How Rude, Tanneritos!We are back with more stories and memories from Full House writer, Doug McIntyre! Tune in to hear more about the Full House writer's room, a wonderful story involving John Stamos, and some tips for all of you aspiring writers out there... It's all here on How Rude, Tanneritos!
Hey, they're fan.
Rito's welcome to another episode of How Rude Tanaritos. Today we will be continuing our interview with the talented writer Doug McIntyre. He wrote some unforgettable episodes that fans cherish and love, so we're extremely excited for you to hear the rest of this interview. LEEZ, Welcome back, Doug.
I think that's right now. That's why if you had put the writers on camera, the show would have been forgotten while it was still ontaving.
Well, look, I've learned most writers the one thing they don't want to do is be in front of the camera. They're like, no, no, no, no no no no no no no no no.
No no, that's somebody else's gig.
That's nothing that's fun about. But this is true of my whole life, because you know, for younger people who grew up with cell phone cameras. I just last week I was in Boston and I had a great time with a whole big group of people I went to college with from fourty five years ago, and we were all saying, oh, thank god, doing no cell phone cameras, we'd still be in prison, right and after full House one day, I think Kim Weiskoff brought us camera to the writer's room, and there's about eight black and white photos and that's the only photos that I've ever seen from the time I was a full house.
Yeah, other than production.
Photos, right, yeah, we have a ton of like set photos.
But yeah, no, nobody there wasn't from you taking pictures of what's going on in the writer's room, you know, exciting about sixteen people sitting around snacking on peanut butter pretzels and looking in the morning.
To the fact that one of them, I captioned I posted once in a caption punching up my suicide note.
Because for Roath, right, just dark, dark dark, And I mean that's you know, that's why I have the sense.
Of humor that I do.
Started with Bob and it's right and going down the line.
It's true. I was gonna say, keeps going downhill, but yeah, not too.
Was there a particular full house character you wrote more jokes for, or that you felt particularly drawn to or connected to, Like, I know you wrote the episode that features Jesse and you know Joey Stacey and oh yeah Jesse, which is very Jesse focused. And we had a lot of thoughts about that. But what, in your words, what characters were you most drawn.
Well knew because I knew John personally better than anybody, because I came in having already done twenty six episodes with him on another show.
I knew him socially at that time, so I suppose it.
Was easier for me to find that voice. But I know this sounds like I'm sucking up because of the podcast. But I really liked Stephanie. I liked the character I liked and it wasn't and you just said it. It was the thirty year old in the eight year old body. It was something about the way you moved on the stage and behave that I just found.
I just found her funny. You could do more. I mean basically, I just thought that you had more colors to play.
Thank you.
Yeah, Season three Stephanie is iconic.
Like we're going through those episodes now, we have another one we're reviewing. The car through the Kitchen episode is one that we're recapping today. Yeah, just so many iconic episodes starring starring Stephanie's.
Character mister Egghead, that one, Walter the duck Face one. Yeah, Yeah, it was very I got to have some really fun storylines for sure.
So great, so great.
Now you did a great job of sort of encompassing Jesse's relatively egotistic personality with you know, the storyline with Becky and.
All of that. Like how did you see Jesse?
I've always wondered, like, how did the writers see Jesse as a character? Like did they see did they were they like, oh, he's kind of like he's got a ways to go to like learn or were they or was it just this was kind of I mean I just always like wonder what the writers thought about like Jesse.
Well, here's this is what I'm going to make a sweeping generalization, but this is what writers think about all good looking lead actors is that you know, uh, we're never going to have the life that they have. I mean, we've got a mirror too, so we don't see what this is. What I remember when when we were on when.
We were working on You Again before Full House, I had a next door neighbor. I had this little house in Burbay, and uh, John came over one time.
My next door neighbor had a.
A developmentally challenged granddaughter who lived with her and John get out of the car. He's walking up to the front door.
This one.
She was probably twenty.
Two, but she was functionally about six, and she saw John and she knew him as Blackie from the soap op and she went crazy. She just went crazy. And John went over and sat with her on the front step of her house to calmer down and blah blah blah, and then later on brought her to you again and then actually sent a car and brought her to full house to a taping.
This is That's such a John thing to do. He really is such a great.
