How Rude, Tanneritos!The ladies sit down with Steve Hale himself (or was it Steve Peters?), Scott Weinger, to talk about his time as the unforgettable love interest of D.J. on 50 episodes of Full House.
And while we’re talking ‘90s nostalgia, let’s not forget - he’s the voice of freakin’ Aladdin.
Learn what props cast members took (a.k.a. stole) on the last day of taping and how Scott has continued working on some of the funniest sets in Hollywood.
The Harvard grad gets real about fame and Jodie reveals the most intense Stephanie tattoo yet - on the new How Rude, Tanneritos!
You may know our guest today as the iconic voice of Aladdin or as the one true love of DJ Tanner Steve Hale. We know him as the smartest man in the room who reads novels in French for fun. Please welcome to the pod, actor, writer, producer, teenage heart throb and our dear friend Scott Wenger.
Yay, Hi Scotty, Hello, Geo.
Hi really far away, you guys look much closer to the screen.
Oh well, I thought it was just so that we could intentionally see all of the books behind you, because you are such a smart man that you needed to make sure and.
Show off all of your book which.
Are probably these books twice right, and none.
Of them are in English. So yes, it.
Does look like a Kubrick shot behind us. I did Bob's podcast and it's like same. I look like like a thousand yards away from the computer.
It's really weird.
It's like a big well, you do have a very tiny head, which people aren't aware of.
People people don't know. It's like it's so small.
It's like a special talent you should put on your resume.
Tiny head.
It's a shrunken head.
You know.
Yeah, we are, we're doing this entire episode as if you're a hobbit, So it's actually all force perspective.
So all right, it works out.
Famous movie stars have big heads, like most celebrities like big are famous for having big heads. So if you have a small head, that's like a huge disadvantage I feel.
And by big heads, we don't just mean egotistical, we do mean actual physically large heads.
You know, I don't have that. You know I'm humble.
You are very humble. You really are one of the most time.
It's one of the great things about me. It's one of the top ten best qualities that I have.
One of your top ten favorite things about you is how humble you are?
Is my humility.
You're channeling Bob right about.
I think it's the last time I did one of these was probably with Bob in this room, and and he was He made the comments about how the office and I was very sheepish about it because this used to be a lawyer's office. We bought the house from a lawyer, and I.
All write a very lawyer, and you bought all the books with you.
So in your spare time, you've become an expert in what real estate law constitutions.
Yeah.
Yeah, if you guys needed any advice.
By charge, we'll put you on retainer.
That's perfect. How are you guys? We haven't done this in a long time, just like hung out.
No, no, we had well, the last time we saw you was in Tampa right at nineties con.
Oh yeah, John's birthday party. It was that or was it it.
Was it was in September? Was before that?
Yeah, yeah, that was fun. Those things are those the super fun. They're exhausted, like I'm I'm sick.
It's a great week for sure.
Well it's I mean it's fun like going and meeting all the fans.
I mean they get so we've been talking about on the show, and.
You know, with all of our interviews and John and Dave and stuff, talking about like just how our fans are so dedicated to the show and know everything about the show, Like they things that that Andrey and I have like I have no clue about, especially now that we're rewatching the show. I'm like, wow, they correct things all the time.
I feel very sheepish because sometimes they'll know so much more than I ever knew about the show, you know, and they remember every episode and then every once in a while, someone will say something that I'm like.
I'm quite sure you're right about that, but let's just go with it.
I don't like to sure, right, but.
But yeah, people, it's really cool. I always appreciate it. I'm never like annoyed. I'm never like when people are like, oh my god, Steve, I never like, I'm always very i always get a kick out of it, and I'm grateful for it and it's cool.
But that's just your wife saying that, right, like, so it makes it like it's yeah, okay.
I mean, in fact, that's how I married her. She won me in a contest.
Wow, it was a celebrity bachelor.
Yeah. Yeah, it was a fantastic.
How does nineties con compare to all the Disney conventions that you do as the voice of Aladdin.
I don't go to any like Disney specific like conventions. Nineties con is a very specific thing. But the funny thing is, okay, Aladdin came out in the nineties, and so there's usually like it all comes to.
Get so it kind of counts for both.
Yeah, and so, like I've been to I guess two of those nineties cons now, and.
Well sometimes they have like the voices from some of the like the movies around Jody Benson and things like that.
Right just went to It was like that. It was like, it was really funny because I was wondering. I got like anxious before it. I was like, are they gonna sit me with the full House people or with the Disney people?
And I didn't know.
