David Trainer Meets World

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Speaker 1: David, are you there? I'm here. Wow, David, how are you nice? Nice to see you, guys. I mean, I am so excited to see you. This is an amusing idea talking about talking about turning back to clock. You guys probably know how many years it is? Years? God, isn't that crazy? I know. I mean, I think one of the things that's um so like one of the reasons I'm so excited to see you. And you would have no unless somebody has told you, you would not know this, but um you know I've I've directed now almost thirty episodes of children's TV, and any time I get asked what it was that made me want to be a director, I always referred to you because when I think about what I love so much about directing children, especially because I do mostly children's TV, I think of the way that you and Jeff McCracken treated us as kids, and how much respect you had for us. And you were truthfully the first person to really give me an acting lesson, Like I learned so much from you. I couldn't even tell you how much I learned from you, and so your impact on my life in the two years that I knew you twenty seven to twenty nine years ago has literally just changed the course of my life, and I I've never really been able to properly thank you for that, so I'm super excited to say that to you. Well, thank you. I'm glad you know better to be a good influenced on avantage. We've had those two. Yeah, yeah, we've had those two. And directing young actors as a particular subset of directing, not exactly. It's in many ways like directing anybody and other ways, it's gotten some particular Yeah, well, that is actually a great question to start with. Then, I mean, you had you I don't know exactly where you started your directing career, but you were most famous for directing Designing Women from nine to ninety two, right, Yeah, I mean before that, I was a theater director and before that playwright, so so the roots are in the theater. And then came to Los Angeles to direct one episode of Designing Women and stayed for four years and became one of the producers. So that was that was sort of the beginning. But I want to go back for a second because I'm fascinated by the fact that you came from theater and so did Michael Jacobs. And I think we we tend to forget how much multi camera sitcom in particular was like a direct descendant of theater, and how much what we do as actors and as directors in that that context is pretty much theater. I mean, was that an easy transition for you or or can you talk about what that was like to go because you used to I know you used to do Shakespeare because you gave me in Ben an amazing Shakespeare lesson one day. I don't know if you remember this, but we we spent like one time reading, so I know you, but I know you were you started in classical theater and then here you are doing a kids sitcom. Can you talk about how similar or different they are? Well, you know, I think you're absolutely right that the multiple camera television comes from the theater. And my conviction is that it comes from from Flodville. Yeah, Vaudeville shows add these short plays between the musical acts, and it gave them, you know it it was my set. I mean I never it was before my time, but I screamed their beauties. A single set would be inserted in the middle, you know, in the middle of the stage. And a little play of twenty minutes or so we take place and and I've read some of them and they're remarkably like what we end up doing. So I think that what what multiple Camera did was take take the theater and and and add to it the resources of movies and and specifically of television, because it does here, it is, and so it has a lot to do. It has a lot to do. I mean almost entirely. So the transition is not that hard. Did you watch a lot of television before you started directing it? No, not particularly. Uh, you know, the way I actually specifically came to it was I directed a plan Broadway that came and played Beyoncet and when it played the Honest and you know, I had directed seven plays in a year and a half, had less money at the end of that, I've got, you know, the logical extension of this potters Field someday you know, we're not going directly, and I was very fortunately I directed good things and good places. But it's a it's and it is what it is. So I took the opportunity of being in Los Angeles and having my name in the newspaper every day because there's a big add every day for the squad, so I didn't have to explain why I was there. I didn't come as a supplicant for a beggar, and sort of poked around and figured out how to do it. And then Jim Burrows, whom I met, arranged for me to to to observe Bill Persky doing Kate. Now, so that was where I lived in York, so I sort of made that. I took the money I made at the office and basically invested in So I didn't work for a year, but I had one. I mean, I knew I had the money from the n so it was a sort of investment in the future that was unclear whether it worked out, but then it did. And then and then designing women. You know, the women were, if I understand it correctly, second hand sort of the women were looking for what they called the real director. I know, so, you know, a smart agent with most to Harry Johnson. I got this guy, and I my understanding because they also can said if you don't hire somebody else will and get regret it. So Harry and I had a long talk on the phone and he hired men and you never even met. So when I showed up at Warner Brothers. I had never seen that was designing with a shot up felt. I had never seen a camera close. I've seen sweed in New York. You know. Now you're in charge of four of the camera what they're doing, you know. So it was it was like coming in virtually with a blank mom, but with what but understanding actors and stage and stuff like that, and let's see you go from there. And so you know, you directed the first two seasons of Boy Meat's World almost exclusively. John Tracy did the pilot and then you came in and did every other episode for the first two seasons. Did you one? What was were we your first experience working then with kids? And what was that