Mark-Paul Gosselaar Meets World

It’s time to answer that huge grey cell phone because Zack Morris has arrived at John Adams High! Mark-Paul Gosselaar is here for the crossover you never imagined!! Mark-Paul shares all his memories from the '90s and the similarities between BMW Season 1 and Good Morning, Miss Bliss. How did the blonde hair haunt him? Why did Mario Lopez actually beat him up in a scene? And how does mentioning James Van Der Beek end up being one of the funniest moments in PMW history? 

Plus, Rider crashed into Feeny.

This episode was recorded on June 22, 2023.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast was recorded June twenty second, twenty twenty three.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I think it is very helping, very hard for people
to do, but especially Californians, to admit if you're a
bad driver. Oh yeah, why does everyone think that they're
the best driver in the world, Like, I am a
totally average, too bad driver. Like and it took me
a long time to come to terms with this, Like
when I was a teenager or in my twenties, I

(00:43):
was like, oh, yeah, I'm amazing, you know, just good.
And then it's like, no, man, I like I beckon
to crap all the time. It's a serious Do you
not have a camera?

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Of course I do? Now, so now okay, so yeah,
basically says I have a backup air. But I recently
hit a car out in front of my son's school.
Oh no, it's always parking. It'scept for like a real accident.
It's always like when I'm not paying attention this car
my wife in my wife's car, which is just the worst.
And her instant reaction, which is fair but you know,
not very supportive, is like, you know, it's not like,

(01:14):
oh my god, you hit that car.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
Oh writer, it was god German.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Writer just right there.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
That would be my reaction to that would not.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Only did I scrape the front I crunch, but then
to pull out of the situation.

Speaker 5 (01:27):
It's just did the double along the car double crunch.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
But I gotta leave a note out it's my son's principle.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
No, No, you crashed into.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Oh couldn't have been a better person. I love my
son's principle. He's like the nicest guy in the world.
So like, basically, if anybody at the school, like, you know,
I just had visions of some horribly angry parent or
my son's bully, you know, like I could have gone
a million.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Son of a bully.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
No, I don't good because I honestly I will go
kick that kid's ass.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
She would, I would.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
I'm looking to kick someone's ass. That sounds great, It's
funny you say that. I also am a second. That's yeah,
that's fine. I'm fine with that. No, obviously not. I
would never kick anybody's ass. H.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
But can you admit where you are as a driver? Like,
can have you come?

Speaker 4 (02:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:24):
I'm terrible because I am way too aggressive.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
I drive too fast, too close, And.

Speaker 5 (02:33):
I agree with everything she's saying right now. For her
I've now been since daniel and I have lived together,
lived near each other, lives in my bass.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Little tea, a little bit of tea. That's when I uh.

Speaker 5 (02:45):
I've started to drive with Danielle a lot more because
she usually carpools. She we carpool. She's the driver. And
you're not a bad driver. You are just you do
you are? You are like you said, you're an aggressive driver.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Everyone out of my freaking way. Get out of my way.

Speaker 5 (02:58):
You're not a bat. You're technically not a bad I couldn't.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
I couldn't technically be a professional race car driver, like.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
You have good control of the via good control of
the V.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
They probably have great measures, like I know exactly what
the measurements of driver really. I haven't mind any foenies lately.
Why are my favorite?

Speaker 5 (03:22):
Oh my god?

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Because because you're the person who thinks that that the
road belongs to them, correct, and that they have the right,
they have the right to be aggressive, and all these
idiotic drivers being safe and slow and follow what are
you doing? Yes, that's the problem, You're the problem. Yes,
I remember? Do you remember when you first disagree with
an s u V and you hydro planed on the

(03:43):
way to work.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
No, I don't remember that horrible car accident where I
spun out in the center of the freeway with my car.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Like you got a Forerunner, you have a you have
four wheel.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Never Rider.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
It was El Nino and imbrastling.

Speaker 5 (04:00):
Danielle when we all hung out at Ryder's house up
on one day and driveway and you drove off the drive.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Off that driveway was a literal nightmare driver. Okay, So
Rider had us all over to his house. What year
was this.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
I wasn't between two.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Thousand and five and two thousand and nine. That's when
I was looking canyon.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Okay, so upwards of fifteen plus years ago. And Rider
had this super steep, curved driveway.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Always it was like a sand no matter where you like,
war right up and then an immediate act your.

Speaker 5 (04:37):
New Rider was going to buy a house if there
was no parking or horrible parkings, like I'll take it, I'll.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Take it, that's the one I want.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
It was one of those driveways when you're you're driving
up you can't see where you're going because the car
is so steep you can't see anything, so reversing down
it was also just terrible and I in the slow
reverse of it. I turned the wheel too soon and
w one of my one of the wheels was now
dangling off a cliff over the curve.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
It like looks over the edge of the curve and
a truck.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Nothing could be done. I was like, this is truly terrible.

Speaker 5 (05:12):
Well, I live here now. I live here now with Rider.
That's what you say.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
I had to wait for the triple A and off
it up and yeah, oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
It was just I was like, why do we let
Rider host the get together?

Speaker 5 (05:26):
Seriously? Exactly we need? We need. That's what one of
the things I'll tell you I asked for when I
bought my house.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
I needed parking.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Writer was the Writer was the most organized and the
most on top of making sure we got together. So
that's why they were always at Writer's house because Writer
was the person who thankfully got us all together.

Speaker 5 (05:40):
The Writer was the adult. By the way, I'm a
phenomenal driver. For the record, are you yeah?

Speaker 2 (05:45):
I actually believe that he never drives. Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 5 (05:49):
I drive well again, I so we Driving was very
important in my family. So I started to learn how
to drive when I was like.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Twelve, right two years after you started smoking pretty much.

Speaker 5 (05:59):
I had my cigarette and my car.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
It was a Connecticut car, so you had to there
was no engine, was.

Speaker 5 (06:04):
Exactly, it's a horse drawn car. No. My father what Famously,
when when I got my license and knew I was
going to have to start driving myself into New York
City for auditions, drove my stant. He drove down in
my Selica, which I still have. My first car is
still have my Toyota Celica. And he drove to the
middle of the city and put the car in neutral,

(06:24):
got out of the car, put me in the driver's seat,
and said, all right, you're driving in New York. If
you can drive here, you can drive anywhere. And we
drove around New York for like four hours, and by
that point then he was right, I could drive anywhere.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
My dad did the exact same thing. He picked me
up in a stick shift at school. It was like
at my school where I had to walk like a
mile to get too picked up. And then I got
picked up now both and he was just there and
he was and we had somewhere to go, like forty
five minutes away, and he's like, I'm like, I can't
drive stick shift he's like, hey, okay, figure it out.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
YEP, I just did.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
And then yeah, I ever had a problem.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (06:54):
I got my first motorcycle when I was ten, so
that I mean I started with kind of shifting when
you when I was ten and I rode a bike
from ten to what do your name?

Speaker 3 (07:02):
You got your first motorcycle and you get a.

Speaker 5 (07:04):
Mini bike like I got. I got a Z fifty
dirt bike, and then when I was eleven it went
to to an XR eighty, and then I went up
to an XR one hundred. My friends we all you know,
like Johnny and Karate Kid. We we were. We were
them without the coolness and or martial arts.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
Che I just thought you were like fast and the
furious is that you.

