Gary H. Miller Meets World

Not many writers can say they’ve worked with both William Daniels AND O.J. Simpson, but Gary H. Miller is in a league of his own.

Gary wrote classic BMW episodes, like the recently recapped “You’re Married, You’re Dead,” and now he’s ready to share his inspiration for The Tushy Dance.

He also reveals the acting advice he gave Will Smith for “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” and we learn the MAJOR differences between his original BMW scripts and what we saw on-screen. This and so much more on a brand new Pod Meets World!!

 

Follow @podmeetsworldshow on Instagram and TikTok!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:20):
So Susan and I were on a walk as you
do every day every day, twice a day usually, but
we might we might not be on the same walk
twice a day because I walk the dog usually in
the morning, and then we do the walk later at night.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
But as as we do, questions pop up. Okay, and
so I got another walking with Sue and sammy question
for you. Okay, I'll ask the question that I'll answer
the question for myself to give you both time to
come up with your answers. So we're walking down the
street and I walk by a beautiful plant and it's

(00:55):
one of my favorite smells in the world, which led
to Top five Smells in Your Life.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Hops five Smells. So here we go and Wilfredell's hand.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Exactly so, in no particular order, the plant I walk
by night jasmine, absolutely, Oh, I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
I love it so much. My cologne bread, fresh bread
being baked.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
Oh yeah, that's a good one.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Susan makes this amazing oatmeal that are granola that makes
our entire house smell like oats and cinnamon and honey.
It's incredible. And then good old fashioned gasoline.

Speaker 5 (01:37):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Are some of my top five smells, so I throw
it back to you people loves Gasol's not.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Great for you, man, He's like, hang home. But I
like smell.

Speaker 6 (01:48):
I literally insert this smell so we know to stay
away from this stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
So either one of you throwing it out there. What
are some of your favorite smells? Books?

Speaker 6 (01:59):
Like a library, like you know, which I talked about
on this is actually like there's a vanilla smell that
comes out.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Of old books from the glue they used to bind.
So books.

Speaker 6 (02:10):
I have a campfire, and I have a I have
a candle that's called a Knight in the woods. It's
just like it's got a couple of different tree flavors
in it, but it's mostly mostly just smells like campfire.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
It's so yeah, And I.

Speaker 6 (02:23):
Guess coffee, oh, just like knowing yeah. And then probably vanilla,
which is a little up there with you know, kind
of the same the same thing as books. But yeah,
I like a nice distant vanilla, not like too strong,
not like overdone, but like when you know that there's
like a nice vanilla flavor in the air.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Gosh, what a bread is a good one? Man, I've
never thought about it, but bread is a smell.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Bread like you walk into a place like a bakery
where they're just baking bread.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Oh yeah, I just want to wrap myself up in it.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Yeah, so good.

Speaker 5 (02:51):
Danielle cool water cologne Cool, I've never even heard of that.
What is what from the nineties? It's it is boyfriend
smell of every high school boy of the nineties, and
it takes me right back to Michael Goldman.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Like the same thing with old spice.

Speaker 4 (03:15):
That's so funny. Old spice will know.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
But it's date night, Pickles is coming out. Let's put
on the old spice, old spy, She says, the same thing.
It like smells like high.

Speaker 5 (03:26):
School, high school boyfriends, high school boyfriends. I love water
clone similarly to the gasoline. When I was a kid,
I really love the smell of gasoline. But now like
the markers, like the smell of like a those like smell.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Deeply and you wake up thirty seconds later.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, I love that smell.

Speaker 5 (03:50):
I think like anything pine like Christmas, the smell of Christmas. Yes,
something piney tree, Yeah, Christmas smell.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
I totally agree.

Speaker 5 (04:02):
Bread is really good, but also I'd like to throw
it in the mix of the smell of bacon, bacon cooking.
You know, like the smell of breakfast. There's there's something
about the mix of coffee toast bacon that like, I
just call it diner smell of diner diner.

Speaker 6 (04:21):
If there was a candle that was diner candle, that
wouldn't be a bad call.

Speaker 5 (04:25):
It's a great idea. We could we could have a chubby,
chubby candle if I could bottle the smell. The stinky
smell of my children's feet right now, really pre peubescent, yeah,
stinky kid feet.

Speaker 6 (04:45):
I'm telling you all that, like loving your kids smells,
are not being bothered by your kid smells is gone by?

Speaker 5 (04:50):
I know by not actually I know.

Speaker 6 (04:52):
I was like suddenly I did not want Indy to
be anywhere like yes, until then I was like no,
it's fine. You get used to it and you deal
with or you fall in love with it or whatever.
But now it's like like, literally anytime he smells, I'm like, dude,
figure this out, I know, because it's just what is
it about the stinky feet?

Speaker 3 (05:13):
What does it even smell?

Speaker 4 (05:14):
Like?

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Can you relate it to anything?

Speaker 6 (05:17):
It's just human intimacy, man, It's just being close to
somebody that you love so much that you're yeah, I
don't know.

Speaker 5 (05:21):
I mean, honestly, Adler's farts when he was a baby,
I was like, these are delicious, these are this is
smell like India.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
The top of India's head was like one of my
you know, because.

Speaker 6 (05:30):
It's just like these weird because it's you're never that
close with another human and the pheromones it's your own.

Speaker 5 (05:37):
Like I could if they lined twenty kids up, I'd
be able to pick out which one was Addler by
the smell of his little feet, right.

Speaker 6 (05:46):
And you know, it's it's chemical and biological because like
if I was ever around another kid like this is
I'm going to vomit, Like I cannot be in this.
But my kid, I was like totally, I never have
a problem with any of it, Like it's totally.

Speaker 5 (06:04):
So yeah, that would have to be online. Just Aller
and Keaton's stinky feet just.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Dipping cool water.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
I'd like to give I'd like to give honorable mention
to mushrooms, onions, and.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
Garlic cook Oh yeah, great comedy.

Speaker 6 (06:18):
Maybe the real question should remove all food considered.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
We're talking about food.

Speaker 6 (06:23):
It's like just exactly, yeah, you can never do so
I feel like it maybe maybe an addendum should be
that it's only non food, so then.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
If I have to take bread off the list, it
would instantly be trumped by W D.

Speaker 6 (06:36):
Forty oh oh sawdust cut sawdust like.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Hey yeah, freshly cut hay is another one that.

Speaker 4 (06:47):
I really like so much.

Speaker 5 (06:48):
Food. I don't like that. And you know what I
don't like. A smell I don't like. I don't like
that smell of rain on the asphalt that some people love,
you know, people like disprocusting. You know what else I
don't like the people like.

Speaker 6 (07:01):
I don't know the bottom five smells Top five cars
like new car.

Speaker 5 (07:06):
Smell, Get it out of here, the wave that smell.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Out, My god, I love new car smell.

Speaker 5 (07:12):
Replace it with my kid's stinky feet.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
This is stinky feet teenage boy car smell.

Speaker 5 (07:19):
And I did know teenage. I think by teenage i'll
be over it. I will not like it. It's something
about the fact.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
That they cool. He smells like starburst and cool water.

Speaker 6 (07:32):
You don't haven't smelled since the nineties c K one ladies,
I still probably like that.

Speaker 5 (07:39):
Girls wore that all through the nineties, and the boys
were all K one.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
You car.

Speaker 6 (07:47):
Like of all of the perfumes and colognes and stuff,
shaving cream barbasol shaving cream. And I don't use it
that much because I don't know now I should.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
But yeah, but I love that smell.

Speaker 4 (07:59):
Yeah that's a good one.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Good Smeuth.

Speaker 5 (08:02):
Welcome to Bobby Turr. I'm Danielle Fishel, I'm right or Strong,
and I'm Will Fordell was like, what are we supposed
to do.

Speaker 4 (08:11):
The show?

