Speaker 1: When my Christmas wish didn't happen. I know what you're wondering, Wells,
Speaker 1: what is your Christmas wish? I was hoping that was
Speaker 1: all a bad dream and then we were going to
Speaker 1: get transported back to March thirteenth. This all wouldn't have
Speaker 1: happened happen. I mean, Santa, come on, you had one job.
Speaker 1: I didn't need the cutting board that I got from you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the cutting board. That wrong, they're excited about it.
Speaker 1: I kind of just wanted some time travel, Santa, and
Speaker 1: it didn't happen. Okay, so I'm a little peeved, a
Speaker 1: little annoyed. Dot tell you was getting some coal and
Speaker 1: you're stocking. Is you there, Satan, Nicholas, Chris Kringle, I
Speaker 1: mean names you got anyways, sort of think that maybe
Speaker 1: you're not real whatever? Rolling This is a Wells cast
Speaker 1: with Wells atoms and I heart radio. Podcast. That is true.
Speaker 1: That is what it is. It is a podcast tosted
Speaker 1: by your truly atoms. I'm so excited about today's show.
Speaker 1: I think you guys will be as well. Everyone that
Speaker 1: I talked to on this show has a job that
Speaker 1: you probably with Shad. Let's be fair. Everyone's either a
Speaker 1: famous musician or famous actor, or a model, or a
Speaker 1: famous chef or famous athlete. And I imagine a lot
Speaker 1: of people that listen to the show I think themselves. Man,
Speaker 1: I would love to be them, And I agree with you.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, of all the people that I've had
Speaker 1: on this show, I think that this guy is the
Speaker 1: guy whose job I want the most. No joke. His
Speaker 1: story is crazy and extremely diverse. His resume is packed
Speaker 1: to the brim of everything Hollywood. He's a New York
Speaker 1: boy who had the hofstra. He wanted to be an actor.
Speaker 1: He hustled New York and eventually he found his little
Speaker 1: niche in writing. He wrote on the show Coach Craig T. Nelson.
Speaker 1: He wrote on a short lived show called baby Talk.
Speaker 1: He acted in projects for Um Spanglish, the Simpsons movie,
Speaker 1: Curb Your Enthusiasm, Dirty Rock, and much more. But the
Speaker 1: thing that kind of propelled him into big time Hollywood
Speaker 1: he was the writer. He was the creator, the brain
Speaker 1: child behind the show. Everybody looked Frank, it's probably way
Speaker 1: I still one of the best. He's done it all well,
Speaker 1: I guess, except for starring in his own show, which
Speaker 1: he does now our guests today gets to travel around
Speaker 1: the world and eat amazing food. It is the job
Speaker 1: that everyone in the world wants. Everyone on their deathbed.
Speaker 1: When you asked them most one thing you wish you did,
Speaker 1: they will inevitably say, I wish I traveled more, I
Speaker 1: wish I experienced more things. And literally, Netflix is paying
Speaker 1: this guy to live all of our dreams. The star
Speaker 1: of the Hitch Show on Netflix, Somebody Feed Phil, is
Speaker 1: our guest today on The Wells Cast. I'm telling you, guys,
Speaker 1: he's one of the nicest, sweetest and funniest dudes you
Speaker 1: will ever meet. This is an episode I promise you
Speaker 1: are not going to want to miss. All Right, back
Speaker 1: on the Wells Cast, very excited to have a man
Speaker 1: who literally has done everything but now gets to do
Speaker 1: the greatest thing. Phil Rosenthal of Somebody Feed Phil, Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: said nobody ever. Oh no, it's gonna be happening a
Speaker 1: lot more. You're gonna see after this thing takes off. Wait,
Speaker 1: just you wait. You know, I come from the reality
Speaker 1: TV world, and I've pitched shows left and right, and
Speaker 1: I think that after Bourdain passed, everybody wanted that gig
Speaker 1: and I feel like you're the one guy who got
Speaker 1: the greatest reality TV gig ever with somebody feed Phil.
Speaker 1: How did this come about? You're right, that is the
Speaker 1: greatest gig ever. I was doing it while Bourdain was
Speaker 1: with us, but I will say this, he was the
Speaker 1: number one influence, right. I mean everyone who travels or eats,
Speaker 1: not just on TV but in life owes a debt
Speaker 1: to Mr Bourdaine. Here's how I sold the show, by
Speaker 1: the way, with one line, I said, I'm exactly like
Speaker 1: Anthony Bourdain if he was afraid of everything, and and
Speaker 1: I've been wanting to do this show for a long time.
Speaker 1: When I was doing Everybody Loves Raymond, we did an
Speaker 1: episode where, uh, we went to Italy and ray did
Speaker 1: not want to go. That was actually the impetus for
Speaker 1: the episode was I asked him where he was going
Speaker 1: to go on its vacation in between seasons the first year,
Speaker 1: and he said, oh, I go to the Jersey or
Speaker 1: And I said, well, that's nice. Have you ever been
Speaker 1: in Europe? And he goes no, I said, why not?
Speaker 1: He goes on, I'm not really interested in other cultures.
Speaker 1: So that's when I thought we gotta do that show
Speaker 1: where we go to Italy, his own culture that he's
Speaker 1: not interested, and we send him over there with that
Speaker 1: attitude of I'm not really interested, and we send him
Speaker 1: back as me, someone excited about traveling and especially Italy.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on. So I write the episode about
Speaker 1: Ray the character getting awoke, okay, when he goes to Italy.
