Pod Meets WorldThe TGIF Multiverse expands when Candace Cameron Bure makes the leap from Full House to Boy Meets World! Candace is joining the gang and ready to talk about the most surprising role of her career: Ushkar, the Queen of Malevolence and daughter of Evil!
We hear the true story of the “rivalry” between TGIF shows and find out if Candace would still audition for a role that has her answering to Satan.
Plus, they compare experiences on “very special episodes,” handle weight issues as famous teens and dissect the deep voice of possession - on a major crossover event for Pod Meets World!
Do you remember getting into a car accident with me?
No, no yet, I was so I must have just been sixteen and you couldn't drive yet. And we went to the one on one coffee shop. Yes, a coffee right, I love that place. And we were pulling out and I stopped at a stop sign and for some reason backed up and backed into a woman in her car.
Do you remember this.
Now that you're saying it. I vaguely remember the backing up crunch.
Oh my god. It was the first time I'd ever been in an accident. I was sixteen.
I was terrified.
But what was so funny about is then you and I get out and this woman could not have been meaner.
She was so upset. She's like, are you even can you even drive? Because we were kids, we.
Were so young, exactly is this your parents car?
And I remember you? And I got so like whoa lady? And she was like she was convinced that, you know, because I just heard her car, and that I was never going to pay it, that I didn't have insurance, and I was sneaking off and I was like in the middle of the day, and I just remember her being this like crazy, frantic upset lady, which in retrospect kind.
Of makes sense.
You see two like babies get out of the car that just backed into you, and it's like it was an expensive car, it was an suv, it was my Pathfinder brand new. Oh yeah, but I just remember you and I being so self righteous, you know, because I gave her the insurance information.
But I remember assuring her.
I was like, it's my car, I have my own money, I do this, and she was so uninged, and I just remember you and I being like.
I wonder why you backed up at the stop sign.
No, I don't know.
We maybe maybe yeah, or maybe you were too far too far out, I know what I mean, Like maybe you felt like you were too far out.
So oh but I just yeah, I get you know, And like this has happened to me a couple of times, Like now we have backup cameras, but like it happened to be a couple of times where I would back into something because I just wouldn't look.
I mean, what an idiot.
Oh yeah, that wasn't sure if you remembered that. I had that like memory come back to me and I was like, yeah, Danielle was in the front seat, and like we were both.
Just so like couldn't believe this woman. I can look back and like, how dare she not respect me?
Dare she assume we're in our parents' car. We are clearly in our mid teens. We are clear in the middle of a dish.
We should have been in high school.
Exactly what she was probably like, these kids are ditching school, which absolutely the right thing to She's like, do I have to call the cops on you?
Where's a truancy officers? Officer?
This is ridiculous. You just backed into me, and I'm like it'll probably just like calmed down.
Lady, lady, guys, just a material object.
Don't stress. I used to call everybody's stress puppies.
That's why, remember such a your mom's such a stress.
Puppy, just being like she's a total chiz rat right now, she's all chizen out.
This has nothing to do with the accident, but I wanted to know if you recognize the shirt I'm wearing, it's the north Western San Diego shirt. Yeah, so anyway, this was made that for us, right, Yes, it was given to us at a at a meet and greet after one of our Podmets World live shows based on the school that Eric Matthews wants to go to the north Southwestern state. And they made the shirts and they're so cute they look like they could actually be our merch. So you know, our our fans are not chiz rats. No, not or stress puppies or stress puppies. Where'd you get chiz rat?
What is that?
I don't know.
You know, when you're crusting, crusting with some cluckers coffee cats and sebastopol on coffee all, you know, you become like a total cheers rat, like these words coming.
Down of you know this, I want more of this.
This is Sebhole speak from nineteen ninety five.
This is the most teen writer.
I feel like I've just been transported into and I'm like, oh man, that's pretty great, Sebhole. Wow, thank you for thank you for taking me back.
Writer.
We had so many good times, a lot of rain. I remember being with you in the rain a lot. We liked the rain, I know, we love the rain. We loved County Crows and so we used to sit and remember there was you had like a big rock, like a landscaping rock in your yard and Encino and we would like hang out on the rock, a little bit of nature.
Hey man, you know, get away from the city, rain my rock.
This big landscaping rock.
Oh my god, get away from the stress, puppies.
Let's just crust on this rock and think. Oh my god.
Welcome to Pond meets World.
I'm Danielle Fischel, I'm right or Strong, and we are missing our dear wil Fredell today. As you could imagine, every now and then, things come up for us in our personal lives that have to take priority over doing the podcast, and when we've already got things scheduled, it's too hard to necessarily cancel them and pick a different date. So we have chosen to do the show without Will today. He is going to be sorely missed, but he will be back. Everything's cool and good, but there was just something he needed to take care of. So we will welcome him back with wide open arms for our next episode. And today we are very excited to interview someone.
DJ Tanner is a.
