Walter Emanuel Jones Meets World

00:00:19
Speaker 1: I couldn't have loved my costumes on Dancing with the Stars anymore as you can imagine. I mean, the whole process of being involved in you know.

00:00:30
Speaker 2: Do they bring you options like how does it work?

00:00:33
Speaker 3: Okay? So here's how it works.

00:00:34
Speaker 1: A week before you are doing a dance, there's the production meeting. You meet with the production team and they show you what they're thinking of. They go, okay, so here are the lights. We're going to use these lasers. We're going to have a smoke. We're going to try a smoke thing maybe. And it isn't like we're going to try the smoke thing because now that we've heard your idea for the dance it works in It's just like we have the ability this week to use this cool smoke or fog machine, and so we're going to try to put it into as many dances as we can. And then you know, knowing that, is there a way for you to incorporate it somehow?

00:01:11
Speaker 2: Okay?

00:01:12
Speaker 1: And part of this production meeting is then a wardrobe page where Daniella and Steven the male and female. You know, Stephen does all the guy's costumes and so even for the pros and Daniella does all of the celeb costumes.

00:01:28
Speaker 2: They I'm sorry, is this a different Daniella than dancer Daniella. Correct, there was multiple Daniella's.

00:01:34
Speaker 1: Yes, Daniella Cara Gosh, Pasha's wife is a Daniella spelled like my name, but with so two l's and an a at the end, Daniella Goschwender. The wardrobe is Daniella with one L, and then there's me Danielle Williams on Board Meets World. Okay, yes, it was rather confusing, especially for Pasha. I like, but so then they get a page and Daniella is a wonderful artist, and so she has drawn a sketch of what she wants your dress to look like, and then there's usually already a fabric swatch attached to it, so she can tell you made out of this material. And you know, I literally never once, That's not true, I literally all but once.

00:02:20
Speaker 3: It just was like.

00:02:20
Speaker 1: Gorgeous lovel And then one one week I was like, can we make the cha cha Halter? Because I had just worn that hot pink dress for my promo photo shoot that was somebody else's. It was like another dancers and it just happened to fit me, and then they added more fringe to it and mine it was yours exactly, and so I had just worn it and it was halter, and I felt really comfortable in it.

00:02:44
Speaker 3: I felt very confident.

00:02:45
Speaker 1: I felt attractive, and I was like, if we're doing another hot pink dress for cha, Cha, I'm gonna let's make it a halter.

00:02:51
Speaker 3: And she was like okay, and she was like, I was.

00:02:53
Speaker 1: You know, doing these straps, and she kind of explains to me why, and I listened to it, and I was like, okay, but I think I want a halter. And then I try the dress on and it's a halter and I go to do my chat chaf for the first time during the dress rehearsal and it weighs, no joke, thirty pounds.

00:03:15
Speaker 2: Oh god.

00:03:16
Speaker 3: It has so much fringe and so much beating.

00:03:19
Speaker 1: And because it's halter and the only thing it has to hang on is my neck, it is pulling on my neck.

00:03:25
Speaker 3: The whole thing. Now it feels like a diaper. My it's slipping off of me. I'm wiggling it up and I have to take it off after dress rehearsal.

00:03:32
Speaker 1: I'm like, I cannot physically do the dance of this, and she goes, I'll change the straps.

00:03:36
Speaker 3: Sure enough, she.

00:03:37
Speaker 1: Does the straps she originally wants in between dress rehearsal, which goes from two to four, and then the live show's five to seven. So I take it off at four, and somehow before the live show at five, they've already changed it from a halter to two thicker straps that then fit me perfectly.

00:03:53
Speaker 2: Wait a second, I'm sorry, I just I want to talk very quickly about something you said. She for every contestant every week draws a picture of the dress correct and puts a swatch on everything. So she's drawing fashion every single week for every contestant. Such a cool job. Yeah, yikes, that's a lot of work.

00:04:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's the so like when you talk about the fact that it's a whole team of people, that's the majority of kind of what she does. She's not if a fought is the person who's actually the seamstress, and then there are other people who are putting on all the jewels. But Daniella is the one who's saying she knows exactly the conceptual artist of what this should be, knowing the dances at this point, well, having been on the show for so many years, knowing the dances, knowing what works well, and also being so familiar with what fabrics are out there.

00:04:47
Speaker 4: I mean, if that's your skill set, that's probably the greatest job for you, you know what I mean, like honestly, because if you're a costume designer, like and you want to do that kind of show.

00:04:55
Speaker 5: I mean, that's what a cool gig?

00:04:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, what a cool.

00:04:58
Speaker 4: I mean it would be my nightmare because I can't draw and would never I'd be.

00:05:02
Speaker 5: Like pretty dross.

00:05:05
Speaker 2: Well.

00:05:05
Speaker 1: I found out then by one Miss Jordan Chiles, that you can buy your Dancing with the Stars costumes.

00:05:13
Speaker 3: At the end of the season.

00:05:14
Speaker 2: What did you get?

00:05:16
Speaker 3: And I was like, wait, what, you can buy them?

00:05:17
Speaker 1: And she goes, yeah, I think I'm gonna buy them all and I was like, I want also want to buy them all. I didn't even know anything about this, so that at my next fitting, I say to Danielle, what is this I hear about us being able to buy our costumes and she goes, yeah, if you want to, you want to buy your costumes, you can buy your costumes, And I'm like, okay, I do so. At the end of the season, I get an email that says, Hey, Danielle, do you want to buy We hear you want to buy some of your costumes? Can you tell us which ones you're interested in? And I'm like, well, maybe all of them. Like meanwhile, I say this to Jensen, and Jensen's like, what what are you going to do with these? And I'm like, I want a museum of my own. I just want to Dancing with the Stars and museum of my my experience on.

00:05:53
Speaker 5: It, like just the Danielle Official Museum.

00:05:55
Speaker 4: We have the hair from Tapanga, you have the outfits from Dancing with the Stars.

00:06:00
Speaker 3: It will be my dance with Lance. Like I just I want my stuff.

00:06:06
Speaker 2: I just Will's got his museum already. I know. What can you think about? What what would be the greatest thing about the Daniel Fisher Museum. It would have the best cafeteria for lunch.

00:06:15
Speaker 4: Oh you know it, That's what That's what I'm thinking.

00:06:21
Speaker 1: Panda Express too, and also have islands.

00:06:26
Speaker 3: Tuesdays. If Chang's would be.

00:06:31
Speaker 2: There dying to know what they.

00:06:34
Speaker 1: Okay, so they right back, Oh okay, you're interested in possibly all of them.

00:06:39
Speaker 3: Will let you know what they all cost. I want to know.

00:06:41
Speaker 1: I want you, guys, let's go through already. Week one my tango. It was a strapless teal pleated gown with a nude waiste insert rhinestone trim and a stoned nude panty.

00:06:55
Speaker 2: Wait, so like real rhinestones?

00:06:57
Speaker 5: Is that like?

00:06:59
Speaker 2: R No? No, I don't know what a stone is. Is it from stones?

00:07:05
Speaker 1: It's just a It's a thing that reflects light, that makes it look sparkly, and you can buy them by the thousand.

00:07:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a thousand dollars.

00:07:15
Speaker 4: Thousand dollars dress.

00:07:16
Speaker 3: You think that's one thousand dollars, I.

00:07:18
Speaker 2: Will say it's worth money. I'm seven hundred.

00:07:23
Speaker 1: Wow, it's kind of right in between you guys, it's an eight hundred dollars dress.

00:07:26
Speaker 2: Okay, that works. Seems like a lot though, but okay, don't.

00:07:32
Speaker 3: All right, Well, that's the thing is that I could never wear it again.

00:07:34
Speaker 4: Yes, but is it like a prom dress? Like one thousand dollars for like a nice problem?

00:07:39
Speaker 1: I guess this is hard for me to answer because I grew up in the nineties where you know, you could go to Jessica mcclintalk, and I think I think my dress was like three or four hundred dollars and it felt like it.

00:07:48
Speaker 4: Was so much money, right, right, But this dress has been on TV, this dress.

00:07:53
Speaker 3: Is this is a famous dress, This is a this is a it's the famous because of you.

