Amy Jo Johnson Meets World

00:00:20
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:00:21
Speaker 2: I was thinking about how weird it is that every now and then at conventions someone will bring me something I won't sign. For example, I think I've said before, but maybe I have not. I don't sign my Maxim magazine. I don't sign them for many reasons we don't need to get into now. But so sometimes people bring those up to the table and I'll say, oh my gosh, I'm really sorry I don't sign those, and then like they'll be like, oh, okay, that's a bummer, and I'll say, but we can, you know, you can get a different picture, or if you don't want anything at all, totally fine, nice to meet you. And they leave, and then like ten people later, someone will come up and they have their own pictures printed out that they want me to sign, and they're all pictures of me where you can see my feet, And I'm.

00:01:08
Speaker 3: Like really, and I'm like, how many pictures of you?

00:01:12
Speaker 4: I was gonna say, I don't think I've ever seen a photo of you where I can see your feet.

00:01:15
Speaker 3: Oh wait, you know what, there's actually a photo of all of us barefoot.

00:01:18
Speaker 1: Yes, on the beach, like we're standing like.

00:01:22
Speaker 5: On a leg.

00:01:23
Speaker 3: I don't think anybody that no one wants your features disgusting.

00:01:32
Speaker 1: You're great at climbing trees, though, I was gonna say, and it's perfect for your trip.

00:01:36
Speaker 3: To mortor wrapped up in all.

00:01:41
Speaker 4: Just when you remember when you get into the center of Mount Doom, throw the ring in.

00:01:45
Speaker 1: It can save us.

00:01:46
Speaker 2: All anyway, And I'll think, should I not sign these?

00:01:53
Speaker 1: Uneasy? Either?

00:01:54
Speaker 6: I don't little dirty, I feel a little gross, But I'm also like, you sign them with your feet right over my feet.

00:02:02
Speaker 1: So like a scribble on my feet. No, but so question.

00:02:06
Speaker 3: I guess these are mostly teenage girls asking for this right women right, very like.

00:02:16
Speaker 1: You would be wrong, such as so bad at this game.

00:02:20
Speaker 4: I don't know.

00:02:20
Speaker 3: I don't know what you're applying that don't understand what's happening here. They're like websites rate my feet.

00:02:27
Speaker 1: Wiki feet.

00:02:29
Speaker 2: I'm all over wiki feet, and I I'm just.

00:02:33
Speaker 1: Like wiki feet. Wait, is that really a thing? Wiki feet?

00:02:36
Speaker 7: Look it up, man, let's go, let's go.

00:02:40
Speaker 1: Let's things. I don't want to google for a thousand alex wiki feet.

00:02:45
Speaker 2: Wiki feet, looking up Wilfredell. Right now, we're going to see what's on here.

00:02:49
Speaker 8: Is a celebrity feet kind of like, okay, because you don't care about your I mean you're not like private about your feet, right.

00:02:55
Speaker 2: Well, No, That's what I'm saying is that I'm like, I don't really like it's just feet, like it's feet.

00:03:01
Speaker 1: I don't to me, I don't understand how feet have been I won't be on Wiki feet.

00:03:06
Speaker 4: I won't be on Wiki feet the same way I don't have a cutout, and you guys both have cutouts, Like I'm just never true.

00:03:11
Speaker 2: We discovered that we can talk about that since your feelings really seem hurt by it.

00:03:15
Speaker 7: I hate this is really the worst jumpin I've ever done in my entire life. Will is all over Wiki feet. Yeah, Wiki feet men for example. I mean, it's crazy how many shots there are actually of him with just no shoes.

00:03:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the one. We're talking about that stuff.

00:03:32
Speaker 7: Okay, then there are other ones. Let me let me get to this me. Yeah, there's some in your backyard where you your dog and feet.

00:03:42
Speaker 1: Oh my god, okay, yeah.

00:03:46
Speaker 4: I.

00:03:48
Speaker 7: Have to burn this phone. Now, get rid of that phone, Jensen. God, I have another question. Did you ever injure your foot or oh no, you know what this is. Were you getting a tattoo.

00:03:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was getting a tattoo. Yeah, I was getting I was covering the other tattoo that I had.

00:04:02
Speaker 1: Is writer on wiki.

00:04:04
Speaker 3: Oh my god, no, it'll break your phone if you should right strong?

00:04:09
Speaker 7: Oh you mean rights strong for Wiki feet men in this shot?

00:04:14
Speaker 3: Wait?

00:04:15
Speaker 1: What shot is that? What is that?

00:04:17
Speaker 7: Farm?

00:04:18
Speaker 1: Okay, see you can't things you don't even think of. That's my point. It's like, oh.

00:04:27
Speaker 3: See, no one wants that. What is that from?

00:04:33
Speaker 7: Are you? Are you allowing people to bring this shot of just your foot to sign?

00:04:39
Speaker 1: You should start offering it at that point? Yeah, like I gotta give him, Like does it look like you're really have flat feet?

00:04:48
Speaker 7: Serious question? Is this your foot or baby Yoda?

00:04:50
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:04:55
Speaker 3: Yes, my feet are stable, made for a fe and living.

00:05:01
Speaker 1: You know, I know your feet made well for that. Oh what's that from?

00:05:08
Speaker 3: Am I naked?

00:05:09
Speaker 7: What do you do? A picture of writer? He's sitting criss cross apple sauce. He has no clothes on. It appeared in my contemplating life?

00:05:17
Speaker 8: Is you know what? I think that's from penthouse?

00:05:23
Speaker 1: When you's like wait, what what really wanted me?

00:05:32
Speaker 7: And just so you said, Will had ten photos on Wiki feet writer who said there's no way I have any on there has twenty eight.

00:05:44
Speaker 1: There you go.

00:05:45
Speaker 3: I'm always the lady the beloved for my feet right foot model. I think I think there's a future here.

