TGI-Episode 105 ("Killer Bees”)

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Do you remember the nineties ads that were like be the couch. Do you remember that terrible don't? ABC had a whole thing be the couch? You couch potatoes are your friend. I still we had those yellow It was like it will And I do remember the argument we got into that year. We went to the party where there was the ABC Beginning of the Year party where we got those like that gear because that was the whole campaign. It was like TV is good for you, right, and so it was like this like whole and we got all this stuff like mugs and sweaters and T shirts or whatever. And we were driving back from the party, were driving me. It was me and then my college girlfriend at the time, and you and we we got into such a huge debate, and I remember like we were screaming at each other because you were pro TV and I was anti TV and this campaign launched this discussion, and I remember you just being like, what so it's better for a whole family to sit around with their noses and books. No, we're talking to each other. And I remember I finally just had to say, will, You're gonna drop us off at home? And I don't want to talk about this anymore. It's like one of the few times I cut off, but it ended up being I ended up doing a whole thing in college. I think later on that year that was actually about the negative. I did a presentation about trying to research the negative effects of television, and I came out on the other side. It was funny. So you did change me, you know. You talk about the times when I've changed opining, and this was a very clear time when I got so flustered and upset with you, you know, because in part I felt defending being anti TV was important to me because I think at the time it defended it defended the way I had been raised, you know, which made me feel different or special from everybody. And I think also at that time I was very frustrated with boy's world and the sense of the lack of control I felt in my life, and so blaming TV or thinking that TV is this like awful monster was somehow the way I was processing it. And I remember, you just like cut through all that bullground. I also had a friend at the time who said to me, he was like, you know, writer, you hating television and then working in it is sort of like people that that that uh, you know, work at tobacco companies, but that don't smoke themselves or or talk about and it was like, right, there is some sort of ethical problem. It was, yeah, but anyway, you totally change. I remember that that college semester, I ended up doing a whole presentation about television. I went into the history of television um and and ended up sort of positive about You know, of course that there aren't that many negative effects to television watching the necessarily, but there's always been a moral panic around it. Every generation is a moral panic or right, but it is a pretty horrible campaign. I just remember, be the couch. Be the couch I have. I still have a mug every you know, and sometimes I'll grab it just by accidents with all my other mugs, and it just says ABC on one side in bright yellow, the couch is your friend. I love it. Man. I wish I had that mug. Welcome to Pod Meets World. I'm Daniel Fishal, I'm right or strong, and I'm Wilfredell. I don't know if you've heard, but we've gotten merch. That's right. We have got shirts on shirts on shirts. Some might say we have too much shirts, which is one of the shirts we have. We have a Pod meets World shirt, a too Much shirt shirt. We have a shirt with a heart that says Pod Dismissed, which is super cute. And I don't know if you heard the episode last week with Leon Norris a k a. Steward Mangus, but we have a hold the Plane for Mangus shirt. But we only have that shirt for one week, so please jump on it. If you want it, grab it now, get it while it's hot. You can get all of the shirts at Pod meets World show dot com. And if you get your shirt, put it on, take a picture, put it on Instagram, tag us. We will re quote you, picture, you will instagram you, You'll be on our story. I'm young, so I'm really excited about this episode. Um our. Last episode, we had a fantastic opportunity to talk to Lee Uh. It was so great to have him on. He's just incredible and so is the character of Mincus. And this is a fantastic Mincus episode. Now, this is the first episode you guys filmed. You talked about that in the episode with Lee. Uh, We're we finally arrived. Episode one oh five, the first episode you guys all recorded together Killer Bees. Nicki Cox makes her appearance finally, and uh yeah, and we have the one guy as Ellis he's back and um yeah. This synopsis is that Corey enters a geography b for a chance to be a bat boy at the World Series. Eric is going to an Aerosmith concert with his date, Nicki Cox and is embarrassed that his mom and dad are going to the same concert. Yeah. I So. The thing I remember most about this episode not only being as nervous as I've arguably ever been in my life, and that's saying something when you're anxiety boy, but I distinctly remember the scene at the end that we'll get to. Uh was my audition piece, Like this was These were the lines I had to say to get the role of Eric Matthews Cot the parents being at the same concert, And I remember the monologue almost verbatim still because it was so important and I worked on it and I, you know, tried to try to make it my own, which of course it was. I was very stiff. Eric stilldon and it. Oh it's one of those things. We're watching it now from a comedic standpoint. I'm somehow missing two jokes in every one line, and I just want to go back and grab myself and be like, dude, you just missed four jokes somehow, like you could have made all of that funny. It worked at the time, but just where the character ended up, it was like, man, that could have been so much funnier if you do it this way. But that's what I remember most about this episode was being nervous meeting Nikki um and uh and this was my audition piece, Like this was how I got Eric Matthews. So this was a fun episode to watch. And by the way, and I've said this before, we talked about how amazingly is and he's incredible in this Ben had some moments in this episode that were laugh out loud funny. So I can't wait. Well, it was written by Michael Jacobs, April Kelly, and Susan Estelle Janssen. Um. I remember Susan, but I don't. Yeah, whatever ended up happening to her? Where did she go? Was? She just came and wrote an episode of Girls World. You can see her when she came back to Grom's World. She did all seven seasons A boy seven. I'm pretty sure she was she was one of our regulars. She was on her and she was one of the writers I talked to the most and connected with. She recommended books to me. She's Harvard Memory Serves, Oh my gosh. Yeah, she talked about her professors and like she's she's the first person to tell me to read Hemingway. She told me. She was like, you know, because of course I hadn't heard of Hemyway. But she was the one who's like, you know what, you should read A Movable Feast And still to this day, that's like a life changing book for me. When I was fourteen or fifteen, she told me to read that. But she was great. She was always you know, we've talked about several we talked. We've said this about a couple of different adults. But she was somebody who always talked to us as equals and like would always sit and hang out with us, and like I said, recommend books or movies. And yeah, she's been that all seven but she was there for at least four or five. She was there for a while. She is one of the people in the folklore of who named to Penga. She is one of the people who who may have named to Penga and writer. When you said when she came back and wrote an episode of Girl Meets World, it reminded me that I think that's maybe where I had the conversation with her, where maybe she told me she was the one who named to Penga. Maybe maybe I don't know, Guys, my memory gotta find this Who named to Panga is the new what's the matrix? Like that thing? Who Named? Because I want to we got to find that that's too big a piece of television. We're going to get conflicting results. I think we're going to have, you know, four or five different narratives and we're gonna have to just pick one to the listener to decide exactly we should maybe do it as a mock trial. Each one of us will take a case and we'll present the true crime podcast. We'll just go off on a hole on a whole different tangent. That will be great funny. So to start the episode, we are in Mr Phenie's classroom. Corey is wearing two hoods, hoods too much, hoods too much much. He is wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a hooded flannel and probably a T shirt underneath. But you can't see it, but the hood. Yeah, probably a T shirt with the hood. That's what we gotta make. So we're in. We're in Phoinie's classroom. Minus gets the highest test score in his class. Corey gets a C on his geography test, even though he says he studies or that he studied. Corey argues with Mr Feeney about the textbook, saying that geography keeps changing. And Sean throws a paper plane at the back of mincus head. So do you remember. I know what Will is going to say about this, because he was there too. It wasn't Mincus, right, it was Limpy? Right? Is