00:07:58
Speaker 2: So that is there not a official So.

00:08:00
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about is are they making money on the costumes.

00:08:04
Speaker 2: Because they're still in the coast?

00:08:06
Speaker 3: Did it how they pay eight hundred dollars to make it?

00:08:10
Speaker 1: I guess if you're thinking the wage, if exactly mari wage labor, then the answer is yes. Because the dress itself, there's no way this the fabric is you know.

00:08:20
Speaker 2: But the first one's eight hundred, The first one's eight hundred.

00:08:22
Speaker 1: Week two, my chat chat I was a hot pink beaded fringe dress with nude mesh inserts and rhinestone trim.

00:08:28
Speaker 3: What do you think that one is?

00:08:30
Speaker 2: I say, right around that same price Center Bucks.

00:08:33
Speaker 3: It was eleven was eleven hundred, okkay, so.

00:08:36
Speaker 2: We're at almost two grand right fringe? Wait, we're still going nineteen hundred bucks a week?

00:08:41
Speaker 3: Three?

00:08:42
Speaker 1: Fox Trot light blue mesh bodice with silk chiffon skirt, lace, rhinestone and feather trims, those feather trims.

00:08:50
Speaker 2: Man, fifty, I'm going to say less.

00:08:53
Speaker 6: I'm going to say six fifty, twelve hundred and fifty dollars. The most expensive dress so far. Yeah, okay, okay, the Week four quick step. You guys are gonna love this.

00:09:03
Speaker 1: A fully rhinestone silver body suit, silver fringe pants. Yea with attached rhinestone belt.

00:09:10
Speaker 4: Fifteen hundred bucks.

00:09:11
Speaker 2: Oh good, now, she just said the one before was the most expensive dress.

00:09:14
Speaker 1: It's no, no, up to that point. Oh five fourteen hundred dollars.

00:09:21
Speaker 2: Oh my god.

00:09:23
Speaker 3: That's how they get you so now.

00:09:25
Speaker 1: So now we're at like thirty two fifty plus fourteen hundred. We're at like fifty five hundred.

00:09:30
Speaker 2: Dollars for dresses you can't wear, for dresses I.

00:09:33
Speaker 1: Can't wear ever again. Week five Jive it was a brown Cittrin tan graphic printed collar dress, matching attached belt.

00:09:42
Speaker 2: That was the Feenie dance.

00:09:44
Speaker 3: That's the Feenie dance.

00:09:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, that can't be as expensive. Eight fifty. Yeah, I'm gonna say right around there, eight hundred.

00:09:52
Speaker 1: Bucks, seven hundred dollars. Okay, rider's pretty good at it.

00:09:55
Speaker 2: And I still want Pasha's shirt from that night. Oh yeah, because it was like a Cory shirt, but like a big dazzled Cory shirt.

00:10:02
Speaker 1: It was a bedazzled Cory shirt and made of dance shirt materials, so super stretchy.

00:10:07
Speaker 2: I want that, And again that was his favorite. He and I are very similar body style, so I'm guessing I could fit into absolutely sure, not a problem at all. I couldn't get a sleeve and my arm couldn't get into that thing. But that was a cool shirt. That was a great shows were at sixty five hundred dish.

00:10:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, something like that, okay.

00:10:24
Speaker 1: And then week six my Argentine Tango, the black mock Neck. It was a great dress, asymmetrical skirt, black mesh dressed with rhinestones.

00:10:33
Speaker 2: That's going to be an expensive one. I'm going to sixteen hundred, fourteen hundred.

00:10:37
Speaker 3: Eight hundred and fifty. What a bargain, right, yes, okay.

00:10:42
Speaker 1: And then there's my Viennese wallt Stress, which is the white lace bodice with pearl trim, silk chaffon skirt and a pleated belt and it's got a blood stain.

00:10:50
Speaker 2: I'm going to say, this is covered in blood.

00:10:52
Speaker 3: You covered in blood. We're in the museum yeah, following, Oh my god, you're right.

00:10:57
Speaker 2: Nine eleven hundred, five hundred bucks. What it's the blood. It's the blood that does it. That's the thing. That's why when you get like you can get like murder cars, they're way cheaper. Like eight people were killed in here, Like that's I'll take it.

00:11:11
Speaker 1: Then my my eliminated dress, my Week eight contemporary metallic silver halter dress with roosed bodice and rhinestone trim.

00:11:19
Speaker 2: With a rooshed bodice.

00:11:20
Speaker 4: I mean it's gonna be now you're talking a rooshed Yeah, come on, how rooshed?

00:11:31
Speaker 2: That's the worst joke.

00:11:33
Speaker 3: It's great, what is the joke?

00:11:36
Speaker 5: How o?

00:11:38
Speaker 2: How rude? How rooshed? Danner Rito's how rushed.

00:11:46
Speaker 3: Wooshed?

00:11:51
Speaker 2: Seven ninety five.

00:11:52
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, yeah, eight fifty.

00:11:55
Speaker 2: I'll say it again.

00:11:55
Speaker 3: It will work this time. Six hundred dollars.

00:11:59
Speaker 5: God.

00:12:00
Speaker 1: And then there was the team Week that eight, the team dance, which was just a sleeveless yeah, black jacket and black wool pants and a white sleeveless bodice.

00:12:09
Speaker 3: I don't want that one, but three.

00:12:10
Speaker 2: P fifty okay, so we're at like ten grand, I mean exactly, you can't wear anywhere. And you bought it all, didn't you.

00:12:20
Speaker 3: I haven't yet. I have to now now that I know how expensive.

00:12:23
Speaker 1: All of it is, I do feel like I have to pick. And I was thinking, I think I should take the Jive dress because that was my dedication. It's the Topanga callback dress, even though like I think, I and that one's seven hundred dollars. I have to have my Argentine Tango dress, my dress that was for my best dance, my most like fun fun week of everything, like Argentine Tango. And then now that writer said I could wear that my my white laced bodice with the bloodstain for Halloween. I could be like a bloody bride anytime I have somewhere I need to go and to be like, this is my Dancing with the Stars dress, and that one's five hundred dollars, I feel.

00:12:57
Speaker 3: Like I need those three.

00:12:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, you're not going to take like the pants, didn't you have like samba ish pants with the.

00:13:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, the fringe pants fans, it's a fourteen dollars outfit that.

00:13:11
Speaker 2: You can't wear those, they can't wear those.

00:13:13
Speaker 4: You can't anywhere. It's worth it, Yeah, it comes out.

00:13:17
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:13:18
Speaker 2: So that's like it's like the wine. It's like, you don't open the wine for the special occasion, special case. I got you interest.

00:13:24
Speaker 1: It reminds me of when I was in eighth grade and my mom and I went to Melrose to look for my eighth grade graduation dress.

00:13:31
Speaker 3: Don't know why.

00:13:31
Speaker 1: We thought that was a fun Yeah, that's where we went. And uh Cosmo, who is now actually famous on TikTok. You guys may know who Cosmo is, but he owns a store on Melrose and my mom and I walked in there and he.

00:13:46
Speaker 3: Has a voice like this, he talks like this, and he pulled something up for me to wear.

00:13:51
Speaker 2: Any great graduation I got you covered.

00:13:54
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:13:54
Speaker 3: It was a hot pink rhinestone mini skirt. It was about this big.

00:13:59
Speaker 1: Oh god, it was so little and I put it on and my mom was like, oh, I mean, you look so cute in that, but I don't think that's good for eighth grade graduation.

00:14:07
Speaker 3: And I said, yeah, I don't really know where i'd wear this, and he goes, girl, you wear it to Ralph's.

00:14:11
Speaker 2: You wear it to Ralps.

00:14:13
Speaker 3: And you walk up and down the aisles and you say, look, at me.

00:14:17
Speaker 2: Oh, that's what you do?

00:14:18
Speaker 3: You wear it to Ralph's And I wow.

00:14:20
Speaker 1: I've thought about it forever anytime I.

00:14:24
Speaker 2: Have like something only rock and roll. Ralphs on Sunset though, and that's.

00:14:29
Speaker 3: The one he was talking about.