Speaker 1: And what happened was that thing that I wrote for
Speaker 1: the character where he gets it. I saw Ray Romano
Speaker 1: get it when we were over there. He was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Philip, you tried this gelato, It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Have you tried the pizza? Oh my god, the pasta's crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, that's why we go what I had
Speaker 1: no idea. So now he's changed, and I thought, this
Speaker 1: is amazing. I love doing this. I love turning. I
Speaker 1: would dare say, that's why you do what you do.
Speaker 1: You like turning people onto stuff you like, right, And
Speaker 1: so that's that. That feeling got in really deep with me,
Speaker 1: and I thought, wouldn't it be great to do this
Speaker 1: for everybody? And so since then, and I'm talking about
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, I had that experience with Ray, and
Speaker 1: ever since then, I wanted to do this show Raymond
Speaker 1: ended five years after that, and from that time it
Speaker 1: took me ten years to get the show. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't just like I can do whatever I want, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'd like to do a food and travel show. No,
Speaker 1: it took ten years of really trying to sell this
Speaker 1: idea to people, because they don't just hand these out
Speaker 1: shows like this, and I had to convince them. I
Speaker 1: made little tapes, I made little you know, videos and stuff.
Speaker 1: It took a long time. Is was it worth it? Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes it was really. So did you go film essentially
Speaker 1: a pilot episode to pitch two different networks? There were
Speaker 1: things like I got asked by American Express once I
Speaker 1: was putting it out there that I that I wanted
Speaker 1: to do this. They said, well, we saw you in
Speaker 1: this movie. I did a movie called Exporting Raymond where
Speaker 1: I went to Russia and because they wanted me to
Speaker 1: help them make Raymond over there, they wanted to make
Speaker 1: Everybody Loves Kostia, and so that movie is a documentary
Speaker 1: about me going over there and trying to help them
Speaker 1: do a sitgun which they don't usually do. And so
Speaker 1: that was that was my first time on camera. So
Speaker 1: American Express when they heard I wanted to do something
Speaker 1: in the food and travel space. They said, hey, do
Speaker 1: do this thing for us, for our you know, platinum
Speaker 1: card members or whatever. Go to London with a famous
Speaker 1: chef and we'll film it for a week and we'll
Speaker 1: have these snippets too, you know, we'll have this film
Speaker 1: to show our card members and have a dinner around there.
Speaker 1: Something something for rich people. But this was going to
Speaker 1: be the pilot for a show that they were gonna sponsor. No,
Speaker 1: they just wanted these clips for rich people. But what
Speaker 1: I did was I made my own clips of that
Speaker 1: and that was my kind of audition. That was my
Speaker 1: kind of pilot, right, And I went all over town
Speaker 1: trying to sell it. And it wasn't until PBS said,
Speaker 1: we've been looking for a food and travel show with
Speaker 1: humor for a long time. And I called my brother,
Speaker 1: who's a producer for other TV shows and commercials. I said,
Speaker 1: I got this, I got this job. He goes what
Speaker 1: I said, PBS is gonna give me six episodes on
Speaker 1: the air where I go around the world and try
Speaker 1: to get you to travel by showing you the best
Speaker 1: places to eat. And he said, really, they've given you
Speaker 1: that show. I said, yeah, because what are. They're gonna
Speaker 1: call the show the Lucky Bastard and I said, quit
Speaker 1: your job, Richard and produced the show with me, and
Speaker 1: we'll call our production company lucky Bastards. That's what it is.
Speaker 1: That's what it is. And that show was called I'll
Speaker 1: Have What Phills Having? I'll Have What Phils Having? You
Speaker 1: can see that on iTunes now or Amazon Prime. And
Speaker 1: then Netflix saw it and they said come to Netflix
Speaker 1: and do uh do you have to change the title?
Speaker 1: I said, all right, So I changed it to somebody Phil.
Speaker 1: I got Lake Street Dive to do a new theme song,
Speaker 1: which was nominated for a naming the theme song. Very
Speaker 1: proud of that. I wrote down some lyrics and I
Speaker 1: sent it to them. I knew the band, and they
Speaker 1: expanded on the lyrics and change them a little bit
Speaker 1: and made that tune, which is like the most danceable
Speaker 1: theme song. It's so good. I'm so proud of it,
Speaker 1: and I'm proud of them so great. It's probably the
Speaker 1: show's success is the theme song. But when you look
Speaker 1: at like some of the great shows of all time,
Speaker 1: the theme song is definitely iconic. Seinfeld with the bass,
Speaker 1: you know friends obviously, yeah, and I didn't know it's
Speaker 1: Lake Street. I love those guys that that's amazing. I
Speaker 1: would tell everybody if you if this is the first
Speaker 1: time you're hearing that name, go on Spotify, go on iTunes,
Speaker 1: and just download some of their records because that they
Speaker 1: are fantastic. So you guys are in your fourth season
Speaker 1: of Somebody Feed Phil. It did Hawaii, Rio de Janeiro,
Speaker 1: San Francisco, Singapore, and the Mississippi Delta, which I love.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'm from California, but I went to
Speaker 1: school of Mississippi, so I used to go down to
Speaker 1: the Delta a lot with some of my friends and
Speaker 1: see where they grew up. I'm so glad. Did you
Speaker 1: go to some of the places that that are in
Speaker 1: the show? Not where you went, but I've been all around,
Speaker 1: you know, in Greenwood and Rosedale and Cleveland, all those
Speaker 1: like Mississippi Delta towns. You didn't go to Doze Eat place.
