Allison M. Gibson Meets World

00:00:19
Speaker 1: Danielle.

00:00:20
Speaker 2: I'm a little nervous to start my lego set, really, yes, I just because I haven't done legos in a long time, and I'm not a huge puzzle guy. Susan loves puzzles, so it seems like a daunting task to me.

00:00:33
Speaker 3: Do you want to come over? We can start it together.

00:00:37
Speaker 1: Sure, you've got so much free time.

00:00:39
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it don't have to be at midnight.

00:00:41
Speaker 2: But I no, I haven't done legos in so long, and I like the box is literally sitting next to the table and I keep walking by it, like do I want to do this?

00:00:49
Speaker 1: I want to do this?

00:00:50
Speaker 4: No, legos are super easy there, like puzzles.

00:00:52
Speaker 5: Yeah, because like puzzles, really, you know, it's like it starts off so overwhelming. Yes, it only gets easier as it goes, Like by hour six of a puzzle, you're finally like, oh now, no, but but legos, you really it does go bag by bag and it's.

00:01:07
Speaker 1: The face of constru Did you do your lego thing yet?

00:01:10
Speaker 6: No?

00:01:10
Speaker 4: I haven't done it.

00:01:11
Speaker 6: You know.

00:01:11
Speaker 4: Indy and I we did a lot of legos back in the day, which meant I did a lot of legos.

00:01:15
Speaker 6: Well.

00:01:15
Speaker 5: He sat next to me, and then he got obsessed with just the characters. He just wanted to play with the figures and dress them up, so he was like a doll lego player, you know. He never really did the sets. So I've been telling him. I'm like, dude, we have to do the Jaws thing. We have to sit down and do it. So, yeah, you reminded me.

00:01:30
Speaker 4: I'm gonna bring it.

00:01:31
Speaker 2: I was going to do it the other day and I walked by it and I'm like, oh, it seems like a lot of pieces and a lot of stuff, and then I get I'm like, I'm not opening the bus.

00:01:39
Speaker 7: Because, like writer said, you can sit down and say I'm just going to do one bag right now, and you just just complete the one bag and then you're like, okay, I did my lego for today. And of course, if you're on a roll and you love it, you can open up the second bag. But I I especially those big ones, I don't sit and do it unless I can say like, okay, I'm going to commit to at least this many bags. But then it's great because that's a good stopping point, you know, and there's like it's it's really easy.

00:02:02
Speaker 5: I did super soothing. It's not like puzzle, like there's no anxiety.

00:02:06
Speaker 2: It's just all right because I get my soothing from like when I painted Minis, I got soothing, so hopefully.

00:02:12
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, that's.

00:02:13
Speaker 3: I will also come over and and just.

00:02:17
Speaker 2: Start, you know, just get to door at midnight, like, come on, let's start with I'm exhausted.

00:02:23
Speaker 3: Come on, I've had two hours of sleep. I'm ready to start another project.

00:02:27
Speaker 2: I think we should start another podcast about like, my gosh, does everybody think let's start the Lego podcast Pod meets Lego.

00:02:34
Speaker 7: Lego meets World, leg meets World, Lego Pod Meets World.

00:02:40
Speaker 1: Nice?

00:02:50
Speaker 4: World's nice?

00:02:53
Speaker 1: I think that job? Have they? Has anybody ever done?

00:02:55
Speaker 2: Haven't I seen somewhere somebody did a Lego boy Meets World.

00:02:59
Speaker 7: The guy was trying to get Yeah, you can get enough votes, they Lego will take it into consideration. Somebody had had done a really cool boy Meet's World set.

00:03:08
Speaker 3: I know I did like that. That would be fun.

00:03:10
Speaker 2: Well again, Pop came out with Corey and Tapanga and we signed Pops Everywhere And okay, all right, should there be an Eric and Sean?

00:03:16
Speaker 4: Of course?

00:03:17
Speaker 1: Should there be a place with squirrels?

00:03:18
Speaker 2: Of course, but how do you not do a Feenie? I know, how do you not have Corey Topanga and Feenie as another pop?

00:03:27
Speaker 6: Like?

00:03:27
Speaker 1: I don't again, I'm the pop guy.

00:03:29
Speaker 2: You see him behind me, and I keep all the characters I've ever done, and so I of course want an Eric pop or a place with.

00:03:34
Speaker 1: Girrels podest But how is PHOENI not the next one? You do like you've gotta be kidding, you gotta be kidding me.

00:03:40
Speaker 2: Let's get it together. Funko love you. I love you more than anything.

00:03:44
Speaker 1: Funko. You are my favorite.

00:03:45
Speaker 3: You're around, reach out to them, will reach out to them.

00:03:48
Speaker 4: You are the people.

00:03:49
Speaker 2: See every time you and Jensen, every time you could say the most esoteric thing and you're like, oh, I know a guy were I don't know anybody at Funko. It doesn't matter what, it doesn't matter what it is for you and Jensen, you know the person and to get it done.

00:04:00
Speaker 7: I'm not like that, but like, just look up google Funko, pr or and and search some names.

00:04:10
Speaker 3: Random cold email.

00:04:12
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, just so just cold call Funko. In my head, there's a tiny little body with a giant head answering the phone, like, can I help you?

00:04:20
Speaker 3: I do know someone who used to work at Funko.

00:04:26
Speaker 6: There you go.

00:04:26
Speaker 1: That's I told you, told you.

00:04:29
Speaker 6: There you go.

00:04:29
Speaker 1: Reach out to this joke.

00:04:31
Speaker 2: Susan and I always joked that if there's a phone call in the middle of the night asking for something like you got to get this or you're gonna die, you and Jensen are our first call because you always it doesn't matter what it is. I need a golden drumstick that's actually made of pez and Gens' is like, oh yeah, I know, I got the best golden drumstick. Guy Like, it's ridiculous, everybody, So get it, get it done. Danielle and Kay all right, all right, all right, the lego set and I need some Funko pops, So let's go.

00:04:59
Speaker 3: Welcome to Von World.

00:05:00
Speaker 2: I'm daniel Fischle, I'm writer strong, and I know Danielle Fischle, I'm gol for do.

00:05:19
Speaker 7: As we find ourselves winding down with recaps slightly confused with the final season of Boy Meets World, we know the only way to fully understand our show's last few heartbeats is to dig even deeper into the writer's room, and somehow even after hundreds of episodes, we still have some unturned stones.

00:05:38
Speaker 3: I can't believe it either.

00:05:39
Speaker 7: And while some of our guests have Boy Meets World as the shining centerpiece of their IMDb page, our guest this week went right from Feenie's teary eyed classroom to creating Reba, her own smash hit sitcom within a year. But before that, she wrote four Boy Meets World episodes. Season six is Cutting the Cord and the Truth about Honesty, and season seven, You Light Up My Union, and the yet to be reviewed The War, which we may have to bring her back for. Her other credits include Home Improvement, Sister Sister, Two Guys, A Girl in a Pizza Place, and most recently, Awkward. But today we are asking her to rewind twenty five years and recall everything she can about the TGIF show where she decided to have me sing war for a tag. Welcome to Podmeats World. Writer and producer Allison M.