00:05:55
Speaker 2: I mean, that's my point. Let's say you were to open fan and then just do feet pictures. Yeah, I think is there something?

00:06:05
Speaker 1: Does anyone have any moral objections to that? When it's feed to foot to foot feed, you know what it's being used for them, But.

00:06:12
Speaker 3: What is it being used for other than people?

00:06:13
Speaker 8: I mean, I guess it's just it's like, are they like.

00:06:18
Speaker 3: Hand websites are I'm sure there's probably.

00:06:22
Speaker 4: Well, you know, there's also they say that scientifically, the part of your brain that deals with sex also is right next to the part of your brain that deals with feet, So they think a crossed wire and they're kind of they connect there's a whole part.

00:06:37
Speaker 1: Of your brain that deals with fat. No, it's just one small section of your brain. But it is true.

00:06:42
Speaker 3: But it isn't true, just conceptually, the idea of cross Just instantly say it's not true.

00:06:48
Speaker 6: You have no red, no brain that's google. There's no one part of the brain that does anything. The brain is a whole system of jokes.

00:06:58
Speaker 1: There's certain memories set in the brain.

00:07:01
Speaker 4: Of course there are, Writer, that's just absolutely incorrect.

00:07:04
Speaker 8: So tell me where the part of the brain that deals with sexes. Please explain that that here, here you go. Pre sex is the most distributed part of the brain. You can't say there's this one.

00:07:16
Speaker 7: Part, writer, while you're fighting. I need you to know. I need you to know that Danielle has one hundred and thirty four pictures on Wiki feet.

00:07:23
Speaker 5: I see.

00:07:23
Speaker 3: That's insane.

00:07:24
Speaker 2: You know what it is, though, Writer, It's not all naked feet. There are even times I've worn like strappy sandals.

00:07:29
Speaker 1: Yeah right, Hi, can we can we talk you for one second? Let's get back to how to write or telling you you're wrong.

00:07:35
Speaker 4: In the so mutose sensory homunculous S one territory representing the feet is next to the brain areas representing the genitals. The links to the widely reported S one theory explain the feat's orogenis zones. There are sections of the brain that control different things. There just are right body parts, sure, well right, but there's also the so that's exactly what they're talking about. The orogenous zone the brain representing the part of the feet and representing the part of the genitals are right next to right next to each other, right so acrossed wire and you're that's what you that's what they call it. The you know, if there's some kind of cross what do they call when they fire?

00:08:14
Speaker 1: When they fire?

00:08:15
Speaker 7: Explain why writer's feet look that way.

00:08:18
Speaker 1: No, that's genetics. That's the part that's the hobbit part of the brain.

00:08:23
Speaker 3: It's the Hobbit lineage of Scotland right into my feet, through Pennsylvania over to northern California. You do, You've got Scottish Highland feet. There's nothing wrong with that.

00:08:37
Speaker 1: Bye, Jensen, Thanks for embarrassing us with our feet.

00:08:41
Speaker 4: I signed your maximals all the time. By the way, we've talked about this. They leave your table and bring them over here. Bring them over here, I'll sign them. Feenie call Daniel's feet.

00:08:55
Speaker 1: Welcome to pod meets World. I'm Daniel Fishel, I'm right or Strong, and I'm Wilfredee.

00:09:13
Speaker 2: So this week's guest and I have quite a long history, despite the fact that I, as far as i'm aware, have never met her. But yet for the past twenty or so years, our pictures have been placed next to each other alongside Tiffany Ambertheesian, underneath a meme headline that reads something like, if this was your first crush, It's time for some meta musil.

00:09:38
Speaker 3: I was wondering where this was going.

00:09:40
Speaker 1: Yeah for me too, I mean I thought you never met yeah exactly.

00:09:44
Speaker 2: And the debates of who you liked more, well, those have somehow dominated Twitter since the Terrible Apps inception, and now this week we will meet this real life superhero who you know best as Kimberly Hart, the Pink Ranger on every og incarnation of the Mighty morphin Power Rangers, a franchise scene on TV and movies before franchise was a commonly used term in Hollywood, and you'd later see her on Spin City Er in the movie Killing Mister Griffin, and as Julie Emrick on fifty episodes of Felicity.

00:10:14
Speaker 1: Now without the helmet, and she's.

00:10:16
Speaker 2: Returning to her spandex bad guy fighting roots in the coolest way possible, which we will all talk about. So this week, please welcome an icon and the woman I will always vote for in those dumb online polls.

00:10:28
Speaker 1: Amy Joe Johnson.

00:10:31
Speaker 5: Yeah, Hey, Hi, how's it?

00:10:36
Speaker 1: Collin it's so great. It is so nice to meet you. I feel like this has been a very long time coming.

00:10:45
Speaker 5: Oh, well that's nice. Yes.

00:10:47
Speaker 2: Are you aware of the heated debates we are involuntarily a part of over who was their first nineties crush?

00:10:56
Speaker 5: I am not aware of.

00:10:58
Speaker 3: Wow. Wow, you don't google yourself as much as Yes, you.

00:11:03
Speaker 1: Don't get sent nearly as much as I do a parent.

00:11:08
Speaker 5: So who's the winner?

00:11:11
Speaker 1: Oh, there's never a winner. We're all losers in that situation.

00:11:17
Speaker 5: A thing I'd like try not to think about that kind of a thing.

00:11:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's the point. I think men are the winner in that situation.

00:11:24
Speaker 1: Just listen.

00:11:26
Speaker 2: I I just I've always wanted to meet you, and I'm so happy we're able to do it here.

00:11:31
Speaker 5: Well, I'm very happy to meet you guys. Thank you for having me on the on your podcast.

00:11:37
Speaker 4: Yeah you wouldn't You wouldn't remember this, but you and I had a very nice conversation once at the premiere of the Mighty Morphem Power Rangers movie.