Speaker 5 (07:20):
No, I was more slow and delibertous. It was, yeah,
it was. It was not exactly but no. But driving
my you know, my dad loves cars and all. Also
driving was hugely important in my family. So we were
we were taught to and driving you have to drive
a stick shift through else you're just steering. So it's
that was we had to know how to drive anything
you could get your hands on. It's like you have
to know how to drive immediately. I'm amazed he didn't

(07:41):
make us learn how to fly, just because that's how
we were in our family, where it's like you got
to learn how to operate this vehicle.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Like Okay, do you guys remember, uh, well you probably
my manager when I was a teenager. Yeah, I was
thinking about these this bad driver situation, and the memory
came back to me, which was she was a horrible driver,
like the most terrified. Now a horrible driver in exactly
the way Danielle is a horrible driver, but like to

(08:07):
an extreme that I imagine Danielle was not. Like he would
weave in and out of traffic, like do like crazy
last minute turns, constantly, have all these like insane And
I remember being eleven years old getting in the car
with him and another kid who was one of his clients,
and the other kid being like, you know, you know, uh,
mister Toad's wild Ride at Disneyland. That's what it's like

(08:29):
driving in the car with him, and he was like
proud of the fact that he was this insane. And
I think about that now and I'm like, if if
I handed my kid over to a manager to drive
him around Los Angeles all the time. I mean I
drove with this guy all the time, every day to auditions.
I would spend weeks in la just with him without

(08:51):
my parents. Like I would be so pissed if a
person drove Indy like this. And yet at the time,
I thought we were the coolest car on the road,
you know what I mean. I looked at him, It's like, oh,
you're willing to drive fast and cool and all these
other drivers are losers following the rules and the speed limits,
and you, my manager, are getting me everywhere. And like

(09:13):
if there's not a better like metaphor for the dangers
of child actor or the trust that you put in
adults around you when you were a kid, Like I
just thought like this guy and like now like I'm
genuinely angry at this person, Like I want to write
him a letter and be like, dude, what the hell
were you thinking? Like, yes, you we never got into
an accident, but we were so lucky and like what

(09:35):
and I what are the Like that is just infuriating
to me. And my parents were just like yeh, you know,
and I probably told him like he's a crazy driver,
and my parents are look me, you know.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
What are we gonna do.

Speaker 5 (09:48):
Danielle, you are You are not that bad a driver,
you really are.

Speaker 4 (09:51):
No.

Speaker 5 (09:51):
I think you are aggressive, but you're not that big.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
That's of course I U I stop, it stops.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
I I but like the rules of the road, obey
the rules of the road.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
I just do it. Yeah, I do it quickly.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
And I think the following too close is something I
have done since I learned how to drive. And I
don't understand that when you are the appropriate distance away,
that to me, that just feels like people should be
mad at me, even though because I just I don't
realize that I'm as on top of people as I am.
So Yeah, and I remember what the appropriate distance is. Yeah,

(10:30):
three car links. Well, depending on how must you're going.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
If you're every ten.

Speaker 5 (10:33):
Miles, you let a car pass a stationary object, and
then you count one Mississippi two Mississippian by two, you
can pass that same object. I think that's how it is.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
I'd be like a point four. Yeah, it'd be like
we crossed at the time. It's like it's like they're
towing me.

Speaker 5 (10:55):
I'm drafting. I'm drafting the car ahead of me. I
want the wind resistance.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
Welcome to podmeets World.

Speaker 5 (11:00):
I'm Daniel Fischel, I'm Rider Strong, and I'm Wilfride.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
So when anyone from an entire generation sees a nineteen
nineties large gray brick cell phone, the technology that kicked
off an entire phenomenon, they only call it one thing,
a Zach Morris phone, and we have our guest to
think for that. He's an unforgettable pop culture Hall of
Famer who played the precocious Bayside High student for eighty

(11:26):
six episodes, a college spinoff, two movies, and a twenty
nineteen NBC reboot. You may also know him from four
seasons of Franklin and Bash. He was Bash for those
keeping Score at Home, almost ninety episodes of NYPD Blue,
or from Mixed Dish, or even his recent cameo on
one of the only shows I like watching on TV, Barry.

(11:48):
This year, he was also seen on Will Trent, a
show that has been renewed for season two. And also
he has truly never stopped working ever. We are honored
to welcome the star of Save by the Bell, the
show Jensen, producer husband of this podcast calls his boy
Meets World. It's Mark Paul Gossler. Well, we were all

(12:19):
recently at a convention together and you were so lovely.
We spent a lot. I spent a lot of time
with you talking sports. We were you're a big sports guy.
Uh please answer this honestly. Do you know anything about
Boy Meets World at all? Did you were you? Did
you know maybe who we were? Did you think we worked.

Speaker 4 (12:35):
At the con Listen? Is nothing against you, guys. I
didn't even know about say by the Bell. I mean,
if if it wasn't for the reruns, I don't think
we'd be talking uh now, because yeah, when we did
our show, I felt like it was in a vacuum. Yeah,
you know you we didn't have the Internet. The only

(12:58):
way that we knew we were successful. We would do
these like appearances in malls, or we would go do
a car show. You know, Comic cons weren't around, so
you didn't you didn't get to meet any fans that way.
But we really we really operated in our own little bubble.
Because I don't know about you guys. But after our seasons,

(13:20):
and there were multiple seasons, like if you add up
all the episodes, we did one hundred episodes, but over
the course of four years. But we do thirteen here
and maybe ten there. And I never had these full
seasons of like twenty two because we were a Saturday
morning show and I think it was just an experiment
for NBC. But after we were done, we'd go back
to our schools. I was in a public school at

(13:41):
the time, so it was the rest of the cast,
and no one really cared. I mean, people just thought like, oh,
he's just an actor. Nobody watched the show. Nobody was like, oh,
I saw you on that show, because at least my
show at that time, it was it wasn't the cool
show to watch, Like, if you were cool, you were
watching nine o two and oh yeah, right right. But

(14:03):
our show, you know, we dealt with you know, caffeine pills.
Don't get hooked on caffeine pills. Meanwhile, on nine o
two and oh, they were probably doing like Heroin, you know,
and that. Yeah, they were doing the cool stuff. And
so you know, I lived in normal existence as a child,
which was kind of cool.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Yeah. Same.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
I had a very very similar experience, went to public school.
Every week we had off. I was back in that
public school. Nobody really cared, and we've all talked about it.
We felt like Ultimately, we felt like we were doing
a show kind of for our grandparents because they would
come to the live studio audience taping, so we know
they were watching it.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
But outside of that, it wasn't really to.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
A divide within our culture that I don't think is
there anymore between youth and grown up culture though too,
Like back then, like anything around kids, like even when
you think about it, like remember when boy bands, like
there was a way in which people were underestimating their value,
like yes, cause teenagers would love Backstreet and saying, but
like nobody realiz like, well that's those teenagers get older

(15:02):
and those are going to be the bands that they
listened to in their twenties. But it was not. It
was just like it was like a separate culture.

Speaker 5 (15:09):
You know.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
It's like if somebod was for kids, it wasn't to
be taken seriously. It wasn't a moneymaker. It wasn't cool.
And I think that's changed. I mean I'm assuming like
now it's like, well I'm now adults just love kids stuff.

Speaker 5 (15:21):
You know how many twenty five and thirty year olds
were listening to en Sync and Backstreet Boys with their
windows rolled up, trying not to really along, like they
didn't want anybody to know that they were singing along
with the music that was happening all the time too.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yeah, yea, I think I believe that was happening with
our shows as well. I mean there was nobody nobody
would would say that they you know, admit that they
watched Save by the Bell. Yeah, that was a Saturday
morning show. And now it's like a lot of athletes
and we go back to this, the sports talk is
that a lot of athletes will say, when we're on
the road, that's all we watched. That's all we that.

(15:54):
That was sort of like our familiarity, like our goodness
back to home of what we watch back home. But yeah,
it also you you talk about like the kids things.
But I felt like we had to stay in our lane.
That's how, at least how I felt like. If you
were an actor and you did TV, you stayed doing TV. Yeah,
and you didn't dare like nowadays. I mean, these kids,

(16:19):
these kids, I sound like an old man.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
No, these young.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
But it's true. The current generation, the current generation, I feel,
and rightly so gets to do so much more. And
good for them because I I I look back and
That's probably one of the biggest regrets is that I
didn't ask to do more. Like I was a bit
complacent in my career early on. I'm saying like, Okay,

(16:46):
I'm going to stay an actor. You don't you don't
do commercials, you don't do branding, you don't sing, you know,
and you definitely didn't do movies because you were a
young television actor. So it was like you didn't cross
that line.

