Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to Podlet's world. I am saying he official
Speaker 1: a PANGALORENS. And I am right or Strong a k a.
Speaker 1: Shawn Hunter, and I am Wilfred l a k A.
Speaker 1: Eric Matthews. How are you guys doing? You're ready to
Speaker 1: ready to jump into the fight. Yeah, this was this
Speaker 1: was an interesting experience. Um, it's funny though, like I
Speaker 1: don't know how you guys feel, but I definitely remember
Speaker 1: the pilot. Well, actually this is probably a different Well obviously, Daniel,
Speaker 1: you weren't in the pilot, so it's a whole different thing.
Speaker 1: But I shot the pilot two different times, and so
Speaker 1: we did it before you were cast, Will and there
Speaker 1: was a different Dad. So and in any case, the
Speaker 1: pilot I actually remember more than probably any other episode.
Speaker 1: So it was very bizarre to no lines, Like I
Speaker 1: could actually like hear lines and be like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I have I remember that, but then also completely not
Speaker 1: understand like what the show was about, because I was
Speaker 1: still just very much a kid in the midst of
Speaker 1: a show, you know. So there's a lot to talk about. Well,
Speaker 1: let me let me tell everybody exactly what the pilot
Speaker 1: episode was. It was season one episode one otherwise known
Speaker 1: as one oh one um, and it was called the Pilot. Uh.
Speaker 1: It first aired Septembe and uh. The episode is that
Speaker 1: Corey is caught listening to the Phillies game in class
Speaker 1: while Mr Feenie is trying to teach the class about love.
Speaker 1: So they're talking about Romeo and Juliet and he is
Speaker 1: listening to the Phillies game in headphones. Eric decides to
Speaker 1: take his girlfriend on their very first day to the
Speaker 1: Phillies game instead of Corey. So Corey is furious and
Speaker 1: thinks that love is ruining his life, and he decides
Speaker 1: to live in his treehouse. And um, that was my
Speaker 1: watch hitting the very angrily, um passionate. He lives in
Speaker 1: his treehouse that happens to overlook the backyard of their
Speaker 1: neighbor and suffle online as to whether it's a side
Speaker 1: yard or sideyard or the backyard. Right, Okay, we will
Speaker 1: get into it then. Um. So he Corey's treehouse overlooked
Speaker 1: the backyard of Mr Phoene's backyard because very important to
Speaker 1: the show. Mr Peoenie is Corey's next door neighbor. And
Speaker 1: uh and so yeah, well, how did you feel watching
Speaker 1: the pilot? Um? Okay, So it made me very, very
Speaker 1: anxious to go back into the world. I don't know
Speaker 1: why I have no read I no reason. I can
Speaker 1: pop up in my head immediately as to why I
Speaker 1: was so anxious, pressing, pressing, play, But I was um.
Speaker 1: And then as I got into the episode, I realized
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I didn't want to watch it,
Speaker 1: and it's because I am the worst um And it's
Speaker 1: not And again, it's not used to say. Well you
Speaker 1: used to say to me. He'd be like, I didn't
Speaker 1: learn how to act until the second season. Dude, I
Speaker 1: said that and I believed it. But this was worst
Speaker 1: because you've been saying this since we were Yeah, since
Speaker 1: to act. But I was like, no, will's great, No,
Speaker 1: it was I was by far the worst actor for
Speaker 1: the entire episode, Lily, everybody was nailing their jokes. I
Speaker 1: was laughing out loud at certain points, and then I
Speaker 1: would come on the screen it was like, hey, what
Speaker 1: am I doing with my hands? Which I had no
Speaker 1: I was like, I will, I will walk this way
Speaker 1: because I was told to walk this way. And then
Speaker 1: it was like, say, oh, I will get into it.
Speaker 1: It was no care came to be fair but I
Speaker 1: could have invented something. You had four lines and were
Speaker 1: the by far writer. I'm saying this, you were by
Speaker 1: far the best actor on the episode, by far, the
Speaker 1: best actor on the episode. And I'm including the adults,
Speaker 1: maybe Bill, because Bill was Bill and you knew what
Speaker 1: Bill was going to get and he was brilliant. You
Speaker 1: guys are crazy. I was like, what am I doing? Look,
Speaker 1: you were you were all. That's the thing is you
Speaker 1: were already Sean, like you had that the character was
Speaker 1: already there. You could tell there was some angst you had.
Speaker 1: You were the only one who was natural in your
Speaker 1: line readings, especially in the cafeteria scenes, like Sean was
Speaker 1: already there. And then there was the rest of the show,
Speaker 1: and it was like it was weird. That's funny because
Speaker 1: I guess in a lot of ways, Sean was an
Speaker 1: easy like I mean, you know, Sean was was it
Speaker 1: was so easy to not be Corey, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like is so definedt and he's so anxious
Speaker 1: and he's so like just outwardly freaked out about everything.
Speaker 1: That to have his best friend be like reserved and
Speaker 1: kind of cool, like it was an easy Like he
Speaker 1: was such a good foil, do you know what I mean? Like, well,
Speaker 1: he was an eleven year old stand up comic, right, right,
Speaker 1: That's what it was. That's what I realized when I
Speaker 1: was watching it. It was like, oh, the show is
Speaker 1: about an eleven year old stand up trying to go
Speaker 1: to school, which is what it seemed like to me,
Speaker 1: like all like he was doing bits the whole time, totally,
Speaker 1: and he does this thing that that was so funny,
Speaker 1: like to not to realize now he you know, he
Speaker 1: has that like uh and this is a classic Michael
Speaker 1: Jacob's creator of the show. This is a classic thing
Speaker 1: that he does as a writer and as in in
Speaker 1: person too, where he sort of has a character just
Speaker 1: state exactly the obvious with so much cynicism, like well,
Speaker 1: I just hate everybody all the time. And like how
Speaker 1: didn't the eleven year old say that was so funny?
Speaker 1: Like it's so cute, right, And it's like I just realized,
Speaker 1: like oh that, like Ben, I always thought that was something.
Speaker 1: Well here in general, I was amazed at how much
Speaker 1: of the show what Boy Meets World became, was already there.
Speaker 1: I was blown away by how much was encoded into
Speaker 1: the pilot because I truly believed in my head after
Speaker 1: all these years that the show developed and changed, it
Speaker 1: became this thing, which it did. I mean, it definitely grew,
Speaker 1: but you could see the heart was there in the pilot,
Speaker 1: and that was truly Uh. I did not expect that.
Speaker 1: I really thought that the pilot was going to be like,
Speaker 1: what is the show? And instead I was like, oh no,
Speaker 1: it was all there, Like there was so much of
Speaker 1: the show, was there? Yeah, I thought there were so many.
Speaker 1: First of all, I'm not in the pilot. I do
Speaker 1: not appear until episode four, so I truthfully don't remember.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming I did watch it when the show aired
Speaker 1: in in because I probably sat with my family to
Speaker 1: watch the show that I knew I was going to
Speaker 1: be on, But I don't have really a memory of
Speaker 1: watching the pilot. Um, but I was amazed at how
Speaker 1: much like all of the different layers. Like now, when
Speaker 1: you watch a pilot, it's very much let's just meet
Speaker 1: the characters. But this the storyline of Corey is learning
Speaker 1: about love in school because of Romeo and Juliet, and
Speaker 1: then love impacts his own life inside his family's home
Speaker 1: because he's going to a baseball game that he's very
Speaker 1: excited about with his older brother, and then he gets
Speaker 1: ditched by his older brother, so now love means, you know,
Speaker 1: something bad to him. Then he gets reminded that he
Speaker 1: once ditched somebody he loved, that as he got older,
Speaker 1: he may have ditched his father. He learns about that,
Speaker 1: and then he sees Mr Feenie possibly get ditched and
Speaker 1: hurt by love. And then in the end he realizes
Speaker 1: he could have a different impact on his sister's relationship
Speaker 1: to what love means. Like that is, and that's so
Speaker 1: many different layers of of deep storyline for want a
Speaker 1: kid show and to a pilot and a pilot in
Speaker 1: which not that much actually happens. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: like he runs away and joins a circus. Here he
Speaker 1: goes to the backyard, but it has such emotional stakes.
Speaker 1: And I guess that's what I mean, is that the
Speaker 1: tone of the show, the seriousness of it. You know,
Speaker 1: like there's a period where there's not a laugh for
Speaker 1: like a good ten twelve minutes where you know Mr
Speaker 1: Feenie and Corey have that scene and detention that is
Speaker 1: just pure wonderful writing and acting. I mean, Bill is
Speaker 1: so good, He's I could not believe how amazing Bill
Speaker 1: Daniels is in the show, and you realize that was
Speaker 1: the defining character, and I, you know, this is we
Speaker 1: have to tell this story, which is that um the pilot.
Speaker 1: When we shot the pilot, when you guys weren't there,
Speaker 1: we did a table read and the network hated it,
Speaker 1: and the network immediately made Michael rewrite it. And Bill
Speaker 1: Daniels said, I'm not doing this kids show and threatened
Speaker 1: to quit. And Michael Jacobs rewrote the pilot from start
Speaker 1: to finish. It was a completely different script. I would
Speaker 1: love to get my hands on it. It's still involved
Speaker 1: Romeo and Julia, but it did not have any of
Speaker 1: this other stuff. And Michael Jacobs, the lore is that
Speaker 1: he wrote it in one night, and I think that
Speaker 1: might be who rewrote the entire pilot, only keeping certain
Speaker 1: jokes and certain themes the Romeo and Juliet. But what
Speaker 1: they delivered the next day was essentially, what what is
Speaker 1: this pilot? And it's I think it's really really good.
Speaker 1: And I was blown away by Bill's performance and his
Speaker 1: commitment and the tonal shifts the fact that it starts
Speaker 1: off as the sort of Dennis the Menace e God
Speaker 1: that you know, that wiley kid and the grumpy teacher,
Speaker 1: and then it goes somewhere else. It goes somewhere truly
Speaker 1: deep and meaningful. It explores all those relationships, like you said,
Speaker 1: the dad, the mom, the sister, the brother. And the
Speaker 1: original pitch for this show, which everyone kind of forgets,
Speaker 1: was what would it be like if the if instead
Speaker 1: of following the older brother on Growing Pains, they followed
Speaker 1: the middle brother. It was Growing Pains if it was
Speaker 1: the middle of Because Growing Pains was a hit show
Speaker 1: and Michael Jacobs was a, you know, an established television creator,
Speaker 1: they wanted to create a show for Ben Savage, so
Speaker 1: they partnered Ben and Michael and Michael then went to
Speaker 1: the network to create a show for Ben Um with
Speaker 1: his partners of Time, April Kelly Um, and the two
Speaker 1: of them came up with the show, which was, let's
Speaker 1: instead of doing the typical thing that's on television right now,
Speaker 1: which is focusing on the older brother and a family
Speaker 1: of younger kids, let's focus on the middle kid who
Speaker 1: gets lost. And that's exactly what the pilot is, right.
