Podcast: The Ride - Murder, She Wrote Mystery Theatre with Adam Sass

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Hauntcast: The Fright begins! Author Adam Sass (Your Lonely Nights are Over) joins us to discuss the Murder, She Wrote Mystery Theatre. For what is more terrifying than the simple art of murder? Holiday Inn Holidome episode up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Tickets for LA live shows (in-person and livestream) available now: https://www.dynastytypewriter.com/events-calendar Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forever Dog Boo! The following Hauntcast contains Child Television Producers Wholesome TV Romance A Deep Conspiracy to Yet Again Make Dad Look Foolish And Names, Names, and Yes, More Names foolish and names names and yes more names adam sass joins us to talk murder she wrote mystery theater on today's hot cast the fright Welcome, foolish mortals, to Hauntcast the Fright,

the hauntcast about scream parks hosted by three good ghouls whose hair is turning gray from fright and also age. I'm Scottlejuice for the seas great and over here, Frightful Gnarlson. Frightful and I'll write them down in case I

introduce some Frightful Gnarlson and to my left Jagged Slash and Drain. What? Slash and Drain? What? Okay, let's... Slash and... I guess Slash and Drain.

Like slashing and you drain the blood. No, no, I get that. It's the, like, I guess, you're taking the D-E-N and turning that into drain. It's the same bookends of letters, I guess. There's stuff floating around. Yeah, the same letters are mostly floating around. I think I like it.

Mm-hmm. I think I like it. Mm-hmm. I think I like it. This is kind of, this was the path I took, too. Thumbs up for our guests. Mine was just, I finally fixed what lasts so many years, I think. I think that, mine is like, I didn't make a new one up. I just corrected the mistakes of the past Hauntcast Frights. You just nudged what had been in the past.

Yeah, well, I felt like, I've been reflecting on our past haunt cast the frights of which there have now been many and in my head every single one of them has like 10 minutes of name discussion this one's no exception now but maybe that we've cleared this up i gave everyone advanced time to come up with their names now we just plow ahead and we're gonna do the names that we love yeah and now we're free yes so future haunt casts uh you know unless you unless you change it a couple episodes in we fuck it all up again well we'll see that is fine that's acceptable uh it is haunt cast the fright season this is kicking it off uh so a lot of fun stuff planned uh we're hitting some haunts and by that i mean mike and mike only're hitting some haunts, and by that I mean Mike, and Mike only is hitting some haunts because he loves

them as established now. But we're not just attending Halloween events, we are also hosting Halloween events. For the first time ever we're doing a live Hauntcast The Fright. We've got two Halloween shows, live and live streaming, or live screaming

thanks to Dynasty Typewriter uh that is friday october 20th i believe tickets available for for both for now but grab them while you can and if you're not in la uh live scream it and we're uh we're i i think it's exciting that we get to dimensionalize this season and you know do our attempt at a haunt. I agree. And I think if you, I think you, from what we're talking about doing, I think you're going to want to be at the Hauntcast shows. I think so.

Yeah, yeah. I'll just say that. Fun stuff cooking up. But before we get there, we are kicking off the month at large with the scariest shit you could ever imagine. An attraction with the word murder in the title. Can you imagine? No. Does that justify putting it in this month, which I've now started to question, should

it have not been in the month because it's just a pleasant attraction about the post-production process? Well, but there's lots of secrets to being covered in Cabot Cove, you know? Should it have not been in the month because it's just a pleasant attraction about the post-production process. Well, but there's lots of secrets to be uncovered in Cabot Cove, you know. Yes. Well, it is a place. Yes, there's a setting that has a lot more horror and intrigue and such. We're talking about the murder she wrote, Mystery Theater. I think that name was nudged here and there there but that's what it is in my head

and joining us to talk about this a longtime listener first time caller uh someone who's very passionate about murder she wrote uh much like jessica fletcher is a novelist and i suspect this is not a coincidence uh and we'll get into it we'll talk about it but the award-winning author of lg lgbtq young adult books for penguin random house including your lonely nights are over it's adam sass hello hello i i'm so yes i am a long time listener this is very like a clifford will rise i'm very much like having an out-of-body experience right now like you made it to dinosaur world for real no for real this is you know I'm having the Martin short face right now where I'm just like petrified like petrified with joy uh yeah this is surrounded by three

Larry the scary rex that's right yeah yeah hopefully not Hopefully not. No. I don't think one. Well, he's our uncle Martin. No, I think, uh, no. And, uh,

no, I think I was approving of slash and drain earlier because it did feel, I was going to say it did feel, I wanted to, I wanted to wait, uh, to be, to be properly introduced as his podcast fashion.

Sure. Uh, but I wanted to comment slash and drain. I feel like is very HH Holmes. It feels very, yesmes it feels very yes it feels very like oh you have a methodical system of like oh you're slashing and drain it like you have like it's like it's not just murder it's like oh you just did it once like no you've got an apparatus it's like sweeney todd sure yeah the boarding houses with the the gas pipes uh going into them the barber shop chair that like dumps you into the

absolutely you know the contraptions you know slash and drain you got a system this felt very correct it's just like cold it's industrial he doesn't even think of it as killing it's just like and you know i do this i slash and drain yeah it was slash and drain you know it's it's a service he provides well last year everyone was going crazy for terror fire too oh yeah i never sat down and watched but i watched the clips of and it is like uh this was the thing with the clown the clown you all yelled at me for not remembering the clown who then we determined was not mentioned when it came up is that that's that one well wait wasn't it like wasn't it maybe said in like a big cacophony of noise or something?

The name, we checked this. I can't remember. There was Marshallgate, and then there was that, like, you don't remember the name of the clown? It was just said, and the name of the clown was not said. Okay.

I don't remember the details. It was another, it was one of those where yelling, yelling, yelling, check the tape. We yell a lot on the show. Scott was right. Yeah, it is my goal as a listener tales it was another it was one of those where yell and yell and yell and check the tape we yell a lot was right yeah it is my goal as a listener to like gain the confidence throughout the show to then like badger you about something you don't remember uh do you if there's if you recall anything from the from the backlog because you are and and thank you and bless you for this you you have you've listened to like it sounds like everything you, you've been a supporter of the show,

which we really appreciate. So that said, yes, if you recall something that I shit out of my mouth one time, that was, that it was incorrect or wrong. We're going to open with the list of grievances. Yes,

this is how we're going to do this. No, I mean, listen, yeah, I was introduced to you through, through the pandemic. And it was, it got me through it.

And this is when I was writing all of these books. And so like this was, you know, as I was writing this, which is a very, contrary to what the show Murder, She Wrote would have you believe, it is a very long involved draining process. Not just church.

Slash and draining. Happily typing. And then, you know, she just said, Murder, She Wrote is a show. We're going to get to get to this but like i do want to pull you all with like your knowledge of the show itself because there's the mystery theater but then we're talking about the show as well because i think that's a little important to understanding the uh the power of what original universal did uh with this with this theater but um anyway no no everybody here got me through like an immense up and downs i had put out my first book in the first year of lockdown which i um uh do uh do not

recommend uh you can help any creativity on top of all that was was tough for yeah anyone i was gonna say like anybody who had to, like, release anything, and then it was, you know, but then it's like people are releasing stuff now and we're in the middle of something now. There's always. There's going to be. Yeah, there's something that's going to fuck up the release of something. But, like, also, writing, I feel like, can be like a, I mean, you tell me,

I feel like it can be like a lonely process, an arduous process. So that on top of pandemic uh seems seems a little crazy it's it like i know we're all like making fun of like parrot that's a parasocial relationship now but i'm like parasocial stuff got me through it like i think like you can have a very healthy parasocial thing as long as you remain in control of it uh at a certain point but i think you do need because like i'm an extroverted person so like it didn't come naturally to me to be like oh just like be in my room and then i'll write everything in my room and then it's the pandemic so i'll release the book virtually in my room

and then i'll just stay in my room and so that's kind of how my first two books went and now i'm at my third one and i am finally getting out and meeting readers for the first time. Oh, sweet. And it's been amazing. I did my first book tour, and it was fantastic, which is something Jessica Fletcher is always doing on Murder, She Wrote. Of course. She was basically solving murders on book tours, essentially. Though that's a lot of the justification for getting her to these different places. There'd be like-

She's doing stops. Yeah, there'd be like a third of the season would be Cabot Cove, her town. And then to shake it up, she'd like... And then the third would be like New York City. She's dealing with some publishing industry stuff. Someone's adapting. Once a season, someone's adapting something.

And then she's dealing with a Hollywood kind of murder. And then there'd be like tour stops or like a niece's wedding. Oh, sure. Yeah. Because otherwise, how do you keep it small town charm, but then don't have like you're not stuck in small town for every... To do how many seasons worth of...

11. Is that right? 12. 12. They did 12 seasons, 264 episodes, and four post-series movies. Wow. 84 to 96 is the run. So many murders.

So many murders, yes. In fact, I'm wearing a shirt. Yeah. Nice. I killed them. I killed them all. That is a popular online joke is that she was actually, she was a slash and drain.

And it was her doing it, which is actually a theory I don't subscribe to. I actually think it's a little bit more metaphysical than that i think she um is sort of uh such an entity and it's such a force for good she was sort of metaphysically drawn to these areas of of immense conflict just before a murder was about to happen and it almost like she you know was i think it was a lot more spiritual than that where she just happened to be in these locations when uh there was so much tension in in the town or so much tension in the place that it happened around her wow yeah so i have a very i've been with the show for a really long time so she's this guardian angel figure she can't stop it necessarily but

it's better that she be she's like there and planted on the ground and ready to go when shit hits the fan exactly her role was usually to clear the name of an innocent person who had been wrongfully blamed by like an incompetent police force so again these the shows are very rewatchable because the show's like running theme is like these police can't do a thing they just are arresting the wrong person on purpose just to wrap this up and so like a lot of this stuff sort of a lot of it really does just hold up to today timely very timely uh yeah so there's a way to there's a there's a there's still a comfort uh to this show uh but yeah this it's it's writing can be a very solitary thing um and so i think you know

and definitely like experiencing uh podcast the ride during this time was was because you know because theme parks were and are like super important to me not just uh disney but just any any of the theme parks i grew up uh right outside of um gurney uh yeah yeah for six flags i'm a six five person as well all right and um universal which obviously i'm going to get into on here with the universal floor original universal orlando florida is my preferred anything like to anything now at all yeah for sure um almost to the point where i'm like i almost almost can't go to the current Orlando because like, I'm just so like, none of it's the same.

Like I'm too. It has roller coasters every like taking over those sound stages. This should be, this should be calmer and drier. I was like, yes. Well, yeah.

So I had the, and I remember there was an episode where y'all brought this up, but there was the VHS tape that John Forsythe hosted oh yeah that we all know and love retail price at the time only about $40 $40 my

parents had no choice but to pay so I was like nine years old I was like no we don't understand so this goes even further back because like the bug first hit me when like in 1989

when Disney MGM opened they like John Ritter hosted a special I don't know if y'all saw this yes yeah they

you know forgive me I get because there was so many special they've made like four specials when that I definitely remember John Ritter running around and being in the the boat where that rocks back and forth

he's getting hit by the wave yeah so like no it was an important special in my house because i just was such a like movie kid at such an early age and this was like and it just made disney mgm jm phillips is like so huge um and so uh and john foresight is in that as well so yes he like crosses in both like he joins the world kind of angela lansbury as well because she was such a universal person but she's also um mrs potts yeah so her voice is playing they're still using the recordings of her because mrs potts is like a big suited. Mrs. Potts is a big lumbering teapot as tall as the beast. It's a strange aspect of all these shows. But yeah, that's true. So you have these sort of like, like John Forsythe and Angela Lansbury really did like kind of cross this boundary between let's say if you went to both parks around 91 or 92

yeah you were like it there wasn't such a war on now you know there was that there was a little reaching across the aisle sure wow you viewed it all as one continuum i did yes so so i was like super into so i was super into this john ritter special which is very i i urge anybody uh at home to watch it because it's all on youtube and it's the most 1989 thing you've ever seen it is like there's this opening act that they do down the main drag leading up to the chinese theater is it one of those where it's like there are 200 ladies with big feathered hats it's like hall 40s hos Hollywood glamour. Yeah, yeah.

