February 7, 2025 • 61 mins
Nothing brings a mother and daughter together like a police procedural that randomly breaks into song, right?? In Season 5 Episode 13 “Wedding Bell Blues”, Lorelai tells Luke that she and Rory are having a “Cop Rock” marathon, because she has the whole show on tape.
We’re going into the precinct that is “Cop Rock” and talking to one of the stars, Peter Onorati! We’ll find out how one of the craziest ideas in TV history came to be, how it was made, and why everyone should sing their way through a trial by jury.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I Am all In again.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Oh, let's just do.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I Smell pop Culture with Easton Allen and I Heart
Radio podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hey everybody, Easton Allen, I Am all In Podcasts one
of eleven productions iHeart Radio, iHeart Media, I Heart Podcasts.
This is I Smell pop Culture? Do you smell pop culture?
Do they smell pop culture? I Smell pop Culture. This
is gonna be a lot of fun. Here's what we
do on the show. If you're just joining us for
the first time. We love Gilmore Girls. We love the
(00:44):
pop culture references in Gilmore Girls. They tie the show
into a greater world and that is part of why
we love it. But sometimes you gotta go a little deeper.
So here's what we're doing. We're picking out some of
our favorite pop culture references from the entire of Gilmore Girls,
and we're going to explore them on a granular level
(01:04):
that you can only do with a podcast. We're going
to talk to the people that made these pop culture
references into a piece of pop culture. We're going to
talk to the stars, the writers, the producers, the singers,
We're talking to them all baby, And this week we're
doing something really really exciting. This is This is something
that you may or may not be familiar with, a
little show called cop Rock. I know what you're thinking,
(01:27):
what's cop Rock? What is that? Imagine if you watched
Law and Order, but then they started sinking Broadway level,
Broadway level songs, Broadway level productions, television drama at the
highest level. This is truly a big swing. And if
there's something I love, it's a big swing. I love
big risks. I love when people try a crazy idea,
(01:50):
and that is what they did with cop Rock. This
show premiered on ABC in nineteen ninety. It ran for
eleven episodes. It was canceled, It was abruptly canceled. It
was not met with with good reviews. This show was
truly bizarre, but an incredible show nonetheless. And here is
(02:11):
why it connects to Gilmore Girls. We're going to season five,
episode thirteen, Wedding Bell Blues. This is the cold open
before the theme song plays. Laura is at Luke's. They're
talking about his boat. You know, he's trying to buy
stuff for his boat, and he's getting really frustrated because
he's talking to the guy from the catalog and everything's
on back order, so he's really frustrated, as Luke tends
(02:34):
to be, and he tells Laurai he's going to come
by later to work on the boat with what he has.
You know, he's waiting for a bunch of stuff to
come in, but he's going to come by and work
on the boat. And she says, yeah, that's fine' Rory
spending the night. We're having a cop Rock marathon. And
then they talk about some other stuff, and then before
Lorela leaves the coffee shop, Luke says, hold on, did
(02:55):
you say cop Rock marathon? And Lurlai says, yeah, I
got them all on tape, trying to figure out you
seeing me? So Laura La big cop Rock fan. She
has all eleven episodes on tape. You can get all
eleven episodes of cop Rock on a DVD from Shout Factory.
This show has a cult following now. People love it.
I love it. I watched a lot of cop Rock
prepping for this. I admittedly I did not know what
(03:17):
it was until you know, I was doing research for
this show. I love Coprock. I am a huge cop
Rock fan. Now I hope you are too. We're going
to talk to one of the stars of cop Rock
Peter on Aroti. He played Detective Vincent LaRusso, who's kind
of the de facto main character of Cop Rock. He
his storyline is kind of like a main thread throughout
(03:38):
the eleven episodes. And if you see him, google Peter
on Arotti if you can't place his face. He has
been in everything. He has been in Swat, he was
in This Is Us, He's in Good Fellas for Crying
Out Lad. This guy is so cool and he's done
so many incredible things in Hollywood, and I'm so interested
(03:59):
in his perspective about what it was like to make
something like Cop Rock. What was it like to go
into this like dramatic police procedural, but then also have
to learn singing and dancing in certain cases? And how
do they make this show? How is this? Randy Newman
wrote all the songs for the pilot. Randy Newman's in
(04:19):
the theme song. They had incredible people working on this show.
I can't wait to hear about it all. We're going
to talk to Peter Onati here in just a second,
and I hope you stick around because it's real. It's
a lot of fun here on I smell pop culture.
We're having a blast let's do it. Hey, everybody, it's
(04:46):
I Smell pop Culture on the Iamlin podcast. We're so
excited about this. We're talking to one of the stars
of cop Rock. Peter Onoati is with us. Thank you
so much for doing this. Peter, it's so nice to
meet you.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Thanks for asking.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So okay, let's just get right into it. Let's let's
talk cop Rock here. It's it's such a wild idea,
and that's why I love it. It's such a big swing.
It was such a like nothing really like it had
been done before. How did you get involved?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Well, I had just moved out here. My wife was
pregnant and had our first son while we were here
in eighty eight, and I had just come off of
my first real TV job was Katenally back in New
York at the Etsullivan Theater, the last season of Katenally.
(05:41):
And I only been to business a couple of years.
I don't know if you know my background, but I
have an MBA. I was an advertising park avenue you know,
for four years before that, and the whole other twelve
years in the business world. Anyway, I get out here
and my then agent, Kay Lieberman and now manager because
she took over. A managing company called me and said,
(06:06):
you sing right, I go no, no, I'm you know.
She goes yes, you do you sing? I said, well,
I sang at a couple of my friend's weddings from
college and you know, a couple of family friends. I said,
but no, I'm not a singer. You know. She goes no,
you sing? I said, Okay, I sing, you know. And
so I get this audition for cop Rock. And the
(06:29):
funny thing was my wife grew up in Santa Barbara.
She's good friends with a guy who was probably I
think he still is or was the longest running phantom
on Broadway, Howard mcgillan is his name. Incredible voice, incredible
musical actor. And Howard came out from New York and
(06:52):
had had an audition from this before I ever even
heard of it, so I, you know, didn't pay any
attention to it, you know. And I went off to
do a movie with Nick Cage and Tommy Lee Jones
and Sean Young called Firebirds. When it came back from that,
I got this audition for cop Rock. And so the
(07:15):
scene was actually the scene in the pilot where I
testify in court. And it was a great of course
it's Botchko. So it was the great writing, you know.
And after I did that, you know, they called me
back again and had me read it again, and then
they said, okay, you you know, we need you to sing,
(07:39):
and I went okay, I said, you know, I had
only done one actually singing audition in New York. This
was before I was in the business. While I was
still at McCall's magazines. My wife got me a singing
audition at the Public Theater for something called Lenny and
the Heartbreakers. And it was so embarrassing, that's a but.
(08:05):
So I didn't know what to do. So I picked Uh.
I picked a really simple song that I knew, an
old song blue Monday from from uh a Fats Domino.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
So I get in there and the accompany is playing
He's going d D bom bomp, and Mike Post, who
was ahead of music, goes, no, no, man, man, this
is Fats Domino. You can't play it like that. And
I said, Mike, give him a break. Hunt it says
Antoine Domino on the sheet music. How's he gonna know?
(08:41):
You know? So I get up there and I'm going
blue Monday, How I hate bloom Monday, you know, and
and I do my thing right. So I'm like, Okay,
this is uh never gonna happen, you know. But it
was great fun to do. And so I get another
call back to do it again, and Randy Newman was
(09:02):
there because Randy Newman did the music in the pilot.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Wow, and he's in the theme.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Oh no, Randy music. Yeah, the pilot music is quite incredible,
especially the last moment the pilot, which I think is
one of the best moments in TV history. We could
talk about that later too. So I did it and
I ended up getting the role of Vincent LaRusso, which
was not a regular role at the time. So we
(09:29):
filmed the pilot. I don't sing in the pilot, and
the story was and Steven Boschko told me this visit
LaRusso was supposed to be in for only four episodes
and then sing a love song to his gun and
blow his head off. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Wo.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So Mike, Well, and as an actor coming out from
New York and I want to do features, I'm going, Wow,
this is the way to go out of television if
you want to do features, right.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
So we did the pilot and all of a sudden
ABC called botch go and says, we can't lose this character.
You have to figure out something. Sign them up. We're
gon We're gonna keep this character. So I ended up
being a regular, And it ended up that the thirteen
(10:18):
or twelve episodes that we shot were mostly around my
crime of killing a cop killer and my courtroom drama
and coming back to the forest and all that stuff.
I shipp back up at one point and say that
during the audition process they called me back and said
and wanted me to read for the captain, which Larry
(10:41):
Joshua got. Larry Joshua accomplished musician he had who was
in a rock band. He has a great voice, that
great gravelly voice that he is, And so I went great,
because this is a regular role, right, didn't get it,
didn't didn't do it. And then they, like I said,
they gave me the russo and that all worked out
and then it was it was funny because I was
(11:04):
the last one of the original ensemble to sing. I
didn't sing till the fourth episode. Wow, two more songs, Yeah,
two more songs and the rest of it, and it
was it was hard. The first one where I sing,
I started in a holding cell outside the court.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Can't keep a good man down.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yes, and it goes into you know, the prison. Yeah,
well those were real prisoners. Yes, I'm going buy these
guys singing and if you look, you can read the
guy's lips. He's going you homie, And I'm like, holy shit,
I gotta maintain. Plus I'm worried about my singing and
i gotta be singing in front of these guys, right,
(11:50):
So but it all worked out. It was it Actually,
I don't really like my voice that much, but the song,
the the theatrical nature of the song really worked well
for the piece, uh, you know, and so that that
was kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
And but I love that sequence. That's crazy. It was
a real prisoner.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, they were real prisoners, man. And here's what's funny
because there's also a scene in the prison where this
guy approaches me. I'm a cop and a regular, you know,
regular area of the prison, and this Latino guy approaches me,
you know, and challenges me and you know, a boom,
I flip him around, I choke him, I put him down,
you know, or in a shower, and I'm like, to
(12:31):
these guys, okay, anybody else you know, Yeah, well, this
guy was tatted up, and I mean he looked like
a gangster. Right. Well, he was an actor, but he
was a good actor, but he looked really looked the part.
And he had a job downtown LA in a play.
(12:51):
So he left before we finished the scene because he
had to get done, and you know, and so they
shot one, just one thing on my side, and then
I get off and I get out of the shower
and I go in and I put my clothes on
the I'm driving out the prison. And they got him
bent over the car, his own car. They got him
(13:14):
bent over, and they're frisking them because he was so
late for his call time that he went in his
prison guard. He drove his own car, right, and he
looks at me and he goes, Peter, tell him, who
I am. I I never seen a guy before. Come on,
come on, I said, no, no, come on, guys, I said,
you think a guy would drive out in his prison outfit?
(13:36):
And he said and his prison guards go, oh yeah,
they would, you know. But oh, I scared the ship
out of him, I know. But like guy, I could
I could not take advantage of that, right, And he
I think he barely made it on time, all because
because the prison was like out in near Santa Clarita
(13:56):
and he had to go all the way to downtown.
Lad is half hour call. So that was kind of funny.
But that was sort of the you know, the craziness
surrounding that first number, you know. And and then the
other one was when I'm about to go to jail
and it's my birthday and they gave it this jazzy
bluesy number where the stripper comes and she's dressed like
(14:21):
a cop, and man, I tell you, I honestly God.
