of
Speaker 5: a family, much more of a feeling of working together
Speaker 5: that sometimes you always get that on movies, but it
Speaker 5: sometimes takes weeks because everybody's just so insane working on it.
Speaker 5: But the other question. My favorite movies that I ever
Speaker 5: worked on probably, I mean, the most famous one I
Speaker 5: ever worked on was When Harry Met Sally. That was
Speaker 5: a blast. But I also did some non union movies
Speaker 5: back in the day, a Dreamscape, which.
Speaker 2: A great movie is that Dennis Quaid? Yes, Yeah, great movie.
Speaker 5: Ape which became kind of a cult film. And there
Speaker 5: another movie directed by Abel Ferrara called Fear City, which
Speaker 5: is kind of a film noir, a dark movie. We
Speaker 5: shot that in New York. And my other favorite movie
Speaker 5: of all time that I worked on was Soap Dish. Oh,
Speaker 5: Sosh Boldberg and Sally Field.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 6: You wait, you and I had a conversation about Soap
Speaker 6: Dish and if memory serves, didn't you tell me that
Speaker 6: Robert Downey Junior wanted like different glasses in every single
Speaker 6: scene he was in.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean at first I thought, well, okay, this
Speaker 5: is a horrifying continuity nightmare. But you know, I talked
Speaker 5: to the director about it was basically, let him do
Speaker 5: whatever he wants. And the way kind of the way
Speaker 5: we solved it is had we had a stand on
Speaker 5: his desk, which I don't know it was ever seen,
Speaker 5: but it had like ten pair of glasses on it
Speaker 5: and sometimes he would switch in the middle of a
Speaker 5: scene and it worked out. I mean, he actually, you know,
Speaker 5: he's one of the my favorite people ever worked with.
Speaker 5: He treated me so well. I mean, I know he
Speaker 5: got a lot of bad press in the early problems
Speaker 5: and stuff, but he was a total pro. I really
Speaker 5: enjoyed him.
Speaker 2: But he's also a genius.
Speaker 6: I mean, he's an actual genius when it comes to
Speaker 6: as an actor.
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
Speaker 5: And you know, I was going to say, some of
Speaker 5: my most favorite moments in any show, more so on movies,
Speaker 5: is when you're shooting a scene in a small room
Speaker 5: and there's only five or six people in there. There
Speaker 5: may be the two actors and the director, the cameraman,
Speaker 5: the prop guy, makeup, hair, script supervisor. We'd get that
Speaker 5: small group because a lot of times we'd be in
Speaker 5: those offices or you'd be in somebody's bedroom. The crew
Speaker 5: couldn't fit in there. And this was kind of almost
Speaker 5: before video village, and it was such a privilege to
Speaker 5: be right there when you see the acting going on.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, so I want to know what is your
Speaker 7: proudest moment of fabrication, Like, what what is your favorite
Speaker 7: prop that you ever delivered for in general, and then
Speaker 7: I want to hear what your favorite on Boy Meets
Speaker 7: World was.
Speaker 5: Well, I have actually a list from Boy Meets World.
Speaker 5: I mean, so many props throughout so many movies are
Speaker 5: just mundane, you know, gotens and police badges and i
Speaker 5: ds and all that. Very often you get to make
Speaker 5: an iconic prop. I don't think any of mine were
Speaker 5: as famous as the Maltese falcon or right, But I've
Speaker 5: got to say specifically on Boy Meets World, and I
Speaker 5: don't know if you remember this, it was a very
Speaker 5: early episode. We had to make a candy clown that Lily,
Speaker 5: not Lily. It was the other little girl had Lindsay.
Speaker 3: Had early on though Lily Lily.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there was a candy clown. It was was they
Speaker 5: wanted a clown three feet tall and it was made
Speaker 5: all of candy. I looked for the episode. I couldn't
Speaker 5: find episode. It was very early in the show, and
Speaker 5: so I had a friend who did crafty type props
Speaker 5: for me. The idea was she was supposed to carry
Speaker 5: in this clown and I don't even know what the
Speaker 5: gag was, but my friend made it and we bought
Speaker 5: all of this different kinds of candy and it was
Speaker 5: glued all over. Well, we pick it up. It was
Speaker 5: so heavy there was no way she could pick it up.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: I showed it to them and they said, well, can
Speaker 5: you put it on wheels? So we put it on
Speaker 5: wheels and she rolled it in. Now, I mean, it
Speaker 5: may not have been my proudest moment, but it was.
Speaker 5: It was something that we had to figure out. A
Speaker 5: couple of others from the show that were great. Again,
Speaker 5: I couldn't find the episode there was one where honey
Speaker 5: got poured down from the part of it. I mean,
Speaker 5: all those little gags actually took a lot of thinking
Speaker 5: and a lot of a lot of work. Of course,
Speaker 5: the brains, those those electronic brains. So this is interesting
Speaker 5: because you know, Michael Jacobs had for some reason gone
Speaker 5: on a vacation or he was on another show. I
Speaker 5: don't know what he was doing, but I've been told
Speaker 5: that these brains were coming up. And when it got
Speaker 5: closer and I went to talk to the producers, and
Speaker 5: you know, I talked to I guess you know, all
Speaker 5: the guys there, David, and they described, well, it's just
Speaker 5: just we just want a brain that they wear it
Speaker 5: like a hat. And I said, okay, you know we
Speaker 5: made that. I found some brains. We we cut them
Speaker 5: in half. We had to glue them together to make
Speaker 5: big enough. We had an electronics guy make all this.
Speaker 5: Michael comes back just in time for the run through
Speaker 5: and he he looks at me, go is no, no, no.
Speaker 5: He says, they're supposed to be like the Mars attacks brains.
Speaker 5: And Michael, nobody ever told me that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he was, Oh, I should never.
Speaker 5: Have left, you know, communicate that clearly to his writers.
Speaker 5: So they gave me what they but you know, it
Speaker 5: ended up being a funny prop anyway. Yeah, and we
Speaker 5: had to make all of them for the audience as well,
Speaker 5: if you remember, we had audience superwearing. But I mean
Speaker 5: those were some great props. I mean, in all the
Speaker 5: other shows that I've done, there's always stuff that came up.
Speaker 5: But you know, you make an electronic prop, yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 5: But you know, the sitcom props and all the sitcoms
Speaker 5: I did sometimes were the most challenging.
Speaker 6: So you you mentioned at the beginning that there was
Speaker 6: you would often work closely with wardrobe because you would
Speaker 6: get a lot of the things that we would have
Speaker 6: to wear would also be considered props. Where is that
Speaker 6: line drawn of what wardrobe does and what the prop
Speaker 6: department does?
Speaker 5: It's it's it's a fine line. I mean with with
Speaker 5: police props does the badges and the gun belts. But
Speaker 5: sometimes costumes would show up with the costume and it
Speaker 5: would have badges and it would have a gun belt
Speaker 5: and we would provide the gun. A lot of times
Speaker 5: it just came from having a discussion ahead of time,
Speaker 5: you know, what are we going to do? Who is
Speaker 5: going to handle this?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And that's when you have the most cooperation. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think I always worked with great people on the show,
Speaker 5: so I was lucky. You know. It could be as
Speaker 5: simple as the script says, somebody takes their wallet out
Speaker 5: of their pocket, right, and or somebody takes a hair
Speaker 5: brush out of their pocket, and the girl's costume shows
Speaker 5: up or the or the man's costume shows up, the
Speaker 5: pocket's not big enough or the pocket's not there, and
Speaker 5: you go and it's like these are the things you're going.