Speaker 1: He gets lost between his relationships with his teacher, who
Speaker 1: also happens to be his neighbor. He gets lost with
Speaker 1: his relationship with his dad, his sister, he's in between,
Speaker 1: he's in that stuff, and it's such a great place
Speaker 1: for a character to to sort of have to work
Speaker 1: out from. One of the things that amazed me when
Speaker 1: I was watching it was the genius that is, forget
Speaker 1: Bill Daniel's performance, which is next level, the next level,
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous, but the genius of having such a well
Speaker 1: written teacher to where you can teach on a show,
Speaker 1: I mean meaning all the shows that you watch, especially
Speaker 1: kids shows. It was like the dad would in part
Speaker 1: a lesson, or the mom would in part a lesson,
Speaker 1: or one of his friends he'd learned something that we
Speaker 1: boy means world literally had a teacher who could take
Speaker 1: the lessons that he's teaching in school and teach them
Speaker 1: so you could apply them to life. And it never
Speaker 1: been done like that was always the teacher was always
Speaker 1: the buffoon. Yeah, No, it was amazing. It sets this
Speaker 1: structure up that I think existed throughout point each world,
Speaker 1: but certainly in the early years, where you can you
Speaker 1: can deliver abstract ideas, abstract lessons like in the mouth
Speaker 1: of Finie. You can have things very declaratively stated love
Speaker 1: means this, sometimes this happens in life, whatever, the sort
Speaker 1: of you know, declarative abstract concept and then you have
Speaker 1: that intention with Corey's messy life or all of our
Speaker 1: messy lives. And and that's just a great structure for
Speaker 1: a sitcom, right, because it allows you to sort of
Speaker 1: make a thesis statement like this is the episode about
Speaker 1: love and all its permutations and Mr Feedie is going
Speaker 1: to always be right and and it's it's very almost
Speaker 1: biblical in a sense. Right. It's like you have this
Speaker 1: like abstract testament idea of like this is the lesson,
Speaker 1: this is the rule about life, and Mr Phoeney can
Speaker 1: sort of say it, and then you have just like
Speaker 1: these little sketches of scenes where Corey is going, none
Speaker 1: of this makes sense. What are you talking about? How
Speaker 1: do I relate love to my brother and love to
Speaker 1: my little sister and loved And he does and that's
Speaker 1: just and you as the audience are inside of that
Speaker 1: process and you're able to enjoy Corey, but you're also
Speaker 1: able to sort of record in the back of your
Speaker 1: mind like oh yeah, like there's there's there's something more
Speaker 1: important going on here that I need to think about
Speaker 1: it also showed though I thought it is very strange
Speaker 1: because it also again we should talk about this little bit.
Speaker 1: So there was an original pilot that was shot without myself,
Speaker 1: without William Russ. They recast a couple of people. William
Speaker 1: Russ is rusty, Rusty Rusty, Alan Matthew, Alan Matthews and
Speaker 1: Matt McCoy was the original Dad I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1: And Harry I'm gonna do this this poor man uh
Speaker 1: An injustice. I want to say Brandish or brand She
Speaker 1: was same, a fine actor. Just we've talked about this
Speaker 1: in several things where he was recast because he just
Speaker 1: wasn't tall enough. That's all it was. He was literally
Speaker 1: the same size as Ben already. They knew Ben was
Speaker 1: going to grow and they wanted somebody to be you're
Speaker 1: a kid actor. They're always concerned with how tall, how
Speaker 1: tall you are, because if you outgrow the people that
Speaker 1: are supposed to be older than you, or you get
Speaker 1: taller than the adults, are ruins because you're usually playing
Speaker 1: younger than yourself. I remember one of our conventions I
Speaker 1: ran into a fellow child actor grown up and they
Speaker 1: were like, why would we all turn out so short,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, because being short when you're a child
Speaker 1: actor is such a benefit because you can be ten
Speaker 1: years old and play eight or seven, you can be
Speaker 1: older and play so you end up casting short people
Speaker 1: shorter kids. And yeah anyway, so yeah, so that's what happened.
Speaker 1: They they recast, and so we the pilot, if memory serves,
Speaker 1: Reshooting the pilot was actually for me episode two because
Speaker 1: the first thing that we did was episode two one
Speaker 1: yeah one, uh was, which will be the next episode
Speaker 1: we watched, was actually the first episode that I ever shot.
Speaker 1: So going back to the pilot, the pilot wasn't even
Speaker 1: my audition scene. Like my audition scene was from that
Speaker 1: first episode, So going back and shooting it again was
Speaker 1: was very strange, I know for you guys, because you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: we've done this already, and then it was like, well,
Speaker 1: we've got to go back and shoot the first episode second, uh,
Speaker 1: to get everything kind of on the on the line.
Speaker 1: But they also kind of saw where some of the
Speaker 1: show was going to go because if memory serves, Lee
Speaker 1: Norris is in the opening title credits, but he's not
Speaker 1: in the episode. Yeah. Well, we had banked probably three
Speaker 1: or four episodes before anything aired, So he was a
Speaker 1: regular and was in the opening title sequence, which we
Speaker 1: can talk about, the wonderful opening title sequence. Yes, let's please,
Speaker 1: because should we start with the cold open? Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: let's start with Corey feeney uh and me and Chauncey
Speaker 1: Leo Pardy yep, who was the other best friend at
Speaker 1: the time in the let. Originally, Corey was supposed to
Speaker 1: have two best friends, Chauncey lor Party you guys might
Speaker 1: remember from the sand Lot and um what else. He
Speaker 1: was also did a bunch. Yeah, he ended up working
Speaker 1: a lot, but it didn't end up standing on our show.
Speaker 1: I think he was originally supposed to be another regular
Speaker 1: best friend. And then throughout the first season, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about this, we kept replacing uh, the other best friends.
Speaker 1: We went through several Yeah, it was gonna be Corey
Speaker 1: and his two best friends, and Writer was one of
Speaker 1: those best friends. And then there was like a rotating
Speaker 1: third friend. Well, let's just say it. Michael just kept
Speaker 1: firing all the kids that that were I mean, but
Speaker 1: it's true. I mean, if we're gonna be talking about it,
Speaker 1: we called it the death chair, the chair that Chauncey
Speaker 1: is sitting in there, and it was every kid they
Speaker 1: brought in. Some of them didn't even make it to that.
Speaker 1: We've we've talked about this in the first episode we
Speaker 1: did didn't even make it to this. The second run
Speaker 1: thing that's that's not technically the death chair because we rearranged.
Speaker 1: I think in the next episode it will the cafeteria
Speaker 1: changes where different formation and then that him the death chair. Okay,
Speaker 1: just who ever sat in the chair was gone. Keep
Speaker 1: an eye on the death chair. So it's a simple,
Speaker 1: simple little scene. We introduced Corey and Mr Feeney, who,
Speaker 1: like their characters, are immediately well established. I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just so funny. I also just was astounded at
Speaker 1: how direct everybody is with child, like Mr Fini's just mean,
Speaker 1: it's just a brat. I was like, Oh, we're going
Speaker 1: bold strokes, like right out of the gate. And then
Speaker 1: that opening credit sequence it is so dated. Oh my god, Bunkers, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, you want to talk about dated Before we
Speaker 1: even get to that, can we talk about how the
Speaker 1: big joke was a Steve Lawrence joke? Yeah, what exactly
Speaker 1: what this is? Jo? No, no, no, Steve Lawrence was
Speaker 1: he was he would come on and do like the
Speaker 1: Steven eaty kind of things, and he was always late night.
Speaker 1: They would bring him on and it was like, so
Speaker 1: the build up of the joke between these three eleven
Speaker 1: year old the latest, the latest, and it's like and
Speaker 1: when you so you've gotten eleven year old throwing out
Speaker 1: a Steve Lawrence joke and everyone going Steve Lawrence, it's
Speaker 1: that's because I had no clue what I'm nobody did,
Speaker 1: nor did anybody who watched the show. I will guarantee
Speaker 1: you there was not a kid in America that went
Speaker 1: they nailed that Steve Lawrence joke like that never happened
Speaker 1: because it was just the most random, like are you
Speaker 1: kidding me? They're doing a Steve Lawrence. Then during the
Speaker 1: opening credits, which that song so Ray Colcord did the
Speaker 1: music for Boys were all seven years he took a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. May He rest in peace. Was
Speaker 1: just the sweetest, nicest man, and so you could do
Speaker 1: any type of music you wanted him to. They would
Speaker 1: bring him on and be like, well we're doing on
Speaker 1: rock and roll show this, and he'd like immediately just
Speaker 1: write and write a song. But that that theme song,
Speaker 1: it's so long, and it just keeps going and going
Speaker 1: through all these like transitions and like I just couldn't believe.
Speaker 1: And then there's like literally a roller blade like coming
Speaker 1: in and smacking Cory in the head, and it's like,
Speaker 1: what iss off the band aid? Like he's gonna the
Speaker 1: color It's like, you could not if you if you
Speaker 1: hired a creative now to be like, go make the
Speaker 1: most nineties open credits you can, they would pick that
Speaker 1: color palette, those outfits and those computer graphics. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Well it was also the start of obviously, with with
Speaker 1: being called boy Meats World. It was the start of
Speaker 1: us doing every photo shoot and every everything holding a globe.
Speaker 1: We're always throwing a globe. Always here's your world, Like
Speaker 1: all right, here we go. But I I distinctly remember
Speaker 1: two things about the opening title sequence. I remember lying
Speaker 1: on the They're like, we're gonna shoot the opening title sequence.
Speaker 1: Now I thought they'd pull stuff from the show. They didn't.
Speaker 1: They're like, all right, just lie on the bed and
Speaker 1: flip through a magazine. But look up at us as
Speaker 1: you're doing it. And I was like, so why am
Speaker 1: I Why am I flipping through? And as this is,
Speaker 1: you know, my first episode ever. So I'm not asking
Speaker 1: any questions, but like that makes sense, Okay, got it. Um,
Speaker 1: So I'm not looking at the magazine as I'm flipping
Speaker 1: through it. And then the other thing I remember is Betsy.
Speaker 1: Betsy was so funny she did that Betsy Rando played,
Speaker 1: played Amy Matthews. She um finished it, and we when
Speaker 1: we all got together to watch the pilot. I think
Speaker 1: we all got together to watch the pilot. Maybe we're
Speaker 1: some episode where we all got together to watch. And
Speaker 1: she looked at me right as her scene she puts
Speaker 1: the band aid on his head and she gives him
Speaker 1: this look as she walks away, and she turns to
Speaker 1: me in such a Hollywood way. She goes, that's my
Speaker 1: please watch our show look. And it was just the
Speaker 1: way she said it was so cool because she was
Speaker 1: if you look at she gives this big smile and
Speaker 1: she's like, oh, Corey, like this big kind of please
Speaker 1: watch our show. And it was just every time I
Speaker 1: watched that opening title sequence, it's so funny. You're like
Speaker 1: throwing the paper airplane. And there was only two lines
Speaker 1: in the script describing Sean. You know, you don't really
Speaker 1: get much character description, but it was the thin, sly
Speaker 1: best friend of Corey. That's kind of all we had
Speaker 1: to go on. But you know, like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: being you know, being being any sort of savvy or
Speaker 1: like calm in the face of ben savages. Cory just
Speaker 1: instantly created a character. But I do remember they wanted
Speaker 1: me to be a troublemaker. That was like early on
Speaker 1: discuss so like, yeah, when they give they gave me
Speaker 1: a paper airplane and said just throw it like you're
Speaker 1: gonna hit somebody and get away with it. So that's
Speaker 1: my getting away with it. So when when did you
Speaker 1: guys meet verse? And how long was it between the
Speaker 1: first time you met and filming the pilot we all
Speaker 1: now know as the pilot. I remember the exact moment
Speaker 1: I met, I met you two. Oh my gosh, okay, writer,
Speaker 1: you go first, let me hear from your POV. Should
Speaker 1: we turn off Will's headphones? Yea. So we met in
Speaker 1: the photo shoot for the season. Every season they would
Speaker 1: have a photo shoot where they gathered the regular cast
Speaker 1: together and get that season set of photos. They do
Speaker 1: individual photos and the whole cast together. And we had
Speaker 1: already shot the piety. It was now the show had
Speaker 1: been picked up for thirteen episodes, which was half a season,
Speaker 1: and they brought us, you know, we all were supposed
Speaker 1: to meet, and we were in the makeup pair room
Speaker 1: of the of the uh photo shot. Yeah, and just
Speaker 1: immediately Will and I started talking into not shut up.