Now it's thirty what thirty two years later, and I
have done a lot of work. I've had a couple
of my own series. I just came off big splashy
series and swat and everything as a regular. I don't
think I've ever had a more wonderful creative challenge than
(14:46):
that show. You know.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I love it. Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to
hear because it's such an It's such a cool idea,
I think, And I just love how like when your
face was something like that, how how you saw it
as a cool creative challenge. I love that.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah. Well listen, everybody, everybody, if you look at that
original cast. Everybody went on to be a regular in
another showy quality cast and without the music. The drama
was was NYPD caliber. It was absolutely NYPD and Hill
Street Blues caliber drama. And you know what, it went
well in the urban areas, but in a suburbs van
(15:24):
and in a flyovers they just didn't I remember. So
they have this event called the upfronts, right every year
when the new shows get picked up. They like, swat
we did it at Carnegie Hall. They bring the whole
cast out and introduce the stars to all the potential
advertisers right and to your affiliates and everybody else. It's
(15:46):
a big deal. It's a lot of fun. Well, the
one out in LA, because I wasn't a regular. I
didn't go to the one in New York. But I
went to the one in LA because they had made
me a regular in the meantime, and I was sitting
at a table with the affiliates of Sioux City, Iowa. Okay,
Now these are the affiliates. These are the guys that
want you want to love your program because my show
(16:09):
Pop Rock is at ten o'clock show and that leads
into their news. They don't want to lose any audience. Right,
oh yeah, Well the four Tops sang and that was
the same year the Twin Peaks came out on ABC,
So it was Twin Peaks, it was cop Rock, it
was you know. So we're at these upfronts for Top Singing,
(16:30):
and they showed the last scene of the pilot episode
of cop Rock, which is Kathleen Wolhoyd singing a Randy
Newman lullaby to her baby and selling it for two
hundred dollars drug money into adoption. I'm telling you, you
(16:52):
look at this thing. You look at it, look at
it on YouTube. I don't think there's a better moment
in television. I really don't that moment. Know, there was
a bunch of Coprock moments that didn't work, but that moment,
and you could have heard. You could hear it. You
could have a pin drop, right yeah. Well, this guy
from SIUs City, Iowa leans over the table and he goes,
(17:14):
oh hell, she wouldn't sing when she sells her baby.
And I went, okay, we're screwed.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Oh man, this guy, don get it.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
We're screwed, you know. Uh yeah, And so we went
into it was you know, and and you know, who
was responsible for giving Stephen the green light on on
cop Rock.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
That Bob Iger, Bob Iger, current CEO Disney, in fact.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
That Steven's memorial. Bob came up to me that they
had closed off part of the Fox area where Steven's
building was, and Bob Iyger comes up to me, he goes, Peter,
Bob Byger. I go, yeah, I know, he goes, I
was just talking to somebody about Coprock. The other girl,
(17:59):
I said, I thought picked somebody about cop Rock all
the time, you know. I said, thanks for the you know,
for the opportunity man, you know, and and we laughed
about it, and you know, and that was it. But
that was his twin Peaks, cop Rock, all that stuff
was him when he was head of ABC, you know.
And uh and so even he remembers it. It's probably
(18:21):
his biggest failure too. But uh but it was uh
uh yeah, and and I you know, oh god, there
was it was. And here's a very interesting thing too,
or at least I find it interesting now because I've
been into business for a while and I had never
really I I had never really done summer stock, you know,
(18:41):
where people know each other for the whole summer and
they do all different roles and they're hanging together. I
never did anything like that. I went from the world
into acting and and started to work, you know, so
I never did all that other stuff. In other words,
I did I had no binding history with the people
(19:02):
I was working with. I didn't know how to socialize
in that atmosphere. But the amazing thing about cop Rock
was that people showed up on their days off to
watch somebody else sing, or somebody else's number or big scene.
That's most we were. And that's when I say now
that I've never seen that in any other cast, whether
it was my own show or somebody else's show, I've
(19:25):
never seen that happen, you know. And here's here's the
phenomenal thing about Copyright that no one knows. Every one
of those songs was recorded live. Not one of them
was looped or anything else.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Okay, I read I wanted to ask you if that
was real, because I read that I could not believe
that it that that was I'm like, you'd sing it live,
like that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
We're staying it live. The camera The camera was on
a dolly, you know, doing its thing. There was a
playback of the background music and you were miked and
you sang, you know, I was miked underneath that prison,
guarb I was miked. The camera dolly was on, and
on the dolly was a little speaker with you know,
with the background music for I Can't Keep a Good
(20:16):
Man Down, the same thing for the for to Live
and Die a Cop and the last one, which I forget,
I forget the name of that one, but no, it
was all live, and there was a big recording truck
outside the soundstage, and if you had to do it over,
(20:36):
you'd do it over. In fact, a friend of mine,
Stephen DePaul, became a very prominent director in television, has
written a couple of books. Now. He was one of
Bruce Springsteen's roadies Wow. But he was also friends with
Billy Finkelstein. They had gone to college together or knew
each other, and so Billy hired him as a producer
on cop Rock because he knew that end of things.
(21:00):
And Steven came into me one time. I forget which
song it was, I'm pretty sure it was to Live
in Die cop and he said, not one of those
takes is different. I went, yeah, I'm sorry man, He goes, no, no, no,
that's good, you know, I said, oh okay, I said,
because in acting you want to do a little if
(21:21):
the director wants you to do, you want to get a
little difference. And he sad you. I goh shit, I'm sorry,
and he goes, no, no, no, I can blend anything.
I take a piece of anything, because they're all the same,
you know. I didn't know that was a good thing,
you know. And yeah, and oh man, it was. I
can't think of a bad moment except when Steven came
(21:42):
in and said we were canceled. You know, I really
think although I and I remember saying to Steven and
to Greg Hoblett, hey, why don't we this is my
MBA in marketing, right, And that's exactly what they called
me onto. I said, why don't we do this? Why
(22:03):
don't we film one of the songs from the upcoming episode?
But let's put I was friends with Paula Abdul at
the time. All right, let's get one of these Let's
get Paul Abdul to do a song one week, Let's
film that song ahead of time, let's release it on
MTV and say this is what's coming up on cop Rock.
And they're like, shut up with your NBA marketing bush.
(22:26):
I'm like, no, man, I said, come on, you know,
let's you know, And I'm telling you I think that
would have saved the show. Yes, you get Paul Abdul,
you get who the hell else was around that? Do
you know that you can? You can find this on YouTube.
There are two numbers that Cheryl crow sings background in
(22:48):
what Yeah. Cheryl Crowe is on cop Rock.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
The talent in this show is just I cannot believe it.
Like every time I read another like person that worked
on it yeah or was involved, it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And I'm still good friends. By the way, we had
two Academy Award winners on the music writing staff. We
had a guy I'm still friends with. He was just
supposed to come out last week with the fires. He stayed.
He's down in New Orleans now. But Donnie Markowitz wrote
Time of My Life for Dirty Dancing Oh My God.
(23:21):
And Amanda McBroom was on the writing staff. She wrote
the rose oh my God, both Academy Award winners. Those
songs both won the Academy Award. And then there was
a whole bunch of other writers that were great too.
And the other cool thing was that there was a
lot of session singers in town here that never got
(23:41):
their faces on camera, you know, and all of a sudden,
you know, here they are like singing in the background,
popping up. Carl Anderson, Carl Anderson, rest in peace. Carl
was the judge in the pilot episode where they sing
that Randy Newton that silly song. He's guilty, Judge, He's guilty.
(24:01):
R Carl is the judge. Carl played Judas in the
movie Jesus Christ Superstar.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Oh my god, wow, Yeah, Carl.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Carl Anderson is it was a major voice, you know,
and he did one or two more episodes. But yeah,
And then there was guy Lewis Price, I think was
his name. He was touring with the Temptations at the time. Uh,
but there was and and these these musicians out here
were like, wow, wow, what a great thing to do.
You know. Everybody was psyched just to you know, come
(24:33):
and play.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, it's uh, it's so crazy. I have so many
more questions for you. We're gonna take a really quick
break here on I smell pop culture. Stick around, everybody,
this is I smell pop culture. Peter Onoati with us, Uh,
(24:57):
the star of Cop rock. I I'm so curious.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Like watching one of the stars of Hey.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
As far as i'm you're the main character of that show.
If you ask me, it's this is a Vince Lariso's story. Uh.
When I watch your performance, I'm so curious. Like preparing
for a role, a typical role, you know, you read
your lines, you you think about what the the you know,
what's the character experiencing this has the added challenge of learning.
(25:25):
You gotta learn songs and dancing. What was the preparation
like before you film? Like, like, how would you get this?
You get a copy of the song to learn? How
did that work?
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, you gotta you got a cassette tape with the
music and the words done by one of the writers
that or two of the writers that wrote it. You
studied that, you know, and usually for somebody like me.
It was my first time. They'd try to schedule it
later on in the uh in the you know, in
the episode, I mean it was an eight days that's
(25:56):
another thing. We did four songs in episode and only
a regular eight day shoot like a regular drama, our drama.
That's all that's insane and everything recorded like we said live.
So my preparation didn't change at all from my preparation
(26:17):
to do a character. You know, whatever it is in
my background that I could call upon, and for this
I could call upon a lot. My uncle, Pat Depalmer,
was the chief of police in my hometown. My father
was a part time cop when he was younger. You know,
I have a lot of there. Both were marines, you know,
I got all kinds of that stuff in it. None
of them sang. But the thing that I found, which
(26:41):
was a great it was an acting lesson for me,
was because I wasn't that confident of my voice. I
knew I could carry a tune, but I wasn't like
Anne Bobby or Paul mccrane or any of these guys
who could sing. And I had trained voices, you know,
I had to bury myself in my character. This was
(27:04):
really my character's inner voice singing out. So I wasn't
performing some of those some of those numbers were performed
like musicals and had dancing and stuff. Most of my
numbers were quite introspective and really voices of the inner character,
you know. And and so it wasn't that hard to
(27:27):
prepare for because I didn't because I have to tell
you something in my mind, people like Anne Bobby who've
done musicals and stuff, there's a switch in your body
as an actor that you have to be able to
flip to do a musical, to be able to blow
away all reality and to overact and to do I
don't know if it's called overacting, but to really really present.
(27:49):
I don't know that I have that talent. But like
I said, Aunt Bobby could, and you know, and and
a few other people you know who had performed, know
even as even as rock musicians, you know, like Larry had,
Larry Joshua had a band, Jimmy McDaniels hit a song
already in theater, Paul mccrane of course fame. Yeah, yeah,
(28:12):
you know, he's brilliant, and you know, so so so
my preparation and plus the fact that I was not
that accomplished an actor. I've only been into business a
couple of years, so I I had to depend on
my own natural process and just make the music fit
(28:33):
in to that, you know, And so it did I
think it fit in? Well?
Speaker 3 (28:37):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Again, I'm not I'm not a big fan of my
voice and whether I hit the right notes. But each
time at least in my numbers and a bunch of
other numbers too, But I felt that in my numbers
that it worked. It worked in the show.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You know, I love hearing that you looked at it
as like this is the character expressing their inner thoughts
through the songs. It comes across so well that way,
And I mean personally, like you keep saying you don't
like your voice, Like I mean, you know, I've seen
you in Good Fellows, I've seen you in Swat, like
I've seen all this stuff. And when I watched Cop Rock,
I was like, oh my god, he's got the voice
of an angel too. Who was this guy?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I wish?
Speaker 3 (29:16):
You know?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Who's a singer in my house? Is my wife? She was?
She was an actress when I met her, and she
has an amazing voice. She's she's become a writer, producer,
all our lives together. She you know, she was on
shows like Big Love, Good Advice. She started out. She
was actually nominated for an Emmy her first job here.
Her and her partner Meei Freedman Jenet Collins is her name.
(29:38):
Her and her partner meet me Freeman, were nominated for
an Emmy on the first show that they wrote on
here in Hollywood, which was in Living Color.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Oh, they wrote Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
They wrote the first season of In Living Color with
Wow people. Yeah so, but but but the asign is
that she has an incredible voice and probably perfect pitch.
You know. I wouldn't know because I don't have perfect pitch.
But uh, and I'm I'm the jerk who gets the
thing on TV. You know.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
So you do, you do cop Rock and then you
go on to work with Stephen Bosco a lot, Civil Wars,
Murder one, some ny PD Blue episodes. Was cop Rock?
The first role you had where you played a member
of law enforcement?
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yes? Yeah, all I did before that was was Kate
and Alley. You know, that was it. That was the
first one. And this interesting thing happened after Pop Rock
was canceled. Stephen called me up, and this is how
new I was in the business. Calls me up my
trailer and he says, ABC's gonna call you about a
(30:45):
holding deal. I went, Okay, what's that. Well, they're going
to pay you a certain amount to hold you for
an ABC show. And I went, they do that?
