TV Guidance Counselor
TV Guidance Counselor Episode 41: Andre' Gower
"Wait. You have a TV?" "No. I don't like to read the TV guide. Read the TV guide. You don't need a TV." Hello and welcome. It is Wednesday. It is time for an all-new episode of TV Guidance Counselor. As always, I am Ken Reed, your personal TV guidance counselor, as opposed to a private one. I don't really know if there are any aside from me, but that's semantics. My guess this week is Mr. Andre Gower. Now, Andre is most known, probably, at least by me, for being in the Monster Squad. One of my all-time favorite movies. He plays Sean, the leader of the squad in that movie, but he also was on a ton of television in the era that we most discuss on this show, the sort of 80s, early 90s. He's also my first guest to have been on circus of the stars, and not only that, he was on circus of the stars twice. Also to my knowledge, my first guest to ever have a contest to win a date with him, but we'll get into that further into the episode. All very interesting things. Really interesting guy, smart guy, great guy to talk to. I really enjoyed our discussion, so please enjoy this week's episode with my guest, Andre Gower. Is Mr. Andre Gower, how are you? I'm good, good to be here. Thank you so much for tricking out to our, we're not really squatting, we're renting, so I guess that's all right, but our west coast is. Short-term west coast Reynolds. Yes, yes, that's all the trend. Yes, exactly, and I've flagged you with some gourmet soda. That's right, when you said it was gourmet and not full of garbage, I was like, "Ooh, I'm interested, there's only so many drinks." Yeah, I'm a soda snob now where I'm like, "I can only do cane sugar soda." Oh, I am too, and that's limited myself. Yes, but this place is amazing, it's like a haven for me when I go there. Yeah, I got to stay away from it, that's dangerous. I don't want any more info on it. I won't tell you exactly where it is, it's very dangerous. Right. So, I was just going to talk to you about some of the stuff that you've been in over the years, I've, I mean obviously, Monster Scotch, not television, it's one of my all-time favorite movies. I saw it in the theater, it was one of the few. Well, it did run on cable quite a bit. It was on cable a lot. That's true, I think a lot of people probably discovered that movie through television. A majority did, yes. Is that, I assume that's probably what most people recognize you from or associate you with. Just about, especially in that realm of that genre, still a lot of fans of the age range, writing new me from other TV shows and things like that. Right. Yeah, definitely Monster Scotch being what it is and having its volcanic cult explosion over the last six or seven, eight years, is definitely fun to still be involved with. Which must be an odd phenomenon where, I mean, I always was a huge fan of that movie, but it was not obscure, but it definitely, I've noticed in the last eight years or so that now it's, it has a much larger fan base or as much more, I guess mainstream or sort of. The original fan, yeah, the original fan base is, is always been there and still there. Right. And, but the exposure that it got over the last couple years has helped bring people that were fans, but had kind of not been around it or forgotten it. There are other people. And then they all come in, and then now there's even a new generation of fans. Because for some reason, this movie is, it resonates with people for some reason. It's a pretty timeless movie. And I think that it does. And I think it's, has a lot to do with the age of the characters, the age of the people that saw it. And I think the success of it now is the same reason why it didn't do well at the box office. Because there was too much of a mix of genres. It was scary for younger kids. No, ironically, what it is, it was actually a tween movie. True. Before tween movies were made. Nothing was aimed at. Nothing was aimed at tweens. And if we fast forward or flash back, you know, where I could have, you know, I made a joke a couple weeks ago, it's somewhere in appearance. I was like, we could have had Monster Squad 7 breaking dawn, you know, or something. You have been a TV series. It certainly could have. And it geared for that audience and they would have made it. You know, this is a time where you only, you still had three networks of television and some syndicated, not much cable, if any of them. Right. Fledging foxes a year away. Yeah, a year away. And films, there wasn't, there was always a kids movie every year or something that was geared around it, but there wasn't a lot. Right. And usually, if you were a kid in a movie, you were someone's offspring. Right. Care Bears movie. Right. Things like that. Yeah. And those are made for really young. Yeah. And there were certainly no, like we said, tween movies. Right. Because if it was at the time, it was the thing and then they would a market. There was a lot of weird stuff at the marketing when this movie came out and then some stuff where they just didn't kind of know. It was just a weird thing. And it just didn't do well. But cable the year after that, and then the fourth video store, it just went, it went nuts. People loved it. They stole the videos. Right. They paid the charge. They didn't care. Well, worth $99. Yeah. They, yes. It did seem like. Dubbed it off of HBO a million times. Oh, yeah. I mean, HBO, there's like maybe three or four movies. HBO ran all the time. Obviously, the most freaking beanbeast master, which is why people had the, if you've probably heard the, what does HBO stand for? Hey, Beastmasters on. But Rososcope is definitely on that list. And I think for a lot of people that are sort of, you know, around our age or younger, before sort of the internet, not before the internet in general, but in the last 10 years where people were able to connect with people about things they saw, a lot of people were probably like, was that a movie? I actually, it was sort of a half remembered. Right. It was that actually a thing that I saw and then they were able to sort of solidify. There was a real thing. Yeah. And the, they finally had, you know, in '06, uh, going into '07 when we did the first cast reunion screening at the Alamo Draft House in Austin, it launched everything. Yeah. Because they, they, it, that went big because, quint from technical news actually set that whole thing up, wrote about it, that went out to other people, then that just kind of gravitated. Right. Just snowballed. Yeah. And it just kind of built and built and built and it just went, it just went boom. And I don't know of any other, at that time of, you know, no DVD being in, in right existence, that the fan fervor and demand got two studios off their butts and said, okay, who has this piece of paper and what's going to go for? Yeah. And it goes for an entire year after that, I had individuals at studios and production companies that I know are personal from calling me and going, who has the rights to, like, I was just like, I don't know. Right. It's changed 10 times in the last 20 years, the whole problem. Oh, yeah. Without these companies. Because we want to do this, we want to do that, because it's gaining about, I was like, right. And I even thought about it, of finding it myself and releasing a DVD, because I know people that do that. I was like, oh, yeah, it's not that hard. Yeah. You take it to the production company, you do that. And I was like, how much does that be? If I go to via comments, I sell me this piece of paper, right? Or could you do anything with it? You're not doing anything with it. Just give it to me. But ironically, someone actually did exactly that. Yeah. And he put it together and lines, it was actually a Viacom for title rights. Right. And the lines gave him the stuff which was a great, just packed in special edition, which I was very excited about. I was very disappointed. I was not able to make it to Austin. That's right. People were like, they're meeting in Austin. Yeah. And we still go around. I just didn't appearance a couple of weeks ago. I actually just had dinner at Ashley Bank's house last night. Oh, right. Like double date night with my wife and her husband. Yeah, yeah. So we hung out. And did you guys all kind of stay in touch anyway before that? Or did it, was it kind of the resurgence that after, well, I mean, your teenagers and you see each other all the time, Ryan, Ryan Lambert, and I were friends. We would read for some of the same things. Right. Ironically, because a lot of people know and some people don't know that I originally read for a different role. Right. I read for Rudy and didn't get Rudy and was mad. Right. But then they get the lead. Yes. So it kind of works out. Okay. And I think it worked out exactly the way it should be. Yeah, it seems like Ryan was fantastic. Everyone has a sort of arrival. Everyone I've talked to that's in the business. You know, we had there the person that was always the person up for the same role system. Oh, yeah. I mean, we might get together with old friends. It's all. Yeah, it's the same thing. And there's a lot of, you know, kids that you grew up with that never never got anything. Right. But you saw and you're like, oh, you see them all the time. And it's one of those things where I was very fortunate to be, because like we mentioned before, there was less programming, less channels, not a lot of movies. And there was a small, there was a small group of younger actors in the entire industry. And 20% of those kids did all of work. Right. And so you did, it's those things. I mean, it now it's a large, but so if you're in that 25, 30 percentile, I think you weren't doing very much, but you are still around. And right, it was very fortunate enough to at least be in that work in that group that worked a lot. Because you grew up in Los Angeles, correct? I did. And your older sister is an actress. Older sister was an actress. She did a lot of TV and film in the 70s, obviously. And is that how you got into it? Or are your parents from here? Do they come out here? Parents weren't from here. They actually kind of, my sister was born in Northern California. My parents are originally from my mother's from North Carolina and my dad was from Northern California. And my parents and my sister had lived in Northern California for a little bit. And she ended up in beauty pageants for the state and the region. And you know, someone said you should be commercials or whatever. So boom, they packed up, you know, came down to L.A. And then I arrived a few years, you know, you knew nothing for that, knew nothing different and grew up on the set with her around auditions and sets. So you just look at it very, very young. I have to do that. What else you got there? You know, I started when I was five. Right. So you know, did commercials, print work, TV stuff. And what was the first television show you? I did a lot of guest spots on the list. Yeah, did a lot of guest spots. You're on my line. You did a lot of commercials. So you can do a lot of commercial. That is work that kids have a lot of work in. There's a lot of commercials. Even when there's only three networks, it's amazing how many commercials there will be. Even now there's even more commercials than there ever was. Because there's every, yeah, every, and shows are so much shorter. I mean, when you were probably in commercials for the first time, a half hour show was 25 minutes. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. Which doesn't sound like that much, but that is 25% less show. When each 30 second spots, a couple hundred grand in a row, maybe it makes it that as up. Yeah. You know, my sister was in a big disaster movie in the 70s called The Towering Inferno. Yes. Erwin, Erwin Allen. Erwin Allen. You know, big ensemble, huge cast, kind of a groundbreaking movie for those sorts of things. Yeah, yeah. And they were great in the work and that went into stuff like that. If you actually go back to the history, it was just amazing. I actually still love that movie. I think it's a movie. Yeah, it is a movie. And she's the little girl that gets rescued with all new men. So she's in it the whole time. But I was on that set. I was like one, but I was on that set. And what a set to be on because those disaster movies were sort of one of the in my mind, one of the last sort of holdovers from the old Hollywood. They seem very old Hollywood system movies from the outset. They are, yeah. And if you go back, you know, that's an interesting movie not to get off topic, but it's it was the first time two studios combined to share a big budget. Right. You had to pay for this enormous A-list cast. Yeah. And you know, this whole thing with Newman and Steve McQueen and all this stuff about changing roles and all this, you know, word count and all then credits and just an interesting thing. And it was there's no digital effects in it. And it's the disaster movie. There's explosions and fire. And it's all practical. And it's all real. It's a lot of work. They built like 10 different models of that building and different scales. And so did you see all that stuff? I don't remember anything. Right. I mean, there were two individuals in a, you know, burrito blanket probably the whole time. But you know, years later, you read books and you have stuff that watch things on. It was really, really neat to see. And then, you know, it just comes together. So it makes perfect sense that you would want to be a part of that after seeing, I guess, not at that age. Yeah. And you know, because it's always, you know, anybody in this business or kids or actors, you've got to be a look, you've got to have some personality, you got to have something you can't be, you can't be shy, you know, talk to be shy. And it's like, yeah, I think it'll work. Correct. And that's why you especially back in the 70s and 80s, when you had kids, you know, it's really, it was almost a cliche type younger actor. This is the real bubbly charismatic thing. Now you can mock, you can almost cliche that. And it's funny, but that's how you had to show up and be perky and smile and run over here and do the same thing and then run across time to do it again. And it's, you were sort of coming up in the time when that started shifting, though, too, because I think that sort of on the tail end of one of your, you're going to have to play the kid roles was when you started getting those roles that the kids were just ridiculously precocious and talked like 35 year old writers, right, instead of being almost too far the other direction where you'd have a 12 year old kind of acting like a seven year old on the show. And you know, it spans such a long thing and going through in a lot of it has to do with what the programming is and actually being written and produced. And this sort of changed sort of in the late 80s, you know, I worked all through the, you know, late 70s, early 80s. And then when you're a teenager, you're sort of in that kind of teen scene, celebrity, that type of thing. You were kind of a heartthrob. And for lack of a better term, I mean, you know, why? Yeah, you're the magazine, your magazine stuff and the videos and, that must have kind of messed with your head as a teenager. You know, she's kind of cool. Yeah, I mean, it's great. You know, it's there's, of, like I said, there's a group of kids in the business and a small percentage do all the work. There's even a smaller percentage that are actually in that. Right. Well, you're in longer enough. Right. And so, yeah, you have posters and intervals and, you know, when a date with Andre, you know, was there actual contest or something? Oh, there's all the time. Every magazine had those all the time. So they fly someone out and you have to go up to the mall and hang out with, you know, a fan and their parents and, you know, go to a dinner and watch all the photographs and everything. Probably seem totally normal to you. Like just, I didn't know that it wasn't normal. Exactly. You know, the other thing is I wasn't, I was always involved in other things, not industry. Also, was that your parents? It was, it was both. Right. It's both, really. You know, education wise, you know, when you're working, you have to do a school on set. It's a given. Damn regulations. I went to, I went to great schools, mostly private schools because it's really hard for public schools to do if you're working. Right. They know where I'm going to schedule. It's tough. But I had great teachers. I loved to go into school. So you had that grounding. Didn't like when I wasn't at school, but when you weren't at school, that means you were doing something very cool. So you're like, oh, okay. Right. And, you know, most of my friends growing up, I had a, but it was almost split down the middle. They were friends from the neighborhood or school or sports teams that were at dead. Nothing to do with the industry. And the other ones were, you know, like the girls, you work buddies. Yeah, you work buddies. And we're very, very separate. They almost never intersected. They almost never really intersected. Except for we, we always had great birthday parties, my sister and I, and then things would cron across over and you'd bring friends and it wasn't a lot of crossover. Right. There was some, you know, one of my, you know, my best friend from high school was not involved in the industry at all. Right. And we met through a mutual friend because I was going to a new school. And he was, oh, you got to be so and so. And I was like, oh, okay. We met the first day of 10th grade and then, you know, you just got our best friends for, you know, since 10th grade. Which is sort of, he's in the industry. Oh, he is now. So, I mean, he's starting to buy up. Yeah. He left, you know, he went to school and was going to go to law school and he decided not want to do that. And he got into production and then grew up. And then he was, you know, he went through the training program and one of the big agencies. Right. Right. Now he's doing fantastic. He's a big time manager and a big production company. So were some of your sort of civilian friends star struck by your work friends at these things? Hard to manage, but you know, that's where the crossover helped because, you know, sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. Right. But no one really had me. And they all knew. And they all grew up in this area. And they all kind of grew up. So you're not really that bad. So you know, you have like your little league team over for a birthday party when you're 13 or something. And you may have, you know, Drew Barrymore, maybe Drew writes two or something. We've all been there. Yeah. So you were, you were in along those lines, you were in circus of the stars, like twice, weren't you in different sorts of stars? I did do it twice. Yeah. Very rare that someone did it twice. I think you're not very list. That's even a smaller piece. Yes. You know, to do that show, number one is very, is very neat and fortunate to do it twice to get asked back twice is interesting to back to the being and that sort of 20%. It's amazing. And gracious. The first time I did it, I was the young that show had been on for 10 or 15 years or something. Even the first time I did it. Big holiday season, you know, big production, big type network thing goes on every day. Did you always watch it before? I had watched it before. Sure. But I was very young when I first did it. And I was the youngest person that ever been on the show. Really? What was the thing you did in the first one? The first one I did an aerial act with Tracy Gold called The Double Cradle. Okay, Missy Gold was also on that one. I think she did flying trapeze. Gotcha. Gotcha, gotcha. Which is a different act. Yes. That usually happens. But Tracy and I did this, this, this new little double cradle act. And I was brought to the attention of the producers of the show by Peter Scolari. Oh, yes. Yeah. Who I was doing a series with at the time. What was the series in Peter Scolari? That was called Baby Makes Five. Okay, the show right after Buzz and Buzz. I mean Buzz and Buzz is a new heart. Right between Buzz and Buzz is a new heart. Yeah. After Buzz and Buzz is ended, Peter Scolari was the talented one off the show that got his own series first. Right. Tom Hanks guy. No one knew. Who's that guy? Who's that guy? Yeah. He's going to wall over the security forever. But Peter was phenomenal. And I played his son on the show and went like one season. But he's a very accomplished juggler. And so he taught me how to juggle. And we used to warm up the audience on the set. And we, you know, we juggled for years and years and years and years. Right. And he had done a solo juggling act like the year before. Yep. He