How Rude, Tanneritos!We are back with long-time Full House writer and producer, Dennis Rinsler! Now, Dennis has stories that even the biggest Fanneritos may not know... Like, what episode was so hard to write that they almost gave up on it entirely?! Or, what was it like to experience the very last curtain call on set?!
These are the stories we live for when reunited with fellow cast and crew members, and it's all right here on How Rude, Tanneritos! Follow us on Instagram @howrudepodcast & TikTok @howrudetanneritos
Hey there, faner Ritos, Welcome to part two of our interview with Dennis Rinzler. We had so much fun catching up with Dennis and learning all about his time in the industry as a writer and producer, so we can't wait for you to hear the rest of our conversation in part two. Let's get into it. There's the common saying in Hollywood, you know, never work with actors, or never work with kids or animals.
No, I think that actually is the saying never work with actors. I think that's what I just don't.
Never work with child actors or animals. But you and Mark were drawn towards working with child with child actors, and you just gave us the nicest compliment a few minutes ago about how you know we were great on set and nail and the jokes. So it sounds like you preferred working with child actors, maybe more than adult actors.
The kids were great, and they're also open to a little collaboration. You could say to a young person, let's try this, maybe this will be funny.
Sometimes you say that to an experienced actor and they say, I don't tell me how to what's funny. I'll tell you but you know that kind of thing.
We always found the children to be more open to try different things and this ego.
The egos.
Yet it's a great point.
You didn't have that on.
Fullows you already well you were brought up in a in a nurturing environment of creativity. So when you directed Andrea, did you give people suggestions to try things a different way?
Yeah? That was Jody directed.
I directed. I'll be honest, I didn't know.
I didn't have to, Like, I implicitly trusted that everyone would bring it to life exactly how I sort of envisioned it in my head. And I think also directing people that you know or that you know you've been like, it gives you sort of that confidence where you're like, I don't even have to I know, I'm not gonna have to give notes on the scene because they're gonna nail it. And absolutely, but yeah, it was you know, it was very It was interesting being on the other side because I felt like immediately when I went behind the director podium, everyone became their characters.
And then as soon as I was like.
In the scene, then everyone I was like, oh, you know, just everyone's name, I don't know.
It was it was weird, but yeah, I loved it.
Your acting background.
You know, the best directors you know, you work with Rich Correll, Yes, and.
He was on you know, Leaf at the Beaver.
Yeah, so he knows exactly how you're thinking and how you're feeling, and he's sure the same way, like these are just actors. These are not you know, I mean, these are characters. They're not just people act as they could. And it's a great way to see it. The acting background really helps.
Yeah.
I always felt bad for the guest directors on Fuller House who would come in kind of meeting us for the first time, because it's like, well, we've been doing It's different on Fuller because we were we've been doing these characters for over thirty years, so it's like right for new directors to give us a note. It'd be like, well, you know, actually, we kind of know our characters better than anybody right on the set. So it is a little bit different directing a show that's been so established for so many decades versus a show that's just beginning.
But even even a new show you are trying, you know, in a movie, the director it's his or her vision of what this is going to look like sound like the pacing all that, and you start a new show, it's usually a writer who was running the show a vision, and even if you only did five or six episodes, a director can't come in with a whole new style and change everything. Say wait a minute, that's not what we're trying to do now. Of course, with full house, with the centuries of experience behind it, you know.
You know so well that this is wrong, and you have to tell them.
Nicely, you know, right right, I guess wouldn't happen.
So you and Mark were showrunners a full House in season seven and eight? Is that correct?
Six seven and eight, six.
Seven and eight. Okay, what was the most challenging thing about show running versus just being a writer?
Well, show running was shockingly complicated and wonderfully complicated. But luckily we learned how to run a show on a show that was already running.
Yeah.
Yeah, so we kind of just you.
Know, fit right in. We knew what to do, but we had to make decisions. The first decision we made was a disaster. Oh, we said, okay, all these We had six seasons where we had twins playing one role, which is so important because young kids need downtime, so one works for forty minutes and the other one rest and the other one.
