Susan Estelle Jansen Meets World

Her name came up so many times on the show, she'd become the perennial "We gotta get her on the pod"  - and now...here she is. Writer / producer Susan Estelle Jansen has arrived to talk about her many contributions and her experiences inside the BMW writers room. And as an integral part of the show's birth and production, we get her perspective and dig even deeper into the Rashomon that was Season 1 politics.

Susan would go on to EP Lizzie McGuire (and write the movie), but first she'd be an early contributor to Home Improvement and the brains behind Topanga's famous haircut episode.

Susan's credits speak for themselves, but we're happy she came on to do some of the talking too - for the newest episode of Pod Meets World.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
I want to see where you guys land on this
because I think it's a product of having grown up
without television. I cannot be in a room with a
television on, like if there's a TV on, like, I
can't go to a restaurant or a bar with it.
I stare at it the entire time. Like, so there's

(00:41):
no such thing as comfort TV for me. Like, well,
you've talked about going to sleep with the television, like
I will saut it.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, I'm the same way, writer. I can't stand it.
It's to me, TV is not background noise. It's the focus.
If you're gonna watch it, it needs to be the
entire focus. And I want everyone else reading for it. Yes,
And I'm like, guys, this show is on, but if
you'd like to talk, we can turn it off. I
have no problem with either of them, but like, it's

(01:07):
not for me background noise.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
And you walk into some people's houses, like my in laws,
you know, they they just are one of those houses.
They just always kind of had the TV on. It's
mostly sports, like my father in law watches sports, but
oh my god, it drives me crazy. And like I
walk into the house and everybody else acts as if
like nothing's happening, and I'm like, do you see this
TV screaming at us right now? It is begging to
be watched. What are you doing there? Wonderful in your ear?

Speaker 4 (01:33):
That's what it's doing.

Speaker 5 (01:34):
We we we were not one of It's funny because
you would think we would be one of those families.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
We weren't.

Speaker 5 (01:39):
We were not a lot like TV during meals stuff
like that. TV was oh no, we were not allowed
to have any of the well, yeah, that's the thing,
and then we'd all, you know, gather around the old
boob too. But no, to me, it's weird because I
Sue and I are different in that she likes to
sleep with the TV on too, but it has to
be something she's seen ten thousand times, so she doesn't

(01:59):
want to stay up and walk. Whereas even if I'm
rolled over on my stomach, chances are I'm still watching.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
It in my head.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Right.

Speaker 5 (02:07):
No, So when I hear mash or cheers or Seinfeld
or something behind me, like Danielle you recently, you and
I were flying somewhere and you put Cheers back on
on the flight and I was like watching my screen
but glancing over and watching Cheers on Danielle's screen with
note like not being able to hear it, but still
watching Cheers, and now it's I'm completely back into Cheers.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Oh that's so funny because you.

Speaker 4 (02:31):
Just turned it on. So it's like all of a sudden,
I'm back.

Speaker 5 (02:33):
But I will like and Sue will test me sometimes
Seinfelder Mash will be on and I'll be literally on
my stomach with my arms like falling asleep, and she'll go,
what's happening on the screen right now? And I'll be like,
George is sitting down, He's wearing a red shirt. He's
on a couch and he's holding a cracked magazine with
a bus on front.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
And She's just like, how do you do that? It's like,
I'm still watching it.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Did I already tell you the story writer about when
Will and I were flying together and he put the
tea so he has a screen in front of him
on the seat and he goes to the TV. And
what it was that you put on? It was weep
weep Okay. He puts Veep on and I see I go, oh,
he's watching veep okay. And I'm just sitting next to him.
I've got an audiobook in whatever. Oh no, I was
watching something too. I put something on and then Will

(03:14):
turns it on. He watches it for maybe two minutes,
and then all of a sudden, he goes, lowers his
hat down over his eyes, leans back in his seat,
goes to sleep, and I go, oh, well's gonna sleep.
A few minutes later the episode ends, Will still asleep
and I go, oh, that's nice. TV turned off. He

(03:34):
can go to sleep. He goes, lifts up his hat,
goes back to the thing, turns on a second episode
of Weep, and then lowers his hat an episode of Veep.
What is he doing? And then I realized, oh, he
actually woke up because the TV show stopped, and now
in order to put the little baby back to sleep,

(03:56):
he has to put the episode of Veep back on it.
He did it like four or five times. I was like,
this is the worst sleep ever I did. Miserable.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
That's awful. Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Torture You're literally tortured and yourself awake every.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Twenty two minutes. Yeah, what about commercials? Can you guys
handle commercials?

Speaker 5 (04:13):
I'm not a fan of commercials, That's why I Yeah,
the DVDs, especially, like the advent of I could get
all my favorite shows on DVD was just a revelation
for me. The play all button was just like, oh,
every time I hit playing, I.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Find commercials so jarring and bizarre, and like when I'm watching,
I mean, I just can't They're like train wrecks. I
just don't like I have to watch them, of course
because the TV's screaming, I mean, and often with commercials,
they are literally screaming at you, right, And then I
just like the world present, especially like because I've been
on the road now, so we are in hotel rooms

(04:48):
every once in a while, like when we were on
doing our shows, and it's the first time watching commercials within,
you know, sitting next to me, and like, I didn't
realize that somewhere over the last like twenty years, basically
a quarter of all commercials are pharmaceuticals m I think,
which are accurate? Yeah, mind boggling to me. Like every
fourth commercial, I'm like, what is happening. This is a

(05:10):
new thing that I didn't know I had a problem
with that I need to be solved by this pill
that I need to ask my doctor about. And this
is then and suddenly I've gotten a glimpse of somebody's
life and their pets and their kids and like what
they do for a living. And it's like four minutes,
and you know, and India is just like this is
a thing, and I'm like, oh god, yeah, like this
is a thing. Apparently we all have diarrhea.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
And we need help on the fence about TV commercials,
But boy, do I love podcast commercials?

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (05:36):
I think podcast commercials are great, very true. They're funny,
they're engaging, you know, they're clever. I don't even notice
person yeah personal, Yeah, I feel like it's just you know,
my friends sitting.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Like a warm, comfy blanket.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Television.

Speaker 4 (05:55):
I saw one last night.

Speaker 5 (05:56):
SOO and I were watching TV last night and I
literally saw one where the first side effect was death.
Why do you need to hear the rest of them
after that?

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Dud? Does it?

Speaker 5 (06:09):
Does it matter that your skin's gonna itch if the
first thing that happens is you die.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Like, if you don't die, you may still itch. That's
why they want you to know. You may not die,
but you may be itchy with loose bowels itchy exactly.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
Isn't that just what being in love is like.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Come on, yikes, welcome to pod meets Loose Bowels. I'm
Dan yell Offishal.