And then they were so clever because I was the bridge, like they had like all oh and then like the whole full House group, and then just to my left was I think Linda Lark who's the voice of Princess Jasmine and the Disney people on. So I was like right in the middle of it all of the action.
That was nice.
That was planning.
It was better. It was yeah, it was good. It was yeah. It was good planning on their part.
Because the only other nineties con I went to was in right as the pandemic was starting to calm down, and we all went to Hartford, Connecticut.
I didn't make it, that's right.
We did Hartford too, and that was the first.
One, which was like crazy. There were so many people. I think there was a lot of yeah stuff like excitement because of the pandemic. Everybody just sitting.
At home and right, it was just good to be like out in the world again.
Yeah, but none of my Aladdin people were at that one. That was just us us full house guys.
Just us is so speaking of I mean, we're going back and rewatching the show from the beginning, so we haven't we haven't gotten to Steve's arrival yet.
Oh interesting season five. You started in season five if I record, you know.
Yeah, there was one. I did one episode as Steve Peters.
And I really I don't remember this.
Well you got you were so little, But do you remember the episode where DJ's going out on a date with Steve Peters from school, and but she's supposed to babysit for Michelle and Stephanie. So she Michelle and Stephanie to the movie theater on the date, right right, and Kimmy works at the movie theater right right.
And which sneaks us in or something because it's like an rated movie or something.
Right, it's a movie, right right right, and.
Peters just as doing the whole yawning arms around, you know, like trying, yeah, J. And but the weird thing is I never Then the next year they said, would you mind coming back? Would you be interested in coming back and being like a regular on the show and being DJ's boyfriend Steve, and I was like, of course, And it never even occurred to me that then I came back and I was Steve Hale.
It was a whole different Steve.
But I think in the writer's minds, I was a totally different guy. Like the guy that she went on a date with, Steve Peters is just another Steve.
I don't know. We do it.
We changed names on this show, like the mannequin's change outfits.
You know it'sis name.
Cochrane went to Calis. Yeah, common changed, We changed.
Names, switch out actors that play characters and grandparents. It's I think you're probably the same Steve. And they were like, just make it Hale a.
Writer on the show, Boyd Hale. And so that's why. Yes, I think they were like.
You're named after Boyd. I think, oh little baby Boyd.
So BOYD say, hey, I've been here five seasons. I deserve to get my name one of.
The character named after me. Yeah exactly.
So yeah, so I did one of Steve Peters and then another fifty or whatever is Steve Pale.
What was it like auditioning for the show. Do you remember actually auditioning or like.
It was one of those it's funny like to say it, but I didn't really.
I didn't audition for it. I was working.
I was already part of like the Miller Boyett sort of universe at that point, okay, And so the year before I came on, I did that one episode of Steve Peters. I was on this series for them called The Family Man that was like supposed to be like a TGIF kind of show, right, but it was on CBS, which was weird. It wasn't part of the ABC TGIF. And we did twenty two episodes of it, and it got canceled or it got picked up and then canceled again.
It was like a very weird story.
And then they asked me to come on and do that one episode as Steve Peters, and then the following year they asked me to come on and be Steve Hale, like I never auditioned for it, which is always wow, that's the story of my life. I mean, not just like incredibly weird lucky things happening to me with no effort, but also but when I when there's a the stakes are high, like I suck at auditions.
I'm really same same, you really hate them.
I can't picture you. I just imagine you being graded auditions both.
No, you're both CROs Jody's like.
I actually I miss auditions though, like going into a room because I do miss.
Really to like talk. Yeah, yeah, that was the.
Most fun part of the interview, was like going in and actually talking to people and meeting people because yeah, and then you then it just makes it that much more comfortable.
Self tapes are awful.
Oh well, yeah, well that you know. It's funny.
I haven't been like a professional, I mean, except for coming back to do Fuller House, I haven't been an actor for a long time, so I haven't gone on any auditions, right, And it's true, like the last time I went for an audition.
You would get a call from your agent.
They'd say, oh, you're going in for a thing, and then get have to drive to the agency and pick up the pick.
The pages sides and then right, and then.
Drive to across town to whatever Paramount or Fox or wherever, right for five minutes in the room and then leave feeling like they hate you. And I hate the audition.
I hate it.
I mean I really it's hard psychologically, it's had auditioning.
I hate auditioning. I was like, if you just give me the part, I promise you all do a really good job.
But I always which is how you got, Which is how you got Steve. I did not realize that, yeah, that.
I never auditioned for the you know what I think When I first met Tom Miller and Bob Boyette, who of course you guys know, but just for your audience, they were like the kings of the television in the eighties and nineties and.
The seventies even yeah, literally.
