Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - John Ratzenberger (Re-Release)

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

We’re looking back at our Cheers reunion with John Ratzenberger (aka Cliff Clavin)! John told Ted and Woody about how he pitched his know-it-all Cheers character, his time at the original Woodstock, his take on the now-infamous hooky boat ride, and the multiple times he nearly met his maker.   To help those affected by the Southern California wildfires, make a donation to World Central Kitchen today. Like watching your podcasts? Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes. 

And I remember thinking, tomorrow's paper is going to say, Cliff Kills, cast of Cheers. Right. Welcome back to Where Everybody Knows Your Name. All right. So I'm loving all these Cheers themed episodes that we've been revisiting. And this one is with your favorite postman,

Cliff Claven, AKA John Ratzenberger. You're gonna hear about how John pitched his know-it-all Cheers character to the writers the first time he met them, his time at the original Woodstock, and also his multiple near-death experiences. Our buddy has lived quite a life. Here's our friend, John Rathenberger.

Okay, Emmy nominee, a voice actor in 22 Pixar movies, a storied act, please don't interrupt, this is you. I just realized that, I thought we were talking about Woody. No, no, no, a storied acting career in TV and film spanning nearly five decades. Perhaps his most famous role was on Cheers as the garrulous, you can quarrel with the word garrulous, male carrier, Cliff Claven.

Please welcome to the show our longtime friend, Johnny, John Ratzenberg. Gentlemen, so good to see you again, once again. Great to see you, dude. I want to come back here every day now. I get such a fuzzy feeling, warm and fuzzy. Wait until we get going. Okay.

I haven't seen it. Literally, you're the only person from Cheers I haven't seen since the day we wrapped. I've been trying to avoid you. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Duck in the wrong quarters. There he is. So I've been out and about. I just finished a 4,000 mile driving trip. I just took this spear of the moment.

So I don't spend a lot of time here. Where did you go from where to where? From Rancho Mirage on the desert to Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Washington state, Oregon, and then back down here. Oh my God. In what? A car. Where was your vehicle?

Well, I didn't walk. Yeah, no, but he wondered if you were taking a motorcycle. This is a valid question. He wondered if you were taking a motorcycle race. Yeah, thank you. Oh no, my daughter won't want me on motorcycles anymore. No more motorcycles. Yeah, no.

But what kind of vehicle was it? It was a pickup truck. Nice. It's red. By yourself? Was it just you? Yeah. Wow.

What do you do when you pull into a town? Well, I bring... One of my friends that I stopped to see, he's an ex-Vinter winery guy, he just sold his winery, but he's got a big property up in Montana and his thing is trapping skeet. I brought a couple of shotguns with me, and so we did some trapping skeet shooting. Then I got friends in Oregon, we went down the Rogue River,

one of those boats to Rapids and all that stuff. I never have an agenda. This one I did, the first stop was with Pueblo, Colorado. I gave a talk there. And I've been doing quite a bit of that speechifying. And what are you speechifying about? Well, actually what I bet you you here about all those years ago, to get kids shop classes,

to get shop classes reinstated because we're literally running out of people that know how to use tools. Literally, the airlines were running out of pilots of all things. The railroads falling off the tracks, that's because they don't have enough people to fix what's going wrong. Are you raising the alarm or are you- I've been trying for three.

I spoke in front of Congress twice already, and brought in witnesses from construction firms who said they have to close down because they can't find a simple carpenters and brick layers and I don't know if you remember I'm talking about I was a carpenter before I got into this acting game. Yeah no I because I, cause you know, they, they give you, even though we hung out a thousand hours, well more, you know, you look at, I, I, there's a thing in here that you were at Woodstock as one of the crew. Yeah. You must've told me that, but I forgot about it. I know. I never heard that either. Is that amazing? Yeah. Well,

I, you know, I guess, I don't know. So what were you doing? I was a carpenter. I was living up in the area up in Bearsville. I was building a studio for a mime, giving mime lessons. So I traded my carpentry skills for mime lessons and breakfast in a bed. The great businessman. Then the word went out in town

that there's some festival going on, they're looking for people. So I trundled on down there and stood in line, and the guy says, can you drive a tractor? I said, yeah. Never in my life. So, he hears the keys and started up and he went. I almost flipped it.

But then, so I was doing heavy equipment operation and pounding nails to stage. Did you have to leave after you built it before the festival? No, no, I was there right through the festival. Oh my God. That's amazing. I was there like a week and a half before the festival, during the festival, and about a week after the festival.

Did you have any idea that, oh, this is huge, this is big or no? My first thought was, we're in big trouble when these idiots take over the country. Johnny. I said, wow, these people are idiots. They're college educated, but they're idiots. The crowd.

