Speaker 1: Right, Or do you have a cold? Oh yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, when you have a kid, you're just kind
Speaker 1: of always sick right now, It's just another awesome reason
Speaker 1: to have kids on the list. That's great always. Man,
Speaker 1: It's like, yes, but I also you know, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean we obviously, like during COVID there were there was
Speaker 1: like a year and a half where no one got
Speaker 1: sick and it was amazing. But now you're just back
Speaker 1: into the Petri dish. Uh. Yeah, So I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm always dealing with a cough or if I don't
Speaker 1: have it, Alex does or Indie one of them. I
Speaker 1: think he has an ear infection right now where we
Speaker 1: take him to the doctor. Yeah, how long have you been?
Speaker 1: How long have you had a cold? Uh? Like five days? Man? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can you have to ask nowadays? Have you taken
Speaker 1: a test? Oh? Yeah, I took tests the first like
Speaker 1: four days. But it's just clearly a cough, like a
Speaker 1: regular whatever. But yeah, no, I mean that you know,
Speaker 1: in some ways you're like, oh, it's it's just gonna
Speaker 1: be COVID and I'm just gonna deal with it. And
Speaker 1: then you can sort of like shut everybody down and
Speaker 1: like go back to but it's like, oh no, it's
Speaker 1: just a regular cold. So I have to just deal
Speaker 1: with it and keeping stuff. I have to do stuff.
Speaker 1: I can't tell everybody to stay away. Exactly. Have you
Speaker 1: tried that? One of the new, apparently new ways of
Speaker 1: getting rid of a cold is melting down and drinking
Speaker 1: cush lings. Have you tried that? Apparently it's really effective.
Speaker 1: Behind them listen, it's cushly you exactly. That's why Danielle
Speaker 1: loves them. They're so cool, so cool. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: been missing out. I'm just eating birthday cake with mine.
Speaker 1: So it's our skateboarding the other day. Yeah, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm willing to try it. Writer, would you
Speaker 1: like me to send you some melted cush lying, yes,
Speaker 1: it would be some melted Well, here's a question, Danielle,
Speaker 1: do you own any cushlens? Do you still have any?
Speaker 1: I don't, I joked when we talked about I don't.
Speaker 1: I know you're probably worth a fortune on eBay. I know, don't.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look after this episode before it airs in
Speaker 1: case it is worth a lot. I ended up buying
Speaker 1: our writer. I bought our grinders in line video on eBay.
Speaker 1: I have three copies. I would have given you one
Speaker 1: for free. Really have three? Little A little known fact.
Speaker 1: Do you know who drew the cover for the Grinders
Speaker 1: in Line? Oh? Jason Marston? Really what he drew the cover?
Speaker 1: Do you remember? Jason used to I don't know if
Speaker 1: he still knows that he's a great art and he
Speaker 1: used to do a little cartoons. So we kid, We
Speaker 1: were like, hey, could you come up with a logo
Speaker 1: for us? And he created this little Grinders guy like
Speaker 1: a skateboarder dude making it her face. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that was Jason Marston drew that for us.
Speaker 1: That's really cool. Danielle is left, by the way, So
Speaker 1: why shn't we talk about her? What do you really
Speaker 1: think of Danielle? It's like, you can't. I couldn't even
Speaker 1: think of anything. I can't even think of anything. I
Speaker 1: got nothing. They're sh wait, she's back, which is why
Speaker 1: we love her. I was gonna go find it because
Speaker 1: it's literally in our office on our bookshelf, right next
Speaker 1: to where I sit. But I am connected. Can we
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that I am the only person
Speaker 1: in this family who puts things back when they move.
Speaker 1: Things are supposed to have a place, and when they're
Speaker 1: they live in their place, and when you move them
Speaker 1: from their place, you put them back in their place,
Speaker 1: so that when you need them, you know where it is. Oh,
Speaker 1: you're right. Here's what drives me crazy is like I
Speaker 1: look at like common space and then like private space.
Speaker 1: So like countertops in the house, like kitchen countertops, tabletops,
Speaker 1: that's common space, right. If you do something on that,
Speaker 1: you put it away when you're direct. Yeah, this does
Speaker 1: not like that just does not compute with the rest
Speaker 1: of my family. It's like common space. It's like if
Speaker 1: I do somebody there, then it just stays there in
Speaker 1: their mind, and it's it's drives me nuts. And I've
Speaker 1: like literally screamed and yelled and now I'm just you know,
Speaker 1: you just accept at a certain point. You're like, we
Speaker 1: have a yeah, we have a saying in our house,
Speaker 1: which is a place for everything and everything in its place. Wow.
Speaker 1: So it's just it's just easier that way for the
Speaker 1: most heart. I'm not so good with things like tools,
Speaker 1: so I'd be like, hey, where's the wrench And she's like,
Speaker 1: you mean the one you used all week? How would
Speaker 1: I know that? Kind of right? Right? So that's my bad.
Speaker 1: Very clean will Yeah, you are both very clean people.
Speaker 1: We are kind of a regiment. You wake up you
Speaker 1: you know, you make the beds, you do We're swifting
Speaker 1: all the time because the dog sheds a lot. We
Speaker 1: do the wash almost every day. Like, yeah, we're good,
Speaker 1: We're good with that. We share those duties, which is
Speaker 1: man believe I can't find the grinders in light, Like,
Speaker 1: where would that have gone? Who used that? Where was that?
Speaker 1: Jensen might have wanted to learn how to rollerblade? I
Speaker 1: don't wanted to pop it in. Do you remember that shoot, Danielle,
Speaker 1: Do you remember making the I do you know? You
Speaker 1: want to know why? I remember it? I wore I
Speaker 1: was wearing I was wearing a little crop top and
Speaker 1: these very adorable like baby blue Jinko pants, and the
Speaker 1: tiniest little bit of my very flat fourteen year old
Speaker 1: fifteen neurald stomach was showing. Oh, and I was so
Speaker 1: all I could think about was that I that I
Speaker 1: was insecure about my body. Wow. And so I remember
Speaker 1: a large part of that shoot being um, just hyper
Speaker 1: aware of being insecure, which is so bad because it
Speaker 1: was so much fun. And I guarantee you nobody else
Speaker 1: was thinking at all about my body, but I was
Speaker 1: obsessed with it. So um. But yes, I do remember
Speaker 1: that shoot, and I remember it being very fun but
Speaker 1: also very stressful. Were you yeah, But the property I
Speaker 1: grew up and we put a nine foot ramp in
Speaker 1: the woods, like in the Redwood, So it made this
Speaker 1: beautiful ramp in the middle of the Redwood. But um,
Speaker 1: and then we brought in all these professional skaters like
Speaker 1: rollerbladers and skateboard. Dad built the rampire. I don't know
Speaker 1: who built there. I mean, my dad must have helped
Speaker 1: oversee it. But but all O remembers that we had
Speaker 1: the ramp up after the shoot, and then people kids
Speaker 1: started coming over and using it at our house and
Speaker 1: we had a broken arm and a skateboard good the
Speaker 1: face within like two nights, and my dad took out
Speaker 1: the center of the ramp. He was like, nope, that's it.
Speaker 1: And the ramps stayed up for a little while, but
Speaker 1: there was no center to it, so nobody could use it. Right,
Speaker 1: but it's go. He's like, you can drop in if
Speaker 1: you want, exactly exactly, but I think it lasted one
Speaker 1: night after the shoot that we had like a party
Speaker 1: and everybody came and we all hung out. But I
Speaker 1: believe the ropes wing my parents property was already up
Speaker 1: at that point, wasn't it was? It was. That's one
Speaker 1: of the other things that ropes Wing two that swung
Speaker 1: out in the middle of the Redwoods was gorgeous. It
Speaker 1: was fun. Yeah, yeah, so fun. Well, welcome to Pod
Speaker 1: meets World. I'm Danielle Fisher, I'm Writers Strong, and I'm Wilfride.
Speaker 1: So our guest today is somebody we know very well. Um.
Speaker 1: His name is Mark Blutman. He joined Boy Meets World
Speaker 1: in season two and was a writer for a total
Speaker 1: of sixteen episodes and a producer for twenty six. That
Speaker 1: act seem like less to me, right though, I thought
Speaker 1: Mark was I mean, I know that they ended up
Speaker 1: leaving before the show ended, and he and Howard who
Speaker 1: was his co writer, Howard bust Gang. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: for some reason I thought Mark was there, Like I
Speaker 1: thought he had written like half of our episodes. He
Speaker 1: was such a big part of our show. I know,
Speaker 1: And I guess when you think about like the way
Speaker 1: those splitting up of episodes. He started in season two.