said I'm doing high wire next year. And you should, I'm going to bring you out to meet everybody. Right. And they should put you in the shows. Okay. So then you have to go through this try out thing or whatever. Because it's a lot of training. It's a lot of training. And to do the acrobatic aerial acts, you have to be very athletic. Yeah. I'm very capable. I mean, these are people, people that do that in the circus. That's all they do. It's all they do. They have like, they're not going to school full time and being an actor. And also not necessarily physically inclined for that kind of world. Because we're not third generation. And sometimes, right. And sometimes you see that in the people that they throw in. And there's a couple of times that that shows actually brought in people that shouldn't have anything to do with the act you're doing. Right. Because as they, and it actually dilutes and ruins the act. But a lot of people, you know, don't understand circus of the stars nowadays. And you know, they're like, oh, that was like a reality show. You show up. It's like, no. It's not like dancing with the stars. Yeah. Whereas they do a lot of work for dance with the stars. They put a lot of hours in and it's rigorous. But it's still for two months. Yeah. You know, this is three to four months of every day. Right. Rehearsal and training and acrobatic stuff. It's long hours. It's dangerous. Stamped it. Yeah. And you know, the first time I did it, I, you know, we were out in a warehouse out in the valley. I had to go for two hours in the morning and then I went to school. And then go to work. And then came back and worked in the afternoon because you got to learn, it's, you have to do it right. You have to start from the ground up. And being athletic helped from the beginning, but you have to learn how to be circus before. Yeah, which is pretty difficult. That's why not a lot of people are in the circus. That's right. That's right. That's right. You say third generation, 10th generation trapeze kid. My family from the Eastern Europe, we only do this trick. Yeah. And what's neat is we, you meet those type of people. Right. They're training. They're the ones that are training you. And that was really neat. And a lot of like the original Cirque du Soleil people that ended up doing that before that got huge were some of the trainers and experts in there. So it was really neat. Did you watch it when it was on? Oh, yeah. I love that. But you, your episode. I did. My double cradle act was okay. It's really funny because I'm, I'm such a detail oriented and like annoying perfectionists. Right. And out of my own stupidity, I didn't do my big trick right. But no one else probably noticed. No, no, I fell. Oh, you fell. Okay. On search of the storm, I was the first time they ever aired a fault. They used to edit out and do it because you'd go out and do it. It was a TV show. It wasn't live. And they left mine in. And they made it this whole thing was like, I was going to get back up and do it again. And I was like, why did you leave that in? Right. It was so embarrassed. Right. And that's where you had to come back. And I came back and I did the, you know, obviously the trick because I've done it a million times prior to that. And, you know, did it in the make a big thing. I was like, okay, whatever. But I actually kind of hurt myself when I was successful. And, but it was completely my fault. I didn't do the, I didn't do what I was supposed to do. And it was my fault. Right. And that's what happens. But they left it in. Yeah, that drama in there. But they have like big screen. They used to, like before that would air, they would get everybody together and go to like this big fancy restaurant or theater and show and do a screening of it. So everybody got to see it. And that was kind of cool. You know, and then a couple years later, I actually got to do it again. I did a solo act called the low wire, which I really didn't like the way it came out. Right. Are you like, someday I'm going to go back and perfect those. I would love to because that I really don't like that turn out that way. There's other reasons and most, a main ones mind. And then some, some equipment issues and for timing. But it, you know, I did it again in 14 sales on another show because you kind of have to kind of do it on a show. Was it when you were next to president? That was Mr. President. Yeah. And that was neat. You know, but the central location for sort of stars is out in the valley at this guy's house, who's a famous stunt man, managed to be involved in the show. But his backyard is basically the circus. Right. And so whenever you're part of in that group or family, you can always go there and work out. Which I should mention is not something that normally happens. That is not something that normally happens. Circus backyard. That's right. I know. And that's right. You know, you can show up at any time in his home and start traveling, jumping the trampoline. Circus this afternoon. That's right. And what's great, you know, because he's, he's such a famous stunt man named Bob Yerkes. And he's one of the famous high-fought guys. Right. We have the jumps off buildings. But he also actually grew up in the circus in the 50s. And he's usually in multiple acts with the stuff. Right. And but yeah, that's his backyard. Yeah. And when you're in that kind of club, you can go and work out. And years ago, I used to go there on Saturday mornings and do stunt man workouts. Right. Because all these famous stuntmen would come and hold like workshops. Yes. Like John Moyo and Larry Holt and all these these guys that invented the stage fighting for television and film and stuff. Because you were really, you're in a really interesting crossroads, you know, back to sort of like with with Tower Inferno being sort of the transitional movie when the studios still had their almost, you know, the tail end of the studio system and sort of the old Hollywood. Yeah. But also all these guys like these stunt guys were kind of people that invented these things, as you said, because they had worked in other fields before going into the movies. So they were like, I used to work in the circus. I was a kind of old guy. I was a bounty, you know, all these just crazy lives that they sort of incorporated all that stuff to apply to movies. Yeah. And that's when it started after that guys, those guys generation, then you have the people who grew up just for movies. Yeah, there's really there's multiple generally, there's only like two epics. Right. And if you're talking about stunts and movies, but like yeah, these guys are the if you watch any car chase from, you know, 1990 back to the beginning of it, it's the same type of thing. Yes. The technique, it's a style for the camera. You know, everybody's seen a 1970s cop movie chasing, you know, and you know, then you have really stuff like, you know, Friedkin and French connection, with all this other really cool stuff that people, all these are great because there's really good guys. Yeah. And it's the same guy, like freebie and the bean. Have you ever seen that? Yeah. And, you know, and like high-fall guys are like, Dar Robinson and Bob Yerkes and Darwin was died jumping off the building. And, you know, as these guys then invented all this stuff and had to do it. But there was a transition thing then into more modern different movie techniques and like, you know, I learned stage fighting for the camera from the guys that do it in saloons in a Western. Right. And it's a totally different piece. The Dukes of Hazard fight, the, you know, it's not martial arts. It wasn't martial arts by Eastern. Yeah. And that's totally changed. Yeah. But there were some guys that we'd work out with the Dukes. That was really neat to learn the new stuff too. Did you learn that stuff initially for a specific role? No, that was actually just something I did, you know, I used to go back out at the house and he was like, Hey, you know, we work out on Thursdays and Saturdays and by the moment I was like, Yeah, yeah. So we go and jump out and I learned a lot of cool stuff. Right. It was, you know, and then, you know, all of a sudden around the corner, some like old guy that comes in and it's like, you know, he's got seven different limps. Right. And his fingers were all mangled because he's broken. Yeah. Oh, these guys have broken every bone in their body. Hold the whole time syndrome. It's crazy. And you're like, wow, this guy, you know, was the guy in the 60s with this guy in the 50s. And you never know the stunt guy. But you're like, Oh my God, this guy was in that every guy that he doubled this guy, he doubled that guy because it wasn't that many guys back. Yeah, which was kind of always amazing to me that I show like the fall guy came out and was such a huge hit because people prior to that really kind of didn't even think about stuff. That's a no, they don't. They're the forgotten kind of stars. Yeah. And they, they certainly add a lot of stuff to to a movie. Oh, yeah, you kind of need that. Yeah, you kind of need it because a lot of stars can't do their own right or aren't allowed to do this. We ever in a thing where you're like, let me do this stunt. And they're like, no insurance, we can't, we can't let you do this stuff. You know, yeah, probably there's some stuff in Monster Squad, like riding in the car, right, that open top jeep losses. Yes. Right. You probably wouldn't have kids in that. And it had to be a fact that it was a kid's thing. But right, you know, there are a couple of things, you know, I do a dive in a role and there's a couple of stunts that we actually shot that got cut out of the movie. Right. I used to be up on the up on this rigging thing in this harness where I'm almost in like I'm flying through the air, but they're chained like a daisy chain holding on to me. Oh, right. And at the end of the line, yeah, at the end. And then it comes down, but they cut that out because I guess it didn't look look right or something. But you know, stuff like that, it's kind of cool. And so we must be odd. Do you watch shows like Supernatural now or shows that clearly like that could have very well been sort of the Monster Squad series, you know, in 1988 or something? Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting back with sort of what the storyline was. It was so absurd. Right. At the time, but you know, it came out of Fred Decker's mind, right, of being a movie monster kid. He had to watch the classic monsters and he always says this movie never would have been written if I had didn't sit every Saturday watching Abbott and Costello meet Frank as the creature features. And then yeah, and he's like, you know, and then I always thought of, you know, what would happen? This is Fred talking. What would happen if the little rascals fought the classic universe of monsters? Right. Instead of having a stuff. You have the Monster Squad. Yeah. And, you know, in interesting universal past on the Monster Squad, which is what the designs were designed between a little bit, which I think actually helped. Yeah, some of them are much more infected. I think we have great creatures in it because, you know, Stan Winston doing stuff, which is amazing. And it's right at that we're this, you know, 87, 1987 transition of practical stuff to digital stuff. We have we have all three in this movie. We have practical creatures. We have digital effects. And we we even have matte paintings. Right. Which no one knows about matte paintings. Which is a totally lost art now. They're all art back to that. Yeah. But they were amazing and are still incredibly effective. Like I've seen movies where the the whole castle is painted on a piece of glass and is an inch in front of the camera and looks better than any CG I could see. That's right. But you couldn't recreate that now because the people with that skill set are gone. They're just completely gone. It's two guys with a mouse and an app. Yeah. And they couldn't even see a guy with 100 brushes. Right. Completely lost art. And one of the guys that did the mad stuff, I did been friends with him for years from other activities. But yeah, he was like one of the last matte painting artists. Right. Even if it was for backdrops and the, you know, you had to build a forest outside of a cabin or a set is these guys made that and it looked phenomenal. So you you again, you kind of had this unique vantage point of being growing up in in Los Angeles at the time of that transition. So getting this sort of see and appreciate the old style stuff, but also probably lament sort of the loss of it. But maybe not so you got older and could realize it. Probably. And also be excited about the sort of future of seeing the things changing, which as a young person is probably pretty exciting. Yeah, I think it's just even as not, not movie industry world, but just as a kid of my generation. We're the ones that that really went through the major leagues. Yeah, cool shit stuff. Oh, yeah. Technology went it leaves the mouth. I had an Atari 2600, you know, game system. Everybody thought that was the biggest thing in the world. And now my iPhone has a lot more computing about iPhone and the space shuttle or something. It has more computer power than NASA had in the decade. It's crazy. And but all of that affects movie and TV. Yeah, it really does. And not only does it affect what's on TV, it affected TV itself, because then you had cable, the red satellite. It's how they watch it. All this other stuff. Yeah. You know, you go from, you know, I'm around for when you had beta. Yeah, beta and VHS were the Blu-ray versus HDD battle. It was a superior form. It was a mistake. Yeah, just more expensive. Only one hour was a mistake. That's right. And so, you know, the the economies of that, you know, went out, but you see all that transition with me. Like to how Fred, you know, watched these movies on TV and discovered these movies on TV. And that influenced the popular culture at large, because he went on to make something that had the same effect on a generation of kids who discovered Monster Squad on TV, just as he watched the Universal Monster movies. Yeah. And now that sort of lost, unfortunately, because the world is in a lot of ways better, where it's harder to stumble on things now, I think. You have everything, you have access to everything, which means it's all choice and you're not ever forced to watch anything, which has that potential payoff of discovering sort of a lifelong thing that you love. Yeah, that's an interesting point, because there's so much out there, and that's so accessible. And most people with a certain kind of bend or, or, or, you know, appreciation will kind of gravitate towards the same stuff all the time. I don't think a lot of 12 year olds are going to fish around and go, let me see something obscure today. Right. What is going to go watch something they've seen a hundred times or all their friends are watching. But yeah, you know, it's, you know, one of the things I'd always watched Saturday, like Fred Grove watching Saturday morning creature features, I grew up in the 70s and he's watching, you know, reruns of old movies on Saturday. Right. On the local affiliate. Yeah. And like a channel Kung, Kung Fu theater, you know, I love Kung Fu theater. And I was like, these movies are made here. This is really kind of weird. What is dubbed? It's the, you know, funny English transition. It's awful. Yeah, but in movies, those movies are fantastic. Oh, yeah, they're good. And that's why you have movies of today, because film directors that love that, you know, one of my favorite movies of all time now is Kill Bill. Yeah. Because of that. Because you had the background to that. And I was like, this, I know that that morning. Yeah. And then I know where it's from. And the camera moves and the little kind of looks and stuff. It's like, it's so good. It's not a tuba. Yeah. This is, oh man, that's all that. Right. And I was like, Oh, what a good, you know, kind of rip off homage. Right. Right. Right. And do you think you had more of an appreciation or awareness of that stuff? Because you grew up here and you were sort of able to see pieces? Yeah, because you knew how things were done. It wasn't just sort of this entertainment thing that you saw once and you forget. You knew, but you're also 10 and 15. And so you don't really understand everything. You don't know anything else. I understood more than most. Right. And I just, I wish I had learned more and understood even more than I did. What did you watch when you were that age? Like, was there shows that were appointment television? You had to watch it all the time? Or was it like work? You're like, yeah, I don't want to watch it. No, it's not like, well, I mean, I loved how I always love TV and I've always loved going to the movies and watching movies. And like I said, I'd spend all day Saturday, either playing outside and then coming in and watch them come through theater or old, you know, black and white movies. Which a kid would never watch now. Never. Black and white, like what's wrong with this? Like, do my monitor or my app, Apple, laptops broke. Co-customer support. Yeah. Take it to the Apple store and complain. Touch of evils. No, sorry. This is this is black and white. Yeah. What? You know, with only, you know, going way back with three channels of things, you're forced to watch what's on television. So you watch, you know, you watch the fall guy, you watch the 18, you watch, you know, Charlie's Angels. Yeah, which is one of those shows, I think, had everybody knew them. And now you don't get that. No, you have to have, it was funny, is there shows that are even on the major networks, not just a cable network. Let's say, you know, there's a show on ABC on Wednesday nights at eight that has been on for seven years. And I've never, never even seen it. Yeah. And I'm like, this is what? If you run at eight o'clock and win at ABC, everybody can show effort. Yeah, even if you didn't watch it, you knew that that was, because there's so much programming out there. And that's crazy. And you're like, your show's been off for seven years. Were there any shows that you watched that you were then on? Because you were on, I think you did a night ride. Most of them. Yeah. Most. That must have been kind of, you know, a bit of a mind scrambler. It's neat. You know, especially when you're really young, and, you know, you're, then you're going to be on the set of the 18. That's kind of cool. Right. Same thing with night rider, but you're just like, it's not like, Oh my God, I'm a kid. It's, Oh, this is cool. I'm a kid. Yeah. Because you are a little bit not a kid. Right. And you kind of know this is a fake car. And you know, this is moving your reading lines with someone off. You're not reading it with kid. Right. It's the car doesn't talk assistant director or script supervisor off cameras. Right. So even though you had that grounding from sort of your own, requesting your parents are doing it, it wasn't quite enough of the for lack of a real world to completely just lose your mind when you're on this. Like you want to contest. Like you want to do it with you. Yeah, you don't go into. Yeah, you don't go and fanboy out. Right. You know, I got him on the set of, you know, Remington steel. But as an adult, does that ever hit you now? We're like, Jesus Christ, there was just like some kind of, no, the experience hasn't changed. Understanding of realism changed. What I do enjoy is people, you know, like yourself or asking me about her. So that's got to be, you know, that's so cool. I was like, well, it was cool. Yeah. At the time, it was just because the two weeks prior to doing the eight team, I probably read for three of our episodic that I could have done just instead. And so it's just you show up and you do, you do your show because that's your job. You're 10, but it's your job. Yeah, you have a job, which is unusual from us 10 years. It's not a big part. It is. It is. So you, the series you have at Peter Skollari ended in probably like 83 from somewhere around there. And then we show. Then you did a lot of guest star roles. Yeah. Until '88, I think was Mr. President or 87. It was the first year of Fox, I think. It was the first year of Fox. Great little kind of backstory to that. Prior to Monster Squad, I had done a couple television series then when the season or two, or season, about a season each, and then a lot of guest spots. And a lot of them were out of 20th Century Fox, the studio. Okay. So a lot of their television part of that. You're on that right now. Actually, I was sort of in a development kind of deal with them and did a lot of stuff with a very big TV producer and director. Now Michael Zenberg and Randy Zisk. These were younger guys back in that time and doing a lot of TV shows. And they had a bunch of shows that I did. Then Monster Squad hit and Fox became a new network. Well, leading up to, just before Monster Squad, I did a great show out of Tony Century Fox television that was on ABC, I believe. And it was this really dark, gritty, issue-driven cop drama that was way ahead of its time. It was called Heart of the City. Okay. And it was with Robert Nesadario, and there was three kids on the show. And the mom of the show, his wife, had gotten killed in a drive-by because it's so 88 and 87. And he has to raise his teenage kids on his own as a boy, once a girl. I remember the title of the show. It's very issue-driven. It was very dark. He was like a homicide detective working the night show. Which was big at that time. He was like, wise guy. He had shows like, even in the heat of the night, which, you know. Right. But in those, yeah, those were dark and issue-driven. And this one's different because it had, it had two kids as lead roles in it. That's actually had three kids in it. That is usually a role in drama. Right. And it, I think it was just a little ahead of its time because like four years later, you have, in my PD Blue, and long, and all of a sudden, it's like, you know, Dennis Friends is naked now, but we couldn't even talk about teen sex and 86. Or even 21 Jump Street. 