00:14:32
Speaker 2: Can I can I ask a question that's going to be weird and off putting. Why would one need a nude panty? So?

00:14:40
Speaker 1: Because there's lots of kicks and the dress is very high, so it's it's basically like a one piece body suit under there, so that when we kick that nothing's seen on TV.

00:14:50
Speaker 3: Right, So they rhymes done.

00:14:51
Speaker 2: It they wanted to. But nude means like a brown color, doesn't it? Like, wouldn't they match.

00:14:56
Speaker 1: The Technically technically nude is whatever color you're skin is so naked it blends into your skin. So like Jordan and I would have two different versions of nude, okay.

00:15:07
Speaker 2: But then why wouldn't Why wouldn't it just the crotch, which is one of the greatest words ever. Just match the color of your.

00:15:13
Speaker 1: Dress because then it then it looks like so like my in that case, my dress was teal. So if I had a teal thing on under and then I kicked you would then like your eye would be to like my crotch is teal as opposed to flesh colored.

00:15:29
Speaker 3: It just you don't really notice anything.

00:15:35
Speaker 5: Is that your favorite?

00:15:38
Speaker 3: Instead? I had a rhymestoned crotch.

00:15:42
Speaker 2: That rhinos. It was exactly, it was vegasized. That's nice, that's perfect, It's perfect.

00:15:51
Speaker 3: How roached.

00:15:59
Speaker 2: Did I?

00:16:00
Speaker 1: That?

00:16:02
Speaker 2: Just do it for every catchphrase.

00:16:08
Speaker 3: Oh, welcome to pod Meets World. I'm Danielle Fischel, I'm Rider Strong.

00:16:12
Speaker 2: And I'm wil Fordell.

00:16:25
Speaker 1: As much as it pains me to say this, after today's episode, I will no longer be the best dancer who has appeared on Podnet's World. Sure, we've talked to Sabrina, Bryan Danaka mckeller, Candace Cameron, Jody Sweet and Lance Bass, Ernie ray Is Junior, Julia White, Montel, Jordan Hell, even Patrick Renna, and they all could be considered better natural dancers than I. But the truth is I could probably create an optimistic argument and convince myself I stood a chance against these guests. But today that illogical facade dies. We are talking to a triple threat nineties icon who not only played a crucial part in building the phenomenon that was the Mighty morphin Power Rangers. But he also became the first black superhero in television history, a title absolutely no one should take lightly. And further extending his retro lore, he starred in The Quintessential d com Brink, a beloved roller bleeding film that will somehow found a way to hate. He'd also complete a perfect TV guest star cycle, finding himself on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Step by Step, The Parenthood, Moesha, Buffy and Family Matters. And yes, he's a phenomenal dancer Latin hip hop, jazz, ballet, modern tap. He performed at the nineteen ninety two Olympics and won the title of World Champion in Salsa in two thousand and four.

00:18:00
Speaker 2: Wow.

00:18:01
Speaker 1: He taught Hollywood stars like Vin Diesel and Jada Pinkett Smith.

00:18:05
Speaker 3: But did he finish eighth on a very popular season of Dancing with the Stars?

00:18:11
Speaker 2: You know?

00:18:12
Speaker 3: Did he do the Argentinean tengo?

00:18:14
Speaker 7: No?

00:18:14
Speaker 3: He did know.

00:18:17
Speaker 1: But he's here with us today and we are so excited to talk to him about everything. Please welcome to pod Meats World. A pioneering superhero and better dancer than I am.

00:18:29
Speaker 3: Walter Immanuel Jones, how are you.

00:18:37
Speaker 5: I'm good.

00:18:39
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Walter, thank you so much for being here. We much mentioned you on Pod Meets World before. Will also mentioned you during his Brink Magical rewind episode. And so I am assuming this is a little like Beetlejuice. And now that we've said your name three times, you here and we love it. That's the way we manifested you.

00:19:01
Speaker 5: I love that. I like being manifested. Let's go.

00:19:04
Speaker 3: I love it.

00:19:05
Speaker 1: Let's first talk about where it all started for you. It was far far away from Hollywood in Detroit, Michigan. And when do you start showing signs of wanting to be an entertainer?

00:19:18
Speaker 5: You know what I started when I was a kid, like in church. I used to go to church and my my cousin was in the Coor ensemble. So I got into Korn someble and like the family was singing in the Kor ensemble. And then I was like the third shepherd on the left, you know, And so it started there. My father was a minister, so I got used to see my dad in church speak to people, and and you know, he was a great orator, and and I will look at him and be like, Wow, my dad's speaking all these people and and he was very friendly, would just like talk to any stranger about you know, God or whatever, and and uh, A lot of that rubbed up on me, you know, listen to them sing. And then we'd be in the car and be like, hey, what can you do any impressions? And I'm like, uh, no, you would And I would try it, and then he goes, do howurd co sale? And I would try it and he would laugh, and I would be like, then I wanted to get better at it, and I don't know. He went from there to talent shows, dancing and uh and singing, and then I joined Uh, I started acting. I started taking speech in high school. Then I joined actors class. Class of acting. My teacher took us a Thesbian conference and my senior year and I took a two minute monologue and audi ship for twenty colleges and I got three scholarships. So as it changed my old trajectory because I at the time, I wasn't sure what I was gonna do. I was like, I I like acting, but I hadn't really considered it a possibility of being a career. Not in Detroit, there wasn't a lot of opportunity. I mean there was some theater. There's a street theater. I did street theater, you know, but I didn't, you know, television was so far away from me. But I got a scholarship at Amateur in New York. I got a scholarship at months to Indiana, and I got a scholarship at us i U, which was United States Cincinnati University School performing in Visual Arts in Los Angeles and San Diego, California. So I picked California because it sound good. I was like, California, you know. And then I got out there and I started going to school, and I recognized that the winter was just rain, and I was like, I am never going back to Detroit.

00:21:45
Speaker 2: Yep, I do it with no more.

00:21:48
Speaker 5: So, man, I'm done with that. So after getting my four year degree Bachelor of Fine Arts and Musical Theater, I you know, I decided to jump into the world and I started working on cruise ships. I worked on the love boat Princess.

00:22:06
Speaker 3: Did you have an agent? How did you get that gig?

00:22:09
Speaker 5: You know what it was in the trades is back in the day they told you about auditions and and also I had a friend I worked at City World, uh, in a show called City Street. One of my friends there had taken off and started working on cruise ships, and he came back and was telling me about all these adventures he had where he'd been, these activities that he had been involved with, and I was like, man, that sounds amazing. I want to do it. He said you should audition, and I was like, you think I could do it? It was like and so I, Uh, the next audition came up. He let me know about it, and I went up to l A. I auditioned and I was hired. So I worked on Princess Cruise Lines. I went on and so you're doing you're doing everything.

00:22:55
Speaker 2: You're singing, you're dancing.

00:22:57
Speaker 5: Dancing, acting. Yeah that I was doing singing telegrams and.

00:23:03
Speaker 2: You were just doing it all the Wait were you doing mar were you because we'll get into this toobe. Were you already doing martial arts?

00:23:10
Speaker 5: I was a martial arts when I was a kid, So I studied Ishan ru and I was the peewee Michigan state champion. I made up for brown be.

00:23:18
Speaker 3: So everything you do, you're very very.

00:23:24
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you, thank you. I think i I've always been physically talented. I've always been able to dance. Dancing one of my passions. Uh. I grew up watching Michael Jackson and wanted to be like him, and so uh seeing him dance motivating me to dance. And then Detroit is a dance city, you know, and there's all these popular dances that will come out. Uh. In middle school, my my friend Eric Charles, Uh, he was a bit older than me, but he was super confident and we went in middletoe to one side, the girls one side. Well, he would go, let's go, ask him to go to dance, and I'll follow him, and before you know it, we'd have four girls dancing around us. And then we're doing routines where I would fall, he would pick me up, throw me back up, and I would dance and yeah, a whole so uh that opened up my eyes to to to just dancing and dancing kind of been my friend throughout life.

00:24:20
Speaker 1: I in your intro, I went through all of the types of dance you know how to do, which is basically everything tap and Latin.