Speaker 5 (06:32):
I'm right or Strong, and I'm Wilfordell Secure.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
Doctor is right for you.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
We're taking the show on the road and visiting over
a dozen cities as Pod Meets World is coming to
a city near you.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Next up is Philadelphia on September thirtieth at the met
for our biggest show yet.

Speaker 5 (06:54):
We'll be joined by Treeta McGee great person, Matthew Lawrence,
great person, and Tony Quinn who's a horror garbage human being.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
No you don't mean that, will.

Speaker 5 (07:03):
Oh No, it's the great smelling kind of garbage, you know,
like outside of Pope Refactory.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
I love you, Tony.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Tickets are still available right now at Podmeatsworldshow dot.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Com and you can see our entire schedule, which includes
stops in Cleveland, Toronto, and Pittsburgh in October, and.

Speaker 4 (07:17):
So much more, including the release dates in Texas.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Podmeatsworldshow dot Com right now get your tickets to see
us live in a city near you.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Well, if you have listened to the first two seasons
of Podmeats World, you know that we talked a lot
about the writer's room and the dynamics that lived inside it.
We've joked numerous times that our podcast is more Raschamon
than Rewatch, since everyone saw everything differently, and yet the
truth lies probably somewhere in between all of our memories.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Everyone named Tapanga good exactly.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
We already know how many stories about that there are.
But one thing we always pointed out and we love
to see on screen was the name. Susan Estelle Jansen,
a rare female voice on the show. Her contributions to
Boy Meets World are undeniable. In season one, she wrote
Killer Bee, Santa's Little Helper, and It's a Wonderful Night.
In season two, The Uninvited Fear strikes Out, Sierra No,

(08:11):
and Wrong Side of the Tracks. Then we're getting a
little ahead of ourselves. But one of her two other
scripts are in season four, and one is Hair Today,
Goon Tomorrow, the legendary hair catching some big episode right banners. Yeah,
So to say she helps steer the pop culture ship

(08:32):
that was Boy Meets World would be an understatement. She
was one of the sales The Harvard and usc Film
School grad also wrote on Home Improvement and another Michael
Jacobs show You Wish. Then she was the executive producer
for Lizzie McGuire and the writer of the Lizzie McGuire movie,
and also she penned the live action Brats movie. But
she couldn't escape us because she came back and wrote

(08:55):
for season one, the season one finale of Girl Meets World,
which was called Girl Meets First Date. She's had quite
a career, and all during a time when you couldn't
say quite a career for very many female writer producers
in the industry. And today we are thrilled to reunite
with her. Let's please welcome Susan Estelle Jansen to our podcast. Wow,

(09:20):
how are you?

Speaker 3 (09:21):
My god, it is so good to see all of you, guys.
It's crazy, it's so good to see you.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
We were just talking about in your in your intro
that you wrote the season the season finale of season
one for Girl Meets World. But also I remember you
on set during our pilot.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
I was there, I checked, I ran into came, I
totally kim undvited. I crashed it. I like that. I
ran into Michael in the lobby of the Disney Channel building, okay,
and he told me that he was doing it. I'm like,
oh my god, I would love to stop by. And
then I showed up for the pilot re and then

(10:00):
I just stayed all week. Oh man, it all week
to help out because it was kind of a little chaotic.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Oh you think I'm That's what I was saying. I
was like, you decided to stay. If anything, thank god,
I don't have to be here.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
No, it was like, it was so amazing to see everybody,
and even though it was chaotic, to feel a little
bit of that old magic.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah, you were the uninvited, just like the script.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
I was totally the uninvited. It couldn't it very badly?

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Thankfully it did not. So let's start with the easiest
question we have. What got you into writing for TV?

Speaker 6 (10:39):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (10:39):
My god, so funny. So I had an uncle at
Paramount who worked in the legal department and had negotiated
all the contracts for the writers on Star Trek. Okay
to be sweetheart, if you can be funny, you can
make a nice living.

Speaker 7 (10:56):
Right.

Speaker 5 (10:59):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
I deserted writing script.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
That was literally it. Because I'd always saw of myself
as sort of a very you know, dark, moody person,
and I'd never really tried to write comedy, and oh
my god, this was a funny thing. Up until this point,
literally up until that point, I did not own a
television and had never watched television. And I went out

(11:23):
and I bought this little funeye, this off brand TV
with a little VCR thing in it, and I bought
the Funeye, and I bought a copy of I bought
a copy of TV Guide, and I like looked up
things that I should be watching on TV Guide, and
I like set myself out like I'm going to watch
popular shows for a week. And then the president of television,

(11:51):
a paramount like, said well, you know, this is our
new show. And I think it was it was called
down Home.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
It was okay, so.

Speaker 3 (11:59):
Called down Home. And he gave me a pilot episode
of down Home and he said, well, this is what
this is what a script looks like, you know, and
this is how you write it. And I went out
and I bought the script writing software and I put
it on my computer, and five days later I turned
in a script. And he had never expected to see
me again, and I turned in the script and he

(12:20):
read this and he said, you know, against all odds,
I think you may actually be able to do this. Wow,
I am going to turn you over to somebody who's
like appropriately sized. I took this meeting as a favor,
far too important to waste my time with you, But
I'm going to turn it over to somebody appropriately sized.

(12:41):
He turned me over to another development executive named Maria Krenna,
Richard Krena's daughter, and she helped me put together a
slate of specscripts and help me find an agent.

Speaker 7 (12:56):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
I believe it was still I was still in folk
school at the time time.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Okay, so we're also where you were at Harvard or.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
Harvard and then usc Film School, which I did not
even know was a competitive admission.

Speaker 4 (13:10):
Is Harvard is at a university or idiot?

Speaker 3 (13:16):
It's a small private college, Baggie.

Speaker 4 (13:18):
Oh okay, okay. Interesting.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
What was your major?

Speaker 3 (13:21):
English? And American literature and language? And my mom was
so disappointed when I got into the industry, so disappointed.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
What did she want you to do?

Speaker 3 (13:30):
A poet? She wanted me to be a poet?

