Speaker 1: So I had a very strange night last night.
Speaker 2: I found myself walking a street at night and I
Speaker 2: turned the corner and I came upon Chris Collinsworth. You
Speaker 2: know Chris Collinsworth is he's the football commentator. And he
Speaker 2: was bowling in the middle of the street. Wait, what
Speaker 2: so exactly weird night? So I tried to tell him
Speaker 2: that I was actually going to be building a bowling
Speaker 2: alley in my home and he should join me. But
Speaker 2: before that, he decided we needed to get Chinese food
Speaker 2: where we met you, Danielle. That then turned into you
Speaker 2: and I together on an island, trying to figure out
Speaker 2: how we were going to get off, and that's when
Speaker 2: I realized I was dreaming. So my question for you
Speaker 2: is because I've started to believe that's a very dream.
Speaker 2: It was really bizarre, and I could have gotten into
Speaker 2: all the details. Chris Collinsworth and I trying to hang
Speaker 2: a banner while we're in the Chinese restaurant.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what the banner says.
Speaker 2: But then when Danielle, when you and I ended up
Speaker 2: together on the island, we were spent the first part
Speaker 2: of trying to figure out what the hell was going on?
Speaker 1: Why were we on this island? And then how we're
Speaker 1: going to get off? It was very strange, and I started.
Speaker 2: To realize that the older I'm getting, the more vivid
Speaker 2: my dreams are becoming. And I'm wondering if that is
Speaker 2: the same for either of you, Like do you when
Speaker 2: you dream?
Speaker 1: Is it like you are? I am fully immersed.
Speaker 2: I can smell everything, I can touch everything, I can
Speaker 2: see everything.
Speaker 1: It is vibrant.
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, I'm so jealous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you got to enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're on the island. It wasn't alone.
Speaker 4: I used to dream like. I used to have such
Speaker 4: vivid dreams as a kid. I dream less nowadays, but
Speaker 4: I do. I'm I'm usually I'm a lucid dreamer, so
Speaker 4: I'm usually in control, so I have a lot of
Speaker 4: Like now when I dream, it's really fun. I mostly fly.
Speaker 1: I mostly choose to fly.
Speaker 4: It takes work. It's kind of like I have to
Speaker 4: hold my breath and like swim through the air. Like
Speaker 4: takes a little bit. But I usually I am aware
Speaker 4: that I'm dreaming. I get to stay within my dream
Speaker 4: and then I'm like, well, let's have some fun with this,
Speaker 4: and I start flying around and I love it. It's
Speaker 4: but like I said it, only I think I only
Speaker 4: dream like once a week nowadays.
Speaker 2: Everybody, everybody apparently dreams every night, is what they say.
Speaker 1: No, sure, I just don't remember. You just don't remember them. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: uh no, nothing.
Speaker 3: Nothing, just nothing.
Speaker 4: You don't even have fun and dreams. You're not like
Speaker 4: organizing things in your dream or No.
Speaker 3: That is the problem is that my dreams are usually
Speaker 3: just things that were going on for me during the day,
Speaker 3: and I can't shut my brain off. So, like when
Speaker 3: I'm directing something that's particularly ricky, I will be directing
Speaker 3: the same scene over and over again and trying to like, well,
Speaker 3: I've got to think about this, and what if the
Speaker 3: producers want that and maybe they'll read it like this,
Speaker 3: And how am I going to get this one to happen?
Speaker 3: What do I have to say to her in order
Speaker 3: to get her to do that thing? And she's gonna
Speaker 3: have to remember her lines? And then I'll be like, oh, hey,
Speaker 3: this isn't this is a dream. And I'd say to
Speaker 3: myself in my dream, Danielle, stop, you get to direct tomorrow.
Speaker 3: You don't have to do this right now. Try to
Speaker 3: go to sleep, And then I immediately go, well, what
Speaker 3: am I gonna do? Am I gonna leave that door open?
Speaker 3: What if I and I just try to solve problems
Speaker 3: as it's super RESTful. But my sleep hygiene now involves
Speaker 3: taking a five milligram melatonin and a unism and they
Speaker 3: do different things. The melatonin helps me feel drowsy enough
Speaker 3: to fall asleep, and the unism will help me stay
Speaker 3: asleep throughout the night. And I wonder if that is
Speaker 3: affecting because I used to remember more dreams. Now, if
Speaker 3: I remember anything, it's literally just that my brain won't
Speaker 3: stop running, and I very rarely remember them. But I
Speaker 3: would love to have vivid dreams.
Speaker 1: The island on the island.
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 3: All I know for sure is that you made me
Speaker 3: want to eat Chinese food. So I definitely.
Speaker 1: Dreaming again in a half an hour? Do you guys?
Speaker 1: Do you guys? Do you guys? Do you guys ever dream?
Speaker 1: On stage a Boy's World?
Speaker 5: Are you?
Speaker 4: Do you ever?
Speaker 5: Get?
Speaker 1: And I don't know my lines? And I don't I
Speaker 1: haven't read the screen.
Speaker 4: I actually don't. I don't remember boy me. I have
Speaker 4: actor dreams. You're never on the set of boy Met World.
Speaker 4: I'm always in limis or the graduate. It's it's usually
Speaker 4: the plays that I've done. I don't have anxiety dreams,
Speaker 4: but but I do have actor anxiety dreams, but it's
Speaker 4: never on on stage.
Speaker 1: But yes, you can never read the script. You ever
Speaker 1: can't read the script.
Speaker 4: You are the wrong pages, you'd be through and everybody's waiting.
Speaker 1: For you what you're doing and the audience is there, and.
Speaker 4: Why can't I just read this? And then if I
Speaker 4: finally can read it, it's the wrong lines and I'm just
Speaker 4: so stressed out.
Speaker 1: It's the worst. I hate it.
Speaker 2: There's also so there's different schools of thought when it
Speaker 2: comes to dreaming. There's some people that say that you
Speaker 2: can't read in a dream at all there, but then
Speaker 2: there's other people that say, no, no, no, that's not
Speaker 2: actually true. That's triggering a certain part of your your
Speaker 2: brain that you can read in. So I don't know
Speaker 2: which one of those is accurate and which one is
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 4: They say that if you want to become a loocid
Speaker 4: dream where you start learning the different cues to like practice, Yeah, well,
Speaker 4: there's also glass wear glasses where they shoot the little
Speaker 4: lazy to shoot.
Speaker 1: The light into the corner of your eye. Which is
Speaker 1: one of the.
Speaker 4: Treasuries that you can look at a clock and if
Speaker 4: you can't tell you can't read clocks when you're dreaming,
Speaker 4: apparently like similar to reading. So if you're ever, like
Speaker 4: am I dreaming, you can try and like read a clock.
Speaker 4: And if it if it's always like the numbers are changing,
Speaker 4: you can't figure out what time it is. It's usually
Speaker 4: a sign that you're dreaming and hopefully you won't wake up,
Speaker 4: you'll stay within the dream, but now be in control
Speaker 4: of Okay, yeah, I mean you think about how much
Speaker 4: of your life you're living sleeping. Yeah, it's like you
Speaker 4: and your brain experience Like I remember having so many
Speaker 4: epic dreams that we're full stories, you know. I felt
Speaker 4: like I had lived lifetimes.
Speaker 1: Wakes the movie. It's the movie playing.