I mean starting with even before like l Vernon Shirley and and Happy Days and stuff and more committment and a million more. But they I remember I met with them and they they really liked me. I was probably fourteen. I'd just come to LA and they wanted to put me on a like a holding deal where you and I did have to read for them. I had to show them that I knew how to, like say, dialogue, and I was I'm sure I was like shaking like a leaf or whatever.
But I passed.
And so then they put me on like a holding deal and just that and my mom was like, what we just got here, get you know, and I remember my agent or manager or whoever at the time said, trust me, these are.
The you know, these are the people.
This is what you want.
It's like they're the kings of television. And if they want you, if they want to put you in there, basically they would just pay you to just be available to them to do it.
Right, holding, yeah, holding fees, which I don't they don't do as much anymore now, stringing you along and yeah.
Yeah, I think now, yeah, it's true.
I don't know if they do that, but like, uh, and then they put me on that show, The Family Man, and then then they put me on and then I did another pilot for them that didn't end up going or they recast all the kids with younger kids because it was And then I was I didn't know what I was going to do next, and then full House came along, and it was a really lucky, lucky break. It was really I mean, I couldn't have known how lucky, you know. I mean, it was just I didn't know I'd be sitting here thirty something years later.
Talking exactly forever a part of the full and Fuller House universe.
I mean, you are you're Steve, you are part of stee J.
Like that's it's funny because some people lose their minds, you know, Like I mean, you know, like I remember I was walking my dog on the beach and this lady walked by, and she did the double take and then the like the number of expletives that came out of her mouth when she realized that she just walked by Steve on the beach, you know, I mean, it happens every day, but that one was really funny because the sun was setting, it was so beautiful.
She's like, she's like.
Oh my god, yeah, a moment with Steve Hale.
Right. But it's nice though. It's like people grew up with us. It's really cool. I get people all the time. People say they learn English watching Full House. Yeah, a full House got them through a tough time in their life, you know, Like my parents were splitting up and it was a really tough time at home, and watching Full House made me feel better, you know what I mean. It's really I'm sure you guys hear that ten times.
More than I. Oh.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like it's comfort food for people, familiar faces and relatable storylines.
Yeah, it's so weird how it's still so relevant today, you know. Yeah, so I don't know if this is true, but like because I I remember when I was a kid in like an old like a Brady Bunch rerun would be on the out right looked very weird to me, Like it was very seventies, Like you could tell that it was from a different era, and we right, And you don't know that could be one hundred years ago or ten years ago, but you right.
True, I watched Bullhouse.
Today and a lot of the clothes and the fashion I think I think it might have gone away and came back because I feel like nineties stuff is very.
In right now. Nineties stuff is very in right now.
It's things going like thirty year trends, right So like when we were in the nineties, Like remember that big resurgence of like bell bottoms and like sort of late sixties seventies clothes and my mom going, why is this popular again?
Like this stuff looked ridiculous when I.
Was, you know, And now I say the same thing because my kids are wearing like they literally have they have genes called nineties cut jeans really wow, the same little baby dolls shirts and this whole Doc Doc Martin's and the and I'm like, yeah, oh my god, I'm finally old enough to see it become a trend again. And yeah it is. It's definitely, it's definitely out there. But there I would I would beg to differ and say that there are some pretty oh yeah, pretty terrible if you go back to the.
Eighties, the eighties episode, you know, they're.
Like, yeah, the early episodes are wow.
Did I see kids now? Like you said? And Doc Martin's and like flannel shirts.
And ripped jeans and yeah, the ninety Yeah, it's all back.
That's funny.
And you know, we've talked a lot about it too, about how not just the cast, but like our families also were such a big part of the show. And your mom, the infamous babswinger, Yeah, uh, the infamous.
It was such.
It's just such a lovely human and fit right in with our moms. Your mom and my mom used to go to dinner because your younger brother, Todd, and I were in acting class together at the Young End and they at the Young Actors Space and they would drop us off like during the week. It would be oftentimes on like a Wednesday or Tuesday or Wednesday.
So we were up there for rehearsal, and.
Our moms would go to dinner and then come and pick us up after after acting class.
Well, you know my mom, I remember your I remember your mom.
I think catching Todd and us all smoking in the back or something, and our moms were sitting in the car. I believe that she was like, he better not, he better not, and he did. She's like, god, damn it.
Yeah yeah, oh yeah, Well, you know.
It's funny.
It was very cool of you guys, you and your parents to sort of accept us, because when I came onto Full House as a series regular, and I think it was like season six, you guys were already very much a family, and I felt like I was the new guy, and then like immediately I felt like part of the family. And I know my mom, my whole family felt that way too, and she loved hanging.