The crowd. The crowd, yeah. All right. What did you think I was talking about? The musicians. All right. Okay. No, I didn't get. The musicians. All right. Okay. No, I didn't get to hear a lot of music. So yeah, but I was wandering,

just on the road kind of thing. Hey, can we back up a second? We've been talking about because we've all known each other, but we knew each other while we were rehearsing and laughing and so I had no idea what Woody was like when he was the seven eight nine twelve whatever year old. What was that age? What were you doing at that age? What was your life like? Were you running out the door and coming back and you know, that was a nice sound. Nice sound.

That was me running out the door. No, Johnny, come back. Uh, yeah. What were you, what was that like? Oh, I know. I haven't Bridgeport, which is a factory town, but, uh, we grew up right on the water, but there was nothing, uh, sumptuous about it. Say we go up on the water, yeah. But there was a shipyard right across the street,

and one down the end of the street, one down the end of this street. So it was mostly utilitarian water things. So I was around people building boats, repairing boats, buying boats, selling boats. At what age? Zero right on. That's where you learned the carpentry skills, working on boats?

Yeah. Well, that's where I guess I'm thinking about. That's probably where my interest started. But then when I got to middle school, we actually had shop classes. Mr. Banny said, oh no, he uses cross-cut saw for that or a rip saw. Then you started learning about tools. Right.

You tried to do it right too because he had really bad breath. He was leaning over your shoulder, your eyes in water. He wanted to do it right. But I always enjoyed that when I went to England, I don't know how old I was, 20. But that's how I made a living over there, it was a carpet yard.

I got different building sites. Was that before you got bitten by the acting bug or the comedy or whatever? How did that fit in? Because I know you traveled around. The acting bug, I had done some in college, but I never thought you could make a living at this stuff. In England, a buddy of mine from college, Ray Hassett, who went on later years to become

a very well-decorated sheriff, policeman in New Haven, Connecticut. But he and I toured Europe. Oh, this is the Sal's Meat Market. Sal's Meat Market. Yeah. So we got a pretty good reputation, the Monty Python guys who come to our shows,

and remember Bob Hoskins, he'd always be in our audience, guys like that. But then I came over here, Ray went another direction, but I mean, he's a movie, that guy. Undercover stuff, and yeah. But then, cheers. Yeah, but cheers. But before that, you also did every,

you played every American soldier. Oh, yeah. In every war movie known to man. Well, because the dollar was very strong against the pound when I was over there, so they're making a lot of American movies. So I was the right height, weight, size, look to fit into a uniform.

So every movie, I did the 30-something movies over there, and every one was a uniform, like ragtime. I was a fireman, bridge too far, Gandhi, yada, yada, yada. It was always a uniform of some kind. Yeah. But then the ultimate uniform, the mailman. The garrilist mailman.

The garrilist. That's not fair. He was way more than garrilist. Yeah, garrilist is interesting. Yeah. But, but I love the way your audition went. Because then you come in and auditioned for the George part for Norm part. I guess, yeah, I just because I never auditioned. I'd been working 10 years straight in Europe non-stop. Not once did I ever audition and I didn't go to acting school.

So I didn't know what taught me what I was supposed to do. So I walked into the office, remember there was Jimmy, Les and Glenn, a couple other people. But they're sitting there like, show me your stuff and I remember thinking, oh, that's probably why they gave me these scripts. So I did a horrible job. So I was walking out the door, literally walking out

the door. And I don't know whether this is my fantasy or it happened in reality, but I could have sworn that my 8 by 10 was going like this into the wastebasket. Well, I stopped and said, do you have a bar know it all? But that was the writer part of me asking, and it was Glenn who said, what are you talking about? I said, every bar that I've ever been in, in New England anyway, has some horse's ass who pretends to know everything,

but everybody defers to that person anyway. Because when I go find my dad, tell him the dinner was ready. There's always one guy in the bar. Then my father's was a guy named Sarge. Hey, Sarge, what's the length of a whale's intestine? Baleen or blue? He was a kid, I thought that was hysterical.

Yeah, so I just picked up on that character. I think I used a ballpoint pen from the desk in there and explained why the big pen was originally called the bitch pen and why they had to take the H off and which is a true story by the way. No. Really? Two brothers, French brothers, the bitch brothers, B-I-C-H and somebody started a pen company and somebody goes, you might want to take the age off of that.

Okay. Now, you have to raise your hand. Is this true story? All right. Wow. That's a great story. Yeah. I've always been a collector of arcades, thoughts, and facts. So I get the kick out of it. When you did the audition,

you're leaving and then you say the thing about the bar, no at all. So what was their response? Well, they were laughing. That was the only reason I did that because, again, I had a great career going in Europe, big audiences and I was toast to the town back there. But I didn't want to leave that office, have them think I was some kind of Momo, just some guy, some actor,

because I knew what I was doing, but I needed to make them laugh before I left, to regain my dignity because it was just shatters all over the carpet from my audition. So that's the only reason I did it. Two days later, I get a call. Did, wait, but did you get laugh? Did they laugh?