Yes, exactly. There was so much kick line stuff. There was like Ann Miller. They got her in a kick line. Yeah. But they're like, it's like Ann Miller and the Pointer Sisters. They were great.

They were very Team Disney. Yeah, yeah. You couldn't force them out of there. Then we got the Golden Girls. They were always pulling those Golden Girls out for GM. But then it got me into the VHS of the John Forsythe thing, which is probably the best way you could view, unless you're finding something I did not,

probably the best way you could view what Murder, She Wrote Mystery Theater actually was. Some of the actual, yeah, yeah. Well, queued up here, you say john forsyth's name three times and he appears here's here's his intro i love the i you know if you can play these for almost every universal og attraction which we're running out it's occurred i know we're almost out of the original stuff i don't we've not done earthquake yeah special effects uh or no we did that oh yeah yeah that might be a next toller that one keeps getting bumped yeah they've named that three different times like that was

the span of the opera then it was gory gruesome grotesque horror makeup show and i've tracked it's so much more famous and popular now i'm sure but yeah yeah but like but not to me yeah yeah you yeah you like the original way but here you know i love handing it off to john forsyth to do the succinct intro of the attraction so we don't have to so let's let him it's murder she wrote and it's post-production time. The most challenging drama of all takes place after the cameras stop rolling. Editing, sound, recording, dubbing, special effects, mixing, they're just some of the elements that finalize each episode of Angela Lansbury's hit series.

No waiting for us on the set. But when we go into the heart of how motion picture history is made, you, the visitor, will be the star. It's great entertainment. Because Universal Studios Florida is lights, camera, action. That could have been said at any point. And then the longest shot of him brought up to a set. They never let an old fart like that do that now.

They never let it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the end of the empire. Especially, I think, yes, absolutely. Both parks, I would say, but especially Universal. I remember looking at brochures in the hotel room when you go, or in the hotel lobby when you went to orlando in the 90s that you'd leaf through that and yeah there's the maybe the centerfold of it is back to the future

the ride with big dinosaur in the center but like they also they take pages to show you all of the the kind of elderly classic actors who made a point of being there who now i can't name but i feel like you know they, they're rounding up. Janet Leigh was there. Sure. They were like, oh, yeah, well, she was, I'm not sure if she was at her,

I know she was at Hollywood when they did something out there. But yeah, there was that type of, like, I think they had, yeah, exactly, all those types. There was Lucy Attribute was a thing you could do. Yes.

And I would say Lucy was not in her prime. I mean, in the sense of popularity obviously she was sure dead at that point it's all such that i when i think about universal florida 90 to 92 i think about like older ladies with kind of like you know like what's not pompadour but like you know just like yeah yeah yeah that kind of hair. It feels like very powder and maybe like maybe wig and maybe dye. And like, it was so much a part and that you go in and it's all Schwab's pharmacy and it's all classic 40s, 50s. Right.

Yeah. Golden Age of Hollywood, you were saying like John Forsythe and Angela Lansbury kind of tied the parks together. But the other thing that would tie them together was golden age of Hollywood. And if you got an, an older actor who had seen the golden age of Hollywood, they were set,

you know, it was amazing. Like you could, I mean, I'm getting them all blurry now. I'm like, I'm like Mickey Rooney was one of them. Um,

but, uh, yeah, yeah. But, but I remember them being like, um, cause that's the other thing was you know you'd have um like even this this video this vhs that was so expensive so neat very stiff very stiff stiff but children love re-watching stuff i did and i like re-watched

it so many times and now i'm like re-watching it and i'm like showing it to my friend because i'm i was like i'm about to be on this you know show we're gonna have to you know catch up on this stuff i'm like john forsyth he's like i'm like oh this was like my guy and then like i put it on and my friends are just like watching him go in 1861 thomas edison for the kinetic scope and i'm like i don't remember this being how it opened and this is you as a child this is who you like yes it's a theme park for children for children but this alleyway was for mom and dad and the grandparents alfred hitchcock at the one end angel lambsberry at the other you know absolutely truly it's it's truly a bygone era and i and i almost want to say like you know like to to anybody at universal who's currently listening to this um no i'm because

like so my mom was visiting six months ago and uh she was like oh we you know she knows she remembers she was like oh you love universal i'm like you did um but uh so she was like oh we'll go to universal and then i was and then i was going through like what they currently got we were universal hollywood it's obviously different and then i realized i'm like well it's just a lot of herky jerky you know uh roller coasters so we end up going to disneyland because i was like there's just not a lot my mom could like do yeah and then we ended up not doing it like because it was like well they can't really do the whole family much now. Because the idea was that you would do Jaws, Back to the Future, King Kong, The Ghostbusters Show.

And then you'd be like, all right, here's old Hitchcock. He's going to, you know, here's Shirley MacLaine. She's going to remember old Hitch. And then you do the movie she wrote. And it took seven minutes. You could sit down in the cool. I just feel like there was and the tour

has probably given you a lot more that you know they're stressing more that like and this is where Music Man or Bye Bye Birdie

was like they're reaching now I think you go at the furthest back anything is there's Psycho because it's just perennial classic

but otherwise it's like Back to the Future is now like a classic film that's as old as they're in the movie they're even mentioning it like I mean they'll mention it because it's like the to the Future is now like a classic film. That's as old as they're going to bring up. They're even mentioning it. Like, I mean, they'll mention it

because it's like the Clock Tower's on the tour, but like, I don't even know if it's on the tour. I haven't done the tour in a while, but. Kind of depends on when it's filming. Basically, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Not a lot right now. Well.

Yeah, now you just, I mean, like, I would like to, if I was a tour guide now, I might just break down and go like, and recently we've been filming. Look, it's all in Atlanta, okay? We got nothing. Nothing happens here, all right? It's all in Atlanta and the actors are on strike. So we're.

Zero is being done. We might be shooting like Hot Bench here or something. Some judge show. But that's about it. We can't take you in there. The voice. The voice. Oh, look, it's the soundstage stage it has the voice set in it here's the voice and it's the voice

for now until we bulldoze it to make more nintendo yeah um but that was kind of the thing where you know you have um you know you'd have these sort of attractions for everybody and i'm not trying to be like well you know don't chase the youth but i think that's kind of one of those things where it's like i don't know what like your grandparent like if your grandparents were gonna like take a kid to a universal park now yeah like i mean maybe they they probably just have to go on all the kids stuff right yeah yeah sure you know walt at the festival but like what could the parents do but that's kind of a little bit of that like I think there was so much of a purge of that well isn't both okay it's not um not to jump ahead but I believe I believe murder this murder

she wrote attraction in Florida and the equivalent which is the like Foley stage and how we make sound effects the version of that in Hollywood, both replaced by Transformers, the ride. So both of the sit-down, process-oriented, these pleasant-for-everybody attractions replaced by one that isn't quite for everybody. Correct. I mean, Mike, what do you think? Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. Thanks for bringing Mike in. isn't quite for everybody correct well i mean why i don't know what mike what you think yeah i know i'm sorry thanks for bringing my well i will say that yes to transformable fuck you up but then it will break your heart yes there we go so in a good way grandparents should endure the potential

physical trauma in order to get to that because if like do you want to weep do you want to and probably like the feelings of your whole life are coming to you in that Optimus Prime. Yeah. I actually made my mom go on this a couple of years ago because I was like, remember you loved the Spider-Man ride when we went on it in 2000. And she's like, I get it. Okay. She did like it.

She remembers that. And she went on and she hated it. She was really upset by it. Did she just hate it because it's worse than Spider-Man? Was that what fed into it? It's inarguably worse than Spider-Man? Was that what fed into it? Possibly. Because it's inarguably worse than Spider-Man? That might have been it. I would be honest if that was why,

but I believe that her tolerance for getting jerked around changed in 20 years. Yeah, probably. Yeah. It's kind of one of my things, and I think you've said this, Mike, on several occasions where I'm like, I'm just trying to stay fit so I can do these rides

as long as I can. It only reason I'm like that's truly like I'm like because I'm seeing myself being like okay um because my husband is like starting to tap out on some things where I'm just doing and I'm like great single rider line like not like sort of keeping the existential dread from my head every time he says something that he's like you know I think it might be done with Space Mountain. I'm like, cool, I'll do a single writer then. That's cool. You just have a churro right here

in this Tomorrowland dump and then I'll just go over here. But you're asserting that you being done with Space Mountain does not make me be done with Space Mountain. This is not a marriage decision. I will probably go through years of secret pain before I admit

I can't do Space Mountain anymore. I think that's good, though. I think that's what I'm going to do, too. I think that's a good, that's like a will to live. That's what I feel like it is. The trade-off is the joy you're robbed of. I would be robbed of that

joy yeah that would well yeah quality of life but then you can appreciate the landscaping and the the place making more this is gonna willingly tap out before he needs to i i i you guys knew i had family visiting and i think my my main tap outs were my brother went on the mummy and I'm like, I don't want to do the mummy out here. The last time I did it when it comes to the dead stop, I got like slammed into the seat. Fair. That's fine. And my dad and brother were like, we're going on the Matterhorn.

I'm like, Godspeed. I couldn't do that at 20. Yeah. I really like. Yeah. Yeah. I think then I was like laughing at like oh my body

sure if I sure enough I met up with them afterwards he was like yeah I don't everyone room full of quitters here

and it's a sad disappointing because like the Matterhorn hurts but it makes you feel alive so you have to go on it sometimes I'm not saying every time

but other things make you feel it's not the only thing that makes you feel alive. It's one of the top ten things that make you feel alive. On this earth. On this planet earth. So did eating a very cold Mickey bar in the plaza restaurant. Because you and I could go pretty hard together for a long day.

And I don't like hearing this from him. I don't like this. I thought it was interesting. It's a hard thing to accept yeah what jason just said i was almost like meant to be followed by like a a big applause or like you won the rap battle like cold mickey bar in the play in the plaza wait for it in the plaza oh probably not tiffany chandeliers but in the style i know people at home are like going i agree yeah absolutely yeah you got some o's yeah september late september heat wave in southern california that air conditioning strong was there it's been pretty cool lately it was hot any day i was besides

maybe the one day but like the day we're at Universe it was so hot it was so crowded it's kind of just a hot it's a hot planet yeah yes all of it and California Adventure like too not the most certain parts

have the most shape but that San Fransokyo man they're still figuring it out that restaurant ordering that That was brutal. Oh, jeez. This is definitely, the future of this podcast is definitely Jason going like, oh, but the heat! I love the heat! I can barely enjoy the bench!

My agony is... Because the next five years of like, at least Disney, is going to be like just restaurant development. So it's going to be a lot of like, at least Disney is going to be like just restaurant development. So it's going to be a lot of like, all right, well, they're going to have to, it's going to be pretty focused on that, which, you know, better than no, I think. There's some restaurants that I'm like, okay, you could add some more there. There's some stuff to balance out. But yeah, you do have to figure out the ordering can get a little chaotic.

Yeah, Tiana's Palace and the San Francisco food were just slammed. But then I'm sure that once that food arrived, once that Instagrammable food arrived, that it was some of the finest food you've ever consumed. Yeah, it was all right. Okay, yeah. Yeah, it was pretty good. Yeah, it was pretty good.

And it's not going to get any better get any better than yeah that's all right because we know how these things are like they're they're they're watching these places for the first month yeah oh yeah start and then we maybe our little ant-man food starts to get a little less manicured a little less detail oriented yeah no so yeah my my husband and i loved uh the pym test kitchen we just noticed we've like gone back, we went back a year later, and we were like, this is not so Pym. Mr. Pym's hands are not all over these items. All normal, yeah.

Too busy fighting crime to focus on his kitchen. Don't open a restaurant if you're not going to be there every day, Pym. It's a vanity project. Jurassic Cafe. I was like, oh, we should go back to Jurassic Cafe. I had a pretty good meal there at the open, like around the time. We've been saying you've been nuts about that one for years.