00:06:27
Speaker 3: Gibson.

00:06:28
Speaker 7: Hi, thank you so much for joining us.

00:06:33
Speaker 6: I'm so happy to see you guys again. Last time I saw you, we were carrying little signs and walking around the block.

00:06:38
Speaker 3: This is so much more enjoyable.

00:06:42
Speaker 7: We are knee deep in season seven, and we have a lot of lay of the land questions, so we hope you have a superhuman memory.

00:06:53
Speaker 6: You know, I have a superhuman memory. I rewatched and I even took notes. Yes, loved us. There were things that surprised me, so I needed to go back and go what I can't believe that?

00:07:06
Speaker 7: Okay, well, first let's talk about your start in these writers' rooms.

00:07:12
Speaker 3: Was your career goal to always be a comedy writer.

00:07:18
Speaker 6: I came out to Los Angeles to write television, so I actually got jobs writing as a or as a writer's assistant in drama rooms first. So I was writing spec scripts on my nights and weekends, and I wrote drama specs and comedy specs, and I just got my break in comedy. But I think I always wanted to be in comedy. A big fan of the Mary Tyler Moore Show and a lot of those genre where she sort of like broke the world open for women and being independent in the entertainment industry. So I loved comedy, and a lot of comedy writers transition into drama, but usually the drama writers don't go the other way. So I felt like I had that option right, So it translates a little bit.

00:08:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, they do say it's easier to make somebody cry than it is to make them laugh, but who knows if it's the same in the writing world.

00:08:13
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I can make myself cry and laugh sitting at the computer, and that's what I love to do.

00:08:19
Speaker 7: We've talked with a few of the other female writers, like Barbie Feldman, Susan Estelle Jansen, who have all detailed about how difficult it was for women to break into these.

00:08:29
Speaker 3: Boys clubs back then.

00:08:30
Speaker 7: It's almost like you had a second job just to assimilate and go along with the fart jokes.

00:08:35
Speaker 3: Was that difficult in your experience?

00:08:38
Speaker 6: You know? It's very interesting. I speak fluent sports, and I remember I had interviewed for this show twice one year earlier. A few years on. I remember coming in and there was like seven women, ten women in the hallway, and I thought, oh, that's going to be interesting. And I was ill prepared for that meeting for a variety of reasons. Back then you had to just sit down and you could didn't necessarily have all the tapes, and you hadn't seen everything. And when I came in for this interview. I remember they were all talking about the Lakers, Tishlar and Jacobs and Manel and I'm a rabid sports fan and my dad had season tickets to the Rockets, and I went to football games since I was two years old. So I just walked in talking sports, And to be honest, I think that helps. And I'm comfortable in that environment. So you look back now in the lens about some of the ways we turned ourselves a little pretzeled ourselves to fit in, and I see that now. I didn't see it then. I just thought, this is mostly a man's world. This is what these guys talk about. I've been around this. It doesn't scare me. And so I'm coming and strong with that. Yeah, and I really think I got the job. I mean, they had great staff that read people ahead of time before you got in these meetings. But I also thought I walked in and I can hang with the boys, and that that really was a requirement. Yeah. However, that's the show with the most women I've ever had on a staff in my entire career.

00:10:15
Speaker 7: So yeah, those later seasons had the most amount of women.

00:10:20
Speaker 6: Yeah, and now I came in at co producer and I believe I was the highest level woman for both of those two years, which is not that high when you think about it, right, right, So, but yeah, but there were a lot of us, and so there was you know, that voice was in there. Yeah, But I came in at a time too, so come in in a season six. There was a bit of a boys club there, right, and all of those men had been there forever, and frankly, you guys had been there forever.

00:10:52
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:10:52
Speaker 6: Like I felt like, I don't even know if we ever got properly introduced. You just sort of get thrown into the soup of a show. In my in my mind, you guys were these frizzled veterans that were like half your life, you've been on this show and you know, get started. I know, God hats the absolute professionals. And I felt like, you know, I'm what's in fifteen years older, and I feel like the newbie coming in. You know, I'm a third or four show I've been on or something like that, and just like, you know, come on ride for the show. These people know what they're doing. Let's don't get it up in the next Excuse me, I don't know if I s anyway, So it's sort of an interesting feeling coming into that you have a show that has that's very successful, it's evolving. Yeah, because obviously I didn't get to come in and write you guys, you know, in elementary school classes with mister Feenie. But it definitely feels like the train is on the track and it's moving and you have a responsibility, you know, to move it forward but also maintain it. And it's loyalty and and I just thought you guys were, you know, the ultimate pros and I was sort of, you know, one of the rookies coming in to kind of try to keep the train on the track.

00:12:06
Speaker 2: Now you said that, so for the first meeting, and again you're right, it was if you didn't watch the show at the time, there were I think TVO was maybe just starting to come around. But had you seen or heard of Boy Mets World before the first time you interviewed.

00:12:22
Speaker 6: The I had seen it when it premiered, but you know, as a working television writer, I wasn't home in those hours, right, wrote Tom Riders Multi caam writers are you know, we worked till ten pm on a good night, so I was never home to see I certainly wasn't home on Friday nights, so I had seen it occasionally caught it on a rerun here or there. But what they did back in that day, if your agent was good, is they would uh messenger to your house a VHS tape with three episodes on it, right, and so you would watch that. And I remember, I don't remember what year I came in, but it was another time I was in being jobs and they asked me about the Sean arc and I had seen three episodes and I not know pretty embarrassing that I didn't know that, But honestly, often you would just get a call or messenger in your tape tonight there's three episodes going tomorrow, and you know, sometimes you're prepared for that and sometimes you aren't. So I think second time coming in when they're talking Lakers, that's my lane. I'm ready to go the show. Yeah, I love the show. I love the characters. William Daniels like, oh, one of my favorite people in the world. I was the big Saint Elsewhere fan, so I just was like thrilled to meet him, although he wasn't in many of my shows, oddly enough for my episodes, but I was thrilled to work with him and super excited. And I'm old enough that I remember when Seen seventeen seventy six. The movie came out in nineteen seventy six, and I had the soundtrack for that, and anyway, I just I just thought he was the craziest thing in the world. So that was super exciting for me.

00:14:07
Speaker 7: Your first TV gig was the TV adaptation of Parenthood, not the Jason Cadoms one from twenty ten, but this was in nineteen ninety. So guys listen to this cast ed Begley Junior, Jane Atkinson, Ken Ober, David Arquette, Thora Birch, and a young Leonardo DiCaprio.

00:14:25
Speaker 3: How did this only go one season?

