Podcast: The Ride - Nickelodeon Guts with “Mo”- Moira Quirk

Episode Date: May 7, 2021

Moira Quirk, Mo from Guts herself, joins us to discuss making the Nickelodeon game show, working in Florida theme parks, and voice acting. Ronto Wraps episode up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide 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

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do we have it? It's Nickelodeon Guts with Moe, aka Moral Quirk, on today's podcast, The Ride, the theme park podcast hosted by three men who would really like President Joe Biden to award them an honorary Presidential Fitness Award for all the miles they've lightly jogged at Universal and Disney. My name is Mike Carlson. Joining me as always, Jason Sheridan. Yeah, lightly is the key word there, but I sure would like some acclaim for it. Yeah, if you add it all up, we've done a lot of physical activity. That's what I'm saying.

Scott Gairdner joining us always as well. That's right, because often you're at the theme parks and you'll look at your step meter and it'll be over 10 000 and obviously 10 000 steps is the highest act like athletic achievement that you can achieve so to get like 13 i mean we're more major strongmen i'd say yeah so uh right now president biden you got some things going on but nothing as important as what I've just laid out. So please make it happen, sir. I assume he'll come on the show to kind of bestow that upon us at some point. Yeah. We'll take a nice photo like he did with the Carters.

We'll see if we can shrink even more than them. I'll look like I'm like nine feet tall, though, maybe against the two of them. Oh, yeah. Go the other way yes be towering Over the Bidens Yeah for sure So folks we have a very So we just did obviously that was you know

That joke I was thinking about Us talking about you know Nickelodeon Studios kids being active I was thinking about how I was a bad Athlete as a child And I want to say we had something very special happen because of the Nick Studios. Someone reached

out to us and made themselves available to talk. You know her from movies, TV, Star Wars video games, which I'm very excited about. And of course, Nickelodeon Guts. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Maura Quirk. Hello! Hello! Hey! Get a two-handed wave on the podcast. Let that be known. ladies and gentlemen this is Maura Quirk hello hello

on the podcast let that be known that's accurate that's what she did so great to meet you hello hello hello I'd like you to know that I have also walked the flatlands of the theme parks but also all

the stairs at Universal Studios Hollywood up and down. Oh my gosh. Full Starway, not Escalator, still stairs. Just until I was burning and nearly crying, but feeling good about

what I was going to shove into my mouth in Hogwarts. Okay, sure. Yeah. One of those flights a couple weeks ago and was uh crying um so uh kudos to you yeah i can't even count that high actually yeah i bet um that's really exciting we need to talk there we haven't talked as much about staircases at parks uh as we should we've only done a lot of escalator talk, but that'll

start us on the path thinking about which type of staircases we like at the park and why and which ones have been maintained well over the years. They're rarer, I guess, for litigious purposes. Yes. They would have to have an elevator or an escalator probably in addition to

it, but we need to cover... There's so much stuff we haven't covered after three years on this podcast. So thank you for that. On the stairs, yes. So yeah, so you were very nice and you reached out to us after the Nick Studios episode. And we were very excited to talk about Nick Studios in general. But you revealed very exciting information that you have a long history with theme parks and performing in theme parks yes i have danced around in theme parks for money not just as a visitor but for hard moolahs yes well that is very exciting because we love you know there's an av club uh

on the onion they talk about like roles and stuff and i feel like we could do something like that with you but exclusively with your theme park work all the stuff you've done in the theme parks so i guess yeah i guess give us like a little just maybe background of like before you even started were you interested in theme parks did you like this type of performing how did you get started how did i get started well i think they'd always sort of been a part of my growing up my grandmother my grandparents lived in orlando florida um and transform there wow yeah so so um what is it that there's a there's a book the lifeinions of Tristram Shandy, and his biography starts before he was born. And so even before I was born, I think I had family or maybe in my earliest youth, I had family working at Walt Disney World when it was opening. My mother worked in hiring back when it opened.

My uncle, I think he worked on the carousel, and my auntie, she worked in the Swiss watch shop on Main Street, I think, and then had a spectacular rise through the world of retail. And it all started there. And then Joanne Bogart across the street, part of the Bogart clan, she was a face character, which was a big freaking deal in Orlando, Florida. Yeah, she played Snow White and I thought that was pretty stinking hot. And it's funny that she was Snow White because she wasn't. I mean, she had very, very dark hair, but the rest, that was illusion.

Yeah. And then after university, I came over to visit my grandmother for a couple of weeks. I'm still here. That turned out. And yeah, one of the first jobs I got was at Universal Studios because that had just sort of opened. Yeah. Wow. So, yeah. So, it was in the family. You had just sort of opened yeah wow so yeah so it was in the fan like you had no choice almost maybe you were just sort of surrounded by it it's orlando i don't know what else there is to do there i don't mean i don't know what there was there before i mean i guess there was gatorland have you ever been to gatorland everyone says we need

to go to gatorland we. We should have done it last time we were in Orlando a couple years ago, but I think next time we've got to do it because I've been told many times to do this. Yeah, I could either write an entire dissertation on Gatorland or I could just say very succinctly it's something.

Okay. That's my impression. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think that you could have a lot of fun that you could be a bit sad like an old zoo bat sure how does it did you watch tiger king how does it compare in terms of shadiness to the i'm the person in the world who didn't watch tiger king it'll be there i'll get to it well just if, just if it's the shadiest thing ever involving animals, is it how far into shady? Is it upmarket or is it downmarket?

It's a bit downmarket. Do they treat the gators well? Probably not. We saw them feeding one, and they just sort of threw hot dogs at the gators. That was like... And I just remember a hot dog sort of landing on the dogs at the gators that was like and I just remember a hot dog sort of landing on the top of the gator's head and it's

a gator so it can't take it off so it had to suffer the indignity of being a gator with a hot dog on its head for the rest of that day probably yeah that's also the park but being thrown.

It's a picture, yeah. Having hot dogs just thrown at you willy nilly. That's the dream of at least one of us. Yeah. I actually think that's a great honor in Florida. If they throw a hot dog at you and it's on your head. Because that is the confetti of Florida. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. My girlfriend went to college in Florida and worked in some of the parks so yeah she has stories like that too she a Rollins lady I don't know

you don't have to answer that's very personal I'm sorry okay unlike the hot dog it went right over my head yeah what was rollins yeah what is that like their liberal arts college there in winter park oh no she went to uh ucf okay gotcha um what is it about what is it about theme park world that uh like brought your whole family to it like what is how does it well run in my grandparents i've

got an american part so they were all the americans who lived in orlando who just went and worked there because that was an easy place to get a job so that's that's why more of that than the it's not the the being uh enraptured by the magic it's not uh It's not inspiration and we love to weave stories. It's like, that's something to do. I'm just being far more pragmatic about it. But when I turned up, it was just like, oh, there's this place where I could go and perform.

Yes, please. And so, yeah. So I went in and auditioned and got put at the Murder, She Wrote Mystery Theatre, where I got to play four different characters. and got put at the Murder, She Wrote Mystery Theater, where I got to play four different characters, digging deep for my days there. Yeah.

Now, we have not done an episode about that somehow. That's one of the things on the list. We certainly will, and then we'll know very well what all of those characters were. But I think I need the refresher. I must have seen it once even more alluring theme park attraction, was the story of ADR and post-production. So they explained post-production using Jessica Fletcher on her bike, solving the mystery of Leilani and the Black Pearl. And that was the film I saw probably for three years. Yeah, so there was sort of an editing bay where you played a crazy ass editor and you played a production supervisor and you also played an ADR supervisor.