Speaker 5 (16:59):
But yeah, we had that same kind of thing because
when you were a Friday night show on TGIF, you
also weren't like we weren't. We were primetime, but we
weren't primetime. It was like a whole different thing where
you're on a kid's lineup and it's TGF. We were
not a Tuesday. It's like we talked to Jody Sweeten
and and uh Andrew Barber about how when they moved
to Tuesday, they were like, well, we're a real show now,

(17:21):
like we're getting we're leaving the Friday night lineup. We
all had that thing we were we were on a
kid's show, and it just we were we were put
in that kind of box all the time, which was
which was so strange. Yeah, yeah, because now we're the ones.
I'm sorry, but there's a lot of those Tuesday night
shows where people don't care about them. When you go
to the cons and it's the you know, Saved by
the Bell, Boy Meets World. These are the shows that

(17:42):
the fans are still loving to this day, and they
don't remember what they were watching Tuesday night.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
They have no idea.

Speaker 5 (17:47):
So it's so strange.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Mark, have you ever been recognized for Boy Meets World?
As anybody ever thought? Because I get recognized for I've
never on it, but people are like, you know, it's
like they could use shaken.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah. Do you ever get mistaken?

Speaker 2 (18:03):
It was like, oh that show with the kids in
high school, and like multiple times I just and I'm
always so happy because I could just say, nope, not me.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
Don't know what you're talking about. I do what I
don't get. I think if I think back, maybe somebody
has said to me, you know, like, hey, where's the
panga right, you know, and I'm like, wrong show.

Speaker 5 (18:24):
She's on a different show, and she's which.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
In itself is a whole another thing like when they
say hey, where's Kelly, it's like, uh, you know, the
inappropriate things in my head that are going through when
somebody says that I have to go no, no, no no,
and then come out with, well, she's probably with her family,
you know, right and super appropriate nice.

Speaker 5 (18:45):
It's like the terminator going through different possible responses before
you actually get.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
I used to say, until I realized it probably sounded bad.
I used to say, it wasn't my day to watch him,
Like I said, Where's gory? Wasn't my day to watch him?
I knew make a joke.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Out of it.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
I always just because yeah, I just always respond with that.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
And then I was like, does that sound like somebody
that Ben needs a babysitter? Like it's not actually on Ben,
it's more so anyway, there's really no right way to
answer that question.

Speaker 4 (19:12):
I mean I will deliberately, like if I'm texting with
my friends and they'll say something I don't know in
the and we're just joking around, I'll basically threw out
a meme of James Vanderbeek and basically say it's me,
you know, like I think that's the closest. Like people

(19:34):
like the three name thing to James James, like even
though it's it's not and we're kind of Dutch and
the whole thing, and we have big foreheads and you
know it's like like, oh, it's it's that guy.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
And so right, yeah, we all we all get lumped
together in some in some way, it's just white.

Speaker 4 (19:54):
We're white. We all look alike.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yes, that is true.

Speaker 5 (19:57):
Well, I always get right, I get that all the time. Yeah,
you're the best. Yeah you're what's it like being Corey's
best friend. I'm always like, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Ask writer. Yeah, people have made like in jokes they're
like sneak attack or like things, and I'm like, I
don't think that was me.

Speaker 5 (20:10):
Maybe that will Yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
Do you guys remember do you guys remember like scenarios
and and like do you remember things for the show?

Speaker 3 (20:19):
Writer and I do not. Will remembers a lot, but.

Speaker 5 (20:22):
We old creepy memory. You not.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
But yet there are a lot of episodes where you
have no memory of that.

Speaker 5 (20:30):
Yeah, no, and I do. And we've we found a
lot where I have no memory. But then when I
do have a memory, it's usually pretty clear and then
I can kind of branch it out to other memories
of things that happened that week. Yeah, I'm just a
bizarre memory's for me.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
It's a clear set of priorities because I remember what
was happening in my personal life, and I remember like
what was going on in our relationships behind the scenes
pretty clearly, but I have no idea what was in
front of the Yeah, the show's I just was phoning
it in by second season, like or just turning off
that part of my brain. It was like, this is
just the job. So yeah, no clue, that's very very weird,

(21:03):
do you, Mark, Paul No.

Speaker 4 (21:05):
And and I've said this to some of my other
castmates as well as that and writer you hit it.
It was a job. And so I think if you
asked anyone in their careers what they did today at work,
they wouldn't know, but they might have an idea of
what they did for lunch because they met with a
friend exactly, they had a personal experience. But for us,

(21:25):
it was a job and and and yeah, it was
it was a blur. I don't know if I did
that to protect myself, because it was probably overwhelming for
that age to be in that environment and to be
doing what we were doing. But I do remember a
lot of like the relationship moments, and and actually I

(21:45):
remember a lot when we were on location because it
was a departure from a weird a weird space.

Speaker 5 (21:50):
Yeah, it changes. Human beings are so adaptable that no
matter what you're doing, even if it's amazing to somebody else.
I mean, the last two men that walked in the
moon were up there for three days, and they said,
by the third day, they were waking up like, oh,
we have a job to do today. We have to
do this, we have to do it, like they're going
by the checklist. It's like, dude, you're on the moon.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
They don't. You just get used to it.

Speaker 5 (22:09):
So it's like you're doing a show and one Tuesday
runs into another Tuesday and it's a rehearsal day and.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
You don't know what is an amnesiac quality to sitcom
form in general too, It's like, because the whole point
of sitcom is that characters show up and do the
same thing that they did last week, right, and then
like learn their lesson, but they don't really come back
and do it again. So it's like the form lends
itself to like I mean, I remember feeling like, haven't
we done this a million? I remember these words exactly this,

(22:35):
and you just and that's part of the you know,
the sort of comic strip quality of sitcom. It's like,
you can't.

Speaker 5 (22:41):
That's one of the reasons I'm convinced that sitcom is
no longer around those is because of streaming.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
Exactly, you can't because binging.

Speaker 5 (22:48):
You either forget the binge binging and streaming you can't
do that kind of just that we can do the
same story we did three weeks ago, and it's not
going to matter anymore. It doesn't work like that anymore.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
No, it used to actually be essential because it was
a reminder of like, remember who these character, Let's reset
the situation so we can enjoy it. Now you're like, well,
you just watched it five seconds ago, the last episode,
so yeah, it's really weird.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Well, we've talked a lot about how Boy Meets World
was a really great example of the messy eighties and
nineties sitcomcasting, where you would do a pilot and then
all of a sudden people would just be gone, and
then they need to bring in new people, or you
do a full episode or a full week and then
somebody's gone on the day of taping. You haven't even
crazier experience because you started with good morning, Miss Bliss

(23:29):
on Disney.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
Do you remember auditioning for that and how old were you?

Speaker 4 (23:35):
I believe I was twelve when I auditioned for that.
I remember auditioning for it because I had spent the
summer in Texas, in Harlingen, Texas, and I was going
to a Marine military academy. I wanted to go to
a Marine military academy for high school and I had

(23:57):
to go to this camp to basically be accepted. So
it was like a sort of like a boot camp.
And got back. My hair was really short. They obviously
buzzed it, and I was starting to grow out a
little and this is I'd been home now for a month.
I started grow out a little bit. My mom put
highlights in my hair, and the rest is history with

(24:22):
that character. But I remember auditioning for that, and I
remember Dustin Diamond being in the room with me. That's
the only other one that I remember, because I remember going,
if this kid isn't screech, I don't know who is right?

Speaker 1 (24:34):
He was?

Speaker 4 (24:35):
He was? He was incredible. But yeah, we did a
season of that, I think thirteen episodes, and then again
it was like, okay, we wrapped. We had a wrap
party and no word until they said, oh, we've We've
decided to, you know, spin it off into a show
called Saved by the Bell And we love the character

(24:58):
of Zach and we're going to take you and Lark
Vorhees and Dustin Diamond. We're going to put you in
a school in Pacific Palisades and we're gonna add some characters.
That was that. That wasn't easy to say goodbye to
the other cast mates, you know. Yeah, and our business
is like that. It's like, why didn't they cross over?

(25:21):
I have no idea. It was a decision that was
beyond my pay grade.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
But yeah, isn't that crazy though?

