Drama Queens - Phil Rosenthal

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

Everybody loves Phil!  The creator of "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Somebody Feed Phil" joins Sophia for an engaging and funny chat about how he went from a struggling aspiring actor to a successful writer, producer, and author!  Phil Rosenthal may be living his best life now, but he reveals the many odd jobs he did for many years before finding success! He also shares the lessons he learned along the way, listening to the universe when it speaks to you, and the real-life side-splitting story about signing up his parents for a fruit-of-the-month subscription, which ended badly but made for great TV!  Plus, the duo talks about their love of food, traveling, Phil's new book with his daughter, and the 7th season of "Somebody Feed Phil," debuting March 1 on Netflix! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hey, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Hello, friends. This week, we are joined by a guest, who I am such an unabashed fan of. I'm so excited that he's here. We have friends in common who've told me I'd love him for so. long that I knew today was going to be fun and it was still better than I could have imagined.

You might know him from his hit show, somebody feed Phil. You might know him as the creator and writer and visionary behind Everybody Loves Raymond. You might know him as the author of You're Lucky or Funny, How Life Becomes a sitcom. And you might know him as Murray the Dog's dad on Instagram. However you know him, you know Phil Rosenthal is hilarious, has great taste in food, and perhaps even better taste in friends. Today he's here to talk about how he managed to turn his love of meeting people and breaking bread into a hit series on Netflix where he gets to travel the world and do just that, city to city, country to country.

And we're also going to talk about something he's doing that really has captured my excitement. He's written a book with his daughter, Lily, called Just Try It, about a food-loving dad encouraging his picky eater daughter to just try something new. And as I'm sure you would have guessed by now, knowing that he bases just about everything on his life and manages to turn his very specific into our very universal, even this book that Phil and Lily wrote together is based on their experiences as a dad and daughter. Let's get to it. People know you from somebody feed Phil.

People know you from creating one of their favorite TV shows ever. Everybody loves Raymond. People know you from Instagram because they love to follow the adventures of Murray the dog. But I want to know who you were before you became the Phil Rosenthal. We all know today. Were you, like if we rewound into your, early childhood and you were like six years old or eight years old oh come on yes i would have we would have been like we would have been out snacking would you have been in the in like the after school

plays and things like that yeah oh okay because that's what i i just wanted to be funny i just my my dad was funny in fact my my mom first saw him he was doing amateur night jokes in a club in new jersey she was on another date wait we're in new jersey I don't remember the exact spot. My family comes from Teaneck, which is why I'm asking. It might have been around there. Okay. So she was on a date with some other guy?

If you see that episode, that was a tribute to my parents from season six. Okay. Because they both passed now. So my brother and I put together a tribute to them of all their greatest hits from the show and a little bit of their history and their story. And they got together with their surviving friends who were in their 90s. And they told me the story for the first time. I didn't know this is how they met. No.

They go to some club in New Jersey on a date. And it's amateur night. And people are getting up and either playing the trumpet or do it. And my dad got up and told some jokes. He was a tailor, okay, in the garment district. But he wanted to tell jokes. So he did. And I always said, if he's not funny on that night, I'm not here.

So funny is literally in your DNA. Okay. Okay. So you come from this great meat cute. Yeah. Who are you as a kid? Where do you grow up? Were you into food? And were you funny then? Were you, tell me who you were when you were like nine years old. I was a skinny little nothing. You know what Nebish means? Uh-huh.

So that was me. Really small, really skinny, jealous of my very cute younger brother who got all the attention and still does. And I, you know, I was picked on, it's such a cliche, like I used funny as a defense and also the only way I was going to get, make friends or get a girl to talk to me was to try to be funny. That's all I could offer, right? And because my dad was funny, my mom was actually very funny too in a different way. And everyone I saw on TV, everyone I saw on Johnny Carson, you know, Don Nichols,

all those famous old Borschbel comedians. And I listened to Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner records, you know, the 2000-year-old man. Do you know that? It do, yeah. So good. And I just, if someone was funny, they had my heart. That was it. And that's all I wanted to be. And so the school plays were the only outlet for that. And I started as early as junior high wanting to be in the school plays, not because I thought of myself as a great actor, but this was the only outlet to be funny because I could do voices and I could do characters.

So I wasn't a stand-up comedian. I tried that once, didn't like it. Too stressful. If you've ever been in a school play, the audience comes. They sit there and they watch. If you try stand-up, you're in a bar or a club. And the bar is taught, they're not going to shut up for you, especially if they're there for the first.

first time. So I liked it better when I was in the show. I was very encouraged in high school to pursue this. I was a big star in high school. And then I went to Hofstra University. I was a big star at Hofstra. And then I moved into New York City. And nobody called New York City to tell them what a big star I was in high school and college. So I turned to writing and that way I could eat what I wanted. And I loved to answer your question. I love food. I just in my parents' house, wasn't in an environment where that love could flourish. They weren't cooks. They worked, they both worked, and, you know, the cuisine in the house was cheap.

Yeah. Whatever we could afford. I used to say in our house, meat was a punishment. It was dry and tough. I didn't have steak until I was like 23 in New York. Somebody said, we're going to a steakhouse tonight. You want to come out? Who would want to go to a steakhouse?

That sounds terrible. because I had terrible meat in my house. And then I go, so I went and out comes this gorgeous thing. That steak? Change your whole life. And then I ate it. I'd be like, that steak? I went home and yelled at my mom.

Oh, my goodness. I think I got lucky because, okay, so not dissimilarly to your parents, my parents have a meat cute. Yes. They lived in the same apartment building. My mom grew up. My mom's family came to the East Coast through Ellis Island from Italy on a boat. My mom grew up in the Bronx, and then eventually her dad had saved up enough money to move them into a little suburb in New Jersey. And my mom's mother, you know, my grandmother's mother, my great-grandmother was the one who came, you know, with her children.