And it was, you know, it was audience participation. But at the end of the day, it was a place to put people in the cool so that the park wasn't just filled with a big ass long line for Kong and Earthquake. Right. Yeah. Yes. It was to cool everyone off so they didn't pass out during the day. Exactly. Primary. everyone off so they didn't pass out during the day. Exactly. Just all the grandparents who'd brought their grandkids

and were just stunned and perplexed and didn't understand why there wasn't a tour that they could get on. Right. They would sue them with Murder, She Wrote and Alfred Hitchcock presentations. So when you did the different characters, did you like, how method

did you have specific type? You're like, well, when the editor is here, I'm going to play the character like this. Or was it just like, I'm going to sort of play a fun version of myself for all four? illusions of or just ideas of really practicing some characters and at the end of the day you had to like punch through several hours of shows and you just would get it done and soon like most sitcoms you start with a big character then it just generally becomes the actor the same thing so basically i'm saying i was jennifer aniston that's what i'm saying i was of course yes i mean to us and many people our age you are uh the equivalent of jennifer i'll take it i'm gonna write that on a card so i can remind myself you can use that as a poll quote yeah i can clean it up Right. And I'll blue tack it on my wall. But yeah, so I think I just chose to be a Scottish lady for the first room. And I practiced my American accent in the second room.

And I did someone mad for the third room. That was Foley. There was Foley in that. And then the fourth room, it was just me. Hello. I'm tired. But also giving it my all yes of course yeah this was an audience volunteer thing too are you like are you you're are you picking the people or are they picked for you how's that how's that you can

pick the people you could you could pick the people yeah sure uh did you ever um if you just were in the thick of it and discovered that you had a dud on your hands or a problem on your hand like somebody was like hamming it up too much or making it about themselves or just by uh how do you how do you cover how do you how do you roll with it oh my gosh this was a long time ago remember remember? Sure. There were certain people that you would hurry through, and it was just a very utilitarian show. And maybe they got more facts that time. And there were other people who were just lovely,

and it was nice to play. So it's a cake job, really. And I was there. I was at Universal when I was working there i was the youngest person there i'd just come out of um university and drama school and everyone else there had worked at all the other theme parks at disney or had been doing sort of bus and truck theater or regional theater so this was a place that they could clock in do some shows clock out and they could perform and then buy a house it was just a very that was a very different way to be

able to be an actor so it was a lot of people who were in a in a different period of their life than me yeah right um well did you have like because obviously like a lot of that has there's uh improv elements to it was that something you were doing before before you got to universal or was that like a learn on the job thing i guess i i um we did some at drama school and i'd always sort of i'd had a sort of background in comedy. That was always the clubs and stuff that I joined. But it wasn't until I got to Orlando that I sort of seriously took improv classes. And there's a theatre company there, SAC Theatre, who did theatre sports. And so I was with them for a while and took my classes there. And then also at Disney as well, they would lay on classes for us if we were there.

Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Disney was very, very different. It was people my age. So it was people out of university and in their twenties and then some old timers who were hanging on to their bennies for the best and their pensions. Um, and yeah, so that was,

uh, I'm older now. So I, I think about things like pensions and benefits and stuff and buying houses and stuff. Um, I think it's the time to be at theme parks for sure. Like younger, more idealistic. I, I was a tram tour be at theme parks for sure. Like younger, more idealistic.

I was a tram tour guide at Universal and it was like the best still in college job actually when I started. And then you're like, yeah, it'd be hard to think about like, what if I started doing it again in 15 years? I don't know if that's the time that I'd want to be. You gotta have it all ahead of you not care that like you when you look at the check like that's it like you should be like any money fantastic love it it'll do i mean we certainly have friends who who i mean we've

been gone from orlando for so long now. When did we leave? 1995, I think. Been in LA since 95. And we still have friends who work there. Sure. Yeah. Until they were laid off. Not all of them. Yeah, sure. Hopefully everybody gets their job

back. Fingers crossed. I don't mean to be a debbie downer. No, no. It's a crazy time for this stuff. Yeah, I know. The fun topic we picked for our podcast now, like, the last year,

it's really thrown into peril. The last years of improv. Yeah, it's tough times for theme performers, yeah. Especially, and they're kind of the last thing to come back to, which is a bummer like i went to universal uh yesterday and like oh yeah that's like every the rides are back but not the the people which is so much the the spirit of it so hopefully yes yeah i was just reading about disneyland today and just you can wave you can

wave at them i'm sure that the characters really love it that they don't get hugged and snogged. And manhandled. My mother said when Walt Disney World first opened up because she was in hiring and dealt with the employees, because they had more bad

characters then, like they had the big bad wolf and I don't know if they sort of set him aside because kids would just kick him in the shins sure yeah so the big bad wolf it's good now during a pandemic time because he can like hide far away he can be on the field wave and then kids can be mad but from a distance. Yes. Which is nice. You didn't have to be anything that kids were taking out aggression on.

You were nice characters. Well, that's true. Yes. Yeah. And that's kind of how we first your daughter told us and told our facebook uh group that uh

she was your daughter that you were her mom uh she's using you for clout young people love to do uh they love clout um so yeah that was that was kind of our first connection oh okay she's just right there that's her college right now millie they're talking about you hi millie hello hi oh she's too nervous to be recorded she's much more retiring than me serious person in the family we'll we'll wait when we uh yeah stop recording yes yes so um wait you told you told us though that she you compare you heard about our podcast because she has uh cross-checked notes on opinions that we have about theme park stuff and opinions that you share about theme park stuff

there's a chart in effect we are very simpatico guys wow on pretty much everything i think well as far as bathrooms and uh best bathrooms she said she said name your two best bathrooms in a theme park and i think i said said Alice in Wonderland in Disneyland and Moaning Myrtle. Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Top two bathrooms. I mean, I'll go there whether I need to go or not. I always do. I got to return yesterday.

It was a thrill. I hadn't heard the moaning in so long. I made a point of... Well, not from Myrtle. Elsewhere in my life scott's getting older uh yeah those are great bathrooms we agree on that for sure yeah um is what like i guess let's do a real quick like favorite ride favorite themed experience in general for you at any general okay right favorite rides see well here's the thing i i really really love the whole um whole harry potter world but i can't do the

rides anymore it's it's just too much for me um it's a choice between vomiting and the rest of the day drinking sparkling water. Right. Yeah. So no, it's a great ride, but a favorite ride. Well,

my favorite ride ever in the world was the, the Hanna-Barbera ride. That was like. Yeah. Yes. Barbera. I think Hanna-Barbera for me was sort of like the equivalent of Nickelodeon for 90s kids.

That was, it makes my heart swell to think about Hanna-Barbera. And that was a fantastic ride because it had Dick Dastardly and Muttley. Just, it was an homage to them. So that ride. Tying it all together. And the fact that it was like this all-star. I liked anything where like everybody gets together, you know,

that like, we're going to tie Flintstones and Jetsons and Yogi and Dick Dastardly. It just, it was just such, it felt like such an event. They're all, they're all zoned in on, on,

or honed in on, honed in on Dick Dastardly and Mutley, because that was my all-time favorite cartoon. But the interactive area too was hours of joy of just going, you could push buttons where they did the running away sound like, zoop, zoop, zoop.