Speaker 5: Was it really necessary to talk about a pocket when
Speaker 5: the script there was a pocket? Because I wouldn't normally
Speaker 5: bring that up and get there and it'd be on
Speaker 5: like run through day or whatever, and you go, my god,
Speaker 5: what they don't have pockets? And why should they have
Speaker 5: the wardrobes and why should they have pockets? Well, because
Speaker 5: it says in the script they take the naro prop
Speaker 5: out of their pocket. So try to avoid those things.
Speaker 5: But sometimes those really fine lines would get for gotten
Speaker 5: and we'd get the same thing with hair, of hair
Speaker 5: and makeup sometimes. I mean when I mean for Tapanga's character,
Speaker 5: I mean there was often she was putting on makeup.
Speaker 5: Those were props, but I'd have to go through a
Speaker 5: makeup I would say, hey, what what is what is
Speaker 5: she using in this? Or what color are you using?
Speaker 5: I'd usually buy my own, or if they were nice,
Speaker 5: they would give me some, but I'd always have to
Speaker 5: greek out the name because Disney allowed zero product placement.
Speaker 5: So we'd have our own props that match the makeup props.
Speaker 5: And the same with hair. If somebody's brushing their hair,
Speaker 5: or if there was a haircut scene, it was the
Speaker 5: time when when to Panga cut her hair, you know,
Speaker 5: we would have to tell, okay, what are we using? Uh?
Speaker 5: You know, and so we would we would we would
Speaker 5: work very closely with them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously I'm assuming for that it was scissor hair
Speaker 1: cutting scissors Lori Heaps provided since I was actually cutting
Speaker 1: my hair.
Speaker 5: Yes, I do remember. It was your real hair, as
Speaker 5: I recall.
Speaker 3: Yes it was, yeah, I were. It wasn't just like,
Speaker 3: uh yeah it.
Speaker 2: Was we just found these here, these are in my belt.
Speaker 5: Those were real haircutting shears.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: It was great too. We you know, I remember all
Speaker 5: these people so clearly as if it was yesterday, and
Speaker 5: I really felt that we had a great team.
Speaker 7: Yes, we did.
Speaker 6: I remember when when then Mark left for a little
Speaker 6: while and Hector came in. Yes, we used to play
Speaker 6: a game with Hector because he always wore that vest
Speaker 6: and where it was essentially like.
Speaker 2: Name something and I have it on me and we
Speaker 2: come up with.
Speaker 6: The most esoteric we want blanks for a thirty eight special.
Speaker 2: All right here you go right back to zoom.
Speaker 6: It was like come and no matter what you would say,
Speaker 6: he would have it in a pocket somewhere. It was
Speaker 6: amazing how you were always just what do you need,
Speaker 6: We've essentially got it, or we'll have it in a day.
Speaker 5: Well that's that whole vest idea came from feature films
Speaker 5: and It came from one of our mutual mentors whose
Speaker 5: name was Eric Nelson, and Eric's passed away. Now Eric
Speaker 5: did the lethal Weapon movies. He's a national treasure. But
Speaker 5: he started that. He wore the vest of many pockets,
Speaker 5: which is to be from addition. Yeah, and I tried it,
Speaker 5: but it was just so heavy for me. Yeah, Hector.
Speaker 5: Hector kept up that tradition and even though on a
Speaker 5: sitcom you could work off of a cart, he kept
Speaker 5: everything on his body and it was kind of admirable.
Speaker 3: You know, that was great, that's so cool.
Speaker 7: So there was always a prop cart, right, which have
Speaker 7: like sort of just a bunch of objects that might
Speaker 7: be needed, mugs, glasses, all those kinds of things, but
Speaker 7: then purses. But then I also remember, you guys had
Speaker 7: a room on stage right, like a big and it
Speaker 7: was like and we didn't really go back there that often,
Speaker 7: but I remember going back. It was a magical place.
Speaker 7: I think when we were kids, we weren't allowed back
Speaker 7: there because there's so many like things that we could
Speaker 7: grab or mess up. But can you just describe what
Speaker 7: you would have in that room. It's like a walk
Speaker 7: in closet that was just filled with stuff.
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, on the modern stages now they
Speaker 5: have dedicated actual physical rooms. Like when we were in
Speaker 5: one of our last seasons at Radford, we actually have
Speaker 5: an actual physical room with a door on the ceiling.
Speaker 5: But in general, on Stage two at Disney, I mean
Speaker 5: that was not built as a sitcom stage. So what
Speaker 5: they did is they built gold rooms for all the departments.
Speaker 5: They were wooden. They were wooden structures that they built,
Speaker 5: and believe it or not, you were on your own.
Speaker 5: They gave you a wooden box with a door, and
Speaker 5: that was it. Good luck. So you know, I had
Speaker 5: to first I had to get lights. I had to
Speaker 5: get fluorescent lights. We had to get power strips and
Speaker 5: put power all over and get shelves built. But what
Speaker 5: we started with was the scripted the scripted props, and
Speaker 5: as if I knew other episodes were coming up, we'd
Speaker 5: have boxes labeled with you know, episode one oh one,
Speaker 5: episode one o two, episode one oh three, And every
Speaker 5: time I got an inkling of something coming up, I'd
Speaker 5: buy it and I just toss it in that box
Speaker 5: and maybe time would come by and then we would
Speaker 5: have the actual hero props, the things that people wore
Speaker 5: all the time, whether it was a watch that a
Speaker 5: character wore, or well, mister Feenie had his own glasses,
Speaker 5: but we had a double pair of them, an exact
Speaker 5: pair of them in case something happened.
Speaker 3: Amy and Allan's wedding rings exactly.
Speaker 5: So we would have all of those in one of
Speaker 5: our prop boxes. And so we would have shelves of stuff,
Speaker 5: and a lot of it was just generic stuff. A
Speaker 5: lot of it was like, you know, soda cans that
Speaker 5: we could label, candy bars that we could throw labels on,
Speaker 5: grocery bags, telephones, uh, you know, yeah, backpacks, kids backpacks,
Speaker 5: student backpacks, notebooks, things.
Speaker 2: The peachy folders is that what the same folders.
Speaker 5: We would have lots of this stuff in there, and
Speaker 5: then this room we called our gold room, and that's
Speaker 5: where I generally did all of my work, and we'd
Speaker 5: have a computer and you know, my scripts and stuff,
Speaker 5: and that's where you know, if you didn't have it
Speaker 5: on your set cart, you'd be running there at the
Speaker 5: last second. But you know, I had my little set cart,
Speaker 5: and in there we keep the wedding rings and the
Speaker 5: watches and the glasses and all the things you'd need
Speaker 5: right away, and little tools, little things that you might
Speaker 5: need tape, glue, anything that might come up to fix
Speaker 5: something on the moment. But you know our prop boxes
Speaker 5: for a prop master, that is that is our thing.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm just one person, and without my prop kit,
Speaker 5: I'm just another guy. So the prop kit is kind
Speaker 5: of what makes you the superhero. If you don't have
Speaker 5: things to get, you know, you're not really doing your
Speaker 5: best job. Right.