00:11:44
Speaker 7: You know what.

00:11:45
Speaker 5: I was chatting with my pal David Yost yesterday and he did remind me that you were there.

00:11:50
Speaker 1: Oh really okay? Yeah, yeah, wow, I wasn't there. Was I No, I think I was just me.

00:11:58
Speaker 5: I don't even remember being there.

00:12:01
Speaker 1: You were there, you were there.

00:12:02
Speaker 5: I think I was there.

00:12:05
Speaker 2: So I know you began your life performing as a competitive gymnast. How does Power Rangers come calling as your first job.

00:12:15
Speaker 5: Well, so I moved my life to Los Angeles when I was I think like twenty twenty one. I went to school in New York. I followed a boy cross country and I was there for about six months and I actually left and moved back home. But the night before I went, I met this acting coach, this man named Walter, who you know, was this very funny, eccentric older man. Well he wasn't even older then. He was younger than me than I am now, but he seems older all the time and just like filled me with all of this love and just was like, you're going to be a star. And he had this like tiny little workshop. And I moved home. He even called my parents and he said she has to come back, and so I did. I went back, and literally the week I moved back is when I got my first audition, which was for Power Rangers.

00:13:11
Speaker 1: Wow, your first ever audition was for Power Rangers.

00:13:14
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, I did a couple like tiny, little like student films and stuff that six months that I first got there. But like my first real audition it was with Katie Wallins too, because I had taken a commercial acting workshop class with her and so she was casting the show and so she called me and told me to come in. I didn't even have an agent. I didn't get an agent till after I left the show. Ges.

00:13:46
Speaker 4: Wow, so it was Power Rangers already. It was a big thing in Japan, right.

00:13:52
Speaker 5: Yes, so it was. I mean I had a whole history, I think. Yeah, stan Lee even wanted it at one point and tried to pick and sell it and he couldn't and then heim Saban ended up getting the rights to it and you know, made it what it was at the time, and just took the Japanese footage and just shot fifteen minutes of the real footage that we had. I wouldn't call that the real footage, the new footage, yeah, the American footage and sort of smushed it together and it was just this really weird, cheesy, fun, brightly colored kids show that kind of like.

00:14:34
Speaker 3: But so, did your audition include fighting or because you were the acting side, you didn't have to do any of the stunts.

00:14:41
Speaker 5: Oh, we did all our stunts okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, until we ran out of the footage we had. We did a bunch of the stunts even with the helmets on, and then I couldn't breathe. Me and David Yos really complained about the fact there were like three holes in the helmets and we couldn't breath. I got stunt doubles for us with the helmets on, but I was a gymnast, David with a gymnast, and everybody else was in martial arts, and so we kind of just faked it for the audition. I do think it was my gymnastics that got me the role. I don't think it was my acting skills at that time.

00:15:18
Speaker 1: So how old were you when you booked the job?

00:15:21
Speaker 5: Twenty? I think I just turned twenty two, okay.

00:15:24
Speaker 1: And how old were you when you started in gymnastics?

00:15:27
Speaker 2: Oh?

00:15:28
Speaker 5: My god? Seven? Wow? Yeah. That was like my upbringing in my life, Like I loved it. And then I actually quit gymnastics when I was around seventeen, okay. Yeah, and then and then it came in real handy for that and.

00:15:44
Speaker 2: You obviously you just hadn't lost it, even though you hadn't really been.

00:15:50
Speaker 5: I you know, I just wrote a comic book. I don't know if you guys know that, but the Power Rangel's comic book. And so me and my boyfriend, who I wrote this comic book with many more from Power Rangels Turn, we went back and we watched all these old episodes. Because I don't know about you guys, but I never watched the show when it was I don't know, I think I watched a few, and then I realized quickly as an actor for myself, I didn't like to watch myself. Now, as a writer director, I've been in a few things that I did, I don't even look at myself as myself. Yeah, when I'm editing, you know what I mean, I just being Anyway, we went back and we watched a bunch of old episodes of Power Rangers, and I was really sort of surprised and a little bit impressed with myself that I had still had so many of those skills that I had as a gymnast when I was younger. I mean, I can't do any of that stuff now, really, I did. I have a a trampoline in my backyard, and I did a backflip last summer and I was out for like a month, like, oh no, ACT said, you did no more flips?

00:16:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know why you think you could still flip. You could do it twenty years ago. I don't know why that thing.

00:17:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did? You land it?

00:17:03
Speaker 5: I did, okay, And then I was feeling really good in that moment physically, and I actually went and played frisbee with my boyfriend and I was doing tart wheels all over the lawn and yeah, no, no more.

00:17:18
Speaker 1: The next day your body was like, what were you doing?

00:17:21
Speaker 5: Oh my god, no more going upside down.

00:17:24
Speaker 2: That's you had a very like independent late teenage early twenties, because you said you moved across the country to New York to follow a boy. Then you were back in LA and then The Power Rangers filmed in New Zealand.

00:17:38
Speaker 1: Right.

00:17:39
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, first of all, I grew up on kip Cood in Massachusetts, in like a small town.

00:17:45
Speaker 4: Which town, curiously, Dennis, Okay, So we were in manam It right before the bridge.

00:17:52
Speaker 1: Oh oh really, right next to right next to Plymouth.

00:17:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, well that's where we spent you know, I'm from Connecticut, originally, but that's where my family had our little summer and were there all the time. So I spent all my time in like Hyenna's Port, like that whole kind of area around that, the Cape Cod.

00:18:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, so very good.

00:18:08
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I still have family there. I love going home. I was just there two weeks ago. I actually love it in the winter.

00:18:14
Speaker 1: It's so it's a great place. Yeah, great place. Yeah.

00:18:18
Speaker 5: So then I went from Cape Cod.