Oh, yeah. So you knew you left on a high. Well, I went into a whole character. Yeah. Because it's those characters always, you know, the eyebrows go, you know. You know, you got the, there's all kinds of convoluted motion that goes with it.

And there's a cop who's a father of a buddy of mine growing up, and he was like that too. I always used to make fun of him. So I mixed them all up and boom, boom, boom. Johnny, it was a brilliant character. It truly was. You made me laugh so hard. I can go back and reruns and you make me laugh. I just love those types of that.

You know, sort of the pompous individual, everybody knows he's full of it. But yet, okay, let's listen to him and pretend he's right. Now, another influence, because you told me this, and you actually got me to start watching his movies, Jacques Tati. Oh, Jacques Tati, yeah. Tell me first a little bit about him. Well, it's just after Second World War,

I started making movies. But here's the reason that I had the wardrobe guy in Cheers lift up my pant like the cuffs. You can see the white socks. It's because of Jacques Tati. Jacques Tati, and a lot of us, he didn't really talk, but he just walked across the room and just

his body language and the way he looked, other people would stare and change. He actually started like a knock, drink down on the dog and the dog. It'd be chaos. Yeah. All he had to do is walk through a room. I just saw how brilliant that is.

But as a matter of fact, I was thinking about him last night. I'm in this hotel up here in Hollywood, and they got all these knobs and buttons, and I couldn't turn off the light. I was like, what the hell? But Jacques Tati did a movie called Mon Onc. It's all that, all these modern doodads,

and squiggles, and spigots. But it's funny you've mentioned that, I was just thinking about that last night. We haven't talked a lot about, I mean we have talked a lot about Cheers, but these are some silly questions. Like, do you have favorite moments? Do you have favorite episodes?

Do you have anything? Oh, with Cheers? Yeah. I can't think of a time that a day that wasn't favorite. It just seemed like it just got better and better. I really enjoyed the read-through of the scripts. They would send us the script about on Friday or the weekend, so that we would have it in front of us Monday.

I never opened it. I would go in to work with you guys not having read the script. Every time you turn the page, it was like a little Christmas present. Yeah. Because I love the way the writing. You never saw it coming. Yeah.

Whereas most sitcoms, you can see it a mile away you know what's gonna happen but with Cheers you just you didn't see it coming. Yeah. And so I just thought I got kicked out of that but that was one of my favorite moments every week was that. I'm gonna tell you some of my favorite moments, Squeaky Shoes. Oh I was thinking about that. That was one. Yeah. You directed that.

I did. Yeah. Yeah. But that was one of my favorites too. An entire bar, walking around looking at their feet with squeaker, little hand held squeakers to make the shoe look. I had the prop guy cut the squeakers out of toys, so each actor had his own octave. Because I don't think that in post-production,

it'd be the same octave, the same sound. Not funny, but what the actors were in charge. If you look at the right hands of all you guys, you'll see some people squeezing it. What else did you direct? A lot of half hour? Yeah, a lot of half hour? Yeah, a lot of half hour. Then I made the great career move of moving

my family up to an island in Washington State. Yeah. The agents didn't like that because I was getting a lot of offers to direct. I made a lot. So I was with William Morris at the time. I said, well, I'm going to move in my family up to start a little farm up in Washington on an island. He said, what? Well, yeah, just call me, I'll come down.

I thought it was easy. Just call me, okay, yeah, I'll be there. But it doesn't work like that. You actually have to talk to people. What did you do though up there? Were you farming? Well, like I said, I grew up in and around boats. We always had boats and my son and I,

I remember the first fish he caught, we were in a boat, a Cape Cod cat boat I had built. Anyway, he's reeling it in, reeling it in, he looks over and it's a shark. It's like a sand shark, not a big deal. He was like five, six, he was dead. It's a shark. It's like a sand shark, not a big deal. He was like five, six, he was dead. It's a shark. I remember that scene from Bambi,

where Bambi's father's, get up Bambi, when the fire's coming. You can do it son. That's what I did with my son. I said, reel it in Jim, you can do it. He wanted me to reel it in for him. But I remember the look of pride on his face when he re real it in, Jim, you can do it. He wanted me to reel it in for him. But I remember the look of pride on his face when he reeled it in himself and held it up like that.

So that's the reason I went, because you can't do that here. Yeah. I've got this set of skills that don't translate to raising children here. So I had to bring them to a place that I knew, like crabbing and sailing. And then, you know,

oh, I remember going to pick up my kids at school and Jim jumps in the car and says, where's Nina? So I don't know. I look and about 20 yards away, there's a huge pine tree with a lot of kids on the pine tree looking up. I said, I think I know where she is. She was like 80 feet in the air.