A And the reason I'm telling that story is because I think that John's inherent goodness. I mean that boy was raised right, Yes, yeah, he was, And I think that so, you know, while we poked fun at him because of his ridiculous luck in the genetic lottery that we did not have and we'll never have, the sweetness and the inherent goodness I think also was always underlying the character, so he could have some vanity, but it wasn't It wasn't ToxS vanity.
Okay, Yeah, that's that's that's an interesting distinction because it's easy for Jody and I to get caught up in his in his tantrums and his well.
Also, when you watch the episodes back to back, you're like, oh my god, he's having.
Another fit overreacting again this man.
But like, you know, over a season, you're like, oh, there was a week in between, you kind of had time to forget that Joey freaked or Jesse freaked out episode before last about the same exact thing, and you you know, but yeah, watching it now, you're.
Like, what's why, why is he so angry?
Gone down?
You look great?
He gets jealous very very easily, which is.
You know, you're like, look at it, like you said.
Look at the mirror.
Bro, You're fine.
You know.
The thing is about all right, you know, all especially comedy in particular, but basically all storytelling is a bunch of nice people behaving nicely. Is makes a great neighborhood, but it makes a boring show.
So great for mister Rogers not so much.
You need yeah, so, you know, you need lessons to be learned in personal failings, and that's where the fun comes in.
Otherwise it's just gonna be it's gonna be lovely.
But right well, it's yeah, it's always the thing. What are the stakes?
What what is it you know, what is at risk, what's at play, what's the what's the conflict, you know, all that kind of fun stuff. Now, we have not recapped the Stephanie Gets Framed episode yet because that is in season four. But this, this was a big one in uh in Full House history and obviously family matters, because we actually had Steve Erkele appear on the show.
And I want to say that was like the.
Only crossover we ever did on our on Full House. I think Erkele had appeared maybe on another one or something, but I think we didn't really do. It wasn't like the like the universes existed together, you know, correct.
Yeah, Yeah, I was surprising. I mean obviously that was at the height of Erkelemania, right, and Juliel White was the star. I mean he was one of these, you know, snowflake characters that just shows up that the whole country just every time he opened his mouth, they just loved him. Yeah, And so it was it was a natural fit with Full House, being a kid with a large kid cast, it was kind of a natural to bring him in. As I remember it, when Jeff asked me, uh to write an episode, he said, we've got Juliel White that week, so so that that was a given going in. It wasn't.
I didn't come to them and say, hey, you know everybody would have said.
That, right, right, right.
So it's basically like, we've got Julil for the for the week, what is the story?
And why is Erka here with him?
Right?
And he wore glasses, so we thought, well that's you know, I was thinking about the glasses because of my niece, you know, and her eye thing, so and just my own, you know, experience as a kid wearing glass is being four eyes, which I always thought was the dumbest insul four eyes. It's like with somebody with hearing age, you.
Go four years, I mean right, yeah, no.
It's just that it's right in front of your face, so it changes.
I never understood why people made fun of glasses anyway. I'm like, what is the what? I don't understand.
It was always weird to me. I'm like, what a strange thing to make fun of you?
So you're they work better if you don't keep them on your head if.
You're well, that's debatable, but.
Did you have to consult with the Family Matters writers in order to write the character of.
I mean I watched a bunch of episodes. I might have asked for some because we didn't have you know, we didn't have the ability to stream anything. So I might have got a couple of tapes, VHS tapes to watch the character.
Because you know, when you're working on a show, you don't get to see anything.
You know, you're in a tunnel and that's it.
So.
Uh. In fact, Friday nights when it was on, we were that was tape night for us. We're on stage anyway.
It was probably also why we didn't watch the show Friday Nights was when it was on, The show was on and we were working right.
Right, so so uh so I'm sure that I did just to see not just how he sounds, but how he moves, you know. Uh that because he was he was the whole package. He had a whole, He.
Had a whole.
Yeah. Yeah, but but that was when we also did one I remember we did an episode with.
Uh, what's his name, Charles in charge?
Uh oh, Scott Bail got bail, Yes, we already that was yeah, I remember the Scott Bayo episode.
There was a lot of episode.
It was ridiculous.
Yeah, and we did the Beach Boys, which was the second time because we had the Beach Boys on you again too. Oh yeah. So we did two of those and that was the fun of that one, was trying to get all of the Beach Boys on the set at the same time. We got this incredible I had it until a few years ago. I probably got tossed, but I had this incredible memo that had been sent from casting about the availability of Al Jardine can be here between one and three on Tuesday, and Mike Love can be here from.