Speaker 5 (08:11):
That's in our endless attempt to recreate every season's writer's room,
we have been able to connect with so many men
and women who helped craft the show right at its

(08:33):
heart on every page of its script, whether they were
there with us from the start, joined in the Michael
exit or the Michael return, or maybe just contributed an
episode from outside the staff. Some of our best podcasts
have been with these incredible creatives, and this week is
no different. He joined the show in season five, just
barely sneaking in an episode at the end, the eventually

(08:55):
prohibited tale of teen drinking if you can't be with
the one you love quite and then then, after getting
Corey and Sean blitzed, he wrote two in season six,
including the recently recapped You're Married you're dead. So if
you were wondering which writer liked messing with Corey and Tapanga,
we found him. His middle initial H most likely stands

(09:15):
for heartbreak. He'd write two in the final season, sticking
around till the bitter end. But it was his prior
work experience that is even more impressive, especially probably to
Will Laverne and Shirley Bosom Buddies nine to five, Give
me a Break, a different World, come Crash, Prince of
bel Air, and Reba.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Oh come on, and I'm talking about any of these
in the day God.

Speaker 5 (09:41):
Also, he worked with a murderer, at least according to
a civil suit. And so we are thrilled to welcome
to Pod Meets World writer and producer Gary H. Miller. Yea,
so good to see you.

Speaker 4 (09:58):
It's amazing to see you guys. So on the strike
line and then yeah, I think it was twenty.

Speaker 5 (10:05):
Two years party.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Actually no, Gary, you and I I don't know if
you remember I ran to you at Target.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
You had a Target. We exchanged numbers, right, yeah, yeah,
we'll call each other.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
And that never never, that.

Speaker 4 (10:21):
Is saying that guy. But you know I would have
loved to listen.

Speaker 5 (10:26):
So fun. Well we are so excited to talk to you.
We know that you were an integral part of seasons
five through seven, and we are excited to talk to
you about that. But this is the first interview where
we know, right off the bat we are nowhere near
the most fascinating actors that you have worked with, because
we know you worked on a show called First and
Ten with O. J. Simpson. Oh my goodness, can you

(10:48):
please tell us what that was like?

Speaker 4 (10:50):
You ready to rock the stats?

Speaker 5 (10:53):
Always you know us always always.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
Well, Okay, God, these are such long anecdotes, and I
know we have limited time, and I certainly want to
get to the drinking episode, but let's sit back and
have a little drink and talk about mister Oja click
backstory before I even mentioned it. Uh So, I used
to be a school teacher in New York City. I

(11:19):
taught school for eight years and I taught in the
school in Queens and on my lunch hour I would jog,
which included going across the Laguardi Airport was right near
the school. And then one day I see him, O J. Simpson,
who was like the biggest star you know from the
Hurts com the America loved him and I saw him

(11:41):
going to the terminal and you know, I'm a stupid
person from Brooklyn Schoolowly School team tour and I said, oh,
Jay oja, you know, like like a ten year old,
and he looked at me. He gave me that OJ smile. Right.
I ran back to school and into the teacher's room
and I said, I just saw the juice, you know,
And I was so excited. Yah. Well, now cut to

(12:02):
some years later and I'm in now living out here
with my youngest daughter who was born with the impairment.
So we had taken it to a doctor in a
building in Westwood, and we were waiting at the valet
and there he was again, and like a ferrari pulls
up and right before he gets in, he looks at

(12:23):
me and says, is that your little girl? I said yeah.
She says, she's so pretty, She's beautiful. I said thank you.
I said, oh my god. Again O J. Simpson my
second meeting. So then segue to I take over the
show first and ten. It was kind of floundering, and
I made it more realistic. I ate a big business, steroids,

(12:44):
you know, real football stuff. I wrote O. J. Simpson
into the show and we became kind of close. I
used to watch Monday night football in his house. You
watch it. The Heisman trophy is right over.

Speaker 5 (13:01):
There, and oh, my gosh, man.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
And we flew We spent the weekend in Kansas City together,
the two of us. We went to see the Chiefs plane.
The Chief played the Raiders, and we flew on the
Raiders plane. And my god, We've got so many funny
stories about that. How funny funny in hindsight. Right, I'll
get there too. I'm talking real fash. We're in Kansas

(13:24):
City and you know, everybody loves the guy. And we
were in the marll one day and the father comes
over his son, and the father's crying and he says,
why is your boy crying? Why are you crying? Sir?
He says, that's my boy. His name the boys he
named Moji. This was America's. Yeah, we all know the story.

(13:45):
And uh on a. On the flight back, I have
hit the I was in the worst turbulence I had
ever been into my And I'm talking. I'm on the
plane with the Raiders, right, and they're getting their barf
bigs right, two hundred and sixty pounds linemen and they're
crossing themselves and it looks like we're going down because
we're dropping like ten thousand feet. And I turned to

(14:08):
look at OJ and he's just sitting there with a
smile of this.

Speaker 6 (14:12):
Nothing's scary, the calm of a psychopathic.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
Exa.

Speaker 4 (14:20):
So here's a great you see, you got me started
on this, So here's a great anecdote. So when first
and ten they're negotiating, as you guys know about negotiations
with actors, the producer comes to me. He says, look, Gary,
we're having trouble OJ. We're not sure we can make
this deal. Can you write him out of the show?
I said, yes, I wrote him into the show. I

(14:42):
guess I could write him out of the show, which
wasn't I didn't like that idea. But then Oja comes
to me by himself. He says, you think you could
write a show like this for me, a different show?
And I said, sure, so let me write gat. We'll
make it. We'll make it a baseball show. And I
went and I pitched it with him, and then we

(15:05):
get a go on the pilot. It was easy to
pitch over because I'm pitching and I don't even think
the executive she's listening to me. She's just staring at OJ.
And I'm thinking in my head, as you know, if
you pitched. But he says, I'm going, well, I got
to shift gears and got else and I finished, and
I think this is awful. And she says, this is
a project we must do. And so I get me

(15:26):
elevator with OJ and I said, this is the easiest thing.
I have a soul. I said, this is great. He says,
that's good. A little while later, I get a call
from his lawyer. His attorney skipped, and he says, listen
to OJ. Would like co writing credit on the pilot. Oh,
I said, oh really, I said, okay. I said, tell

(15:47):
him he only has to work with me about two
hours a day, and I'll do that. I'll do the
brunt of it. I'll do most of it. He is no, no, no,
you don't understand. He doesn't actually want to do He
just wants co creating credit for the pilot. I said why.
He said, because his mother would be very proud of
him if he was in the writer's guild. I said,

(16:09):
she'd be proud. He's in the Hall of Fame. Is
proud enough of him?

Speaker 5 (16:13):
Is that not enough.

Speaker 4 (16:14):
The really so skip to the attorney says, look, you
either agreed this, but this deal was done. It's going
to blow up. I said, okay, I'll agree, but you
tell this to Oj that I'll give him half writing
credit on a script that I write. If he goes

(16:36):
to the Canton Hall of Fame and tell them half
that yard in his mind that I killed that deal.
He then got a deal with NBC. They sent him
to New York to be an on field reporter. I got.
I got him a little going away gift. Was the

(16:57):
last time I had talked to him. And then one
day I was in Florida on vacation, playing golf, and
I got the call from my friend saying, do you
hear about Nicole Simpson? I said, I was on the
golf course most of the day she was found dead.

(17:17):
I said, oh no, this is before cell phones. I said,
I don't have OJ's number. You got you gotta listen,
you gotta get me OJ's number. I got to call
call him and he said, no, you don't understand. They
think he did it. And then it just got you know,
as surreal as it could possibly be. Wow. Some time ago,
I wrote an article for a mandatory magazine called OJ

(17:38):
and Me, which is basically what I just told you,
you know, in more terms. And uh, I mean I
was subpoenaed for the the second trial also, so I
wrote the article about this. What are telling you that?
This woman in the comment says, how dare you associate
with that murderer as a lady. This was before I
knew he was a murderer. Yeah, exactly, yea murder And

(18:02):
then anyway, there's my longer.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Wow, we did not expect that.

