How Rude, Tanneritos!Doug Mcintyre, the writer of two very prominent Full House episodes, is joining us on the podcast today! Doug recalls some incredible memories from the show, while also recalling the tough moments he had to endure. Doug was battling depression during his time on the show, and he tells us how this impacted his writing, and ultimately led to him leaving the job.
This episode provides a deeper look into the life of a writer and what the experience entailed on Full House, specifically. Join us for part 1 of our interview with Doug McIntyre on How Rude, Tanneritos!
Okay today intros, intros, We're gonna we are on top of it today. Maddie is like, thank god, there with it today. Okay, welcome back to How Rude tant Ritos. I'm Andrea Barber and I'm Jody Sweeten. Three of your loop there. Yeah, I was like, wait, oh that's right. Yeah, I got to introduce myself. Welcome to an all new episode of How Rude Tanatos. Today we have a very special guest joining us on the pod. You know him as the writer who gave us Joey Stacey and oh yeah, Jesse and Stephanie gets framed, which, as you all know, is the full house episode that features Steve Erkle. That's right, I can't wait to get to that one, right, we haven't watched that yet.
Speaking of I just saw Juliel on Tuesday.
Night, did you really?
I did at the SMA research event. Yeah, he was sitting at the table right.
Next to us.
So that's so nice. I chatted with him at nineties Con. He's Oh, fun's a good guy. I can't wait to read his book that's coming out soon. Yeah. Yeah, anyways, so today we welcome to the pod. Doug McIntyre Doug is a radio host who has been hosting the local Los Angeles radio show McIntyre in the Morning on KABC for the last ten years. He's also a columnist for the La Daily News and a contributor to The Daily Beast. In addition to writing for Full House, he was also a writer for Married with Children WKRP in Cincinnati and You Again, starring John Stamos and Jack Klegman. We can't wait to hear more stories about the Full House writers room and the creative process that was behind some of these really incredible episodes. So let's get to it. Here's Doug McIntyre. Yeah, hey, welcome to our podcast.
Yes, thanks so much for asking me. I was amazed anybody remembered I worked on the show.
Oh yeah, oh yeah absolutely.
I saw Jeff Franklin last week and told him that you were going to be on the show, and he has such fond memories of you.
A funny story about having lunch with him at his house a couple of years ago. Oh man, it was so embarrassing.
Oh tell me right right.
Yeah, I'm sixty seven, okay, and I still eat like a nine year old.
Okay, there's nothing wrong with that I haven't had a vegetable in weeks.
Well, when I was forty, I was at Ralph's and I'm buying what I eat, the crap I eat, and it's on the belt and the cashier looks at it, and then she looks at me and she says, are your mom and dad out of town? So that I got to tell you what my staff, So Jeff, he says, let's have lunch in my house. I drive over to the place and you know, he's got this chef and and I have no vegetables of any kind, nothing, And at this point was eating very healthy, right, that's right.
I remember he went on a whole a few years ago.
It was like a whole vegan thing and really like he dropped a bunch of weight and was trying to get healthy.
And yeah, that was for you.
I caught him during that phase. So his person brings out two plates of you know, I don't know what it looked like, something you might feed to a chicken.
You might scatter it from a right right right grainy yeah, yeah. Yeah.
So so now I don't want to be rude, which is perfect considering the name of this podcast, but I'm fishing through it, trying to pretend like I'm again like I'm a child, trying to pretend like I'm eating the carry And finally he looks over and says, you can't eat that ken. Yes, absolutely, the whisk it away and bring you know a piece of ham or whatever.
Right, yeah exactly. They're like, we keep the good stuff hidden, Yeah exactly.
You know we had it somewhere in that.
House, right.
Yeah.
Well he's got the two, he's got the two big dogs. You could always like sneak some food if you don't.
I don't think the dogs are going for the vegan lunch. No, they're very.
Well fed, those dogs.
Yeah, they're very well said, They're very well fed, very well fed. Some meat, some protein, you know what I mean. I don't think they're like, ooh, a garbanzo being salad, you know, like I just don't think that's probably what.
They're No, yeah, yeah.