00:14:29
Speaker 6: Isn't that insane? It's just crazy when you look back on it in that time period, and this was my first staff job, my first yeah, stat job as a writer. There were mostly multi caams live audience. Then they didn't have a single cam. You know, now that's the cool thing to do, and you know, even some people critically they always liked the single cams though. The multicams that last forever. Yeah, but I don't think NBC knew what to do with it. They made a one hour pilot that was written by Lolganza Bably Mendel, who was a parent, had movie and a million other movies, and NBC bought it as an hour. I don't know what happened, and then they decided and they made a wonderful hour pilot that felt more like the Jason Cadum version later and then someone said, let's do it as a half hour single camera, and they buried it on a Saturday night between two multi cams. And to be honest, I don't think the audience knew what to do with it. I don't think they quite understood it. And so we were an instant bomb, did very poorly. And I wrote the last episode that was shot, and so, you know, pre social media whatever, I sent out a little postcard to all my family and friends telling them and I think it's like December thirteenth, my show's gonna run or whatever. And the day before they preempted it said, oh, we're going to bury the rest of the shows where we run one more time in the spring.

00:16:01
Speaker 2: And man, was it was it based on the Was it the same characters as the film or was it a different family?

00:16:09
Speaker 6: No, it's the same thing.

00:16:10
Speaker 1: It was okay, okay.

00:16:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Ed Bagley was was Steve Martin in the show Gotcha.

00:16:16
Speaker 6: And another guy I love Ed Begley, so he's also was a Saint Elsewhere stars. So I got to work with Ed Begley and then William Daniels, you know, a few years later. It was like there was a dream for me from Texas coming to Hollywood working with my idols.

00:16:29
Speaker 7: It was a big trend at the time to make TV shows out of movies, and all of them failed. Some other ones from that same year were Baby Talk, which was based on Who's Talking, Ferris Bueller and Uncle Buck. So it just seemed like something that just didn't take off with the audience.

00:16:46
Speaker 6: Movies great, great, great movies. And oh that cast William Wyndham, I mean it was phenomenal, And yeah, I keep always wanted to run into Leo and tell him how we met, and but I have it. It worked with Dave Arquette later again and Ed Begley as well. But Leo, he's been busy. Apparently he's all right, He's doing okay.

00:17:09
Speaker 2: Okay, So was he the Leaf at the time, Leaf Phoenix character young, Yes, troubled kid Gotcha okay, Yeah, I'm trying to put the cast together.

00:17:20
Speaker 6: In my head.

00:17:20
Speaker 1: I'm trying to see yeah. Interesting.

00:17:22
Speaker 7: Okay, So after that show gets canceled, you find yourself on America's number one show, Home Improvement. I mean, really a case of landing on your feet. I'm sure this room had some heavyweights in it, and you're still, at this point pretty green. How did you, or did you ever experience any sort of imposter syndrome or just nerves in general?

00:17:44
Speaker 6: I think early on I was a little too naive to know to be as nervous as I probably should have been. I will say it was an extreme I did work with Susan the year. It was an extremely difficult room. Yeah, and there was a lot of hierarchy, so we were not even on the stage when the show shot, so they had a writer's room and a TV screen up for us, so we weren't involved at all in the shooting unless it was your episode. And even then you sat in the audience. So it was very much run by the top three guys.

00:18:24
Speaker 1: You sat in the audience for your own episode.

00:18:27
Speaker 6: For your own episode, yes, now and now, remember too, My early jobs were hour longs, so and then my first half hour is a single camera, so I didn't know how weird it was. Again, I didn't know how naive and how strange things were done there. But it was done very strange, you know what I learned later, And we were kept out of things. There were generally two writers rooms often at the time, basically the three head writers and a couple of people working, and then everyone would rotate out. It was a very strange situation, it was. Yeah, it was not. It was not a great situation.

00:19:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, how long were you on that show?

00:19:12
Speaker 6: Just the first year?

00:19:13
Speaker 3: Just that first year.

00:19:14
Speaker 6: It's funny. I got I got engaged while I was on that show, which was on the Disney lot, and then I got pregnant while I was on the Disney lot while I was on your show. So I do have fond, fond memories of the Disney line.

00:19:25
Speaker 3: So we we love the Disney lot.

00:19:28
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it's a great lot.

00:19:30
Speaker 7: After Home Improvement, you make a few stops on shows like Sister Sister and another one called Fudge that sounds delicious, and then Boy Meets World. How did Boy Meets World end up in your orbit? I know you had said you had that first interview that you didn't feel prepared for.

00:19:45
Speaker 3: How did you Who called you about the second interview?

00:19:49
Speaker 6: Okay, we missed a couple of draps. Also show called Kirk and I worked on Kirk.

00:19:54
Speaker 1: Oh you did you were Kirk?

00:19:57
Speaker 3: I did a guest star a guest star on Kirk.

00:19:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, I take it to It's Kirk Cameron, Kirk.

00:20:02
Speaker 6: Cameron, Yeah, and Migo with Bronson Franchot. Okay, So and now you have to remind me of the question, how did I end up there?

00:20:12
Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:20:13
Speaker 3: Who called you for that second? For that second interview?

00:20:17
Speaker 6: You know, your agent just calls and says, we're sending three things over go over there? Okay, and I'm Don Tarnowsky end Yeah. She was Michael's head of development. Yes, and she had had me on her radar for a while. Great, and so I think that was part of how that, you know, she had me a slack came open again and so I came over for that and Don was great. She's a really smart woman and went on to do a million amazing things.

00:20:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, we loved Don.

00:20:48
Speaker 7: And so what was entering the Boy Meets World writer's room in season six? Like you mentioned, they were talking a lot of sports. What what we had heard from Manel, especially about season seven, that there was maybe a lot of tennis being played.

00:21:05
Speaker 6: I guess Michael was tennis. I played tennis, but out there there was a lot of sports talk. And so when I came in in season six, I took over the sports pool. So I ran the sports so cool. I passed out the NFL games and the spread. I think I started season six, I know I did it season seven over. Once a week we put that out and everyone put their pick and figured out who wanted the end of the week, and we had a pool at the end of the season. I think it was a pretty friendly room. I feel like there was a group that really knew each other very well, sure, and the rest of us that were sort of working our way in. But it was a fun group. They had their routines, they had the way they liked to do, where they liked to eat, what they did, and so it felt like you were trying to Sometimes, you know, staff comes together and sort of coalesce and find your rhythm, and I felt like those of us coming in it was our job to sort of find that rhythm. And seeing seven's you know, they knew it wasn't going to go past that unless there was some evolvement, and so, you know, those are the most fun times. And I remember we we had I think my episode was next, and Michael said, we're going to do a table read, and then he said his way of saying, if it's in English, we're going to the movies, meaning if it's not the worst thing ever on the world. We were headed to the movies that afternoon. And so that's you know, sort of at the end of seasons. That was really those were fun times because you weren't working ahead on the next season. I remember that, and thank goodness, my script was an English and on We Move.

00:22:43
Speaker 7: Yes, your first script was Cutting the Cord, which was focused on some Sean and Angela drama, but it included the somewhat infamous karaoke scene. Sort of a heavy world to start with. What do you remember from that episode?