Speaker 2: But that what you just said is so funny because
Speaker 2: I remember going to buy a mattress and Sue and
Speaker 2: I are there and we're trying all the mattresses and
Speaker 2: then we get one and we're like, oh, this is
Speaker 2: like a cloud. Oh my god, this is the most
Speaker 2: amazing thing. The guy told us the price like this
Speaker 2: is six thousand dollars. We're like, we're not spending that,
Speaker 2: and the guy's like, think about how much time you
Speaker 2: spend in your car and how much money you spend
Speaker 2: on that. Now, think about how much time you spend
Speaker 2: in your bed and how you don't want to spend
Speaker 2: money in that.
Speaker 1: We're like, oh, we still didn't buy because it was ridiculous.
Speaker 1: But it was like, good, Oh my god, you're right,
Speaker 1: that's a good salesperson. It was because it was like, right.
Speaker 3: I wish it was more of our life, just a
Speaker 3: little more, just.
Speaker 1: A little more, and just with your eyes closed, when
Speaker 1: you're gonna direct and how you're gonna get up and
Speaker 1: how you're gonna do all this. Oh my god, it
Speaker 1: sounds awesome. By the way, we had a great time
Speaker 1: on the island. You should have joined me, I know,
Speaker 1: but next.
Speaker 3: Time, invite me. Next time let me know, And tonight
Speaker 3: I'll try to dream about Yeah, Chris Gold in the
Speaker 3: middle of the street.
Speaker 1: In the middle of the street.
Speaker 3: I also as you were telling the story, I was like,
Speaker 3: I have so many questions. You thinking of building a
Speaker 3: bowling alley in your house? I was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: Chris Collinsworth lives near us. They were just kept going
Speaker 3: and then I was like, Oh, I think I was
Speaker 3: dream I know where this is going. That's what Welcome
Speaker 3: to Pod Meets World. I'm Daniel Fischel, I'm rather or Strong,
Speaker 3: and I'm will Fredell.
Speaker 1: I said it etherially.
Speaker 3: Yes, asmrsh Yes. When we first drafted a list of
Speaker 3: possible guests for Pod Meets World, we had basically three
Speaker 3: categories will do it, might do it, and won't do it.
Speaker 3: And even though we had this week's guest somewhere in
Speaker 3: between might and won't, we knew it would be impossible
Speaker 3: to talk about our experiences on Boy Meets World without him.
Speaker 3: He was one of our two set teachers, Wesley Staples
Speaker 3: between him and the late Great David Combs. Calling them
Speaker 3: just teachers is difficult. Yes, they made sure we finished
Speaker 3: our assignments and completed the required amount of school needed
Speaker 3: to have a work permit. But they also both took
Speaker 3: it one step further, making sure we weren't just child
Speaker 3: actors getting a free pass through life. They chow leed
Speaker 3: us and made sure the little bubble we were being
Speaker 3: raised in also had information steadily flowing through it. Their
Speaker 3: responsibilities went beyond making sure that that week's episode was completed.
Speaker 3: They made sure a bunch of kids' lives weren't totally
Speaker 3: ruined by chasing their dreams. It is no coincidence that
Speaker 3: Ben went on to Stanford, Writer went on to Columbia,
Speaker 3: and I graduated cal State Fullerton. We were taught to
Speaker 3: think for ourselves and care about our education, and we
Speaker 3: have Wesley and David to think for that. In addition
Speaker 3: to Boy Meets World and then later Girl Meets World,
Speaker 3: he'd also help shape the minds on the set of
Speaker 3: Ten Things I Hate About You, Insidious two, Planet of
Speaker 3: the Apes, and much much more. This week, we're honored
Speaker 3: to welcome one of the most influential people on the
Speaker 3: set of Boy Meets World, someone very near and dear
Speaker 3: to our hearts, a real mister Feenie. Wesley Staples the
Speaker 3: Boy Meets World set to the Phoenie set. That's the
Speaker 3: that's from the the thing. I think it is taken
Speaker 3: directly from the final episode.
Speaker 1: I think, so, yeah, yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 5: I don't have it there all the time. I want
Speaker 5: you to know.
Speaker 1: You should.
Speaker 3: I don't know why you don't.
Speaker 4: All your zoom meanings should be from Phoenie's office.
Speaker 3: My gosh, you look exactly the same, Wesley.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well almost eighty.
Speaker 3: Hello, wow, great man, and you're tan and bronzed. Have
Speaker 3: you been in Mexico recently?
Speaker 5: Yeah? The beach is actually in the background, so I know.
Speaker 3: That's what I was going to say. You live at
Speaker 3: the beach, don't you?
Speaker 5: Well part time, I'm still working in my way. I
Speaker 5: spend a lot of time here, so wonderful. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to start with a real softball question,
Speaker 3: which which of the three of us do you like
Speaker 3: the most?
Speaker 5: They intend to incriminate.
Speaker 2: It would have to be, in all fairness, Wesley, you
Speaker 2: and I did not get to spend a lot of
Speaker 2: time in the classroom together, so it would have to
Speaker 2: be between Danielle and Ryder.
Speaker 1: I completely understand that.
Speaker 5: I do. I do, however, have a favorite bit that
Speaker 5: you did. Will It's my favorite of all you know,
Speaker 5: why whine. It's the only episode I ever watched.
Speaker 1: Is it the one where I'm laying in your lap?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 3: Wait, explain that.
Speaker 5: But it's your song that just oh god.
Speaker 1: This is the graduation episode we actually had.
Speaker 2: Wesley and David were the teachers that are sitting next
Speaker 2: to mister Feenie and I'm singing to sir with love
Speaker 2: while draped across their laps.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's right, the absolute best.
Speaker 5: It's so funny. That was great.
Speaker 3: Now, Wesley, how did you get into being an on
Speaker 3: set teacher? Take us back to the beginning of being
Speaker 3: a studio teacher.
Speaker 5: For us, I was five minutes in the Broadway show
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy and decided that I'd rather teach. I ended
Speaker 5: up seven years in the South Bronx and decided that
Speaker 5: probably rare they not teach there anymore because it was hard,
Speaker 5: if you take it seriously, work yourself to the bone.
Speaker 5: So I left New York with another show, and the
Speaker 5: King and I the Oldrunner, and I came to New
Speaker 5: York to La and there a teacher was required for
Speaker 5: the kids in the show. So she and I became
Speaker 5: best friends, and I said, I did it.
Speaker 3: Did you always want to be a teacher?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I liked I always liked being around kids, young people,
Speaker 5: And yeah I wanted to be a dancer. But you know,
Speaker 5: you get five minutes in the show, but because you
Speaker 5: know somebody, not because you're a talented dancer. So I
Speaker 5: saw myself struggling teaching five dollars dance classes at sixty
Speaker 5: and that's not a pretty picture.
Speaker 3: Right you saw that far into the future and thought
Speaker 3: that is not for me.
Speaker 1: No, what was you?
Speaker 2: I have to ask what was we're going back in
Speaker 2: the day when we're talking about some of the most
Speaker 2: influential people in the history of Hollywood.
Speaker 1: What was Yule Brenner like?
Speaker 5: I remember his curtain calls every night and he learned
Speaker 5: it from Maria Callis. He said. He would come out
Speaker 5: onto the stage and stand and stare at the audience,
Speaker 5: and they would eventually get to their feet, and then
Speaker 5: he'd give them what they want, you know, and they'd cheer,
Speaker 5: except for Wednesday's, which was blue you know, blue night
Speaker 5: in the theater, Blue blue Wednesday. All the ladies in
Speaker 5: the suburbs come and they all had blue hair, so
Speaker 5: they were too tired. They liked it, but they wouldn't stand.
Speaker 5: Every time they didn't stand, he said f you and
Speaker 5: turned and left.
Speaker 2: Wow, challenging the audience until you got your standing.