An hour. Whatever that running. All of them. All of them. Just for days I could be there. If Y if yogi had like a picnic picnic basket he was running away from the ranger like you would be able to hit the button yeah i mean that's fun that's we didn't even i don't think we missed that we talked we did an episode about hannah barbara but i don't think we talked about this screen the whole interactive

area was fantastic and i love all of the ridiculous fantasy land rides that finish in 90 seconds with no end a little abrupt and then daylight are you disappointed that Snow White has more of an ending now

I haven't gotten to do it yet I will have to go back and have a look that was our last thing that we did before I haven't gotten to do it yet. I haven't seen it. I will have to go back and have a look. I have to have a look at that. That was our last thing that we did before, if you've heard of it, the COVID. We were there and we'd gotten up at five o'clock in the morning so that we could go and do the resistance ride,

which was stunning. I like theme parks because they're sort of camp and that was not camp it was really just amazing it was really amazing I think I'm just going to think about that for a day right in doing an episode about it

it was just like pure gushing just like and this was great and this was great. And this was also great. And this was great. And sometimes it's more fun to talk about like kind of bad attractions because you could poke and prod and kind of like be a little superior to it. But no one is superior to Rise of the Resistance. It's just a perfect experience. Yeah.

And I mean, I like Star Wars. I'm probably going to go down in flames for this but i like star wars i could live without it but that was amazing there um oh no you're gonna have to cut that out because i make part of my living doing star wars cut that out just made a terrible error i was about to bring it up i was gonna say easy harrison ford says much the same thing you know yeah he's harrison ford though okay you know what fair fair fair yeah fair good he's good to go. Yeah. The closest piece of camp is like the Fishman

Lieutenant Beck in the first part of it, and that's it for Rise of the Resistance, you know? Yeah. He's kind of silliness. Wait, so elsewhere in Orlando world, there's Murder, She Wrote, but you did some other attractions as well.

Oh, when they were waiting, I think they were waiting for my costume to come in for murder she wrote god knows i mean i think they got it from jc penny um because they had a petite section jc penny in orlando um but i did also prance around at the earthquake attraction for a little bit um and i may have done the was it the hitchcock um right thing for a while but mostly it was it was murder stuart but i also worked over at um at disneyland for i mean not disneyland uh Epcot Center doing street theater there. Yeah. Because I love this accent. So they threw me doing street theater in the UK pavilion. So when you say street theater, was it just kind of goofing around with people or were you doing a full sort of act of some kind?

It was an act that came out. It was, I can't even remember what the stories were. I think maybe a Romeo and Juliet kind of one, or would that have been in Italy? Romeo and Juliet should have been in Italy, shouldn't it? Anyway, some sorts of UK-ish story that was, we, we did in the UK outdoors area. And it was a little bit, you would pull two people in from the audience and,

and laughs ensued in the hot, hot Orlando sun. Yes. Yeah. You know, if you can get tourists to, you know, halfway through heat stroke,

give them directives. I mean, you can end up with very funny results. Yes and it was fine it was it was a fun show to do and it was you know silly laughs backstage and and yeah it was it was a it was a fine job that i i enjoyed at the time but yeah disney was always trying to offer me a contract and And I was always like, I got paid a bit more at Universal. And it was inside because, yeah, Disney was crazy. And when they there was a time that they said, we're going to recreate your we're going to redo all of your costumes. I'm sorry, I'm getting all sorts of texts.

I don't know how to turn those off. Anyway, ding! They came back, and the costume department was very excited to show us. And I'm not kidding, because Orlando is 133 degrees, plus all of the absolute soaking humidity. they had created um a costume where from the boots up it was like ankle boots stockings bloomers a petticoat a skirt that was made out of a sort of hemp material but there was three layers of that to give it, you know, some ploof. And then for my top part, they had given me a blouse made out of the world's finest man-made non-breathable materials with then a layer on top. And I just sort of turned to them and I said, this is a lot of layers. Are you sure it's going to breathe it seems to me that it's going to be a

bit hot to which they replied well we figured you were going to be hot anyway they're like what's an extra five degrees or ten degrees of heat they They considered it and then just went, like that. Yeah. And there were so many rules about, you know, there was the whole Disney look as well. There's all these rules about makeup.

And so we all turned up pretty much in nothing to a lick of mascara, let's say. And they decided, we think we'd like to see you. Some real Southern lady came in, wanted to see us with our faces on and took, for example, we said, I remember they put us in this room and they said that they were going to give us an example of makeup that they wanted. They asked for a volunteer, which was a bit ironic considering that was our job and we normally pick volunteers, but they picked this lady and she was gorgeous,

just never wore makeup, never needed to. They put her on a chair. They went to town and made her look like a painted whore. Yes, we all just sort of hung with our mouths open like, what did you do? Yeah. Well, now she's passable. Now she... Now she can be in public. Lisa and gave her some blue,

some cornflower blue. Yeah. Big doll cheeks. Rouge on the cheeks and the forehead. Why do you need it up there? You somehow can't take the Orlando out of it. Trying to figure out the backstory of like, okay, I guess if our characters have consumption or the plague, okay, that kind of works.

Exactly. Whatever it's called. Yeah. You're putting on the makeup that a corpse would need as they might be dead soon. We need you to look shinier and sweatier and a lot of pit stains. That's going to really do it for the punters.

That was the Disney look back then, I guess. That's what you would call it. I've changed it. They're finally getting around to updating the look this year. I know. You can have your tats and your tash and your long locks. It's very exciting. So, I hope that woman

you're talking about still has it. I hope she's adjusting to the changes. Okay. Yeah. She had to be restrained, taken to a hospital. You do it one way! A slight wrist tattoo i never has satan overtaken the world

and then can you wear sunglasses now you used to not be able to wear sunglasses which is a bit hard with your burn yeah right that's yeah well and maybe yeah i wonder if we're here 30 years or whatever it is later maybe the next 30 years it'll be even more progressive yeah we'll be finally in the 20th century who knows uh you were talking about like you were working for disney universal i'm always curious because a lot of people do both did you have like a recruiter kind of after you at universal like hey you know you should come over to disney and we should do something here and then people were offering you contracts it feels like high stakes like sports agent and team like you're being known because i never really thought about i was very very british and didn't talk about money but if disney had wanted to offer

me a full-time contract and had coughed up a bit more money, I might've said, I might've said yes, but, um, but in the end it was probably better that I just sort of, um, was stayed slightly peripheral and just sort of made my own schedule and stuff like that. Yeah. Well, and it can't be. I did leave. I realized I must leave now. Right. Well, I would imagine around this time that you also,

you start heading into the television world, but that pulls you out of the theme park game. You are forcibly removed. Yeah. But it was funny because when I did start working for Nickelodeon, they would get three shows done a day. It would be about 40 episodes.

