December 3, 2024 • 42 mins
In this episode, actor, producer, author, and screenwriter, Jaleel White, discusses his instant fame playing Steve Urkel and how he dealt with the hostility it caused within his new TV family. He also explains the effect an all-white writing staff had on the all-black cast, and his feelings about Seinfeld and what the sitcom meant to 90’s kids of color. Jaleel also reveals why Family Matters could never exist again, and what happened when a studio boss told him to conceal the man-bulge in an aging Urkel’s pants. Really, no Really!
Jaleel is the winner of 3 NAACP Image Awards and has starred in Big Fat Liar, Sonic the Hedgehog, Grown Ups, and Scooby Doo. Most recently he can be seen on Game Show Network’s “Flip Side” and he will soon be seen on Disney’s, “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew”.
His memoir, “Growing Up Urkel” was released on November 19th of this year.
IN THIS EPISODE:
- Jaleel was supposed to play Rudy on the Cosby Show.
- The moment he realized this one-off role had become a sensation!
- The hostility between Jaleel and his on-set family.
- How Jaleel coped with meteoric stardom.
- The unlikely reward Jaleel’s dad promised that motivated Jaleel into creating Urkel.
- Family Matters’ all white writer’s room and the effect it had on the all-black cast.
- Jaleel’s belief on why many child actors were exploited by predators.
- Seinfeld and what it meant to 90’s kids of color.
- What happened to Jaleel when Family Matters was cancelled.
- Wait, Jaleel has a marijuana company?
- What is “Just a Minute with Jaleel White”?
- The surprising book adaptation Jaleel is fighting to produce.
- Google-HEIM: Where did the word “Nerd” come from?
***
FOLLOW JALEEL:
Website: jaleelwhite.com
Instagram: @jaleelwhite
X: @jaleelwhite
Facebook: @jaleelwhite
BOOK: “Growing Up Urkel”
***
FOLLOW REALLY NO REALLY:
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Really now, really.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Really now really Hello and welcome to really No Really
with Jason, Alexander and Peter Tilden, who suggests that if
you subscribe to our show, you'll swell with joy as
you say out loud, did I do that?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And speaking of that famous line?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Jaliel White is an actor, producer, author, and screenwriter who
is best known as the speaker of that iconic line
Steve Erkele on the ABC sitcom Family Matters. Erkell is
a role he played from the age of twelve until
he was twenty one. In this episode, Jialiel discusses his
instant immense fame and how he dealt with the hostility
(00:42):
it caused within.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
His new TV family.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
He also explains the effect an all white writing staff
had on an all black cast and his feelings about
Seinfeld and what that sitcom meant to nineties kids of color.
Julia also reveals why Family Matters could never exist again
and what happened when a studio boss told him to
con seal the man bulge in an aging Erkle's pants.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Really no Really, here's Jason and Peter. So there are
those I'm not one of them.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
There are those that would say in the pantheon of
television icons. I might have a a small place.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Or you're playing my own little ship, playing the Huble
thing little.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I might have a small shelf between Carol O'Connor, you know,
Alan all. But but I started as as an adult.
We have a gentleman on today who you probably know
his actual name.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
But if I said Steve Arkle, I have a feeling,
and here's what remedia among us would go, Steve Kle.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
And the thing's so fascinating about his career and how
big he got and how he got big and how
he got cast. I mean, it's so multi tier. But
there really no really for me, was because everybody knows
Erkele kees and icon in that pantheon.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
It's one of those characters that well, the thing that.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Got me though I never thought of that there really
not really was that he did that character from age
twelve to twenty one, and I go, he was twenty
one when he was doing Rkle and the network's giving
him notes like cover up your balls, right, I don't
think the network gives us. They never did that in
the shows.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
We actually I was told to cover yes. In the
eighth season of Seinfeld, they said, cover up your balls.
I don't know why I love I.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Love your guy.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
We got it. Hey, there's so many questions I want
to ask.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
It is remarkable. Here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
It's remarkable to me on a number of levels, what
Julia has been able to do. First of all, to
maintain a character that began as a child. When you
meet characters on television that begin his children, there's a
certain charm that a child has right as the actor.
It grows up more often than not the thing that
made you attracted to that character kind of and also
(02:59):
they outgrow.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
As you grow older. You learned resentment, you learn so contracted.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
The character had staying power for as long as it's amazing.
That's one thing. Then we hear, unfortunately, just tragic stories
of of to have the kind of stardom that that
Juliel had at an early age. I mean I was
in my thirties and it messed with my head to
be a kid and undergo it.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
It's a really.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Very off putting thing for most kids, and most people
who have become child stars.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Grow up and they have real emotional problems in life.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Well, also, you saw The Troubles, the documentary The Dark side,
which just Nickelodeon what went on there? But why am
I talking to you if you're sitting right there because
you're paid to not much. But I think it's audit.
I think it is in order.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Live Julia White, good to see you right here in
this studio all the way.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
From soon to be Why don't.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
You get that stock? Why don't you believe out? Is
that we believe that out already? Thanks? Kay good. It's
real smart and Jason who lives at and his daughter
going to you know, it's I couldn't wait to get you.
In the book, it's called grown Up with a Forward
by Item Standler. Congratulations, thank you, so many questions first
of all, but the interesting thing you were supposed to
be on Cosby that started out as you were going
(04:24):
to be, I mean to the point where you thought
you were signed right.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, they named the character Rudy after you were going
to play Rudy.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
The character was already Rudy.
Speaker 6 (04:33):
There were only boys auditioning role and at the last minute,
this little girl comes walking in and it was came
down between me and her in front of Brandon Tartakov
all people.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
He rest in peace.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
You came in as a one time shot like an
episode thirteen on a show that wasn't chuggling along was okay?
One was okay and you popped? But could you talk
about if you can get back into your twelve year
old head? What did that feel? What was that like?
How did you find out that it wasn't going to
be one? What exploded? Was it at the table?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Read?
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Was there audience response? Because that I don't understand how
that all of a sudden took off and they when the.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
Light bulb lit up, it was audience response.
Speaker 6 (05:12):
But the thing I love about it when I look
back on it and I talk about it extensively in
the book is I had no expectation and I'm trying
to get back to that now as an adult, I
wanted to say a genesis, that's it.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
My dad made it.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
My dad made a deal with me that whenever I
booked a job, I could get one of anything I wanted.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
And now that I'm a parent, what a genius move.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
Because I didn't like going on auditions anymore because they
were starting to become too infrequent and they were disrupting
my basketball practices. And as a black kid with braces
at five foot four, the calls just weren't coming in
in the in the seventh grade, so I didn't get
an audition like maybe once every six weeks. And so
I'm like, you know, my mom didn't like me having
(06:00):
one foot in and one foot out because auditions come up,
you gotta go like tomorrow. You know, they don't give
you a lot of time to go on an audition,
even back then. So my dad said, Gail, he doesn't
see what's in it for. Because my parents never told
me how much money I ever made from any of
my jobs. I didn't find out how much money I
was earning until I was fifteen. So I did seventy
episodes of that show and never knew how much money
(06:21):
I was ever making.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
So my dad said, Gail, just give him something. You
know he needs something.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
And he said, well, what if you ever book a job,
you get one of whatever you want.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
And so think about it.
Speaker 6 (06:31):
Back then, right in Circuit City, Fedco Radio Shack, Toys
of Rust, these are my places foot locker that I
want to go buy something at the top of the shelf.
One hundred ninety nine bucks absurd, right, a lot of
money to spend, you know, when you translate that to
the initial pay, the residuals. It's nothing. So I was
(06:54):
fired up. All I wanted was the saga genesis I
do the show. A fraternity shows up that week for
our taping and chance my character's names and in between
all the scenes that I wasn't in. And what's what
I really love about that memory was we filmed at
the Lorimar Lot which is now the Sony Lot, and
(07:16):
we parked our car at the main structure where all
of the crew parks because we weren't cast, so we
didn't give one of the fancy parking spots. And I
remember walking back pretty much with members of the audience.
They were like, man, you did a great job man,
because they're walking back to their cars that I was
walking back to my car, and you know it was.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
It wasn't any greater of an exercise.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
Then I hit my mark and I made them laugh
and I got my sake genesis, and that's it.
Speaker 5 (07:44):
I wish it were deeper.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
And then they reached out to your family right away
that oh.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
The negotiation was basically taking place.
Speaker 6 (07:51):
That Saturday and snow and then I was in class
at Huntington Junior High in sam Ma Reno and I
got called out of class and it was my mom
telling me get home work because for the week they're
bringing you back.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
So okay. So the next thing I want to ask
is this. I heard you talk about how they put
this together. There was the Jefferson so there were a
hit black show or a couple of black shows. So
they started pulling people in to try and form the show.
And these people are all I think you said, they
were all told they're going to be the start.
Speaker 6 (08:27):
Well that's kind of my theory when I look back
on it, and I realized why certain feelings might have
been hurt in the beginning. Now that I understand what
the TV development process is, I usurped all of that. Right,
some people resent when you've done that, But I was
a kid.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
But how does a twelve year old kid then got
a twelve year old kid who's in a whatever, we
pick a number one to ten, hostile environment, they're not happy?