00:23:00
Speaker 6: Well, I'm pretty sure I got that one because I was pregnant. Yeah, so, and I don't remember whether I had started birthing classes or not, but I'm sure that's why that episode ended up with mine being mine. And I thought that was super fun and I loved everything you got to do in their will that was so cute.

00:23:19
Speaker 2: That was a lama's class, right, Yeah, that so that.

00:23:23
Speaker 6: Was super fun. And the Angela, you know, we always loved the drama of the Angela and Sean and it was fun. I just and I watched it again recently and I laughed out loud with the restraining order because I thought that was so appropriate. There's so many things that can show up in later seasons that because we know you and what you've done in the history, that all that plays. That's fun, that plays. But when shows start becoming not just about the episode but also about the history of them in those later seasons and they sort of play on each other, I think that's really fun. So I loved it. I loved the karaoke I I and the tag when you and Ben are like killing war was just serious. I loved it.

00:24:11
Speaker 7: We had a big conversation about what that original tag was that what were we just breaking were you know, like, what was it always supposed to be us laughing? Like, we talked a lot about what that original tag was written as.

00:24:27
Speaker 6: I cannot remember.

00:24:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so funny.

00:24:30
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't know, you know, the way it was edited, we didn't get much of it. In the first past, so I would whether there was another tag written or we just said we have to get more of that moment it's gold. Yeah, that's that's likely what was what happened. I don't remember whether it was from the toper Again, I didn't I wouldn't watch the scripts, but I didn't actually look for him. So yeah, curious to see if there was a first draft different tag.

00:24:55
Speaker 3: Oh, I would love that. If you can find it, we would love to see it.

00:24:58
Speaker 2: The other thing, I'm so curious about it. There's writers filtering in and out kind of every season. And when you're on a long running show, when you join the writing staff, do they sit you in a room or tell you, like, start from episode one, watch the pilot and move forward, watch every episode of the show so you get here. Because we've noticed you come to season seven and our characters are so different than what they used to be.

00:25:20
Speaker 1: It was kind of like everything was thrown out the window.

00:25:23
Speaker 2: So we're wondering, I mean again, is it the kind of thing where you've got to learn about the history of Tapanga, You've got to learn about the history of Corey and Tepanga, you've got to learn about Sean or are you just thrown in.

00:25:32
Speaker 1: And let's write the characters from here.

00:25:35
Speaker 6: Well, you know, it's very different than today, because today you'd get on a streaming service and you'd watch every episode and you would show up way more prepared. I learned things about your characters and about your personal experiences by listening to Pod meets World that I didn't know. I didn't know we violated in season six. However, I wasn't there to say that, But there was plenty of men in that room. I could have say that doesn't that doesn't.

00:26:02
Speaker 3: You know, drive around?

00:26:03
Speaker 6: Yeah, So I also think there's a couple you know, we brought uh Maitland came in in season six, and I do think that there was a a push. And you're saying you mostly noticed it in seven, and look, sharks happened in seven. Look, I don't know if we're going to get there. I mean, but you know, I didn't even know what an organ grinder was, and I had one in the episode. If that's if that's not a shark jump, I love the emotion of it. But sure, but yeah, and he was dressed like he came off the set of Naisan's play. I know, yeah, I can promise you. In the room, someone pitched what if it's an organ grinder? And because we didn't have Google, then I went to say what because I had no I mean once someone told me what it was. But I don't know how that came about.

00:26:59
Speaker 1: I think we all it's the second monkey that sold it.

00:27:04
Speaker 5: Yeah's girlfriend exactly, that's the one that really Now we're there.

00:27:10
Speaker 6: And Eric Christmas is just a legend and incredible rest in peace, fantastic actor. But as I watched that, he played the whole thing as a scam.

00:27:22
Speaker 1: Without yes that it wasn't.

00:27:25
Speaker 6: And so to me, I'm like, what are we doing to I mean, you know, overall thematically, and I think that's what people gravitate. And I think people you overlurt certain things when you know the history we show, you know the fact that Eric's charm has a place in this world and a place in business and shouldn't be overlooked. I thought was wonderful, and ye watched it, I went, oh, thank goodness, we got to a nice place. But when I watched that, you know performance and the other thing, Matthew took that money and gave it to us. Ranger, what's no way to pay it back now Eric, Eric thinks that the monkey's going to come back and give him the money. Matthew thinking it's just absolutely bizarre. So yeah, again, you know, was there a great theme there that we had that somehow we got bigger and bigger with I don't know. There's another thing that happens when shows get into that six and seventh year. You know, Will you could walk out there and say holy bananas out of context, and the audience is just going to go, you know, they they just you know, there's so much history and if you and you know, Danielle, you and Corey bicker whatever you say to each other, if it's meaningless, we'd laugh because we're just invested in you and we love you and you can pretty much do no wrong. And that helps to show and it also for it's a show because writers can get very lazy because you go to a run through and like, are you getting that joke killed? Let's go home tonight. You know, I don't want to accuse anyone of that, but I just it gets more complicated in those late later years. Also in season six, Bob Tishler ran the room more and I think I what I detect from the shows I watched and whatever. I think that season had a little bit of a different feel to it. Yeah, and one of the things that was going on they were trying to get a little more friends like, and I think the apartment was set up and you know, trying to have them be just more like this multi group of friends making it out in the world. And I think there was there was a concerted effort to sort of set that up. I know one of my episodes with the Dinner Party was sort of approaching that sort of that tone, which I think my memory was a network directive starting of the year, and I think Michael had another project. And so my first experience with the show was that Bob Tisha ran the room almost all the time, and season seven that switched and Michael ran the room always.

00:30:07
Speaker 2: I want to say season six, Michael was gone for Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane. Okay, I was pretty sure that's the one because I did an episode of it and I had the long hair, So my guess is that's the season he was gone, and yeah, and Bob was running the room. That makes sense, but yes, different, yeah.

00:30:25
Speaker 6: Yeah, And that was my first experience of the show. Is that Michael came in for some table reads and some notes, but that Bob ran and Bob also Rip was a super funny man, a delight to work with always. I just love the way he ran the room. It was very egalitarian the way he did it, and he had always had a great spirit. I don't think I ever saw Bob in a bad mood yep, which is certainly I can't say for every show I've ever been on. So yeah, he was a delight And that might have just been a little bit of a different tone because he was, you know, the head writer at that time.

00:31:03
Speaker 3: Right. Do you think Corey and Topanga were a good couple?

00:31:22
Speaker 6: Well, I would have to ask you what good means. Yeah, I mean, certainly the audience loved you together, was petting together. And I think it's a falseness of Hollywood storytelling that we want people who meet at young ages to stay together forever, to evolve together and make all life choices together. I remember when my daughter cried when the Twilight couple broke up, because gosh, they were together in the movie and through all four and then they broke up, you know. But it's also I remember when his aunt in England said they're twenty two. Yeah, and they've been together like six years. What were they going to stay together their whole lives? So, you know, I think there's audience expectation for couples and then there's realistic writing, and I don't know that that's necessarily what the multicams are based for. I have to say, when I went back and watched the Yale discussion and that being reminded that Topanga gave up Yale to be near Corey, would that show and be written that way ten years later? I'm not sure?