Unless yeah, unless Jeff has them on a vegan diet too.
I don't know, you never know. I wouldn't put it past him. And I love your screensaver back there. You got all your house right screensaver and nice.
You came prepared. I love that.
But we're so excited to have you on the show. We probably haven't seen you or talked to you since nineteen nineties.
It's been in a few years, you know.
Yeah, but I have definitely heard your name.
I know, I mean, I know of your talk show, and I you know, if you're in LA, you're on the radio.
Yeah. I did it for twenty five years of KBC and then once in a while I do some filling a KF. I just mostly because when my book came out and oh what a surprise.
Well, yeah, I did notice that lovely book there. Yeah, it's strategically placed.
I don't know how it just happened to be there. But anyway, when Frank Shadow came out, the KFI folks asked me if I wanted to fill in, which was I was retired, and I was fine being retired, but it was such a great opportunity to shamelessly plug my stuff that I had to say yes. So I've been doing that. But basically I just play softball and that's pretty much what I did.
Nice.
Nice, it sounds like good. That sounds like a good thing to do.
So Doug, tell us how you got into the writing business. I mean, I think we know because we have some notes up here. But tell us about your first job in Hollywood, how it came to be and why you wanted to be a writer.
Well, there's a direct connection to John Semos actually, because Jack Klugman is the one who brought me to LA from New York, Okay, writing for comics in New York with my partner Paul McDermott. And then I was working with Jack when he was the corporate spokesperson for Cannon Copiers. It was a small personal copy machine, right right, Yeah.
That one that you could you know, that was only like three feet by four feet, you know what I mean, a small personal copier, yeah.
Right, And so he was the corporate spokesperson. So I met Jack. I would write when they do speeches for the Canon people. I'd write jokes and do the sales, films and things with him. And then I heard he was going to do a series. And I had never seen a TV script in my life, but there was a brief description of what he was going to be. An advice sports writer who took over the advice column at a newspaper, so I knew I was going to see him actually in Mexico at a big Canon conference, and I wrote a spec pilot, having never seen a TV script before, so it was all formated crazy now. He read it and he liked it, and he said, well, if we sell the show, i'll bring you out. Well that show didn't sell, but what became you? Again? Did l and and you know, this is actually kind of a story. I'm taking a chance. You know. When when I saw the paper that he was going to do the show at NBC, I didn't hear from him. So I called him and I said, what's going on? And there was a lot of heming in hang and I hung up, and I realized he did not want the responsibility of me quitting a job in New York and moving to California if it didn't work out. So I quit my job and I called him back and I said, look, I'm coming out, whether you hire me or not. He says, okay, be here by December tenth. It that and then you know, John came in. They couldn't find somebody to play Jack's son, so they brought an actor after actor after actor and auditions and then finally John came in. And he was the feistiest one who kind of like pushed back against Jack, and then he obviously got cast and we spent John and I were the youngest people on the show. It was all people clubman's age, right, So we.
Was going to say I didn't remember that show. Yeah it was.
It was definitely like you know, Jack Clugman was a you know comic from back kind of back in the day. You know, people knew him is something very different than John the young honky sort of soap star.
Right, And so because we were I mean, I'm six years older than Job, but we were the closest in age. So back then we spent a lot of time together. And he and now, ironically I live maybe two hundred yards behind the house he used to live in. Oh yeah, when he was up back in those days. But can I tell you a quick story about that house by the way, which.
Is, yes, the big white house on Mulholland.
That's exactly right. So when he bought that house, he bought a piece of sculpture for the house from this artist and she was having a show in Hollywood and he asked, when you want to go to this show? I said, okay, So we went down there and uh, it was it was it was like a sitcom art show because it was like piles of junk with you know, with names on them, and people are just analyzing the same right.
Right, such a right art shows are yeah, are we all pretending?
Yeah? Now her stuff was great looking, but the other stuff, oh man. Anyway, So we're standing there with the artist John's on one side on the other, and Angeline comes in. Angeline from the this.
Is this is our isn't this our second Angeline story? Other time I see her still and I see the pink corvette. I take a picture. It's Yeah, if you live in La, you see.