And so if you fast forward to my mom being a little kid, you have this woman who's transplanted from Italy, but who's still hand-making pasta and, you know, her own sausage and everything in this apartment building in the Bronx. And my mom grew up watching her cook. And it was in that era where everybody was trying to assimilate so hard that my grandparents said, you will not speak Italian to the grandkids.

So in one generation, they lost a language. but my mom remembers a lot of the food. And so there are things like I grew up with my grandma's meatballs in my house. And fast forward to adulthood for my mom, she's like tending bar in New York and it's wild here and she gets to a point where she's like, I got to get out of New York City

and decides she wants to move to L.A. And she moves into this apartment building in Midwilshire and her dog is like growling at this guy in the elevator and she's like, I'm so sorry, he's never, he's never so much a sniffed a person he's so well behaved i don't know why he has a problem with you you know my dad's like i was shaking in my boots trying not to get eaten by a doberman but i knew why the dog didn't like me i had a crush on this woman in my building and i didn't know how to ask her out and you know my mom grew up around like east coast tough guys and she was like i didn't think he

was trying to ask me out he was like this soft-spoken artist guy i thought he was gay so it took my parents a minute to figure it out and and that's that's where i come from It's a love story thanks to a dog. Your grandmother was a great cook, and your mom watched her and then brought in some of that. Okay, so my grandmother was a good cook, too, but my mother didn't watch her. Ah. She wasn't interested. She didn't have the time or the temperament for her, you know?

So it wasn't until I left that house that I had food with what they call flavor. Yeah. It's wild, isn't it? And it's funny. too because, you know, we all have these interesting markers of, you know, success. And when you work in this business and you're lucky enough to write a show or be on a show for a long time, and like you said, you can go out and you can eat what you want, the thing that feels like the biggest luxury to me in my adulthood is having time to cook. Oh, that's great. Like,

it is just, I love it so much. That's great. I can't cook. I inherited that. I can't cook. But you'll never see a bigger fan than me of people who can. I love it. I even invest in restaurants because I'm not very bright. But I love, you know, my wife and I, we support the arts. Yeah. And that's one of the arts to me. Food is absolutely an art. Oh, we're going to have to talk about restaurant investing. I want to learn. I need a mentor, Phil. I'm signing myself up to go to Phil school. I've done pretty well, mainly because I don't care about the money. I don't do it for the money. Yeah. I do it. Here's my one criteria. Here's my first piece of advice.

You taste the food. Do you love it? I mean, love it. Would you, you can't wait to have this again? That's a good sign. Yeah, that should kind of be it. That's it. I don't care about the trendiness.

In fact, the less trendy, the better. Those trends come and go. Great food if you can maintain it. The first restaurant I was involved in was a restaurant called JAR. Do you know JAR? No. JAR is one of the great L.A. Classics now because it's been there.

almost like, is it 20 years, maybe more? It's fantastic. It's on Beverly. And it's just a classic American, they call it American chop house, right? And the chef has stayed there the whole time, which is another very good sign that the chef is dedicated and staff is, you know, pretty much intact. So that's all I care about. So cool. Okay. So now you're talking about investing in restaurants because you love food so much. And you talked about landing in New York as a student and winding up a writer. Yes. We've skipped a lot of life in between here.

We skipped a lot of heartache. I bet. A lot of crying alone in the apartment. Yeah, it's like everybody says it takes 10 years to become an overnight success in this town. By the way, I did that at least twice. Because after Raymond, okay, you would think and people expected, you're going to write another sitcom. I expected it of myself. No, it didn't happen. The business changed a lot in that time. I had this dream to do what I'm doing now. And that took another 10 years to get it. Yes,

even after success. I think, I don't know if you agree with this, but, you know, Raymond, I mean, my God, the size and scope of that show, what you guys did. And to have a show that, big on for that long. You know, I think about my first show, it is a bit like lightning in a bottle, right? Like, when we signed up to do one tree hoe, we didn't know it was going to be on for nine years. We didn't know it was going to be this cult classic. And we were one of those shows. Maybe it's because we were young. And it's how they avoided ever having to give us a raise. But, you know, they would say every year, all you're on the bubble, you might get canceled. So we never really even knew that we were a hit. Oh, yeah. And I know that feeling. Right?

And then in hindsight, it's like, holy shit, this show is huge, and it stays huge in this crazy way. I really do feel, as we've come up on this anniversary of it, and we're like, wow, it's been 10 years since the show ended. I've done a lot of shows in between, and they've been great. But I really only feel now like I have fully processed that decade, and like I'm really ready for the next decade. the next big project, not something I want to do for a minute or a movie I want to do for a summer, like, I'm just getting my appetite back. Do you feel like that second 10-year shift between Raymond and your show, your docu-series? Does it feel a little bit like that to you? Like, in a way you had to sort of, you had to live as long off the show as you were on the show?