Out with your Lauren, your sister got there.
I mean, yeah, they're all by the way, they all say hi, they're all they're all.
Doing great everywhere.
Yeah, it's really nice.
So wild.
Yeah, I forget that you weren't in the early seasons because it feels like you were a part of the entire run of the show.
You and Laurie just both feel like it's been there since the beginning.
Lauri did come me, lur came on pretty early.
We just we just watched her first episode season two, episode two.
Oh really she can't.
Yeah, so she actually has been here since like almost the beginning.
But you have always also.
Felt like someone you like, You're just thanks. You just always been with us.
Yeah, well, you know, we did. We were a very close knit bunch.
I've worked on a lot of shows, like as an actor and as a writer and stuff, and like there there are not many casts that sort of gel and sort of like on screen but also behind the camera, like just as Friends became so close, you know what, and like I mean, I have to give Bob a lot of credit for that because he was always organizing hangouts for us.
And Rob was the glue.
He was the glue. Yeah, for sure, for sure.
But I remember I remember when you this was probably eighth season.
This was around the end because I my mom was finally letting me go to dinner with everybody before tape night, and I was like the youngest one that you know, I finally got included in the in the with the exactly with like you and Candace and Andrea and then the adults, and we would go to dinner beforehand, and it was usually like right over the hill from Warner Brothers.
We'd go to Jerry's or we'd go so.
And can you, by the way, can you imagine stage managers letting us do that?
Now? Could you imagine?
I know that's great.
Would never get us questions they would have They wouldn't Yeah, they wouldn't have gotten us back. Their heads would have exploded, like I can't imagine. And you know that we were probably never on time. We were probably always late.
Oh god, back by the stage manager standing outside like looking at this.
I do remember you guys, let's go right, and we're like he but I remember you had I think maybe just gotten your car or something, and you were driving and Bob was driving, or maybe it was Bob that had just gotten his car.
He was he got a new car. He was very excited about it.
Oh yeah, And all I remember is us like and this terrible but you and Bob racing over the hill.
Oh my god, she's up terrible hill. I just remember, yeah, and Bob listening to whatever. It was probably.
Beck, Yeah I was. I was sixteen years old. I don't know what his excuse. We was.
Well, that's the thing, is like saying it now, you're like, yeah, you were.
You were a kid. Bob was an idiot, but he was.
He was like a big kid.
He always like related very much to like the young people on the show. And he'd be like, you have to come in my car and listen to this, you know, which is funny.
It's like going, I.
Always say yeah, Bob to this day, Bob had.
One of the biggest influences on my music growing up, and to this day I can hear certain songs and it reminds me of him.
One hundred percent. He was definitely a big musical influence for sure.
So but what I hear you saying is that we're your favorite cast, that you've worked on a lot of other shows, that you've done other things, but nothing.
Nothing compares nothing.
I don't even like it, nothing compares to you us.
Now It's well, I mean, you guys are more than a cast. I mean, like we were a family for real, you know, I mean, I know it sounds like, I mean, the show's been off the year long enough that like, we don't have any incentive to not tell the truth about.
This, right, Yeah, exactly. If we really hated each other, we would have done it by now.
Yeah.
And when we do, when we hang out together and public, people can see right away that it's a very close knit bunch, you know that, like we're you know, and then and then even when we go a long time without seeing each other, it's immediately we fall.
Back into that.
Yeah.
Although I feel like you guys see each.
Other all that you're doing this podcast and you're together all the time. Everybody is everybody hanging out without me? Is that what's going on?
That's what's happening, Scott.
And I'm so glad we brought you on this public forum to let you know that we've all been hanging out without you because we just want.
To make you feel bad because you feel bad.
I feel bad.
I feel bad.
Wait where did that come from?
Where did I feel bad come from? It was you?
And well you know why, because I always felt bad, Like I thought, like.
Is it does?
It?
Is your thing?
I was like obsessed with not wanting to hurt anybody's feelings ever or saying anything that might offend anything.
That's why you and Bob would all write. You and Bob got along really well because he also was like that. And then he would eventually take something too far and then wind up texting you about it later.
It's true. Yeah, that's true.
And and Bob you'd be like, I'm sorry, I feel bad. I feel bad, and.
He would give me a hard time over qualities that he himself that he was afraid he had, you know, like, so he would always say.
Stop feeling bad all the time. You're always feeling bad. Just live your life. Stop feeling I'm like a kettle.
You know, right exactly.
But yeah, it's true.
Yeah, Bob would, Yeah, one of us would always like we'd hang out and then I'd be like, at three in the morning, I'm really sorry about that thing.
