Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us on our park
Speaker 1: Hopper episode of Magical rewind. We are delighted today to
Speaker 1: be joined by Officer mcstuffens herself, what is it, Officer
Speaker 1: Ravensburger Mix Mick, and we are of course talking about
Speaker 1: Officer Liz herself, not only the star of the film
Speaker 1: that we just covered, which is Bad hair Day, but
Speaker 1: also the executive producer of Bad hair Day. We cannot
Speaker 1: wait to get into all of the cool stories, so
Speaker 1: we're not gonna wait any longer. Please help us. Welcome
Speaker 1: Lee Allen Baker. Hello, Hello, how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm good, how are you?
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. We just finished
Speaker 1: talking about Bad hair Day, which is why we were
Speaker 1: a little late. I apologized, because we had a lot
Speaker 1: to talk about. Oh right, okay, and we're so glad
Speaker 1: that you're joining us here today.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. So nice to see you guys.
Speaker 1: Yes, so okay. Well, one of the things we of
Speaker 1: course noticed about the film is not only are you
Speaker 1: the star of the movie, but you're also the executive producer.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: So how did the whole project come about? Can you
Speaker 1: walk us through how Bad hair Day came to be?
Speaker 4: Gosh, it was a while ago, kids, But let me
Speaker 4: go back in the way back machine and my memory
Speaker 4: and see if I can remember. So Disney had approached
Speaker 4: me after Good Luck. Charlie had ended about continuing forward
Speaker 4: with a dcom a movie, and I loved Bad hair Day,
Speaker 4: and so we kind of pitched this idea with each other,
Speaker 4: found some writers and then you know, I did rewrites
Speaker 4: in the room with them, wrote the dialogue, helped craft
Speaker 4: the story, and when we got it to a place
Speaker 4: where we were happy with it, that's when we started casting,
Speaker 4: hiring the director who unfortunately just recently passed away. Yeah,
Speaker 4: Eric Henwell, he was really I wanted him to be
Speaker 4: the director so badly because he had Have you ever
Speaker 4: seen bull Coop a Good Cop, Bad.
Speaker 2: Cop in French?
Speaker 4: It was a it was a French film anyway, It's
Speaker 4: a great action film. It was like an indie hit.
Speaker 4: And I had a way of racking focus constantly and
Speaker 4: using the camera and single shots, and I thought, okay,
Speaker 4: a that would be a budget and a time saver.
Speaker 4: It looks really cool and it's nothing like Disney Channel
Speaker 4: has ever really seen before. And being a mom of
Speaker 4: two boys, I wanted to have a movie that could
Speaker 4: that the boys would want.
Speaker 2: To watch too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that is why I was so invested in
Speaker 4: Bad hair Day. And I have, weirdly enough, become very
Speaker 4: much like my character on that show.
Speaker 1: You are you? Are you just going around pretending to
Speaker 1: be an FBI agent? Because that would be awesome.
Speaker 2: I'm more like they're listening to me.
Speaker 4: Hey, I know you're listening to me, but you know
Speaker 4: I'm switching to a flip phone.
Speaker 1: That got That's so wait, you said that you really
Speaker 1: liked Bad hair Day? Was this an existing ip No, Well.
Speaker 4: We discussed different pitching different ideas, and this was the
Speaker 4: idea that we had come up with for Bad hair Day,
Speaker 4: me playing some totally different than a mom on a
Speaker 4: show and a nurse being completely different and looking and
Speaker 4: appearing different.
Speaker 2: I know that they had wanted.
Speaker 4: Me the the kind of a gimmick was Disney knew
Speaker 4: me and my abilities and kind of where my strength
Speaker 4: slide and different. You know, I do voiceovers or a
Speaker 4: lot of different accents, and they've seen other things that
Speaker 4: you you know that you know the drill, and they've
Speaker 4: seen other things that I've done where I look very different,
Speaker 4: and so they thought, how can we capitalize on you
Speaker 4: coming up looking At one point, it was like a
Speaker 4: girl that walked around with like costumes. You know how
Speaker 4: when you pitch stories, you're like, oh, that's a lot
Speaker 4: of people were like having like with with with costumes
Speaker 4: in the in the trunk, and I would like put
Speaker 4: on different disguises and and be different. Eventually, that didn't
Speaker 4: make for a good story. As much as it was
Speaker 4: a good gimmick to show my accent and my range,
Speaker 4: it wasn't a good story to tell. So that's when
Speaker 4: we kind of really crafted this kind of buddy cop
Speaker 4: film with the teenager and this older, out of shape
Speaker 4: kind of cop who's thrown in the towel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it was a pretty big deal for it
Speaker 3: to have the main actor be an adult and it
Speaker 3: not be you know, a cast of just all younger actors,
Speaker 3: so that I felt like it definitely brought a different
Speaker 3: vibe and a different tone to this decom versus what
Speaker 3: a lot of the ones that we've seen. You guys
Speaker 3: were probably on set every day together.
Speaker 2: Every single day.
Speaker 4: Because if I there were only I think two scenes
Speaker 4: that I wasn't actually in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the intro scene, right, yeah, and then yeah and.
Speaker 4: Still I was there as an executive producer behind the camera.
Speaker 4: That's why when it came to editing this film, I
Speaker 4: would say, no, no, no, there's a take where she
Speaker 4: sneezed in the middle of this, and I want to
Speaker 4: cut off the sneeze, but use that tape because than
Speaker 4: hers it. Because I was actually in the scene in
Speaker 4: front of the camera with her on all of these,
Speaker 4: so I.
Speaker 2: Already knew in my head what takes we would use.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but.
Speaker 4: It was interesting to be the only adult but in
Speaker 4: one of these. But we kind of did a little
Speaker 4: bit of that. And good luck, Charlie, it's Christmas, you know.