Yes and no. So I came to L.A. I was 29. Okay. When I came to L. L.A. in 1989. Then we did get work right away writing on sitcoms. And this is you and your brother? No, my writing partner at the time. I met a writing partner because I hadn't written before a sitcom before. So we wrote a spec script based on something that happened to me in real life, in an odd job in New York. I wrote a book about this called You're Lucky, You're Funny, how life becomes a sitcom. And it's how to take maybe the terrible thing. things that have happened in your life and maybe use them to do something that you would never

have dreamed of do, like maybe making a sitcom, right? Yeah. I had my FACTA family in the back of my head when I met Ray Romano five years after coming to L.A. and working on other sitcoms, he told me about his family and the physical aspects of Raymond, meaning the parents that lived close by, the brother who was older and jealous, the the man caught between being a wife, I mean, between his wife and mother, being a brother, being a son, being a father, all that. We were taking from our lives. Every single thing you saw on Raymond happened to me or to Ray or to one. The writers. If you worked for me, your job was

to go home, get in a fight with your spouse, come back in and tell me about. That was where all the material came from. And that's probably, I would say, why it was successful, because people could relate to it. The biggest compliment we got was you were listening outside our house last night. Yes. We didn't have to listen to your house. We had it in our house. It really did feel that way. I don't know anybody who watched that show and didn't kind of look over their shoulder going like, am I in the Truman Show? What's happening here? But that's a thing. And this is what I didn't realize. I learned it by trial and error working on the pilot script, right? You write a script and you want to put in something that you think may be a funny scene.

So I put in this scene in the pilot of when I gave my parents fruit of the month club. You know what that is, fruit of the month club? Like a delivery of fruit? It was called Harry and Davids. I don't know if that still exists. Yeah, I remember. So I sent my parents, you know, a box of pears. And my mother was upset.

I got your present. I said, that's nice. She goes, but there's so many, this pair. Did you realize it was a box of pears? I said, yeah. But there's so many of them. There's over a dozen pairs. What am I going to do with all these pears?

I said, I think you're supposed to eat them and get myself. I said, well, share them with dad. How many pairs can your father eat? Do me a favor. Please don't send us any more food again. Oops. And I said, well, ma, another box is coming next month. And she said, what, more pairs?

And I said, no, a different box every month. She said, every month. What am I going to do with all this? I said, share with your friends. Which friends? I said, Leon stand by their own fruit. Why did you do this to me? I'm sorry, she said, I can't talk anymore.

There's too much fruit in the house. I put that in the pilot, thinking that people will see this and think Ray's parents are crazy, right? I didn't realize that your parents are crazy too. Maybe not that exact way, but it's really. relatable because they get upset over something that you think was going to be nice. You're right? And so that was the lesson. You write as specifically as you can.

And therein lies the universal. We get letters from Sri Lanka. That's my mother. I don't know your mother in Sri Lanka. I was writing my mother. And now a word from our sponsors who make this show possible. So you moved out to L.A., as you said, with your writing partner at 29. But when you went to New York for college, what happens in that decade?

Odd jobs. Ah, okay. So did you come here for school? No. I came to, so right after graduating college, I move into the city with nothing. That's 1981 now. Ah, I see. I don't have an agent, I don't have any prospects, I go to open calls, what they call

cattle calls, you walk into a room, and there's 300 guys there for maybe a walk-on or like a one-liner if you're lucky. It's not what I expected. I heard it might be rough, but I didn't think it would be that rough. And maybe you're lucky to get one of those once every couple weeks. How are you going to do it? You're one of 40,000 actors in New York going for the same. So I get our jobs.

I worked as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And I worked the graveyard shift at one time. And I was fired because I fell asleep on a 300-year-old bed in an exhibit. Oh, dear. Yes, oh, dear. And I was fired. They don't like you touching the art, let alone sleeping on it. Turns out.

Turns out. And so that was terrible. And then I worked as a bartender. That was terrible. I worked as a temp. I worked for a movie company. That was somewhat more interesting. But then that business went out after three years. And then some friends of mine wrote a show for ourselves to be in. Finally, after seven or eight years of knocking around like, what are we doing? What are we doing? This is terrible. We're not acting number one. We're not having fun. Number two. I actually enjoyed pursuing the happiness, like it says in the Declaration of Independence. We have the freedom to pursue happiness. I love that, being out on my own and at least going after what I liked, right? And I thought I was a grown-up. I had an apartment. I'd share with another guy. We took the A train all the way up

down. It was kind of fun. New York in the 80s. It was dirty and gritty. And, you know, you see it in the movies now. If you look at movies from them, you're like, oh, people live there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and everybody lived on top of everybody. it was so cool. Times Square was not the Disneyland that it is now, right? It was really rough. I'm a little, I mean, listen, maybe there's something I'm missing, but I kind of, I miss old New York.

Because I spent my whole life coming as a kid, you know, and spending time in the summer with my family. Yeah. There was something shifted, like, it really became apparent to me. It was obviously shifting and certain things needed to be cleaned up. Of course, I get it. And now everything kind of feels like a pottery barn. And it looks, you know, Times Square could be Las Vegas.

Yeah. Or any other major metropolitan thing. You don't want things homogenized. Yeah. Just like I said about writing specifically, we want New York to be specific New York. Yes. We want it to go to New York. We don't want it to feel like L.A. or Las Vegas or Atlanta or anywhere else.

We want New York. That's why we go there. What if Paris looked like that? You ever go to another country and you're like, I'll be in Venice and it's the most gorgeous. Oh, my God, I can't believe how beautiful just walking around the canals and the little bridges and everything. You turn the corner, there's a Burger King. Oh, no. No, exactly.

What are you doing? Yeah, get out of here. You're ruining it. Get out of here. Yeah. We don't need that. I didn't come here for that. So what happened in 80s, New York, with this show you guys wrote?

It became a big hit. It became one of the most successful off-broadway shows in history. It was called Tony and Tina's Wedding. Have you heard of that? Wow. It's still being done. Wait, the alarm bells going off in my brain right now. Phil.

Yes. Wow. So I wrote that with my friends from college. I was the original priest in the off-Broadway production. They put a blonde wig on me. And, you know, it didn't end well for anybody. Sometimes things that you do with friends that can get ugly and nasty. That's what happened.