We said, how about triplets. That's going to make it really easy. We got to get triplets. So we bring in some triplets and we meet these kids and they're great, and we go, Okay, let's do it, and they're going to be Jesse and Aunt Becky's.
Kids playing Alyx.
We're going to play two kids.
That's what it was, right, Yeah, I think it was the renter Is.
But the ones we picked.
When we invited John Stamos and Laurie to meet them.
They were like, oh, we don't like these kids. Oh. We said, oh, we should have included them in the decision, and they said, they don't look like us. It's not right. So the family already sold their house moved out to Los Angeles, and we had to tell them, oh, you know, we're we're going in a different direction. And that was our first decision that show runners, So we said, oh, we're.
It seems to be the theme for for our shows is starting off with like one cast member. There's like, no, no, not that one, and we switch them out. So we just like to keep with tradition.
Yes, that's true.
But we loved we loved running the show and uh, you know, we loved as you said, when you directed Jody, just making decisions all day.
Yeah, what's KIMMI gonna wear?
Who were not casting was great and there was some interesting things were casting. If you remember, at one point, I don't know if we were running the show. At this point, ABC came to us and said, Stephanie doesn't have a best friend.
Yeah, you know, kill.
Me and DJ and and Michelle had Harry and Taj Morie and Jimmy and we're Stephanie's friend. So we went around auditioning girls and we found a really nice girl.
I think her name was Molly Morgan.
Yes, Mo, Yeah, she's going to be Stephanie's best friend. She's great and you read together and she seemed really nice. This is going to be great, and we said, this is the episode where Stephanie gets involved with someone who's smoking and they're pushing her to smoke, and Gia comes in, Mala Sokkerloff. We said, oh, she's tough, she's going to be fun for this episode. And we shoot the episode and she's given you a hard time and she's.
Tough, and when we look at it, we go, you know something. The scenes with Jody and Mala have so much energy and conflict, and you know you're like worried for Stephanie. This is this is more exciting. Right, it's a nice.
Best friend sitting around, you know, talking about clothes, right, bringing Gia back and sadly.
We we moved. I think Nicky was going to be her character's name.
Yeah, Mickey, she was in she was in the smoking episode and yeah, and.
She's a part of.
A stunt family, the amazing Morgan's or whatever. And I drive by and see Renfair posters here in La and it's Mollie.
It's her younger sister that's on.
The that's on the posters.
But you and Mala had a great relationship. It was just so much fun.
We still do to talked to her.
Yesterday I heard podcast with you guys. It was really good.
Oh yeah, yeah, it's so great.
She's so people still ask her about the cigarettes all the time and right, it's famous.
Just keep a pack on her, like yeah, yeah.
Oh that's so great. I remember you and Mark is just the most nurturing showrunners, Like we've been so lucky between you and Jeff, just to be like you get it, like you get the DNA of the show. The heart of the show for sure, nurturing, making sure the kids are taken care of. Like it was always about the family. It was a family. It was we were a family, and you took care of the people before the production and I always appreciated that so much.
Yeah, well that was you know, we were elementary school teachers. We love kids, We knew kids.
We loved you guys, and you know we we did We had adventures with your guys San Francisco.
We went to Disney World.
Oh that's right, Yes, that's right. And I mean you guys were you guys were a part of the last two episodes of the show.
Yeah, I mean wrote.
Those you wrote the finale, right, Yeah, and Mark, maybe that was a talk to us about the end of the series because we weren't expecting to be canceled.
When we didn't expect to be canceled, I think they added a couple of episodes.
On and uh, we wanted to do a show full of memories. That call it a clip show.
You have all the clips of old memories like that, So we did Michelle has amnesia.
Michelle fell off the horse.
And we tell all these stories looking through photos to kind of spark her memory. And I think, you know, there were a couple of shows that had Mary, Kate and Ashley together, maybe.
Three yeah, together episode with the Grandfather there was an angel and a Devil with the two of them in it. Yeah, yeah, giving her advice. But the strange thing was, whenever the two of them we're in a scene together, one of them would get sick. Really yeah, one of them would feel sick. And you know, maybe it was the pressure, the competition.