I said. I hope he's like, you're an idiot, and then he would do it.
Yeah.
But yeah, we had a very funny relationship because he was twenty years older than me, but we were like, I guess, like brothers, you know, like.
He was Yeah, So do you feel bad about leaving full House in season eight to go.
To Harvard, Which I don't know why I feel so bad about it?
What was I thinking, he feels so bad, Yeah, getting an education.
It was.
It was funny because I remember, you know, when I came on to the show for that first season as a series regular, I was still in high school.
I was a senior in high school, and.
Then I got into college and then you know, in those days, you would just mail them back a postcards saying yes, I'm coming, but next year. And so I sent them on the postcards. So I deferred a year. If you skip it, if I think, then you would have to reapply, which I was.
Yeah, you can differ a year on an exception or on being accepted. You can then say I'll come next year. But more than that, then you have to go through the.
Yeah, and I wasn't prepared to do that. I was stressful enough, and I felt like I won the lottery and got into the school. I'm not going to try it, you know, take a chance, right and so, and you know, and also I didn't want to be like, way older than my classmates and stuff, you know, young. You know, when I got there a year late, I was like one of the I was. I was one of the youngest kids in my class anyway, So it felt like I was totally but you know, and but I remember having to take a meeting with everybody and explain that, you know, as much as I loved the show and was so happy I wanted to leave for college, and.
They were cool, you know.
I mean, I feel like they were not like great, get out of here, you know, but I feel like it was a good opportunity for them to have DJ date other people and stories.
And stuff, right, And they were also like our producers were also always so supportive of education, of making sure that like our school life really was a priority and came first. So like, I'm sure that that was also part of it too, And yeah, did you were going to Harvard? Like it's not like you were like, hey, I'm gonna go to you know, yeah, exactly.
Well, you know, they were so gracious about that big you know. The funny thing is some people were like.
What are you thinking?
Like you have this, like you won the lottery, You're like an actor on a hit show. Why on God's Earth would you walk away from that?
You know what I mean?
And then other people said the exact opposite, like you're doing the right thing.
You know.
You don't want to be one of those Hollywood kids or whatever, And there were.
Times and I don't regret it at all.
I mean, it was an amazing experience and I would do it again a hundred times, you know, like exactly the way I did it. But like, there were definitely times where when I was in college and I felt like the show was still going on and I missed you guys, and I missed my liked about in la. You know, there were definitely times where I was like, what was I thinking? But in the aggregate, I was glad I made the decision.
Did you feel like a normal college student or did you feel like a famous person at Harvard? Like how did the other students respond to you when you little bit of boat?
You know, like I tried to just sort of you know, it was pre social media and pre you know, not pre true that.
Old, but it was like but it was definitely pre all close.
But I don't know, Internet made a weird noise when you started it and you had to make sure nobody else was on the phone in your house when it was not like it is today.
Yeah, you didn't have to dial in.
But like when I was a freshman in college, they had wired all the buildings for ethernet, like for.
Right right you could plug it in, but it.
Wasn't in the walls like they had all these It looked like when you look at like pictures of like the nineteenth century, like telegraph wires and stuff, there were just.
Right, right right everywhere.
Yeah, it was the.
Beginning, but I definitely felt like I don't know, like I tried really hard to be I remember they wanted entertainment tonight. I think wanted me to carry my agent or somebody called it, and said they want to know if you would take a video camera just sort of videotape your life. They could do segments on what's it like to be a kid actor going off to college? And I was like, that's literally the opposite of what I you know what I mean that right, nothing could draw more attention and.
Intros.
I mean, now it would be it would be like totally be fine because everyone walks around with a video camera filming themselves and talking about what they're doing. Yeah, but yeah, I shouldn't have been or you could have been the original influencer, Scott.
You could have could have been, you know, I was still part of like I still had like hollywoodish kind of jobs, like, but I was doing that. I was like a correspondent for Good Morning America at the time, Like I was their youth correspondent, so like cool, I would go.
Off and do stories.
I would like leave for a couple of days and go do a story and then go to New York.
And like present, that's cool. That was very cool.
So that I mean, I definitely was still had a foot in like show business a little bit, but I was very conscious about I don't know, it's sort of backfired anyway, Like I don't know why I tried so hard to be like normal. I was very like obsessed with my privacy, you know what I mean.
And I think that kind of comes at that age though. It's like because I think we all kind of went through that. We were like, oh my god, and it's you know, it's the teenager like you just I just want to be like everybody else. I just don't want to stand out and just want to be like normal until everyone realizes that none of us are, and you know, that doesn't happen.