like? Well, you guys were great and fun. I mean I remember certain kinds of specifics. And presumably we will get into this like Danielle, how we got to you? Yeah, I can't wait for that story. Can wait for that story for two of us? Yeah, I mean I think we could actually get into it here. Instead of when we talk about the episode, there a lot of other things to talk about the episode. Um, let's talk about how I became Topanga because I actually just learned something from David for when it When I was trying to get David to come on the show and we were emailing back and forth, David said to me, yes, of course, how could I forget that Friday night, Michael had gone home, Michael Jacobs had gone home for Shabbat, and the actress we had hired us to Panga, was not working out. So, for those who don't know, I had auditioned for the role of Topanga and I did not even get a call back. And I know exactly why, because I had zero idea what acting was and welcome to the club. All I had done up until that point were commercials where all I was doing was playing a cute, bubbly ten or eleven year old. And I had done two episode a Full House, where again I was just kind of playing a slightly different version of myself. It was just the tiniest bit different. And I didn't know that you could change how you said things, or that you could pretend to be someone. I didn't know that at all. Truthfully, I did not know that I was. I had had no training at all. And you were cast in the episode you had one of those you were one of those girls, right, I mean the girls who are doing the science experiment. Yeah, and the girls who were talking about corries. Well, what recollection? You were one of the exactly. Yeah, it was the fish pulled out the dead. So I didn't get a call back for Topanga, but the next day I got the audition to be one of those two girls, and I booked that role, and so then I got to set and I was one of the girls who had a couple of lines the Fish Girl, and I saw David working with the actress they had cast as Tapanga. Now, I was not there for all of the topa Anga scenes because if my character wasn't in the scene, I was in school or something. But in a couple of scenes where Tapenga and the Fish Girl were together, I got to watch David work with her, and I it was literally the first lightbulb of what we were doing as actors went off in my head where I was like, oh wow, And I had that feeling you get as a kid where you're like can I can I try again? Like I really feel like I get it now? And David was working with her, and I specifically remember one line that I don't think was in the episode where when she walks away, she says peace and um, the actress, I remember this whole moment. It was just a moment that really stuck out because I remember being repeated over and over again. Her natural inclination was to say piece and walk away, and and David was saying, it's when you say it like that, it sounds down or sad, it's not. It's it's just peace. And I remember them going back and forth peace and being like, oh man, in my head, I'm hearing myself say it going I know, I think, I know. Just remember that. I remember that Friday rehearsal. It was this the whole episode was a disaster at that point. It was, and it was day one. And so for the record, the girl's name is not actually fish Girl, just so she's got her. Her name was Megan Parlor. Megan Parlor. But so anyway, long story short, Friday, the very first day, that actress who was playing to Peana gets let go. And I'm going to then let David take it because now this is stuff I don't have the inside knowledge on, but David does. David, what happened? This is what I think. Okay, there's sort of problems that you think you can solve, and then there's problems that you think you can't solve. And sort of by working with her, she moved from one camp to the other, Kip to the insoluble camp. So Michael had gone home. I mean, the way things working those days, you guys can remember it's been and I do. We had a table reading on Friday. You can bank school hours on Friday, so you guys all went to school and then late in the afternoon you got out of school and we rehearsed. But by then, if it was sundown or close to it, Michael went home. He'd done the rewriting anyone home for Shabba, So that basically in that situation, I was on stage, and Ed and John were the guys upstairs, and just Ward were the guys upstairs. So even LOUI of Michael. So I remember calling them, I think, and saying, disaster, we gotta get rid of her, and you know, what what are we gonna do? I said, no, no no, no, no, we got it. Is he here, I've seen her, right, So that's what I recollect. I think it wasn't oh this I got I don't mean I got this, but we got this we got this and again I think maybe they came down and maybe you did part of Oh no, I know exactly what happened there. Guys did a reading. Yeah it was it was said yes, yes, I mean it was self evidence that you were prints. So that okay. So that's the that's some of the holes that are filling in for me now, because we definitely did an audition. At the end of the rehearsal day, they said, Marla, Danielle, we can you guys come with us and we're going to have you read these this scene. I don't remember what scene it was, but it all of a sudden it was a parent that Marlin I were re auditioning for this other character, which um is also a kind of an uncomfortable situation because Marlin I have spent all day kind of being pals and buds and the two of us are here, you know, we're friends, were playing these scenes together where we play friends, and now all of a sudden, it's like we're both auditioning for a marching exactly. It's like thousands of domes for and so Marla went in first, and Marla did the scene, and my mom and I are sitting outside and we can hear laughing going on, talking going on, and I'm looking down at the scene being like laughing, I don't know that there are there is there? Okay, I guess there's a laugh, Like I'm stressed. Marla's going is in there. She's in there for a while. It's very talkie talkie and friendly, and I can just hear a lot of chatter. And then Marla comes out and Sally Steiner, the casting director, follows her out, and in front