How Rude, Tanneritos!Jodie & Andrea talk to legendary TV and stage director, Joel Zwick, to find out about how he became thee man who wrote the book on directing (no, really. He did).
From Laverne & Shirley to Bosom Buddies to a little show called Full House, Joel has done it all and has countless stories to tell.
Ready to fall in love with the man who called all the shots on your favorite shows? Then this episode of How Rude, Tanneritos is for you!
Hey, fan, Rito's welcome to how Rude Tanaritos, our guest today, is a phenomenal director and producer who we were lucky enough to work with on both Full House and Fuller House.
He has a.
Wide array of TV shows, films, and Broadway shows under his belt, with his career spanning over four decades. We can't wait to talk to him about his memories from that very first episode of full House all the way to his time on Fuller House.
Please welcome.
Joel's a wick, Hi, Joel.
Or look at you, as handsome as ever.
I'm younger, younger, I'm working on being younger.
Indeed you are Benjamin Button. Actually you're a completely in reverse.
At some point, I'm going to start to diminish myself by one year at every birthday and see how long I can go.
Yeah, I love it. I like it.
Good idea.
Hi, it's so good to see you.
So just so you know, we kind of just jump right into the interview, so we're just gonna welcome to the show, Joel.
I think it's great. I think it's so fabulous that the legend of full House has existed this many years. I mean, how many years ago do we do this thirty five years or something like that.
Thirty thirty seven, thirty seven, I think, yeah, yes.
Andrew, when did you come into the series. I'm trying to think, is I don't believe I directed your first appearance? Do you believe I did? I don't.
I should know this, but my first episode was the first day of school, Stephanie's first day of kindergarten and DJ and Kimmy's first day of fifth grade.
We just looked at it. Was it episode two to three? It is episode three, first season.
I could have been there for the first few before I had to go back to Perfect Strangers, which was.
Much's right, that's right right next door.
We have been telling everyone about your storied career of directing and everything, and it's really I mean, it's super impressive, but Perfect Strangers family matters. You directed the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which is just such a hit. We love of second sight, Fat Albert, and you started in theater?
Really was where you came from? Uh?
And I just I would love to hear a little bit about the background of Joel's Wick.
Well, boy, okay, you ready for this?
Like how did you start?
Like what made you decide to come to Hollywood and get in this crazy business, and then how did you eventually wind up with this weird family?
Okay, I can. I got a system here, I've how to tell I've been trying. As you get older, you start to try to desperately put together the pieces of your life as to what exactly, and that made the difference. And for me, it came down to connections. It was all about the luck of connections, because connections sometimes have nothing to do with who you are, but where you are at what time you're there, and those kind of things. So basically I started out at three and a half years old. My mother tells me I used to sing Jimmy Durant the imitations for their Marjon game, and the women loved that, so they'd invite me every time they started a Majong game to sing a little bit of Inky Dinky doo or something like that.
And then when I wish I could have seen that, to be a fly on the wall of three and a half year old joels Wick singing in a majong game, please stop it.
And then this is already amazing.
Junior High School went on to Junior High School where I was very lucky. There was a teacher there who loved operettas, and she decided on her own wasn't part of the school program. She would put on an operetta every year. So I was in the for two years there. In the first year I did the Mercado and I played Coco, and the second year I played Si Slick in Nordy Marietta. And there was a young girl who was in the cast, not one of the stars, one of the three little maids from school are we purpose one of those girls. And we came to Madison High School and rock and roll hit nineteen fifty three. We entered Madison High School and rock and roll was starting to explode, and babe, wait, this little girl decided she was going to be a rock and roll singer end of it, and she was going to have a do op group at Madison High School, just like virtually every high school in Brooklyn had a due op group. And so we had a do op group. We called ourselves the co Signs. We met in a math class, the Yes And then eventually this young lady who was Carol Klein separated from the group and became Carol King. So I wash my god, Carol King, Yeah, I understand that to your.
Like great one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
But that's that's coincidence. I mean, how does that happened?
I did not realize you were in a do wop group in high school with Carol King.
Joe.
Oh my god.