I think I would with being normal and private that I was like normal and too private, and I sort of like screwed myself out of a little bit of the experience of like college a little bit, you know what I mean.
But it was great.
It was I mean, you know, I definitely there's certain things I would do differently, but for the most part, it nailed it.
For the most part. Awesome.
Were you still doing Aladdin? Were you recording a Laddin voices?
It was so funny because it was like a process because you know, like you know what we're talking about. It's like pre nowadays you could record it from your you know, you could go in the bathroom and put up something, right. But uh, at first they would fly me to La sometimes to do recording sessions, and then they would fly me to They were like, this is too much traveling for you. And then we found a studio in New York where I would just go to where the New York actors would go, which was fun. I would like take the Delta shuttle. That was such an easy flight and in those days, the security so like I could get.
In a cab right, you just pop on.
It was literally like if it was the Delta shuttle was like every hour or every half hour whatever. I could get there at like seven fifteen to catch a seven thirty shuttle to New York and it was crazy. But then eventually they found a studio in New York in Boston and I would just go, you know, take the subway into Copley Square and just do you know, do it there. So they were very cool about trying to make But wherever I go in the world, they would find me to do a session. You know, like even when I did a semester abroad in Paris, they found me. My agent left me a message at home.
They found you.
They found me, and then a.
Car came and picked me up and took me to a recording studio like somewhere in on the outside of Paris, and I recorded there.
You know, it was very cool.
Wow.
Yeah, you can't get away from them, Yeah.
Right, I mean they had your permission before the car pulled up, and it was to a studio to record a lad under duress and.
Then come back.
Okay, got yeah, making it clear. I was just walking down the street in pars and this car pulled up. We'll be inside, told me to be Aladdin.
What was your audition like for Aladdin? Like was it cutthroat? Were you up against a lot of others?
Well, you know, I was very lucky.
Like I said, I suck at auditions because I get so nervous, you know, I get so in my own head. And I was I started auditioning for Aladdin when I was doing that show before Full House, the Family Man, and my mom because I was still a kid when I was fifteen or fourteen, my mom said, you have an audition after work today, and I was like, what's the force.
She said, it's like some cartoon. It's like a cartoon.
Audition, which I had never gone in an audition for a cartoon, and so I remember we went and there was like a music stand with the dial, you know, and they showed me pictures. They were like, he looks like this, and he basically just looked like a kid my age. Basically I was like, okay, I think I could do that.
And that was it. I mean, I just you know, the only interesting thing.
About that about that audition process was the singing part, you know, because people, well some people know, some people don't know, and I don't bother. I don't know why I'm bringing it up, but I'm not the singing voice.
Of a Laddin.
I didn't know that I had learned.
I was smart enough to know because I started auditioning for things when I was like eights or whatever, and I knew if you if they ask you if you can do a thing, if you have a certain skill, then yeah, yeah, I could totally juggle totally.
Yeah.
I've been doing it since I was a child.
Really, if they like you enough, they'll they'll get you a fire.
Juggling, right, but they'll figure it out.
Right.
So they were like, that was a great audition. Can you sing?
And I was like, oh my god, of course I could sing, and they were and they gave me cheap music and a tape and everything, and I tried.
I you know, I thought, I thought they gave you sheet music and like an accompanist, and we're like, okay, you ready.
They gave me time.
I had time to prepare, like I worked with a coach and like crack, I tried so hard but I had no training. But you know, I just I tanked it really badly. And but it was one of those things where I felt like it was a triumph in the sense that I like put my like I just sucked it up and I did a thing that I knew I couldn't do, and I just went for it yea, and I just assumed it was over. But then a few months later they called me again and they wanted you know, I think they at that point they were like, this is our guy, so we have to figure this out, like we have to end. And they found a guy named Brad Kine who was also a kid actor, who was had a stunning voice and sort of say it made it sound like mine, you know, in terms of like, you know, like I could go from speaking to him singing and people couldn't really tell.
That, right right, You guys have the same sort of tonal quality.
Yeah, And so to this day when people say, oh my god, you have such a beautiful voice, and I just say, oh.
I don't know. It takes too much energy to be like well.
Actually well actually yeah, right right right, You're like just take the compliment, take the wind, take it, write it down, email it to Brad.
Let him know, you know, like, hey, somebody said thank you today.
Are very talented guy, and he's this very successful television writer and producer. Like we did the same profession as adults too.
I was gonna see. Yeah, you guys both wound up being writers.
Our paths crossed from time to time, you know, and professionally and stuff. But and then I see him at all this Aladdin stuff, you know, D twenty three kind of thing.