it Lemky? So his original name was Stuart lem Key and it lasted throughout the entire week until right before tape night. And I remember thinking Minkus was such a worse name than lem agreed Lemky was a great name for this character. But apparently there really was a Stewart limp Key in Philadelphia. Philadelphia. It's so crazy. What are the chances? So apparently you can have a name on a television show, you know that goes through a process called clearance, where the legal team at a studio or network goes through and checks all the names of characters, all the references to brands or whatever, and clears the names legally so that it's okay to use these things. And if there's enough, if there's a name that's common enough, like in other words, if there's a Corey Matthews, it's likely that there are multiple Corey Matthews in the world, or that there's enough Corey Matthews spread throughout the country, or that it's not one specific place with that one specific name. But it turned out that there actually was one person named Stuart Lemkey in Philadelphia, and because of that, that person had a right to sue us if we use their name unless we like contacted Stuart Lemkin said, hey, can we name a television character after you? So rather than deal with that, they decided to just change it to Minka's which is great, amazing story. Yeah, I still here in my head, I hear Ben going Lemkey right, But that was also I remember Michael working with Ben on that beat, the like no, draw it out, make it longer. He's like limpy right, It's he's like no, no no, no, Lemky, Like you know, Michael kind of giving a read line reading line reading and what are you talking about Michael One is lumpy right? You want Lemky like make it a bit kind of thing. And so every time I see that, now I see kind of Michael doing that the right that was a that was a thing. Well you could tell it was a really big favorite of Michael's because we see it three times in it gets called back within minutes. Um, kept trying, kept trying to see what was gonna stick. By the way, if you are Stewart Lempy, the Stewart Lemkey from Philadelphia around, please reach out to us. Probably told at gmail dot com we'd love to talk to you. Just awesome, that'd be great. Um. So yeah, we get Mincus. Is it Mancus? It's Mancus? And then we get our opening, the absolutely crazy song. I still can't get over it. I've now started skipping it. I was listening to it the open every time, and he won't let me, and he won't he loves it. I guess you know what, Listen, it's gotta it's gotta. There's gotta be a reason why he likes it. A lot of people probably do. I have had to skip it. I just bring me right back to that Hollywood Christmas bread. But I have to skip it. Yeah, so then we're still in Phoene's cast class. Get out of tune music box into your head, right, It's like in a horror film. Damn man, man Man. By the way, I think I found a picture from the Hollywood Pick Christmas Parade. Uh, and weren't we just in were in cars? You had mentioned that we had floats. I don't think we had. Well, well, we did it so the year that we had the theme song going, it was a giant float with the globe on it. Everything you would do. One year where it was like it was you guys in like Rodney Dangerfield or something that story. Me and Ben Savage and Rodney Dangerfield and we got his car broke down, so he and his wife ended up on ours. It was, wow, what show are you on? I've never heard of it, honey, you have heard of this show? We're like, it's a kids show. Mr. Danger And he didn't realize how long the parade was, you know, it's only like I don't know, but it took like it took like an hour and a half. And his car broke down, so we had to get into our car and Ben and I were just petrified. Staring up at Rodney Dangerfield and he's just like, who are you? Because what ended up happening was the fans knew us because they were all kids. It's like fanili holiday parade, so they were freaking out about us. And then only like every you know, a hundred people or so, there'd be some dude going like Rodney. That would all he would get. So he kept getting more and more upset that we were getting all this attention and he had no clue who we were. So then he finally just said, you know what, can we stop? How long is this thing? I want to get off? I want to get off, and and they were like, well, we can't stop the parade unless there's a medical emergency. So like five minutes go by, and he goes, you know what, it's a medical emergency, getting me an ambulance. I gotta get out of here. The day they stopped the parade, Rodney Dangerfield stopped the parade to get away from us. They took him away in an ambulances like, yeah, yeah, it's a medical emergency. I got chest pains, get me out of here. And we're like, oh my god. So want escorted him away in an ambulance halfway through the parade, the great story we can relax. Wow, I'm going to use that if I ever need to get away from this podcast immediately, like for for I'm just gonna be like medical emergency, bring me an ambulance, get me away from these two. No respect, no respect. Oh, that's so funny. That's a great story writer in Hollywood story Christmas Grade. So Mr Feenie announces that this year's Geography tournament has a prize to be the bat boy at the upcoming World Series, and we realized that Corey is suddenly very interested, even though he has never really been interested in geography before. Corey says he thinks it's a mistake that poene wants to take Mincas to the tournament, and Feeney says he's full of confidence in Mankus, and we get Phoenie doing the call back that's actually the third time it get The second time it gets called back, we get the there's minkusamenus. Then Corey says Mancus isn't markus the second time, and then Phoenie at the end calls back and says, no, I have full confidence in Mankus. My confidence is in Manus all. In the first two scenes, we have the same joke three times, which means it was clearly a favorite of at least one persons have killed at a table read and it run through and they're like, this is this is working, this is the one want it? Uh. So we are then in the kitchen, Eric and I just want to talk about the When you see the awards on the wall. You know, I love that because I knew what was what was called. I was like, Oh, there's gonna be something else taking that place. And I don't know if I just remember that or if it's just a perfect setup, but you know, knowing that the plaque is going to come or you know, not come this year was I just love that visual. Yeah, that was a good visual. I did not even think ahead to like what was going to go in that spot because I don't remember the episode at all, so I didn't remember if Mangas ended up doing wasn't there, So I didn't remember the episode at all, So I didn't know if Mincus was gonna end up coming in and saving the day or so it didn't even occur to me like what's going to go in that spot. I just it went right past me, but then obviously seeing it called back later is even though you weren't in this this is always how I wonder you know how far ahead they think. So this is the first episode we shot, they already have to have a bunch written. I wonder if Topanga is even named yet, like by this point for the first episode, four episodes ahead or three or four scripts from the Yeah, I wonder if the name Topanga has even come out of anybody's mouth yet. I'm just I don't think so, I don't know. I bet I bet to Pango was um, probably a last minute addition to the script, like, well, I think that probably what happened, um, And I don't remember if we talked about this when we When we did the episode for Corey's alternative of Friends, the storyline was based on the true story that Michael Jacobs actually did try and straight. So I bet you that that pitch was already laid out as an episode, like I'm sure that they had by this time. But if you think about it that storyline, then you know that that's the pitch, and then it leads to, oh, he gets stuck at this weird o table because he's ostracized. What if there's a girl at the weirdo table who becomes, you know, a love introduce Storer's first kiss. So I wonder how far along in the development of that storyline to Panga entered, you know, But I imagine it was story first, and then who can be the person that you know makes being weird cool, Let's make it a girl character, and then created to Panga out of that. But yeah, I have no idea if it was here. I'm curious. I don't think I knew that it was a true story about Michael straightening his hair. I don't think any Yeah. Oh yeah, I was all based on him trying it as a kid. Yeah, he actually did straighten his hair. Apparently that's funny. Okay, So we're in the kitchen. Eric says he cannot baby sit on Friday because he's taking Heather to the Aerosmith concert. And yeah, so Jensen asked me. We went to the Aerosmith concert after we did this episode, because it was the next year. It was probably two or three. Yeah, yeah, so crazy. That was my first concert stage. I met everybody, and I have this great photo of all of us with the band. It was great, and we're with the whole band. It's it's awesome. It's really cool. Yeah, I would love to see that picture. Um. Yeah, we went. We went in a limo together. Where was it? I don't think it was in l A. It was outside of town somewhere at a