00:18:20
Speaker 1: To k New York.

00:18:21
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, so you didn't go didn't go that far, okay, But then.

00:18:26
Speaker 5: I drove across country with a boy to Los Angeles. A year after I went to New York. A year or so, I got to LA and six months later I landed Power Rangers. A year later we were still filming, and a year later it actually aired in September, and then we filmed two seasons for a whole other year, and then we went to New Zealand to shoot the movie.

00:18:51
Speaker 1: Did it ever?

00:18:52
Speaker 4: Did it ever get to a point where you were no longer using the Japanese footage where the entire show was being shot here?

00:18:58
Speaker 1: Or was was there always Japanese fotah thrown in? Yeah?

00:19:01
Speaker 5: No, they ran out. I mean I I did one hundred and fifty two episodes within two years.

00:19:07
Speaker 1: Oh my geesh, that's a lot.

00:19:09
Speaker 8: Okay, yeah, so in one filming day, how like how much how many pages were you guys doing?

00:19:15
Speaker 5: Oh they would shoot like four episodes at a time.

00:19:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, schedule, but you're doing stunts. Yes, so intense.

00:19:24
Speaker 7: Oh, I know.

00:19:24
Speaker 5: There was you know, two units and we were ay weeks and like we were just in it. We were like paid seven hundred dollars a week. It was non union.

00:19:36
Speaker 3: Were you having were you exhausted all the time? Like was it stressful or was it?

00:19:41
Speaker 5: I mean, I had a blast. I didn't really honestly didn't think the show was going to become what it was for for kids. I didn't think that at all. I thought, Okay, I'm getting my feet wet, I'm learning how to hit a mark. I'm you know, this is kind of like a cool first job. And I just sort of emerg myself in it. And it was a year later that it aired and then the kids just loved it.

00:20:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, my son went through such an intense Power Rangers phase.

00:20:10
Speaker 1: My kids. It still works.

00:20:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, And now there's like fifty different shows. They're all in the same ilk and you know, and he's like he knows which ones are from which generation, and I'm like, I cannot keep up with any of this. It's so yeah, it's great.

00:20:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's so many. I think it's I think it just ended last year, to tell you the truth. So I think I don't know how many generations of Power Rangers. There were different pasts, but there were a lot.

00:20:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:20:42
Speaker 3: Did you have an adjustment period coming off of Power Rangers into your next job, like to change, like, oh this is this is different then a different type of set than I'm used to.

00:20:54
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I actually asked to leave before the movie. Actually, I went to the producer and said, you know, I think I'm done.

00:21:07
Speaker 1: We shot thirty eight episodes today. I think I'm finished, right.

00:21:10
Speaker 3: I heard other actors are making a little more than seven episode a week, right, Yeah.

00:21:19
Speaker 5: And he was very kind to me. He wasn't so kind apparently to other people. But he said, go and shoot the movie. If you go and shoot this movie. And then I wrote this other movie called Susie Q that I would love you to star, and it was this little Disney movie and like five ten more episodes when we come back from New Zealand, and I was like, that's great, and he gave me this beautiful Guild guitar or a Gibson guitar, and that was sort of my sendoff. And then yeah, for a year, at least a year to two years, it was very hard to get that next job. So I just sort of don't move into plays and acting classes and just tried to you know what, I decided, I'm not going to focus on getting an agent or a manager. I'm going to focus on the craft and let that naturally happen and.

00:22:14
Speaker 7: Come to me.

00:22:14
Speaker 3: Wow, that's very yeah, mature of you.

00:22:18
Speaker 5: Which I was a very naive person. But I think if I look back, I think that was kind of a smart choice for me to go and just sort of like kind of hone my skills as an actor. And it was about two years later, a year and a half later, I got my first movie of the week.

00:22:38
Speaker 4: Remember movies of the week. Remember how much fun movies of the Week worked. Did you guys ever do movies of the week?

00:22:43
Speaker 1: Did you writer Danielle, did you guys do your your mow stime? Switch was, Oh that's right, Yeah.

00:22:48
Speaker 3: That's an ABC movie of the Week. Yeah, And actually my first job was a was a movie of the week, which one along road Home. The job where I was in a depression era family. It was like one of the kids and only had like three lines.

00:23:02
Speaker 1: In the movie, and that.

00:23:07
Speaker 3: They asked me to come to a dr and then I was like, I only had a couple of lines. And then some woman did my boice. Oh no, whatever, what.

00:23:17
Speaker 2: Did your family think of you becoming this like a part of this huge phenomenon.

00:23:24
Speaker 5: Oh, they were very proud. Again, I came from sort of a small town in Cape Cod nobody was in the arts in any means, and I just remember my dad and my mom were really proud. My dad was so proud to a point that my mom had to say, stop having people come over the house when she comes home.

00:23:45
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, just the.

00:23:46
Speaker 5: People lined up and I'd be like, God, I just want to come.

00:23:50
Speaker 2: Home, Please don't bring the neighbors over with their cameras to Yeah, I went through that with my grandparents. I'd go visit my grandparents, and my grandmother would go, come on, we're going to make the rounds. And I'd go to like her bank and her grocery store and her Nordstrom to meet all all the people she talked about.

00:24:11
Speaker 1: You'll have to do that.

00:24:12
Speaker 4: My Dad's like, the guy at the car wash place really needs to meet you.

00:24:16
Speaker 1: I'm like why.

00:24:17
Speaker 4: He's like, well, he wants to talk to you about something. And then I'll get there and I'll be like just.

00:24:21
Speaker 1: My big fan, like all right, thanks, thanks dad.

00:24:27
Speaker 4: So going back to Power Rangers, so it becomes a complete and total phenomenon, I mean it's it's everywhere. How did your life change when it aired? And then it's all over the place, I mean since it because it's so strange.

00:24:56
Speaker 1: It's like, was really a kid show.