Speaker 3 (30:56):
You know?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Because yeah, they do that?
Speaker 4 (30:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
So, so I'm sitting around waiting for an ABC show
and I get called to do I met with Stephen Cannell.
He wanted me to do the commission. Do you remember
the show?
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Oh y, yes, yeah, Michael Ticholas, Yes.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Chicky did it, which is it was a great show
for him.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Well I turned it down because it was in Vancouver
and my kids were like four and two, and so
I said, no, I can't go to Vancouver for twenty
five weeks a year, you know. Plus it wasn't an
ABC show and I had this holding deal with ABC,
so I figured something might come my way, you know.
And in the meantime, Civil Wars comes around, and I
(31:47):
asked Steven, I said, you know, would you consider me
for Civil Wars? And then he called me and he said, yeah,
I got this role for you, but it was a
lesser role. It was like a private investigator, you know
that work for Charlie Howell and the firm. And then
I got a call from somebody else to do another lead.
(32:09):
So I called Stephen back and I go, hey, you're
my mentor. These guys are all calling me about doing leads,
and you want me to do this secondary role. I said,
would you consider me for the lead? He goes okay,
you know, And so I came in and I read,
and I loved the law. I had two semesters of
(32:29):
law undergraduate and two semesters in graduate school from my MBA.
I loved the law. I just was not as conscientious
an individual to go to law school and study I could.
One of my best friends in college, his name is
tom Vinaski. Tommy and I were co captains of the
football team. Tommy was from Shamokin, Pennsylvania. Cole Town boy. Yeah,
(32:54):
nothing but football and.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Cole Okay, sounds like it.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah. He graduate, waited and went on to law school,
and he just now retired as a federal appeals court
judge Obama had appointed him. Okay, that was Tommy. I
could not do what Tommy did you know? I could
not be But I love the law. I loved the
idea of having to legislate morality. How do you write
(33:25):
in sentence form how to behave morally or what is
morally right? What is morally wrong? And what kind of
what kind of penalties? You know? So the law always
interesting me. I loved it, you know, And and so
Stephen had me read and then then it looked like, yeah,
(33:48):
I got it. Right, and then they're looking for the
female lead and they can't find the female lead. So
Greg Homlet, who was Stephen's best guy for he did
all his pilots, calls me up once. He says, what
do you think about Mario Humingway? And I said, well,
I said, that would be an incredible thing for the
(34:08):
you know, for the commercial success of the show. You know,
screw you and your NBA shit. You know, come on, guys,
you asked me.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
You know, I'm sensing a theme here.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah, right. So, so Mary All got the job, and
then then Debbie Maser got the job. And Debbie and
I were in Goodfellas. We never knew each other, but
she had a nice, big role in Goodfellas, you know,
so we and then David Marciano was on, and David
and I grew up probably ten miles away from each
other in New Jersey, so we could finish each other's
(34:40):
you know, jokes and sense. So Civil Wars was wonderful.
And to be able to to actually, some of the
best lawyers are actors, so to be able to be
an actor playing a lawyer who's being an actor in
a summation speech was really cool, you know. But It
(35:03):
was brutal, sometimes these couple of pages of summation speeches
that you had to memorize and stuff. But I loved
it and I loved it, and that show in particular
Civil War, because it was civil law, it was about
family law. It was really, really, really visceral in the
way it tore people apart or put people together. And
(35:25):
years after that, I do this regular benefit in Omaha, Nebraska,
so far away from me culturally and philosophically, with wonderful people.
Even years after that, I've been doing it for twenty
some years or more. Actually, people will come up to
me and cite particular episodes of Civil Wars because maybe
(35:47):
they were going through a divorce at the time, or
a custody battle, or caring for an elder parent. Whatever
it was. Really it was another show that was beyond
its time. It was very hard. Network almost put it
on because it was so dark, you know. Uh. In fact,
the pilot episode, the pilot episode had to be reshot okay,
(36:09):
because my scenario was I was defending a guy whose
wife asked him for a divorce. He was he was
a schmat the guy he was in the you know,
in the uh uh in New York in you know,
the garment district. She was young and she was taking
advantage of him and everything. And you know who played
(36:31):
the guy who? Jerry Stiller.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Oh my god, And I wish that.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
This film could be found someplace, yes, because you should
see Jerry Stiller's dramatic acting. It was incredible, and it
was so incredible that it was too damn dark. And
the network said, oh, sorry, we can't use it. You
gotta you gotta do another story. So they ended up
filming another story where I'm defending a woman who's who's
(37:03):
who's divorcing her husband, and her husband is played by
Dennis Franz and Dennis is possessed by Elvis, and he
was talking like Elvis, and he says, I love you silly.
She goes, my name is not silly. Your name is
not Elvis. It's Murray Seidelman. You're a coffee salesman, you know.
And it was so wonderfully dramatic and poignant, and of
(37:26):
course Dennis fran.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
Dennis friends, you know, oh yeah, And they went through
I mean they went they built the they built the
big spread eagle uh costume that Elvis.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Wore for this awesome amazing. So that was the pilot episode,
and uh, they still felt it was too dark, they
you know, So we got two seasons out of it.
But that was it, you know. And then uh, I
came back for Murder one, and then I came back
as a regular for Murder in the first where I
got to work with Felton Todd Felton, Oh yeah, so,
(38:00):
but Stephen always and then I came back for that
arc on NYPD. You know. The funny thing was the
second season of Civil Wars. Stephen sent the pilot episode
of NYPD down to my trailer. He says, read this,
tell me what you think. So I read it and
I said, well, the lead character has an Irish name.
(38:22):
Are we not working together anymore? He said, screw you.
You got your own show. And we had not been
dropped yet. We were still waiting to see if we
had gotten picked up. And sure enough, we got dropped
right after, you know, and I said, you so. But
but Stephen was wonderful to me. You know. I spent
a lot of time before he died. I spent some
(38:42):
time with him and and his wife, his ex wife, Barbara.
I was friends with her, and we go and see
her she's she's gone now too. Barbara died a couple
of years ago. But they were real, real cheerleaders for
me coming in. They didn't know who No one knew
who I was. I mean, Jimmy McDaniels came off a
(39:02):
Broadway to do cop Rock, Paul mccrane, you know, fame
and everything else. Ronnie Cox established you know, a terminator
or whatever else he was in, you know, and Bobby
had come off Broadway, so they didn't really know. They
actually thought, I think that I was a Shakespearean actor
that they'd never heard of. I know Shakespeare from my
(39:23):
left arm, you know. In fact, one time I was
just telling a friend of mine. We were filming Firebirds
with Tommy Lee Jones, and the two of us were stuck.
Tommy Lee and I were stuck in the eight by
eight camouflage net while Nick and Sean were filming because
there were cameras going from like a mile around. Tommy
(39:44):
Lee says to me, I won't direct you as Yago.
I said, okay, I had to go home and figure
out which Shakespearean play Yago was in. So like I say,
oh that's good, I'll do that, you know, Yeah, sure,
I can't. But so so I'm kind of theater a literate.
I you know, like I said, I got my I
(40:05):
got my I got my actor's equity card. My first
actor's equity job was in the original play Talk Radio
on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I'm so glad you brought that up. I love the
movie Talk Radio. I've always wanted to see it on stage.
And when I saw you had done that at the
public theater, I was like, I got to ask him
about that.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah, that was that was wow. I was in fact
right at the time, I hadn't gotten Kate all yet.
I was making good money doing commercials, really good money
doing commercials. So I had only a commercial agent. Yeah,
I had only a commercial agent. I need to have
a legit agent to send me out for stuff. I
was sending myself out for stuff that was in backstage
(40:47):
or whatever. And so I get this auditioned for to
do voices in talk radio, to do callers in talk radio,
because I had some voiceover work. I was and then
and I said to my commercial agents, I said, do
I really want to do this? I mean, you know,
I'm making thousands and thousands of dollars doing commercial Why
(41:09):
do I want to do this public theater things. They went,
are you out of your mind? Public theater? You go
do that job. We'll get you commercial work. You just
go do the job at the public. Right. So I
had one scene on stage. The first opening scene is
me and Zach Grenier. He's the financial guy and I
play his engineer. And then I go off and I
(41:33):
did like four other characters, you know, some of which
I actually created. I brought to Eric came back and
asked me, well, here's the audition was. So there was
this guy. My wife loves this story. My wife and
I used to go on west Ford Street in New
York to this little place called the Bagel Restaurant, and
(41:56):
every time we get in there, it's a guy would
Our waiter would come up and he go, how are you.
Speaker 6 (42:00):
I haven't seen you in such a long time. You're
looking at wedding. He says, you want to do Georg
Jordan and I said yes. Then he goes, Casey, push
to well done, Grasan Nasai.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
How about you, honey. Right, So I get one of
these characters and I'm in the back and I use
that voice and Eric stops and he comes back and
he's looking around. He goes, who was I said it
was me. He goes, no, I said, yeah, it was me,
you know. And so Glenn, even in the movie is Latino.
(42:33):
He wasn't Latino in the script. Wow and so, and
then Eric needed another character. I said, well, you know,
I do this. You know, I went to college in Pennsylvania.
I've got Philadelphia accent, I've got Pittsburgh accent. I said,
you know, I want to do truck you want he said,
I want to do truck driver. I said, well, let's
do truck driver with a Pittsburgh accent, you know, which
(42:55):
I just did. And this is us. I was pretty
much the only one that was allowed to do the
Pittsburgh accident because it came through pretty well. But I,
you know, I went to college with those guys, you know,
spent time, you know, drinking and everything else. So so
that was a character that we kind of created together.
The bad thing was when Oliver Stone was auditioning for
(43:19):
the movie. You come in with you bring three characters
that you're going to do. So I came in. He said, well,
what characters you want to do. I said, well, I'm
gonna do Glenn, and I'm gonna do that. He goes, well,
we already have a Glenn. I went, how could you
have a Glenn? I The reason Latino is because I
did it that way. How the hell could you have
a Glenn?
Speaker 4 (43:39):
You know?
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Well, I didn't get any part in the movie. So,
but one of the reasons that Oliver Stone did the
movie was because John c McGinley, you know him, was
in Platoon and Johnny was in Talk Radio in the play,
so he got Stone to come up and see to
play and then Stone worked it out with Eric and
(44:02):
that's when they did the movie.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
You know, wow, yeah, yeah, I love it. Peter on
Aati's with us. It's I Smell Pop Culture. I have
more questions about some of your other roles. We're gonna
get to here in just one second. We got to
take a quick break. We'll play some commercials here. It's
(44:26):
I Smell Pop Culture. My name's Easton Allen and we're
here with Peter Onati from Cop Rock and okay, so
the same year that he did cop Rock and actually
maybe you can clarify the timeline here, but you're also
being Goodfellas. You have such an incredible role in Goodfellas.
Did you film that before Cop Rock or act.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
No.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, Goodfellas came out in ninety. Cop Rock came out
in ninety but Goodfellows was filmed almost almost at least
a year before my son, my son, Sebastiano Sonny was
born in March of eighty eight, I'm sorry, eighty nine,
and I filmed Goodfellas in May of eighty nine. And
(45:08):
here's an interesting story. So Jeanette and I were pregnant
and she didn't want to have a baby in New
York City, and you know, all my Italian relatives were
scaring her in New Jersey. So we moved out to
LA And it was a good time to do that
because I had work and I wanted to move to
LA anyway, because that's the next best place to go
(45:31):
for your career. So I was on Kate Now. The
very last day of shooting Kate Nolly last night was
a Thursday night, and we shoot in front of a
live audience at the Ed Sullivan Theater, which is now
the David Letterman Theater. They want to go to, Okay,
whatever it's called now, it's the at Sullivan Theater. Man,
it's where the Beatles were in Elvis and.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Everybody, yeah, legendary.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Yeah, so so we done filming Thursday night. Friday is
Saint Patrick's Day. If you know anything about New York City,
Saint Patrick's Day closes down and there's trunks all over
the place, you know. And I have a two thirty
flight out of JFK because my son is due to
(46:17):
be born that next Monday. So it's Friday morning. I
wait for my two thirty flight to go back to
LA to help out my son's birth. I get a
call from my agents, you have a callback for Scorsese
and Rockefeller Center at twelve thirty for Goodfellas. So I
called my wife and I said, I hope the babies
(46:39):
laid because I would be okay. So, now here's the
funny part. At that time, Scorsese was hiring for the
small roles like I got real mob guys or cops
who chased real mob guys. So we all had the
same scene to read, and he if he liked you,
(47:02):
he would just pick a roll for you, you know.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
So I walk into the outer casting office and there
and these guys sitting there with silver sweatsuits and patent
leather sneakers, and they look at me and they go, hey,
what are you reading for. I go, I got the
science for Sonny Bamboo. He goes, you'll know him. I go, no,
I don't know him. He goes, I know him. You
(47:28):
don't look not like him. I said, well that's what
the gamy. He goes, all right, God bless you kid. Right.