There's a woman. You see it.
There's a woman named Angeline who has been around since the eighties, who had billboards and like and and big blonde hair and giant boobs and and and just it would say Angeline and it was like.
You didn't, I don't know.
She wasn't on a show, she wasn't on a well, she was just you knew her in La. And she drives a pink corvette. And she is still around and still drives the pink corvette. And you still will take pictures with people with the fan.
Billboard because they wouldn't fit on anything other than the buildings.
True there, Yes, Now I remember John wearing an Angeline shirt all the time.
Well, she comes whisking into this art show and she's got this androgynous assistance who's wearing a toga, a white floor length toga. Okay, and she walks up to the front and the artist who knew her said, Angeline, this is Doug McIntyre. And she just reaches behind her and the guy fishes into the token, comes up with a business card. That's the billboard, it's just the picture of Angeline, presses it into her hand, and she presses it into my hand and holds it, and then the artist and Angeline, this is John Stamos, and she takes the card out of my hand and gives it the job.
Amazing.
Oh my god, Well you know I can see.
I mean, I guess there was a business card shortage, did she not? I'm in with all that man's toga.
Could he not hold more than one business card?
I think that that she was just expressing the right where writers fall on the higher arch. Right.
She's like, I have revoked the business card offer to you and am exchanging that to him.
Yeah. Yes, that's hysterical story, love story.
So after you worked on on You again, what was like, how many seasons did you work or I guess they didn't.
It didn't really go for any many suits.
Twenty six we did two orders of thirteen okay, then we got canceled. And then I don't know, I did something. I worked on a show called Throb, which no one remembers, in a great cast Diana Canova, Jane Leaves, and Jonathan Prince really good, wonderful people in it, so syndicated. And then I think Full House, where I did season three and one freelance episode in season four. I think I wrote the one when Erkele was the In fact, it was Stephanie gets framed as you get yes, because my niece had just gotten she had an eyepatch, and I thought, well, that's that's a big deal. I got glasses when I was eleven, you know, Okay, so I remember that being a big thing. Uh so that so I did that one, and then after that, I you know, I did a whole bunch of Belvedere and Married with Children and w k R, a whole bunch of stuff until I basically moved into writing long form and then books and you know, whatever else I can can do newspaper cobs in the radio gig for decades, you know, which was fun.
So did John bring you over to full house or did you know Jeff Franklin at that point?
How did you? I think it was an agent submission. And then I assume that Joe I never asked Jeff this, and who knows if he could remember after this many years, but I assumed he probably asked John because you would get was on both our resumes, so I'm sure he asked. He said, does this guy had does he use deodorant?
Which is like you am I gonna hate him?
Yeah, You're gonna be in the room for twenty hours.
Right, can you stay awake? And do you wear deodorant?
Yeah? The exact thing awake was no, which right? Part of my problem I was. Actually it's kind of sad because during that time that I was on philosophy, I was having a lot of met I was really having a lot of problems with depression, and I was saying the depressants and it got to the point where I literally couldn't stay awake. I would fall asleep in my office and like misrun throughs. And after a while it got to the point where I left after seventeen episodes because I just was embarrassed by what I was doing there. And to the eternal credit of Jeff and the and the Full House Gang, they didn't hold it against it. The next year they hired me to do a freelance episode. So and I, you know, I've certainly remain in contact and very good friends with a lot of them. Julie Straussman up in Canada I talked to all the time, and oh yeah, Lenny Rips and I run into Dennis and Mark all the time. They live near here. Rob Dames, I just read his book, you know. So I'm staying in touch with a lot of the folks. But but it was, it was. It was a shame because obviously the show was a big, super hit, but I I wasn't happy, and I don't think they were either, But I wasn't happy with how I was physically able to participate. So unfortunately that's long in the past, but it was definitely part of my personal story on the show.
Yeah, well, I you know, I do love that about Jeff is he's always very you know, he's not a judgmental or you know, he's like it's a cool. You know, if you can like talk to him about it and you know, have an honest conversation, he's usually okay, all right, I get it, you.
Know, and I really respect that about him.
