Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Jaleel White On How Urkel Saved 'Family Matters', Black Hollywood Dynamic, Bullies, Bulges + More

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INTERVIEW: Jaleel White On How Urkel Saved 'Family Matters', Black Hollywood Dynamic, Bullies, Bulges + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning, the Breakfast Club Morning.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Everybody's DJ Envy, Jess, Hilarrys, Charlamagne and the guy. We
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: are the Breakfast Club lawn, the roaster filling in for jests.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: And we got a special guest in the building. Indeed,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: we got Jalil White. Welcome.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: What's up? Okay, how you feeling, man, I'm doing great, man, Man,
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: good morning.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Good to see you, but we'll see you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 4: Brother.
• 0:20
  Speaker 5: You got your new book, Growing Up Arcle a memoir.
• 0:23
  Speaker 5: Why you do the eighties nineties R and B cover
• 0:25
  Speaker 5: on the front.
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: This is even eighties, like seventy.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Early eighties, early eighties. That's the Mike Jacksons the whitest post.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: You know. I did it because for anybody who's a
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: fan of the Stefan character, they know that he was
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: debuted in a white suit.
• 0:40
  Speaker 4: I said that when I first thought, I said, this
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: is the fund said he.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: Was debuted in a white suit. And then I love
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: having fun on Instagram anyway. And Instagram has that meme
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: that has all four of the of the greats. There
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: was like Luther vandrus H Litel, Richie, Teddy Pedagras, Michael, Yeah,
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: they all Michael actually hit it last, but of course
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: he hit it the biggest. So for a black man
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: in the eighties or born around that period, when you
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: put that picture on the front, it just means, hey,
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: the contents are fire, but nobody even notices.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: On the back, I actually see you jumping around.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And on the back I give you the high
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: water pants and the ercle shoes and nobody even noticed. Nobody.
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: You don't got the glasses on it? Yes, probably so
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: you don't mind being caused to funt.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: It's not even about mind. It is Stefan saved my life.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Like just black women everywhere just choose to call me
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: to it.
• 1:33
  Speaker 6: When he walked in, I I was like, oh my
• 1:35
  Speaker 6: god lit up when you walked in. Does that happen
• 1:36
  Speaker 6: to you all the time? And you were like yeah,
• 1:37
  Speaker 6: because when you walked in, I instantly remember you walking
• 1:40
  Speaker 6: on the screen and be like, oh shoot, like I
• 1:42
  Speaker 6: heard the music and everything that that is.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Watch the music that I love it.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: They with black women in particular, but on the twenty
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: four episodes out of two hundred and fifteen that I did,
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: they only keep it on Stepan and they would just
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: relieved that I wasn't really like that.
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: I've always loved your story though, because you know you
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: already epitted me of you know, taking advantage of a moment.
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: He's an opportunity, right, because you were so only supposed
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: to be on one.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Episode the Family.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: How'd that happen again, Charlamagne? I was I was just
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: a black kid at one of the saga Jensis. It
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: really wasn't that deep. My dad told me that I
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: could get one of anything whenever I got a job,
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: because I was resisting going on auditions at this point.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: I was five foot four of me was ready to
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: play basketball. We don't get in basketball talks at some point,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: and I really wasn't. I wasn't booking jobs at age
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: twelve too much because a lot of the stereotypical roles
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: I just wasn't fitting it. My profile. Like I said
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: at Braceist, I'm five foot four and I saw this
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: audition come through and I was like, I can get
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: this job.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: What was it? What was it?
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: What did it say?
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: The description I included in the book was just, you know,
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: nerdy character. As matter of fact, I was described as
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: a Rick Moranis type. So that just shows you what
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: the writer's room was already doing. The cast of a
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: black kid and asking for Rick moranis type. So I
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: actually read that literally, and then I went and got
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: the Best of Saturday Night Live VHS tape that we
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: had in our house, and I found Ed Grimley and
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: I basically was doing a black kid's version of Ed Grimley.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: And it wasn't really a good impersonation, quite frankly, but
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: because nobody thought that was my inspiration, it became it
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: became mine.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: You can't trademark, uh.
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: I don't want to say a character, because I'm sure
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: you can trade our character, but the mannerisms of a character.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Oh wow, that's a voice?
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: Did I do that? Do you know what I mean?
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: We only think about this stuff in America?
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Man, did you get the second Genesis?
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: I was always curious did you want to act?
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Acting? It was just something that I just did natural,
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: I mean joining this. I was three, so you know,
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: did you want to do anything that your parents got?
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: You started when you were three? It was just it
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: just came naturally. I didn't resist it, and I enjoyed it.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: Of course. You always joined and enjoyed getting a day
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: off of school to go someplace and and yeah, exactly,
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: and have some fun. But as I got to be
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: around the age of twelve, I didn't really want to
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: act and well I wanted to play play basketball. But
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: once I got the show, then I started getting reps
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: in at a different pace. And now, once you get
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: reps in, you prove yourself good at something proficient. Like
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: I remember the exact episode where I'm like, oh, this
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: is fun and this audience is my toy. And the
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: episode is called the Big Fix where I took Lower
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: on a date for the first time because Eddie needed
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: to pay off a bet and I leveled this French restaurant. Now,
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: before we get to episode, yeah, that's the first episode
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: where I'm like, I can hear the audience different. I
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: can see it in my eyes when I watched the episode.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Before we get into that part of it, is it
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: true that you tried out for Rudy Huxtable Pot.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I did the route. That's what n ain't. Rudy
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: was poor boy. Oh wow, it was poor Boy. So
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: there was a debate there, and you know, he obviously
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: went out over the network at the end and and
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Kisha got the roll and did you get Oh, it
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: came down to me and her.
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: That's it.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: They auditioned us all day. I actually never forget that
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: audition because they brought in They always bring in like
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: two or three options for each role. But they put
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: us in one room for like several hours and kept
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: paaring us and going in and out, and I talk
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: about that book as well, and and then at the
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: end they said, hey, listen, we are pressed for time,
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: so we will take you. You, you, and you and
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: the rest of you. Thank you for coming out. So
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: you had all these crying kids just pouring out of
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: that building that had been there all day. And I
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: remember my mom was like she just had a huge
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: reaction to that. She was like, do you ever react
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: like that to losing an audition again?
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Are you cry?
• 5:38
  Speaker 6: Oh?
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Every I mean, that's a cold way to lose a
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: job when you're seven years old?
• 5:43
  Speaker 7: Did you really understand it to be picked right in front?
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: And I've been right in front because generally it happened.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: You know, your agent will call you or your agent
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: didn't call you. And my mom was never the type
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: to call the agent also and be like did we
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: or did we not get the job?
• 5:54
  Speaker 6: And a lot of parents do that, But did you
• 5:56
  Speaker 6: really understand at seven years old? Like, oh my god,
• 5:58
  Speaker 6: I'm losing this job. This is like what this could be.
• 6:01
  Speaker 6: You were just like a kid and it was like no,
• 6:03
  Speaker 6: so you cried, like what did you think?
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: No, Well, we were supposed to move to New York,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: so they were. They had already talked to my parents
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: through our agent and everything, and my dad was trying
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: to figure out because he was just graduating from dental
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: school at the time. My dad was trying to figure
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: out how to do this from New York. They had
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: practically said the job is yours, and then a little
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: girl came walking. I mean, they do that kind of
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: stuff all the time. Now that I'm an adult and I
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: know that, but at the time, it was just it
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: was just very shocking. And then you've become a big
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: fan of the show, right, so you're looking at the
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: show and it's like, oh man, that could have been me. Right,
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: you're doing that, but that passes too.