So any rate, So Carol we went and all we moved on to in high school, she introduced me to this very this guy became my best friend, Roy Levine. Roy Levine directs mcbird in nineteen sixty seven, which was a major off Broadway hit and problem because it basically made the claim that Lyndon Johnson was responsible for the death of John F. Kennedy. So that was pretty political and basically my phone was tapped for the seven months I was in that show, and I was basically, you know, an aide or a crony of a cronies that would come on stage and say, sire, they're waiting for you, you know that kind of stay. And I sat there and at that point I thought maybe I was going to be an actor. I really never thought about it much because in sheep said, baby Brooklyn, you didn't have any dreams of that kind. Of stuff going on other than Carol, who knew she was going to be a star. God bless her. But anyway, so they sent me off to with Roy Levine to Midbird. In Midbird I met an actor named Andy Robinson who played the Aquarius killer in Dirty Harry. That was his big right and we became very good friends. And he one day was going to join a LaMaMa troop at Lomama, which was one of the great experimental theaters. Yes, yes, so he called me up and said, come on, you want to join LaMaMa with me? And I at that point had had a nervous breakdown because I realized I couldn't become an actor. I wasn't good enough. I had no idea what these people were doing that made them so good. But it was a hell of a cast that had Stacy Keach and Rue McClanahan and cleveonn Little and Bill Devane at Bardy who were just coming out of colleges all over America who were politically inspired to do this particular show about Lyndon Johnson. So that was that. So Andy got me to LaMaMa. And Andy was also the key to something I didn't so I couldn't really act much at LaMaMa because even in the troop I was in, I was not one of the good actors. So Andy at one point wrote a play called Last Chance Saloon, and he decided I was going to direct it. Now he had never seen me direct anything. I had only directed one thing in my life, and I thought that if I didn't direct this, the troop was going to break up, and Lumama was becoming very important to me. So I said, okay, I'll direct it. Well, the damn thing played the west coast of London, it played all over Europe. It became a major hit. I came back to America. I was a director. Oh my go now I was directing. I still had no goals. There were just no goals involved with this. I didn't know that there was any place you could go with this kind of a thing. But I was a director, and I directed the LaMaMa Plexus group. We were called in a number of shows, and one of the shows I was also teaching at the time, and I was teaching at Queen's College and Wheaton College and Brooklyn College and all over the place. This theoretical work that my LaMaMa troop was doing, which if you know or don't know. It's based on the work of Jersey Grotowsky, who were in the Polish lab theater, and he had this idea that if you trained actors like athletes, so they could stay in the moment and not think about whether they have craft or no craft, or what their craft is about. Somehow, that's what you aspired to get him in the moment, which was one of the things that was phenomenal with you guys, because you were always in the moment. You had no idea, there wasn't a moment.
I mean as kids, that's that I look at kids all the time and I just there.
You know.
I was out at a restaurant the other day and this kid was just twirling around.
What I was like, Oh, to be so in the moment, and but.
Like, that's the goal as an actor, right is to just be so free.
That's amazing. So basically, once I had picked up that little information, I realized that I would say I became a director and directed a number of shows for US and taught at various colleges. In one of the colleges I taught at was Queen's College, and one of the kids who am a student of mind three of them. Actually students of mind were Lowe Gans, Mark Rothman, and Greg Antonacci. Now they Greg Antonacci, who was a tough little Italian kid, basically just infused himself into my Lemama workshops. He wasn't invited, He just showed up and basically Greg wrote a show called Dance with Me, which I directed, choreographed, and was in. By the way, that's something you want to do again? It was really questionable.
Yeah that's I'm like, wow that that yeah.
The hill rate. I got a Tony nomination for Best Choreography and a Drama Desk nomination for Best Director of a Musical. So but and Greg. Meanwhile, through Mark Rothman and Lowell Gans, who had already made it out to Hollywood with their own story of connections, he went out to Hollywood to play a running role in Laverne and Shirley, and eventually he moved on to a continuing role in It was an Adam Arkham Adam Arkhams show a past eighty you Lose names, but it was an Adam busting.
Busting lotten screwed then because I can't remember now, I know you were in good shape.
So we did Busting Loose together and I came out to visit him because I had done a show a review that was playing in Chicago for a year and then moved on to Las Vegas in another production. So I was about forty minutes out of Los Angeles by playing, and I had some time, so I thought I'd come out and visit Greg and see what's going on. And at that point, so Greg, so, I'm watching these rehearsals for a couple of weeks in the stand, just watching these rehearsals, and doesn't seem like it seems like a little play for a twenty two minute play. So basically Greg gets in his head you that I should direct the sitcom. And I said to Greg, wait a second, I'm a theater director. I don't direct sitcom.
And he said, well, if sitcom really is theater theater.