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, it was how did.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
You handle that? Did you know it at the time?
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (08:55):
You know, it was.
Speaker 6 (08:56):
Like I said, it's well documented that I wasn't well
received by the adults in the beginning. However, I just
I like to give them some props because you don't
do two hundred and fifteen episodes and it's all through hostility,
you know, they came around. I made them laugh like
I made anybody else laugh on set. We had great memories.
(09:17):
I think one of my greatest memories of at least
being with the adults, particularly with Reggie and who played
Carl and Joe Marie, was when we shot two episodes
in Paris in nineteen ninety six. We were the first
black show to ever shoot episodes in Europe, and that
was that was a big deal, and.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
So we were there for ten days.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
I was I was there for a little bit longer
because the producers brought me in so I could have
some fun in Paris first because I was in every scene.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
So once we started working, they had whole days. I
had no whole days.
Speaker 6 (09:48):
But that was the time, I remember where that was
the height of our bonding, you know, that was our
whole cast, the top of Jules Verne twelve thousand dollars
meal saying like there was no there was no infighting
going on back and so sometimes I like to help
them even remember you had a good time making this.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Great and we came around when most young actors are
casting as something. They're cast for an essential thing that
they bring to the table. You know they're not They're
not They're not becoming chameleons. They're not transforming into a
character that they don't walk around in. But you know
you ain't hercle and you never were. How did you
what made you think I need to do something for this?
(10:26):
And how did you find that guy that voice, that persona,
that Sega genesis?
Speaker 5 (10:32):
I just I'm telling you I but.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Did you actually think, Oh, if I just walk in
even though I'm five for him, that's not going to be.
Speaker 6 (10:39):
So the essence of me, Jason is I'm a little
amateur athlete and I love to find ways to just win.
I don't care if we're playing ping pong or board
game whatever. It's like, we got we gotta win, huh.
And And I so when I saw the character description
called for a nerd, I knew I was on the
shorter end of life. And I literally I had a
(11:01):
growth spread on the show that saved my life. I
grew nine inches between fifteen and seventeen. And when I
would get called to play, you know a kid who
stole something, or a tough kid or something like that,
was like they were looking at me and like, get
out of here, kid, John Singles is about to make
some movies to take care of that.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
For us in the next few years.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
I really felt like I could get this role, and
so that fired me up. I just I looked on
the page and like, I can do that. So then
my character references actually were where I was starting to
at that point just look at other people and just
try to impersonate them. So I had a VHS tape
of the Best of Saturday Night Live, and Martin Shortt
(11:42):
was on that doing Ed Grimley. So I popped in
that tape and I just started borrowing his mannerisms. And
so the reality was, and I didn't think about this
at the time, but because I was black and because
it was the nineties were then like we have today,
nobody really caught on to this kid doing a bad
(12:03):
Ed Grimley or and pee Wee Herman mashup, and so
it became my own. And also, quite frankly, nobody would
even give me the intellectual capacity to even think to
reference that.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
And do it.
Speaker 6 (12:16):
So me, I love and I've always loved hearing when
when an actor had an actual reference, like like Johnny
Depp the pick the guy from the Rolling Stones Richard.
So like, when I heard that story, I was like, Yo,
that's what I did.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
With ed River.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
There's another layer that in at that point in television
history your writing staff, you have black shows with all
white writers. Did that help the ercle character because they're
writing a nerd from their experience of in the white
world what a nerd would be.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
So I think that's part of the the frustration examining
the show.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Looking backwards.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
You have to respect what television was, and you have
to respect how much we've grown, you know, and there's
no need to castigate it back this just no, it
is what it was, and you know it was. If
ABC wanted a family show, they didn't say, oh, we
want white producers. They just went to the most proven
producers they actually go to, and they just would happen
(13:22):
to be white at that time.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Got it.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
Now we've evolved to a different era where oh, nobody
would think to put on a black show that didn't
have black writers because that would be authentically insulting.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
But at the time that wasn't the thinking.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
So getting back to your something you brought up about
the adult leads, I feel like when they conceived the show,
they went to Miller Boy at ABC and they said,
all right, we need a black family show.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
So they did the the tried.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
And true thing, pick a character off of an existing
show and let's do the spinoff. So they went to
Joe Marie and she was the elevator operator on Perfect Strangers,
and so of course that's a big moment. Further, this
is your show, your show, just your show, Oh my god,
my own show. She's thinking, okay, but then behind the scenes,
executives being executives, trying to reduce risk and hedge their beds.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
We need some more star power though. We got to
add to her, you know.
Speaker 6 (14:13):
But they gotta be careful going out getting too big
of a star because now that star is gonna want
to change maybe aspects of the show that mill Boy would.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
So they got to go and hire an actor and
not a star.
Speaker 6 (14:25):
So okay, and even back then, you know what, what
black actors or stars are you going to get the
short list? They get Reginald vel Johnson from Diard. Right, oh,
this makes perfect sense. But to show you their lack
of creativity, they actually make the guy wear the same
uniform that he wore and die hard on our shot. Right,
(14:50):
you're kidding me, right, I don't know what that conversation was.
I'm exhibiting it like a professor, not looking back, and
I'm going, oh, I see exactly what took place here.
So you throw them all on the set and now
and now for the big cherry on top. You give
them all white writers who don't understand much about black
nuanced comedy at all.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Congratulations.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
So they get on the set and they start quarreling
with each other, right, like I wouldn't say it.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
There's literally an episode of Family Matters.
Speaker 6 (15:17):
I went back during pandemic and I started watching the
early episodes. I wasn't in because obviously during pandemic you
only have time to watch yourself. So so an early
episode wasn't in and Tema Hopkins enters the door as
Aunt Rachel. She throws up in the front door. She says,
after a long dad work. She goes oivey, not authentic.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Wow, And I'm like.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
And I say this like, I had to play it
back again. I was like, are you serious? He throws
up at the door, just like this guy right.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Over here, Jason.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
She says, ohivey and Listen.
Speaker 6 (15:54):
She put her heart and soul into that oid Vey
you could tell too, like Teba was a company woman.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Wow, was working on a lot of levels. I was
working on a lot of levels for her, right, wow, wow.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
When I talk about the show and how I've gone
back and taken it apart, like like Legos, I'm like,
I was just the last guy that made sense out
of Oise.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
But the writers must have found it easier to if
somebody during an episode doesn't deliver the way they think
they should, the entire writer's room goes let's now write
more for that when it diminished that they punish people
behind the scenes, and people don't realize that that goes on.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
It's my faith. Listen, it's are you kidding me?
Speaker 6 (16:42):
Of course, I mean it's it's it's one of the
bigger jokes that most people would never be privy to.
But a lot of the writers' rooms don't even think
a lot of the actors are.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Good, right right, Oh yeah, I've heard there'll.
Speaker 6 (16:55):
Be a regular cast member and it's like, oh, she's awful,
she can't deliver that line.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
Okay, make it something different. But they keep that to
themselves and that's how a lot of you know.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
Unfortunately, I think kids who grow up as being a
family member on a show grow up with an overinflated
idea of their acting ability. And that's because they had
to be pacified to be in episodes of the show.
But nobody ever pulled them aside and said, hey, don't
you take some classes in the off season. Do you
(17:25):
want to continue to act? You want to act in theater?
Do you want to do this on Broadway? Don't you
get with this person? Nobody ever thinks to elevate their
skills or ask them if they want to do this
long term, beyond just this show?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
And what was How did that relate to you?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Were you aware that that you wanted to continue to
forge a path in this and how? Because I'm sure
I invite you, and I'm sure you will correct me
if I'm wrong. You seem to have come out of
child's stardom more intact than most child actors do, not
only intact spiritually, but as you have a I think
(18:03):
you have a pathway in this business that's wide open
to what.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
You want to do.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
And you know, thank you, well, you have to do
what we all have to do these days is we
can't sit and wait for somebody to do annoyingt this.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
We have to create something and bring it to them.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
But you're actively doing that and it feels like the
doors are wide open, and that would make you sort
of breathing rare air. How did you How did you
chart that course with family or on your own?
Speaker 6 (18:25):
You know, I'm not going to pretend like it wasn't
difficult at times. Talk about those times specifically in the book,
like I didn't feel like I became an adult and
I started learning about people in the world to the
show inded the day the show inded, there were certain
individuals that delighted in letting me know you've been canceled
(18:46):
and we don't have to treat you that way anymore. So,
like I said, man, at the at the end of
the day, I got it. I got a great mom
and dad who, for all of their shortcomings not knowing
certain aspects of the business, they had one instinct that's
just a miracle if it lands in your life, and
(19:08):
that was we're gonna protect our son. And my mom
she was obsessed with not leaving me alone on a
movie studio lot, so she was a hover MoMA, and
you know, I'd be in a bathroom sneaking a donut
before table reading because.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
She didn't like me to have sugar on the set.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
And these were what I was worried about, is my
mom lurking around the corner seeing me eat a donor.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
She was always there, oh, because she was the kids
and the kids who in watching that. It was hard
to watch The Dark Tide. I don't watch that if
I felt like though that the kids who got abused
were the ones whose parents.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
Weren't around bingo. And it's like, I don't say bingo.