Speaker 1: Okay, I need to know what was the red drink
Speaker 1: that we drink in the cafeteria sets all the time
Speaker 1: in those early years. They were in those little plastic
Speaker 1: like juice things and it was just bright red.
Speaker 3: Was it fruit punch? Hawaiian punch?
Speaker 5: Was were probably Hawaiian punch or fruit punch, the little
Speaker 5: boxes that you put the straw in.
Speaker 3: No, no, it was plastic.
Speaker 1: They look kind kind of similar to the Martinelli's apple juice,
Speaker 1: but they were they were smaller and yeah.
Speaker 5: Exactly what that is. Oh yeah, they were milky kind
Speaker 5: of plastic. Yes, they were very very inexpensive drinks that
Speaker 5: I would get from Spartan Final because, as I said,
Speaker 5: I was out of budget. I mean I'm sure they
Speaker 5: were you know, purple flavored and green flavored.
Speaker 2: Exactly, but they're mostly glue.
Speaker 7: The red dye.
Speaker 3: We just have always called it red drink, bread drink.
Speaker 5: You know, I never knew that that, And you know,
Speaker 5: at the time, you know, I was always cognizant of
Speaker 5: what actors needed to eat and drink, but I never
Speaker 5: thought much about that. I always wanted to make sure
Speaker 5: that the food was edible and that nobody got sick.
Speaker 5: But the drinks, yes, I remember, I used to buy
Speaker 5: those by the because the cafeteria scenes took a lot
Speaker 5: of my time, even though we barely ever saw the food.
Speaker 5: But everybody's going in and out. So I mean, in
Speaker 5: the prop room, I'd have all of this pre prepared
Speaker 5: stuff which I would basically microwave or I would buy
Speaker 5: it hot and then just spoon it out, you know,
Speaker 5: whatever it was, unless it was a specific funny prop.
Speaker 5: But I had all this generic food that I would
Speaker 5: just pull out, start slapping on trays, and I'd load
Speaker 5: up the cart and i'd wheel it out there. And
Speaker 5: then you remember the first time I worked so hard
Speaker 5: on that, the very one of the very first cafeteria episodes,
Speaker 5: and we did like two takes and we moved on,
Speaker 5: and I said to Mark, I said, all this for that.
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 6: Well yeah, no, we needed the red drink to wash
Speaker 6: down the cold, uncooked French fries. Yeah, and soggy cold
Speaker 6: green beans.
Speaker 5: So gross. I got to apologize because it was very
Speaker 5: difficult in those days because we basically had a two
Speaker 5: man crew. Yeah, I mean that was it. I mean
Speaker 5: for the days where you were basically told you've got
Speaker 5: two people, that's it.
Speaker 7: Now you have like twenty extras in those cafeterias. Names
Speaker 7: you have to provide and they all have.
Speaker 1: A tray and a plate and a dream and drop
Speaker 1: in and silverware.
Speaker 5: As we got further along in the show, and I
Speaker 5: don't know if I gained any more clout, but it
Speaker 5: just became more industry standard to have three people on
Speaker 5: a crew. Get to have somebody extra in on show
Speaker 5: nights to help us with that stuff. But but yeah,
Speaker 5: it was it was hard. And then and of course
Speaker 5: they wouldn't give me the luxury of money to hire
Speaker 5: a food stylist, you know, to come in and actually
Speaker 5: keep food hot, and we didn't have the space for it.
Speaker 5: I mean, as I gained more experience in props and
Speaker 5: I had space, I mean, we would set up you know,
Speaker 5: chafing dishes and have hot things. But that required two
Speaker 5: or three people, and so yes, I apologize the food barely.
Speaker 6: So you mentioned the which we I'm dying to know.
Speaker 6: I have a vague memory of it during run through
Speaker 6: the clown, the Johnny Candy clown, but I don't think
Speaker 6: it ever made it to air.
Speaker 5: It may not have.
Speaker 6: But other than that, would that also be the most
Speaker 6: difficult prop you've ever had to do in life?
Speaker 5: Probably not. No, that wasn't the most difficult because I
Speaker 5: basically made a phone call and talk everybody about building it.
Speaker 5: But you know, it's set. I get asked that question
Speaker 5: a lot. And some of the things that are the
Speaker 5: most difficult are the most mundane. And that's bad thing
Speaker 5: because you know, I did commercials for a lot of years,
Speaker 5: and you know, be an orange juice commercial or whatever,
Speaker 5: you had to have an orange juice as part of
Speaker 5: this healthy breakfast, and you could go out and shop
Speaker 5: and bring in twenty different orange juice glasses, and some
Speaker 5: agency person will say, well, you know, like the shape
Speaker 5: of this one, can it be? But can it be
Speaker 5: the size of this one? And so the the most
Speaker 5: difficult props I feel were the most mundane because it'd
Speaker 5: be the one where, like I, you know, I'd be
Speaker 5: told you can you can just go out and find
Speaker 5: that in the trash can out in the studio. I'm going,
Speaker 5: oh really. Or the worst thing was well, well it
Speaker 5: was later in life, but you'd see it on What's
Speaker 5: What's that site where everybody posts pictures of their stuff.
Speaker 5: But anyway, you know, it's oh I saw yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: I saw it on Pinterest. Yeah, right there, I saw
Speaker 5: it on Pinterest. Well yeah, except the pictures from eight
Speaker 5: years ago. Those were the toughest. I mean, honestly, because
Speaker 5: the rest of it is just persistence. I mean that's
Speaker 5: all it is. I mean, there were I will tell
Speaker 5: you one of the toughest props on the show, and
Speaker 5: it was prior to the studio. I was really cracking
Speaker 5: down on having to have animal wranglers on set because
Speaker 5: we all know animals are animal actors, and the rules
Speaker 5: require a member of the Humane Society to be there wrangler.
Speaker 5: But in the early years or the years that we
Speaker 5: were doing Boy Meets World, it wasn't so strict, and
Speaker 5: I wasn't as much of an advocate for animals back then,
Speaker 5: but we needed a bird. It was a scene in
Speaker 5: the boys that the college kid's apartment.
Speaker 2: It was a oh yes, but it was the roommate.
Speaker 2: Eric has a roommate who has a creepy bird.
Speaker 5: That's right, right, So you know, that fell to me
Speaker 5: and they said, oh, David, we don't need an animal wrangler.
Speaker 5: You know, it costs thousands of dollars. They said, can
Speaker 5: you just go maybe just you rent a bird you
Speaker 5: can find maybe somebody has a bird, I mean a bird.