Speaker 1: He was there for two, three, four, five, and I
Speaker 1: think six, I think he only missed the seventh seventh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if he was there for five seasons writing sixteen episodes,
Speaker 1: you know, that's about three It's a lot a season,
Speaker 1: which most which works out the way the credit were. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I guess because he was an EP an executive producer,
Speaker 1: he was he lose large as far as that. He
Speaker 1: probably had his fingers in a lot of different episodes. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was there. For instance, the fact that there was
Speaker 1: any wrestling association with boy because which is a huge
Speaker 1: part of our show in retrospective, huge part of our show.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we will talk to him about that. Um
Speaker 1: So he wrote five episodes for season two, Holy Cow
Speaker 1: talking about how it broke up. He wrote five episodes
Speaker 1: for season two, and we are obviously currently recapping that season. Um.
Speaker 1: He eventually became an executive producer and he would later
Speaker 1: return for Girl Meets World as well. He has always
Speaker 1: been a very big presence in our lives, but for
Speaker 1: today it is worth emphasizing he is in like a
Speaker 1: very integral voice for almost everything you would come to
Speaker 1: love come to love about Boy Meets World. And let's
Speaker 1: please say hello to Mark Bluckman. Oh my gosh, the
Speaker 1: perfect background I love it. Oh my gosh, someone toss
Speaker 1: m globe. Toss him a globe like I'm going to
Speaker 1: turn red now, this is really happening, hey, Mark, all
Speaker 1: of you in your wonderful squares together, I have, like,
Speaker 1: I have so much to say say to all of you.
Speaker 1: I'll start with I love you guys so much. And
Speaker 1: you guys have been such a part of you know,
Speaker 1: not only the lives of fans, but we've stayed in touch,
Speaker 1: UM and I've so proudly watch you guys turn into
Speaker 1: these incredible parents and husbands and wives and just it's
Speaker 1: amazing and I'm so touched to be here right now. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. I think it's downhill after that.
Speaker 1: Let's just end. That's to your point, though, Mark, I
Speaker 1: feel like we know you so well, and yet I
Speaker 1: was thinking about it last night, knowing you were coming on.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you ended up on boy Meet's World.
Speaker 1: Tell us the story about how you ended up being
Speaker 1: our writer and eventually executive producer and all that good stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. Actually, so at the time I was writing
Speaker 1: with a partner back in the day, and we were
Speaker 1: brought in UM season one. We had a meeting with
Speaker 1: Michael and Don Tarnovski, and I think McCracken may have
Speaker 1: been there, and mccrackin wouldn't have been there, but maybe
Speaker 1: David Trainer Trainer maybe in the part of we watched
Speaker 1: the pilot. Oh okay, just as a part of Michael's company,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily a part of the Boy Meets World.
Speaker 1: So he had directed Dinosaurs, he directed other things, but
Speaker 1: he didn't direct Boy Meets World. And Jeff, for those
Speaker 1: who don't know, was was also a really talented actor
Speaker 1: who did series. He was on that was The Bass
Speaker 1: City Blues or something, the Baseball Show that was done
Speaker 1: by Bochco and all that was amazing. Yeah, when we
Speaker 1: get to season three, I'm really hopeful that Jeff will
Speaker 1: come on and tell us some of his stories because
Speaker 1: boy man, we love it, and then maybe auction off
Speaker 1: one of his pieces of art. He is one of
Speaker 1: the most talented artists I've ever seen. It's incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's moved to Connecticut. Shout out to Connecticut again, thank
Speaker 1: you very right, people from Connecticut. Third homous jokes for
Speaker 1: Will exactly. You can shout out to Connecticut. They're not
Speaker 1: gonna hear it. Nutbagers, I need your backing here, Nutmers here,
Speaker 1: rad you guys by the way, and I'll get to
Speaker 1: the I'll get to the to answer your question real
Speaker 1: uh quick, Danielle, Um, what you guys, I listen. I
Speaker 1: listened to almost every episode. Um, I do it at
Speaker 1: the gym, on the treadmill, on my uh walk two
Speaker 1: miles at a one point five inclined congratulation. Nice. And
Speaker 1: I'm in awe of what you guys do because it's
Speaker 1: not easy. You guys are going back thirty years. This
Speaker 1: is time capsule stuff. Yeah, And it's like, imagine if
Speaker 1: I was doing a show where I went into your
Speaker 1: closet from thirty years ago, and each day we did
Speaker 1: another outfit. You're like, oh my gosh, that's how I dressed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought I was cool. I thought I was so
Speaker 1: hip and swaggy. And so it's the way you handle it.
Speaker 1: It's it's so hard. I mean again, thirty years, that's
Speaker 1: a long time. Yeah, A lot's changed in thirty years.
Speaker 1: Not Will's closet, but a lot else exactly. Will We
Speaker 1: probably have some of the same sweaters, Oh I do. Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get into that some of the rewatches where
Speaker 1: I'm like, still have that sweater. But you know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: It's funny you say that, though, Mark, because it actually
Speaker 1: is getting more painful as as as our as we
Speaker 1: get older. Because when we were when we watched the
Speaker 1: first season, it was like we were little kids, we
Speaker 1: were babies, and now I'm like, oh god, I still
Speaker 1: make that face. Oh god, I still you know, Like
Speaker 1: now it's like he's like, now that we're in season two,
Speaker 1: which is your era, it's a whole other world. And yeah,
Speaker 1: so your point, you guys, you know we're so young,
Speaker 1: will you were, you know, slightly older, But but there
Speaker 1: was a shocking element to season two, no doubt. I mean,
Speaker 1: let's let's be honest, and that'll tie into answering your question, Danielle.
Speaker 1: So we saw the pilot and we didn't again Bill Daniels,
Speaker 1: oh my god, and the cast everybody was great. We
Speaker 1: thought it's skewed a little young for where we were
Speaker 1: at at the time as writers, and we turned it down.
Speaker 1: So we didn't end up doing season one. We went
Speaker 1: off and I think we did a show called Good
Speaker 1: Advice with Shelley Long and Treat Williams, and it was
Speaker 1: hard to say no. Also because Bill Daniels, I mean,
Speaker 1: so one of my closest friends is How We Mendel
Speaker 1: and how we did a show called Saying Elsewhere with Bill.
Speaker 1: So I'm on the set almost daily, you know, watching
Speaker 1: Bill Daniels work and going oh my gosh, this is
Speaker 1: one And then to say no to doing the show, Um,
Speaker 1: it was difficult. But then they brought us back for
Speaker 1: a meeting a year later, and David Kendall I think,
Speaker 1: was there and Bob Young, and it was there was
Speaker 1: a lot of talk of we want to age the
Speaker 1: show up, we wanted to evolve. ABC is asking, and
Speaker 1: then it was a very fast rise for us too.
Speaker 1: First of all, I loved David Kendall, like adore him,
Speaker 1: and so to work you know, with hand Bob Young,
Speaker 1: and you know, obviously I got to know Michael and
Speaker 1: and I guess to use a Yiddish word that his
Speaker 1: michigas because it was crazy upstairs. Um, but that's actually
Speaker 1: what I was going to ask you. So, coming in
Speaker 1: now to season two, how does the writer's room feel
Speaker 1: to you? Does it feel like a cohesive unit, Does
Speaker 1: it feel like there's a bunch of changes? Did it
Speaker 1: feel as much as a of a this is a
Speaker 1: new show in season two as it did to all
Speaker 1: of us now watching it. It definitely felt like a
Speaker 1: new show. And and and so the as far as
Speaker 1: the writer's room went, Uh, you know, Jeff Sherman was
Speaker 1: still there from year one, and and Mannell and Susan Jansen, um,
Speaker 1: and they were so you know, warm, um and and
Speaker 1: inviting to myself and and um, you know we it
Speaker 1: was hard too, because we really were responsible for a
Speaker 1: lot of um the type of stories we told, which
Speaker 1: were a little more wild, and you know, Sean and
Speaker 1: Corey getting into Happy Day's style trouble and you know,
Speaker 1: the scheme's gone awry and turned Phoene's house into a
Speaker 1: and breakfast our first year on the show. This is
Speaker 1: unheard of. I've been doing this thirty two years. I've
Speaker 1: been on all sorts of staffs, all sorts of shows.