Also we're here having a conversation. But I don't say
that to diminish what that is. I just say that
to say, you know, I really wish our media would
sometimes just let up off of the kids that had
a harder time, because would you make fun of somebody
(20:00):
else who came from an alcoholic parent background or a
background where they had to overcome parents who quite frankly,
just didn't have it in them.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Well, and also I can see it in this business.
It's so addicting and talks. You know that a parent
would think when you take your kid to a set,
there's a teacher there there's adults around. Oh, I don't
need to be here because I feel pretty comfortable that
my child will be in good hands, not knowing at
all the agendas and who those people are in their
(20:30):
backgrounds and what's going on.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
So about the background checks they didn't do back then,
Oh my god, I absolutely know. We worked around predators
and people who had records in rap sheets and what
do you are you kiddy? Darius told me one of
the funniest stories. He doesn't mind, by the way, the
guy who play Eddie Winslow. I will never call people
by our character names. But Darius told me one of
the funniest stories. Had no idea that the prop master,
(20:52):
at least one of our early prop masters, would just
leave beers for him in the prop room, because I
guess he had walked in on her doing something she
should have been doing, and her way of rewarding him was, Hey,
if you want.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
A beer, I always leave you one.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
And so he always had car bloss and go get
beers out of.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
The proper room, because yeah, he had a deal going all.
Speaker 6 (21:12):
Right here, I am trying to dodge my mom sneaking donuts, and.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
You're taking all this in by the way you ended up.
You ended up writing writing an episode or several two episodes.
Speaker 6 (21:22):
I'm so proud of those episodes that they were both
the highest rated episode for each respective see.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
Which is incredible. And also because there was no internet there.
Do you remember. I remember Mickey I interviewed Mickey Donalds
and the monkeys were huge whatever, And I said, when
did you realize how big they were? I said, well,
there's no internet. I didn't know, he said. I went
Christmas shopping from my family at the mall and I'm looking,
I'm wondering, who's here that people are running to, and
I realized they were running to me, and I had
to run out to my car because I had no
(21:49):
idea that it spread. Did you have any idea?
Speaker 6 (21:51):
So that's how you you know, that's how you know
you're famous. Back then, you were the last one to
know you were famous. You stepped off a plane, you
checked into a hotel. I remember the first, the first
inkling that things were different was I did Regis and
Kathy Lee and I stayed at the Park Regency on
(22:11):
on Park Avenue, and for our family that was a
big deal.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
You know, you only heard.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
About Park Avenue from different strokes at that point. Now
here we are where we're staying here, and we checked
into our room. The phone rang and my dad answered,
and my mom's putting away our clothes and my dad
just like, uh huh. He's having this long conversation and
finding My mom's like, who are you talking to? And
he's like, yeah, it's it's a fan. He's really a
big fan of Jalil's. And somebody had found out that
(22:39):
this is where I was going to be staying for
the appearance on the Regis the next day and called
our room and wanted to talk to me, and my
dad gave me the phone, and my mom freaking lost it.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
She's like, could my dad get my dad's brain?
Speaker 6 (22:54):
At that time, he's just like this man is just
saying all these wonderful things that my son should hear
about himself.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
He's not thinking dead. You've been stocked and again, and
he gave me the phone. I talked to the guy
for a couple of minutes and thank you very much.
And my mom's like, don't you ever you hand that
phone again?
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Do it?
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Well?
Speaker 3 (23:12):
You know, because that that transitional moment, You're right, I
clocked mine. I was doing entertainment tonight, just barely in
our third season entertainment tonight. I said, yeah, we'll interview
you'll be our fourth guest or whatever. And they're shooting
b roll on the street, just me and the whoever
(23:32):
the person interviewing me was. And this van drives by,
and they're shooting b roll on the.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Street, just me and the whoever the person interviewing me was.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
And this van drives by. It's a black family and
a girl I put her at nine years old, ten
years old, leans out the window and shouts, I love you, George,
And I went, how was she watching? How are well?
I'm doing a show first of all that appeals to
a black family and a nine year old child. What
(24:14):
is happening here? And that's when I went old, I'm
not aware of quite what, and and then that change.
But for you, what I have never been able to
understand is I would not have handled child stardom well.
I had all kinds of complex ego issues to figure out,
(24:35):
personality issues to figure out took years and years of therapy.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I'm still in therapy trying to figure out all out.
But how did it? I know you had a good
you had good parents, and they stayed at your side.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
But that kind of notoriety, that kind of power on
a set for a young person can set them off
in away, and then it's not reality. And then reality
hits in. When the show gets canceled, the world changes.
How did you navigate this journey?
Speaker 6 (25:07):
It's not just good parenting, I'm telling you though, It's
all about intentions. And also, you just brought up something
that I absolutely have to throw into this conversation that
it was a shock for you for a black girl
to say George in your mind, a black girl couldn't
be watching. Let me tell you, let me tell you
(25:28):
something screw with these TV networks. Tell you when you syndicate.
First of all, that's a big, big, big deal. That's
a far bigger deal than just streaming. Okay, your show
appealed to far more minorities and blacks than you realize.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
As a matter of fact, I.
Speaker 6 (25:45):
Used to get in trouble with my own showrunner because
you guys came on Thursdays. That was our block and
tape today. So we did our we tape, we filmed
our show, and we were a film show. We actually
had thirty five million film, a three camera film. We
filmed our show on Fridays, so we came to work
(26:05):
on Fridays on Seinfeld highs. Oh Man, this fool is
selling muffins without the top man. Oh Man, it was
like and George, George and Steinbrenner last night. Oh man,
it was like, so I'm coming. I'm literally coming to
work every day partially in my in my like age
(26:26):
sixteen seventeenth, that's when you gots are just killing. And
it was like, I'm looking at Kramer now as my
role model. Wow, because I'm seeing the spastic nature of
his character, and I'm also watched the evolution of his
character because it wasn't nearly as spastik in the beginning,
and neither was mine. And that's something that just kind
of happens once the audience starts to hang on to
(26:48):
every word because they love you before you've even spoken.
He was just hitting the door and there is just
you know, he could just start twitching and they would
just starting and guess what, I could do the same thing.
So I saw that in him, and I fell in
love with Seinfeld and I would watch you guys religiously.
But as I got older, and even being in college,
(27:10):
I found it annoying that people would think, oh, you
watched Seinfeld.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
I'm like, dude, don't do that.
Speaker 6 (27:17):
Don't put I know New York Undercover was on at
the same time, and Martin and Living Single, and I
catch those shows.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
How I catch them too.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
But I've always thought black culture is treated very monolithic
in Hollywood.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
Yeah, and it's a delight to hear you note that.
Speaker 6 (27:33):
That was a black girl, because I'm here to tell
you there's a lot of black girls and Hispanic girls
and Puerto Rican girls that grew up loving some George
canstinno oh.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
And I've met him.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
It was just a I had assumed I had underestimated
my own show. I thought, yep, we had a very
niche on It's very specific. I said, it's not going
to appel the women. It's going to be guys who
live in big cities and they're from like twenty one
to thirty five years, so they're the only ones that
they're going to get.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
I could see it in the formula. You guys hit
your stride once they got rid of the stand ups. Well, yeah,
that's when they determined that they got rid of the
stand up. That's when the show took off. But again,
people don't understand what we go through. The stand up
is how you sold the show.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Right, That was the idea, that was the whole anchor.
Speaker 6 (28:18):
He'll extend the story from his stand up and not
even realizing dude, that's just slowing it down.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
The premise of the show, the early premise was how
does the stand up create this material?
Speaker 4 (28:28):
I would care we'll.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Show the day and then the stand up it'll be
a bump.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
And then they realized, well, first of all, Jerry said,
I'm doing stand up I've never done in a club.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I don't like this, then feel good.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
I wouldn't. I wouldn't perform this material. And that's really
what it was. He said, I didn't write the stand up.
I wouldn't do this stand up. Okay, but that's how it.
But then they had confidence that the show could stand
on it.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
By the time you guys finish, your suckers were doing
like twenty two scenes.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I was like, this is what I want to to
get into it with you next is what was very
clear from our interaction outside but also in just you know,
reading what you're up to. So you're you're now a
builder you're building stuff, You're making stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
I mean, you're doing exactly what I tell all the.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
College students that go check out in New York or
la I go just go home and build something.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Make them come to you. What what's all the stuff
you got? You got the book? I know you have
a cannabis company or.
Speaker 6 (29:28):
So yeah, I started a the streets, created a strain
called Purple Oracle, and I even saw myself name checked
on Billions and all these different shows, and people would
go to dispensaries and they would send me, you know,
you know, they would send me text message and be like,
hey man, you're getting paid money off this. Because people's
idea of what we get paid off of and what
(29:49):
we don't is absolutely insane. All right, So I formed
a company called It's Purple Right, and it was actually
kind of a joke. It's purple on and when people
see us, they think they're being discreet, but they're not.