Character name that sits among the most elite sitcom roles of the nineties. Thanks to our guest this week, an actor who we can only imagine was compelled by a to appear with us in a nineteen ninety seven Halloween Bottle episode that ended with Ben and I most likely dying in an airplane crash. She played Millie slash Ushkar, Queen of Malevolence, daughter of Evil, the love interest of the newly cast Jack for season five, causing a serious rift with his roommate Eric because she might just be a witch. It became one of the most memorable cameos Boy Meets World ever had, and around the same time as the Craft was released in theaters, we had our own version time exactly, we got our own version of a cute witch chic. But more importantly, she spent eight seasons on Full House one hundred and ninety two episodes, a show that cracked the top ten twice and was only out of the top thirty shows on TV in its first season. Twenty four point three million viewers tuned into its hour long series finale, and it was a show that was still in the top twenty five when it was taken off the air, which means it shouldn't have been a surprise when they all returned for a sequel Netflix show that ran for five more seasons. She has since built an empire working with Hallmark and now Great American Media. Her Christmas movies have become as much of a tradition for the holiday as candy canes, and now as former criminologist turns Craft's artisan Ainsley McGregor, she continues her journey of grabbing the torch from Angela Lansbury and then solving a mystery with it. She's taken on a power position in Hollywood, producing everything she now stars in and a ton of other projects, like the recent movie Unsung Hero. This week on Pod Meets World, we are talking to someone I am regularly mistaken for. It's nineties Royalty, Candice Cameron Beret.
That's fun.
I never knew that you guys got confused in pupil's minds.
It happened a lot when I was a teenager, when she and I were both teens. It would be like are you And I would start to answer and they'd be like.
From full House, he Hi.
I was just saying, how I still to this day get mistaken for.
You and I get mistaken for you.
It recently happened for me at a valet I had, I had handed over my car keys. I went into this event, I came out, I went to get my car, and he was like a teenager and he said, excuse me, this might be a weird question, but are you And then just trailed off and I said to Panga from Boy Meets World and he said, no, I was going to say. I was going to say, And then he said, one of your kids' names their mom And he said, because I did Natasha I did, wasn't Natasha?
I did hockey? I did hockey hockey with him?
Yeah? Yeah.
I was like, oh no.
I was like, that's an interesting way because it wasn't even that you. So you mistook me for somebody who used to see it like hockey practice.
Yeah, but it's just like that show that.
Was on a teen show in the nineties, right, Oh my god.
It was so say the same thing all the time, but it's like are you, and I wait for it because.
Sometimes they go to paying us. That's funny.
Thank you so much for joining us. We've been really looking forward to talking to you. And I have to assume you don't do a ton of interviews where you get to talk about playing a witch who has taken control of the soul of a teenage boy.
Huh No, not too many interviews on that I'm looking back, I'm laughing pretty hard in retrospect.
Yes, well, I'll get to a question about that later.
But I know we asked you to watch the episode kind of as a catalyst to remember this fever dream of a script. Did you remember a lot about the Witches of Penbrook or like us, did you feel like it was watching a totally different person on screen?
Totally different.
I'm glad I watched it because I.
Don't think i'd seen it since we did it.
Yeah, And first off was like, oh my gosh, the bleach blonde hair, the cut, like.
It was just so nineties. It was kind of incredible and that was fun.
But then watching the episode, I was like, oh, yeah, I remember playing playing a witch. And then I'm like, oh, this is like a little bit spookier and darker than I remember. And I'm like, huh wait, I said that we did that, and I was like there was a lot of making out too.
Oh yeah, a lot of making out. Which the first thing I wanted to ask you is what was going on? Were you had just finished your first iconic run of Full House as DJ Tanner just two years earlier in ninety five, So what was going on in your life in nineteen ninety seven when you came and joined us.
Oh my goodness, So I had just gotten married this way.
Which is crazy.
Yeah, because I got married in nineteen ninety six. I met my husband at eighteen. Then I was going to say, you were very young, right, That's what I remember about you.
Being on set.
It was like, Wow, she's she's only a couple years older than us, but she's like married and has this whole like grown up life that I remember being like.
Why what is that?
Like, I know it was.
It was I don't even know what was going on in my life except for that, like because we lived in LA at.
The time, or had you left LA for some reason?
He was so I still had always had my home in LA, but my husband was playing for the Montreal Canadians, right, so I was living there half the year throughout the season and then I would come back. So yeah, so I might not have been in LA like at that time, depending on when we filmed it, but that was what was going.
On in my life.
It was just like marriage, and I was still trying to work here and there, and then that kind of all, you know, left. I just put that to rest for a while, because then a few years later I had or a year after that, I had Natasha Wool.
So you were visiting us like a few months to a year after you got married and about a year before you had your head, before you had Natasha.
Yeh oh, my gosh.
See interesting transition period.
Yeah, and you had a long, extensive list of impressive shows that you had guest starred on already. You did Punky Brewster to Saint Elsewhere, Who's the Boss. Did you enjoy the process of being a week long guest star in comparison to what you spent eight years doing like the star of Full House.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I liked it. It was fun. Sick calling world is I really like it.