Speaker 1: Ovation that that's old school. That's old school.
Speaker 5: I have amazing.
Speaker 1: Oh that's brilliant.
Speaker 4: So Wesley, I want to know what what is like
Speaker 4: because I don't think I realized that you taught for
Speaker 4: seven years before becoming a studio teacher. So what's the
Speaker 4: difference between being a regular school teacher and then being
Speaker 4: an onset teacher.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean a lot of what you do, especially
Speaker 5: in the South Bronx with the by the way, my
Speaker 5: first students turned seventy two this year. Anyway, let's get
Speaker 5: past that. Wow. A big part of it is discipline,
Speaker 5: and so you learn all kinds of tricks and attitudes
Speaker 5: and that deal with discipline. That's the most important thing.
Speaker 5: Otherwise you get nothing taught. But then the South Bronx
Speaker 5: it's a humanitarian thing. You have kids who haven't eaten
Speaker 5: for a couple of days, so the only meal they
Speaker 5: get is a not very substantial breakfast when they get
Speaker 5: there in the morning. So it's a big challenge and
Speaker 5: you feel like you're such an important thing for their life.
Speaker 5: It's beyond teaching nouns and adverbs and adjectives. It's human things.
Speaker 5: It's being respectful and kind and changing. The first day
Speaker 5: I got there, there was a pile of desks in
Speaker 5: the middle of the floor because the previous teacher had
Speaker 5: been taken out in the straight jacket literally, so it
Speaker 5: was challenging to get them in order and what an
Speaker 5: order meant that you cared for them and they.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not unlike being a parent where you come to realize, oh,
Speaker 3: they actually feel the best when there are rules and boundaries,
Speaker 3: and when we enforce them, they actually behave better as
Speaker 3: opposed to just letting them have a free for all.
Speaker 5: And you don't do it out of fear. But the
Speaker 5: one I did the first few months at a as
Speaker 5: a substitute at a junior high school before I went
Speaker 5: on to senior high school, and my kids were struggling
Speaker 5: to put those desks together and sit in them and
Speaker 5: so forth. And uh. The next door neighbor, Kenny, was
Speaker 5: a Jim dj dot health and his I walked past
Speaker 5: to his room and kids would be sitting straight upright
Speaker 5: staring at him without barely breathing. And I said, in
Speaker 5: the teacher's room, Kenny, what you do? He said, the
Speaker 5: first day of school, the first person who peeps, I
Speaker 5: picked them up and throw them against the wall. They
Speaker 5: don't pick at all. After that, Oh my gosh, wow,
Speaker 5: I decided, no, no, not me.
Speaker 1: That's like that's like prison rules.
Speaker 2: That's like the first day picking out the biggest guy
Speaker 2: and starting a fight.
Speaker 4: Well, that's that's how you were on set too, right
Speaker 4: when you when you first meet characters. That's right up, Savage.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget when he picked up across the room.
Speaker 3: I knew from that moment.
Speaker 5: On that's how I was with you, and you didn't
Speaker 5: want to do chemistry.
Speaker 1: Oh, chemistry, I.
Speaker 4: Will never forget.
Speaker 3: Do you know?
Speaker 4: Here's how bad it got. I was so far behind
Speaker 4: in chemistry my like I guess my tenth grade year would.
Speaker 4: But then over the summer I was still doing it
Speaker 4: in Rome because he was Rachel's teacher in Rome. So
Speaker 4: I went to Rome for like six weeks and I
Speaker 4: was living in Rome, and you were still like writer chemistry.
Speaker 1: And I was like doing homework all summer.
Speaker 5: But you don't remember to take the LA when you
Speaker 5: locked yourself in that plywood classroom and refused him out
Speaker 5: until you didn't have to do chemistry anymore?
Speaker 1: Yeah, did I really wait? You guys?
Speaker 3: I also have a chemistry story with Wesley. Wesley got
Speaker 3: so fed up with trying to teach me chemistry. He
Speaker 3: brought in another woman, a totally different teacher, and was like,
Speaker 3: she's gonna teach you chemistry, And he was like, I'm
Speaker 3: not doing this again, probably because you had scarred him forever.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: It was awful, and he's like, I'm not doing this again,
Speaker 3: and so he brought in this dear frenchwoman who was
Speaker 3: so lovely and was trying to teach me chemistry, and
Speaker 3: we would do my tests together and she would go, Okay, now,
Speaker 3: on this question, what do you think the answer is?
Speaker 3: And I'd go she'd go, why do you think it's me?
Speaker 3: And I'd go, well, maybe it's actually you know what,
Speaker 3: now I think about it. See, I literally never I never,
Speaker 3: I swear to you. I don't remember a single thing
Speaker 3: about chemistry, and you know what, I'm never going to
Speaker 3: use it. I can't stand it. Boo on chemistry.
Speaker 2: So you're saying the scientific world lost nothing when the
Speaker 2: two of you decided to stay in the.
Speaker 1: Entertainment industry and not become chemists.
Speaker 3: Okay, actually enjoyed it.
Speaker 4: I just managed to make it last so long because
Speaker 4: I was so bad at it. It took me forever
Speaker 4: to get through it. But I did actually like the
Speaker 4: mental part of it, but not like, oh my god, no.
Speaker 3: So obviously his name is going to come up dozens
Speaker 3: of times for the next hour. So I would like
Speaker 3: to talk about your co teacher someone the listeners already
Speaker 3: have heard a lot about David Holmes, who we lost
Speaker 3: earlier this year. I like to think that he's here
Speaker 3: with us for this interview right now, because there's there's
Speaker 3: nothing that would have been better than to have the
Speaker 3: two of you here to talk with us. Did you
Speaker 3: know David before Boy Meets World started? Did he was?
Speaker 3: He the one who brought you in? And okay, how
Speaker 3: did you to meet?
Speaker 5: Just union stuff and my job here and a job there,
Speaker 5: and also I would day play on Wonder Years and
Speaker 5: he was one of the major teachers on One Beers right. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's like a punch in the gut. That's very hard.
Speaker 5: I think. I think of him all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's amazing human being.
Speaker 3: Yes he was. He was eccentric and weird, and that's brilliant,
Speaker 3: brilliant exactly the things that make them different instead of
Speaker 3: the things that you could just say about anybody.
Speaker 5: He had a vicious sense of humor.
Speaker 1: He did, he did, Yes, he did.
Speaker 3: And am I remembering it correctly that you were primarily
Speaker 3: brought in then when Lee and I were added to
Speaker 3: the cast, right like you came in when there started
Speaker 3: to become more kid actors.
Speaker 5: And another teacher in Nancy Flint.
Speaker 4: I actually remember your interview, your interview, the parents interviewed you,
Speaker 4: and then they brought us in to meet you. And
Speaker 4: I remember because we had that second room, because we
Speaker 4: had the two trailers on the stage or in the stage. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and you were you got the second room, and I
Speaker 4: remember meeting you, sitting on the couch in there and
Speaker 4: being like, oh, we have another teacher. We have a
Speaker 4: new teacher, and then you did your magic, which was
Speaker 4: as opposed to David's approach to the classroom was functionality.
Speaker 4: There's a desk and a couch and hopefully popcorn that
Speaker 4: he could eat and we'd figure it out, whereas you actually,
Speaker 4: like you hung maps and you had quotes and pictures
Speaker 4: on the wall, and your classroom immediately became like a
Speaker 4: real freaking classroom. And I remember being like, oh, we
Speaker 4: have boards and we could write poems on the wall,
Speaker 4: and it was so it was like a completely different environment.
Speaker 4: And then you'd go next door in a David's room
Speaker 4: and still just be a couch on a desk.