Speaker 1: We wrote five episodes in our first I know, I know,
Speaker 1: I said that in your intro. We didn't realize it
Speaker 1: five from season two, were you guys? Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: there was a little i would say temporary maybe resentment
Speaker 1: from some of the writers, but at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, they were amazing people. Yeah, and we bonded
Speaker 1: and we were having dinners together and we would, you know,
Speaker 1: every so often a different writer would host a soiree
Speaker 1: at the house and we'd all So we became a
Speaker 1: family very fast, and so the resentment, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of went away. But we really and the one thing
Speaker 1: I always tried to do, no matter how far out
Speaker 1: there we would get with some of the stories. And
Speaker 1: I learned this from Michael, and it was always inside me,
Speaker 1: and I took it when I left. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: one of the ones that have worked a lot away
Speaker 1: from him. Heart is important, and Michael, to his credit,
Speaker 1: did teach me. He said, anybody can make an audience laugh,
Speaker 1: but if you make them feel, they will come back,
Speaker 1: and they will come back week after week. And they
Speaker 1: may not know why they're coming back, but they will, yeah,
Speaker 1: because inside their feeling. And so I've carried that. So
Speaker 1: even when we would do these wild episodes and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll touch on the wrestling show and doing
Speaker 1: a show in the pond in front of eighteen thousand people,
Speaker 1: Even when we would do stuff like that, it was
Speaker 1: anchored in a beautiful moment with you know, Ben and
Speaker 1: Danielle dancing in the ring right right. So the five
Speaker 1: episodes that you were responsible for in season two, does
Speaker 1: that mean they were also like your original pitches and
Speaker 1: then you got to write them or not always? You know,
Speaker 1: the writer's room works, like I remember, I think our
Speaker 1: first first episode which was wild but and I haven't
Speaker 1: watched it in thirty years, but it was Corey Wolf
Speaker 1: where he was going through puberty, thought he was turning
Speaker 1: to a werewolf. I think mcnell had pitched something about
Speaker 1: he was once bitten by, you know, an animal. He
Speaker 1: didn't know who bid him or what bit him, and
Speaker 1: so that was the starting point and then we would
Speaker 1: take it. But we were constantly pitching the craziest stuff
Speaker 1: that never got done we wanted we kept every year
Speaker 1: we'd say no, Michael seriously then wants a bar Mitzvah.
Speaker 1: All his Jewish friends are getting bar mitzvah in the
Speaker 1: show he wanted, while the families not Jewish he wants.
Speaker 1: He would pitch crazy stuff like that. We had one
Speaker 1: will where we almost did this show where you got
Speaker 1: your driver's license. The show, of course every all the
Speaker 1: fans know, was set in Philadelphia, that you got your
Speaker 1: license went out for your first drive and ran over
Speaker 1: Randall Cunningham right before the playoffs quarterbacks, so he couldn't
Speaker 1: play in the playoffs because of Eric Matthews. Oh that's
Speaker 1: a great idea. If I remember Randall Cunningham, the way
Speaker 1: he played and how often he got hurt, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to run him over, you just have to tap
Speaker 1: him just a little. Yeah. Fine, But a lot of
Speaker 1: them were our original pitches. I mean, you know, and
Speaker 1: and again back to you guys. Absolutely, it had to
Speaker 1: be shocking from the show because it was a vastly
Speaker 1: different show from season one. Um, and you guys were
Speaker 1: great in season one. But I do I do think
Speaker 1: the network, and don't forget back then there was a
Speaker 1: network and a studio. We had these touchdows, you know,
Speaker 1: masters kind of saying hey, here's what we want. I
Speaker 1: just think it's a different world. And you know, back
Speaker 1: then when we started, we were coming off of you know,
Speaker 1: like the times, you know, films like American Pie and
Speaker 1: you know that that was and coming of age meant
Speaker 1: you know, kissing and men, right, you know, adolescent sexuality
Speaker 1: and um, I certainly you know in the beginning of
Speaker 1: you know, my career on Boy. I It's a lot
Speaker 1: of things, guys, and I'm so glad to talk about it.
Speaker 1: I love talking about this stuff because you know, we're
Speaker 1: all different people. I'm I became a different showrunner when
Speaker 1: I left Michael and did my own thing, and I
Speaker 1: was certainly you know, I did a show called So
Speaker 1: Little Time with the Olsen Twins, and I was much
Speaker 1: more aware, hyper hyper aware of of of what they
Speaker 1: were going through, you know, on both at home but
Speaker 1: then on set when they had scenes with the boy
Speaker 1: and had a kiss, and and I was certainly you know,
Speaker 1: it was before I was married on board, before I
Speaker 1: had kids. All that, you know, that came in season
Speaker 1: three and four for me when I met Kristen and
Speaker 1: had Liam and Luke. But I probably, looking back, wish
Speaker 1: that I was in a position to be more aware
Speaker 1: of all of you as adolescence. But I wasn't a parent.
Speaker 1: I was a single guy. By the way, Like every
Speaker 1: time you guys got forty year old men, remember I
Speaker 1: want an asterisk. I was thirty two. I want you
Speaker 1: guys to tell the world that I was the hip
Speaker 1: rider with the torn jeans in the ear and now
Speaker 1: you are you are? Yeah? No, I think it's also
Speaker 1: interesting though, when you look at just the evolution of
Speaker 1: the child actor. I mean you go back to the
Speaker 1: forties and the fifties, when there was a child actor
Speaker 1: could be on the set for seventeen eighteen hours. They
Speaker 1: were doing their own stunts. I mean they threw Natalie
Speaker 1: Wood across a river where the bridge walked out. She
Speaker 1: broke her arm. She was like eight. So I mean
Speaker 1: there there has certainly has been the evolution, and that
Speaker 1: we're seeing where it's getting better. I mean from the
Speaker 1: time Bill Daniels was a child actor at as the
Speaker 1: time we were a child actor, it's already better. And
Speaker 1: from the time somebody now as a child actor to
Speaker 1: when we were a child actor, it's getting better. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you see the evolution, but it is. It's what you're
Speaker 1: talking about at the beginning. It's the time casule. Time capsule.
Speaker 1: When you go back and you look, it's jarring. It's
Speaker 1: jarring to say, and then people say, well, why are
Speaker 1: you why are you criticizing it? Well, we're criticizing it
Speaker 1: because that's what we're doing. We're looking back at a
Speaker 1: time in history and we're talking about it. And by
Speaker 1: the way, some of the stuff holds up. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: amazing to me. Yeah, it does actually more on most shows,
Speaker 1: I think, more than motions. I mean, I think that's
Speaker 1: the reason why I agree we're talking about this because
Speaker 1: we still have fans who are still showing into their children.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing. I think Boym's World has
Speaker 1: a staying power. So I think like for the majority
Speaker 1: of our show, it it ages incredibly well. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: let me better than a any other show. I know.
Speaker 1: Again taking pride in being the young one on the
Speaker 1: writing staff, I'm pretty active on social media. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and and this, um, I believe I want to read
Speaker 1: this because it's it's really really cool. This somebody tweeted
Speaker 1: at me yesterday. This is an aspiring writer, she's in
Speaker 1: her late twenties, and this was the tweet. There is
Speaker 1: this is last night. There is just no show like
Speaker 1: hashtag boy Meets World. Me and my roommate are NonStop
Speaker 1: giggling right now, and I cannot stress how much I
Speaker 1: wanted to be a part of this family when I
Speaker 1: was younger. Yeah yeah, yeah, And you know, being active
Speaker 1: on social media, I just responded, leave me alone exactly.
Speaker 1: Your music. The show's timeless. It really is. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I know that I agree so with one of the
Speaker 1: you don't want to do any social media. But one
Speaker 1: of the things that I do do is cameo. It's
Speaker 1: one of the few things that I do because I
Speaker 1: like to give the shout outs to to the fans.
Speaker 1: And literally, I would say in the last eight nine months,
Speaker 1: eighty percent of the cameos I'm doing are for people
Speaker 1: under the age of fifteen. Wow, it's shout out for twelve,
Speaker 1: my twelve year old daughter, it's your favorite show, my
Speaker 1: thirteen year old son favorite show. It's one after another
Speaker 1: of people under the age of fifteen. The show is
Speaker 1: just continuing to go, which is a testament also to
Speaker 1: the writing. It really is. I mean, we we like
Speaker 1: to toot our own horn. We were very good child actors.
Speaker 1: I think we're finding ourselves. We're doing a great job.