of us, Sally is asking for Marla's mom every possible way she can get in touch with Marla over the weekend because Marla was going up north, which I think is where she lived. She was going back up north to see her family for the weekend, and Sally was nervous, like, how are we going to get in touch with you? This is before the days of cell phone, So I need to have the house number where you live, your agents man, your agents paid, your number, your man. I need any ways of us we're going to call you over the weekend and if and if you have to come in on Monday, I need to let you know over this weekend. And I was thinking, Okay, that audition went really well, and now Daniel Fisher and now go ahead, gentleman. Daniel and I walked in and I did the scene, and then I was done. There was no like extended chatter. I walked out and turned around to see if Sally was following behind me. No one followed behind me. I've written down my numbers in case you need to get in touch of me over the record. Do you need my factor? Who's my page number? My mom's page number? It was crickets and I then my mom and I walked out and I burst into tears. I was like, I didn't do it. I didn't nail it. It was I don't know what happened. I just obviously Marla was better because I they wanted they It was clearly they want her. And I was sad, and I was like, but it's gonna be okay. I didn't you know an hour ago this part wasn't mine either, Like you know, who cares. It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. And my mom, it's now two hours past the time we're supposed to be home, and my dad has no idea where we are. He's been paging my mother like like where are you? And so my mom says, we need to call your father. And we had a Zach Morris car phone. So I call my father on the Zach Morris car phone and I am in tears and I'm trying to explain to him what happened. So we were rehearsing and there's this girl and then and then so Marlon I and he's like what He's like trying to understand what I'm saying, like why what are you even talking about? And then he goes, hold on, hold on, sorry, I have a call waiting, and he just comes back and I look at my mom and like, go waiting holding the phone like this. And then my dad comes back and says, that was someone named Sally Steiner and she told you to come back on Monday. As to Panga, none of these things are words. My dad had any idea what they meant. He didn't know Sally Steiner was. He had never heard the name to Panga. He didn't understand what was going on. And I just scream and my mom looks at me and go or we just start screaming in the car. It was I mean, it will it is a moment I will remember. I get chills thinking about it. I remember, I will remember it for the rest of my life. They couldn't find Marlow's number. It's so what's so funny is that it was a huge deal to you because being the guest star in a leading role was a big deal. But actually it didn't mean that much. It's you know, now it means everything. It changed your life. But actually from the perspective of like, you know, if if, if it had to Pango was supposed to be a one one episode, right it was from right, Yeah, it's like that, it was like, right, So it's so funny that it only it's like snowballed, you know, throughout the years. So this moment, which was a big deal for an elven year old, but like, actually, if your life had gone on and the part of you know whatever, it probably would have just faded away and been one of those fun like childhood memories. But now it's become this defining characteristic of your life. It's fascinating that's how it works. Though not because I agree with that, but when a writer like Michael writes apart like that, where there's a connection, yeah, implicitly, there's a hope that it goes on. Yeah, my honestly, so that from your point of I mean, I think every step of the way, it's like you're the fish girl, then you're auditioning, then you're happy, then you're sad, then you're happy. Right, right, that's the scene, and if it ends there is like but but from from the show's point of view, there's always about a short term storytelling in a longer short term. So I think there was it was important that the right he be cast in that part from the show's point view, or else you would have had to read do you had to find another way to introduce Corey to somebody who's going to be It's yeah, So I think it's two things. It's unimportant or or important only in retrospect and at the time really important. Well that's actually really that's a good question. Do you do you have any memories of what what I mean? Do you because at that point the show is still defining itself, The show is still trying to find its voice in a lot of ways. And had you when when you took the job to direct the first season, I'm presuming you had seen the pilot and that's why you took the job. Well, I mean I took the job because you know, it's not worth going into all the details. But my mind, Michael had wanted Michael I had a prior relationship on another show, And and then what means the world is I was supposed to Michael wanted me to do the pilot, and I did something else, and the other things fell through, and some it's like, I mean, there's a whole sort of like story upon the second second podcast doesn't have any care. Okay, well then I guess the question becomes, what do you do you remember being a part of developing the voice of Boyme's World or developing a tone, and and do you remember what those conversations were like, like did did it feel like the show was sort of baked into the pilot and into the writing, or were you still kind of fishing around for a character like to Panga, a best friend like Sean, you know, finding the parents. And I think these things are they are the thing that Boy's World have from the beginning. And I was trying to parenthetically, I was trying to think how many shows I did Jacks and I would say, okay, it's three. Oh wait, there's another four, Oh wait, there's another, just like six conceivably seven things I did with Michael over a period of say four years. Boy's World was a perfect expression of Michael's voice and I was dead. So the thing was pitched perfect from the beginning