00:24:28
Speaker 3: You were a salsa champion in two thousand and four.

00:24:31
Speaker 5: I won a world championship in two thousand four. Of my end, But it was a street. It wasn't like ballroom, not like you not like you don't.

00:24:39
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, thank you for seeing that.

00:24:41
Speaker 7: Like ballroom dancing with the stage is one of my One of my dreams too, is that you went on that show and you did well. You can thank you, you know, I mean, I understand that you started from the beginning.

00:24:54
Speaker 3: To write You're like, yeah, I had zero zero, literally zero. I dance at weddings. That's the extent of my dance experience. Do you still do you still dance?

00:25:06
Speaker 5: I go dancing, so its street. It's not like ballroom, Like I said, A dance sasabatata, zamba, zuk marenga, chatcha. I dance a little bit of everything, but it's all like you know, it's the sabor of it. It's like, you know, the flavor. I I dance probably two or three times a week.

00:25:25
Speaker 3: Why you go? Because I need to? I'm looking for him. I would love to.

00:25:30
Speaker 5: Yes, Yes, I went dancing last night. I'm so sure, celebrating my birthday.

00:25:35
Speaker 2: Happy birthday.

00:25:37
Speaker 3: How old are you?

00:25:37
Speaker 5: Very much? I am fifty nine. If you no, you're not, Yeah, yeah, I'm an old dude. I'm like fifty nine, I'm going to be sixty next year, next year, give me.

00:25:48
Speaker 3: I refuse to believe this.

00:25:51
Speaker 5: I know, I know.

00:25:52
Speaker 4: I was adding it up when he was talking about what years though, I was like, how is he that much older than us?

00:25:57
Speaker 2: Like, dude, that's great. I don't buy that, But I don't want.

00:26:00
Speaker 1: To assault international World championship in two thousand and four.

00:26:04
Speaker 3: That's twenty one years ago.

00:26:06
Speaker 1: You like, that's no offense, but that's old. To be winning world championships.

00:26:11
Speaker 5: I gotta go. I mean, like you know, and I probably was. I was in my late thirties at the time. So ooh in ninety three when we were all doing our shows Power Rangers and yeah, when this World, I was twenty six playing sixteen Wow. So you guys were actually like little kids, and I was actually already I finished cruise ships and got to LA, started auditioning and booked power Agers and play a teenager.

00:26:38
Speaker 3: So that is unbelievable.

00:26:42
Speaker 2: I never would again. I would have lost that instantly. If somebody asked me to guess your age, I wouldn't have been anywhere close. I thought we were the same age. I thought you were going to be.

00:26:50
Speaker 3: You were younger than I was. Yeah, you were younger than I.

00:26:57
Speaker 1: Really did. Okay, so you're in LA. So you're doing the cruise ships. After cruise ships, do you go back, like, how many years are you on the tradition?

00:27:19
Speaker 5: Three years old cruise ships and I and I thought, well, you know, I got this degree in musical theater. I want to be an actor on television and film and theater. I should give LA a shot. Let me get off the ships. Because I was enjoying myself. I was traveling all around the world and it these Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Alaska, Mexico, just all these places, and I loved every part of it. And I thought I could come back to this and at the end of the day, I could become a cruise director, run the entertainment and this could be my life. I could be happy with this. But I was like, let me give LA a shot. So I came back to LA and got an agent, a dance agent actually, and started auditioning and do it X your work on like nine two one oh and just trying to get acclimated to the industry and seeing what it was like. I remember going on nine o two one oh and I was I was I was like right next to the other actors, and I was like, I could do this. I got this. I'm like I see what they're doing and I had that talent I could Yeah, I could do this. I can see myself doing this. And I was on a show. What was it, ed McMahon.

00:28:26
Speaker 3: It was a star search, right, So I went.

00:28:32
Speaker 5: To star search with a band, a singer, and on the way there, my agent called me on the plane, Hey, there's an audition for this show called it was called something different, uh, phantoms, a show called Phantoms. They're looking for a teenage superhero that can dance to martial arts and gymnastics. And I was like, I could do that. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like me. Got to be sick. I could play sixty easily because I've always looked ten years under my U. And they said they want to see you tomorrow, and I'm like, I'm on a plane. I'm like, I'm going to do star starts. I'm on the plane right now. And they're like, I want's a bummer and it looks if it gets picked up and gets picked up for forty episodes, and I'm like forty episodes, Oh, man, I can't believe I'm missing this opportunity, and the plane takes off. I go. I landed in Florida. When I land, I lose my voice. So I'm the lead singer in this band. Oh no, yeah, And I'm like I'm talking like this now and I'm like, oh my god. So I trade places with one of the guys that is doing the backup singing. He becomes the lead singer. I become the background. We do our thing. We compete against Beyonce, who also loses, and and it's time to go home. So I know, I don't even know. I can't even remember, but yeah, finished Out also competed and they lost, which is so crazy because I was like, they were so good. And so I got back to LA and I'm bummed because I missed this audition. I start starting work and I get a call from my agent and they still want to see you. Can you go in UH tomorrow And I'm like yes, yes, So I go in and after about two weeks of auditioning, they finally send us to UH to the network and they send three groups. There's a tall group, a short group. I'm in the short group and kind of an older group of actors all you know, five Rangers in each and and we all you know, show what we you know what what what we're going to be. And so uh, at the end of the day they picked my group and uh, Power Rangers began.

00:30:49
Speaker 2: It's crazy now, So I think probably I know a little bit more about this world than my fellow co hosts, just because I'm I'm a nerd, So I I know the not not to be cliche, but the power of the Power Rangers. And so obviously nobody knew what you were stepping into originally, as you you you done the mask, so as you start to go. First of all, I've heard the schedule for shooting was ridiculous, crazy.

00:31:18
Speaker 5: Sometimes we did fifteen hour days. Sometimes not always, but right it was. It was stupid. It was like, you know, we be up you know call times at six am, and then we worked till seven, you know, typically with lunch, and then you had to come home study for the next day. And we were shooting course scripts every two weeks. So it was and it's all physical. It's all physical, and we're shooting according to sets. So can imagine how confusing that is. It's like, wait, are we with we must we fighting? What am I wearing? You know, like what just happened?

00:31:58
Speaker 2: You know, like all that, And you're doing all your own stunts, aren't you. Aren't you essentially doing everything you're You're also your own stunt people.

00:32:06
Speaker 5: Well, the first fifteen minutes of the show is us as teenagers dealing with normal life and you know, situations, and then things escalate. That enemy comes. We try to fight them as our teenage selves. The enemy gets bigger, so then we morph into our suits and then they get stronger, and then we call on our zwords or become the Megazord, and we pull off the sword and we win. That's what it works, Yes, except for we have we had a lot of cliffhangers. Yeah, Like our show was like the soap opera for kids is like tune in tomorrow and find out will the Rangers lose their zords? Right? You know, kids were racing home from school or yah school because it was like they had to know what was gonna happen, you know.

00:32:53
Speaker 2: Well, I mean this became a global phenomenon.

00:32:55
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, forty hundreds.

00:32:57
Speaker 5: Around the world and the shows were running for thirty two years, which is pretty amazing. Wow, yes, I just went back for the thirtieth anniversary.

00:33:07
Speaker 2: Did you now I have to ask, and my co hosts are gonna go, huh. And if you don't want to talk about this, I totally understand, But do you believe in the Red Ranger Curse?

00:33:15
Speaker 5: There's no Red Ranger Curse.

00:33:16
Speaker 2: There is not.

00:33:18
Speaker 5: That's just some stuff somebody threw together and was like, Oh, I mean, when you consider the fact this show's run for thirty two years, there's been at least one hundred ten actors associated to the Power Rangers just bound the Beasts some course, some you know, some bad luck involved it, of course, some people you know, like, it's not just a cast of six people. Yes, it's a lot of folks. And and even though they're not the original Mighty Morphem Power Rangers, they're still still associated to the brand. So I imagine if you you know, like there's people get in trouble, it happens, yeah, you know, and people, you know, people make mistakes.

00:33:58
Speaker 2: So yeah, it seems like good nerd clickbait more than actually yes, yes, have any sense of reality behind it.