They're staring and they're whispering, and it's hert cole.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
Look, it's hert cole.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
It's tricle.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
And so I just wanted to have something to say
back if I ever caught them and be like, it's
not oracle. It's purple, and.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
That was just the.
Speaker 5 (30:16):
Cannabis cover.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
We profess to make the best purple Oracle, and I'll
be damned if I'm prevented from selling purple Oracle as
a strain off.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
This this drive. So there's the book, there's the cannabis line,
what else, what else you got?
Speaker 4 (30:33):
We talked about it a little.
Speaker 6 (30:33):
Bit about it flip side. I'm a game show host
on the flip side. I love flip Side. It's it
allows me to connect with an older demographic. And then
after that, I'm doing some fun stuff online. I started
this little talk show it's just called Just a Minute
with Julie White, and it's it's just we do a
whole entire late night show in less than a minute.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
That's it, and it's funny.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
It was really fun.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
We watched it with John Sally and because as you
know comedy and you know timing and you know cutting,
you managed to do a good setup. You managed to
then give whatever joke you were doing content. Then you
went to a mini commercial. You've got a commercial in
the minute and half. The boat and fantasy organically kind
of fit the tone of the thing, and then you
(31:20):
closed it out because if it's viral, who needs the show?
Just cut out, cut out the middleman.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Let's just do the clip. What where are you? Ten
years from now?
Speaker 5 (31:30):
Oh wow, ten years from now, I'd like to be
producing a lot more.
Speaker 6 (31:35):
At this point, I'm just as excited about identifying talent
as I as I was about being talent when I
was young. It's fun to see somebody that's younger than you,
that's faster than you. That's it's they got it. They
got the you know what I'm saying message they did,
They're gonna. You know, it's fun to look at Wimby
coming to the NBA. It's fun to look at this
(31:56):
kid Cooper Flag got a duke and no he'd be like, oh,
he got it. You know.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
That's what I'd really like to be doing, is just
paying it forward at a huge level.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
So curiously, I know why people write books because they
it makes you. You go through a process and the
book has a lot in there. What do your hope
happens to flow when you go on the book tour?
What do you want the outcome to be for the book?
What do you want the takeaway?
Speaker 5 (32:18):
Well, you know, the dream for me was.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
Everybody's talked about reboots, and I was never officially offered
a reboot. I just want that to be I was
never officially offered. I was offered an opportunity to sign
a blind contract with the studio and then they would
go off and make the reboot. Okay, so that's be
clear about that. And I said, no, I'm not turning
down the opportunity to work with you guys, because executives
(32:43):
come and go.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
For me.
Speaker 6 (32:46):
The show that I want to make is inspired by
the book. I feel like they've missed an opportunity to
make a great wonder years that's said in the nineties.
I just want to be a conduit to talk about
all the things in the nineties and what my childhood
was like. I don't think you can get a kid
to the Emmys or the Golden Globe by playing Steve
(33:07):
Verkle Junior. Because Laura and Steve had a kid. That's
a Twitter pitch. It's corny, that's not that that that's
that's right, that's low grade. But to have a kid
who wanted to get a Sega Genesis, went on an audition,
grabbed a VHS for inspiration, got nervous at the end
because he saw other boys that stole his outfit and
(33:29):
started dressing like him for the callback and said, I'm
gonna go in here and add and raise the bar
another level. And I'm just never gonna let him meet
jal Ill. That's what I did on my callback for
for Steve Verkle. I walked in, I introduced myself as
Steve Verkle to Bill and Michael because I just.
Speaker 5 (33:43):
Wanted an edge.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
I was just a I just wanted an edge. I'm like,
that's an awesome pilot man, and it's it's weird to
have to say it out. It's fun to say it
to you guys, but it also is a little insecure
where it's like, is.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
This because you're ready to get kicked the teeth?
Speaker 6 (34:02):
But I know that works, and I know that works
because the character serves as a conduit for revisiting nineties
values what they were and what they are not any longer.
And my two parents also, who have such an amazing
story of what it is to have a a a
(34:22):
child star just land at the center of their universe.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Thank you for coming on. I think the books you've
been called cover your balls, but that's that's okay. I
just think it says so much about the network about
how you had says it all.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
Yeah, I could talk to you guys all day of day.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
What a what a cool guy, you know, interesting personality
and very small art and very aware of what he did,
what he was and what he wants to beat.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
And you know it.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
I don't know why it's so banal to say, but
it makes the work he did as that character even
more spectacular because you go, he's nothing like that character.
This was a guy who figured out at twelve, Oh,
if I do a little bit of Marty Short and
a little bit of this, I can make them. I'll
(35:29):
wear the glasses and I'll do the thing. I mean,
this is a really sharp, sharp kid man.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Yes, and also, like he said, he's competitive. I know
we didn't get to it, but he was playing he
was playing basketball at the lot with George Clint. He
can pick up games and he's not that tall. Like
he said, he just wanted to win. He wanted to
win and really competitive. And while he was here he's
shooting stuff. There's like no downtime with him now that
he doesn't for the joy of doing. He really enjoys it.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
I didn't quite know I was going to ask you
a question.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
I knew he would be interesting. But he in one
of the interviews given I want to get your take
on this, he said, the biggest joy for him is
when people come up to say, you were my childhood.
What do people say about George? Now you get a
lot of hey George, can't stand you though, But what's
the thing that warms your heart when people come up.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
We've talked about it. It's it's the.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
It's the people who come up to say that the
show and or I got them through something really difficult.
You know, I've talked to people who have lost parents
or lost children, or you know, I had devastating illnesses.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I've talked to soldiers who were serving overseas and.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
They would put on the show and they would find
a way back to some laughter and joy, and they
cared enough to come share that with you.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
So, mister GOHI yes, hello, hello, sorry to do sorry
to do seiinfel talk there. But I had Jason here.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
I figured why not, right, you should well listen.
Speaker 8 (36:57):
Now we know that we just have to wait for
the growth bert to happen, to reinverate.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Now, the one thing I did want to get to is.
Speaker 8 (37:07):
Of course, his character Racle was one of the most
famous really nerds of television history.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Where did the word nerd come from?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Is it an first of let me ask this? Is
it an anagram for something? Maybe?
Speaker 8 (37:25):
Maybe I will say it's unclear, there's no definitive answer.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
But that is actually one of the top five I
can see. It's like, not entirely or not exactly regular dude. Well,
what is nerd? Spell backwards? Oh? Uhr?
Speaker 4 (37:48):
And that got us what spell backwards?
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Whats on again? What does it mean? I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (37:56):
One of the ideas of nerd came from college slang,
from spelling drunk backwards. So nerd or nerd I guess
that k would be silent. Nerd was sort of a
underground sort of thing. But the most popular, and.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Again there's very little evidence one where the other.
Speaker 8 (38:17):
But the most popular is and because it appears before
anywhere else is a doctor seuss Entry in the nineteen
fifty book If I Ran the Zoo. But that was
just basically one of those sort of nonsense phrases that happened.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
To include the word nerdy. Know.
Speaker 8 (38:35):
Within the next few years it became very popular as
what it would later become with other words such as
scurve meaning the same thing.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
But that one, of course, did not stand the test
of time.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
Wow, catch up, prevenge of not so much.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
When you want to play a little game. Sure, here's
what I was thinking. There are actors that get get
defined as a one character.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Oh thing.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
So I'll either give you the actor, you name the character.
I'll give you the character. You name the actor. See
if we can do it? All right, Rupert Grint?
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Oh, but that's from Harry Potter.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
What's the character?
Speaker 4 (39:18):
I don't know?
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Who played? John snow herv Schleckman David do you want
to play? Yeah, he's been in a bunch of things.
He's very popular. Yeah, but if you say the name
Kit Harrington, they're gonna go John.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
George Reeves, Superman, Superman, a lot of films, a lot
of TV Superman.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Name any other movie the Bella Lagosi was in.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
But he also played Frankenstein in one movie too, because
he played Yeah, because somebody was in a cheap movie.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yes, yes, I thought it was the wolf Man. I
thought he was the on.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Alan Alda. What's the one role that everybody What was
the name of Hawkeye peers. This man did so much,
so many movies, so much TV Archie Bunker, what.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
An amazing, amazing Yeah, all right, yep, how do you
switch that? Watch the reversial bye bye bye bye bye
bye all right to you?
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Ye really?