00:32:32
Speaker 3: Right right?

00:32:35
Speaker 7: The episode you mentioned, the dinner party episode is the Truth about Honesty, and it's Tapanga's drama around sharing a toothbrush with Corey. That is one of the three episodes that was banned from the Disney Channel during syndication.

00:32:48
Speaker 3: Were you surprised to hear that.

00:32:51
Speaker 6: Oh wow, I didn't know that I'm missing checks?

00:32:54
Speaker 3: Yes, Disney Channel Chess, Yes, you know.

00:32:59
Speaker 6: Okay. So I sat down to watch it, and my older sister had an issue with using her husband's razor and they had fights about that. So I believe that this story started out of a real thing from my life love that which is a lot of what I think really good stuff comes from. I had forgotten about the toothbrush thing, to be honest, And although that's an issue because I forget my toothbrush sometimes and I'll use my husband's and he's a good sport about that. But when I saw this exchange, no tushy, no brushy, I really almost gasped, Right, I'm going to be honest, I went, are you? I was like, what I will say? No tushy, no brushy is not my personal voice, so.

00:33:53
Speaker 3: I didn't think it.

00:33:57
Speaker 4: That's not your voice.

00:33:59
Speaker 1: If you want to find drinking game, though, take a shot.

00:34:01
Speaker 2: Every time we say tushy in the last two seasons is a big favorite word, So.

00:34:07
Speaker 6: I mean, and you know, come in out of Corey. It's cute, but well, you know what, it's a cute word except in what he's trying to get you do, which frankly, I just don't think is right. And I think and the compromise she made at the end, I was trying to like, where did the first draft of this go? And how did it get because yeah, I was not proud of that ending at all, and it's too bad because I was watching it. I really liked the episode. Yeah, I like I think I identified a little bit with Rachel in the sense that she was coming into this arty group of friends, got all these relationships, all these histories, and now she's got to fit in and find herself. So I had I liked writing for in the episodes.

00:34:59
Speaker 5: Which is also a nice for Rachel because so often she's just been the object of Eric and Jack's scrambling love triangle, you know, and so for her to have her own I.

00:35:09
Speaker 6: Guess she's Yeah, she's in lingerie far too much for my Again, that's not a decision that I was in charge of.

00:35:20
Speaker 7: Yeah, for all of the women that we had in the writer's room season six and seven especially, there are still a lot of choices made in those episodes where you go, oh, I can I can tell where some someone was overwritten, like where there was some Eli.

00:35:40
Speaker 4: It's very clearly a male POV.

00:35:42
Speaker 5: Yeah right, I mean, because the show is driven by a male POV, and it's.

00:35:45
Speaker 6: Called boy Meets World, it is boy's world, and all the final says are from men. And then again, I again, I think you become a victim of your success because while I can go guys, I don't know, are you sure you go down to set, no tushy, no brushyet I'm sure everyone roared right, So you go, oh, well, maybe I didn't see it right, or you take a question right, Well, it's funny, but it's yeah, I had Anyway, it's too bad because I actually liked her. I think there's that what we were trying to do a little bit. You know, there's coming out of college and what is a party. Well, we got the six packs of wine and we have chips and dip. That's a party, right, And then when you start getting a little later into your twenties, you think I might actually serve a meal and we you know, we could sit down and be civilized, and you're sort of trying to find yourself. And I thought, you know, I liked Rachel trying to find her identity and who is she in this? And can we be a little more grown up instead of acting like the sort of kids we did? And I liked that, and I liked the way it was shot and it played through there, and I like the idea of is true honesty good in a relationship and is it not? And I think I think Topanga's thoughts on that was a tiny bit naive because it's great, we want on a steep. On the other hands, you know again, I think that's a very young point of view. You get a little older and you go, you know what, a little a little distance or a little perspective on what people need to know and don't need to know is better.

00:37:20
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:37:21
Speaker 7: Not every thought that enters my head needs to be said out loud.

00:37:25
Speaker 1: That's not a lie, that's not a lie.

00:37:27
Speaker 6: But I think that's a very young girl. We've been taught honesty is important and that's what makes relationships laugh. So I totally buy her point of view in that. And but how it went to tushy brushy, And how did you feel about walking back in the room saying you had shown him your tush?

00:37:47
Speaker 7: I know, I mean, I really we've talked about it now, especially with season seven, but I had I don't know exactly when it was that had happened, but there was a certain point where I where I checked out, where I realized, like they're in the Korean topanga dynamic had just become him badgering her and trying to wear her down. And uh, you know, I even though, to be totally fair, I think at the time. I also thought, yeah, why is Tapanga such a prude?

00:38:19
Speaker 3: Why is Topanga?

00:38:20
Speaker 6: You know?

00:38:21
Speaker 7: There there I was judgmental of her as a character because I you know, our set was very male dominated.

00:38:29
Speaker 3: It was a boy pov.

00:38:31
Speaker 7: And I think I did have that feeling of like, to Panga is withholding from this? You know they're in They're in a committed relationship. What's the big deal.

00:38:40
Speaker 3: So I don't remember.

00:38:41
Speaker 7: Exactly how I felt, but I do remember feeling like, oh man, this is just going to keep being this conversation back and forth until they get married.

00:38:49
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think it was. It's definitely a disservice to your character in the sense you're right you were in a committed, long term relationship. But it did feel like a withholding. It's very stereotypical. Yes, not that this doesn't go on. I mean, look at every episode of you Know, everybody loves Raymond. You know he won sex. She's like and you know, I do feel like I didn't feel good about it. I didn't think it was great. I felt like I felt like a lot of things. I found the inner theme where I feel like it started, and then there was where it went to. Yeah, and the idea that somehow also revealing a tush was somehow.

00:39:35
Speaker 1: A step in the right direction.

00:39:37
Speaker 6: So that was a nerotic and somehow got them closer and a willing exchange for the situation. It's just bizarre. It's just bizarre. So I guess I'm glad I'm banned, but darn it, the money in my money out of my bank.

00:39:55
Speaker 7: Do you remember, maybe especially in season seven, because you spoke so highly of the writer's in season six, do you remember any moments of conflict over storylines or character development. Was there ever big back and forth about what an episode was going to be about.