I have been nuts. Saying the Jurassic Cafe is a good restaurant. Getting rice and beans and mojo pork and a repas. And this time it was the pork, shredded pork dumped on a massive plate of rice and then handed to you. I can't. Dial back. I'm surprised that you're surprised that the Jurassic Cafe is not of top quality. Oh, I don't. It was just so crowded.

Look, serves me right fool me once and again and again shame on me i think as the restaurants sort of like sort of normalize out and you know maybe kind of do so so the snack carts are the ones that like always like deliver for me 10 times oh yeah oh sure i think the the little cosmic eats outside of Guardian's Tower always delivers with the purple custard orb thing. I always get that. Oh, I haven't heard of that. That's a dessert thing? It's a dessert thing.

It's that little cart. It's a little trolley just outside the tower. I'm getting the name wrong. Cosmic orb. It's something like that. It's okay. It's like a cream puff, a giant cream puff. Giant cream puff, and inside is really, really, really cold purple custard.

Was that all shade from Mike? You didn't know? That's okay. Oh, no, I said that's okay. You don't know the name. Oh, okay. I thought that was inserting. I'm on here being like, damn it, a year ago I would have known.

Stupid, stupid. No, no, no. So, yes, I'm sure people out there are yelling the name of the thing. Nobody's had these orbs? I have not had the orb. No. I had the orb once. Yeah, it's pretty good.

I'd say, like, yeah, if you're in Avengers Campus, I would say, like, the shawarma and the orbs, like, just delivered 10 times better. The shawarma's good, yeah. Are they keeping up with the shawarma? I haven't had it recently, but the last time I had it was good. Yeah, I've only had it. And then, of course, Ronto Wrap's still good. Yeah.

I think that's another, like, kind of short order thing. Yeah. Like, they do one thing. Yes. That's it. And they just pow, pow, pow, it was good. Yeah, I've only had two. And then, of course, Ronto Wrap's still good. Yeah. I think that's another kind of short order thing. Yeah. Where they do one thing. Yes. That's it. And they just pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. Yeah. They got to really limit.

It's got to be like original McDonald's as portrayed in The Founder. Yeah. We do burgers and we do fries. Right. Let's not get too much more complicated. No gumbo at Ronto's Roasters. No, please don't. Here we go.

No matter what space gumbo name they come up with that does sound good yeah but it belongs in the hangar or whatever seven not the other one um let's okay back to murder she wrote a little bit forsyth's introduction let you know that this is they're putting a couple things together it's a kind of it's a making of murder, She Wrote experience, but this is also the attraction in original Florida that is representing the post-production process. So the rooms are editing fully and then sound mixing, which sounds... Oh, ADR is more the thing.

Yes, because I was going to say, that sounds very, very dry, but what that actually becomes is now people from the audience have to live do lines of these actors over the dial. And, you know, they're going to fumble that. It's going to be silly. And it's a gag every time. I'm telling you, like, I'm watching these and I found some other like just very poorly camcorder shot stuff.

And even then the comedy just bled through the screen to me. I went through this traction twice. I was like nine. My family did this to me. I don't know what it is with Illinois and driving to Orlando. We did. Aurora, Illinois to

Orlando was the thing to do. I don't know what we were saving. How many hours are you talking? From Schaumburg it's like 20 or 22 hours yeah anybody where are we stopping if we're stopping we stopped at like tennessee georgia we were always like i remember we always stopped at like once i started seeing i remember getting excited to see waffle houses and then whenever we hit the waffle house i was like we're close we're close right right get me out of this car so like we were not just like so it was like me my brother my parents um my brother was littler and so like but we drove like

with my aunt as well like so she it was a really like they feel like they just don't do family vacations like this anyway hopefully people fly but um yeah there i remember like specifically we went down then i just saw my aunt on the book tour and i was telling her that I was going to be talking about the Murder, She Wrote show. Oh, wow. And she was like, oh, my God, I can't believe it. So this was this long ago. So she came down with us, and, like, we were literally, like, so young and little that, like, in the car, this was, like, an old station wagon. Like, she was in the backseat, and, like, my brother and I were, were like in the wheel wells of the car basically like sleeping like we were like something curled up

like a cat down there and i remember being like so like hilarious at the time but now i'm just like that didn't need to happen um didn't need to happen uh but then uh yeah but then as soon as we hit uh universal orlando which i had been like you know psyching myself up for because i had like back to the future i'm a super back to the future guy my dog's name is marty um and uh that is like i remember just being so keyed up by the time we got in there and i didn't know i didn't i didn't watch murder she wrote really like i had seen like a few episodes with like my grandma i didn't really it didn't really pop out but i known angela lansbury from bedknobs and broomsticks um i don't know i think at the time yeah beauty the beast was out um oh sure yeah just just those that's huge for kids she's

she's a legend at that time already oh my god yeah and so like like and so i did it like twice like i think we went two days in a row and my parents were both just like, oh, great, well, we did that. I don't know if we need to go a second time the second day. And I was like, oh no, we must go again. I didn't really learn the process of this. Yeah, take notes about the post-production. I did, I did.

Yeah, and a longer show, a 25 minute show, I feel like theme park shows, they try to keep on the shorter side nowadays it was so i i so i when i was catching up on this i caught up on this and the mgm studio sort of analog which was at the time monster sound show um with martin short and they did all three like at the same time and i remember like i remember the video that like they were rushing they were doing like nine minutes so you're not because you aren't you aren't moving it's all in that's all in one theater as opposed to this where you get what

you get like a mini show in one exactly and you move you move all the way down to the end of the row all the way to filling every and you do it again uh which like i feel like just just the having to move spices it up and give some energy to the end that you like that one host isn't sweating it for the full 25 they just got to be solid for 10 yeah these were three actors a day who got to do like a real meal. Yeah. Orlando improv actors are eating at this. This is one of the top gigs I would think at the time. Here to maybe introduce it a little further I got one more.

You're right that it's hard to find really good quality of this thing where you're dealing with a lot of camcorder but you're helped out by the John Forsyth video and you're also helped out by the 1990 Universal Studios Florida electronic press kit, which gives you full-frame footage of the show, but also of a little bit of Angela Lansbury introducing it herself here, and she explains some of the premise.

You know, I am so delighted that you've agreed to help out and become our executive producer you know it takes more than 200 people to make a single episode of murder she wrote and of course the executive producer is responsible for absolutely everything which that statement is it is it is either totally true or the executive producer literally never goes to the set or is part of one meeting. Some of the worst scumbags in Southern California. Or that or just like the celebrity who they needed to sell. They needed their name on it to sell the show and then they would not begin to have the time to participate. Either it's already on Larry Sanders is doing it's all

on his back or they don't ever show up at all I'm so happy you played that I've been I literally was like my whole body just was like yeah I was like so rocking out but like it is because it is like it's perfect that like we're executive producers us the tourists in the audience

because for some EPs you might as well be like just some tourists from aurora illinois like for as much as involved as yes yeah yeah like oh thank you you're you know and it's uh sounds good like that's why i came back like on the second day i was like i was like no angela requested me i'm her executive producer i need to check in make sure the show's still going okay maybe the new person maybe the new people aren't as like effective as I was nine years old

at producing this show yeah yeah you had him on a tight leash and it really is funny that like the Transformers stage is in there because it gives me the same rush as like Optimus Prime because she's like I'm so delighted you're going to be my executive producer and I'm like I will executive produce this show anytime.

Thank you so much. I had such a great time. Whatever you need, Andrew. Are you comfortable? Is everything? I can't believe we had to do a satellite uplink again. I was like, thank you so much for beaming in again. Yeah, I'm telling you, there's something to this realm,

this epicenter of Universal Orlando, where it's like the good vibes are there. Like the sort of affirming, the self-determination is there. Your bravery has saved the show. Well done, executive producers. Yes, exactly that. Yes, it filled me with that much love and watery-eyed joy. And that is why I dragged everybody back again to learn Foley again and PBR again.

Your family is still like, that's something called Foley, invented by Jack Foley. They're like, oh my God, are there rides here? Yeah, my brother is just like, Jaws, Jaws, Jaws, he said we're going to do Jaws. And I was like, yeah, but like, you know, I'm just going to check earlier in the day. Make sure she's okay.

Make sure she's got everything she needs. Nice fruit basket in the dressing room. Everything that's to your liking. Do we like bananas? Are we off bananas right now, Ange? We're seeing that like old school universal wait times chalkboard just get higher and higher with wait times

on Back to the Future and Jaws. You emerge from the second helping the show that just merged you out and like i was like no it's that's first yeah oh it's right there when you walk in may as well start the day there you know this is a cycle with my brother that would repeat because like they would like from like as time went on i would like leave him at some place that was sort ofappropriate and cool, and then I would go do some mature woman thing. I remember vividly going to the theater. My mom was like, take your brother to go see D3, The Mighty Ducks.

And I was like, sure. And I left him there, and I went across the theater, and I saw The First Wives Club. And I had a great time yeah and she was mad that i would leave him there but um yeah let me bring up something not to veer away from florida but while we're talking murder she wrote in the universal theme park world something that would have brought together your and your brother's interests uh on the universal tram tour which i did uh jaws as mentioned and murder she wrote live together because you do the jaws experience you're in uh new england what's called amity island at the top of it and then you're veering your way out of there, and you're still in the little pleasant New England vibe.

And as a tour guide, I've now played my clip about – because you've got a long path out of there. You've really got to fill it, and they give you the clips to fill it. So one is about how the shark – the shark is not working. I repeat, the shark is not working. You get Shider and Dreyfus. What's that? Serotonin hit just now.

Oh, good, good, good. I'm glad I gave you one. Yeah, I'm there. Richard Dreyfus impersonating an intercom. But then is the part where you get to say, but, you know, some less scary stuff happened around here because this same location was the town of Cabot Cove on Murder, She Wrote. And that was a part that I looked forward to doing as a tour guide because, like, you've done your scary stuff.

You've heard your John Williams Jaws score. And then so maybe the audience is a little, like, freaked out or they're just, like, energized, amped up. And then you get to give them a little pleasant hit of that piano theme and I feel like my tone would go right into for the series Murder She Wrote starring Angela like I get to like get calm as they get calm and it wouldn't make anyone

laugh that's not a laugh moment that Jaws and Murder She Wrote are the same area but it but like calm smiles from everybody in that trend i really liked watching the wave of people like oh murders well that's nice that's nice and one of the top five tv show theme songs made like the murder she wrote song is pretty untouchable it's a banger i don't skip it i never skip i never skip it very calm song to call a banger, but yeah, sure.

Bangers can be calming. What's everyone's top five real quick? Greatest American Hero. Oh, gosh. Oh, God. I don't know if I'm going to do all five, but I'm going to do all five. Say your definitive list now. I'm going Cheers is number one, I think.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Star Trek The Next Generation is number two. Yeah, that's pretty good. Taxi two Taxi Taxi's a pretty good theme I'm a Twin Peaks person so it would be the Twin Peaks theme that's really good

there's a show nobody knows called Gimme a Break with Nell Carter and that had two theme songs the first one's kind of inessential but the second one is done by Jay Graydon my favorite studio musician Steely Dan Guy look up the song greatest song so the second one is done by jay graydon my favorite studio musician steely dan guy look up the song greatest song so so the second give me a break song every other sitcom in the 1980s was called give me a break at some point every network every network so this is give

me a break abc okay i want to give me give me a break cbs yeah um. I had a lot of respect for Murder, She Wrote as a kid because I knew that was my grandparents' favorite. That and Matlock. Yeah, yeah. And I like the theme song, and I would kind of half watch these shows. What's that? Saying you have respect for it is a funny way to put it.

I respect elders like this. It is like a I respect my elders kind of show. Yeah. The show radiates with the goodness that's you know that's like not and it's not this like oh the way things were sort of reaganite like fake goodness where you're like oh yes it's evil underneath but like there's like an actual like it holds up she she holds a fairly open-minded views on everything like there's not like a lot of like yeah she helps everyone everybody yeah i uh so i i watched i was gonna watch the pilot and then

jump ahead like five or six years because i think that's a decent way to see like how tv shows kind of change and stuff then i found out the pilots uh part it's a two-parter. Oh, yeah. So I watched the second episode, and I was really enjoying it until the very, and the conclusion of the two-part pilot is insane. The solution. It's the one with the pool lights. Yes, the pool lights and the plot of the Count of Monte Cristo comes into play heavily.