Right like you have three minutes to shoot this scene right right.
Oh yeah, that's the tetra scene of scheduling.
Right as nightmare, Yeah, a nightmare.
What has been, like, your the favorite thing that you have worked on in this business?
Done?
I mean, and you don't have to say us because we're right in front of you, but well.
You know, it's interesting because I've had, to say the least, an eclectic career in that I've always been a writer, always been a storyteller, but between sitcoms and the radio business. Uh and and you know I do a lot of them, seeing to Singer Speaker series and I did four nights with Steve Martin and you know why, I just did Trevor Noah two weeks three weeks ago.
Amazing, Robert Redford and President Bush. You know, lolla, you stop saying.
You know. So it's this wide variety and that's been kind of a really fascinating life. I mean, I certainly was pinching myself when I was sitting hester to John Cleese in front of three thousand people, saying what am I doing here? And not in the third balcony with everything else? But so so that that part has been fun. And and you know me, I working with my wife, My wife Penny Piser was and all the President's men in the in Law.
She played Alan Arkins daughter. She's had a great career and the last few years we've been writing books and she's got this wonderful series of books which I just happened to have here, well Sonus from Suburbia where she writes Shakespearean's sonnets but about crap that happens today.
So it's like fun, very entertaining.
And she does a live show called she just actually came back from Scotland. She did the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.
Oh yes, wow, and she's going to do it.
In Hollywood on November fourteenth.
Actually nice to say it, very entertaining, very funny.
She writes songs and she does that.
And the book is very important to me because Frank's Shadow is something that I started twenty five years ago and it came out last year, and because it's you know, when you work on a show, in a lot of ways, unless you're the show creator, you're rowing somebody else's boat, someone else's idea, and you have to execute it, hopefully with skill, but it's.
Still someone else's ideas.
So Frank Shadow of the novel is something that I'm very proud of because whether it's good or bad, it's at least my good or bad. Yeah, and Penny and I made a movie called Well it's actually back there. I don't know if you can see the poster, but trying to get good the Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon.
Is it that I saw it behind you there earlier?
Yeah?
Yeah.
We made that feature documentary in two thousand and eight and it did great, and in fact, I ran it to Dave Coolier in Kansas City.
We would doing a radio hit.
To promote it at the Kansas City Film Festival and Dave was on his Clean Comedy tour in the studio. Actually, it was fun running into him there. So those kinds of projects have been very creatively nourishing because it's outside the traditional system. And I actually think that this is the direction that the arts are headed anyway, as we see, there's always going to be some kind of big time show business where there's a big star and there's lots of money behind it. But as we've seen with these strikes and with just you know, and the change in technology, the fact that you guys have the ability to do a show like this, right, that we can. We can create things and get them out to the public. Maybe not in vast audiences, but you can get to say your piece where mean you want to express it. And I think that that's you know, that's both the blessing and the challenge, because if you want to find an audience, you have to figure all those eight hundred.
Thousands, right There's Yeah, the audience is splintered much more now. But but with that being said, there's also niche audiences that will watch something that you know, nobody else really knows, but maybe they've kept it going for you know, four or five seasons or whatever.
They're very into it, So yeah, there is.
It's sort of a a blessing and a curse.
Like you said, yeah, well, the concept of broadcasting other than like the World Series or you know, the Super Bowl things.
Like that, Yeah, Dodgers doesn't exists anymore.
It's really it's really micro microcasting you find in Nahue and then you super serve that audience and you know, might not get rich, but you can have a life where you're it's fulfilling because you're doing what you dreamt of doing when you were a kid.
Right, yeah, I mean it sounds like you have done so many really interesting, incredible, varied things in creating, in writing, you know, like what a what a really amazing career, like how much fun?
You know?
I always I always like to tell people in this business, like, you know, look, just do a little bit of everything, you know, just kind of don't don't say no, just try and figure out you know, little bits here and there, and and I find it makes for a much more interesting ride.
But I would love to.
Hear what would what would be your best piece of advice for like a young aspiring writer or maybe not even a young aspiring but and aspire writer, what is the best piece of advice that you wish you would have heard or that you heard that really stuck with you.
Well, the first and foremost writers have one great advantage over everybody else, certainly in the movie slash television business, and that if you're an.
Actor, you need a production in order to do your craft.