00:40:10
Speaker 6: I think there was a lot of debate about the getting married. I think there was a lot of debate. I guess Yale was season six or was it seven. I think there was a lot of debate about Yale. I think there's a lot of debate about should we get them married. I think Michael absolutely had the vision on We're going to have the baby come in, and he wanted it to be a premature baby, like one of those sus was, Yeah, that train was going. There was no you know, there was no stopping that. And I remember I asked one time, I think I was again if again best rest recollection possible could be wrong. But I think I was wondering why if they were going to get married that maybe they didn't even move home or something like, where were they going to get the money for that situation? And I'll confess, I said, how are they going to get the money? And they said they're going to get the money from the wedding. And I said, how do they get money from a wedding? And it was because it was a tradition to give cash for a wedding. But I had not experienced that where I grew up in the South, where you you know, you gave a plate set instead of money. Nobody get cash. Yeah, but Michael, that experience was very important and traditional, and so I remember I think he was he was mad at me for questioning that situation. And it was again, you know, again something I'm been accused of a lot. It was my own naive t. I didn't know that was a tradition.

00:41:52
Speaker 7: Well, I don't think the majority of people come away from weddings feeling like they have suddenly a lot of money.

00:42:00
Speaker 3: You feel like, wow, we just spent so much money on a wedding.

00:42:02
Speaker 7: Now we've got to rebuild our life because we spent it on the wedding.

00:42:06
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was so, you know, I do think there was discussions about that. I certainly wouldn't have been in favor of her not going to Yale, and I would guess we talked about that. But I also again, you know, I started as a co producer season six. I was producer on seven. That was the highest level woman in the room. And there were two supervising, two co exec and exac. You know, it was a a consulting all, you know, five or six men higher than me at the time. And I'm not saying that in a judgmental way. I'm just saying the final say was not in the female voices. Yep. We were allowed to speak, you know, we were allowed to speak, but ultimately we did not have final say. Right so, and I obviously I didn't walk off and say, you know, no Tushy, no Brushie, I don't want to do the show. But my guess is I sat there kind of like you, Danielle, and I went people laughing.

00:43:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, it must be good.

00:43:12
Speaker 6: I guess maybe I'm a little prude.

00:43:14
Speaker 3: I don't know, it wouldn't be my taste, but what do I know?

00:43:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is that then kind of can we can we kind of attribute that to how then Eric turned into season seven Eric, who's.

00:43:24
Speaker 1: So big and so off the rails.

00:43:28
Speaker 2: I mean, was it just kind of like, well, let's write it big and it's funny.

00:43:32
Speaker 6: You know. I think there's a laziness to later season story writing, and I think that's more common when you have people that have been there the whole time. I actually don't attribute that to the people coming in. If you if you've got to really dive in and find the stories and the character growth, or you just write what is already a winning formula.

00:43:57
Speaker 4: You're just reiterating as opposed to the same degree. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

00:44:03
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, you can either get in and write and find layers to Eric, or like I said, you could say anything and people laughed and loved you. And so I think it's so unless you have someone that is really raining that in and you know, and also going to run through some whatever and like let's find the meat of this scene and let's make it work and not get an easy laugh, because you can go down and you have a bad scene and if you get a great blow and people are tired and want to go. It doesn't get the work it needs right, and that's really important, not to get the cheap laughs because and it's again it's you know, later seasons versus earlier seasons, because you could all say anything we gave you and make it work and get a laugh. There's, as you know, there's a rhythm to multiicam and we the audience knows those rhythms and they laugh. I remember when my father came out and watched a one of my first multiicams and he's saw us standing behind the cameras laughing, and he'd see us, you know me laugh on first take, third take, whatever, and he goes, you know what the punchline is, why do you keep laughing? And I said, well, because they delivered it well and had the right rhythm, and I want them to feel it, and because they it is a funny joke. But audiences are like that too, and they're laughing and they love you, and they'll laugh at a good joke, and they'll laugh at a terrible joke because you gave a terrible joke and you maybe rolled your eyes at them or whatever. So was there a conscious discussion in the room let's make Eric bigger. I don't believe that's the case. But did I see a monkey and Nessie? Why couldn't they Disney ban that one?

00:45:50
Speaker 1: Because again, there's two monkeys. That's what makes it work.

00:45:56
Speaker 6: I hope they're getting their residuals because.

00:45:59
Speaker 2: They were well that was Marcel, It was Marcel from Marcel was yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:46:06
Speaker 6: Well we had a friend's crossover. How about that?

00:46:11
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, there you go for season seven.

00:46:14
Speaker 7: We have already seen one of your two episodes so far. We have seen you light up My Union, which is a wild episode. I think we got most hung up on the invasion of Rachel's privacy. Do you have any memories of developing her character or maybe lack thereof developing her character?

00:46:36
Speaker 6: So that was another moment for me watching it. Yeah, and I try, I was trying to put it in context. If you this was an early season of a show. I don't think you're forgiven. You're forgiven the men for what they did, for crossing those boundaries and all of that. And I also think it's just such a cheap again, it's this voyeuristic women are withholding men or you.

00:47:09
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, or such a trope in the nineties though it definitely is.

00:47:14
Speaker 6: Yeah, But so to me, I find what, you know, what was done reprehensible. But I think what happens is it's the time we we know Corey and Sean. Ye've seen them since they're kids. They don't have ill intentions. They're just sweet, crazy boys. Crazy boy like you overlook stuff because we know them. So for new generations that watch it from the beginning and binge it, they're probably like, oh, that's creepy, but oh my god, they're sweet. She needs to get over it, right. But if you just stopped and watched the show like I did, out of context, you're like, oh what, yeh wrong? This is what and why are the girls like overgiving it and not defending her right because this is an ultimate invasion of privacy and boundaries. But again, I think it's because you're trapped in the same story. You've known them forever. You know they're not creepy guys who you know go out and do this, and so you overlook it. But that said, I think it's a story flaw and I you know, I don't think it's a good message.

00:48:27
Speaker 2: That's true, though you do get that with with long term television shows, the long running series where you bank so much goodwill with the characters that you can dip into that bank and have them do some pretty horrible things and it's okay because of the history will. Yeah, it's really interesting to look at it that way, because it's true you are your that. We had one guest come on who said that Eric could Eric could even say the worst things in the world, but people like him so much and he has such that that bank of goodwill all that you can dip into that whenever you need to kind of take them in another direction. So it really is an interesting way to look at that where it is it's disgusting, reprehensible, but you're right.

00:49:08
Speaker 1: Even Topanga goes like, how do you not look.

00:49:13
Speaker 2: So it is you're using that kind of the goodwill you've banked over that number of seasons.

00:49:17
Speaker 1: It's a really interesting way to look at it.

00:49:19
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah, And the audience knows, if they've been watching from the beginning, you know, these are not bad guys. They're just you know, they made a mistake or they did a prank, or it was silly, but you know they're not creepers. Right. But if you watch it out of context, you don't have that good will, Like, what the what? That's yeah, it is reprehensible. And again it's sort of the flaw of this long term storytelling that we with characters, we fall in love with, you get away with a lot. Yeah. So yeah, not not thrilled with that either.

00:49:52
Speaker 7: We all we have that, we have those moments. A year after Boy Meets World ended, you created Reba, a massive sitcom both Emmy and Golden Globe nominated, and apparently there were no parts for us.