Speaker 7 (13:33):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (13:35):
Yeah, I studied poetry. I want a National Endowment for
the Arts award when I was seventeen for poetry. And
he wanted me to like be a poet because words
always I'm got to give repea Words always meant so
much to me. I was always, always, always loved writing.
In fact, my earliest memory I went to school with

(13:55):
Tatum O'Neil crazy pushed it through a rosebush bitch. I
went to start and they asked me if I felt
bad about it, and I'm like, no, absolutely not. She
totally deserved it.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
What happened, tell me the story, what happened when she
did so.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
It was Montessori school and we, like we were supposed to.
There was like a big deal about who was first
in line after playground for a class I think we
were like four, right, so, but like being that first
person in line after recess to walk into the classroom
and be first was a huge deal if very seldom
got it. I managed to make it first, and Tatum

(14:35):
decided that she was going to cut in in front
of me, and the front of the line happened to
be right next to rose bushes.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Well, so she was asking for.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
It, asking for it, asking for it. But that was
my first memory of writing. Because at the school when
we came back, they said that we should write about
Christmas vacation, right, So we were supposed to write like
three sentences about Christmas vacation on that on the big

(15:05):
paper with the you know, the double lines. Yes, okay,
we all remember. So I wrote about Christmas vacation and
they put it up on the board and I remember
looking at it and reading it over and thinking I
didn't get it, Like I didn't really capture.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
I didn't nail the Christmas vacation story.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
On Christmas vacation? Fully?

Speaker 4 (15:28):
Did you?

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Have you done a rewrite? Self disappointment? So you were
paid to be a writer.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
Speaking of which I brought a souvenir self disappointment souvenir.
So I don't think you guys even knew existed, it,
says dear ABC Channel seven ray boy Meets World. We
really enjoyed Friday evening shows. But what is it with
the writers for Boy Meets World? The storylines are boring,

(15:58):
whereas Cooper and step by Step are interesting and challenging.
Get new writers for Boy Meets World. Thanks be Creesy.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
What is a fan letter?

Speaker 4 (16:09):
LARISI that's my pen name.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
And she actually, you know, it's so funny. I never
wrote back to her, but I do have her regrets.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Well maybe she's still there.

Speaker 6 (16:21):
Let's let's make it up there.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
I say that because I remember something show that to me,
I'm like, oh, I am taking that, I am framing that,
I am putting out of my house, and I'm keeping
it forever.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
I love it. So how do you then, so they
end up hiring you at Paramount? How do you end
up on like the biggest show at that time, Home Improvement?
And was that your first TV writing job?

Speaker 3 (16:45):
Well, my first TV writing job was actually on it
was almost on the art. Do you remember the Arsenio
Hall Show? Yes, yeah, but he but it wasn't just
the Arsenio Hall Show. There was like another ancillary show
that was like our Sineo or something, and they wanted

(17:07):
me to do that, and I showed up and they
just I don't think I was quite as urban as
they had envisioned. They decided that they didn't actually want
to hire me, So that was kind of hugely disappointing.
And then I got hired to do one episode of
this random show called Teach.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yep, I remember Teach too. Why do I remember that show?
I feel like.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
Somebody else on the podcast has talked about Teach.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
Teach was the show about the black teacher at the
White Kid the White Boys boarding school back East.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Mentioned Teach.

Speaker 5 (17:46):
Somebody else has mentioned Teach on this podcast. I don't
know who, but somebody else has yet.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah. Anyway, so teach. So maybe Teach was like an
amazing theater show for everybody. But then I got the
interview with the the three guys who did home improvement,
and they hired me on and I had no idea
how huge it was going to be, but I had.
It was before the Internet, and I had this insane

(18:13):
mind for trivia and just remembered random stuff. So I
was like the voice of Wilson. I was a person
that they could always count on to pull some like
strange piece of information out of my head. I love
that guy. He was so nice. He drank brown liquor,
and he was married to a woman who was an
ordained minister.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Oh oh that's cool, that's very cool. What's the brown liquor?

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Bourbon like bourbon or whiskey.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
I mean it was just like he was just in
an dressing room and drank brown liquor.

Speaker 6 (18:56):
Well.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Another one of your scripts was for an episode Calledhunting
of Taylor House. Do you remember working with a young
pre sean Hunter, right or strong a minute?

Speaker 1 (19:07):
She wrote that episode you kise yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Episode.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, I'm the kid who the brad who calls it
full time and gets kicked out of scared by the
haunted house. Are you serious? We never made this connection.
It was only like two years later.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
He never made this connection.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
I believe that you wrote my episode of Home Improvement.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
I love that launched your career. I'm so happy. That
actually makes me really really really happy.

Speaker 4 (19:35):
That's cool.

Speaker 7 (19:36):
My god, that's so funny.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
Isn't that funny? Especially because Home Improvement was probably one
of the reasons you were called in for Boy Meets World.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Yeah. Well, I was really close to being a regular
on Home Improvement. I went back. I auditioned for every brother,
like when they were doing the pilot, you know, and
I was like sort of in between ages. I'm like, ye,
slightly older than Jonathan or actually Zach was younger but
just bigger. I remember they kept like shuffling all of
us around, and like, I just remember reading for Home

(20:04):
Improvement like six times. I don't think I ever networked
for it, but I got close, and I remember being
like ugh and then getting the guest star whatever. A
year or two later. And then yeah, and then that
like that awareness of me as an ABC kid actor
probably did lead to boy Met's work. Yeah, sure, it's
so funny.

Speaker 6 (20:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
And so, Susan, how did Boy Meet's World come into
your life?

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Like?

Speaker 2 (20:26):
How was it pitched to you? Were you aware of
the show before I came in?

Speaker 3 (20:31):
Right after the pilot was shot, So I saw the pilot,
there was. I did two years on Home Improvement and
then they let me go, So I was, which was
it was a really really really bad moment for me.
They let me go. They just they they didn't renew
my option for the third year. Wow. And so I

(20:52):
was looking around and I interviewed on a couple things,
and I really liked my phone, And honestly, it was
I think my career wound up being so much better
than it would have been if I had just continued
working for the guys on Home Improvement on Home Improvement

(21:13):
because they were very, very insular, and I was not
involved with anything outside of the writer's room. And once
I moved over to Boy Meets World and Michael, he
was all about growing talent. He was really all about
you were involved in anything, You were involved in the
casting of your episode. You know, when your episode is shooting,

(21:36):
you can go down, well, if you could find time,
you could go down to the stage.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
So how did you meet Michael in that process? Okay,
the in the hiring process for Boy Meets World.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
Okay, yeah, literally in the hiring process.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Wow. So we have obviously dissected that first season writer's
room a lot, so we don't need to go deep
into it.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
And I said, I said to your husband, it's Russia
on It's like totally different.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, because one has a totally different.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Take on your origin story. Okay, it's on BuzzFeed, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Totally Okay, what's your take?