Speaker 1: Funny you say that, because there's a Doze Eat place
Speaker 1: where I went to college in Oxford, Mississippi. But it's
Speaker 1: not I guess that's not the original one, which is
Speaker 1: I didn't even know they were. There were multiple locations
Speaker 1: or at least another one. I didn't even know that
Speaker 1: until recently. When I was down there, I thought that
Speaker 1: this wasn't one of kind. By the way it feels
Speaker 1: one of a kind. I must that that is the
Speaker 1: original and it is spectacular. It's one of the best
Speaker 1: steakhouses in the world, don't you think. Oh yeah, for
Speaker 1: this most recent season, did you have a favorite locale
Speaker 1: that was one of them? Mississippi Delta. Because it was
Speaker 1: such a surprise, I thought, listen, I'm a nice Jewish
Speaker 1: boy from New York. I don't go to the Mississippi Delta.
Speaker 1: It's like for me, it was like going into deliverance.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how they would take to me, right,
Speaker 1: I thought. I thought I was gonna just going to
Speaker 1: be honest. What's presented on TV and the media, it's
Speaker 1: like redneck centrol. Right. I didn't know where I was
Speaker 1: going and how it would be treated. And you see
Speaker 1: the show the sweetest, nicest, greatest people, so inviting, so warm.
Speaker 1: Was that your experience when you went to school there?
Speaker 1: Obviously there's some history that's kind of hard to get around.
Speaker 1: For the most part, everyone was super nice, super hospitable.
Speaker 1: I was from California. I was one of the first
Speaker 1: people from California to go to Old miss They called
Speaker 1: me a Yankee, and I was like, you guys are
Speaker 1: very you have no idea what maps look like. I
Speaker 1: am the I'm actually further from a Yankee than you are,
Speaker 1: to be fair. But no, I loved it, and I
Speaker 1: did love you know, the Delta. I have an emphasis
Speaker 1: in blues anthropology, and so I would sit in the
Speaker 1: mezzanine in our library and I would listen to old
Speaker 1: blues records, records that don't even exist anymore. And then
Speaker 1: we would go down to the Delta and and we'd
Speaker 1: go to these juke joints and watch these old timers
Speaker 1: play absolutely amazing blues music in these ramshackle, pre Civil
Speaker 1: War era jew joints. If you had a chance to
Speaker 1: go back, you should go to a place called Poe Monkeys.
Speaker 1: It's in Marigold, Mississippi, and it's one of the coolest
Speaker 1: pieces of Americana left in the world. You'd love it.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you have a good experience down there
Speaker 1: as well. It was wonderful and I would surprised at
Speaker 1: like the modernity of the food as well. Yes, you
Speaker 1: have your greatest hits, your your fried chicken and ribs
Speaker 1: and all that great soul food, and I had like
Speaker 1: stuff like chicken fried lobster tail, which when it comes
Speaker 1: to the table, you're like, really, people, do we have
Speaker 1: to chicken fry everything? Yes, you know, can't. Can't we
Speaker 1: just have a steam blobster. No. What I realized was
Speaker 1: when you chicken fry that lobster tail as well, you
Speaker 1: get that amazing seasoning that batter, but it steams the
Speaker 1: lobster meat in the shell surrounded by the batter, so
Speaker 1: you actually get the perfect steam on it. It's so
Speaker 1: tender and so juicy and has the flavor from the batter.
Speaker 1: That's one of the best lobsters. Like, right, how hands
Speaker 1: on are you with the production of the show the
Speaker 1: bits in between where you're going, are you able to
Speaker 1: see like how listen, guys don't want to do that?
Speaker 1: Or are you like that would be funny, let's do it. Well,
Speaker 1: since it's my brother producing. If it was my brother
Speaker 1: he before with me left and right. That's why I
Speaker 1: asked the question, then you already have the answer because
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happens. And he'll say, for instance, we're
Speaker 1: in Vietnam, and they say, Okay, tomorrow, you're getting up
Speaker 1: at four in the morning and we're gonna go to
Speaker 1: this island in the middle of the river and in
Speaker 1: the middle of the islands a swamp lake, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna go in there and hip waiters and you're gonna
Speaker 1: pick lotus roots with the family and and pick snails
Speaker 1: out of the thing. I'm like, you lost me at
Speaker 1: four a m I'm not doing that. Nobody needs to
Speaker 1: see that. Oh, it's not fun for me, and and
Speaker 1: it's not fun for the people watching because you're doing it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not doing it. I don't want to
Speaker 1: do it. I'm old, and I'm not going in some
Speaker 1: lake that I don't know what's in there. Sure enough,
Speaker 1: I did it, and it was one of the great
Speaker 1: experiences of my life because it was first of all funny.
Speaker 1: Second of all, the family, the family, the family. It's
Speaker 1: always about the people you meet right in the experience.
Speaker 1: And it was gorgeous because I was there, why before
Speaker 1: before before sunru and I've got to see the sunrise
Speaker 1: over this thing. And if you see that sequence, it's
Speaker 1: kind of spectacular. And he was right. Don't tell him
Speaker 1: that he was right, But the time he's right because
Speaker 1: he knows me, and he knows it will be first
Speaker 1: of all funny and second of all worth doing because
Speaker 1: I'm stepping out of my comfort zone, which is all
Speaker 1: I want people to do. You know, this show is
Speaker 1: for people who don't travel. Not two thirds of us
Speaker 1: don't have a passport in America. So if I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get you to travel, I'm starting with what I
Speaker 1: think our Earth's greatest hits, the stuff that's going to
Speaker 1: be accessible where a lot of people speak English there.