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: Especially when you end up with your own iconic role
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: in the future.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: I didn't even look at it that way, seriously, I
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: just during that time, Sean. I'm telling you, Matt, it's
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: wild to watch Fame now because everybody kind of believes
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: like they can have a famous moment and it should
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: come easy to them. But back then, like you know,
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: if you got a chance to meet Magic Johnson, you
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: got a chance to meet Chatty Jackson in person. They
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: were inaccessible, they were all talented, they were you know,
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: they there was an aura. Literally. I remember the time
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: I met Michael Jordan for the first time and he
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: crept up behind me at the Magic john'son Midsummer Nights Classic,
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: and it's just like he literally had like this little
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: glow around him, this black Jesus glow around him, and
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: and it's different now, it really is. So you didn't
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: think you could be that, you see what I'm saying.
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: Now, I don't think that. I don't think there is
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: real celebrity now.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Oh now, no celebrity has completely been deluded.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it really is.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: I'll disagree and say, there's still some people who have it.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: I can you know, I can see it. There's some
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: people where they walk in and they have that natural
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: it factor where it's like, yeah, okay, you just you
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: affect the room, you know what I'm saying. Like even
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: when Will Smith used to come in for the NBA
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: All Star Games, Like when Will was in the room
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: it was just different.
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: That's just aura though.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly so. But that's but that's traditional celebrity
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: this stuff. Now, Like I said, it's just it can
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: feel real temporary and it's like you ain't got the
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: it factor, but but you got the light on you.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: The cast like you because you went from just supposed
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: to be one episode to taking over the whole thing.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: So did they like it? There had to be some
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: resentment a little bit. It's like a nerdy kid coming
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: in here.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: Like I said, it was weird at first. The kids
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: and I we worked it out the easiest because they
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: had to hear a lot of things that some of
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: their parents are even saying. And you know, when you're
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: a kid and you're hearing what your parents are saying,
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: you're just gonna follow suit that. But Darius and Kelly
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: and I and we became we became like brothers and sisters.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: You know, it's that's our puberty. So I just feel
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: like the division really kind of took place more along
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: the lines of the adults were the adults and the
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: kids were the kids.
• 8:37
  Speaker 6: Do you think that it was weird during that time
• 8:39
  Speaker 6: like that you knew like you were very well aware
• 8:42
  Speaker 6: as a kid that like you were becoming the star
• 8:44
  Speaker 6: of the show, but you had to do so much
• 8:46
  Speaker 6: stuff to kind of like not act like you knew that.
• 8:49
  Speaker 6: Like even in the book you talk about like how
• 8:52
  Speaker 6: the introductions were on the show, and your agent would
• 8:55
  Speaker 6: always be like, we need to rearrange these introductions because
• 8:57
  Speaker 6: you're the star.
• 8:57
  Speaker 7: The world knows you're the start. And you'd be like, no, let's.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Not well, my mom.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: My mom didn't want to do that. My mom wanted
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: to keep a lot of things status quarro. When it
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: came to the call sheet and just pecking order, it
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: just it would have it would have just disrupted the
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: balance of the set to another degree. Why that we
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: didn't need. It's it's almost kind of like, all right,
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: you ever noticed like Shack runs out last, you know
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: what I'm saying, When Shack and Kobe ridding their prime,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: but then towards the end, Kobe starts running out last,
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: and that's around the time when they broke up too.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: It's just like there's ego, there's little ego things that
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: just can happen on a set that you have to
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: ask yourself, is that the sword I want to die on?
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: Is it worth it.
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: You would think that at some point in life, people
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: would understand that y'all are a team and it doesn't
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: matter who the star of the team is if the
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: team is winning.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but the magic words you say is you would.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: Think, yeah, yeah, but I would it. I mean, after
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: all of these years, we haven't learned that. Even when
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: you use the Shaq and Kobe.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: Example, like that's you know, you can't change the way
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: people are going to think when when they're coming from
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: a place of ego. You know, for me, I just
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: there was I did a lot to extend our run
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: because the reality was she was about to get canceled.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: I know, but that was the fact. I get it.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: I get it, but I'm like, I don't. You can
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: say that I don't need to to to lean in
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: on that, you know, but you know, whether if it
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: was keeping my hair to cut the same way, I mean,
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: it got to the point where I was sick of
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: my own haircut, or staying out of the gym, not
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: working out, you know that suck playing basketball. And finally
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: in my scene, they made you change the pants. Yeah,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: they made me changed in the final season, it was like,
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: no more jeans. He doesn't wear any jeans. So I
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: was doing things that was I read that about to
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: get mess.
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: It was your bowl.
• 10:49
  Speaker 7: I mean, he wants to talk about your bag.
• 10:51
  Speaker 6: I want to be I want you said coming. I
• 10:54
  Speaker 6: was getting there. I was one of little fishing statement.
• 10:56
  Speaker 6: You jumped to the bulge, you jumped on down.
• 10:59
  Speaker 7: It's been it's go.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Ahead, fling to work it out.
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: But it won't come to the package.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: It's crazy, y'all. Don't get to sit here. He he
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: gives it off. He's waiting for that.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: It's back to the boats.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: That the James bottom line. They just said no jeans
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: in the final season. That was Oh they didn't tell
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: you why they said no jeans in the final The
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: cad tell you that.
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: They said it was getting a little awkward to see
• 11:29
  Speaker 6: the bult. That's what the coult said.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Jesus, they said no jeans in.
• 11:33
  Speaker 7: The fun Do they come to your parents and say
• 11:34
  Speaker 7: that or did it come directly to you know?
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: At that point, I mean, come on, I'm on seting,
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: I'm taking I'm getting notes from producers.
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: And you know that's a funny ass note to tell somebody.
• 11:45
  Speaker 7: That's an uncomfortable note.
• 11:48
  Speaker 6: I feel like you said that in private, like you
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: pull my family to the side and we have a
• 11:51
  Speaker 6: very closed discussion talk.
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: About your son's boat.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: While so so things changed on the set because you
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: didn't have a dressing room.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Now you I'm sure you got the biggest dressing room
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and all that.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: So how was that change?
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Money? Change?
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Well, the thing about money, which was cool, is that
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: my mom was so petrified the show would get canceled
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: anyway that she never bought a new car for the
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: first four seasons of the show. You know, my mom
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: was that. I think that's why I'm so passionate about
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: the protective job that my parents did. Uh. They did
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: so much to try to keep me attached to normal life.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: You know, they didn't get new cars themselves. My mom
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: demanded that I went to public school. I went to
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: public school during the entire time. Ye we didn't, but
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: we didn't have cell phones. We didn't have all we
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: had cell phone but they were big bricks at that time,
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: but we didn't have smartphones to invade the privacy to
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: that degree and let everybody know what school he goes to,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: at least on a nationwide level. So you know, I
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: would pop into school like every two weeks to three weeks,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: and you know, that was something actually enjoyed doing, kind
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: of like a magic trick. And you know, because I
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: could go in and I could take tests, I could
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: raise my hand, I could answer answer questions from the teacher,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: and my peers are looking at me like, how do
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: you know this stuff? It's like I study on set too.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: How was school? It was it a did you ever
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: get bullied? Because people loved you?