Just four or five years old. This is the side of the climb to pine tree. But that's the reason. Yeah. To expose them to that. Just, there it is. Go do it. Hey, now that we're talking boats a little bit

and we have the major culprit sitting next to me, Woody Harrelson, come on, let's revisit the story just one more time. I don't know from Johnny's perspective, but he was bleak from our perspective. We were dying and you were irritated. So silly. Shut it up. I was a little afraid. Well, let us back up just for a second. We decided, all the boys at Cheers decided to play hooky. First bad thing we'd ever done,

you know? Yeah. And it was like, I think our fifth year or something like that. And we weren't heavy in the script. It was Shelly and Rhea. And we called Rhea that night and said, heads up, we're going to play hooky. And we all decided to meet down. This is Long Beach, where the boat was. Yeah. And it was a Boston Whaler that you had or something?

No, no, Boston Whaler is a little, but this is a Grand Banks. Wow. It's a 42 foot trawler. Yeah, it was very impressive. So we go there, I think Woody and I are stoned already on marijuana and we stopped by to pick up Kelsey, who had been up all night. And then we all piled, you know, to the dock. We got to a telephone booth and we called Jimmy Burroughs,

the director, and said, Jimmy, I'm not feeling good. I'm not coming in. Hold on one second. Then he'd pass it to the next guy in line. He was not amused. And then we got on the boat. By now, having no breakfast, I'm hungry. And Woody says, have you ever had mushrooms?

Would you like some mushrooms? And I thought, yeah. I mean, we're gonna be on a boat? We're not answerable to anybody? Yes. And in my kind of hunger, I remember it was two or three handfuls that tasted pretty good. Hard cut to, I don't know, a half hour later.

And we were at the tail end of weather that had come up from Mexico, right? That was on the way back. Oh, but it was, well, it wasn't bumpy. I thought it was bumpy, not bumpy. No, the way over there was just- Okay, my mushrooms were bumpy. Let me put it that way.

Something was bumpy. Yeah. Yeah, they're called wavesing. Let me put it that way. Something was bumpy. Yeah. Yeah, they're called waves. The ocean has them a lot. Yeah, so you should have told me that before you go on. Anyway, I look at Woody and Woody stretches out and I think, oh my God, he's so used to this. He stretches out in a bunk and I am dying.

I have trouble breathing and I am just dying. So I go up to where you and George went, we're sitting, you were piloting and you both looked at me and went, oh fuck. You know, what did you do? I had some mushrooms. And I sat next to George and every 30 seconds he would go, pat me and go, breathe.

And I go, because I would forget. You'd just be holding your breath. I remember that. You were like holding your breath for a long period. And I thought you were fine, but you finally came up because you were afraid you were kind of blading, jumping off the back of the boat. Anyway, woof, never had a mushroom again.

Worst experience. And Kelsey was down below. He was, he was raggedy. Yeah, good. Worst, worst experience. And Kelsey was down below. He was, he was raggedy. Yeah, he was sound asleep. He was sound asleep. Catching some Z's. So you two, George, Kelsey and me. Yeah. Going to Catalina.

Yeah. I enjoyed the ride back. The ride back was fun. Not for you, because you were fighting some weather. Well, yeah, coming back, I remember we were on Catalina and I had my radio, carried my radio, so I knew there was weather coming. I just wanted to keep an eye on it. And when they said yes, turn it in, it's going to be coming right down the channel. I said to you guys, I remember we were at a Mexican restaurant. I don't know if you remember. Yeah, yeah. I said, look, we gotta stay the night just to be safe. Now you're gonna make this next part up, I can tell,

but go on. You laying this on me? No, I wasn't gonna do that. Oh, thank you. One of the members said, oh no, I got to get back because I got to go to a wedding. My wife's going to get back. There was a whole litany of, I said, all right, we got to leave right this second.

So we scurried down to the tender that took us out to the boat, started the engines, and got underway. It was horrible because the weather was coming broadside to the boat. As a captain, what you do is you go this way, the way the waves are going. So I said, well, we can go into, you know, go up to Ventura or Oxnard or just because that's where the wind's blowing us and it's safer because then you just go in like that and that's fine because that boat would take it.

It's built for heavy weather. And no, couldn't because the cars were there in Long Beach. So the boats, I remember the props cavitating there. It was because there's two engines, two props and the boats, and you can hear the props spinning out of the water. And I remember thinking, tomorrow's paper is going to say Cliff Kills cast of Cheers. We're going under.

Obviously, we made it back, but that was something. Good navigating. Well, I remember you asked me to sit up in the prowl. Well, yeah, towards the end there when Towards the end. When we were coming in, just to keep an eye out for buoys and things, to make sure we were in the right spot. One of the members of the crew had opened

the refrigerator but forgot to latch it. Woody, was that you? Was it? I forget who it was. But when the boat pitched. Everything. Everything, all the bottles broke, beer bottles. So now, you got glass, broken glass and beer. Ooh, ooh.