Speaker 3 (22:15):
Okay, So my take was that you came in. We
had a show that was like a science fare show,
and there were two girls who would doing some like
hippie skippy ecological project about it.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
I was one of those, Yes, we're one of those.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
No lines, I had a couple of lines. Yeah, no,
you did not.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
I did because I auditioned with Monday.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
No and Monday. You may have auditioned for them later,
but on Monday you had You may have auditioned, but
you did not have lines on Monday. Well.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
It also wasn't a Monday, it was a Friday. We
started our weeks on Fridays. We taped on Thursdays because
Michael left for the Sabbath on Friday night, so a Monday. Forgot,
it was only there on a Saturday. Correct, you worked
on Saturdays. I've got it was a different schedule. So
again set roushamont. Okay, So Friday, so we're reading on Friday.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
You I don't remember you having lines on Friday, but
I remember David Traynor coming to us, I guess Monday Tuesday,
saying that I would love Riley was not working out,
but that he had real faith in you and it
was giving you lines, and we're like, okay, we'll come down.
We'll come down to run through and see how it goes.
We completely agreed with him, and by Thursday taping you

(23:30):
had all the lines.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yeah, that's not at all what happened. No, no, it's
not it all. What happened Friday, I was at the
table read I had like maybe two lines, one in
the classroom, one in the cafeteria, and it was Marl
and I. Friday afternoon, before I went home, I auditioned
for Tapanga. On the way home, they called me and
said you have the role of Tapanga. On Monday, I

(23:53):
came back in as Tapanga and did the run through.
I did the whole day as Tapanga.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
Remember her having a name in that epoch.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
So yeah, she did. She had a name from the
audition I remember, I remember because I auditioned for Topanga.
I just didn't get it.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
It's so crazy because I would have thought that if
you went and looked at his script, because we had
we we had no interest in the character at all
until you Danielle.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Like, the character wasn't big? Was that whole episode was
about basically about Tapega and her name was in it
from from the beginning. So yeah, I mean it is.
It's just memories are weird.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
I remember it. This is again't russiam On. This is
how I remember. I remember it that it started out
as this nothing role. You didn't have lines. You were
given the lines of the other actress who kind of
fell by the wayside, right that you got the lines,
and that after the episode, as we are watching it,
tape magic was happening and we're.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Like, well I believe that part. I do think that
Tapanga wasn't ever even after I got the part. Topanga
wasn't expected to become a mass part of the show.
And I do know stories because my parents and my
grandparents were there at the live studio audience tapings and
they would watch from the stands, but where they would
sit in the stands where it was very close to
video village, and my grandfather used to tell me every

(25:14):
single thing Michael said about me while watching the screen.
And I know that there were on that first taping,
Michael was like right in front of the camera pointing
at me and going, there's something there, There's something there.
And so I do one hundred percent know that after
I booked the role and we started we recorded that episode,

(25:34):
light bulbs were going off that maybe there could be
more for this character and this actress like that for sure, Yes,
that's for sure. No one, no one has even questioned
that Tapega was not supposed to be some like you know, I.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Have to remember you having a name until we started
writing you into scripts.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Tapeka was already in the script. I just wasn't her
on the first day. Somebody else was. And then I
took over the role on that first day Monday, the
run through day, and and it stayed the same Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
Okay, that's interesting because I wouldn't I wouldn't have thought
that we would have given those few lines a name.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, well I auditioned for them and they did well.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
The lazy I.

Speaker 4 (26:17):
Know now, Yeah, she was.

Speaker 5 (26:18):
She was named by Bill Lawrence or Michael Jacobs Orman or.

Speaker 4 (26:27):
Or so. We've heard different stories.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
Everyone's taking credit. I'm going to go with I'm going
to go with Mike Jacobs because he drove past to
Panga Canyon every day back and forth to work.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, that's the story. That's the story heard that Michael tells.
And everybody has their own. Everyone has their own.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
Bill Lawrence got one.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yep, Bill Lawrence has got one. That Lawrence is because
of his last name. That guy. So what was it
like for I mean, a rare female writer in what
has everyone admitted was just a big boys club at
the time, like the nineties writers rooms were big old
boys club. What was your experience?

Speaker 6 (27:05):
Like?

Speaker 3 (27:06):
It was rough? It was, it was well, it was
a lot of things. I mean, I will not betray
the sanctity of the writer's room because like that was
the thing about the writer's room was it was this
incredibly insulated space. Like literally as soon as the door

(27:27):
opened and somebody walked in, it was silent. Yeah, as
soon as the door closed, it took back up again.
And what I will say in defense of the Writer's
Room was that anything went like there. It had to
be a place where you could pitch anything, anything and

(27:48):
feel like you could say anybody could say anything. Yes,
So for better or for worse, that's kind of a
rough environment to be in as a you know, I
was in my twenties.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
Oh my gosh, I.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Was younger than Yeah, I was young.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
I mean you were like twenty some odd years younger
than we are now.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
So I was. So it was it was a lot
to be thrown into, and it was it was. It
was crazy.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Did you feel heard? Did you feel like you were okay? Good?
You felt like your voice mattered?

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Oh my god, yeah, great, that's great.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
Absolutely, I felt like I felt like I really felt
like from the jump, Michael really thought I had a
lot to offer, right, So that really so I felt
really really good about that. And I just adored the show.
But you remember there were years that I was gone
from it because me off to do like other projects

(28:55):
with him.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Yep, that happened with a lot of people. That's how
you know, that's it. We had different sh runners for
periods of time because Michael was off doing you know,
a bunch of other shows, which when you strike while
of irons Hot Baby, you know.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
So I have I have a question for you.

Speaker 4 (29:08):
Said you came in at the pilot at the.

Speaker 5 (29:12):
The pilot had been shot, so at the after the pilot,
I mean, I'm sorry, do you were you involved in
my casting at all?

Speaker 4 (29:17):
Because I know that they were, they changed everything up
after the pilot.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
No, I remember Rusty was a huge question mark afterwards.

Speaker 4 (29:26):
But that was it you you so you were.

Speaker 5 (29:28):
I'm trying to remember who was actually in the room
when I was like auditioning or screen testing, and I
was didn't know if you were there or not.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
I honestly can't remember. The one that I remember, really,
really really being involved with was recasting the dad recasting Rusty.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
For Rusty yeah, because the dad there was a different dad, Yeah,
recasting and we're yeah.