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: You know, that's the whole there's a whole thing. It
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: was like the first school I was attending at the time,
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: I was the only black kid at the entire school,
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: which was awkward too. It was it was it was
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: half Asian, it was half white. And now it's sense
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: taking over all Asian when I'll go back and past
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: that school and uh, you know that's all you know,
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: the usual stuff. Can I touch your hair? And you know,
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: not getting invited to boy mitzvahs and all that kind
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: of stuff. And then that all changed as soon as
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: I got on the show. Hey, you want to go
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: to the Laker game with me? And you know, my
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: mom wants your agent number. She thinking about putting me
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: in the business. And now I'm suddenly so popular. H
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: so I left that school and then I went to
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: what I like to call, like, you know, the Joe
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: Clark School, the lean on Me Light and uh. And
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: in that in that case, I was just I stood
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: out a little too much and it also raised my
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: hand too much. And I had a teacher that liked me,
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: and I liked this last of the too, and you
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: know at schools like that, they don't like those kind
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: of relationships. So ran into problems there. And then my
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: mom found the school that was the porch that was
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: just warm enough for me and in three bare story analogy,
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: and and that was South Pasadena High School. And they
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: kind of had to sprinkle everybody. It was Asian, it
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: was Mexican, it was black, it was was wonderful. And
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: I had a great principal named Ben Ramirez may he
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: rest in peace, who just you know, kind of went
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: out of his way to make sure that I was
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: always welcome on campus.
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: They didn't like the fact that your teacher was trying
• 14:31
  Speaker 6: to make sure you were okay. What do you mean,
• 14:34
  Speaker 6: like you said that the school you had a teacher
• 14:36
  Speaker 6: that no.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: No, no, I'm saying at hood school, you can't, you know,
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: raising your hand a lot in cans and having a
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: great relationship with the teacher the kids.
• 14:43
  Speaker 6: Yeah, okay, yeah, exactly, a question like the lasts you
• 14:51
  Speaker 6: see again, you wasn't too minute.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: You know, you're not gonna play me like that. I
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: wasn't asking the teacher to collect the home work. Okay,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: I wasn't that. I wasn't reminded if we had that.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: But the bottom line is we had a good relationship
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: and she was teaching stuff I'd already learned at the
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: other school, so they were hella behind the other school.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: So I was just like, this is easy. I'm saying,
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: come on, I'm in the eighth grade.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: You know what.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: I'm saying that that's great.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: It's awkward exactly exactly, but did you wish you got
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: that treatment?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I remember, you remember the first time I met No,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: you don't remember. I don't remember.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: That's when you have to remind me. Nicks Camp. Now,
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: Nick haven't remember so much about.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Madison Square guard in Knicks Camp. He was a Nicktam
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: And I was surprised because I don't remember. We were young, young,
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: But I was surprised because I'm like, at the time,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: he's Steve Verkle, He's on the biggest show.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: I'm like, his parents put him in, so why would
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: he remember you. I'm gonna tell you, well, I don't know.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: I told you anybody could get it, not I was.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I had the glasses.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: The braceist want to say, you know him, you were
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: actually enough.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: I love seeing this dynamic because no one should ever
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: take this personal.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Shouldn't say I was, you know, the classes races, I was.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: Let me help you out. Any black man who didn't
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: even look like me is if he wore glasses, he
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: was called Steve.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: That's true.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: They called me metal mouth in whole bunch of things.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: But I'm not going to that trump. But the reason
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: I say that is during basketball tap you got.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Into a fight? Did I? With some Spanish dude?
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: And I would remember.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: I was like, damn, is this happened all the time
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: when you come to the hood because people think that
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: you're better than them.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: So I was wondering if that always happened?
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: Well, when you hooping like people try you. You know
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: what I'm saying. So it's like I took basketball seriously.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: So in between those lines, that's why I'm like, I
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: don't even remember I was there to play ball. Fights,
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: did you get into if you don't remember on a
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: basketball court.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I didn't.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: I didn't have a history of getting into a bunch
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: of fights. But I'm just saying, like you know, on
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: the basketball board, people don't try you. I mean, do
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: you remember every frack as you got to do on
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: a basketball court?
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I kind of do, yeah, oh wow, kind of.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Lost a lot of them remember, And that means I
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: probably did pretty good. And whatever we was doing, what
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: did you and all others fanis kids do?
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: And saw beating up like nobody get at.
• 17:12
  Speaker 7: A meeting and he started seeing He said, either I'm
• 17:13
  Speaker 7: going I'm going with.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: People, which was where was you? I was riding work right?
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: All right?
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: You know another thing you're talking, But you didn't tell
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: me how I played though?
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Now you was? You was good.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: You were surprisingly good because everybody, everybody thought the nerve
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: was gonna come out, but you was good.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: We could tell that you play boy, But I remember
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: you scrapping.
• 17:32
  Speaker 7: What would point guard position?
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: You play point?
• 17:35
  Speaker 6: Okay, So, because even in your book you talk about
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: having your dressing room kind of like set up like dresom.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: My dress room was cool addressing you.
• 17:42
  Speaker 7: Really wanted to go to the NBA like that was
• 17:44
  Speaker 7: like it.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Was about going in. I was a huge I mean listen,
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: if you grew up in the nineties, the NBA just
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: this was different.
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: Man.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: It landed on your life. It was it was everything
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: got you. So I you know, once I started gaining
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: some influence, you know, you could do certain things. And
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: the set decorated for our show transformed the second room
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: in my dressing room into an actual NBA locker room.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: So I had all the different lockers and you know
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: that's where I would change and get ready for the show.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: Wow, you know, did you get paid? Did you make
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: money money back then?
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you had. You made very good money back then.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: But the numbers back then just they don't compare it
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: to numbers now inflation. It's one of my favorite things
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: I actually have. Is is my first time I ever
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: said on the court. I kept the ticket stub and
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: I kept them with magic shoes when he gave them
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: to me after the game, and every now and then
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: I'll just I'll still look at those type of ticket stuff.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: Guess how much. In nineteen ninety one, the face value
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: of a Laker game on the court was versus San
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Antonio Spurs.
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: Three fifty price maybe close to a thousand, maybe seven hundred,
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: eight hundred.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: This man knows basketball for twenty five twenty five that's crazy, right,
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: and so yeah for a floor. So that so when
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: you put that in perspective, nineteen ninety one, four hundred
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: and twenty five dollars face value on the ticket to
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: sit on the court, and you see what inflation is now.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: It really is like I remember that teaching me about
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: inflation was like WHOA, something's happening here because there's two inflations.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: This is the one they talk about to the country,
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: and the one they talk about is going on with
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: the people that's making all the money.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: I love how you described throughout the book.
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: You describe yourself as a dedicated people pleaser, and you
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: said it was your mom who made you that way.
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: Can you expound on that a little bit?
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: It?