So I'm not nervous enough. Now. I'd only been into
business a few years, and I was used to doing
what I did in the business world, which was to
try and make the meeting mine. You know, then how
would I make the meeting? Mind it's a commercial addition
(47:48):
to a little something extra or whatever. So I'm going
in the sea scorsesey, I'm like, hell, am I going
to do that? Right? Well, it dawned, doesn't it that
my grandfather last name is the exact same spelling without
the s scot Ace. Okay, So I go in and
(48:09):
I make up a story for Scorsese. He goes, you
want to? I said, before we read, I need to
ask you if we're related, because I said to my grandfather,
Dana Tho Scorta as I said, I'm going to read
for the great director Martin Scorsese today, and my grandfather said, wow,
things way have a cousin a one time, we should
(48:32):
take the S out of the name. Scorsese goes, really,
really because we can't find our relatives. I'm going, oh,
I'm screwed now. I made the whole thing up right.
So I go, uh uh, well, where are you from?
He goes, uh, We're from Sicily. I go, no fucking way,
We're not Sicilian. What are you? I go, well, we're Napolitans.
(48:55):
He goes, hey, you guys drink too early in the morning.
You want to do that? I go, yeah, let's do it.
I read the scene and I got a roll.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
I mean, okay, so you get this role. You get
beat up by de Niro and Ralio nearly fed to
a lion. How many actors can claim that? I mean
that incredible?
Speaker 2 (49:16):
It's an iconic scene. Actually, yes, and actually here's here's
I'll tell you about the shooting of it later. But
a couple of years ago, one of my good friends,
Jerry Gel he's also the guy who handles my website
and everything else, we were going to get some I
had to get some pictures for autographs, and I walk
into the local place here in Sherman Oaks and guy
(49:38):
looks at me and he goes, I said, yeah, you know,
of course I'm an actor coming for headshots, right. He goes, no, no, no, no,
and Jerry goes, he was in Goodfellows. I goes, you
weren't good He said, yeah, he said. I said, well,
I'm the bookie that turns him in and that they
throw to the lion. They tried to throw the lines.
He goes. He goes, you know, he goes, Henry Hill
(49:59):
before he he died, painted a whole bunch of scenes
from Goodfellas, I said, and he said, I think he
painted that scene right. So I go back to pick
up the pictures and he's got a photo of Henry
Hill's painting of my scene. Whoa, Now it looks like
a third grader did it? Okay? So I go online
(50:23):
and I find the original one, and I want to
take a chance, but I can turn around. I've got
the original Henry Hill painter of that scene, you know,
here in in my office.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
That rules. Wow.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
So that's how iconic the scene was, you know, yes, so,
But in the meantime it's funny because I get you know,
I mean, we're filming in Brooklyn in Park Slope at
like two in the morning. You know, I get in
the car and De Niro goes, hey, doing I'm Robert,
I'm Bobby de Narrow. I go, yeah, I know, he
goes So. I started telling that story and my kid
(51:02):
after my kid was one year son, he was one
years old, he's I go through the narrow. He goes so.
And so there was a really embarrassing part, you know,
when they're punching me, you know, and I have to
sell the punch, you know, to sell to make the
stunt work. So they're filming from the front windshield, windshields out,
(51:24):
they're filming and they're hitting me, and I got to
go back, and I got to go back like this, Well,
when you do a violent action at the time, I
was studying martial arts, you know, there's sound with the
violent action. Well I couldn't KII and I was like, god,
you know, I couldn't. Well, I go back to friggin
third grade. They go action and I go like this,
(51:46):
They go cut. The sound man comes over, he goes,
you don't have to put that, we can do it later.
I'm like, oh fuck, I'm so oh my god, you know,
and so that was part of it. And I was
talking to Ray, and here's interesting thing.
Speaker 4 (52:03):
Right around that time, rain Man came out, okay, and
I don't know if you know, but Rayleiota did a
wonderful movie with Tom Holts.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Called Dominic and Eugene. Yes, okay, it's almost the same
sort of thing, him taking care of his you know,
his brother who's handicapped. Tom Hols plays the handicapped brother.
Such a superior movie to rain Man in that way.
(52:35):
So I'm sitting here with Ray, it's three o'clock in
the morning or whatever. I go, Ray, what's man? You know?
Dominic and Eugene was such a better movie. And you
know Dan rain Man, He goes, are you kidding me?
He's Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, Ray Liota, Tom Mollis. I said, okay,
I get it, never mind, but yeah it was. And
(53:00):
Ray grew up only a few miles away from me too,
some New Jersey, I think. And I grew up in Boomton,
New Jersey. And although if you live in Boomton, you
say bouton.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Oh, okay, bten So another one of your roles that
I that I really just wanted to point out you
were a wrestling coach on Sex and the City. In
my opinion, one of the I'm a big Sex in
the City fan. One of the best episodes my mother
board myself and if anyone's listening, it's the one where
Carrie breaks her laptop and just to get a new one.
(53:32):
But but Peter, you were the wrestling coach. You got
to be one of Samantha's boyfriends. I mean, what a
great role to get.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
That was a great role. And actually the executive producer
is an old friend of mine. I knew him from
New York when he was a performance artist in a
stand up comic. He had nothing going on, and he
came out here and became a great writer on Murphy
Brown and then he ended up running Sex in the City.
Michael Patrick King.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
I just talked to him the other day. It's incredible.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
Oh, Michael's great. Michael and I go away, Michael's at
my wedding.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Wow, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
When he was still living in New York in a
place called the Doorway to Hell. Yeah, this little apartment,
you know, and Michael calls me, he goes, hey, how'd
you like to do five sex scenes with Kim Cattrell.
I said, naw, I'm going to wash my hair.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
I'm busy.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
I said to you, if you fly me out, yeah,
I'll do it right. So, and I think it was
supposed to go maybe for another couple of episodes. I
would love to have done it like that, But so
the the idea was that towards the end there she
was starting to have trouble climaxing right, And so they
had these They had a sort of a Comma Sutra
(54:42):
sheet or something. And Michael knew because Michael and I
had done an improv workshop together where I had lifted
him up over my head like this, because I wrestled
in high school and in college, is you know, And
so he thought of me right away, and he just
called and offered me to roll. So we're looking at
all these positions and stuff like this, and it happened
(55:05):
to be my forty eighth birthday. And Kim looks at
me and says, thank you for doing it. She goes,
you wouldn't believe some of the guys they get in here. Sometimes.
She goes, I'm so happy to have a real actor.
Blah blah blah. I said, Kim, it's my birthday and
I can't think of anything better than the bank five times,
(55:25):
you know.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Yeah, She goes, it's your birthday.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
I go, yeah, but this is the last scene. I
didn't say anything. Done. Now, I don't want to hear
any crap about right, blah blah blah. So I get done.
I go back to my dressing room and put my
clothes on. Right, I get out. It was a silver
cup or something out in Queens. I'm going to my
car to get brought back into the city and this
(55:49):
pa starts running towards me. She had sent out for
a carvel birthday cake for med amount of time.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
Wow, okay, I love that.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
And then the other thing that happened that was really
funny was during the five scenes or four scenes where
ever the hell it was so Kim, because she does
all the sex stuff, has like a cup for her
leading men. It's like a brack cup, so appliable, it's
not it's totally hard, and it's unclear straps so you
(56:21):
can't see, you know. So there was one time where
we're kind of going at it and the cup pops
in and pops out. She goes, oh, and I said,
that wasn't me, that was the cup. You know, she goes, well,
maybe I liked it. I go, well, I hope you do,
because we got another four hours of this shit and
(56:42):
we kind of stayed friends, were in touch once in
a while, and there was an article actually out about
the top one hundred guys she had six with and
I made it in dinner under fifty I think something
like that. But it was great. It was great fun,
and I wish it had lasted more because she was
great and I got to the show right around you
know shows when I did Kate Now, it happened to
(57:04):
when shows go on for a while sometimes camps sort
of developed. I don't know why. Maybe some of the
actresses or actors want more lines. Could be anything political
or set wise or whatever it is money I but
camps developed, you know, same thing. I'm Kate Nelly. Susan
and Jane were best friends when they started the show.
(57:25):
When I finished the show with them, they were friends,
but they weren't as close as they were in the beginning.
And I don't think anything to do with either of them.
I think it's some people came in to run the
show that Jane didn't like, and Susan was like always happy,
So it's gonna work out. It's gonna work out, you
know whatever. But camps developed, and in I sense that
when I got to Sex and the City too, you know,
(57:46):
so that's all right. My camp had Kim Coatrell.
Speaker 1 (57:49):
And it hey not bad places to be.
Speaker 2 (57:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (57:53):
Yeah, so Peter, this has been so much fun. So
in Gilmore Girls, Coprock is referenced when Laura, the main character,
she's gonna have a Coprock marathon with her daughter Rory,
and she brags that she has all the episodes on tape.
And I was curious, you know, you have you have
three sons. Is there like a show or something that
(58:16):
you like to watch with your kids that maybe when
they were growing up you would watch on a marathon
something like that.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
Yeah, And we never did any marathon stuff because boys
were always so busy, you know. Yeah, I mean we
you know, special events, special movies and things like that.
In fact, there's a movie I just sent to a
friend of mine just has a little baby. He was
my next door neighbor and now he moved to New York.
There was a beautiful movie. Well, my kids used to
love Totuo.
Speaker 1 (58:40):
Okay, oh yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
I don't think I ever watched the whole thing, you know.
But I have a granddaughter now, she's fourteen months old.
But there's this little movie. It's called The Snowman. It
was a short and it's an Academy Award nominated short
from Canada.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
I know exactly what you're talking about, you know what,
the beautiful.
Speaker 2 (59:00):
Yeah, no view dialogue, just an amazing, amazing journey and that.
And I just sent it to this guy next door
who had the who has this little boy? And uh
and I give it to people who, you know, when
when I first have their kids, because it's a wonderful
first movie, even if they can't speak, it's just the
images and the sound is wonderful. But I don't remember,
(59:23):
because you know what, there were be times when I'd
sit down with the boys. Oh, you got to see
this movie. It's a mad, mad, mad mad world. They're like,
what the hell is it? Out of here? Right? Or
you know anything? You know, even Young Frank is that
they all go back to now they're like that, oh
Young frank'sty Oh that I go. Yeah, now, you know.
Speaker 1 (59:45):
I could put you on early Yeah, Oh my god,
it's so funny. Uh. Peter, thank you so much for
your time today. This has been so much fun, and
everyone cop rocks on YouTube. I hope everybody listening goes
and watches it. It's truly a magnificent pro and I'm
so grateful that you made it and you were part
of it. It's just it's it's incredible. It should have
(01:00:06):
gone for many seasons.
Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Yes, and I think you can still get that whole
the whole collection of the episodes on shout Factory, Yes,
I think, but yeah, yeah, And most of the YouTube
stuff is all the singing.
Speaker 4 (01:00:19):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
I don't know that you know that there's much of
the acting on there, but there's some of the acting
in the singing, like we were talking about, But it's there,
and it's it's pretty funny to watch. And you can
see why the show went down because when it worked,
it worked really well. When it didn't work, it ted,
you know, tanked, you know, so, but it was And
(01:00:40):
Steven said it best. He said, I'm proud that I
did it. He goes, it was the most creative thing
I've ever done. He goes, I don't think I'd want
to do it again.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
So wow, thanks so much. Hope you have a great
rest of your day.
Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
You two. It was great, so much.
Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Dot everybody, and I'll forget.
Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
Follow us on Instagram at i Am all In podcast,
and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com
I Am all In again.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Oh, let's just do.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I Smell pop Culture with Easton Allen and I Heart
Radio podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hey everybody, Easton Allen, I Am all In Podcasts one
of eleven productions iHeart Radio, iHeart Media, I Heart Podcasts.
This is I Smell pop Culture? Do you smell pop culture?
Do they smell pop culture? I Smell pop Culture. This
is gonna be a lot of fun. Here's what we
do on the show. If you're just joining us for
the first time. We love Gilmore Girls. We love the
(00:44):
pop culture references in Gilmore Girls. They tie the show
into a greater world and that is part of why
we love it. But sometimes you gotta go a little deeper.
So here's what we're doing. We're picking out some of
our favorite pop culture references from the entire of Gilmore Girls,
and we're going to explore them on a granular level
(01:04):
that you can only do with a podcast. We're going
to talk to the people that made these pop culture
references into a piece of pop culture. We're going to
talk to the stars, the writers, the producers, the singers,
We're talking to them all baby, And this week we're
doing something really really exciting. This is This is something
that you may or may not be familiar with, a
little show called cop Rock. I know what you're thinking,
(01:27):
what's cop Rock? What is that? Imagine if you watched
Law and Order, but then they started sinking Broadway level,
Broadway level songs, Broadway level productions, television drama at the
highest level. This is truly a big swing. And if
there's something I love, it's a big swing. I love
big risks. I love when people try a crazy idea,
(01:50):
and that is what they did with cop Rock. This
show premiered on ABC in nineteen ninety. It ran for
eleven episodes. It was canceled, It was abruptly canceled. It
was not met with with good reviews. This show was
truly bizarre, but an incredible show nonetheless. And here is
(02:11):
why it connects to Gilmore Girls. We're going to season five,
episode thirteen, Wedding Bell Blues. This is the cold open
before the theme song plays. Laura is at Luke's. They're
talking about his boat. You know, he's trying to buy
stuff for his boat, and he's getting really frustrated because
he's talking to the guy from the catalog and everything's
on back order, so he's really frustrated, as Luke tends
(02:34):
to be, and he tells Laurai he's going to come
by later to work on the boat with what he has.
You know, he's waiting for a bunch of stuff to
come in, but he's going to come by and work
on the boat. And she says, yeah, that's fine' Rory
spending the night. We're having a cop Rock marathon. And
then they talk about some other stuff, and then before
Lorela leaves the coffee shop, Luke says, hold on, did
(02:55):
you say cop Rock marathon? And Lurlai says, yeah, I
got them all on tape, trying to figure out you
seeing me? So Laura La big cop Rock fan. She
has all eleven episodes on tape. You can get all
eleven episodes of cop Rock on a DVD from Shout Factory.
This show has a cult following now. People love it.
I love it. I watched a lot of cop Rock
prepping for this. I admittedly I did not know what
(03:17):
it was until you know, I was doing research for
this show. I love Coprock. I am a huge cop
Rock fan. Now I hope you are too. We're going
to talk to one of the stars of cop Rock
Peter on Aroti. He played Detective Vincent LaRusso, who's kind
of the de facto main character of Cop Rock. He
his storyline is kind of like a main thread throughout
(03:38):
the eleven episodes. And if you see him, google Peter
on Arotti if you can't place his face. He has
been in everything. He has been in Swat, he was
in This Is Us, He's in Good Fellas for Crying
Out Lad. This guy is so cool and he's done
so many incredible things in Hollywood, and I'm so interested
(03:59):
in his perspective about what it was like to make
something like Cop Rock. What was it like to go
into this like dramatic police procedural, but then also have
to learn singing and dancing in certain cases? And how
do they make this show? How is this? Randy Newman
wrote all the songs for the pilot. Randy Newman's in
(04:19):
the theme song. They had incredible people working on this show.
I can't wait to hear about it all. We're going
to talk to Peter Onati here in just a second,
and I hope you stick around because it's real. It's
a lot of fun here on I smell pop culture.
We're having a blast let's do it. Hey, everybody, it's
(04:46):
I Smell pop Culture on the Iamlin podcast. We're so
excited about this. We're talking to one of the stars
of cop Rock. Peter Onoati is with us. Thank you
so much for doing this. Peter, it's so nice to
meet you.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Thanks for asking.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So okay, let's just get right into it. Let's let's
talk cop Rock here. It's it's such a wild idea,
and that's why I love it. It's such a big swing.
It was such a like nothing really like it had
been done before. How did you get involved?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Well, I had just moved out here. My wife was
pregnant and had our first son while we were here
in eighty eight, and I had just come off of
my first real TV job was Katenally back in New
York at the Etsullivan Theater, the last season of Katenally.
(05:41):
And I only been to business a couple of years.
I don't know if you know my background, but I
have an MBA. I was an advertising park avenue you know,
for four years before that, and the whole other twelve
years in the business world. Anyway, I get out here
and my then agent, Kay Lieberman and now manager because
she took over. A managing company called me and said,
(06:06):
you sing right, I go no, no, I'm you know.
She goes yes, you do you sing? I said, well,
I sang at a couple of my friend's weddings from
college and you know, a couple of family friends. I said,
but no, I'm not a singer. You know. She goes no,
you sing? I said, Okay, I sing, you know. And
so I get this audition for cop Rock. And the
(06:29):
funny thing was my wife grew up in Santa Barbara.
She's good friends with a guy who was probably I
think he still is or was the longest running phantom
on Broadway, Howard mcgillan is his name. Incredible voice, incredible
musical actor. And Howard came out from New York and
(06:52):
had had an audition from this before I ever even
heard of it, so I, you know, didn't pay any
attention to it, you know. And I went off to
do a movie with Nick Cage and Tommy Lee Jones
and Sean Young called Firebirds. When it came back from that,
I got this audition for cop Rock. And so the
(07:15):
scene was actually the scene in the pilot where I
testify in court. And it was a great of course
it's Botchko. So it was the great writing, you know.
And after I did that, you know, they called me
back again and had me read it again, and then
they said, okay, you you know, we need you to sing,
(07:39):
and I went okay, I said, you know, I had
only done one actually singing audition in New York. This
was before I was in the business. While I was
still at McCall's magazines. My wife got me a singing
audition at the Public Theater for something called Lenny and
the Heartbreakers. And it was so embarrassing, that's a but.
(08:05):
So I didn't know what to do. So I picked Uh.
I picked a really simple song that I knew, an
old song blue Monday from from uh a Fats Domino.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
So I get in there and the accompany is playing
He's going d D bom bomp, and Mike Post, who
was ahead of music, goes, no, no, man, man, this
is Fats Domino. You can't play it like that. And
I said, Mike, give him a break. Hunt it says
Antoine Domino on the sheet music. How's he gonna know?
(08:41):
You know? So I get up there and I'm going
blue Monday, How I hate bloom Monday, you know, and
and I do my thing right. So I'm like, Okay,
this is uh never gonna happen, you know. But it
was great fun to do. And so I get another
call back to do it again, and Randy Newman was
(09:02):
there because Randy Newman did the music in the pilot.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Wow, and he's in the theme.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Oh no, Randy music. Yeah, the pilot music is quite incredible,
especially the last moment the pilot, which I think is
one of the best moments in TV history. We could
talk about that later too. So I did it and
I ended up getting the role of Vincent LaRusso, which
was not a regular role at the time. So we
(09:29):
filmed the pilot. I don't sing in the pilot, and
the story was and Steven Boschko told me this visit
LaRusso was supposed to be in for only four episodes
and then sing a love song to his gun and
blow his head off. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Wo.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So Mike, Well, and as an actor coming out from
New York and I want to do features, I'm going, Wow,
this is the way to go out of television if
you want to do features, right.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
So we did the pilot and all of a sudden
ABC called botch go and says, we can't lose this character.
You have to figure out something. Sign them up. We're
gon We're gonna keep this character. So I ended up
being a regular, And it ended up that the thirteen
(10:18):
or twelve episodes that we shot were mostly around my
crime of killing a cop killer and my courtroom drama
and coming back to the forest and all that stuff.
I shipp back up at one point and say that
during the audition process they called me back and said
and wanted me to read for the captain, which Larry
(10:41):
Joshua got. Larry Joshua accomplished musician he had who was
in a rock band. He has a great voice, that
great gravelly voice that he is, And so I went great,
because this is a regular role, right, didn't get it,
didn't didn't do it. And then they, like I said,
they gave me the russo and that all worked out
and then it was it was funny because I was
(11:04):
the last one of the original ensemble to sing. I
didn't sing till the fourth episode. Wow, two more songs, Yeah,
two more songs and the rest of it, and it
was it was hard. The first one where I sing,
I started in a holding cell outside the court.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Can't keep a good man down.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yes, and it goes into you know, the prison. Yeah,
well those were real prisoners. Yes, I'm going buy these
guys singing and if you look, you can read the
guy's lips. He's going you homie, And I'm like, holy shit,
I gotta maintain. Plus I'm worried about my singing and
i gotta be singing in front of these guys, right,
(11:50):
So but it all worked out. It was it Actually,
I don't really like my voice that much, but the song,
the the theatrical nature of the song really worked well
for the piece, uh, you know, and so that that
was kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
And but I love that sequence. That's crazy. It was
a real prisoner.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, they were real prisoners, man. And here's what's funny
because there's also a scene in the prison where this
guy approaches me. I'm a cop and a regular, you know,
regular area of the prison, and this Latino guy approaches me,
you know, and challenges me and you know, a boom,
I flip him around, I choke him, I put him down,
you know, or in a shower, and I'm like, to
(12:31):
these guys, okay, anybody else you know, Yeah, well, this
guy was tatted up, and I mean he looked like
a gangster. Right. Well, he was an actor, but he
was a good actor, but he looked really looked the part.
And he had a job downtown LA in a play.
(12:51):
So he left before we finished the scene because he
had to get done, and you know, and so they
shot one, just one thing on my side, and then
I get off and I get out of the shower
and I go in and I put my clothes on
the I'm driving out the prison. And they got him
bent over the car, his own car. They got him
(13:14):
bent over, and they're frisking them because he was so
late for his call time that he went in his
prison guard. He drove his own car, right, and he
looks at me and he goes, Peter, tell him, who
I am. I I never seen a guy before. Come on,
come on, I said, no, no, come on, guys, I said,
you think a guy would drive out in his prison outfit?
(13:36):
And he said and his prison guards go, oh yeah,
they would, you know. But oh, I scared the ship
out of him, I know. But like guy, I could
I could not take advantage of that, right, And he
I think he barely made it on time, all because
because the prison was like out in near Santa Clarita
(13:56):
and he had to go all the way to downtown.
Lad is half hour call. So that was kind of funny.
But that was sort of the you know, the craziness
surrounding that first number, you know. And and then the
other one was when I'm about to go to jail
and it's my birthday and they gave it this jazzy
bluesy number where the stripper comes and she's dressed like
(14:21):
a cop, and man, I tell you, I honestly God.