Speaker 4: I think that was their first testing ground to see
Speaker 4: how that would go because it even though it was
Speaker 4: still about the Duncan family, the a storyline that was
Speaker 4: pretty much the heaviest storyline was Bridget and myself getting
Speaker 4: lost and doing this road trip.
Speaker 2: That movie did really, really well.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that was the question. I mean, is it
Speaker 1: was there ever any pushback from Disney kind of saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, you get it has to be a little
Speaker 1: more kid heavy than this one is. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: hearing the executives that we've all heard from Disney kind
Speaker 1: of like, yeah, no, you need to do this, you
Speaker 1: need to do that. I mean, did you hit up
Speaker 1: against those walls or was it kind of like, hey,
Speaker 1: go make your movie.
Speaker 2: No, it was a lot of hay, go make your movie.
Speaker 4: I think that what they had learned and Good Luck
Speaker 4: Charlie is that Amy Duncan became kind of one of
Speaker 4: the most beloved characters on.
Speaker 2: The show, even though she was an adult.
Speaker 4: And I think that the format that got that character
Speaker 4: there is that Teddy was the character that really acted
Speaker 4: like the mom, that was the responsible one making the good,
Speaker 4: smart choices, and I was the one that was pretty
Speaker 4: naughty and was more like the kid trying to get
Speaker 4: away with murder.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: So I think that when they saw that that format worked,
Speaker 4: and you know, humor does a lot, and I was funny,
Speaker 4: and so people responded well to me, and so they
Speaker 4: felt pretty confident. Then after Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas
Speaker 4: was really successful. I think they were pretty confident with
Speaker 4: the movie going the direction that it went nice.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean it was strange for us tonally
Speaker 1: because it's one of those things where we are watching
Speaker 1: a d coom sometimes two a week and we're going
Speaker 1: at different times in the dcom. Like, for instance, the
Speaker 1: one we did last week was called The Ghosts of
Speaker 1: Bucksley Hall from nineteen eighty, which is You've got I
Speaker 1: mean essentially the mister Roper Furley character going like, there's
Speaker 1: ghosts in the house. That's what adults do and run around,
Speaker 1: and then the little kids have their romance and do
Speaker 1: their story. And then as we're creeping up in time,
Speaker 1: it's now your movie is twenty fifteen, and we're getting
Speaker 1: into more of the prom packed kind of more real.
Speaker 1: The adults are real, more real, the kids are more real.
Speaker 1: There's drinking sometimes in the movies. I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: at a time in dcom where we're kind of going, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: we have to switch how we're watching the dcom exactly
Speaker 1: as they're switching how they're making the dcom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you went literally my generation that watched it, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it.
Speaker 1: Was we are kind of watching these stories where we're
Speaker 1: then going, oh, yeah, this makes sense that they're kind
Speaker 1: of going a more adult route with it so that
Speaker 1: the adults can sit and watch with the kids, right.
Speaker 4: And I think that was what they learned in the model,
Speaker 4: the business model of Good Luck Charlie is that they
Speaker 4: would take some network veteran writers and a couple of
Speaker 4: network veteran actors myself and Eric Alan Kramer, and then
Speaker 4: put us with some kids in an ensemble cast and
Speaker 4: see how it went. I know that they were very
Speaker 4: surprised and didn't expect it to go as well as
Speaker 4: it did.
Speaker 2: At one point, Good Look Charlie was the number one
Speaker 2: show in.
Speaker 4: The world, and so I think that they built some
Speaker 4: confidence with that because the show really did hit so
Speaker 4: many demographics. It hit little kids wanting to watch the baby,
Speaker 4: all the way through preteen, teen parents and grandparents. You know,
Speaker 4: like you'd be surprised. I don't know of a demographic
Speaker 4: that doesn't recognize me from that show.
Speaker 2: When I'm out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like full House or boy Me Thrill.
Speaker 1: You have that same kind of there's somebody for everybody
Speaker 1: to watch.
Speaker 4: Yes, And so I think that they were pretty confident
Speaker 4: in doing the movie, And you know, they knew I
Speaker 4: directed a few episodes, and so I think they trusted
Speaker 4: me in that position.
Speaker 3: It was really awesome. Did you have any part in
Speaker 3: getting Laura for the movie or was this was she
Speaker 3: just brought to the casting call or you know how
Speaker 3: how did you guys end up having Laura become involved.
Speaker 2: That they had talked to me about.
Speaker 4: You know how they always have one that they pick,
Speaker 4: or one that they owe something to, or one that
Speaker 4: they're thinking about and all the time. But there were
Speaker 4: a couple prospects, but one girl was they felt would
Speaker 4: be better for another one, and they felt Laura would
Speaker 4: be better on this one. And you know, look, both
Speaker 4: of the actors that they entertained for the part were fantastic.
Speaker 2: So it was a win win situation no matter what.
Speaker 1: Had you met before, because you obviously had chemistry, the
Speaker 1: two of you.
Speaker 3: So much chemistry. You guys look like you were having
Speaker 3: a last the whole time.
Speaker 2: Here was one point.
Speaker 4: It was summer, and let me tell you, Montreal gets
Speaker 4: really hot in the summer. Huggy and I've got this
Speaker 4: wig on and this sweat shirt and sweatpants and these
Speaker 4: baggy clothes and boots leather boots. Yes, And I'm sitting
Speaker 4: in the front seat and I'm like, I am of
Speaker 4: the car because you know, they won't put the air
Speaker 4: conditioning on because it's noisy, and then they want to
Speaker 4: put the windows up because it's too noisy. I literally
Speaker 4: remember saying to someone, you know, it's illegal to do
Speaker 4: this to dogs. Laura and I are sitting in the
Speaker 4: front seat and I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't
Speaker 4: think I've ever been so hot. And she looked over
Speaker 4: at me and she has got o wig and a
Speaker 4: sock bog and a leather jacket on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gave me this look and I was like, oh, sorry,
Speaker 2: you short.