It would get shot pretty quickly. The first two years I was there in Orlando. But the thing is as well, I mean, people always think when you're on TV, you're making the big bucks,

but I actually made more money working at the theme park than I ever did working for Nickelodeon until probably the fourth season. Yeah. They were, they were not falling over themselves to pay me big bags of cash nickelodeon via com yeah i didn't buy a calm you're kidding they weren't they aren't super we didn't all get in a room and say let's do more a quirk a mitzvah this is something i wanted to ask about because everybody, yourself included, who I watched a ton on Nickelodeon was such a hero to me and such an icon to me. something else and i like if you saw clarissa's dad on something or the one i remember specifically is mr ernst from from hey dude the owner of the ranch on hey dude that he is on an episode of

seinfeld at some point in time and i remember seeing that and going that's interesting why why would he need to do that he's already mr ernst Ernst is this just like for fun like when you get a job post retirement and they don't really like he's assuredly as Mr. Ernst he makes 15 million dollars a year he must be doing them such a favor

please Mr. Ernst his one episode on Seinfeld probably paid him multifold what he ever made on Nickelodeon. Yeah. I work with Kirk Bailey sometimes who was on, I guess, Salute Your Shorts. Oh. Yeah.

And we kind of worked out we had because we both do voiceover together in that world now. And we both worked out we had people in common um some outrageous people that i can't tell you about but i'll say that so that you'll go oh i wish i knew and i'll go oh i can't um but um yeah we we're very happy in the voiceover world. Oh, sure, yes. Well, and hey, indoors. Perfectly cool, perfectly air-conditioned. Yeah. I would do a Nicktoon any day of the week. I love those people.

Yeah. Sure. I saw you talked about loving the Hanna-Barbera characters, and I was very excited to learn that you were in an episode of Scooby-Doo and got to say the line, I would have been famous if it weren't for you meddling kids. Oh, my God. My life was made.

Yeah. I didn't realize that was a dream of mine to say the meddling kids line. And I was like, ooh, yeah, that sounds great. Oh, my God. And I nearly boogled. I have to adjust. I'm getting pins and needles. Yeah, I had done my episode.

I was the baddie and I picked up my bag and I was leaving. And the director just went, wait a minute, you were the baddie. And I said, yes, I was. And then she said, well, did you say you meddling kids? And I went, no, because I didn't even know it could possibly be an option. And then behind me me papers started flying and typewriters were hit and and uh and then a sheet of paper was passed to me and i got to say it and i emailed everyone i knew hey i tooted that horn yes ironically uh i would have been famous if it weren't for you meddling kids is is probably Toot toot! Yes. Ironically,

I would have been famous if it weren't for you meddling kids is probably a sentiment that other people who have worked in children's entertainment have held before. I feel that to this day. I tell my children. You call them meddling. You meddling kids. I could have been happy.

No, I don't say that. Very dark. That took a dark turn. I sure regret telling you to come on this podcast. Gallows humor. There was another episode of Scooby-Doo that I was on, and that was where we worked out what I was going to name my younger daughter. It was decided

there. Velma or Daphne the weird thing is um too my husband is from a little town outside of flint michigan he brags about that let me tell you um and uh casey casem's uncle used to run the grocery store in that town. And so Casey Kasem. Oh, my husband just wrote a little. I'll finish the story. But yeah, Casey Kasem's uncle used to run the store. So Casey Kasem used to come and play every summer. And he and my father in law, they used to just play together as kids. And Charlie, my father-in-law, he would tell us all these escapades they would do,

like pretending to lift a rope as cars were driving down the street and they'd all put on their brakes and they'd laugh and run away like scampish boys. And I walk in for like my first episode of scooby-doo and i see casey casem uh then i go oh they're doing some stunt casting he's he's gonna just do some some guest spot but no he was still playing shaggy um because they do that with men. The women were replaced, of course. But is that right? They kept like Judy Jetson. They like kind of like kicked out of the movie. Very like non. I mean, she was over 29. She was asking for it. That's a heinous crime. The elderly age.

But yeah, so I said hi to Casey and said, I don't know if you remember, but you used to play with my father-in-law, Charlie Rayner. And he went, oh, yes, we used to lift up a rope. And he told me all the same stories. Wow. Bonding with Casey Kasem over his childhood, terrorizing a small town. My favorite Lebanese man. I never thought about that last name. Casey Kasem is my favorite lebanese man so casey casem's my favorite

well well what was it my husband you have maybe you have to do this because he just wrote on a little card he wrote auto world because my husband's been on every single uh theme park but he started his theme park journey in um at auto world in out in flint michigan if you have a comment about auto world we have not come to world yeah that's who's done this yeah so whenever you do um theme parks about the automotive industry with um with uh i don't know areas where they explained how robots would soon take over all of the um people jobs and wonder why that water uh that theme park failed maybe that's something you can dig into theme park fails for being correct it's a rare out also sad not knowing its audience yes yeah yeah yeah they were very fond of cars at the time in Michigan.

Yeah. Sure. And apparently, did you one time want to know if the people on Downtown Disney performing, if they were paid? Because he can tell you they are. Wait, which people? Like, in which Downtown Disney folks are we talking about Oh the downtown Disney

Of Disneyland they have The bands and then they have the Magicians and jugglers and Comedians and what not Oh yeah Jason was part of a Magic act on the way to Dinner that one time Yeah we forced Jason to do to be in a

Magician's trick Yes I was pinned into a magic show As we say in the improv world dinner that one time. We forced Jason to be in a magician's trick right before dinner. Yes, I was pinned into a magic show, as we say in the improv world. While hungry, and that went great. Magic while hungry is a terrible equation. You know,

you're very patient when you're irrationally hungry, so it's a great time to help out a magician on the semi-street? i guess it's not a footpath i guess yeah yeah jason was like a character in a car like a snickers commercial who was so comically angry that he was hungry it didn't even make sense and knowing if you were going to eat there that you had probably another hour of waiting once driving at the right point. I absolutely did know that too. Yes, that was going through my head as well.

There was a lot of forethought going on. Yeah. We have a video captured. We can see the anger coming through the screen. So that'll be cut. We have that forever which is nice. That's most videos of me. It's fine.

Yeah. Okay, so let me ask this That's the show We do Let me ask on the guts front Because another thing, in the same way that I Assume Mr. Ernst Is a multi-millionaire I bought into the illusion of guts so thoroughly that it probably never occurred to me that you were an actress who got a part rather than like,

I think I assumed that you having that role must have meant that some crazy European tribunal must have chosen you after many rounds of like this is sport this is like like a bunch of like you know kind of tan leathery people all after like nine rounds all right that moira she shall do it um it works just like that i it really it really makes absolute no sense that I ever did that show. I think I just must have been very, very different because it really was like when I turned up, I think it was a lot of sort of six foot real fitties, like people you go, oh, yeah, you look like you play sport. And then I turned up. I think've maybe put a baseball hat on, but not for sporty reasons. Probably my hair was terrible that day.

And, and yeah, I think my first audition was to do sort of play by play of a video of kids going through the elastic jungle. Oh, sure. One of the hardest things. Yeah.

Like that's the, you can get used terms probably like, look at them twinging and twanging. And that probably just sealed the deal. And I don't know. I think they probably, then they had me come back several times to the arena as they were building that.