But it was a good lesson. At the same time, a friend of mine named Alan Kirshenbaum, who I knew from high school, he was already working as a writer in Hollywood. And he was a year behind me. but he said, I don't like this sitcom I'm working on. Let's write a screenplay. I said, I don't know how to do that. He said, yeah, but you're funny. We'll write a screenplay together, and we thought of something and we wrote it and we sold it. Wow. Like all of a sudden, all these years are trying to make it as a character actor. Nothing's happening. All of a sudden, off Broadway show,

sold the screenplay. God is telling me. Be a writer. Be a writer. Now, the screenplay was never made, but, you know, at that time I had maybe $200 in the bank, and we sold the screenplayed to HBO for $70,000. I was now a thousand air. A thousand air, honey. I could eat whatever I wanted. Somebody saw me in the play and said, if you come to Hollywood, you will never stop working as an actor. So I packed a bag and I moved to Hollywood, and I never started working as an actor. But I did start working as a writer right away, right away. Wow. My friend and I wrote a spec script, a spec Rosean. What should we write them out?

I said, what if John Goodman, they need extra money so he gets a job at night working as a guard at the museum and he falls asleep on a 300-year-old bed? Incredible. And people around town read that and said, what an imagination. Just pulled from your life. Yes. Wow. And then five years after working on various different terrible sitcoms, I met Ray Romano. And when you guys met, did you have just that instant kind of friend chemistry where you went,

oh, we're going to do this? No, I liked that he was from Queens and I was from Queens. Wow. I liked how he talked. I thought he was funny. I had seen him on David Letterman. And from that one six-minute appearance on David Letterman show, David Letterman said there should be a show for that guy.

So they set about looking for writers to create the show for him. That's how it works. And so I took the meeting. I don't think I was his first choice even. I think he wanted someone from Friends, and I don't blame him because Friends was a big hit. Yeah, but you weren't trying to make New York look like Las Vegas. You were trying to make a city all its own. Thank God you guys wound up with each other.

I think. But thank God. Right? When you look back on that now, thinking about, you know, from your meeting and then beginning to create the show together, it's such a big life. Do you have favorite memories that jump out at you right away when you think about doing the show? He was very wary of the business, of being on TV, of acting even. You know, we now know him as a great actor. Yeah.

He's in Scorsese movies. He made his own movie. He did something called Somewhere in Queens that you should see on Hulu everybody. Yes, please. He wrote, directed, produced, and stars it. I couldn't be proud of him. It's a fantastic movie. But when he was starting, he was very wary, especially of me coming from, you know, having worked on sitcoms.

Yeah. And he didn't want to do a kind of bad sitcom. I didn't blame him. I didn't trust me either. So it was rough at the beginning. As we're trying to feel each other out, we don't even know. we know what the story of the show will be, but we don't know the tone exactly, and you have to find that. And the only way to find that is by doing it. Yeah. Right? You find the tone,

like, I'm sure when you started your show, it wasn't bang, this is the best it's ever going to get. Hopefully, it's good enough to get on, and then it grows in quality. So that's what we think happened. And we had, you know, I think we picked a great cast. And we picked great writers to help us. And that was how. So favorite memories are like the first time we got, maybe it was the third episode that we filmed. The audience that's coming is maybe people from nursing homes and prisons

because they don't know the show yet. So they're literally grabbing warm bodies off the street to come. Please watch our sitcom taping, right? And they don't know the show. it hasn't been on TV yet. There's some thing that they're watching. But we got a laugh, a very big laugh during that third taping that was so big that went beyond. It was a character laugh.

It wasn't just they said a funny word. It was they understood a relationship between husband and wife. And they related. And I looked at the other writers at that moment. I said, we're all going to be millionaires. That's amazing. I didn't really mean it, but I just thought this is that I knew enough that that's the, that is the secret sauce. That's what you need is that relatability.

Yeah. And now we knew what to shoot for. That's so cool. Yeah. And you just kept going. Yeah. And then, you know, when you're recognized if you're up for awards or win awards, those evenings are very special, not just because of the win, but because you're showing. sharing the win with your friends, like best friends, and we're still best friends.

Ray and I, we go on vacation together every year with our families that have grown up. The kid's been little, and now they're getting married. Yeah. That's so special. Is it true that he helped inspire somebody feed Phil? Absolutely. In between season one and two, I asked him where he was going to go on his hiatus. And he said, I go to the Jersey shore.

And I said, that's nice. Have you ever been to Europe? You said, nah. Now, I'd been to Europe since I was, you know, been going since I was 23. I got a free flight to Europe when I was 23, a courier flight. Oh. Yeah, a DHL used to, before they were DHL, they would send their cargo as your excess baggage. So you would be a kid.

All you had to do was bring the luggage tags. And there'd be a guy at the other end, let's say in Zurich with a sign saying, DHS, you give them the luggage tags, you're free to go. They don't pay you, but you get a coach seat on an airline that's going overseas. And you could even have your friend get the flight the day before on that route, meet up, have two weeks, come back, do the same thing on the way back. Amazing. So that was amazing. I don't know if that exists anymore. Maybe if you're a drug courier, maybe. I was going to say probably not with that whole like, did you pack these bags yourself? Right, right. Probably not. So that was that was my way in.

And since then, I was like, oh, I realized right away, 23 years old, first of all, oh, my God, the food. Second of all, this is what your money's for. This is what your excess money is for for travel, not to buy crap that you don't need for these experiences. Have you traveled a lot? I have. I've been really lucky. Similarly to you, I got the bug early. and because, you know, I had the sort of golden handcuffs situation of being on a show from the time that I was 21 to 30.