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Can? You know? It can be good and bad to
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: be a people pleaser because you got to learn how
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: to say You got to know how to set boundaries,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: but then you got to also learn how to say
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: yes enough to catch blessings that are coming out of nowhere.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: But for me, it's always been about the audience experience
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: that jacked me up. You know, we take in front
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: of a live studio audience every Friday, and man, I
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: look forward to that audience like you wouldn't believe. And
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: they just become your toy after a while. So, you know,
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: my mom will call me after a table reading, you know,
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: every Tuesday, and it's like, what do you think of
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: the script this week? And I was Likeang, it's okay,
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: you know. And then there would be certain weeks like
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: the Bruce Lee week where I'm like, oh, no, get
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: your tickets now, because sometimes she would have to play
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: games to get a certain number of seats, and this
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: especially with another opposite, another executive producer's wife, who would
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: have hog a lot of seats and I'm like, no, no, no,
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: go ahead and get your tickets for this one. I'm
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: gonna melt this one down. So it was just always
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: about just, you know, everything celebrity came from a different
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: place than it was about being excellent. It was about
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: being on point. You know. We would shoot our show
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: and we'd be done with a whole episode in like
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: just over two hours. And I was so proud of
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: that because everybody else on the lot, especially if they
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: had kids on their show, it would take. You know,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: shows would take three and four hours and people wouldn't
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: even be able to see the end of the show
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: at times. But we've been now two hours flat. We
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: were done. So I'm just took proud of that, that
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: kind of stuff.
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: What about Julia when he's not, you know, performing, are
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: you still dealing with being people pleasing?
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: No, not as much. You know, when you have a
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: you have a daughter. At least when you have a
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: kid and you enter the family dynamic, a lot of
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: your values just changed. They shift overnight, at least they
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: did for me.
• 21:05
  Speaker 7: It was the biggest thing. They shifted for you overnight.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: Oh man, I got a funny story on that one though. Actually,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: when you know, when single parents don't date, like single
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: parents prospect, they don't, they don't date. It's different. And
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: I remember my boy was he told me to come
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: out and meet him at the club. You know, he
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: had a he had a group. At this point, I'm
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: single dad, and and I hopped in my car and
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: at the time I drove asked to Martin Repeat, which
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: is at a four door, and so I pulled up
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: at the end and he comes walking over with three
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: girls and it's like, yo, what we're doing. This is
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: before Uber? All right, it is before Uber?
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: What were doing?
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: Where were we headed? And then one of the girls just
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: reached for the back door and the baby seat was
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: in the back and the way them girls just jumped
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: back and all of the sudden it just threw off
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: the whole chemistry for the rest of the night, and
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: it was just like, uh, okay, what matters. More? As
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: a dad, I knew, I'm like, I'm not taking a
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: baby seat out. It's a painting the butt putting them
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: down baby, And any dad who has a baby knows that.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: So it was like, well, that's just the way it's
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: gonna be. But that was a moment where I had
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: to accept where I was just kind of like, she
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: really comes first in every aspect of my life now,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: and uh, like it or not, even in times when
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: I want to be grown and sexy, it's going to
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: affect it.
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: You know what I wanted to did the cast members
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: on Family Matters what he was? It a level of
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: hate and jealousy and envynous viianus inbianus envenous are us.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: It was you know what I mean, your chance to
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: get him are in hindsight, were you really difficult to work. No,
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: absolutely not, you know because Johnson said that. Okay, but okay,
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: so let me make it easy for you. Then how
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: come how come you never heard that from the kids
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: Kelly speaks, there is everywhere is everywhere?
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: How come you never heard that?
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: Again?
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: You know it's it's you know, when you when you
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: leave a show. First of all, the difference between movies
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: start and the TV start is when your movie star,
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: you still a star, even if you don't have a
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: movie out. When you a TV star, unless you're on TV,
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: you're not a starting. And that's just the way the
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: business treats you. So I think people go through a
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: lot of personal traumas sometimes after a show is gone
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: off the air, divorces, investments, maybe they go right, et cetera,
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: et cetera, And it causes people to look back on
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: things with, you know, kind of a jaded look. And
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: it was like, man, we had fun. We did. Even
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: the pictures I picked out for the book, you know,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: I wanted to show pictures of us chilling, you know,
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: I wanted to show me Reggie and Darius, you know,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: chilling in Paris. When we shot two episodes in Paris
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: We're the only black show to ever shoot in Europe.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: That was a big deal. You know, we had this
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: I'll never forget. We had this giant, twelve thousand dollars
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: meal at the top of an Eiffel Tower as a cast. Oh,
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: I'm glad you asked. My mom took that bill and
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: handed the production because she had the clout to do that.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: But Joe Burry's there, Reggie's there. Well, we was balling
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: at the top. But again you balling, So you know,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: it's almost kind of like when you hear Scotty Pittman
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: talking about the Bulls. Now, it's like, Scotty, you can't
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: say nothing nice about the bulls. You nigga, here was
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: rock stars. You and Mike didn't kick it at all.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: You should that's how you remember it.
• 24:18
  Speaker 6: Have you recently talked to any of the casts, because
• 24:20
  Speaker 6: I know Joe Maripay and like she had come out
• 24:22
  Speaker 6: and said that you guys had a little whatever.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: That s whatitu is whyn't want to fight each other?
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah, Like, can you first of all clarify that story
• 24:28
  Speaker 6: because that's just a wow.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: No, there's just there's nothing to clarify. Like I'm talking
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: about a coworker of over thirty years ago, and I
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: was a minor. You don't think if there was any
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: validity of that, they wouldn't have come out.
• 24:41
  Speaker 7: I'm like, now, so nothing happened, I.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: Mean, no, like, but I'm not I'm not getting it
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: back and forth. I'm sorry. I'm just doing too good
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: getting it back and forth. Well, you know, with a
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: woman who's over seventy and I've been trying to like
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: mentally ingrained to not fight with my elders, Like, all right,
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: if that's the way you saw it, cool, it.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Is what it is.
• 24:59
  Speaker 6: Well, she recently said on the stage, I think where
• 25:01
  Speaker 6: I forget where they were at, but the cast was
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: there and you weren't there, and she said that, like,
• 25:06
  Speaker 6: you know, she wished that you were there, and if
• 25:07
  Speaker 6: you were there, she would hug you, and she.
• 25:09
  Speaker 7: Kind of you know that whole thing.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: So have y'all talked or why does what she have
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: to say hold so much more validity than what my
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: other cast members have to say. I'm just curious.
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: I think, Oh, I think that the age thing does
• 25:20
  Speaker 6: play a factor, but what you say, you know what
• 25:23
  Speaker 6: I mean? I think that definitely plays a factor as well.
• 25:25
  Speaker 6: But I think she's one of the first people that
• 25:28
  Speaker 6: alleged like the bad stuff that I saw come out
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: and be like, man, we should just hug it out.
• 25:32
  Speaker 7: I wanted to know. It made me wonder like, have
• 25:34
  Speaker 7: y'all talked? Like what changed?
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: So the people that I talked to regularly is Kelly
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: and Darius. And again I don't call them Laura Netty,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: So I you know, I called Kelly about this book,
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: you know, and we spoke extensively, and you know, Kelly
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: called me two weeks ago. But it's weird for us.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: By the way. Also when we go out and eat
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: or anything like that, you know, we like little back
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: rooms and stuff like exactly if people saw if people
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: saw me and Kelly just at Crustaceans in Beverly Hills,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: what it tends to turn into a big Hey, can
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: I get a selfie fest? So you know, damn work on one.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Gotta So you know, we we keep it private. But
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: I have a very good relationship with all the cast
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: members who've ever wanted a relationship with me beyond the show.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: And I don't have anything negative to say about Reggie.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: When people ask me who is your favorite scene partner,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: I'm like the chemistry I had with Reginald L. Johnson.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: I remember the episode where it clicked for us. It's
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: called box Car Blues, when we were stuck in the
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: train together with all these cows and Steve is just
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: getting on his nerves, and you know, Reggie just couldn't
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: look at me without breaking up, without you know, without
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: breaking character. And we just we developed this amazing chemistry.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: But adults are adults and they're going through adult things too.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: And also I'm a kid. So you know what I'll
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: tell you one way, maybe I could have been annoying.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: I dribbled my basketball everywhere everywhere. If I was in school,
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: did you let me? We need you? All? Said? Boomom boom?