It's like she, and she makes a lot of deductive, like it's a lot of jump to conclusions where it's like, you put that to get like, like someone references the Count of Monte Cristo to the killer. And who's like a friend of hers, which would be a recurring theme

where it'd be like, she'd have to, because Murder, She Wrote would end like one of two ways. It would always be like a freeze frame and it would be like a freeze frame on her just laughing like, and then they'd freeze and then they play the and it would be again huge serotonin hit but then like a third of the time it would be a sort of a grim ending where she'd

have to arrest you know she would have to aid in the arrest of of a beloved person or it'd be like a very unfortunate situation and then it would just be her sort of shaking her head solemnly and would freeze on that and there'd be sort of a long sting yeah yeah and then the then the end credits but in yeah this one is similar where she like she nabs the guy because like he has a background that's sort of kind of maticris to it yeah yeah and and but then it does have a freeze frame on the train. On the AM track.

She makes like Adam West Batman deductions sometimes. Where she draws just an insane conclusion that's absolutely correct. And you're like, wait a minute. And gets there and like, you just care about both of them so much. You're just like, yes, sure.

She's a genius. It it also it was reminding me watching it now it shares a lot with colombo in that the star of the show is acting circles around everyone else doing the like yes well i work at the office you know like i'm doing kind of stiff TV acting. Oh, but Columbo's full of fucking killer actors. Well, yeah, yeah. So is Murder, she wrote. Correct. Murder and Jason Crowe and these guys.

No, no. Well, like Columbo has like John Cassavetes shows up. Robert, I guess I was going to say Robert. Jason, does Tom Bosley not mean anything to you? Well, Bosley's not in the earlier episodes. He's in a sheriff. Bosley's not. It takes, it's so funny. Bosley's not in the earlier episodes. He's in a sheriff. Bosley's not. It takes, it's so funny.

Ned Beattie is in the pilot. He's great. It's funny because like Murder, She Wrote is one of those, like I talk about Murder, She Wrote the way a lot of people talk about shows now where I'm like, just hang on till episode 11. It's great. Because the first 10 are just like rough and then they find their way. But I would say once you hit season two, that show just hits.

Like season two and three hit. Everything is a hit. Okay. And like it is this hit. So there's these sort of tiers where like obviously Angela Lansbury is just doing the circles. Then you have like a lot of just like haven for bit parts. But then you've also got a lot of, like in Columbo, where there's, like, a lot of,

all the guest star names are either young folks on their way up or, like, old folks kind of on their way, like, sort of out of retirement. Oh, sure, sure, yeah. And you'll get, like, there's, like, one episode in season two called Menace Anyone

that is a young Bryan Cranston and a young Linda Hamilton. And it's like the mashups are insane. There's my favorite episode of all time. It's a season two one called Jessica Behind Bars. I've tweeted about this show kind of once a year

because I'm just begging people to assist. You can watch it on its own. It's a bottle episode where she does a writing course at a women's prison. And then someone is murdered at the prison and they go into lockdown and then like literally like the prisoners like riot and take over the prison whoa and she has to solve the murder before like the national guard comes in and wipes everyone out because they firebomb the place like then the like tonight on murder she wrote of this episode is 30 seconds of the, it's more exciting than Die Hard.

Where you're like, what? And it's like, you're screaming at people and people are screaming at her. And the guest stars in it, it's like Adrienne Barbeau, Yvonne DiCarlo. And you've got, oh my gosh, Vera Miles from Psycho.

Wow. And like, just name after name um eve plum jan brady yeah um wow and she's like but she's rocking she's a prisoner she's like yeah i'm a prisoner the audience is a whole pooting and hollering at yvonne de carlo is like playing like this sort of like crooked chef like she's like the chef who's been like skimming and like like the meals are like cruel and unusual because she's been like selling off the menu to like better people and she's kind of like wrapped into it and she's kind of like crabby lunch lady she's like yeah what are you gonna do about it like

i don't think i've ever seen a non-monsters performance from yvonne de carlo yeah i want And she's kind of like crabby lunch lady. She's like, yeah, what are you going to do about it? Like, it's great. I don't think I've ever seen a non-Monsters performance from Yvonne DiCarlo. That's the thing. You want to see Yvonne DiCarlo like outside of Monsters. Wow. Wow. She's freaking it. I might not recognize her.

Yeah, Jessica Behind Bars, season two. But like, so you'll have these, like these casts that are just so, so great. And then actually speaking of that, we're as we're recording this hopefully they are currently somewhere in town uh negotiating uh sag after the sex yeah yeah hopefully soon this is something that was that has kind of come to light a little bit more lately uh something that angela lansbury basically did for she basically used murder she wrote as a way to ensure um sort of aging or ailing actors and actresses to continue their sag benefits um like so you see actors that you're like oh i found the chiro like or whatever like show up in one episode like because back then

you do one episode of a big hit network show right that would be enough to like extend your health benefits that would be enough to like keep Right. That would be enough to like extend your health benefits. That would be enough to like keep your house. That would be enough to like kind of keep you around. And it kind of became this open secret that like if you sort of were in the business and you kind of been around and you were in trouble, find get word to Angela and she'd get you just five lines on murder she were and so she kind of used this as a way to shuttle many many many um older actors and actresses who had not worked in years decades maybe i'm like welling up a little it was amazing yeah that is beautiful it was beautiful no so so something she actively did and i think this became a little bit more known um after her

passing um and which was just this last year she hung up for such a long time she was an amazing person uh but no the drew carrie of her time truly honestly she was doing drew carrie level stuff where she like again but in kind of a similar like no no thanks needed like she just kind of wanted like she just had this immense power within the show and she was like great we'll get um you know so and so to be in this thing you know and then there'd be like kind of more up and coming younger folks like there it would be a mix of like um this hot young star um jessica walter who was like the victim the killer and a suspect across like she played like i love this about old shows like this where like they would just come back and they'd a new

character oh yeah robert colt a lot of colombo yes was in so many colors robert called like i just finished watching it because i had been such a murder she wrote person and i was like all right we'll give colombo a shot and i got like so obsessed and then i was like robert cope again amazing different guy different guy and that happens um you see that on the law and orders a lot with new york actors or broadway actors where they're like it was a victim one season a murderer the next a lawyer the following season beautiful and it's like hey they got health insurance, you know? So, I mean, that's the thing. So, like, so as, like, so what she would usually kind of do for some of her closer friends was they would be regular townspeople in Cabot Cove.

So you'd be in, like, three or four episodes a season. Towards the end, seasons 8 through 12, she leaves Cabot Cove. And she moves to New York City. And you can tell they start doing like the declining ratings let's change the music up thing so they do like they hit that like early 90s saxophone every time they do like a a scene change like they do this sort of saxophone like jazzy sexy sax version of the theme and you're like and it's very jazzy uh they watch night sea it's very it's a little you're starting to get to that they start to get a little shaky but in that time that's when like

she had she kept a lot of folks you could tell and there's a and there's a few actors who you can tell like have maybe maybe serious ailments i think one actress had like um survived a stroke and but there is like a character who like is sort of like, she runs a shop in town and she has like maybe two, every time they do a Cabot Cove episode, there's like, she has three lines and they see her for, and like she goes out of her way to just say hello to her at a shop.

And that's it. And that's all she does. And then got her like insured for like the rest of her days. And so it was an amazing thing. So this this is this is an attraction starring a hero a true hero a hero and more so than optimus prime even maybe well let's not get fucking crazy here i put it to you i put it to him he might be getting optimus prime might be getting health insurance for the other transformers yeah we don't know about that they're unionized yeah yeah the other jers. Yeah, we don't know about that. They're unionized. Yeah, yeah.

Jessica Fletcher could find the AllSpark if it was Miss A. Sure. She potentially could. And this is, it's funny, back to the attraction here. There is, I don't know how much you're able to like see through the thing, but there is a sort of a what's it that they have to get in this uh there's the black pearl i have to admit it's a little confusing from camcorder yes but there yeah i mean this is a question i had for you in general is like the if knowing the show so well

um how do you think how well do you think they pulled off a mini mystery that has to work in this theme park show setting they had like great because they had like two and a half minutes of like time not an hour so what they did so they had like so like from what i can remember the plot of this is there's um they're looking for the black pearl which is wild because when pirates of the caribbean the movie came out i was such a like fan of this ride they were like it's called the curse of the black pearl i was like well i can't do that because the black pearl is part of murder she which has been gone for like a decade and i was like well like i don't know like how do they like do they make a deal with

like universal because like that's pretty famous famous, Black Pearl, from that show. It's a major IP. Not even the people I was with on the trip remember. So every time I see the Pirates of the Caribbean or I see it flip through on Disney+, I'm always just like, Black Pearl. It's stolen.

It's stolen. It's stolen MacGuffin. But yeah, it's... She goes into this creaky haunted house, which seemed to be like the thing both this and Monster Shannon Show did, where they were like, person enters a spooky sort of manor, and they kind of bump into creaky things.

Because we got a lot of opportunity. What this really is setting up is doing all of the foley. And you could do the foley but you know for a scene that's her talking to the shop owner but then you wouldn't have uh like the the box that you tumble with all the junk in it or the howling wind or so actually that she bumps into a suit of armor yeah so you yeah they clearly need to set up a scenario where all the Foley gadgets get to come out. Yeah, there's like a Zoltar fortune teller machine. In the house?

Yeah, in the house. And they're never interacted with. It's funny because then she goes in and then there's people that she's clearly already interacted with. Because we're sort of arriving at that moment that's in the last final minutes of every episode where she's been around she kind of knows what everybody's situation is there's this um this sort of uh you know this beautiful alluring woman leilani um and they're all kind of on the hunt for this black pearl and someone has been murdered and the black pearl has been stolen and then there's this like nasty dr ashbrook or something i think his name is um

and then uh uh and then there's like the local sheriff uh character so it's pretty true to life and then it ends with um with like a big guest star gag uh in the form of mr tom selick which it doesn't show up in the John Forsythe thing. Okay, yes. Now explain this to me because it was a little hard to parse. The full context, there is some joke made,

and we'll talk about the hosts, the editors and all these characters, but earlier in the thing, there is a joke about what if we could put Tom Selleck in it? Because Tom Selleck being the go-to for hunk at this time it seems to be the context but then i honestly in watching the camcorder version couldn't tell when selleck shows up is that footage for another thing or did they shot custom tom selleck footage for this wow to my understanding like i it's not from an episode

wow um so why does he show up well in the editing sequence the editor is showing like here we have a shot of jessica reaction reacting and there could be it's it changes based on what she's looking at so it cuts to a young couple making out. Yeah, a kiss. A gun. Or a gun. This is a very film school kind of, like your little editing 101. They will do that demonstration of change the significance

of the shot by what they're looking at. So that's a good little genuine filmmaking moment. Yeah, communicating ideas with visual impressions it's it's uh yeah by the time i got to film school and they were like it's called the kuleshov effect i was like i understand it's from the murder she wrote show into the mystery theater i was the executive producer i had a little film experience i'm a little above this i have been an executive producer already um but one of those things is or you could get to tom selleck and they kind of swoon over so it's a callback at the very end of this show it's supposed to be just like a gag it's not previously it's not it's only it's just like oh we could do tom selleck and then

she's interrupted by like you got to go to the next sound stage so you don't see the shots you're kind of just think like oh she's making a tom selleck reference and then by the time you get to the end and you see everything pieced together when tom selleck shows up it's like oh they really got him wow wow i um and what what does he do why is he there is he a character is he uh because she's in a okay you're saying this is the end i'm sorry i'm asking basic plot questions but boy is the footage not great i feel like this is i feel like this was so lost in the uh burning of the library of alex footage not great i feel like this is i feel like this was so lost in the uh burning of the library of alexandria but like this is like i'm like the one surviving person who recalls this right yes who was a child who went and because other kids

were there of your age then but maybe it didn't like your brother it didn't land but it landed you remember this i'm. I was in it. I absorbed it. I chose to let all of this information in. I am the keeper of the information. Yeah. There are not copy, in the way that you can watch the whole Hitchcock show,

you can see the wandering around of the post-show area. For real. But so this, but it's, so you're in a, she's, it's essentially cutting straight to the end of an episode she's in a creaky as she solves the mystery but then it's these characters established but then sell like why what is he so in a regular murder she wrote episode we kind of mentioned before like how sometimes there's like this little epilogue where she just then goes to meet her friend and it's you know freeze frame laugh and that's kind of what this is, which is like she solved the mystery

and she's like, all right, I'm expected somewhere. And then she goes to dinner and then you meet up with Tom Selleck who did show up on the show because she did a crossover two-parter with Magnum P.I. Oh, I love crossovers. Which Jessica Walter was on it. Wow, wow.