Speaker 1: But the writing really does hold up. I mean, Danielle
Speaker 1: and I were really good on the show. Um, but
Speaker 1: I was doing that for myself, but I was pulling around,
Speaker 1: so you know, yeah, again, Danielle and I were great,
Speaker 1: and there's somebody above you know, the writing. The more
Speaker 1: we're getting into it, and we'll get into it as
Speaker 1: we do more of our recaps. But um, the writing, well,
Speaker 1: the thing we keep coming back to is that you
Speaker 1: used to have, especially in something like the TGIF block,
Speaker 1: you had kids show and then you had slightly adult
Speaker 1: shows when they were nine thirty slot. Whereas our show,
Speaker 1: the writing was so good and crisp for the adults,
Speaker 1: which is something that we never noticed as child actors
Speaker 1: because we're doing our thing, We're in our head, we're
Speaker 1: not there during their rehearsals, and we're watching these scenes
Speaker 1: between Betsy and Rusty or between Bill and Tony now,
Speaker 1: and they're just so good. So I think again that's
Speaker 1: the testament to the writing that does and again to
Speaker 1: you know, to Rusty and Betsy and Tony and Bill,
Speaker 1: the talent on the adult side, they were not sitcomy, no,
Speaker 1: and so they allowed us to write these wonderful scenes
Speaker 1: in and and you know, I think I once you know, Will,
Speaker 1: I think you once said on one of the episodes
Speaker 1: of the podcast, I think you had said I had
Speaker 1: all the funnies. I didn't have. No, you had some
Speaker 1: dramatic stuff. I had some well you get well, the
Speaker 1: Tommy stuff was was Tommy stuff was great. By the way,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite and this was me and normally
Speaker 1: we won't take credit for stuff, but it made me
Speaker 1: cry when I saw it on set because I on
Speaker 1: Girl Meets World. That was my idea to bring Tommy back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was awesome with the journalist and people just
Speaker 1: flipped over that. But you have so much emotional stuff, Mark. One.
Speaker 1: One aspect of Boy Meets World we get asked about
Speaker 1: all the time, and it came up again while we
Speaker 1: were introing you before this episode started is how did
Speaker 1: wrestling make its way into the Boy Meets World storylines?
Speaker 1: And we especially get asked about the Vader episodes. So
Speaker 1: the answer is, Mark Blutman, We say it all the time,
Speaker 1: but how did what is your love and affiliation for
Speaker 1: wrestling and how did you bring it into Boy Meets World? Honestly,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. In fact, I was at the
Speaker 1: Forum last night a bunch of I'm friends with a
Speaker 1: lot of wrestlers still and there was a a w
Speaker 1: card there yesterday and the acclaimed say hi to you,
Speaker 1: Danielle shout out to the acclaimed, My boy, it was amazing.
Speaker 1: You know my grandfather. The answer is this my grandfather
Speaker 1: who was my best friend in the world. I use
Speaker 1: him in my work a lot. I have a movie
Speaker 1: that I wrote that I'm going to direct in May
Speaker 1: that's about my grandfather and me. Judd Hirsch is playing Gramps.
Speaker 1: He was my best friend. He was my only grandparent.
Speaker 1: The other three either died before I was born or
Speaker 1: shortly after seeing me. I should rexamine that. Grandpa Sam
Speaker 1: was my best buddy. He was the most beautiful human
Speaker 1: being in the world. And he took me to a
Speaker 1: wrestling match when I was like, you know, eight, nine,
Speaker 1: ten years old, something like that. And it was Andre
Speaker 1: the Giant. I was going to say, who was who?
Speaker 1: Andre the Giant against this other giant of a man
Speaker 1: named Don Leo Jonathan from Salt Lake City, Utah. Wow,
Speaker 1: it was build the match of the century. And I
Speaker 1: sat there in absolute awe and I just was hooked.
Speaker 1: And I kept watching wrestling. And I have found recently
Speaker 1: we moved and I found boxes with old stuff, and
Speaker 1: I found a polaroid of me as a ten year old,
Speaker 1: dressed as a wrestler in a speedo bathing suit, my
Speaker 1: hands making the claw. Yes, I loved it and never stopped.
Speaker 1: And then and those who know me well on social
Speaker 1: note that I started off as a stand up comedian
Speaker 1: and I did an act called the Crusher Comic where
Speaker 1: I dressed up as a wrestler with a mask, tights,
Speaker 1: I had all these flamboyant ric flair robes and I
Speaker 1: would come out to ayah the Tiger and airplane spin
Speaker 1: people from the audience. It became huge. This was in
Speaker 1: the in the eighties. It became huge. Comedy was big.
Speaker 1: I'm selling out comedy clubs all over the country as
Speaker 1: Crusher Comic. The show would end, I'd go in the
Speaker 1: green room, get undressed, take my stuff off, go hang
Speaker 1: out at the bar. Nobody knew I was the Crusher Comic,
Speaker 1: so I'd be sitting there at the bar. Somebody go, oh,
Speaker 1: what a great show. I'm like, yeah, Crusher Comics the best.
Speaker 1: I come see him in Colorado all the time, oh man,
Speaker 1: and so I did this for about ten years. I
Speaker 1: was on the cover of Wrestling World magazine Crusher Comic
Speaker 1: that the best. And one day this is true. This
Speaker 1: is part of my origin story. I was playing the
Speaker 1: improv in Pittsburgh and I did this bit in my
Speaker 1: act where I would at the end of the act,
Speaker 1: I would say Hey, A lot of people come up
Speaker 1: to me all the time. They say, Crusher is wrestling real?
Speaker 1: Is wrestling fake? And I go, I'm not gonna say
Speaker 1: one way or the other, but I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: guys a demonstration and show you what it's all about.
Speaker 1: I need somebody from the audience to come up. Somebody
Speaker 1: would come up, and we'd get in this thing where
Speaker 1: I would take out a chain. I'd make it a
Speaker 1: chain match, and we would like dog collar with a
Speaker 1: chain attaching me and this person from the audience, And
Speaker 1: just as we were about to go at it, I
Speaker 1: would bring out rock'em sock'em robots. This is the only
Speaker 1: way to settle it. And my robot wore a mask
Speaker 1: just like me, and it was rigged with a pump
Speaker 1: so blood would spurt out all those of the place.
Speaker 1: So I'm in Pittsburgh one night, and I usually was
Speaker 1: really really good at who I chose right, and I
Speaker 1: chose this person and I thought they were completely sober
Speaker 1: and not and he gets up there and I would
Speaker 1: always lean in and whisper, okay, just kind of a
Speaker 1: fake slap to me to start things off. And then
Speaker 1: I'll pull out the robots. And this guy takes the chain,
Speaker 1: wraps it around his knuckles and Cole cocks me, Oh,
Speaker 1: I go down. He gets escorted out from the ground.
Speaker 1: I'm like, thank you, good night, and I went I'm done,
Speaker 1: like I can't do this anymore, like it's you know,
Speaker 1: and and I just you know, started writing, and my
Speaker 1: writing took off very very quickly. I sold a movie
Speaker 1: like three months later. Um and and but that's the
Speaker 1: wrestling part of me. And so we brought Vader on.
Speaker 1: The first episode was the Thriller in Phila, and it
Speaker 1: was so over the top. I think, didn't Vader pick
Speaker 1: you up? Will? He does? He wrestled, He wrestled with me,
Speaker 1: so he trained. He trained me, which is the coolest
Speaker 1: thing in the world. So I remember him coming in
Speaker 1: and essentially saying, if memory serves now, he was a
Speaker 1: football player, he said, I think he played for the Raiders,
Speaker 1: excuse me, University of Colorado. So he came out and
Speaker 1: he was kind of saying he would he would always
Speaker 1: have the rubber bands and he would stretch out because
Speaker 1: he kept saying, my shoulders a shot. And he would
Speaker 1: just tell us all these wrestling stories that were he said,
Speaker 1: you have no idea what the wrestling world is like, No,
Speaker 1: you don't start WWE. You obviously start in these small
Speaker 1: little places. And he said, the one that sticks out
Speaker 1: for me first of all, the nicest human being you want.
Speaker 1: And by the way, will will not to put you off.
Speaker 1: He felt so bad because one of the teachers I
Speaker 1: don't know was David Comes or somebody who came to
Speaker 1: me and said, dub I know you know Leon that
Speaker 1: was his real name, Leon White. He's gone too. He
Speaker 1: passed away about four years ago. And um, but but
Speaker 1: David came out. He said, you need to talk to him.