And I think there was discussion about, would my accent be distracting? Would the fact she knows nothing about sport clearly um be a problem um and and somehow I think they just thought it was a bit funny really right right which was weird because they ended up making me, I always thought, incredibly school mom-ish on the show, but whatever. So I just goofed, really, in the audition. Pretty serious. Yeah, you were pretty, like, focused on the... Yeah, because they kept rewriting the rules

and giving me a card that I had to memorize 30 seconds beforehand. So it was like stress. So your, like, authority that you were conveying was actually because of stress i've just learned this these are rules take it from me because i know them from 10 seconds ago um yes of a made-up sport that's like nonsense that helps that you know if you don't know anything about sports at least they're the sports were all made up well there was that and i would i would say things that were that that were wrong um like one time i had said something about mike being a bit of a goon and the producer the executive producer came down and said well that's a bit harsh and and i was just like what he goes

you just called mike a goon. That's really harsh. And I was like, is it? Because I was thinking of the goon show with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. And he was thinking like hockey sticks and whatever. So, yes. And I would call when they did soccer events, I did accidentally call them football. So there was a lot of that. And I didn't know the rules for anything.

I didn't know the real rules to know how they were bending the rules. As far as I was concerned, that was how you played football to this day. Yeah, I knew tennis and I knew downhill skiing. That wasn't going gonna help me on guts as far as you knew all basketball had bungee cords involved right basketball is such a ludicrous sport anyway wait now i need to hear yeah i would like to hear your opinion yes further thoughts on basketball being ludicrous. Well, here's the thing. The men are so very tall and the women, women's basketball, that was terrible of me, but they're all very, very tall.

And the court is not so very, very big. Whereas if you compare that to, say, soccer, I'm going to say soccer, that's an absolutely massive pitch. Simply getting from one end to the other is an amazing feat. Right. Let alone doing. Now, I'm not going to say that basketball is lacking in skill. saying the scale of the environment and the scale of the human beings who participate make it bizarre for me i see so so if a basketball court was like four times as big maybe yes it would make more sense or it'd be at least as impressive to watch yes i I, sitting on my fat ass on my couch, would like to, I would like to render that judgment.

Okay, well. Seems fair, perfectly fair. I've actually never heard this, I've never heard this opinion, so that's. Oh, I've got tons of opinions about things I know nothing about. Well, that's what the show is for, honestly. That's what we do all the time, so. Yeah, you mean to tell me that's the case and you don't have a podcast? I know nothing about this. Well, let me just start.

Arbitrary authority. That's what it's about, which I guess was you on Guts, too. Yeah, I bought you as a... She must have been through four years of referee university or something. And also, I don't have the stature for it because I'm incredibly tiny height-wise. And yeah, so there was just Apple boxes galore that I would stand on to have some sort of authority. All the kids were about my height. Yeah.

So I guess that were it's not like if you were with boxers you you you're never at a point where you had to like break up a fight i assume unless that was cut no we did we did have um i can't remember which boxer it was we had quite a famous boxer on i just i just saw it in youtube wondering evander holyfield and he was lovely and who lovely. And who was the nice football boy? And I say boy because he was super young.

Because he was like 19. I can't remember, but he was just adorable. He was the loveliest man in the world. I hope he's had a fantastic life since then. Yeah, he left and I just thought, well, there's a good human. That's nice. If you think of a nice football

boy, then that's probably what it means. Whoever this nice football boy is, we wish him the best. We wish him well. Was doing it fun at all? Was it intense? Was it... Yeah, because we did three a day.

It was a big day and um because they they would just like bring the kids in for the event the event the event then then there was moving everything around so it was block shots basically oh that was my question i just read that about legends of the hidden temple and that those were maybe kind of frustrating tapings to watch if you were an audience member because it was so broken up Oh I'm sure it was just dull as dull can be I mean there was audience form I mean if there was

the draw of all of those rides that you could possibly be going on and being stuck in the extreme arena for hours and hours. I mean, I'm sure the parents were fine.

They could have a nap. Um, but, but if you're a kid, I mean, that probably was a tough, it was probably a tough call. But once you,

once it hit minute 31 and you realized, wait, it's not done. This doesn't take half an hour. Like when I watch it, isn't that sad when, when you realize that, um, no, we, we had, there was a lot of fun, you know, Half an hour? Like when I watch it at home? Isn't that sad when you realize that?

No, we had, it was a lot of fun. You know, it's all like the same as backstage shenanigans and stuff. And I still have great friends. My friend Kirk, he's a sports cameraman. He was a cameraman on the show. And whenever he's here shooting golf, we always get together. In fact, I don't know if you can see the queen behind me. Yeah, yes. You do have the queen in frame behind or some queen.

That was his wedding gift to us. And I had to write to him and say, I know there shouldn't be winners and losers in wedding gifts, but you're the winner. Clearly. That's true. There are. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to say that, but... Look at her.

You never realize about the queen until you have a flipping tea tray of her. She's stacked. The queen is just stacked. I don't know how they dress her. That's harder to see from here. I guess I could do my own Googling to determine that. Her top chiffonier drawer is

open. That's actually a tray? That's a tray for, like, serving? Tea tray, yeah. Wow. Back after the coronation, I'm sure there was nothing greater than serving a cup of tea and some biscuits. That's going to be walked up to us. Oh, great. Oh, hello.

Oh, yeah. Oh, look at the dust. That's a lot. Yeah, that's really impressive. I was happy with it from afar, but now I dust oh yeah so huh that's a lot yeah that's a really impressive that's i looked i was happy with it from afar but now i'm like well that's very impressive rendered lovingly onto a piece of pure raffley tin yes um dry cake and some tea on that fantastic yeah great um now you did like in watching some episodes recently you did like though you if you found yourself being serious on it but in the few that i saw you you did like give the business to michael mallee a little bit in fact in one uh

after a particularly like hyper energetic intro he did of all the pieces and then they got to go through here and then they're going to end up splashing in the pool. Mo then you, I think refer to him as Mike. Oh, silly. Oh, did I enjoy very much?

That's pretty good. Halfway through, although sometimes through, I think he, he was just being incredibly manic and then they just threw to me and it's like, and I think I said, incredibly manic. And then they just threw to me. And I think I said, steady, Mike. And then the executive producer liked that. And then I feel like I got extended on my leash a little.

That was allowed to do that. Another one you said, take a nap, Mike. Oh, did I? I think I forgot this was like a like a recurring this was a zone within the show the more of a roast more yeah somebody should make a super cut of all of these and you put it on youtube of all the like this light light gentle now I got alerted that I think it's playing on the paramount whatever paramount streaming

services now the entire oh wow then yeah so that's great is it great though I guess that's a question for you yes I yes there's a question for you. Yes. Yes.

There's no old footage of me on there. If I got residuals, that would be fantastic. I'd be living in a much larger house. Could we shame Viacom into giving residual? I'm not even joking here. There's a lot of this going on. Let's come on. This sucks. I don't think I've got quite Dave Chappelle's pull.

Yeah. Just saying I learned my lesson and I've got quite Dave Chappelle's pull. So yeah, just say I learned my lesson and I'm very happy to be in a union. Amen. All right. Yeah. Yeah. What was the, around the time it was going on,

could you even like venture out into the park where you, was it like, I was working at the park. Oh, so these were concurrent. That's the question you would still be doing stuff that that's crazy i couldn't think about my job to work for nickelodeon this is a mind blow i you're saying i'm flashing to similarly that i heard somewhere

uh i did the important work of listening to an interview with dan cortez from mtv sports and he said like he basically basically was like a PA for his own show and was not willing to not be a PA for the show that he hosted because the PA money was better than the hosting money. Preach.