I mean, yes, you can take classes and you can, but you need a production, even if it's in a black box theater on Santa Monica Boulevard and you have to work your way past three street walkers and to get into the building. But writers, you know your performance is on that keyboarder. It's you know, it's it's with a pencil. Just keep writing, Always write, and always write down. I mean, keep a notebook. I mean, however, you do it on your phone texted to yourself. But when you see somebody like I just you know, when you see a quirky piece of behavior, remember it because it's a character trade, you know. I mean, I just saw a guy who, for whatever reason, walks on his toes.
He just has a quirk in the way he walks.
He walks on his toes, And you say, well, I'm not going to forget that I remember, in fact, it's in my book when I was in Greenwich Village. This has got to be it's more than forty years ago, because I was still living in New York and I'm walking to meet a friend in the village and there's an older, silver haired Italian gentleman walking towards me in these leather shoes and it sounds like he's got tap shoes on because you can hear him click, and coming towards me. It's wearing this white silk shirt and as he passes me, he nods. And the shirt is, you know, it's an unbuttoned to like the eighth button right.
And as he passed me, he's.
Got a blue lace bra on, a blue lace bra and clearly proud of it because he's got the shirt undone me. And he just sort of nods as he goes by. And I have no idea why, but that's how he chose to go.
I said, look, cute, you do a little note.
And somewhere along the line years later, you know that that that little quirky thing. Gary marsh used to say, put it in your movie basket.
Yeah, you know, just.
Just a joke.
Gets caught at the table reading it doesn't make it to air. But if it was structurally a good joke, you'll never forget the mechanics of how it works, and you'll and sooner or later that will come around again and you'll be the person that has the perfect joke at the perfect time.
So you just don't throw it away. And I think that, But you have to write. If you want to be a writer, you have to and you have to read. I mean, I cannot emphasize how important reading is.
You have to.
You know, have to master your material, right, uh.
And the part of that comes from seeing how other writers have done it.
It's true, seeing what you like, what you don't like. You know, there's definitely look you where you're like, oh, I don't.
Love I can't I can't work on like those procedural shows because my brain doesn't work that.
Way, right, Like this is this is too much and there's a lot of jargon here and I and yeah, it's just not I'm not don't you lost me at takey Cardia.
I can't figure them out. I mean I did my camera.
With Stacy Keats is one of my best friends, and we did the syndicated version and basically we didn't have a budget, so we just turned it into a comedy with murders because that we could do.
And plus, right, I didn't know how to do the the the you know, the aha moments of these mysteries.
Right was strong students.
Yeah, recognize your strengths and and play to those, right, Yeah, absolutely absolutely.
I mean writers on West Wing are going to be very different from writers on you know, a sitcom or on it.
Yeah, it's just a it's like a it's a different, different skill, Yeah for sure.
Yeah, well all right, writers, just keep writing. If you heard him, just write, read, you know, arithmetic, I don't know, whatever you want to do.
That's great advice. You're inspiring me. You're inspiring me to you're de inspiring me because.
I will write sporadically and then I'm like, oh I need to I think of things all the time, but I think of things so quickly that then I forget to write them down.
Yeah, notes are good and and and you know, I think that deeply also on a personal level, besides professional level, I think that your your work improves as you improve as a person. M I. And so when you're younger and you're still going through all of that stuff that younger people do. You want wealth and fame and material stuff. You want a better girlfriend or boyfriend, or what of that crap that you do, or you're you're drinking too much, or you're taking draw whatever you're doing, it's self destructive. You're bringing poison into your life. And the quicker, the sooner you can honestly purge yourself of those things. It then opens you up to a whole array of other insights into life, which makes whatever passes for your art deeper.
For sure, for sure.
There, I mean I was, you know, I love to go back and read plays or things that I, you know, did in an acting class when I was in my early twenties, and then go back and read them or look at them now and I'm like, oh my god, this is there's so much here, you know, like that I just I didn't even get because I'd never felt that or I never got that layer.
You know.
It's yeah, it really is.
Your perspective changes, and yeah, I just I love that advice.
Well, there's a there's a famous story that is right on that point.
They did a revival with Dustin Hoffman of Death of a Salesman in New York.
Yes, yeah, I remember that.
And Arthur Miller started sending new page to the actors.
Wow, And the producer said to say, Arthur, the audience's lips are moving. Everybody knows, knows, you can't change it. But he was a seventy five year old Arthur Miller looking at the rehearsals and he had a different insight into the characters, and they had to make him not change it.