Speaker 6 (18:07):
We were like, oh yeah, we talked on set a
few times, and you know, that's incredible.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
And there's other stuff that I won't even go and
it's got nothing to do about the horrific results of
all that. But you know, just because when the lawyers
were interviewing me as a witness, they wanted to know
was the aggressive and all that? And I said, you
know what, I was wrangling real football players. It was

(18:34):
the least aggressive out of any of them. And I
had John Tusak, who would break anything that came close
to you. You know, I got it. John Tusack anecdotes too.
But let's.

Speaker 5 (18:46):
Well, I want we want to talk to you about
some of the other shows you worked on too, because
you have truly written on some of TV's most iconic shows.
I mean your first script being Laverne and Shirley, which
is quite a debut. How did that become your first gig?

Speaker 4 (19:01):
We're going to need to make this a five part
so at least I told you I was a school
teacher in New York, hears in and not loving it,
not loving the job, and not loving the pay, which
is always low for teachers. Great, great contributors to our

(19:22):
culture that they are. But so my wife said, hey,
you're funny. Why don't you start writing scripts? What do
I know about scripts? You know? But I went to
the local library, took out a book, showed me the format,
and I wrote a mass script. Right, I'll make a
very long story shorter. I started writing spects for everything.

(19:43):
I started sending letters. Remember no, no, no enginet, no
way of contacting anybody. And if you guys, remember, if
you're old enough to remember, you can't. You can't get
into seeing anybody if you you know some kinds. Even
if you are somebody, you can't get in. So I
started writing letters, and I also started hanging out the

(20:04):
improv in New York giving freak jokes to comics, and
they let me know what producers were coming in from
the West Coast. So it would be kind of like
I wait outside the improv and when the producers are leaving,
I'd run after them my script in my hand and
like a BA time pass and a relay race get
in their hands and they can't read this. You know,
you got to sign a waiver. And one guy, Tom Patrick,

(20:26):
he said, look, I'll send you a waives. Send me
a script. I did. It was a mash. That was
my first speck was a mash. He said, this is
not bad. Get yourself an agent. So now I look
up agent in the phone book, remember book, and I
send her the script. She says, this is pretty good.
I'm going to send it to the producer. So again

(20:47):
I'm ignorant. I don't know anything about show business. I
told my wife Karen, I said, I think we're going
to Hollywood.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
Because sold our home.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
And yeah, by this time we were we had moved
way away, out away from New York in western New Jersey.
Were living in the woods and the mailboxes across the
road and I go every day for the for the
letter of saying you know, come come to Hollywood.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
Oh wait, I have to ask, do you remember what
your mash was about? Do you remember the spec?

Speaker 4 (21:19):
The title was called Mistress Fever. Okay, it was about
Frank's wife was coming for a visit and whether it's
you know, and they didn't know what to do with
what was the miss uh? What was? Yeah? And so
they they concocted that she had some kind of illness
and they try to keep her away from the wife.

(21:39):
And I remember it. I was great, it's pretty mediocre.
Uh so uh. I then got very frustrated. Uh. I
start churning out spec scripts for threes Company, Welcome Back
to uh, Barney Miller, all the shows of that day, Yeah,

(21:59):
with no results in getting very disheartened, and I start
writing letters Fred Silvan ABC. He said, we need new blood,
we need new writer. I said, well, you need to writers.
I'm the guy for you, right, send it out, Fred Silvan, Hollywood, California.
And they must get ten thousand unsolicited scripts and letters.
One day, God calls me from ABC. He said, I

(22:22):
don't know why Fred wants me to do this, because
he's not he's leaving, he's going to MBC. But he
wants you to write a script for la Verna Surely
or Happy Days. Those are our two big shows, and
we'll see that the producers read it, says okay. So
I write ola Verna Surely and send it in and

(22:43):
then I start writing and I get nothing. Nothing six
months ago. By now, I go to that mailbox and
the mailbox says, leave me longer. Stop. So I start
writing letters to Gary Marshall. I'm funny, and I start
writing funny letters and okay, it's another deep dour. So
I mentioned that my daughter was born with impairment, and

(23:07):
I was very despondent. At this time. She was an infant.
I was holding her in my arms and she had seizures.
That was quite a problem. I'm holding her in my arms.
Get this. You couldn't write it. I'm watching Laverne and Sheryold.
It's a Tuesday night, right, she said, in my arms.
She's having a seizure. We called the doctor and he says, look,

(23:28):
if she has another seizure, you got to bring it
into the hospital tomorrow. Okay. And I go off to
work in New York, which is sixty miles away, and
all day I'm expecting the call from my wife to
say the baby had a seizure. You got to come
to the hospital. So the assistant principal comes into the gym.
I had a gin full of one hundred maniac kids

(23:49):
running around, and she says, mister Miller, it's a call
for you. I said, I know, I know, you know,
and I you know, sombrely walked to get the phone,
thickets my wife and it's Gary Marshall's office.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
Oh my gosh, telling.

Speaker 4 (24:03):
Me they want me to come be a writer. Wow.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
They called your school. Gary Marshall's office called your school.

Speaker 7 (24:11):
Well yeah, oh wow, wow, so did you did you
then go to the set of Laverne and Shirley, which
is arguably one of the most famous and contentious sets
in the history of Hollywood.

Speaker 4 (24:27):
I didn't know what to do. I mean, I knew
I had to go now, mind you, civil servant, eight
years in the system, and I was known as crazy
mister Miller because I was always be writing whenever I could,
you know, and they say, what are you doing? I said, well,
one day I'm gonna make it, you know that kind
of stuff. And when it happened, it was, like, you know,

(24:50):
pretty unbelievable and I remember one teacher, Charlie rebellion. He
stops me in the whole. Now, mind you, this is
back in the seventh These and kids didn't just pass
from one cliss together. You took your life in your
hands if you were in the hallway during Yeah, and
and so Charlie grabs me. He says, Garry that eight
years in the system, you can retire in nine more years.

(25:12):
What are you doing, it, said Charlie, I'm going to
be working on the number one show in all of television.

Speaker 5 (25:19):
Yeah right, Oh, oh my gosh, did your daughter have
another seizure that day? Did Did she also end up
at the hospital or no?

Speaker 4 (25:31):
No, no, oh thank god she's still to this day.
I mean, my daughter is jack when you guys know.

Speaker 5 (25:36):
I know, I know, I just wanted it that day.
I needed that story to wrap up. Are you expecting
that phone call? You didn't get that phone call that day.

Speaker 4 (25:43):
So you're going to talk about ing and gang whatever
it is. So it was tempered, you know, because there
was still issue with our child, you know, which is
always issue but a lot of us deal with, you know,
personal issues. But that story and so you know, years
later I said to one of the supervising producers at

(26:04):
the time, who became a good friend of mine, of
Phil Mischkin. I said, how did I get hired? All
these writers in our city, Los Angeles, A vying to
be the next writer on vern S Shirley? Why did
he hire me? And Gary Marshall said, give me the
school teacher who writes me to funny letters.

Speaker 5 (26:26):
Wow, didn't make a reference to the script, right, letters right?

Speaker 4 (26:33):
And every time I saw Gary, and I did see him,
we didn't develop any kind of relationship, but I would
see him from time to time in the town and
every time I'd say to thank you, thank you, thank you.
And as I got later into my career, I would say,
I think exactly.

Speaker 5 (26:50):
Another show we wanted to talk to you about was
Bosom Buddies. It has come up before on this podcast
in regards to just being one of the perfect Tom Hanks,
perfect sitcom acting. Did you get to work with him
directly at all when he was that green?