Speaker 1: It was like I remember, we talked music. We talked
Speaker 1: counting Crows day one, most nineties thing ever. We talked
Speaker 1: because you were you were really into them and I
Speaker 1: had just discovered them. We talked um, we talked about
Speaker 1: we were both leaving at the oak Woods. I remember
Speaker 1: immediately knowing that we were going to be neighbors and friends.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I just you were older. You were
Speaker 1: the coolest, coolest kid I had ever met, coolest person.
Speaker 1: You had your own car, what was aras? I still
Speaker 1: have it? A GTS I still have. And then you
Speaker 1: had a sub Wolfer in it yea. And I think
Speaker 1: like week one, not day one, but like week one
Speaker 1: brought me in and played Paul's boutique, Paul Paul Revere
Speaker 1: Two Boys, Yes, Paul Revere by Beas Two Boys, which
Speaker 1: has this crazy bass sound that goes and it just
Speaker 1: like blew my ears out. And we're sitting in the
Speaker 1: car and I was just like, if I could ever
Speaker 1: be sixteen, have a car and a subwoffer and be
Speaker 1: as cool as Wilfred l Oh, my god, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: were the best dude. I remember that exact. I was saying,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget it. I was sitting in the makeup chair.
Speaker 1: I was so excited to be there. I turned to
Speaker 1: my left and there are. So I had met Ben
Speaker 1: at the audition, So Ben came to the screen test,
Speaker 1: and the screen test was between myself, your brother, older brother, Shiloh,
Speaker 1: and Jason Marsden, who is still one of my best
Speaker 1: friends this day and and played Jason Marsin on the show.
Speaker 1: So I had met Ben before, but there you were.
Speaker 1: I turned, I'm I can I can picture it. I
Speaker 1: can picture what I'm wearing. I'm in jeans and the
Speaker 1: shirt that I passed the poster every day. It's hanging
Speaker 1: on my way, got the tight eye shirt on. Remember, yes,
Speaker 1: you have the tied eye shirt on. And I turned,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm turning to my left and there
Speaker 1: you are, and we started the first conversation. I'm still
Speaker 1: sitting in the chair and the thing that scared me
Speaker 1: the most about that day is I just met Rusty
Speaker 1: had just met everybody for the first time. You and
Speaker 1: I got along instantly, and then they're like, all right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna put you all together for pictures. And they
Speaker 1: put us all together and I put my arm up
Speaker 1: around Bill Daniels Mr. Feenie, and he turned to me
Speaker 1: and he went, don't touch Foenie. And I really shot
Speaker 1: my hand back down and I was like, so now,
Speaker 1: all of the pictures Bill that it was amazing, the
Speaker 1: pictures so convoluted because it's like, was he in character
Speaker 1: because he's not wrong, Like you shouldn't have your arm
Speaker 1: around feeding you were trying to just be like friendly.
Speaker 1: It's not wrong. But it's also so classic Bill to
Speaker 1: just be kind of grumpy. Don't touch Poenie, don't just
Speaker 1: like that, And every single picture that they have now
Speaker 1: my hands are in my pockets and I am like,
Speaker 1: I'm not touching anyone ever again. It was It was
Speaker 1: amazing that first photoshoot day. Yeah, that was that is
Speaker 1: are our intro to each other and to the world,
Speaker 1: and it was Yeah, it was crazy. It was crazy.
Speaker 1: So writer did Shilo audition to play Eric. Yeah, he screwed. Actually,
Speaker 1: he ended up not doing the network test. So Shilo.
Speaker 1: The reason I got Boy Meets the World is because
Speaker 1: Shilo had tested for the reason I was first brought
Speaker 1: into audition for Boy Mets World because my my older brother, Shilo,
Speaker 1: He's only eighteen months older than me, so we we
Speaker 1: always kind of went out for similar parts, or we
Speaker 1: are not that far apart. He had network tested for
Speaker 1: Michael Jacob's previous show called Almost Hone, almost didn't get
Speaker 1: the part, but between myself, Shilo, and Jason Marks so
Speaker 1: so because of Shilo's association, I got brought in to
Speaker 1: audition for Boy Meat's World, I ended up getting the part. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Shilo went off and did a pilot on another network
Speaker 1: with Ed Dector and John Straus, who became writers on
Speaker 1: our show. They created a show called odd Man Out,
Speaker 1: which also got rebooted five years later. Whatever, that's a
Speaker 1: whole another story. But my brother was a star of
Speaker 1: his own pilot and end that show did not get
Speaker 1: picked up. And when you're a kid actor and you're
Speaker 1: you're you're in demand, all the show's pounce like if
Speaker 1: you're if your contract didn't get picked up. So Shilo
Speaker 1: got asked to come in and audition for Eric. He
Speaker 1: never actually did it. They asked him to screen test
Speaker 1: for Eric or he got offered a show on NBC
Speaker 1: We're called The Mommy's where he could just be one
Speaker 1: of the sons on the Mom's, the older teenage son.
Speaker 1: And he looked at the equation and you know, my
Speaker 1: parents and we're all like, this is crazy, Like writer
Speaker 1: is going to be on this TV show? Do we
Speaker 1: want Hilotte audition to be on the same TV show?
Speaker 1: And it was like, no, you just take the offer
Speaker 1: on this other show. But of course that made our
Speaker 1: lives incredibly complicated because that meant my mom had to
Speaker 1: shuttle between two different sets. So yeah, so he ended
Speaker 1: up not audition. And I'm not sure if they brought
Speaker 1: in a third person or if it just ended up
Speaker 1: being you and Jason Will, but Chilotte did not finally
Speaker 1: being the two I think he so I met him
Speaker 1: the first time because it was the three of us
Speaker 1: reading okay, so maybe okay, so maybe he you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if he actually almost almost for Almost Home,
Speaker 1: we did that and then it was I. It was
Speaker 1: then between Jason and I because Shilo we heard had
Speaker 1: Shilo had dropped out quote unquote of going to Boy
Speaker 1: Meats Role. But again it was down you talked before
Speaker 1: about how small a world it is. It was down
Speaker 1: to the three of us twice in a row, and
Speaker 1: Jason got got Boy Met Are, Jason got Almost Home,
Speaker 1: and then I got Boy Meets World um, and Shilo
Speaker 1: was doing the Mommy So yeah, so it was it
Speaker 1: worked out. But I was with my dad in in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and I did not think I got the part.
Speaker 1: I was a terrible read. Ben was there. Ben came
Speaker 1: in and read with us. I was awful, and my
Speaker 1: dad said, well, what do you want to do, kiddo?
Speaker 1: You know, like, it's what do you want? I went.
Speaker 1: I remember the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I want to go to the Rippley.
Speaker 1: He's like, all right, fine, So we went there, and
Speaker 1: until about ten years ago it was actually there. Across
Speaker 1: the street from the Ripleys Believe It or Not Museum,
Speaker 1: there was a bank of what was called um pay
Speaker 1: phones kids, where you actually had to put in money
Speaker 1: and dial a number and uh somebody else. KL five
Speaker 1: four thousand appeared on the other How can I connect
Speaker 1: your call? S appeared on the other side. And um,
Speaker 1: I called my agent and my dad said, just call
Speaker 1: your agent. Tell me you didn't get it, and we're
Speaker 1: going back home. And I called my agent, said, you
Speaker 1: got it. It's been picked up. You've got to you've
Speaker 1: got to move to l A. And my dad and
Speaker 1: I ran through the Ripley's Beauter not Museum and then
Speaker 1: went and found the oak Wood because I had to
Speaker 1: live in l A like two weeks later, something ridiculous
Speaker 1: like that. And that was thirty years ago. So it
Speaker 1: happened very quickly once it happened, and then you're at
Speaker 1: the photo shoot, and then you're friends with writer and
Speaker 1: then you've got this going, and then you're in front
Speaker 1: of the audience and it's just it's then you're going
Speaker 1: It's so the photo shoot happened before you, guys ever
Speaker 1: even had a rehearsal day. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was
Speaker 1: like a week before the week I guess. Okay, So
Speaker 1: then by the time you get to rehearsal and you're
Speaker 1: starting this this pilot episode, are you guys already feeling
Speaker 1: like friends and family, like it's all you've already started
Speaker 1: a bond. I mean, Will and I definitely yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember Ben and I did not start upon Ben was
Speaker 1: really into sport and I was not. And I remember
Speaker 1: like a lot of the first early episodes, you know,
Speaker 1: he he wanted to play basketball, like with the other kids,
Speaker 1: and and there were always other kids because you had
Speaker 1: extras to um. But but so I remember during the pilot,
Speaker 1: and but also Ben was working a lot because he
Speaker 1: was in so many you watch this pilot, He's in
Speaker 1: so many scenes in every scene, and that's a lot
Speaker 1: for a kid, So he would be gone. He was
Speaker 1: sort of distanced, you know, like and and yeah, like
Speaker 1: I said, he was very much in his own world.