Speaker 4: Your legs are cool at least.
Speaker 1: To kill your Branda was absolutely trying to kill you.
Speaker 2: That was the most That was so fun.
Speaker 4: She was so fun, and I did my own stunts
Speaker 4: in that car, like when we were driving around. I
Speaker 4: was driving around and there were literally there was a
Speaker 4: radio that she would help operate in the car, and
Speaker 4: there would be a guy in this corner being like
Speaker 4: god like like goldop, like it's gonna stay green screen
Speaker 4: or it's turned yellow.
Speaker 2: Pushy, pushy, push it. I'm literally driving around.
Speaker 3: The cudy, Oh my good.
Speaker 2: Cameras on different corners. No way if even knows that.
Speaker 2: But like, we wanted to get the show, we wanted
Speaker 2: to look good.
Speaker 1: So it was one of the best chase scenes we've
Speaker 1: seen in any Disney Channel movie.
Speaker 3: By far.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like an actual chase scene.
Speaker 3: That was a legit, super good chasing her whole entire
Speaker 3: d m V experience was so amazing. It just sounds
Speaker 3: great fun to.
Speaker 2: Write that scene. It was. That was It's a fun movie,
Speaker 2: you guys, No it is.
Speaker 3: I loved I said, one of my favorite parts of
Speaker 3: it is when your slow motion like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so good.
Speaker 3: It is so good.
Speaker 1: I loved it.
Speaker 3: Your guys' chemistry, the way you bounced off of each
Speaker 3: other top to bottom was just so fun to watch,
Speaker 3: and it was awesome to see the relationship develop. Were
Speaker 3: you anything like like Monica in high school?
Speaker 4: Was that? Like?
Speaker 2: Were you?
Speaker 3: Were you pulling from experiences at all?
Speaker 2: Or yeah, of course, of course.
Speaker 4: You know. I had a little bit of that, wondering
Speaker 4: what other people think of me in high school.
Speaker 2: I feel so hurt by.
Speaker 4: What people would think of me or say of me,
Speaker 4: or how is misrepresented cuts to you today? I'm misrepresented
Speaker 4: all over the media and everywhere else, and I like,
Speaker 4: my skin is so think I could care less, right,
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, tell me another story, come up with
Speaker 4: something new, please. It's getting high school's rough though, It's
Speaker 4: high school is rough, So with this. It was kind
Speaker 4: of like a way for me to stand up for
Speaker 4: and teach that lesson to my younger self that I
Speaker 4: wish someone would have have taught me, right, And I
Speaker 4: love how it brought up like the beginning of like
Speaker 4: social media, and like I.
Speaker 3: Was just gonna say that, I was telling Will right
Speaker 3: at the beginning of it, I go, when is this
Speaker 3: movie twenty fifteen? So no longer just the MySpace. We've
Speaker 3: got Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, all these social medias. I loved
Speaker 3: how it brought in the location. Will didn't know that,
Speaker 3: Like you can go on your media where at all,
Speaker 3: but you can go see where all your friends are
Speaker 3: and all that. I mean, it's kind of creepy. You
Speaker 3: open yourself up to so much on the web with
Speaker 3: all these apps.
Speaker 2: You really do.
Speaker 4: I even tell my children that, I'm like, you don't
Speaker 4: have social media because not because I don't trust you,
Speaker 4: but because I don't trust the world. It's literally not
Speaker 4: giving it's not just giving you access to the world,
Speaker 4: it's given the world access to you.
Speaker 2: And that is a really scary proposition.
Speaker 4: So I love how it delved into that, because you know,
Speaker 4: I do I so desperately like when I speak to
Speaker 4: kids at college campuses or to teenagers. What I'm always
Speaker 4: telling them too is is, gosh, it's a real skill
Speaker 4: set that is so advantageous to learn. It's not what
Speaker 4: others think about you that matters. They're not your source
Speaker 4: for happiness. You know, likes, it's just likes and follow
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: They've done actual studies. They mapped the brain as it
Speaker 1: was getting likes, and it was the same endorphin Russia
Speaker 1: as doing drugs.
Speaker 2: It's the same as wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You literally get addicted to the likes and the
Speaker 1: well why did I get this many likes on this picture?
Speaker 1: And I'm not get to it and it's it's a
Speaker 1: drug soug.
Speaker 4: I can honestly tell you unless I needed social media
Speaker 4: for work purposes.
Speaker 2: And things that I do, I wouldn't have it. In fact, the.
Speaker 4: Only reason I got social media is because when Bridget
Speaker 4: and I got the Got Milk campaign, one of the
Speaker 4: things in the contract was that I had to have
Speaker 4: social media platforms, yeah, and sign up for I think
Speaker 4: two or three of them. I think it was Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 4: and Instagram at the time. And I so didn't want
Speaker 4: to be recognized on Instagram that I made my handle
Speaker 4: l Underscore a Underscore Baker Underscore thirty team like that,
Speaker 4: I'm going to hide because I didn't think at the time,
Speaker 4: this is something that you'll ever want people to see,
Speaker 4: you want people to I thought, oh, you don't want
Speaker 4: them to find you, you know.
Speaker 2: Right at the time, to me.
Speaker 4: It was like a way for me to share pictures
Speaker 4: of my children with my parents who didn't live nearby.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, yeah, no, I've I've actually given up jobs
Speaker 1: because they'll say you have to have social media and
Speaker 1: I say don't. It's like, sorry, you can join. I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to. Well you won't get the job.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, nice seeing it. Yeah, because it's just yeah,
Speaker 1: I won't do it. But anyway, we'll get to we'll
Speaker 1: get to we'll get to more fun stuff. For instance,
Speaker 1: are you still in touch with Laura or anybody from
Speaker 1: the cast?