Speaker 1: He's swearing in front of the kids. Every time he
Speaker 1: messes up a line, he goes, oh B And so
Speaker 1: I'm like, Leon, listen, it's not a locker room. These
Speaker 1: some of these kids are probably would love him. I
Speaker 1: remember just sitting around talking to him for hours, many
Speaker 1: stories for hours. Yeah, but the stories that he told me.
Speaker 1: The one that sticks out to me is he was
Speaker 1: in a fighting pit essentially in Mexico, like a fight club.
Speaker 1: Like it was a professional wrestler. He used to do fights.
Speaker 1: But no, they were professional wrestler. No, that's what he said.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be It wasn't fully choreographed for
Speaker 1: this one, he told me about, but they had kind
Speaker 1: of quote unquote worked out certain things right, but it
Speaker 1: was more or less fly by the seat of your
Speaker 1: pants for this one. Bullet points, bulletin yeah, and he
Speaker 1: said the guy. He's throwing the guy around because he's
Speaker 1: obviously supposed to win, and he goes back against the
Speaker 1: ropes and he feels something in his back and he
Speaker 1: turns around and the guy's grandmother had stabbed him through
Speaker 1: the ropes, had walked up to the ropes and stuck
Speaker 1: a knife in his lower back, and he looked back
Speaker 1: like what are you? Oh my god, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: And then you know, finished the match and he's like,
Speaker 1: I patched myself up. He's like, that's the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that used to happen. And I thought you were
Speaker 1: going to tell the detail he used to tell. He
Speaker 1: used to talk about how he would fight in Mexico
Speaker 1: and they had a net a of the that was
Speaker 1: the other of the ring, but the audience would sharpen pasos.
Speaker 1: They would sharpen the edge of the coins and throw
Speaker 1: coins from them. So he sliced by coins from another one.
Speaker 1: It was insane. He said it was just absolutely But
Speaker 1: he told me great, just amazing compliment because he had
Speaker 1: to lift me up. So he was working with me.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do this, We're gonna do that. And after
Speaker 1: we shot the show, he looked at me and said,
Speaker 1: you're better at that than some of the professional wrestlers
Speaker 1: that I work with. I was like, yes, because he
Speaker 1: stiff and you have to like, do you know you
Speaker 1: have to let you have to jump with them so
Speaker 1: you're not destroying his back. And well, I remember what
Speaker 1: he said. What he said to us, which blew my
Speaker 1: mind was he's like, the so called fake wrestling that
Speaker 1: we do is so much harder than real fighting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because trying to trying to make it look like you're
Speaker 1: hurting each other without actually hurting each other requires so
Speaker 1: much more athleticism and effort. Then, um, you know, he's like,
Speaker 1: it's more like an acting dancing job as Ballet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Cory Ballet take a three hundred and fifty pound behemoth
Speaker 1: and say you need to be nimble, choreograph and timing impeccable.
Speaker 1: It's not beast pounding, you know. And so I was
Speaker 1: in the hall. You said you saw Andre the Giant
Speaker 1: and Andre the Giant apparently was famous for making up
Speaker 1: things in the middle of the fight but telling the
Speaker 1: other person in the ring. And Andre the Giant was
Speaker 1: like five hundred pounds and they'd be in the middle
Speaker 1: of the fight and he'd say they'd be in a clinch.
Speaker 1: He'd say to the guy, now flip me. I think
Speaker 1: I'd be like, are you are you what? Like, how
Speaker 1: the hell am I supposed to flip Andre the Giant.
Speaker 1: These men are just it's in men and women because
Speaker 1: Alexa Bliss all these but they're amazing. Watching this stuff
Speaker 1: is incredible. Andre would probably down three bottles of wine
Speaker 1: before a match. He was a big drink. You drink
Speaker 1: half a barrel of beer to get to get drunk. Apparently.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm trying to picture some of these storylines
Speaker 1: that ideas you probably had from your real life as
Speaker 1: a comic slash wrestler. And then you're like, so boy
Speaker 1: meets World. What if was anybody looking at you like,
Speaker 1: what kind of ideas are these or were they accepted
Speaker 1: right away? Well, it was pretty organic to make it
Speaker 1: work because we were casting Ethan's dad. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: Frankie Stucchino needed a dad. Well, you know, you can
Speaker 1: go two ways. You can cast one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: pound men and go, oh, isn't that funny money? Or
Speaker 1: you can cast And because we were you know, as
Speaker 1: Frankie evolved, we made him uber sensitive and he was
Speaker 1: a poet and all this, it seemed very organic to
Speaker 1: give him a father who was the opposite, who was
Speaker 1: a wrestling and so I picked from the room and
Speaker 1: Michael had no idea, how do we even do, like
Speaker 1: as if I'm going to call Sally and Barbie and
Speaker 1: go get get me a wrestler, you know, like they're
Speaker 1: gonna be what would And I knew people, you know,
Speaker 1: I knew Bruce Pritchard who's been with WWE forever and
Speaker 1: he did this character brother Love. He ended up in
Speaker 1: the show, you know, doing the announcing. But there was
Speaker 1: also an executive Disney who passed away gosh, four or
Speaker 1: five years ago, named Mitch Ackerman. And Mitch Ackerman was
Speaker 1: on the financial side at Disney and he was a
Speaker 1: big wrestling fan and so he helped he helped facilitate
Speaker 1: it also, and then once he did the first episode,
Speaker 1: then we just like we brought him back three or
Speaker 1: four times. And then I had this insane idea where
Speaker 1: I said to Michael, I want to film part of
Speaker 1: our episode during a house show. For those who don't know,
Speaker 1: a house show is when it's not like a pay
Speaker 1: per view, it's just the loop there at an arena
Speaker 1: and they just do matches and it's not filmed for TV.
Speaker 1: And I'd want to film in front. And Michael's like,
Speaker 1: you want to film an episode of Boy Meets World
Speaker 1: in front of sixteen thousand rabid wrestling fans? Yes, I do.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, he didn't come. He didn't come that night,
Speaker 1: you know he didn't. Yeah, he stayed away. I think
Speaker 1: it actually fell on it was so terrified Friday, so
Speaker 1: that he had an excuse. Right, Yeah, I wasn't invited
Speaker 1: to those I was never at the Big Ones, right,
Speaker 1: or what was it like to walk into an arena?
Speaker 1: It was awful. It was awful. Ben and I were
Speaker 1: so scared. We we I mean, I look, the fear
Speaker 1: really came from just doing it live, like we only
Speaker 1: had you know, one take. Essentially, we ended up doing two.
Speaker 1: But we thought we only had one take because it
Speaker 1: was supposed to be during a real wrestling match with
Speaker 1: Ethan up there, and then Ben and I entered the ring,
Speaker 1: and we had certain moves we had to do, and
Speaker 1: so we had when we had lines we had to say,
Speaker 1: and they had set up the cameras and we had
Speaker 1: rehearsed before the audience got there, so we all felt
Speaker 1: like okay. But then when the audience was there, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think I had ever been in front of
Speaker 1: a crowd that big, and so you run out and
Speaker 1: then of course, since it was Vader, who was a
Speaker 1: villain as far as the world of wrestling, wing us
Speaker 1: and then they recognize us and they were swearing at
Speaker 1: us and yelling at us. So we're trying to like
Speaker 1: stay focused and hit our marks and make sure that
Speaker 1: we say our lines. And meanwhile, you know, sixteen eighteen
Speaker 1: thousand people are screaming, you know, a boy meets World,
Speaker 1: Corey sucks Groomshan, and we are just like, what is
Speaker 1: happening right the worst? Oh my god, I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you said that, because I tell that story all the time,
Speaker 1: people think I make it up. I got called into
Speaker 1: you know, editing the next day or on the Monday,
Speaker 1: and they said we have a problem and that we
Speaker 1: had swearing married the dialogue on what that means for
Speaker 1: people out there who don't know, we can't strip it out.
Speaker 1: At the time, there was no way to strip it out.
Speaker 1: It was married to dialogue. Wrestling fans are smart and
Speaker 1: although they loved Boy Meets World, they knew what was
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, I love the show, but they also
Speaker 1: knew they could rek hammus on that well. One of
Speaker 1: one of the things that made me fall in love
Speaker 1: with wrestling in my adult ears is the fact that,
Speaker 1: like you said, Mark, wrestling fans are smart and they
Speaker 1: are committed to the bit we all talk about as actors,
Speaker 1: when you when you can commit and when you're working
Speaker 1: with an actor who's really committed, and how incredible that is.