They thought they were going to be compared, but it happened every time we put them in a scene together.
Interesting, Well, they're not used to acting, they're not used to being scene partners, you know.
Yeah right, Oh it's different acting with your sibling rather than just being with your sibling.
Yeah, I do.
Yeah, it was it became competitive. Maybe that's that was our theory. Maybe competitive they're in the scene together and that last I do have a video of the last curtain call.
I yes, yeah, I love that video.
It's on it's on the the I think it might have gotten it on its own tape, but I know it was definitely like recorded in that most of the cast I think got a clip of that.
Tears, so many tears and hugs and yeah, yeah, it was a hard day and we.
Didn't really realize the impact at the time, but what an effect that was going to have, like it's over.
Yeah, yeah, that was.
It was crazy. I mean, especially for us, you know, we were like, oh wow, so it's just like done done. You know, as kids, it's very hard to kind of comprehend that.
We were having fun. You know, when we went to Disney World such amazingly, Miller and Boyette said, you know what they wanted, They want us to go someplace. Let's go to Holland.
Whoa.
And we were like, if that's every kid's dream to go to Holland. You know, maybe Miller and Boyette wanted to go to Holland for some reason, I don't know. They kept pushing.
Holland and we said, no, we got to go to Disney World. That's that's going to be more kid friendly.
You know, which, yeah, I can't imagine that there was a large audience of children who were.
Like, oh, I just want to know more about Holland. I want to see wouldn't his shoes in the windmills.
You know, that's my finger and a dike.
That's wait, that is not how I meant it.
What No, because you put your the little Dutch boy his finger in the dike to stop it from yeah, yeah, to stop the flood.
He did it.
Well, that was a good call to switch it to Disney World, because.
I know what it was.
It was a challenge because you know, when we went to Hawaii, the show was not that popular. There were a few people who watched us who came around to see what. I remember as we're leaving the set, we all got on a bus to go back to the hotel and a bunch of kids were waiting and looking because they were fans of the show, and they see all is Dave col Dave, and they got so excited, and Dave stuck his head out of the bus and said, kids, don't forget to wipe.
Oh yeah, that sounds that's exactly what Dave would say as well.
Uncle Joey just that.
Yeah he did. That's exactly what he said.
Yeah, it was fun, but then when we got to Disney World, we needed top security.
I remember jo bathroom in.
Peace, No, I got followed into the bathroom. Somebody asked for an autograph under the stall.
It was like, you don't want me to sign this piece of paper and hand it back to you.
This is you know, Yeah, just hold on a minute. That was nuts, but it was yeah, that was that felt like when you really.
Realized like, oh yeah, we've this is a lot of people know what this is.
Yeah yeah, we had the fans all over the place by that point. Yeah, yeah that's true. Now do you know that? You know when you when you put together a writing staff, it's like putting together a sports team. You need the joke. Well, we had Lenny Rips.
A master of Lenny. We had Lenny on the show.
Yeah, I heard that he was good. He when when Andrew you used to kid around with Lenny and he would say, Kimmy Gibbler, I created you, I can destroy you.
Yes, yes, that's right.
And then you have.
Someone who's like who really knows story. We had Rob Dames. We used to call him the King of structure. He would say, wait a minute, what if we take this scene and put it here, change that scene there. But the hardest thing to do were the heart scenes. That was hot because comedy writers want to do the jokes, and you know, Lenny Rips paid a violinist to come to one of the table reads give a message like maybe we're getting a little too sappy.
But it didn't go over well. They were serious, Yeah, yeah, they.
Were pissed about that.
He told us that story that he was like, yeah, I hired a violinist and it didn't go.
Over well, didn't go over.
Now, Jeff Franklin was the heart and the soul of the show, but the show had another heart that people didn't know about.
He knows, and it was Tom Miller.
When we took over the show, Jeff said, before I leave, I have to tell you something. Every time you send the script to Tom Miller, he's going to call you up and.
Talk to you for maybe an hour and a half, two hours about the heart scene. Oh.