Speaker 4: I know I could call her right now and be like, hey,
Speaker 4: Laura and her mom, but we haven't like spoken in
Speaker 4: a while other than a Christmas card or we haven't
Speaker 4: really spoken much.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's so sad.
Speaker 4: As a mom, I feel the same way about the
Speaker 4: kids on my show. It's like I was at mom.
Speaker 4: That's like, oh, why am I not hearing from you anymore?
Speaker 4: And now I'm learning from my own kids who are
Speaker 4: becoming teens and pre teens.
Speaker 2: Oh, they're busy living their life. They don't want to
Speaker 2: hear from their mother.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Personal, it's that they don't want mom constantly contacting them,
Speaker 4: and I would be so hurt by it.
Speaker 1: You you just mentioned your fellow cast members you had
Speaker 1: the unfortunate job of working with. Well, we don't like
Speaker 1: him at all, Jason Dolly, who's just he's a terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible human being. Yeah, he came on our show and
Speaker 1: just unlikable, not funny, not personal. Disney didn't like him.
Speaker 1: They didn't put him in forty two different things.
Speaker 2: That's why they kept using him there.
Speaker 1: So Good Luck Charlie you talked about it a little bit.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that amazes us when we
Speaker 1: have so many people from different shows or different movies
Speaker 1: on is how, first of all and everybody who comes
Speaker 1: on says you could have asked us, we never would
Speaker 1: have known, So we always ask kind of knowing the answer.
Speaker 1: When Good Luck Charlie started, did you think there was
Speaker 1: any chance it was going to become what it did. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I thought that Disney Channel was the place where adults'
Speaker 4: careers go to die.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I did not want to do it, but they caught
Speaker 4: me at a moment of weakness where I was nine
Speaker 4: months pregnant.
Speaker 2: What else was I going to do?
Speaker 4: In fact, they had hired someone else to be the
Speaker 4: mom in the pilot because I just never went into labor. Yes,
Speaker 4: And then they picked the show up and said, well,
Speaker 4: if they had actually said to me, if you will
Speaker 4: be Amy Duncan, well we're going to pick the show
Speaker 4: up and we're going to run with and see what happens.
Speaker 4: And I thought, well, okay, let's just give it a
Speaker 4: run and see what happens.
Speaker 2: And it was like the best work experience. It was
Speaker 2: just so great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know we heard that so but the other
Speaker 1: podcast I do, Danielle Fischel is one of the co
Speaker 1: hosts on that, and she said, being a parent on
Speaker 1: a Disney Channel show is one of the greatest jobs
Speaker 1: you will ever have in your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was great. I had both my babies on
Speaker 2: that show.
Speaker 4: So when they had called me Griffin, my oldest was
Speaker 4: about five months old, and he and Mia around the
Speaker 4: same age.
Speaker 2: And then they were friends growing up throughout that whole show.
Speaker 4: And then Baker I was pregnant with on all of
Speaker 4: season three because we had done the Good Luck Charlie,
Speaker 4: It's Christmas movie and they had We were shocked that
Speaker 4: they were given Amy Duncan another baby. I mean you
Speaker 4: should have seen the response from the cast. We were like,
Speaker 4: that is irresponsible. We have too many babies. We get
Speaker 4: a dog, why do we have to have another baby.
Speaker 4: We got a good thing here with just does.
Speaker 2: We don't want to have a baby. And then I thought.
Speaker 4: Well, gosh, they're having us have this baby. I should
Speaker 4: probably and I thought I would. We would go back
Speaker 4: after shooting the movie and that season I would be
Speaker 4: pregnant the whole season.
Speaker 2: And I thought the way Disney thinks would be like.
Speaker 4: Oh, you know, season ending, season finale baby. But so
Speaker 4: I got pregnant, thinking I'm going to have my baby
Speaker 4: in the hiatus in between. And I show up to
Speaker 4: work ten weeks pregnant and They've got a huge pregnancy
Speaker 4: pad for me, and I was like, oh, what is that.
Speaker 4: They're like, well, we're starting you out at like six
Speaker 4: or seven months pregnant, and I was like, are we sure,
Speaker 4: Are you sure we want to talk?
Speaker 1: You don't want to start at ten weeks?
Speaker 2: That can be fun, way way back.
Speaker 4: And then why are you saying that? And why are
Speaker 4: you eating carbohydrates? And I was like, oh, because I'm
Speaker 4: not just and I'm so pregnant, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I'm sorry, I have to I have to ask.
Speaker 1: You said, is it a daughter or a son named Baker?
Speaker 2: A boy named Baker?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Boyny Baker. Is his name Baker Baker?
Speaker 2: No, his name is Baker Kaufman.
Speaker 1: Okay, So so, Chuckie, I was like, oh, because that
Speaker 1: would be kind of cool if hey, I went to
Speaker 1: school with a kid named Soren Sorenson.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it was.
Speaker 4: So the way that went down was my brother had
Speaker 4: two girls, so they could not carry on the Baker name,
Speaker 4: and I had two boys, and so I named my
Speaker 4: last boy Baker to kind of carrier.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's incredible. Okay, So let's if we
Speaker 1: could talk a little bit about the differences, because you
Speaker 1: also did twenty episodes of Ellen, Will and Grace well,
Speaker 1: excuse me, Will and Grace, my bad, twenty episodes of
Speaker 1: Will I did. Yeah, I met I met Will and Grace.
Speaker 1: I met you you played Ellen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I actually three episodes of that show, maybe even
Speaker 4: twenty six, but there were some double episodes in there.