Speaker 1 (25:29):
We talk about that all the time, and I think
we take it for granted because it's just how we
grew up. But like, that's a weird thing as a
team to go to work week after week And did
you have a fear then after that ever of like
it could be me next, Like did you ever? Yeah,
it's a weird feeling to just like every week you're like,
this could be the week I get fired.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
I have that fear now. I mean it hasn't gone away.
I have the fear, you know that I'm going to
get fired off my show that I suck. That you
know that when they write up about it, they're the
only person they're going to say that sucks is me.
Put the blame on me. I mean that, I remember
my first time I was rejected. I mean that's basically

(26:08):
it is like you go for an audition, you know,
you just you don't get the job, and then you
have to explain, you know, why you didn't get the job,
and then a lot of the times there's no explanation.
You kind of have to just go, well, you know,
move on to the next thing. But I actually got
a commercial for Whammo and I was on the set
and yeah, I don't know. All I know is I

(26:30):
was fired and they sent me as a consolation, they
sent me a big box of Wammo toys.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
Oh my gosh, you're kidding me.

Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah, how old were you I was? I mean it
had to be before ten years old.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
So when did you start acting?

Speaker 4 (26:46):
I got my SAG card in eighty four, so I
was ten. But before that I was doing commercials. So
I started print work four years old, and then you know,
commercial and theatrical eventually when I was ten, when I started,
I think I did like Highway to Heaven and Punky
Bruister and things like that. But the good thing about

(27:07):
being fired off that commercial and it's a it's a
happy ending in some ways because we became friends and
sad and another. But it was Paul Walker that took
my that took took over for me, uh in that commercial,
and that was like my my arch nemesis, and we
were friends growing up. But he was like the more talented,

(27:28):
better looking guy. Like if you wanted a real California kid,
you went with Paul Walker. I mean he was just
a you know, a beautiful human being those eyes and
the hair and things like that, because I was just,
you know, in half an Aonesian half Dutch kid that
was acting like a California kid. But Paul was like

(27:48):
the epitome of like if you if if you couldn't
get Paul, we'll take Mark Paul. Now.

Speaker 5 (27:55):
Wait, so that's a good question because I also had
a childhood rival who booked everything.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Did you really?

Speaker 5 (28:02):
Oh yeah, his name was Mike Moran, And the second
he would walk in, you'd be like, well I don't
need to be here anymore. Like this is he booked
every commercial he went out for it was like the
Michael Jordan and the Tree how like every every single
thing he walked in, you knew you were done. So,
Danielle Ryder, did you have any childhood like you that
you saw this person in every audition he knew they
were going to book it.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Oh, it was always Elijah Wood for me. It was
like him and me just always came down to like
the two of us, or if I didn't get a part,
I would always find out it went to him and
Charlie Korsmo too. I lost, like, yeah, Charlie Korsmo only
did like three movies, but I was up for all
three of them. He just kept getting.

Speaker 5 (28:38):
There and there are movies. Yeah, he had four or
five in a row there that way.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yeah, he did his three Disney films. You remember how
Disney used to if you did one film, they would
get a contract for all for three. That's how Disney worked.
And so he did his three Disneys and then left.
I think he got back into the industry later, but
but yeah, but Elijah Wood was the one who I
always felt good about losing a role too, because I
was like, well, he's so talented, Well this kid could

(29:01):
actually really act, Like I feel like I'm just making
it up, but he actually knows what he's doing.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
No, I didn't really have that.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
I mean on Boy Meets World, I was the replacement,
so I was the nemesis.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
Yes, okay, so you okay, you Lark, Dustin Diamonds.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Dustin diamond and Dennis Haskins are the only are the
only people who were brought back for this retooling as
Saved by the Bell. Do you remember if there was
any sort of like did they make anybody and maybe
you don't know, do you know if they made anybody
who had already had their part, like re audition like
try to do it again or did they just start
from scratch?

Speaker 4 (29:49):
Yeah? I all I know is what I've heard. I
think Elizabeth had auditioned for Tiffany's role, so the Kelly
and Jesse rolls, and then Lark's role of Lisa even
before you know, on Miss Bliss, it was supposed to
be like a like a Jewish American princess, like that

(30:09):
was her role. They were trying to find someone like that,
and then Lark just killed it because she was so talented,
so great, and they went with her. But yeah, I
think that the roles like Elizabeth was trying out for
Kelly and that didn't go her way, but they you know,
and yeah, Mario's role, I think they were looking for
like a Vinnie Barberino type. That's what he said, is

(30:31):
like you know that that sort of in that vein.
But he was so talented as well. I mean I
really felt on that show that I was that I
was the sandbag in it all, like the ballast that
could be thrown over because everyone was so talented, like
Mario was like a drummer and an athlete, like a
national champion wrestler and a dancer, and you know, Dustin

(30:55):
was funny, and Elizabeth was a dancer as well, and
you know, I don't know, it was it was. It
was a mess for me.

Speaker 5 (31:02):
If we could talk very briefly about Dustin Diamond, because
he kind of pioneered that role, that role of like
I mean, he was Rkle before Erkele he was. I mean,
he kind of came in as that character and he
invented an entire kind of television trope. I mean, he
really did. It was. It was something especially as a
kid that I was watching where it was like the

(31:24):
kind of so wacky Clowney. It's it's I know people
are gonna be like, you've got to be me when
you make this comparison. But if there's something false staff
about I mean, there's something almost Shakespearean about the character
where it is the kind of he's not really bullied,
but he's the he can come into a bad situation

(31:44):
make everybody laugh. And so I just if you could
talk a little bit about that, because there there are
so many characters now that are kind of based on that,
and it seemed like he was the first, and I
frankly don't think he gets nearly enough credit for what
he's done in the history of television when you really
look at it that way.

Speaker 4 (32:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, no, I never really looked
at it that way because how I felt about my
character when I when I read the script, and because
Zach was talking to the camera, I was immediately drawn
to Ferris Bueller, and I was like, oh, well, I
get to play Ferris Bueller. This is amazing. And so

(32:24):
I guess Dustin's character would have been the Cameron the camera. Yeah,
in in a way, but even more goofy in a way.
And and and yeah, you just play I mean and
that's the thing like seeing dustin in the audition room.
It's like, that's that because you read a script in

(32:46):
your in your mind's and you sort of like you
try to put the pieces together who that could be,
who's out there that can that can play that role,
and then you actually see it and he just embodied
that character. I mean I and and producers and writers
will always say this is that they have an idea
of what a character should be in, but when you're

(33:06):
on set, they start writing for you. And they just
started writing for his strengths. And he was so good
at physical comedy at such a young age, like some
of the things that he used to do. And we
always laugh about that is like we had no stunt
coordinators on Saved by the bel ever like nowadays. If
for instance, I was I was on a show for
for Disney and my wife on the show had to

(33:29):
hit me with her purse and I had to fall
to my knees.

Speaker 5 (33:32):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (33:34):
It was like, I mean, they had a stund.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
Danny Wayne was there for you, Oh.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
My god, exactly.

Speaker 4 (33:39):
They had They had knee pads on me. They had
an armadillo backpack just in case I fouled backwards pads
on the floor. They had to teacher how to throw
a purse, and I remember my uh my wife on
that show is Tika Sumpter. She's like, just give me
the purse and she liked the place hits me. I
fall down and know we use that, but they were

(34:00):
they were in shock. They're like, oh my gosh, you
can't do that. Yeah, you guys okay. But on Save
by the Belt, I mean people always ask me about that,
that scene between Mario and I where we fight and
he actually throws me over and like uh and and
punches me on the ground, and that was like real.
I mean Mario was a was a champion wrestlers. Yeah,

(34:24):
he kicked me. He literally kicked my ass. There was
no stunt people on set and there was nobody. There
was no coordinators. It's like in the script it says
they fight, and so they said, what do you guys
feel like doing. Mario goes, I'm gonna do this. It
puts me on my back and starts punching me.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
Yeah, we also very much the same thing. We've talked
about it.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
We've seen a few little things where were like, wow,
that was like a that was real. He really kicked you,
and it's like, oh, yeah, I think we used to
do all of those back then.

Speaker 4 (34:48):
We were.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
On fire today like all right, let's go.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah, there's a super Bowl episode where I jump on
Ben's back and then he flings me off and I
go flying across the kitchen and the people have commented like,
how did you do that?

Speaker 3 (35:02):
Or it looks so real? What did you land on?