Speaker 2: Questions all watch one outside.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we get these questions all the time from producers
Speaker 5: because they didn't want to spend money. So I had
Speaker 5: first I did call all the animal wranglers. I know
Speaker 5: was that. I think it was a Laura heat. I'm
Speaker 5: not sure what it was, but I couldn't they nobody
Speaker 5: had a red bird, and I was getting desperate and
Speaker 5: I started calling bird stores throughout throughout the city. And
Speaker 5: it's funny, it was around this time that my dad
Speaker 5: was pretty sick and I used to take them to
Speaker 5: his doctor's appointments all the time, sometimes even when I
Speaker 5: was working, and I was always working the phone, and
Speaker 5: my brother is with me, and we're sitting there and
Speaker 5: I'm on the phone while we're waiting for my dad
Speaker 5: to come back out of the doctor's office and I'm
Speaker 5: sitting there. He says, what are you so obsessed about?
Speaker 5: He says, I have got to get a red bird,
Speaker 5: and I need it by Friday, and if I don't
Speaker 5: get this red bird, my career will be over. Well, well,
Speaker 5: what if you can't find it, Oh, I said, Oh,
Speaker 5: I will find Oh. I have to paint one myself.
Speaker 5: And it took I mean prior to the internet being
Speaker 5: what it is now. Yes, I probably could have found
Speaker 5: one in five minutes then, but I called hundreds of
Speaker 5: birds stores and I finally found somebody who had a
Speaker 5: red bird who was willing. I had to buy him
Speaker 5: for like a thousand dollars or whatever, fifteen hundred dollars
Speaker 5: because it was a very expensive bird. I had to
Speaker 5: buy him. And if he was returned healthy, they were
Speaker 5: going to keep like five hundred dollars or whatever. If
Speaker 5: we didn't return him healthy, then we owned him. So
Speaker 5: we had that bird for about a week during rehearsal,
Speaker 5: and he lived in my office and he took care
Speaker 5: of him, and you know, and when the show was over,
Speaker 5: he was perfectly healthy and happy, and I actually fell
Speaker 5: in love with him buy him. But we only had
Speaker 5: cats at the time, so ah, I'm not a good combo.
Speaker 5: Yeh oh, yeah, that's that's an example of a.
Speaker 2: You know who had birds.
Speaker 6: I hate to tell you this, but you know who
Speaker 6: actually had birds and I think had a red bird
Speaker 6: was Rusty.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: We really Yeah, Rusty had birds for a lot.
Speaker 6: He had one bird for like twenty some odd years
Speaker 6: that I think was a red parrot or McCall or something.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 5: You go, see, some people just don't know what you're
Speaker 5: going for. He announced to the crew, Hey, anybody got
Speaker 5: a red.
Speaker 2: Bird because like, yeah, I have several Yeah, rest at birds.
Speaker 5: That was. That was a real tough one on boy me.
Speaker 5: And uh, you know, I I lived to tell another
Speaker 5: day because you know, it's it's really tough. I mean
Speaker 5: it's really hard to say no. I mean, the only
Speaker 5: time you can ever say no if it's if it's
Speaker 5: on the moment and it's you're ready to shoot. They say, hey,
Speaker 5: by the way, do you have a sippy cup? I
Speaker 5: can just handle this across. Yeah, well, you know a
Speaker 5: sippy cup. You know, I think I've got one in
Speaker 5: my garage, you know, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have talked a little bit about how Michael
Speaker 1: always wanted up to date comic books in Chubby's or
Speaker 1: the fake magazines that we would read.
Speaker 3: How did they.
Speaker 1: Get purchased or fabricated? And do you remember any of
Speaker 1: our specific magazines that we would read.
Speaker 5: I'm trying to remember. I don't have I brought some
Speaker 5: of the stuff here. I don't, yes, the specific magazines.
Speaker 5: But what happened is say it was a oh well,
Speaker 5: for instance, I mean there was the Bridle magazines when
Speaker 5: Topanga was looking for a wedding dress. Yes, so I
Speaker 5: had to create that from scratch. Earl Hayes Press at
Speaker 5: the time was the standard of printed props at the time,
Speaker 5: and you could go there and they would have various
Speaker 5: magazines already made up, but in general a lot of
Speaker 5: them were very dated. So in most cases it was
Speaker 5: a lot of footwork. I would go to Corbis or
Speaker 5: one of the photo agency places. We would find a photo.
Speaker 5: I would show it to Michael and we would purchase
Speaker 5: the photo. I would take it to the ground fixed
Speaker 5: place to to Earl Hayes or another place, and they
Speaker 5: would create these magazine covers for us, along with fake ads.
Speaker 5: Because the thing about props, especially magazines and newspapers and
Speaker 5: books is when the actors looking at it, the audience
Speaker 5: only sees the back. We would always have to make
Speaker 5: sure we had appropriate ads on the back that were
Speaker 5: cleared books. I mean we made tons of books. I brought.
Speaker 5: I brought some of the books. I mean we made
Speaker 5: this one was was one of the drops.
Speaker 8: Remember that that so you're going I wrote all the
Speaker 8: books that.
Speaker 5: Way, we didn't have to clear any writers.
Speaker 2: Although the Witchcraft for dumb dumbs.
Speaker 5: Stuff from that one. Yeah, and witchcraft occasionally they would
Speaker 5: write in a book that was written by a specific
Speaker 5: actor or whatever. But I think this one was also
Speaker 5: from Boy Meets World. That's my son. Yeah, So you
Speaker 5: know those I've kept all of these. These were great,
Speaker 5: great props, great souvenirs, and they didn't want them back.
Speaker 5: I mean to them, they were nothing. You know, they
Speaker 5: had their expendables or their their recoverable assets list that
Speaker 5: I had to go by. But those magazines, the newspapers,
Speaker 5: I've got a couple of those here. Those were those
Speaker 5: were a lot of work. I mean, if you remember
Speaker 5: this one when they did Marini computer, so I had
Speaker 5: we had a computer guy there who did the typing
Speaker 5: because remember they changed it from feenie to weenie. You know,
Speaker 5: a ma one like this chick like me, you know
Speaker 5: I would have. So it's very fast turnaround because makeup,
Speaker 5: hair and wardrobe did not have this together till almost
Speaker 5: a day or two before. So we did a photo shoot.
Speaker 5: In fact, this may not even be what was on camera,
Speaker 5: but it was close enough so that I could do
Speaker 5: a photo shoot and get the picture in there. And
Speaker 5: then of course my favorite, my favorite of all time
Speaker 5: was the one that was the nineteen fifties one which
Speaker 5: was curly headed spot.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that picture.
Speaker 2: Bell These are great.
Speaker 5: That was one I shot and you have if you remember.
Speaker 5: Of course, nobody remembers newspapers nowadays. Newspapers used to be
Speaker 5: this big. Yeah, papers were that big. So those were
Speaker 5: a lot of fun, and I always kept copies of
Speaker 5: all my work doing that. I enjoyed the I always
Speaker 5: enjoyed the graphics part a lot.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 1: While we are taping it this, there is currently a
Speaker 1: Boy Meets World prop for eBay on sale for almost
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars, and I wanted to know a little
Speaker 1: bit about it. It is a version of the newspaper
Speaker 1: that announces Corey into Penga's breakup in season five. It's
Speaker 1: a great eight site gag, pretending the Patriot Spirit is
Speaker 1: already reporting on the breakup that happened just seconds before.