Speaker 4: But yes, I played Ellen.
Speaker 1: Ellen, So I met you played Ellen and Will and Grace.
Speaker 1: What is the difference between working on a big adult
Speaker 1: network show and working on something like a Disney Channel show.
Speaker 4: One is fun and you can breathe on it, and
Speaker 4: the other Grace and then there's Grace. Yeah, it was
Speaker 4: intense from the pilot on. There's just a lot of
Speaker 4: pressure and network television and the network execs are not
Speaker 4: very approachable or friendly, and you stay in your zone,
Speaker 4: they stay in theirs. And Disney Channel was like, you know,
Speaker 4: Gary marsh comes to set and you see him so
Speaker 4: sweet and fun, and Adam would come to set, and
Speaker 4: so it was more a family. It truly felt more
Speaker 4: like a family on Disney Channel, where it felt like.
Speaker 2: A club that didn't really want you.
Speaker 1: Did you like the work on Will and Grace?
Speaker 4: I thought the show was really funny, and I genuinely
Speaker 4: loved some of the writers. They were great, very funny,
Speaker 4: talented people. But the work was stressful.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it was. It was a pressure cooker.
Speaker 1: I've heard that I had a couple of friends that
Speaker 1: guest starred who said exactly the same thing. They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: I've I've had better experiences than that one. Yeah, okay yeah.
Speaker 4: And then they were always stunt casting, so then like
Speaker 4: one day I'd be doing an episode and I'd be thinking, Okay,
Speaker 4: finally I'm going back to a familiar your zone. I
Speaker 4: should be able to relax, and then they're like, Madonna's here,
Speaker 4: don't look her in the eye. I don't work where
Speaker 4: I like know people and not look Madonna in the eye.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I feel like the car show that you could look
Speaker 4: in the eye was Charlie. But that's because she was three.
Speaker 4: You know, Madonna's supposed to know better. Right.
Speaker 1: We just heard from one of our producers who was
Speaker 1: a fan, that the little girl that played Charlie just
Speaker 1: started her sophomore year in high school. Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Apparently they grow up quickly. I don't know because I'll
Speaker 1: never have them, but apparently.
Speaker 4: And they grow It's the most things. I'm like, having
Speaker 4: a teenager is like the longest breakup in the history
Speaker 4: of the world. Oh it is bone crushing. Oh no,
Speaker 4: ast it goes and that I'm always like you can
Speaker 4: live with me forever.
Speaker 2: And my husband's like, that's weird. Stop saying things like us.
Speaker 3: So I have a four year old daughter and my
Speaker 3: son is fifteen months old, so he's just you know,
Speaker 3: a little over a year. And I love my daughter.
Speaker 3: We are besties. I mean, she is the best. But
Speaker 3: I text messaged my mother in law the day my
Speaker 3: son was born and was like, I get it now.
Speaker 1: I get like, yes, you.
Speaker 3: Can live with me forever. You will never be alone.
Speaker 4: It will just because boys, I'm telling you, I brainwashed
Speaker 4: mine since day one.
Speaker 2: You can stay with mommy forever. So I'm at some
Speaker 2: point that that sticks.
Speaker 3: All right. Oh man, I don't know. My husband's got
Speaker 3: all these big dreams of us, the travels will do
Speaker 3: without kids, and I'm like, but when are they leaving us?
Speaker 3: They're always going to be here.
Speaker 2: I can honestly tell you.
Speaker 4: My husband and I the one time we tried to
Speaker 4: go on a vacation and it was during Good Luck Charlie.
Speaker 4: We tried to go for our ten year anniversary, just
Speaker 4: an hour away to the beach and in Allgant Hills, California,
Speaker 4: And we got there and we got to call immediately
Speaker 4: that the Baker had the flu and was throwing up.
Speaker 2: So, oh jeez.
Speaker 4: So we've so not gone on dates or vacations that
Speaker 4: when my kids were little, if I got dressed up
Speaker 4: to go out with my husband, they would say.
Speaker 2: Oh, do you have to go to the Emmy's. Like,
Speaker 2: because I ever dressed up and went out of my
Speaker 2: house was when I was I just leave them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole thing with kids. I read an article
Speaker 1: the other day that said they want to eat every
Speaker 1: single day. That's weird to me.
Speaker 4: I just don't care and everything you have to think
Speaker 4: of what they have for dinner, which is the most
Speaker 4: exhausting part.
Speaker 1: Well, it's all my wife and I talk about anyway.
Speaker 1: It's just what we're having for dinner night. That's our
Speaker 1: whole relationship.
Speaker 3: Have your two boys seen bad hair Day?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And they love it and they may good. And they
Speaker 2: loved watching the dailies too.
Speaker 4: They would walk around going, don't push the red button,
Speaker 4: and now it's saying there's a red button.
Speaker 3: I'm like, So, talking about hair, you had a totally
Speaker 3: different color, different style, everything your hair was different than
Speaker 3: what you normally have. Was that weird for you? Was
Speaker 3: it weird for the kids? Was that a thing you
Speaker 3: guys had to talk about.
Speaker 2: Well, here's what we had to talk about. You know.
Speaker 4: Amy Duncan was very dulled up all the time, with
Speaker 4: like a face full of so much makeup, right, And
Speaker 4: my kids loved that. My thank you for making your
Speaker 4: face beautiful.
Speaker 2: He loved it.
Speaker 4: And then I said, I'm going to get my hair
Speaker 4: done for a new movie. They thought I was going
Speaker 4: to go be made up like Amy Duncan or for
Speaker 4: some award show. And I walked into the house with
Speaker 4: this auburn hair and no makeup, and my kids are like,
Speaker 4: think about the very upset.
Speaker 2: Like listen.
Speaker 4: I said to my listaid, mommy is beautiful no matter what.