Speaker 1: He was very um. I remember him being just working
Speaker 1: and being busy and needing to learn his lines and
Speaker 1: also going to school. And he was sort of at
Speaker 1: that point Hollywood royalty for us, you know, like because
Speaker 1: his brother's show had been such a hit. He was
Speaker 1: also the person who like knew what we were doing
Speaker 1: more than any of us. Um. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I know I didn't really connect with Ben. I would
Speaker 1: say until like episode four or five did we start
Speaker 1: really getting to know each other. I think in part
Speaker 1: because I was just one of these other kids, you know,
Speaker 1: like I wasn't part of the family. I think Will
Speaker 1: you probably connected with Ben because you were part of
Speaker 1: at the time the show, you know, it was it
Speaker 1: wasn't supposed to be a school show. It was supposed
Speaker 1: to be a family show, and so the priority was
Speaker 1: given to the show, you know, the parents and you
Speaker 1: Will and Lily, and so that was sort of more
Speaker 1: the like core group. I was like an outsider. It
Speaker 1: was like me and Chauncey Leo party who's then gone,
Speaker 1: and then like you know, whoever else they brought in
Speaker 1: that week that could potentially stay. But yeah, so it
Speaker 1: was really I was just lucky to have Will, like
Speaker 1: I know, we bonded right away. And then I love
Speaker 1: school like I loved I already loved school, and I
Speaker 1: loved my studio teacher David Colmbs. David David Colmbs, Yes,
Speaker 1: David Colmbs. And he had been brought on because he
Speaker 1: had taught Fred Savage on on Boy, I mean on
Speaker 1: Wonder Years, so they brought him on and um, just
Speaker 1: a genius spoke five languages, could teach on these subject
Speaker 1: He was a personal tutor to the kids of the
Speaker 1: Shaw of Iran remember us. He was a very eccentric,
Speaker 1: interesting dude. And we'll have plenty of David Combs stories
Speaker 1: I'm sure throughout the years, but for me, he was
Speaker 1: really like just immediately, he was so smart and we
Speaker 1: just imediately bonded. So I loved school and I love
Speaker 1: hanging out with Will. Um. Yeah, it was, but it
Speaker 1: felt very comfortable automatically. It's it. But you're right though,
Speaker 1: it wasn't Corey and Sean. That wasn't a thing yet. Um,
Speaker 1: you know it was. It wasn't until several episodes later,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about where you know, especially when Danielle
Speaker 1: joined the cast, where it was really like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is the show, Like that's when that's when the whole
Speaker 1: thing kind of changed. And it was until then it
Speaker 1: was us in those very strange clothes, um, which which
Speaker 1: were just very I mean, that was one of the
Speaker 1: things that struck me as we're you know, if we
Speaker 1: get back, as we get back into the episode, so
Speaker 1: we're past the opening title sequence, and opening to me
Speaker 1: sounds like a right like music you would hear in
Speaker 1: line at Disneylands, yes, exactly, or you're in a carousel
Speaker 1: just going around and by the fifth time you're like,
Speaker 1: stop that song. Y. Yeah. So this episode was written
Speaker 1: by Michael Jacobs and April Kelly. Does anyone remember April Kelly?
Speaker 1: I do, Yes, I do too, Okay, I remember her
Speaker 1: little dog, yeah, and her Ferrari. Remember she'd always drive
Speaker 1: up to the Ferrari. I think I met I think,
Speaker 1: I do think I met April Kelly early on. I
Speaker 1: do remember her. I remember what she looks like, and
Speaker 1: I can picture an outfit. But then April Kelly just
Speaker 1: kind of disappeared. She was here the whole first season,
Speaker 1: wasn't she the first season? Yeah? And then she left
Speaker 1: after the first season, and uh, as far as I know,
Speaker 1: left the industry, but her name is on every episode
Speaker 1: and she got paid for every single episode. Okay. And
Speaker 1: then another thing I wanted to talk about is that
Speaker 1: this episode, the pilot episode, was directed by John Tracy.
Speaker 1: But then I'm pretty sure this is the only episode
Speaker 1: of season one John Tracy directed. No, he came back.
Speaker 1: He came back. Maybe couldn't because season one was all
Speaker 1: David David David Trainer. Yeah, and David Trainer is a
Speaker 1: legendary television director. John is too, but David is best
Speaker 1: known for he did every single episode of that that
Speaker 1: seventies show. Um, yeah, I have some great David Trainer
Speaker 1: stories as we get into the season. But David David
Speaker 1: was incredible. John I remember just being very funny, thick
Speaker 1: Boston accent um, and he would he would yell and
Speaker 1: sort of shout and like tell everybody way to go.
Speaker 1: And his brother Kevin Tracy was also on the show,
Speaker 1: UM as a camera coordinator. I believe now, at first,
Speaker 1: if you look at the pilot episode, it's I noticed this.
Speaker 1: It says the first thing. It says he was the
Speaker 1: stage manager the first episode, Wow, okay, which he was
Speaker 1: By the time I had gotten there, he already wasn't.
Speaker 1: But I guess for that first episode he was the
Speaker 1: stage And so does anyone know why John only directed
Speaker 1: the pilot and not anymore in that first season? Was
Speaker 1: there a story there? If there is, do we not
Speaker 1: know it? Um? I think I think that's pretty typical.
Speaker 1: I think it was typical for somebody to direct the
Speaker 1: pilot and then move on, because the goal is a
Speaker 1: director is to direct as many pilots as possible, not
Speaker 1: to get stuck on a series, because when you direct
Speaker 1: a pilot, you make money on every episode for the
Speaker 1: rest of that show's life. So didn't need to in
Speaker 1: a way, you know, like but I don't remember if
Speaker 1: there was a reason that John did not come back.
Speaker 1: But David Trayner was truly a genius. He was like
Speaker 1: a classically trained Shakespearean theater director, and he really defined
Speaker 1: the tone and the and the look and the field
Speaker 1: of the show. So I think probably what happened is
Speaker 1: David Trayner came on and they gave him the entire
Speaker 1: first season in his contract. They said, like he probably said,
Speaker 1: if I'm coming to do your you know show, and
Speaker 1: you want my talents, I have to do X many episodes,
Speaker 1: if not the whole season, like a certain guaranteed amount.
Speaker 1: And so that's probably what kicked in. And then they
Speaker 1: just had David Traynor, which was wonderful because he really
Speaker 1: set an incredible environment for all of us. But in
Speaker 1: my head, he is he's seven feet tall. I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember him being six six seven. I think he was,
Speaker 1: I mean he was, yeah, and he's so very thin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so the way he walked across stage, he could
Speaker 1: like go that you know, that cavernous stage with sound
Speaker 1: stage we talked about, he could do the length of
Speaker 1: it in what felt four stripes. It was it was
Speaker 1: it was crazy and he I'll never forget what feeling
Speaker 1: like such a dope because, um, we were doing the
Speaker 1: first first episode, which turned out to be the second
Speaker 1: episode that's aired, um, and uh I said something like, well,
Speaker 1: you know how I did it in the audition and
Speaker 1: in front of everybody's like, yeah, who cares how you
Speaker 1: did it in the audition. I just remember being like, oh,
Speaker 1: man like and he was never mean about he did
Speaker 1: it with a smile on his face, but it was like,
Speaker 1: oh jeez, I'm just gonna keep my mouth shutting do
Speaker 1: what I'm told. Uh. So it was such a strange
Speaker 1: environment to go because again it was just like you,
Speaker 1: I didn't know any of any of of of making
Speaker 1: television like this none. This is not how we did
Speaker 1: any of the Nickelodeon stuff. So everyone just assumed I
Speaker 1: knew what I was doing. And then it's just kind
Speaker 1: of you're just going yeah. I mean, it's like David
Speaker 1: started and you're just going that's David. Trayner would have
Speaker 1: been the first person to teach us some of the
Speaker 1: basics of sitcom acting, which are you don't have a
Speaker 1: fourth wall and you have to like like, for instance,
Speaker 1: you always have to stand, like if you're having a
Speaker 1: conversation with somebody, you have to stand with your shoulders
Speaker 1: open so the camera can see your entire fits. So
Speaker 1: it's like if you notice everybody on Sitcom's kind of
Speaker 1: stands at like an awkward angle to each other and
Speaker 1: it feels weird. We make it look normal because you
Speaker 1: get used to it as an actor and you but
Speaker 1: you have to sort of force your body to do
Speaker 1: something that's not natural, and you're not turning. You have
Speaker 1: to turn the right way so you don't like you
Speaker 1: don't square fifty fifty with people, you turn us slightly
Speaker 1: out and then like, yeah, if you're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: to somebody over to your right, you gotta make sure
Speaker 1: you don't turn your head away from the car, like
Speaker 1: all these basic things that of course, if you're a
Speaker 1: season theater actor like Bill Daniels, you just know. But
Speaker 1: for us, we had to be taught that, Like you
Speaker 1: have to tell kids, like, it's not like you're really
Speaker 1: talking to this person, you're performing talking to this person.
Speaker 1: Here's the way to do that, you know. And I
Speaker 1: remember David Trainer was so good at all those little
Speaker 1: tricks and teaching us the basics of sitcom acting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the first scene that we see after the cold
Speaker 1: open is and and then the intro we see Corey listening.
Speaker 1: It's they're performing Romeo and Juliet at the front of
Speaker 1: the class and Corey is listening to the Phillies game. Um.
Speaker 1: In this scene is the first time I really noticed
Speaker 1: the how loud the laughs were. And I couldn't tell
Speaker 1: if it was if it were those the sounds they
Speaker 1: collected from the live studio audience or was the laugh
Speaker 1: track just that loud because the laughs sound like they're
Speaker 1: in your ear. I've heard this about Boy Meant World before,
Speaker 1: like that that has an extremely loud laugh track compared
Speaker 1: it does. And I think that is true, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, like, yeah, I think for whatever reason, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's maybe it was a creative choice or somewhere
Speaker 1: along the line, the show just got cranked up because
Speaker 1: it is very loud. And yeah, I mean there, I'm
Speaker 1: sure that there was some adherence to the genuine laughter,
Speaker 1: but there was also a machine making the laughter sounds like. Also,
Speaker 1: they didn't know us, the audience didn't know us yet,
Speaker 1: So for the first few episodes, I think it's mostly
Speaker 1: laugh track. I think until we aired, it was really
Speaker 1: mostly laugh track because then you get fans, and then
Speaker 1: the fans come in. But until then, Michael used always
Speaker 1: he would always tell me that I'd say something or hey,
Speaker 1: that joke, did land that whatever, and he always look
Speaker 1: at me and goes To this day, I still can
Speaker 1: hear him in my in my head saying, don't worry,
Speaker 1: I have a machine that thinks you're hysterical. And so
Speaker 1: that's what he would say, I have a machine that
Speaker 1: thinks you're hysterical. And it's like, okay, well that's Can
Speaker 1: we talk very briefly about the girl who is lying
Speaker 1: on the on the desk. She was amazing, yes, and
Speaker 1: why did we never see her again? Because she was
Speaker 1: the best other than you, she was the best child
Speaker 1: actor of the lot. Yeah. We used to quote her
Speaker 1: for years. I remember Ben and I would say after
Speaker 1: each other, you touched me with that knife, you better
Speaker 1: be great. I remember I literally wrote that down. I'm
Speaker 1: taking notes and I'm like, why did she disappear? She
Speaker 1: was awesome? Like it's just a revolving cast those first
Speaker 1: few episodes, you know, like and it's true, like you
Speaker 1: want the thing about a show like this is you're
Speaker 1: when you're you know, and this is to Michael's credit,
Speaker 1: you don't want to make too many decisions ahead of
Speaker 1: time ESPEC show when it comes to cast. You wanted
Speaker 1: to be an ensemble. You need to see where there's chemistry.
Speaker 1: And I think that that is in part of physical thing. Chemistry,
Speaker 1: Like you need to like do these people just work together?