because of the connection between Michael as a writer and a voice and then as an accur so the rest thing it fell in around. You know, it felt, it felt okay, you know, I don't remember. I mean, I remember, Michael's not any who guys, Michael's not a day at the beach. Depends on the kind of day it's not. So so it's not like it was smooth and no new shows every smooth. Michael makes things harder sometimes then we have to be at the same time. This was great. I mean it was like, man, a writer has a speaker, like the Michael Benn connection, You've got yourself from the basis of real since and everything else. And I mean, I think going back to June and you know, you know that in so many ways it was evident, And I think it was evident to me even when that other girl was still there and I was thinking, I can't I'm not going to be able to make her right, this one, this one with the fish. She seems good, you know, is you can sort of feel what will do? Confuel. Well, going back to what you said about the roller coaster of you know, you're happy, you're sad, You're happy, you're sad. After I get that phone call on Friday night, Yeah, I got the part. Show back up on Monday as Topanga. I did. I showed up on Monday as to Panga, and I was now the person David was working with trying to get the you know, the right tone, the right intonation, the right deliveries, the right physicality. And it was hard for me. I was a bubbly, fast talking spunky and and uh yeah, I I it was very hard to speak slowly. It's still hard for me to talk slowly. And we worked all day and then we do, as we've discussed on the podcast before, what are weeks were like? Monday was producer run through at the end of the night, and David, I I would love to remember, and I've loved to know what your memory of this night is, because I can tell you my memory was that we we do the producer run through and we sit down from Michael's marathon note session, and I had I had never been a part of his marathon note sessions. This was my very first one because it was my very first week. And Michael starts off the notes by saying, um, Danielle, I'm going to have to I'm going to give you your notes all in one time at the end. Uh. And I'm going to give everyone else their notes now, because if I made everyone sit here through all of the notes I have for you, we would all be here for hours and no one would ever get to go home. So you're just gonna wait for the end. Welcome to the show. And I and I remember thinking, I remember like from that moment on my eyes welled up because you know, I'm honest. I'm now in front of everybody, everybody, all the producers, all the writers, all the cast, and all eyes are on me for a second, and then he just quickly moved on and for the rest for maybe the next hour, while he did go through page one, line one notes for everyone else, I have tears in my eyes, like, Okay, I don't know what's coming for me, but it's not going to be good. And then after he did everyone else's notes, he called my mom down. My mom had been sitting in the stands, like where the studio audience sits um alone, and she came down and he sat us down at the Matthews family kitchen table and literally opened up the script and went through every single one of my lines and what he wanted and what I wasn't doing right and how slow I needed to talk. And I don't remember if you were there for I don't remember if you stuck around for that or if you weren't there. I was like laser focused on my script. And I can see by the way I'm sorry, I can see this still affects you. Oh yeah, I can say profusely right now as we talked about it, it's still affects well. Because the other thing that Michael said in front of everybody, and maybe it wasn't in front of everybody, maybe it was just to my mom and I. But what I know specifically was said was all I know is if you don't come back tomorrow doing this entirely differently, you are also not going to be here referencing. Okay, I worked for like four years, okay, in multiple SIPs. This is a hateful still. I used to drive to work and go past that Bob Hope, and many days I wanted to stop and show because of how unpleasant it was to do and how I mean, there's many wonderful things, and you know, I mean believe there's many ones, but there's hateful. This is one. Yeah. It's like to hear this your sweating. I'm pissed you, I'm really pissed. And it's enough to make me want to like sign off from this podcast associated with anything that does no. No, yeah, I mean this it's just not how this is. You know, yeah, great that it became a hit with you know, I'm glad of everything like this, but this is just but what I will say is, and I agree with you. I'm not I'm not. I'm not deflecting from that. But I did go home that night with my mom, and my mom and I stayed up until probably three or four o'clock in the morning, going over every single line my mom would, just because I wanted to make sure I had it. And it was my mom saying to me slower, slower, yeah, slower, and going okay, okay, okay. And so the next day I showed up and it's Tuesday, and I rehearse again all day with David, and again I always felt so safe with you. I knew you have. Again, let me say everybody who worked with Michael understood, implicitly or explicitly, wherever Michael lurched to one side of the boat, everybody went to the other set. Yes, yes, yeah, the job was That's why I hate it ultimately, I mean, you can put this on radio. Um is the job was to do your job right, whatever that was, but also to prevent swamping and drown right. So go on. So Tuesday we do our network run through, and I again, can wait wait before we jump to that, can I ask you a very quick question. The night it's three o'clock in the morning, you're studying with your mom. Are you doing this from a place now of god, I really want to get this right? Are you doing this from a place based in fear? I really wanted to get it right. I am a type a perfectionist and I always have been. And so what is getting it right in this content? Right means making Michael happy? And that's that's the problem to me. That's what I do. You know, that's what I remember feeling, and that's what I don't think is healthy. And I don't