I don't know about you, guys, but that is my favorite place to be. So even with all the movies, all the television movies I do, the mysteries and the Christmas movies and all of that, my home is in multi cam soundstage land.
I absolutely love it.
So being a guest star, it's always a little bit intimidating when you're walking on someone's set. And I remember, for with you guys, you guys were awesome. I already kind of knew you, like, especially you Danielle, so I felt comfortable. But I'd finished Full House a year, I guess a year or two before that, So then I was really nervous walking on that set, even though you guys made it great. But I remember being in the audience or the live show, and we taped that and had the audience and that's something I'm so used to. But it was like my heart was pounding that very first scene. I got so nervous, and then it was like, Okay, I know.
How to do this. I couldn't do this.
But and once we got through that first scene, I was like, Okay, it's like riding a bike. But yeah, it's always a little different to come on to someone else's stage because you respect everyone and you want to do a great job.
You want to show up and.
You know, and then you just hope that everyone's as nice and loving and fun as you hope they will be.
Yes, I know that feeling.
We've talked about it many times, that like you're walking into someone else's family, the same way you guys were such a family on Full House.
You know, we've now been on the air for five years.
We've got that same family, and you're like, hey, guys, just yeah, So I'm glad that it made it a good experience for you. And then what do you remember, if anything, about playing Millie aka Bushcar, Queen.
Of Malevolence, daughter of evil?
What a bizarre laughter? What is going on? I know, it's so funny.
I remember when they asked me if I would feel comfortable and they asked me to do that part, and they were like, how do you feel about playing a witch? And I was like, well, I'm an actress, like totally fine, and I'm this is fun.
It's sitcom, it's great comedy. I'm good with that, and so I yeah, came in just feeling really fun.
But now watching the episode, like ah, I.
Said that, I mean, at the very least, I wonder if it sounded fun to play a character that was so against type for you totally, and it was fun.
I remember feeling that it was fun. I'm like, no one would expect this from me, and it's still felt like a very safe place to do that because of wait, the show was all about in itself and it's it's a family show, so I felt comfortable.
In that way. But but it was a little weird.
I mean, I remember saying some of those lines now having watched and I'm like, ah, this, this doesn't totally feel good, saying like I'm the Queen of Darkness, and they were like, like, say it in the most evil Rowley voice.
That voice had my.
Demon voice, and I'm like, I didn't even know I had one. But as an actor, you're kind of just like, Okay, let's just have fun with this and do that. But I'm I'm laughing watching the show.
I mean, we absolutely loved one of your so much, and we actually discussed whether or not it could have possibly been your real voice or if it had been like boosted by computer BOYO vio.
And it's when you growl.
It's not a costume and I actually pulled the clip, so I want to play the clip for you.
Listen to this. It's not a costume, so is that a real boy?
But that's my real voice? It is you?
Okay, we were like, is it actually her? Or did they dub it over?
That's so funny?
Yeah, I mean I just I just growled like as much as I could growl. And I remember the director actually telling me. At one point we were rehearsing scenes on that balcony, and he kept saying like, say it like as dark and evil as you can. And I kept trying, and he would go like, you're just too sweet.
I'm just not buying. I just can you just.
And I'm like, I'm trying really hard, and you just kept going like, just keep practicing it to whatever. So I was determined to sound like I was a real evil witch.
Oh my gosh.
Now we've alluded to it a little bit by talking about how it feels different looking back at it retroactively. You are very vocal about your faith and your values and how much they play a pivotal role in the jobs you act in and the jobs you produce. Would you if you were offered a role like that today, would you take it? Or do you think that's something you pass on?
Here's what I always say. I am an actor. I'm not looking to play myself right. So if there was a there was a part that called for the evil witch, but it was redemptive at the end.
That's what I'm always looking for in my storytelling and stories of faith, whether they have faith or not, I just want redemption. So if the through line was like evil is good, let's keep practicing this.
My answer would be no, which how does the episode.
End really redeem anybody? And it's so weird because it's also like suddenly Boyby's world is magic, like there is real spells in the world, and like, yeah.
Yeah, but yeah, I mean that exact part if offered today, I probably.
Not, yeah, because I was thinking about that. It really just ends with you the witch just failing. So at least she isn't successful, you know, right, she fails, but like to writer's point, we also just kind of believe, but it could have been successful, like as in, it could have worked exactly, which is all weird. I loved your hair and I in general just loved the very cool nineties look.
You had going on.
It was like a little trendier, a little edgier with some of some of the things we saw with you as DJ. And now, what are your opinions looking at it considering all those nineties trends are back in style.
Yeah, sometimes I'm like I can't even look at some of those styles because I've been there, done that, you.
Know, I just like, stay away.
But they do look.
Cute on people twenty five years younger than because right, yeah, but that was fun.
I remember right after.