big stadium, right, was it Orange County? Maybe didn't we was it the pond? Gosh? I have no idea. I just know it was. It was a drive and we all took a limo together. That's right, it was done. It was. It was a whole concert, memory serves. We did not stay for the whole show. We went backstage before the show and then I remember they for a few songs, and then because we were all kids, we you know, they brought us home early. So it was kind of like they hadn't gotten we were to the B sides yet. We hadn't heard dream On or any of the big ones by this point. It was kind of like, oh, there are new stuff and then we're gone. But it was writer myself, will Ben, and we went with Angel and Vicky. Are are pe quote unquote physical trainers are pe teachers. Uh, you know that taught us and the home improvement kids for that wreck period that we talked about they would always come every was it every day they would come to sort of help lead us in our wreck time, but they also became friends. How business personal edge Wasn't that what it was called? It was like it was personal edge training. How did they then become so involved in our social lives too? Because questions. I also have pictures like we went to baseball games. I have pictures of me with Eric Carros and Rick Garcia and Angel and Vicky at based at Dodger Games Amsterdam with Angel. Yeah, we used a video with Angel video. I have it. I just sent a picture of it to Danielle. I'm looking at it right now. So we got we got very intertwined with Angel and Vickie. And at this stage in our connection with them, they were they were just really good at hustling connections to stuff, like I remember them getting you know, like backstage passes to Aerosmith. So they would always just like you know, call us or invite us to stuff. And they were just always like finding a business angle or they would get us like I remember I got a free snowboard one time, because they just they would just they would give they would be like, hey, this company wants, which at the time, like I didn't think in those terms. I mean, now I think it's kind of understood that you get like free stuff if you're on a TV show and you just promoted or whatever. But back then they were in that teen magazine circle somehow, I guess because they were not ever go to the Nike store. Did you ever do the days where they would bring you to the Nike store and they literally it was like this store was empty and they go pick and you kind that maybe it was rebock, maybe it was reboking, not Nike, might have been rebod. One of that was Angel and Vickier. You just did that because Angel and Vickier. It had something to do with boy Meats World. But it was just like you could walk around the store and fill up bags of shoes and clothes, and I mean it was insane. It was not only did it once or twice, but it was you got all this free stuff. And then Angel and Vickie got us Oxygen's, remember that, which was like the top of the line roller blade at the time. It was like the coolest thing in the world. Um got us these pairs of of they were called Oxygen's, And I remember other like Rydan and I did an inline skating video and we've never heard of it. And we're experts in pro your pro inline skaters, aren't you. So I don't know. I don't know where you're getting this information. Never forget, anybody knows the inline skates. It's I want to camp roller blade. Probably there was, Yeah, I don't know if it's still around, but they were, and it was right in my hometown in Santa Rosa, which is like right near where I grew up. Um they were. They were the big push for for inline skating as like a movement at the time. And where in Santa Rosa there is a Snoopy ice skating rank UM and it's Um, the daughter of Charles Schultz who created Snoopy, and they have this ice skating rank and his world famous and she was a huge supporter of inline skating and she like started camp Rollerblade and we would go and like do ramps and have like professional rollerblade teachers come and like, yeah, it was a whole week of rollerblade. It was just crazy. But it seems like a camp with a lot of broken wrists. Oh yeah, people who got wrecked. I remember like air accidents every day. I remember watching it was either Cheach and it was Cheach or Chong Son. It was Cheech marins Son. I think who Um smashed his face on a ramp and I watched it happened like he did some kind of amazing amazing because they like nine foot ramps. This was like serious weird. I wasn't that great, but yeah it was. It was you know, it was like a skateboard camp, but it was before rollerblade and it was it was like a gator culture thing and he just wrapped. I remember watching his face bounce on the on the ramp. It was awful. That sounds like a fun camp. Yeah, she wants to say, any camp where you can break some bones is a good time too. Yeah. So Amy says that she will call a sitter and they'll all go together because Amy and Allen are also going to the Aerosmith concert, and Eric is furious. He doesn't want to go to the show with his parents, as Aerosmith is too loud for people their age. Uh. And then Corey, Sewn and Ellis walk into the kitchen holding Mincas hostage Um and they introduced Minkas to Amy and we get him his adorable line call my mother and yelling his phone number up the stairs. Can we talk about a couple of things? First of all, can we talk about a little bit we we we we do like to bracket things that haven't aged well. And a little bit of grabbing the weaker kid and surrounding him and pulling him kind of threatening lee into somebody's house was a little weird for me. I get they played it comedically and it was, but it was a little that that was a little weird, a little bullish for me. But then the other thing, which I'm wondering if this was an inside joke, one of kind of the first inside jokes we had, because we had just gone through the Lempy Minkus thing. When he goes up the stairs, he said, it's the only Mincus in the book, which I thought was a joke. On the fact that they couldn't clear the Lempy name. I wouldn't be surprised, And so it was kind of a straight up inside baseball like no one like some people would think it was funny, but if you knew the whole story on the set, it was like, we could clear the name, so it's the only Mincus in the book. That's what kind of went through my head. I'm wondering if that's what it was. I bet you was h Yeah, it could have been. It's also just funny because how many mincus Is have you ever heard of? And so it's also funny just on its own that like, don't be surprised, but there's only one. You know, it worked on a bunch of levels. But I'm wondering if that's one of the reasons they put it in because they were able to clear the name because it was the only Mancus, like there was no Mankas. And we get Lily sitting on the counter throwing away groceries, which is cute. I thought it was funny the way she says it's hiding the liver. And this is the first time we've all worked together. I mean, this is the first night we've shot. This is the first night in front of an audience. I've never been in front of an audience like this before. This is the first time that you see the Matthews family. I mean it might be the fifth episode, but we've never done this before. So that was something that that was always going through my head as I was watching this is like, this is the first time we'd ever done this. I can I can imagine the energy for all of you was I was super high. Yeah, so nervous? Does it come across that way? By the way, it feels very much like we're in the fifth episode and not like this is the first knowing Will though Will is not Will's presenting, you know, he's He's definitely presenting more. And then he is comfortable in his own skin and this just then just say the lines. Yeah, it was just so nerve wracking. But again it shows how good Like we keep talking about Lee, who could completely in control of his study, his voice and the great character and is holding for laughs already and I mean it's just so natural. Yeah he is. So we go up to Korey and Eric's room. Sean says that one out of every four people is a nerd and if you look around and no one else is there, it must be you. And they want to change his image. They're trying to convince him not to do the geography tournament, and Minca says he'll only quit the tournament if they promised not to throw the ball at his head during bombardment anymore. Yeah, this is the scene that bothered me. Well it wasn't so because you know, the grabbing him and taking the hostage, this thing, I mean, and this just goes back We've talked a lot about the nerd stuff. Yeah, it's just it's it's so dated this that there's a there's a normal way to be and then there's an unusual nerdy way to be. And like, you know, the obvious question is maybe just don't throw the ball at the kid's head, you know, But like, for whatever reason, the logic of this scene is that's going to happen just because you're so different and nerdy, So don't you You have to change, buddy, You have to have this nerd makeover in order to be accepted by everybody else's And thats just that blows. Man. It sucks. It sucks. It does. It absolutely sucks as somebody as not that kind of nerd, but as a fantasy nerd, and like like that type of nerd growing up you always were a bit like pushed it and you always wanted to be part of