Speaker 2 (40:30):
As another episode of Really No Really, it comes to
a close. I know you're asking what actors have played
a single role the longest. Well, before we do the
roll call, let's thank our guest.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Julia White.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
You can follow Julia on his website Julia White dot com,
on Instagram, X and Facebook. He is at Julia White
and look for his book Growing Up Ercle. Find all
pertinent links in our show notes, our little show hangs
out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and threads at Really No
Really Podcast, And of course you can share your thoughts
and feedback with us online at reallynoreli dot com. If
(41:03):
you have a really some amazing factor story that boggles
your mind, share it with us, and if we use it,
we will send you a little gift.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought that counts.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe
button and take that bell. So here updated when we
release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday,
so listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now the
answer to the question what actors have played a single
role of the longest Well, When an actor is lucky
enough to land a winning role with staying power, there
(41:37):
are usually few reasons to walk away, and here are
a few actors who have stretched.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
A winner for the longest time.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Murska Hargaateay has been bringing in the purpse on Law
and Order SVU for over twenty four seasons and five
hundred episodes. Kelsey Grammar has been playing doctor Fraser Crane
on one show or another, from Cheers to Fraser for
over twenty years. The Great Peter falk Don to a
wrinkled raincoat and foiled Murders Colombo, a role he played
in various series and incarnations for nearly thirty five years.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
But the hands down.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Winner has to be everyone's favorite Frog Kermit, who has
gray star television screens for a staggering sixty seven years. Really,
No really is coming up on the end of two seasons,
hardly a contender to beat Kermit, But then again, it's
not Easy, Being Green, Really No, Really is production of
iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment
Really now, really.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Really now really Hello and welcome to really No Really
with Jason, Alexander and Peter Tilden, who suggests that if
you subscribe to our show, you'll swell with joy as
you say out loud, did I do that?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And speaking of that famous line?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Jaliel White is an actor, producer, author, and screenwriter who
is best known as the speaker of that iconic line
Steve Erkele on the ABC sitcom Family Matters. Erkell is
a role he played from the age of twelve until
he was twenty one. In this episode, Jialiel discusses his
instant immense fame and how he dealt with the hostility
(00:42):
it caused within.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
His new TV family.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
He also explains the effect an all white writing staff
had on an all black cast and his feelings about
Seinfeld and what that sitcom meant to nineties kids of color.
Julia also reveals why Family Matters could never exist again
and what happened when a studio boss told him to
con seal the man bulge in an aging Erkle's pants.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Really no Really, here's Jason and Peter. So there are
those I'm not one of them.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
There are those that would say in the pantheon of
television icons. I might have a a small place.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Or you're playing my own little ship, playing the Huble
thing little.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I might have a small shelf between Carol O'Connor, you know,
Alan all. But but I started as as an adult.
We have a gentleman on today who you probably know
his actual name.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
But if I said Steve Arkle, I have a feeling,
and here's what remedia among us would go, Steve Kle.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
And the thing's so fascinating about his career and how
big he got and how he got big and how
he got cast. I mean, it's so multi tier. But
there really no really for me, was because everybody knows
Erkele kees and icon in that pantheon.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
It's one of those characters that well, the thing that.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Got me though I never thought of that there really
not really was that he did that character from age
twelve to twenty one, and I go, he was twenty
one when he was doing Rkle and the network's giving
him notes like cover up your balls, right, I don't
think the network gives us. They never did that in
the shows.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
We actually I was told to cover yes. In the
eighth season of Seinfeld, they said, cover up your balls.
I don't know why I love I.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Love your guy.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
We got it. Hey, there's so many questions I want
to ask.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
It is remarkable. Here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
It's remarkable to me on a number of levels, what
Julia has been able to do. First of all, to
maintain a character that began as a child. When you
meet characters on television that begin his children, there's a
certain charm that a child has right as the actor.
It grows up more often than not the thing that
made you attracted to that character kind of and also
(02:59):
they outgrow.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
As you grow older. You learned resentment, you learn so contracted.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
The character had staying power for as long as it's amazing.
That's one thing. Then we hear, unfortunately, just tragic stories
of of to have the kind of stardom that that
Juliel had at an early age. I mean I was
in my thirties and it messed with my head to
be a kid and undergo it.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
It's a really.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Very off putting thing for most kids, and most people
who have become child stars.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Grow up and they have real emotional problems in life.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Well, also, you saw The Troubles, the documentary The Dark side,
which just Nickelodeon what went on there? But why am
I talking to you if you're sitting right there because
you're paid to not much. But I think it's audit.
I think it is in order.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Live Julia White, good to see you right here in
this studio all the way.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
From soon to be Why don't.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
You get that stock? Why don't you believe out? Is
that we believe that out already? Thanks? Kay good. It's
real smart and Jason who lives at and his daughter
going to you know, it's I couldn't wait to get you.
In the book, it's called grown Up with a Forward
by Item Standler. Congratulations, thank you, so many questions first
of all, but the interesting thing you were supposed to
be on Cosby that started out as you were going
(04:24):
to be, I mean to the point where you thought
you were signed right.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, they named the character Rudy after you were going
to play Rudy.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
The character was already Rudy.
Speaker 6 (04:33):
There were only boys auditioning role and at the last minute,
this little girl comes walking in and it was came
down between me and her in front of Brandon Tartakov
all people.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
He rest in peace.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
You came in as a one time shot like an
episode thirteen on a show that wasn't chuggling along was okay?
One was okay and you popped? But could you talk
about if you can get back into your twelve year
old head? What did that feel? What was that like?
How did you find out that it wasn't going to
be one? What exploded? Was it at the table?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Read?
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Was there audience response? Because that I don't understand how
that all of a sudden took off and they when the.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
Light bulb lit up, it was audience response.
Speaker 6 (05:12):
But the thing I love about it when I look
back on it and I talk about it extensively in
the book is I had no expectation and I'm trying
to get back to that now as an adult, I
wanted to say a genesis, that's it.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
My dad made it.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
My dad made a deal with me that whenever I
booked a job, I could get one of anything I wanted.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
And now that I'm a parent, what a genius move.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
Because I didn't like going on auditions anymore because they
were starting to become too infrequent and they were disrupting
my basketball practices. And as a black kid with braces
at five foot four, the calls just weren't coming in
in the in the seventh grade, so I didn't get
an audition like maybe once every six weeks. And so
I'm like, you know, my mom didn't like me having
(06:00):
one foot in and one foot out because auditions come up,
you gotta go like tomorrow. You know, they don't give
you a lot of time to go on an audition,
even back then. So my dad said, Gail, he doesn't
see what's in it for. Because my parents never told
me how much money I ever made from any of
my jobs. I didn't find out how much money I
was earning until I was fifteen. So I did seventy
episodes of that show and never knew how much money
(06:21):
I was ever making.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
So my dad said, Gail, just give him something. You
know he needs something.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
And he said, well, what if you ever book a job,
you get one of whatever you want.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
And so think about it.
Speaker 6 (06:31):
Back then, right in Circuit City, Fedco Radio Shack, Toys
of Rust, these are my places foot locker that I
want to go buy something at the top of the shelf.
One hundred ninety nine bucks absurd, right, a lot of
money to spend, you know, when you translate that to
the initial pay, the residuals. It's nothing. So I was
(06:54):
fired up. All I wanted was the saga genesis I
do the show. A fraternity shows up that week for
our taping and chance my character's names and in between
all the scenes that I wasn't in. And what's what
I really love about that memory was we filmed at
the Lorimar Lot which is now the Sony Lot, and
(07:16):
we parked our car at the main structure where all
of the crew parks because we weren't cast, so we
didn't give one of the fancy parking spots. And I
remember walking back pretty much with members of the audience.
They were like, man, you did a great job man,
because they're walking back to their cars that I was
walking back to my car, and you know it was.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
It wasn't any greater of an exercise.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
Then I hit my mark and I made them laugh
and I got my sake genesis, and that's it.
Speaker 5 (07:44):
I wish it were deeper.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
And then they reached out to your family right away
that oh.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
The negotiation was basically taking place.
Speaker 6 (07:51):
That Saturday and snow and then I was in class
at Huntington Junior High in sam Ma Reno and I
got called out of class and it was my mom
telling me get home work because for the week they're
bringing you back.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
So okay. So the next thing I want to ask
is this. I heard you talk about how they put
this together. There was the Jefferson so there were a
hit black show or a couple of black shows. So
they started pulling people in to try and form the show.
And these people are all I think you said, they
were all told they're going to be the start.
Speaker 6 (08:27):
Well that's kind of my theory when I look back
on it, and I realized why certain feelings might have
been hurt in the beginning. Now that I understand what
the TV development process is, I usurped all of that. Right,
some people resent when you've done that, But I was
a kid.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
But how does a twelve year old kid then got
a twelve year old kid who's in a whatever, we
pick a number one to ten, hostile environment, they're not happy?
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, it was how did.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
You handle that? Did you know it at the time?
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (08:55):
You know, it was.
Speaker 6 (08:56):
Like I said, it's well documented that I wasn't well
received by the adults in the beginning. However, I just
I like to give them some props because you don't
do two hundred and fifteen episodes and it's all through hostility,
you know, they came around. I made them laugh like
I made anybody else laugh on set. We had great memories.
(09:17):
I think one of my greatest memories of at least
being with the adults, particularly with Reggie and who played
Carl and Joe Marie, was when we shot two episodes
in Paris in nineteen ninety six. We were the first
black show to ever shoot episodes in Europe, and that
was that was a big deal, and.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
So we were there for ten days.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
I was I was there for a little bit longer
because the producers brought me in so I could have
some fun in Paris first because I was in every scene.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
So once we started working, they had whole days. I
had no whole days.