Speaker 6 (29:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
So I just want to remind everybody about some of
our favorite storylines from season one. We have in Killer Bees,
Eric tries to take a date to an Aerosmith concert,
but is scared that he's going to run into his parents.
In It's a Wonderful Life, Eric fails his driver's test
and pretends to pass while Corey and Sean rents, I'm
blowing up your head Part five Stumpy's Revenge.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
That sounds like a bluff unscrappt.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
I know, right, it does. Where were your ideas coming from? Like,
especially since you had worked primarily in family television, do
you what was your like, where were where was your
inspiration coming from?

Speaker 3 (30:38):
Well, you know, it was it was always it was
always kind of relationship based. I mean, it was always
the and Michael always had such a sense of wanting
to have a great message at the end of the day,
but not being so dogmatic that you didn't have fun
getting there.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Sure, it was always like some weird, crazy journey and
at the end of it you wound up with, you know,
be a better brother, don't lie to your parents. Right.
So I think that it was just remembering my childhood,
like you just kind of go back and you remember, like,

(31:18):
what were all the things that I was struggling with
when I was in sage? What were my hopes, what
were my dreams. I mean, because I think that when
you become an adult, you often forget the richness of
the internal life of children. And it is a rich,
interesting internal life and more you know, grown up than

(31:42):
people often give it credit for. I mean, I think
there's a rule infantalization, and I think that I hopefully
we got around some of that, and hopefully we really
you know, talked about things that kids were struggling with.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Well, speaking of that, we talked a lot about the
big change in focus between season one and season two,
and we talked about the big shift in the writer's
room as well, with April not coming back. So what
do you remember about that time about the aging up
between season one and season two?

Speaker 3 (32:16):
Well, I remember we also didn't we also lose Mincas.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yes, yeah right, he was gone.

Speaker 3 (32:20):
Ye yeah, manas I missed because he was again he
was part of this kind of younger world. And it
was funny because I was talking to my son about
this and he was he was asking me to like
tell him about the show, and I, you know, I said,
it started as really a kid show, and then as
the kids grew up, the show kind of grew up

(32:44):
with them. Yeah. I think that was that was sort
of it was clear to us that you guys were
growing up and we had to and we really had
to deal with that moving forward. I mean, the one
I remember was when you called up Danielle and You're like,
I want to go by here.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
It was during the summer. Hey guys, so it's summer
and I really want to cut my hair. And Michael's like, what.

Speaker 4 (33:07):
Don't you talk about?

Speaker 3 (33:10):
I know episode, I know that is live. That episode is,
I will say, one of my favorite Hollywood memories and
I to this day tell the story of it.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Do you okay? I want to know from your perspective,
because again, Russiamon, we all have our own. Did you
feel like an enormous sense of responsibility behind me, like
cutting off my hair? What was going on behind the scenes?

Speaker 3 (33:34):
Yeah, okay, so I felt an enormous sense of responsibility
for you cutting off your hair because I remember, like
I was the girl with like the crazy I always
had the crazy long hair, and I remember that I
decided that I wanted to get the Dorothy Hamill haircut.
Oh my gosh, it was. I looked like the late

(33:56):
great Elvis Presley.

Speaker 5 (33:57):
It was.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
So when you said you wanted to cut your hair.
I had this sense like this was going to be
more emotional than you realized. Yeah, you know, does that
make sense.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Totally that you were like, Oh, she thinks it's going
to be no big deal, but there's a big sense
of identity there that she doesn't realize.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Is why it was so important for us to do
the episode and not just have it be oh, she
cut her hair, because it's like, it's it's huge, And
I knew that all any mom who had ever had
long hair was going to be like lued to the screen. Yes,
and I remember it was it was it was only

(34:40):
about you cutting your hair, very very peripherally, because it
was about Corey and about his sense of who he
was and what his looks were and how he presented
to the world. And you grabbing your hair and in
the bathroom and just hugging it out to prove to

(35:00):
him that that your physical being was not your internal being,
that like the person you were was not a function
of how you looked.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
Right, And then of course she proves him wrong because
she immediately becomes a totally changes.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah, exactly, the whole total meltdown, but that but eventually
it comes around, right, so I remember you having literally
before you you grabbed your hair, you grabbed the scissors,
and you melt it down. I remember we stopped taping.

(35:39):
Do you remember that?

Speaker 2 (35:39):
No, Oh, but I do. I do remember that. It
was a real stop and start. There was the you're
you know, you're gonna grab your hair and you're gonna
cut your hair, and then and and we'll let you
know when you can actually do it. And in the
between times Jeff McCracken would yell stop or Michael would
yell stop because we could only cut my hair like

(36:01):
one good yell cut which and then the way I
was gonna get to go and finish it was just
they weren't gonna yell anything. And so I was like,
I even remember then when nobody yelled anything. I was like,
I remember crying that.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Day, but I don't why. I don't remember you crying.
That's what That's what I thought. You were crying because
it was taking so long. You were getting yelled at.
I feel like you were getting yelled at.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
I was getting yelled at. I remember getting yelled at.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
It wasn't because you've cut your hair. I think you
wanted to cut your.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Hair to cut my hair. It was just.

Speaker 4 (36:39):
At this point.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
Yeah, I remember you not I remember you not being
sure that you could do it. I remember going back
into the makeup area with you, and and I remember
this is how I remember that. You were like, I
can't do this, this is too much, it's overwhelming. I
just can't. And we stopped, and I remember going in

(37:02):
And I don't know if I was the only one
who spoke to you. I can't imagine that I was
the only one who spoke to you at this point,
and like your mom would have been there talking to you. Yeah, probably,
But I remember talking to you and trying to walk
you through the lesson of the episode, which was its hair.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah, I mean, I promise you there was nothing I
wanted more at the time than to cut my hair.
I really wanted to cut my hair. I was so
sick of my long hair. I felt like it's like
a child with long hair. I wanted to cut it.
I do remember that the actual filming of it was
very stressful, and I remember Michael coming up to me,
and probably because he had heard your story of you
cutting your hair and you saying, you know, you look

(37:45):
like Elvis. After Michael coming up to me, and going
show me where you're gonna cut it, Show me where,
show me where on your short Where are you gonna
cut it? When you say you want short hair, where
are you gonna do it? And being like I'm gonna
cut it to hair and said no, you're gonna do
it here, do it here, do it down here, and
being like okay, and like grabbing my hair and figuring
out where the scissors were going to go. And again
it was you know, when I wasn't supposed to cut

(38:06):
my hair, they would yell stop and somebody would come
running in and it'd be like, okay, I didn't cut
my hair. I didn't cut my hair. And we did
that so many times. We had to make sure we
had all the shots we needed. And then when I
was supposed to go, just nobody said anything, and then
I just took the scissors and started hacking away at it.
And then that night I got to go home with
half cut hair, and all I could remember was thinking, Oh,
I'm just so excited to have this haircut done tomorrow.