Speaker 1: The wrestling fans are so committed to who the heels
Speaker 1: are and who the heroes are that they weren't going
Speaker 1: to allow the fact that they're taping a TV show
Speaker 1: to change to get them off. Oh sure, we'll just
Speaker 1: be audience members. Yeah, we'll just don't. We just won't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll just sit here. In the fact that they're yelling
Speaker 1: at twelve year olds, It's like, no, you yourself in
Speaker 1: our world, you're the ring. You're with Vader. That's it,
Speaker 1: you're a heel. Yeah. The inappropriate dialogue that we had
Speaker 1: to listen to about unspeakable things that certain members of
Speaker 1: the cast are doing to each other, it was amazing,
Speaker 1: oh man, And so we had obviously bring everybody in
Speaker 1: to loop their lines and get them again. But you
Speaker 1: know what's funny is again we talk about how the
Speaker 1: show is timeless, and people like that tweet I read
Speaker 1: are still out there. I must get hit up about
Speaker 1: that one episode, you know, once a week, like how
Speaker 1: did you think to film a sitcom? Kids sitcom? Quote
Speaker 1: unquote kids sitcom? Right? Yeah, I mean that's insane. But
Speaker 1: the fact that we're here all these years later talking
Speaker 1: about again, that's all part of what made your show
Speaker 1: so special is that we did things that others weren't doing,
Speaker 1: and even you know, to get away from the wrestling
Speaker 1: thing for a bit. You know, they're the things that
Speaker 1: I'm proudest stuff. And I know that if I was
Speaker 1: doing every episode with you and watching, I would have
Speaker 1: the same reactions like what, like, really that went on? Then?
Speaker 1: I know that, and sometimes my heart hurts for what
Speaker 1: we allow, but sometimes I also know that, no, that's
Speaker 1: what went on. But here's where credit goes out to
Speaker 1: all of us and us as the originators of the content.
Speaker 1: While there may have been episodes that felt like we
Speaker 1: were sexualizing, you know, the girls on the show, we
Speaker 1: also were really, really careful to balance it as best
Speaker 1: we can with something like chick Like Me were you
Speaker 1: and Ben dressed up? And you'll get to that episode
Speaker 1: whenever as girls and learned what it like, what it
Speaker 1: was like in the nineties to be a girl in
Speaker 1: high school and be sexualized. We always try to balance.
Speaker 1: And again I'm not you know, I'm as culpable as
Speaker 1: anybody from when things. Maybe we're a little too much,
Speaker 1: but but the hearts in that writer's room were fairly
Speaker 1: pure and overall, um, I will not, you know, speak
Speaker 1: to any individuals, but I will say overall you were
Speaker 1: also loved and cared for. And we also knew the
Speaker 1: adults we left you with on the set, the teachers, Betsy, Rusty,
Speaker 1: Bill Tony, Uh, you know, Alex Desaire, who I adore.
Speaker 1: You were in good hands, which is and and this
Speaker 1: is shout out to your families. I always tell people
Speaker 1: that when you cast kids, you really are casting their families. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And credit to all your families, guys, they rocked all
Speaker 1: of them. And so you guys were not gonna be
Speaker 1: holding up any dry cleaning stores in Las Vegas. You
Speaker 1: know you were just not those kids. Watch tomorrow on
Speaker 1: the news now, right, Danielle the Wells, Fargo High School
Speaker 1: twenty three? Oh my gosh, I didn't see that coming. Now,
Speaker 1: wouldn't be caught. We wouldn't be caught. Now we'd see
Speaker 1: planet right? Which characters from the show like spoke to
Speaker 1: you the most? We've heard about different writers, you know,
Speaker 1: having their characters that really like were there, they felt
Speaker 1: like their voice was really the voice of that character.
Speaker 1: Which characters on Boy Meets World spoke to you the most? Like?
Speaker 1: Which one do you most easily slip into that? That's
Speaker 1: a great question, an amazing question, and I hope it
Speaker 1: leads us because I would be remiss if we don't
Speaker 1: touch on Maddie for a bit later, because he had
Speaker 1: a specific voice for the show, and I adore Matt
Speaker 1: Nelson and miss him and want to touch on it,
Speaker 1: so before we get there. For me, it really was
Speaker 1: the combo of of of writer and band. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, that's so funny. I almost jumped in and said,
Speaker 1: my impression is that the like Corey Sean schemes going
Speaker 1: wrong was like you and Howard, like you guys brought
Speaker 1: that element into the show and like that excitement like
Speaker 1: when we start a band, when we do like all
Speaker 1: these like little things like the radio show, like all
Speaker 1: these episodes about like the Two of Us where Sean
Speaker 1: was a little more goofy than he ended up being
Speaker 1: later on in the show, where Seawan was like sort
Speaker 1: of this goofball sidekick and and Ben was always getting
Speaker 1: dragged into trouble. I feel like that was your guy's lane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so nailed it, nailed it, you know, that was
Speaker 1: a big part of it for me. My again, you
Speaker 1: just you articulated perfect. All I say is you know,
Speaker 1: ditto to what you said to Will. It was also
Speaker 1: now you were so interesting your revolution because you people
Speaker 1: will say all the time, when did Eric Matthews lose
Speaker 1: fifty brain cells? Like when did like when did he shake?
Speaker 1: And they just fell because we and I actually heard
Speaker 1: somebody else say this on the podcast, but I had
Speaker 1: said it. Then I go, I went up in the
Speaker 1: room one day, I said, dude is turning into Jim Carrey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I said that dude is turning into Jim Carrey.
Speaker 1: They said, who I go. Well, Bill Daniels obviously, so
Speaker 1: your stuff, you know, good looking detective and you know,
Speaker 1: just sitting there eating your cereal and the giant bowl,
Speaker 1: leaving the house in a row, which was so Steve
Speaker 1: Martin the jerk. I wrote a lot of that stuff,
Speaker 1: and I identified with the big comedy but um and
Speaker 1: we couldn't. But for me, I always said, the only
Speaker 1: way we'll get away with that with will as if
Speaker 1: we include heart, as as as Danielle and Ben got older.
Speaker 1: I love the relationship stuff and I loved letting my
Speaker 1: heart start to bleed into my work, which is now
Speaker 1: almost anything I do is just filled with that. And
Speaker 1: I you know, I think, you know, when you start
Speaker 1: off and you're on somebody else's show and you're in
Speaker 1: your thirties, you're still trying to find your own voice,
Speaker 1: your own personality. Michael was also very you know, we
Speaker 1: ran the show for two years. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you guys even remember that, but the thing is, when
Speaker 1: you run a show from Michael Jacobs, you know, it's
Speaker 1: very clear that it's like taking your dad's car and
Speaker 1: you return it into the driveway. The first thing you
Speaker 1: do is you circle it to make sure there's no kings,
Speaker 1: no scratches. Yeah, because and there must be the exact
Speaker 1: amount of gas still in the town. It's his car.
Speaker 1: And so it was very difficult, which was one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why I ended up leaving, you know, in
Speaker 1: season five, because if you run a show from Michael,
Speaker 1: you're never truly running your show. Although I was extremely
Speaker 1: proud of you know, along with a lot of us,
Speaker 1: but being part which I thought, you know, the Sean
Speaker 1: Angelus stuff was groundbreaking on a sit come back down,
Speaker 1: I really do. Yeah, And so you were you left
Speaker 1: after season five? I left I think in the middle
Speaker 1: of season five. Actually, we just we were running the
Speaker 1: show and it was difficult. Um, you know Michael's thing, Listen,
Speaker 1: it's his show. Whatever he wants to do, he can do.
Speaker 1: So he was off doing other shows and he would
Speaker 1: come in late at night. I'm ready to let everybody
Speaker 1: go home at seven, and he's like, we're going to
Speaker 1: change all this, and a lot of it was, you know,
Speaker 1: that was Michael. He just wanted his words, whether better, different, whatever,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. That's what he would do. And then
Speaker 1: we got offered by Dector and Strauss season one writers.
Speaker 1: They were doing a show with Tom Selleck called The Closer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they said, can you get out of your deal
Speaker 1: at Disney and come and do this show with us?
Speaker 1: And we did. Um, you know, well was interesting, though, guys,
Speaker 1: as I thought, and a lot of it was was
Speaker 1: was what Howard wanted And this is part of, you know,
Speaker 1: the evolution. I didn't become who I am till after
Speaker 1: Boy Meets World. Um, you know, you're still to you know.