Full House, I cut like all my hair off. I went into a boy cut. I bleached it blonde because I just, I don't know, there's something about it. And I loved every second a full House. But I just felt like I'm coming into something new, a new place in my life, and so that's how I exercised.
Yeah control, I mean an adults, I just like cut my hair off and made it bleach blonde.
I totally totally understand that. I feel like we all kind of had our own version, but for me it was my hair too. I could not wait to cut my hair the second Boy These World was over. It was so essential to just be like it finally in charge of your own appearance in some way, you know, because when you have a whole team and you have writers and producers, they're all in charge of what you look like every weekend. So getting away from that was really important for me too. That's so interesting.
Yeah, I remember that episode, Danielle, when you cut your hair on the show. Yes, and I so during Full House, I had cut my hair. I always had long hair, and then I cut a bob that was just.
Above shoulder length.
But I purposely didn't tell the producers, and I did it on a random weekend while we were in the middle of the season, and I just told the hairdresser to cut my hair. So when I showed up that Monday at work, I got reprimanded and they were kind about it, you know, but they took me over and said, you absolutely can't do this. You should have talked to us first. And I don't remember if i'd seen the episode that you cut your hair first, or I cut my own hair first, but I just knew if I asked, they would have said no, or they'd say, well, you got to wait because we want to write it into an episode something like that. And you know, it didn't feel good, but it's so true. You don't have control of what you look like or what your appearance is. And then of course when we ended the show, I'm like, let's just change it all up totally.
I mean, they they are even you know, in control of some of the things you do away from stage. Like writer was very into snowboarding, and it was like, they don't want you snowboarding.
They don't want you.
And they found out about and they were like, don't do that again.
Yeah, and as a teenager for every teenager, so much of what you want to do is just shart showing people how you can make your.
Own decisions and you can do your own thing.
So yeah, when, no matter what kind of incredible, amazing situation you had on a show that you loved so much, when it's over, there is a real sense of like, I'm free, and.
Here's how I'm going to here's how I'm going to exercise that.
So, Kendice, how exactly you win? Full House started? I was ten, I was on from ten to eighteen.
Wow, yeah, that's those are some formative years there. So I started Boy Meets World at thirteen, so it was thirteen to twenty. So I was like already full on adolescent when the show started. But you started you were still very much a kid at ten.
Yeah, I know, And isn't it. I know you guys talk about this all the time, but it is weird growing up in front of a camera, going through puberty on national television, and for better or for worse, there's you know, really wonderful things being able to be on a television show and be cossful and all of that, but it's just bizarre when like everyone sees your first ZiT, your boob's coming in.
Yes, like whatever, it's weird. Yeah.
What was the hardest transition for you? At what age or season was the most difficult?
I think.
Probably right around fifteen sixteen, because you know, that's when girls really change or I mean, it's the timeline can be different for anyone, but when you're going through puberty.
I think that for.
Me fifteen sixteen and then having episodes like talk about you know your weight or things like I you know, it was always the chubby cheeked girl, and a lot of people loved that I was. And I can look back and go like, I was just a normal, normal, average girl. And yet and yet you meet people and they're always like, you're so much thinner in person, Oh my gosh, you're so and you're just like, is that all people see?
Do?
They just see my chubby cheeks?
And so it's of course as a teenager you feel that insecurity, whether you're on television or not. Yes, but it gets magnified when you are So those ages were a little bit more awkward for me. And I just want to always go back and go I just want to hug, I want to hug fifteen year old Candice and go, okay, don't listen to anyone.
Did you watch the show when it was on the air back then? Were you keeping up with it? I did? They always we got a videotape, a.
VHS tape that you had to pay for, yes, that we had to pay for, and my mom got every single one of them, and we taped on the nights that our show aired.
So I never really watched it.
On television, but we got the videotape, and I would watch every episode because I just in that way, I'm a learner, so I always I do like to watch whatever I do so that I can see what I can fit and make better the next time.
Interesting writers stopped watching because he would notice.
The second I think I watched the first season and I was like, never again, can't do this.
It's going to be too sub conscious. Yeah. I think Jody never watched the episodes either, until maybe she had her daughters and watched a few, But no, I watched them all.
Did they write an episode about your weight ever? Because I had one about my weight?
Yeah, I had one.
I had the one where I'm and I had lost like twenty pounds from the end of one season to another, I came in losing twenty pounds, but they thought it was so great and they were like, oh, on the opening titles, why don't we have you on an exercise bike, like just to promote that, And looking back, I don't think that was bad. I mean, I really put a lot of hard work and effort into losing twenty pounds. But the season before I had that episode where it was like Kimmy and I were going to a pool party and I didn't want to put a bathing suit on, so I did a crash diet to try to lose weight in a week so I wouldn't feel bad about myself in a bathing suit, and then passed out at the gym because I wasn't working out. So you know, and those are those are things that we also that many of us struggle with. But yeah, you know, you play it out on television and sometimes it's like, Okay.
Did they talk to you about it before? Like did they call it?