00:34:05
Speaker 5: I mean, think about how much things have changed over the last thirty years, right, I mean, like, that's three different generations and with three different attitudes about everything, and so you know, what was normal at one point is now like you know, people are like looking their those and they're like, I can't believe that that happened, right, that was? You know. I'm like when I when I did Power Rangers, I was it was one of the first diverse casts that I can remember, and I was the first black superhero and live at your TV. Yeah, so that is that in itself was like a whole thing. I mean, but then I had to deal with makeup and air. They didn't know how to do my makeup or hair. They didn't they were used to doing things for people that were not black. And so you know, when I got on the set, you when you hired your makeup or your wardrobe, you hire for the majority, and the majority was not me. So I ended up having do my own hair. Sometimes I didn't. Luckily, my my complexion has always been good. I didn't have a lot of bumps, so I barely wore your makeup. I was like, just give me powder, because they put makeup on me.

00:35:10
Speaker 3: They may be green or gray.

00:35:15
Speaker 5: That doesn't look good.

00:35:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all right.

00:35:18
Speaker 5: Yeah. So I mean a lot of things have changed from from then till now. I mean, I know, you know, I was the first black superhero, but I was also a black actor, so uh at that point for me, I grew up in Detroit. I was like, that's powerful.

00:35:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you knew you felt it at the time, right, Yeah, no, I thought it.

00:35:41
Speaker 5: I mean, as the first black superhero, I was like, yes, I am wearing I'm a black superherol and I'm wearing a black suit, and I'm like, let's go. I mean that may mean proud. But then over years, over decades, then people were, hey, that was weird, and I'm like, that's strange. Hey, that was prejudiced. The Black Reacher was in a black suit. And then also, originally the Yellow Ranger was Latina, but she asked for more money after the pilot and they fired her, and the next talented person they hired was Asian. So now it's a little weird. Oh, the black actors in a black suit and the Asian actress is in a yellow suit.

00:36:19
Speaker 2: And the pretty girl is in the pink suit and all the Yeah, the pup in any suit of course.

00:36:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, And because he came from Japanese footage the Pink Ranger had a skirt, and the Japanese footage the pink Ranger. The Yellow Ranger was a guy, so he didn't have a skirt, right, but we had two girls pinky yellow and yeah. So but I mean, if you go along with the logic of the colors matched everything, Yeah, the Pink Ranger was a pretty girl. The Red Ranger was white. He wasn't he was just a young dude. And then the Green Ranger wasn't green. He wasn't.

00:37:00
Speaker 1: You know, it's like major was you know, Yes, coincidence does exist, like you said, especially.

00:37:07
Speaker 2: If you go back and you try to find it. That's the thing. If you go back looking looking for something, you know, with something already in your head, you're gonna find it somewhere.

00:37:16
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:37:16
Speaker 1: So yeah, and so you're on that, you're in your late twenties, you find yourself on this international phenomenon, you're playing a sixteen year old.

00:37:26
Speaker 3: You're on now like one of the biggest kid properties of all time. Are you? Are you like shocked that? Does this feel like a dream come true? What's your family think?

00:37:36
Speaker 5: Oh? Yeah, I mean, uh, when I show my family the pilot, I show them the pilot and they were all like, it's okay, something's gonna come along. Oh yeah. They hated it. They were like they looked at it and they were like, what a piece of.

00:37:53
Speaker 1: Oh my god, what you know, Like, no one's gonna watch this, honey, right right.

00:37:57
Speaker 5: This is this is Yeah, no, I don't know what you did, but don't do it again. And but then we did the pilot again and again. We did three pilots and finally the final one is what made it hit and it clicked and then all of a sudden, my answer machine, that's what we used to have back in the day. I remember the answer machine was full with like seventy five messages. You have seventy five messages, and I was like, yo, it was like family going, hey, guys, like we gotta hang out. Oh man, everybody's to congratulatory at that point. But it was it was amazing to to go from not being anybody in the world necessarily. I mean, of course people love you and cruise ships, but to go into my grocery store and look to the side and see I'm on the on the face of Disney Adventure and TV Guide and Team Beat, and I'm like that's me. That's so weird. Yeah. The only thing was I was broke, right, I couldn't buy the magazine.

00:39:02
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, that was the other thing they were kind of famous for was not paying the actors particularly well. Yeah, so you weren't getting paid like regular SAG network.

00:39:11
Speaker 5: No, not even close, not even it was. It was pretty bad. And when we signed the contracts we knew it was a non union contract. At me being twenty six, I knew that it was a bad contract. But forty episodes it was a good trade. It was like, you know, I'll take this as an experience, uh, and it's gonna help me grow, and it's gonna get me a real and it allowed me to get an industry and enjoy SAG. It'd be cool, you know, sou But it hit. It became the biggest kids show in forty countries, and and they made a billion dollars in the first season, and it was like wow, So second season, you figure they made a billion dollars, they gonna take a share, yeah, and they were like, nah, you get a little bit. It's a little bump, you know. But it was still under SAG wages, way under SAG wages. Uh, and then and then uh, then it was then we got the movie. They say, hey, guys, twenty one century Fox, they want to do movie. They want to use all you guys. We've already guaranteed them. You we're gonna say, yeah, you guys are gonna be the guys they want you, and they're gonna do new suits. It's gonna be this multi million dollar movie. And it's gonna be amazing. We're so excited. Uh, we's gonna get our contracts, see you and you guys gotta sign them and we're good. And it was like, oh man, here we go a movie. We're doing a movie like you know, and with a real budget, with a real budget exactly. It's so exciting. And then we got the contract and the contract was for three movies, not just and the first. The first movie was like seventeen five hundred dollars.

00:40:43
Speaker 3: Oh we a movie.

00:40:45
Speaker 5: Yeah. The second was gonna be like twenty three thousand dollars. The third was twenty seven dollars. And I was like, nah, man, you'all doing way too much. It's like you made a billion dollars. You can't even make it sag, make it sad. So it's fair. Yes it is there, then we'll be happy. We don't need it. I don't need to be a multimillionaire.

00:41:06
Speaker 2: Although, yeah, you're not asking for five million dollars, I'm not doing that.

00:41:10
Speaker 5: I'm not asking for five that you know, one hundred and twenty five million dollar budget. I'm like, just give me what you would give a lead actor in a in a TV show and a popular show, a popular movie. Yes, And it didn't work out. So we tried to get a lawyer to negotiate for the contract as a whole for everybody. So let's stay together, let's get away smart, because we can't negotiate for ourselves. You know, they don't see us that way. So let's get a lawyer. And we ended up finding a lawyer and a manager that was working with that was working with three of us, and we asked the other guys to join and deciding not to. And at the end of the day when our season, our first season was over, we walked off the set and negotiation to h to get a better contract and we started doing car shows. And we would do a car show and we would make more in that weekend than we made an entire season. We went back to the gether. Guys, we're doing these car shows. We got fans everywhere like they're out to do it around the plot. You know, we had already done Universal Studios, so which was you know, it's crazy. We had up to the park and uh, at that point we realized, Wow, this is a lot bigger than what we know. Because it's one thing to be said, to have it said to you you're the number one kid show in the world. But if you haven't explored the world and the people in it, you don't know that. You just know that's what they said.

00:42:40
Speaker 3: You know, that's a stack.

00:42:41
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, we're pulling in the share. It's amazing. You know, that's cool, but we're not feeling it. You know, like to be that famous and that popular, have toys and and everything else, have people sleeping outside at that at Toys r Us to get your action figure is a wild thing. And it's crazy because they didn't even give us the action figures. I didn't even get them. I got them later on a life. You're like, I wasn't gonna go stand it Toys r Us. It was weird, Like I'm not gonna go sleep outside, although I'm sure it could have walked up, but the pandemodium that would have created it would have probably been very pressworthy. And I didn't. I didn't do it, but I mean, overall, it was a wild experience. I wouldn't trade it. I wouldn't. I would do it again if I had to. Uh, I would have again try to renegotiate a contract and convince everybody to do it with us because we had standing power to.