I definitely kept my job and they were very nice to let me have my three weeks. It was shot that quickly that you would just like let me do my wow wow because they could they could punch through like three three a day yeah so when kids like notice you when they went to a ride like would they shot like would they be like hey wait a minute i'm trying to think not the first time but but later on i would sometimes sort of get recognized but also people always think that you're giant if you're on tv and then you learn that everybody in film and television is is actually it's not surprising to be my stature

um yeah so you kind of could i'm not quite i'm not quite five foot is how i'll put it okay yeah so you could kind of hide a little hide maybe that way yeah from the tons of children i wasn't wearing a black and white striped shirt that's true kids might be able to put that together if it wasn't without that i was like flipping hannah montana was Montana. Was there ever an urge, though, to be like, you know what? I'm going to put the rough shirt on and walk through the park once just to see what happens. No, because I didn't like that. I'm a very shy extrovert. Sure.

I gear it up and then you turn it off. I always found it very weird to get... I mean, I did a lot of live tours for Nickelodeon where they would send us off for the weekend to go to some mall somewhere to throw slime on a kid and play a few games.

And I remember going to a bathroom in a mall. I remember going to the bathroom and just being in the store and just saying, and as I opened the door, there were like 15 little girls all grinning at me. And I was just like,

I just peed. It was really embarrassing. And they were like, yeah, they wanted my, and I think they said can we have you can we have you on again and I said yes of course you can but let me wash my hands first

and this was before COVID so yeah I pioneered hand washing so what was on the live tour and now I'm asking myself why I did not go to this. This sounds fantastic.

I love malls. Love Nickelodeon. Love slime. Love you on guts. Why did I not go to these things? You can't answer that question. But what else happened on these? I would turn up.

We would turn up. I would actually be involved in making slime which was baker's what should they call it baker's cream i think it's what they um it's kind of like a pudding okay pudding and apple sauce and an absolute ton of green dye um we dyed a couple of toe-headed kids i think um permanently yeah so i only did the ones where it was just sort of a small mall thing um mike and phil moore and and mark summers would go do the massive kind of tours the bus and truck sort of tours of it. Gotcha. Yeah.

But you would turn up in a mall, there'd be a stage, we'd play some games, dunk a kid, and then we'd have dinner and go home. Yeah. Spend the food court. Wait, why are you making the slime too?

Because I was helpful. Because you wanted to pitch in that's nice nations it was just all of us together wow wow crazy yeah that's the mall tours i guess i didn't put any of these either but like were there like no was on the bigger tour did kids like did they set up more like of a stage like or do they yeah there would be when they did the big tours, then they would have basically concert venues. Oh, okay.

Yeah. More like, more like that. And they would actually have props and things from the show. Yeah, that makes sense. I always wonder like, cause,

cause I went to, you know, we've talked a lot on the show about stuff. We would, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had a live musical performance that I got to go to. But I do wonder how many of these things, I know it's a very amazing show, but I wonder how many things, like, my mom or dad, just, like, were going through the newspaper and saw, like, you know, Nickelodeon Live. And they were like, let's just put this in the trash so he doesn't see it. No.

Let's. Probably. There's a few. I wasn't treated poorly or anything. I'm just saying, once in a while, he doesn't need to see this. Tax bill's coming up. We don't need any extra expenses right now. Well, that sounds deeply unfair because as you pointed

out at the beginning, you weren't on sports teams so you weren't stealing their weekends that way well i i did were you a little bit a little bit but i'll be honest i was i was chosen last in basketball and that's because my friend's father told his son that i was chosen last in the entire league you had that info at your disposal oh my god it's crazy to say that you know what my husband made a very good point because he um was also a person who would be picked last and he said actually you're not you're not ever picked last the person before you is picked and then

you quietly shuffle over to the people who never wanted you yeah you're not picked you just look over there there is some comfort though because expectations are low so then like when

you're terrified of a fly ball, you're like, well, you knew this was... I'm living up to expectation. You knew this was coming. I'm terrified. Yeah. I got hit with a soccer ball in kindergarten at soccer practice, and that colored the rest of my sports. The rest of your life. The rest of my life.

That child will be an actor that child will be a comedian he'll be a podcaster in fact the future medium of podcasting um did you guys encounter a lot i i read there was an oral history that of guts that sports illustrated did a few years ago and it seemed it talked a lot about like pulling contestants from sports groups or YMCA groups and that sort of thing. And the kids all seemed very confident. Did you encounter many nervous kids like we all were?

No. No, I did not. Because they were all super keen to be there. But I will tell you, and I won't name his name, but we were so delighted with him because he was insane. And Mike introduced, like the kids all had to say their names and their nicknames at the beginning of the show.

I seemed cool. Oh, yeah. And it would be like the brute. And then it would cut to this nice looking 12-year-old girl. So this particular kid, the first kid went and his name was just like, I'm John and I'm powerful. And then the next one, I'm Katie and I kick butt. And then this kid just went like animal from the Muppets. He was just that.

And then he just tore around the racetrack like the Tasmanian devil. He jumped over things like he was on flipping drugs. When they got to what we called the second act, Mike had said to the three kids, what are you expecting in this next heat, this next event? It's so difficult. And he was saying saying I expect I'm gonna have to run really fast and the girl was just like I think I'm just gonna be like elbows out and he just went I think I'm gonna have leaves flying past my face is what he said and that might

not be um word for word but it's what I remember because it was something insane and we went oh interesting and then at the end they had to run and get onto like their first place, second place, third place podium so the first kid runs up gets his place, second kid runs up gets their place and then he runs up and just jumps over it like the nurse one like like yeah like and we did find out that he wasn't he wasn't maybe some like a police group club or something um and i'm saying this with all sorts of love because he was fantastic he was so happy um but i think that he maybe did take some sort of meds just to

calm him a little. And he hadn't taken them that day. And we could tell. Right. But, yeah. If there was going to be a day to get off the meds, to go full throttle. He chose the correct day.

That was well... That was thoughtful. I mean, you pull a wild card, you get great television. Oh, well, I think we got, because we'd loved, I think we got pulled and said, you can't be amused by this.

Yeah, but we weren't on camera, but I don't know. I think maybe for the audience or something but yeah that was the best day of my life on guts he was fantastic yeah wow did he climb the aggro crag in like two seconds yeah he was at the bottom then he was at the top wow yeah there was just nothing in between oh well done manic kids it's a Plate, like if only every kid who has Energy issues could go Work it out on the aggro, Craig Exactly, it would be a great therapeutic

Place Yeah, better than if We, the three of us as kids Exactly, with a stunt team Around you With a stunt team around you too Yeah, with a stunt team, I just think it would have Been a little less, do you Have it, with a stunt team. I just think it would have been a little less,

do you have it? And a little more like, are they anxious? Like that is our version of guts. I would have climbed the aggro crag and my mom would have been right behind me making sure I was okay the whole time. Just like spotting me as we go up. That would have been a good episode, honestly. Yeah. I mean, to go up

in a sort of a stroll, that's sort of fun without all the mylar exploding at you. It's very squishy. It was surprisingly squishy. Trampoline-ish? Sort of bounced a bit? Huh. So if a kid like ate it, it wouldn't be so bad landing with your face

on it. Yeah. And there were two guys from the art department who would wait up there, maybe to throw more Mylar. I don't know. But I think I mentioned Muttley at the beginning of our time together, but one of them laughed like Muttley. He was amazing. Yeah. And they taught me, those two guys in the art department taught me, because we all had to wear Reeboks and they always, you know, your laces always come undone.