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: Basketball basketball basketball. Adults get annoyed when a kid is
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: just dribbling and bouncing the ball all over the place.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: Is that difficult?
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: How old you that?
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: Talk about? Thirteen? Fourteen years old?
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I would feel like adults
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: would have a little bit more.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: I'm approaching it from a very self where you know, standpoint.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: So I'm like, okay, yeah, no, that's and I remember
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Joyce Web, one of our script supervisors, be like, oh
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: here it comes with the basketball. It's like, okay, you know,
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: I'm like, but if that's that that translates twenty five
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: years later to being difficult, I'll take it.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about your first kiss.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Talk about your first kiss, because everybody was getting arrested
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: and nowadays if that.
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: Was so because he's a guy, Oh and only they
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: don't do that.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: To guy exactly.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: So break down your first kiss sixteen years old. On set.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: He's ahead of me on this one. No, we had
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: a we had a scene man, where you know, Steve
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: and Eddy get hot at the dice table and they're
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: rolling the dice and uh, this woman, you know, he's
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: supposed to give me a kiss, just planting one on
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: me before my last dice roll, and uh, during rehearsals
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: all we she had just pretty much given me a pack.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: It was just a pack, yeah, because you just go
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: through the motions, but with that hot live studio audience there, man,
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: she just yoah, she gave me the whole she bang.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: And so when I pulled back, this was your first
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: time because yeah, I had never kissed the girl.
• 28:13
  Speaker 7: I said, how did you know what to do?
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: No?
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I didn't.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: I wasn't First of all, I wasn't even planning for that.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: I know, you're supposed to put your lips together, but
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: I didn't know that anything else was really supposed to
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: happen to them. Yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't seasoned. It was,
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: and so she does it, and my whole my thinking
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: at the time was do not break character. You do
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: not ruin a good take. You know, That's what you
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: just kind of taught as as a comedic actor and
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: as a kid. And so when I went to my
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: dressing room, I just kind of involuntarily tears start coming
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: down my face because I was just like, that was weird.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: And then my dad corners me and he's like, what's wrong.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: Exact the producer comes back, like what's wrong? And it
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: was just like, you know, like she put her tongue
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: in my mouth.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: I surprised your mother, and you know, so funny.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: Everybody says that, but it was like my father was
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: present and was dealing with the issue, so there was
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: no reason to inject. And once it was revealed what happened,
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: they all started laughing.
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: The moment.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: My dad's my.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: Dad's left, No, do not find this woman, do not
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: troll this woman at all. No, I'm serious, because it's
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: like that's one of the things that I'm very protective
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: of is, you know, we have to embrace what double
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: standards were lead them in the past. But it's okay,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: like I can laugh at it. I'm saying, like from
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: the time that it happened to my dad and the
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: executive producer coming in to me walking back out on
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: stage to do now the next scenes, even the hot
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: the crew Hot five, she put it on you, young fella.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: You hung in there, you did your thing, and it
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: was like it was very clear to me. All the
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: signals that I was getting was that might have been
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: yucky the way it went down, but apparently I'm going
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: to get a lot more of that. So Cheesemo says, yeah, okay,
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: all right, go with the flow.
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: What about the trauma you went through because it was
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: immediately after that scene they told you that you can't
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: wear pants anymore?
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: You know what I see, I see how you do
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: it here.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: You know what else I want to know? It was
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: black Hollywood more of a community back then.
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: Ah, could you tell a story in the book about
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: you know, connecting with Malcolm Jamal warning Yeah, and putting
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: you in the afternoth commercial and.
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: You know, your mom being your mom being a fan
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: of Malcolm. So I don't know if he.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: Was the extent the extent to which Black Hollywood was
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: putting each other on, I won't say was more of
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: a community. Uh, there are specific people who put a
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: lot of people on, like Ice Q put a lot
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: of people on, absolutely like that dude, just like John
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Singleton put a lot of people on, like he identified talent.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: That's really the dream I kind of have for myself
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: because I picked that up back then of being able
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: to recognize other talent and be like, well you got it,
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: you got it, and that that's a pay it forward joy.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: That's separate and apart from from actually being the focus.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: But but back then, because there was just a lack
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: of you know, cell phone communication and social media wasn't
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: what it was. The connections were made more organically. You know.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: You you wrote a number down, you gave it to somebody,
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: you know, and yeah, so I will say that, I
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: will say it was just I don't know, it was different.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Helped me out on this because I feel like we
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: connected on this community. It definitely was. But I'm saying
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: to the extent that I could count on somebody having
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: the power to give me a job. No, no, not
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: not that at all. But to the extent of walking
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: in the room and seeing to Sheena Arnold and Tisha
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: Campbell and they're like, oh yeah, it was like okay, yes, yes, absolutely,
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: you know. And and there was also a sense of
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: like like being a part of an exclusive club, you
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. It was like you didn't walk
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: into a room and see another black TV star and
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: just sit at your table and just be like, oh,
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: he's over there. You typically were gonna get up and
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: you were gonna you know, you were gonna greet each other,
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: address each other, and probably exchange information.
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: Was that because there wasn't a lot of people, like
• 32:03
  Speaker 6: it was just like you guys with a cream and
• 32:05
  Speaker 6: or crop.
• 32:05
  Speaker 7: It wasn't a lot.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: It wasn't even like there was you know what we're
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: missing now is everything is niche program, so very few
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: people are always talking about the same thing at the
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: same time. Like today, all anybody's talking about from a
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: cultural standpoint is Mike Tyson's ass cheeks because we all
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: saw that at the same time, so, you know exactly,
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: So it was like even the step fan moment where
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: it was just like a lot of black families saw
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: that at the same time when it airs, so they
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: calling each other on each other for a girl. You
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: got to see him in his white suit. So it's
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: a different connection back there, man. And I'm like, yeah, special.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Do you get tired of the Steve Verrkle character, because
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: I'm sure people have to come with you all the
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: time and be like the Saalne.
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: Well in the book you say nothing makes you happier
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: and than when somebody recognized you as julil Well.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: That makes me happy, you know when that happens. And
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: I kind of got saved by millennials. You know, the
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: Google A has helped me, It really has. I can
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: hear ton and I try to talk about that in
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: the books. So you know, if a Southern grandmother comes
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: up to me and and she's you know, referencing a character,
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: that doesn't bother me as much as compared to some
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: guys in a bar who you know, they're having a
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: sausage press in the corner and we're doing well over
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: here and they want to bring light to that, and okay,
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: I see what you're doing. Now that's those are two
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: completely different things in terms of being tired of the
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: characters that we're doing well over here. Basically we got
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: all the ladies, every single lady. All right, you know
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: what I'm saying. So that that that that that that
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: part is obvious, what the dichotomy is there. But people
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: come up to me for a variety of different reasons.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: Man like your man outside, he was just like, yo,
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: I know about the ericle stuff, but I'm here for sonic.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: He's I did the voice of Soign of the Hedgehog
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: for one hundred episodes, and that lands hugely with a
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: lot of people. I did two episodes of Psych that
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: people just love those two episodes of Psych. So for me,
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: it's a conveyor belt of people acknowledging me for different things.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: And as you get older, like I said, well, my
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: focus being on my daughter. I'm a game show host.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: Now I'm just like, look, as long as you pleasant
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: and you chill, and you respectful of my family and
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: my environment. I just love being known for a good reason,
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: because in this day and age, you could be known
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: for a real sucker reason any day.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Like it's wild the sucker reason you.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Could be known for.