Speaker 1: And there's gonna be a hotel. You don't have to
Speaker 1: sleep in a tree, right, There's gonna be restaurants with
Speaker 1: food that you recognize, right, and and yet once you're there,
Speaker 1: you might be tempted to try something new. So that's why.
Speaker 1: So if you see me going out of my comfort zone,
Speaker 1: if you just see I think if people say, if
Speaker 1: that Puts can go outside, make I can't too write
Speaker 1: I love that man, and I do. I love to
Speaker 1: travel as well, and I like to do weird and
Speaker 1: eat weird stuff. I'm definitely like a when in Rome
Speaker 1: type of guy. But I guess I have my limits.
Speaker 1: I heard that you don't eat before you film. You
Speaker 1: know how they make a dog fruit commercial. They don't
Speaker 1: think the dog un told the commercial, so the dog
Speaker 1: looks excited to eat. That makes practical sense, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: If I went to Vietnam and they said, here's this
Speaker 1: guy makes this dish. He's been doing it for sixty years,
Speaker 1: and here it is, and I went, it's all right,
Speaker 1: that's not a good show, is it. Now? I'm not acting.
Speaker 1: I really do feel excited, but I'm extra excited maybe
Speaker 1: because what you see me eating in each scene is
Speaker 1: probably the first thing I ate that day. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: So it looks like I'm a pig and I eat NonStop.
Speaker 1: But you're seeing a week's worth of filming condensed into
Speaker 1: an hour, and that those scenes there's maybe one or
Speaker 1: two of them a day. So that's it. And and
Speaker 1: I learned, by the way, from doing that American Express
Speaker 1: thing in London. They booked us on that gig. They
Speaker 1: booked us into twenty seven restaurants in seven days, and
Speaker 1: because I was with a famous chef, they were all
Speaker 1: like white tablecloth, fancy meals. So when the food was coming,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh no, like I have to eat again.
Speaker 1: You don't want that. You want to go oh yeah,
Speaker 1: not oh no, So that I learned that you you
Speaker 1: pace yourself, you don't finish anything. First of all, I
Speaker 1: have a crew there who's looking at me like this, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, while I'm eating, so it would be cruel
Speaker 1: not to share it with them. I love sharing it
Speaker 1: with them because it's fun to see their faces light up.
Speaker 1: And what that also does is it saves my belly
Speaker 1: for the next thing I'm gonna taste, right, So I
Speaker 1: want to taste as many things as possible because you
Speaker 1: never know where that home run is gonna be. Right.
Speaker 1: Somebody said it looks like Phil likes everything. It does
Speaker 1: mean not like in it. Yeah, you don't see that,
Speaker 1: then it shows if I don't like it, it's not
Speaker 1: in the show. I'm trying to get you to travel.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to show you the best stuff. There's no
Speaker 1: reason to show you the stuff that's just okay, we're bad,
Speaker 1: right If it's really bad, like the thousand year old
Speaker 1: egg I ate in Hong Kong, which almost killed me,
Speaker 1: then you hear my brother laughing on the other side
Speaker 1: of the camera. We leave that in. It's funny that
Speaker 1: I almost died. Do you have any limits if it's
Speaker 1: so disgusting, And by disgusting, everybody has their line for disgusting, right,
Speaker 1: So I think I'm like most Americans who don't want
Speaker 1: to eat bugs and snakes. I think that's fair to say, right,
Speaker 1: And that's an American thing. In other cultures and other countries,
Speaker 1: you know, they do that. My friend told me he
Speaker 1: was the guest of honor at a in a rural
Speaker 1: dinner in China, and because he was the guest of
Speaker 1: honor the American, they brought over a poisonous snake to
Speaker 1: the table live and held it off next to him
Speaker 1: and took out a knife and cut open the snake
Speaker 1: while it's alone, pulled out the gall bladder of the
Speaker 1: poisonous snake and squeeze the gall bladder into a glass,
Speaker 1: and gave it to him to drink as the guest
Speaker 1: of honor, to which I say, please don't honor me,
Speaker 1: because I would faint in that situation. I would faint.
Speaker 1: First of all, I would run screaming out of the
Speaker 1: restaurant at the side of the live snake. Second, cutting
Speaker 1: it open, faint. Third, squeeze the gal about a fat
Speaker 1: give me the glass faint. I would never recover from this,
Speaker 1: I asked my friend, So, so why didn't you just say,
Speaker 1: you know, I physically can't. I'm gonna be he goes.
Speaker 1: That would have been the greatest insult to them, because
Speaker 1: they were doing this special for me I had to do,
Speaker 1: I said, and he goes, I drank it, and I
Speaker 1: go and he goes. It was much grosser than you think. Well,
Speaker 1: then that is off the charts gross because I'm thinking
Speaker 1: it's going to be really gross because you know what
Speaker 1: the worst part was. It was warm. Of course, of
Speaker 1: course it's warm. It's really so I see your face.
Speaker 1: I know. So these are things that most people from
Speaker 1: America wouldn't do, but in another land and another culture.
Speaker 1: I'm not disparaging them at all. That is their thing.
Speaker 1: That is like the height of I don't know, virility, honor.
Speaker 1: For you to have that very special thing. I don't
Speaker 1: know what I would do in that situation, other than
Speaker 1: not get myself into that situation right so that I
Speaker 1: don't have to insult anybody, because that's the last thing
Speaker 1: I want to do. I have tried a bug or
Speaker 1: two in the show. When pushed right, I've gone a
Speaker 1: little out of my comfort zone. And I can tell
Speaker 1: you that I'm eaten an ant or two write because
Speaker 1: it's been served to me this way. This one Japanese
Speaker 1: chef said, try this and it tastes like lemon, to
Speaker 1: which I said, in that case, could I please have lemon?