(38:27):
I'll have this good professional haircut tomorrow, which was very,
very exciting for me. Yeah, So how much when you're
writing a script and you come up with an idea
and the writer's room gets it and they start, you know,
putting it all together. How much detail goes into a
script and how much of the thought that like we've

(38:49):
heard from, you know, when we would sit in note
sessions and Michael would tell us about this is really
what this is about and it's about this and all
the different layers. How much of that is talked about
in the writer's room while you're putting together the script.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
Okay, so there's there's a few processes to putting together
this script. So there's there's sort of this initial germ
of an idea, and sometimes the germ of an idea
is generated by the writer and sometimes by the room,
and if it's generated by the room, it gets assigned
to somebody. If it's generated by the writer, you usually

(39:23):
get to hang on to that germ of an idea
and kind of go with it. Right, So you have
the germ of the idea, you sort of lay out
the the react structure and the you know, the basic
movement and kind of what it's about, and then the
writer goes home and writes the script.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
Yeah, all on their own.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
And then you come back and then they rip your
baby to pieces and like bring ands dining in and
giving it a electro shock, and yeah, yeah, Michael was
notorious for that because I remember, and it was all
always the same. I love the Manta death, but it
was always the same. He would I would come in

(40:05):
and he would tell me what an amazing job I
had done and how much he loved the script, and
then he would put it up on the screen and
erase yep, erase it, and then we would start again.
Why did I go out? Like why did I?

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Hey, why did I do that?

Speaker 3 (40:24):
Why did I do that?

Speaker 6 (40:25):
Why did I do it?

Speaker 3 (40:27):
But I will tell you what I really admire about Michael,
and what I really admired about the other guys I
worked for, which was not an industry standard, was he'd
never put his name on.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
Scripts, right, Yeah, sure, he never.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
Put He did so much work and so much writing,
and he never put his name on scripts. And as
you know now from all those little green envelopes that
come to you, there's a financial cost to that, right,
He never ever ever did it. And I remember when
I went on and I did Lizzie and I did
other things, same thing. I refuse to do it. I

(41:03):
just I am not putting my name. I don't care
how much work I put into this. I'm this is
for the writers.

Speaker 5 (41:11):
Yeah, it's like a political speech writer, where it's you know,
you're never going to take credit for any of the
speeches that any of the presidents or senators or anything.

Speaker 3 (41:17):
A lot of but a lot of people did there.
There were other there were other people out there who did.
And I always really admired Michael that he didn't.

Speaker 5 (41:25):
Now, I know you said you're not going to violate
the sanctity of the writer's room, and I totally respect that.

Speaker 7 (41:30):
I do.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
No.

Speaker 5 (41:32):
Just curiously though, because we've heard a lot about kind
of season one, the split that was in the room,
because it was like team Michael and team April.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
I mean all the way. I loathed April Kelly really,
Oh yeah, I loathe that woman.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Why she was.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
She was not a woman's woman is perhaps the best
way to put it. Like you would have thought that
going into the writer's room, I would have had an
ally in the other woman in the room. She really
she hated me from the jump. She hated me from
the jump because Michael liked me and thought I was talented,

(42:14):
and she found she was one of those zero sum
people that there's a limited amount of talent and success
in the world and anyone who had any of it
was taking it out of her pocket. Hm.

Speaker 4 (42:26):
Wow, okay, yeah, I have.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
I have. There are very few people I don't have
anything nice to say about. She's one of them.

Speaker 5 (42:34):
Okay, Well, hey, we're trying to get because again we're
not there. We're kids were not in the writer's room.
We have no idea the dynamic that's happening there. So
as adults, we're just trying to get as many stories
as we can and piece everything together. So for the
most part, we're you know, people April did not want
to come on but had a kind of read a
statement on the air. But we've had other people on

(42:56):
that were quote unquote team April, and then we've had
people on that we're team Michael. And again, one of
the things that we always say that was such a
positive experience for us is we were completely kept out
of this.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
Yeah, I want you to see mom and dad finding.

Speaker 5 (43:10):
Right exactly, And and that was to the benefit of
the adults that were around us. There's a lot of
things that the adults did that weren't great, but that
was one thing that was phenomenal is they made sure
that that didn't spill onto the set. We didn't know
any of it was going on, so we're kind of
piecing these stories together as we go, and and it's
it's interesting because some people will come on and say,

(43:31):
I'm not going to talk about anything that happened in
the writer's room, and again I completely and totally respect that,
And then some people will come on and give us
little nuggets, and then other people will come on and say, like,
I hated that person. So we're just trying to get
a glimpse into what the room was like.

Speaker 4 (43:45):
Frankly, So it's it's really.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
We'll never know because so many different perspectives.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Yeah, because it's interesting because I guess what I was
saying about. Like with Michael, I always felt like he
really liked me and liked my work and wanted me
involved and was and was like really there to to
incubate talent and to and to get the most out
of a person. I found very much the opposite from April.

(44:15):
I found that that she was the one who was
going to flat out ignore me, flat out not listen
to anything I had to say, scorn me, mock me.
I mean like, yeah, okay, she had two writers that
were hers can Kudah and was the other woman was
a wasn't even a writer.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
She was our writers assistance, Yeah, writer assistant.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
But she insisted on her getting a script. I think.

Speaker 4 (44:46):
Jeanette.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah, those were her two people. Those were Jeanette.

Speaker 4 (44:49):
Jeanette came on the pod and and and kind of.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
Was wrote and her scripts were both great.

Speaker 5 (44:55):
Yeah, I mean she had her scripts were wonderful in
season one, and we we liked them so much that
we were like, we have to track her down. And
she gave us one perspective, frankly, of what it was
like to be in the writer's room and it was
very much team April. So you know, we want to
make sure that we're as balanced and fair as we
can be.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
And I can really, I can really really see that
because it is so hard to get a break and
for and April really did put herself out for these two.
April really really they were absolutely her hires, her people.
She asked care of.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
Them, and so was Bill Lawrence, who was another person
she was really fighting to, you know, get a script,
and then he pitched us back and it got through Yeah,
what are your memories of us as kids? Like, how
did you guys, how did you specifically see us?