They did? Okay, they did.
They actually talked to my mom and dad and they talked to me and said, would you feel comfortable if we wrote an episode like this? And I was like, yeah, sure, but when you're in it and doing it, it feels a little awkward.
Yeah.
I remember for me when they when they called me into the office to tell me they were going to it wasn't really like they asked. They just kind of said, you know, we just you know, want you to know. Obviously it was Will and I. Will had gained some weight. I had gained some weight. You know, obviously you guys have gained a little bit of weight. So we're going to write an episode about it, and we just wanted you to know. And here's what it's going to be.
It's going to be really funny to see my jaw on the floor right now. What.
Yeah, And I remember that was that being the hardest part for me was that meeting because Will very much was like, oh, yeah, I'm totally fine with it just immediately, which I know now he was very insecure and it was really painful and powerful for him, but I didn't know that. And he was very much like he was so funny and such an amazing actor and was so like, yeah, sure, that's no problem, that's fine for me. And for me it was more like, oh wow, like I didn't no one had said anything to me about it. I had been aware that I had gained weight, but I was still you know, I was a size four.
I wasn't like.
Girl, wasn't like I had let's talk about it.
And so I remember thinking, Wow, they to these people think I've gained enough weight, we have to write an entire episode about my weight gain.
And and then and now right now I have.
To say I'm fine with it because they didn't even present to me another alternative. And even if they did, I probably wouldn't have felt comfortable being like, yeah, I don't want to do that.
If you had canned, if you had said I'm not comfortable doing that, that would have been the story.
It is like, oh my gosh, it would have become the whole thing.
And it's like, yeah, it's such a weird situation, so much pressure.
And then yeah, then there was just in my head forever awful.
Oh I'm so sorry, Like, okay, that just that hurts me.
I am grateful. We had wonderful producers that I really did love.
So they did ask.
They asked my parents first first, and then they asked me. They did ask too, They're like, how would you feel about.
Having an episode about getting your period, and I was like no, no, really, no.
No, and they went okay, and they didn't they didn't.
And they didn't push it. Yeah. See that's that's nice.
Yeah, and I you know, we've interviewed a lot of actors on this show, and a lot of them have this story. A lot of them have the story of being told they've gained weight or the episode where they they're playing a certain character. And especially for the women, the nineties were a rough time, you know.
So have you seen that TikTok or real that's been going around about you know, why so many many of us have eating disorders, such mental disorders of body image.
And it's this.
Great video that shows like Nicole Ritchie and Jessica Simpson and maybe even Paris Hilton, like all of these kind of iconic people, not Paris Hilton, but saying that they were saying, Oh, you're the chubby one, you're the fat one, you're the mom Jean's one. And you look at them and you're like, they're a size too.
There are six, there are a size eight.
They're like just very still small, average sized people. Anyway, it's a pretty good, it's a powerful video that's gone around and I'm like, see, ye, that's what I grew up with. That was the that was the standard. You're called fat if you're a size four exactly as a forty something year old woman like those it's hard to to get those things out of your mind. They've really formed and shaped you. You got to do some work to reprogram, like what is what should be normal?
Yes, well, I'm I'm so great.
Every time I have a conversation with somebody, I'm always like, it's just there is a It is a weird, comforting feeling to know there isn't something wrong with me.
That that's my experience.
For all of us who for all of us who grew up at around that same time with that same experience, we all say the same things.
I have to reprogram myself.
I still struggle with disordered thoughts about food and disordered thoughts about working out, and and it has taken a lifetime to get to a place where I feel like, Okay, I have got a hand a handle on it. And even still the bad habits and the bad thoughts can creep up and I have to rein it back in. So you know, there is a there is a comfort in knowing that it's there's nothing wrong with me.
That that's how I feel.
So no, okay, I feel I know, I'm just mind.
We could keep going about it because I just I was reading I had a movie come out this past weekend, inside.
The way, what was the movie? Tell me about the movie? First?
Oh, not Unsung Hero. But I have a new mystery movie series. That's all I called The Ainsley McGregor Mysteries. But of course i'm reading comments. I just said, premiered this week. I want to see what people thought about it. And most of the comments were very kind, but there was those handful of what did she do to her face? Why does she have so much botox?
Did she get?
You know, an eyelift? Did she get?
Of course those are the only comments you remember. You don't remember all the hundred positive ones that are like now, she's so beautiful, she's aged.
So gracefully, But you only remember your brain. That's why you just have to stay away.
Don't mean anything like I just want and I don't answer them, but I want to go like, no, did you not watch the movie?
Because all I could see were my wrinkles. That's all I could see.
Because I don't have Botoks. Actually I don't. No, I didn't get a facelift, and no I'm not on tho Zepic and like, okay, so anyway, we'll move on.
You know, the the obsession with comments, especially about women's faces and what have they had done, has gotten to a point that is just intolerable. You if you click on the comments on anything a woman has posted, it will within the first five there's something about too much filler.
That's that's that, that's the end. It's just it's it's it's.