Now it's thirty what thirty two years later, and I
have done a lot of work. I've had a couple
of my own series. I just came off big splashy
series and swat and everything as a regular. I don't
think I've ever had a more wonderful creative challenge than
(14:46):
that show. You know.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I love it. Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to
hear because it's such an It's such a cool idea,
I think, And I just love how like when your
face was something like that, how how you saw it
as a cool creative challenge. I love that.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah. Well listen, everybody, everybody, if you look at that
original cast. Everybody went on to be a regular in
another showy quality cast and without the music. The drama
was was NYPD caliber. It was absolutely NYPD and Hill
Street Blues caliber drama. And you know what, it went
well in the urban areas, but in a suburbs van
(15:24):
and in a flyovers they just didn't I remember. So
they have this event called the upfronts, right every year
when the new shows get picked up. They like, swat
we did it at Carnegie Hall. They bring the whole
cast out and introduce the stars to all the potential
advertisers right and to your affiliates and everybody else. It's
(15:46):
a big deal. It's a lot of fun. Well, the
one out in LA, because I wasn't a regular. I
didn't go to the one in New York. But I
went to the one in LA because they had made
me a regular in the meantime, and I was sitting
at a table with the affiliates of Sioux City, Iowa. Okay,
Now these are the affiliates. These are the guys that
want you want to love your program because my show
(16:09):
Pop Rock is at ten o'clock show and that leads
into their news. They don't want to lose any audience. Right,
oh yeah, Well the four Tops sang and that was
the same year the Twin Peaks came out on ABC,
So it was Twin Peaks, it was cop Rock, it
was you know. So we're at these upfronts for Top Singing,
(16:30):
and they showed the last scene of the pilot episode
of cop Rock, which is Kathleen Wolhoyd singing a Randy
Newman lullaby to her baby and selling it for two
hundred dollars drug money into adoption. I'm telling you, you
(16:52):
look at this thing. You look at it, look at
it on YouTube. I don't think there's a better moment
in television. I really don't that moment. Know, there was
a bunch of Coprock moments that didn't work, but that moment,
and you could have heard. You could hear it. You
could have a pin drop, right yeah. Well, this guy
from SIUs City, Iowa leans over the table and he goes,
(17:14):
oh hell, she wouldn't sing when she sells her baby.
And I went, okay, we're screwed.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Oh man, this guy, don get it.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
We're screwed, you know. Uh yeah, And so we went
into it was you know, and and you know, who
was responsible for giving Stephen the green light on on
cop Rock.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
That Bob Iger, Bob Iger, current CEO Disney, in fact.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
That Steven's memorial. Bob came up to me that they
had closed off part of the Fox area where Steven's
building was, and Bob Iyger comes up to me, he goes, Peter,
Bob Byger. I go, yeah, I know, he goes, I
was just talking to somebody about Coprock. The other girl,
(17:59):
I said, I thought picked somebody about cop Rock all
the time, you know. I said, thanks for the you know,
for the opportunity man, you know, and and we laughed
about it, and you know, and that was it. But
that was his twin Peaks, cop Rock, all that stuff
was him when he was head of ABC, you know.
And uh and so even he remembers it. It's probably
(18:21):
his biggest failure too. But uh but it was uh
uh yeah, and and I you know, oh god, there
was it was. And here's a very interesting thing too,
or at least I find it interesting now because I've
been into business for a while and I had never
really I I had never really done summer stock, you know,
(18:41):
where people know each other for the whole summer and
they do all different roles and they're hanging together. I
never did anything like that. I went from the world
into acting and and started to work, you know, so
I never did all that other stuff. In other words,
I did I had no binding history with the people
(19:02):
I was working with. I didn't know how to socialize
in that atmosphere. But the amazing thing about cop Rock
was that people showed up on their days off to
watch somebody else sing, or somebody else's number or big scene.
That's most we were. And that's when I say now
that I've never seen that in any other cast, whether
it was my own show or somebody else's show, I've
(19:25):
never seen that happen, you know. And here's here's the
phenomenal thing about Copyright that no one knows. Every one
of those songs was recorded live. Not one of them
was looped or anything else.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Okay, I read I wanted to ask you if that
was real, because I read that I could not believe
that it that that was I'm like, you'd sing it live,
like that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
We're staying it live. The camera The camera was on
a dolly, you know, doing its thing. There was a
playback of the background music and you were miked and
you sang, you know, I was miked underneath that prison,
guarb I was miked. The camera dolly was on, and
on the dolly was a little speaker with you know,
with the background music for I Can't Keep a Good
(20:16):
Man Down, the same thing for the for to Live
and Die a Cop and the last one, which I forget,
I forget the name of that one, but no, it
was all live, and there was a big recording truck
outside the soundstage, and if you had to do it over,
(20:36):
you'd do it over. In fact, a friend of mine,
Stephen DePaul, became a very prominent director in television, has
written a couple of books. Now. He was one of
Bruce Springsteen's roadies Wow. But he was also friends with
Billy Finkelstein. They had gone to college together or knew
each other, and so Billy hired him as a producer
on cop Rock because he knew that end of things.
(21:00):
And Steven came into me one time. I forget which
song it was, I'm pretty sure it was to Live
in Die cop and he said, not one of those
takes is different. I went, yeah, I'm sorry man, He goes, no, no, no,
that's good, you know, I said, oh okay, I said,
because in acting you want to do a little if
(21:21):
the director wants you to do, you want to get a
little difference. And he sad you. I goh shit, I'm sorry,
and he goes, no, no, no, I can blend anything.
I take a piece of anything, because they're all the same,
you know. I didn't know that was a good thing,
you know. And yeah, and oh man, it was. I
can't think of a bad moment except when Steven came
(21:42):
in and said we were canceled. You know, I really
think although I and I remember saying to Steven and
to Greg Hoblett, hey, why don't we this is my
MBA in marketing, right, And that's exactly what they called
me onto. I said, why don't we do this? Why
(22:03):
don't we film one of the songs from the upcoming episode?
But let's put I was friends with Paula Abdul at
the time. All right, let's get one of these Let's
get Paul Abdul to do a song one week, Let's
film that song ahead of time, let's release it on
MTV and say this is what's coming up on cop Rock.
And they're like, shut up with your NBA marketing bush.
(22:26):
I'm like, no, man, I said, come on, you know,
let's you know, And I'm telling you I think that
would have saved the show. Yes, you get Paul Abdul,
you get who the hell else was around that? Do
you know that you can? You can find this on YouTube.
There are two numbers that Cheryl crow sings background in
(22:48):
what Yeah. Cheryl Crowe is on cop Rock.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
The talent in this show is just I cannot believe it.
Like every time I read another like person that worked
on it yeah or was involved, it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And I'm still good friends. By the way, we had
two Academy Award winners on the music writing staff. We
had a guy I'm still friends with. He was just
supposed to come out last week with the fires. He stayed.
He's down in New Orleans now. But Donnie Markowitz wrote
Time of My Life for Dirty Dancing Oh My God.
(23:21):
And Amanda McBroom was on the writing staff. She wrote
the rose oh my God, both Academy Award winners. Those
songs both won the Academy Award. And then there was
a whole bunch of other writers that were great too.
And the other cool thing was that there was a
lot of session singers in town here that never got
(23:41):
their faces on camera, you know, and all of a sudden,
you know, here they are like singing in the background,
popping up. Carl Anderson, Carl Anderson, rest in peace. Carl
was the judge in the pilot episode where they sing
that Randy Newton that silly song. He's guilty, Judge, He's guilty.
(24:01):
R Carl is the judge. Carl played Judas in the
movie Jesus Christ Superstar.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Oh my god, wow, Yeah, Carl.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Carl Anderson is it was a major voice, you know,
and he did one or two more episodes. But yeah,
And then there was guy Lewis Price, I think was
his name. He was touring with the Temptations at the time. Uh,
but there was and and these these musicians out here
were like, wow, wow, what a great thing to do.
You know. Everybody was psyched just to you know, come
(24:33):
and play.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, it's uh, it's so crazy. I have so many
more questions for you. We're gonna take a really quick
break here on I smell pop culture. Stick around, everybody,
this is I smell pop culture. Peter Onoati with us, Uh,
(24:57):
the star of Cop rock. I I'm so curious.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Like watching one of the stars of Hey.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
As far as i'm you're the main character of that show.
If you ask me, it's this is a Vince Lariso's story. Uh.
When I watch your performance, I'm so curious. Like preparing
for a role, a typical role, you know, you read
your lines, you you think about what the the you know,
what's the character experiencing this has the added challenge of learning.
(25:25):
You gotta learn songs and dancing. What was the preparation
like before you film? Like, like, how would you get this?
You get a copy of the song to learn? How
did that work?
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, you gotta you got a cassette tape with the
music and the words done by one of the writers
that or two of the writers that wrote it. You
studied that, you know, and usually for somebody like me.
It was my first time. They'd try to schedule it
later on in the uh in the you know, in
the episode, I mean it was an eight days that's
(25:56):
another thing. We did four songs in episode and only
a regular eight day shoot like a regular drama, our drama.
That's all that's insane and everything recorded like we said live.
So my preparation didn't change at all from my preparation
(26:17):
to do a character. You know, whatever it is in
my background that I could call upon, and for this
I could call upon a lot. My uncle, Pat Depalmer,
was the chief of police in my hometown. My father
was a part time cop when he was younger. You know,
I have a lot of there. Both were marines, you know,
I got all kinds of that stuff in it. None
of them sang. But the thing that I found, which
(26:41):
was a great it was an acting lesson for me,
was because I wasn't that confident of my voice. I
knew I could carry a tune, but I wasn't like
Anne Bobby or Paul mccrane or any of these guys
who could sing. And I had trained voices, you know,
I had to bury myself in my character. This was
(27:04):
really my character's inner voice singing out. So I wasn't
performing some of those some of those numbers were performed
like musicals and had dancing and stuff. Most of my
numbers were quite introspective and really voices of the inner character,
you know. And and so it wasn't that hard to
(27:27):
prepare for because I didn't because I have to tell
you something in my mind, people like Anne Bobby who've
done musicals and stuff, there's a switch in your body
as an actor that you have to be able to
flip to do a musical, to be able to blow
away all reality and to overact and to do I
don't know if it's called overacting, but to really really present.
(27:49):
I don't know that I have that talent. But like
I said, Aunt Bobby could, and you know, and and
a few other people you know who had performed, know
even as even as rock musicians, you know, like Larry had,
Larry Joshua had a band, Jimmy McDaniels hit a song
already in theater, Paul mccrane of course fame. Yeah, yeah,
(28:12):
you know, he's brilliant, and you know, so so so
my preparation and plus the fact that I was not
that accomplished an actor. I've only been into business a
couple of years, so I I had to depend on
my own natural process and just make the music fit
(28:33):
in to that, you know, And so it did I
think it fit in? Well?
Speaker 3 (28:37):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Again, I'm not I'm not a big fan of my
voice and whether I hit the right notes. But each
time at least in my numbers and a bunch of
other numbers too, But I felt that in my numbers
that it worked. It worked in the show.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You know, I love hearing that you looked at it
as like this is the character expressing their inner thoughts
through the songs. It comes across so well that way,
And I mean personally, like you keep saying you don't
like your voice, Like I mean, you know, I've seen
you in Good Fellows, I've seen you in Swat, like
I've seen all this stuff. And when I watched Cop Rock,
I was like, oh my god, he's got the voice
of an angel too. Who was this guy?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I wish?
Speaker 3 (29:16):
You know?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Who's a singer in my house? Is my wife? She was?
She was an actress when I met her, and she
has an amazing voice. She's she's become a writer, producer,
all our lives together. She you know, she was on
shows like Big Love, Good Advice. She started out. She
was actually nominated for an Emmy her first job here.
Her and her partner Meei Freedman Jenet Collins is her name.
(29:38):
Her and her partner meet me Freeman, were nominated for
an Emmy on the first show that they wrote on
here in Hollywood, which was in Living Color.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Oh, they wrote Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
They wrote the first season of In Living Color with
Wow people. Yeah so, but but but the asign is
that she has an incredible voice and probably perfect pitch.
You know. I wouldn't know because I don't have perfect pitch.
But uh, and I'm I'm the jerk who gets the
thing on TV. You know.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
So you do, you do cop Rock and then you
go on to work with Stephen Bosco a lot, Civil Wars,
Murder one, some ny PD Blue episodes. Was cop Rock?
The first role you had where you played a member
of law enforcement?
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yes? Yeah, all I did before that was was Kate
and Alley. You know, that was it. That was the
first one. And this interesting thing happened after Pop Rock
was canceled. Stephen called me up, and this is how
new I was in the business. Calls me up my
trailer and he says, ABC's gonna call you about a
(30:45):
holding deal. I went, Okay, what's that. Well, they're going
to pay you a certain amount to hold you for
an ABC show. And I went, they do that?
Speaker 3 (30:56):
You know?
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Because yeah, they do that?
Speaker 4 (30:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
So, so I'm sitting around waiting for an ABC show
and I get called to do I met with Stephen Cannell.
He wanted me to do the commission. Do you remember
the show?