He cares about that more than anything. And he would get on the phone with us. Now this is a middle aged man, and he'd be saying, like, you know, Dennis, when a twelve year old girl starts to see that she's becoming a woman, and he give us all this heartfelt stuff and they care so much about this and that, and we would take in notes and he really poured his heart into those scenes and that's why they were very effective, because you.
Know, he had a feel for that and it was really good, really good.
And people, you know, I think he passed away, but you know, people don't realize behind the scenes, you know what really goes on.
He was great at that.
It was Yeah, and see that he was I could see Tom Miller being the heart guy.
Yeah, for sure, it was.
Yeah, it was this thing. Yeah, that was this thing. You really cared.
About that and that's what makes a standout you guys.
Oh yes, Yes, Which episode was the hardest to write?
We almost gave up the.
Wedding, No, not the finale complicated that.
We almost gave us.
The birth of the twins Greek.
What else?
Admirers track? We couldn't.
I think Stacey Herr and Ellen Gilis were writing it. Yeah, came in and they said, it's impossible. It's too crazy. You have to say who wrote the note, who gave who do they give it to by accident? Who does that person think gave it to them? Who do they what do they think? We had to make a giant chart with lines and arrows of who's who got a flowchart.
Well, I don't complicated.
Speaking of hard and commlicated.
I don't know if you know this, but uh, Andrey and I actually read an entire episode, just the two of us playing all of the characters, and we asked the audience to pick what episode and they picked that episode. Really, so each of us got to play like four. People talk about not knowing who sent to where and what it was. I think the fans did it on purpose. But yeah, that I completely know what you mean about, like, I'm not sure who wrote this letter and gave it to who.
It was hard to keep track. A very highly rated episode.
The highest love it. Fans absolutely love that episode.
Jeff asked me to be the voice of Comment.
I was gonna this.
I went into the booth.
And I said, gee, I wish I had a Hamburger. And came back to me later and said, you know what, I don't want Comment to have a Brooklyn accent. I'm gonna I'm.
Gonna have Dave do it, and he did it all for my voice.
Comment should have had a Brooklyn accent. That would have made that would have made as much sense as anything else in this show.
Honestly, yes, we had two comments, right, oh yeah, we had comment and we had Bob the Dog, Bob the Dog, and that was his Well called him by his full name.
Bob the Dog, because if you said Bob, Saggat turned around, right. Yeah.
So it was like no, no, no, you're Bob and then you're Bob the Dog.
And the reason for that is one of them was.
More well behaved than the other. And I won't tell you who, but give us the dog.
On one hiatus, a movie was being shot and they the dog air Bud.
He was yet no, they were the dog and dyed his hair dark brown.
Yeah, and we couldn't get it back to the original color and we got a new dog.
And then later when Mark.
And I were running the show, the head of ABC called us in and said, I know, I just came up with the idea that's going to save the show. We said, who, why does the show need saving? We're already a big hit.
He said, well, this is going to bring it over the top.
There's a dog called air Bud that could play basketball, and we're going to get rid of the second comet and we'll bring in air Bud and he'll be the new comet. So we brought the dog in and all that dog could do is play basketball. All it did was look for basketball.
It was just like, let me give me a ball, Give me the ball, get the ball, get the.
Ball in the ball.
Right, You're like, oh, no.
Dog, that's not gonna work. That's not gonna work.
Comment was the best to Comet and Bob. The dog were so they were so well behaved.
They Yeah, they were good.
They were great dogs. I had a lot of scenes with Comment.
I'm quite partial, and I think there was a dog called a Jacks. That's right. That's why we called them Comment.
We said, we can't use the name Ajax because you can't call a dog by its real name. Because what if you're doing a scene where you call the dog, but you don't want the dog to come, so Commet and that's his name, he's going to come, right, so you use a fake name.
That's a good point.
That's where we got Comment from, Let's call it instead of Ajax.
Okay, that was cute.
Oh.
I love these stories. I just love it relive in these memories behind the scenes. Yeah, so fun and so cool to hear stories that Jodie and I've.
Never heard before.