Speaker 2 (35:03):
It was like, oh no, I just just got thrown
to the ground.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, it was fine.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yes, So eventually Elizabeth Berkeley and Tiffany and berthisa and
left the show in the final season. Did you ever
have the fear that you were forever going to be
just Zach Morris And how did you so successfully overcome that?

Speaker 3 (35:22):
I'm asking for three friends.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
Again. Yes, I was very worried about that and watching
Tiffany and watching Elizabeth go off. You know, you don't
know when the right moment would be, and I totally
respected their decision and was behind it. I didn't feel
I would have a problem with being typecast because I

(35:51):
was playing this character. I wouldn't. I didn't look like
Zach in my personal life, you know, I'd have to
sit in the chair every two weeks and get my
hair dyed. And it was a character that I thought
I was playing. But yeah, you're people in the industry
and people outside of the industry who watch the show,

(36:13):
they see you as that character, and even to this day,
people are like, oh, wait, where's your blonde hair?

Speaker 5 (36:19):
Right?

Speaker 4 (36:19):
I was like, yeah, that was that was fake. Did
you not notice, like season of season it was a
different color every season, Like there is nothing on a
driver's license that you could check to say what color
that was. Yeah, it's like a it's a weird leopardy thing,
platinum blonde. So for me, I didn't think I would
have an issue because it was that character that I created.

(36:46):
But those three years after it was really really hard,
and I had a really hard time breaking out of
that character because I'd walk into the room and it
would call for you know, this California kid, And again
we talked about this, like Paul Walker was kid, I
was not, And so I'd walk in and you know,
where's your hair? You look like you look nothing like

(37:08):
Zach and it's like yeah, yeah, And it took about
three years for me to sort of get the opportunity,
and I remember it was for a a movie of
the Week. Do they even do those anymore? No, unfortunately,
But it was a Movie of the Week for NBC
opposite Cameron Burret. Yeah, and I played a pretty despicable

(37:31):
character and that sort of broke that broke me out
of that role for a while, or the Zach Morris
image for a while. But we still get it. I mean,
in comic cons people will always say, like, you know,
I like you better as a blonde, like oh okay,
oh yeah nice.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
Yes, yes people. Yeah, people don't think that there.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
They think they're just saying facts or but they don't
realize that sometimes the thing that the comments they make
are actually hurtful.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
They don't tend to be, but they can be.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
I think a lot of people were shocked when you
did a bit on Jimmy Fallon in two thousand and
nine for many reasons. Number one, you showed the world
that you didn't look a day older than you did
on Bayside High at Base I had.

Speaker 4 (38:14):
Help, I had help, did you well? So I remember
that because I was promoting a show that I was
on called Raising the Bar for Stephen Botchko, and I
remember we were going to do the press tour, you know,
for the launch of the show, and they said, oh,
we want you to do Fallon. I was like, oh,

(38:34):
that's great, and I knew that Fallon, you know, with
his background at SML and they and his show was
relatively new at that time, but they were doing skits
and having fun on the show. Wasn't just like your
your typical late night paradigm. So I remember talking to
the producer and asking if I could come on the show,
because that's when things were people were trying to find

(38:58):
things that went viral, and when they went viral, it
was you know, obviously like a lot of a lot
of looks, and I was thinking, how can we I'm
not a very viral guy, Like, there's nothing that I
do that people are gonna be like, oh gosh, I
can't believe he did that. But I thought, what could
I do? And and that came up, and as a
thought was to go on his show as Zach Morris.

(39:21):
And I remember talking with either Jimmy or one of
his producers, but they said, oh, we love that idea,
but then we'll cut to a commercial and you'll come
back and you'll be Mark Paul. And I said, no,
I want to do the whole thing as Zach Morris,
never breaking character, and I want to say, like, you know,
Zach Morris, I'm the real Zach Morris. Mark Paul Gosler

(39:45):
is my stage name on SAG, because there was already
a Zach Morris, and I'm on this new show raising
the Bar. And you know, I wanted to play because
everybody would call me Zach anyway, so I'm gonna I'm
gonna play into that. They all think, name this character,
so let's do it. And so what I say is
why I had help looking young is because I scrambled

(40:06):
to find a wig like Zach Morris, because obviously my
hair wasn't like that. So I was wearing a wig.
I scrambled all over the valley looking for this wig.
Finally founded at this professional wig maker, but it was
two sizes too small. So I put it on and
I was like, it looks great. Let's go, and I
hopped on a flight, went to Yes. I went, and

(40:28):
so when I put it on, it gave me a
complete facelift. It looked amazing. I had no wrinkles in
my forehead, my eyes were pulled back. I looked youthful.
I was like that.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
So that's why the name of the wig maker.

Speaker 5 (40:42):
I'm gonna need that.

Speaker 4 (40:46):
So they pulled everything back and it came out exactly
how I wanted it to. We had a we had
a great time, and then when the whole cast joined in,
that was even better. And uh and and you know,
I think I think Jimmy is or she responsible for
why there was such a desire to do a reboot
of the show.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
Wow, man, I cannot believe that was your idea to
do that fallon bit.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
That's so smart. That's so smart and so cool.

Speaker 4 (41:14):
And it was awesome because also working with one of
his producers, Mike Decenzo was the guy that was the
producer writer on the show, and he was a he
was an adamant fan of the show and was like
an encyclopedia uh for it. And I said, I wanted,
I want to be married to Kelly, I want to
talk about my s A T scores, I want to

(41:36):
talk about certain things. And so he was able to
plug those and it was an eleven page script that
that we did and it turned out great. And Jimmy
is just so good and so funny and such a
great person to bounce these things off of. We had it.
We had a really good time. I do it again
in a heartbeat.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
That's so cool.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
A lot of fans you even mentioned at A lot
of fans focus on the caffeine pills episode or the
zach attacks, But I really want to know more about
one particular tag you guys all did for an episode
called No Hope with Dope. Movie star Johnny Dakota visits
the school to shoot an anti drug PSA, but then
they see him smoking marijuana at a house party.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
They see smoke.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
He's doing a jail Joe doing a j smoking the marijuana.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
At the end of the episode, the cast appears in
character with the NBC network president at the time and
a truly terrible actor, Brandon Tartakoff. It was a say
not to drugs commercial scene where it's a postmodern fourth
wall explosion, And I just want to ask you, what
do you remember about shooting that?

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Do you remember it at all?

Speaker 4 (42:49):
I don't remember it. By looking back, I can only
imagine that I was thinking, like, God, I hope they
don't smell weed on me at this point.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
That's what I was thinking.

Speaker 4 (42:58):
I wasn't a big I wasn't a big marijuana type guy.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
But but you were older.

Speaker 4 (43:08):
But yeah, we were older. And I would say that
since sixteen I was in clubs in LA. I mean
it was. I mean, thinking back to that's so weird
to think of, Like if I saw a sixteen year
old in a club. Now, when I see a sixteen
year old in a restaurant, I'm like, what are you
doing here? Yeah? It feels weird, right, I mean, I

(43:29):
mean a club with other actors, young actors from the
time I don't want to throw anybody on the bus
with some pretty big names. Now and we're in bar one,
we're at the Roxbury. I remember being taken to my
first club by Sleigh Moon and Fry when I think
I was thirteen. We went to like this this club

(43:50):
in LA that was fourteen jeans.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
I remember that under I never went to it, but
I've heard a lot about it, this like teen club
that existed that a lot.

Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yeah, Yeah, but it wasn't I was. I was a kid,
I remember, I was. And I really lived in a
in a bubble. I lived outside of the city. I
lived in Valencia, which is outside of Los Angeles. For
anybody that knows, it's it's sort of like a planned community,
a lot of track homes and things like that. But
my upbringing, my mother would listen to to k Earth

(44:21):
one oh one and it was like a lot of
like Elvis and Ella Fitzgerald and you know, Fats Domino
and stuff, and so that was my musical uh education.
And so I'm I remember before like Slay's like, we're
gonna meet at this club. We're gonna go to a club.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
That's what it was called Ballistics at the Roxy?

Speaker 4 (44:43):
Is that what it was called the Tea Club?