00:43:43
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:43:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I was at that premiere. I went. I went to that premier premiere. Yeah, I went to the premiere of the film, and I was just kind of like, yeah, because if we didn't know, you don't didn't Yeah, I know. That's the thing is you don't know beforehand. You don't hear till years later, where it's like, wow, they made like nothing to do this, and your break and it's not just you're not just acting, you're also stunt performing body.

00:44:08
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm like doing I'm like, I'm you know, I'm doing all this physical activity that you would pay a stump man to do, and you get stump bumps and so forth and so on. I did some That was one of the funnest parts of the job for me, though. Really honestly, I did a sum one time where I went I was being chased by some putties. Those are the lower level bad guys. I'm being chased by a putty and there's a putty standing in front of the swing set, and I dived through the chains of the swing. I do a front flip over the puddy. I land. I kick him in the stomach. He falls into the swing, swings back against the puddy behind me. Now that's when Jackie chan level. And I was so impressed with myself that I was able to do it. In fact, the first time I did it, my leg got caught in the chain and I'm hanging upside down like it's.

00:44:57
Speaker 2: Okay, let me look again. We're doing it.

00:45:01
Speaker 5: Back Toronto, and uh and but and then even when they showed it, you don't even really see it because the time wasn't taken to make sure you could see that the chain. I went to do the change like you see me do it, and you go.

00:45:14
Speaker 1: Didn't look like maybe he went through the chains. Possibly, yeah, right right right.

00:45:19
Speaker 2: But so yeah, your physicality though, so I have to tell a very quick story. I think you and I talked about this at one point at a convention. So I had always been attracted to martial arts my whole life, but I'm just not very good at it. But I liked it. I liked the discipline. I liked taking two classes and then quitting. That's kind of my thing. I'm I'm two classes into multiple disciplines. So there's a martial arts studio up the street from our we're shooting at, not KTLA, but at the Radford Radford at the Radford, and I drive by and I keep seeing this martial arts studio there, so I'm like, you know what, I'm going to go? Yes, Grandmaster Songs hop Keto. So I go in and I start taking private lessons with Grandmaster Song and he's the nicest guy and he's a great teacher. And he says, I want you to come tonight. We're doing black belt tests and I want you to sit there and watch and hold people's clothes because obviously I'm not going to be testing for anything. So I get there and he says, we're all the classes, we're all kneeling there, we're sitting there, and he says, and now I would like somebody to come in and give us a demonstration. And it was you and you walked into the class and the first thing you did was run down the mat, do a front flip, and then jump into a giant, spinning back kick. And I remember going like, oh, I can't do this. I will never ever be able to do this. It was the most there's probably ten of us there in the class, and you gave this demonstration that was just like that, that's what I want. I want to be able to do and just knowing that I've never ever have a chance to do it, but you were so nice to me, and but it was just one of those things where you just saw the physicality was on such another level that you're just kind of like, oh, some people can do it like that, and some people hurt themselves kneeling like I'd been kneeling for too long and it wasn't gonna be able to get up, and so it was. Yeah, it was just that. Remember watching that and then learning after that kind of took me in the deep dive down the Power Rangers hole because I was like, oh, are they all this skilled? Which you weren't all as skilled as you were, let's be honest, but the idea that it was like they're actors and stunt people and they're doing all this together, they're fighting, they're probably doing some of the fight coordinations themselves, Like this is amazing. And then to find out the work schedule and the compensation for it as a fellow actor, it was like, oh man, it was just that moment of that's not cool, you know. So it was now seeing everybody at the convention, seeing the lines you have at the conventions, and people come in showing you the love, and actually you're getting some good compensation for the work that you've put in over the years. Thank god, because we as fans and we as fellow actors, when we knew it was like, that's man, that's not cool. So but yeah, thank you for that. That was you really let me know that I would never be a martial artist. So I'd like to.

00:48:00
Speaker 5: Really happy that you were there to witness that, because I remember doing that Grandmaster's song asked me to come in and do it. I don't think it was my black belt test, but I did do a showcase there and I put off the stop so I was like, oh sick the cakes. And I had a lot of talent, so I was able to do things and incorporate you know, hip hop, keto, hip hop into it and uh, and it was fun. It was a lot of fun. And it's cool to remember that you were there.

00:48:32
Speaker 2: And yeah, it was great. It was totally I'll never forget that. Yep, that was great.

00:48:36
Speaker 5: And yes, the fans that we have now are amazing. Uh, we have the best fans in the world. Uh. You know, I get to travel. It's so weird that I get to travel to so many places because the shows everywhere. Uh, and and some places where I can't even speak the language, and I got so much love. Like I just got back from Brazil. I was in I went to Santos, which is like this little town by South Paolo, and I did a festival there and everybody was there so much love and and they're speaking Portuguese and I can't speak. But I'm going, oh to d Bain and they look crazy and it's like actually dance zook, which is a Brazilian style dance. So that's that's amazing. Uh. And then I've been to Ireland and Scotland and I mean, you know what it's like, you know, all these different places. Colombia. I was in Colombia recently for my birthday last year and that was amazing. Uh, you know, it's just it's so cool. I went to Indonesia actually once and I, you know, I'm there and I don't speak the same language, so I have an interpreter. That's always fun interpreter. But just you know, the love is the same, it's the same from the people and to feel that and know that it exists in the world without me even knowing. W and I, I mean, you know what it's like. Sometimes you hear the stories from people that are so heartwarming to know that I was positive in their life and motivated them in some way to get through a situation. And they and maybe that happened to them when they were five or seven, and they carried that through like their life. They carried that story when I was seven, I had to go through this such and such and then I thought about the black manager and so I stood up for myself and I did that. And they've been telling the story to everybody they know for like five years. And then they meet me and they're like, I gotta tell you what I get to tell you, And I'm like, and I'm so excited for them, Like that happened, wold that so I'm so happy that it was that was part of it.

00:50:40
Speaker 2: You know, being an actor on anything and obviously being able to make a career out of it is a wonderful gift. But when you're doing something that you're focused on children and you're the hero and you're the hero, it's really amazing.

00:50:57
Speaker 5: Yeah, And what sound is the fans our We have a lot of fans that are forty now and so you know, spend thirty two years. So if you were eight you were watching parlor Agers our key audience. Then now you're forty or you're forty three or forty four, you got a family of your own, you got kids, and some of you got grandkids. And it's like and you come up to my line and you go from being grandpa or papa to a little boy that yo, and they're like they're trying to be cool and they're like, oh, and the kids are happy because their kids watch the show. But then they're even they're staying to me, I don't like this, Like oh my god, okay, control it. Yeah, you know, and it's so amazing just just to have generations and know that I'm that this will live beyond myself, you know, that's that's awesome.

00:52:04
Speaker 3: I want to ask you about the ones and always special too.

00:52:07
Speaker 1: Yes, what was it like putting back on the suit thirty years later now doing this role as an adult?

00:52:13
Speaker 5: What was that like?

00:52:15
Speaker 2: You know what?

00:52:17
Speaker 5: You ever go back to your high school or your your elementary school after you've gotten much bigger and you go back.

00:52:23
Speaker 3: In the lock everything so small?

00:52:25
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, the hallways like, yeah, I remember the colors, like these stairs used to seem like so many stairs and it's now as simple. It's like it was like that to go back, very surreal, except for everything saying. So I'm going back and looking at the history of what's happened late twenty eight years later, Like when I was on the show and the Command Center, we had Zordan and we had this, you know, the viewing globe. And now I'm in the Command Center and Jordan's gone. And see there's a crack where it used to be, and there's no more viewing globe, and there's a different Alpha five it's Alpha nine. Now it's like it's all weird. It's like weird but familiar because even though it had been twenty eight years since I've been on the show. Every day of my life, I've had somebody walk up to me and call me Zach. He's that, you know, And so Zach has never left me. And and thank God, thank God, that I still have the energy and the training to be able to do the things that I used to do. I haven't needed to do a backflip in a long time, but I did it. I did it on Power Rangers once in all Ways. So I pulled out a backflip and did jump split kicks and went to the ground and did hip hop keto. And I was so excited that I was able to do that for you know, that for my fans that have been with me since you know, ninety three, to their kids and their kids. To be able to go back and reprise the role was amazing. And it was also a bit of closure that I never knew that I needed, because you know, when you when you when you work on a series or a TV show and at the end, you get that wrap, all right, that's a wrapper Walter Jones. You know I didn't get that because we walked off the show hoping to negotiate a contract and come back and do the movie and finish doing some more shows. And that never happened. And so when I finished the series, when we finished Once in Always, they said, all right, that's a wrapper Walter Jones, and I just lost it. I tried to be cool. I was trying to be cool. It was like, yeah, I was like, I just went in and the voice went way high, id' I couldn't talk.