Speaker 3: Could you explain to our dear listeners what a day
Speaker 3: in your life was like on Boy Meets World, was
Speaker 3: how was your what was your prep going into a
Speaker 3: new week? What was your day to day like? Because
Speaker 3: you were not just a teacher who had to make
Speaker 3: sure we were doing our school schoolwork and we were learning.
Speaker 3: You were also another set of eyes and ears on
Speaker 3: set to keep us safe.
Speaker 5: Yes, well, we have two duties, welfare and teaching, and
Speaker 5: the state empowers us to do that. We're necessary. Evil
Speaker 5: producers have to hire us to keep them actually to
Speaker 5: protect them from getting into trouble. But over the course
Speaker 5: of the forty whatever two or three years of done
Speaker 5: this in this industry, it's been a handful of times
Speaker 5: where you have to step in and book kids from set.
Speaker 5: One of those happened on Girl Meets World. But that's
Speaker 5: another story. But I I am. I'm a person a ritual.
Speaker 5: I I like to come early, I like to settle in.
Speaker 5: I like to read my paper and have coffee and
Speaker 5: as some people, you know, burn toast and yes and
Speaker 5: still of the sour toast with you in the lab. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so so you and uh and Joel Zwick used to
Speaker 5: come to it and join me. So so that's you know,
Speaker 5: that organization and kind of it's kind of a spiritual
Speaker 5: prep of the classroom how I start my days, and
Speaker 5: and and But with Boy Meets World, they were fax
Speaker 5: machines on the desk and I get there Monday morning
Speaker 5: and they'd be tests and worksheets and all of that.
Speaker 5: Because at that time you were doing it mostly what
Speaker 5: teachers were doing in their classrooms, not so much with
Speaker 5: none such but a bit. That's great that that was
Speaker 5: a good approach because it allowed us more leeway. Now
Speaker 5: it's eight of every ten have just screens, and many
Speaker 5: many I know you and writer take things. You take
Speaker 5: it very seriously. I know what you've done with school
Speaker 5: and your kids, but not a lot of people do that.
Speaker 5: It's like an easy entry into the film industry. If
Speaker 5: they don't have to go to school, and I see
Speaker 5: kids in the fifth grade or don't know how to
Speaker 5: add some trust or write, they're not being taught script anymore.
Speaker 5: It's dumbing down. I think, yeah, yeah, that was well.
Speaker 1: That was one of the things that was so wonderful.
Speaker 2: I was not a good student for a long time
Speaker 2: in middle school and then early in high school, and
Speaker 2: then I met David. And one of the things that
Speaker 2: David did for me my school. I went to a
Speaker 2: very good public high school in my town in Connecticut,
Speaker 2: but they weren't equipped to have a child actor to
Speaker 2: where they're going to send a syllabus. They just didn't
Speaker 2: know what to do. So essentially what they did with
Speaker 2: David's help is they said, go pick college courses. Pick
Speaker 2: whichever college courses you want, and we'll give you credit
Speaker 2: for that. So David and I got to sit and
Speaker 2: that was the first time in my life where I
Speaker 2: had a teacher who was like, what do you want
Speaker 2: to learn? What's gonna get you to that place of you.
Speaker 2: You're not doing this because you have to be there.
Speaker 2: You're doing this because you have a love of actually
Speaker 2: learning it. What is that going to take? And of
Speaker 2: course we have certain things we have to hit, but
Speaker 2: other than the two or three things we have to hit,
Speaker 2: what do you want to learn? And I remember he
Speaker 2: and I going through the different catalogs and it was
Speaker 2: like ooh anthropology, ooh archaeology course.
Speaker 1: Oh, He's like, let's do it, let's do it.
Speaker 2: Let's and then we'd sit there And so it wasn't
Speaker 2: that I was getting better grades, which I was. I
Speaker 2: was like a C student when I met David and
Speaker 2: an a student when I left.
Speaker 1: But what he taught me was the love of learning.
Speaker 2: That was the thing that was so amazing about it
Speaker 2: was that it was it was on on me and
Speaker 2: it was him him sitting there just going what what's
Speaker 2: what's it gonna take? What's it gonna take? Because I
Speaker 2: started with him going like, I don't have very good grades.
Speaker 2: I don't like cracking books. It's just not my way.
Speaker 2: I like to be the funny guy in class. And
Speaker 2: he's like, all right, well, what do you want to learn.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, I like mythology. Great, let's take a
Speaker 2: big we're gonna do We're gonna do two courses in mythology.
Speaker 5: We're gonna do this.
Speaker 2: And by the end it was then me without him
Speaker 2: going ooh, what do I want to learn next?
Speaker 1: What do I want to learn next?
Speaker 2: So that was what I took away from David almost
Speaker 2: more than anything else, was he taught me the love
Speaker 2: of learning and the best way for me to learn.
Speaker 2: And that's something that I think, so that's what makes
Speaker 2: a great teacher is is it's he left me with
Speaker 2: more than the grid. He left me with just needing
Speaker 2: to learn more and that's what he taught me more
Speaker 2: than anything else. So very fortunate, well, oh god, hugely fortunate.
Speaker 2: And that's what I take away from him more than
Speaker 2: anything else.
Speaker 4: And I have to say, like that was a benefit,
Speaker 4: you know, that sort of one on one attention is
Speaker 4: like the benefit of being on a set and having
Speaker 4: a studio teacher. Unfortunately, it wasn't always the case that
Speaker 4: the studio teacher was was interested in that. You know,
Speaker 4: my experiences before Boy Meets World were you know, it
Speaker 4: was it was a mixed bag. There would be times
Speaker 4: when there would be a studio teacher, big air quotes,
Speaker 4: who you know, had maybe gone through some sort of
Speaker 4: certification or whatever to be a welfare worker, but had
Speaker 4: no actual educational experience or desire. And you know, you
Speaker 4: made that joke about none such which was the name
Speaker 4: of my high school. There was a time when I
Speaker 4: was I was guest starring on some show and the
Speaker 4: studio teacher was there found out that I was reading
Speaker 4: a Stephen King book and took it away from me
Speaker 4: because it was too adult, it's too grown up, and
Speaker 4: I wasn't allowed to read, you know, a book that
Speaker 4: was about whatever she deemed, you know. And then I
Speaker 4: remember her having to fill out the form at the
Speaker 4: end of the week or the day or whatever to
Speaker 4: say like, you know what you know about what I
Speaker 4: got done or or did our hours or whatever. And
Speaker 4: she was like and writer, what's the name of your
Speaker 4: high school? I was like, none, such, just like, writer,
Speaker 4: what is the name of your high school? It's none, No,
Speaker 4: it's not no, it's not. Come back and talk to
Speaker 4: me when you when you've thought about what you're saying.
Speaker 4: It was like they were just disciplinarians. They didn't care,
Speaker 4: you know, it was just like get the hours in.
Speaker 4: So you guys were just I mean, it was a
Speaker 4: revelation I think for all your teachers.
Speaker 1: You were.
Speaker 5: Actually there was an educational theorist and scientists in the
Speaker 5: late fifties named Robert Gardner, and he came up with
Speaker 5: the theory of multiple intelligences, and there were eight He
Speaker 5: came up with a now they're like twenty eight or
Speaker 5: something different. Brilliance that people have that explain why you
Speaker 5: shouldn't force people into narrow pathways, you know, not me,
Speaker 5: So what I mean, yeah, okay, fine, but that's not
Speaker 5: the brilliance that some people have to But that person
Speaker 5: might be able to be on the basketball court and
Speaker 5: see things in slow motion and be a Michael Jordan.