Speaker 1: Do they respond to one of do they make each
Speaker 1: other smile? Is there a twinkle in the eye when
Speaker 1: two people? Sometimes it's just not there, you know, and
Speaker 1: sometimes like and I think that they you know, we
Speaker 1: can't keep trying these first four or five episodes. You're
Speaker 1: gonna see this, you know, some kids come in with
Speaker 1: two lines, one kid coming and then like somebody like
Speaker 1: Leonora's can't comes in and it's just the dynamic clicks.
Speaker 1: Or when Danielle when you came in it was magical.
Speaker 1: It was more magical and it was like, oh. And
Speaker 1: that was also the same episode where they finally fired
Speaker 1: the third best friend. And I remember David Trayner, great
Speaker 1: director and so supportive. They gave me all of this
Speaker 1: guy's part. So I showed up for work that day
Speaker 1: and my part went from like two lines to like
Speaker 1: five scenes and a whole bunch of work on, and
Speaker 1: I was so nervous, and David Traynor grabbed me and
Speaker 1: pulled me in front of the whole crew and say,
Speaker 1: can I just say, for the record, this is long overdue.
Speaker 1: Can everybody give writer a big round of applause? Remember
Speaker 1: was going to do this this week and he deserves it,
Speaker 1: and everybody applauded the whole crew, and I remember just
Speaker 1: being like, Okay, I got this. And you know, that
Speaker 1: was the episode that the show came together, because I
Speaker 1: remember with the audience that week and we'll talk about
Speaker 1: it when we get to it, but like they reacted
Speaker 1: so much to the Tapanga character in contrast to the
Speaker 1: Corey character and in contrast with the Seawn. It just
Speaker 1: all came together. That's when the show started. We had
Speaker 1: episodes before, but that is when the show started, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, and because it wasn't just Corey and Topanga,
Speaker 1: but it was also Corey Sewn. I mean that was
Speaker 1: the show then evolved and became We've talked about the
Speaker 1: two boy meets worlds where then Eric kind of had
Speaker 1: his own thing going on, and but the three of you, especially,
Speaker 1: that was the start, and that was you know, you're right,
Speaker 1: it was kind of getting there took took a few episodes,
Speaker 1: but once it did, then it was kind of often. No,
Speaker 1: this is clearly a show about a teacher and a student.
Speaker 1: And yeah, this episode absolutely compelling. I cannot believe how
Speaker 1: compelling Bill Daniels was. He's so good, I mean, now
Speaker 1: so good. You guysn't notice he's shaking his handshaking. I
Speaker 1: didn't notice it. I remember, I remember from when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, and I remember seeing it, but I
Speaker 1: did not notice it in the episode. I noticed in
Speaker 1: the episode because Ben and I were obsessed with it,
Speaker 1: because of course we were scared kids, and he was scary.
Speaker 1: He was this professor, intimidating, and he had a professional manner.
Speaker 1: He would show up memorized. He was so old school,
Speaker 1: you know, we knew him from night writer or whatever.
Speaker 1: We had like visions of this great actor, and on
Speaker 1: tape night when the audience showed up, we could tell
Speaker 1: that he was nervous. Maybe he wasn't, maybe he was
Speaker 1: just shaking hands. I don't know. I mean that happens
Speaker 1: to actors. But I remember Ben and I being obsessed
Speaker 1: with that, and like whispering to each other. Did you
Speaker 1: see his hands are shaking? And in some ways, I
Speaker 1: think it made us feel better because it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: if this guy who was so scary to us, Mr Feenie,
Speaker 1: if he's nervous, it's okay that we're nervous, you know.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's almost cooler that we're not shaking. You know,
Speaker 1: we can sort of have this authority as kids, like,
Speaker 1: look at us, We're we're cool with the audience. I
Speaker 1: remember that so distinctly, and like just hit me like
Speaker 1: a lightning flash. When I saw Bill's handshake, I think
Speaker 1: it's in this this scene because of the way he
Speaker 1: grabbed a radio, I could see his handshake. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's right. I remember just always watching that. Does anybody
Speaker 1: now that is one of the questions I had. Does
Speaker 1: anybody know how old Bill was when we started? Well,
Speaker 1: ninety three, the year was ninety three? He is now
Speaker 1: so twenty nine years right, yeah, exactly thirty from five
Speaker 1: would be sixty five and then add one sixty six.
Speaker 1: How much of the pie do I get to eat?
Speaker 1: Is the question? Um? So okay, alright, so all right,
Speaker 1: he's already like sixty mid mid sixties. Okay, by that
Speaker 1: time he looked great. By the way, the young girl
Speaker 1: playing Juliet is named Kristen Moore. She deserves her flowers.
Speaker 1: The young talent we we didn't get to see again,
Speaker 1: her name is Kristin Moore. So she was phenomenal. She
Speaker 1: really was great. She had a couple of lines. If
Speaker 1: you get if you get one line and you get
Speaker 1: a solid laugh on the one line, you get that
Speaker 1: pretty impressive. Absolutely, so that was great. So in the
Speaker 1: scene Ben gets detention. We learned that Ben gets detention
Speaker 1: and then Corey gets detention. It's gonna be really hard
Speaker 1: for us to go back and forth between Ben and I.
Speaker 1: I will do it all the time. I'll try to
Speaker 1: correct myself when I do what should we call them? Should?
Speaker 1: We should? We just stick with character never going to
Speaker 1: be able to do We're never going We're gonna go
Speaker 1: in and out both the time. So Corey gets detention,
Speaker 1: he goes home, and this is where we meet Eric Matthews. Yes,
Speaker 1: we do well. First, can we just very quickly talk
Speaker 1: about how times have changed? And they showed a knife
Speaker 1: fight in school essentially, I mean, doesn't it immediately cut
Speaker 1: to shooting. That's later we're shooting at the video shooting
Speaker 1: at the video game, but it's it's somebody holding somebody
Speaker 1: else down on a desk, trying to stab him, and
Speaker 1: the principle comes over like okay, I mean it's like
Speaker 1: it's a different time. Um. But then we meet Eric Matthews.
Speaker 1: Yeah yourself, dude, you were great. No, No, I was not.
Speaker 1: Why do you think you're so? It was because the scene,
Speaker 1: the scene at the end. So the first scene, it's
Speaker 1: not it's very stiff, obviously, and I have no idea
Speaker 1: what to do with my hands, and it's very awkward
Speaker 1: the first scene. But the seconds the scene where I
Speaker 1: come back and I'm acting, and I'm like, news flash,
Speaker 1: I'm not cool. It's the worst thing ever. You're so
Speaker 1: hard on yourself, like sit, kids, sit, come acting. It
Speaker 1: wasn't much better overall, but it was just in this show.
Speaker 1: I mean I remember literally like I finished it last
Speaker 1: night and I was like, every single person in that
Speaker 1: show was better than me, every single one. I think
Speaker 1: you're just way too hard on yourself. Because I better.
Speaker 1: I don't get me wrong, I certainly got better, but
Speaker 1: that first episode that was painful for me too. It
Speaker 1: was like I am acting now and I have to stay.
Speaker 1: The only thing I'm missing is literally looking down for
Speaker 1: the tea on the ground to where to put my feet,
Speaker 1: because they they give you these little tea marks to
Speaker 1: where mark. You're just uncomfortable, dude, But it doesn't really
Speaker 1: play that way. I'm sure you're you're projecting your discomfort.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just met that. Like I said,
Speaker 1: the writers didn't know who Eric was. You were sort
Speaker 1: of a stock old all the deeds and one I
Speaker 1: remember the only the only time I was ever mentioned
Speaker 1: in a review at all at the very beginning. So
Speaker 1: we did. There was one table read we did where
Speaker 1: we had just aired. It was the table read right
Speaker 1: after we first came out, and Michael read um reviews
Speaker 1: in front of everybody. Oh I remember the reviews. The
Speaker 1: one he said about Bill Daniels was for thirty years.
Speaker 1: Oh no, what about Bill Daniels was great? He said, uh,
Speaker 1: you know Bill Daniels. Mr comes to Mr Feeney and
Speaker 1: then the quote ended with a great actor stoops and
Speaker 1: I remember Bill putting his head in his hands and
Speaker 1: all of us laughing, and Bill probably felt. And two
Speaker 1: Emmys for st elsewhere at this right and he's coming
Speaker 1: onto this kids show he must have felt, and a
Speaker 1: sitcom to like, he had not done multi camera sitcom,
Speaker 1: and like, you have to remember, this is hard for
Speaker 1: people to wrap their heads around these days. But back then,
Speaker 1: you were either a TV actor or a film and
Speaker 1: if you were actor or stage of course, but Bill
Speaker 1: was kind of all of those things. But TV was
Speaker 1: kind of the lowest here. If you wanted if you
Speaker 1: wanted to make no money but do quality work, you
Speaker 1: were a theater actor. You wanted to you know, if
Speaker 1: you wanted to be famously the best was movie actors.
Speaker 1: And then for being a TV actor, especially a multi
Speaker 1: camera sits, a sitcom TV actor, and then a show
Speaker 1: sitcom TV actor, Oh my god, he was. It was
Speaker 1: like working the drive through. Can I read you a review? Please? Okay? So?
Speaker 1: David zero Wick of The Baltimore Sun wrote, predicting Nielsen's
Speaker 1: success for Boy Meets World, dot dot dot is not
Speaker 1: a particularly daring or incisive call. It's mainly based on
Speaker 1: scheduling and stars. Then he continued, forget quality, these are
Speaker 1: kids were programming for on Friday nights. Here's where you
Speaker 1: have to give ABC some credit for going an extra
Speaker 1: mile and adding William Daniels to the cast as Corey's nemesis,
Speaker 1: his sixth grade teacher, Mr. Peenie. The confrontation between the Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm just a kid Corey and the arch and starch
Speaker 1: Feenie makes this series something an adult doesn't have to
Speaker 1: feel ashamed of watching amazing. He ultimately gave it two
Speaker 1: and a half stars out of four, but said I
Speaker 1: won't argue with anyone who wants to give it three stars. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's something that's better, because that's gonna say. I think
Speaker 1: the only one I heard was that with that I
Speaker 1: was mentioned at all was the older brother is a
Speaker 1: cardboard cutout prop. That's the only one I remembers, kind
Speaker 1: of just stand in for Yeah, no, I play the
Speaker 1: r you are archetypal older brother. Yeah. I mean, in
Speaker 1: some ways we all are in these early days, except
Speaker 1: for Ben and Bill, you know, which was a great dynamic.
Speaker 1: It was a dynamic, great dynamic between the two of them,
Speaker 1: It really was. But um, I just remember shooting in
Speaker 1: that bedroom scene, and if I'm I could be wrong,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this last night, but I think
Speaker 1: our beds constantly switch alight, which is whatever the episode
Speaker 1: was was like, now that's Corey's bed, well, now that's
Speaker 1: Eric's bed. Now that's Corey's bed, Now that's Eric's bed, um,
Speaker 1: And it just kind of went back and forth over
Speaker 1: and over, and it was always like entrances and exits.
Speaker 1: Man like Eric walked into room, do not move hands,
Speaker 1: say Corey line walk out of room? Can we get
Speaker 1: to scene three? Can we please please? Scene three? We
Speaker 1: go downstairs, We've got the parents. Yeah, we meet the
Speaker 1: family for the first time. We finally meet the family
Speaker 1: and uh a full house reference. Yes, it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I thought we didn't do that to like season five,
Speaker 1: but no, it's really funny that. Yeah, it's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god. I couldn't believe it. And Lilly was Lily.