Speaker 6 (09:48):
But that was the time, I remember where that was
the height of our bonding, you know, that was our
whole cast, the top of Jules Verne twelve thousand dollars
meal saying like there was no there was no infighting
going on back and so sometimes I like to help
them even remember you had a good time making this.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Great and we came around when most young actors are
casting as something. They're cast for an essential thing that
they bring to the table. You know they're not They're
not They're not becoming chameleons. They're not transforming into a
character that they don't walk around in. But you know
you ain't hercle and you never were. How did you
what made you think I need to do something for this?
(10:26):
And how did you find that guy that voice, that persona,
that Sega genesis?
Speaker 5 (10:32):
I just I'm telling you I but.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Did you actually think, Oh, if I just walk in
even though I'm five for him, that's not going to be.
Speaker 6 (10:39):
So the essence of me, Jason is I'm a little
amateur athlete and I love to find ways to just win.
I don't care if we're playing ping pong or board
game whatever. It's like, we got we gotta win, huh.
And And I so when I saw the character description
called for a nerd, I knew I was on the
shorter end of life. And I literally I had a
(11:01):
growth spread on the show that saved my life. I
grew nine inches between fifteen and seventeen. And when I
would get called to play, you know a kid who
stole something, or a tough kid or something like that,
was like they were looking at me and like, get
out of here, kid, John Singles is about to make
some movies to take care of that.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
For us in the next few years.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
I really felt like I could get this role, and
so that fired me up. I just I looked on
the page and like, I can do that. So then
my character references actually were where I was starting to
at that point just look at other people and just
try to impersonate them. So I had a VHS tape
of the Best of Saturday Night Live, and Martin Shortt
(11:42):
was on that doing Ed Grimley. So I popped in
that tape and I just started borrowing his mannerisms. And
so the reality was, and I didn't think about this
at the time, but because I was black and because
it was the nineties were then like we have today,
nobody really caught on to this kid doing a bad
(12:03):
Ed Grimley or and pee Wee Herman mashup, and so
it became my own. And also, quite frankly, nobody would
even give me the intellectual capacity to even think to
reference that.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
And do it.
Speaker 6 (12:16):
So me, I love and I've always loved hearing when
when an actor had an actual reference, like like Johnny
Depp the pick the guy from the Rolling Stones Richard.
So like, when I heard that story, I was like, Yo,
that's what I did.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
With ed River.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
There's another layer that in at that point in television
history your writing staff, you have black shows with all
white writers. Did that help the ercle character because they're
writing a nerd from their experience of in the white
world what a nerd would be.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
So I think that's part of the the frustration examining
the show.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Looking backwards.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
You have to respect what television was, and you have
to respect how much we've grown, you know, and there's
no need to castigate it back this just no, it
is what it was, and you know it was. If
ABC wanted a family show, they didn't say, oh, we
want white producers. They just went to the most proven
producers they actually go to, and they just would happen
(13:22):
to be white at that time.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Got it.
Speaker 6 (13:25):
Now we've evolved to a different era where oh, nobody
would think to put on a black show that didn't
have black writers because that would be authentically insulting.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
But at the time that wasn't the thinking.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
So getting back to your something you brought up about
the adult leads, I feel like when they conceived the show,
they went to Miller Boy at ABC and they said,
all right, we need a black family show.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
So they did the the tried.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
And true thing, pick a character off of an existing
show and let's do the spinoff. So they went to
Joe Marie and she was the elevator operator on Perfect Strangers,
and so of course that's a big moment. Further, this
is your show, your show, just your show, Oh my god,
my own show. She's thinking, okay, but then behind the scenes,
executives being executives, trying to reduce risk and hedge their beds.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
We need some more star power though. We got to
add to her, you know.
Speaker 6 (14:13):
But they gotta be careful going out getting too big
of a star because now that star is gonna want
to change maybe aspects of the show that mill Boy would.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
So they got to go and hire an actor and
not a star.
Speaker 6 (14:25):
So okay, and even back then, you know what, what
black actors or stars are you going to get the
short list? They get Reginald vel Johnson from Diard. Right, oh,
this makes perfect sense. But to show you their lack
of creativity, they actually make the guy wear the same
uniform that he wore and die hard on our shot. Right,
(14:50):
you're kidding me, right, I don't know what that conversation was.
I'm exhibiting it like a professor, not looking back, and
I'm going, oh, I see exactly what took place here.
So you throw them all on the set and now
and now for the big cherry on top. You give
them all white writers who don't understand much about black
nuanced comedy at all.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Congratulations.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
So they get on the set and they start quarreling
with each other, right, like I wouldn't say it.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
There's literally an episode of Family Matters.
Speaker 6 (15:17):
I went back during pandemic and I started watching the
early episodes. I wasn't in because obviously during pandemic you
only have time to watch yourself. So so an early
episode wasn't in and Tema Hopkins enters the door as
Aunt Rachel. She throws up in the front door. She says,
after a long dad work. She goes oivey, not authentic.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Wow, And I'm like.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
And I say this like, I had to play it
back again. I was like, are you serious? He throws
up at the door, just like this guy right.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Over here, Jason.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
She says, ohivey and Listen.
Speaker 6 (15:54):
She put her heart and soul into that oid Vey
you could tell too, like Teba was a company woman.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Wow, was working on a lot of levels. I was
working on a lot of levels for her, right, wow, wow.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
When I talk about the show and how I've gone
back and taken it apart, like like Legos, I'm like,
I was just the last guy that made sense out
of Oise.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
But the writers must have found it easier to if
somebody during an episode doesn't deliver the way they think
they should, the entire writer's room goes let's now write
more for that when it diminished that they punish people
behind the scenes, and people don't realize that that goes on.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
It's my faith. Listen, it's are you kidding me?
Speaker 6 (16:42):
Of course, I mean it's it's it's one of the
bigger jokes that most people would never be privy to.
But a lot of the writers' rooms don't even think
a lot of the actors are.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Good, right right, Oh yeah, I've heard there'll.
Speaker 6 (16:55):
Be a regular cast member and it's like, oh, she's awful,
she can't deliver that line.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
Okay, make it something different. But they keep that to
themselves and that's how a lot of you know.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
Unfortunately, I think kids who grow up as being a
family member on a show grow up with an overinflated
idea of their acting ability. And that's because they had
to be pacified to be in episodes of the show.
But nobody ever pulled them aside and said, hey, don't
you take some classes in the off season. Do you
(17:25):
want to continue to act? You want to act in theater?
Do you want to do this on Broadway? Don't you
get with this person? Nobody ever thinks to elevate their
skills or ask them if they want to do this
long term, beyond just this show?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
And what was How did that relate to you?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Were you aware that that you wanted to continue to
forge a path in this and how? Because I'm sure
I invite you, and I'm sure you will correct me
if I'm wrong. You seem to have come out of
child's stardom more intact than most child actors do, not
only intact spiritually, but as you have a I think
(18:03):
you have a pathway in this business that's wide open
to what.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
You want to do.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
And you know, thank you, well, you have to do
what we all have to do these days is we
can't sit and wait for somebody to do annoyingt this.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
We have to create something and bring it to them.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
But you're actively doing that and it feels like the
doors are wide open, and that would make you sort
of breathing rare air. How did you How did you
chart that course with family or on your own?
Speaker 6 (18:25):
You know, I'm not going to pretend like it wasn't
difficult at times. Talk about those times specifically in the book,
like I didn't feel like I became an adult and
I started learning about people in the world to the
show inded the day the show inded, there were certain
individuals that delighted in letting me know you've been canceled
(18:46):
and we don't have to treat you that way anymore. So,
like I said, man, at the at the end of
the day, I got it. I got a great mom
and dad who, for all of their shortcomings not knowing
certain aspects of the business, they had one instinct that's
just a miracle if it lands in your life, and
(19:08):
that was we're gonna protect our son. And my mom
she was obsessed with not leaving me alone on a
movie studio lot, so she was a hover MoMA, and
you know, I'd be in a bathroom sneaking a donut
before table reading because.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
She didn't like me to have sugar on the set.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
And these were what I was worried about, is my
mom lurking around the corner seeing me eat a donor.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
She was always there, oh, because she was the kids
and the kids who in watching that. It was hard
to watch The Dark Tide. I don't watch that if
I felt like though that the kids who got abused
were the ones whose parents.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
Weren't around bingo. And it's like, I don't say bingo.
Also we're here having a conversation. But I don't say
that to diminish what that is. I just say that
to say, you know, I really wish our media would
sometimes just let up off of the kids that had
a harder time, because would you make fun of somebody
(20:00):
else who came from an alcoholic parent background or a
background where they had to overcome parents who quite frankly,
just didn't have it in them.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
Well, and also I can see it in this business.