Unbelievable and it yeah, it's uncomfortable and it's painful and it's hard to read, and like writer said, it's so hard to not have those be the ones that stick out to you.
One of my.
Favorites is that they regularly on the on like the thumbnail at the bottom of an article where they want you to click on another one, they use a picture of me from when I was truly eight and a half months pregnant, but they only use it from the shoulders up, and it's a story about like, you'll never believe what she looks like now, and I'm it was two weeks before I delivered Adler and yeah, my face is significantly puffier and I want to be.
Like book guys. Could we just could?
We also just mentioned and a half months pregnant here, but no, just get those clicks no matter what. So you and I had obviously done some ABC TGIF related.
Promo work together.
We have also run into each other at a lot of teen magazines and charity events. We were definitely in the same circles. Had you ever watched Boy Meets World before you came and appeared on it?
Oh?
Yeah, really did? Of course?
Oh that's so funny.
Thank you.
Yes, of course I absolutely did. But like I love all the shows from the eighties.
And nineties, all the sitcoms, like they were great, and I and it was more fun because we knew each other.
So I also feel like I feel like back.
Then, well I don't want to say like we were cheering each other on. Its feel competitive. I'm like, this is so cool the TGIF shows or whatever whatever. I was just we were all rooting each other on, so they were really fun to watch. And yeah, and I think there's always a connection when because again, we are a specific group of people, whether we know each other or not, whether we're personal friends or not. But we're in a really special club together. Yeah, grew up on television in the nineties, you know, some a little bit in the eighties, and there's something that's very specific about it. But and and also experiences that a lot of people will never have and understand that we share together. So just having this conversation feels.
So cool to me. But of course, like watching your show, I always watched it and loved it. It was so fun.
And because there's also the personal connection of going like I wonder what it's like on their stage, and I wonder who is doing their hair and makeup, and I wonder if they get to make the same decisions that I'm making, or don't get to that I don't get to, you know, all that kind of stuff you think about.
Well, I can speak intimately to what it was like to be on the Full House set because my first speaking job on television that wasn't a commercial was on Full House. I did two episodes. I think it was your first my very first Oh wow, it was my outside of doing commercials, so my first TV job. It was my first live studio audience. It was so much fun. The crew, the cast, everybody.
Was so nice.
I walked around and asked for signed headshots from everybody.
Everyone gave me one.
I still have them all in a binder with like my call sheets, the script and the ape from each and every one of you, and then the pictures. My mom was walking around asking everybody could you take a picture with Danielle and I have all just the greatest photos from especially that first week. So I wondered, with obviously DJ, being such a beloved and well known character from such a beloved and well known show, do fans ever.
Bring up your appearance on Boy Meets World to you?
Yeah, a ton, but I yeah, I get a handful of comments. And I was actually I was on my my own podcast. I had a pastor friend of mine on and before we were talking theology, like deep stuff, and before it started, he was like, Okay, we just have to talk about Boy Meets World, like before we even get this whole thing, we just need to talk about Boy and that episode that you were on, you were like, it was.
It was so cute, it was so funny.
But yeah, fans, especially because you know, if they're fans of your show, sometimes they get me mixed up with Tapanga or whatever.
But then they always yeah remember, and they're like, oh my gosh, you were on.
An episode of Boy Meets World, and yeah, that's always cool. So it happens every once in a while.
So, like us, you obviously grew up in the industry. Who was your crew? Who were your friends? Who were you hanging out with when you weren't on set? And did you guys go to ED Debvick's.
Yes, been to EDS totally so funny.
I think like with Jody and Andrea, I've been Dad Vivics and then with my sisters and stuff, you know. My so most of my crew were not in the industry. Okay, I really had my friends from school because I part time did like went to my real public middle school in high school, so that was like my core crew. However, if there were industry people that I hung out with, and he and he was, I hung out with him a lot. Was Julia White, So Julia and I were really really good friends. And I was friends with Darius and Kelly too, because Family Matters was just a couple of stages down. But Julia and I we were good friends. We liked each other a lot, and yeah, we're buddies for a long time and we still keep in touch. But yeah, he was like he was like your best Yeah, my bestie.
And you guys were Were you on the Warner Brothers A lot for all eight seasons or no? We were on the Sony lot.
It was like the old Columbia and then it changed to Sony and Culver City. We were on that for the first four years, I believe, and then went over to Warner Brothers.
Wow, okay, now you are producing a ton of movie and TV. Was that always something you wanted to do as you learned more about the business, Where did that like entrepreneurial spirit come from.
Yeah, I've always been an entrepreneur at heart. So when I came back into the business, because I took this big ten year break when I had my three kids, and then when I came back, I think I was just like I had I had processed things for ten years, and I'm like, I just came back with a bang.
I was like, if I'm going to do this.
I really want to do this, and it was it was cool because I had such this time to grow and evaluate all of the things.
And then when I came back, I was very.