But yeah, it's also have been their depression and like being on antidot because sometimes going to make you.
Really really teged.
So yeah, it's yeah, it's not an easy thing to have to deal with. But so you were on seventeen episodes then of season three. Did you point like mid season or did you started that you started at the beginning of season three and work for it Now, I.
Was there at the beginning of season three, so I was there for most of the year, and then, like I said, did the freelance one the following season. Now, Andrea, I think you were a date player a couple of episodes on season three. Am I right about that? Or did you come in in four?
I can't well, I was in the I was in season one.
I did five episodes of season one, and then it progressively got to be more and more episodes.
So for season three, I'd say I probably did half of them. Yeah, if not more. I can't remember what my contract said back then.
But Kimmy Kimmy comes in and out quite quite frequently in season three.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. My forever memory of you, Jody is And it's funny because this really is my snapshot memory. We were at our besides the San Francisco earthquake and the entire lighting red shaking.
Yes, we just so we did that episode.
We just talked about that episode a few well you know when it happened whatever, season two when we reviewed it, but we you know, we're talking about that episode and had Jeff on to talk about it, and I was like, I remember being at it. We were at a run through or something, and it like the entire stage just everything was swinging back and forth.
Yeah.
Yeah, from four hundred miles away.
It was really yeah, because yeah, la vections of earthquakes, No, it comes from your feet up and then came from the sky down, which was real un usual, right, But by forever memory though, it's just you holding holding the pink page is on a you know, a Wednesday, and I don't know how old you were, season three, and I remember you just looking around looking for you where's the.
A D I didn't get the blue pages? And I just remember this out of this this little kid who was like this total show up is.
Pro yes that I'm doing it out of my mouth? And where's the blue pages?
I didn't get them?
How am I supposed to work like this?
Yeah?
Jody was basically an eight year old and a thirty year old body, and I think you mean a thirty year old and an eight year old body.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you.
Know what now now I'm an eight year old and the forty two year old body.
So that's yes, it comes around.
Scond coffee of the day.
Oh that's so great, Doug.
What can you tell us about like a typical day in a writer's room, Like how how long?
How many hours are.
You in the writer's room versus in your own office sleeping or not? Like what what is to take us through? Like a typical week for a writer on.
It varies wildly from show to show, and it's very different now, I mean the writer's room barely existing. Yeah, this is kind of a shame because that's where your future showrunners come from. I mean it's exactly like you know, you have to be there as part of the process to learn how to deal with the stuff that that can be really just personality fork driven you have to know how to manage people. But in Full House, the hours were long. They were really long for the writers anyway. I mean moving there at eleven o'clock on New Year's Eve.
Wow.
Wow, at least in the beginning. I mean, you know, we were were we put in really long hours. But some shows, it depends on it depends on how the showrunner chooses to conduct the room. The room can be really fun. It can also be the actors should never ever ever hear what is said about them in a writer's room.
That's yeah, that keeps me up at night.
You know.
Look, that's that's yeah. You got to be able to be honest in the room.
Well, it's not even honesty. It's just basically gallows humor. Uh it doesn't even have anything to do with the actor's ability. It's just the it's the dark humor of being in a room with a lot of funny people who turn on each other.
And oh I love that actually, and I'd probably join in making fun of myself.
I've gotta I've got a hole.
I guarantee you would, because that's just the it's just the it's just how it's done. And and uh so it could be very, very funny because you have a lot of funny people. And then because we were doing a show with a kid's sensibility, there was so much we had Lenny Rooks in the room, We had so many things that not only couldn't be said on full house, they couldn't be said in interpersonal relationships.
Right, they couldn't be said on television. Yeah, yeah, exactly right, it was. I mean, oh god, now, now to make that show, you.
Know, to make the show that you that you would have made.
You know, had you been able to do the comedy that you wanted to do, it would be fun.
Well. You know. There was an actual famous case a few years later, when Friends was the big hit. A writer's assistant sued them because of the hostile work environment of the room.
Right.