Speaker 4 (27:04):
Oh yeah, oh yeah to it. Look, let's not give
Peter a short shrift. These two were great. These two
were great together. It's not sad Peter went on to
have a good career, but he kind of became a
little bit of a joke because one guy's Tom Hanks,
one Boot's buddies becomes Tom Hanks, and the other becomes
Peter Scaur and I certainly have different types of careers,

(27:26):
but they were great together. They were a lot of
those you guys, when the stuff hit the stage, they
made it better. This was really impressed me. You know,
I would write something and we would write something as writers,
and these guys just took it to another level. And

(27:46):
it's a great feeling when that happens, because you know
a lot of times it doesn't. A lot of times
it goes the other way. And they were terrific. And
you know, they they were new, they they were so fresh,
they were so young, but he knew them. You know.
Tom and I we had a Bruce Springsteen relationship and

(28:06):
that we were both crazy fans. I mean Bruce Springsteen. Uh.
And I used to have the old morel called cassette
recorder and Tom would come into my office to listen
to my Springsteen tapes. Right, And we used to have
this thing where there's a song called Jungle In by
Bruce Springsteen and there's a certain lyric and Tom and
I used to see who could say this lyric the quickest,

(28:27):
and the lyric is I'll probably budge it befoot girls
sitting on the hood of the Dodge, drinking warm beer
in summer night's rain, you know, and we try to
say it faster than the other. So you know, lo
and behold. He goes on to become one of Bruce
Springsteen's best friends. I see him on a yacht with
Bruce Springsteen and everybody else, you know what I mean.
And I'm waiting online for ten hours to get on

(28:52):
the book. But Tom, when ABC let them go, you know,
we only let we were only offer to sea.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
That was one of the shows that was criminally canceled earlier.

Speaker 4 (29:04):
Yeah, canceled over today to have a tough time. I mean,
guys dressing and drinking, Ye're gonna do that. But we
knew we were funny, and we were hit funny. We
were referenced funny, you know what I mean. We had
a run where we wrentioned somebody in the script and
they would die for some reason next week or something
like that. But we really prided ourselves on being very hip,

(29:28):
and to this day we still have a kind of
a cult audience in one of them, and Peter, I mean,
you know Peter. When I was consulting producer on Riba,
there was a part for Peter, and I made sure
that Peter got it. So Peter did a Riba and uh,
he was in the same scene with my son Max,
who had dialogue invent scene. So it was really a

(29:49):
true for me.

Speaker 5 (29:51):
You also made stops over at nine to five, give
me a Break and a different World, and then you
jumped over to a sitcom starring an award winning rapper
who had never acted on TV before, with the Fresh
Prince of bel Air. Did you like was it obvious
right from the beginning he was going to be a
sitcom star?

Speaker 4 (30:10):
Yes, yeah, you could, Yes, you can just see it.
Although we had a very interesting relationship of the two seasons.

Speaker 5 (30:21):
That I was Ewan will Smith.

Speaker 4 (30:24):
When I took over the show, he kind of had
his own way all the time, and I said, look,
I'm not like that, I said, so you know he said,
and I think he respected that. And I told them
things like, look, you're telegraphing your joke because you don't

(30:44):
you don't have confidence, and so you're touching the actor
and the scene with you, right before the joke. It's
a thing you do. How do you do that? You know?
I know the joke is coming next. You should you
know stuff like that. You know that we discussed. I
made him sit and watch. He hated this, the old
Sogeant Bilko series. You'll never get rich with Phil Silvis,

(31:04):
I said, watch this guy. Watch this guy driving episode,
no matter how flimsy the storyline is. It's like a
moving train and he takes everybody on the train with
him and you get to the end. I said, that's
the kind of energy we need in twenty two minutes,
because slow time in a twenty two minute show is deadly.

(31:25):
It really not to say you can't have your moments right,
you know what I mean? You just need and you
know when you edit the show too, that's what you
look for. Again, we're in a twenty two minute play beginning, middle,
and end. I mean that's why so many of your
discussions and your listeners discussions about well, what happened to
this and what happened to that? And how can they

(31:46):
leave this happen? Like what's happen? But as you know,
the process is hard and half hours. Well, I don't
know why we call him half hours. The twenty two
minutes are harder than hours. And if you think about it,
the big, the big great sitcoms that did their finales
is an hour. It kind of bombed.

Speaker 8 (32:05):
Yeah, well the Seinfeld hour wasn't good. I think the
Cheers hour wasn't good. So what happens when I take
over Fresh Prince? They told me we want you to
write an hour opening season show.

Speaker 4 (32:17):
Wha man, right? What I did? And you know, it
was pretty good and had the funniest scene I've ever
written was in that. It was called the bungee jump scene,
and that seemed to work. But yeah, I can tell
you a lot about Fresh Prince about will I don't know,
I might need an attorney.

Speaker 5 (32:37):
We don't want you to need an attorney, that's for sure.
And then you enter the Boy Meets World universe in
season five with I mean, which might is a little
bit of a step down from everything else you had
been working on. How did you end up in the
Boy Meets World universe?

Speaker 4 (32:55):
Well? Odd, it was odd, I mean I did. I
was showing the Fresh Prince of Bellia just I guess
the same time you guys were on the air right
ninety four, You're on the air, right, so we were
on concurrently and you know, that's got its clout. And
then I went from there. I had an overall deal
at twentieth and and then I was contacted by an

(33:19):
executive at Disney, David Himmelfarm.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
I don't know if you remember the name of sor and.

Speaker 4 (33:26):
I don't remember how a conversation went, but it was
in the fifth season when there was a little bit
of turmoil. There was a change in the guard that
eventually happened, of course, as you know, and that's when
they signed me in as a consulting producer. So I
came aboard in the fifth season kind of just after

(33:47):
the fifth season that started, and you know, Michael hadn't
been there yet, and then he took over shortly after
I got there, and then that adjustment had to be
made in terms of dealing with Michael Jacobs. And I
found the staff really nice, great friends. We were close knit.

(34:12):
I met friends that I still have to this day.
Jeff Minel is my closest friend. You know, what a
wonderful guy he is. I became terrific friends with Bob Tishler,
a great guy. We wound up writing together, but the
last twenty years. We have a book on Amazon we

(34:32):
wrote together, you Bo, Yeah, romantic comedy Cold Impossible. And
when we lost him suddenly last springtime, it was devastating
and I still feel his loss every day. He's such
a great friend. But that's all boy meets world stuff,
you know, Like I said, no things happen in life
and you meet different people. And Alison Gibson she to

(34:56):
work with ar on Riba, so you know, you know works.

Speaker 5 (35:00):
Yeah, those connections. You meet, meet with people and some
of them are in your life forever.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
But it's interesting, Danielle that you mentioned, you know, it
being a step down. It was different because most of
the staff people in Bombie's world were you young, or
they were kind of Michael disciples in a sense, you know.
And so now suddenly Bob Tishla who was also a showrunner,

(35:26):
and myself to show runners. Now we're on staff, you know,
and possibly with different attitudes than mostly everybody else. Not
that they we don't want to do good work, of course,
that's always the goal, but you know, it was it
was an interesting dynamic. Bob and I kind of had

(35:47):
a little bit of spartico there how to deal with
with things right. Wow. M hm.

Speaker 5 (36:04):
So had you seen Boy Meets World before you became
a consulting producer on it? Had you did they give
you VHS tapes to help you prep? Did they sell
you VHS tapes of the show, because we got ours.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
They gave me drawings and I try.

Speaker 5 (36:19):
To okay a comic book aramatic perfect.

Speaker 4 (36:23):
Well, you know what, I don't remember what I usually
do if I if I get hired on a show
that I don't know about, or I from off for
a show I don't know about it. You know, watch
ten episodes, seven episodes of last season. I did that
with a Different World too. I hadn't been watching a
Different World and you kind of cram and you're watching
and you get a feel for it. But yours is

(36:46):
so different because you guys are growing up. You know,
every year, it's different. You're different people that it's said to,
different values, different objects of what you want to do,
andationships change and all that. So it's a very interesting show.
And I am very pleased with some of the episodes

(37:07):
that I wrote for the show. Really, I think we
can get to talk to it sometime later. Yeah, Chet
Dying episode is one of my favorites.