Speaker 1: I remember Lily as kind of being like, jeez, it's weird.
Speaker 1: She's just spouting the lines and it's not to me.
Speaker 1: It was like, oh, it's not really work. When you
Speaker 1: watch it, she's adorable and hitting some pretty great beats.
Speaker 1: What was the line at the end where she said
Speaker 1: where she says, I'm I remember. I don't even remember
Speaker 1: because I wasn't there for the pilot obviously, so I
Speaker 1: don't remember ever hearing Lily say it, but I remember
Speaker 1: that she one of the things she says, a line
Speaker 1: she says during the tea party with Ben at the end.
Speaker 1: You guys all quoted, you repeated the way she said
Speaker 1: it all the time, and I think I wrote it,
Speaker 1: you know which one? Oh my gosh, I'm gonna need
Speaker 1: to find it. But it was like, I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: telling there. She had some reading during that line. Gosh,
Speaker 1: I wish I wrote it down, but I I hear
Speaker 1: Ben and writer saying we used to make fun of
Speaker 1: her voice because it was some Yeah, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's so funny what you like. I totally remember what
Speaker 1: you were saying. Will about there was the same because
Speaker 1: when you're it's hard to remember that. When you're a kid,
Speaker 1: a lot of what you do is compare yourself to
Speaker 1: other kids, and especially younger ones, and you're so proud
Speaker 1: of yourself for not being that dumb younger kid. And
Speaker 1: I remember comparing myself to Lily and thinking, well, she's
Speaker 1: not a real actor, wish, but she's like five, she's
Speaker 1: good and she's amazing. And I was like, but I
Speaker 1: remember being so smug, and I think that was part
Speaker 1: of being twelve, or I was so Ben was only twelve,
Speaker 1: and I think it was part of our like, well,
Speaker 1: at least we're not just like you know, because it
Speaker 1: was hard. It's hard to get a six year old
Speaker 1: to say lines and to stand you have anything right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I look, I have a seven year old,
Speaker 1: I know, and like so the idea that she was
Speaker 1: able to deliver what she was doing is incredible. But
Speaker 1: at the time, I was just so proud of myself
Speaker 1: for being like, well, I know how to read and
Speaker 1: hit my marks and I know how to really how
Speaker 1: to read. Isn't that ridiculous, But that's what you do
Speaker 1: when you're a kid. You're just so proud of like
Speaker 1: ninety six year old exactly. No, she was. But that's
Speaker 1: the thing I look back at that now. She was
Speaker 1: exactly what she was supposed to be. She was adorable,
Speaker 1: she was hitting the lines, and she was a great
Speaker 1: foil to Ben. And that that the scenes where she
Speaker 1: just all of a sudden where she will get into it,
Speaker 1: but where she grabs the doll and throws it and
Speaker 1: then just offers him the chair, all that stuff is great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I think this is a really great
Speaker 1: opening scene too, for Betsy and Rusty, Amy and Allen
Speaker 1: talk about two like wonderful parent characters. Like just right
Speaker 1: off the bat, they have a great dynamic. You feel
Speaker 1: the love in this family. Just want to be part
Speaker 1: of the family. Yeah, immediate. It's like it's so comforting,
Speaker 1: it's so welcoming, and yet it still has that level
Speaker 1: of irony, right like self awareness. That's that's like the
Speaker 1: sort of boy meets World. Michael Jacob's magic is that,
Speaker 1: you know, it does the predictable thing, the very sweet
Speaker 1: loving but then everybody is just just sarcastic and ironic enough,
Speaker 1: just like singing each other enough, you know, and like
Speaker 1: especially Rusty as the dad is just you know when
Speaker 1: when when you come for this big like Corey moment
Speaker 1: where he later where he's like, Dad, I left you,
Speaker 1: and like the way the Rusty just kind of plays
Speaker 1: it off like I'm cool man. It's good. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: per they did. But it's also it's such a typical
Speaker 1: thing in in sitcoms about kids, and it was done
Speaker 1: here too, but it was done in a much I thought,
Speaker 1: a better way, better written way. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it just comes down to the writing. There's
Speaker 1: there's always the sense of someday you'll you'll understand kid,
Speaker 1: Like you get that in every show. Someday You'll understand kid.
Speaker 1: But it didn't come off like that with this episode.
Speaker 1: It wasn't it was like, it wasn't other people telling
Speaker 1: I mean, even though it was it was Corey. It's personalized,
Speaker 1: like it becomes this journey with me and that's like,
Speaker 1: we'll get into it. But when you see Phoeny get
Speaker 1: ditched on his dinner, it's like, oh, he's humanized and
Speaker 1: he you know, he's no and and for Corey to
Speaker 1: have it's it's exactly played out so that like you'll
Speaker 1: know when you're older, is played out in story and right,
Speaker 1: that's what I mean. So it's not that kind of
Speaker 1: sitting them down. You'll figure this out when you're Can
Speaker 1: we eventually talk about Phoene just making a salad. We'll
Speaker 1: get to that, okay. Um. So in this scene though,
Speaker 1: this is this is the scene where we find out
Speaker 1: that the family already knows that Corey has detention, and
Speaker 1: he's like, how do you possibly already know that? And
Speaker 1: now we find out as the audience, Oh, he stuck
Speaker 1: his head over the side of the fence and told
Speaker 1: me and you learn as the audience. And by the way,
Speaker 1: that's all they say. It's not made a big deal
Speaker 1: about like drafts. The teacher lives next door. It's just
Speaker 1: that's it. The audience learns, Oh, Phoeney stuck his head
Speaker 1: over the fence. He lives next door, so that the
Speaker 1: side of us on the side fence. That's what we
Speaker 1: learned right from there, which is pretty amazing. Their backyards
Speaker 1: to each other. Who ms directly opposite the front door.
Speaker 1: You go into the front door on the left side,
Speaker 1: through to the kitchen and go into the backyard. Then
Speaker 1: they're not neighbors. He lives, he lives behind them. It's
Speaker 1: still a neighbor, my friend. I guess, alright, you get
Speaker 1: the same four we have. So then we go back
Speaker 1: to school. We learned about detention. We go back to school. Now,
Speaker 1: this scene I thought was a little was really interesting,
Speaker 1: so I thought it was going to again watching it
Speaker 1: for the first time in twenty nine years, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: the first time ever. I don't have a memory of it.
Speaker 1: I thought. When Corey says to Sean, hey, should we
Speaker 1: go to the game on Friday? Let's go, And Sean says, well,
Speaker 1: what about detention and he's like, don't worry about that.
Speaker 1: In my head, I thought, oh, now the rest of
Speaker 1: the episode is going to be he ditches detention. They
Speaker 1: come up with a scheme to go get tickets. No,
Speaker 1: none of that. And uh. Also the first first forgotten
Speaker 1: sibling is reference I talk, I make a joke about core.
Speaker 1: Uh Chauncey's character being an only child. Yeah, like he's
Speaker 1: lucky to be an only child because he has bought
Speaker 1: a hot launcher. I don't know what or he brings it.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I but I was immediately Wait,
Speaker 1: so Sean was already established as not an only child,
Speaker 1: which then gets completely forgotten as the seasons go on. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you you didn't like your lunch because you must
Speaker 1: have been I'm assuming the second child. So second child
Speaker 1: problems you get forgotten because there are too many other
Speaker 1: things to think about. And Chauncey has a delicious lunch
Speaker 1: because he's an only child. Um, but yeah, just the
Speaker 1: opposite of girl, I'm sorry, I always wanted to buy
Speaker 1: my lunch, Like if somebody made you lunch that like,
Speaker 1: you wanted to buy lunch a school, didn't you. It's
Speaker 1: a whole different thing. I'm just I'm just that's it
Speaker 1: was a weird joke to me because I was like,
Speaker 1: I would rather have bought lunch at school than have
Speaker 1: the sandwich that I felt like. I thought, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think that's a class distinction that's
Speaker 1: different in cities than suburbs. Maybe, I guess may think
Speaker 1: if yeah, I think if you're in the city, your
Speaker 1: your parents just pay the cheap launch or you get
Speaker 1: the free lunch, and then if you have really loving parents,
Speaker 1: they like make your lunch. But it's like which you are,
Speaker 1: like vegetarian crappy was like such a source of ship.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I would always get the hot pizza lunch
Speaker 1: at the exactly anyway something shiny um. Yeah, So that
Speaker 1: that whole. But Danielle talked about this at the very
Speaker 1: big getting about continuity for our show, and it was
Speaker 1: just all over the place all the time of who
Speaker 1: had siblings, who didn't have siblings, where did you live,
Speaker 1: who did you live with all this stuff. Writer had
Speaker 1: a very good point, to Michael's credit, you don't really
Speaker 1: want to get attached to anything. And if in sitcom land,
Speaker 1: if something is funny, that is king whatever is funny,
Speaker 1: and so if it made sense to have a joke
Speaker 1: that Writer is not as well taken care of because
Speaker 1: he's got siblings, make that joke, and five episodes from now,
Speaker 1: we want to say that Writer is an only child,
Speaker 1: will do that too. That's I mean, that's the evolution
Speaker 1: of Sean too, because like, you know, I took over
Speaker 1: for some other actor and they gave me a sister
Speaker 1: for that episode. Then they forgot about it, and then
Speaker 1: it was really just like one trailer park joke that
Speaker 1: established that Sean lived at a trailer park. And I
Speaker 1: will find it. I can't wait to see it because
Speaker 1: I remember it was just like an offline It was
Speaker 1: just an offhand, like one line joke that then became
Speaker 1: this like recurring joke that then became the drama. The
Speaker 1: central draw of Shawn's life is that he's so poor
Speaker 1: and that his parents have abandoned him at different times,
Speaker 1: and that he you know, complicated, and that we ended
Speaker 1: up developing this entire history out of what really started
Speaker 1: as they make fun of the poor kid joke at
Speaker 1: some point, you know, And I can't wait to see it.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go to the treehouse. Yes, I don't
Speaker 1: think I ever. That's the one thing that went through
Speaker 1: my head is I don't think I ever got to
Speaker 1: do a single scene in that treehouse. No, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think I did really either. It wasn't very big,
Speaker 1: but by the way, we don't use tree houses enough
Speaker 1: on shows. It was beautiful, so cool, really cool, really
Speaker 1: really cool, really different for a set, Like I thought
Speaker 1: it looked great. I just was like, why don't Why
Speaker 1: is there not another one of these? So I watched
Speaker 1: this episode with my son, Um, and uh, maybe now
Speaker 1: is a good time. I recorded a conversation with him
Speaker 1: before and after, and the reason I bring it up
Speaker 1: is because I think I didn't get this on tape
Speaker 1: when we were we talked on with my microphone. But uh,
Speaker 1: he was blown away by the idea that everything was
Speaker 1: shot inside. When I told him that, like, even when
Speaker 1: we're in the treehouse that's on a stage, we are inside,
Speaker 1: and he could not get over that. That was like
Speaker 1: the most shocking thing that ever happened. It was like, wait,
Speaker 1: so you never went I was like, no, dude, that's
Speaker 1: the way he should film a TV show. It's everything inside.