00:24:58
Speaker 4: We say we were on a kid show, but we had you know, the parents would watch with the kids. Power Rangers was really kind of a little kid's phenomenon at the time. So could you still have a totally normal life unless there were little kids around?

00:25:09
Speaker 1: Or were you being recognized everywhere?

00:25:14
Speaker 5: I had a totally normal life. I mean we were like, again, paid seven hundred dollars a week, and at one point I remember David Yost coming over to my house and he opened a drawer and there was like thirty five checks still sitting in the chore Oh my gosh, thank yeah. I mean like I was a little bit clueless of like LA and we were working so much, right, so I think the first time that we were sort of like, oh wow, this is a very popular show where a couple different scenarios. One we went to Hawaii to do a personal appearance and it was me, JDF and David and we They announced it on the radio and we got off the plane. You know how they'd lay you. So we got off the plane and there were at least a thousand people at the airport. I do believe it was more, and they started laying us FA and laying us and then JDF turns around and looks at me and all I see her his eyes just all flowers, and we were like like we were almost laid to death. I know that, but that was crazy. And then the Universal amphitheater shows. We showed up like we thought we were doing one little show, and it ended up selling out, so we ended up doing four shows in one day, and it actually, to be honest, it gave me nightmares. And I realized in that moment, I don't think I really actually want to be famous. I struggled with that for a long time. And it wasn't until I actually discovered writing and directing is my passion and that's really all I want to do. I prefer to be behind the camera than in front of it. But it took me about twenty years to really figure that out.

00:27:03
Speaker 2: Will you tell what were those shows? Tell me more about those live shows. What were those Universal Amphitheater shows.

00:27:09
Speaker 5: So when the movie or so when the TV show first hit, they did this live show at Universal Amphitheater and it shut down the highway. There were so many people that showed up. They had to shut down the one oh one and we were actually stuck in traffic trying to get to the show, and you're like, the.

00:27:27
Speaker 1: People doing the show.

00:27:28
Speaker 4: We.

00:27:30
Speaker 5: Get there. It was just I don't know. They just made this live show. We did one. We did it once. It was one day, and then you had.

00:27:38
Speaker 3: To do stunts on stage, and like it was.

00:27:39
Speaker 5: A oh yeah.

00:27:41
Speaker 9: They had had helmets on and we go on to this big platform and we off the helmet and the whole Amphitheater screams, and then we did flips off of the platform and ran around the.

00:27:53
Speaker 5: Stage and I remember me and Twee kept going. We were screaming with the audience, and then we go on the back and hind some I was like, no screaming.

00:28:02
Speaker 1: Did anyone ever get hurt?

00:28:04
Speaker 5: Tweetd Tweet actually hurt her knee when she jumped off. She uh, yeah, she hurt herself. But yeah, okay.

00:28:12
Speaker 2: And then were you getting paid for these show, these live shows? Were you getting paid more than you were getting paid for the TV show?

00:28:19
Speaker 5: My hindsight is really bad. You'd have to ask, like David Yost or Walter was Walter.

00:28:26
Speaker 3: I'm just going to go out on the limb and say probably.

00:28:28
Speaker 10: Not, probably not, probably not, Yeah, fifty good good luck, Oh my god, yeah.

00:28:37
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.

00:28:38
Speaker 4: Well, I just remember knowing seeing how the level of talent physically that the cast had.

00:28:44
Speaker 1: I when I was we were fourth season of the show, fifth season the show.

00:28:48
Speaker 4: We're at Radford and there's a martial arts studio up the street, and I thought, I'm going to take some classes. So I decided to take some hot kedo classes right up the street, and Walter was in my class and was a black belt obviously, as I was trying to put on my outfit, learning what ties to what, and he the teacher said Walter is gonna give us a demonstration, and I was like, oh, okay, great, So we all sit around the mat and he flips into the room, like full on flips into the room out of nowhere like this amazing thing, flips over us to land in the mat, does this gymnastics things backflip, and then just starts doing these high kicks that would have taken Shack out like seven feet in the air.

00:29:32
Speaker 1: This insane.

00:29:32
Speaker 4: And then he finishes and he walked out. Oh and it was the whole class looking around like what the hell? It was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen up close, where it was just like, how is a human being pulling this off? So the level of skill that you all had, because what JDF, I know, was a martial artist.

00:29:50
Speaker 1: David Yos was a martial artist as well.

00:29:52
Speaker 5: Wasn't he He was a gymnast.

00:29:54
Speaker 1: He was a gymnast. So again.

00:29:57
Speaker 4: I still with exactly what Ryder said. I'm thinking of you doing all the stunts. You're working six days a week, Oh my god, you're doing You're shooting multiple shows at the same time, and having.

00:30:07
Speaker 3: An actor and an aut to that degree. I mean, I've always felt this way about dancers in generally, like it's just so yeah, it's so impressive and if anything, you guys should have been getting paid way more than your average actor, right, like yeah, it's you're.

00:30:20
Speaker 2: Doing everything I can retroactively pay you, Like I feel like you you deserve to. There needs to be away.

00:30:29
Speaker 5: Oh you know what, like whatever, it was, what it was. It was my first job and now honestly doing conventions, which has been super helpful as I transitioned from acting to writing and directing. And just like the kindness that comes from.

00:30:48
Speaker 1: Those shows and great aren't they.

00:30:50
Speaker 5: Kids that are adults now and how it impacted their lives and like like yeah, I'm good, Like I'm happy, like super grateful that I had the experience. But it was dearly a wild ride, definitely a wild ride. Yeah.

00:31:08
Speaker 2: I know we've now mentioned him a couple of times only as JDF, but you know, Jason David Frank we lost him last year, and we all know firsthand that when you share that many years with somebody and you know you have those kinds of experiences, those are relationships that are one in a million. Not a whole lot of people know what those those relationships are like, can you talk to us a little bit about what your relationship is like with the other Power Rangers and how bonded or not bonded you feel.