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: You know, it's interesting what you said, even about being
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: a black people all can coming down on one moment
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: because I think about that even with you as a star, right,
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: like you have to be a certain caliber star for
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: us to know your real name, right, you know what
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: I'm saying, Like like for you for you to play
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: earcle so well that we know who Jalil White is,
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: that sys a lot.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: I appreciate. You.
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: Know What's crazy though, for a long time meye, because
• 34:38
  Speaker 6: I was so young, I didn't know that je Little
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: White was your real name.
• 34:41
  Speaker 7: I thought that that was another person I did, but
• 34:46
  Speaker 7: I was so young, I was confused.
• 34:50
  Speaker 6: I thought it was and then I knew the ste fine,
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: And when I started hearing your Little White, I'm like, oh,
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: maybe this is another persona that he's taking off.
• 34:56
  Speaker 7: And then I got old enough.
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: To really understand like characters and like it not being
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: really you and like all that, and I was like, oh, okay,
• 35:03
  Speaker 6: that was just like a me moment.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I'm just glad the light went on. Thank you.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: Speaking but speaking of right, you got the ennef.
• 35:10
  Speaker 7: My aol dollar back in them days.
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: Okay, speaking of though, I know in the book you
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: talk about the meeting that you had with the exactly
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: about the remak, er, the spin off, the reboot, your
• 35:27
  Speaker 6: version that you wanted to happen, in my opinion, was
• 35:30
  Speaker 6: way better. I don't know if you want to say it.
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: You want people to read the book, but it was
• 35:33
  Speaker 6: way better than what they had pitched to you. We
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: are I mean, I guess we have to talk about
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: it because I want to know that. Will we ever
• 35:40
  Speaker 6: get that?
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: And can you?
• 35:41
  Speaker 7: Could you do that on your own?
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: Listen?
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: First of all, you can't do it on your own.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: That's the thing about television that people have to respect.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: It's you know, it's the It's the only art form
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: I feel that still has gatekeeping still very much in place.
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: And you can either be bitter about it or you
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: can fight the good fight and look for the person
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: that's gonna be your champion. That's just it is what
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: it is. I was never offered a reboot. I always
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: want to make that very clear, and even my vision
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: for the show that I have, it's not about me.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: It's about three dimensional characters that would actually resonate and translate.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: In twenty twenty four, because I worked for the producers
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: who coined the phrase jump the shark, Fonzie jumped the shark.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: He jumped over a shark, right, those are my producers,
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: the exact same producers, So you're not going to invite
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: me to jump the shark again. I was offered a
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: blind contract and half my pay of what I got
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: for the last episode, and there was no consideration. I mean,
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: there was no consideration given to the adults that actually,
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: you know, have such a large opinion over what terms
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: they would return to. I'm like the way they were
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: being discussed was, well, you know, Hard and Carl will
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: come by and they'll visit the new family every now
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: and then, Like Hollywood doesn't really They engage talent when
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: they need talent, they pay talent when they need talent.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: And this isn't even a black thing. I don't want
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: this to turn into a black thing. I'll hear guys
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: like Chris Pine or whatever, who's you know, He's like,
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: I don't know what they're going to do next with
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: Star Trek, Like I love playing the character, but when
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: they call me, they called me, so I'd love the
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: opportunity to make the show that I envisioned. That was
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: never turned down, It was never pitched. I was just
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: offered a blind contract and around that they were going
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: to develop the reboots.
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: There were two versions, though, correct me if I'm wrong, right,
• 37:29
  Speaker 6: because you said one of them you wanted to do
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: like what's the Netflix show with the kid.
• 37:34
  Speaker 7: The little kid that we follow is super smart? Yes,
• 37:38
  Speaker 7: young Sheldon?
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: There was one version that was kind of going to
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: be like the young Sheldon from like a different perspective.
• 37:43
  Speaker 6: And then there was another version where it would be
• 37:44
  Speaker 6: you and now you're an adult and you are in
• 37:47
  Speaker 6: a relationship, but then Myra is still around at that
• 37:49
  Speaker 6: point or something wasn't there.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: I'll simplify it, you know. I really feel like it
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: could be like a Young Rock to be quite honest.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: The only difference is, you know, imagine if they Young
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: Rocket started off famous and then gets into reality. You know,
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: you still want to keep it light, you know what
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: I'm saying. But I just I just if you do
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: a half hour comedy, where are the story's gonna come from?
• 38:12
  Speaker 7: You know what?
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: You they literally just choose to make it up back
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: in the day, you know, and they would take stories too,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: from old sitcoms and Happy Days whatever. They dust them
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: off and they just you know, update them a little bit.
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: You can't do that in twenty twenty four. You're gonna
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: watch for one episode and you're gonna turn that off.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: I asked a reporter recently. I said, well, in the
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: traditional reboot that everybody thinks that they want, where Steve
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: and Laura get married and have a kid that's just
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: like Arkle, would you watch that? And he said yeah.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: For about four minutes, I said, Okay, thank you for
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: being honest with me. If I do anything, I am
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: an advocate of kids. I see exactly how young performers
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: get derailed. I want to push the agenda. I want
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: to push the legend for a kid to come play
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: a future version of me, whatever that turns out to be.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: That kid's got to be able to get invited to
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: the Golden Globes. That kid's got to be able to
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: get invited to the Emmys, and he can't look back
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: as me and looking back at me and I'm a
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: stain on his career. You know what I'm saying. It's
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: like I will point this out, but I won't say
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: names because I don't want to even make them feel bad.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: But like the kids on Fuller House, they don't work
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: Fuller House. The reboots, they don't work. The adults that
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: put them in that role, they knew they wouldn't work
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: in prestige television, in prestige film because now casting directors
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: will say, oh, all those are the kids from Fuller House.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: We want somebody a fresh face, etc. Etc. And I
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: promise you, as parents and as kids, they didn't go
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: into that project thinking that that was going to be
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: a blight on their career as soon as the show
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: was over. They didn't go into that. I want to
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: make sure anybody that I work with, no, they go
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: in with open eyes. This is what we stand to achieve.