Speaker 1: And the prop that's for sale is slightly different than
Speaker 1: the one we see for sale. I mean, then the
Speaker 1: one we see on camera, the one that's for sale
Speaker 1: includes a subheadline Bunsen Burner still missing, and it includes
Speaker 1: a picture of the said Bunsen burner.
Speaker 3: So can you explain how many.
Speaker 1: Versions of these props were made or maybe how or
Speaker 1: why something like this one with the Bunsen burner headline
Speaker 1: wasn't used, but the other one was.
Speaker 5: Well weirdly enough, I and I, I mean it was
Speaker 5: thirty years ago. I don't remember that specific one. I'm
Speaker 5: assuming the newspaper.
Speaker 1: Was in the show, right, Yes it was, we just
Speaker 1: saw it recently. It's the one where Corey and Tapanga breakup.
Speaker 1: Is it the Ski Lodge episode?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Yeah, it's weird a lot that I kept copies
Speaker 5: of everything that I made, but maybe I didn't. The
Speaker 5: only thing I can, and I don't want to say
Speaker 5: it's a fake. It is possible that there was an
Speaker 5: initial version that was made that maybe the producers rejected,
Speaker 5: but it cost a lot of money to make these
Speaker 5: newspapers at the time. I mean, to make our own
Speaker 5: newspaper was like two or three hundred dollars with our
Speaker 5: own copy on it, you know, in those days again
Speaker 5: before desktop publishing, these were actually set by hand, like
Speaker 5: a newspaper. Macintosh and all that were around, but a
Speaker 5: lot of printers weren't using them yet. So honestly, I
Speaker 5: have to say, I'm going to plead I have no
Speaker 5: memory of that.
Speaker 2: It was First Lives Club, it was the episode you're
Speaker 2: looking for it.
Speaker 5: I know that a lot of things ended up, you know,
Speaker 5: being sold, you know, when the prop everything that we
Speaker 5: owned that we had on a show belonged to Disney.
Speaker 5: I mean, we kept souvenirs and stuff, but most everything
Speaker 5: got turned into the studio and the Disney prop house
Speaker 5: closed down a few years after Boymet's World ended, which
Speaker 5: was an absolute crime. They had one of the best
Speaker 5: studio prop houses in Hollywood and they closed it. They
Speaker 5: turned it into an office building. They sold everything. So yeah,
Speaker 5: so they sold everything and they auctioned everything. So probably
Speaker 5: a lot of the stuff ended up being sold that way.
Speaker 5: I have been asked. In the past, I've gotten emails
Speaker 5: to verify that something was a prop from homes World,
Speaker 5: and I would say, yeah, yeah, we made that, you know.
Speaker 5: But they they were just they were throwing things out,
Speaker 5: and I was there, and the painting of the picture
Speaker 5: of the original family which hung over the fireplace was there,
Speaker 5: and because it was turned in as part of the
Speaker 5: you know, everything was fair and it never made it
Speaker 5: to the Disney archives, so it was there and they
Speaker 5: didn't care what happened to it. I took it home, right,
Speaker 5: I took it home, and then years later, when Girl
Speaker 5: Meets World started, I sent it to Michael, so it
Speaker 5: sailed it to him. I don't think it was ever
Speaker 5: in your show, but I just said, you know, I've
Speaker 5: been hanging on to this for safekeeping for years. I
Speaker 5: think somebody else should have it.
Speaker 1: So I'm so disappointed that they did that and none
Speaker 1: of us even knew about it.
Speaker 2: No, but well that's happened.
Speaker 6: I mean again, I was at a convention where somebody
Speaker 6: came up with the Feenie doll, oh, the one where
Speaker 6: Eric has it at the end and it slides down
Speaker 6: the thing, and he said, yeah, I bought this, and
Speaker 6: I could tell it was the real thing. I mean
Speaker 6: it was unless it was a perfect fake. Yeah, I
Speaker 6: mean I knew it was the real doll. So it
Speaker 6: was Yeah, these things are definitely getting out there. But yeah,
Speaker 6: we should have been. I mean talk about as a
Speaker 6: television lover and a film lover, My god, I would
Speaker 6: have gone and bought a whole bunch of stuff from the.
Speaker 5: Eric doll. The Eric doll, the one with the polstering.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: Those were hysterical. And you know, I mean the studio
Speaker 5: looks at stuff, and I know that Disney saves tons
Speaker 5: of stuff where it's archives, but it wasn't important enough
Speaker 5: for them, you know.
Speaker 7: So it was like, okay, right, David, I was you
Speaker 7: brought it up already, but I was going to ask
Speaker 7: you if you could just describe what a prop house is,
Speaker 7: and you know, cause I doubt I didn't know what
Speaker 7: it was until after Boy in the World and Will
Speaker 7: and I were working on a project when we went
Speaker 7: to our first prop house and I was.
Speaker 2: Like, what these places?
Speaker 7: So, could you just describe what they are and how
Speaker 7: they function?
Speaker 5: Back in the day, Back in the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 5: there were actually even more prop houses or prop rental
Speaker 5: companies than there are now. There was a lot of consolidation.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of specialty prop houses. So Alpha Medical
Speaker 5: at the time was the one that specialized just in
Speaker 5: medical equipment. Spelman Desk only rented desks. There was Street First,
Speaker 5: Street Furniture only rented Eastern stuff. Now as the years
Speaker 5: went by, they all combined, so we're now left with
Speaker 5: some pretty giant, amazing general prop rental companies. The biggest
Speaker 5: one of all is ISS, which is Independent Studio Services.
Speaker 5: A prop house is a collection of items that would
Speaker 5: be used in a show, either by an actor or
Speaker 5: as set dressing, and for instance ISS And if you
Speaker 5: ever get a chance, you go out to Sun Valley,
Speaker 5: get a tour there. It is thousands and thousands of
Speaker 5: square feet and they have giant rooms. They have Western World,
Speaker 5: and then they have Gym World, and you go into
Speaker 5: the gym section and there's gym machines and weights and
Speaker 5: fake weights and all that. And then there's the Police
Speaker 5: World and you go in there and it's just police
Speaker 5: stuff from all over the world and badges, and then
Speaker 5: you know tool rooms and oh my god, end, and
Speaker 5: then there'd be rows and rows of coffee cups and
Speaker 5: plates and all this generic stuff that is just part
Speaker 5: of the background of a show if you're doing a
Speaker 5: dinner scene. And so a prop house was an amazing
Speaker 5: place for us as a resource. And the biggest one
Speaker 5: of all back in the day was Ellis Mercantile, which
Speaker 5: started back in I guess the early nineteen hundreds during
Speaker 5: Silent Movies. It was started. It was a hardware store
Speaker 5: back in the day, and those silent movie prop guys
Speaker 5: used to go there and rent things from them. That
Speaker 5: turned into one of the biggest prop rental places in Hollywood.
Speaker 5: They eventually got absorbed by the other prop houses and
Speaker 5: again their inventory went up on eBay for sale.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Oh oh my gosh.
Speaker 5: But you know, we have an ISS. We have the
Speaker 5: Hand Prop Room, which was started by propmaster Alan Levine.