So there's a Magnum P.I. where she's in it and then there's a Murder, She Wrote where he's on it. Wow. So this was, so there's a Magnum PI where she's in it and then there's a Murder, She Wrote where he's in it. Oh, so the universes have tied together.

This makes sense. I had to like hunt down Magnum PI to like understand the first half of this episode. Oh yeah. I was like,

I had a good time with it but I was like, I'm not, it's not, he's not one of my guys so like I was like a little bit like, okay, well, let's just get to the first stuff while we're talking plot the black pearl thing

is ultimately solved in this pretty silly way where there she's after the black pearl and then the black pearl is discovered inside a baseball that she peels apart like an orange yeah yeah and then everyone's like oh my god it's the black pearl and she goes is it and then she drops it it shatters oh and it's a fake out fake black pearl okay and whoever the real killer is has the real pearl on them oh okay they have they from the farthest reaches of my memory they did not set up like why it was important that we then have a fake because they never there's no preceding stuff like there's no setup for like what's the black pearl also it's just a big black pearl yeah it's a gem it's just something that somebody wants it's not like the proof that somebody did something.

No, no, no. It's like a Maltese falcon. It's like a little just thing that dreams are made of. Yeah, it's a MacGuffin. And it's like, which I feel like that also is one of the most famous. Like throw it on the ground and it shatters and you know it's fake. Yeah. So they also did that because they needed another,

the real reason they did it because they needed another thing to Foley and they needed something else to happen for the ADR moment to happen later because all the characters sort of react to it. Oh, yeah, yeah. Shattering. And it's very upsetting to a lot of people. Sure, sure, sure.

Okay, so also just functional stuff in the show. Let's just room by room it a little bit. Yes. Editing. Editing. Editing is stretched. You get the little demonstration of what reaction shots could do. You also get this kind of odd, really specific of its time that they didn't put the powder on the shoes, so we can use our digital paint machine.

And you're like, what could this possibly have been? What proto-CGI? It's like MSP, probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's something very similar. What you get, what unites all of the stages, I would say, is that they all, the actors in all of them, make the choice that post-production people

are all kind of bitter and kind of Brooklyn. Yeah, working class Brooklyn people. This feels like the origin of the Universal Studios New Yorker, which is like the very famous The Street Folk. Yeah, they're all kind of doing this. Come on. Like there's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of, they're doing the thing which is like they need you to hurry up. up get in like you know so there's not a lot of sweet stuff

they're kind of like hurry up get in it's also something that like a lot of performers can do quite easily it's not an it's not a uh you can kind of just kind of usher folks not say like some like thin sleeve like you're from uh finland like what's a really specific dialect it's not very specific and it allows someone to make a choice it's nice and broad and i think the thing that was kind of cool for you know me who was like kind of like i had done disney so much and then i did the sort of step up into universal which is sort of like you go from being a kid to being a pre-teen and when you're a pre-teen and that's kind of what Universal sort of is is this sort of like okay you've aged up a little bit from Disney and you're going to get these

rides that are a little more intense you're going to get sort of humor that's a little more ooh oh wow he said that they acknowledge violence they acknowledge romance if not sex it's a little bawdier it's a little bawdier

little like Jessica Fletcherica fletcher big body she's a bit so so jessica fletcher throughout the show so when we meet her in the pilot she's lost her husband this is like this widow who was a school teacher and then she just um she wrote this book and then her nephew, her grown nephew like reads it and then like submits it to a publisher without asking her and they're like

I think it's fabulous, why don't you come down to New York City and she's like always in over her, she's like oh I didn't want anyone to read that so she's got this sort of like throughout, she has many suitors throughout the run of the show uh some regular some one-offs uh but she never goes further than like a little sort of dalliance a little like sort of

anytime they get close enough she's just like oh i just wouldn't be right to frank's memory like like it's a little they were very clear about where it would kind of begin and end. Always refuses to drink. She was very teetotaling, but not in a judgmental way. Well, that's what you want. Yeah, yeah. It's not because you shouldn't either. She was just like, oh, you have whatever. You have your third martini.

I will have a little sherry. That's like 60s Batman. He orders the orange juice. Oh, that's right. He is judgy, though, because in the movie there's that part like... Oh, yeah, they may be drinkers, Robin, but they are also human beings. They are people, too. Well, but, you know, hey, I love that.

I love that. Yeah, yeah, of course. They all are very... Everybody's also very frizzy hair and very big glasses, like what'll read to the back row as kind of like somebody in a nerdier profession is maybe what they're convinced. Somebody who's in dark rooms a lot.

So everybody, they all look like MTV's Kennedy a little bit. I was saying, I think because this was happening literally across the street from Ghostbusters, the show, everyone here is doing either Rick Moranis or Annie Potts. Yeah, that's right. They're doing a Janine Malnus or they're doing a Louis Tully. Wow. In visual form, probably.

And I guess there are a little New Yorkers there, too. But there's some neuroses. They seem stressed. Uh-huh. but there's some neuroses. They seem stressed. That the show isn't, they need you, young nine-year-old Adam Sass, to produce the show. They're a little,

this is irregular, but they need you. You know, it's not so uncommon, I mean, to portray all, I'm an editor to some extent, and to portray all post people as malcontent uh you know like it's constantly stressed and peeved and like but it is there is kind of a truth to

that like as the last step of the process that everything gets like piled on and like you know let's start we're running out of money and you gotta do it quick and fast now and like so you know good and gotta pull long hours and it's a frenzied nature to it yeah yeah so they aren't wrong about that and feeling like underappreciated uh maybe even more so at that time because editing was so clunky big old machine oh yeah like slow and and you had to do a lot of stuff uh live like i mean there was i mean i think at the end they make a reference to like okay we're gonna do a live mix which i don't understand well i mean that is some universal nonsense i think because that's also it's the same format as the harry and

the henderson's thing which we talked about years ago on here but that the construct that like we're shipping this out to the network, but the sound dropped out. So we just have to, so the actors have to go on. It becomes Saturday Night Live for a second while you, like it is all happening. But only like one scene, only one act,

like in what world is that specific technical problem happening? They eventually cut that specific because there were too many precocious 10-year-olds in the crowd going like, how would a digimated tape do that? Explain exactly how that audio track goes away. But the video's fine. How would it only be the video and not the audio? Why wouldn't you just stop airing the show entirely?

Why do we have Angela's dialogue, but we don't have this other character's dialogue? It's's two tracks it's two tracks i guess yeah they mixed everybody else on the right but that doesn't seem wise i think you got a center at all um i mean but god bless it it's then becomes a perfect way yes to get like you know bad mom and dad actors to like miss their cues slightly um did you guys ever do a version of this i bet we talked about this in special effects stages but it was a long time ago i don't remember um the like were you volunteered for that specific for i think kids could only do foley i don't think kids are doing them the voice parts but my brother and I were perpetually like

big brave kids not scared of nothing except when it was like hey why don't you be on superstar TV or how about you join in and then I was like I will disappear into this couch right like I'm gonna raise my hand down don't call on me

I don't have hands as far as you're concerned I was driving here and I was Like, I'm going to raise my hand down. Don't call on me. I don't have hands as far as you're concerned. To this day, I was driving to this, like, I was driving here and I was like, I was getting literally like the anxiety of like Superstar TV where I was like, I'm just going to have to like go do this fake Gilligan's Islands episode. I'm just going to get in there and I'm part of the show. That's how this feels being on podcast. And then there's a blank part where it's pre-recorded, Mike, Scott, and Jason, and then I say something.

Right, exactly. And when I leave, you're like, here's your home VHS tape. Yeah, we give you a copy. We're going to tell you at the end, this is not for public release. We did this just for you. This will not be an episode. I swear to God, I would be fine with that. I would be like, I don't want other people to hear it.

Sucks for everybody but like this was just for me yes you know what's interesting is i feel completely the same way i still have kind of a divide like i've lost nerves in that i can do this podcast i've been in a bunch of sketches and stuff and there's nothing that stresses me out about that but anything that resembles broadcast action that like right still and there's less of that in the world now but like the level of i got to be in several conan sketches in front of the audience and that is like fuck me you're fucking like yeah like like if you have one line it is scary it is so much scarier than this talking for hours like any construct of broadcast which i felt doing these shows were like a little red light's gonna come on again

they're saying it's so fast and you're like wait but where and what if it doesn't and what and like right everybody i'm gonna fuck it up and everyone will the whole show will come to a stop and everyone will point and laugh at me it's's just different. Any things with this feel. There's also a slight addition to that that's a little, the nuance to this that also is more my fear because I've gotten up, I've done book tours, I've done,

it's just me speaking. I'm doing like TED Talks on this book. And I've, again, like I've done a bunch of stuff that I should not be nervous about. I think the, specifically the theme park, who wants to to be who would like to be here it's the act of you have to raise your hand everyone's gonna see you raise your hand and if you if they pick that

that person to the that other person then you have to like do that slow lowering of your hand and like oh you didn't get picked there's something to that there's something like i threw my hat in the ring you put yourself out there put myself out there which again nine was not doing uh in life i was only brave at the theme parts not in my school or in my life um but uh i don't i think y'all three can relate. Yes. Selective bravery. Selective bravery. I'm like, okay. I'm like, so I'm only brave here.

And I was like, but there is an element of that where it's like you're putting yourself out there. You're throwing your hat in the ring. And it's like you weren't. And then everyone saw. It's the everyone saw. Everyone saw. Everyone knows. But then that's all.

Of course, that's all made up. Nobody saw. But you feel like everybody saw. Exactly. that's all, of course, that's all made up. Nobody saw, but you feel like everybody saw. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But hey, to that end, if you came to the Vegas Groove Blender and I didn't pick you to come spin the wheel of God, and if that's how you felt, if you felt like everybody saw, and you were like, I don't, look, it was random.

So now I feel like this is probably three people who I hope feel better now. Yeah. Blue32 saw you, but we didn't. He knows. He saw you put up the signal. Yeah, look at you. You didn't get picked. Oh, no.

Oh, what a big disappointment for you. You're all alone, just farting root beer. There is this sort of like little great kazoo that sort of lives on our shoulders that's like, well, that didn't go well. You tried and you thought. You thought you could do something, Demi. Guess you're invisible. Maybe they didn't see you at all.

They saw you and they rejected you. You were not worth their time. No, thank you. Nice try, dum-dum. Next time, why don't you do us a favor and just keep your hand down. Don't go anywhere. Don't go in public anymore. Yeah, I know.