Speaker 3 (45:49):
Well, I will say, I just you know, I don't
feel like I got to spend an enormous amount of
time with you.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
I I felt like all the time I spent with
you was kind of working time. But when I did
get a chance to be with you outside of that,
I was always so proud. I always felt like you
guys were such good kids with such good values. I

(46:21):
remember writer, when you got your first paycheck, you bought books. Yeah, yeah,
you bought beautiful, beautiful, beautiful books. And I'm like, these
are these are wonderful kids. And I really felt like
Michael was really a family man and he really did

(46:41):
try to keep a respectful, family oriented set.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
I really admired that. I really admired that, and I
and when I went on, that was like important to
me to like, it's got to be a good family set.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
What who are some of your favorite guest stars that
we had over the years. I mean we had Brittany Murphy,
Tony Quinn obviously, who was there for all of second season, Uh,
you know, an a third season also Adam Scott like,
did you have any favorite guest stars? Was it Trick

(47:21):
one of the Yeah, one of the guitarists.

Speaker 4 (47:23):
The guitarist from Chick was there.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Yeah, yes, that was yeah, that was like.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Yeah, he was.

Speaker 4 (47:29):
That was tongues though he was I think he was.
Was he one of the tongues?

Speaker 2 (47:33):
He was one of the tongues?

Speaker 4 (47:34):
Okay, he was one of the tongues.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Interesting, and you worked with Sherman a bunch too, because
if you went on to You Wish, that was basically YouTube, right.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
You Wish was like, I remember when we finished You Wish,
my Nina Bargell, I don't know who was my assistant
and who I took on to be a writer on
Lizzie she as She came to me with all the
scripts for You Wish, and she asked what should I
do with them? And I said, hang on to them
and if I ever get like two full of myself,

(48:04):
just bust out these scripts and sholm to me.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
So that was not a great experienced experience. Apparently it was.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
It was so interesting, it was like it was surreal.
It was absolutely surreal because you know, we had created
this show with a genie who could do anything. So
then you had to come up with all the reasons
why the genie couldn't just solve every problem with like
the snack.

Speaker 6 (48:33):
Fingers.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
And we and then we kind of a lot of
times we went down the uh I dream of Genie road,
which was, you know, the major told her that she
can't use her right. So but we'd switched the sexes,
so the we had a female mom and then the

(48:56):
male Genie. So the mom just came off as the
depth of all fun. You must not ever do any
fun right, and it was. And then we spent more
money on that than we were so insanely over budget
on that. But I will say that I was the
one who pitched that he lived in Barbie's dream house,

(49:16):
which I felt was prescient.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Huh, there you go.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
I'm like, we are going to build Barbie's dreamhouse and
that is where the genie is going to live.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
I love that. Well, you left us and you went
on too EP and scored two Emmy nominations for Lizzie McGuire.
So what was that experience? Like? Tell us everything about
being on Lizzie McGuire.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
I loved it. It was the same sort. It was interesting.
I came in right after the pilot, and the woman
who had written the pilot got had written two pilots
that year, one with Gena Davis, and she decided to
go do the Gena Davis pilot. And Disney asked me
if I wanted to take over this little show on
the Disney Channel, and I'm like, absolutely, that sounds like,

(49:59):
you know, let me come in look at it. And
it was kind of a train wreck, and I rewrote
it and reshot it, and we were filming over in
Hollywood and Disney was over in Burbank. And because it
was like such this little crappy thing, nobody really wanted

(50:20):
to drive. So I kind of got to do my
own thing. And it was really, really, really fun. I
got to be my own little vision and I just
loved every minute of it. But at the end, there was,
you know, there was a certain amount of infighting and
Hillary really wanted to go on and have a movie career,

(50:42):
and she forced Disney to cancel the series, which kind
of broke my heart.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Yeah, so how long did it last?

Speaker 3 (50:52):
We were only on for two seasons, and of the
second season, we went and we did the Lizzie McGuire movie,
which I did Dector and Strauss great. Brought in Dector
and Stress to rewrite me because they were like, oh like, well,
we're going to bringing people to rewrite you. And I'm
like who, and they said, Doctor and Strauss. I'm like, yes,
bring them, this is going to be perfect. So we

(51:15):
got together and did a writer's room and redid it
and it was. It was the most awesome experience being
back with those guys. But in order to agree to
do the movie, she insisted that the series be canceled.
She wouldn't do the movie unless they canceled the series.

Speaker 5 (51:32):
Yeah, that was kind of par for the course at
the time there where it was it was Miley Cyrus
and everybody that were kind of wanted to break out of.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
The Disney show.

Speaker 5 (51:39):
So they went and did you know, covers of magazines
or something where it was, you know, try to be
provocative in some way to get Disney to let them go.

Speaker 4 (51:47):
So yeah, interesting time.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
Well, back then Disney Channel just didn't It was you know,
it was like there was Network and then there was
Disney Channel. And also just even being on a kids show,
you know, like it was always there was it was
hard to move out of any of those.

Speaker 5 (52:01):
Realms and if we thought we were on a kid show,
if you were on a Disney Channel show, you were
like exact.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
And the budgets, I mean, Disney Is just notoriously did
not spend money on their shows either, you know, like
Disney Channel shows would just have no budget compared to
a network show.

Speaker 7 (52:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
So, looking back now thirty years later, as a name
that is just so ingrained with Boy Meets World from
the start, what are your thoughts on Boy Meets World today?
Are you shocked to see that it still resonates all
these years later despite at the time it being a
mid level hit.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
No, absolutely not, because there's something so essentially good about it.
And it really was a show designed for a family
to watch together. It was really a TGII show. I
tried to put in enough humor for adults to watch
and kids to enjoy and never have a moment when

(53:09):
the parents would be remotely concerned about what they were
going to see. And so I and honestly I miss it.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Obviously. W GA is on strike. But what are you
doing now or are you are? Do you consider yourself
to be retired semi retired? Would you? Would you? What
do you want? What do you want to do now?

Speaker 3 (53:31):
Oh, my gosh, what do I want to do? Now?
I'm doing I'm doing some charity work. I my mom
and I just my mom is still a lot ninety
years old.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
Has she has she forgiven you for not being a poet?

Speaker 3 (53:43):
No? He literally still harps on it, literally to this day,
harps on it no matter what.

Speaker 7 (53:51):
Come on.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
I she and I just bought a vet clinic in
Barstow to offer low cost veterinaries services to the high
desert community.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Oh that's great, Wow, that's wonderful.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
That is charity work. And then my college roommate and
I are just finishing up a novel. My college roommate
she was also became like kind of famous in her
own right. She wrote Dying Young, the Julia Roberts movie
in a movie, so she was sort of a big novelist.

(54:25):
So we decided to sit down and write and oh,
my god, this is like, this is crazy. You guys
don't even know this about me. My great grandmother was
a serial killer.

Speaker 4 (54:36):
This is.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
How do we not start with that?