Speaker 5: I mean that's brilliance. Who are danced to, who can
Speaker 5: remember the body form and associated with the music and
Speaker 5: do Swan Lake like nothing. I mean, that's a brilliance.
Speaker 5: A bit. A guy who can fix a motorcycle in
Speaker 5: his sleep is a brilliance that some of us don't have.
Speaker 5: And send some kids who are adhd or or for
Speaker 5: some reason just hate everything to do with school, like
Speaker 5: you were fortunate to find, can can find ways of
Speaker 5: learning that are exciting and wonderful. I had a student
Speaker 5: and I'm still in touch on Planet of the Apes
Speaker 5: who came in the first day. I went in and said, okay,
Speaker 5: so he wouldn't mind me, and it ain't. Look where's
Speaker 5: for your books? I don't have books? I said, well,
Speaker 5: what are you doing? Well, I'm signed up in school
Speaker 5: in the Midwest, and if I practice my guitar, I
Speaker 5: get credit for music or math. If I figure the
Speaker 5: tax on a thing in a restaurant, I get credit.
Speaker 5: I said, okay, same same as your story with David.
Speaker 5: Well what do you what do you want to learn?
Speaker 5: And he get He told me and that's exactly. I
Speaker 5: brought stuff in and we did that for three or
Speaker 5: four months, except we continued it afterwards at coffee shops
Speaker 5: in Los Angeles until he was kind of on his own.
Speaker 5: Now he's exceptionally successful. It has several movies that he's written,
Speaker 5: is touring with I remember him at Oakwood banging on
Speaker 5: the pan. That's look. You might owner to find that
Speaker 5: a little bit. He's he's playing classical and jazz in
Speaker 5: major concerts all over Europe because he was left not
Speaker 5: to feel he was less than because he didn't want
Speaker 5: to take physics.
Speaker 3: Because you have a limited number of students, you were
Speaker 3: really able to cater a lesson plan to them and
Speaker 3: their interests and who they were as people, and you
Speaker 3: could adjust it as as you got to know us
Speaker 3: all better.
Speaker 5: I loved, I loved. I pulled Ben's leg through the
Speaker 5: entire OJ trial said, look at him, look at his face.
Speaker 5: He's innocent. You know it. Oh, he's so kissed up.
Speaker 1: I remember our political discussions watching the O. J.
Speaker 4: Simpson trial, and then also whenever, whenever it was an
Speaker 4: election time, we would sit in the classroom and go
Speaker 4: ballot measure by ballot measure and debate and have so
Speaker 4: much discussion and so much argumentation. It was really, I
Speaker 4: mean so formative for me.
Speaker 3: I was in the classroom during all all of the
Speaker 3: Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky stuff. Yes, and you guys, you teachers,
Speaker 3: were the first people to say to me, why do
Speaker 3: you think just put it, putting it out there? Do
Speaker 3: you think the president's personal life should be this big
Speaker 3: of a topic of conversation. Does a person's personal life
Speaker 3: actually affect the job that they do? And it was
Speaker 3: such an engaging discussion about well, what does it what
Speaker 3: does it say about character? How does character impact? Like
Speaker 3: it was truly it was, and I had never even
Speaker 3: thought of it. It was just like he lied under
Speaker 3: oath and you know, the truth is the truth, what
Speaker 3: the truth is or whatever the like. I remember those
Speaker 3: were the things that were on the news. But the
Speaker 3: discussions that we then got to have because of the news,
Speaker 3: you guys were never you never failed to take a
Speaker 3: real life situation and put it back into a learning
Speaker 3: environment and a critical thinking and debate and good discussion.
Speaker 3: And I would remember, you know, we'd be in the
Speaker 3: middle of a heated discussion about something and we'd have
Speaker 3: to go to set and you guys would be like,
Speaker 3: we'll talk about this when you come back. Go go go, go,
Speaker 3: go ahead, go ahead, go out to set, And we'd
Speaker 3: run out to set, holding onto all those thoughts.
Speaker 1: What a fertile row to hoe now, yes exactly.
Speaker 4: It was also, I mean beyond beyond the sort of
Speaker 4: like intellectual academic support. I mean I also just remember,
Speaker 4: you know, a real emotional support too. Like I remember
Speaker 4: one time we went to Children's hospital to visit termin
Speaker 4: leal children, and uh, it was really hard, you know,
Speaker 4: because because we were we were the we were like
Speaker 4: the entertainment you know, the sort of make a wish
Speaker 4: people from TV come in and meet these kids and
Speaker 4: light up there their day, and then you have to leave,
Speaker 4: you know, you have to walk out of their room
Speaker 4: and know what they're facing. And I remember just coming
Speaker 4: back to the classroom to you and David and like
Speaker 4: trying to put on a good face, and and you
Speaker 4: guys like you just put in your hand my shoulder
Speaker 4: and being like that was that was really hard for you,
Speaker 4: wasn't it? I just balling like and just breaking down.
Speaker 4: I also remember I don't know if you remember this, Wesley,
Speaker 4: but we got we got into it one time really intensely.
Speaker 4: Somebody we knew was getting plastic surgery. Do you remember
Speaker 4: this debate?
Speaker 5: Not me, No, it was somebody.
Speaker 1: There was somebody.
Speaker 4: It was somebody on our set was getting some work done.
Speaker 4: And me, I remember met me at sixteen. I think
Speaker 4: I was very anti any you know, I was in
Speaker 4: my self righteous writer, you know, anti superficial.
Speaker 1: Yes, and that anytime, that'll anytime.
Speaker 4: And you, you know, you decided to play devil's advocate
Speaker 4: with me like you did. But it was also very
Speaker 4: very personal for me because I was very upset that
Speaker 4: this person was getting work done and I felt like
Speaker 4: they shouldn't and it was and I wanted to judge them,
Speaker 4: and I was very judging and very self righteous, and
Speaker 4: you know, all my hippie none such inspired. And you
Speaker 4: came at me really hard, and I remember getting so
Speaker 4: angry and and and you know, I think as opposed
Speaker 4: to like the political discussions of the academic discussions. It
Speaker 4: got it got so heated, and I stormed out, and
Speaker 4: I like, I just lost it. And in a way
Speaker 4: that a lot of adults, you know, you you, a
Speaker 4: lot of adults would have just let it go at
Speaker 4: that or whatever. But I remember you. You took the
Speaker 4: time to write me a letter and apologize, and and
Speaker 4: it affected me so much because I knew, I knew
Speaker 4: that you were you were having an abstract discussion with me,
Speaker 4: and that I let it get too personal, and yet
Speaker 4: that it was okay that it was personal because you
Speaker 4: were like you wrote a very personal let letter saying
Speaker 4: I love you, I care about you. Your relationship is
Speaker 4: more important than winning any debate. And that was such
Speaker 4: a great life lesson to me that you know that
Speaker 4: we could disagree, that we could get each other riled up,
Speaker 4: but that you ultimately were there to support me as
Speaker 4: a person and as a friend, and just it was
Speaker 4: I can't thank you enough.
Speaker 5: Good, thank you.
Speaker 3: I would like to talk about something I remember about
Speaker 3: you and want to know if you still do it.
Speaker 3: Do you still do like forty five day hot lemon
Speaker 3: and cayenne juice cleanses.
Speaker 5: Oh, that's why we're seeing just from my shoulders down.
Speaker 3: I remember Wesley coming in with like a jug, like
Speaker 3: a two and a half liter jug of hot lemon
Speaker 3: water with cayenne flakes, and being like, oh, what is that?