the cooler crowd. But it also doesn't even matter what it is, right, whatever it is, if you're an outsider like in the nineties, if you were different in any way about yeah, exactly, and that that's really the worst part of American culture, but especially in the nineties, it really reached its peak, the sense that like, you know, if you're cool, you do these certain things where you watch these movies or these TV shows, are listen to this music, and you have this way of speaking and acting. And if you don't adhere to those rules, whether because you're a nerd or you're gay or anything different, you must be there's must be something wrong with you, and that's your problem. And I am so glad that that has changed, because I remember feeling that like uncomfortable, Like I remember wrestling with it myself, and so in a day to day just feeling like there's a mainstream and I should adhere to it or live up to it. And then there's the you know, and so the fact that we were encouraging that on our shows, it's a real bummer and it well, I mean, I remember talking about any when you're a kid, especially during the nineties, eighties and the nineties, anything different was bad. Anything even if it was something good, it was bad. So I was an actor and I was on a show on Nickelodeon, and I thought I was doing something positive and cool and for a good year in probably seventh or eighth grade. Every time I opened my mouth to answer a question or do something in class, somebody would go, I'm sorry, I was just acting like it was it was just a thing where because that was a John Lovett's thing on SNL and every time I opened my mouth, so it just maybe not want to speak like I'm okay, I'm just not going to raise my hand answer a question. I was completely outcast in my high school. In my junior high I was made fun of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's like you're doing something positive and something great, but it doesn't matter. You're different. You're just different and different bad. And so it was yeah that we we we did lay into that a little bit, especially in this episode. It's like, well, you gotta like sports or you're you're bad, and it's like, you know, I think it probably still happens nowadays, even though like that idea writer that you're talking about isn't quite the same now where you know, if you're interested in anything outside the norm, you have to change. Something must be wrong with you. That is different, thankfully, But like the Ages of eleven to thirteen, maybe even fourteen are just rough. Everyone is trying to blend in and fit in and please don't let anything make me stand out. And so you know there's always a battle of some sorts. But whether it's it's it's not as black and white, right, it's not as like I or or I mean, I think hopefully, I think that there's now just a general recognition of plurality and and notion that the diversity that you can be a different type of person. Uh, you know, we talked about a lot more than yeah, but we just we probably talked about this maybe too much. But it was a monoculture. You know, everybody was watching the same there's we had twenty four million people tuning into our television show and we were not the biggest show on television. That's crazy. So you think about how that, you know, tells people or it sort of creates a model of like, this is the way to be, this is the show to watch, These are the movies that everybody And now I think there's just so many different types of content. There's so many different types of clothing styles, there's so many different types of music and whatever it is. It seems like there's more of a recognition of plurality. But yes, I think locally within like a given classroom, this is always going to be a struggle, right, There's always gonna be status games. There's always going to be a struggle for status and who's cool popularity of some sort. Yes, but fully it's not based on such an easy archetype or an easy stereotype like the nerd versus the non nerd. Well. The thing that that amazed me was was as I got older and tried to let go of a lot of that stuff that happened to me in middle school and things like that, and became friendly again as an adult with those kids I grew up with. You found out that almost to a person, whether they were popular or not, they also hated it. They were also having the worst time in middle school or the worst time in high school. It wasn't like, oh man, i've met like three people in my life that was like high school was the best time in my life. Everybody was struggling with it. Everybody hated it, and you thought you were the only one going through it, and even the popular kids were like, no, it was terrible on me too. I had a bad home life for I struggled to stay popular, or if I did that, you know you had an eating disorder. Everybody had something. So we get back into the kitchen and Eric tells his parents they cannot go to the Aerosmith concert. Eric says it's his first concert, but his parents say, actually they went when Amy was pregnant with Eric, and Alan's says they have third row seats. He jokes about how old guys get good seats, and Amy says maybe they can get Eric and Heather decent seats so they can at least see the stage. But Eric says he doesn't want to be at the same show as his parents, and he's He leaves in a huf, saying he's going to go see if he can get tickets to Eric Clapton. I also thought there was a line from Rusty where he says, get a clue, and it seemed like that was another thing they were trying to make, trying to do it. Yeah, they were, They were definitely trying to do it. And I'd like to just quickly give a shout out to my giant purple sweatshirt at the top. But it was very, very bottom heavy, yeah, very baldos in the sleeves as well. Yes, yes, bulbous is a good a good way to describe that sweatshirt, you know. I think for me in this episode, one of the things that just seeing seems like it's a little weak. The whole premise of you being so unhappy about them going to the concert alone just has really no legs. It just I felt like there needed to be something more like I'm worried you're gonna embarrass me. I you've never met had there are something there needed to be more there than just like so offended that you were going to be in the same place that Eric was. That was it, by the way, at the same place. I could see the storyline being like, wait a minute, we're not sitting together, are we, and then when you find out we're sixty four rows apart, being like, good please just pretend if you see me, pretend you don't know. I wonder how much of this was based on the idea that they were trying to establish. I mean, this is if this is the first episode of filming, this would be Rusties first episode two. And I think that establishing that the parents were not that they had some countercultural street cred, that they were kind of cool. They're not regular parents. They were. I think that was very important to attracting Rusty to the part, because that's kind of Rusty's vibe. And I think that that was important to establish for Michael and the team, like these are not going to be the typical sitcom parents. They're they're they're gonna listen to cool music. They're gonna wear their denim jackets and we'll talk about later, and like they're gonna be you and so I think in order to create that tension, they had to force this situation where Will's character is upset about it, like or overly upset about it, because like, really there is no conflict here, right. It's such as also problem. It's also an acting choice because this exact same storyline could have been taken differently if it was handled by season six Eric as opposed to season one Eric. You know, no, I'm not trying to beat myself up. I'm saying the acting choice of playing it angry. But here's the problem, and funny, here's the real problem with it. What does what does Eric do? Does Eric make a choice? Does he change exactly? So it's a completely inactive protagonist, and that's bad. Writing like there's no choices made. Now if Eric decided to do something and then because of that there was a backfired situation, he calls and cancels the parents so they can't go does something. But instead it's just a presentation of a situation, and you can play about it and then that situations and then that happens again and then complain about it in front of the kind of their for no real reason and actor protagonist. Naturally it's a useless it is absolutely yeah, and but again played angry like I'm angry the whole You have to create conflict exactly, conflict you're just creating. Hardly is an actor to create conflict, it's not. Yeah, it was very interesting. So the next day, sweashirt, that's what That's what stole the scene. The next day, we're at school and Mincas tells Mr Feeney he's resigning from the tournament. He says the tournament doesn't fit in with his new image, which is Stewart Mincas regular guy. Um Mincas says that exceptional guys get bombardment balls thrown at their heads. Do you guys know of a game called bombardment? Is that a real game? It is it's they've they've just changed. Um. The name of bombardment is just dodgeball's compartment. But the trade had compartment or did we call I think I think there's They called it bombardment. I don't know why, but it's essentially dodgeball. That's all Bombardment is. If, if, unless, unless somebody's like no, the rules are different. It's the same. You throw balls at people. If it hits you, you're out. If you catch it, the person who threw it is out. Dodgeball is trademarked or something. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it is. Um. So Mr Feenie tries to see if his image can wait until after the tournament. Corey stays back in the classroom. He's ready for Mr Feenie once Mincus quits, and Mr Feenie said, there won't be a tournament. If it's going to have to be Corey in the tournament, then there will be no tournament because Corey has never shown any interest in geography, and Corey says he's willing to learn. Mr Feenie says that okay, he will agree to prep Corey for the tournament, and he hopes that the prize is actually going to lead to him wanting to learn. And um, now we get Foenie and Corey for the first time kind of in on a little bit of a scheme together. Yeah, not really quite a scheme, but yeah, it's cute that they're all right, let's let's see a chance on each other, right Exactly, I like them. Mr Feenie is willing to play this out as well. That's what I mean again. You think when you look back, Foenie knows he's gonna lose. Foenie knows he's not gonna win, but he's also seeing if Corey is going to actually learn. And I think that's what is don't you think that Mr Feenie by this point he knows it's like, all right, the title's gone. I have no chance. Corey is not going to win this thing. But if I could get this one kid to actually learn something that he didn't want to learn before, then I win as a teacher anyway. Exactly, they only lose lose. Situation here for Foenie is if he doesn't end up learning anything and he loses the tournament. But the hope is if I can at least get him to learn something I will feel like a winner. Um. And so we are back in the Matthew's backyard. Corey is steadily studying geography while show. Yeah, I so indelibly remember carpet Dum, Mr Foenie. And it's funny because I wonder how much I remember that so so vividly, because it was probably the first time I'd ever heard that phrase carpet do you know what I mean? So it's so interesting. Also takes that pause though there's the pause between carpet d um and Mr Feenie. He doesn't go carpet d um, Mr Feenie goes carpet d um, Mr Feenie. Yeah. Well we said it for a while, but I just it's so funny because the second it came out of Lee's mouth, I was like, oh my god. But yeah, I wonder how much of that is because I was backstage or at our table read hearing that and going what is this phrase? And I probably asked somebody or looked it up. I probably asked, you will because you spoke Latin at the time or read Latin at the spoke and read at the time. I did. Actually, yeah, yeah, So anyway, I just you know, now it's one of those things you hear all the time, but twelve or thirteen, I probably never heard that phrase before. So anyway, that line is like etched in my brand, and it's there was a couple of teams, you know. The other one we said all the time was Duan's line. We said, what's the point of playing if we can't throw it at his head? We said that for years too. We said that for years too, because we thought that was so funny that we just kept saying that as well, Yeah, that's funny. All the lines that we used to repeat backstage, you never knew what was gonna which one was gonna hit, and all of a sudden from the first season though, I think and I think it's because we were all so aware of each other's lines and the you know, we were an ensemble that we're working our way through the script and there's lines that come and go and jokes that hit or miss, and even something that might not that might miss in the final tape Night could have landed so hard during a rehearsal that it became an inside joke for us exactly even if it didn't make it to air. So in the Matthews backyard, Corey is studying geography. Sean and Ellis try to get him to the park and he and they say that he's studying too much. Mincus shows up in one of the greatest outfits of all time. The largest shorts I've ever seen on a non clown. Just amazing, those big yellow they are they're shams, but they're also they're they're also just like a barrel around his waist and the shoes his feet look I mean, of course the hood we could and suspenders to hold up those short It's just incredible. We will put this picture on our Instagram for you Pod Meets World show. I wonder about the outfits they rejected, where they were like, Nope, that's not going to work, that's not Oh there you go, got it, nailed it, nailed it. That's the one. Um So, Corey says he needs Mincas's help studying, but Minca says absolutely not. He tells Fenny he watched MTV's House of Style, which is where he put together this outfit and style it was. It was a show about clothing, yes, and it was hosted by supermodel Cindy Crawford work. But did people dress like this back there. Yeah, I think it's I think it wasn't very I think it was a very kid and play style, you know, mode of dressing. My my husband at the time dressed very much like this. Jensen card I would have would have worn an outfit very much like Thisto. Can we please find a picture of that? Please please find a picture of that. Well, we'll find one. I'm not sure you ever wore suspects like that, but he definitely wore spenders. Doesn't seem no accurate. Suspenders kind of became cool like late nineties in like, yeah, there was a moment. I did remember wearing suspenders later in the nineties, but yeah, suspenders cross colors was big in the early nineties. There's Team magazine shoots of me and suspenders, Yes, there are. We'll find that as well. Look for those for sure. I have them all in the garage. So Mincas says he's now leaving to go watch Beavis and butt Head, and we get our first reference. Actually that's first laugh. That's why they put it back. That's why they put it back in. Exactly got a wou so it came back. So the people in the audience loved them. Some Beavis and butt head popular at the time. So then we are back home in the kitchen. Family, We're back home in the kitchen. This is also I thought, isn't this the moment Ben had a great moment that made me laugh out? Isn't this the snort where he kind of yes, where he goes, he goes because he's now like the quote unquote nerds, So it's like, oh, he's snorting. But the way he did it was actually very funny. Yeah, that was the first time where I was like, okay, that was that was a good comedy right there, Dwan as Ellis says something like he's he's morphing, right, is that what he says, He's morphing something like that. Yeah, mutinating was very funny in that moment. I thought I thought they could have made a bigger moment out of it because it kind of like it was really brushed over. But that's what I kind of liked about. It was just a quick little like he's oh he snorted like it was um. So we're at home in the kitchen. The family is quizzing Corey on his geography. Eric calls out artists, trying to get his parents to go to another concert, So he's naming a bunch of people. I liked the line Tina Turner and she says my mother's my mother's Yeah, that's great, And then I was like, wow, is that would that have been true? That, like Tina Turner has been doing this since? Yeah? Well, I think there weren't Icentina Turner. Were the early sixties their original, you know, banned group. I think I think was the I might have even started the late fifties and then the early sixties, and then she obviously moved away and became much bigger in the seventies by herself, and then it was kind of seventies eighties. Yeah, but I'm pretty sure they would have been the late fifties, early sixties. Argentina. What a career. Um. They tell Eric that he should rebel and not go to the show, and would you want to when you're that angry about this for some reason? Just angry all episode? Just other choice? Well, you had no other choice. You had to pretend that you were very angry. And then we find out that you're going to be sixty four rows behind them, which is very funny to me. Um, And we're at the geography tournament. The kids and their teachers are lined up on stage. The teachers are all giving the kids massages. And uh, that was great. Ben in his suit like it's like so like Corey out of his elo A great suit, by the way, I wrote down what a great suit. It bit him perfectly. Of all the oversized clothes of the nineties, the suits were not super big. It fit him so well. And it's that great green color. Um. But yeah, just that, just do this with your shoulders and rolling his shoulders are feeling a little. Great moment, so good, so funny. I loved it, um. And so we cut two Corey panicking on the stage during the tournament. Corey doesn't know how to answer the question. We see that the kids are getting very hard questions that we never saw Corey face though when they cut to him was perfect. That worried, ridiculous looking around was his st That was my actual the first time I saw that actual, loud, laugh out loud moment that wright we talked about the equivalent of the optical flip where it is then just on his horrified face. It was hysterical. He was great in that moment. It is It's really funny. And Jensen pointed out to me while we were watching it. Jensen was like, you know what made this show different than other shows is