And if there's anything I learned from Guts, it was from those two guys who taught me how to tie my shoes in a particular way. And my shoelaces have never come undone since 1992. Wow. Wow. That's interesting. I'm curious to know what that is. That's a super power. That's like a superpower. Yeah, really. I'm still bad at tying my shoes. Yeah, I was late to that. In addition to like, oh man, he's crying a lot.

Like I was also very late to that. I was like, the Velcro makes so much sense. It's so efficient. Why are we ditching it? But you know, I didn't have like gaffers helping me know i didn't have like uh uh gaffers helping me i didn't have like no you didn't or people to help mylar on you once you'd had success with your shoelaces that's right i i was reading a like a guts wikipedia page where somebody pointed out that the yeah right so there's the the the piece of the rock that is your

your trophy at the end this wikipedia oh boy oh my gosh oh here we go let me pause and prepare myself all right i see one of these things this is gonna be the best thing i did over zoom the entire time was see a piece of the i was just going to say like I read this thing oh here it comes wow yeah it's got my name on it how does it light up we're doing that

that adds value jeez what does it say on there it says global guts so that was the global guts version season one so that was aspirational mo on your mark get set go which i never said it was always a whistle nickelodeon studios orlando florida oh wow well it honestly gave me chills to see that and then hear the phrase the full phrase

nickelodeon studios orlando florida yes you have a disclaimer on your website that i will that you will not sell your agro crag unless like fruit significant sum of money significant i've got my mother to take care of um yeah yeah maybe a listener out there. Did you go to my website? I don't think I've looked at that. It probably needs updating, doesn't it? Yeah. The important thing is it's still there as opposed

to mine, which disappeared apparently seven months ago and I never noticed. So you're doing better than me. I'm on my second account. The site that was hosting it became not a site anymore and didn't tell anyone

I never got an email I think that my website might look like a MySpace page I don't know how old it's been a long time since I've looked at it and God knows what happened to my first Twitter account so now I have a sad second Twitter account that makes me annoyed

I do want to ask we've seen your aggro Craig Twitter account. So now I have a sad second Twitter account that makes me annoyed. Okay. Yeah. I do want to ask, we've seen your aggro, Craig. Do you still have your Cable Ace Award? Oh, that wouldn't have gone to me. That would have gone to the executive producer. That's in a Nickelodeon office. They probably didn't

even know I was on the show. There wasn't a referee category where you competed against American Gliator best full brine nylon striped shirt yes i'll take that award yes no competition for that um what was the so the the the ending of the whole enterprise not only the show but also the the closing of Nickelodeon Studios, how was the, how were your emotions surrounding the end of that era? Ambivalent.

I guess the checks help get you to that point. Yeah. That's because there's a lot of kids out there starting a lot of petitions and I guess you weren't signing them. Bring back the big stream arena. I've had such a weird...

My favorite and great time with Nickelodeon was when they finally opened up Nicktoons, which was this great building in Burbank. I always used to drive by and go, that's an amazing building. Someone should do something with that. And it became Nicktoons. And so I was always very happy to go in and do the shows there. It was a nice transition. I don't think most people at Nicktoons knew that I'd actually worked on camera at Nickelodeon. It was weird. Yeah.

I think I was going to make a point, but I can't remember what it was. But when Nickelodeon or Nicktoons opened, they had their proper opening and they had a massive party. And I did get invited as a VIP having been

on their shows for several years and being on their cartoon series. So I turn up, good as gold, all happy to go to a party and have a cocktail in the afternoon, planning a nap afterwards. I'm not on the guest list. I couldn't get in. Oh, God. Can you imagine? And they enforced it and nobody checked for you? No, there was no... They said, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. And I went, don't worry about it and got back in my car and we went off and had lunch somewhere else or dinner or something. And then my friend Dee Baker, he was the voice of Olmec, so we're good friends.

But he said, inside the party there was big mug shots of me, me and Mike, of all of the shows, but only on a picture I couldn't get in. Isn't that bizarre?

The photo is in it. Oh my God. Offline. If only, if only you had known and had that to point to. There's a picture of me inside. Can you let me in? I'll point at it. I,

that's the worst part. Like when you're a PA and they're like, oh, they forgot me on that at the wrap party. All right, fine. I'm nobody. But when you're trying to do the, like I'm in the, okay's in the sixth scene if you watch i'm in and it's just like

all right man yeah i know i've learned since then that actually getting into the parties i mean i should have been obviously there was a mistake clearly yes i hope so um but but yeah it's not an unfamiliar story in the hollywood trenches of of people that's why you always have the phone number of someone you know will be there early that's is it you jason he's always at a party early oh Oh, I'd be happy. I'd be happy to let anyone in who's at my phone number. But no, that's my trick for not going like, hey, come on. I hate this restaurant

usually, but come on. I at least want to say hi to some people. Yes, exactly. So you're, all right, so fonder feelings for the, besides this party situation, fonder feelings for the Nicktoons building where you've done a bunch of

VO stuff. Yeah. And actually, they did a Sanjay and Craig where they recreated Mike and me. Oh, really? A few years ago. Yeah. Wow. That's a nice way to tie everything together.

That's so cool. Yeah, there's a Sanjay and Craig style me rendered. Yeah. Wow, there's a Sanjay and Craig style me rendered. Yeah. Wow, that's great. Amazing. Yeah, let's see. Now, the Star Wars thing. Let's talk about your place in the Star Wars universe.

Which I love and have always loved. And ever since I first saw the movie, I've been astonished by it. And it's really all I can think about. Yes, of course. Yes, yes. On the record. We all love Star Wars. And the only thing we love more than Star Wars is working regularly.

Exactly. When did you start loving star wars i would say about the time they hired me yes there would be the truth yeah yeah makes sense uh you've done like multiple video games though yes i do a lot of video games yeah which is fun i mean a video in general but multiple star wars games too is there like a is there any of these not just star wars let's say like any of the video games is any different than the regular vo stuff is it more fun less is it more work intensive um it's a different it's a different animal um and and actually this this year because i was doing video games, I don't know if I would have gone on the home if we send you the equipment and tell you how to use it?

To which I said, yes, I will do that. And thank goodness for that. That was Blind Light with a game called Destiny 2. And because of that, I knew everything to buy and how to set it up and how to work it. But it was several weeks of me learning how to use logic and my preamp. It was a lot

of YouTube watching. But yes, some games, when I did Skyrim, I got that all done in an afternoon um and then other games it's it goes on for years there's a there's a game about a boy who's slightly magical that i can't talk about because i've signed an nda but um and i'm not saying who it is because there's lots of magical people in the world

and maybe i mean literal magic and maybe i don't because what is magic um legally and that that's been going on for a few years before it's been released some and some games don't let you even talk about it even once it's released it's weird yeah there's things you can't take credit for for whatever reason just because of the odd way that they i don't know they're there that's a funny world that um but but yes sometimes it's it's a lot of um being shot and and that can be and other times you're a witch who can only access her powers when she's drunk. And that's super fun.