That's absolutely all psychologically there in this kind of thing. But then, so they don't know what they're setting people up for, the stress they're causing children. And I feel like I have less to say about Foley foley is like we've seen these foley shows you turn the cranks and you bat the big sheet with the the wind i feel like i'm maybe the most interested in stage three in this adr zone yep uh and i i maybe am saying that because the video that I watched that's on YouTube, I am 90% sure that the person at that stage is Paula Pell. It is. Which you mentioned when we were just DMing that this was an early role for Paula Pell, a great longtime SNL writer, star later of girls five girls five but also the she did a quibi

which was a murder she wrote oh right maple maple maple maple worth maybe um so that's interesting that that like and i and i found that when she was doing press for that show and they're asking why murder she wrote what's the murder she wrote well one of my but pre-snl i worked at the murder she wrote show and like lived this whole murder she wrote experience yeah yeah i think she was on like seth meyers or she was talking about like um that she got the call to audition for snl like from like from the green room of murder she wrote She was like in the middle of doing like, now, right, why don't you get in here? We need to go right here, okay, you, you, you,

over here, over here, you, you, you. And then like- She's good at it. And she was, there is a, it has to be her in this video, cause we did see it. We were trying to find clips and not, again, this is no shade on the other performers

who did that, but like there was something about what she was doing. A, first of all, she wasn't doing a Brooklyn, like she wasn't doing this sort of. Oh, yeah. Everybody else was sort of doing like an impression of the Simpsons impression of John Travolta. They were all kind of doing, well, why don't you come over here? Like there's a little Tony Danza in there. Like it's a lot of things yeah at once but hers was like kind of just she's doing a paula

pell thing yeah like she's just confidently being like she's doing like frenzied all right everybody in okay uh but you can tell it's lived in she's comfortable in her own skin she's it's just her speaking she's got that level of like mundanity just like regular person she like she's very good which already she was polishing as the because i think she was in orlando um just doing like what is all the orlando stuff i think she was on the adventure club adventures club like whatever she was part of that show but she would also be like the mom in sketches for mmc and all that so she's already like she's done what she does on tv you know before snl even well she's doing like she's i mean she's putting in the yards on on on so much yeah probably just like completely

second nature so by the time you do get to the snl stage you've got that sort of like again doing it must be like it must have been almost frankly almost nothing to get up in front of like lauren michaels and have this like kind of flat like reaction that he sometimes does with folks when like however many damn times a day she's like looking at like just half bored orlando tourists who maybe are just trying to get out of the sun some are sleeping they don't know murder she wrote they don't care how a show gets people from other countries who don't know the show so they're just like blank staring at what this is yeah like just like my fussy brother who's just like jaws is happening right

now they got like and just he was just like when is this over 25 minutes Lauren was a dream probably Lauren was a dream looking me in the eye she's just doing it yeah I'm sure she's I mean working like that kind of crowd that must just be the like the coldest crowd

on earth yeah like it just must be like you know it must vary you probably like got a great crowd there's a lot of great you know people love stuff there's they have really good planned laugh lines especially with the stuff but um that's gotta be touch and go there's gotta be certain ones that i mean from my tour guide experience there's definitely that we're just like there's not one today nobody's giving me anything so you you encounter, it's a couple of things. It's like, at least in that job,

it's tough audiences. So it steals you up against that. But also you kind of, I was so nervous, shy, never done anything performance was when I got that job. So it also was helpful for me to go, Oh, some audiences are nothing.

Sometimes they just aren't paying attention. And my every little tick or even they don't notice tiny fuck ups that I would typically be in my head about for days after. It was kind of a nice like, you don't need to care so much about like, they are not that engaged. So you can let shit slide a little bit. That's a cool thing about a theme park job. And doing the same thing over and over again, you develop a level of precision, I feel like. Sure.

Or she did. Look, I was sloppy on many occasions, but she, I feel like, gained some precision. I think I just, like, preciseness of speaking or, like, confidence of movement or so. Well, I definitely had it on the, like, the town of Cabot Cove on Murder, She Wrote. Exactly.

Certain parts, I'm like, ooh, I love doing the little, like, the one way you say that. Yeah, you can just really, like, nail that part. Ironically, Jane and I ran into, we're at Universe Hollywood and ran into an old co-worker of hers who was doing the New Yorker couple. And I wasn't made,

I think the one thing about doing is like, oh, you are casting this because you keep it up. Like she had full conversations with us. Oh, she was in character, Daniel Day-Lewis style? Like Daniel Day-Lewis style? Like Daniel Day-Lewis style. She was like, how are you?

How are you doing? Did you get roasted? Did she say, look at this house, guys. What are you wearing there on your head? They were talking about the building was under some construction so they were sitting at tables outside. But I

think being able to sustain it for both time and then like eight shows a day for like something like this endurance is huge i remember um early on when i was like like i was like a kid and i was like gonna audition for some like local theater thing and like a big thing and it was like i think it was like wizard of oz or something there was some musical thing um and it was like the it was my earliest memory of rejection um and it was um but it was like a big part of it was like they just had like every kid in it was like 100 200 kids it felt like the whole theater was just filled with kids and it wasn't i thought it was going to be like oh we'll do we'll do parts we'll do parts of the show all they had you do was sing happy birthday over and over again and you just didn't stop and it was like what they were doing was testing can this kid sit down and like keep it together

and then keep their endurance and their energy up for like an ungodly amount of time without fidgeting without getting bored without letting their energy fall um probably very abusive tactics i don't know yeah that sounds like that was a big part of it was like yeah like testing like like how is your energy can you keep that energy ball up in the air uh for that long uh and yeah do uh i i was like i was like annoyed so i like i sang it like twice and i was like i sung it twice i sung it i stopped like and i was like i was like part of the first wave cut and i was like what are you talking about wow i did the full pearl i'm a star meltdown but i you know i am i was adding up that like uh paula pell killing it in this show at this time in the same distance like not even the the buildings like next to each other you've also got

wayne brady ghostbusters you've got cheryl hines in hitchcock show orlando actors in early universe like and those are big those are like gigantic comedy careers that came out of and then you got it's not the same thing but over at uh you know Nickelodeon you got uh you got Keenan you got young Keenan starting an endless career and uh there was some I think there was some just general comedy actor mojo happening at early universal orlando they were letting folks play there i think they were letting folks kind of go and i think they were trying stuff out in that first few years um there needs to be like more of like the mythologizing of the orlando scene and i'm not even really joking i'm joking a little bit but like there needs to be like tom Shale's book of oral histories

of just Orlando theme park scene of people who made it pretty big coming out of there. Oh, Dee Bradley Baker from Legends of the End didn't tell what we talked about no longer. That's a huge career

that was just around there. Yeah. Probably ones where maybe also maybe people who are quieter about their maybe more embarrassed by their Orlando theme. Yeah, everybody should. Because I hear it.

And then I I light up like knowing this about Paula Pell. But if anyone listening to this has a connection to Paula Pell, she'd be a dream guest. Let me put that into the world. But given all that experience. But yeah, I don't know. It was. You're right. It was a scene.

Maybe that's maybe you should try to or we all could try to pitch that as a like an HBO miniseries that should be two episodes but is stretched out to nine episodes yeah sure yeah the typical format these days

yeah so hopefully but what have we missed in terms of beats of this? Well. Any big moments that you enjoyed? So they did the full, like, so, like, during the ADR section, to wrap that up, they did, so the big laugh line they would always do, because you've got these, because they have to, you have to replace the dialogue for these sort of elegant this elegant couple you've

got like ash brook and leilani um and you've got this sort of just like tuxedoed and gowned and everybody's sort of fancy and then they always picked the most like like mom shirt like like just wearing the night shirt as a day shirt like kind of just tourist fanny pack like and it was always funny because you know you've got just like elegance on the screen and then you've got this sort of like you betcha fargo accent and it was great every time and like it was always like that mean it was always like the leilani would i remember like both times the leilani would like be great and like hit the mark and hit the and hit the the dialogue beats correctly um uh but it

would just be the voice was so funny but then the ashbrook the guy was always just like seven seconds late like he was always just like and they'd play it again and that would be funny because he'd like you know then when they did the replay at the end you'd have the character sort of mouth moving and then just as he's finished speaking you'd go it's a lie like you'd have you character sort of mouth moving and then just as he's finished speaking you'd go it's a lie like you'd have you think they cute him late you think they like that's being yeah maybe that's a design too we talk about humiliating dad is the big laugh always in these shows yeah you gotta humiliate him up to fail yep it was um and i was i could probably attest to that because i went both two days in a row when i went the dude was late almost to the second yeah every time where i was like and i to a point where

like i and at the time i was of course not thinking galaxy brain like this but i was imagine if i was i was like they did this on purpose they're trying to see they're doing this on like i would how far would i correct come? Correct the case. My thinking was that advanced at that point. But no, that was one of my reality break as Star Wars Galactic Star Cruiser has come up a lot recently

as it was closing. I think one of my things that it would have been harder to break reality is like, these people don't spend 48 hours on the ship like we do.

They have to stop at Target for a few things on the way home. Oh, yeah. Well, I am like sleeping in the cabin. That's just two in your head. It's two in my head. They've left. They got off the ship. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. They don't live here. Disney didn't build them a little cot. I have to stop at gas, and I'll probably just run in the Little Caesars next door. I really don't feel like cooking tonight. Well, that's kind of, I'm so glad you all brought this up

on the Taron Killam episode I just listened to, where it was like we were talking about during the Kiss Goodnight Sleeping in the Castle thing, where it was like, where does the butler, I don't know what that situation is yeah like he's got to be somewhere you want to be able to leave or there's two butlers and one is a night shift one is the i don't know i'm still fascinated by that i feel like i need a resolution on that yeah yeah we got to find somebody who's actually stayed in the

the dream suite seemed like that was like tyron got a brief tour but who has done and if there are other people who've stayed overnight in the dream suite who aren't like kings or queens or who aren't like the captains of industry who we've been striking oh sure are there yes well are there good people dick van dyke was up there yesterday at disneyland waving to everybody in the park yeah i think yeah think two days ago. In the dream suite? That's where he was. I believe so, over Pirates. Didn't they flip one of those to an elegant dining room?

Perhaps. I don't know what's up there anymore. I'm not saying he was staying there, but he was up on that balcony area. So perhaps it was. The Club 33 balcony area waving at people. So maybe it was just that then. Maybe it was just the Club 33. Still. Love that he's. Pretty good. Yeah. 97. Still waving. So maybe it was just that then. Maybe it was just the Club 33. Still, love that he's-

Pretty good. Yeah. 97, still waving. I was going to say, get out. Let's bring back Diagnosis Murder. Oh, yeah. Speaking of these show, these pleasant older person. He was on a worse one.

He was on- Truly. Wait, no, no, no. Because don't, when you're making that list, don't throw out Cosby Mysteries. How fair. Something I just remembered. I literally this

week remembered there was the cosby mystery that was so short-lived or yeah that didn't make it for years yeah oh so you know cosby's fucking so mad yeah like i'm i'm the this is the only one that doesn't run for over a decade and he was the more current star obviously he had had a huge hit pretty recently and had that other one just cosby soon after yeah well it was funny because And he was the more current star, obviously. He had had a huge hit. Pretty recently. Or it had. Went and had that other one, just Cosby soon after. Yeah. Well, it was funny because you've got Angela Lansbury and Dick Van Dyke, both of whom had like pivoted from, you know, it's not, I feel like Cosby was pivoting from a sitcom to like

murder. Right. But then like Dick Van Dyke was, you know, Dick Van Dykeke who is a killer on one of the Columbo's and I was oh it's I've seen that one it's a very sinister he's got like a beard and it's it's again it's again very it's like with I

hate how lizard brain I am about this where I'm like no you're not bad I can't yeah to my body like seeing Angela Lansbury in Manchurian Candidate I was like no you're not bad I can't accept that into my body like seeing Angela Lansbury in Manchurian Candidate I was like I don't um yeah I don't think you do maybe I don't

watch this at any time she's so evil in that she is so evil in that so evil and so good and yet just bugs you yeah but I've seen it like I've seen it like once and i was like okay but like i don't want i don't like i don't need to like i can't like i can't just like always be

seeing this but do you accept her in sweeney todd in the original because that's that's a whimsy yeah yeah yeah plus like we got our guy uh who is sweeney todd to her mrs levitt who is Sweeney Todd to her Mrs. Leavitt who is a regular love interest in Murder, She Wrote he shows up and once a season he is I think he's like an Irish like secret agent

I want to say like he's with like MI Six and I don't know like but then he's Irish so I don't know James Bond then he's irish so i don't know i i know yeah james bond

is scottish right he's an mi6 yeah that's right that's right so uh yeah i think he's like an mi6 agent he's always like once a season uh she'd get wrapped up into some international intrigue thanks to him uh michael hagerty was his name and uh and and they had the that's the closest she ever came to having like a torrid affair um and like that's one where i could convince myself we're like whenever they cut away they were like together right because like it was always like out of town was far from they were out of the united states um they were always at like some vacation spot internationally um and it was usually like he was getting her involved in like the russians every time like it was just like some russian attache

was like defecting and then he was murdered and like she was still the only one who could solve it it was very funny now do we in in the torrid area, they don't show it because it's a theme park show, but do we think she and Tom Selleck hooked up? So, it feels very date night because he's there and he's got, like, this, again, they're wearing incongruous outfits because he's wearing Magnum P.I.'s sort of, like, open shirt, the hairy chest, sort sort of the Tom Selleck kind of look is he supposed to be Magnum is that subtly implied is it just a shot from Magnum you know what honestly I need to look at it because like it doesn't reappear anywhere else and there is

slightly different I remember it being like so wild that I can't remember like my like best friend from high school's name but like i can remember like the lighting on the murder she wrote tom selleck shot was like slightly different not it was not quite matching the lighting on angela's face so it could have been they pulled it from a magnum episode but i don't know why they would do that and not just reshoot it but

well because he may be getting him this time maybe they just found something that correlated maybe decently. Who knows? The mysteries of post-production. He'd still have to get paid and get signed off. Yeah, but then he doesn't have to go drive to a place and be in one camera set up. I think they were both

universal television. If I remember the wall of DVDs of the Backlot tour, on the lot itself, Murder, She Wrote was next to Magnum P.I. Yeah, I think that's right. I'm going to solve my own mystery here and say I think that was pre-recorded Tom Selleck.