Speaker 2: And he gets You.
Speaker 4: Could see his little wheels turning and he goes, oh,
Speaker 4: so that's how it works.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. It was such a loaded statement for
Speaker 2: a little kid to make.
Speaker 4: Like you could see him figuring out, Oh, that's what
Speaker 4: I'm supposed to say.
Speaker 3: Okay, momm yeah, sure you look great.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So they dyed my hair and then I wore
Speaker 4: these these clip on bangs.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yes, But adjustment to see yourself that way,
Speaker 3: even just you, I think I just couldn't imagine when
Speaker 3: someone goes a drastic color change.
Speaker 1: It's a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was, I was. I did. I was ready
Speaker 2: to get my blonde back when it was done. That's right. Okay.
Speaker 1: When you're so you're coming up with the idea for
Speaker 1: the movie, did you have any influences that were front
Speaker 1: and center, Because as I'm watching it, I got some
Speaker 1: some Thelma Louise vibes, some midnight run vibes. I'm in.
Speaker 1: Was there something that you were kind of a vibe
Speaker 1: you were going for when you were coming.
Speaker 4: Up with it for a little thumb on the waves,
Speaker 4: but a little more on the heat you were.
Speaker 1: Just talking about, that's what we mentioned, Melissa McCarthy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was kind of going for that kind of vibe.
Speaker 4: And I really love it where you can show that
Speaker 4: two characters really learn from one another, even though it's
Speaker 4: set up to appear that one will learn from this
Speaker 4: one only, and then you realize at the end of
Speaker 4: the day, the one who was truly changed was.
Speaker 2: The adult by being around.
Speaker 4: I think you can see that in that last scene
Speaker 4: where they're outside and she's trying to fight back tears
Speaker 4: about how if I was your mom?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, so good.
Speaker 1: Also, the idea that there's even and I get one
Speaker 1: of the things you talked about is there's very few
Speaker 1: times where we believe a parent should have the right
Speaker 1: to just step in and say, this is what you're
Speaker 1: doing with your life. But when it's between State and MIT,
Speaker 1: this is what you're doing with your life, this is
Speaker 1: not a choice for you. I'm sorry, but you don't
Speaker 1: get to decide between these two. You're going to MIT, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: I love being able to have like an outsider perspective
Speaker 4: with that character.
Speaker 2: That wasn't really her mom. But then you see, like
Speaker 2: in that.
Speaker 4: Moment particular that we were talking about, just then like
Speaker 4: all the pieces came together for Liz to realize what
Speaker 4: this girl has missed out on. And we always think
Speaker 4: that we've got it so hard. Liz is in her
Speaker 4: mopey poor woe is me. I can't believe this happened
Speaker 4: to me at the police department. I can't believe I've
Speaker 4: been treated like this. And the second she finally hears
Speaker 4: someone else's store and why they're doing what they're doing
Speaker 4: and where they're at, that compassion just expands immensely and
Speaker 4: then she realizes, oh wow, I've been so self centered
Speaker 4: and not even realizing how fortunate I am, and here's
Speaker 4: this kid struggling like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that was the other thing we noticed that
Speaker 1: it So it was so unique about this movie compared
Speaker 1: to a lot of the other decoms we saw were
Speaker 1: some of the quiet, longer talking scenes which you didn't.
Speaker 1: We didn't we. You know, when you're first explaining how
Speaker 1: the necklace got lost and she's talking about losing your mom.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was a good six seven eight minute
Speaker 1: scene of just two people talking, and you didn't get
Speaker 1: a whole lot of that in D cooms.
Speaker 4: No, that was shot in one take because we were
Speaker 4: out of time and they threw it on the schedule
Speaker 4: for that day, and I was like, I'm.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Oh my gosh, Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: There's even a moment in it where you'll hear where
Speaker 4: I hold for a motorcycle going by.
Speaker 1: Oh I gotta go back and watch.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, no way, that's insane.
Speaker 1: Wow. Did you watch any d cooms previous to this
Speaker 1: to get any kind of sense of the channel? Did
Speaker 1: you not want to watch any dcoms or were you
Speaker 1: even a fan of dcoms?
Speaker 4: I kind of didn't want to watch them because I
Speaker 4: wanted to make something really original, and I also want
Speaker 4: to be judgmental, Like I said, I went into Judge
Speaker 4: to Good Luck Charlie very judgmental of like I said,
Speaker 4: this is where adult's career is going to die and
Speaker 4: ended up having like the highlight of my career and
Speaker 4: having a blast.
Speaker 1: And being except for a great show to be You're
Speaker 1: so good at it. Oh woh god, that's funny. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess the question then becomes, are we
Speaker 1: ever going to see these characters again? Is there a
Speaker 1: chance of ever seeing these characters again? Or even maybe
Speaker 1: maybe Laura's character has moved on, But are we ever
Speaker 1: going to see Officer Liz again? Is that a possibility?
Speaker 4: Or that would be pretty great to see how she's changed,
Speaker 4: if Laura's lessons like kind of stuck with her right yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if she's still giving all the compliments on
Speaker 3: people's nostrils and.
Speaker 2: Flirting at all. Has she married?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean, it's a great it'd be a great question.
Speaker 1: You get onto another case, you never know what could happen.
Speaker 4: I mean, or maybe there's like a murder case that
Speaker 4: we stumble upon together. But see, like see you get
Speaker 4: things that could open the world like oh, not appropriate
Speaker 4: for children, no, but.
Speaker 1: Maybe something at her college.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be.
Speaker 4: Oh, we've actually talked about that in the beginning, that
Speaker 4: that something goes down at her college and Liz shows
Speaker 4: up to try.