Speaker 5 (37:15):
That we haven't gotten to that episode yet, so we
have not seen it.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
Cast give rid of Blake, you can't, he's too good.

Speaker 5 (37:29):
So in your first season, season five, you write an
episode late in the show order, the controversial and somewhat banned,
if you can't be with the one you love? Do
you remember the genesis of that very kind of adult theme?
Was it your idea?

Speaker 4 (37:47):
Okay, here we go. First of all, I'm sorry we're
all losing out on residuals on that episode. Right. Ironically,
my first on air Laverne Shirley script that aired on
television was called what Do You Do with a Drunken Salor?

(38:08):
And it was about it was a kind of a
serious Laverne and Shirley where her brother Bobby played by
Ed Begley Jr. Comes home on leave and he's got
a drinking problem. So it was in my pedigree through
those kinds of stories. And I've also gravitated in my career.
I've done some real what they call the special episode,

(38:29):
some serious stuff, especially Different World. I did a racial
violence episode will when I took over with Fresh Prince.
I said, we joke about it him not having a father,
let's bring his father back. We brought his.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
Father backs, like one of the most famous episodes.

Speaker 4 (38:45):
Yeah, Mareen, and so I kind of gravitate towards some
serious themes. I figured that at Corey's age, young kid
boy like that, being the feelings he had about the
Panguin being you know, separated from her, would lead to
some experimentation of the kind, especially since he was considered

(39:09):
depressing and everybody was on his case and so on
and so forth. So I can't exactly remember if it
was my idea. It probably was because of my history
with that, but I can tell you that this episode
is a story of two acts acts acts. The first

(39:30):
act it's pretty true to my draft. I have my draft.
I love to send it to you. Second goes off
into Michael Jacob's land. Let me give you an example. I
listened to your your discussion. Will you're not in the
episode now in my script, you're in three scenes and

(39:50):
in both acts. And not only are you in both acts,
you're in the climactic act with uh Sean and Jack
and Corey in the apartment. Jack enlightens Sean about the predisposition,
the genetical predisciplined Dad and how serious it is, and

(40:12):
that he hit Jack's mother and that's what turns Sean.
The girls aren't weren't even in that scene in my set.
So the heat that I might take because Sean throws
engines against the wall was never in my script. I
wouldn't put it into my script, and I cringe every

(40:35):
time I see it. You feel about it, but it
upsets me because my name's on that script, you know.
And there's a lot of shoving in that episode that
wasn't in my draft, So I don't know where the
pension for shoving people comes from. So that's one thing
I certainly wanted to point out. The Other thing is

(40:56):
that the family's more involved in promoting. There's a scene
before Corey goes to the party where Alan basically says,
you know you are depressing. Everybody does something about it,
you know, like a phone, and that's that's when Corey
goes and gets the alcohol and shows up. There's also
another family scene after the cop car shows up, where

(41:17):
Amy's worried they're out late and Alan says, don't don't
worry that we told them to have finding's having fun.
Let them be, and then they get the calls so,
and then the second half goes from where it was.
But also in the second halfter in my draft, I
have Feeney being much more instrumental in helping Sean. Post
to Sean, he gives him a card for doctor to

(41:39):
call Doctor Kramer call him, he can help you with this,
and then after Sean is enlightened by Jack, Sean eventually
does go for help. And the last scene is I
have it written. I look at the script some time later,
not the next day. All those things about lock of this,

(42:00):
why would he he's drunk one day. He's not drunk
in that saying no, this is a passion. Yeah, it's
real hard to show that, you know, if you could
write it in the script right, unless you say sometime later. Yea.
So those are some of the broad strokes about that episode.

Speaker 6 (42:16):
Wow, yeah, I remember our feeling was like this should
have been a two parter, or you know, he's trying
to cramp so much into it. Yeah, So it sounds
like the Angela factor was like layered in after your
draft and.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
Just just trying to do too much so much.

Speaker 4 (42:33):
Also, her reaction, I couldn't stand her reaction if I
were writing that scene and you shoved, you would hear
about it right there in the moment. She wouldn't, you know,
slink away and and and cower and say late, I
still love you. When you don't drink, she tells you
often know, on certain terms is what she would do.

(42:55):
So again, those are choices. I'm not blaming anybody. I'm
just revealing the way what happened.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Now, how much say in the room did you have
if there was something that you know, from your original
draft you felt very strongly about. Is that something that
if you fought for it would stay in or was
it kind of, hey, this is we're changing it, and
that's just the way it is. I mean, we all
know it's Michael Show at the end of the day,
and he gets to do what he wants, and that's
what one of the things you get when you're in
the big chair is you just that's that's how it works.

(43:26):
I mean, So, is it something that if you had
gone in and really fought for it, it would have changed,
or is it kind of like, no, this is this
is where we're taking I don't remember.

Speaker 4 (43:34):
I certainly know the shoving scene really bothered me, and
I don't recall if I expressed that or not I
might have. I certainly never help myself back when I
wanted to express myself. But as you said, it wasn't
my show right at the show. I've been a show
on it, so I know both sides of it. I

(43:56):
know that side, I know this side, and I know
the writer's side, and you know all the uh pressure
you get from from executives and studios and all of
that stuff. However, it bothered me, and obviously it didn't
bother anybody else enough that because it stayed in and

(44:18):
sometimes I wonder, I said, why wasn't there a network
note about that? I mean, why why was that condoned? Right?
Of course you couldn't. You'd have a hard time doing
that scene today.

Speaker 5 (44:29):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean right right.

Speaker 4 (44:31):
How do you feel?

Speaker 3 (44:34):
Yeah, I mean I remember.

Speaker 6 (44:37):
It all just felt too much like that that that
that scene in particular, was like, oh, we're going to
compress this revelation about his dad and you know, basically
make Sean an angry, alcoholic, you know, abusive. I think
the I guess for me, if you're going to do that,

(44:57):
it just didn't never felt like the consequences were resolved
in a way that empowered Angela. It was always like, oh,
Angela getting hurt was a way for Sean to change
and for him to come to a realization, as opposed
for for it to be a moment of like, oh
Sean needs you know, if you're going to hurt somebody,
have her stand up for herself a little bit, or

(45:17):
have her affect the change and Sean as opposed to
just kind of being a prop.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
You know.

Speaker 6 (45:21):
Unfortunately, Angela, especially at that point in the series, she
didn't have much of a character.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
She didn't have much of a voice. I mean, now
we're seeing in.

Speaker 6 (45:29):
The season six stuff there is you know, they've developed
her and now Corey finally talks to her, for instance,
But back then, you know, she was just kind of
brought in. Her first couple episodes were great, but then
I feel like the rest of season five she does
not have enough of a presence. You know that it's
not written to so yeah, so that bothers me, but I.

Speaker 4 (45:46):
Agree with you it should have been a more elaborate
episode to you know, to two episodes, to say the least,
because it kind of gives you know, I have an
award Yere for the episode. So anytime you tackle something
like that. Sometimes you'll get an award for it because
there is some good stuff in that obviously, Yeah, but

(46:08):
it gives it short shrift. It's just right, you know,
and that's what's wrong. Sometimes its sitcom is one episode.
Oh it wasn't as year cut off last week, and
that was years back, right, right, Well, we got to
carry these things through, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Well, there was no streaming at the time, so weeks
would go by, if not months would go by, you'd
forget what happened.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
You know, hey, two seasons ago, Like.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
We always joke about mash where it's like, at one
point everybody's wife was named Louise, and then there was
change to Mildred, and Sean had sisters and a brother
and this, and so when the idea of streaming didn't
even exist, even the idea.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
Of we can watch these back to back to back
to back to back, you're writing it and you kind
of okay, well, I'm kind of forgetting some.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
Of the details of the stuff we did before, and
you kind of move on with it for what you
need that week. And now that we're streaming all the
old shows, it's like.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
Wow, oh, okay, there's not a whole lot of consents and.