that I think other sitcoms would have had him at least get something right, Like you would have seen him maybe not win the tournament, but like he wouldn't know nothing, and instead he just literally is like it's it's as if they're speaking a totally different language than he speaks. Um And I don't know necessarily whether or not another show would have done that, but Jensen was really like, I think this separates the show that he really knew nothing, right, Well, it takes us on more of a journey, right because he's he's learned something, or he's he's been studying so hard, which has made him more nerdy, and you know, and we've already established that as the problem, but then the real problem is he doesn't win the content, win the be like, so it takes it to the next level. It's good storytelling, you know, this is like you just keep twisting the expectations because it's like, oh, he's a nerd. Now he's gonna go win the contest, and you know, there's still another twist coming, there's still another turn to this show. Yeah, he still doesn't know a lot, and he may he may have learned, he may have learned something, but he still doesn't know everything he needs to know in order to win a tournament. So Corey doesn't know how to answer the question he's given and he has left on stage at the very end of his loss. He's by himself, and the girl who wins walks by with her trophy and says that the bat Boy prize is stupid. I love the voices of those two girls. They both had like these deep voices that I just loved. I think they I think they they just made them stand out, and they were both so cute. I thought that was um, I mean, you very easily could have had one of your topanga's there. Yeah. Yeah, it could have been you, Daniel. That could have been me if only I got the audition for the geography tournament. Um right, I was fish Girl. So we're in the Matthews family living room. Eric and Heather are back home from the concert and they are telling Corey that they saw Amy and Allan dancing in the aisle. Um. This was my audition piece. That was my audition scene. I so I tried to look down in the rose Ce scene Mom and Dad. No, mom and dad are dancing in the aisles. That is I had to sit there and say that in New York, then on film, then in l A. How many times did Michael tell you were doing it wrong? And to do it? You know what? You know what I honestly remember about about my audition process. I remember two things. I remember that Ben was there. I'm sorry, I remember three things. I remember that Ben was there and reading with us for a different scene that wasn't that was was a UM probably from the bedroom scene. It was a bedroom scene in the pilot that that we we read together. And then I remember going in and reading. So the process was you would you would first go to UM producers, so you would. It's a hard auditioning for shows back in the day, and I'll do this very quickly. Was just the most miserable, stressful, awful day you could possibly imagine. It's not that I don't think it's still the full day process that it that it was. If I've heard in front of theaters, is it still the same because now everything's like on tape and they do this and there's so many to have the backdrop you have to adjust your own lighting. You have to have cameras, you have to have a reader, actually a network testing, factual network testing. Yes, it depends on the show, but I don't think they do. They don't bring you in front of a room of forty to fifty people like they used to, which is what it was. But I think they would on a sitcom. I think they would on a sitcom. In fact, they've done test shoots for sitcoms these days where they actually go to a stage. I have, Oh, I'd much rather do that, But no, with single camera stuff, I think nowadays they do mostly like a cinematic sort of screen test where you go to a studio with the director and reader and you go do it alone, which is great because this one you used to go and you'd sit the first thing. So I flew in from from New York to l A. And then you started like nine o'clock in the morning, and you go to producers and say there's three of you auditioning. So you walk into a room and say there's fifteen producers there, and you read the scenes through however you're going to read them through, and then you come out and then they'll usually say like Okay, go to lunch. That's going to take like a couple of hours. They take their time. You sit there and you wait, You're all anxious. It's awful. And then you get a call from your agent or manager saying, okay, you're going to the next level, which is network. And then you go to the studio studio before network. Studio is next, which is then more people in the room, and it's all the people from at the time we were touchdown and all this kind of stuff. Also at this point, that's the point at which you sign a contract. Yes, sign a contract before you do your people auditioning. Sign a contract yes, and and so you're looking at a how much money you'll make be it's a thick country, and then you'll be how many years you're going to be committed to this thing because it has all your pay lane laid out, and how much it's going to get your going, what kind of rays you're going to get as the because they want to lock you in because oftentimes you're you're in demand at another show or whatever, so they you'd be in first position or second position, and when you sign that contract, you're a green to do the show. If they've select you by the end of that day or week or whatever the the period is. Oh, it's so nerve wracking. It's the worst feeling because then you just you start seeing your future. You're like, oh, I'm gonna be working this next week or two weeks from an hour, this fall or whatever, and I'm gone, it's going to change. Yeah, it's it's it's insane, it's awful. And then you go if you get then you get the call whether you've moved on or not. And usually if you then get to network, which a lot of times depending on what network you're going for, it's literally in this theater room where there's fifty six executives sitting there and you perform for them, um and by the time you get there, it's been most of the day and you're exhausted, you're stressed. It's awful. Usually, if you started with three people, now there's just two of you, like they've let one of you all day together too, So you're sitting around and waiting with each other with your competition, trying to be friendly. Meanwhile going like my life could change tonight or your life could change, where we just go back to normal. It's like the worst the most terrible process in the world. So in between studio and network, Michael came out and sat down next to me and he said, I really think you're right for this project. I just need you to calm down and relax and really listened to Ben, and I think you're going to be fine. And I noticed that he didn't talk to anybody else. And Jason Marsden was that guy, my best friend again who was auditioning with me, and he came out and I found out later he was like, Ben screwed up his lines during the during the audition process, which screwed me up. And so Ben, the joke we had was Ben and he would said this to Jason as well. He's like, oh, no, I screwed that up on purpose because I wanted Will to be Eric. Um. He was totally kidding, of course, but that was kind of the joke. And when Jason then came on the show, he's like, you know, you you messed up on purpose, right, and Ben like, of course I messed up on purpose, um, But it was that, you know, we were dependent on another actor to come in, and Ben came in and we had great chemistry. But that's what I remember about not just the scene, but also that Michael is like, I really think you're right for this. I just need you to relax and listen to Ben and that helped um and then we got the part. But that's what during this scene, that's all I see as they're I'm standing behind the couch and everything. I just go back to my audition because that's all it was was getting Eric with these exact lines and then meeting NICKI who you know, it was always a casting director who's reading the part of the girl. And then it's like, oh, this is Nicky Cox and it's like, yeah, it was. It just changed the whole thing. So it's very strange too. I got to sketch that whole process I got I didn't have. I got to that hole. You got tortured in a whole different differently and tortured publicly in front of your peers. Exactly. Congratulations, we all got to watch your tortures. It is a horrible business and a tough process. Yeah. So, uh yeah, you guys are back home. By the way, who babysat Corey and Lily because you guys, great question. No one was there with them. It was just fine. You're already home, so maybe Corey was old enough to babysit his sister. She asked Eric to stay home and babysit them at the beginning of the episode, and then said, Okay, I'll call a sitter. So I don't know. I don't Maybe it's maybe the sitter left when you got there, and that's not an important part to the story that when Eric arrived home. So, um, yeah, we see that you guys that you were upset because they weren't in their seats. They were dancing in the aisle, and you are just mortified by that. And then Amy and Allen walk in and their concert attire. They've got cool fits on, tied eye shirts, denim jackets, a prairie dress with necklaces, and