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, it was. It was the place above the Roxy
because there was also like on the Rocks, which was
like the little club. I remember going there for birthday
parties and stuff. But okay, but Ballistics was like.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
The name of the teen club. Yeah, it was like
the team one Ballistics.

Speaker 4 (44:59):
But I remember like being so anxious of not knowing
like current music, and I'm thinking, like, oh, I hope
they play Elvis at this place, because then I could
kind of I could sing along or dance along, you know,
if they're playing Like I walk in and they're playing
two Live Crew and all the guys are on one side,
all the girls are on the other side, and they're singing, Hey,

(45:22):
we want some right right, And on the other side,
the girls are going, hey, we want some dic K
and I'm like, I'm thirteen, and this is what this
was my exposure.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
You're like, where's the Ella Fitzgerald Room?

Speaker 5 (45:38):
Yeah, this Elvis never sung about.

Speaker 4 (45:40):
That was my exposure to the LA night scene. And
then cut to three years later where I'm on my
own show and you're let into these clubs and then
we're doing a psa of don't you know, there's no
hope of dope, which was fine with me because I
could I could say that I wasn't a really big

(46:01):
dope guy, right, So my thing was maybe to have
a few like light beers or whatever. Yeah, I'm sort
of sugarcoating that, but you know the the for those listeners.
But yeah, we were just it was it was a
different time and again there was no social media, so
you could just be a kid and your lessons. And

(46:23):
by the time I was nineteen, I was over it.
I was done. I didn't want to do it anymore.
And I just feel like that that's sort of lost
for some of these kids that are growing up in
this industry now, is that they're just they can't experiment
with somebody having an opinion about everything that they do.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
So it's terrifying. Your kids are. How old are you
have two older kids?

Speaker 4 (46:46):
I have a nineteen year old and a seventeen year old.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
I can't I mean, it has to be so scary
to be the parent of a nineteen and a seventeen
year old right now, with just all the things you're
talking about, because I think about it all the time,
how lucky we were that we barely got by.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
We were the last little bit of the.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
Generation that didn't have to deal with that, with the
constant pressure of everything you say and think being put
immediately onto the internet, and then every single one of
those thoughts and opinions and you know whatever being judged immediately.
I just, oh, my gosh, I can't even imagine it.
So how do you deal with that with your kids?

Speaker 4 (47:26):
Well, first of all, I'm not on social anymore. I
took myself off about a year and a half ago.
I just couldn't do it. I feel like I have
pretty thick skin, but honestly, it's just like even that's
an effort to have thick skin, right, So it's like,
why why even deal with it? So I took I
took myself off and how we deal with it With

(47:50):
the kids, I've just been blessed, I think with some
really good kids. I mean I have a pretty good
relationship with my kids. You know, I still go to
better every night and think that I could do better
and be better. It's just a thing as a parent,
I think you do. It's like you never feel like
you're getting it right, and you know there's there's there's

(48:10):
so many different ways and and and and avenues that
you can take and it's like are you doing the
right thing, and you just you just never know. But
with my my two older ones, they're they're they're good
that way. They have a strong identity. I don't think

(48:32):
they're on. I mean, my my daughter checks out her
social a little bit, but I don't think she's she's
tied to it and and that that is not her identity.
She's really into art and my my son is really
into music. And yeah, I I I would say limit

(48:53):
the social and and uh, you know, if you could
take it away, I would do it, and a heartbeat,
I would wipe it all away. Yeah, because I just
don't see the good and for especially for younger people
to be on it.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
Well, I watched I saw a video of you not
that long ago, so it was obviously from you said
you got off at a year and a half ago,
but I thought it was it was one of the greatest,
one of the greatest videos I had ever seen on
like TikTok or Instagram or wherever it was. But you
were talking about I think your daughter, one of your
younger kids. You had picked up and they had had
like a bad day and they were kind of in
a bad mood, and you had her do something your

(49:30):
mom used to have you do, which was pick an
orange and peel an orange. Like she was peeling an orange.
That's something about the activity of actually having to peel
the orange. And then she was walking behind you in
the video and like walked up and said she had pooped.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
She was no, I'm not.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
My producer husband just asked me, are you making this up?
It was one hundred percent you and you had this cute,
you know, this cute little girl with you was like
walking and talking in the background. Who walked up and
then it was like, what's that you pooped your pants? Okay, great,
but it.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
Was the video, how yeah, did this actually happen?

Speaker 4 (50:02):
Because it seems like I almost I almost feel like
this is Vanderbik.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Maybe James Vanderby.

Speaker 4 (50:07):
I think it might be Vandibek.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
I think it is Vanderbeek. Is it Vanderbeek?

Speaker 3 (50:11):
Oh my god's James Vanderbek.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
Oh yeah, I'm just realizing right now it was totally
James vanderbe Happy that just happened.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
And I am so happy as well, because I like,
I watched Vanderbeek's videos every once in a while, like
I'll see a pompa. My wife will say, because we're friends,
we're acquaintances. And I think he has like six kids.
So yeah, the.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Reasons I thought it was you was because there were
like a lot of kids, and I was like, oh,
I just met Mark Paul.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
He's got a bunch of kids like that.

Speaker 4 (50:40):
That's totally Vanderby, And I think Vanderbeek actually we had
the same RV. We actually had the exact same RV,
and at some point he was like spending a lot
of time. I don't know if he was living out
of that RV or what, but I would see the
chaos behind him. So that does that does sound like
a Vanderbeek moment where.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
It wasn't our. It was like a lot.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
They were on like a lot of land, like on
a farm or something. And I was like, yeah, this
that's with everything you just told me.

Speaker 4 (51:07):
You did it.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
You did it well.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
If you want to call me Winnie Cooper, you know,
if you want to do any of that to me,
it's just totally fine.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
I will accept any of it.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
This is my favorite day. It will cry no.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
And that's the thing. I've never put my kids on
on on social I'm I'm pretty protective that way. I
think we take photos, but they're from a distance. And
this is when I was on it, and I would
only take photos if like we were gifted a trip
to you know, Universal studios, you have to do the
obligatory photo, but that'd be far away. And I I'm

(51:44):
I'm you know, I don't judge. Like I know, there's
a lot of people that that put their kids on
It's just not for me. I remember one time, very
early on, uh in my son's life, we went to
a h and my son's name is Michael, who's now seventeen.
But we went to a function and somebody took a

(52:07):
photo of us and in like one of the comments,
it was, you know, and at that time it was
only like People magazine or you know, there would be
very specific and limited press that would run these things.
But under the comments it was like, what's wrong with
his smile? And I was like, that's it, that's it.
Never never doing this again. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not

(52:27):
going to build my kids out there.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
It was one of the Yeah, main it was one
of the first decisions I made when Jensen and I
had kids.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
We talked about it.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
It was like, man, and I knew even before Adler
was born, how hard it.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
Was going to be.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
Because is there anything in the world that you love
more or want to show off or brag about more
than your children. You they are They bring you so
much joy that you just can't imagine that the even
if they even bring you a fraction of the joy
they bring me, I want to share that joy with you.
And it was it was a hard decision to make,

(53:03):
and I, like you said, I do not judge anybody.
As a matter of fact, I look at people who
post their kids and I think, man, they do it well,
or that looks really great, or you know, I'm I
wish I could do that.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
I just it's just not for me, and you know
we we haven't done it either.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
I used to post things when they were first born,
like with an emoji over their face, and then people
would be like, well, if you're not going to show
your kid like, don't even just don't do it at all.
And I eventually read that and I was like, you
know what, You're kind of right, like I'm trying to
get this feeling of like I'm sharing my life with you,
but I have an emoji over's face, so it does
what I want, but also what you want, which is sharing.
And then people are like that doesn't make us happy,

(53:39):
and so I was like, okay, I just now don't
really post much about my kids, or I'll post them
from behind or whatever.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
But yeah, also there's also the risk of backlash, which
I'm encountering now. Just you know, my son's eight and
it's like the forbidden fruit. All he wants is to
be posted. He's like, Dad, can I post a video?

Speaker 4 (53:58):
Can I?