So it's just all different types of characters. Yeah. Very wide range, it seems like. It's actually not something I didn't even consider. But I guess, yeah, if the character's running and getting hit, you have to do a lot of just like, ugh. Oh, my God. Yeah. That's really i think for me that's that's the part that's

i'm not going to say it hardest but it requires a different sort of part of the brain to to work and and i did have one director who was just great and he would say because they know the kind of exact sound that they need it's sort of like war scenes and fight scenes that they really do have to orchestrate them in a way so sometimes they need a or a and uh you have to give them that so don't be breaking your voice going when they need a key yeah just get you in the the general vicinity of what i'm much happier with words words yeah words are my ballywick makes sense on efforts and grunts sure sure if anyone ever wants to give me sort of line readings for exactly the sort of sound or efforts that they need, I'm never upset. I welcome it.

Yeah, sure. I've been on the other side of that. I'm like, thank you for saying that, because either I could do a dance. I could say a bizarre paragraph to try to get to where it sounds like I or I could just say, it's very, I'm more practiced now. And also with games, you have to understand that most people just want to just get you out of the way so they can keep playing.

So, you know, you're sometimes an unwelcome presence. You try and make yourself as welcome as possible. Yeah. You're also, you have so many credits in the in the like adr looping world which now what occurs to me is what you began that that's the that's the murder she wrote i know you at all times together all tied together that yeah it's actually a fun job. And I often go in. It seems that I have a canny way with news reporters. You will often hear me in the background being some sort of BBC type reporter, newscaster and whenever someone calls me and says do you want to do that i always say well yes i do i turn up i do my job i sign my contract and i go home seems like the way to do it

it's not sexy but here we are doing uh living the life right right in a house in la yeah well that's we were we were talking i think a little at the at this the start of all this or even before we started the whole the notion of like is because we i think we built up in la now but we built up orlando as like the dream of dreams because like all the at least in the early 90s all the best entertainment is there to us the best theme parks are there some of who became the biggest stars in the world are just starting to hone their craft at seven years old or whatever it is. Are we insane? Are we insane for thinking that Orlando is this Xanadu? it is and i don't mean this uh as a disc but it's a secondary market where you can go and live

affordably and and practice and hone your craft you can do theater there you can do improv there all those sorts of things and think about all the people i'm thinking about the people that i was there with who were in my sort of coterie at SAC and at the theme parks. And we have, you know, Dee Baker was there who's in every single Star Wars cartoon. Every who plays Klaus on American Dad. He's just, you know, he's just amazing in the world of voiceover. Wayne Brady was there. Jonathan Mangum, who's on is it? Not the Price is Right.

The one Wayne Brady did? Like his like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, he was like writing a man on that. Yeah, yeah, right. Oh, he was an Orlando guy too. They go back. Okay. Oh, Frank friend Claire Sarah is, you know, she's a film writer and does very well. Our friend Aaron Shaw wrote on Raymond and wrote on The Office and has his Emmy. And, you know, everyone sort of started there. And then, but the sad thing is is i don't know if it'll always be this way but yeah you'd better get yourself to maybe georgia or la or new york or chicago it's just that's still the way it is you're always going to be sort of geographically

challenged but there's amazing people performing there the people people who are still at the parks, I think, who are just fantastic. Sure. Steve Pernick's still there. He wrote Shelby Woo. Do you remember the mystery book? So he wrote that and he was the detective in it and he's back in

Orlando and he has his house and his family and performs. Yeah. Sure, sure. I always ask this of people who performed in the park. in Orlando and he has his house and his family and performs. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Is,

um, is there, I always ask us of people who performed in the parks. Cause I'm, I'm a little jealous. I didn't do this when I was younger. I think it would have been fun, uh, to do it.

But is there like a thing you did in the parks that if you were like, I could, it would be fun to do an hour again of this, like to this role, this murder, she wrote her. Is there anything like that or is it all like ah that's i did it oh that's so funny we went back to uh my husband was doing um the

conference the magic conference and it was in orlando and he got you know he had his flight and some pay oh he's you can just speak words. Once the genie conference comes up. Yeah, he's not a magician though. He was there as an allied artist because he does juggling and performance art and comedy. But so, so we all went and it was 2017. So I hadn't been there performing and, and I looked at part of Epcot and I went, well, that looks familiar. And then I went, Oh my God,

I worked here because that's what happens, lads. When you get older, you forget things and you just, everything becomes very compartmentalized. I think. No, I wouldn't go back. I don't like going back. Nothing that I would do again, but I am, I'm definitely appreciative for that, that part of, of my life there. Yeah, it was fun. And I did enjoy when we went back, I think I maybe enjoyed it more as being a person with my kids showing them stuff that I'd enjoyed

as a kid and just being such an old woman about it because I made sure that we all went on the carousel of progress I absolutely said we are doing this because I just remember when I was little that you would always go there because that was the free ride. You didn't have your A ticket, your B ticket, or your E ticket for that. It was just, you could just get on it. I don't think I knew that. So you could learn about the fine General Electric products. That was the peak. It's sort of, it's a brand.

And also, to this day, I mean, I don't know where I would put it, but if I ever did find a machine that you, whatever it is that you wrap around you and then it jiggles you and you're meant to lose weight that way. I mean, a, what a dream. I hope it works. I'm sure it does clearly. Yeah. And that I would remember that from the carousel of progress and the dog, the animatronic dog yeah sure i i i guess i remember the theme parks more for just from being a kid myself than the actual working there yeah the people i mean i love the people right yeah peter and

paul vote were there too amazing people were there so yeah So when you are at the theme parks, really, really pay attention to who's performing because they're going to be amazing one day somewhere else. You might see them on a TV show, even though clearly they're making more, you know, why would they do a TV show?

And then they've got that gig, right? Isn't that how it goes? The more dependable living in the parks. Yes, apparently. This is what we've learned. We've learned so much. Yours was more about why would you do one TV show rather than

another TV show. Children can't wrap their heads around the concept of SAG scale, though. No, exactly. That's a lot to figure out eventually. Why would Lucy Lawless ever do anything other than the show shot in New Zealand for five shillings? Why would she then do network television in America?

That's curious. I'm really going to have to ponder that one. Surely they kept, I mean, they kept discovering such riches on that show. I don't know that the residents of Pawnee are that rich with balloons or whatever no well thank you for

taking us on this this rich this intellectually rich journey to Orlando random desultory kind of old woman-ish type reminiscences. Oh, no. It was fantastic. It was a blast.

Morrick Quirk, you survived Podcast The Ride. What an honor. So happy to have you. Thanks for putting it out there and reaching out and wanting to be on it. Thanks to your daughter for supporting the show. That's great news to us. You might have to be intern. Oh, yeah.

Oh, should we? No, don't let her. They're starting to pay some internships now. Don't make the mistakes we did. Or stalking yourself. Let's exit through the gift shop. Is there anything that you would like to plug? Anything I would like to plug? No, I'm

absolutely secured with nda what what what instagram oh yes instagram follow my sad instagram and my sad twitter they're really quite jolly my name maura quirk that's what i got told and i i am a person who does what i'm told yeah so follow me and i put And I put jolly pictures on to make you smile in the morning. Well, that's nice. Or any time that you look at them. They're not just for the morning. Oh, it doesn't expire at a certain point.

Like Steven Spielberg's Quibi was going to. They're nocturnal and diurnal. Well, that's fun. Wow. They work all the time. That's impressive. As for us, you can find us on all the socials including instagram at podcast the ride our collective name uh there's merch available in our t public store and for three bonus episodes every month check out podcast

the ride the second gate at patreon.com slash podcast the ride um good I feel like to answer the question of the show I feel like we had it today we did all have it thanks to Moira and thank you thanks everybody for listening goodbye

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.