It's so addicting and talks. You know that a parent
would think when you take your kid to a set,
there's a teacher there there's adults around. Oh, I don't
need to be here because I feel pretty comfortable that
my child will be in good hands, not knowing at
all the agendas and who those people are in their
(20:30):
backgrounds and what's going on.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
So about the background checks they didn't do back then,
Oh my god, I absolutely know. We worked around predators
and people who had records in rap sheets and what
do you are you kiddy? Darius told me one of
the funniest stories. He doesn't mind, by the way, the
guy who play Eddie Winslow. I will never call people
by our character names. But Darius told me one of
the funniest stories. Had no idea that the prop master,
(20:52):
at least one of our early prop masters, would just
leave beers for him in the prop room, because I
guess he had walked in on her doing something she
should have been doing, and her way of rewarding him was, Hey,
if you want.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
A beer, I always leave you one.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
And so he always had car bloss and go get
beers out of.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
The proper room, because yeah, he had a deal going all.
Speaker 6 (21:12):
Right here, I am trying to dodge my mom sneaking donuts, and.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
You're taking all this in by the way you ended up.
You ended up writing writing an episode or several two episodes.
Speaker 6 (21:22):
I'm so proud of those episodes that they were both
the highest rated episode for each respective see.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
Which is incredible. And also because there was no internet there.
Do you remember. I remember Mickey I interviewed Mickey Donalds
and the monkeys were huge whatever, And I said, when
did you realize how big they were? I said, well,
there's no internet. I didn't know, he said. I went
Christmas shopping from my family at the mall and I'm looking,
I'm wondering, who's here that people are running to, and
I realized they were running to me, and I had
to run out to my car because I had no
(21:49):
idea that it spread. Did you have any idea?
Speaker 6 (21:51):
So that's how you you know, that's how you know
you're famous. Back then, you were the last one to
know you were famous. You stepped off a plane, you
checked into a hotel. I remember the first, the first
inkling that things were different was I did Regis and
Kathy Lee and I stayed at the Park Regency on
(22:11):
on Park Avenue, and for our family that was a
big deal.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
You know, you only heard.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
About Park Avenue from different strokes at that point. Now
here we are where we're staying here, and we checked
into our room. The phone rang and my dad answered,
and my mom's putting away our clothes and my dad
just like, uh huh. He's having this long conversation and
finding My mom's like, who are you talking to? And
he's like, yeah, it's it's a fan. He's really a
big fan of Jalil's. And somebody had found out that
(22:39):
this is where I was going to be staying for
the appearance on the Regis the next day and called
our room and wanted to talk to me, and my
dad gave me the phone, and my mom freaking lost it.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
She's like, could my dad get my dad's brain?
Speaker 6 (22:54):
At that time, he's just like this man is just
saying all these wonderful things that my son should hear
about himself.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
He's not thinking dead. You've been stocked and again, and
he gave me the phone. I talked to the guy
for a couple of minutes and thank you very much.
And my mom's like, don't you ever you hand that
phone again?
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Do it?
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Well?
Speaker 3 (23:12):
You know, because that that transitional moment, You're right, I
clocked mine. I was doing entertainment tonight, just barely in
our third season entertainment tonight. I said, yeah, we'll interview
you'll be our fourth guest or whatever. And they're shooting
b roll on the street, just me and the whoever
(23:32):
the person interviewing me was. And this van drives by,
and they're shooting b roll on the.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Street, just me and the whoever the person interviewing me was.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
And this van drives by. It's a black family and
a girl I put her at nine years old, ten
years old, leans out the window and shouts, I love you, George,
And I went, how was she watching? How are well?
I'm doing a show first of all that appeals to
a black family and a nine year old child. What
(24:14):
is happening here? And that's when I went old, I'm
not aware of quite what, and and then that change.
But for you, what I have never been able to
understand is I would not have handled child stardom well.
I had all kinds of complex ego issues to figure out,
(24:35):
personality issues to figure out took years and years of therapy.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I'm still in therapy trying to figure out all out.
But how did it? I know you had a good
you had good parents, and they stayed at your side.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
But that kind of notoriety, that kind of power on
a set for a young person can set them off
in away, and then it's not reality. And then reality
hits in. When the show gets canceled, the world changes.
How did you navigate this journey?
Speaker 6 (25:07):
It's not just good parenting, I'm telling you though, It's
all about intentions. And also, you just brought up something
that I absolutely have to throw into this conversation that
it was a shock for you for a black girl
to say George in your mind, a black girl couldn't
be watching. Let me tell you, let me tell you
(25:28):
something screw with these TV networks. Tell you when you syndicate.
First of all, that's a big, big, big deal. That's
a far bigger deal than just streaming. Okay, your show
appealed to far more minorities and blacks than you realize.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
As a matter of fact, I.
Speaker 6 (25:45):
Used to get in trouble with my own showrunner because
you guys came on Thursdays. That was our block and
tape today. So we did our we tape, we filmed
our show, and we were a film show. We actually
had thirty five million film, a three camera film. We
filmed our show on Fridays, so we came to work
(26:05):
on Fridays on Seinfeld highs. Oh Man, this fool is
selling muffins without the top man. Oh Man, it was
like and George, George and Steinbrenner last night. Oh man,
it was like, so I'm coming. I'm literally coming to
work every day partially in my in my like age
(26:26):
sixteen seventeenth, that's when you gots are just killing. And
it was like, I'm looking at Kramer now as my
role model. Wow, because I'm seeing the spastic nature of
his character, and I'm also watched the evolution of his
character because it wasn't nearly as spastik in the beginning,
and neither was mine. And that's something that just kind
of happens once the audience starts to hang on to
(26:48):
every word because they love you before you've even spoken.
He was just hitting the door and there is just
you know, he could just start twitching and they would
just starting and guess what, I could do the same thing.
So I saw that in him, and I fell in
love with Seinfeld and I would watch you guys religiously.
But as I got older, and even being in college,
(27:10):
I found it annoying that people would think, oh, you
watched Seinfeld.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
I'm like, dude, don't do that.
Speaker 6 (27:17):
Don't put I know New York Undercover was on at
the same time, and Martin and Living Single, and I
catch those shows.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
How I catch them too.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
But I've always thought black culture is treated very monolithic
in Hollywood.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
Yeah, and it's a delight to hear you note that.
Speaker 6 (27:33):
That was a black girl, because I'm here to tell
you there's a lot of black girls and Hispanic girls
and Puerto Rican girls that grew up loving some George
canstinno oh.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
And I've met him.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
It was just a I had assumed I had underestimated
my own show. I thought, yep, we had a very
niche on It's very specific. I said, it's not going
to appel the women. It's going to be guys who
live in big cities and they're from like twenty one
to thirty five years, so they're the only ones that
they're going to get.
Speaker 6 (28:01):
I could see it in the formula. You guys hit
your stride once they got rid of the stand ups. Well, yeah,
that's when they determined that they got rid of the
stand up. That's when the show took off. But again,
people don't understand what we go through. The stand up
is how you sold the show.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Right, That was the idea, that was the whole anchor.
Speaker 6 (28:18):
He'll extend the story from his stand up and not
even realizing dude, that's just slowing it down.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
The premise of the show, the early premise was how
does the stand up create this material?
Speaker 4 (28:28):
I would care we'll.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Show the day and then the stand up it'll be
a bump.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
And then they realized, well, first of all, Jerry said,
I'm doing stand up I've never done in a club.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I don't like this, then feel good.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
I wouldn't. I wouldn't perform this material. And that's really
what it was. He said, I didn't write the stand up.
I wouldn't do this stand up. Okay, but that's how it.
But then they had confidence that the show could stand
on it.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
By the time you guys finish, your suckers were doing
like twenty two scenes.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I was like, this is what I want to to
get into it with you next is what was very
clear from our interaction outside but also in just you know,
reading what you're up to. So you're you're now a
builder you're building stuff, You're making stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
I mean, you're doing exactly what I tell all the.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
College students that go check out in New York or
la I go just go home and build something.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Make them come to you. What what's all the stuff
you got? You got the book? I know you have
a cannabis company or.
Speaker 6 (29:28):
So yeah, I started a the streets, created a strain
called Purple Oracle, and I even saw myself name checked
on Billions and all these different shows, and people would
go to dispensaries and they would send me, you know,
you know, they would send me text message and be like,
hey man, you're getting paid money off this. Because people's
idea of what we get paid off of and what
(29:49):
we don't is absolutely insane. All right, So I formed
a company called It's Purple Right, and it was actually
kind of a joke. It's purple on and when people
see us, they think they're being discreet, but they're not.
They're staring and they're whispering, and it's hert cole.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
Look, it's hert cole.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
It's tricle.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
And so I just wanted to have something to say
back if I ever caught them and be like, it's
not oracle. It's purple, and.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
That was just the.
Speaker 5 (30:16):
Cannabis cover.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
We profess to make the best purple Oracle, and I'll
be damned if I'm prevented from selling purple Oracle as
a strain off.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
This this drive. So there's the book, there's the cannabis line,
what else, what else you got?
Speaker 4 (30:33):
We talked about it a little.
Speaker 6 (30:33):
Bit about it flip side. I'm a game show host
on the flip side. I love flip Side. It's it
allows me to connect with an older demographic. And then
after that, I'm doing some fun stuff online. I started
this little talk show it's just called Just a Minute
with Julie White, and it's it's just we do a
whole entire late night show in less than a minute.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
That's it, and it's funny.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
It was really fun.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
We watched it with John Sally and because as you
know comedy and you know timing and you know cutting,
you managed to do a good setup. You managed to
then give whatever joke you were doing content. Then you
went to a mini commercial. You've got a commercial in
the minute and half. The boat and fantasy organically kind
of fit the tone of the thing, and then you
(31:20):
closed it out because if it's viral, who needs the show?