Wow. I could never really go anywhere for an extended period of time because I was always working. But I started to figure out how to navigate, like, oh, if I have a Friday off, I can go to this city and visit this restaurant. Oh, if I, you know, a couple of seasons into our show being on, I think it was like season five. we all put our foot down and said this Thursday, Friday off for Thanksgiving is impossible. Thanksgiving's not a holiday. It's like you jump into family.

It's crazy. You're cooking. It's stressful. You've got to come back on Sunday. We said, let's just start three days earlier in July. And then we'll do the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday also off. So people get a Saturday to the following Sunday with their families. And you can actually see your family because you know, you're on set 100 hours a week.

And then I was like, my family. I love you. I'm traveling. So I went to Barcelona. I went to Iceland. I would take that week and go somewhere because I'd really never been able to go anywhere before. And it really started to change my life. It does change your life. Yeah. That's the whole message. Yeah. You know, I tell everybody it's very good for you to go because if you're nice, that's what we should be exporting is nice. And what you get back is invaluable. This new perspective. on life that you take with you. And you realize people everywhere are mostly the same.

That's right. We're mostly the same. We mostly just want to take care of our families and have a good meal and have somebody make us laugh. And most people are sweet and great and nice. Yeah. And incredibly nice. Like you can't believe how nice they are a stranger, a visitor, right?

Yeah. Well, and I like that you talk about that philosophy and that experience when you talk about your show. You really, you know, in reading interviews, you speak about how the show is really about human connection. Oh, yeah. I'm just using food and my stupid sense of humor to get you in so that you'll get the real message.

And I think for me, especially, you know, my mom's family being Italian and then I'm this whole mixed bag of like Italian Catholics, Jews, and atheists from Canada and my family. It's like a wild ride. We have a lot of very traditional food, which I love. And culturally, for me, the experiences have always been about breaking bread together. And then, you know, these other cultures I've been lucky enough to study in the places around the world I've been able to travel, you know, whether it's sitting down for traditional food with people in Turkey or, you know, breaking Ramadan with my Muslim friends or whatever, whatever, wherever you come.

from the gathering around a table and walking people through your food and introducing people to where your food comes from and why the dishes are traditional it's like it's just one of my favorite things about being a person is getting to have that experience yes that's great that's everything i got to experience ramadan this season cool how was it workers thousands of them in the street, they laid down tarps on the street. Everybody comes and sits cross-legged on the streets. You hear the call to prayer all around you. It's magical.

So beautiful. That's in Dubai, you'll see. Just gorgeous. And the people are so sweet and friendly and welcoming. It was great. Oh, I can't wait to see it on the show. Anyway, that day when Raymond said, he goes to the Jersey Shore, it said, how about Europe?

You ever been to Europe? He goes, nah. I said, why not? It goes, I'm not really interested in different. So they go to Jersey. I'm like, okay, we're going to do that episode. He goes, what do you mean? I go, we're going to send you over as you, and you're going to come back as me.

And we did that episode. Took four years to get him on a plane. He didn't want to fly. But we did it. A two-parter called Italy, and it came out very well. But the best thing about that is I saw the change. that I wrote in the character, I saw it happen to the person. I saw it happen to Ray Ramon.

I saw, like, he comes running over to me. He goes, Phil, have you had gelato? Incredible. And then that got in deep, you know. I'll bet you're doing what you do because you like turning people onto stuff you like, right? Yeah. That's why we do things. That's my favorite thing.

Paste this. Yeah. Right? My favorite thing is to have an interesting conversation. with someone. And I figured out how to turn it into my job. That's it. And the thing I like about it is that I can kind of do it anywhere, any time, so I can work it around a TV show or a movie. I can, I can meet people where they are. I can meet people on Zoom. It's just this incredible realization that much like sharing a meal, I can just share a conversation with someone.

Well, on my podcast, which you're, I'm inviting you now on. I'll be there anytime. You'll hear both. It's called Naked Lunch. Love it. I love it. And we film it. We tape it right here.

This is my son's old bedroom. And he moved out because he's 20. Because he's an adult. And that's where we do the podcast. We order in lunch and it's fun. Amazing. Yeah. What a dream.

Yeah. And now a word from our sponsors. After Raymond, I thought I'm going to write sitcoms. That's what I'm supposed to do. Nobody wanted them. Business change while in those nine years. Everybody wanted friends. Right.

Well, I can't write friends. It's not my sensibility. I like the show, but it's not me. I write everybody loves Raymond or that kind of family thing that I can. identify with, right? Yeah. They didn't want it. They said, just try to, you know, we like you, but just do something more hip and edgy.

I said, well, you got the right guy. I'm Mr. Hip and Edgey. And I knocked around for years again, like I said, but I had this idea, this dream of doing a food and travel show. And after 10 years of trying to sell it to everyone, I finally walked into PBS. That was the first place that we did the show. It was called I'll Have What Phil's Having. And I sold the show with one line.

This is the line. I'm exactly like Anthony Bourdain if he was afraid of everything. And they understood what the show would be. They got it. They got it. And so I did six episodes there. And those first six episodes did very well. We won the James Beard Award for Best Show.

Yeah. And then we were canceled. I don't know why. I think money had something to do with it. But there came this new place, Netflix. Wow. And now you're going to see March 1st, season seven. Incredible.

Seven years. Yeah. What do you think when you look at these seven? Because, you know, you can look back at these nine years of everybody loves Raymond. And now you're looking back at these seven years of this show. Are there similar moments? moments that just zing out at you as, wow, that was exceptionally cool. There's something in every episode where I never thought I would do it.