I finally found that out as I got myself inebriated that night and got myself thinking, wait a second. First of all, you don't know if they're going to get the job, too. You don't know if you'd like the job once you get it. So basically they got to do the paint. One of my major beliefs was that you just got to take the shots. You can't turn down opportunities because it may not be in exactly the direction you wanted to go, but it may eventually get you to that place just taking a different route. But the fact that since I didn't have any goals anyway, it didn't make any difference to me what I was doing. So he set me up at this meeting at Paramount with this lady named Judy Copage, a very nice lady who was running casting for Powamount for directors getting them placed on the Paramount shows in that day. So I went into her and literally, this is an interview you cannot do today. And I'm not sure how I got away with it at that time, but I walked in. I said, listen, I'm not going to tell you that I can direct sitcom because I've never directed a sitcom, but I was watching for the last couple of weeks and in my estimation and monkey can direct sitcoms. And she looked at me, she said and made a call immediately to this guy Tony bar at CBS and said, I've got this guy. I wanted to direct an episode of Busting Loose. And that was my interview, and I basically had this episode of Busting Loose, and now the producers were concerned, well, you know, he's never done anything. So Greg said, I'll tell you what. I'll write a script and he'll direct my script. And so he was living at that time with Annie Potts Lovely any yes, oh yes, And so basically was a showby that was hopefully going to be a pilot for her for Annie Potts and Greg and Tanacci. So I directed it and it went fairly well, and I icily started to figure out the craft. I worked with the editor. I couldn't care about anybody else. The editor would tell me, no, no, you can't go from that shot to that shot. You can't do that. This is the way it goes. Because in those days we were using what was called the three headed movieola because it was all film and tape. Yet by the time you got around we were on tape. But essentially and basically was just three things learned. He'd mark out the cuts from from from real to real, and so I learned the idea of how this was supposed.
To go, which I mean that for directing for TV and film, that's really what it is is knowing what you what shot you have to get because you're like, oh, well, we can go from here to hear. But if you have no connective tissue and you don't see how the person got from over here over here, all of a sudden they teleport and it looks really weird. And those are the things that like, you don't think about that you have to. It's not the theater where you can see everything. You have to make sure that people's eyes are going, where the action is.
In the right direction, absolutely correct. So basically I realized that what I've always been was I finally realized that I was a systems person. I was in a visionary. You don't have to be a visionary to do Full House Family Matters or any of those shows, but a system person helps finding out the most efficient way to do the work that needs to be done. And part of that was I started to believe that the key was to let everybody be the best they can be, not to tell them what to do, but enable them to be the best. They could be very easy with kids because they're gonna do what they're gonna do, you know, But when it gets to adults, Yeah, how do you don't direct John Stamos or Bob Dagger or Coo Yer. There's no direct for these people.
Well, I mean, for many reasons, there was no directing them.
But I actually I told the story.
To someone the other day of the time, that that you, we all got in trouble, and that yes, yes, you were so pissed at every well you were so pissed at the adults, but.
You you know, you went that's it.
Everybody upstairs up to the you know, to the conference room, and so the whole cast.
Went bitting around, including the baby. Everyone was like, okay, so we showed up. Joel walks in the room, He's like, not the kids, not the kids. They're fine, The kids are doing fine.
To the adults, I couldn't do what I wanted to do the kids were in the room. But the fact is I had a great story about you, Jody. I don't know if you're aware of the story, because it's a wonderful story. It was basically, we were doing an episode of something at this time. You couldn't have been much more than five and a half years old. Maxim so his first season kind of stuff, and we're about to do your scene you were in and I get a quote she's not available she's in the bathroom. I said, what do you mean, she's in the bathroom. I'm about to do a scene. Go go knock on the door and tell her to get out of the bathroom. So somebody goes to knocks on the door and Jody get out of the bathroom. I'm not finished, that's what they hear. I'm not finished. So basically he came back out and said, she says she's not finished. I said, well, you go tell her to get finished and come out immediately. And they went back and he knocked again, and you said to the door, listen, if you come by to knock one more time, I'm not coming out at all. And it was at that point that I realized that the entire industry was run by the children. That basically, if a child is in a bathroom and needs to go potty, you cannot see this. The scene is over.
You're working with children and animals. What needs to happen needs to happen, and.
That's in the order that it needs to happen. So that was, yes, that was it taught me the loss.
My god, that's hilarious.
The enormous industry is running and this one girl is stopping the industry simply because she's going to the bathroom.
I had to go, yeah, I guess a good potty. You'll call it a ten to one.
But maybe you were taking a ten too.
I mean, who knows. I was five and a half. Whatever needed to happen, he happened.
That's right. But I loved your attitude about the fact you knock one more time.
I'm not knock one more time, and you know on that that's just who I am. You've asked me one more time, didn't see how it goes one more time.
You haven't changed to Joe. It's good to know, though.
It's good to hear those stories where I go, oh, no, this is that's just my true self.