Speaker 5: ISS was started by propmaster Greg Bilson Sr. A lot
Speaker 5: of these guys just basically had so much collection of
Speaker 5: stuff that they decided, Okay, maybe I should start renting
Speaker 5: this stuff, you know, And these have turned into huge
Speaker 5: businesses and the specialty prop houses still exist. I mean
Speaker 5: there's Lenny Marvin Enterprises. Lenny's passed away, but his son
Speaker 5: carries on Lenny was the place you went for gambling equipment,
Speaker 5: I mean, pin machines, slot machines. It's expanded way beyond that,
Speaker 5: I mean. And then there were the other places, the
Speaker 5: ancillary places. Earl Hayes Press, which was a printing place
Speaker 5: which was specifically just for props, and you'd go there
Speaker 5: and you could order license plates and car decals and
Speaker 5: magazines and prescription bottle labels. They had They had drawers
Speaker 5: full of generic labels for canned food because again on
Speaker 5: Boy Meet's World, they Disney did not allow any product placement.
Speaker 5: So anytime we used a can or anything, I'd have
Speaker 5: to go to Earl Hayes Press by a thing that says,
Speaker 5: you know, Johnson's peas or whatever, Johnson's carrots, and we'd
Speaker 5: have to label it. Was a lot of labor intensive
Speaker 5: stuff and they provided all this stuff and it's it's there.
Speaker 5: They're great, great resources, amazing, gosh, I love it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't think we have gotten to this point
Speaker 1: in the show yet, but Dedie to Stefano reminded us
Speaker 1: that she started hiding a red lobster around in different
Speaker 1: sets near the end of the show.
Speaker 3: Does this ring any bells? To you and is there
Speaker 3: any anything you can tell us about that?
Speaker 5: It rings a bell and it's a It's a common thing,
Speaker 5: and I think because we like Ddie so much, we
Speaker 5: didn't care. I mean, we wouldn't normally let people just
Speaker 5: stick things on set because well because we just didn't
Speaker 5: want to have anything accidentally set off anyone's ire. You know,
Speaker 5: it wasn't supposed to be there. But yes, it was
Speaker 5: fun and we've all done that. I mean, we we
Speaker 5: had a rubber chicken. I mean that we used to
Speaker 5: stick in places also.
Speaker 3: I remember the rubber chicken.
Speaker 5: A while. Rubber chicken would go like in a bookcase
Speaker 5: like where we writers sitting, and he's just had to
Speaker 5: be sticking out. I mean, these are just totally stupid
Speaker 5: jokes that that we would make, you know, And in
Speaker 5: years later, you know, I became a huge doctor who fan,
Speaker 5: so I had a little you know, tartists about this
Speaker 5: big and I used to stick that on people's you know,
Speaker 5: shelves in the background of of sitcoms and stuff. But
Speaker 5: it's a very very common thing on shows.
Speaker 2: That's who's your favorite doctor?
Speaker 5: Oh, I got to say David Tennant? Okay, Yeah, I
Speaker 5: mean I I am not like fans who don't like
Speaker 5: various people. I love each and every watching in college
Speaker 5: when it was Tom Baker, and then when I got
Speaker 5: back into it and then knew who I went back
Speaker 5: and started watching the ones that I'd never seen as
Speaker 5: a kid. I worked as a volunteer at Gallifray one
Speaker 5: for a number of years. Cool He's the big fan
Speaker 5: convention that they would hold near lax at one of
Speaker 5: the hotels. I did that for a lot of years
Speaker 5: until it became too much like work. And then that
Speaker 5: was a lot of fun and one of my favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Every Cool One, other thing other outside of Boy Mean's World.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about. In all the list
Speaker 1: of amazing movies you've worked on, one of them that
Speaker 1: jumped out to me was Scrooged with the Bill Murray
Speaker 1: Christmas Movie.
Speaker 3: Was that a fun movie to do?
Speaker 1: Considering all the Christmas oriented props you needed?
Speaker 5: It was My mentor, Eric Nelson, was the prop master
Speaker 5: on that, and he hired me as his assistant. And
Speaker 5: it was amazing because I got to meet, I mean,
Speaker 5: a lots of great actors that I'd never met before
Speaker 5: in my life. It was a ton of fun. Bill
Speaker 5: Murray was hysterical. He was hysterical. And Dick Donner, who
Speaker 5: directed it, was even the most bigger than life director
Speaker 5: I've ever met in my life. It was so much fun.
Speaker 5: I mean I never saw Eric. I mean Eric was
Speaker 5: busy all the time. He was kept on his toes constantly.
Speaker 5: So it was me and a couple of other people.
Speaker 5: We ran the set and it was a huge amount
Speaker 5: of work. I mean, I loved the scenes on the
Speaker 5: screwge set, you know where the guys carrying the big
Speaker 5: posts and browning the little mouse, and you know, Bill
Speaker 5: Murray says, staple them on, you know the little mouse.
Speaker 5: I'll give you one really quick, very funny Dick Donner
Speaker 5: Bill Murray story. So actors sometimes are reluctant to come
Speaker 5: out of their trailer for one reason or another. We
Speaker 5: were waiting and waiting and waiting for Bill Murray. And
Speaker 5: this was at Paramount on you know Paramount. It was
Speaker 5: very tight together there, you know, the streets, and he
Speaker 5: wouldn't come out. Finally, Dick donnerd got really upset. He yelled,
Speaker 5: gets something, yells to the crew, all right, we're all
Speaker 5: gonna go and get Bill Murray. And he says let's go.
Speaker 5: And he marched. He led the entire crew like a
Speaker 5: hundred people, and his trailer is parked like, you know,
Speaker 5: three blocks away, and we were marching through the studio
Speaker 5: yelling we want Bill, we want Bill, and so loud.
Speaker 5: People were coming out of the offices and buildings to
Speaker 5: what the hell's going on? And we finally appeared at
Speaker 5: his trailer and shouting, and he came out with the
Speaker 5: most waiting grin. I mean, he was like, oh.
Speaker 2: My god, Oh that's awesome.
Speaker 7: But that's a great move. Oh yeah, yeah, Wow, that's brilliant.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Well, with everything that you have worked on in your
Speaker 1: very long career, which I know you said you retired
Speaker 1: seven years ago, I want to ask you about that
Speaker 1: as well. But did you ever think we would still
Speaker 1: be talking about Boy Meets World thirty years later?
Speaker 5: Wow? No. In fact, as many people say, at the time,
Speaker 5: it was just another job. It was just another job,
Speaker 5: and it became by the end of the first season
Speaker 5: it was more than a job to me because each
Speaker 5: one of the characters number one, meant so much to
Speaker 5: me that I had to do my best to make
Speaker 5: sure that every prop was perfect for them. But the
Speaker 5: crew and everybody, and I thought, yeah, well, it's a
Speaker 5: good show. I'm glad I'm working on it. And as
Speaker 5: the years went by, after the show is over, I
Speaker 5: am shocked and amazed by the people. You know, my son,
Speaker 5: who was only like, I think a few years old,
Speaker 5: was a huge Boy Meets World fan. As he got
Speaker 5: older and gave him my Boy Meets World cap, which
Speaker 5: I had at the time, still has it. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I never expected to be talking about it, and in fact,
Speaker 5: I'm very honored to be on a show that is
Speaker 5: still remembered all these years later, because so much of
Speaker 5: what I've worked on was completely forgettable.