Like this. And so I'm stuck at the wheel. And so if anything happened, I can't even walk and saw broken glass sloshing behind me. We're a mess. It was something. It was a different. I think it was the last time you invited us

on any of your boats. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever been scared for your life on a boat? Oh yeah. Tell me. Well, there's once I, uh, the one that comes to mind when I was a deckhand on a oyster boat and, uh, went out. It's like farming oysters. You got the small oysters

and you dredge them up and you put them somewhere else. But it was in the winter and there was a storm and I had to go out on the outside of the boat to open up what's called the scuppers that up what's called the scuppers that you know that you and you rinse this the oysters out anyway my hand missed the thing and I was going I had my full oilers on the raincoat real rain gear boots so I was like this and my entire life flashed in front of me I I had never- You were about to fall off the side. Knowing that because it was winter, it was a storm, it was just me and the skipper on the boat

and he couldn't hear me because of the engine. So I could yell and scream all I wanted, but there's no way it'd take like half hour until he says, where the hell is that guy? Then he wouldn't be able to find me, but I, but I was going, I was dead because I knew as soon as I hit the water, I knew enough that, cause with what I had on it, I'd sink like a stone, cool water, all that.

But God and his wisdom sent a wave on the other side of the boat that tipped the boat more my way and I was able to grab the boat. But God's hand tipped the boat just enough for me to grab on. And then I went down below just to sit on a bunk and the skipper kid, this old grumpy guy, said, what the hell are you doing? Oh my God. Because apparently I was white as that sheet of paper. Yeah.

So he poured me a shot of whiskey and I knocked it back. But yeah, I was almost gone then. I had happened a few times different scenarios. Roof of a building and stuff like that. Motorcycles. Motorcycle crash, yeah. Tell us about the motorcycle crash. Well, I drove a Harley here in Los Angeles,

and I wasn't really a biker, just something to do. I was asked by a fellow who became a good friend of mine, Butch Starnes down in Florida. He was the president of the Nam Nights, Vietnam veterans on Harleys basically. They were having a big fundraiser to raise money for diabetes research. As you may or may not know, I was a big part of that nationwide.

So he picked me up at the airport and he says, you want to go out for a drink or something? I said, yeah, sure. I didn't know it, but he had owned like six strip clubs. a drink or something?" I said, yeah, sure. I didn't know it, but he had owned like six strip clubs. There's four of her life. So we had to go to each one. Anyway, it wasn't until. The fourth or fifth one that you caught on.

No, it wasn't until when the sun was coming up, I was just getting the bed and then he wakes me up a couple of hours later. He's like, okay, we're going to go pick up your bike. Because they had rented one identical to the one I drove here, for me to lead off this procession. I said, yeah, okay, sure. I didn't want to say, I want to sleep. Okay, good. Got on the bike and my head is still spinning.

I shouldn't have been on a bike at all. We get on the highway and he takes off. He had to be going to 125, him and some other guy. I'll catch up to him. I came around and hit the gravel. Bum-ba-da-bum-ba-da-bum-ba-da-bum. I remember thinking of my kids.

My last thought was just a picture of both of my kids. I'll never see them again. Anyway, so now I'm laying down. And I've got to make it to the side because there's traffic coming behind me and I make it to the little grass area. I think someone told me later that she was a nurse. She'd come over and she looked down at me

and see if she could help. This far from my face went, see if she could help and she came and said this far from my face went, ah, ah. Oh, wow. Encouraging. That's not what you want. I remember saying to her, thanks for stopping by, man. I'll take it from here.

So anyway, my friend Bush had seen my bike up in the air and his review of Mira. So he circled back around and then the ambulance showed up. And they're putting me on the stretcher. And one of them looks at the other guy, you know who this is? And now they're talking about favorite Cheers episodes. Right. I'm this close to bleeding to death.

So Butch, God bless him, put him in the ambulance, get him out of here. Then, Butch said, where are you taking him? They said, we're taking him to County. Now, County is where they use old rusty can openers. You don't want to go to county, anywhere in the world. He says, now take him to Orlando Regional. The guy said, don't tell me what to do.

We're taking him to county, it's closer. I wasn't in any shape to argue. So they shut the doors and we're going down the highway and the radio crackles. It's the chief of the fire department saying, where are you taking them? They said, county. Then the chief says, did Mr. Starnes tell you to take them around the regional? Oh, wow. He says, yes sir, he did. He says, will you do whatever Mr. Starnes tells you?

So we go across the verge again. I was so lucky again, the hand of God was there with me, tells you, don't we go across the verge again? And I was so lucky again, the hand of God was there with me, that there was a symposium or a convention of the top ankle surgeons in the state or the country. And so I had top people working on my foot.