And usually it's because my brother forced me to do it. It usually goes something like this. You're going to jump in that cold water. No, I'm not. He says, yes, you are. He said, no, I'm not. He goes, yes, you are. And then I do it.

And I may not enjoy it at the moment, but I'm then glad that I did it. And that baby step out of your comfort zone makes you braver next time. And for a lot of us, just getting off the couch and going somewhere is that baby step out of comfort zone. And that's who the show is for. Yes, the show is for if you enjoyed your trip to Venice, you might enjoy seeing it again, right? But what about a place you've never been? And my attitude is like, if this putts me can go outside, maybe you can too. Yeah.

I'm not Anthony Bourdain. I'm not brave like he was. I'm not an adventurer like he was. I'm just a guy who likes to be comfortable, to be honest, and doesn't like going out of his comfort zone. But that's where all the magic happens. I like that, though. Think about it that way, a step towards bravery.

And it's not lost on me that your brother does for you on your show what you were doing for Ray when you made him go to Italy. Well, yeah. We all need that little push in the tush, right? We just got, let's go. Let's go. Move, go. You can do it.

Yeah. Sometimes it's terrible. Sometimes like in Austin, Texas, he put me in the Formula One Ferrari around the Formula One track. That was the worst thing that ever happened to me. That was, have you ever done that fast in a car? Terrify. You did it? I didn't do a full Formula One.

I did like a stop at a NASCAR thing, which is very similar. How fast did you go? Enough that I felt like my eyeballs were going to come out of the back of my skull. Yes, I went 187 miles an hour. Yeah, that's a lot. It's not pleasant at all. It's very violent. It's not.

And they hit the turns at that speed. And we see it on TV. It goes, goes zoom, zoom around the track. No, it doesn't. They hit the brakes as you would have to going into a turn really hard. And you're going to one side, then the other. and then just back and forward. I'm old man.

It might not be for people like us, Phil. People like us want to eat food, not get beaten up at work. Guess what? I couldn't eat for like three days after that. Because of my was so like a, I went from there, I went to the peptobismol factor. That's a horror show for you. It is, it is terrible. Okay, so Formula One aside.

Yes. Some of the things, perhaps like cold plunging, in hindsight, you're glad you've done. Was it? Because you knew he'd push you. Was it nerve-wracking to partner with your brother on this show? Or is it part of the reason you wanted to do it? The first call I made was to him. Because he'd already been a producer in TV shows.

And I don't know. If you're going to, if you get your dream, like PBS said, we're giving you six on the air, right? Yeah. The first person I called was him. I said, I got this gig. He says, really? They're going to let you go around the world and eat?

What are they going to call this show? The Lucky Bastard? I said, quit your job and come produce the show with me, and we'll call our production company Lucky Bastards. Amazing. Yes. Yes. Amazing.

And now I get to travel the world with my best friend. That's the coolest. I never. No, we'll, he won't hear this. Okay. You have to be team, Phil, not team. Okay. People, I do the live tour when I go and speak, and invariably, somebody will raise their hand and, where's Richard?

And I call security. Wonderful. Throw them out. That's right. Turn their whole world upside down. He has enough. Enough. He's a lucky enough bastard.

That's right. But we do have fun. And we, you know, we all, I share the food with the crew and with him. And it's just, you see it. We understand, me especially, how lucky, how lucky. That's the, I mean, who gets to do this? It's so cool. Where are you guys taking us in season seven?

Season seven, Dubai, I mentioned, right? We also go to Mumbai, India. Have you been there? No, I haven't. I'm dying to go. It's amazing. Absolutely amazing. They call it maximum city because it's everything.

it's if you wanted to see new york in the 70s and this is like times 100 you can't believe it's like the first place i went in the show you'll see it it's like being dropped into the middle of a giant time square hacked with people really hot on new year's eve wow like that that's the feeling okay and with every manner of transportation scooters tuck tucks, buses, cars, taxis, cows in the street. Yeah. Insane. And they're all friendly and nice and great.

Amazing. You can't even believe how this is possible, why there isn't a fistfight about it. There's no traffic lights. Everyone's honking, beeping, beeping, but it's not honk. Get out of my way. You know, jerk. It's, I'm here. I'm here coming in.

Oh, okay. You're, right? Friendly and sweet. You see rich and poor next to each other, you see, but you don't see the kind of things we're seeing in L.A. and New York on the streets. That I did not see in Mumbai, which I expected to see. Yes, there are people living in housing that you can't believe, like 10 shacks on the way from the airport into the city. it's upsetting even but I didn't see the kind of I don't know misery that I see in America and there's something to be taken from that I know there is it kept me from going to Mumbai for a long time how am I going to have my lighthearted food and travel show in such a place with such

poverty. How do you square that? And then I realized, I guess I do what I always try to do, which is try to leave the place a tiny bit better than you found it. So we focus on at least one or two charities per episode so that you see and maybe even get ideas of how you can give or start something here. Yeah. Right? And then you're fun. I love that. I love that you try to remind people that there is always something to do. Yes, always. You know, people will ask me when the world's on fire, how do you also have joy? Especially because I do a lot, I try to do as much as I can, you know, political advocacy and volunteer work and fundraising. And I come back all the time. I've talked about it on this show before. There's a, I don't know if you're a poetry fan,

but there's a poet called Jack Gilbert. Oh, yeah. And he wrote this poem called a brief for the defense. Okay. And the whole thesis of the piece is that there is always suffering somewhere. Right. When there's a group of people laughing in one city, there's a group of people wailing in grief in another. Right.