Speaker 1: I also thought when I took over the show, okay, well,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of stuff about Michael that I
Speaker 1: thought was good. There was a lot that I wanted
Speaker 1: to do different and you're still trying to find yourself
Speaker 1: years later, I'd be interviewed, I had huge regrets in
Speaker 1: leaving you guys, Like huge regrets was writer was going
Speaker 1: to say, he remembers the night I remember the night
Speaker 1: you guys left. It was a big deal because it
Speaker 1: was sudden. It was like we were in the middle
Speaker 1: of the season. I feel like I forget what episode
Speaker 1: we were doing. But there was a swing set. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the ski Lodge was it was it the dance.
Speaker 1: I just remember it was like there was a big
Speaker 1: swing set. It was like a big episode and we
Speaker 1: were doing something kind of and then it was like,
Speaker 1: oh no, Howard and Mark are leaving the show. We
Speaker 1: were all like what We all just kind of sat
Speaker 1: down and say goodbye to you and it was like,
Speaker 1: oh bye. Like it was really emotional, and it was
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things I can tell you guys, Uh,
Speaker 1: as you get older me, you just cry a lot
Speaker 1: more and a lot easier, and uh and and so
Speaker 1: I'm I'm emotional now. But you know, I thought I
Speaker 1: wanted to write adult stuff and that experience with Tom Salick,
Speaker 1: you know, hammered at home. No, man, your heart is
Speaker 1: with kids. And then when I did the Olsen Twin Show,
Speaker 1: I realized, a how good I am with kids and
Speaker 1: how good I am at elevating their performances and making
Speaker 1: them feel safe on a set. And then certainly on Girl.
Speaker 1: You know, I did that as much as I could. Again,
Speaker 1: you know, it's still it's Michael's thing, you know, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day. But I always talk about
Speaker 1: the regret of leaving you guys. But but but to
Speaker 1: your credit. We've you know, always there for me writer.
Speaker 1: When I wrote and directed that movie ten years ago,
Speaker 1: I said, you're coming to New Mexico, would you do
Speaker 1: this role? And you went there and yell, we've done
Speaker 1: stuff together. You've never said no to me. And Will
Speaker 1: used to kick my ass in some trivia game on
Speaker 1: our that was it. I was like, wait, this is
Speaker 1: the Eric Matthews character anything? Yes, Well, you recently won
Speaker 1: an Emmy for your work on the Apple TV Plus
Speaker 1: series ghost Writer. Why did none of us appear on
Speaker 1: that show? Mark? Yeah, I would have been awesome on that. Um,
Speaker 1: you guys were no longer thirteen and it was in
Speaker 1: and Will is not allowed to get a passport after
Speaker 1: the incident in Amsterdam. That's true. I can get a passport,
Speaker 1: but temporary. I can get a very temporary passport. That's it, right,
Speaker 1: twenty four hours in and out exactly. No. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm amazed that you walked away from the show in
Speaker 1: fifth season. You would figure doing a show with Shelley
Speaker 1: Long would teach you never walk away when it shows
Speaker 1: at its prime. I have a question for you. Do
Speaker 1: you have a favorite like like when you think of
Speaker 1: boy met Roll, of the quintessential episode, your favorite episode?
Speaker 1: Which one is it? Um? I think it's I think
Speaker 1: it's part of what I meant to say. It was
Speaker 1: two kids trying to figure out what I what I
Speaker 1: love you means, and you know the Jane jacket. Of
Speaker 1: course it was my hero when I was younger and
Speaker 1: getting in it was John Hughes. Sum I love John,
Speaker 1: and so these to find a coming of age moment
Speaker 1: of two young people lost in love. And dude leaves
Speaker 1: and throws his jean jacket that he had put on
Speaker 1: days earlier. Remember and Chubbies he put it on you
Speaker 1: because you were cold show. You'll watch it. It's a
Speaker 1: beautiful episode. So that one stands out. And then the
Speaker 1: one besides Vader, the one I get hit up the most,
Speaker 1: is they want you to take the roles. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go. You had a moment as an old
Speaker 1: man writer leaving Chubbies where you went it's head Lockley
Speaker 1: and miss Lockleer turn you chased out after you dr Locklier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we're going to see that this season. That's
Speaker 1: season two. Yeah, yeah, Wendy, Yeah, I'll send it you guys.
Speaker 1: I have a picture of you guys. An old makeup.
Speaker 1: I'm sad and so, you know, it's hard to just
Speaker 1: answer one episode, but I think, certainly for me what
Speaker 1: I meant to say. I also, Danielle, the Disney World
Speaker 1: are shot shooting? There was interesting that one? What's that?
Speaker 1: Did you write that one? I just want to make
Speaker 1: sure so all of the episodes that were really awesome
Speaker 1: where people got to go do fun stuff were written
Speaker 1: by you, because I was never in any of those episodes. Mark,
Speaker 1: oh my god, don't don't start in the Disney World.
Speaker 1: I didn't even in the cast till season four. Somebody
Speaker 1: said about that brother. I went with, exactly, You're just
Speaker 1: You're the Alan Matthews of writers. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: As a paranoid guy wanting me to throw some flowers.
Speaker 1: I will say one of my favorite scenes ever was
Speaker 1: an episode I did not write. I had a lot
Speaker 1: to do with. I think Sherman wrote it. It was
Speaker 1: with Leicia Hayley Shall Glanis Morris set. So you sitting
Speaker 1: there making a log cabin out of your French fry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well she's going on and on and then yelling. You know,
Speaker 1: she said, what would make you if I said this
Speaker 1: and that? What would you say, I would say check
Speaker 1: check please. She was so I can't wait to get
Speaker 1: to I hope we have her on the show. She
Speaker 1: was so good. I went four Table Read. I went
Speaker 1: with Jeff Sherman. We went to see her in her
Speaker 1: band Murmurs, The Murmurs. Yeah, Danielle bought me my first
Speaker 1: Murmurs CD and I still listen to it all the time.
Speaker 1: It's a great album. So yeah, I still have a
Speaker 1: CD well on my on my machine. That's part of
Speaker 1: what made Boys so special is this giant pot of
Speaker 1: everything Stu for everybody there was you know who else
Speaker 1: in the sitcom world has somebody from the Murmurs on
Speaker 1: who has who does an episode where they put a
Speaker 1: band together? That's Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick, Mabe Tolin's Yeah, guitars, Yeah,
Speaker 1: who does put a band together? Guitarists? Four guitarists. You're right,
Speaker 1: there are no bands like that, just for guitarists, no drums.
Speaker 1: So before we before we wrap up, we did mention recently,
Speaker 1: Um very emotionally that we lost Matt Nelson recently and
Speaker 1: that it was very hard for all of us. And
Speaker 1: I know you were very close to Matt. Could you
Speaker 1: share with us a story about Matt Nelson that maybe
Speaker 1: none of us know. Well. So I was asked by
Speaker 1: Michael my first year on the show to go see
Speaker 1: a play called Sensitive People. And it was a play
Speaker 1: that Matt wrote. And it was plain I think in
Speaker 1: in I forget if it was North Hollywood, But I
Speaker 1: went and I was blown away by this play and
Speaker 1: I met Matt was also in the play as an actor.
Speaker 1: Matt did a lot of acting too. When he started.
Speaker 1: He was her major dad. Um you could find it
Speaker 1: on YouTube, you know. He just he was just an incredible,
Speaker 1: you know, uber talented person that was still, like so
Speaker 1: many of us, trying to find our way. For me,
Speaker 1: it was comedy writing. What am I also was a
Speaker 1: bad actor. I was in meat Ball three with Patrick Dempsey.
Speaker 1: He made a meat Balls three. Yeah, they also made
Speaker 1: a four with Jason Marsden. No I'm kidding, No, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly they you know. So Matt was acting, writing
Speaker 1: whatever and I met him after and I was blown
Speaker 1: away by him, and I went back to Michael the
Speaker 1: next day and McCracken had seen the play also, and
Speaker 1: we both were very effusive and saying that this guy
Speaker 1: is super talented. Let's bring him in. And we brought
Speaker 1: him in and we met him and he was very quiet,
Speaker 1: very shy, very introspective. But there was an incredible depth
Speaker 1: about Matt. I remember remember the first week, me and
Speaker 1: Minelle went to his office and said, Matt, we have
Speaker 1: this write a passage for new writers. He goes, what
Speaker 1: is it? I go, you stand behind your desk. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put four open water bottles and me and Manell
Speaker 1: are going to stand in the doorway and throw tennis
Speaker 1: balls and knock the water bottles over. And if you
Speaker 1: can do that, then we know you're one of us.