Speaker 5 (47:00):
Seeing some of these well, and when we interviewed when
we had the bro Meats World guys on, and I
remember being very feeling, very poignant when they pointed out
that what it felt like to see the only woman
of color on the show be the one treated in
that way. Yeah, and how that comes across to the audience,

(47:20):
and how that adds a layer to it that certainly
I had never thought of, But hearing them say it
was like, yeah, absolutely, what kind of a message does
that send to the people watching? So I can see,
of course why that would bother you. And it's very interesting.
Thank you for providing that perspective for us too, because
we have had you know, a lot of writers on

(47:41):
and we've often talked about how the writer whose name
is on the script, they are always almost like, oh, well,
that really funny thing you're talking about, Oh that you
don't give me all the credit for it. It was
a group effort. But it also can happen in the
reverse way, where your name is on a script and
something is in there that you do not like, that
you're not proud of, that you actually completely do not

(48:02):
agree with, and yet people want to then give it
to you and say, well, you're the one who wrote it,
and we haven't really had that perspective on the show before.
So thank you for one your honesty and telling us
about that and you know, bringing that up for us
because it's a perspective we have not experienced on the
show before.

Speaker 4 (48:22):
Okay, thank you. Brubby's world Guy's name me. Yeah, and
we had a really good time. And why what you're
What they said about that moment with Angela really hits
home with me again, Yeah, because part of what they
said to me was, as two young black men, how

(48:44):
a lot of the episodes I wrote, especially in a
different world, really affected them and their families and their community.
You know, thank me.

Speaker 5 (48:58):
Right in a positive way, Yeah, thank me for the
messages in those episodes.

Speaker 4 (49:04):
And then you know, for them to think, what Gary,
what is he doing to this platform? You know? So, yeah,
you have no voice, and I guess this is kind
of a voice, so a little bit of rebuttal right exactly.

Speaker 5 (49:31):
So then in season six, we just watched your episode,
your script of that season, You're Married, You're Dead. I
am assuming that that was maybe a script that had
it been for anything other than for a Family show
on Friday nights probably would have taken place in a
strip club. Is that correct?

Speaker 4 (49:47):
That's exactly right, you know. And again I'm guilty, uh wrong,
wrong arena for that show. But again, I mean, he's
a college kid. I know these kids do, they go
to strip club. So it was a strip club in

(50:08):
my draft. It got changed. In fact, in my draft,
I think it said the women are as scantily clad
as network standards and practices will allow. Yeah, caviat I
put in there, and you know, I got changed at
club club odges and that by the end that girls
were dressing like nuns. It wasn't It was.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
Like, who do is light right exactly?

Speaker 4 (50:34):
You talk about the change in an episode. Now, I'm
not defending an episode, so not like I would defend
the Drinking Show or anything else. I know, it's kind
of fun. But the whole Eric Jack Rachel storyline was
completely known my script. They were vying for her attention,

(50:56):
and they hired a College of buff college guy to
woo Rachel because their their theory was she's more susceptible
on the rebound. So we get this cut of dumper
and then one of us makes in that was that storyline,
how they how they wound up in club. I don't remember.

Speaker 6 (51:17):
That's fine because I actually really like the idea of
having the sort of male version of eye Candy coming
in because then you have like a storyline, yeah you have,
and how they would think that, that's how she would
think by you know, we're just gonna.

Speaker 5 (51:36):
Here's a question. Did you create the tushy dance?

Speaker 4 (51:45):
You know, I watched the episode and I laughed, I said,
this is a cute episode. You know. Sometimes we'll get
you know, too analytical, too serious, and forget what we're
doing here. You know. Yeah, and I and I listened
to you guys enough to know there's a lot of
times when the comedy is suspect in a sense, but

(52:10):
you know it is common. You do need to do
that otherwise you have dramas so bal it's always hard
to do the balance. You know, you have a special episode.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
And again, yeah, we struggle with that same thing.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
We struggle with try to not sometimes we take it
too seriously. We know we take it too seriously, but
then you know, it's what we're doing, is we're analyzing
a show. That's the point of kind of what we're doing.

Speaker 5 (52:33):
We also have said several times we do not reference
enough how unbelievably difficult it is to churn out twenty
two scripts or sometimes twenty four scripts at the breakneck
speed that you guys are doing it, and receiving notes
from network and standards and practices and your actors, who

(52:56):
are you know, having opinions about things like you know,
you're not going to please everybody, and not every one
of them is going to be, oh wow, love this
a plus. You know, sometimes you're just going to have
an episode that exists and that is going to be
what it is.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Sometimes Henry Winkler is literally jumping the shark.

Speaker 4 (53:17):
Listen, and you don't know where the notes are coming from. Yeah,
and again, I'll talk at the school. I got nothing
to lose anymore. When we went on Rieba and by
the way, a little history on Riva. Alison was writing
that pilot.

Speaker 5 (53:33):
While she was on our show as Gibson.

Speaker 4 (53:37):
Alice Gibson. We became friends. She was in the office
next to me and she was telling me about it,
and then when she went to pilot on it, I
did a little work with her on it. She made
a little punch and stuff like that, so I worked
with her, and then she eventually hired me on the show.
And Reba McIntyre's husband at the time was Narvel Blackstock.

(53:58):
If you want to create a villain's name, there is.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
Trying to steal the sun.

Speaker 4 (54:05):
He used to be I think the keyboard player in
a band or the bass player, right, but no more.
Now he's her husband, and he's the first guy to
give notes after a table ry wow. And and me,
as a veteran writer, been to all the wars since
nineteen seventy nine. I said, we're taking notes from the

(54:28):
keyboard time scripts. And then way at the end, when
it got really ugly, they called me in for a
meeting and Narvel black Socks said to me, you know
that episode of football episode that we all hate something.
I said yeah. He said, well, I can't believe you

(54:50):
could go home and sleep at night and know my
wife had to stay on stage and say that that stuff,
that embarrassing stuff like that. And I said, Narvel, let
me explain something to you. It wasn't a good episode.
But sometimes we spend more time on a lousy episode
than we do in a good episode because we can't
find it, you know. So it's painstaking and it doesn't

(55:13):
work that well. But getting back to what you mentioned about,
when you're doing twenty two a season, you're going to
have some clunkers. Everybody's got to understand that, and that's
part of the deal. That's part of the experience.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
And that's for every show in the history of Hollywood.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
There's no sense like it's like finding a boxer who's
fought for twelve years and never lost.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
It doesn't exist.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
You have good episodes and bad episodes, and your favorite
show in the history of the world, whatever it is,
has had bad episodes too, So it's just the way
it works.

Speaker 5 (55:43):
Yeah, So no spoilers. We already heard a spoiler about
Chet dying because well might it.

Speaker 4 (55:52):
That was on TV.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
Yeah, but we just.

Speaker 5 (55:55):
Haven't watched it since it was on It's a spoiler
for us because we have not seen it since the nineties.
Writers never watched it, so this it will be writers
first time seeing it. It'll be Will and I only
are second time seeing it ever.

Speaker 4 (56:08):
Give I can give you a little tease for it.

Speaker 5 (56:10):
Okay, Okay, it's called Will have a Good Time then, right, Okay.

Speaker 4 (56:16):
A lot of a lot of my scripts, I'll use
song lyrics. That's from the.

Speaker 5 (56:22):
Best song Big.