That's exactly who you were at any rate. So that was it. So I started working sitcoms primarily because I was lucky in that the first thing I got to do was busting loose and pretty much out of the Gary Marshall chain, right, and so so I was doing there was nothing else for me to do. I went back to New York, I did a play, which was a disaster, and then I came back to California because I wrote to Lowe gans and Mark Ruthman saying, listen, I'm thinking of coming out again. You're think you got any work for me, because they thought they did pretty good on The Busting Loose and they were doing at that time a new show that Ted Knight was doing, coming off of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, right the Ted Night Show, And so basically they gave me an episode to direct and to keep me around. They allowed me to actually act in an episode where I played a bunny farmer, Yes, a bunny farmer, a farmer that actually raises bunnies. And it was a dating show, you know, one of those things. So basically, so I was doing some various there's ten minute things we used to do that were to try to sell a pilot before we did the entire thing. And I was doing something that eventually turned out to be Angie but when I with Donna pescal But when I did it, it was just a ten minute No, I don't know what the hell it was, but I did it. And at the end of the thing, I came out and this big tall man comes up to me and says, I let you work, and I said, well, thank you. I had no idea who he was. He says, I'm going to give you a shot with the girls next season. And I had no idea who the girls were, and I still had no idea who this guy was. But it was Gary Marshall offering me a chance to direct Laverne and Shirley, And so I found out, Oh yeah, So I had to go home and I had to research what the hell all this was because I'd never seen a sitcom, particularly a theater. Person in New York is not sitting home watching, you know, the Merry Time the More Show. Particularly, So they gave me a shot and I went back and I was directing the first the third season of Lavernon Shirley when it was the number one show in America. Wow, I mean that you can't that when that happens, it's just what are the art? But at any rate, it worked out well for me because the girls, who you don't tell what to do either. You didn't tell Penny and Cindy how to make I mean, you had to be out of your mind to try to do that. So they liked me because I had a New York energy, and they taught me the system, especially Penny Marshall taught me the system. She would walk on to a stage or they were never around because of the fact that they were in the middle of the fight of the lives for women, they were not getting equal salaries with men. Suzanne Seckers had started a huge fura and Penny and Cindy joined in, and they were in major fights with Power Amount and with ABC about the fact that they were the number one show in America and were making half the salary of Henry Winkler and Ron Howard. Right. Wow. They were never around for rehearsals. So basically there was no rehearsals in the morning. They come in at that we come into twelve o'clock and we work from twelve to one, and then we do the run through at two o'clock and that was it. So Penny would come in, the scene would be said. He'd come in, She'd say, Okay, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put my bag here, I'm putting my jacket here, I'm going to the kitchen. I'm getting a coc and milk or whatever that pepsi and milk things she used to drink. And then I'm going to pick up my coat, pick up my bag and out the door, and Cindy knew to just follow along, and that's what she did. And she never walked on a joke. She always walked on the laugh. She waited for the laugh and walked laugh and walk laugh and hit every mark and then was out the door and it was all over, and basically the same thing happened. You can't tell Lenny and Squiggy what to do with the hell well Lenny and Squiggy anyway. You know that the only people I honestly believed at that point, the first people that got the rights to their own names in order to should Penny it's Penny, because Penny was dating Rob Marshall, Rob Ryan and they were friends of Rob Reiners. So she went to see a show with Lenny and Squiggy and said, oh, I want them on lavern and Shirley. So she came back to the network and said, I want these guys on Laverne and Shirley. And the guys would only do it if they could maintain the rights to the names Lenny and Squiggy, and they did, and when the show was over, they went out and toured as Lenny and the squig Tones, and.
Oh, that's wow.
And then was it through doing Laverne and Shirley then that you made some of the connections that led you to Full House.
Yes, basically that's exactly how it transferred. I did to Laverne and Shirley, and then during that period of time I did a few Mork and Mindy's and then went on and did the pilot of Boos and Buddies, and that was pretty interesting because Tom Hanks was a wonderer. I had no idea how a guy twenty one years old with absolutely no credits, he was working as an understudy in an off Broadway theater in a cold water flat, he used to say, and basically he got an audition and they got he got the role. But he we saw myself. I don't understand how somebody at twenty one with no work. He wasn't a.
Child, but you know, probably the same way that somebody with no directing experience walking and says, I don't know what I'm doing, but hey, let's give it a shot.
So basically, so I did. Those are the big three that I did at that particular first juncture of my career, and then through that i'd met Gary Marshall. Of course, because they'd done some stuff with him and Barbo yet and they were going to launch Full House, and I got they told me they wanted me to direct the pilot, and I thought, oh wow, okay, this is going to be fun. You know, children and all. But it was a great show for me because remember I was raising Jamie and Hillary at the same rate and the same age. You paperwork, so every one of your classrooms my kids are in. Oh yeah, virtually every executive who would.
Jamie and Hillary's wick should have gotten a title card at some point in one of the seasons.
Really for that special appearance by.
Where your seek was, because it was always next.
To Hill, exactly right and right there.
Yeah, she could make faces and do stuff that she needed to do to staill alive in the scenes, you know, like when Michelle comes in climbing under the desks and she's you know that kind of thing.
What do you do you remember anything about directing the pilot, Like do you remember thinking this show is going to be a hit or the like, or this show is going to tank?
Like what were what did you.
I thought the reputation of Miller boy Y had had a real good chance because at that time the major producers could pretty well get their shows on the air. How long they lasted is another thing. But remember we started that pilot. You should know that without Bob Saggett did that pilot with a different actor, a very nice actor by the way.
Yeah we have, Yeah, we talked about it. We've shown his picture we had.