Speaker 1: And this scene was especially confounding because you're outside in
Speaker 1: the treehouse. And I guess, like, maybe we assume everybody
Speaker 1: knows that, but probably not, especially not kids. Right when
Speaker 1: they watch a show, they believe in the reality of
Speaker 1: its outdoors. Um. But yeah, she has never seen an
Speaker 1: episode of Boy Meats World, right, Not completely true. He
Speaker 1: had watched one episode after we had done a taping.
Speaker 1: We did one of these charity rewatches last year, and
Speaker 1: so it was cute up on Disney Plus. So the
Speaker 1: next time he turned on Disney Plus there was an episode.
Speaker 1: He was like, let's watch your show, and we did,
Speaker 1: and it's from like fifth season. I had no recollection
Speaker 1: of it. He thought it was so weird and he
Speaker 1: never wanted to do it again. But now he's been
Speaker 1: watching sitcoms, he's been watching multi camera shows, and I
Speaker 1: realized it's kind of appropriate for him to watch it,
Speaker 1: and so I sat down with Indie. I asked him
Speaker 1: a little bit before we started, and then we talked
Speaker 1: a little after. Um, and so I put it together
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes. Um, and this is a clip
Speaker 1: I am calling too much shirts great, what do you
Speaker 1: think the show is about? A dude? What are your
Speaker 1: favorite TV shows right now? I don't already have like
Speaker 1: a favorite right now? Nicky Ricky, Dicky and Tricky and
Speaker 1: Dawn the Heat Nicky Ricky, Ticky and Dawn, And I've
Speaker 1: already finished. What about thunder Man's? Did you finish the
Speaker 1: thunder Man's? Yes? So I mostly watch Terry Kids A
Speaker 1: big hit. Well, I think maybe that's a good indication
Speaker 1: that you'll like this show. But I haven't seen it
Speaker 1: for thirty years, so I don't know how I'm going
Speaker 1: to feel about it. What do you think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: look like? He is? So? Thanks man? No, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think I had freckles by that time. I had
Speaker 1: freckles when I was your age, but they were gone
Speaker 1: by the time I started the show and was shiny makeup?
Speaker 1: Were you and maup? Get back to you and let's
Speaker 1: watch it. Any initial thoughts into it? Was good? You
Speaker 1: didn't laugh? I never do that to any of them.
Speaker 1: What was good about it? I don't know. I did
Speaker 1: thank you with it? Oh? Yeah, sorry? Was your favorite part? Yes,
Speaker 1: I have a small part, though I didn't really do much.
Speaker 1: He did it a lot. What did they do? He did?
Speaker 1: Said high? And you had the same spot every time
Speaker 1: you talked in the cafeteria. We never liked got up. Well,
Speaker 1: I was in the classroom to Yeah, but you will
Speaker 1: always sitting whenever you talked to you was sitting, That's true.
Speaker 1: I don't think I stand in the entire pilot. I
Speaker 1: thought I sounded weird. My voice sounded like shaky to me.
Speaker 1: I like, all right, what did you think of a
Speaker 1: storyline with Corey? He's the main kid? He was all
Speaker 1: about him? What are you talking about? You saw me?
Speaker 1: I'm just sitting there only about you know. Come on?
Speaker 1: What about the teacher? What do you think of him?
Speaker 1: He was weird? Why because he musta Do you think
Speaker 1: he's a good teacher? Why not? He's mean? Oh he
Speaker 1: thought he was mean? Huh Yeah? Well what about the parents?
Speaker 1: Did you think they were good parents? Yeah? But you did? Dad?
Speaker 1: You're cheesy? Cheesy? What way you just think? What about Will?
Speaker 1: What about Will? Is the older brother? Was how is
Speaker 1: he me? He thought he was mean to? Did it
Speaker 1: look like Will looks now? No? Yeah, it doesn't look
Speaker 1: anything like him. All right? What did you think of
Speaker 1: our clothes and stuff? Do you watch shirts? Shirts? Yeah?
Speaker 1: They were really big, weren't they. Does it seem like
Speaker 1: old fashioned? Yeah? Really? Did it feel like like that's
Speaker 1: what it's like to be a kid these days? Too cool? Well,
Speaker 1: do you do you think you'd want to watch anymore? Sure? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I have to say he has been begging to
Speaker 1: watch it every Phoenies mean interesting that you picked up
Speaker 1: the Phoenies mean kind of he did, because Phoenie is.
Speaker 1: I was amazed at how strict he is and how
Speaker 1: like authoritarian and but yeah, it was so funny to
Speaker 1: realize that that my son was really seen it through
Speaker 1: Corey's eyes. And actually the fact that he didn't even recognize,
Speaker 1: like he didn't even know Corey's name, I think as
Speaker 1: an indicator that he just saw Ben as a sort
Speaker 1: of avatar, do you know what I mean? He put
Speaker 1: himself in Ben's shoes, like he he thought the brother
Speaker 1: was mean, the teacher was mean, because that's how Corey
Speaker 1: sees the world, right, like that's how it starts. And
Speaker 1: he didn't you know, he's seven, so he's still kind
Speaker 1: of in the zone where I think if he's introduced
Speaker 1: to a character and they're like Mr Masters, get off
Speaker 1: of my face, which is like what Phoene says to him,
Speaker 1: He's like, he's not gonna get come back from that
Speaker 1: very easily. Now I have a question, was he right?
Speaker 1: Did you not stand throughout the entire episode? I think so. Yeah.
Speaker 1: After he said that, I was like, I don't. I'm
Speaker 1: only sitting in the cafeteria and sit in the classroom.
Speaker 1: So yeah, And I think it's like that for the
Speaker 1: first season until until the Coreys altern of the Friends episodes,
Speaker 1: I'm always just like, you know, I mean, in a
Speaker 1: weird way. I was sort of like this, what are
Speaker 1: the characters in the Muppets whether on the box watching? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was kind of like that, right, Like I was
Speaker 1: just Coreries like sidekick in the cafeteria while we eat,
Speaker 1: because I just remember always having to eat and act
Speaker 1: the worst. You're good at it, though you are a
Speaker 1: great eat too much. I actually ate if you watch
Speaker 1: Bill Daniels, he's just like push his stuff around on
Speaker 1: his plate. That that's an actor thing. That's an active thing.
Speaker 1: You see that in every show. I literally watched it
Speaker 1: last night in mash where all the characters are pushing
Speaker 1: around the That is like a big actor thing. You
Speaker 1: just use you move your fork, but you don't actually
Speaker 1: eat smart and you're just chowing down. Michael rationalized that
Speaker 1: once why you were doing that is because you were
Speaker 1: poor and it's the only place you got food. And
Speaker 1: You're like, it sounds like a rationalization. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just made that up. Yeah, I I find a
Speaker 1: moment where I don't have to speak for a while
Speaker 1: and then take a bite there so that in the
Speaker 1: background somewhere people see that I am eating. It makes
Speaker 1: you think that I must be eating the rest of
Speaker 1: the time. But then that's the only time I really neat.
Speaker 1: But I'm not in the pilot, so what do I know.
Speaker 1: It depended. It depended on the episode and how fat
Speaker 1: I was towards the end, where I was very, very fat.
Speaker 1: I'd eat whatever they put in front of me. But
Speaker 1: so Phoene serves himself a salad which for two people,
Speaker 1: A salad for two which is what he made. By
Speaker 1: the way, it was the starter. I think he had
Speaker 1: a multiple course meal. Yeah, by the greens. There was
Speaker 1: nothing else in the salad. He didn't even slice a tomato.
Speaker 1: The man for I mean, it was like, help us.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it was supposed to imply that he
Speaker 1: had a full meal, and it was. It was the starter.
Speaker 1: Now I have a question, have we has has. I
Speaker 1: know it was obviously the pilot, so it's the first time.
Speaker 1: But was that angle into Phoene's house ever used again? No, never,
Speaker 1: We never saw that again, kind of peeking into Phoenie's home. No,
Speaker 1: there's a scene later where I think Ben and him
Speaker 1: sit outside of Phoenie's home and have tea together or
Speaker 1: talk coming up. And but those were even very few
Speaker 1: and far between. You went in the house once when
Speaker 1: it became the with the de lou to see how
Speaker 1: lickt it is. I mean, you guys are in the
Speaker 1: house once. That's the one time we got to see
Speaker 1: inside Phoenie's houses when Corey and I turned his house
Speaker 1: into a B and B, and I remember it was
Speaker 1: really excited to finally be and it suddenly had two stories,
Speaker 1: which doesn't I don't think makes sense based on the outside.
Speaker 1: But yes, but that is that's the only time we
Speaker 1: actually saw that from into the you know, into Phoene's
Speaker 1: home was just that time of the pilot. Okay, I
Speaker 1: was curious about Yeah, I don't think we'd ever seen
Speaker 1: that again. And I thought that looked really great too.
Speaker 1: We have another uh he Corey makes a comment in
Speaker 1: this treehouse scene about America's Funniest Home Teacher, and I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, in the scene in this episode we
Speaker 1: have a full house reference and an America's Funniest Home video. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he didn't The only thing he didn't do is turn
Speaker 1: to the camera and go watch us on ABC Friday
Speaker 1: at eight. I mean it was like they did. They
Speaker 1: threw it in where they could. Well, if you keep
Speaker 1: it in the family, that makes sense. So this is
Speaker 1: the scene where we all of a sudden our heart
Speaker 1: strings pull for Phoenie and we realized that he has
Speaker 1: been stood up and that he is a little heartbroken
Speaker 1: about it. And now we've humanized this very stern teacher.
Speaker 1: Um and yeah. Then the next scene we're in with
Speaker 1: UH with Betsy and and well I guess Amy and
Speaker 1: Corey Uh in the bedroom and this is where she
Speaker 1: tells him that they're bringing in a renter too little scene,
Speaker 1: So you guys will did you notice the thing? What's
Speaker 1: the what's the switching of the beds? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: But Ben used to always say, we never wrote not
Speaker 1: only that, but it's also the duck hunt gun has
Speaker 1: no chord in one scene, and then the next scene
Speaker 1: has a chord and it is plugged in. So Ben,
Speaker 1: could I say, how come come? So whenever they wrote
Speaker 1: the line how come the first season, he goes and
Speaker 1: we used to tease him so much like comb you
Speaker 1: say it like that best second used to always bug
Speaker 1: literally wrote that down. And that's why the second I
Speaker 1: heard it, it was like all the memories came flashy
Speaker 1: back of you just being like, then, who come you see?
Speaker 1: H oh my god, yeah that was that, and the
Speaker 1: and the belt pulling which must have come later. He
Speaker 1: did this like kind of always grabbing at his belt
Speaker 1: to pull up his pants. That plus hokem ye, oh
Speaker 1: my god, oh my gosh, he'll keep it. We'll keep
Speaker 1: a hol comb tally going on the first season, I
Speaker 1: didn't know to sit and now now I'm going to
Speaker 1: pay attention to it. Uh So we learned that, you know,
Speaker 1: Corey once abandoned his dad as he got a little older,
Speaker 1: and get adding in another layer makes Corey think. And
Speaker 1: then we get into the next scene, which is the
Speaker 1: detention scene, which to me is just of every scene
Speaker 1: in this show was such a standout because of Bill Daniels.