a vest, and it's probably embarrassing at all, but it's not like embarrassing. It's like they're totally kind of normally dressed for even slightly cool parents, you know, it's like they're not over the top crazy where he exactly but he thinks it. But going back to the time period and the place, maybe like I think just being anything slightly I mean in l A at this time, if you were a hit parent, you would be way more extreme, right, like you know, tattoos and like, but in the nineties, and then if you were in Philadelphia and you're just going to an Arrowsmith concert, mine, I don't know, with a hippie shirt, like he's wearing tight eye. I think so all my friends wore tight eye, so it was like I didn't. I was like, oh, they're not just that strange. But I guess maybe you're Maybe you're right, maybe for Philly, and you know, he's supposed to be a grocer, and it's like what mainstream America there were still this like you know eighties hangover from the sixties seventies counterculture or sorry, eighties backlash to the sixties seventies counterculture, where you know, we were still coming out of this like yuppie period where it was like anti counter culture. For them to have any any nods to that sort of rock and roll counter culture would have been a little edgy at the time. Okay, okay, So this is where the premise started to feel just a little loose for me because he asks you directly, like what I don't understand, what is so? What is so difficult? Way is this so hard for you? And you have this idea that you said his parents aren't your parents aren't supposed to have fun. That's you're just supposed to stay home and wait for me. And I was like, that's the best answer they could. That's the argument here. I feel like just the premise is a little I don't But here's the thing though, which which saved it. At least Eric didn't learn anything which the room. I was like, there's where's the message. He's like, some I'm the father that you want to deal with it. He walks out and it's like, Eric, wait what Like it was just kind of that this storyline didn't didn't wrap up in any way. It was just a strange, kreind of story, a real waste of Nicki Cox. She's like two things. She's just sitting there the whole and that she gets up and walks to the door. It's so bizarre. This is also for the record, this is Heather. So Eric has talked about Heather since the pilot. Yeah, you have been dating her four five episodes, and you know what, I think, you know what, I think. I think they probably wrote this as a sample scene to cast the character of Eric. I g you that this was a scene. First, it was a scene first and foremost, and then they had to build a storyline around it in two different a way. But because I bet you, because it's such a monologue on your part, right like there, you know what you and I think it was a test to figure out who the older brother was. So they probably wrote this as an audition scene cast you and then tried to build an episode around the one scene they had already written. And I think that's why it's not that great, is because it's all about just this scene, because really every other the other scenes in the storyline are just reiterating the same point. You have three scenes that do the exact same tension, and so I think that you know, they probably started with the scene and then just wrote backwards the two previous scenes restating the same conflict. I'm not actually developing it because it should have been the first scene and then you develop it into a storyline. But instead they just went to this scene, and so you have the same tensions and it doesn't develop, and it doesn't time that you. I bet you right, because you're right, nothing happens. There's nothing happens. Well, did you did you start dating Nikki this week? Like this episode is this, like, did you guys start dating pretty much immediately? Yes, yes, I want to. That's how we met, I want to say, I want to. I remember honestly thinking and shout out to Nicki Cox again. We we reconnected four or five years ago, um over email. She's such a sweetheart. Um. I remember distinctly thinking the first time I saw her, that's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life. Um. And then we talked and she was so nice and so sweet that I instantly had a just instant crush on her. And we hung out that whole that whole week. I just remember what was a date like like what you guys do you We would like yeah, like you know, we get it was I had my car, so we pick my car. Yeah, we'd go into Selica. Did you show off your sub whiffer? I'm sure I did. You know you know what rider? That was awesome. It was I'm not making fun of that was like, yeah, it was. We were like fifteen sixteen year olds dating, you know. We'd help, we hold hands and and I think we did. We literally like would go out and get something to eat or go to ice cream. It was like it was never serious. It was like did you ever go to eds w Yes, we have to talk. No longer exists. But it was a diner in l a where it was all out of Lost Tis Plane characters. Was as the waiters and waitresses, so they would be in character sort of being like, you know, tough, funny off the table. Yeah, but it was a kid friendly diner place where it was it was fistner. It was amazing. So I actually have a friend who have become friends with an amazing actors named Rusty Swimmer who worked there, and when I first met her, she was like I served you back in the night. She's an incredible director. If you look her up anybody listening, Rusty Swimmers one of one of the most talented, amazing actresses. You guys would know her in a hartpage. She's been in everything, and for comedy and for drama. But anyway, yeah, she she always talked about how she worked at Oh No, I loved. I had my first birthday parted. It was one of those places where the first time I went there, it was like thirteen and you'd look away and then you'd look back and one of the waiters or waitresses would be sitting next to you eating your fries. They would do that. It's like, what character as like Buddy Holly and like Maryland were they pretending to be? Actually they were like from the fifties. No, I don't think they ever went just came up with their own character and they would then get up and dance. They would dance to was y m c A or something on the table. It was awesome, but they kind of shade some French fries and young It was like the fifties diner vibe. They did a a spoof of it on Friends where Monica ends up working there and has to get on the table and do Y M c A. And the first time I saw it, I was like, oh, that's absolutely amdibetics Ever, Joey Lawrence, we should do a Chubby Can we do a Chubbies pop up? We've talked about this, but let's do a Chubbies pop up? I guess up. If you want to do a Chubby's pop up but in Philly, Yeah, yeah, we'll do a great idea. Um So, Eric says his parents aren't supposed to have fun. Amy says that they got home late because they had backstage passes. They just continue to one up you with the cool factor. Um. Eric tries to walk out, he's going to take Heather home, but Alan stops them. They send Corey and Morgan to bed. We think Eric is going to get yelled at, and Alan says, when he was younger, he want he had a father like the one that Eric wants now, but he really wanted a father like what Eric has, and so he just has to deal with it. Basically, his own father was like a stick in the mud, and he wanted a cool dad. And so Eric is not um appreciating the fact that having a cool dad is maybe better than having a stick in the mud dad. And then he he walks out of the room and after kissing me on the forehead, yeah, kissing me on the back of the head, and then walking out and then leaves you guys alone, made you sit down even for this conversation, and then walks out and you as Eric, thank, oh, did my cool parents just leave me alone with my girlfriend? And you guys go to kiss and then he pops his head out and says, not that cool, and you turn back on the light. So what was he doing? What was the point? I guess just leaving you guys alone to make out, like they just get alone time, like without other parents and other kids around, without parents and other kids around. So I think it was just like, hey, you can be alone, but you're not gonna you can continue your date without all of these embarrassing factors in your life. But we're not going to think it was a button joke on a scene that made no sense. I think that's as far as they went with it was. It's like and then they try to kiss and they can't, Like, there's because you do you look at it and it's like he learns they tried to throw in the lesson but it didn't really work, and then he leaves him with the girl. It's yeah, you turn the light off. You're like turned the lamp off, and then you have to turn the light back on. Well, the rest of the house is perfectly lit, by the way, so it's just turning off the lamp right next to them, as if it plunges them into darkness. It's like, hey, we're in a slightly darker room now, Like I just might be a good time for too much shirts because Indie. Interestingly, Indie did not really like when I kept asking about the storyline. He kept just sort of coming up with other observations, random little things, and then we kind of got derailed into being recognized and acting. So but it was it was interesting that