Speaker 1: To there you go something at mit, you've got to
Speaker 1: go undercover as as somebody who's brilliant and you, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously you're street smart. But I'm sorry, I'm writing in
Speaker 1: my head, but.
Speaker 4: We've already pitched it all. Trust me, it's all partially.
Speaker 4: That was like what ten years ago?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, now you need to have to be a musical
Speaker 1: with dragons, so and Johnny's can you do that? Can
Speaker 1: they be a musical about dragons and zombies that Officer
Speaker 1: Liz is in?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yes, anything to get her back, anything to get her back?
Speaker 1: What is it got to be?
Speaker 3: Do you think, obviously, if it wasn't just this movie
Speaker 3: and a sequel to it, do you do you ever
Speaker 3: think that you would you know, possibly either direct or
Speaker 3: produce again for a dcom. Would you ever be interested
Speaker 3: in trying to do that again?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 4: I just recently produced a television series for Brave Books
Speaker 4: called The Adventures of Iggy and mister Kirk and it's
Speaker 4: a children's show, kind of like a mister Rogers meets
Speaker 4: the Muppets meet Sesame Street. And oh wow, I was
Speaker 4: saying the other day in an interview, I was like,
Speaker 4: I feel like God has been like mister miaggiing me
Speaker 4: for a while where I'm like, why.
Speaker 2: Am I wax on wax on wax on xof.
Speaker 4: And I realized that when I got on this set,
Speaker 4: I knew how to call all the shots for the Quad.
Speaker 4: Things that I never would have thought that I had
Speaker 4: picked up on just being immersed in this world, knowing
Speaker 4: how to work with kids, knowing how to work with puppets.
Speaker 2: I'd worked with the Muppets.
Speaker 4: I'm good luck Charlie, And all of this time I've
Speaker 4: been learning how to execute, like editing, writing, directing shots
Speaker 4: like I said, even camera coordinator, even going oh no,
Speaker 4: we need more lie over here. It's too cool or
Speaker 4: it's too warm, or it's amazing what you pick up
Speaker 4: in thirty plus years of being on sets and then
Speaker 4: you realize, oh, I know what I'm doing right.
Speaker 1: This is a language that I speak.
Speaker 4: All of a sudden, what I'm doing, you know, So
Speaker 4: that's been fun, and yeah, I would love to direct
Speaker 4: again and produce again.
Speaker 2: That's kind of where my passion is right now.
Speaker 4: I just finished writing the Christmas movie with my writing
Speaker 4: partner that we literally just wrapped up this week and
Speaker 4: it's really funny and I'm really excited to get that
Speaker 4: out there as well.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to talk to you a little bit
Speaker 1: about something that is very very near and dear to
Speaker 1: my heart, which is my ultimate passion, which is voiceover,
Speaker 1: which I've been doing for twenty five years and I
Speaker 1: love it so much. And I know you're very big
Speaker 1: in the voiceover world as well. Is there one discipline
Speaker 1: you prefer vio or on camera? Okay, I hate this question,
Speaker 1: by the way, I get it all the time, and
Speaker 1: so it's but I have to throw.
Speaker 4: Choose between your base exactly totally differently.
Speaker 1: Totally different, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: You know one, I'm gonna be able in voice over
Speaker 4: to play all different characters that don't look a thing
Speaker 4: like me or sound a thing like me. So the imagination,
Speaker 4: it's just like dealing with animation. You're able to do
Speaker 4: so much more with a story and you're able to
Speaker 4: go places that you can't go on regular television, live
Speaker 4: live action, right sure.
Speaker 2: So that part I love about that.
Speaker 4: And then the part that I love about being on
Speaker 4: camera is and specifically half hour comedy multiicam is I
Speaker 4: love the interaction with the audience.
Speaker 2: I mean, like I was, you know.
Speaker 4: I did theater, I did Shakespeare, So to me, that
Speaker 4: interaction with the audience, it automatically feeds your performance. I'll
Speaker 4: never forget many times that the producers, you know, after
Speaker 4: you do is seeing they come down with little notepads
Speaker 4: and they're going to tell you how to do it differently,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, they died laughing, We're.
Speaker 2: Done, but moving on, moving on, How do you argue
Speaker 2: with that?
Speaker 4: And they're like, okay, you know, go back to their
Speaker 4: chairs with them note pads. So I love both of them,
Speaker 4: and I also do There's an element of film that
Speaker 4: I really love too, that again brings us back to
Speaker 4: this dcom is being able to bridge hilarious circumstances that
Speaker 4: also are heartwarming, that can make you cry, that tug
Speaker 4: on your heart streams that you can really need more
Speaker 4: of an emotional gamut with that, and you can pick
Speaker 4: up some more subtle shots. It doesn't mean you can't
Speaker 4: be as like big like I'm big and bad hair
Speaker 4: day too. I mean, she's definite character. But as long
Speaker 4: as it's grounded in reality, people buy it and eat
Speaker 4: it up and it's you know, pretty rich.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for joining us here. This
Speaker 1: has been the coolest thing in the world. We really
Speaker 1: really enjoyed the movie we did. It threw us a
Speaker 1: bit because it wasn't dcom for us, right.
Speaker 3: It felt more like a feature it did.
Speaker 1: It did like the heat like that exactly, that kind
Speaker 1: of vibe it really did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And because I wanted parents to be able to
Speaker 4: watch it. That was one of the joys of Good
Speaker 4: Luck Charlie is that the parents would watch it often
Speaker 4: when they're rich. Correll posted, once my kids left the
Speaker 4: room and I'm still watching the show. How do you
Speaker 4: know You're a Good Luck Charlie fan? And I wanted
Speaker 4: to carry over into this film. I wanted to really
Speaker 4: raise the bar on d coms and see if we
Speaker 4: couldn't do something that is a little more feature film
Speaker 4: oriented and getting bored even though and I knew it
Speaker 4: would bring their parents and their family on board.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that was definitely the vibe. We got it
Speaker 1: really was. Really it was. You could also see we're
Speaker 1: talking about different moments in Disney Channel original movie history,
Speaker 1: and you can see this the fifteens, the seventeens, whatever
Speaker 1: they call it nowadays is you can see it's Disney
Speaker 1: Channel trying to find that, you know, the next version
Speaker 1: of what dcoms are, right, and it was really interesting
Speaker 1: all the way around.