Oh wow, yeah, oh for sure.
Yeah.
You just you look back and you're like, no, wait, I would who would do that? This is?
Or what a more interesting choice? Or what if this happen? Yeah, it's just with that whole life experience thing.
You know, as a writer, you never stop rewriting or editing yourself. It's just you have to have someone force you to stop.
All take it from you. Yeah, even with the book, at some point the publisher just says, no this on Tuesday, there are no more chance going to the printer.
You're done.
You know you're done. They take it from you. And at some point that's true. But if you you know, you have the luxure. There's a wonderful painter named Mitchell Johnson, a big fan of his work and He'll let paintings sit for years, uh huh, then he'll pick him up again and completely change the colors and everything.
And it's fascinating to watch him do that.
He just sees it differently, you know, we have that luxury full House is going to be full House the way it was Shocked.
It's going to be the way it was for yeah, and you know what, And it's fun to go back and and revisit it and watch it and see, yeah, where we've come as as people as humans in our adult life. How differently the show hits watching it having kids now, I mean, you know all of it. But you were such an important part of that show, Doug, and you wrote some really great episodes. So we we have just loved having you on the show today and being able to talk to you and pick your brain about a fascinating career and some great writing advice. I mean it, just thank you so much for joining us today.
Oh again, thanks so much for remembering I was there.
Thank you so much, Doug. We appreciate it. That was so fun that he's so great.
Writers are so good at telling stories, you know, they're just it's got a story teed up.
I love that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you.
Know, exceptions so great and yeah if you live in LA I mean, I definitely it's funny. I don't know that I ever put it together though, Doug McIntyre on the radio.
I never connected in the morning. Yeah. I think my mom usul is in that all the time.
I don't even know if she knew, you know, like, but yeah, that's uh yeah, I definitely know I know him.
So it's funny that, you know.
You're like, oh, that's right, Yeah, you were you were in our world for a little while or we were in yours or whatever.
But yeah, that was really really interesting. Good writing advice too.
Oh yeah, that was solid. I'm telling I'm not exaggerating. I'm feeling inspired. I'm going to go right after we're done with this.
I'm going to go think about it and then probably not do it, because that's usually what happens. Like I should write that down and then I wait, squirrel, yeah right, yeah exactly exactly. If I could see that's the thing is like the neurallink thing, I'm like, oh, then I could just like write like think notes and then I'm like, but that's that's not good.
That's not we don't want brain implants. That's very bad. That's scary. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, we don't want it.
I'd be afraid to read those.
Well no, but I mean, like, you know, it's sort of that thing where like, oh, if I could just like transfer that thought, like as I'm laying and trying to fall asleep and download that onto something rather than wake myself up and write it down.
Yeah, or even voice noted. Yeah.
Anyway, great interview though, Really glad that we got him on the show and got to pick his brain.
What I had a great career too, what an eclectic.
Seriously and a really nice yeah, very very lovely.
Well, thank you so much fan Ritos for joining us today. We have really enjoyed this episode. We hope you have two and remember if you are following us on Instagram, you can follow us at how Rude podcast, or you can send us an email at how Rude podcast at gmail dot com and give us you know, thoughts, suggestions, questions. We do a fan question episode sometimes, you know, just let us know your thoughts and make sure that you're liking and subscribing to the podcast wherever you're listening to it. That way, you will get all of the newest episodes as soon as they come out, so you don't have to wait or look for them.
They're just they're going to be right there on your phone.
Yep, everywhere you look, instant download, just like we were talking about, you know, and you want that right in your brain first.
Well but yeah, but no brain implance. I think that's I think I think that's a bad idea. I just don't think it's gonna go. Well, guys, I'm putting that on record now, I think I need to say that. But anyway, thank you guys so much for listening. Another fun and fabulous episode of How Rude Tanner Rito Is and we will see you next time.
And remember the world is small. Oh damn it.
Did you lose it?
I lost it?
The world is small.
I need to see this is what I mean. World is there?
Room is full of snacks.
There we go. The world is small, but the writer's room is full of snacks. Yeah, I think you got this.
You're the I'll pinch it.
Well, I think, thanks, and I forget to write them down.
Okay, remember everybody, the world is small, but the writer's room is full of snacks.
Yes, Yes, that was great. Touching world m