Very happy that casting doors opened for me because you kind of never know when you take a break that long whether people are going to go like, ah, you were a kid, we don't need Jaz as an adult.
Right.
They didn't say that to me. It was like, oh, we remember you and we liked you, so come on in. And I was grateful for that opportunity. But then I just you know, I'm a futuristic thinking person. I'm a visionary. I think we're most of us are all creatives. And it was like, well, what can I do? And I would like to do more? But you kind of mentioned it at the beginning. It was like not having that control and having everyone tell you what you're going to do with your life. I think that's the difference in producing, where I was like, I don't want to just be an actor and be told what I can do.
I want to I want to build the vision. I want to build from the ground up and create. And so.
I've Danielle like, I would love to talk to you so much about directing. I've directed a little bit in MULTIICAM but which I love. Yeah, but I really found that producing was more of my sweet spot and what I really enjoyed doing, even even more than directing because it's it's so collaborative.
It's all of the puzzle pieces.
It's kind of like playing Tetris and you're just like, where can I put a round peg into a square hole?
Like how do I for the opposite of that?
I meant, you know, and so I just I love the development process and that's why I really like producing.
As a parent who has taken my children to more interactive events than I can remember, I am very interested in your Great American Media's Christmas Festival, which is in New York this year. Can you tell us a little bit about it. I know Danica mckeller is going to be there.
Yeah, we're so excited. This has been a vision for a couple of years now, and so my company, Candy Rock Entertainment, is producing this event and it's going to be at the UBS Stadium that's in Long Island over the over the Christmas season, really holiday season, like end of October through I think the first week of January. But it's a family event, so you know, bring your kids. You don't have to have a family to come either. But it's immersive, meaning it's not just it's not like a con because we know there's Christmas Con and those kinds of things where it's very and we do Nineties Con together, which they're super fun, So.
They're really great.
You get to meet all the fans, but it's very autograph driven and picture taking driven, whereas this is a holiday event. This is for you to come, eat all of the food, the Christmas and Hanka foods and you know, all the things that we're celebrating it is. There's live ice skating, there will be movies playing, there will be crafts.
To be made.
You can you know, do all the pictures that you want that will be very you know, like TikTok style or instagram worthy of snowblobe pictures and all that kind of stuff. So it's a fun place to come with your friends and with your family. And also you'll get to meet some of the actors and sign pictures, take take autographs, do the meet and greets, and have q and a's with some of the actors from Great American Family Channel. But it's just it's much bigger than an autograph experience, so fun.
One Santa is there like a one Santa with a Sarah or or is it going to be multiple Santas.
I don't know yet. I really don't.
I don't know the answer to that, but you'll be greeted by a lot of characters throughout the entire evening, Yeah.
For sure.
And this is all in preparation for a massive Christmas season on great American media with a movie you've produced and start in coming out soon, A Christmas Less Traveled. Tell us what it was that gravitated you to these movies.
Well, it's always interesting every year to be looking at Christmas scripts.
To develop them, to find a news.
Story that's not that new, because you want the comforts.
Of what we all love in these movies.
So we found a couple of great scripts, and A Christmas Less Traveled is actually quite heartfelt, and it's a journey about this woman that ends up going on a road trip because her dad passed away and left her these cassette tapes and it's all these these things and stories that he wanted to tell her before he passed, but he just didn't have the emotional capability to say it to her.
So she goes on this little journey as she listens.
To her dad tell her of these experiences and all the things that he always wanted to say to her. So and lessons to be learned, so that one's pretty heartfelt.
And now I'm going.
Into development right now on a movie with Cameron Mathieson and he's a huge fan favorite. We're excited to work together because we wanted to for about fifteen years and have you never, ever, never been paired in a movie together. So we're doing a movie and right now it's called The Sweetest Christmas And guess what, guys, We're on a maple farm and there's lots of Christmas trees.
Oh maple farm, sweet Christmas trees.
I love it.
So with these movies, do you shoot them all in the same town or do you do you use the same crew? Like how does the actual production come together? Because they are similar, right they sort of. Is it the same group of people every time in the same place.
It depends. It's not always the same group of people.
And with all the movies that are produced, you know, we shoot them all over they're not they're not all done in the same location. But because I've been working in Canada for a very long time, I've been shooting up there in BC and typically in Vancouver or Colonna or Victoria, and so for twenty years, really I've been shooting there, so I have a lot of the same people in same crew, and depending how close I'm working on movies back to back, sometimes we roll one crew into another crew, but they still get Everyone gets like a three week break while we're prepping for the next movie.
So I just shot.
One recently, and then I'm prepping now for three weeks and I go back up there and I'm going to shoot, so I'll have a lot of familiar faces, but the cast always feels new.
Right well, speaking of the cast feeling new, today, we are missing mister Wilford Owll, who would normally have been here with us. He had a personal thing that popped up and he could not get out of it, so he's not here.
I was sad to miss him, and he is so funny watching that episode back, He's ridiculously funny and his comedic timing is so so good.