00:31:39
Speaker 5: Yeah, sure, yeah, David David is like my family. My daughter calls him uncle Yost. We go on vacations every year. And he's actually from Wareham. Oh really, Okay, he his parents or he has a house on Wareham's So so we go to Cape Cod every year together and I just love him to death. And JDF was a very very close friend and that was just awful. Yeah, but as you guys know, like everybody, they're like family in a lot of ways, you know. And so I would say David and Jason we're the closest to me. I'm now super close with jdf's daughter Jenna, and yeah, and then I see Walter at shows and Catherine, who played the Pink Branger after me. She's super sweet. She texts me every now and then we actually got closer, like I didn't really know her because I wasn't on the show with her. But Jason passed away, we ended up reaching out to each other and sort of stay connected just through texts here and nice yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, And other than that, you know, I don't really and then we lost Twee as well, who was the Yellow Ranger. And then I don't really know much of the other people. I've met Aaron before she was a Pink Ranger once or a Yellow Ranger pink, Oh my god, I don't know.

00:33:21
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, well it sounds even funny for me to bring this up considering what's available on TV now for kids. But the violence in Power Rangers was very controversial at the time in Canada. It was actually pulled from TV before the end of the first season because of complaints.

00:33:39
Speaker 1: Do you remember any of that?

00:33:41
Speaker 5: I do, I remember. I remember the controversy over that, and and I think it was sort of a choice for parents, like either they let their kids watch it or not. But the message of each show is always like this positive, you know, learning lesson and having female superheroes kick but was kind of cool, yea, yeah, but we were just like pounding away on people.

00:34:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems mild compared to what's out there today.

00:34:17
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, certainly compared to what's out there today. But my kids are huge fans and we have all the Power Rangers action figures, and I have many times tried to pick up an action figure and be a Power Ranger, and both of my sons have said to me, no, mommy, you're the pink Power Ranger. And I was like, I don't. I don't just have to be the pink Power Ranger because I could be a different one.

00:34:41
Speaker 1: Even though they exactly you.

00:34:45
Speaker 2: Take your choice, but they always want me to be the pink Power Ranger. I'm always like, okay, I well, I am happy to do it. So I wanted to talk to you about Felicity and your work with a fellow boy me It's World guest star alum Carrie Russell. Was it difficult doing the transition from Power Rangers and how did that role come about for you?

00:35:10
Speaker 5: So I landed Felicity maybe four years, I don't know. I left Power Rangers in ninety five and I got Felicity in ninety eight. So in between that, I had done a bunch of Movies of the Week, like we were talking about before, and so I think I had time to sort of take my acting classes and stuff. And so when I landed that, that was just such a huge win and I was just so excited to be part of something that felt just like a little more elevated Rangers. I'm kind of special and I had a great time. I was on the show most of the time. Again, I went and I asked to leave after two seasons, but I had lost my mother right when I got the show, and I think I just needed to go grieve. I actually went to Chicago and recorded a rock album.

00:36:07
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Oh, your character on Felicity was a musician. So as if being like a gymnast wasn't an acting wasn't enough, you also actually played guitar and were singing, and that was really you doing it right?

00:36:21
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well yeah, Julie was first a dancer, but then I was like, I don't really know how to dance, but I play guitar, and they're like great, so they incorporated that, which was cool.

00:36:33
Speaker 1: Had you always been interested in singing?

00:36:37
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I started playing. I taught myself how to play the guitar in when I was like eighteen nineteen, and I've always just kept music on the side, sort of like a hobby, a place to just kind of go and express, especially when you know things aren't happening acting career or writing and directing. I actually have an EP coming out and maybe about a month and a half we're still mixing it, but it's called Still Here Mystery Songs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so by going back to Felicity, what was the question anyway, it was just it was a huge trendsit it was a very different experience.

00:37:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, do you looking back now, do you?

00:37:22
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously the grieving process, you need to do what you need to do when you need to do it.

00:37:26
Speaker 1: But if you had to go back, would you have stayed on Felicity?

00:37:31
Speaker 5: Absolutely? Yeah, And there are no regrets, Like the way everything rolled out was the way everything rolled out. And I and now that I know deep inside, like I am much happier behind the camera and writing and directing and I and I kind of knew that then, but I didn't give myself permission to actually pursue yea, I thought I wasn't allowed to for whatever reason. So you know, in hindsight, would I have stayed on the show? Probably should have and yes, But at the same time, I still I don't know if I would have been any happier if I stayed, because I don't think that I've ever truly loved acting, where as I love writing and directing.

00:38:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned that you're making your return to your legacy with the comic book Mighty morphin Power Rangers The Return, which you co wrote for Boom Studios. Why don't you tell us all about that?

00:38:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I wrote a comic book with my boyfriend Matt and we actually came up with the idea during COVID and it was a Power Ranger sort of like what if the original Rangers had stayed together? Where would they be now? And we just started creating this wild story and then pitched it to Boom and about three years later. Everything takes long, they said yeah, and they Hasbro and so we did it and we got this amazing artist and Issue one came out a month ago. Issue Too is just just came out and there's four issues and we kind of leave it open ended and we have more ideas. And it's been very different because I'm a I write screenplays and I have a couple of features, and I have two movies and I'm getting off the ground. So to switch to go to comic book writing was very different. It's a different muscle, Yeah, but the immediate not immediate, but the.

00:39:35
Speaker 11: Quicker gratification of it is very exciting and fine, then this story in this script away and then to get back this amazing drawing and artwork, and like it's it's been really thrilling and fun and the response has been pretty great.

00:39:52
Speaker 1: So great. Where can people get it?

00:39:54
Speaker 5: The comic book shop, right.