21 Jump Street. See New Fox Show coming up, which is very issue-driven, very off, you know, ahead of its time. Right. And they kind of took that out of that with, you know, younger people. Make the kids older so that it's not as hard to swallow. Well, the two, the three kids that were on that cop show ended up with their own shows on Fox. Okay. Three years later. Because the two kids were Jonathan Ward. Yep. And the, the, the, the, back scenes back. Your job. Great show. Great show. Savage Steve Holland. Great show. Christine and Applegate. Yep. Of course, when I did "Mary of Children." If anybody knows who she is or that. Or that. And then I did Mr. President. Right. The funny story is that I got offered two shows on Fox and I'd chosen Mr. President. Were the only two shows. Mary of Children. Mary of Children. Did you got the Bud Bunney role or something? Yeah. And so, but at the time it was, it was, it was, you know, the, the Mr. President thing was first. And it's George C. Scott. George C. Scott. It's Johnny Carson's production company, Ed Weinberger. It, you know, is producing it. It's with Conrad Baines. He was on the clock. We show. And, and it was just crazy. Out of it on paper, that show seemed like it would have been about that. No doubt. I mean, it was a total no-brainer. And I think some of my "Mary of Children" like the pilot wasn't even guaranteed to air or something. Yeah. And that show was. And it was very blue and very like, ooh, this is, like, some people loved it and some people hate it. Fox had not found their voice yet at that time. I think Fox later sort of used the success of the show like Mary of Children as their template to become sort of the, uh, the flippant sort of, uh, blue, uh, gross out network and did a lot of shows in that vein that weren't very good. Yeah. But a lot of shows that ended up breaking the mold and being interesting shows that get a life in the Simpsons and these sorts of things. But they never would have been able to do it if they hadn't let Mary of Children season and work because that found its footing after about three seasons. Right. And then you get into a flow as all good shows do. But the Simpsons was an interstitial sword for the only show, which is one of the other cartoons. Which was another one of the six original shows on the track. So we basically launched a network, which was cool. And the big, uh, and this may just be my recollection of it, but the biggest show, the show I remember Fox pushing the most was werewolf. That seemed to be the show that they were like, this is our ship. This is going to be the face of the network. They were had the most advertising, at least in my area. I don't know if they were just focused testing werewolf on post him like werewolf is it man? Yeah. I mean, how many, you know, what shows leading up to that were about, you know, uh, literary monster that's, I mean, they're putting on a small screen. It was a really incredible helped here. It was using a successful model that had worked for shows in the decade previously. Yeah. And it just, I mean, that what lasted, what, two seasons? Not even two seasons, one season. And we're lucky that we went to because we, you know, George C. Scott and all this. It was just a crazy tumultuous. Yeah, I've heard some, some private previous guests have told me some stories about George C. Scott. You know, it's interesting about George as he is. I mean, the definition is, you know, George C. Scott, Cole and a force to be reckoned. Right. Then he really is. And he'll use it. But he'll also, he was also very, he was actually really cool dude. Right. Um, it was often very caring. He would, he would take time. He would teach it, whatever. Right. But you had to be kind of like, you can't be messing around. There's no nonsense. There's no, you know, nothing messing around. But if everything was fine, he'd sit around everybody to cut up all the time. So you're like, oh, we're laughing now. You don't think, wow, it's a tense environment. But not a bad one. We switched, um, kind of in the show, it was originally a comedy with a single camera film. Really? And then the second season, they got rid of the mother and added Madeleine Khan and did three camera love audience, which was very weird to me as a kid because the tone shift was bizarre to me. But also when Madeleine Khan came in, it seemed to get a lot more slap sticky. It, well, it did because it had, there was no, there was no color character. Right. You never went, you need to go, what? Right. You didn't have the white house because Georgie Scott couldn't be that guy. Right. He would do something up to every once in a while, but he had to be that guy. He's intense. Conrad Bain was sort of like his, you know, there were the, the, the, going back and forth and he would give him some quirks, but he would still go out. But then you brought in this thing, Madeleine, because she's like, I always equated her as the Tasmanian devil, you know, rest, you know, spinning on, on camera. Because she is. Yeah. And everybody thinking, like, she plays Madeleine, like she does the Madeleine Khan thing in every role. Right. Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, whatever. The everything she sees, that's how she is. That's her thing, because that's her. Yeah. She was great. And just another force. But yeah, George was, when we were doing the first season, I learned a, I learned very loudly how not to do something. Yes. That's similar to the other stories. Yeah. And, you know, I have never been hauled out like that. Yeah. In front of 50 other people. And I'm 13, you know, you're 13, 14, whatever. And you're like, which is happening. Wow. The problem was he was absolutely right. Yeah. And it might have been, you know, the degree of how much he was right. I was doing, because what I was doing, you know, we were doing the close up and I'm supposed to be next to the camera. And I was kind of like fidgeting around and moving. Right. It's not what you're supposed to do as an actor when you're doing that, because you're the other person that's relying on you. And I learned that, that way. Yeah. Very, very, very deeply. And that show was also odd, because George, he's got, hadn't done a TV series since 1964, when you have that East Side West Side series he was on. Yeah. So he's coming back to TV. The only way he'd do it, I think he has to be the highest paid actor in television. So he's making like a half a million dollars. Yeah. Which got a ton of press. And Fox really used that, I think, to Lon. Sure. And then, but there were so many problems between, you know, people like George and like Ed Weinberger and then Johnny Carson, it was just a lot of big destin to destin to do. You know, I knew one around so you can talk about him. But, you know, when you have a star of a show that's being produced by arguably one of the biggest individuals that's ever done television and someone like Ed Weinberger, and that guy bands Ed Weinberger from the set. Yeah. That's not allowed on the stage. That's odd. That's a unique experience. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's really different. Even when Con hadn't really, she had a show called Old Madeline in their early 80s that only lasted about four episodes. Yeah. Because she's that, you know, Madeline Con you got to take in doses too, because that's her thing. Yeah. And then everything she's always done has been that she's been the wacky neighbor. Right. On the what the second iteration of Cosby or third iteration of Cosby. Right. She did that for years until she passed too. Yeah. Too many people on that show have died. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. George and Conrad and Madeline Con, I think Conrad's from Brothers Still Alive. That's good. He was a really nice guy too. Yeah. Of course, you were watching different strokes and you know, you went to mod and all this other stuff. This guy's been on TV forever. And that's going to be, again, you're in this unique position where you're learning in some ways that are more gentle than others from these people who were part of the old Hollywood. Oh, yeah. And it's kind of been acting since the late 40s. And you know, the thing that I was, there's probably a half a dozen stories that are ingrained in my mind that they would sit around and tell. Right. And I, but there was hundreds that got told. There's only a few that I remember, which now I really wish I was sure enough. I wish I'd written them down or whatever. Because I mean, it's, you know, it's one of those things where you're sitting right in Jersey, Scott is, is just telling stories. And he's like, well, I remember one time I was doing whatever in the round, you know, in the village. And some place you're doing it in the round, and he walks out for his opening monologue and he goes, I remember my dog is hanging on my pants because my fly's down. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go to a commissary. And it's like, wow, he's like, yeah, so I'm sitting there and I realized it because I hear some chuckles in the first row. And I look down and there is hanging out of my pants. Yeah. And everybody's like, well, what did you do? Yeah, he's like, I finished my model. That's what I did. I worked with it. He's like, like, you know, could you turn around and Zippy's like, oh, no, I just left that swing. What a broken character. Like, wow. Okay. That's a very, very good. Yeah. And it's just like the, that's the one I remember for some reason. I know that's pretty memorable story. Yeah. And then there's other stuff, you know, it's now like, it's just it's stuff that so predates you. Yeah, that you just have to sit there and just kind of absorb it. And it's certainly a very, not many people had that opportunity. No, not at all. And not many 14 year olds have that opportunity. Right. So it's certainly, certainly needs. So, you know, I cherish those memories. I cherish the things I do remember, the things I've learned. Right. And then, you know, when you have photos from all that, you know, a lot of, you keep all that because it means, yeah. Oh, absolutely. And I think, I think for Sony before 10, and at least be aware enough to cherish some of that stuff in the moment is big, because you probably would, there'd be a lot of people who wouldn't would just dismiss it completely. Right. And I think it's one of the things I regret, because I probably, you know, wasn't, I was a little more dismissive of half of it than I, than I probably, I was aware of half of it and I was dismissive of the absence of 14 and maybe somewhere else. I got basketball practice at seven. I got to get out of it. You know, that happened. But yeah, because I had another one that I actually cared about in one minute. So that was, that was neat. So, which is fortunate enough, because I lived in two different worlds that didn't cross over that I can walk and chew gum at the same time. Were you competitive with your sister for acting stuff? Not really. You know, because you didn't even read for the same roles. Right. You know, there are, you know, one of the very first things that we actually didn't do much together. We'd do some print work and stuff together, because you just go sort of like a package. Right, right. But I do remember that she was for a commercial audition for Jean, you know, for like the trendy jeans at the time. And I was just at the essentially Sergio Valente. Oh, okay. And I was out in the room, you know, with my mom and I think we had like one of our dogs with us or something as annoying as that is. And they were like, who's that out there? That's like, well, that's my brother's. I won't bring him in here. Oh, we want you in the commercial too. It's like, hey, wait a minute. Yeah, this is about me. But we both did it. So we got to skate around in a park and flash our, you know, jeans and the labels. What was your favorite commercial that you got to do that you got to like keep some of the product from? I mentioned you a lot of like toy and cereal. A lot of toy stuff. Yeah, yeah. You know, I did because one advertising firm did all of the ads for Mattel. Yep. And I did a lot of them tele commercials. I probably did. Yeah, I did a ton of masters universe novels. And everyone saw you get some product and some stuff. And yeah, you look back at that line of toys, you're like, very interesting line of toys. Yes. But the skies is less close. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And those guys in his underwear, I don't recognize codpiece and a magic sword. And he's riding around in this big cat. Here's the thing that interested me about those commercials at the time was that I, and maybe I was just playing wrong, but I don't, I never played in that way. And it seemed like no one I knew did that kind of play with them. So how did they direct you with that? Were they like, just tears the toys and just play with it. You're going to go, I'll get you. Did you have lines? Oh, yeah. No, there's lines. And because there's things setting up of a new character or, you know, something like, you know, I did like the commercial that that did many faces and stuff. So they're the kid to turn and buy it. And I was, you know, sometimes like, Oh, I'm heat me in today. I was like, that's which I need to be skeleton. Are you about that? Who gets to be here? Yeah. And I'm, you know, it's like not so fast, Skeletor. And I was like, Oh, I did that really well. Like an answer guy. But I could be a switch. I probably did 10 or 12 15 he-man commercials at the universe, you know, a bunch of Hot Wheels and things like that, which, you know, because you have to, because those churn out all the time. Oh, yeah. I think I stopped counting it like a hundred commercial. I mean, there's just because from five to 17, every day, every day, I was doing a commercial a week now. Oh, right. Yeah. They pay well. Yeah. It's crazy, but it's totally different work now. But you know, my days were, if I wasn't on a show working, I'd go to regular school. And then at schools over, you jump in the car and you can have anywhere from one to six auditions, which is a lot of pressure as well. Well, you know, it is because it kind of takes your afternoon evening out. I always say I learned to drive when I was from a very early age, because it was in the car the whole time. I know how to get around everywhere in Los Angeles, you know, all the shortcuts and the ways not to go at certain times. And it's just worse now. Right. So imagine that you're not, I would be surprised if you did watch a lot of TV, because it's like working on TV, trying to work on TV, get home late, probably have to do other things. And for a lot of kids, it's probably the last thing they want to do. Yeah. And there's things that you want to watch because you're fans of the show and they're entertaining because you're a kid and then you're a teenager and then, you know, you're a young adult. I just, I enjoyed, I enjoy television, I enjoy movies. Right. You know, even today, I enjoy stuff, but I only enjoy stuff that's really good. Yeah. And I'm really, you're more discerning about it because I'm not snobby. I'm just like, I don't watch a ton of stuff. Yeah. Like my wife and I will watch something to, like, well, binge watch something that's great, right, which is the new trend now. And there's a reason it's a trend because it's completely addicting the way to binge watch a great show. Well, TV's changed, though, too. I mean, you can binge watch something. Yeah, we've picked up one of the good things I think we've picked up from soap operas and shows that were not always necessarily great as this realization. Right. What you weren't doing on, you know, Mr. President of these shows where you could have a sort of character growth, uh, necessarily. Right. And you also did, um, you were a regular in Valerie in the first season? No, it was in the last season. It's going to change when it was Hogan's. And that was shortly after Mr. President, Marshall gone, Mr. President, then I joined, actually joined the cast and I was supposed to be on it for a couple seasons as a recurring character. And, uh, I only did one season. I did like seven or eight episodes. And, um, you know, because they were bringing in a friend for the younger brothers, Jeremy and Danny. Right. And because Jason Bateman had his two buddies. And yeah, it was kind of like, okay, they're off. They're going to school. Okay. So we need somebody else to come in and that, I feel kind of role and kind of played like a troll maker. Right. Party did. But yeah, kind of like, okay, don't really hit. Yeah, the bad villains again, which is cool. Do you remember what happened to the character of, of Bateman's oldest friend on that show in that season? This blew my mind as a kid. Either Steve Whitting or Steve. Yes. Yeah, I don't. They gave him AIDS and killed him in one episode over the course of that, you know, I think that might have been the, that might have been the season after it was horrible. Like he had, I don't know what I was talking about how this seems, but he had kind of left the show. Yeah. And for like a whole season. And he comes back, I'm probably 12 watching this. Yeah. He comes back, they run into him in a hospital. And they're like, what are you doing here? He's like, Oh, I'm just hanging out. And then he leaves. And they're like, do you see where that guy went? And like some order he goes, oh, he's probably over there with the other AIDS patients. And then they just have him die by the end of the episode. They've reintroduced him. Well, Stevie, Stevie. Yeah. I forgot about that. He was great though. But it always made me feel like the, the people behind the scenes of that show were just ridiculously cruel, given the history of killing people off. Yeah, but you could almost just, I mean, you could have taken that storyline and done a whole season of it and brought more awareness to a little bit. Now, yeah, yeah. Which would you until they do now? But they were like, no, we've got to get this done in 25 minutes. We got to mix it with comedy and put some laugh lines in there. And the world has changed very much from then. Another show with an example of the wacky neighbor, you know, Edie McClure, who was the wacky fool. She was fantastic. Easily could. And I was the, you know, the shady neighborhood kid that you know, they didn't want me hanging out with. They all needed. That's right. That'd be cool to do it. In fact, I just, I just hung out with Jeremy and Danny a couple of weeks ago. And, because I'd seen Jeremy a few times that hadn't seen Danny in real time. And Jeremy was in the Twilight Zone movie. You did a Twilight Zone movie. He was in the Twilight Zone movie. I think I think he did an episode of the series as well. The movie he did was, it's a remake of It's a Good Life, was the Jodante directed one. And you were in Burning Man? I did The Burning Man, which was the old New Twilight Zone TV show. 25. Yeah. And then it's great. Why are you gonna watch him now? You're like, actually, some of those are pretty good. Some of them are excellent. And you'd be interesting to see who directs them, which is really neat. Ours was a story adapted, actually, of a short story that was a Ray Bradbury thing. And so it's sort of like a weird concept. And it was totally good topic for something Twilight Zone would do. And yeah, that was like 11 or 12. Is it weird