Speaker 1: And he said, I want you to try this ant.
Speaker 1: And because the person I was with, this nice lady,
Speaker 1: did it, I mustered up all my courage to take
Speaker 1: that ant and put it in my mouth. With all
Speaker 1: the courage I could muster bite down on that and
Speaker 1: then damn if it didn't taste like lemon. And so
Speaker 1: now the questions, okay, chef, what did you do based
Speaker 1: this in lemon so that it tastes like me? Just
Speaker 1: know these ants, not every ant, these particular ants from
Speaker 1: this particular part of this forest in Japan tastes like lemon.
Speaker 1: I don't know who was the first guy to discover that,
Speaker 1: but but that was interesting and it didn't kill me,
Speaker 1: and it was something cool. And I have a story
Speaker 1: to tell you, right, the gallbladder story. There's a part
Speaker 1: of me that thinks that they're like, hey, here comes
Speaker 1: a stupid American. Let's let's just see if he'll do it. Nope,
Speaker 1: I know that's what it must feel like, like a prank,
Speaker 1: but a really that you know. Again, we can't disparage.
Speaker 1: We can't. We can't say or judge because the cultures
Speaker 1: are different and we we the whole point of the
Speaker 1: show is to be more accepting and understand. There's just
Speaker 1: things that I know that I'm a woss and I'm
Speaker 1: not doing. Um. I mean, you've been all over Where
Speaker 1: are places that you've kind of pinned on the map
Speaker 1: that you want to go for future seasons? Oh? I haven't,
Speaker 1: you know, I haven't scratched the surface of the earth. Right,
Speaker 1: So we've done twenty two somebody feed fills. In six
Speaker 1: I'll have what fills having. That's twenty eight places. There
Speaker 1: are a hundred and ninety countries and thousands of cities
Speaker 1: in those countries to see. So I haven't been to
Speaker 1: India yet, have you? So I got to see that.
Speaker 1: I've been to Australia. I've been to Sydney once in
Speaker 1: my life, but not on the show, So I got
Speaker 1: to do that. And the rest of us Australia is spectacular.
Speaker 1: New Zealand I haven't been. I haven't been to Greece
Speaker 1: or Turkey in my life. I got to do that
Speaker 1: so I could keep going. I mean, there's there's million
Speaker 1: places to to go. I just need Netflix to let
Speaker 1: me keep doing it and for COVID to be over
Speaker 1: so I can go. I guess this logistically. Did you
Speaker 1: film this last season right before COVID, right before we
Speaker 1: finished in mid January? Just under the wire? Really? I
Speaker 1: mean if you look at that Rio show that was
Speaker 1: mid January, we filmed that and there's five hundred thousand
Speaker 1: people out on the beach dancing for Carnival. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm so jealous of you. I also wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about your charity, Somebody Feed the People. Oh thanks, that's great.
Speaker 1: So Somebody Feed the People dot org. I started because
Speaker 1: I saw it started from I guess you would say
Speaker 1: it's political, but it's not. It's just human people being
Speaker 1: forced to wait online because they were shutting the polling places,
Speaker 1: which is not right. We have a right to vote,
Speaker 1: that's what makes us America. And I thought, what could
Speaker 1: we do to make this these long lines more tolerable?
Speaker 1: What if we fed the people? So always started Somebody
Speaker 1: Feed the People dot org and we were getting with
Speaker 1: the world Central Kitchen and other organizations, food trucks and restaurants,
Speaker 1: local restaurants out to feed the people online, just a
Speaker 1: small act of kindness. But then I thought, while this
Speaker 1: was going on, you know, after the election, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of hungry people, not just because of COVID, but
Speaker 1: because of all the other reasons that people are hungry.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna keep this going. And I want your
Speaker 1: your listeners to know that if they go to somebody
Speaker 1: feed the People dot org and contribute to World Central
Speaker 1: Kitchen through that portal, I'm gonna match their donation. That's
Speaker 1: what i want to do. So that's that's somebody feed
Speaker 1: the People dot org go give I'm gonna match it.
Speaker 1: It's a nice way to help people in this terrible time.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, man. And also is it true you write
Speaker 1: in a book? I mean it makes sense. I suppose
Speaker 1: people need a blueprint of where the hell to go,
Speaker 1: so tell everyone about the book. Sure. Well, they have
Speaker 1: a website called Phil Rosenthal World dot com and you
Speaker 1: can get merged there that and that goes to charity
Speaker 1: as well. It's also practical because it's a website that
Speaker 1: has everywhere we go on the show, not just every place,
Speaker 1: but everywhere we ate and what we ate, and the
Speaker 1: websites within those of where you can just now have
Speaker 1: this instead of watching the show and writing stuff down
Speaker 1: right and then now. Simon and Schuster asked me to
Speaker 1: do a companion book to the series. Somebody feed filled
Speaker 1: the book. That's gonna have stories and behind the scenes
Speaker 1: photos and most impartently favorite recipes from everywhere we went.
Speaker 1: Have you tried to recreate some of these weird recipes?
Speaker 1: I cannot. I'm not a show, I'm not a chef.