The judge actually said, after listening to all the testimony, I says that case dismissed. This is the process, right, this is the process you put in there. Right, by the way, the worst part before we started talking about my bad diet. There's no nobody eats worse than early nineties sitcom writers. Oh yeah, the worst garbage in the world. I mean, they're just a box of fruit. Loops, not even milk, and people would just take handfuls of butter filled threts. I'm so bad. I went to a bodiga. I remember this philosophy. I went to a bodega and bought a pail. It was a metal bucket filled with lard.
And you just put that on the table.
Come on, let's cut to the chase. Why are we even kidding? Right?
Why are we why bother? Let's just do it.
Yeah, right to the gold.
So it's a snack based diet.
That is that necessity because you guys are working such crazy hours that you're like, oh, I'm just gonna grab a handful of pretzels.
Or is it the boredom of being in a room for so long together?
A lot of times it was when somebody's looking for a button to the scene and is this just terrible silence? Then you can just hear crunching his feet and eating whatever. We have. A garbage happens to be left there. Uh Now, let me ask you. I'd like to ask you guys this question because Jeff and I talked about this when we had lunch we amongst the writer friends of mine. Did you when you guys obviously you were kids, and when you're a kid, the future Monday is an unfathomable future. So forget about thirty years. But did you have any idea that this show would still have the emotional hold on its fans that it does have?
Not at all.
Nope.
Yeah, we're just discovering this now, twenty twenty four.
So we start.
We started this podcast because we Andrew and I never watched the show. We've never watched the entire show. We've seen bits and pieces of episodes, probably the pilot and you know, things here and there, but we have never watched the series all the way through. So what's been really interesting is to kind of have a fresh pair of eyes as an audience rather you know, like we have the memories of doing it, but to watch it as an audience, and to do you know, this podcast where we watch it pretty quickly in succession and you really see the development of this family and of these relationships and of the humor and of you know, kind of when we really find our groove and I start understanding why it has had the lasting effect that it has. It's only they're kind of watching it as an audience. Remember that, you go, yeah, you know, there. There was just something special about this group of people, about this show that it was.
You know, I totally agree, and I thought the same thing that that show had. One of the it was I worked on a couple of shows I had previously mentioned frob which nobody remembers forty four episodes and that was the end of it. But that cast was so close that they used to spend lunch on the set, and they had made up this game and they would eat lunch while sitting on the sofa of the living room set. And there were parties that if Diana Canova was out from Connecticut and she was in la somebody would have a party at that's for years after the show was gone and forgotten, and the full house cast with you know, the way John, Bob and Dave got along and then Laurie came in and the way you guys, it was one of the closest knit casts that I've ever seen.
Yeah, I mean, we've stayed in each other's lives like regularly, not you know, but like seeing each other multiple times a year, and you know, done all sorts of things together, gone through all sorts of life experiences together. Still thirty seven years later, like there's none of us have you know, Yeah, it's and.
I think some of that somehow came across to the audience.
That that's what I've Yeah, that's what I've always said, is that that magic the people of the show really were. That was what people fell in love with, was the genuine relationships that they saw reflected in these scenes. We hope you enjoyed the first part of this interview as much as we did, so stay tuned for part two, airing this Friday. And remember, if you want to follow us online, you can follow us at Instagram at how Rude Podcast. You can also send us an email let us know what you think if you got questions, you know, whatever's on your mind at how Rudepodcast at.
Gmail dot com.
And yeah, Rich sure you're liking and subscribing to the podcast also wherever you're listening to it so you can get get part two when it comes out right away, so you don't have to wait or look forward or miss it.
You know, you don't want to do that.
Uh, And until next time, everybody, Remember, the world is small, but my brain.
The pot is full of great guests.
They I don't know, I don't know why I can't think on my feet today.
That's okay.
That's what we do when you're yeah, when when you go low, I go high when yeah, this is I don't know that.
That's what was Michelle Obama meant by that, but.
But okay, I'll repurpose it for when you're struggling.
I will pinch it for you. I thought you said pinch it, like not pinch hit, but pinch it. And I was like, pinch what my butt?
What are you talking about?
We'll do that too.
The world.
The world is small, but the house is overrun with I don't know, too many thoughts.
Five five and to refill our coffee.
That part mm hmm