Speaker 2 (53:58):
And I'm like, you know, so, I know, like in
a weird way, I need to figure out how to
allowing account. Yeah I don't. Well, yeah we have that
like within our family, you mat.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
Yeah, well not even just that because then friends could
follow it too, so that he gets the like the
dopamine hit of seeing like will or I leave a comment,
you know, like where because we have a he has.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
To be in cancer right right? Like what he was
like sticks, he would say, Dad, you know, if we're somewhere,
he'd be like dead film me and I turn on
the camera and he'd be like, hey, guys. I'm like,
who's guys all just and we've never I've never allowed
him to watch a YouTube video. So he's just absorbed
it from the culture like that that influencer like speak

(54:41):
that like talk to the camera, walk and talk like
he just has it and it's just part of their
culture now. So he just wants to participate in it.

Speaker 4 (54:49):
But I don't know.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
I've told him because he's been making a lot of
stop motion movies and I'm like, look, maybe we could
post those like you know, you will post your work
right until the criticism starts coming in. Mark.

Speaker 5 (55:00):
I don't know about you, but one of the greatest
days of my recent history was deleting all of my
social media. I woke up the next day and I
felt so good. It was a visceral weight that had
been lift where it was just like, I mean, it
was wonderful to just not have it in my life anymore.
It really was. It was phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
Loved it.

Speaker 4 (55:19):
Did you delete all your content and your name or
do you still have the account?

Speaker 2 (55:25):
No?

Speaker 5 (55:25):
I deleted everything, no account, no everything. And I didn't
say anything to anybody. Deleted, Twitter, deleted. I just woke
up one day and it was gone, and it was great.

Speaker 4 (55:32):
See, and I still have my account up. There was
a moment where I only had like four pictures up
on Instagram because I woke up one day and was like,
I'm deleting everything, and I deleted the content on it,
and I think, you're like, followers go to zero. But
I still kept my name, okay, and I'm still reluctant
to just because I'm thinking somebody's gonna pick up my name,

(55:56):
so I'm trying to just hold on to that. Plus
my Twitter handle, because I joined Twitter so early, is
at MPG, which I'm thinking is a pretty damn good
Twitter and I kind of want to just hold on
to it, but I don't. I don't. I'm never on it,
I don't, I don't check it, so yeah, I don't know.

(56:19):
I don't know. I don't know what to do because
I want It's great. I want to keep my stuff.

Speaker 3 (56:23):
Yeah, just hold onto it.

Speaker 5 (56:25):
Just want to keep my stuff.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
Before we let you go.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
I want to give a little shout out to a
friend of mine and my husband's, Dashel Driscoll, who had
a rewatch podcast with you well before we ever had
one occult favorite, Zach to the Future, that many of
our listeners wish was still around when you agreed to.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
Do the show.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
What scenes were you immediately the most scared to see again,
because we the three of us, have all had moments
where we go, oh God, I don't I'm already dreading
watching that episode, or I'm already be dreading that scene
that's coming up. What were yours looking at when when

(57:04):
you first started the podcast?

Speaker 4 (57:06):
Pretty much any scene that I was in, I just
I don't like watching myself, so to have to rewatch
that was torture. And I would say it all the
time on our podcast. It was my idea to do
this podcast, but it was I didn't realize how tortuous
it would be for me to have to watch my
work back. Because there's nothing you can do. You can't

(57:28):
go back and say, oh, I had like another take,
like to redo that, Like that sucked, let's do it again.
And then realizing like everyone else on the show was
more talented than me, at least in my perspective. Right
from my view that too, I was like, oh, but
in terms of like storylines, the one that I think

(57:51):
we had to be most well, there was a few.
There was. There was one where I was basically houring
out Lisa Turtle, you know, to like charge people to
kiss her without her consent. Oh god, that was That
was a that was a tough one, which we had to,
you know, preface the episode by saying, we do not

(58:12):
condone this. We're just we're here just to to uh
discuss it, but this is in the past. The other
one was where Zach Morris claimed that he was Native
American and we didn't know how.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
And did you you there's no way you remembered these either, right,
Like you just kind of stumble into them and you go.

Speaker 4 (58:33):
Oh gosh, yeah, yeah, yeah, seeing Zach Morris in a
full head dress and oh yeah. And so that was
that was one we had to be a little sensitive on.
There's just things that you just would not film. Now
you know, there's things I've talked about this with breck
and Meyer, who's a we're still very close friends and

(58:56):
probably talk every week, And we talked about Franklin and Bash,
which is only ten years ago, and there's things on
Franklin and Bash we would never be able to shoot
now and rightfully so, which is inappropriate. It's you know,
we've evolved as human beings, but there are things every
single episode that we could pick out that that we
would you know, you find yourself at that point. You're

(59:20):
trying not to be negative, right, it's a it's a
watch party. People want you to celebrate the product. So
we had to. We we had to.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
It was a fragile Yeah, it's a tightrope walk, correct,
But overall you're trying to be positive about the work
and say that.

Speaker 4 (59:39):
Was a different time. Yeah, we don't condone that now,
but this is what it was, and enjoy Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
People also don't mind you acknowledging it.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
But then they also they don't want to hear it
brought up every time and in the next scene when
there's something else, like let's talk about it again, it's
like blanket statement. This shouldn't have existed, but it does,
we don't condone it. Moving on, let's actually just talk
about the rest of the rest of the episode. We
have learned that lesson as well.

Speaker 5 (01:00:06):
So sometimes harshly, we've sometimes harshly learned that lesson, but
we've learned.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
We've learned.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
So looking back now with two of your children being
older or than you were when you were on Saved
by the Bell, how do you feel this many years
later looking back at your time as Zach Morris.

Speaker 4 (01:00:27):
Well, and you just brought up that my kids are
older than I was when I started the show. I
am also ten years older than mister Belding was when
he started the show.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Oh man, oh yeah, my no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
I'm sorry. I need you to repeat that you are
ten years older than Dennis.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
Has to get more than ten years older. I think
Dennis started the show and he was either thirty six
or thirty seven?

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Was that Miss bliss Ard Saved by the Bell?

Speaker 4 (01:00:52):
Miss bliss Okay, but I think I brought it up
on our podcast for Saved by the Bell, So I
think at that point at Saved by the Bell, he's
still ten years younger than I was at this moment
on Save by the bell. Oh my gosh, yeah, I
let that sit in, guys, yep, let that soakright in.

Speaker 5 (01:01:10):
I've only been to two strip clubs in my entire life,
and the first one I was dragged to was the
Crazy Horse.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
And I get a top of my shoulder and it
was mister Belding.

Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
Oh well listen, but he he was. I mean, but
I gotta understand, this is a guy who was in
his late thirties. You know, It's like, yeah, of course
he'd be, and he's he's on television at the point.
At that moment, it's like, of course.

Speaker 5 (01:01:31):
This is this crazy horse in Vegas.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
Yeah, he was.

Speaker 4 (01:01:35):
He was known for doing karaoke at a place called Dimples.

Speaker 3 (01:01:39):
Oh I know. I've ran into him at Dimples many times.

Speaker 5 (01:01:43):
Yeah, Dimples was awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):
Yeah, yeah, you know you would. You wouldn't expect to
see the principal a crazy horse.

Speaker 5 (01:01:49):
But yeah, yeah, I was not expecting to see it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
It was.

Speaker 4 (01:01:53):
It was.

Speaker 5 (01:01:53):
It was odd, but I was.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Like, oh, okay, hi, how you doing.

Speaker 5 (01:01:56):
And he recognized you will it was I think I was,
of course with Marsden, and I think he recognized Jason,
so he came over to talk to Jason, and then
I was like, oh, hey, this is an odd combination
of people here, grey of you. Oh my god, very strange.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
One last question, because talking hearing you talk about Dennis
made me think about it. Are you particularly close to
anybody from the Saved by the Bell cast? Are you
guys still regularly in touch or have you all just
you know, obviously we all have our own lives and
do different things and move on. Or are you like
actually close to anybody in particular.