Right, Yeah, he's a great guy.
I have yet to go to a D twenty three, and I really want to go because I grew up at Disneyland. I love Disneyland. I love I mean, I'm not you know, John level, but I'm a big I'm a big.
Yeah that's true.
I mean he, I mean he and his wife they let go and put on costume, but they're crazy.
Yeah, yeah, they go cosplay.
It's the whole, the whole thing. What a Disney bounding, That's what it is, where you put up that's so Yeah, there's a whole where you you dress inspired by but not in costume as so like if you it's like inspired by Bell and maybe it's like a little like similar colors and style something like that.
But anyway, I think Disney is a really good and healthy thing to be obsessed with. Like I think, you know, like people come up to me all the time and they'll be like covered in Disney tattoos and things like that. You know, they'll have an Aladdin or a Princess Jasmine on their arm or like a bunch of characters. And I think it's in terms of like obsessions, it seemed it's healthy. I mean, I'm sure, like anything else, you can cross the line with it.
But yeah, I mean, you know, to each their own.
Yeah, I mean there's people out there that have our signature's tattooed on them, which is actually kind.
Of that's true.
Yeah.
I remembering at nineties Con I signed that I signed how Rude, and someone got it.
I remember a girl came to our taping and I signed her leg and then she came back and it was there.
Yeah, it was permanent.
Yeah, but you.
Know, I appreciate it.
I think that people, you know, with full House and Disney, it's kind of the same thing, and that people grew up with it and people feel like it's a.
Closes tap into that nostalgia.
Yeah, and it brings them back to their childhood and everything. It's really sweet.
No, you did bring up that you went into writing as an adult. What how how did that transition happen for you? Was that something that happened while you were at Harvard? Was it something that.
Happened like late after that or what? Like what made you decide to go.
No, I mean, other than the fact that you hate auditioning, what made you decide to go?
Well, you know, it is funny, Like it's such because being a TV writer such like a precarious like it's like it's pretty much up there with trying to be an actor in.
Terms of like jobs, right, right, it's right, do you have a job, You don't have a job.
You have a great job.
Yeah, yeah, but it is an amazing job.
Like it's sort of like acting where the heart of the sucky part of it is trying to get the job, and then when you have it, it's pretty much always great, you know, even even if they're you know, like there's you know sometimes like there's like not perfect scenarios where maybe the hours are really bad, or there's somebody in the room is really mean or whatever, or you're constantly getting terrible notes and having to rewrite the thing a million times, and but generally speaking, it's a really fun job. It's a great job. And I didn't appreciate it. Like when we were kids and the writers would show up for run throughs and table reads and they're like they looked like such schlubs, and they would laugh way too hard at all jokes.
And I could because they're delirious for eighteen hours.
I'm part of their their you know group. Now. Yeah, like they just looked really tired.
And exhausted and over it and yeah, they were laughing because they were just punchy and yeah.
And they were cool. I liked talking to them like they I liked their vibe, like I liked hanging Yeah. But I was never like so what. I never was like curious about the profession, really like about it. Didn't occur to me that I would ever try to pursue that. And by the way, it's a big bummer because Harvard is like a feeder for TV writers, you know, for you know, if you want to be a comedy writer, the smartest thing you can do is go to Harvard and join the Harvard Lampoon, which.
Sort of right, I was gonna say.
Yeah, yeah, And I had never even occurred to me to try, Like I just was not you know, I don't know what I thought, but I just.
Didn't just wasn't in your It wasn't in your It.
Wasn't until the thing.
You know, The funny thing is it was really like I had been out of college, maybe for a couple full of years already before I decided like, maybe that would be a fun thing. Like I think I had become friendly with some TV writers and I'd heard more about the job and the sort of lifestyle of it, and so I started writing specs, which is what in those days, what you would have to do. So like I wrote an episode of Scrubs, I wrote an episode of the King of Queens, you know, like I went. In those days, what you had to do is I would go to the library at the Museum of Television and Radio, which I don't think it's there anymore. But and also the writers, I.
Think, I think there it's not at that location anymore.
Maybe yeah, maybe it's somewhere else.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, And you could go and you could check out scripts and you can watch all the episode.
You know, it was pre Netflix or whatever.
You well, now it's all online.
Yeah, act Now you could just sit there in your pajamas and do it. You know, life is so much easier. People don't know how I mean. But there was something nice about it too, having a like put on book and go somewhere. But so I would watch all the King of Queen's episodes and try to like learn the show and learn you know, it was really about match yeah voices. You know, they wanted to see even if you weren't up for a job on that show, they just wanted to see that you can write somebody else's voice, you know, somebody else's show. And nowadays it's not really done like that. I don't think aspiring television writers write specs of existing shows. Now. You want to like write an original pilot that makes a splash and gets a lot of attention and all that, right, which probably isn't as.