I know I was going to ask you if you had any specific memories of working with Will or Matt that week.
I I just honestly like, I just remember loving them both, like all three of you. But I think we only writer. We only had a couple of scenes. They were very short, exactly and.
Writer is the most carefree, fun loving I've ever seen sean episode.
I'm just kind of floating.
I remember being slightly weirded out that I was kissing Matthew and not Joey.
Because of the age, I think a little bit of that, but also because.
Like I knew, like I knew Joe and then I was and now I'm like kissing his little brother, and so that was a little at the time felt a little bit funny.
And then I just remember thinking how funny Will was, and I was like, I just like you. I just like you as a person. Yeah, you're cool, dude.
He's funny and he's cool.
Also, I wanted to let our listeners know that they can watch you as Ainsley McGregor in the Ainsley McGregor Mysteries A Case for the Wine Maker on Great American Family, which is out now, and you continue the franchise is Ainsley Solving Mysteries.
And our question for you today.
Is if Will was going to play a criminal, what criminal would Will play.
I think he would be some kind of con man because he's such a good actor, so he would just he could be all the things, and you just don't even know what's.
Real give him different accents and different outfits. Go, that's great.
Oh that's a really that's it. That's brilliant. Well, and thank you so much for spending your time with us today.
Thank you guys, thanks for asking me to be on. I have to admit to you, I'm like, when are they going to ask me to be on? I was like, I was on an episode, I want to be on the podcast.
I just like, I feel very united with all of us TV kids, So thank you for asking me.
It was super fun.
Absolutely, thank you for spending your time with us.
Thanks. Good to see you guys too. Bye.
Exactly what she said, and it's you know, we realized it. We talked about it so much when we started season one of doing the pod. It's amazing what an unspoken shared Bondah.
Yeah, all of.
Us, you know, former child actors, nineties actors, whatever you want to call it, growing up in that time doing what we did.
There's such a it's a it's a big.
Community, but a very very small community when you really think about it, and.
It's very different from I'm what I imagine being a kid actor now is like you know, or or from what I've experienced, even I mean, you get to work with kids all the time, but for me on Girl Meets World, like just their sense of their own careers is completely I always felt like none of us had any idea what was going on, Like we had we were like listening to lucky if we were lucky to have an agent like Judy Savage, we would take their advice, but none of us had a plan for the future or how. And I feel like now there's much more sort of predictable pathways of like you're on a Disney show, you get an album deal and you do you know, and like they have there's so much more ambitious and in a way good about it. You know, they know how to think about themselves in contextualize it. And the way that at that time I just felt like we were flailing and none of us had an hangy of what was going on. And yet but yeah, it's super interesting the way that like there's all these people that I know and I don't actually know them that well, Like I don't, you know, I don't I don't have many memories of like talking to Julie White that often, but sure enough if I see him, I'm like, yep, you and me we get each other, you know, it's like and there's that that community.
It's a very interest connection. Yeah, I know.
And something else I thought of with her that you know she talks about she took that ten year break where she was married and she decided to start a family and she took ten years off. So much of what I say about my own career, I really hurt my I think I hurt myself in my career if I wanted to be an actor by taking a couple just even a couple of years off, but really maybe it wasn't long enough off.
Like I think about what she said where she.
Was like, yeah, I did a couple of things, but then I just really stepped away for ten years.
And then when she came.
Back, there was a oh yeah energy you there was an energy and an excitement and like she's now new because we haven't seen her at all.
And like one one of my best friends said that to me when I didn't get a part in a movie that I really wanted, I think when I was about twenty five or twenty six, and he was like, you know what, writer, it hasn't been long enough. You should just quit acting and come back in your thirties, and I remember thinking like, huh, okay, I didn't. I just ended up keep acting for a little while and then quit when I was about thirty.
Just stop. It was good advice. I was like, that's true. I didn't, you know.
But it's hard to think of yourself in those ways. You'd think like, oh, I just gotta keep working or I'm gonna you know, but yeah, and that's what yeah again, like having any sort of objectivity and like knowledge about how acting careers work like that, I was always just stumbling through it, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We didn't have like a business plan. We didn't think of it like uh, you know, yeah, we just didn't. So anyway, I thought that was really smart and I thought that was really interesting that, you know, then while she was away she got reinspired and had all these new ideas. Anyway, thank you all for joining us for this episode of Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us on Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your emails Pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com.
And we have March.
Silence, Sad Sad Sad silence. This silence stands for all the laughs this episode of Pod Meets World did not did not have. There were so many jokes missed, so many jokes.
To be made, nobody made them.
Podmeetsworldshow dot com for sad merch, We love you all, pod dismissed. Pod Meets World is an iHeart podcast produced and hosted by Danielle Fischl Wilfridell and Wryter Strong executive producers, Jensen Carp and Amy Sugarman Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Tara sudbachsch producer, Maddy Moore, engineer and Boy Meets World super fan Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at Pod Meets World Show or email us at Podmeets Worldshow at gmail dot com