00:54:39
Speaker 2: I was like.

00:54:42
Speaker 5: Like tearing up, and it was but I realized it was healing for me to finally hear that on something that I helped create and that I've seen, you know, I've seen just like do so well in the world with movies and TV shows and the comic books and Always and the cards, all this stuff that I see lives in the world because it's something that I helped create in the very beginning. To now be able to finally get a thank you, right, yeah, which is which is awesome. I mean I always get to thank you from the fans, but from the production.

00:55:19
Speaker 1: Itself, you know, yes, to be given your flowers from the from the other people who have helped create, you know, the legacy that you helped create.

00:55:30
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's twenty eight years later, so it's barely any of them left. But yeah, you know, it's like Yeah, that was that was enough. To work with David Yost again, one of the also one of the original Rangers, the Blue Ranger. To work with him on the show was awesome. It was a very surreal thing because working with David, David and I are our characters are kind of similar to our characters on the show. David is a little more reserved. He's a little more you know, like he's welcome together on energy and bouncy and and spontaneous and fun and even as adults, we are a certain odd couple, you know what I mean. But we have this love for each other because we've known each other for so long and we've gone through this whole thing together. It's that's that's amazing. And then to be we were paying tribute to the Yellow Ranger, who was my friend tweet train and who also left with me, so she knew my experience of leaving because we were holding each other up. Now it's gonna be okay, we're gonna get through the contract, we're gonna go back, and then we'll be through the movie. And then when it fell through, the heartbreak was only what we experienced, you know, myself and and uh and Austin Saint John and tweet training. So then to see tweet go on and do movies. She did the pro her career is starting to prosper. She was doing well, and then she passed away and she was in a car accident, a tragic car accident, and we lost her. And that was before she got to experience any of the fandom of people that were kids that are now grown to tell you stories about how you inspired their life to go and do this show. We're paying tribute to her and Jason Frank, but her who had not experienced any of this. Yeah, it was weird because I am mourning in the in the movie, in the TV show, I'm I'm Zach mourning Triny who's passed, but I'm also Walter who's warning tweet And to look at her pictures in the in the scene there's a picture where I'm looking at her pictures and I'm, you know, having this this memory moment of her. It's like, it's wow, talking about you know, living in a moment. It was like it was it was wild, it was cool, it was very cool.

00:57:55
Speaker 3: That's beautiful.

00:58:09
Speaker 1: I think our fans would absolutely kill us if we did not talk about Brink, and I know that this is I'm stepping on Will's toes here with magical rewind. I have to know.

00:58:24
Speaker 3: Was Brink as fun to film as it looked?

00:58:27
Speaker 5: It was so much fun? Yeah, I mean think about it X X X games, right, it was very dominant at that time, so you had all these amazing athletes doing cool things on skateboards and bikes and rollerblades and so forth and so on, and it was in the vein of that. So when I was offered to me that the role was offered to me, I was twenty nine at the time, and the other actors were truly fifteen, Like everyone is fifteen, yeah, and they're like fifteen fourteen, they're really kids. And here I am, my twenty nine year old self, like playing a kid again on a Disney movie. And I rollerbladed, So it was cool. I we got on there and we started training with uh, some of the guys from Xploit from X Games, and We're learning to go down ramps and all this stuff. And I'm courageous in my own way, but didn't really know how to do stunts on rollerblades. And I'll tell you, when you go down a ramp on blades. It's pretty terrifying.

00:59:33
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I even just the thought of it.

00:59:35
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like it's okay, you're there on on edge, like okay, how do I do this? And you have to learn to put forward, like leaning into it forward because if you lean back at all, you fall. Yes, it's like yeah the way. Yeah, So that was it was trauma, but it was fun and we trained. We trained from about a week or two down at Santa Monica Beach.

00:59:58
Speaker 3: Oh, they gave you a whole week.

01:00:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, are you kidding?

01:00:01
Speaker 2: You're lucky, You're lucky you got offered the role. I've interviewed a bunch of the cast who said part of the audition process was they put them in rollerblades and pushed them down a hill.

01:00:09
Speaker 5: Wow.

01:00:10
Speaker 2: So so it was like, I mean literally just like go there you go. I mean, this is back in the day when Disney's like, hey, the four kids that survive are gonna be in the movie. So yeah, I.

01:00:21
Speaker 5: Didn't even know how they did that, but yeah, it was It was a lot of fun to film. Those guys were great. Uh. I still talk to the guy that played Boo all the time, and uh, and yeah, it was it was a great time. Unfortunately, again, uh, the hairdresser they did a job on me, which my fans love to talk about. Now. I had this hairline that was like a bowl, and uh, the hair hairdresser was like, no, no, no, no, I know how to do black hair. And I was like sure, you know. He's like, yeah, no, I do black hair all the time. Okay, all right, can you line me up? Can you? It was a diaster, you know. And and although it was clean, it was clean, I mean I looked, I look clean, but it was wrong. It was definitely wrong. And to this day on mine, on any of my social media, people are hitting yelling what about the hairline, I'm like, ago, let it go, it go.

01:01:21
Speaker 2: I am on the brink, yes.

01:01:24
Speaker 5: Right, some of them excuse me, and I'm like, let me see your hairline and.

01:01:30
Speaker 3: Exactly get rid of that cat in your profile picture.

01:01:37
Speaker 1: You also made the rounds of nineties classic TV shows Family Matters, Step by Step, Parenthood Sabrina. But I want to ask you about something a little more obscure. You starred on a show called Space Cases, part of the snack programming block that seemed way.

01:01:55
Speaker 3: Ahead of its time. Can you tell us a little bit about that.

01:01:58
Speaker 5: It was the first show and I booked series that I booked after Power Rangers. It was called Space Cases. It was created by Bill Mooney, who was in Lost in Space. I'm named after That's what you're named after.

01:02:12
Speaker 2: So his character in Lost in Space was Will Robinson, and I was supposed to be Billy, but because my brother's favorite show was Lost in Space, I was named after his character, Will Robinson. I met Bill. He's a very cool guy.

01:02:22
Speaker 5: Amazing guy, amazing guy. Yeah, So they hired me to be on the show. And again I was twenty twenty eight or I was older twenty eight with actual fifteen year olds, and I think there was a nine year old, an eleven year old, thirteen year old, and a fifteen year old and you and me and I we're playing a bunch of kids in a space university, a galactic university for prospering officers on ships. And this ship comes in and we decided to go explore it because I'm the guy that's like, hey, let's go check it out. And they're like, we can't do that. I'm like, we could do whatever, we want to do this goal. So we go, we get on the ship. The ship logs us on as the crew, and the teacher and a captain, a former captain come on to take us off, and they get logged on as the passengers. Ship goes off into space because something's wrong. We're playing with the controls and we get lost in space ourselves.

01:03:27
Speaker 2: And so lost in space meets space camp. This is the great idea.