Speaker 1: What I do is sometimes that there's like a condiment
Speaker 1: or some item that I didn't know, I can bring
Speaker 1: that home and remind me of the place. I love
Speaker 1: doing that. And the other thing about traveling is you
Speaker 1: must do this too. Let's say you go to Thailand,
Speaker 1: for instance, and you have, like I had this dish
Speaker 1: that I didn't know about, caw soy, this incredible fresh
Speaker 1: handfulled noodle bowl of coconut curry with whatever meat you
Speaker 1: want in there and then crispy noodles on topics. So
Speaker 1: one of the best things I ever eat, And across
Speaker 1: a dollar when you're there. So I wrote down the
Speaker 1: name of that dish cowsoy k h A O s O.
Speaker 1: And when I got to Los Angeles. We're lucky to
Speaker 1: live in Los Angeles because why we have the most
Speaker 1: diversity of every any other place on Earth. More people
Speaker 1: live here outside their native lands than anywhere else on Earth.
Speaker 1: For example, we have the biggest Korean population in the
Speaker 1: world outside of Korea, the biggest Chinese population outside of China,
Speaker 1: the biggest Mexican population outside of Mexico. It's here. So
Speaker 1: I go on Google cowsoy Los Angeles fifteen places at
Speaker 1: least that have it. So that's how if you ask me,
Speaker 1: do I cook from the thing? No? I find the
Speaker 1: place that takes it. Well, these are Thai people who
Speaker 1: came here and make sy for me. This portion of
Speaker 1: the podcast brought to you by Postmates. I love that, man,
Speaker 1: and I just love that. The whole concept of this show,
Speaker 1: I think is so cool. The concept that you and
Speaker 1: your brother are getting to do it together is just
Speaker 1: it's just so fun. Thank you. And by the way,
Speaker 1: since we're in this terrible time of COVID and we
Speaker 1: can't travel, you you mentioned Postmates, but that that's that's
Speaker 1: a real way to travel. You see why I can't
Speaker 1: pick a restaurant tonight that maybe of of a cuisine
Speaker 1: you haven't tried. And all I'm asking is, look at
Speaker 1: look at the men on your phone, just look at
Speaker 1: the menu. You're gonna find something that sounds interesting to
Speaker 1: you that you want to try and try it. That's
Speaker 1: how you spice up this time at home by ordering
Speaker 1: something other than the usual. Now you have like an event.
Speaker 1: That's how you make things exciting, keep it fresh. Right.
Speaker 1: I love that people knew you as the guy who
Speaker 1: created Everybody Loves Raymond, and now everyone knows you as
Speaker 1: the guy for somebody feed Phil Bick story. I'm in
Speaker 1: the airport right before lockdown, right, and I'm waiting for
Speaker 1: my bag, and somebody comes up to me goes, hey,
Speaker 1: you're the food guy, And I said, oh, thanks. I
Speaker 1: guess I always wanted to be known as that. I
Speaker 1: guess right, And he goes, hey, listen, I'm just the guy.
Speaker 1: So I learned something, Right, If you're recognized for anything,
Speaker 1: it's a nice thing, right. It doesn't matter what you're
Speaker 1: recognized for. If he wants to call me the food guy,
Speaker 1: that's very nice. Yeah, I'm just the guy. What brings
Speaker 1: you or brought you more joy being the guy who
Speaker 1: created an iconic sitcom or being the food guy. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say both, and I know that's a cop out,
Speaker 1: but here's the thing. At that point in my life,
Speaker 1: my thirties and forties, making Raymond was the absolute pinnacle
Speaker 1: of my life. To that point, it was phenomenal to
Speaker 1: be part of something like now I've taken ten years later,
Speaker 1: fifteen years later, everything I've learned about how to make
Speaker 1: a show right, how to tell a story, and it's
Speaker 1: now in the service of everything else I love in life.
Speaker 1: What's that family, friends, food, travel, and laughs? Right, and
Speaker 1: add to that everything else I love about show business,
Speaker 1: which is the writing, the directing, the producing, the performing.
Speaker 1: Now even right in it, being in it is really fun.
Speaker 1: They're editing every I love everything about show business except
Speaker 1: the business. The business part of show business is the
Speaker 1: part that prevents you from doing the show part of
Speaker 1: show business. Right, So once you get past the business,
Speaker 1: show business is great and I love that. This is
Speaker 1: this time in my life. Now I just have to
Speaker 1: keep doing it. I want to keep doing it. Netflix
Speaker 1: hasn't said I get to yet. They don't let they
Speaker 1: don't have shows a run a long time now right
Speaker 1: that they only renew five percent of their existing series.
Speaker 1: So if you're listening to this and you like the
Speaker 1: Joe called Netflix and say yes more please, I would
Speaker 1: like to do more. I would like to order seconds please.
Speaker 1: I know that's greedy. Listen. I thought after we filmed
Speaker 1: the first scene of the first one of these that
Speaker 1: we ever did, I thought if it ended now, I'd
Speaker 1: be happy because I felt so lucky to get to
Speaker 1: do this. Look, I got a flight to Spain and
Speaker 1: I got to eat this boot. Wow. For it to
Speaker 1: happen seven more times, that was pretty good. That was
Speaker 1: pretty good. So if it ended now, I can't complain.
Speaker 1: But I promise you this, I'm gonna find a way
Speaker 1: to keep doing this, whether it's to their or somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna find the wet of it so much, and
Speaker 1: I feel like it's important. We've got a message to give,
Speaker 1: which is a message of love and tolerance and and
Speaker 1: happiness and exploration, and that's what life's about. We see
Speaker 1: how quickly it can be taken away. I'm not too
Speaker 1: worried for you, Phil, because every time I open up Netflix,
Speaker 1: you're one of like this adjusted for me and like
Speaker 1: top trending on Netflix and everything. So I think the
Speaker 1: show is doing very well. So congratulations. And if Netflix
Speaker 1: doesn't pick it up, one they're stupid, and two I
Speaker 1: think someone else will. Well thanks, Could you run Netflix
Speaker 1: for me? Yes, I'll call him up and I let
Speaker 1: him know. The great thing about them, they're very supportive
Speaker 1: and they let you do the show you want to do.