And this is the way of the world, and it'll break your heart. But what it cannot do is make you abandon delight. Because if you are experiencing delight, you better experience it to the fullness of your being because how dare you not knowing how many people are suffering and that you could be the one suffering next? Like when you have delight, you've got to take it. And if you can turn your delight into a way to channel resources toward others at the same time, what a gift.

Like you can highlight charities on a show about food. What an amazing thing you get to do. And you better enjoy it for as many episodes as you get to do it. Nobody enjoys it more than me. I realize that that's maybe the meaning of life at my old age. This is what I've learned. Say more about that. It's a one-way street, right?

Let's assume for a minute that maybe there's no heaven. Maybe this is all there is. And then if there's heaven, we'll be delightfully surprised. Some of us may be going the other way. let's assume why not live life as if this is all there is because for all we know it may be so do we want to be happy or sad do we want to be joyful or terrible and most people in the world that I meet which makes me more joyful most people are nice yeah you know stuff that we see on the news of course it's depressing and of course I get

upset and angry even and frustrated at the injustices and the terribleness. But we have to realize that it's on the news because it's out of the ordinary. Not everybody's like that. There's not horrible criminals doing terrible things all the time. In fact, most people are nice and get along in the world. I even say this as a generality. Most people are so much better than their governments. Yes.

They, like you said, we do all want the same thing. A happy, healthy life for us and our kids, right? Good schools, good food, clean air and water, right?

We all want that. And that's how most of us live in the world. You've seen it if you travel. You've seen it. And there are ideas to be taken from other countries who seem to have the answers. Have you been to Japan? Yeah.

Once in my teens, I'd really like to go back as an adult. So we go to Kyoto in this season. And Kyoto is one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been in my life. I can't believe how spectacularly beautiful it is. And Monica got to come with me. My wife got to come with me. And it was like a second honeymoon being there. It was the only Japanese city that wasn't bombed during World War II.

And so it has over 2,000 ancient temples and shrines in the city, right, that are like a thousand years old. Yeah. You will love it. And of course, the food. And just their way of their aesthetic, their way of being, you know, my line is that you go to the drugstore and you buy a pack of gum and they wrap it for you as if it's for your hundredth birthday. that's the care and attention to detail and kind of serene beauty that permeates every aspect of of life it seems there and you try to get some of that in your life right well it reminds you much like that idea of what you were sharing a moment ago you can choose to cling to the joy in

every day you can choose to see it every day it is great choice. Yeah. And you know, you can you can wrap a pack of gum if you want to. You can make anything beautiful. That's right. I got to show you one thing. Can you see that? Do you know what that is? Can you see that? What is that? It looks like an apple, but I can tell it's made a paper. Or maybe it's candy. It's something wrapped in cloth. That's a cloth wrapping. Oh, it looks like a green apple to me on the Zoom screen. That's right. It does. Yeah. That is the extra roll of toilet paper. in the hotel, built on a shelf designed just for that purpose. It's so beautiful.

So even that's a present. Wow. Isn't that great? So cool. That's just an idea of how it is in Kyoto. You won't believe. Wow. That's an ice cream cone.

That's an ice cream cone. All of that is edible. Beautiful. Isn't that gorgeous? And the ice cream store is a combination. ice cream store and florist wow so they're selling real flowers and then here's your edible flour ice cream co so beautiful yeah how do you not like transformed by magic like that right yeah so special you see the care and detail and then it's delicious too mm-hmm uh so what did I say

Kyoto Mumbai Dubai have you been a Taipei no best street food in the world oh I got to go A lot of the Chinese food that we have in L.A., especially in the San Gabriel Valley, you can find a lot of Taiwanese. Yeah, incredible food in the valley, yeah. Iceland, you mentioned you had been. We go there. I love it. It's been spectacular. Did you see the northern lights?

I did. I've been a couple of times. You've been a couple of times. Yeah, I loved Iceland so much. I've now been three times. I just think it's magic. Wow. we were there when the volcano was starting to go off.

No. Yeah? Not the giant eruption, but you saw, we saw the fire, we saw stuff. Yeah. It was awesome. Incredible. Isn't it wild when something like that happens and you go, oh, I forgot that we're just these tiny little people on a planet.

Yes, so enjoy every second because you never know when the volcano is going to come up underneath you. There it is. Or an earthquake? Is it, is it that spirit of joy, you think? because it, I mean, it just, it seeps out of you, Phil. It's who you are. Is that something that when you think about ways you want to grab it, harness it, what you want to do with it?

Is that what inspired you to write a children's book with your daughter? As if you're not doing enough cool things, you've written a children's book. Can you walk us through it and tell us what it's about? I mean, friends, you know how I geek out on great children's books. And this one is so special. I need to know how you guys decided to do it this year. What happened? I have a very smart, beautiful daughter named Lily, who's 26 now, and she texts me one day.

She found the text from two years ago. Dad, you should write a children's book about how you eat everything and you had a little girl who wouldn't eat anything. And I said, that's a great idea, Lily. I'll do it with you. And she said, you will? I said, of course. And we wrote it together. And then we found a great illustrator.

And it's called Just Try It, about a dad who eats everything and his little girl who won't eat anything. It's so sweet. Oh, thanks. And we have a little tour coming up where we'll be going to like five cities and doing bookstores and reading to the kids. Yeah, Lily's really looking forward to it. Yeah. Oh, that's so fun. What a cool thing that you get to do that with your daughter.

Every morning, I wake up and feel grateful. I'm sure you've heard this from other people that you've spoken to, that that's really the secret. And I'm sure you feel the same way. I'm grateful that I got up. Look at my dog is on my bed. And next to me is my wife of 34 years. Wow. Life is good.