If I hadn't been wearing a boots laced up, I would have lost my foot. So they patched it all together and you know, went down to the hardware store, got some metal and bolts and stuff. And so yeah, I was in the hospital for a while. Let me back up again. I'm jumping around. Who do you think had the most impact on you from growing up, your father, your parents, whoever,

to make you be this John Ratzenberger, if you could? Oh, never been asked that before. That's a big question. You know, later on in life you learn, you know, it's not the falling down, it's how you get back up and I think in my time in Europe, because there was no, except for my buddy Ray and his girlfriend at the time, there was no backup.

There was no, you're on your own. There's no going home and get your laundry done. You're completely on your own. And that goes a long way in forming somebody. But... Ray from the sales meat market? Yeah. Because he had already been over there working as a social worker. But also growing up, again, it's after World War II,

and a lot of these guys, my father included, came back with PTSD, but nobody knew because they didn't call it PTSD. They called it shell shock, and you were supposed to just get over it. I just shake it off. Right. Well, I remember stepping over friends' fathers. In the bars? On the way to school in the morning.

You know, I remember one that was sprayed across the curb just as you got to the crosswalk and kids are stepping over to go to school, but most of the fathers in the neighborhood were, yeah, the bar was their clubhouse. So that forms your personality, dealing with that. It was a town, you had to have eyes in the back of your head. The nuns, I remember seeing a nun knock a kid out,

but she came up from her toes and an uppercut, and this kid went over a desk. But he deserved it. He really did deserve it. That's all the whole thing. So you grow up, I go, yeah, well, okay. So I got knocked out. That's no big deal.

But I don't know how to answer it. Was your mother a big ingredient in all of that in your life? Well, yeah, she was a cuddly one. But what she would do, she'd buy old radios or appliances, what do they call back then, white elephant sails or something, cut off the electrical cord given to me.

I'm four years old, five years old. Let's go to screwdriver's old, five years old. It's called a screwdriver's part. She says, take it apart. This is your mom. That's incredible. Wow. That was just, so to me, that was a toy that I graduated to

Erector Sets and I was always fascinated with that. But again, it was a background and stuff that I probably should have been an engineer, that I could do fascinated with that. But again, it was a background and stuff that I probably should have been an engineer, that I could do all that stuff. But I didn't know what an engineer was. I was always the guy who drove a train. But there's nobody in the whole school system said, you know what, you should be an engineer.

I wouldn't have known what the hell they were talking about. My guidance counselor in high school though, I'll never forget that. I walk in her office and she said, what do you want? This is my guidance counselor. I guess I must have been a senior, junior. I said, well, I just wondered after high school, what I should be doing.

There was pamphlets, it was Tufts University and You know Princeton I said I'm not sure what whether I should be going to Tufts or be a doctor or Princeton And I'm just busting the chops Cuz I know Tufts So she would you said? Get out of my office. She's now she's screaming and she's standing up and she had veins Vice principal clothes running in what's about anyway, that's what was but

There was a new university opening up nearby and they needed butts for seats. So I applied there and got in. I think as long as your socks matched. I mean, it's a big deal university now. They actually did it right. It's a very well-known place. But I forget what year it was, maybe my junior year, one of my professors had to go do something family-related out of state.

He said, John, will you take over my class for a couple of weeks? Because after all, it was said and done once I dusted everything off. I had a brain. So he said, ''Will you take over my class for a couple of weeks?'' I said, ''Sure.'' So I remember going out and getting the three piece suit and a briefcase. Now I was going to be a college professor. Oh, this is after I graduated. That's right.

So I think the suitcase had a college professor. This is after I graduated, that's right. I think the suitcase had a baloney sandwich in it. That was right. So I walk in the amphitheater, I stood at the podium and I looked down, and there's my high school guidance counselor. Oh wow. Who told me, Ratz and Berger, get a job in some factory,

find somebody to marry you if you can and try to stay out of jail. That was my guidance. Seriously. That's my guidance. Those are three good guide posts. That's my high school. Okay. It wasn't like, you're going to be great out there. Yeah.

You know, but there she is now, and I'm her teacher in college. So I say, Mrs. Sosa, how are you doing? She looked up, her eyes got wide. I think she started to sweat and maybe cry. But she never saw her again. She didn't come back to another class. So when did you find out along the way,

like high school or whatever, when did you find out you were funny? Were you ever the class clown? Yeah, but I was surrounded by guys like that. Bobby Garamella, Gil Zawadsky. Even in high school, before the teacher came in, make up stuff, I said to one of the guys,

go downstairs, third floor, go down to the parking lot, get on top of the car and spray yourself like you jumped out of the window of the car. So he did. Teacher comes in and there's a bunch of us that do it and go, oh my God, he jumped, oh my God. And she went, what? And she looked down and she screamed. She runs down out, got the principal and says,

hey, come out. He jumped off and came back up another stairway. Yeah, just stuff like that. It seemed harmless, maybe might as well. Something to do, just stuff. I love, you are a bundle like we all are. But one thing that I love is I always,

because sometimes we're so different in many ways. I did not, I had an easier upbringing, you know, I think in some ways. Well, your father was an archeologist, right? Right, yep, and all of that stuff. But what I'm driving at is whenever I see you, and I haven't seen you for a while, there's that, I mean, I grab you,