Just cut out, cut out the middleman.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Let's just do the clip. What where are you? Ten
years from now?
Speaker 5 (31:30):
Oh wow, ten years from now, I'd like to be
producing a lot more.
Speaker 6 (31:35):
At this point, I'm just as excited about identifying talent
as I as I was about being talent when I
was young. It's fun to see somebody that's younger than you,
that's faster than you. That's it's they got it. They
got the you know what I'm saying message they did,
They're gonna. You know, it's fun to look at Wimby
coming to the NBA. It's fun to look at this
(31:56):
kid Cooper Flag got a duke and no he'd be like, oh,
he got it. You know.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
That's what I'd really like to be doing, is just
paying it forward at a huge level.
Speaker 4 (32:05):
So curiously, I know why people write books because they
it makes you. You go through a process and the
book has a lot in there. What do your hope
happens to flow when you go on the book tour?
What do you want the outcome to be for the book?
What do you want the takeaway?
Speaker 5 (32:18):
Well, you know, the dream for me was.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
Everybody's talked about reboots, and I was never officially offered
a reboot. I just want that to be I was
never officially offered. I was offered an opportunity to sign
a blind contract with the studio and then they would
go off and make the reboot. Okay, so that's be
clear about that. And I said, no, I'm not turning
down the opportunity to work with you guys, because executives
(32:43):
come and go.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
For me.
Speaker 6 (32:46):
The show that I want to make is inspired by
the book. I feel like they've missed an opportunity to
make a great wonder years that's said in the nineties.
I just want to be a conduit to talk about
all the things in the nineties and what my childhood
was like. I don't think you can get a kid
to the Emmys or the Golden Globe by playing Steve
(33:07):
Verkle Junior. Because Laura and Steve had a kid. That's
a Twitter pitch. It's corny, that's not that that that's
that's right, that's low grade. But to have a kid
who wanted to get a Sega Genesis, went on an audition,
grabbed a VHS for inspiration, got nervous at the end
because he saw other boys that stole his outfit and
(33:29):
started dressing like him for the callback and said, I'm
gonna go in here and add and raise the bar
another level. And I'm just never gonna let him meet
jal Ill. That's what I did on my callback for
for Steve Verkle. I walked in, I introduced myself as
Steve Verkle to Bill and Michael because I just.
Speaker 5 (33:43):
Wanted an edge.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
I was just a I just wanted an edge. I'm like,
that's an awesome pilot man, and it's it's weird to
have to say it out. It's fun to say it
to you guys, but it also is a little insecure
where it's like, is.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
This because you're ready to get kicked the teeth?
Speaker 6 (34:02):
But I know that works, and I know that works
because the character serves as a conduit for revisiting nineties
values what they were and what they are not any longer.
And my two parents also, who have such an amazing
story of what it is to have a a a
(34:22):
child star just land at the center of their universe.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Thank you for coming on. I think the books you've
been called cover your balls, but that's that's okay. I
just think it says so much about the network about
how you had says it all.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
Yeah, I could talk to you guys all day of day.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
What a what a cool guy, you know, interesting personality
and very small art and very aware of what he did,
what he was and what he wants to beat.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
And you know it.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
I don't know why it's so banal to say, but
it makes the work he did as that character even
more spectacular because you go, he's nothing like that character.
This was a guy who figured out at twelve, Oh,
if I do a little bit of Marty Short and
a little bit of this, I can make them. I'll
(35:29):
wear the glasses and I'll do the thing. I mean,
this is a really sharp, sharp kid man.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Yes, and also, like he said, he's competitive. I know
we didn't get to it, but he was playing he
was playing basketball at the lot with George Clint. He
can pick up games and he's not that tall. Like
he said, he just wanted to win. He wanted to
win and really competitive. And while he was here he's
shooting stuff. There's like no downtime with him now that
he doesn't for the joy of doing. He really enjoys it.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
I didn't quite know I was going to ask you
a question.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
I knew he would be interesting. But he in one
of the interviews given I want to get your take
on this, he said, the biggest joy for him is
when people come up to say, you were my childhood.
What do people say about George? Now you get a
lot of hey George, can't stand you though, But what's
the thing that warms your heart when people come up.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
We've talked about it. It's it's the.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
It's the people who come up to say that the
show and or I got them through something really difficult.
You know, I've talked to people who have lost parents
or lost children, or you know, I had devastating illnesses.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I've talked to soldiers who were serving overseas and.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
They would put on the show and they would find
a way back to some laughter and joy, and they
cared enough to come share that with you.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
So, mister GOHI yes, hello, hello, sorry to do sorry
to do seiinfel talk there. But I had Jason here.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
I figured why not, right, you should well listen.
Speaker 8 (36:57):
Now we know that we just have to wait for
the growth bert to happen, to reinverate.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Now, the one thing I did want to get to is.
Speaker 8 (37:07):
Of course, his character Racle was one of the most
famous really nerds of television history.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Where did the word nerd come from?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Is it an first of let me ask this? Is
it an anagram for something? Maybe?
Speaker 8 (37:25):
Maybe I will say it's unclear, there's no definitive answer.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
But that is actually one of the top five I
can see. It's like, not entirely or not exactly regular dude. Well,
what is nerd? Spell backwards? Oh? Uhr?
Speaker 4 (37:48):
And that got us what spell backwards?
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Whats on again? What does it mean? I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (37:56):
One of the ideas of nerd came from college slang,
from spelling drunk backwards. So nerd or nerd I guess
that k would be silent. Nerd was sort of a
underground sort of thing. But the most popular, and.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Again there's very little evidence one where the other.
Speaker 8 (38:17):
But the most popular is and because it appears before
anywhere else is a doctor seuss Entry in the nineteen
fifty book If I Ran the Zoo. But that was
just basically one of those sort of nonsense phrases that happened.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
To include the word nerdy. Know.
Speaker 8 (38:35):
Within the next few years it became very popular as
what it would later become with other words such as
scurve meaning the same thing.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
But that one, of course, did not stand the test
of time.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
Wow, catch up, prevenge of not so much.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
When you want to play a little game. Sure, here's
what I was thinking. There are actors that get get
defined as a one character.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Oh thing.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
So I'll either give you the actor, you name the character.
I'll give you the character. You name the actor. See
if we can do it? All right, Rupert Grint?
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Oh, but that's from Harry Potter.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
What's the character?
Speaker 4 (39:18):
I don't know?
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Who played? John snow herv Schleckman David do you want
to play? Yeah, he's been in a bunch of things.
He's very popular. Yeah, but if you say the name
Kit Harrington, they're gonna go John.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
George Reeves, Superman, Superman, a lot of films, a lot
of TV Superman.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Name any other movie the Bella Lagosi was in.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
But he also played Frankenstein in one movie too, because
he played Yeah, because somebody was in a cheap movie.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yes, yes, I thought it was the wolf Man. I
thought he was the on.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Alan Alda. What's the one role that everybody What was
the name of Hawkeye peers. This man did so much,
so many movies, so much TV Archie Bunker, what.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
An amazing, amazing Yeah, all right, yep, how do you
switch that? Watch the reversial bye bye bye bye bye
bye all right to you?
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Ye really?
Speaker 2 (40:30):
As another episode of Really No Really, it comes to
a close. I know you're asking what actors have played
a single role the longest. Well, before we do the
roll call, let's thank our guest.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Julia White.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
You can follow Julia on his website Julia White dot com,
on Instagram, X and Facebook. He is at Julia White
and look for his book Growing Up Ercle. Find all
pertinent links in our show notes, our little show hangs
out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and threads at Really No
Really Podcast, And of course you can share your thoughts
and feedback with us online at reallynoreli dot com. If
(41:03):
you have a really some amazing factor story that boggles
your mind, share it with us, and if we use it,
we will send you a little gift.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought that counts.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe
button and take that bell. So here updated when we
release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday,
so listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now the
answer to the question what actors have played a single
role of the longest Well, When an actor is lucky
enough to land a winning role with staying power, there
(41:37):
are usually few reasons to walk away, and here are
a few actors who have stretched.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
A winner for the longest time.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Murska Hargaateay has been bringing in the purpse on Law
and Order SVU for over twenty four seasons and five
hundred episodes. Kelsey Grammar has been playing doctor Fraser Crane
on one show or another, from Cheers to Fraser for
over twenty years. The Great Peter falk Don to a
wrinkled raincoat and foiled Murders Colombo, a role he played
in various series and incarnations for nearly thirty five years.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
But the hands down.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Winner has to be everyone's favorite Frog Kermit, who has
gray star television screens for a staggering sixty seven years. Really,
No really is coming up on the end of two seasons,
hardly a contender to beat Kermit, But then again, it's
not Easy, Being Green, Really No, Really is production of
iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment
Hosts And Creators
Peter Tilden
Jason Alexander
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.