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: And it was so awesome watching Will Smith give it
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: up to Quincy Jones after all these years when Quincy passed,
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: because Quincy touched his life in a positive way with
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: The Fresh Prince, he never had to look back on
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: The Fresh Prince like it was this show he needed
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: to get away from. So I don't know. That's my
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: take on what I feel about reboots and opportunity.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: I was gonna ask, was that a stain on your
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: career where you had to lose racle because people always
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: looked at you when you did roles.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: Again, I don't look at it as I've never stopped working.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: It's a tough business just to work in, you know.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: Is it easier for some with better reps and different imaging.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: When I think of Harry Potter or Al Bundy, I
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: think about those guys in those characters, but they had
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: better reps in different images, and it hasn't slowed them
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: down at all as far as the tgif people are concerned,
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: I like where I've landed. You know, I've I've never
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: stopped working. Have I have always gotten the dream job
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: that I wanted? No, But I talk about it in
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: the book. A couple of jobs want in particular, that
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: I wanted that went on to become the worst that year.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: It's like, WHOA, be careful what you want? So I
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: just I don't know it. Like I said, when my
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: daughter got here, man, a lot of stuff just crystallized
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: for me that it was like, Yo, let's go out here,
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: let's be a working dad, and it's a beautiful thing
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: to come home with a check to take care of
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: your kid, and you're doing it in a way where
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: you don't have to give up your damn dignity.
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: That's right. You mentioned though, Will Smith.
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: Will Smith, you said, was the first influential black person
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: to hire you to do something outside of family.
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: Matt, Yeah, break that down. How did you have a relationship.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: Well, I would see I had seen Will. You know,
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: I would always cross paths with it, with NBA stuff,
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: and you know, Will Will invite me to the office everything.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: When he was his offices on Third Street. I saw
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Will coming a mile away, just like I could identify,
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: you know, just like I talked about ICEQB identifying talent
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: and stuff like that. And I will actually just share
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: the story as a matter of fact that I'm like, oh,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: I never would have shared that enough to violate your privacy.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: But I remember Charlie Mack having me over to his
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: dressing room when he was shooting four, and I was
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: just a curious dude. I love reading scripts. I loved
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: just devouring film. And I was in his dressing room
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: and he had a script on the table and I
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: asked to go. I was checking it out, and he said, oh,
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: that's just another sci fi movie. And I'm I'm not
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: gonna do another sci fi movie after this one. And
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: I went to visit him again after that, and like
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: a couple of weeks later and when I got to
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: the set, he wasn't there, and Charlie was like, I'm sorry.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: Will was supposed to be here, but you know, Steven
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: Spielberg sent a helicopter four and I'm like, oh, okay,
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: well that's a good reason for him to not be
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: here to receive me. And then months and months later
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: after that, Will was coming out with Men in Black,
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: and then it clicked that was the script for B
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: but he said he wasn't doing another sci fi movie,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: so I guess the helicopter ride was to change some opinions.
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: So I just had this really cool relationship with Will.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: He was always open doors back then to me, and
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: when he called me on the set, he called me
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: to be on a Fresh Prince bel Air, it just
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: meant a lot to me because he made it his
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: personal business to put me on the show.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: I got two more questions. One, when did Family Matter
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: jump the Shark?
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: Man, we probably jumped the shark somewhere around the six
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: or seventh season.
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: Remember what.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: No, I don't remember the episode he had. It just
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: it happens gradually. You know, you start going, you just
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: start going into port the party and coming out of
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: too many characters. You know, before you know what I
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: was Elvis, I was, you know, we we sending Pold
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: families to Paris and come back by standing on a
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: teleportation device.
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: I think when you moved in with them, I never
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: moved in with them.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: I never moved in with them.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: Win, I thought you more, I thought your parents.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: You ain't got to lie to kick it.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: I never moved with I thought your parents went away.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: And no, I never moved in with him though, oh
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: I never did. It was about like I said, it
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: was probably around about about the sixth season, just to
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: was you living. I was always next to your neighbor.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: I was. They never That was the thing again. Back
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: they they never showed Steve's parents. They always kept See's
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: parents this big mission.
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: They said, your parents moved to Russia or something.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they never They would always reference my parents. My
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: parents were treated the same way.
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: You remember.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: They were followed cheers. Remember Norm's wife Vera. They they
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: they never showed Vera, so he they would always talk
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: about his wife at home. And that was the way
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: you treated it back then. They never talked. They never
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: showed the gooch on on different strokes. They always talked
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: about the gird. So they treated family matters, the character
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: my parents the exact same way. You couldn't do that
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: in this day and this day and age wouldn't take
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: that kind of just constant referencing mistique. They'd be like, no, no, no,
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: bring in the parents and make sense of this.
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: I thought you.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: No, Now you never did.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: I was watching an interview you did, and you said
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: you never got invited to none of the Hollywood parties.
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: Nah. Nah, I mean I didn't. I would do a
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: lot of nice parties, but now none of the like
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: the stuff that started gaining a lot of steam on
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: on on social media, like you know, the Rock Nation
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: Brunch or or obviously you know you're talking about my man.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: You know you're the Diddy parties or whatever. Like, Noah,
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: nothing organically not did you.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: Used to get invited?
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: You got calm down, You gotta you gotta go, You
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: gotta calm down.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: You just around.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: We just we're gonna slow it down for a second.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. Sometimes you can just be
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: driving too fast and you're not paying attention to the
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: to to you know, the speed limits, speed exactly. We're
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: in a thirty five zone right now.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: What happened to Judy?
• 45:21
  Speaker 6: Man?
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: How Judy just walked up talking about it? I know
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: you don't give nothing to the listeners.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, listen, how do you think I covered it
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: in the book? Was I fair? Even? Yeah?
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Was I fair? Yeah?
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah?
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: Because because you want you?
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, but what you laughing about?
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: I guess because she didn't really have a roll. So
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: it's like you get you know what I mean, I
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: get what you're trying to say.
• 45:54
  Speaker 6: I didn't get to that part in the book, But
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: I'm inferring and reading between the lines. Or was it
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: that they didn't think she was good to stay on
• 45:59
  Speaker 6: this sh she didn't.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Have a role.
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: Really, that part of the family didn't matter.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: Jesus, So in the book, how do you get up?
• 46:15
  Speaker 6: I'm I'm only a couple of chapters in, but not
• 46:18
  Speaker 6: to give it all the way, but just some of it.
• 46:19
  Speaker 6: How do you cover when you asked were you fair?
• 46:21
  Speaker 6: Did someone tell you you weren't fair and wasn't thank you?
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: I like I've said, a kind of threw me all.
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: He wasn't wrong, okay, all right? You know there were
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: a multitude of factors that went into her departure from
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: the show that I blame all on her mother, but
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: there were but as a performer, they weren't giving her storylines,
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: and she wasn't the best at delivering a joke, and
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: so you know, sometimes they would give her material and
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: it would just fall flat. And if you fall flat
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: and run through, they're gonna rewrite you. And you know,
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: we're kids back then, so you know, kids, that's the thing.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: You can't roat each other nowadays, at least not in public,
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: but trust me, kids are still roasted each other. That's
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: never going to go away. So you know, we'd be
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: sitting in the background and they're like, and she blows
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: the layup. You know, it was just like you know,
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: and it's just like, you know, you can only mess
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: up so much and be arrogant about it in the
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: FIR Code and the Mercedes too before somebody says, enough
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: of this, and don't forget my producers. You know, this
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: is a story that precedes my show. They famously fired
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: a woman named Valerie Harper. We had a show called Valerie,
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: and the show became The Hogan Family and Tom Miller
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: may he Rest in peace, walked onto the set and
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: said you are done, and in one file swoop, change
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: the name of the show from Valerie to the Hogan
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: Family and put the focus on Jason Bateman. And people
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: forget those kinds of history.
• 47:47
  Speaker 7: So why they didn't just un vim Judy then? So
• 47:49
  Speaker 7: didn't just bring somebody else.