I hug you and we both laugh and giggle over just all the fun we had on chairs and all the memories. You've got that soft giggler inside of you. Oh yeah. Which I love. I mean, you're a cream puff. I will, even raising kids, I would look for ways to embarrass them in public. Just to make them laugh.

Just to make yourself laugh. Well, just to well this, they deserve this. I'm picking up my daughter from high school, and the door to the high school is like that wall. Everyone's coming out of there. So I pull the car up right here. I'm no more than 25 feet. I get out of the car,

stand there, everyone's coming out, there's my daughter with her friends. Right there, I go, honey, honey, I'm over here. I'm right here. There's no other parent anywhere. There's no way she can miss me. Honey, can you see, I'm here,

I'm here by the car, you see the car? Come on, honey. She's like this. Oh no, that's my father. But her friends would go, they'd be hysterical. Laugh them. I really enjoyed that. I noticed with my grandkids, all my silly jokes that work great when they're five, six.

Yeah. So, man, I can't get the 11-year-old to laugh at any of my stupid jokes anymore. Male or female? Female. I'll find another way, don't worry. Embarrassing them at school helps. I'm sorry about that. Try it. I embarrass my daughter all the time. How old is she?

Sitting right over there. She's 17. Hi. I'm one of your dad's old buddies. From the old days, We were in the army. But she really, she has done some serious eye rolling for me like many times. I've given her eyes immense amount of exercise. I don't know. I embarrass her, but not intentionally. I always do it intentionally. I think they need it. Mary follows behind me in life going,

he was kidding. That was a joke. He was kidding. What he meant was, because you do love to push the envelope and say the most slightly inappropriate thing you can find. Well, yeah, that's true. That's a good point. I remember picking my daughter up. She was in a high-end middle school where the kids are picked up, it's either by the chauffeurs picking them up or a maid or limousine.

It was high-end stuff. Well, I was putting in a basketball court in our house, and I decided to take the truck that I had there. What do you call it? Bobcat? It was a little small bulldozer. So it's a big diesel flatbed. So I picked her up in that from school. She still remember.

Oh, that's right. So Mercedes, Porsche, blah, blah, blah. Diesel truck. But she just looked at him, oh, dad. But she jumped up, rode home with it. I think at the end of the day, they liked it.

Yeah. I'm going to switch gears one second, because I want to talk about Pixar. You've just had an astounding run with Pixar. How do you feel about all that? Well, it's just I showed up and did it, and became good friends with them, so they asked me to do every one.

You like their good luck, you're talisman for them. Not anymore. I don't work with Pixar anymore. Oh, really? I think because- Once you made them big, they just- Yeah. Who needs a lucky charm? No, because there was a change of hierarchy, and I guess the new guys didn't want the lucky charm. It was a change of hierarchy.

And I guess the new guys didn't want the lucky charm. But I still work with John Lasseter over at Skydance. That's the company that makes Jack Reacher, Mission Impossible, and all that stuff. So they have an animation wing, and John's running that wing. So I work with them there. Just doing voices. I cannot get arrested in any kind of voiceover work. I'll come in and audition. They go, that's great, man.

You should be doing this a lot and I never hear from them. It's kind of, I kind of love it because it feels like I'm starting over in one area, but I cannot get arrested. Hi, see I find that strange. Thank you. He's got a great voice. Great voice. Yeah, well, yeah.

Both of you, I'll put a word in. Please. Would you talk to John? Now, what about the, I remember when you were first doing the sizzle pack. Oh my, yeah. Yeah, let's talk about that. That's great. I remember when you were first doing the Sizzle Pack. Oh my. Yeah. Yeah, let's talk about that.

That's great. That thing, and then I saw it everywhere. I still see it everywhere. Oh, it's all over the world. Yeah. Sizzle Pack, describe it. It's instead of styrofoam and all that horrible stuff that doesn't go away. Little pieces of paper, like little, well, you can describe it better.

No, it's the same paper that paper bags made from craft paper. You take a strip of it and then fold it back on itself, you accordionize it and the memory wants to get back to its original shape. You put a lot of them together, they interlock. So it's perfect medium for shipping fragile items. I started that company up in Seattle and then sold. But that included like a factory.

Oh. Making all this. So Walker's did that. Made the machines even. You helped design the machines? Oh, yeah. Thank you, mom. Thank you, mom. Oh, really? Yeah.