to be sort of associated with horror stuff when I think kind of the only two car things you did? Was the monster school out of that Twilight Zone? Well, it helps when you have something that, you know, something like monster school idea. Pretty good pedigree in both of you. But yeah, not too bad. There's no complaints. Are you a horror fan? You know, I do, I like horror. I like, I like well done. I like all genres. I do like horror movies. I don't, there's not a new horror movie that comes out and goes, Oh, we got to go see that. And if I, I can drum them. I really don't go to movie theater. Cause I hate the movie theater experience. People are to consider it now. And I can't stand it. But now that I'm back in LA, it's nice because I can go to a screening. People are going to say they know what to do inside a movie theater. And yeah, it's the movie going experience now was just awful. Cause people are just absolute. Yeah. I want you to movie every single Wednesday from 1982 to 2002. I never missed a Wednesday. No, I was like, no point. I can't remember what movie was. My wife and I are sitting up in this great spot. And it was like the really emotional kind of reveal quiet scene and the guy next to me fumbled with his M&M bag. Crinkle, crinkle, crinkle. And then finally popped it and they all went everywhere and then rolled all the way down. And I turned and I was like, are you really, you going to be kidding me. And that's like, I'm going to charge you 350 so I can get my 10 minutes back. They just ruin. And you know, so we just sit at home and watch when we go to screenings. Yeah, I mean, I don't think you're fortunate. That's unfortunate. It is because it's, it's, TV is such a different watching things in your home is has its pluses and minuses. But I think that people watch things on TV, back to sort of people discovering the monster squad, have a closer relationship with it in many ways, because it's sort of more personal because it's come into their home. They're experiencing in their environment. So in many ways, the things you're on and what they know you from, they sort of look at it almost as part of their growing up, where it's going to a movie is an event. It's an external experience. And it has a different sort of impact on you. Well, I think that's how television as an invention changed kind of, really America in the world. It doesn't brought something into your home. And, you know, if you remember old time TV show that's like, and it's us on KCBS coming right into your home. And, you know, there's a, it's a great line that people don't realize it's a little, it's, it's not a little, it's a lot, you know, kind of snarky in Greece when, you know, Vic Fontaine's like, do your parents know I come into your room every night? Like, what? You would never say that it's like a 15 year old now. She's like, what? Yeah. She's like, I mean, on the television show, I mean, she's like, Oh, yeah. Yeah, you get a creepy guy coming into your daughter's room, if your daughter creates love, but yeah, that's what television is the essential of it. Absolutely. And it totally changed it. But, you know, now it is, there's not been really, I mean, we've got what five, six, seven years before it's all on demand integrated web content now before it says TV. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to think of a show and I've absorbed it. I don't have to watch it. I wonder if we'll have people 10, 15, you know, 20 years from now who have this sort of rabid fandom of a shared experience for things like the monster squad. Like, is there a monster squad for the future? Is there, and I don't think that there is, you know, it'd be cool if there wasn't because we'd like to have one of the last ones, but I don't either just the way kind of civilization and society is gone. It's, let's get a massive amount of people just kind of spoon fed and short attention span. Right. And not able to care about something beyond a couple inches. Forgive to where they can move on to the next thing. Right. Because if they start caring about something as silly as a TV show, God forbid that TV show talks about something that you can learn or an issue or make some questions. Or God forbid, make you question something. We can't have that. We can only reinforce. It's all controlled. I mean, yes. And you can tell. It's interesting too, if you even look, if you rewatch what you're not going to do, because it's, you don't want to, the circus at the start. But if you go back and rewatch those, which is an exciting concept, it's a circus, literally a bread didn't circus. It's so slow comparatively to the things that they have now, but doesn't necessarily, that's not a dig at it. It's just everything is ridiculously fast now unnecessarily. So maybe, yeah, if they did that show now, they would have to have acts going on simultaneously, and it would be quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, it would be like TMZ shows you the circle. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, no, it's, it's funny. Like if you watch a movie from like 1983, it's so, so, so, yes. Who was there anyone circus list that you were nervous for and they're stomped like someone who was through the lions or something where you're like, I'm so glad I didn't get that. Well, you know, interesting. The first year I did it, we were off site in this warehouse because our rigging was up in the air. Yeah. And Dean Butler, who was on Little House the Prairie, did the Tiger Act that year and they were in the same building. So it's been like three months every morning with like nine bangle tigers, which not many people get to do unless you're in the circus or in the Punjab region in India or something, I guess. And, but he was cool. And I got to go in the K, you know, like in the basic server. It was, they have to know who you are. Right. And they knew and then you do and you and then I went in a couple times and, you know, get around and get them to do some tricks and it's kind of neat. But you were like, what, 10? It was 10. Yeah. So you're probably a little few or 10 and like a snack. Yeah. To them. Yeah. And, you know, they all, I don't know where this photo is and I was one of the photos. I don't know where it is. But, you know, just in sweatpants or something that I walked in, they had all nine and they're kind of posed and I'm standing in all of them like I'm just surrounded by tiger. And I don't know where that's one. I don't know what happened to that. So people, people listening, can you imagine a world and a life where you have a photo of you surrounded by nine tigers and you're like, I don't even know. I don't know where it is. Yeah. You know, it's like, where's that picture that cute girl from 10th grade? Right, right, right. You know, I don't care about that photo with the nine tigers. You know, the tigers, dammit. But, you know, to see those, I'm not a big fan of animals in, in, in acts or, or a show of sex, but I've always been, it's, it's tough. Yeah. Because that's really not where they're meant to be. Yeah. They'd be treated really well. That's not natural. But you know what, sitting there, that's not where they're supposed to be. You probably sympathize with them a bit as a child actor. Maybe. Maybe. You know, where's a lot of people like, you know, kids supposed to be outside running around, like, you know, and I did that. Yeah. You know, a tiger supposed to be out running around and like mauling the crap out of something and eating still pumping organs. But mauling kids outside running around. That's right. So, but it was, but they're just, they're magnificent. Yeah. And just, you know, tough. I mean, they're powerful. Like, wow. No, no, until you see one. Yeah, like seeing a lion like hearing it or something. You're like, oh, that's not exactly what I thought it was going to be. Right. And I spent three months with nine of them. That's pretty amazing. 30 feet away while we were up swinging in the rafters. Right. It's a good place to be when there are tigers in the ground. Yeah. You want to be all hired? Yeah. We're definitely not big in climb. But it's, you know, like you said, it's, I've done a lot of, I've done a lot of cool, interesting, yeah, very one off unique stuff. I mean, that's pretty objectively true. Yeah. And that's one of things that, you know, my, my good friends know about me, you know, and family knows about me. And I probably wouldn't trade that for being on a show that went 10 years forever. Yeah. And you never got to do anything else. Yeah. There's a weird trade off. It's like, okay, you can live in a house in the hills and have that show and you can be retired and never work again. Right. Or you can have all these other weird random experiences that, you know, kind of, when they come together and the cumulative stuff is a lot better. Yeah, absolutely. It's really neat. Yeah. Because, you know, I was, you know, Jeremy Lichten and I were talking about the same thing. They were on Jeremy Work a Lot was a kid on different stuff. Yeah. He was, and then of course, you're on a show for like 10, like, it's good example. I was on forever. And I was the one that did shows that went one season, two seasons, one over here joined this cast, did this own show, it only went a season. And I did that 10 times instead of one show for 10 years. But I have a lot more experiences and a lot more people. So I certainly don't, you know, think it's a negative. Yeah. One's not necessarily better than the other. They're both kind of amazing things in their own right. And in my timing and everything lent me to be able to do what I went, you know, and did during and after that. Right. Right. And so before we wrap up, because that your time is valuable, and I thank you so much for coming. I'll talk forever. There are two things I want to talk about. So one, we'll get to in the end where I ask everyone for a cheer and a cheer of television. Someone's, oh, there's a man's car being stolen outside. That stopped. It's not yours. I think it was mine. Yeah. I asked people for a cheer and a cheer for television because TV Guide has opinions. But I would be remiss without mentioning MathNet as I know people who listen to the show or big Square One fans. Oh, good. Yeah. I don't know how often that comes up, but I definitely know you from MathNet. Very interesting. And kudos to you for that. Yeah. Not, you know, not