I found an original picture from the pilot that we had taken with John Posey, like all in character that was sitting on the mantle and it was John Posey, the woman who played Pam, and a random not an Olsen twin and me and Candae. That was like a family photo that was on the mantle in the very first But yeah, we were looking through it we found that on the show.
I actually have that pilot.
Oh yeah, yeah, I actually.
Have the pilot. So what happened was when when when when our friend Jeff Franklin went to the network said, I've always written this thing for Bob Saggot, and Saggot wasn't available when we did Department because he was doing some comedy shtick for CBS or something five minutes of news in the morning. So once he was available, Jeff said, I want to put Saggott in the role even though yeah, Posey was a very fine actor, but Saggot was the key he wanted.
Yeah.
So, and you know, it's interesting, like going back and starting and watching the show from the beginning, it really like it. You see it It was Bob was the right he had that he had that sort of nerd but.
Loving but like he just was a dad. Like he was. He was the epitome of like dad jokes, you know, funny.
He knew how to do funny.
And he knew yes, exactly funny. He knew how to do funny. But yeah, what I mean he.
Was the heart.
Had you, uh, directed kids often in your career up until that point because everything I'm hearing herring more community, I'm not hearing a lot of kids and.
Kids at that point. I do not think they were kids at that point. But we were, you know, we had some big help on the kids that had Adria.
We had Adria was our last guest on the show we had and all of her amazingness.
But yeah, what was it like working with kids? Were was it like.
A whole new like oh this is I mean, you had kids, but like trying to direct kids, we.
Had a system and the system was very smart. We had stand ins for every one of you kids, and the scenes would be rehearsed with the stand ins. You know, he knew the scene means. And then the stand ins would give you your blocking for this, and then you had we had Brian Cale was there as a dialog approach. We have.
Yes, we've talked about the infamous Brian Kle that's right.
And Brian was the one who basically had to pass on to you information that I thought you needed, right, information that he notes. Yep, I have a good story with Brian to you in a second. The fact is that so you had we packaged up, well, there was a system that was in place that really was smart.
Well, you know, I find sitcoms tend to I mean that's you know, the joke has always never take a sitcom out of the stage, because sitcoms have we it is like a it's a it's a system.
You've got this rehearsal, you've got you know, you.
Kind of always know what you're doing where and how and what Your schedule is very much.
Very organized down.
Yeah, it's kind of great.
If we were all in school till noon, Yeah, nobody. I didn't see any of you till noon. Now I didn't see any of you till after lunch was about one o'clock. We'd start to put together and eventually we were able to give run throughs at like three o'clock. They were used to five o'clock run throughs because we do it scene twice and move on scene twice, because I believe the actors should take responsibility for the work they're gonna do, and beating him to death by having a scene being done three, four or five times in rehearsal, you've lost it by the time they want to get on cameras. So yeah, I decided being fresh could do some things, you know. But anyway, Brian Cale, this is an interesting story about Brian Kale actually auditioned for a role in mcbird, and I was an assistant stage manager, so I'd been in his auditions and I thought, what is an interesting guy? You know? And then it has to be fifteen twenty years later, I'm now on stage doing Dance with Me, a show, like I said, A directed, choreographed, and was basically had the third lead in and I had to get out of that show because once again I knew I wasn't an actor. I mean, Dance with Me was if nineteen fifties throwback musical. So we did all the work I did with Carol and the co signs, all the songs we did. Matter of fact, I used two of Carol's songs, not even know where there were Carol songs at the time. But I looked at Brian and I said, you you're going to replace me. He said, huh. I said you're going to replace me and dance with me? He said what? I said, Yes, You're going on to Broadway. Get ready, we're going into rehearsals tomorrow. So he was a He was a much better actor than I was, for sure, And it was so interesting to see a role that I just naturally did because I just did it. Actually, Brian had acted. He had to find the acting route that had to play the character. He knew the staging, he knew the dance numbers, he knew everything, but he had to find an active route playing the character. I just opened my mouth and I was the character. But I did find out and in watching the run through with Brian in the thing, I looked at that show and I said, oh my god, if I wasn't in it to begin with, there's at least five things that would never show up on stage. There were some stuff that I had in that show that I would have never allowed if I was watching it as a director, you know, but we survived.
The perspective is interesting, you know, like when you kind of shit, you're like, oh, it looks very different on this side.