But it was just, you know, then I sold the company and they sold the company and they sold. So somebody is, I don't know who's in charge now, but it's worldwide now. Yeah. Yeah, it was brilliant. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah, I don't get paid a cent anymore. So whatever work you guys can throw my way, I appreciate it.

Shit, we're counting on a crinkle paper. Now, you know, the other thing you taught me that I'll never forget was one day you came in and you were saying that you'd been up north or something or in Montana or somewhere and you said, you know, that those national parks have a scenic strip, it's maybe 100 yards and the rest is just freaking clear-cut. That they were clear-cutting our national forests. Remember? Oregon, yeah. Oregon. I was like,

well, nobody wanted to believe that. None of us wanted to believe that. None of us wanted to believe that. But then I went up there and I was like, oh my fricking God. Is that when you sat in a tree for a week or something? Didn't you do that once? He climbed the Golden Gate Bridge.

Yeah, well that was for the Redwoods. But I had never, I mean, you can't even imagine that the United States government is selling for like, I don't know, $8 a tree, these giant, beautiful, amazing fucking trees to the big companies. And you can go into the guy's office and I went into the office of one guy

who was the head of the interior. Anyway, there's like a message from Reagan saying, congratulations on cutting so many bored feet out of the forest. I'm like, it's just everything. It didn't create that many jobs. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a lot of that wood then got shipped to be milled overseas, right? Right.

The law was you can't ship a whole tree. It has to be milled. So what they would do to get around that law, they'd just cut this wide of a patch down the side of the tree. So now legally, you can ship it and they would ship it to Japanese building ships just off the coast here. After the 12 mile, they would turn it into wooden boards and sell it back to us. Yeah. So we were creating no jobs except for the... No. And one other thing I wanted to mention,

you said that you got the place in, out near Palm Springs, Mirage. Rancho Mirage. Rancho Mirage. And why did you say you wanted to get that place? Yeah, so when they come to visit, they'll, how he's not answering. Well, look at him, it's that answering. Look at that smell.

Oh, that's good. Yeah, somebody find the body, otherwise I'll be there for months. Love that morbid humor. Just stick it up to place. Yeah, no, it's important because I was just with my daughter and two granddaughters this weekend. They came out to the hotel,

I was staying there out in Westlake. Just watching them and listening to them, and them at night going out on the balcony pretending they were dogs barking at the people in the swimming pool. That's great. That's what they should do. Yeah. Also, my daughter, she was saying how much she enjoyed your Christmas cards.

Remember this, we sent out the cards that he and Mary and the family dressed as a dance troupe. We didn't actually dance, we did dance poses. Right. That's what we were famous for. Yeah. Then the next year you sent out the CD of the back story. This is my wife Mary.

We actually had full-on wardrobe department and catering for that particular shoot. Well, yeah. Nina said to thank you. You got a big kick out of that. I am so appreciative of that compliment. Please tell her thank you. Now, tell the truth on this one. Do you ever watch Cheers episodes?

Not when we were making them. No, now. If I can find them. Why do they do that? Why do they have our show on at four in the morning? They got King of Queens and everybody loves Raymond, friends, bum, bum, bum, all day long, one run after the other. But for us, it's 4.30 in the morning. Is that why I ain't been seeing any residuals on this dealio?

Probably. Yeah, probably. But really, that's, because again, you know, I just did 4,000 miles and hotels and stuff. There's no chairs anywhere, but all those other ones, you know, so I was, I always wondered that why. I think you can still find it, but it's, it's getting harder. You shouldn't have to search that hard for it. Yeah. I agree. Well, I was wondering why they did that. If there was a reason. I agree. Well, I was wondering why they did that. If there's a reason, you would know. I think that's when that age group gets up to pee and they're hoping the TV will be on

and they'll notice. Oh, hey. Probably. Oh, look, there I am. Johnny, much love. Yeah. Much appreciation. God bless you both.

Cannot tell you how many times you've made me laugh since being on the show. I mean, just watching old episodes, you are one funny, funny man. So fucking funny, man. ["The Great John Ratzenberger"] That was the great John Ratzenberger. Thank you, John, so much for spending that time with me andberger. Thank you John so much for spending that

time with me and Woody. We appreciate you so much. That's it for this episode. Thanks to our friends at Team Coco. Once again you can subscribe to our show on your favorite podcast app and you can give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcast if you have some time. If you don't have time, don't. And if you like watching your podcast, don't forget you can watch this episode in its entirety on YouTube. See you right back here next week where everybody knows your name.

["Where Everybody Knows Your Name"] You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson, sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leow. Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Colin Anderson, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is Matt Apodaca. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez.

Research by Alyssa Grawald. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Battista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Antony Genn, Mary Steenburgen and John Osborne. Special thanks to Willie Navarrete. We'll have more for you next time, where everybody knows your name.