00:50:17
Speaker 2: So it sounds like fun, Alison sounds.

00:50:20
Speaker 3: Like that sounds great, amazing.

00:50:25
Speaker 7: How were you paired with Reva McIntyre and how did it kind of overlap with Boy Meets World?

00:50:31
Speaker 6: Well, it did overlap Boy Meets World, I'll tell you that. So in the season seven, in the fall, I had my newborn because my daughter was born March thirty one. At the end of season six, and the word was coming down the show may do an eight season or be morphed into something else. I think the rumor was Michael was going to take it to New York and they were in apartments there or something like that. So my agent was like, you know, you need to write another spec. You don't need a job, you know, I'm like, okay. So I had had this idea for quite a while and I would get up and you know, breastfeed my child in the middle of the night, or feed my you know, two four in the morning, and I would watch reruns on Nickelodeon, and I kind of got this idea a little bit fleshed out in my head and I started writing it on spec on while I was on the show. So I wrote an outline and turned it into my agent sometime around Thanksgiving break, and then he said, I just write the whole thing as a spec don't. Let's don't. We were going to pitch it at first, I think, and I think the idea is you'll never sell a show with a pregnant teenager. So I had him write it because he felt like I could write it in a way that someone might consider buying it. And I wrote it over Christmas break season seven, and I sold it. I got a multiple studios interested and sold it in I think it closed sometime around mid February.

00:52:13
Speaker 1: So Riba wasn't attached. You didn't write this for her.

00:52:16
Speaker 6: No, in fact, wow, in fact it was called Sally. I was definitely playing on the Roseanne. You know, I wanted to be a strong family show with a mom at the center of it. And I in one of those late night sessions feeding my daughter, Sally Field had popped on an episode of Murphy Brown that was rerunning at like three or four in the morning that I was watching, and I really thought she was perfect for this role. So in the ultimate suck up, I called the it was called Sally and yeah at Sally, and then the pilot title was Life and Other Indignities, And I wrote it as a spec like that, and it sold as a spec. And it's a little backwards now. Usually the studio gets involved after it's bought by a network, but we were bought by the studio first, and then they actually went out to Sally Field. We waited six that I went on two guys and a girl on the overall deal at Fox while they were casting. Sally Field was not interested in doing television at the time, so we started casting about midway through the casting process in that fall. The next fall, after Boemi's World, Reba McIntyre came in and I just I'm a Southern girl and I have you know her music. I was a fan of and she had star quality. As you know, you've got to be able to hold a camp stage and you guys all have it. She had it. She you know, all eyes turned when she walks in the room, and so yeah, we she was.

00:53:55
Speaker 1: Did she read for it?

00:53:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, she read for it.

00:53:58
Speaker 2: So she auditioned for the show that eventually was named after her.

00:54:02
Speaker 6: Yes, well yes, and that there's a great story about how it ended up being named by her. But yes, that's true. She came in as an audition for Sally Schlndwine I believe was the name at the time. Ye, she flew herself in from Nashville. There's I've heard a couple of different stories. One that her manager found it. Another my I was talking to my casting recently and he was saying that he had reached out to her manager and that's how her manager found it. Greg orson Magnificent casting director. So probably whatever he says is exactly right. Yeah, but yeah, she came in and read for me, and then over Christmas time she came in and read for the studio and network and then she opened on Broadway in any Gets Your Gun in January, and probably she was such a big hit in that we probably couldn't have gotten her had the studio not made the deal prior to that.

00:54:57
Speaker 3: Wow. So yeah, and then how did she end up naming the show Reba?

00:55:02
Speaker 6: Well, so she had wanted to, and I agree, we were trying to do a Roseanne thing. Why wouldn't we call the show Riba? Then network was concerned it might give her too much power. The network was all about, we're the show about young people, and you know, we think it's better to sell it as the young people than as a show of about the mom. But I always knew the show was centered and run by the mom, so I was fine with changing her name. So what I said, well, look, okay, well we'll change the name of the show. Let me just change her character name because that made Riba happy. So we changed it and made her Riba Heart. And then we still hadn't found a title for the show, and I had a friend pitch Deep in the Heart, which I kind of like because it sounds like Texas and you could play with the heart of the fact that their last name was Heart, and that kind of worked. So that's what it was when we got picked up and went to New York. And then there was some kind of publicity dust up, and I don't know all the details, but they did something not right in New York that offended a few people, and all of a sudden, the show was named Reba.

00:56:19
Speaker 2: I wonder if that's ever happened in television history. Somebody comes into audition for a role, they still have to screen test for studio and for network, and then the show's named after them afterwards. I don't know if that has ever happened before, because you think about it, Seinfeld or Roseanne, any of these shows, Grace, I mean, these are all Grace Underfire. These are all shows that were created for the lead of the show. So I wonder that the reverse has ever happened. That might be the only time in television history that's ever happened. That's really cool.

00:56:45
Speaker 6: Yeah, and she, you know, she was right for the role, and she does own and center the show, so it made perfect sense. I never had any problem with the show being named yeah Ria.

00:56:55
Speaker 7: So yeah, we noticed quite a few familiar names on that show.

00:56:59
Speaker 3: Patty Carr, Runnold's Gary Miller.

00:57:01
Speaker 7: Were you trying to bring some boy meets World friends over to the Reva room?

00:57:06
Speaker 6: I was, I was. I would have I would have brought more if I could have. I also doored working with David Brownfield and oh yeah, and and and Barbie and Erica. Yeah, I mean I had a I enjoyed my experience at Boy Meets World, and I thought there was some smart, good writers there, and so I brought some over, And yeah I had I would again. I it's you never should bring everybody over because you need more diversity in the rooms, and you need to get new voices, and you get you know, you become a writing family, and you're a little you know, you've become more insular than you even know you are. But it was fun to bring a couple of people I knew that were talented, and you know, again, I would have brought them all over. It wasn't. But that's not the smartest thing to do, right.

00:57:53
Speaker 3: What did you think about running a room?

00:57:55
Speaker 7: Were there are there specific things you thought, I'm gonna I had seen this done boy meets World, I'm going to take this with me, And were there are other things where you were like, I have seen.

00:58:04
Speaker 3: This done on Boy Meets World. I am not going to do that, but it's there.

00:58:08
Speaker 4: Believe the word tushy out of every sing.