agree that that's story. This is one I mean because you know, anticipation of telling sort of things come back into your head. So I did a show Michael basically acts as a ventrilogist and actors as things who voice whatever, like like a puppet. Right. So that's it, that's the that's Michael's reality. And that's the reason I say Ben is so important. This is because Ben was perfect, perfect, and when I watched the episodes that, yeah, he's phenomenal. He carried the whole show astounding representation of that world and that stuff. But I did a shout with Michael with Marie Osmin and Betty White and Craig Ferguson, right, and it was it was not a successful show because again Michael's voices my two dads and Boemon's world and Betty White and Marie Ostend are from bas other solar system. Well loved. But I remember this because this is when I thought I got Betty was doing something. And Betty and I became really good friends over time, and I worked with her multiple times and I adored she was doing something. She's doing so and it wasn't the way Michael and Michael said to be ever do it like Florence standing. I don't know if you guys never Florence Stanley's flander standing. I think it's the mother of a grandmother on my two deaths. But she was basically a perfect representative of Michael's before and the antithesis. But Michael take someone else's voice, and he said, have her do it like Florence. Now, tell her to do it. What Florence, Well, I didn't tell walk up to or talk about something else to come back exactly. But that's how that's your experience a three o'clock in the morning, Yeah, being told to Florence. Yeah, And he had a he had a very direct, very very precise vision for what he wanted, and there was very there was this very small margin of error outside of that that he was willing to let anybody play. And that's you know, I mean, that's fine. It's his show, it's his it's his brain child. But so we do the network run through, and all I want, all I want all day is you know, I don't see Michael during the day. Michael's not on set while we're rehearsing, so I don't see Michael at all, and all I all I want is approval. I want Michael's specifically Michael's approval, because I had lost it the day before. I did not want to lose I want and do it the exactly why I wanted tomorrow. Are you not here exactly? I have the past? Yeah, and I had already seen that happen. Well, you are twelve, it's time to learn that lesson, right, So I we do. Then we do the network run through. We sit down for the note session and again I'm sweating profusely and I have no idea what's coming. And Michael says, this time Danielle, and I'm like yes, And he stands up and all the writers stand up alongside him, and he says, let's let's give Danielle a round of applause. You know, you did exactly what I asked of you. Thank you, thank you. It was, you know, congratulations. It was wonderful. He gave me some praise about p ccivic things, and then he just started notes and I then got to sit in on a normal note session, and yeah, there were still notes for me, but it was, you know, there were no more threats of being fired. It was like, Okay, I had I had done the work, I had shown him I was worthy. And then the next day we were we were taping. But that's I mean, that's exactly he's I mean, he not to harp on this, but he set it up in such a way for now, when he gives you the standing ovation, it's like the sun is shining on you, like, I can't look at look what I've done it. I've made him feel so good. It had nothing to do with your acting or it's just make Michel and I will not lie that. It then totally sets up that you go after that. Every week you're chasing the dragon of Michael approval. You're you every week you're like, Wow, that was that was such a high. The next week, I'm going to go after that, and if you don't get it, you're you feel a like, uh, you know, I didn't I didn't hear that I was bad, But I also didn't hear that I was good. Like it's like, yeah, what does that mean? I didn't hear anything good or bad? You guys were all kids. Michael couldn't pull the stuff. Yeah, now we couldn't pull the stuff with people who weren't not yet secure in their own right. Yeah. I mean I think the most the one of the most damaging parts is creative too, which is that I remember, this sensation of the show is either working, the episodes working, or it's not, it's falling apart. And in my mind, that was something definable and concrete that everybody could see and that everybody knew or did not know in retrospect. That was whatever Michael had written that week and whatever he wanted it to be. And that's a huge distinction because as an actor, the worst thing you can do to approach material is think that there's a pre existing perfection that you need to like reach up for that that that takes away your agency, that takes away your creativity, that removes you from the process. And it was something I didn't learn until my twenties when I actually had to learn how to act and realize like, oh, what we were doing was not acting. What we were doing was what you were saying would be sort of this puppetry, this you know, showing up and and and and. Creatively, I feel like it stunted me incredibly because it didn't allow me the creative joy of discovery and experimentation and recognition that there is no right or wrong in art. There's just what we want to make. As a team as a collaborative, you know, exercise together. Uh, And we never had that atmosphere on set. We I never had that sensation. Especially as a kid, you just feel like, oh, where we're missing something. Somebody's gonna get fired if something is not right or if we don't make this one person happy. And in my mind, it wasn't you know, it wasn't even always conscious that it was one person, because you have an entire system of people enabling that, you know, work to keep that power dynamic in places. And that's why I appreciated the directors you, Jeff McCracken, you know, name your director that we had, but especially in those early years, because you guys always let us know that we were creative individuals with our own input. And I know that you were in a tough position, but it was