Speaker 4 (01:02:29):
I think the closest out of the show that I'm
that we have the closest relationship is probably Tiffany only
because her husband Brady and I really enjoy each other's company.
We're into a lot of the same things, and we
just relate on a lot of different things. And then
Tiffany has just always been there for me as well

(01:02:51):
Elizabeth as well, you know when when we all text
each other. Still Mario and I still keep in touch.
We we do jiu jitsu separately, and we've done it
actually together as well. But yeah, we've remained relatively connected
over the years, and obviously when we did the reboot,

(01:03:13):
yeah we got a little bit closer again. But everybody
has families and lives and and and other things, but
we reach out to each other every once, especially the
chance to do comic cons. Yes, that's where we've been
able to reconnect. One of these days, we'll try to
get Tiffany out there to do one of them.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
I know she should.

Speaker 4 (01:03:33):
I think she'd have a good time.

Speaker 3 (01:03:35):
Are you doing nineties con in Tampa?

Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
I would like to. We had a good time at
the other one. I don't know what city that was,
but we had a.

Speaker 5 (01:03:43):
Hard Hartford, Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut, baby my birthplace.

Speaker 4 (01:03:47):
Oh was that right? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:03:48):
Yeah, I went home for that.

Speaker 4 (01:03:50):
Yeah, we had a good we had that was a
really good show.

Speaker 5 (01:03:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:03:53):
I feel like I'd like to do the next one,
and I think the next one is in Tampa.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
Said, yeah, in September. I want you guys to do
that one so we can all be together.

Speaker 4 (01:04:03):
Hey, reach out to Tiffany and try to get that going.
That'll be a big one because she's never done a
comic con.

Speaker 5 (01:04:10):
And that's a great one to start with.

Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
So that'd be a really good one for her to
start with.

Speaker 5 (01:04:14):
Where do you Where do you study jiu jitsu?

Speaker 4 (01:04:17):
So I live here in San Diego some study now
here in uh In in San Diego, I'm with Gracie Baja.

Speaker 5 (01:04:24):
Now, okay cool.

Speaker 4 (01:04:25):
So Mario is with Gracie Baja in Glendale and there's
Gracie Bajas all over the place. Yeah, do you do?
You do jiu jitsu? Will do?

Speaker 5 (01:04:35):
I'd like to start. I've been a UFC fan since
UFC one, so I've been, but I've never actually gotten
to roll at all. So yeah, it would be it
would be fun to give it a try. But yeah,
I mean it's just watching hoist Gracie back in the
original days was one of the things that actually brought
me into the sport.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
So love it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
It's an amazing sport. I've been doing it since two
thousand and nine and uh it just uh I just
love everything about I love the culture. Yeah, I love
how it makes me feel.

Speaker 5 (01:05:03):
And there's a great machida. There's a great machiitah Jim
like five minutes from me. So I don't know about
maybe checking it out somewhere, but I think it is
Joe Rogan's old.

Speaker 4 (01:05:13):
Jim Macheita or machado.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
I think it's is it machado? Is that what it is?

Speaker 5 (01:05:18):
I thought it was.

Speaker 4 (01:05:19):
Is that, okay, Jean Jacques Machado.

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
Yeah, I don't know enough about that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:24):
There's one of the there's one of the I mean
James Vanderbeek.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
Exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:05:33):
Is that Machado? Okay, that's the one. Is that the
one that that Rogan went to?

Speaker 4 (01:05:37):
And I believe so, I believe, So it's it's there
in the valley, yeah, if you're Yeah, and it's great school. Obviously.
Jean Jaques Machado is one of the godfathers of of
jiu jitsu, and.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
I think him right here, Yeah, you dude not.

Speaker 4 (01:05:55):
I follow him on YouTube and he's doing videos almost
every other day, and so I know that he's he's
currently training at at that school at least I hope.

Speaker 5 (01:06:06):
So that's cool.

Speaker 4 (01:06:07):
Go check it out. It's it's such a it's such
an inviting I mean, your hardest step is to make
the decision to actually go. But once you walk in
through that door, you're gonna be welcomed and everybody's gonna
be cool, and you're gonna get your butt kicked and
you're gonna love it.

Speaker 5 (01:06:20):
That's okay, Yeah, No, I'm that's I'd love to learn.
I really have always wanted to learn, so I think
that's cool.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
Well, Mark, Paul, thank you so much for taking this
much time to sit here with us and reminisce and
talk about all the things. I will start needling the
nineties Contampa people about getting you out there and you
start doing the direct text to Tiffany please and see
if you can get her, convince her to do it,
because that would be that would be amazing, sounds good.

Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
And let's not get the Dawson's Creek people there because
we might get confused.

Speaker 3 (01:06:49):
I would talking to James Vanderbeek and.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
Coming on the.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
Podcast will be rolling with n Sham, rolling with and
you're you're talking to James Vanderbeek.

Speaker 5 (01:07:02):
It's going to be a great, great day. While riter's going,
I have no idea what the hell, no idea what
any of.

Speaker 3 (01:07:07):
The things are that you're saying.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Yeah, well, thank you again for taking the time. It
really means a lot to us.

Speaker 4 (01:07:12):
I appreciate you, guys. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
We'll see you again soon. Bye bye.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
He's so nice, He's I can't believe how many similarities
I have to like the same, like him going back
to his regular school. And then you know, I mean
all the same stuffing to him.

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):
You didn't get to talk to him then at the
last con.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
No, no, I know you go, yeah, I saw him,
I met him.

Speaker 4 (01:07:45):
I've said hi.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
I think maybe like I've shaken his hand before, but like, no,
like this was. He's such a good guy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
He's a really he's really like down to earth, like
he's somebody we could have like a you have a
real normal there's no put on.

Speaker 3 (01:07:59):
Airs about him, yeah, which is rare refreshing. Yeah, it's refreshing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
I mean it's just part of being an actor that
you usually are good at putting on errors, you know, Yeah,
and so you do it all the time.

Speaker 5 (01:08:09):
Yeah, he's been he's been working like steadily at forty
years or so. I mean, it's insane.

Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
It's insane, literally, and he and he constantly he's.

Speaker 5 (01:08:18):
He's a great example of reinventing yourself when you need
to in the industry while staying true to who you are. Yep,
you know, he's it's it seems like he's always that guy.
But he will go and do like you said, a
Stephen Botchko show, he'll go. I mean it's like he
becomes who he has to become.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
He's a real team actor, right, Like he always he's
just there to work and always, you know, and that's
so healthy, Like I feel like for me, like part
of the reason I had to stop acting was because
I was so obsessed with like what kind of project
am I in?

Speaker 4 (01:08:50):
What is this?

Speaker 5 (01:08:51):
You know? As an artist?

Speaker 4 (01:08:52):
Does this reflect?

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
And it's like at a certain point, it's very healthy
as an actor to be like, doesn't matter, I'm working
to do my job. And I'm working, and I'm working
and alive, and like it keeps you in vitalized, like
revitalizes you no matter what it is, just to be doing,
just to be acting, just to be working.

Speaker 5 (01:09:07):
And but it's also to watch if you go back
and watch some of the early Save by the Bells,
then you go and watch like or to NYPD Blue
and stuff like that. To see the progression of him
just as an actor is really impressive. I mean it
really is.

Speaker 3 (01:09:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Well, thank you all for joining us for this episode
of Pod Meets World. You can follow us on Instagram
pod Meets World Show. You can send us your emails
pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:09:29):
You also can.

Speaker 5 (01:09:31):
Buy our merch fan shop that's German.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Are you shortening it in other languages or is it
actually merchandise the.

Speaker 5 (01:09:40):
Whull merchandise the full word.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Yeah, you should cut it in half, so say it again,
but cut whatever that was in half. Fan, Maybe you
just said something really awes horrible like all of Germany.
It was like, are you believe?

Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:09:57):
Yeah, no, that's yeah. So that's uh yeah, it's fan.
I hope I said that right for all my German family.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
Yes, podmeetsworldshow dot com will send us out.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
We love you all, pod dismissed.

Speaker 5 (01:10:10):
Pod Meets World is an iHeart podcast produced and hosted
by Danielle Fischel, Wilfredell and Ryder Strong executive producers, Jensen
Carp and Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo,
producer and editor, Taras Sudbach, producer, Jackie Rodriguez, engineer and
Boy Meets World superfan Easton Allen. Our theme song is
by Kyle Morton of Typhoon and you can follow us
on Instagram at Pod Meets World Show or email us

(01:10:32):
at Podmeets Worldshow at gmail dot com