00:58:11
Speaker 6: You know, I think you can watch every season and I don't believe we have tushy. So, you know, I wish I had been on more rooms before I ran a room. And I will have to say, there are things I learned about your situation from the podcast that I didn't know, and there's just certain things as a mid level rider, you just don't know what's going on. Danielle. I wanted to cry when I heard about you, you know, having to do your hair before you came in, Like that was crazy. And also Michael's technique of giving notes in front of everyone and sort of like, you know, I felt very lectury maybe to you, I don't know, Yeah, I mean there was you know, it was interesting to me as I told you, we were completely left out of everything in home improvement. It was a very very higherarchical room and so you don't necessarily hear network notes, studio notes, whatever. So while I appreciated the chance to being able to listen to that and see how certain notes evolve and why we were making certain choices in rewrites, I don't think that was a great method method of giving notes in front of everybody. The way that was done, and that is one thing I did take from Michael. Now, I don't think my notes were ever harsh, but I don't necessarily think cast notes like that is necessarily the way to go. And another thing I did, and I specifically did this to not be like Boy Meets World in the sense I really felt like sitcom directors were not given quite the respect that they should be, and so I thought, who am I to give an actor's note, right, I know how I want it to play on screen, but let me tell this person who works with them all day long, I don't like this, this is too heavy, or to this, or can we try something different? Whatever. So I did that. I made a real effort to let my directors do all the talking to the actors, and I think I think that served me to a point. And then I also think the relationship is very important to have with the actors. So there's some pleasant and minus with that. But that's one thing I definitely did differently. You know, you learn other things the showrunners that want to fix a joke on page three when you're fresh at eight pm, and then you get to the real meaty problem with the script on page twenty five at two in the morning. You're exhausted. So you up to a four or five in the morning on home improvement all the time, and all the time. Get in my car at five in the morning, drive over the hill back to my apartments. Sudden, my god, noon, get up, be back at one, and we do it. We did seven days a week's absolutely crazy. I can remember like there was pre uber like thinking, I don't know if I can drive home. I might just need to sleep on the sofa. Oh yeah, So I made an effort that I didn't want. You know, we tried to get the work done. If we need to fix a joke, let's let's work on the hard stuff first and jokes later and things like that. So I try to take little tips from different writers. I've worked good showrunners that I've worked for. But yeah, and you know, I remember you guys said you were talking about directors you really loved, and I don't think we ever talked about that. The way writers look at directors is who's ready on time?

01:01:46
Speaker 5: Oh wow, right, yeah, well that's why we see in season seven they were just giving us so many different directors. Like you're looking at the list and we're like, oh, Steve, have got an episode and and it's like and we love those people and they I'm glad they got a chance.

01:02:01
Speaker 4: But it was also like sort of like, let's just give everybody a chance.

01:02:05
Speaker 5: Like it's not because I don't think it's because Michael thinks that a director does is an essential element. I think it was just oh, we can do a favor for a friend, let them do that. And but yeah, he yeah, definitely does not did not consider directors.

01:02:18
Speaker 2: And he also wanted to be I think in his heart he always wanted to be an actor. So his notes, his note sessions were him on stage. It was him performing for everybody around.

01:02:30
Speaker 6: So and I'm sure somebody has talked to how we did Writer's Table reads? Anyone bring that up? Yeah? Yeah, never, I've never been on. I mean I've been over a lot of shows and nobody that was really because we're not actors and you know you and you could cast your script with everyone around the room, and if like someone killed one of your jokes, you're like, oh, we're going to be here after that because you couldn't deliver that, you know, right writer. Yeah, one thing I wanted to bring up. Have you guys talked about the the dance routines.

01:03:10
Speaker 3: No, that's I mean a little bit dancroutine that.

01:03:17
Speaker 6: We have.

01:03:19
Speaker 3: What what are your memories of it?

01:03:22
Speaker 6: I have to say that was so much fun. That is a eight season.

01:03:28
Speaker 5: When you said, I have to say, but yeah, like we were just like we were making your life hell by shutting on the show, like okay.

01:03:35
Speaker 6: No, no, no. I thought it was no because again late season season one, season two, Guys season six, season seven, they Love You. It was hilarious. I've never I always like wherever I was, I had to run out and see it and to see the audience just like you.

01:03:53
Speaker 3: Were, like they were the Beatles, they were the Battery Boys.

01:03:58
Speaker 6: It was crazy and rip off his shirt and whatever. I just thought that was absolutely hilarious and and just a golden, weird, funny moment that we only did a show that's a beloved show that's been on for a long time.

01:04:11
Speaker 1: So you didn't do that. You didn't have a dance break on Reba.

01:04:14
Speaker 6: We did not have a dance lot.

01:04:16
Speaker 4: That's crazy.

01:04:21
Speaker 1: We had we had been taking his shirt off. They had awards.

01:04:25
Speaker 8: Yeah, are you surprised at all that thirty years later people are still discovering Boy Meets World.

01:04:36
Speaker 6: I am, and I'm not. I'm actually thrilled for it. I just think I think shows with resonance that they hit a certain time period and they become beloved and and they're important, and so I just think that's really just amazing. I'm thrilled to be a part of it. It's been fun, I because I have it. Like I said, Home Improvements a number one show at the time and whatever, and but Reba and Boy Meet's World have both had a huge resurgence, and particularly over through the COVID time when people found stuff on streaming and whatever. And no matter where I go, I've I judged some film festivals and did some different stuff from whatever. It's the two shows people always bring up to me, and they always come up and ask you about you guys, and my experience there and this and and and that. They grew up with it and they love it and it's beloved and so I mean, did I know that after I wrote the Organ Grinder episode and the Future Band episode, No tushing, no Brushing? I will say at the time, I did not know. But I'm proud to be associated with it, and I'm really happy for you guys, and I'm glad people are seeing it. Yeah.

01:06:00
Speaker 7: Well, thank you so much for being here with us and for sharing your wisdom and your insight. It's nice to catch up with you. We should get together and have lunch and share stories. Thank you just so much for coming and sharing your experience with us.

01:06:15
Speaker 6: That'd be great. It's great to see you guys. It really is great to see you. Oh man.

01:06:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't. I still just being a television fanatic. I cannot get over the fact that a show called Rebayah was called something else. Somebody came in went through the entire audition process, not a I had a meeting and decided, okay, I'll do the show, went through the entire audition.

01:06:39
Speaker 3: Wasn't even courted. Just yeah.

01:06:42
Speaker 2: I didn't know the screen test, and then I have to screen test and then we're going to name the show up.

01:06:45
Speaker 7: I'm dying to know what happened during that publicity.

01:06:49
Speaker 3: What happened? What did someone do to Riba that made her go? We are calling this show Reba oh.

01:06:56
Speaker 1: Man, but you do it with an accident. We're calling the show Raba. We're calling there you go nice?

01:07:02
Speaker 6: Nice.

01:07:03
Speaker 7: Thank you all for joining us for this episode of Podmeets World as always. You can follow us on Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your emails Podmeets World Show.

01:07:10
Speaker 3: At gmail dot com.

01:07:12
Speaker 1: And we've got merch no tushy, no merchie.

01:07:17
Speaker 3: Podmeetsworldshow dot com. A writer send us out.

01:07:21
Speaker 4: We love you all, pod dismissed.

01:07:25
Speaker 5: Podmeets World is an iHeart podcast producer hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfridell and Ryder Strong executive producers Jensen Karp and Amy Sugarman Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Tarasubasch producer, Maddie Moore engineer and Boy Meets World Superman Easton Out. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at podmets World Show, or email us at Podmeats World Show at gmail dot com