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Oh y, yes, yeah, Michael Ticholas, Yes.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Chicky did it, which is it was a great show
for him.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Well I turned it down because it was in Vancouver
and my kids were like four and two, and so
I said, no, I can't go to Vancouver for twenty
five weeks a year, you know. Plus it wasn't an
ABC show and I had this holding deal with ABC,
so I figured something might come my way, you know.
And in the meantime, Civil Wars comes around, and I
(31:47):
asked Steven, I said, you know, would you consider me
for Civil Wars? And then he called me and he said, yeah,
I got this role for you, but it was a
lesser role. It was like a private investigator, you know
that work for Charlie Howell and the firm. And then
I got a call from somebody else to do another lead.
(32:09):
So I called Stephen back and I go, hey, you're
my mentor. These guys are all calling me about doing leads,
and you want me to do this secondary role. I said,
would you consider me for the lead? He goes okay,
you know, And so I came in and I read,
and I loved the law. I had two semesters of
(32:29):
law undergraduate and two semesters in graduate school from my MBA.
I loved the law. I just was not as conscientious
an individual to go to law school and study I could.
One of my best friends in college, his name is
tom Vinaski. Tommy and I were co captains of the
football team. Tommy was from Shamokin, Pennsylvania. Cole Town boy. Yeah,
(32:54):
nothing but football and.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Cole Okay, sounds like it.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah. He graduate, waited and went on to law school,
and he just now retired as a federal appeals court
judge Obama had appointed him. Okay, that was Tommy. I
could not do what Tommy did you know? I could
not be But I love the law. I loved the
idea of having to legislate morality. How do you write
(33:25):
in sentence form how to behave morally or what is
morally right? What is morally wrong? And what kind of
what kind of penalties? You know? So the law always
interesting me. I loved it, you know, And and so
Stephen had me read and then then it looked like, yeah,
(33:48):
I got it. Right, and then they're looking for the
female lead and they can't find the female lead. So
Greg Homlet, who was Stephen's best guy for he did
all his pilots, calls me up once. He says, what
do you think about Mario Humingway? And I said, well,
I said, that would be an incredible thing for the
(34:08):
you know, for the commercial success of the show. You know,
screw you and your NBA shit. You know, come on, guys,
you asked me.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
You know, I'm sensing a theme here.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah, right. So, so Mary All got the job, and
then then Debbie Maser got the job. And Debbie and
I were in Goodfellas. We never knew each other, but
she had a nice, big role in Goodfellas, you know,
so we and then David Marciano was on, and David
and I grew up probably ten miles away from each
other in New Jersey, so we could finish each other's
(34:40):
you know, jokes and sense. So Civil Wars was wonderful.
And to be able to to actually, some of the
best lawyers are actors, so to be able to be
an actor playing a lawyer who's being an actor in
a summation speech was really cool, you know. But It
(35:03):
was brutal, sometimes these couple of pages of summation speeches
that you had to memorize and stuff. But I loved
it and I loved it, and that show in particular
Civil War, because it was civil law, it was about
family law. It was really, really, really visceral in the
way it tore people apart or put people together. And
(35:25):
years after that, I do this regular benefit in Omaha, Nebraska,
so far away from me culturally and philosophically, with wonderful people.
Even years after that, I've been doing it for twenty
some years or more. Actually, people will come up to
me and cite particular episodes of Civil Wars because maybe
(35:47):
they were going through a divorce at the time, or
a custody battle, or caring for an elder parent. Whatever
it was. Really it was another show that was beyond
its time. It was very hard. Network almost put it
on because it was so dark, you know. Uh. In fact,
the pilot episode, the pilot episode had to be reshot okay,
(36:09):
because my scenario was I was defending a guy whose
wife asked him for a divorce. He was he was
a schmat the guy he was in the you know,
in the uh uh in New York in you know,
the garment district. She was young and she was taking
advantage of him and everything. And you know who played
(36:31):
the guy who? Jerry Stiller.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Oh my god, And I wish that.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
This film could be found someplace, yes, because you should
see Jerry Stiller's dramatic acting. It was incredible, and it
was so incredible that it was too damn dark. And
the network said, oh, sorry, we can't use it. You
gotta you gotta do another story. So they ended up
filming another story where I'm defending a woman who's who's
(37:03):
who's divorcing her husband, and her husband is played by
Dennis Franz and Dennis is possessed by Elvis, and he
was talking like Elvis, and he says, I love you silly.
She goes, my name is not silly. Your name is
not Elvis. It's Murray Seidelman. You're a coffee salesman, you know.
And it was so wonderfully dramatic and poignant, and of
(37:26):
course Dennis fran.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
Dennis friends, you know, oh yeah, And they went through
I mean they went they built the they built the
big spread eagle uh costume that Elvis.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Wore for this awesome amazing. So that was the pilot episode,
and uh, they still felt it was too dark, they
you know, So we got two seasons out of it.
But that was it, you know. And then uh, I
came back for Murder one, and then I came back
as a regular for Murder in the first where I
got to work with Felton Todd Felton, Oh yeah, so,
(38:00):
but Stephen always and then I came back for that
arc on NYPD. You know. The funny thing was the
second season of Civil Wars. Stephen sent the pilot episode
of NYPD down to my trailer. He says, read this,
tell me what you think. So I read it and
I said, well, the lead character has an Irish name.
(38:22):
Are we not working together anymore? He said, screw you.
You got your own show. And we had not been
dropped yet. We were still waiting to see if we
had gotten picked up. And sure enough, we got dropped
right after, you know, and I said, you so. But
but Stephen was wonderful to me. You know. I spent
a lot of time before he died. I spent some
(38:42):
time with him and and his wife, his ex wife, Barbara.
I was friends with her, and we go and see
her she's she's gone now too. Barbara died a couple
of years ago. But they were real, real cheerleaders for
me coming in. They didn't know who No one knew
who I was. I mean, Jimmy McDaniels came off a
(39:02):
Broadway to do cop Rock, Paul mccrane, you know, fame
and everything else. Ronnie Cox established you know, a terminator
or whatever else he was in, you know, and Bobby
had come off Broadway, so they didn't really know. They
actually thought, I think that I was a Shakespearean actor
that they'd never heard of. I know Shakespeare from my
(39:23):
left arm, you know. In fact, one time I was
just telling a friend of mine. We were filming Firebirds
with Tommy Lee Jones, and the two of us were stuck.
Tommy Lee and I were stuck in the eight by
eight camouflage net while Nick and Sean were filming because
there were cameras going from like a mile around. Tommy
(39:44):
Lee says to me, I won't direct you as Yago.
I said, okay, I had to go home and figure
out which Shakespearean play Yago was in. So like I say,
oh that's good, I'll do that, you know, Yeah, sure,
I can't. But so so I'm kind of theater a literate.
I you know, like I said, I got my I
(40:05):
got my I got my actor's equity card. My first
actor's equity job was in the original play Talk Radio
on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I'm so glad you brought that up. I love the
movie Talk Radio. I've always wanted to see it on stage.
And when I saw you had done that at the
public theater, I was like, I got to ask him
about that.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah, that was that was wow. I was in fact
right at the time, I hadn't gotten Kate all yet.
I was making good money doing commercials, really good money
doing commercials. So I had only a commercial agent. Yeah,
I had only a commercial agent. I need to have
a legit agent to send me out for stuff. I
was sending myself out for stuff that was in backstage
(40:47):
or whatever. And so I get this auditioned for to
do voices in talk radio, to do callers in talk radio,
because I had some voiceover work. I was and then
and I said to my commercial agents, I said, do
I really want to do this? I mean, you know,
I'm making thousands and thousands of dollars doing commercial Why
(41:09):
do I want to do this public theater things. They went,
are you out of your mind? Public theater? You go
do that job. We'll get you commercial work. You just
go do the job at the public. Right. So I
had one scene on stage. The first opening scene is
me and Zach Grenier. He's the financial guy and I
play his engineer. And then I go off and I
(41:33):
did like four other characters, you know, some of which
I actually created. I brought to Eric came back and
asked me, well, here's the audition was. So there was
this guy. My wife loves this story. My wife and
I used to go on west Ford Street in New
York to this little place called the Bagel Restaurant, and
(41:56):
every time we get in there, it's a guy would
Our waiter would come up and he go, how are you.
Speaker 6 (42:00):
I haven't seen you in such a long time. You're
looking at wedding. He says, you want to do Georg
Jordan and I said yes. Then he goes, Casey, push
to well done, Grasan Nasai.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
How about you, honey. Right, So I get one of
these characters and I'm in the back and I use
that voice and Eric stops and he comes back and
he's looking around. He goes, who was I said it
was me. He goes, no, I said, yeah, it was me,
you know. And so Glenn, even in the movie is Latino.
(42:33):
He wasn't Latino in the script. Wow and so, and
then Eric needed another character. I said, well, you know,
I do this. You know, I went to college in Pennsylvania.
I've got Philadelphia accent, I've got Pittsburgh accent. I said,
you know, I want to do truck you want he said,
I want to do truck driver. I said, well, let's
do truck driver with a Pittsburgh accent, you know, which
(42:55):
I just did. And this is us. I was pretty
much the only one that was allowed to do the
Pittsburgh accident because it came through pretty well. But I,
you know, I went to college with those guys, you know,
spent time, you know, drinking and everything else. So so
that was a character that we kind of created together.
The bad thing was when Oliver Stone was auditioning for
(43:19):
the movie. You come in with you bring three characters
that you're going to do. So I came in. He said, well,
what characters you want to do. I said, well, I'm
gonna do Glenn, and I'm gonna do that. He goes, well,
we already have a Glenn. I went, how could you
have a Glenn? I The reason Latino is because I
did it that way. How the hell could you have
a Glenn?
Speaker 4 (43:39):
You know?
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Well, I didn't get any part in the movie. So,
but one of the reasons that Oliver Stone did the
movie was because John c McGinley, you know him, was
in Platoon and Johnny was in Talk Radio in the play,
so he got Stone to come up and see to
play and then Stone worked it out with Eric and
(44:02):
that's when they did the movie.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
You know, wow, yeah, yeah, I love it. Peter on
Aati's with us. It's I Smell Pop Culture. I have
more questions about some of your other roles. We're gonna
get to here in just one second. We got to
take a quick break. We'll play some commercials here. It's
(44:26):
I Smell Pop Culture. My name's Easton Allen and we're
here with Peter Onati from Cop Rock and okay, so
the same year that he did cop Rock and actually
maybe you can clarify the timeline here, but you're also
being Goodfellas. You have such an incredible role in Goodfellas.
Did you film that before Cop Rock or act.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
No.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, Goodfellas came out in ninety. Cop Rock came out
in ninety but Goodfellows was filmed almost almost at least
a year before my son, my son, Sebastiano Sonny was
born in March of eighty eight, I'm sorry, eighty nine,
and I filmed Goodfellas in May of eighty nine. And
(45:08):
here's an interesting story. So Jeanette and I were pregnant
and she didn't want to have a baby in New
York City, and you know, all my Italian relatives were
scaring her in New Jersey. So we moved out to
LA And it was a good time to do that
because I had work and I wanted to move to
LA anyway, because that's the next best place to go
(45:31):
for your career. So I was on Kate Now. The
very last day of shooting Kate Nolly last night was
a Thursday night, and we shoot in front of a
live audience at the Ed Sullivan Theater, which is now
the David Letterman Theater. They want to go to, Okay,
whatever it's called now, it's the at Sullivan Theater. Man,
it's where the Beatles were in Elvis and.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Everybody, yeah, legendary.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Yeah, so so we done filming Thursday night. Friday is
Saint Patrick's Day. If you know anything about New York City,
Saint Patrick's Day closes down and there's trunks all over
the place, you know. And I have a two thirty
flight out of JFK because my son is due to
(46:17):
be born that next Monday. So it's Friday morning. I
wait for my two thirty flight to go back to
LA to help out my son's birth. I get a
call from my agents, you have a callback for Scorsese
and Rockefeller Center at twelve thirty for Goodfellas. So I
called my wife and I said, I hope the babies
(46:39):
laid because I would be okay. So, now here's the
funny part. At that time, Scorsese was hiring for the
small roles like I got real mob guys or cops
who chased real mob guys. So we all had the
same scene to read, and he if he liked you,
(47:02):
he would just pick a roll for you, you know.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
So I walk into the outer casting office and there
and these guys sitting there with silver sweatsuits and patent
leather sneakers, and they look at me and they go, hey,
what are you reading for. I go, I got the
science for Sonny Bamboo. He goes, you'll know him. I go, no,
I don't know him. He goes, I know him. You
(47:28):
don't look not like him. I said, well that's what
the gamy. He goes, all right, God bless you kid. Right.