Speaker 3: And he was like this is Oh, it's so good.
Speaker 4: You breakfast and dinner.
Speaker 3: The Master Fast, and it cleans out my limp fast system.
Speaker 3: And boy, I'd be like, well, oh wow, so that's
Speaker 3: just all your that's it. It's got honey and lemon
Speaker 3: and cayenne, and that's that's all you're going to have. Like,
Speaker 3: that's it. You're not you're not eating anything else. No,
Speaker 3: it's so good for me mental clarity. How long are
Speaker 3: you going to do this for? Thirty days? Forty five days,
Speaker 3: maybe ninety days? Being like, sir, what.
Speaker 2: With you?
Speaker 5: I only ever did it for well, the first time
Speaker 5: I did it.
Speaker 3: Was twenty eight days okay, and then.
Speaker 5: Then seven days once a year.
Speaker 3: Okay, then seven days once a year okay. You at
Speaker 3: the time were like maybe I'm just looking at him
Speaker 3: now and look at eighty years old.
Speaker 1: My god, he looks healthier than the three of us
Speaker 1: put together.
Speaker 5: So I first did that. I worked on family matters
Speaker 5: with the Erkle character for two years. Yes, Jilil is Juliel, yeah,
Speaker 5: and his mother. I just worked with Darius's daughter anyway.
Speaker 5: Julil's mother said, I said, what's that. You're carrying the
Speaker 5: same thing urine. She said no, no, no, no. I said, well,
Speaker 5: water and blah blah blah. So I said, I'll try
Speaker 5: that with you. So two weeks go by and the
Speaker 5: makeup lady came to me and said, I see your
Speaker 5: carrying the thing that Gail Care carriers. I said, yeah,
Speaker 5: we're in the middle of a vest and she said, no,
Speaker 5: you're not. I saw her have a hamburger at lunch.
Speaker 1: She cheated on you.
Speaker 5: You cheated on the eight days until I hadn't. They
Speaker 5: had an intervention and they said, you know right, you're
Speaker 5: going to die now, Yeah, you have.
Speaker 3: To eat something bones I want it. I would miss
Speaker 3: the smell of your sourdough burnt toast in the morning, Burt.
Speaker 3: Well done toast is a is a favorite of my
Speaker 3: family as well. But then also with you, like Burt,
Speaker 3: the smell of burnt toast brings back more memories for
Speaker 3: me than just about any other smell.
Speaker 4: Some hissing cockroachessroaches coffee.
Speaker 3: Do you remember you bought us Madagascin hissing cockroaches? Do
Speaker 3: you still do that? Most good too, Wesley? Okay, do
Speaker 3: you remember bringing us the Madagascan hissing cockroaches as a
Speaker 3: class pet?
Speaker 5: Quickly?
Speaker 3: They sure did.
Speaker 4: When we left.
Speaker 5: Yes, cocks.
Speaker 1: Oh man.
Speaker 3: I just so appreciated that because although it was a
Speaker 3: obviously left of center class pet, I appreciated that it
Speaker 3: was yet another way you tried to bring as much
Speaker 3: normalcy which sounds people are like, where are you going
Speaker 3: with this cockroach lady? The idea of being able to
Speaker 3: have a class pet that are just little things you
Speaker 3: don't think about as a as a as a kid,
Speaker 3: that like is a normal part of growing up. We
Speaker 3: didn't really get to have. And so you were like, listen,
Speaker 3: you can't have we can't have a bunny here, we
Speaker 3: can't have a dog, we can't have these things, but
Speaker 3: we can have a cage with these cockroaches that don't
Speaker 3: require a whole lot of upkeep. And you guys are
Speaker 3: going to be the only people ever to grow up
Speaker 3: and tell the story about I had a pet madagascon
Speaker 3: hissing cockroach.
Speaker 1: And were they named? Do they have names?
Speaker 4: Do you remember?
Speaker 1: They must have by the time we finished, exactly.
Speaker 4: Touch their back and they would hiss. That was their
Speaker 4: whole thing. You could like pet you could hold them.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't hold them, and I would.
Speaker 3: I held them. You could hold them and pet them
Speaker 3: like this and they'd go. But that was it. That's
Speaker 3: all they did. They had no other reques to deal
Speaker 3: with them.
Speaker 5: They literally have more protein bird body weight than any
Speaker 5: living creature they look through the ice age.
Speaker 1: I just liked it very quickly.
Speaker 2: You said something a while back which I the correlation
Speaker 2: to me, I think needs to be said, because you
Speaker 2: said that you were kind of a person who would
Speaker 2: have your rituals in the morning. You'd come in in
Speaker 2: the morning, you'd want to take some time to yourself,
Speaker 2: you'd read your newspaper, you'd drink coffee, you'd eat the
Speaker 2: same thing. And it has to be said, you know
Speaker 2: who who did exactly the same thing, Bill Daniels, really
Speaker 2: and I think the idea there's something so interesting that
Speaker 2: the man who's so important for us for playing our teacher,
Speaker 2: and then the man who was the teacher, you have
Speaker 2: those same kind of rituals. Bill was the same way,
Speaker 2: get there the same time every day, have to read
Speaker 2: his paper the same time. He'd eat the same thing
Speaker 2: in the morning, he'd have his cup of coffee. And
Speaker 2: so I think it's very interesting that you you have
Speaker 2: that similarity with mister.
Speaker 5: J I have no disrespect him because I love him.
Speaker 5: I mean I worshiped him, I fall down before him.
Speaker 5: But someone wrote his lines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very true, very very true, very true.
Speaker 3: Touche sir.
Speaker 5: That's awesome.
Speaker 3: So you want to talk about something you were talking
Speaker 3: about when you were in an in classroom teacher in
Speaker 3: the South Bronx. But it also applies to being a
Speaker 3: studio teacher. How hard is it to discipline a student
Speaker 3: in an on set environment? How do you discipline? And
Speaker 3: do you have any good Did you ever have to
Speaker 3: discipline us?
Speaker 1: Yes, that's the story I wanted. Is there a discipline
Speaker 1: story we can yet.
Speaker 5: I've never thought of any of it as discipline. I
Speaker 5: thought of making reasonable requests and doing what I had
Speaker 5: to do to make them happen. There was never any
Speaker 5: You're going to sit in there until you stop thinking
Speaker 5: that way. I don't remember that it happened. I don't
Speaker 5: think we were all in it together.
Speaker 2: What's the strangest thing that's ever happened to you as
Speaker 2: a studio teacher.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you something that I remembered in the process here,
Speaker 5: and that was of when we first got KTLA. Each
Speaker 5: of not will because you are a year or so older,
Speaker 5: but first writer then Danielle and then Ben got their
Speaker 5: driver's licenses, and as I remember, a short while after
Speaker 5: Rider got his, that little c three got not just binged.
Speaker 5: Something happened. Shortly after Danielle got her she hydroplaned on
Speaker 5: the freeway, and shortly after them got his a little
Speaker 5: bit of hubris he came ripping into his parking space
Speaker 5: and took the side of the dam building off. So
Speaker 5: one month or after each one.
Speaker 4: Now, I did not wreck my car. That was my
Speaker 4: friend borrowed my car and wrecked it. Oh yes, total
Speaker 4: totaled it. My buddy Sean wrecked my car.
Speaker 1: Sean crashed your car. I don't think I.
Speaker 4: Ever knew that. Oh yeah, he yeah. I let him
Speaker 4: borrow it during like a lunch break at on Boy
Speaker 4: and he totaled it in an intersection.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh, you may not have totalled your car then, but
Speaker 3: only one of us got multiple tickets this summer.