Yeah, ooh does it ever? Because from the inside it felt like everything was moving along smoothly. It was a little it was a wild show. It was a bit out of control. I mean, there was times that things got out of hand, but the fact is that I was on stage, so I get them under control. I mean, I'd want one actor who came a wonderful writer in Hollywood, Steu' Silver. Stuve Silver wrote for a number of shows and created a number of shows himself. Webster was one of his shows he created. But anyway, Wow, So Stu was outrageously funny, but trutally out of control. So the only way I could get him in control was and he started to go into one of his this crazy monologues about being a blind man, and he put up one finger and say, what do I know? This could be a three? And you just go on and on until I walked over and basically smacked him in the face to shut him up, and we go on with the show and the great moment on dancing. I have to tell this, when I got the nomination for the choreography, Tony and I didn't have a dancer in that company. There was nobody in that company could dance their way out of anything. So I remember the dressing room saying before the show tonight, we're gonna go out there and we're gonna dance like we've never danced before. We are going to give this audience the dances they've never seen before. And we went out on the show and the first number we do is based a Carol King number called the Locomotion. Everybody's doing the brand in a train heading downtown. So chugging downstage and I chugged right off the front of the stage, out of sight, turned around, made a one eighty, and when chugged being back with the rest of the cast. But the cast couldn't look at me for the rest of the show. They all remember they saw this.
So you're like, this is gonna be the greatest show ever.
And then what it was. It was a good moment at any rate that was the dance from period of time. And then then sitcoms took over, and look like I said, ran into the Marshall organization with Boyette and Miller, right, and I got a chance to do their shows, which was you know, perfect, strangest family matters, step by step, that whole TG I f lineup. I kept on moving along, you know, and we brought in Rich Correll, who became a very good friend because Rich, you know, was a producer on the pilot A full House.
Yeah, that's right, because he was produced I remember he. I met Rich when I did Valerie because he was a producer on Valerie.
So I met him then.
And then basically when basically I was stuck with I don't know, I don't know. Did he do full houses at the beginning? I don't remember, because I do, Yeah, yeah he did.
He was the one that went up and scouted the house and found out it was the it was the his sister's ex boyfriend or something that owned the house that they randomly knocked on the door that became the full house house.
Right.
So again, connections, connections, connections.
So anyway that I knew he took when I couldn't when I moved from Family Matters to to Full House. In the last four years, I took over the final four or five seasons of Full House. He went on too Family Matters and basically and I saw basically we were together for a long time, and then we both go into Disney Channel in the later years. It's another story because basically I decided that I was watching the careers and the name of the business changed. The change when we went to videotape. When you were on a three camera film thing, the only people who knew what being shot was the directors and the camera operators, and at the end of every scene, the camera opera would say I missed that close, sup, I missed this, I need that again, or they'd say perfectly me, it's gone. And the producers had no idea what was in the can or not in the camp Then tape.
Yeah, because there's no I mean, there's no video village, there's no monitors.
Then all of a sudden, the tape comes along and the concept of video village comes along, and at that point the producers are.
I want to see right then, I want to see what's happening right now. I have ideas and thought oh yeah, No.
That made it very tough that all of a sudden, the producers were all sitting there saying, well, you need a close up someone, So I said, I shot it already. No you didn't. I didn't see it. But because you didn't see it didn't mean I didn't shoot it. No, no, but they shoot it again. So the number of things that we reshot that had no business to be reshot because they couldn't see all four cameras particularly well that fast. Yet, and as they got better and better, it became apparent that they didn't really want to have a consistent director on their shows. They wanted directors.
It became it became a producers mediums.
And because of that, if you didn't do the work that the producers wanted, you just didn't get to do that directing job again.
Which is a film is much more directing media it's the director is in control, but TV it's all about the producers.
Yeah, and if the producers are the writers, it's even worse. But the fact that they started to take it on, you didn't find that there were too many people that were going to be directing every episode of shows anymore. You would do three of three of that and two of this and two of that. You just move along. And I had spent the first whatever twenty years doing sitcoms being the director of the series, so I was not particularly overjoyed with that kind of thing, and it kind of felt that the career, which had leveled off, was starting to see its beginning of its dip. So I was I thought, maybe it's time to get the hell out. So I remember calling up Hanks and I said to Hanks, I got an idea that I think maybe I want to go into directing movies, comedy movies, because maybe a comedy director in a comedy movie might be funny. And I sent him a script I wanted him to read, and he read it and gave me dutiful notes and said, but why are you doing this? I said, because I'm getting out of TV Tom, And he said, oh, really, that's great, because I have something I want you to direct. And I said what, And he sends me the script of my big fat Greek Wedding. Wow, sends me the script of my Big Factory. I would have directed the phone Book if he asked me.
To, right, Yeah, So those connections, I I think Tom Hanks came to I think he came to set one day to visit you actually say hi.