00:39:56
Speaker 4: Your local shop Wednesday wednesdays of the day when the new books drop.

00:40:01
Speaker 1: I think is for comic book fans. I think that's what it is. Now.

00:40:04
Speaker 4: Is it you said the original it's the OG Power Ranger? So is it the Green Ranger or is it the White Ranger or is it the Gold Ranger?

00:40:14
Speaker 3: Ah?

00:40:14
Speaker 5: So we actually that was one of the things We went back and watched the show and found our sort of jumping off point, and our jumping off point is when the Green Ranger was still the Green Ranger. Okay, So then from that point on we've created this news story. And the story really is there's flashbacks to what happened, something really tragic happens twenty two years ago, but the main story takes place now with the Rangers as middle aged people.

00:40:45
Speaker 3: That sounds really cool.

00:40:46
Speaker 4: It does happen, But are your characters from Power Rangers your original OG characters cool?

00:40:51
Speaker 5: The Original five.

00:40:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's so great. That's neat.

00:40:55
Speaker 2: And I also wanted to touch on another thing that bonds us. We have both become directors. You directed a movie starring Felicity Huffman and Lauren Hawley called Tammy's Always Dying, and you recently directed an episode of Superman and Lois So what drew you to direct behind the camera?

00:41:14
Speaker 5: Like I said a little bit earlier, I think I I've always wanted to do that. Right now, I am did you guys have a video camera in the nineties and just videotape everything.

00:41:26
Speaker 1: Right especially? Yeah, I have.

00:41:29
Speaker 5: A hundred mini DVDs that I'm transferring right now, and I realize I'm in none.

00:41:37
Speaker 12: Of it right running around like filming everything, And I really I think from that time I already loved directing.

00:41:49
Speaker 5: Like there's I found one tape where this girl Raymi, who was my friend. I dressed her up in my mom's old nightgown and made her run around a graveyard and just filmed her like I don't know what I was doing. She was like my muse, I have her holding like a cookie monster. And anyway, but again, like I said, I just I guess I didn't know if I was allowed to do that. And then I started writing, and in my thirties I wrote a couple of screenplays and I actually sent one screenplay called Crazier Than You. I sent it to John Ham because I had done a series with him and I knew he was directing, and I said, do you want to direct this? And he read it and he's like, you should direct this, and I was like, oh, maybe I should. And not that it took a man to give me permission, but kind of I think in my head it did, and I was like, I can do this. So as soon as I finished Flashpoint, which was the last series that I did here in Canada, I just started shooting short films and so I just got to I just like figured it out, caught my teeth and just like got people together. And then I did my first feature called The Space Between for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and just got everybody together and did it. And then I did Tammy And so I don't know if I'm answering your question, but I realized that I've wanted to do this from the very beginning.

00:43:13
Speaker 2: I just didn't You've always been a director yeah.

00:43:17
Speaker 8: My wife has a similar you know, because she she's always been an actor and only recently started directing, like the last ten years. And it's so interesting because we compare notes and like I always had this idea as a kid, like I would look I would be like, oh.

00:43:30
Speaker 3: That's like the real job is directing, right. I would look at the director and I would imagine, like, someday I'll get there.

00:43:36
Speaker 1: And for her that.

00:43:36
Speaker 3: Just never even occurred to her because there were all men and it was not even an ope. It was just not a conversation. It was like, if you're an actor and a female actor, you just kind of stay in that lane. And I remember, like when I was like twenty four, I worked on a film with a female DP, and I remember just being like, oh, that's possible, because literally it didn't exist. It's still so rare, you know, but it was like, oh, yeah, it's such a you know.

00:44:01
Speaker 8: It's just it's so I'm so glad it's finally changing, you know, because for somebody like my wife, who is an amazing director, it would have been such a it would have been such a natural thing for her in her early twenties to do that instead of acting probably, you know.

00:44:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, And then I'm just so grateful for and love watching people like Greta Gerwig or you know, these these women who just knew early on and just like our help paving the way. It's like yes, yes, like why not, like we have so many stories to tell.

00:44:33
Speaker 2: Similar to Writer's Wife Alex, never even occurred to me. Never through all the years of growing up. Never once being on Boy Meets World, did I think, oh, yeah, someday I want to direct. Never, it was just like, yeah, no, I'm I'm of course, I'm in front of the camera person, and that's all it's ever going to be. And then really it wasn't until Girl Meets World where I was like, oh, you think maybe I could, I could maybe do this, And then the minute I did, I was like yes, it was like, oh my gosh, of course this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

00:45:04
Speaker 4: But did we have a single female director on Boy especially season seven?

00:45:08
Speaker 1: We did? Was it was Jody right Well, Lynn McCracken.

00:45:11
Speaker 3: Lynn McCracken did something and then what was her name? She did the Eskimo episode, the famous episode.

00:45:17
Speaker 1: Oh I wasn't in that one. I don't think gosh, what was her name.

00:45:20
Speaker 3: She only did the one episode, but she was also but you know what that was with a lot of Jody and that other woman came up through a Disney program for women's price, which was great. They had a famous stock, right, Jody Binstock was great. She's now a producer.

00:45:34
Speaker 1: But yeah, there was.

00:45:35
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, Disney has a program I'm assuming they still have it. They had a fellowship even back then to encourage female directors, which was awesome.

00:45:44
Speaker 4: That's right.

00:45:44
Speaker 1: We had Lynn and we had Jody. I don't think I was in that program.

00:45:47
Speaker 3: Who knows. Yeah, that's all right, that's the reality, especially back then of directing. It's just the boys club.

00:45:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well you have a daughter. How old is your daughter?

00:45:58
Speaker 5: Fifteen?

00:46:00
Speaker 1: Does she show any interest in the entertainment industry at all?

00:46:04
Speaker 5: She really doesn't. She loves math and she loves coding and right.