Speaker 3: Well what are you doing now in your retirement? Where
Speaker 3: do you live? What are you doing?
Speaker 5: I still live where I've lived at the time. We
Speaker 5: are all we are all neighbors.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is insane that we're this close to each
Speaker 6: other and haven't seen it.
Speaker 5: You haven't seen each other at Ralphs or Whole.
Speaker 2: Food Large or Trader Joe's.
Speaker 3: Come on.
Speaker 5: But I about three years before I retired, I started
Speaker 5: volunteering for an animal rescue called Best Friends Animal Society.
Speaker 3: I know best Friends very well.
Speaker 5: I only had enough time to volunteer, like one day
Speaker 5: a week, and I did that. When I finally reached retirement,
Speaker 5: I decided this is my thing. I really like this,
Speaker 5: and I started volunteering about three to four days a
Speaker 5: week with best Friends. And at the time, I had
Speaker 5: very little experience with dogs. I had cats all my
Speaker 5: life and big dogs I was scared of. And they
Speaker 5: have amazing training, amazing training. So I went through many, many,
Speaker 5: many hours of training with them and learned how to
Speaker 5: handle every kind of dog and every kind of temperament.
Speaker 5: And the best part about that I enjoyed working with
Speaker 5: best Friends, besides doing all the adoptions and the dog walking,
Speaker 5: is because of my media experience, I kind of was
Speaker 5: able to be hooked up with the PR people and
Speaker 5: the social media people, and I was able to do
Speaker 5: quite a lot of shoots with them as a dog hander,
Speaker 5: and every now and then, you know, I got to
Speaker 5: be on camera and just talk about a dog. We
Speaker 5: did one show for Animal Planet called Give a Dog
Speaker 5: a Home Live, and I was basically a dog handler,
Speaker 5: but I got to sit in a couple of times
Speaker 5: and talk about dogs. Then Best Friends eventually they decided
Speaker 5: to move and downsize their shelter and they moved to
Speaker 5: West l A and West LA. Just as much as
Speaker 5: I love the organization, it was a little bit geographically
Speaker 5: unacceptable because it was just taking so long to get
Speaker 5: up and back. The other group that moved into the shelter,
Speaker 5: which is in Mission Hills where Best Friends was, is
Speaker 5: called Pause for Life.
Speaker 6: That's where I got my dog. Oh my god, my
Speaker 6: dog is from Pause for Life. We go up there
Speaker 6: and we take classes there all the time. We got
Speaker 6: Sammy from there three years ago. Yeah, I know she was.
Speaker 6: She was trained by the prisoners in the Lancaster State
Speaker 6: Prison and has been our pride and joy.
Speaker 2: We are a huge Pause for Life fans.
Speaker 5: Dog.
Speaker 2: She's she's a mutt, she's mostly a cattle dog. Her
Speaker 2: name name is Samy. She was there for a long time.
Speaker 2: You know her name was back then it was always Sammy.
Speaker 6: We kept it yep. So yes, no, she's been our
Speaker 6: pride and joy. So we are big, big fans of
Speaker 6: Pause for Life.
Speaker 5: It's a totally different kind of organization and how they
Speaker 5: run it, but the bottom line is they are a nonprofit,
Speaker 5: no kill organization, which is my thing. Because of the
Speaker 5: specific facility that we work in that Best Friends had leased.
Speaker 5: The building is in Mission Hills kind of right down
Speaker 5: the street from the San Fernando Mission and it is
Speaker 5: a huge facility. It was built as the seventh Los
Speaker 5: Angeles City Animal shelter about eleven years ago and it
Speaker 5: was never opened, I'm assuming for financial reasons, and it
Speaker 5: sat empty for several years. And Best Friends, which was
Speaker 5: headquartered in Canab, Utah at the time, they sent staff here,
Speaker 5: took over the building and then ran that building for
Speaker 5: almost ten years and now best Friends is nationwide. But
Speaker 5: the specific thing with that building is is because it's
Speaker 5: owned by the City of Los Angeles. Our task is
Speaker 5: to rescue animals only from the city of La So
Speaker 5: we are an overflow because they're a way I don't
Speaker 5: know what the percentage is, but they are way over capacity.
Speaker 5: They have more dogs than they have room for, so
Speaker 5: they house two or three to a kennel. Sometimes they
Speaker 5: do the best they can, but it's very hard. So
Speaker 5: with the team that goes and rescues dogs from the
Speaker 5: city shelters, and we have a capacity of about one
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty dogs at our place. So for every
Speaker 5: dog that we rescue from La City, that saves another
Speaker 5: life because it makes room for them to bring in
Speaker 5: one more dog, and then when our dogs get adopted,
Speaker 5: that saves yet another life because when a dog of
Speaker 5: ours gets adopted, we have room to bring in another dog.
Speaker 5: So I mean, for me, I think if I had
Speaker 5: discovered this thirty five years ago, it might have been
Speaker 5: my calling, you know, but I didn't discover it till
Speaker 5: late in life. And I used to go four to
Speaker 5: five days a week. I'm down to about three now
Speaker 5: because my back basically hurts. You know, when I think
Speaker 5: that I used to be able to stand for fourteen
Speaker 5: hours at a show and now, you know, three hours
Speaker 5: of walking dogs, I usually get in about fifteen thousand steps.
Speaker 5: So that is what I do mainly. The rest of
Speaker 5: the time, I'm with my wife and I have three dogs,
Speaker 5: and you know, I spend time with my family and friends.
Speaker 5: But that is my reason for getting up every day,
Speaker 5: is the Dug shelter because my mantra is that those
Speaker 5: dogs won't walk themselves, and you know, we have to
Speaker 5: get out there and we have to give them the
Speaker 5: best possible life that they can have while they are
Speaker 5: in a shelter because they're all suffering from fear, anxiety
Speaker 5: or stress. And our job as staff and volunteers. Is
Speaker 5: to let them be a dog. Is to get them
Speaker 5: out to have a walk, to sniff, go to playgroup,
Speaker 5: meet other dogs, to get rid of that fear and anxiety.
Speaker 5: And that's that's my mission now in life.
Speaker 2: Well they are.
Speaker 6: They are a wonderful organization and Sammy has been an
Speaker 6: absolute joy for us.
Speaker 2: We are so happy. Yeah, absolutely happy.
Speaker 3: That's so great.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My final question for you is if anyone is listening
Speaker 1: today and is interested in getting into the into props,
Speaker 1: prop mastering, the art department for film or TV. It's
Speaker 1: not an aspect of our industry that is usually you know,
Speaker 1: often talked about in such detail. What would you recommend
Speaker 1: they do to learn more or to get their foot
Speaker 1: in the door.
Speaker 5: Props is a job for people that are obsessive compulsives.