I kept, you know, I I've edited these conversations down a little bit um so, but there was like five minutes of me being like, but what happened here? And what happened here? And he you know, he remembers your storyline? Well, well let's see, give a listen. What do you think of this episode? It was what about Will's storyline? What was his storyline going to a convery when his parents wound it and then then act stayed path and they had better seat? Would you you only go to concerts with me and mom? So you don't like concerts? You don't like hornble? What concerts have you been to? Bad concerts? What about Corey's storyline with Mincas what happened there? He loves baseball, That's why the oh in boy is a baseball to pay whatever her name is. What about her? She wasn't in this? She was not in this. We filmed this episode before the episode that we watched last week. What yeah, they aired them out of order? What did you think of me throwing stuff at Mincas? I loved it really little funny. Wouldn't that be mean to do to somebody? You wouldn't get in so much trouble if you threw a paper airplane at somebody's head you're good at. Did you make it? Probably not know the props of people. Probably we prefolded it for me. Did you actually have to do it him? Yeah, he saw me get hurt. I don't think so. It's a paper airplane, you know that doesn't really hurt. Do you think I look like I did? Then? Now your hair kinda wait? Who are the people who are will? Who is going to be? Who are listening? Yeah? Do you probably people mostly my age or like slightly younger than me who grew up watching Boy Meets World, Like people who remember it from when they were younger. Do you have anything you want to say to those people? Hi? And I think you're right, because boy we threw out of the Good Show. Thanks. Yeah, I think that's nice and I hope they agree that there's too much shirts in the first episode. Too many shirts now that I think about it, but now we're calling this whole segment too much shirts. Yeah, we want to make t shirts of it. T much shirt okay by people? Oh that's so funny. Yeah, but it was so you know, like the the main storyline with Corey didn't really resonate beyond Corey liking baseball, like that was you know what he But the Eric storyline, he's like that he's trying to get backstage passes, and felt like he picked up all those subtle nuances, of which they wrote none. I'm happy he had noticed. I wasn't there makes me loved totally. No, he was very concerned. You know, I was like, where's she because the last episode all about her? Yeah? Yeah, where Chico? That is so cute and he now knows too many shirts about it that I think about it. Yeah, he's a little embarrassed. I think that that's become the catchphrase because it makes him sound young, but I think it's so funny. So we're in Phoenie's classroom. Mincus is back to his normal attire, saying he's more of a Connie Chung kind of guy than a Cindy Crawford guy, and Corey asks Mancus a geography question that that was in the you know the tournament that basically the one he lost on and has the answer right away. Um. Corey tells Mr Feenie he tries his he tried his hardest, but Mincus would have taken home the trophy. And Mr Feenie shows Corey that he actually got an A on this week's exam. It's his first ever A from Feenie, and Mr Feenie has the very cute moment with Corey where he walks over and he puts the A test up on the board where the tournament plaque would normally have gone had he won. And uh again we see this very cute moment and Ben, Ben and Bill actually high five. I thought it's very cute, it was great. I welled up. I can't help. That's Superman line in that one episode really got me. But I haven't. I haven't quite welled up since I This was a This was a moderate, like a minor well up. It wasn't on par with the super with the Superman well up, but that feeling of like, you know, I think a lot about having kids now of my own. I think a lot about what the best way is of encouraging them and of giving them compliments for when they work really hard, Like I naturally have a tendency to say good job about just about everything, and then I realized, like, that isn't actually helpful. What's really helpful, yeah, is is when he when I can tell that he's really worked at something, being like, wow, I can see how hard you worked at that, And so I try to be very aware of that language that I use in what I give him compliments on and so um, seeing it happen with Poenie in this place and imagining, like knowing the kind of pride you get when you've done something and you've achieved something, it just made it. Yeah, it made me well up thinking that that Peoenie gave this boy the truthfully is really hard on, Like, he's really hard on Corey, and for valid reason. You know, Corey is you know, not necessarily the greatest student or whatever. He's constantly coming up with issues. But seeing him go out of his way to do the opposite, to really drive home the point that he is smart and that his effort is worth something and that he's proud of him is what made me well up. Is Like, you made Phoenie proud, And don't we all want that feeling of making Phoenie proud. Well, there is that kind of that kind of realization with Phoenie that whether it's compliments or whatever it is, or education or learning, you have to earn it. You always have to earn it with him, and I liked that That's kind of how we felt. It sounds so strange, but people always ask like, we're William Daniels and Mr Feenie similar And I always felt that way with Bill when it came to compliments with him about acting or our conduct on the set, I felt like I had to earn it, and I liked that. I liked feeling like I wanted to earn his respect, and I feel like I did eventually. But that's what I felt like that that this moment with Phoenie was like, look what you earned, Like you did this, you studied, you put in the time, and you earned the high five. And I thought that was really cool. Yeah. So the tag is in the Matthews family living room. Corey is watching a baseball game. The announcer says that the bat girl has run onto the field with a protest banner, and then we see them have again the discussion that's in the geography tournament, and I couldn't really tell what this What the joke was is the joke that even the baseball announcer knows the answer to this question, and like everyone knows that, how did he not know? I think it's just that we, you know, because when we're watching the be we're thinking, this is so obscure, this is so the big joke is that it's not obscure. It's not And was this one of our Was this our dialogue coach Christopher Kier's voice? He might have been Chris Kayer, Chris, I was trying to listen to the voice everything. Certainly wasn't one of our writers, because I was like, Okay, who is this? Is this? Minnell is that I don't think it was one of our one of our writers. But I remember these lines because we we said these as jokes forever. This was very much an inside joke. I think it might have tend our dialogue coach Chris kay was at the time. He had retired, obviously, but at the time was the youngest ring master in history of the Ringling Barn and Bailey Circus ringmaster at like the age of twenty three years. We should get Chris Kayer on the show. He's still good friends with Dedy I believe or somebody. He's still good friends with somebody. He's also friends with Tony O'Dell, who is a dialogue coach in My Great Guy. He was always very nice and very helpful, so it was great. Yeah, I think we should Uh, I think we should try to get him on the show. That would be great. Um. One of my favorite lines, just to recap in this episode, One of my favorite lines is when uh, we've seen Mincus in the Big Yellow chants and uh, Mr Feenie says, sometimes a man doesn't know another Yeah, sometimes the Sometimes a man doesn't know a struggle until he's walked a mile in another man's humongous pants. Humongouss I thought. It just made me laugh. And his delivery, ever, it was so great. It's one of my favorites. So uh, thank you for joining us for this episode. Next week, we are going to be recapping season one episode six, Boys to Mensa, which originally aired on October and we have a very special guest. We will be talking to someone who sat in the death chair. We will be talking to Marty York. We're very excited to have him. UM. Looking forward to catching up with him and also known for the sand Lot. Yeah, we have some sand Lot fans out there. Oh yes, how could you forget the sand Lot? Yeah? So, but we have we have a someone who actually sat in the death chair. We've done so much talking about it. We'll get to hear what that experience, what that experience was like. Um So follow us on Instagram Pod Meets World Show, and you can email us at pod Meats World Show at gmail dot com. Also check out our website, pod meets World Show dot com. We got merch so many shirts, too much shirts, one might too much. And yeah, I had a really good time with you guys as always, Yeah me too. I'm just gonna go hang out in my tiny little bed now, in my tiny little room that hasn't changed since night eighty four. That's all right. 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, Tara soup Bach, Producer Lorraine Vurez, Engineering boy Meets World super fan Easton 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