01:03:31
Speaker 5: Yes, it was awesome. It was an awesome show. We had two great seasons. The show was doing really well. We were the number two kids number one, number two show on Nickelodeon behind Keenan Nickel, So Keenan Keel was number one. We were number two. We had a great cast, and then the third season was coming around, which I wish we had it under third season we left it on this cliffhanger was crazy. I mean I was crying, like, you know, balling because we lost one of one of my co stars and her visible friend ended up coming back to be to be to play her part. But I got booked by Aaron Spelling to do a show called Malibu Shores. Yeah, and Aaron Spelling is the man, and I you know, I thought, well, I got the number one kids show in the world. I want to do prime time. I want to get out of this kid's stuff, and so I got to take it. I got to take the chance. So I ended up leaving my show to go do Malibu Shores and we did one season and it was it. It was done. It was done. But I did get to be when Aaron and Aaron was making me promises like I'm gonna put you in every show I do, you know, Like I was going over and hanging out of the house with Aaron Spelling with Tori and Randy, like sitting by the pool alley in the basement. I was like, life is good. I was like here come, you know, because Aaron Spelling was like just some master. I mean everything he touched turned to go, yeah, all these angels, Duke's hazards, so forth and so on, and like melrose Place, like he he was God. So I took a chance to do it and it didn't work out, and now I'm depressed and I left my show because it was a good show. It was fun and a lot of people loved it, and because we only did two seasons, it didn't it didn't get to you know, continue, like it didn't go into uh, it didn't get like, what, what's the word I'm looking for? It didn't go into.

01:05:28
Speaker 2: Syndication, dedication, thanking ding ding ding ding.

01:05:32
Speaker 5: My brain was I am getting older. I was like, but it was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun to the show. Uh and and uh I was really grateful. I mean and I was actually finally paid well, So.

01:05:50
Speaker 2: That was exactly not to go backwards. But you mentioned the cruise ship, and I just we don't have to get too much into it, but is it true that working on a cruise ship is kind of like a party the entire time you're there, for all the people that are working, it's just you kind of don't know what cabin you're gonna wake up in.

01:06:09
Speaker 5: That's a little that one's I wouldn't every weekend, every week there's a new Yeah, there's no cool people to come on board that are partying and are on vacation, and I mean there is, there's possibilities to meet people, and I met some people. But also I had a girlfriend on the ship. Okay, I ended up having a girlfriend on the ship, and and that way when we had adventures. We go to Alaska and we go hiking on the glaciers or we go kayaking or if we did what horseback biting or jet skiing in Mexico. We did stuff like that together, So which is nice to you? That's so great doing that with somebody that you don't know so well is uh? Is cool, But it's not the same as really been able to share some thing with somebody. Yeah.

01:07:02
Speaker 2: Can I ask what is your craziest passenger experience that you had with somebody on the cruise ship.

01:07:09
Speaker 5: Well, I didn't happen to have a romantic occasion on the top of the ship in the middle of a storm, a storm, lightning and thunder, and I'm on the top deck with this young lady and we had an adventure and it was just adventurous. It was definitely adventures. The thing is is, after we were done, she told me it was the first time, and I thought that.

01:07:34
Speaker 1: Was She told me, listen, there are very few people who can say their first time was on the top floor of a ship.

01:07:48
Speaker 2: No future. Yes, I thought you were gonna be like somebody got really drunk and almost fell off the boat. But I like the way your story went better.

01:08:00
Speaker 5: That was the Walter adventure. Actually I did go.

01:08:06
Speaker 2: I did.

01:08:07
Speaker 5: I was riding a horse and and uh, whatever you are done. And you know, on these tours, the horses kind of know where they're going because they've been taking people all day and day. And so I'm riding this horse, and I like riding horses. I've been to the horses for a while. And I got this horse and I'm like, I'm running them. You know, we were running and and this horse tries to knock me into a branch, a low hanging branch, and I'm like, man, what are you doing? And then he takes off running and he turns a corner and right there is a brick wall corner and he stops and I'm flaying off the horse and his neck and I'm holding on something like this and I'm like this course, he's trying to kid, You're not my friend anymore. Horse. I think he was gonna show me. He was like this, this gringo, I'm gonna show in the hold on. Oh I have and I survived. Oh man.

01:09:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, horses will try to kill you.

01:09:07
Speaker 5: You will.

01:09:08
Speaker 1: Everyone who's not like a professional horse rider has some sort of like this horse tried to kill me once.

01:09:14
Speaker 3: Sorry, Yeah it happens. Well, Walter, thank you so much for being here with us.

01:09:21
Speaker 1: Thank you for all of the contributions you have given to kids, TV, the entertainment industry. You are truly a legend, and I'm so glad that you feel the love even though you were not compensated fairly for the incredible work that you did for all those years. I hope you know how much you mean to multiple generations of people, including us. So thank you for all your contributions, and we hope you feel the love.

01:09:50
Speaker 5: Oh, you know what. I feel the love. It's amazing, and I thank you everybody for knstrict continuing to support me. Check out my film war Dogs. It's all right right now. I got to music out under the name Trey Emanuel. I got two songs, walk in the Park and Dance. Check me out on Spotify or anything that streaming. And if you go to my my Instagram Walter at Walter E. Jones, it's all there in the bio.

01:10:15
Speaker 2: Perfect everything you do.

01:10:18
Speaker 5: Everything.

01:10:18
Speaker 3: I'm going to take you up on going dancing.

01:10:21
Speaker 5: Yes, it's gonna happen.

01:10:23
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll ask our producers for your contact information and I'll reach out to you because I really do want to.

01:10:29
Speaker 3: Maybe I'll convince these guys to go.

01:10:31
Speaker 5: Yeah, you.

01:10:35
Speaker 3: Put in the chat. Thank you so much, Walter, thank you for being here.

01:10:40
Speaker 5: We'll see outside somewhere.

01:10:42
Speaker 1: I'll definitely see out by man when every time we talk about how they were treated, I mean, there's just no way around it, even if they're too polite to say it.

01:10:53
Speaker 3: They were just absolutely exploited.

01:10:57
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's the only word for it. And we have truly no idea the phenomenon.

01:11:02
Speaker 3: That nods around it.

01:11:05
Speaker 2: It was insane and they were they were literally making billions of dollars, and they anytime any of the actors said, hey, I can't make my rent, they got fired and they put somebody else in the suit. It was just incredible, absolutely incredible.

01:11:19
Speaker 5: Yeah.

01:11:19
Speaker 1: Well, and it's so frustrating to hear too that, like you know, he he kind of decided, let's get a lawyer. Let's and three of the five agreed to doing it, and the other two just said, I think I can do better without or whether or not I think I can do better without being in the group, I'm willing to accept it in order to not.

01:11:39
Speaker 3: Possibly lose my job.

01:11:40
Speaker 1: Where you know, as everyone really saw, I remember the Friends renegotiation being I mean the biggest news ever that the five of them banded together and said, we are an ensemble. We want to and we know how much money you're making. We want to make this amount of money. And they all got it because they were in the number, yeah, six of them. What harmony was so yeah, it's it's just such a bummer that like, basically they were punished for doing this.

01:12:09
Speaker 2: Is also one of the problems though with non union contracts you have you have when you're sometimes with the union, the union is there to make sure stuff like this doesn't happen, because again, these were not just actors. They were doing all of the stunts. It was there were times where it was pretty dangerous on the set as well, and they just weren't weren't getting compensated. But it's another one of those ips though that's just been around for thirty something years and is still going strong. I mean, at one point when they redid the movie in Zordan Brian Cranston played Zordan. I mean, these are starting to get very big actors that were like, I want to be involved in this, in this franchise because they were it's it's the Power Rangers, So I mean, writer, you and I one of our close friends is the one who took the comic books to a whole another level. Kyle Higgins took the whole the comic books to a different place. And yeah, it's been We see them at the conventions. I mean they have lines around the block at the conventions.

01:13:01
Speaker 5: Uh.

01:13:02
Speaker 2: Huge. Yeah. Bill Hayter was Alpha five in the new one. There you go, so they are. Yeah, it's it's quite the franchise.

01:13:10
Speaker 1: 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 pod meets World Show at gmail dot com. And we've got merch.

01:13:22
Speaker 2: It's merchant time on that one worked pretty well. Actually, that's pretty good. I'm happy that that one worked out as well as it did.

01:13:30
Speaker 3: Podmeetsworldshow dot com will send us out.

01:13:33
Speaker 2: We love you all, pod dismissed. Pod Meets World is Niheart podcast producer and hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfredell and Ryder Strong. Executive producers Jensen Karp and Amy Sugarman. Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, Producer and editor Tara Sudbaksh, producer, Maddy Moore, engineer, and Boy Meets World super fan Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon and you can follow us on Instagram at Podmeets World Show or email us at Pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com