Speaker 5: Number one, you have to be extremely detail oriented, and
Speaker 5: you have to be goal oriented, and you have to
Speaker 5: be extremely persistent. So those are just personality factors. It's
Speaker 5: right thing to do with skill. I'm getting jobs in
Speaker 5: any action of the movie business is a matter of
Speaker 5: persistence because especially now when it's so challenging with the
Speaker 5: slowdown and work. But for people wanting to do props
Speaker 5: for me. I did go to college. It wasn't necessary
Speaker 5: to get a job. I mean I graduated from cal
Speaker 5: State Northwiche with a bachelor's and Radio TV Film broadcasting.
Speaker 5: But what going to college did teach me was it
Speaker 5: gave me a broad view of literature and geography and
Speaker 5: science and etc. So that when something comes up in
Speaker 5: a script, I would know that you know who wrote
Speaker 5: Gone with the Wind, Or I would know who wrote
Speaker 5: But because every week there was a book of the
Speaker 5: week in Phoenie's class, you know there was something book
Speaker 5: and this would come up and I'd have to know
Speaker 5: enough about that. So getting a good education is important.
Speaker 5: College is not specifically necessary, but having a good set
Speaker 5: of skills, being good with your hands in terms of
Speaker 5: simply arts and crafts. You don't have to be a
Speaker 5: carpenter or a builder. I mean I am not a carpenter,
Speaker 5: although I've built many many things throughout my career on
Speaker 5: various shows. But I know how to get things done,
Speaker 5: and that is the key thing is if you can
Speaker 5: make it yourself, if you have that skill. If not,
Speaker 5: I've got to have the creativity to be able to
Speaker 5: explain to somebody with much more talent than me. How
Speaker 5: to create the vision of the producer or the director.
Speaker 5: But in general, be persistent. If you're out there and
Speaker 5: you want to do props, do it. The best way
Speaker 5: is to start. You can start in community theater, college theater,
Speaker 5: high school theater. I mean, learn about learn and appreciate
Speaker 5: those backstage people because when I was a kid actor,
Speaker 5: I had no clue how anything got there. I had
Speaker 5: no clue.
Speaker 3: And sounds familiar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, magical elves, magical elves.
Speaker 5: And to have some respect for like, well, how did
Speaker 5: they come up with that? Or where did they come
Speaker 5: and to you know, ask questions and you know, find
Speaker 5: a mentor. I mean, even if you don't get hired
Speaker 5: right away. You know, because of the Internet now it's
Speaker 5: easily too easy to connect with people, especially through IMDb
Speaker 5: I get. I mean not so much now as I've retired,
Speaker 5: but I would always get many, many, many emails from
Speaker 5: people say how do I do this? And I always
Speaker 5: took the time to talk to them and send them
Speaker 5: emails and give them advice and encouragement. Because if we
Speaker 5: don't have the next generation, we don't have an eat
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, absolutely. Are you still in touch with Mark Pobson?
Speaker 5: No, I haven't seen Mark in years. He retired, they
Speaker 5: moved to Big Bear, and I'm not even sure what
Speaker 5: he's doing. I did see him, I mean a number
Speaker 5: of times after that, but he retired, and then Hector
Speaker 5: went on to become a prop master, so that's why
Speaker 5: he left. And then we had if you remember, Pete
Speaker 5: Tulo worked with us for a while and Pete eventually
Speaker 5: got out of the film business he did not like it.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I've had some great assistance through the years.
Speaker 3: Wow. Well, thank you so much for joining us, David.
Speaker 1: It was so good to see you, so great to
Speaker 1: hear your stories, your experiences.
Speaker 3: It's just been an absolute pleasure, So thank you for
Speaker 3: joining us.
Speaker 5: I just want to say one thing. One of my
Speaker 5: biggest joys on this show was we started with eleven
Speaker 5: year old kids who came with their moms to hurt
Speaker 5: to work, and by the time it was over, y'all
Speaker 5: had cars and drivers license, were flying all over the world.
Speaker 5: And that was a privilege to see you guys grow up.
Speaker 3: That was really Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: Thank you Thank you for man, Thank you care.
Speaker 2: We'll see you around town.
Speaker 3: I'll see you to see you a trader Joe's yeah too, but.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you be man so cool.
Speaker 7: Gosh, I could talk like props and behind the scenes
Speaker 7: stuff all day. I just said, all of it's so
Speaker 7: fascinating to me.
Speaker 6: I am so utterly pissed that Disney Soul all that
Speaker 6: stuff and we didn't we didn't know about it. Can
Speaker 6: you imagine having gone there and see some of the
Speaker 6: the amazing pieces of Hollywood history that you could own
Speaker 6: by being Oh, it's killing me.
Speaker 5: It's killing me.
Speaker 7: One of my favorite memories and in life actually, or
Speaker 7: just favorite spaces I've ever been into. I did the
Speaker 7: graduate in Perth at this theater called His Majesty's Theater,
Speaker 7: one of these old you know, Australian theaters and very
Speaker 7: old school and giant, and we you know, we did
Speaker 7: the play for three months and the last week, you know,
Speaker 7: we got to know the crew very well. And last
Speaker 7: week the crew said we'd like to have you down
Speaker 7: for drinks at our bar and we were like, what
Speaker 7: a do you tight?
Speaker 6: You?
Speaker 7: The cast was like, what do you mean? They're like, well,
Speaker 7: we don't really spread the word because it's our spot.
Speaker 7: But underneath this theater, like three levels down, we have
Speaker 7: our bar, our speakeasy that we run, and they invited
Speaker 7: us down after a show and it was they had
Speaker 7: collected objects and props deep down under the theater from
Speaker 7: you know, one hundred years of theater history to build
Speaker 7: this beautiful bar. So it was like all these objects
Speaker 7: from different eras. They had one of those old school
Speaker 7: thunder machines like they used to have to roll over,
Speaker 7: so it was it was, but it was just it's
Speaker 7: like one of the cool and we all just had
Speaker 7: drinks in this you know, you know, it's a big space,
Speaker 7: but it was just so cool to have like the
Speaker 7: Western things, the Victorian stuff like from whatever era or
Speaker 7: from whatever, you know, the Space age stuff, all the
Speaker 7: different plays that they had done over the years. They
Speaker 7: kept certain things and built this giant bar. It was
Speaker 7: so cool. And that's a way like prophouses feel, you know.
Speaker 7: It's just like it's just a mishmash of like so
Speaker 7: many different ideas and spaces and time periods and it's
Speaker 7: so cool.
Speaker 5: You love all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you all for joining us for this episode
Speaker 1: of Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us
Speaker 1: your emails. Pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: And we have March.
Speaker 2: We need this March built perfectly, and we need it tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Pod Meets Worldshow dot com writer send us out.
Speaker 7: We love you all, pod dismissed. Podmeats World is an
Speaker 7: iHeart podcast producer and hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfridell and
Speaker 7: Ryder Strong executive producers, Jensen Karp and Amy Sugarman Executive
Speaker 7: in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Tara
Speaker 7: Subachsch producer, Mattie Moore engineer and Boy Meets World Superman
Speaker 7: Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon.
Speaker 7: Follow us on Instagram at podmets World Show or email
Speaker 7: us at Podmeats World Show at gmail dot com