I have a house. I have a roof over my head. My kids are happy. My son is getting married. My daughter has a nice boyfriend who's a chef. he's a great chef I win again so that's the base level

is gratitude now it doesn't mean that I don't get angry and frustrated and upset about terrible things that happen no of course I'm a person but people say they see me on the show you look so happy yeah I'm happy doing that right why wouldn't I be happy

what it's walk through like well here we go again another place I've got to eat no I'm thrilled to be there. I'm thrilled to see the new place and meet the new people. They're always sweet to me. So I look forward to it. The hardest part of doing my show is waiting to do the show. I love that.

If you love what you do for work, it'll never feel like work in your life, right? Exactly right. Mark Twain said, make your vacation your vocation. And now a word from our wonderful sponsors. That feels like a good segue into my favorite question, Phil, because you've nailed it. You know, from the charitable work you do on the show, and, you know, I even got to read about the incredible work you did hosting rescued recipes, this fundraiser dinner that raised money for Holocaust remembrance, that's such a big, heavy cultural experience. And then you travel the world

and you bring joy into these places and these populations of people and where there is light, there is heaviness. And you highlight both. You highlight joy and culture. You sit down with people who suffer around the world and you make sure you advocate for their causes, for their communities, for their charities, and then you figure out these incredible ways to turn your happiest moments into projects we get to share, like this book that you're doing with your daughter, you remind me that it is possible to do all of it and still carry your lightheartedness in everything that you do. And I wonder when you think about what's next or, how you want to continue on this path as you look into this, you know, opening year of

24, what feels like your work in progress? Because from the outside, it looks like you have a lot of things figured out. So if you think about a work in progress, what are you still working on? What are you still tinkering with? The show has my heart. And because it's not a year-round gig, you know, we can film a season in three months. What do I do the rest of them? Wow. Right. Okay. Because it's usually, you know, five, six episodes, right? And sometimes the order is for 10 episodes. This order that's coming up, season seven, is eight episodes, but one season, right? So that's before it would be 10 episodes, seasons five and six, right? So this is season seven, eight episodes, so it's actually two episodes less, just eight episodes at once.

Okay. Fine. But now I have to wait to see if we're picked up again. You never know, just like you were saying. You were always on the bubble. That's how I live now. Yeah. But what do I do in the meantime?

I do the children's book with Lily. I do the live tour where I go around and get to talk about exactly what we're talking about. This is the message, right? We show a highlight reel. I'm on with a moderator. for a little while, then I'd open it up to audience questions, which is always my favorite part, because I get to meet more great people, right, around the country. And even I've done it in Europe, and I just got back from Australia this fall.

It was lovely. The best thing about the job, and I'll bet you'll agree about what you do, is meeting the people who are so sweet. That makes you feel good about the world when you meet so many nice people. so that's everything to me and that's the project it doesn't mean i don't have other ideas i try to pursue sometimes i'll even have a sitcom idea and i'll write it with a friend of mine or something or a younger person who knows more about the world today and what people want but so far i just i mean i don't have to tell you the business seems crazy right now it's wild out there it's wild out there yes so we can either worry about it or get on a plane maybe

love that. I love that. If you're lucky enough to be able to travel, go. That's it. And kids, kids are like, oh, well, you get to go. You get to go fancy. I'm like, no, no, no. I built my way up to fancy. You know, I've earned the right and I'm at the age where I'm going to lie down on the flight, especially a flight that's, you know, 15, 16 hours. Right. Yeah, you've earned it. But when I was a kid, when I was in my 20s, took the coach seat, the cheapest, even when I wasn't a courier, they had very cheap flights to Europe at that time. They still have bargains like this. You get the cheapest flight you can because the main thing is to get there. And then you're in Paris and you buy a baguette and a piece of cheese and you sit in the park for free.

And for five bucks, you're having the most delicious thing you ever had in your life in the most beautiful place you've ever seen in your. you're as good as anybody. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And you know what? The really special thing you learn when you've lived long enough is that that's still the thing you want to do.

That's right. You might have earned, you know, you might be your age and have earned a better seat on the way over there, whatever, but you still just, I still just want to get the baguette and sit in the park. That's right. Sit on the send. Get a cheap bottle of wine with two friends. hey they have some pretzels there with mustard let's go let's go it's fantastic yeah the rest of it's a

little bit of an illusion but when you get down to what really lights up your soul yeah like we said earlier we're all the same i love the street food i'd rather have a great hot dog than than a four hour french meal where my back hurts thinking about it right i'd rather just have the delicious thing just give me the delicious thing yeah let me walk around and eat the delicious thing and meet new people. Oh, I love it. I can't wait to come over for lunch. Come on. Where are you traveling next? Well, I'm on the East Coast this month, so I'm stopping in at, you know, all my favorite spots to eat. In New York? And, yeah. Have you been to the industry pizza yet? No, I just went to Ruby Rosa last week, which... That's good. Oh, it's so good. And I want to recommend

Mama's Two on the Upper West Side, 106 in Broadway. That's great. way up, okay. And Raza's in Jersey City? Great. Awesome. I'll take your whole list. Okay. People, if you're listening, go to phil Rosenthalworld.com. You have all my picks from the shows. Oh, I love that. Yeah. That'll be a good resource. Friends at home, we'll put that up on our, on our Instagram resources for this episode. So you guys have a nice quick link. Oh, Phil, you're just a ball. Thank you so much for coming on today. I just, I adore you. I knew I would, because all my My friends told me so, but I'm so glad to have finally had a moment with you. Well, Sophia, you do not disappoint, as they say.

You're lovely and great and sweet. Thank you. And we're going to be friends now, and we're going to eat. Can't wait. Thanks for having me. This is an IHeart podcast.