a lot of, you could go watch NBC instead of PBS. Right. But that was a really neat show. It was smart. It was numbers before numbers, you know, solving crimes or, you know, quote, the air quote crimes using kind of math. It was a show within a show. So if you don't know, it's part of Square One TV, which was a bit like Sesame Street, kind of for tweens, and more movie examples. Yeah. And was, again, ahead of its time. And it had a segment called MathNet, which was a parody of DragNet of a new or reoccurring character. You are sort of, sort of the kids, and for the person, the kids would identify with on the show on this episode. Yeah. And yeah. And the two leads, you know, kind of play these stodgy who you think they may be kind of Joe Friday. Ask, had you seen DragNet when you were on it? Like, did you get the homage? I understood it. I didn't, you know, I didn't know everything about DragNet, but it's a, it's a, it's a TV icon. So you kind of know, kind of know, straight as a little ahead of my time, even the first runs of stuff that I watch. Although the movie was up against Monster Squad theaters. Right. So that, but that was after. Right. Right. Yeah. That was Tom Hanks. Yeah. Tom Hanks again. Back to those buddies. That guy. If it had been, if it had been, if it had been, if it had been, it would have been a big hit. It would have been a big hit. Peter's fantastic. It was very interesting. It was another thing. It was one of those things where you go when you audition, you read and you get it. Yeah. And you show up and you're like, oh, that's an interesting show. But when you think back about, like, someone's actually doing this show and it's about education. It's about teaching that. Do you say it's a little bit different, which is totally opposite than like chopping down a tree of Mr. T? Right. Exactly. So that was kind of cool. And then they always overly spoofed everything on the show. Right. And like, I was supposed to be like the local fan club president or roadie for the famous rock star, which was Steve Stringbean. Yeah. Steve Stringbean. Right. Steve Stringbean. Yeah. It's really funny. So they brought it all. It just overly parodied. But that was sort of what it was. Yeah. And the two actors on it were fantastic. Very straight. Dead straight. Very straight. Yeah. And it was really funny. And you know, figuring out dial tones and math. And yeah, if you did this and it was a percentage of that, I was like, I'm sitting there going, I'm glad this was written in dialogue because I'm not figuring this out already. I went to school today. Damn. Math. Yes. Math and that people are big fans. Math is my my most interesting, yet least favorite subject. Oh, it's not. I watched, you know, I watched Square One TV the other week. Not good at math and hate it. Still watch it. Square One failed. Yeah. But it entertained me. But what's interesting now is like, I'm really good at numbers and understanding stuff. But, you know, it's during school. Let's chuck it up and ask that. We'll give them the credit. So 400 of you, if you had a cheer and a cheer for television, because when we go through a TV guide and it's not just informative, it has opinions. It does. So if you had a cheer and a cheer for television, what would they be? Tough call. Bye bye, reality. Yeah. In quotes, reality. Yes. Yes. It's always hilarious. Bye bye. Scripted reality. Yeah. When people go, look, there's writers in the credits. That's right. What a journey to get in here. I've actually seen the production book for a reality show that got like, I was around it and left it near me. Got a Bible. And no, it's like, oh, this is a scene. He says this and this happened. I'm like, some reality. This is just a poor sitcom. Yeah. Yeah. That they're not paying the actors as a second. Okay. Yeah. So Jira would be, you know, bye bye reality or RIP reality. Yes. Let's do that. And welcome back really, really good content, which I think we're seeing. Yes. I'm getting some really good television. We have sort of the best of times and worst of times right now. Yeah. At the same time. It's such a weird balance. Yeah. And that's okay. Maybe that has to be that way. Yeah. And I think in the 80s, there was a lot more middle ground shows like that. We had to watch because they're the only things on. The only things on and had to appeal to a thing. Now you can kind of go segment it and push people to the polls, which is probably on purpose too. Yeah. And I think the things that take that middle ground role are like food network or those specialized channels that the stuff people go, I put it on the background. That's actually, if I watch reality, it'll be something like that. Right. That's at least a little educational. Yeah. It's kind of neat. I like it. I still don't like, you know, it's still kind of, this is so annoying. You're putting this guy and pitting him against this one. Yeah. Edit. But all the reality stuff, you know what, I don't care if you're not celebrities. It's not, it's so not real. Yeah. And it's also, it's all, it's insulting. Yeah. The problem is, is about 80% of the population loves it. And it's not insulting to everyone. Yeah. You know what? It should be. You can hate someone like Kim Kardashian all you want to, but you also have to celebrate the hell out of Kim Kardashian. Well, you're also lining your pockets. That's right. Every time. Yeah. That's, you can choose to be a part of it or not. Brian, it's all up to you. But a lot of people are. Yes, they absolutely are. Well, maybe let's, let's have a hopeful future where we will, hope for future. But I think even on that with good stuff is changing with technology that was, for some reason, always keep circling back to technology. So many people are out there and capable of doing their own stuff. They have much more access. And you're getting to see it now. Yeah. And that's changing things too, which is very interesting. Oh, yeah. I mean, even like with this show, I'm with the, with the equipment I'm able to use, I'm doing something that I would have had to work at a radio station, which I did, you know, 15 years ago. Correct. With a whole studio. Yeah. And I'm able to do that on my own and, and, and distribute it, you know, with no money. That's right. And you couldn't do that five, 10 years ago. So the same thing with sort of, you know, web videos and that kind of content. So hopefully that continues. It's just finding it. Yeah, the interesting thing now that in, that YouTube personalities are the new celebrity and movie deal makers is where we got homegirl on dancing with the stars because she's on YouTube. Yeah, which is nuts. It's like it's feeding on itself. Look, I, I went, this is nuts. She's not, no one know. And, but you know what? Her things have been viewed 500 million times. Yeah. That's a lot more than the other people that are on the films or TV shows. Oh, yeah. The view, it's, it's a new legitimacy that it's like old, funny, daddy, like me has got to, you know, you know, start to accept. Yeah. I mean, I've not really used. Yeah, exactly. I've never been able to get a late night spot doing stand up. And, but I've been on a lot of podcasts that actually get more listens than those shows get viewers now. Right. You know, I mean, Ferguson gets like a hundred thousand viewers, but I've been on, you know, I've appear on podcasts that get like almost a million listens. Right. But it doesn't have the same. It doesn't have the same. Yeah. Not yet. And I think you're in that, you know, kind of thing now. I think someone just green lit a movie that I think it's like a horror movie, low budget horror kind of slasher thing. Right. That is cast with like 11 YouTube celebrities. Yeah. They just said, and that's it, because they know they have interesting views. They have, sort of box office value. But the interesting thing is in kind of dovetails and no project I'm working on is that seems lame, but that's very smart because you already have your audience. You don't have to create an audience. You can just say this person, these 11 are in it. Everybody that views their web stuff on our YouTube channel is going to go see it. And it seems like to us, though, because they're we're not their audience. We're not the kids in the concept seems lame. Yeah. It seems like me because I don't know them correct. Right. But it seems like a weird, but that's the new concept. And what's interesting is I have a project that I'm in the middle of starting right now that part of the kind of success mechanism behind it is the fact that everybody in it already has there's already an audience. Right. I don't have to go find the audience. It's already there. It's like the start. Right. I just have to create the product in the audience is already there. Right. Right. So, you know, I'm looking forward to that. It's just a lot of hurry up and wait. Yeah, I bet. Yeah. That sounds like what Hollywood is all the time. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me. There you go. That was Andre Gower. You can follow him on Twitter. He does a lot of events throughout the year, a lot of monster squad screenings and things like that. So, if you have the means to check one of those out, definitely do and say hello to him. He's a great guy to talk to. And as always, please continue to email me at candidate can read.com love hearing from you guys, love hearing your thoughts on the show, your questions about TV, anything like that. You can also like us on Facebook, review us on iTunes, rate us on iTunes. I do read all of those and I really enjoy seeing them and love hearing what you guys think. And in the future, if you've downloaded old episodes and were unhappy with the stereo sound of them, I put them in different earphones, I now do the episodes in mono. So, I'm going to go back and remaster some of those episodes. So, check the files. I may update the files like the Mike Kaplan episodes in our early episodes. I am remastering. So, if you haven't checked those out yet, feel free to check them out and they'll be in a remastered version. Or if you have want to hear them again in a new version, you can download them very soon. I've learned a little bit more about audio production so I can make them sound a little bit better. So, once again, please join me next Wednesday for an all new episode of TV guidance counselor. My dog is hanging on my pants because my fly's down.