00:46:10
Speaker 3: So healthy, Yeah, I love it. You can just support those things unequivocally, just say yeah.

00:46:17
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah. But although I find her like she's I find her very creative and I like, I think that she would be a really great writer and she actually I did like a little video the other day. I wanted to go to the comic book shop and see if they had my my comic book there. And so I asked her to filmmate and she did such a good job. She edited a little movie and I'm like, Ricky, you there's a future for you in the arts, and she's like, Nope, nope.

00:46:54
Speaker 1: That's so funny.

00:46:56
Speaker 2: So last question, over thirty years since going from Gymnasts to Worldwide super Icon, when you see that first season version of yourself on Power Rangers, what are your thoughts on young Amy Joe?

00:47:11
Speaker 1: What would you tell her now?

00:47:16
Speaker 5: Well, I think one thing I struggled with for a long time through my twenties was comparing myself to other people. I think I would tell her, don't do that. That's just it's it's not it's a dead end road there, or it's a painful road. Actually, I would tell her to not do that, and and I would tell her to go right and direct.

00:47:41
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Early, I would also like to go back and ask for a raise for you.

00:47:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, retroactively exactly, a raise, some more stunt people and more than three holes in the mask.

00:47:58
Speaker 5: Yes, there were three Rangers that did ask for that and they were fired.

00:48:05
Speaker 2: Okay, really they had paid the way for you to know the answer for that. Wow the nineties man, Yeah, Wow, Well, Amy Joe, thank you so much for being here with us, sharing your time and your story with us. It's I'm I feel like I can't believe this is the first time I'm meeting you. Been a big fan from AFAR for a long time, So thank you so much for being here with us.

00:48:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks for having me. You guys are awesome.

00:48:31
Speaker 1: Go to the comic book store get her comic.

00:48:33
Speaker 5: Yes, mmp more from Power Rangers the Return.

00:48:37
Speaker 2: I'm going to get a copy and then next if I if I see you at a con, I'm going to have you sign it for my kids.

00:48:42
Speaker 1: They're going to be so excited. Thank you, Thanks bye.

00:48:50
Speaker 2: Seven hundred dollars a week, and they probably do a time four episodes.

00:48:58
Speaker 1: With all the physical stuff too, They're doing all the your own stuff. It's always that way though.

00:49:02
Speaker 3: I feel like you know.

00:49:03
Speaker 8: That It's such a crappy thing about the entertainment industry is that people are always exploited because you.

00:49:11
Speaker 3: Know, we all, I mean everybody loves movies and TV show like we all love you know, the dream of like being a park.

00:49:18
Speaker 1: Imagic.

00:49:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like so I mean, and it's not.

00:49:21
Speaker 8: Just actors, it's it's mostly crue right, I mean it's mostly people like young people coming out of film school totally taking advantage of and paid nothing or very little. And yeah, and then actors obviously, you know, you're willing to sacrifice because you're in front of the camera because you think it's you know, it's and and the truth is like that's not sustainable, like you know, the chances of you you know, she had a sustainable career, luckily, because it sounds like she did a lot of smart things afterwards. But you know, being just being on one of those kinds of shows or being on a soap opera that can last a couple.

00:49:52
Speaker 3: Of years and then you might not work again for ten years. That's just the way. Oh it is. And it's not to do with your talent. It's just the nature of the business.

00:50:00
Speaker 4: I got this other weird thing with this type of show where it's like almost like an athlete, you get hurt and they're going to catch somebody else.

00:50:06
Speaker 7: That's it.

00:50:06
Speaker 1: You're done.

00:50:07
Speaker 4: Oh you blow up your knee. Sorry, you got to go do something else now. So yeah, that's it's crazy. But they that's Another reason that I really love the conventions and the convention circuit is because a lot of actors like Amy Joe, like a lot of the Rangers that we've met, people that maybe didn't make a lot of money when they were on the show now get to make a little bit now and meet the fans and do all that kind of stuff.

00:50:29
Speaker 1: So it's nice that there's kind of research.

00:50:31
Speaker 3: And with grown ups as opposed to.

00:50:33
Speaker 10: Seven seven year old kids screaming every exactly shake somebody's hand to be like, yeah, okay, that's cool that the idea for the comic book though, sounds really That sounds really, that sounds cool.

00:50:44
Speaker 1: Great film, Yeah, that sounds really great. So it's a great idea.

00:50:47
Speaker 3: She's so well rounded. It's really awesome to see somebody who like.

00:50:50
Speaker 8: Clearly has never settled into one version for some Yeah.

00:50:55
Speaker 2: Well, and I love that never once after being a part of such a massive franchise, Like she's so very clearly is like comfortable, Like most people become addicted to the being on camera and to the fame feeling and to the attention that brings.

00:51:10
Speaker 1: And for her to be like I don't want it, I don't like it.

00:51:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to be totally comfortable being like, I'm just gonna be happier behind the scenes.

00:51:18
Speaker 1: So she walked away from two series.

00:51:21
Speaker 4: I mean that's she asked to be written out of two different series.

00:51:25
Speaker 1: That's amazing.

00:51:26
Speaker 3: That takes a lot of confidence.

00:51:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll say well, thank you all for joining us for this episode of Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us on Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your emails at Podmeats World Show at gmail dot com. And we have merch.

00:51:41
Speaker 4: It's merchant time a mighty Morvan merchandise.

00:51:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it.

00:51:47
Speaker 2: Pod Meets Worldshow dot com writer send us out.

00:51:50
Speaker 3: We love you all, pod dismissed. Pod Meets World is an iHeart podcast producer and hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfordell and Ryder Straw. Executive producers Jensen Karp and Amy Sugarman. Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Taras Subasch, producer, Mattie Moore, engineer and Boy Meets World superman Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at podmets World Show or email us at Podmeats Worldshow at gmail dot com.