Speaker 1: So yeah, oops, very true.
Speaker 3: Another thing you were very instrumental, and something very important
Speaker 3: in my life is you were very involved in my
Speaker 3: relationship with Lance and then my subsequent Lance break up,
Speaker 3: and you saw me and all of my all of
Speaker 3: the times of my heartbreak through that relationship of him
Speaker 3: being in town and then him leaving and then him
Speaker 3: breaking up with me, and all of the confusion surrounding that,
Speaker 3: And you and David both took me to museums and
Speaker 3: would see me try to and every painting that would
Speaker 3: mean something to me. Yes, and you took me to
Speaker 3: the opera in a limo. Just you were You guys
Speaker 3: were so involved in moments that were so clearly had
Speaker 3: nothing to do with work. They were entirely with who like,
Speaker 3: with with who I was as a person and forming
Speaker 3: the most essential parts of me as as a human
Speaker 3: and as a kid, and then as the adult that
Speaker 3: I would become. And I want to know from your perspective,
Speaker 3: because we've never talked about this, what do you remember
Speaker 3: about that time my first love with Lance Bass?
Speaker 5: Well you I remember you had talked about having gone
Speaker 5: somewhere mm hm and talked about the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. You can tell you can say everything Lance
Speaker 3: and Lance has been on the podcast. We've talked about
Speaker 3: it all.
Speaker 5: Let's just say that after your explanation of the whole evening,
Speaker 5: I said, are you sure he's not gay? No? No, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: That is definitely not it. No, no, no, no, you guys
Speaker 3: walked me through that heartbreak for sure, and.
Speaker 5: You know it's as a gay man. I've had to
Speaker 5: walk students who I knew were struggling with that, not
Speaker 5: just a few who were struggling with that and scared
Speaker 5: and felt inferior and less than. I never look at
Speaker 5: someone and say, well, you know, I know you're gay.
Speaker 5: Your mother probably knows you're gay too, So big you
Speaker 5: can't do that. What I do is I have a
Speaker 5: little body of literature that I kind of sneak in
Speaker 5: a book here, in a book there, and it's made
Speaker 5: an enormous difference helping people with positive ways to deal
Speaker 5: with it.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for doing that, but also walking us
Speaker 3: through those delicate moments of you know, uncertainty and questioning
Speaker 3: yourself and questioning your worth and your friendships, and you know,
Speaker 3: working with kid actors who are then when you're on
Speaker 3: a show that's successful, they're also coming into their own
Speaker 3: money and they're coming into fame and they're coming into stardom,
Speaker 3: and that's changing the relationships they have with the friends
Speaker 3: back home or at their regular school. It's meeting new friends,
Speaker 3: and it's also you probably see them falling into occasionally
Speaker 3: a crowd that maybe you want to protect them from.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, everybody thinks that, oh, they're in the film
Speaker 5: television drug addicts. Well, yep, it's not true. I mean,
Speaker 5: if you take the percentage of kids in our industry
Speaker 5: who have a problem and stack it against the percentage
Speaker 5: of the general public, it's minuscule. The difference being, of course,
Speaker 5: that you're in the public eye. Yeah, someone writes about
Speaker 5: it instantly, or you got a pimple on you know,
Speaker 5: someone's thirty million people see it for you. So it's
Speaker 5: a different ball of X. But it's But there are
Speaker 5: so many, hundreds of thousands of kids who have gone
Speaker 5: to do great things like write and teach in colleges
Speaker 5: and produce stuff and direct stuff, and that's that's good.
Speaker 4: I'd love to hear a story about if you don't
Speaker 4: have to name names, but I'd love to hear about
Speaker 4: a time when you had to step in and either
Speaker 4: shut down a production or pool a kid from a
Speaker 4: situation in your role as a welfare worker.
Speaker 5: Well, the truth is, if you if you talk to
Speaker 5: the right people and make the right moves, generally, it
Speaker 5: doesn't get to that point because they involved they know
Speaker 5: they have to come and talk to you. They know
Speaker 5: if they want to do something wrong. Excep. I was
Speaker 5: once working in northern California with Robert Conrad. I don't
Speaker 5: know if you even remember him, sure, yeah, and he
Speaker 5: his son was a seventeen year old son in the
Speaker 5: movie and a younger girl, and they wanted the girl
Speaker 5: to be in like a twenty foot tower with a
Speaker 5: live bear. And they insisted that they were going to
Speaker 5: do it, and I said, you're not going to do it.
Speaker 5: I'm telling you you can't do it. They went ahead
Speaker 5: anyway and did it, and so I had to file
Speaker 5: a formal complaint and they were taken before the Labor
Speaker 5: Commission and find very heavily. But so they can just
Speaker 5: ford to have I mean in northern there is a
Speaker 5: guy with a gun and a badge. In Los Angeles
Speaker 5: come to a set and shut it down on behalf
Speaker 5: of you to force the law. But normally, if you're
Speaker 5: in the woods somewhere, it's your words or nothing. They
Speaker 5: can go ahead and do it. You just have the
Speaker 5: right to make sure that they're fined and held accountable.
Speaker 5: I just think you have to be a team player
Speaker 5: and be reasonable and when I teach the class every
Speaker 5: year to the new studio. You just spend twenty three
Speaker 5: years now coming in from the state. And the first
Speaker 5: time I thought it, twenty three years ago, I said,
Speaker 5: read my lips. Always do what's best for the children.
Speaker 5: Always if that means it comes six o'clock and they
Speaker 5: have to go, but they're in a scene. They've worked
Speaker 5: hard all week and are doing it and going to
Speaker 5: finish it in five minutes. You know, pull them to
Speaker 5: give them the five minutes and let them do it,
Speaker 5: because that's punishing the kid. You don't want to do that, right.
Speaker 5: The powers that be had a big problem with that,
Speaker 5: so I slipped that information and dog talk or something. Altogether.
Speaker 4: It makes such a difference because I was in multiple
Speaker 4: situations where I was in another state, like I worked
Speaker 4: in North Carolina, or the worst for me was when
Speaker 4: I worked in Australia when I was eleven, and they
Speaker 4: you know, they don't they didn't have state protection, they
Speaker 4: didn't have a welfare worker, and the studio teacher in
Speaker 4: Australia turned out to be a background actor who they
Speaker 4: just gave a bump to to also be my studio teacher,
Speaker 4: and they worked me so hard. I remember one night,
Speaker 4: it was one in the morning. I had been working
Speaker 4: I think for eighteen hours. I was cold, we were freezing,
Speaker 4: and I just remember the director being like, come on, writer,
Speaker 4: you know you can find that in a womb. Let's
Speaker 4: do that.
Speaker 1: He was a British guy, let's do this.
Speaker 4: And I was like literally passing out, like falling asleep,
Speaker 4: and I'm and what was the worst is like, you know,
Speaker 4: obviously I was unhappy, But I think the hardest was
Speaker 4: on my mom because she was in this position where
Speaker 4: her son wants to be an actor. Her son's getting
Speaker 4: to be in this you know show, so she doesn't
Speaker 4: want to shut down the production. She felt so disempowered
Speaker 4: and she's just the stage mom who's being an awful
Speaker 4: stage mom if she stepped in, you know, so you
Speaker 4: need that person. You need that somebody with that authority
Speaker 4: who's says like, time is up. You've worked nine and
Speaker 4: a half hours, that's it.
Speaker 5: And then you know, yeah, sometimes it has nothing to
Speaker 5: do with eight and a half nine and a half hours.