Good, which is impossible to sell because you've never done anything, so nobody pays.
Well, no, there is.
You know a lot of times, you know, something will break through and then they'll hire somebody. You know, they'll they'll pick up a somebody's never worked in television before, and then that's its own kind of disaster.
But you know, but then they'll usually hire.
Like an experienced showrunner to help SUPERVI co run it with them or whatever.
But you worked on the Muppets, though, and I need to know everything about it. I am probably as big of a Muppet fan as I am of a Disney fan.
Oh, Wow, I didn't know that.
Oh yeah, I love them up.
That was amazing.
That was like, that was such a fun job, you know. I did that around the time we were starting on Fuller House.
When Fuller House, I remember that, like, how did you? I mean, did you write a a what did you?
You know? They had hired a woman named Kristin Newman to come on and run that show, and I with her on a couple of shows already. We had worked together on the show The Neighbors for ABC, and we had worked on this show Gallivant, which was a really wonderful it was a musical for ABC, and and she reached out and asked if I would be interested in coming on and working with her on that and and so, and it was amazing. It was one of those lucky gigs that just sort of fell out of the sky. And it was amazing because the writing process was very much just like writing a regular show, you know it was it was sort of like that show. It was like a workplace comedy about muppet right right. You didn't really appreciate how crazy it was until you went to the set and the whole set is six feet off.
The ground's right.
I've watched all the like documentaries about the Muppet It's in Sesame Street and Jim Henson and stuff.
You know, like I had known that you had this obsession, I would have invited you to come down and visit the set and everything.
It was.
Really I would have died.
Yeah, I Like I remember being a kid and like watching Jim Henson's funeral and Big Bird Woman sobbing, Like I love Dark Crystal Labyrinth all like I'm a big Henson Muppets fan and the Muppet Christmas Carol is the best Christmas Carol of all time. I will fight someone about I love.
You know, I was always a huge fan of the Muppets and like that was it was a really that was an amazing job that you know, just like being on the set with those and those the pup there, you know the voice actors and they're you know, they're.
Not just so talented their puppeteers.
They like it's a skill set that I don't know where they got it. I guess they learned it from doing it or something, but it's amazing. Yeah, and everybody loves the Muppets. So like if we ever wanted a big guest star, like we did an episode with them.
Jack White came out like we always.
Just like never, I know, because the muppets are there, you can't get anybody.
You can get any anybody.
Will be like yes for Kermit, I do anything.
Yeah, exactly know, exactly right, you know.
And I remember Jack White from you know, from the White Stripes, you know, this episode and then at the end he sort of gave the speech like to the crew of the you know, and meant to him to do this episode, you know, like and like how he respected everybody so much as artists and it was really cool.
Yeah, but they're amazing.
I mean, what they can do is really that was so fun. I wish, you know, I ended up writing the season finale co writing the season finale of that show was but unfortunately it turned out to be the series finale.
I was going to say it was yeah, and I was like, there wasn't I killed.
The show basically, no, But I don't know, you know, it was real. It was a very like tough needle to thread that show because they wanted it to be kind of a dry work, like like the Office kind of Rumpets, and I just I just think that like maybe with a little more time. I mean I thought that it really found its groove by the end. It was really christ an amazing job running that show, and she really like figured out.
I mean, it was just wonderful. But you know, it just wasn't meant to be.
Yeah, yeah, I remember the watching the Muppets as a kid, and the Muppet even the original Muppet Show was sort of dry humored and kind, you know, if you watch it like it was definitely not kids entertainment necessarily.
It's true.
Well, fan of Rito's, we had so much fun speaking with Scott, so we're going to finish up with him in part two of his interviews, So make sure and check that out. And if you want to follow us on Instagram, make sure and follow at how Rude Podcast. You can also email us your questions, your comments, anything you want to hear about what you're loving about the show. You can email us at Howarudepodcast at gmail dot com and make sure you're liking and subscribing to the podcast wherever you're listening so that you can keep getting those new episodes right when they drop.
And in the meantime, thank you so much.
For joining us on another fabulous episode of How can I say, I can say that we did a fabulous episode.
That's of course, okay, we did. We did do a fabulous.
Episode, and we will see you next week. And remember the world is small, but the house is full.
It only took you a season and a few episodes to get that right.
Don't worry, there's still a couple more to do today. There's the chances are I'll screw it up something