exactly why I wanted to direct on Girl Meets World. And that's what I sort of wanted to crack open for those kids, was to was to sort of say to them like, hey, you get to make your own choices here, you know, like the acting is a creative endeavor that you bring. It's not just it's better. Yeah, and people people have used a good word where their agency is eating. But of course going to what you were saying though about writers saying, you know, kind of letting us do our own thing, and uh, you know, supporting us and doing our own thing and encouraging us to do our own thing. You I was in a strange position when the show started right around these episodes, because it was there was kind of we always talk about the two boy meets worlds, and there was kind of the boy meets role that was happening in the school where you're now introducing to Panga. Sean is starting to get a little bit more of a voice. Corey's there, who's just like a tiny little stand up comedian who is carrying the show and is hitting beats that are well beyond his age that I'm noticing now as an adult, where I'm just going, how did he put He's he's phenomenal. He's phenomenal and really carried the show. And then you had the family dynamic, which was the parents relationship with Corey his relationship with them, and then Morgan and Eric would come in and say like a funny line here or there and leave. So I was kind of like floating around at this point and I remember having a conversation with you, and it was one of the brief ones because again I had no character really and they didn't know what Eric was gonna do or was going to become. And it was this moment where it was it's what every actor kind of needs to hear, where we were having a talk about that where I said, well, you know, I'm just kind of coming in and saying the line and not really establishing anything, and you looked at me and said, that's why you gotta make account. And you turn and you walked away. And it's that more and it's that exact moment I remember of Hey, if I have one line, I'm gonna get the biggest laugh of the show, because then next show I'm going to have to you know. So it was that kind of those little acting gems you would throw out occasionally, just like well all right, you got one line, make account and you turn and walked away. And it was that kind of little thing. Those are the things that stick with an actor. It's not the the I don't remember the three hour note sessions. I remember the length of the sessions, but I don't remember what was actually imparted any of the wisdom that was imparted, but little really, No, man, I think you were older and you were more secure, and you were coming in, you know, as a professional actor should, which is, I've only got two lines. I'm gonna make them count, and you are able to scaffold your way up to the character and to the part in in in a conversation, a healthy creative conversation with the writing staff right where you're like, they write a couple of jokes for you. You come in, you do your thing, the audience responds. Next week they add more, and then you add more, and then you add more, and you can see that That's how Eric became the entire comic relief of Bodey's world, which is wonderful. But you know that it was in a healthy creative conversation. You know, I don't think that for Danielle and I or you know, I will speak for myself. I didn't have that same sort of creative conversation. I felt like I was living up to someone else's expectations and needing to match them in the dramatic sphere. Less so, because you know, and I think that's where I ended up thriving on the show as a more of a dramatic actor because I kind of tapped out of the comedy by season three, like and I think we'll see as we're watching, I think I just gave up because I was like, I'm not going to be that guy, Like I'm not that, you know. I just wasn't as interested in it first of all. But I also didn't want to compete in that field, you know, and it just was like no, whereas in the drama side, I felt much more comfortable. I felt like I could own it more. I felt like mine in a way because it was somewhat unexpected, and I don't think it was, you know, as as as built into the sitcom form, so I could sort of. I mean, the best part, the best moments in Going its World are funny, but they're not necessarily jokes, although frankly they're all jokes right right, right, but jokes can be better or worse delivered. They detonated in a certain way or not. Dramatic stuff it's arrived at differently and rendered different, so that that is a place where it's really hard to say. I mean, you can say something stupid like cry, Now that's not gonna work. I've got so very quickly. I've got a very funny David Trainer story because I was thinking to myself, like what sticks out in my head, and here's one of my favorites. We're doing a family scene in the kitchen and lially like they hurt. Lily's on running gag was loving something and then throwing it away, like where it's like, I love this and then they chuck it away and she wasn't getting it right. She had a doll. It was it was not this episode, it was a later episode, but she had a doll where she has to come down I love this doll and throw it away, and she wasn't throwing it right. David, You're getting a little more frustrated, a little more frustrated. So finally you go, Lily, it's not that hard. You just do this, and you picked at the doll and you threw it right through the window. It smashed right through the window and actually, actually that's right, it's just right through there. And we all lost it that everybody on the set was laughing astirday and he's like, it's not that hard. You just do this and smashes it right through the glass. Right, It's like the six ft four, How tall are you? David? Like towered over the basically came up to my kneecap and she the whole thing. I don't know if you jump ahead to the you know, at the end of the season, like this imperial capacity, but I'm blame. Came up before the show with the act after introduce in them you know here tonight to the audience and I just well, an we picked up for the season, and every you know, we all cheered and clapped and we're excited, and