Speaker 1: Of course we've never did that before. We up and Matt,
Speaker 1: being this incredible trooper, going okay, it's a little weird,
Speaker 1: but I want to fit in, would stand behind his desk.
Speaker 1: I'd set up the water bottles, Memanelle would throw tennis balls,
Speaker 1: and Matt was soaking and smiling, smiling, and that was Matt,
Speaker 1: and he knew we were goofing, but he was like going, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is who I am. I'm a team player. And
Speaker 1: then in the room, as Matt began to get comfortable
Speaker 1: in pitch, it was very evident he was very dark
Speaker 1: and you know, probably a lot of darkness in his
Speaker 1: own past, but he was beautiful and it was also sincere.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things that I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know if people have shared it yet, if any
Speaker 1: of the Jeffs did, or whoever you've had on But
Speaker 1: one of the things that a writer room is is
Speaker 1: it's a safe place to share. It's a lot of things.
Speaker 1: Some of the things are ugly. Some of the things
Speaker 1: that went on in the nineties wouldn't necessarily, you know,
Speaker 1: stand up now. But but as far as us personally,
Speaker 1: we shared stories of pain. It was very therapeutic. You know,
Speaker 1: for me, it was mother issues that would come to
Speaker 1: the forefront, and so Matt would share and it was
Speaker 1: you know, clear there was you know, he had a
Speaker 1: dark side. He immediately, you know, to answer that other question,
Speaker 1: he was he was a Shan guy. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: he was Team Sean. He was writing some incredible stuff
Speaker 1: and drafts would come in and Matt was handing in
Speaker 1: first drafts that were brilliant. But I'm like, Matt, we're
Speaker 1: not doing the basketball diaries. Raft a needle and a
Speaker 1: tourniquet under you know, Corey's bed, right pause, and go,
Speaker 1: what about Sean? Well, maybe, of course I'm exaggerating here,
Speaker 1: but but but Matt's work and ability to write dark
Speaker 1: angsty troubled within something as pure as Boy Meets World
Speaker 1: was the hardest task, a task that would seem impossible.
Speaker 1: But Matt did it. Yeah, he did it better than anybody.
Speaker 1: And um, on Girl Meets World, he made some grena maya.
Speaker 1: Nobody did it like him. Yeah. And one of my
Speaker 1: regrets is that I never wrote a pilot with Matt.
Speaker 1: I always wrote pilots with Michael, because that's what you did.
Speaker 1: And Matt and I would have been special together because
Speaker 1: we fed off each other so well and complimented each
Speaker 1: other's scripts so well and one of another. I use
Speaker 1: the word regret a lot. Although Matt had an incredible
Speaker 1: impact which should never be lost on Boy Meets World
Speaker 1: and Girl Meets World, so many other shows and audiences
Speaker 1: missed out on what Matt could have created had he
Speaker 1: left our world. And when I say our world, I
Speaker 1: mean Michael and Boy and Girl. He only wanted to
Speaker 1: write for you guys and be part of Michael's world.
Speaker 1: And had Matt gone out on his own, he would have,
Speaker 1: you know, probably shared him. He's like I was fortunate
Speaker 1: enough to do because he was brilliant and he was
Speaker 1: not a normal, you know, sit Friday night sitcom writer,
Speaker 1: but he was able to make his vision and his
Speaker 1: voice work within yours. And again, so when people say
Speaker 1: how special Boy meets World is and was and Girl
Speaker 1: Meets World, Matt, you know, deserves as much credit as anybody,
Speaker 1: including Michael and myself and Howard and Jeff and Jeff
Speaker 1: and all the people that have been with you guys forever. Matt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: quintessential voice. A great Guy's a great guy. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you for being here with us. Mark. It was a
Speaker 1: pleasure to have you. I loved all of your stories,
Speaker 1: as I always do. Where can people find you? Now?
Speaker 1: You mentioned a couple of times, since you're the young,
Speaker 1: hip guy that you are on social where can people
Speaker 1: find you? Hold on? Just making sure people see my beads. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: actually two let me do a shout out these two
Speaker 1: material little bracelets. I don't know if you guys remember
Speaker 1: our super fan from Girl Meets World. Emily. She was
Speaker 1: the young girl from Colorado. She was confined to a wheelchair.
Speaker 1: She came down to our set. She made these for me.
Speaker 1: And she's on Instagram and she makes these bracelets and
Speaker 1: they're beautiful. I'm on Twitter as Bluntman Mark and on
Speaker 1: on Instagram as Mark Blutman and Uh. As I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: I'm shooting a movie in May called Dare to Dream,
Speaker 1: which is kind of bad News Bears meets Cocoon. These
Speaker 1: older people in their eighties discover Fountain Youth and turn
Speaker 1: into their twelve year old selves. How cool. Oh that's good.
Speaker 1: We're free in May. We're all free in May, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: So we'll see you. Are you there for Sport Canada? Well, Mark,
Speaker 1: we want to have you back when we get to
Speaker 1: some of the mcfoli episodes, so we will be inviting
Speaker 1: you back. This will not be the last time the
Speaker 1: audience hears from you, so um, thank you again for
Speaker 1: being here with us, and we will look forward to
Speaker 1: the next time. There will be another next time. And
Speaker 1: just very quickly, not only do I want to thank you,
Speaker 1: but all the fans out there that we didn't get
Speaker 1: a chance to thank in the nineties because there was
Speaker 1: no way of knowing who they are where they were.
Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you to all of
Speaker 1: you for supporting all of us all these years for
Speaker 1: the best fans. Do we have best fans ever? Thank
Speaker 1: you Mark, Mark, Thanks Mark. Oh boy. So fun to
Speaker 1: talk to people and also emotional. It's fun emotional, if
Speaker 1: I might, Daniel, you and your joint words, I love it,
Speaker 1: nice smushing words together. I still can't believe they did
Speaker 1: five episodes in the first season. I mean that's the
Speaker 1: second season. Yeah there, first season, first season, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I yeah, I really think that A lot of
Speaker 1: the second season and and what became Boymet's World is
Speaker 1: defined by by Mark and Howard's energy. Yeah, you could feel,
Speaker 1: you know, I and I that was a lot of
Speaker 1: that was because Michael was gone. Michael left to do
Speaker 1: other shows. Because when when you have a hit show
Speaker 1: like Boyman's World out of the gate, like we were
Speaker 1: a hit after the first season, you get a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunities, and Michael had a lot of opportunities. He
Speaker 1: went and created I think like three other pilots during
Speaker 1: the second season of Boyme's World. Not many of them went.
Speaker 1: I don't know if any of them did, but I
Speaker 1: remember David Kendall took over his executive producer's showrunner for
Speaker 1: a lot of episodes. So Michael would come in and
Speaker 1: give notes sometimes, but other weeks we would go without
Speaker 1: him coming and giving notes. I'm sure he was in
Speaker 1: the writers room giving notes, but we wouldn't see Michael
Speaker 1: for weeks at a time. And um, and I think
Speaker 1: what ended up happening was the Howard and Mark voice
Speaker 1: started to take over, which I think was really great.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, for me, it became why Sean
Speaker 1: was a huge part of the show. Um, that's sort
Speaker 1: of like the core sec they were. That pair became
Speaker 1: kind of in separate us get into trouble, us coming
Speaker 1: up with schemes and you know, yeah, hi Janks and
Speaker 1: all of that that was entirely them. Um, And I
Speaker 1: think it was a great evolution for the show. Um.
Speaker 1: So well, I can't wait to get more and more
Speaker 1: into it as we get into season two. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: we're we're getting ready. We're getting ready. We're diving. We're
Speaker 1: diving into season two. And so thank you guys for
Speaker 1: joining us for this episode of Pod Meets World. As always,
Speaker 1: you can follow us on Instagram pod Meets World Show.
Speaker 1: You can send us your emails pod meets World Show
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. And I'm not sure if you've
Speaker 1: heard but we have merch. Oh there's March pod Meets
Speaker 1: Worldshow dot com and we'll see you next time. Writer
Speaker 1: send us out. We love you all, pod dismissed. Pod
Speaker 1: Meets World is an iHeart podcast produced and hosted by
Speaker 1: Danielle Fischel, Will Fernell and Ryder Strong executive producers, Jensen
Speaker 1: Carp and Amy Sugarman Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo,
Speaker 1: producer and editor, Tara suit Box producer, Jackie Rodriguez, engineer
Speaker 1: and Boy Meets World superfan Easton Allen. Our theme song
Speaker 1: is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. You can follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Podmeats World Show or send us an
Speaker 1: email at pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com.