Yeah, yeah. Truly as nice a man as he was purported to be, you couldn't act that level of niceness. You truly couldn't. But essentially, so that was it, and I got Greek Wedding, and then I spent about ten years doing I did Greek Wedding, fat Albert and Elvis had left the building. The best one was probably Elvis. Well, other than Greek Wedding, Elvis left the Building was a very good show. But the problem was the producers of this show got sick and so they couldn't spend any time trying to sell the show. So they sold it off to markets where it could be on airports and airplanes and stuff like that. Never got its share. But so it was over and I don't know what he was going to do. And then all of a sudden, I go and take Hillary to lunch. At this point, Hillary is working as an executive secretary of for the guy who is doing all the hiring at the at the Disney Channel, and basically, so I took it to lunch and we brought her in and I said hello to the guy, and then I left and he says to Hillary, Hillary, you never mentioned that your father was Joel's wick and she said, yeah, yeah, here's my father, Joel. Do you think you can get Joel to direct some episodes of sitcoms for the Disney Channel? So she said, I'll try, and so she calls me up. She says, Dad, they're wondering if you would direct any episodes of any whatever the show is going to be at that particular point for the Disney Channel. And I said, Hillary, do you think it's going to help your career? And she said I think it made I said, well, if you think it might, you tell them that I will direct anything you tell me to direct. There you go, and there I was starting to work for the Disney Channel until about, oh, I guess about five or six months into the run, when they found out that Hillary was my daughter, and that was a no no at Disney. I must have been put in simply because I was her father, right, And so they called up IRV and said I think we have to let him go and her said why. He said, well because family. I said have you seen his IMDb? And they said, well no, I said, check his IMDb. They checked my IMDb and they said, okay, I think we can make it work.
I'd never mind, actually mind.
This would be work on. And then I just hung on. And luckily my biggest thing was Zendia Zendaya. I had Zendea for seven years.
That's right, you did that. You did her show?
Yeah, I did both Shake it Up and then I did Casey Undercover. So I watched her move from a fourteen year old to a twenty one year old essentially during that time, and knew that this was a very nice lady, super bright, great parents, all that kind of stuff, and she had talent she.
Could, yeah, super talented.
So I thought, let's see where this takes her. Because she was told she was beautiful. You know, we were afraid in doing the show that she she edged out at five ten and a half. Her father six two, her mother is six four and a half.
Oh wow, oh yeah.
It's so told that she'd be out of the business by being just too tall for the business, right, But luckily she never grew pissed.
Zoe is five to ten now, by the way, my older daughter, Oh my, she just grew a little bit more shot. Yeah, maybe five nine and three quarter, but she's tall.
Yeah, that's tall. That is tall for me, virtually anybody's.
I know, Well, that's true. Yeah, it's true.
I had the great Dantagy.
But you pack a lot of punch in a small package, you know what I mean. There's everyone knows when Joel's entered.
The room speaking.
So speaking of so, I have a story, and I wonder if you remember this triggered something when you said talked about disney World, because we you were our director for the episodes that we shot disney World, which I would love to hear about two because I'm sure that was its own special kind of hell, trying to shoot in an amusement park with everyone standing there watching and not make it look like everyone's standing there watching. Yes, but I remember, I don't know you you you had flown off the handle about something you were passed about because you were dealing with people and us and cast and and just an all manner of things, and I don't know, you screamed about something, and I remember I was, I was like.
Joe's so mean, He's so I just hate him. I would hate to be his kid. I hate to be Hillary or Jamie Famous hate him. And like they went on in this whole thing.
And then I believe it was might have been Brian Cale came over and gently reminded me that I was miked.
I all video village, could hear you?
Right? Yeah?
Yeah, And I was like whoops.
I was like yeah, and I but I remember that I was yeah and uh.
At some point I think I I was like, sorry.
Y, yeah, I was. I was capable of going off the handle on small things. Anything large has to be handled. You don't have the time, you know what.
I totally relate to that.
Like little things, I'm like, oh my god, ah, but like the entire world's falling apart.
I'm like, all right, cool, let's do this exactly right, same thing, exactly what it was. You just didn't have any time for nonsense. If there was a real problem, I mean there was just you know quotes, I would do it. And I do remember that going to tape and I'd be up in a booth. And Jay Sandrich basically who directed Mary Tyler Moore, who's one of the major directors in the just the generation before us, he used to use a clicker, little clicker.
I remember, oh, I remember your clicker.
And yes, snapping and I remember that I got the clicker down and I thought that was pretty By.
The way, the clicker, just for those who are listening, the clicker is the thing, and some people snap, but it's what you as a director, you used.
Signal in between shots.
Yes, cut hats is what you used to cut with. So I remember Jimmy Burrows, who turned out to be the dean as far as concern of sitcom directing. He was working me over about oh, misters, Wick can't snap, he has to use a clicker, has to use a clicker. And then one day he gets to do his first taped pilot and he's in the booth and his fingers freeze. He can no longer click. It's all gone. He's gotten through one scene and his fingers as jammed up on him. He got a call in the booth work I think I was doing Webster at the time, and he said, Joel, do you have an extra clicker and go over to his booth and hand him my second clicker because you had to have a backup clicker, right right, But that was an interesting period.
Of Oh yeah, I remember, I remember just hearing that.