Speaker 5: It has something to do with what the gets tired
Speaker 5: and not he's been three or four hours. Sorry, Yeah,
Speaker 5: he worked once on mcaulay Culkin had flown back from
Speaker 5: Australia and to do the American Comedy Awards at the
Speaker 5: Shrine or somewhere like that, and he did them, you know,
Speaker 5: it usually was great, and he came backstage and drooped tired.
Speaker 5: They put him in a corral with you know, ropes,
Speaker 5: and press was all around him shouting questions or something
Speaker 5: and I and I looked at him and he listened
Speaker 5: to question and went I said, Okay, time to go.
Speaker 5: So I pulled him out and his mother walked up
Speaker 5: to me and said, what are you doing sending him out?
Speaker 5: You can't do them, I'm his mother. I said, well,
Speaker 5: I'm sending them both out them but what I can do,
Speaker 5: and that's what I'm doing because he's yeah, I never
Speaker 5: worked in this time again. So they went off, and
Speaker 5: the makeup ladies turned to me and said, oh my god,
Speaker 5: thank you so much. Right, Yeah, everybody sees. Everybody on
Speaker 5: the set sees what's going on. Yeah, and if you're unreasonable,
Speaker 5: they see that. But if you're reasonable, even though it
Speaker 5: might be hard for the company, they know that too,
Speaker 5: their parents or their people.
Speaker 3: Another behind the scenes a non school related or set
Speaker 3: related Danielle moment that you guys were involved in is
Speaker 3: when I started smoking. Oh, David Combs called my mother
Speaker 3: immediately and was like, I need to let you know
Speaker 3: I've seen Danielle smoking a cigarette.
Speaker 5: Yes, we talked about that.
Speaker 3: Yes, So what is that situation like where you see
Speaker 3: a kid and you know they're doing something wrong and
Speaker 3: now you have to make the decision about involving their parents.
Speaker 3: What is that like?
Speaker 5: Oh, well, uh, that's what you do. Yeah, that's not
Speaker 5: a big deal. But personally, I take that very personally
Speaker 5: because I am probably more anti smoking than well, except
Speaker 5: for marijuana anti smoking anybody else. I hate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you weren't doing it right me. No, No,
Speaker 1: it's awful. No, I'm kidding. It's I'm glad I quit.
Speaker 5: Especially if you have children. I recall my parents smoking
Speaker 5: three packs each day and I breathed the smoke until
Speaker 5: I went to Bred School at thirteen. Wow.
Speaker 3: Sure, I remember David saying to me, Danielle, you are
Speaker 3: this is the most addictive thing you could possibly be doing.
Speaker 3: I know you think, oh, I just have an occasional
Speaker 3: cigarette here and there, it's not really that big of
Speaker 3: a deal. But it's not that this is the most
Speaker 3: addictive thing you could do. I would rather you do heroin.
Speaker 3: I remember saying to my mom when my mom, when
Speaker 3: my mom was upset with me, and she was like,
Speaker 3: this is just it's terrible for you. And I know
Speaker 3: that you think you can do it occasionally, but it's
Speaker 3: most so addicting. And I said, I know, David said
Speaker 3: he'd David said he'd rather I do heroin, and she goes,
Speaker 3: I do not feel the same way. I don't think
Speaker 3: that was a very smart thing to say. Well, Wesley
Speaker 3: thirty years later, while looking at us all as a
Speaker 3: weirdo adult, Oh no.
Speaker 5: You're just wonderful and every one of you, it's amazing.
Speaker 3: Do you keep in touch with all of your students
Speaker 3: the way you do with us? I feel like girl
Speaker 3: me throlled obviously brought us closer back together, but I
Speaker 3: never really felt like you were out of our lives.
Speaker 3: I feel like because you were such you knew we
Speaker 3: had such a strong connection and you were so important
Speaker 3: to us. Are you able to do this with a
Speaker 3: lot of your students, to stay in their lives and
Speaker 3: stay such an important authority figure in their lives.
Speaker 5: Well, I suppose I've kept in touch with a lot
Speaker 5: of students, but none as meaningful as you guys. That
Speaker 5: was just one of the best times of my life
Speaker 5: day m and I do keep in touch with with
Speaker 5: those kids and Corey and and Peyton and but it's
Speaker 5: not the same. This is the show for me. Yeah,
Speaker 5: just kissing your butts but that way.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, Leslie, you are just such an important person in
Speaker 3: our lives and we can't thank you enough for being
Speaker 3: here with us and for existing. We love you so much,
Speaker 3: and thank you very much for asking me yes, and
Speaker 3: thank you for bringing a little bit of the David
Speaker 3: Combe's spirit with you and talking about us, talking about
Speaker 3: him with us. Losing him was really it was very
Speaker 3: emotional for all of us, and we know thank you.
Speaker 3: You were also the one who told.
Speaker 5: Us, okay, all right, love you, thank you all.
Speaker 3: Soon I was I, oh boy, you almost made it
Speaker 3: almost you.
Speaker 2: Almost made her like fifty eight minutes in writer made
Speaker 2: it about forty.
Speaker 1: You made it like fifty eight. And I think I
Speaker 1: cried in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 3: Or somebody, Oh man, what a man, what a what
Speaker 3: a We've talked so much about how so many of
Speaker 3: our memories. When people ask us about our behind the
Speaker 3: scenes memories. So many of them happened in the classroom.
Speaker 3: For writer and I who spent so much time in
Speaker 3: the classroom, so many of yours will happen on the
Speaker 3: golf course or you know, playing with Steve Hayfer and
Speaker 3: doing all that stuff, because you had a more adult
Speaker 3: existence on set. But so many of my memories and
Speaker 3: feelings about boy Mead's world involve Wesley and David because
Speaker 3: that's just where I was.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't write anything without thinking of Wesley
Speaker 4: and David, because you know, I would write papers and
Speaker 4: then they would give me notes, and then we would
Speaker 4: revise together oftentime. So I would sit in the room
Speaker 4: and I'd be like writing on my third draft of
Speaker 4: an essay for something. And there are vocabulary words that
Speaker 4: I only know because they gave them to me, and
Speaker 4: or phrases, you know, or certain uses of turns of phrase,
Speaker 4: and so every day of my life I'm using that.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's I write for a living, That's all
Speaker 4: I'm doing, and so I'm always in a conversation with Wesley.
Speaker 3: And David's in your head.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's also just something so.
Speaker 2: Beautifully ironic about how important a teacher is in your
Speaker 2: life when our entire show was about how important a
Speaker 2: teacher is in your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so real life, mister Phoene's very cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, thank you all for joining us for this
Speaker 3: episode of Pod Meets Tears. As always, you can follow
Speaker 3: us on Instagram Pod Meets World Show. You can send
Speaker 3: us your emails pod meets World Show at gmail dot com,
Speaker 3: and we have merch.
Speaker 1: I got nothing.
Speaker 3: Pod Meets Worldshow dot com. Uh will send us out.
Speaker 2: Actually, I think since this is Wesley, one of you
Speaker 2: should send us out.
Speaker 3: Okay, writer, you want to do it? No, Okay, I'll
Speaker 3: do it. We love you all, pod dismissed. Pod Meets
Speaker 3: World is an iHeart podcast produced and hosted by Danielle Fischel,
Speaker 3: Wilfredell and Writer Strong Executive producers Jensen Karp and Amy Sugarman.
Speaker 3: Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor,
Speaker 3: Tara Suebachsch producer, Maddie Moore, engineer and Boy Meets World
Speaker 3: superfan Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton
Speaker 3: of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at Pod meets World
Speaker 3: Show or email us at Pod Meets World Show at
Speaker 3: gmail dot com. A Wesley