Speaker 1: And when you deliver five or six episodes to them,
Speaker 1: right they push a button. It's on d ninety countries
Speaker 1: around the world, so that, I mean, there's nothing that
Speaker 1: compares to that, So I want to stay there. Is
Speaker 1: there anything that I didn't ask you or talk to
Speaker 1: you about or that you wanted to promote before we
Speaker 1: kind of switch gears. No, just if people want to
Speaker 1: keep up with me, they can go to my Instagram,
Speaker 1: build Down Rosenthal and Twitter Phil Rosent. That's it. Okay,
Speaker 1: quick break. When we come back, we're gonna do the
Speaker 1: Wells Cast. Phil, We're gonna find out where the hell
Speaker 1: you came from and how the hell you got here?
Speaker 1: You ready for that? Stick around all right? Back in
Speaker 1: the Wells Cast. Very very happy to have the star
Speaker 1: of Somebody Feed Phil, which is on Netflix right now
Speaker 1: there in the middle of season four to show you
Speaker 1: absolutely have to watch Phil just going over your bio.
Speaker 1: It's bonkers. You've literally done everything in show business. I
Speaker 1: need to know how the hell this all happened. So
Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning. Phil, Where are you from?
Speaker 1: I was born in Queens, New York, Jamaica. Hospital. You
Speaker 1: know who else is from Jamaica? Donald J. Trump? Yeah, yep,
Speaker 1: that's why I'm exactly like then. I lived in the
Speaker 1: Bronx for a while, and then uh, Rockland County, which
Speaker 1: is a half hour north of the city, and then
Speaker 1: I went to Hops University on Long Island, and then
Speaker 1: moved into Manhattan and tried to make it in New York.
Speaker 1: And uh, it was horrible for me because it was
Speaker 1: I had nothing but jobs and terrible experiences. I loved
Speaker 1: every second of it, by the way, because I loved
Speaker 1: I've talked about this. The pursuit of happiness is its
Speaker 1: own thing, right. We're lucky to live in the land
Speaker 1: where we get to pursue what we want. Imagine living
Speaker 1: in a country where you'll do what your father did
Speaker 1: or you do what your mother did, and that's it.
Speaker 1: You don't have a choice. Right. Look, I was happy
Speaker 1: having really crappy jobs in New York and my twenties
Speaker 1: out of college. Why because I could at least pursue
Speaker 1: what I wanted. Job. First job being a theater major. Right.
Speaker 1: I sold farm and implement cleaner on the phone in
Speaker 1: a boiler room um Park Avenue South. Boiler room is
Speaker 1: a giant room of poor schmucks on phones trying to sell.
Speaker 1: That's what I did. I did that lasted about four months.
Speaker 1: Then I was a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Speaker 1: a guard, and at one point I was working the
Speaker 1: midnight shift, the midnight the graveyard shift they call it,
Speaker 1: from midnight to eight in the morning. And I was fired.
Speaker 1: You know why? They found me at five am asleep
Speaker 1: in a gallery on a three hundred year old bed. Yes. Uh,
Speaker 1: that was terrible moment in my life. And then I
Speaker 1: was I managed a deli per year. That was better.
Speaker 1: I gained fifteen pounds doing that. I was at temp.
Speaker 1: I was a bartender. I was I worked in offices
Speaker 1: and law offices, putting legal inserts into the books. I
Speaker 1: did all kinds of crappy jobs. But in the meantime
Speaker 1: I was also trying to get an agent and be
Speaker 1: in plays and do you know, do the New York
Speaker 1: theater thing. And it wasn't until some friends of mine
Speaker 1: and I wrote a show for ourselves to be in
Speaker 1: that it occurred to us that you do write your
Speaker 1: own ticket. And that became successful, and that was my
Speaker 1: transition to writing. And and then I moved to Hollywood
Speaker 1: and uh, and then I started writing sitcoms, working on
Speaker 1: other people's shows. And then finally I got this tape
Speaker 1: of this Ray Romano fellow who had been on Letterman,
Speaker 1: and they Letterman and said, after six minutes, there should
Speaker 1: be a show for this guy. So they looked for
Speaker 1: a writer to create a show for Ray Romano, and
Speaker 1: I met with him and we hit it off, and
Speaker 1: that was that. What were some of the sitcoms you
Speaker 1: wrote on before Everybody Loves Raymond? Have you ever heard
Speaker 1: of Robert Mitchum forties and fifties. He was a film
Speaker 1: noir actor who played like Philip Marlowe in movies. He was,
Speaker 1: you know, a tough guy. He was the first actors
Speaker 1: to be arrested for smoking marijuana in the fifties. He
Speaker 1: was really cool and really tough. However, in nine when
Speaker 1: I first got to Los Angeles, they were doing a
Speaker 1: sitcom for him, and I got hired. That was my
Speaker 1: first job was being a staff writer on the Robert
Speaker 1: Mitchum sitcom. It lasted seven episodes, and I learned a lot,
Speaker 1: because what you can learn from your first show, you
Speaker 1: can learn from any show. And so I learned at
Speaker 1: least the workings of a sitcom. I went from that
Speaker 1: to the TV version of Luke Who's Talking? Remember that
Speaker 1: movie The Baby Talks? It was called Baby Talk. I
Speaker 1: met an actor there who was it was his first
Speaker 1: lead in a sitcom, and his name was George Clooney.