Speaker 1: I I what and what luck that we had Bill Daniels. Seriously,
Speaker 1: I mean not only that, because we also know that
Speaker 1: there was for a while we weren't going to have
Speaker 1: him and he was going to leave. And the fact
Speaker 1: that leave that for Bill to tell us. To hear
Speaker 1: that from Bill, I wanted for that story. But he
Speaker 1: is so compelling. Now, did anyone else have a problem?
Speaker 1: And I get why they did it. I totally get
Speaker 1: why they did it, and it was necessary to do it.
Speaker 1: But the fact that he's such a stern teacher and
Speaker 1: there's nobody else in detention. Again, I got why they
Speaker 1: did it. They wanted the scene just between Feenie and Corey.
Speaker 1: I totally understand that that's what it needed to be,
Speaker 1: but I found it it's to me, it was like,
Speaker 1: there's no the entire school, there's nobody else in detention
Speaker 1: but Corey. Oh, you know, it's funny. I didn't think
Speaker 1: about it as being that this is the detention for
Speaker 1: the entire school. It was just his class, just for
Speaker 1: Phoene's class, and that there were other teachers running other
Speaker 1: detentions in the school. That's what I didn't think about
Speaker 1: it as such a spectacular scene. It's amazing. You know,
Speaker 1: the real risk of this scene is that there's not
Speaker 1: a laugh for you know, five minutes straight and and
Speaker 1: that you know you're going to dip into sentimentality, which
Speaker 1: I think Boy Meat's World did very often. But I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe how how serious it was and how willing
Speaker 1: it was to become a drama show essentially for an
Speaker 1: extended scene between two characters and man like that. Like
Speaker 1: like I said, when we started, I could not believe
Speaker 1: how much of boy Meat's World is already encoded in
Speaker 1: this episode. And I think it's because of this scene.
Speaker 1: I mean, they must have just knew they had nailed
Speaker 1: it when they shot the scene and you could see
Speaker 1: it and be like, oh, this is I want to
Speaker 1: endlessly watch these people change each other. You know, we
Speaker 1: Bill doesn't speak at the beginning. That's the amazing part
Speaker 1: about it is Bill doesn't speak. You know that Ben
Speaker 1: is doing his kind of stick and and Bill is
Speaker 1: doing everything while staring down at the page, and it
Speaker 1: still works. It's the bench stick is actually one of
Speaker 1: my favorite parts because, as Ryder mentioned at the very
Speaker 1: opening of the show, Corey's character is a little braddy
Speaker 1: and you're a little bit like, is this a likable kid?
Speaker 1: And one of the things I loved is that you
Speaker 1: see him push the button and keep pushing the envelope
Speaker 1: and pushing the envelope, and then even though he's out
Speaker 1: the door, he comes back in like I'm never gonna leave,
Speaker 1: Like you and I both know you're in control. I'm
Speaker 1: still ultimately a good kid. And I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you did and you didn't even need to say it.
Speaker 1: You you saw it, you knew it. You now already
Speaker 1: love and know this kid is a good kid. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just I loved it. I love
Speaker 1: that beginning part. And then when Phoenie finds out that
Speaker 1: Corey was spying on him or that had seen him
Speaker 1: and that he was stood up, the change, the sternness
Speaker 1: with which Bill does that scene, it was I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just so compelling. I was absolutely eyes glued
Speaker 1: to the TV. But also perfect teacher where he uses it.
Speaker 1: He turned it into a teachable moment. I'm going to
Speaker 1: take this moment and I'm going to teach what I
Speaker 1: tried to teach you with Romeo and Juliet. I am
Speaker 1: now going to teach you right here because of this.
Speaker 1: And it was it's such a great turn and it's
Speaker 1: such it's it's it just shows such depth of the
Speaker 1: Phoenie character, which is, while you spied on me, you
Speaker 1: think this happened in my life. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: explain what happened in my life. I'm gonna use this
Speaker 1: to teach you about something. And it was just it's
Speaker 1: set the stage for every every other teachable Phoenie moment
Speaker 1: that you still have, which is another question we always get,
Speaker 1: which is what what moment you know, what did you
Speaker 1: learn from Bill or what did you learn from Phoenie?
Speaker 1: And it was always moments like this where it's that
Speaker 1: teachable and it was incredible. Just one of my favorite lines, ironically,
Speaker 1: is when he says during Bill's monologue moment, he says,
Speaker 1: you come and you go. You come into my class
Speaker 1: and then you leave me. And you know, he's basically
Speaker 1: saying like I only get you for one year, which
Speaker 1: turns out to another when Elevation show. But yeah, he says,
Speaker 1: you know, the time spent with me, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you learn anything or not. And it's like, if
Speaker 1: only we could tell them, like, you know, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be there for seven years, You're gonna be going to
Speaker 1: college with these kids. But he's also he's talking about
Speaker 1: I mean, he's were at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: You have to remember we're doing a kid show, which
Speaker 1: is what t G I F was and what this
Speaker 1: was specifically geared towards. And one of the main characters
Speaker 1: is talking about Shakespeare and Chaucer and some of the
Speaker 1: greatest poets and writers of all time and using that
Speaker 1: as a teachable It was again the idea of the
Speaker 1: teachable moment coming from a teacher, which is something that
Speaker 1: the joy that Boy Meets World could do as opposed
Speaker 1: to I learned the lesson from my dad. I learned
Speaker 1: the lesson from my mom. It's just kind of you've
Speaker 1: seen it before or the teacher was a buffoon. So
Speaker 1: the teacher teaching is just such a wonderful thing to
Speaker 1: watch all all the time. So yeah, that was I'm
Speaker 1: like you, Daniel, I just I couldn't move my eyes
Speaker 1: away from that scene because incredible, amazing, amazing. Okay, So
Speaker 1: then Corey goes back to the house and he apologizes
Speaker 1: to his dad for ditching him, and writer, you mentioned
Speaker 1: it briefly earlier, but the the how casual Rusty is about,
Speaker 1: Oh what you know, No, that's cool. I I get it.
Speaker 1: It's the circle of life. Um, he's just just what
Speaker 1: a he's such a cool dad. Yeah he was, which
Speaker 1: is why I think my son called him cheesy because
Speaker 1: he was cheesy because he's probably taking a dig at
Speaker 1: me in that moment. Like, Dad, you try and be cheesy,
Speaker 1: You try and be cool like that all the time,
Speaker 1: and I fail. Yeah. I love this scene, and I
Speaker 1: love how Rusty is so relaxed and like not precious
Speaker 1: about anything, as Rusty always is such an amazing actor.
Speaker 1: And then Lily so good, like he's just wonderful. And
Speaker 1: that's such a cute scene. You can see Corey finally
Speaker 1: changing right, like he's doing the things now, he's talking
Speaker 1: to his dad, he's hanging out with his sister. It's
Speaker 1: a It's a really great little scene. I thought, I'm
Speaker 1: not a huge fan of of of Runners. I get
Speaker 1: that not all runners are good, but I wish that
Speaker 1: the no, don't hug me was a thing that kept going.
Speaker 1: I thought that was a great moment and I thought
Speaker 1: that's one that could have come back later in the show. No,
Speaker 1: I think that's the only time it happened, and I
Speaker 1: think it was great. So yeah, yeah, Well the next
Speaker 1: scene we have Corey and Eric get to resolve their
Speaker 1: little conflict. Corey encourages Eric to call his date Heather
Speaker 1: um and which I think is really sweet. It's a
Speaker 1: nice little wrap up that now he wants his brother
Speaker 1: to be happy. He wants him to have that, even
Speaker 1: if it means pain for himself. He wants his brother
Speaker 1: to be happy. And then he goes downstairs and he
Speaker 1: has tea with his little sister and it's it is
Speaker 1: so cute. Was she tosses the doll. I love that.
Speaker 1: I thought that was such a wonderful moment where she
Speaker 1: just tosses the dollars like the doll because if you
Speaker 1: go back in the entire episode, a lot of scenes
Speaker 1: she's cradling it like a baby and feeding it and
Speaker 1: it's the most important thing to her, Corey, do you
Speaker 1: want it up there? To keep you saying? And the
Speaker 1: second she gets a chance to be with her brother,
Speaker 1: she discards it and here's the chair for you. It
Speaker 1: was great, Yeah, yeah, I love it. It's a very
Speaker 1: cute scene between the two of them. And then we
Speaker 1: learned in the tag. I thought this was very funny
Speaker 1: that in the tag we learn oh you thought Mr
Speaker 1: Feeney was stood up. Absolutely not. He's not a loser,
Speaker 1: you know nothing at all. It wasn't a date. It
Speaker 1: was his sister. I thought that was a really I
Speaker 1: was going to travel a very long way for a
Speaker 1: really light meal. It's like, hey, George, I drove six hours.
Speaker 1: Could you have thrown some chicken in this? Like? Thanks? Please?
Speaker 1: Just greens something. Yeah, I thought it was just it's
Speaker 1: very It's funny to me, like he that they could.
Speaker 1: They didn't want to leave it that he did actually
Speaker 1: get stood up. They wanted to clarify he didn't. Well.
Speaker 1: I think it was also it was also kind of
Speaker 1: clarifying that at eleven, you know, think you know, you
Speaker 1: don't really know. That's a good It brings us back
Speaker 1: to where Corey started, which is that he knows nothing.
Speaker 1: He knows nothing. You got to come back next week
Speaker 1: to see him learn again something else about we all
Speaker 1: learn together. Yes, Well, speaking of which, we will be
Speaker 1: back next week. We will be watching the next episode,
Speaker 1: which is season one, episode two. It's called on the
Speaker 1: Fence and yeah, I'm I'm excited to see it. I
Speaker 1: I feel like I was very interested in the pilot.
Speaker 1: I thought the pilot was way better than I was
Speaker 1: expecting it to be too, and so I'm thrilled. I'm
Speaker 1: thrilled to see what this next episode was, which we've
Speaker 1: learned in this episode. Will that is actually the first
Speaker 1: episode you guys all taped together. I think so, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this was the one. So I'm excited to
Speaker 1: excited to watch that. And uh, yeah, you guys have
Speaker 1: any closing thoughts, I think we I think just saying
Speaker 1: it was a lot better than I remember it being,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad it was. It was. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a great episode. And man, Bill Daniels can act. That's
Speaker 1: what That's what I took away from this. Will sign
Speaker 1: us off. We love you all, pod dismissed. Pod Beats
Speaker 1: World is an I heart podcast producer hosted by Daniel Fisher,
Speaker 1: Wilford Hill and Righter Strong. Executive producers Jensen Carpet and
Speaker 1: Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of production, Daniel Romo, producer
Speaker 1: and editor, Tara suit Batch, producer, Lorraine Gurez, engineer and
Speaker 1: Boy Meets World super fan Easton Allen. Our theme song
Speaker 1: is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at pod Meats World show or email us at Pod
Speaker 1: meets World Show at gmail dot com.