Because there is no two-shot of them. They are using my executive producer editing remembrances. There's her talking, and's a it's a they just keep cutting back and forth between the two of them talking and it's slightly dimmer yeah it's a psych gag it's a glorified psych gag yeah the magic of editing magic of editing uh and they had in the adr section they had uh uh the crowd could get involved so i don't know if this they didn't shoot they didn't show this part in the um in the uh whole cam in the in the john forsyth video but like they did show it um you can hear it if you see the like when she walks into dinner with oh there's a bunch of like

clap trap like the audience all makes a bunch of noise so they're like they had us do walla walla they're like okay yes and the crowd does a walla walla walla so we're gonna record a walla walla walla walla and you all say walla and it just turned into screaming i was gonna say the video is like what's happening why is this restaurant where are these restaurant patrons all shouting about you if you all saw that because i was like out of context it has to be like what's what's wrong with this audio it sounds like the the prisoners in the pit and dark knight rises doing that shit yes she's gonna make the the the faith jump yeah she's wandered into a restaurant where the like demons from hell are feasting and she's in evening wear yes something's amiss in this restaurant that's

nothing but demons eating here razor box has been opened yeah i hear the steak our pop is good here so yeah so you recorded a walla walla walla and then you were thinking you were creating a nice sort of dinner sort of uh sort of conversational tone uh and then you hear it, and you're just like, this stinks. We overdid it. We didn't do good. We overdid it. So the second time you went, you're like, okay,

and you try to, like, the next, the people all around you, like, take it down a notch, take it down a couple notches. Yes, unfortunately, my authority was undermined by my height.

Your EP level of control. Oh, you know, also, I think think when in that palo pal version when tom selleck appears then she like melts to the floor so happy is she to see tom says she just she falls out of her chair at the mere sight of tom selleck and who wouldn't yes fine acting big theme park feint. Plays to the back row. Also, you mentioned this in the DMs. I forgot.

In the list of great performers at that time in Orlando, Moe. Yeah, right. Moe from Guts. I remember him. Did this job, to which you remembered from our episode, and I forgot. But this is one of the things she was doing. Wait, maybe concurrently with being on guts like she's on guts but they you know they block shoot them so she also still keeps the

theme i think what like mo exposed at least to me and maybe to y'all during that episode was like oh there's just like it was not like nickelodeon was not this like well you can just retire off of this yes that's right yeah i know because i was like oh well you're just like set you know you worked on your mo yes right so you're just like yeah you know you're currently living in brentwood off of your guts money how it should be that should be the world and my great voiceover career but still like she should have that should have been a choice to keep doing it she should have wrapped it up in 96 if she had to

she's like recording with Mike O'Malley and just racing across Mrs. Doubtfire like to the murder she wrote gotta catch my

the 530 show gotta put my big Janine glasses on and go like hey oh my god what's going on over here like stopping at a hot dog cart

for a quick lunch yes and becoming Janine you like that part well I like that part but the hurrying the hurrying is not as good yeah not as good as the hurrying

whatever the Mel's Mel's whatever is there between the two what's on the way the stomachache burger yes the famous well it's a great little condensed murder she wrote it's a great vehicle for performers

uh um you know true movie making process the thing that they've lost a little bit this goes away and becomes hercules and xena it's funny i don't want to throw an episode under the bus but i remember we brought up this mo one how great was she she was so great so that's when i think of about nice pandemic episodes. Yeah, that's high on the list. Then I think about when the period of time where we're like, we're going to be back together in person soon. What the fuck can we burn off that sucks where we aren't doing it in person? Is Hercules and Xena?

Maybe Hercules and Xena. We can jam that out on Zoom. That's one of like two that I did participate in. I was excited for that. I was in Hercules and Xena. You had the bravery. I had the one that I did participate in. I was excited for that. Oh, you were in Hercules and Xena. I was in Hercules and Xena. You had the bravery. I had the, one time I had the bravery to do a reaction shot, like wearing like.

Amazing. Oh, that's right. See, I'm telling you, I forgot because the pandemic episodes, I started blacking out. I was so desperate for them to be done. We should do like an office ladies about our pandemic episodes where we do reactions to the episode i would like to subscribe yeah and that will give you perspective on what we were thinking behind the scenes and then like if we were proud of it and proud of each other and i'll say remember this was the day we had to do this under the guy under the shadow if that was when uh trump blew

off all the bombs around the church and so and then we had to pull it together that's right so that we could talk about uh you know uh the what's the most mundane thing the the photo booth where you could film music videos with your mom yeah we had to you you remember what a tough time in america this was i think it's a great idea um and most of it'll be like i'll litigate how much laughter i got for jokes that i said like i'll be like well that was a good one and you guys didn't laugh enough it would have worked in person that was the technology was just lagging another way if it had been in prison big left right also because like you know if y'all are

anything like me um that sort of first at least that first year um like i i have started like in in like wandavision style sort of stitching that year out of my memory oh i don't believe like i've completely like because i moved i moved to north carolina and then i like came back and i'm back in the place where i was in like 2018 2019 so my brain continues to believe it's 2018. Yeah, no, me too. And so I'm just like, I have this sort of like vertigo where I'm like, it's not 2018.

Like I get this. I say last year about 2019 or 2018 constantly still. I did it two days ago. We went here last year and I really meant before the pandemic. It's really wild how there is sort of, and it timed out this way, there is sort of lost thanos snap five years a hundred percent it's horrifying

yeah and it's like okay well you know i would yeah revisit some episodes because you probably don't remember them no i don't remember most of them you're probably just like oh yeah like i struggled to think of one we actually did. Especially, like, there was a minute where, like, it was fun. It was like a fun little summer camp. We all get to stay. We got to stay indoors. Sure, yeah. And it's actually interesting.

We're doing an episode over Zoom. That's not what. And then by month 14. Uh-huh. Fucking goddamn. You know, the only one I remember going, that was good, was McGruff 2 on Patreon. That was good. I remember going, I think McGruff 2 was good.

I forgot we did that on Patreon. I think your- I mean, on Zoom, rather. Yeah, Patreon, yes, but- Your Patreons during that time were very good. I will say, they were all very good, but I would say the Patreons were really singing because I think it's best during these times when people get a little delirious. Sure, yeah.

And so that's sort of in the sort of second gate. That's when everybody kind of, you get a little silly. Punchy, yeah. You become a little, you're not really sticking to, you don't have to. Sure. Stick to. We're going mad. Listeners are going mad.

We're all, let's just all go mad together. It was a little validating in that way. Okay, well that's nice to hear. It's all tangents and it's about this topic that's it's not this like oh this beloved thing it's like a really wild never thought about that thing well it was I remember early on saying

fuck it we're doing Kevin Spacey now's the day it's a fuck it time and this is happening when the question marks popped up I was like whatever could this be excuse me? what is this from the theme park podcast for who uh for the devil himself god uh yeah

sitting in my bedroom and on the small tv having uh rented a digital copy of beyond the sea and that opening where he's like i'm like al joel's to mom up like oh i don't know this is so odd i can't go anywhere yeah that was your that was mine yeah this yeah this i feel partly responsible for this because i did sort of right before the kevin Spacey stuff came out, like I did feel, I did say something, you know, to a friend. I was like, you know, God, I wish, I just wish more like celebrities was like,

you know, who were closeted, which is like come out. And then like the monkey's paw finger curls. Like this you mean? I was like, I have an announcement to make. I'm gay. I'm like, we're like not now. Now I have a smoke bomb to throw i mean an apology to

make it really was like okay i know i know everyone's coming out story is is unique and different usually there aren't um suspicious murder circling it's very uh it's very interesting and then like a few short years later like you know um you know so i am i am a young adult author of lgbtq stories and we are part of the rise of book bands and i'm part of all the don't say gay and all the groomer talk so there's a lot of that so it's very delightful that like a few short years earlier he sort of set the stage for like yes let's just sort of sort of mix the word cloud in people's minds of like coming out and allegations oh yes that's great and underage

yeah yeah just aren't really that up together not really paying attention they just go i remember him coming out like some yeah he did something he did something yeah no matter how many trials overturn things for him you're like you're not going to forgive this man for yeah there's that he still he still did something that he can't take back that is uh awful bodily enough no yeah yeah wow that's actually that's actually fascinating here yeah that's a very good point uh um uh but to fictional murders any anything we want to say before we wrap this up it goes away hercules and Xena for a brief time, and that gets bulldozed pretty quick,

becomes Transformers the ride, becomes the home of the greatest moment in the Berks and Cersei and his mates. Of course, yeah. And I don't mean to pit you guys against each other, but this is like, you know, one gets very different types of theme park entertainment in the same spot.

And I know you miss one. I don't know. Can we all still be friends? Well, I think so. I would just say I was really trying to figure out what would be in a meeting in the middle here. Well, like, because, you know, this is such a classic early universal we talk about. Making the movies was such the theme, and that was very interesting to kids, some kids, not every kid, but some kids.

The best ones. Us, yes. We did like that stuff. But I was trying to think, there's definitely a better Murder, She Wrote ride experience than this. There has to be. So I was trying to figure out what's going to meeting.

Maybe it wouldn't still be here today but if they had built a ride what do we think that could have been because i think i think there's there's a case to be made that they still could do this because we've been seeing on uh screamscape lately they've been talking about doing these pop-up sort of old attractions and i'm like well it's going gonna cost so much money to do a pop-up jaws sure how little would it cost to do a pop-up murder she wrote you would have i know you'd have gay guys all around the block like you for sure would like again you'd have like just tons of people i feel like there's like that like the the fan base of the show has maintained

so i feel like you could do like a pleasant maze sure yeah with a little uh you could do some some scares because yeah like there's sort of old trickery happening there but yeah i feel like you can get her in her i feel like if you had enough like uh street performers in the classic trench with the flashlight which is they kind of have her kind of in a lot. Does she not kind of bike around town? That's in the opening, right? So we got maybe bike ride vehicles is the way to go. Okay, yeah, yeah. Maybe it's not.

Maybe you keep that open air. Maybe you build a little outdoor or take over here in Hollywood. You could just have that be in actual Cabot Cove. Sure, yeah. I would absolutely. If you did, if you took over the cabin cove area because it's really right now they do the shark jaws yeah you do the shark but then i think but then the shark is sort of like foreground all the cabin cove stuff is background you got enough room you could have

people like you could have it would interfere with it exactly because people would completely separate yeah uh and then you have the the tram folks going chart keeps attacking you know they don't that sound doesn't have to travel and you can have these sort of um frankly you could do uh like an immersive uh wizarding world type where you're just sure habit cove right and just you know we're all you know theme parks are going we're not doing rides anymore we're doing themed restaurants and pubs and those sorts of things. True. Fish houses.