Speaker 3: It definitely yeah, absolutely, I mean it was there. Definitely
Speaker 3: was you know, the early on the brinks. Then it
Speaker 3: came into the beginning of well then we had Halloween
Speaker 3: Town for the beginning of musicals with Cheetah Girls and
Speaker 3: high School Musical and so this was a time where
Speaker 3: they were kind of going, all right, where are we
Speaker 3: going next? You know, and we love it. It's the
Speaker 3: one thing I will say it It brings up there's
Speaker 3: always good messaging. But they seemed like to me, again,
Speaker 3: one thing I really zoned in on was this was
Speaker 3: the beginning of social media and how it was affecting
Speaker 3: kids and the messaging of what needs to be told
Speaker 3: to them as they have their journey of the likes
Speaker 3: and the this and the you know. I mean, it
Speaker 3: was cool that she was super techy, but it also
Speaker 3: has to come down to like a good message, you know,
Speaker 3: and I do like the.
Speaker 2: Fact that it showed the good and the evil of
Speaker 2: the tech world. Right, Yes, be used for.
Speaker 4: Good or it can be used for evil. Right, And
Speaker 4: totally We're like Liz, like, I want a car like Brando.
Speaker 2: Everybody's like, oh, you want a smart car. I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: I want a dome trunck. I want hortified with lend
Speaker 2: and nobody can trace me, trect me, follow me, all
Speaker 2: the all that.
Speaker 1: Good stuff, all that good stuff. Oh man, Well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. We really enjoyed the movie.
Speaker 1: And good luck with the new Christmas film.
Speaker 4: Yes, so much, thank you, it's so great to talk
Speaker 4: to you guys.
Speaker 1: You as well, thank you bye bye. Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, just an infinite amount of talent.
Speaker 1: It also just seems like she was involved in just
Speaker 1: every aspect of the film. You know. It was kind
Speaker 1: of like, and I love that she said, Disney was
Speaker 1: kind of like, go make your movie because you could
Speaker 1: easily see a movie like this them saying things like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know it's too much about the adult or feel
Speaker 1: that scene it's six minutes of you guys just talking.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could see them really coming in and
Speaker 1: kind of nitpicking, and instead they were like, no, go
Speaker 1: make your movie right. Four million people watched it, which,
Speaker 1: especially in twenty fifteen, is it's a great number.
Speaker 3: That's a good number, a good number, absolutely, and I
Speaker 3: think you're right. Then it becomes too many in the kitchen,
Speaker 3: she would have lost probably a little bit of like
Speaker 3: what she was super passionate about and on the mission
Speaker 3: to do when there's too many people that are switching
Speaker 3: your direction and kind of boxing you in. This was
Speaker 3: very different. Like we've said a million times about it,
Speaker 3: it was a great movie. It was different for the
Speaker 3: channel it was. It was one great movie, but it's
Speaker 3: been amazing in the theater.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I stick by it was a
Speaker 1: it was a really good movie. I'm not sure it
Speaker 1: was a really good dcom. But that's because we were
Speaker 1: in the void at that time of dcoms of not
Speaker 1: really knowing what the d com was. They hadn't you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't Zombies yet, it wasn't you know. They were
Speaker 1: still trying to figure out it wasn't Descendants in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: I don't think by this point, I don't think though,
Speaker 1: so we're still trying to They're trying to find their way,
Speaker 1: but hey, are we all at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: aren't we all?
Speaker 3: And at the end of the day, as Disney does
Speaker 3: it for me every time, the message is there, and
Speaker 3: that message was still needs to talked about with teenagers
Speaker 3: and how much information they're putting out there, as well
Speaker 3: as how not important the amount.
Speaker 1: Of likes are in the amount of all that stuff
Speaker 1: is just not Yeah, that's get off of social media.
Speaker 1: That's I'm sorry. I'd say that to everybody, and then
Speaker 1: everybody says, like if I didn't need it for work,
Speaker 1: if everybody decides to stop doing it, and then everyone
Speaker 1: should decide to unimportant. But anyway, anyway, live your life. Everybody,
Speaker 1: live your life to the best of your ability. That's
Speaker 1: all you can do. Thank you all so much for
Speaker 1: joining us. Thank you le Alan Baker for joining us
Speaker 1: and letting us know what it was like to go
Speaker 1: and create and think about and pitch and write and
Speaker 1: every other thing which I didn't want to get too
Speaker 1: much into. I haven't seen it. I've never seen it.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, no, no again, not you know, shot at
Speaker 1: my age or my demographic at the time, So it was.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I would enjoy it if I watched it.
Speaker 1: I just wasn't watching very little of it.
Speaker 3: But I mean I've known about it because it was
Speaker 3: it is like she said, of.
Speaker 1: Course it was a juggernaut. Oh yeah, it was huge. Huge.
Speaker 1: Good luck, Charlie. Yeah yeah, so very big. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you all for joining us on this park Opper episode.
Speaker 1: It was so great to talk to Lee Alan Baker.
Speaker 1: Thank you for taking the time joining us, Lee Alan,
Speaker 1: see it's Lee Allen. I'm Will Allen, but I'm just Will.
Speaker 1: So thank you all for joining us and we will
Speaker 1: see you next time. Bye bye,