Speaker 4 (56:23):
Harry Chapman fan and have a lot of her lyrics. Actually,
the alcohol shows was from Crosby Stow's Nash and Young
loved the one You're with. Yeah, so I told this
to you right on the strike line. Maybe you don't recall.
We'll remember at the table read for the for the

(56:45):
check dying show writer wasn't there. He couldn't make it.
He was sick for some reason. He wasn't at the table,
and Matt Nelson read write his part. And I love
Matt Nelson, great guy, rest in peace, but not right
or strong? And and and the script tanked at the table.

(57:09):
It did, And I knew this is a damn good script,
you know, and said I was experienced enough to know
that it was still a good script. And I didn't
need ABC executives to tell me whether it's good or not.
I know. And I said, it's it's not a good
experience where you don't have the lead guy in the show.
Not right exactly script. And so I'll leave it at

(57:31):
that because I will save what Michael Jacobs said right
after the read and in the room with everybody there.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
How's that for a TOI, Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 (57:49):
He held up the script and said, I know what's
wrong with this, and I can fix I was sitting
right next to him and instead of saying, you know right,
it couldn't be here today, So you know, so that's
the kind of stuff that you know comes with the

(58:12):
territory and write into your credit when we went up
and started making changes, and you said to Michael, I
really liked what was here before back. Yeah, and and
again that's I think I wrote five episodes for the show,
but that's by far my favorite. I think Rachel has

(58:38):
a much more significant role as a person in that script,
and she normally has, although she is still a sex object.
That's that's the mantle that that we bear. But but anyway,
that's what we can talk about that when we talk about.

Speaker 5 (58:57):
You mentioned that you you knew you have kind of
reputation for writing these very kind of poignant, heavier Yeah.
Did you recognize it, yeah, very special episodes. Did you
recognize it at the time? And where do you think
that comes from with you?

Speaker 4 (59:15):
I don't know because I really pride myself and this
may sound egotistical and somewhat cocky, but I've always felt
like I'm the funniest guy in any room I'm in
uh huh, and I write real funny stuff. But at
the same time I've been able to, you know, go

(59:35):
into those areas again with the parameters of a sitcom
and deal with really, really hard issues. A racial violence
episode I wrote for Different World couldn't even air today
because of what the content is, the things that are

(59:57):
said that we don't say anymore, you know, And it
was as controversial as an episode could be. I'm very
proud of it. And there used to be a I
think he was a doctor professor at Harvard or or Yale,
doctor Alvin Grussan, and he basically was the spokesperson for

(01:00:20):
the black community for want of a better description. And
one script I wrote about, which is about a restricted
country club, again a Different World, one of our characters
was asked to join a white club and his son
had a problem with it, and it was about tokenism
and all that stuff, right, and he said, this is
one of the hardest hitting episodes on race I've ever read.

(01:00:42):
I hope it's well accepted. So that's the kind of
thing that you know, I liked, But at the same time,
I go work right, want of those accolades, but you know,
they're good to be good, and they're satisfying, and sometimes
they're more meaningful than writing a great joke. Yeah, well,
a great joke, a great joe.

Speaker 5 (01:00:59):
What do you think, speak of jokes? What do you
think gives you more satisfaction getting a laugh from the
audience or getting a laugh from the writer's room.

Speaker 4 (01:01:07):
Oh, the audience were too beat up in the writer's room.
There's nothing coming out of the writer's room that you
can really apply to anything else. It's we're all worn out.
I think you know. There's there's other stuff going on
in the writer's room. There's this competition. There's joke anger,

(01:01:29):
but a great joke when you write a great line.
I love great lines. I thought I had written down
something that Eric said in the episode that he's not in.

Speaker 5 (01:01:43):
From your script, that he wasn't But.

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
You know, I don't seem to have it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
I can't wait to read that draft though.

Speaker 4 (01:01:53):
You can see what I'm talking about. We can rename
it a Tale of two Acts, because.

Speaker 5 (01:01:59):
We would love that.

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
It certainly is so.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
I have I have a question for you, then, with
all the work you've done, is there and not saying
to take anything away from any room you've been in.
But when you look back, what do you think was
the funniest writer's room you've ever been involved in.

Speaker 4 (01:02:17):
I love the Boy Meets World people I work with,
I really do, not saying that because it's your show,
but I think Bliz and Buddies writers room was so tough.
Guys would get up and cry. I mean we were
so brutal with each other. But there was just ah

(01:02:39):
with some magical comedy coming at it. Yeah, and I
had to do. Chris Thompson created it and Chris has
gone too. He was a dear friend of mine and uh,
you know he sets the tone for what the show
show should be. Uh, but Boy Meets World is close.
I had a good room on a fresh print, a

(01:03:01):
different world was a little bit more serious. Give me
a break. So so that stuff. So I'd say Bus
and Buddies and then then.

Speaker 5 (01:03:12):
You guys, Wow, that's a good company to be in.

Speaker 4 (01:03:16):
I think you guys are been blessed by some really
good writing and yeah, at a time some not so.

Speaker 5 (01:03:25):
You mentioned your dear friendship with Bob Tishler, and you
mentioned the book. You guys wrote a book called Impossible
and unfortunately, as you also mentioned, we lost Bob last year,
so we will not have the opportunity to have him
on our podcast. So we wanted to ask you, as
a dear friend of his, what would you like people

(01:03:46):
to know about Bob?

Speaker 4 (01:03:49):
Well, I wish I was prepared for this. You know,
you guys have been on a while with this podcast,
and Bob and I were always planning to come on together,
and you know, because we had some great stories, and
we probably had more courage together to tell some of
those stories because you know, certain people aren't gonna like

(01:04:12):
those stories. But anyway, but Bob, Bob was a wonderful
human being. He was giving, he was caring. I'll give
you one example that Bob Tisher did on Board this World. Okay,
there was a pilot written by two of our young writers.

(01:04:33):
He stuck up for these two riders whose pilot was
being co opted by another source. And I was standing
there and saw him do this, and it was in
that moment my respect for Bob's sword. I said, this
is this is a guy, you know, because he's just
a decent human being and a great writer. You know, Bob.
Bob produced Saurday Night Live. He was a writer. He's

(01:04:57):
got a great pedigree at and you know, I guess
we were. We were joined at the hip hop world
because we were two of the older guys. We were
two former showrunners, and now we're thrust into this this
very particular set of circumstances in terms of the creative
aspects of the show. And uh, you know, we we bonded.

(01:05:19):
And then of course, in harder times as we got older,
and you know, there's ages in the industry, we wrote out.
We wrote scripts and screenplays and pilots and pitched here
and there, you know, and then eventually we wrote our
book and it didn't make any money. But he was

(01:05:39):
a great guy. And when I got really sick, he
was there for me. And when he got really sick,
I tried to be there as best I could for him.
But you know, lost a great friend.

Speaker 5 (01:05:52):
Yeah, I'm sorry for your loss.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Well, we we often talk about one of our biggest
regrets is not realizing are being able to to see
the talent that we had writing for us at the time,
and to be able to sit down and talk to
you all about I mean again, Danielle will come on
and you know, reading your resume and I'm just sitting
there going, I can't believe I didn't get I would

(01:06:15):
sit there and would have peppered you with questions about
Laverne and Shirley and all stuff. And we just didn't know.
We were young and wrapped up in ourselves.

Speaker 5 (01:06:22):
And IMDb didn't exist. We didn't we didn't know to
ask for your CV.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
Yeah, I'm so sorry that we didn't have more respect
for the men and women that were actually putting the
words in our mouth, because what a staff we had,
and we just we didn't know.

Speaker 4 (01:06:38):
Everybody has their own story, you know, mine, as I said,
it's kind of like kind of cinderellaish and the sends
and Kermit Defer goes to Hollywood. You know, I grew
up a working class kid in Brooklyn and the last
thing ever in my mind was that I would one
day be doing this, you know. Yeah that so that
that's you know, that's the nature of it all. And

(01:07:01):
same thing goes with it for you guys. You know,
you all have individual stories and and things happen and
things that life takes many turns. I mean, I'm going
to be seventy seven on Saturday.