You know, oh yeah, like we've been surprised plenty on this Podcas asked, wait.
What yeah, oh yeah, you had so many, so many people.
And can you believe we're still talking about the show, you know, thirty eight years later, we're still here.
Right, Yes, Luckily people want to hear us still talking about the show. That's that's the nice part, because we could be talking about this and people could be like, I don't care, we're very thoughts.
They remember that, yeah, and it's true. Giving Tom Tom Miller credit. Now, Bob boy yet was also a very smart business guy and the very good producer. And the first episode we had Scott No, that's Scott. Uh wait, DJ's.
Boyfriend Scott one Gott, Yeah, thats Scott played Steve.
He played Steve Steve.
So, uh, Steve comes in for the first time and we see him and he's great and he's cute, and we say, oh, he's going to work.
He's going to be great.
So when we go to uh uh sweetening, where you put in the audience reactions and smooth it out, Bob says, put in screams girls screaming when Scott opens the door, and we said, why nobody in the audience screamed. He said, this is how we did it with the funds on happy Days.
Next time, once this airs, the next time he comes in the door, the audience is going to scream.
And he was right. He was right because you know, suddenly you're paying attention. What did they screaming?
Right? I like him.
That's brilliant.
He knew, he knew those tricks. You know.
Oh, that's a great trick.
That's a good I thought you were going to say he should walk in like eating something like, you know, because Steve was always eating like a like an orange or something.
My favorite line was of Steve was we had goat cheese pizza and he tried it and he goes, Wow, from now on, if it comes out of a goat, I'm eating it.
Yep.
I actually say you saying that.
I'm like, I remember that line because I remember I couldn't keep a straight face, and neither could Bob or Dave or anyone else.
So yeah, that was he was good. He hit the jokes. He was very good.
He really did, really did, and went on to become a writer of such jokes.
So yeah, he knew his stuff.
Well, Dennis, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. It was so much fun to get to talk to you and see your face and like I've just this has been great. I really really enjoyed it.
Lovely to see become so successful so professional.
Well reserve your judgment on that second one.
But professional.
Yeah, you know.
Your success stories. That's a wonderful thing. Yeah, wonderful thing it is.
And then you know, large part because we got to work around people like you, guys who actually cared about us.
And our well being and had fun, it's made a big difference in our really.
Yeah, yeah you too, Dennis. So good to see you.
Yes, you too, Yes, until Mark next time you have lunch. Yeah, yeah, please do to love to you.
Bye bye.
Oh he looks the same.
He's exactly the same.
I mean except for the white hair, like it's just the hair is white now, but the mustache, the hair.
Yeah, he sounds exactly the same.
The energy, Yeah, that's he's exactly the same.
Yeah, that was so so good to see.
Gosh, it's it's legitimately been decades, well except it Fuller, but yeah we saw.
Yeah he came briefly at Fuller, but you know.
When people come visit the set sometimes, especially on a show and you're like hi, bye.
I know you only get to say hi for a second, and it's it's always.
Getting to cure some of his stories and the things we didn't know and like sort of behind the behind the curtain peaks little bit.
I love it.
It was great.
So it's so fun to hear the stories, whether we know them or not, it's so great to hear the stories.
Yeah, that was awesome.
That was awesome you guys, thank you so much for joining us for another really fun episode of how Rude Tannerritos. If you want to find us out there on the intranets, you can find us at the Instagram.
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This is actually it.
Yeah, it would be life changing for me if we can. If we can reclaim the feet.
I'll do my best. I'll do my best.
Or we just make it like those those terrible jelly beans and actually make it that when you light it, it just smells horrific.
Yeah, we're like, we told you that, you tried to warn you.
Have you not seen the show?
Thank you guys for joining us for another fun episode. We love you and we will see you next time. And remember the world is small. The house is full of snacks, so many snacks for all these writers, just snacks on snacks on snacks.
There's a pile of them in the middle of the room, just like, yeah, it's like a trough.
It's great if it really is.
And I think I might have also chosen that because I want a snack.
It's time, it's time for a time Bye everybody.
M hmm.