where she starts screaming, I don't want to do this so well, you know what that was? Actually that was actually the back nine of our fat was when we were taping the thirteenth episode and we got the back nine and Michael announced it in front of the audience and literally just started balling. Yeah, because that's the downside of you know, Danielle, you talk about you and clearly all three of you, how to ceiling for wanting to be performance, and how to be performance on your own terms, and how to relate to the needs the demands that made it she didn't want to Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was actually when you watch it, I think, who's that Wait, what little thing. Just wa you feel bad? I know, I I mean, yeah, we I'd love to I wish, I hope, I hope. I'd love to have her on to talk about her memories and her thoughts on it. And she's wonderful and doing very well and she's got a beautiful she's doing great. Um So, David, why did you not direct anymore after season two? Where did you go? What was what's the situation? Why didn't we see more of you? You know? We? I think I came back once or twice and did sort of like pop in and because it was fun to see you guys and fun to come back. My recollect I had done might have been showed before BOMs World called Where I Lived with Ducky Duck and I directed most and that like got twelve episodes and cancel something like that, although it was a lot of fun to do. And then and then after Bomi's World, we did another show or other shows like that might have been Betty White and very awesome. So I sort of moved on, and then we did we did another show called You Could Tell This was a Disaster. And they're making Misery Loves Company. That sounds like one of the there was this wonderful guy work for Michael years with Michael. You're saying, Bob Young credibly gifted, funny, gracious, he just heaven, you know, And we were preparing to do a part. I mean, I really are just dividly sitting in Michael's office at Disney Animation and we were casting, when we were doing something listen and Bob Young said, in this wonderful, faux plaintive voice, Oh, Michael, just once, can't we try to be successful? You know, the misery loves company. That's Michael things right that. I don't know that that's what Bob was addressing, but it was like that, like one of these really missed the guy. The ideas that Mike cos They's world however, however, was it was a very successful mix of aliments. That's the reason such a big success. And that's the reason that she met watched and remember, yeah, and you went on to direct every single episode of that sevent I was thinking about that. We were talking about it because those those guys when we started were a little older. They were sort of mid late teens. I think Meal with fifteen because I remember going to Meal a sixteenth birthday party, so I know she was fifteen, but which is older than twelve. I mean, it's yes, a big difference. She had acted a lot as it. But that was so freeing. Those guys were so inventive and that and the way we worked. You were left alone and did it, and they brought some characters, became them, and they became the characters, I mean the whole thing. And the writers. You know, the way I was thinking, writer, you were saying something before which I think it's been the truth. In an ideal world, a week of rehearsal on a multiple camera comedy is a conversation the writer's writers script, the actors were hurst on the show, and the writers responded, and the right respond to what the writers, and this conversation goes on back and forth until Friday night, or in the case of one's borth Thursday night, and then it's done. The conversations over when you shot, and then you started another conversation. The next Yeah seventies show was eight years of really engaging, interesting, funny conversations, and we got so we could do that show. We pre shot some stuff, but we do. We do two and a half hour, started, six thirty, be done. We do things twice and move on maybe with the line, but everybody, everybody was like so the freedom to be themselves and then to be remarkable. So I look at that, even though it's different in some respects because of the age difference, it's still about kids, right, So it's just an antithetical experience. And heaven, we'll look how successful and most of the cast has been after the show. I mean, I think a lot of that also comes from having that kind of environment to grow as an actor to where then you you have a love of of the craft and you want to go on and pursue it. Where a lot of us when we finished, boy were like, I'm done for a little while. Um, And I think that's a there's a big difference. I mean truly, well they had you guys were I think that's right. You know that you you whatever great gifts Because you look at the Sharmena and I see the gifts that you guys broke to you. You come away and think this was not fun. It was not seventy show was blast completely. Times are times and didn't. It's like episodes, they're not all bliss, but overall, Yeah, and I don't think that any of you would say, yeah, I got I got a little I got away with it a little more. I had a little more of the freedom. I was kind of left alone a little bit more, which gave me a little more love of the genre that I think the younger cast was. Who I think we're beating up a little more than I was. I mean there were times where I just kind of slid under the radar and would do what I wanted to do, and you guys would be kind of battered a little bit. So, yeah, it's uh, different experiences on different sets. I guess would be high. I know some guys we're talking about their sons who were good baseball in high school and you know, come up towards college and come up there with stent verging on being able to keep professional basebook place, and they would have a high school coach that we beat the love of the game. By the time they got out of high school, they didn't want to play basebook. I have two friends that had that with the where the kids were really good and the coach over stressful. Yeah, I just said, not playing. Yeah, it's so when I hear those stories, I'm so sad. Do you have a favorite episode looking