So I'm not nervous enough. Now. I'd only been into
business a few years, and I was used to doing
what I did in the business world, which was to
try and make the meeting mine. You know, then how
would I make the meeting? Mind it's a commercial addition
(47:48):
to a little something extra or whatever. So I'm going
in the sea scorsesey, I'm like, hell, am I going
to do that? Right? Well, it dawned, doesn't it that
my grandfather last name is the exact same spelling without
the s scot Ace. Okay, So I go in and
(48:09):
I make up a story for Scorsese. He goes, you
want to? I said, before we read, I need to
ask you if we're related, because I said to my grandfather,
Dana Tho Scorta as I said, I'm going to read
for the great director Martin Scorsese today, and my grandfather said, wow,
things way have a cousin a one time, we should
(48:32):
take the S out of the name. Scorsese goes, really,
really because we can't find our relatives. I'm going, oh,
I'm screwed now. I made the whole thing up right.
So I go, uh uh, well, where are you from?
He goes, uh, We're from Sicily. I go, no fucking way,
We're not Sicilian. What are you? I go, well, we're Napolitans.
(48:55):
He goes, hey, you guys drink too early in the morning.
You want to do that? I go, yeah, let's do it.
I read the scene and I got a roll.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
I mean, okay, so you get this role. You get
beat up by de Niro and Ralio nearly fed to
a lion. How many actors can claim that? I mean
that incredible?
Speaker 2 (49:16):
It's an iconic scene. Actually, yes, and actually here's here's
I'll tell you about the shooting of it later. But
a couple of years ago, one of my good friends,
Jerry Gel he's also the guy who handles my website
and everything else, we were going to get some I
had to get some pictures for autographs, and I walk
into the local place here in Sherman Oaks and guy
(49:38):
looks at me and he goes, I said, yeah, you know,
of course I'm an actor coming for headshots, right. He goes, no, no, no, no,
and Jerry goes, he was in Goodfellows. I goes, you
weren't good He said, yeah, he said. I said, well,
I'm the bookie that turns him in and that they
throw to the lion. They tried to throw the lines.
He goes. He goes, you know, he goes, Henry Hill
(49:59):
before he he died, painted a whole bunch of scenes
from Goodfellas, I said, and he said, I think he
painted that scene right. So I go back to pick
up the pictures and he's got a photo of Henry
Hill's painting of my scene. Whoa, Now it looks like
a third grader did it? Okay? So I go online
(50:23):
and I find the original one, and I want to
take a chance, but I can turn around. I've got
the original Henry Hill painter of that scene, you know,
here in in my office.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
That rules. Wow.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
So that's how iconic the scene was, you know, yes, so,
But in the meantime it's funny because I get you know,
I mean, we're filming in Brooklyn in Park Slope at
like two in the morning. You know, I get in
the car and De Niro goes, hey, doing I'm Robert,
I'm Bobby de Narrow. I go, yeah, I know, he
goes So. I started telling that story and my kid
(51:02):
after my kid was one year son, he was one
years old, he's I go through the narrow. He goes so.
And so there was a really embarrassing part, you know,
when they're punching me, you know, and I have to
sell the punch, you know, to sell to make the
stunt work. So they're filming from the front windshield, windshields out,
(51:24):
they're filming and they're hitting me, and I got to
go back, and I got to go back like this, Well,
when you do a violent action at the time, I
was studying martial arts, you know, there's sound with the
violent action. Well I couldn't KII and I was like, god,
you know, I couldn't. Well, I go back to friggin
third grade. They go action and I go like this,
(51:46):
They go cut. The sound man comes over, he goes,
you don't have to put that, we can do it later.
I'm like, oh fuck, I'm so oh my god, you know,
and so that was part of it. And I was
talking to Ray, and here's interesting thing.
Speaker 4 (52:03):
Right around that time, rain Man came out, okay, and
I don't know if you know, but Rayleiota did a
wonderful movie with Tom Holts.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Called Dominic and Eugene. Yes, okay, it's almost the same
sort of thing, him taking care of his you know,
his brother who's handicapped. Tom Hols plays the handicapped brother.
Such a superior movie to rain Man in that way.
(52:35):
So I'm sitting here with Ray, it's three o'clock in
the morning or whatever. I go, Ray, what's man? You know?
Dominic and Eugene was such a better movie. And you
know Dan rain Man, He goes, are you kidding me?
He's Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, Ray Liota, Tom Mollis. I said, okay,
I get it, never mind, but yeah it was. And
(53:00):
Ray grew up only a few miles away from me too,
some New Jersey, I think. And I grew up in Boomton,
New Jersey. And although if you live in Boomton, you
say bouton.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Oh, okay, bten So another one of your roles that
I that I really just wanted to point out you
were a wrestling coach on Sex and the City. In
my opinion, one of the I'm a big Sex in
the City fan. One of the best episodes my mother
board myself and if anyone's listening, it's the one where
Carrie breaks her laptop and just to get a new one.
(53:32):
But but Peter, you were the wrestling coach. You got
to be one of Samantha's boyfriends. I mean, what a
great role to get.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
That was a great role. And actually the executive producer
is an old friend of mine. I knew him from
New York when he was a performance artist in a
stand up comic. He had nothing going on, and he
came out here and became a great writer on Murphy
Brown and then he ended up running Sex in the City.
Michael Patrick King.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
I just talked to him the other day. It's incredible.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
Oh, Michael's great. Michael and I go away, Michael's at
my wedding.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Wow, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
When he was still living in New York in a
place called the Doorway to Hell. Yeah, this little apartment,
you know, and Michael calls me, he goes, hey, how'd
you like to do five sex scenes with Kim Cattrell.
I said, naw, I'm going to wash my hair.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
I'm busy.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
I said to you, if you fly me out, yeah,
I'll do it right. So, and I think it was
supposed to go maybe for another couple of episodes. I
would love to have done it like that, But so
the the idea was that towards the end there she
was starting to have trouble climaxing right, And so they
had these They had a sort of a Comma Sutra
(54:42):
sheet or something. And Michael knew because Michael and I
had done an improv workshop together where I had lifted
him up over my head like this, because I wrestled
in high school and in college, is you know, And
so he thought of me right away, and he just
called and offered me to roll. So we're looking at
all these positions and stuff like this, and it happened
(55:05):
to be my forty eighth birthday. And Kim looks at
me and says, thank you for doing it. She goes,
you wouldn't believe some of the guys they get in here. Sometimes.
She goes, I'm so happy to have a real actor.
Blah blah blah. I said, Kim, it's my birthday and
I can't think of anything better than the bank five times,
(55:25):
you know.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Yeah, She goes, it's your birthday.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
I go, yeah, but this is the last scene. I
didn't say anything. Done. Now, I don't want to hear
any crap about right, blah blah blah. So I get done.
I go back to my dressing room and put my
clothes on. Right, I get out. It was a silver
cup or something out in Queens. I'm going to my
car to get brought back into the city and this
(55:49):
pa starts running towards me. She had sent out for
a carvel birthday cake for med amount of time.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
Wow, okay, I love that.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
And then the other thing that happened that was really
funny was during the five scenes or four scenes where
ever the hell it was so Kim, because she does
all the sex stuff, has like a cup for her
leading men. It's like a brack cup, so appliable, it's
not it's totally hard, and it's unclear straps so you
(56:21):
can't see, you know. So there was one time where
we're kind of going at it and the cup pops
in and pops out. She goes, oh, and I said,
that wasn't me, that was the cup. You know, she goes, well,
maybe I liked it. I go, well, I hope you do,
because we got another four hours of this shit and
(56:42):
we kind of stayed friends, were in touch once in
a while, and there was an article actually out about
the top one hundred guys she had six with and
I made it in dinner under fifty I think something
like that. But it was great. It was great fun,
and I wish it had lasted more because she was
great and I got to the show right around you
know shows when I did Kate Now, it happened to
(57:04):
when shows go on for a while sometimes camps sort
of developed. I don't know why. Maybe some of the
actresses or actors want more lines. Could be anything political
or set wise or whatever it is money I but
camps developed, you know, same thing. I'm Kate Nelly. Susan
and Jane were best friends when they started the show.
(57:25):
When I finished the show with them, they were friends,
but they weren't as close as they were in the beginning.
And I don't think anything to do with either of them.
I think it's some people came in to run the
show that Jane didn't like, and Susan was like always happy,
So it's gonna work out. It's gonna work out, you
know whatever. But camps developed, and in I sense that
when I got to Sex and the City too, you know,
(57:46):
so that's all right. My camp had Kim Coatrell.
Speaker 1 (57:49):
And it hey not bad places to be.
Speaker 2 (57:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (57:53):
Yeah, so Peter, this has been so much fun. So
in Gilmore Girls, Coprock is referenced when Laura, the main character,
she's gonna have a Coprock marathon with her daughter Rory,
and she brags that she has all the episodes on tape.
And I was curious, you know, you have you have
three sons. Is there like a show or something that
(58:16):
you like to watch with your kids that maybe when
they were growing up you would watch on a marathon
something like that.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
Yeah, And we never did any marathon stuff because boys
were always so busy, you know. Yeah, I mean we
you know, special events, special movies and things like that.
In fact, there's a movie I just sent to a
friend of mine just has a little baby. He was
my next door neighbor and now he moved to New York.
There was a beautiful movie. Well, my kids used to
love Totuo.
Speaker 1 (58:40):
Okay, oh yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
I don't think I ever watched the whole thing, you know.
But I have a granddaughter now, she's fourteen months old.
But there's this little movie. It's called The Snowman. It
was a short and it's an Academy Award nominated short
from Canada.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
I know exactly what you're talking about, you know what,
the beautiful.
Speaker 2 (59:00):
Yeah, no view dialogue, just an amazing, amazing journey and that.
And I just sent it to this guy next door
who had the who has this little boy? And uh
and I give it to people who, you know, when
when I first have their kids, because it's a wonderful
first movie, even if they can't speak, it's just the
images and the sound is wonderful. But I don't remember,
(59:23):
because you know what, there were be times when I'd
sit down with the boys. Oh, you got to see
this movie. It's a mad, mad, mad mad world. They're like,
what the hell is it? Out of here? Right? Or
you know anything? You know, even Young Frank is that
they all go back to now they're like that, oh
Young frank'sty Oh that I go. Yeah, now, you know.
Speaker 1 (59:45):
I could put you on early Yeah, Oh my god,
it's so funny. Uh. Peter, thank you so much for
your time today. This has been so much fun, and
everyone cop rocks on YouTube. I hope everybody listening goes
and watches it. It's truly a magnificent pro and I'm
so grateful that you made it and you were part
of it. It's just it's it's incredible. It should have
(01:00:06):
gone for many seasons.
Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Yes, and I think you can still get that whole
the whole collection of the episodes on shout Factory, Yes,
I think, but yeah, yeah, And most of the YouTube
stuff is all the singing.
Speaker 4 (01:00:19):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
I don't know that you know that there's much of
the acting on there, but there's some of the acting
in the singing, like we were talking about, But it's there,
and it's it's pretty funny to watch. And you can
see why the show went down because when it worked,
it worked really well. When it didn't work, it ted,
you know, tanked, you know, so, but it was And
(01:00:40):
Steven said it best. He said, I'm proud that I
did it. He goes, it was the most creative thing
I've ever done. He goes, I don't think I'd want
to do it again.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
So wow, thanks so much. Hope you have a great
rest of your day.
Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
You two. It was great, so much.
Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Dot everybody, and I'll forget.
Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
Follow us on Instagram at i Am all In podcast,
and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com
Hosts And Creators
Amy Sugarman
Danielle Romo
Scott Patterson
Tara Soudbaksh
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!