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: Because they didn't they didn't feel like they needed the character,
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: like they we didn't have social media, so they were like,
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: she's already only in one you know that we've written
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: her down as much as we possibly can. There reaches
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: a point where the corporation does the corporation thing. It
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: was like, well, how much are we banned? Right, Okay,
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: we'll just save the money and you don't have to
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: answer to social media either. And the thing that I
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: do like where I like to address it with sensitivity
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: is you know, and I talk about that, I say, look,
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: the first miracle we have in our lives is who
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: you born to. You know, some people were born on
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: third base, you know, And in this situation, I really
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: felt like, you know, Jamie was born to a mother
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: who put herself before her daughter, and she had ideas
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: of grandeur that weren't necessarily very realistic. And it sucks
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: for Jamie that she has to wear that scarlet letter
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: for the rest of her life. And I hope that
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: Jamie finds peace outside of show business. To be quite honest,
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: you know, this show business can start to make you
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: think that this is the only way to make money,
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: this is the only way to live, like if it
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: didn't I talk about that with Jonathan Brandis because he
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: passed away and he took his life, and I just
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: I was very close to him at that particular time,
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: and I saw signs of someone that was really putting
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: too much emphasis on what this business meant to his
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: existence on Earth.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: I got one last question. I know you got to go.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: Are you heavy? And I have to go?
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: I membering class?
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Now? Did you jump into cannabis early? Oh man, I'm listen.
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: Cannabis is just something I'm really passionate about because it
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: landed on me. That's my plymouth rock. It just landed
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: on me, you know. The I've been trying to get
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: at the cannabis game for probably about shoot eight or
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: nine years now, to be quite honest, and it's just
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: it's been very challenging to meet the right people that
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: are placed where they need to be placed. They care
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: about quality, they care about diversity because they're they're gonna
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: change these laws and play with these laws in such
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: a way that the big guys are gonna come in
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: and they're gonna scoop it all up, and just the
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: way they just played us with bitcoin, it's gonna go
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: down all the same way. So I'm lucky to do
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: a mess some really cool cats. We're not nationwide, but
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: but my guide to Wool group, they gonna, we're gonna
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: have some fun.
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: You got a dispensary, No, it's They named the streets.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: Then back in two thousand and three, named a strain
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: after my uh, after my old character. I don't even
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: know if it was after my old character. Maybe somebody
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: would just inspired they were watching an episode of Family Matter.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: So they call the strain purple Arcle. I've been name
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: checked everywhere. Rap songs, TV shows have been named that
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: Purplecle has been name checked everywhere, and people think that
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: I made money off of it. So my brand name
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: is it's purple. I always like to let people know.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: And that actually came from a joke where it was like,
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: when people see me, they think they're being discreet sometimes
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: where they go, oh, it's racle, And I always just
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: wanted to have something to say back, like, no, it's purple,
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: so that's what. Yeah, so that's what it's So that's
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: what it's purple. The brand even stands for. But we
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: are the house of purple arcle. We make the best
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: damn purple arcle that anybody makes out there.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Did you bring something? I got what? I tell you what.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: I left it at the damn hotel.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: But I'm telling you I will find you dog here
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: for the week.
• 50:59
  Speaker 7: Jump in Mara Michelle Thomas.
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: Yes, every time, I'm careful. Now that's MC girl.
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: I know.
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: I was going to say, every time you talk about her,
• 51:05
  Speaker 6: it's very emotional for you and like I feel that
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: that's your girl, right or was I want to know
• 51:11
  Speaker 6: off off camera when you guys developed your relationship that
• 51:13
  Speaker 6: we didn't saw on camera because it was so believable,
• 51:16
  Speaker 6: what was that off camera relationship like and like building
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: that for the characters on camera?
• 51:20
  Speaker 7: Like, how did you guys cause you were so young?
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: No, just you know, Michelle started off playing Malcolm Jamal
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: Warner's girlfriend on the on The Cosby Show, and so
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: she was always older than me. So even though she
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: was so small and bubbly and you know, big, but
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: she was. I looked at her like a little sister.
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: I'm like a big sister. Yeah, And we just had
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: this amazing chemistry. My mama loved her too, so that
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: always that that made things easy. And she just made
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: it her business to always want to always want to
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: hook me up with somebody. And she introduced me to
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: Martha's Vineyard and and and you know, spending summers there,
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: and we just had an amazing chemistry. She was just
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: and she was just down. Like everybody knew Michelle. Everybody
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: knew Michelle in the music business, everybody music, just everywhere
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: we went, people loved Michelle. And unfortunately she passed away
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: to summit cancer. And that was just a very emotional
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: time because we just knew what she was going through
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: as an actress. And that's why I always like to
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: remind people too. You know, they always try to apply
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: this type casting narrative to me. I said, man, listen,
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: this is a tough business. If you really want me
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: to make you a list of people who are, you know,
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: trying to get to their next opportunity, I can, and
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: you'll see it doesn't have as much to do with
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: type casting as you think. So during the time when
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: she went out, I just I wish that there have
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: been some better opportunities for her, you know what I'm saying,
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: Like Carl Weather's just passed away, and you know, Mandalorian
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: was a nice thing for him man to have on
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: the way out.
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: So we want people to buy the book Growing Up Oracle,
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: But you know, it is it is interesting to see
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: how much of the love y'all created off camera.
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah you know, yeah, no, it was.
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: It was real love, man, Like you know, I get it. Yes,
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: it was bumpy in the beginning, especially with the adults
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: and the parents to some of the kids. But that's
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: my puberty.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: Darius is out here while in the times and you know,
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: we he and I we slide each other's dms. But
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: that's my brother. I mean, we've all had, you know,
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: brothers or whatever, frat brothers or college friends that you know,
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: bugging out or whatnot. But you don't abandon that cat.
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: You still taking this call and y'all just laugh it off.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: And that's what my relationship is with with Kelly and Darius.
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: It's very brotherly and sisterly. And you know, I'll always
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: defend our entire cast actually for the work that we did.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: That's what it is.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Well, Jalil White, ladies and gentlemen growing up. Pleasure right
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: now makes you pick it up and thank you for
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: joining us. There's been a long time you supposed to
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: come here.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Like years ago.
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: But I would run gee all the airports and stuff.
• 53:39
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: I always give credit to a brother though, who'll see
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: me at you know who's famous, and he'll see me
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: at the airport and be like, Okay, how you gonna act?
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: He was cool. Well, you know I've had other people
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: would be Howard Stern. You know, I remember Howard Stern
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: was sitting in coach behind me flying in New York.
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: I was flying New York and do his show and
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: and then I got up and I actually took him
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: some dessert and uh on the flight and he's like, oh,
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: I can't believe you came back here and uh. And
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: then when I did the show, he was like, Okay,
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: I knew you were cool, dude, because you came back
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: to say what's up to me and coach?
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, Coach, what was howling?
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: Coach might just need to get exactly and that's so
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: that'll happen the famous folks tours. Like you know, sometimes
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: you get stuck.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: I figured how it makes so much money.
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: You gotta get on this is before this is like
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: before this is before private party.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you just gotta get it before private part.
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: So he had looke, but he didn't have the bag.
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: Right now he's like, you better get your hands back
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: to work.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: He helicoptered. I think building the building up. Well, ladies
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: and gentlemen, it's to little White Cloud now, good morning.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club