Speaker 1: And we started there and to this day when we
Speaker 1: see each other, we hug and we say we survived
Speaker 1: Baby Talk. I also read that a lot of the
Speaker 1: dynamic between Ray and his wife was real life situations
Speaker 1: that you dealt with, Yes, because the writer has to
Speaker 1: write you know what they know, and this was a
Speaker 1: perfect show to do that for. You know, Carl Reiner,
Speaker 1: who did the Big Fan Dye show, he would ask
Speaker 1: his writers, what happened at your house this week because
Speaker 1: he was doing a show about a family. And I thought,
Speaker 1: this is how we're gonna do my show. This is
Speaker 1: how we're gonna do it. We're gonna go home every
Speaker 1: night for dinner. We're gonna make sure we're home because
Speaker 1: that's where the stories have You worked for me, your
Speaker 1: job was to go home, get in a fight with
Speaker 1: your wife, come back in and tell me about it,
Speaker 1: because that's where the show was coming from. And so
Speaker 1: I used everything I had, and and every rider used
Speaker 1: everything they had, and Ray too, And so that's why
Speaker 1: the show seemed real because it was well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you've done everything projects like Spanglish by the way, my
Speaker 1: fiance's brother was in Spanglish, Curb thirty Rock. Obviously, you
Speaker 1: are now an author, you are doing this travel reality show.
Speaker 1: What's been like the career highlight for you? This right now?
Speaker 1: This your show? Yeah, yeah, this is It doesn't get
Speaker 1: better than this because and and I'm only half joking
Speaker 1: because you are reminding me and we're talking about where
Speaker 1: I am at this moment in life, and right now
Speaker 1: is the best time as awful as this is. Yeah, COVID,
Speaker 1: I have a lot of hope and I have a
Speaker 1: lot of positivity about the future. The vaccine is here,
Speaker 1: We're all going to get it, and the world will
Speaker 1: be returned to us. Here's what I say. We're going
Speaker 1: to appreciate the world so much. We're gonna be so
Speaker 1: grateful and so happy, and that feeling is gonna last
Speaker 1: two weeks. Yeah, and then we're all going to go
Speaker 1: back to complaining. Hey, this coffee is cool, right? Phil?
Speaker 1: I know, I gotta let you go. I could literally
Speaker 1: talk to you for hours, year and absolute delight before
Speaker 1: you go. Do you have time for some rapid fire questions?
Speaker 1: Anything you want? My friends? Okay, rapid fire questions with
Speaker 1: Phil Rosenthal? Number one? What's your favorite pizza topping? Do
Speaker 1: you have a favorite book? I just read Woody Allen's autobiography.
Speaker 1: It's hilarious. Who was your first quest, Laurens? Was the
Speaker 1: first concert you ever went to? The Fifth Dimension at
Speaker 1: Carnegie Hall? First job you ever had? First job, camp
Speaker 1: counselor what was the camp? The Y M Y W
Speaker 1: ch and rock count? First car, make model, Plymouth's biggest
Speaker 1: pet peeve, noise in the restaurants when it's too loud.
Speaker 1: Most famous person in your cell phone contact. Let's say
Speaker 1: Ray Romano, first record set vinyl CD that you bought. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. I'm gonna say the monkeys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a record, right, I think? So the monkeys
Speaker 1: meet the monkeys, favorite superhero Superman. We're the superstition that
Speaker 1: you have. I should work out every day. What's one
Speaker 1: thing that's always in your fridge? Oh? Why is that?
Speaker 1: Taking along leftovers? There's always leftovers in my fridge. How
Speaker 1: would you describe your high school self? Nerdy shrimp e shy?
Speaker 1: Who's your celebrity crush? Sound mahiak. That's a good one.
Speaker 1: And lastly, one piece of advice you'd give to someone
Speaker 1: that wants to be successful like you do the show
Speaker 1: you want to do, because in the end they're going
Speaker 1: to cancel you anyway. Bill Rosenthal, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being on the Welles cast. You are awesome. You're
Speaker 1: even more rad than I thought you would be, and
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to be pretty awesome, so
Speaker 1: thanks for living up to it. Everyone go watch Somebody
Speaker 1: Feed Philip's out now on Netflix. Call Netflix and tell
Speaker 1: them that phil needs a fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth season.
Speaker 1: And when when Phil finally dies years from now, that
Speaker 1: I get to take over the show. It's a deal, alright, buddy.
Speaker 1: Happy holidays to you, and yours and hopefully when this
Speaker 1: is all over, you know we can go get a bite.
Speaker 1: Where are you, Studio City, not far from some of
Speaker 1: the best sushi in the world. Very true, very true.
Speaker 1: All right, I hope to see you. Thanks for having me,
Speaker 1: Thanks for being so nice. Thank you, Phil, you rock Man,
Speaker 1: take care. All right. Well, he's the coolest dude I've
Speaker 1: ever met in my entire life. And that was awesome
Speaker 1: and I really really really really really really really enjoyed that.
Speaker 1: I also really would like that job. So there's that.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go order that dish that he was talking
Speaker 1: about with the noodles and stuff because I want that now,
Speaker 1: all right, see you guys. Subscribe to wellscast on iHeart Radio,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It's the
Speaker 1: internet line. H