Little that's right. But the background, Lauren, it was so interesting in a number of instances because remember we didn't have anything any kind of internet, no capability. There was no way of noting what the hell was going on for the moment.
This is all yeah, pre cell phone, pre internet days. It was like when we shot in Hawaii and we all went to the wrong.
Beach, but nobody knew because there was no way.
To call anybody from one place on the other end.
So like half of us went to the wrong beach. It was the whole thing.
And that was in Hawaii, But yeah, I can only imagine in Disney World trying to communicate things well.
So basically we were there and it was interesting because it was the first time I think the cast understood that, certainly the children understood that they were stars. All of a sudden, there's places surrounded by people who were just watching, where everything you do and we're on the front line of every rod we wanted to go on. All those things are being treated, and even the big scenes where the public was watching, and I was begging and.
Getting this, please keep walking, stop staring.
All I let them stare or make believe you're talking to each other, and then I'd shoot because our children, you know, I think that was the one where that was the one where Michelle decided she was wandering off because she was not happy with what was going on.
She becomes Princess for the day or whatever.
She becomes prince and we had the tea party. And I don't know, I don't know whether you would know about this or not. But wait, the guy playing pass out. Yes, the white rabbit passed out. The white rabbit passed out. And you cannot take off the costume of a Disney employee playing a character.
Until they are well backstage and away from the view of the public.
That's exactly right. So they take this guy and they brought in a replacement white rabbit, and the scene with his right rabbit from the lat.
From from Bunny Farmer to white Rabbit. Letok, you go.
You weren't allowed to tell these Disney characters what to do. I remember the one scene where Laurie was on a thing waiting with Chippendale. She's talking to Kipndale about the fact that she's waiting for stay mus and Uncle Jesse has not arrived or something. And basically I couldn't tell Chippendale what to do. There would except no direction. They would stay.
The direction would just chatter off, you know, I've heard, I've heard chipmunks are notoriously difficult.
To deal That's right, very difficult. Even after chipmunks are difficult. That was a tough scene because they just wanted they would just jabber and Laurie did great. She just held on to the whole thing pretty good. But that was that was a good experience. That particular thing down there that was fun was.
Was that, like, I mean, as far as like location shoots, was that one of your well, now you've done like big fat Greek wedding and stuff, but up until that point, like Greek one was after, but up until that point, had you done a bit pretty much.
That was pretty much the biggest location thing. We did another one at the Tanka Verdi Dude Ranch. There was a Tanka Verdi show where that was also outside location kind of a thing. And then the sitcoms and were starting to develop where they would get one seed case. Seinfeld did that kite quite well with the coffee shop and then the walks on the streets leading to the So basically people start to write as used to write in one scene or something that might be on some kind of a location, so you did. But basically I shot him like a sitcom.
I no, yeah, I feel like most of our unless we went out for something very specific, we were usually on the stage and again in our little system and in our.
Going right from school to your lunch, where all three of you used to follow Bob Saggi around just like his own three kids. It was a funny thing in the world. You know, famous had a great relationship with Mary, Kate and Ashley. But the fact was that Sagged was the father of the group and if he was something, you see all the three of you in size place order marching along to Bob's to something or other, and that was kind of cool. And the fact that he had three daughters exactly the same aid because you was insane and that had something for Andrew to the thing that struck me with Anne, which she was the first person that I knew that was being put into put being put into full house whose entire responsibility was to be funny. Everybody else had stories to tell. Everybody else was a real child of something or other. Uh. Yes, Cooier was a bit out of his mind and was being given the freedom to kind of go with certain things. That made him happy. But the fact is, when Andrew came in, it was the first one who came in. Simply the job was you gotta be funny. Other than that, you had some stories that were interesting.
But you did.
We kind of mention this that Kimmy was a slightly underdeveloped character, but she had some great singers.
She had fabulous dingers, and yes, every once in a while you'd see her in her relationship with Candace where you could see that there was a story that was worth being told. But the is that she was still a nut job in the story, you know, because she stood up for so many things. You know there's anything wrong to be said, Angie, Barbara got to say it is Kimmy, you know, so I do remember that was a big help. All of a sudden, you knew that when she was coming in she's fighting you all the time. You're consistent documents.
Yeah, very true. Frenemies in this Yes, in the show.
Wow.
We feel extremely lucky to have worked with a director as talented as Joel and we are so glad we had this opportunity to ask him all about his career, his time on full House and Fuller House and everything else in between, so make sure and join us for part two of our interview with Joel's Wick.
We're very excited to tell.
You more, and in the meantime, make sure you're following us on Instagram at how Rude Podcast. Make sure you're liking and subscribing to the podcast wherever you're listening so that you can make sure and get the newest episodes as soon as they come out. And we will see you next time for another episode of How Rude. Tanner Rito's and remember the world is small, but the house is full.
Boom. That was a little too polished. I don't even know who you are right now. I don't either,