back, have you, first of all, have you watched other than us asking you to rewatch episode number one oh four for us? Have you ever watched another another episode? Do you remember any other episodes? Do you have a favorite? No, I remember because I haven't really watched it. I don't really watched stuff. I mean, I don't even really watch that seventy show once in a while. I mean I remember going to a gym where it was on sometimes the city I'd look up and say that was mine back to But but I I really don't like watching, so I liked what I liked watching the episode that we were watched here. What I remember is basically troupe setups, things like the classes or the bed or the you know, you remember that kind of stuff because half our comedies like this are made up of recognizable elements that are assembled differently every right, the character elements are different, and seeing it or the storytelling, the elements are different. But it's like, I mean, I just a ridiculous analysis of forgiving me. But it's like classical ballet. There's five steps, right, that's it. There's flavet steps. Look what you can do flast steps? Yeah, I say the blues is three chords, but some people can play it really, really well. Did you keep in touch with anyone producers? Writers? Are you in touch with Michael? Is there anybody who kept no no David Kendall over the years, Dandy Kendall a divine again, Like, here's this interesting thing Michael attracted really Yeah, and they ended up there about but they were like David Kendall and jump, you know, great David. David Kendall and I still have a great relationship, a wonderful smart When I started directing, I shadowed Kendall and it was it was crazy. It was like, man, look at us thirty years later. He's such a good guy, and he's gay, and and Bob Young just stupendously Yeah, and and sort of again, what's interesting about that? Very accomplished and high people with high standards, but temperamentally relaxed. I think of myself. I don't know whether I'm temperamentally relaxed or not. I wasn't relaxed here, Michael. I was throwing up in Babo Park, right. But basically that Michael picked people to work with him who would go to the other side of the book, who understood that balancing. So they're wonderful gods. I mean, David Candid as a prince. Do you quick question, do you remember working with April Kelly? Yes, dimly. You know, she got marginalized as a voice quite early. What a surprise based on and then I think by the second year she had withdrawn drawn because I see it was who knows that's about mine? Well, she's listed as a writer on both this episode one oh four that we're going to talk about next and one oh three that we talked about last week. We had Bill and Bonnie on and she's listed as a writer and both of those and both of those episodes are incredible. Um. And so it is such a shame that she didn't stick around and didn't, you know, get to do more because I never saw her again, by the way, never know, nothing absolutely disappeared. And I think it was probably there's no room for another voice. Can't have two generals in that room, and and and so she had to be gotten. But so she's like she's like our J. D. Salinger though, like where is she in the world? Make a mission of this podcast? Knows what she remembers and what she would you know, I'm still wherever I've said in this podcast, I'm still holding that like crazy, So I go along. But you know, but there wasn't room for another. There wasn't room for and it's it's sort of undignified. Yeah, to be co creator and then to be treated like cast off. Are you speaking? Yeah? Yeah, well yeah, I was gonna say it's hard. It's it was really hard to be a girl and a woman in um in that environment. For that is a very democratic way of saying, yeah, yeah, it's you know something, And here's what's important. The president of Michael's company was Dog Turnosky, a woman of tremendous and smart and I mean did for Michael, held the business, held that dysfunctional part of Michael's universe, held it together, and she became, you know, the head of head of the c W. She's a major platify. She's really smart and nice and great and she so in a funny way, Michael, it's not an environment for women. And yet there was somebody absolutely central to the Yes, it was Yes, I remember don she was, I remember her being ridiculously smart. Yeah. Susan Jansen was another one. I remember, being a Harvard lad and I don't stay tough, and I stay tough with admiration, you know, with a with a willingness and ability to take it whatever it was. Yeah, it's like when people say you're just so resilient, and you know they mean it as a compliment, and yet really how you feel is I wish I didn't have to be so resilient, which were amazing. Yeah. Well, coming up next, we are going to recap episode number one oh four Corey's Alternative Friends. We're going to walk through um so many memories, including how I came up with the choreography for the famous Doughnut in the Sky dance while also being terrified that I was going to get fired. So that'll be fun, and David is sticking around, So join us for episode the next episode one oh four Corey's Alternative Friends, where David Trainer joins us to talk about the episode. First time we see Tapanga, that's the first time we see Tapanga. Can't amazing, amazing, I can't wait. And the first time we meet my sister Stacy. Yes, the last legend, and it's also the last time we meet your last Stacy reference. All right, don't forget. You can follow us on pod Meets World Show on Instagram, and also be sure to email us your thoughts, your opinions, what you want to hear more of things you love, things you don't love. You can email us at Pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com. We love you all, pod dismissed. Pod Meets World is an I heart podcast produced and hosted by Daniel Fishel Wilfred L and Ryder Strong Executive producers, Jensen Carp and Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Taara soup Boch, producer, Lorraine Vurez, Engineering Boy meets World super fan Eastern Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at Pod Meets World Show or email us at Pod Meats World Show at gmail dot com