Fish houses. Lobster houses. Do sort of like all those sort of like, you know, sort of down east Maine, you know, sort of stuff. A vibe you don't see in theme parks.

There's not a lot of that. Like, here's the Maine zone. Right. Sure. Little Maine. Get that sort of like, what's the main yeah right sure sort of like um what's that like the columbia harbor house type like food yeah where you're like oh yeah you go in there and it's all just like nautical and woodsy and you could kind of do that and then some walk around jessica fletcher's or kind of interact with you like listen have you seen

uh i'm looking for i'm looking for you know i'm looking for the sheriff. I have some information. You could do like a Nazi's Ghost Town Alive or something immersive like that, where if you want to participate, you can sort of run around town all day and help her solve things. But if you just want to eat lobster rolls. But if you just want to eat a lobster roll, great. They'll give you a necklace.

They'll give you a necklace who you don't want to engage with. Jessica Fletcher. It lights up. necklace they'll give you a necklace who you don't want to engage with jessica fletch it lights up like uh fogo to chow thing where you like flip it to red if you just don't yes yeah yeah keep walking yeah leave the mysteries to you jessica um i was gonna say if they did do like a murder she wrote dark ride i think we've seen how you can add adapt a tv show well with the ride in europe based on the swedish hit vipa salt kraken oh yeah getting submerged from the from the fog I purposely placed over all of those memories but I'm very happy that that's been

it seems like a very pleasant ride a similar setting yeah not a ton of conflict yeah yeah there's a little just a smattering of conflict but like just about being with your pals from TV an animatronic Jessica in three or four minutes could easily

start with a mystery and solve it by the end of the ride. Yeah, yeah. And then like, oh, and I couldn't have done it without you. Your bravery saved my case. I'm telling you. Freedom Fletcher. Even if she was like, I'm Angela Lansbury. This is all a TV show.

I would be even more happy about that. You could do the like, thank you for executive producing my show like I'm like please I kind of need that that hit back in my life like like watching that video again like really brought that back where I'm like I did need to hear that again that she was very delighted that I'm going to produce her show well then

let me say how about we amend the end of the episode and I say uh Adam says thank you for executive producing our show oh my god feels justified because you did you brought so much to the table you knew so much you filled in gaps of knowledge that we all had because it's getting a little bit uh lost to the sands I brought the frog DNA to the dino DNA that was necessary. Yes, the missing piece and you filled it in. But the regular one too, you

survived Podcast the Ride and what an absolute delight. It's an ideal kind of episode. Another thing to put into the world. When we run into these things where like it's the hard pitch on something that nobody's ever brought up as I want to do that and not even as anybody's runner.

It's never been on a list. And you come in. I love Murder, She Wrote, Mystery Theater. I will bring the passion about it. And it's just what you did. I really appreciate it. I could not have been more delighted to get a response on that. That was very, very cool.

And this was definitely a shooting my shot moment. Again, I'm, again, I'm glad I quieted that scared, don't raise your hand for superstar TV kid inside me. It was like, don't get involved. Everyone will see it. Everyone will know you DM'd your favorite show and didn't get a response. No, this was very cool.

This was very cool. And I knew, because I also listening to these, I knew you were making your way through all the OG, uh, universal Orlando. Yeah. You didn't want it to go away without, uh, circle.

You were circling. And I, I knew that there was like, maybe not a ton of like, cause I knew there was not a ton of knowledge out there that existed like to research. Yeah. Uh,

and there was important stuff, um, outside of that. And, uh, this the first was this the first attraction universal closed um permanently in 96 god was it it's also something we didn't say it also has the reputation of like um it was it was an opening day attraction and one of the only ones that worked because all of those the big robotics based ones were really fucked up technically but this one like i think it's the same producer yeah as maybe hitchcock or maybe one of the other or maybe the horror show i'm not sure but like it was like this this one woman like well for real her stuff ran perfectly i think spielberg has a lot to think after he cut the big film strip with the scissors

and then like everything sort of all the big tech stuff that was very flashy but this thing that's about personalities, the actors in the room Angela Lansbury who helps actors this attraction is about people

it's about people and as we're getting back to that, as a film industry, as a film and television industry, we are hopefully returning to that place where it is more people-centric, a little bit more. I think it's the perfect way to start off HauntCast. I could not have been more delighted.

I hope so. I should have said you survived HauntCast, the fright. And I should say, look, I'm just spitballing let's exit through the crypt shop okay oh yeah is there anything you would like to plug yes uh yes my my newest uh ya novel is called your lonely nights are over it is i'm pitching it as scream meets clueless it is a teen slasher um it is uh if you see if, if you look up the cover,

it is basically, my notes were like, do Fear Street, do Christopher Pike. And it's channeling that sort of like 90s teen thriller. It's sort of like a lost Kevin Williamson 90s slasher film. But it involves two gay best friends,ie and cole who are uh at war essentially with their uh larger lgbtq queer club in high school because um like in clueless dearie and cole are sort of like uh popular and funny and hot and uh the rest of them they call

they call them the flops and they are all to them they're like oh you're just jealous and so there's these and the flops are basically like oh well you're not really involved in the queer club you're not you know raising money you're not raising awareness you don't come to the meetings and they're very like you know kind of livid about that so it just becomes this sort of like who's the better queer person sort of fight which is very um very queer community right now there's a lot of a lot a lot of a lot of dark satire about how i feel about being in the queer community right now the idea of like of fracturing and well it's like who's bad for the community who's good

for the community and why and so there's a lot of um intra fighting and it gets all very nice and juicy and uh cutthroat uh silver tongue dialogue But then into that drama comes Mr. Sandman, who is a masked killer, who starts targeting members of the queer club. They start dropping. And so Deary and Cole, because they have been such enemies to this club, are blamed.

And so Deary and Cole basically are very annoyed that they have to solve this series of slayings because if they don't they'll either be next or worse they're gonna probably go down as the killers uh for this so it is uh yes it is a it is for spooky season uh i suggest everybody pick it up if you like a good because that's the other thing is that i've noticed is that like because i know like you know i know you love haunts mike uh and i know but like i know like there's some type of like uh you know halloween time i've noticed people sort of go into two camps of horror like the movies they watch or the kind of stuff they read there's like

the the hardcore types who are like i'm watching uh all the gory stuff i'm watching saw i'm watching you know hellraiser i'm watching all this stuff and then there's sort of this other group over here very valid still that's like I will watch Nightmare Before Christmas I will watch Halloween Town and I will watch maybe one Scream and Scream seems to be the sort of like connector

between the two factions I literally I have I've never seen Scream and I have a DVD library copy right now so i'm about to go into screen it's so exciting it's really good it's it's great it's like because the thing that makes it different than like an 80s like a freddy or a jason or michael myers is um it's well a it's sort of like a speaking of jessica fletcher it's a whodunit the screen movies are always like the killer is someone you have met

it really is an Agatha Christie sort of thing but it's like it's got a slickness to it that I think helps make the horror of it go down for folks who don't usually like fuck with horror oh wow this might be a good gateway for me I think so because

it's basically like it's sort of like one third horror and bloody I mean it is bloody and scary but then like it's two thirds humor so like it's just great it's a funny thing uh you know wes craven made the first four and uh then he passed but then you know they're they're been keeping that going and uh they're just incredibly slick they're full of just great performances um and that's something what i what i wanted to do with your lonely nights are over was um i realized that like this wasn't falling into the same like oh god this this this movie again uh was with scream because you loved the characters so much you were having recurring characters and it was the

characters and the people and the humor that made you feel kind of safe within the scary stuff and so i really wanted to do that in this book where it was like there's a lot of like bodies are dropping there is a lot of there's there's some gore there's some scares there's some dread um it's but it is just a very kind of slick funny halloween time and they're kind of like your best friends and you're like oh my best friends are here I feel fine and I'm laughing and I'm not too I'm never too scared but I'm scared for them so I wanted to hit that sort of note and

I feel that I have done that so yeah you can pick that up anyway sounds great yeah well congrats to you on having it out there and getting to do a book tour not being stuck putting your hand up into the world. Truly, this was a putting my hand up moment. I was like, I would like to do the tour now, please.

Because I could have done it last time, but I was really just sort of dusting myself off. And it felt like now was the time because it's a crowd pleaser of a book. So I wanted to then meet everyone. So could not be more happy to have it out there. That's wonderful. Well, yeah, check it out, everybody.

I'm excited to read it. As for us, you can find us on the ghost of Twitter, now known as X. You can find Hauntcast the Fright merch in our Tee Public store. And for three bonus episodes every month, check out haunt cast, the fright,

the cemetery gate, or one more bonus episode on our R I P tier crypt three. Hell yeah. You will find all of that at patrion.com slash podcast. The ride. Yes, Michael. I,

and just two mere two days ago announced by my beloved NECA toys. Oh, we forgot. Yes. You mentioned this in a DM. I sent this in a DM. Yes. So this was, so Mike,

this, I was saying, I'm like, the simulation is very strong. I know. They just announced Jessica Fletcher, the murder she wrote, NECA Toy is out.

This is like literally a manifestation. It was over the weekend. Yeah, it was Saturday. Toy Fair was over this weekend. So yeah. I was like, I can't believe this is happening. You know, it was it was over the weekend yeah it was saturday yeah toy fair was over this weekend so yeah i was like i can't believe this is happening great you know uh it was it was everything was sort of merging it and they just had their uh register it had like a 39th anniversary of the pilot um just happened so yeah it's having a moment it's wild yeah the neck i'm gonna get the neck of thing i have a i have a funko of jessica fletcher yes and

i was like i was literally like i'm be like, because when I got it, she was like 10 bucks. And I was like, I'm going to show up with three Jessica Fletcher Funkos. They are now like over a hundred bucks as is the eBay way. Wow. Yeah. This is what happened. I got my mom and Agnes Moorhead and Dora from Bewitched.

And this thing's a hundred dollars now too too but she took it out of the box you know? Amazing, like it's just it's these things feel like they're just for me and then like they become these like huge sellers and these sorts of things and I just, I truly

They didn't make enough Agnes Moorhead toys or Funnily enough, they did not. Well, hey, I'm looking at the old character actress bingo sheet, and I'm now seeing Jessica Walter, Yvonne DiCarlo, and Agnes Moorhead. You got bingo. Oh, yeah. You won actress bingo. I was sad the episode was was about to end and you weren't going to hit it.

If you couldn't achieve that on a Murder, She Wrote episode, I feel like you'd never done it. We didn't even charge a service. No, we needed to say more names. I'll be honest. I could sit here and you could just keep the tape rolling and I could just be like, all right, okay, now we're going to get into, yeah. We'd fill up that card.

That would be 100%. That would just be the actresses. I wouldn't even get to the other actors get into, yeah. We'd fill up that card. That would be 100%. That would just be the actresses. I wouldn't even get to the other actors. Yeah, yeah. When we splinter this off into, there's Podcast of the Riot, and then there's just names list, the podcast. Oh, my dream.

And Miller, and Shirley MacLaine in one episode. Yes. No, it's where it's like, Joanne Worley was on an episode. Oh, yeah. Serotonin hits. We get them with every actress name. She's on a cruise ship.

As long as they aren't modern. Clearly shot on the Queen Mary. It's supposed to look like it's setting sail. It's supposed to look like it's out at sea. And I used to live in Long Beach, like across the bay from the Queen Mary. And I was like, you see the the rocks and the docking and the pillars and yeah you see the parking lot clearly not glamorous but like everyone's like racing to catch like a steamer ship no you're not uh queen mary interest that's

huh maybe could that be a clue for a future Hauntcast? We'll see. Only the true Jessica Fletcher sleuths may find out. Okay. Forever Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com

and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram at Forever Dog Team and liking our page on Facebook.