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Always lead with serial killer grandma?

Speaker 3 (54:45):
Now you have to have me back, right.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
That's true.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
It was a serial killer. And my thought was like, not, like,
how do you wind up like kind of doing that? Right?

Speaker 2 (55:00):
How do you get into that sort of work?

Speaker 3 (55:02):
Thank you exactly. So I'm like, there's a story there.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
And so that's what you're writing a novel about. Oh wow,
well it was nice, docu. It was great to see you.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
Wait, wait, can you give us the cliff notes version
of who this person was and what she did?

Speaker 2 (55:20):
Can we get a little bit about her?

Speaker 3 (55:22):
Okay? So she she We have very long generations in
my family. We take a long time to like get traction.
So this was She finally died in Miami in the fifties,
swathed in jewels and furs.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Oh, I love it. That's how I want to go.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
Uncaught, Like nobody ever caught her. Seven seven husbands died,
yes we according to family lore, only six of them
were intentional.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Oh, one died of natural causes.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
Well that's okay, right, six maybe, and then she would
but she got away with it because well once she
was staggeringly beautiful. So and she was. She was a
beautiful young woman in a time when beautiful young women
didn't have a lot of options. She had an unattractive

(56:20):
cousin who was a mathematician who wrote the mathematics describing
the surface tension of water. So great grandmother was not
an idiot, but she was very had very few opportunities,
and marrying well was a real opportunity.

Speaker 5 (56:40):
Most serial killers are actually pretty smart. Yeah, most most
serial killers are actually pretty smart. If you look at
some of the bundies and all the I don't know,
I know that, but they're all okay, so.

Speaker 4 (56:49):
Well, that's going to be a fun book.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
Yeah, sort of, I said it. I brought it, I
modernized it somewhat. I brought it up into the San
Fernando Valley in the eighties and sort of made it
Pilma and Louise meets Casino Coo.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (57:06):
And now is this?

Speaker 5 (57:07):
Did the serial killer aspect make its way into any
you Wish episodes or you It's so weird.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
It was always such a it was it was like
telling somebody that I had blue eyes. Like it was
just it seems so obvious. I don't know why. I
always thought it was obvious that people would kind of.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
That you had a serial killer killer grandmother.

Speaker 3 (57:29):
I don't know, like it just seemed like it wasn't
worth mentioning.

Speaker 4 (57:33):
I always assumed.

Speaker 5 (57:34):
I always assumed you, yeah, someone I didn't want to
bring it up because I figured everybody knew. But I
was like, I bet her grandmother was a serial killer.

Speaker 4 (57:44):
I just figured, okay.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
Exactly exactly. So I'm working on that. And then, you know,
I have a fourteen year old son. Wow, I have
a fourteen year old son who wanted to say hello?
Did you want to say hello? So excited about.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
How are you? I? Well, what's your son's name?

Speaker 3 (58:05):
My name is Jeffrey, Hi, Jeffrey, Jeffrey. My mom's a legend.

Speaker 5 (58:14):
Did she just break the news to you that your
great grandmother is a serial killer?

Speaker 3 (58:17):
Great great I was sitting on the chair over there.
I was just like, oh my god, yeah to know that. No,
we've been talking about this for years. Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
See this is what I all the family dinners that
I haven't been picking up on this.

Speaker 3 (58:35):
But it's just not like things are starting to make sense.
But I would say that if you can't really go
back to television and be a mom.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
So, but now he's you know, now he's a big guy.
So now he's old enough, and I'm thinking about maybe
dipping my toe back in just because it was. It
was the great greatest. I mean, yeah, now, wasn't it
the greatest?

Speaker 2 (59:03):
It was. It was a good time.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Every day you got up and you were so excited
about showing up, Like there was never a day that
I didn't wake up thrilled to be going to work.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
Yeah, that's great, and.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
Just loving every minute of it, even when it was
like stressful or annoying. I always knew it was amazing.
I was always and that's what I was saying about,
like that hit feeling like that.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
Right, Yeah, Yeah, it was such a positive set. Yeah,
I mean I feel like we were always laughing. We
were always having a good time.

Speaker 4 (59:36):
I wanted to go to work every day too.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
I was excited same, I couldn't wait. Well, Susan, thank
you so much for coming on and sharing your experiences
and your stories with us. It was so great to
see you again.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
Oh my god. Yes, and when I finished my book,
when I finished my Serial Killer book, I will come
back and I will plug it with you.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
Yes, please, Well, we also want to have you come
back when we eventually get to a recap one of
your episodes. We'd love to have you come back and
do a little recap with us and talk about all
that when we get to it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
I would love to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Talk to you guys later, another reunion in the books guys,
thirty years, thirty years in the making.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
I think that I think the biggest issue that we
face with memories with this podcast is Hollywood is a
place of stories, and everyone not only loves to tell
you know, everyone is a natural storyteller. If you're in Hollywood,
whether you're your actor, you're a writer, you're a producer,
you love stories and you love to tell stories. And
so a side effect of that is that everyone creates

(01:00:35):
stories while you're on set, while you're so it's like,
so she had, you know, for instance, like the haircutting
story right right, Like we all have our own version.
But in reality, like what she's remembering is mostly her
writing the script and which was the story of that,
and she's transposed I think what she remembers you being
upset that day, she's made it about the haircutting story,

(01:00:57):
and it's like it's a story on a story and
a story. So she's been able to tell a version
of that, you know, as part of her career, part
of her the writing experience she had. Whereas, of course
you had a much more like visceral reaction to like
grown men yelling at you while you're cutting your hair.
That's when you were crying.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
I just wanted to cut your hair.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
I just wanted to cut my hair. And I was asked,
could you please wait to write an episode about it?

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
But she has thirty years of storytelling.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Right, you know, she wrote her hair was very an
emotional experience. So no matter what happened with what with
the screaming, or why I could have been yelling somewhere,
she would have thought. She doesn't know it, but she's
also very emotional about her hair, like for her because
that was her experience. And so what she has remembered
from that is that I was so emotional about losing

(01:01:44):
my hair.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
Yeah yeah, well.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Well, thank you all for joining us for this episode
of Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow our
Instagram pod meets World Show. You can send us your
emails pod meets World Show at gmail dot com. And
we have merch.

Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
Turns out on merchandise. This is a serial killer.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Oh what a surprise. Podmeetsworldshow dot com and we will
see you all next time. Will send us out.

Speaker 4 (01:02:11):
We love you all. Pod dismissed.

Speaker 5 (01:02:14):
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

(01:02:36):
at Podmeets Worldshow at gmail dot com.