Speaker 5 (01:07:11):
Wow, Happy birth Happy birthday.

Speaker 4 (01:07:14):
So I guess I'm one of those guys who said
I've seen it all and yet I haven't seen anything.

Speaker 5 (01:07:24):
Well, here we are, thirty years later, still talking about
That's World.

Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
That's the most amazing book. I know it's thirty year
because the last season in February. Last season, my youngest child, Alexander's,
and she just turned twenty five. Yeah, there's a good barometer.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
For how Man.

Speaker 5 (01:07:44):
Yeah, exactly. What do you think is the reason why
Boy Meets World still resonates with all these generations.

Speaker 4 (01:07:55):
I've got to give Michael this props there for keeping
that show live for all those seasons. You know, that's
no small feet, and of course the creative talents that
were involved in working the storylines and the episodes and
the arts, but it's mostly you, guys. You cannot substitute talent.

(01:08:18):
You can't substitute for talent and likability. And I'm really
stressing likability. Are all likable characters. People loved you, People
are rooted for you, People became invested in you. And
that's good because that's good because it allows the audience
to escape and to feel something else and feel and

(01:08:39):
I think that's the magic of it. And you know,
you know, writing is great. You know, it's hard, and
good writing is wonderful. God, look at the stuff that's
on today in terms of what's wonderful writing, but great casting. Boy,
you just can't you can't beat it. And that's what
happened on this show. And Danielle, you know, I listened

(01:08:59):
to the first podcast and what you went through. But
thank goodness that the negative part of it didn't happen.
And look what happened to you and.

Speaker 5 (01:09:09):
You became an icon so exactly, I know.

Speaker 4 (01:09:12):
And the other side of it is it could have
gone south. It could have gone the other way.

Speaker 5 (01:09:16):
Absolutely, I very easily could have been let go. And
I that show changed my life. And I've you know,
I certainly every single week I was there up until
about season midway through season six, every single week I
was there, it was like, this is the greatest thing
that's ever Like, Okay, how much this.

Speaker 4 (01:09:39):
There's another interesting dynamic to what you're doing now is
you're now adults with your own grown up lives, and
back then you were kids and and and so I
think probably while your podcast is so popular, aside from
the show itself, is you you you three? And and

(01:10:01):
how you've changed and what your lives are like. And
you know, it's almost looking at your own kids and saying, well, yeah,
and they's succeptful doing things, and so on and so forth.
So there's there's added elements to to all this. So
I don't think Boys World could be a pigeonholed as
a show. I think it's more of a of a thing,
of a lifestyle in and of itself going on.

Speaker 5 (01:10:26):
It's its own You're right, it's its own organism.

Speaker 3 (01:10:31):
It's a cultural phenom of some it definitely goes beyond Yeah,
I like that.

Speaker 4 (01:10:39):
Yeah, I got that.

Speaker 5 (01:10:42):
Gary. Thank you so much for being here with us,
for joining us. You're we could listen to your stories forever.
We appreciate your perspective, We appreciate you coming on and
spending your time with us, and I appreciate you for
sharing all that stuff about Bob too. And not being
able to have him on is going to be really
high up on our list of regrets of this show

(01:11:04):
that we didn't have him on sooner and then we
missed the opportunity. So thank you for sharing with us
a little bit about him, and your book Impossible that
you wrote with him is available. I think you can
get it on Amazon, So if anybody's interested in reading that,
you can you can find that.

Speaker 4 (01:11:21):
Thank you, Gary, it's problems. I guess I'll speak to
you guys soon about.

Speaker 5 (01:11:29):
About the Chat episode.

Speaker 4 (01:11:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
Chat, Yeah, we got to know what's going on.

Speaker 5 (01:11:32):
I know we haven't seen that episode yet, so it's
hard for us to talk about it before. But we
can have you back on when that episode comes around
so that we can we can get the behind the
scenes scoop on that episode as well.

Speaker 4 (01:11:42):
Boiler Alert is a hospital?

Speaker 5 (01:11:44):
Oh god, is mister Turner still there?

Speaker 3 (01:11:51):
One character after another sharing rooms?

Speaker 4 (01:11:54):
Nice?

Speaker 5 (01:11:55):
Well, thank you Gary. We'll have you back to talk
about that. To see you by.

Speaker 3 (01:12:02):
Oh man, we gotta have another lunch. We gotta have
a lunch.

Speaker 5 (01:12:06):
A lunch with Gary.

Speaker 4 (01:12:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:10):
I had that.

Speaker 6 (01:12:10):
Experience meeting him on the on the strike line. It
was really revelatory, just because I'd never talked to Gary
when we were back back on the show and there
was really kind of if anything there was. I thought
he was like, not not really a writer. I thought
he was more like a I got somehow the story

(01:12:31):
got down to me that like Gary had to be
there and that you know, so to find out that
he was as much of a pro as he was.
He clearly has, but he was just so you know,
he took a back seat on our show.

Speaker 4 (01:12:44):
He took a back seat.

Speaker 3 (01:12:46):
I had no idea.

Speaker 6 (01:12:47):
And so when I went we saw him on the
strike line, we started talking. I was like, oh, you
you are very aware of what's going on. You are
very clearly a creative force to be reckoned with. And
I just had no idea and and yeah, and he
shared with me then.

Speaker 3 (01:13:00):
Basically what he shared now.

Speaker 6 (01:13:01):
Is that he just had so much respect for us
as actors and was so happy to be writing for us,
which at the time I had, you know, he just
took it for granted.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
Yeah. So yeah, Well, don't you remember the joke was
that we we even put in our movie that we
thought he was a mob boss because.

Speaker 6 (01:13:16):
It was worse sunglasses quiet and he was quiet and Jersey.

Speaker 3 (01:13:21):
Yeah, exactly, so that we made a joke out of that.
But yeah, we didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
We just didn't know the caliber of the people that
we had. I mean, had I known that this guy
had written for Bosom Buddies and Laverne, surely, I mean,
he's just some of the greatest sitcoms in history. So yeah,
I was one of one of the things you hindsight
being what it is you wish you could go back
and just talk to everybody about what's going on.

Speaker 5 (01:13:44):
And I really do think it's just so interesting that
this is the first time it's been brought up that
there could be something you really don't like about a
script that has your name on it. Normally it's come
up or we're like, oh my gosh, there's something so
funny in this, and they're like, hold on, don't give
me credit, Like we we haven't had somebody come on
and go, my name's on that script and I don't
like this, Like that's kind of that's one of the

(01:14:05):
first times we've had that perspective.

Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
So do they Alan Smithy in sitcom too?

Speaker 4 (01:14:10):
I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (01:14:11):
I don't know if that's even a thing, do what.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
So if a writer doesn't like their start director or director,
but it's also a writer, they'll be where it'll say
written by or directed by Alan Smithy, which is just
somebody has taken.

Speaker 3 (01:14:22):
Their name on the Hollywood Hollywood name. So anytime you
see this, please hold yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:14:28):
Thank you all for joining us for this episode of
pod meets World as always. You can follow us on
Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your
emails pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com. And
we've got merch.

Speaker 3 (01:14:39):
Apparently chet dies merch.

Speaker 5 (01:14:43):
Pod Meetsworldshow dot com will send us out.

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
We love you all, pod dismissed.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
Podmeets World isnheart podcast producer and hosted by Danielle Fischel,
Wilfredell and Write or Strong. Executive producers Jensen Karp and
Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of production, Danielle Roma, producer
and editor, Tara sudbachsch producer, Maddy Moore, engineer and Boy
Meets World super fan Easton Allen. Our theme song is
by Kyle Morton of Typhoon and you can follow us
on Instagram at Podmets World Show or email us at

(01:15:12):
Podmets Worldshow at gmail dot com