Join us on a fascinating journey through time as we explore Bruce Miller's 44-year career in entertainment reporting, filled with on-set experiences from some of the most iconic TV shows and movies.
This includes all of the various spinoffs of "Star Trek," the penultimate episode of "M*A*S*H" and beloved sitcoms such as "Cheers," "Frasier," "The Big Bang Theory" and "The Office."
We also dive into the realm of TV set design, with stories from the sets of popular shows like "Grey's Anatomy," "The West Wing" and "Parks and Recreation."
We also share a few stories about the 1982 film "Annie," which was shot on the campus of Monmouth University, which co-host Terry Lipshetz attended in the 1990s, and the 1978 film "Ice Castles," which included Bruce as one of the many extras.
Contact us!
We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!
Move over Sheldon, Streamed & Screened co-host Bruce Miller takes time to visit the set of "The Big Bang Theory."
About the show
Streamed & Screened is a podcast about movies and TV hosted by Bruce Miller, a longtime entertainment reporter who is now the editor of the Sioux City Journal in Iowa and Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer for Lee Enterprises based in Madison, Wisconsin.
Episode transcript
Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:
Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed & Screened, an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, senior producer at Lee and your co-host of a program with Bruce Miller, who we've pulled out of a time capsule this week from reporting. He's been doing entertainment reporting forever with the Sioux City Journal. But he's been everywhere.
And we wanted to do a special episode. We are coming up on 44 years, 44 years. Can you believe that? But you know what? I thought it would be fun to talk about something that people always ask me about, which is do you get to actually go to the sets of these things? Do you get to talk to the movie stars?
Oh, you're just making all that up, aren't you? Now, after this many years, you can't make it up because it's just too difficult to think about. Wait a minute. Didn't I use that line before? I can't use that line again. You need to have that one on one contact. And that's the thing I think has been the biggest joy of covering entertainment, is actually getting to meet people that you maybe admired at some point or you like their work or you think that they're different than their public persona.
So yeah, that's been a really cool thing. And early on in 1980 was the first trip I took to the West Coast for pilot season, whatever you might want to call the new shows. And one of the things that's very common is they'll take you to the sets of various shows so you get a chance to watch them film things.
You get a chance to walk around the set and look at all of that kind of fun stuff. You get to interview the actors. It is a really kind of head turning situation the first time you do it. I have been on the set of every Star Trek series except the first one, and I have sat in every captain's chair, which is interesting because all aren't comfortable.
I've gotten to see, you know, some big back in the day they were mini series. They weren't limited series, but I've been on the sets of those. I was on the set of The Thorn Birds, which was like a it looked like a working sheep ranch in Australia, but it was actually in California and we had dinner on the porch of the of De Gaeta, which was the name of the the ranch and with the stars.
And one of the stars, Rachel Ward, was really upset because one of the producers said that she was in she was a nine in looks and at three and acting up and she got all upset and started walking away from the set of this. And all you could think about is they're not done filming this thing and she's bailing because she doesn't like what the producer said.
And they immediately ran after her and tried to smooth over this problem. And it was all happening before our eyes. Well, we were there to have dinner and watch him. She or sheep. So interesting kind of factor there. We went to Charleston for the filming of North and South, if you remember, that was the miniseries. John Jakes had a series of books and it was about the Civil War times and Patrick Swayze was one of the stars.
Kirstie Alley was another star, and that we were there for several days and they had dinner with them every night. And they were very, very fun because they would tell you things that you you know, you didn't really it never came out any other way. But they said they had given everybody on the on the miniseries a whole name.
So they were different kinds of POWs in this show. Okay. So Patrick Swayze, he because he was a dancer, was called Ho Down, and they went through the whole cast and told us all their different names. And they didn't like Lesley-Ann down who was one of the stars of it. And I said, well, what's what's her whole name?
And they said, You got to go over and ask her herself, and she'll tell you what her whole name is. So we went over to Lesley-Ann down and I said, Well, now they said, Everybody has a whole name. What's your whole name? And she says, I'm a whole show.
That's a kind of that's a stuff you don't get when you're just normally doing an interview over Zoom, or if you're calling somebody on the phone. But it's very fun to be in that environment and you see them shooting scenes and they'll do it over and over and you think, Wow, they're not never going to finish this thing because it's it's taking so long.
And I was fortunate that I was at the last day of MASH. MASH did a big movie for their final episode, but that was not the final episode they shot. They did the episode before that on on the 20th lot. And it was about buried in a time capsule. And they were there and they they did it once and they said, Yeah, we got to do it again.
We got to do it again. And so they did it again and the the guy said after that, that was good. That's it. That's the end of MASH. Thank you. And the actors all kind of fell into each other's arms and were crying. And I mean, it was a real emotional moving time and they had huge media coverage.
I remember standing near Maria Shriver, who was covering it for NBC, and they said to us, You can take anything you want from the set when you leave. And I happened to be standing in the in the shower. And so I have a bar of soap from MASH. That's my memento from that. But it was it's it's that was such a momentous kind of thing.
And even now, when you see it in reruns, it's like, wow, I can't believe I was there when they ended MASH. I sent you a bit of a list of shows that I was kind of interested in, and MASH is on my list because for me as a child, it was one of the first big shows I remember watching now.
It started when the show started. I wasn't even born yet, but as it progressed, a great but as it progressed, I grew up watching it either in real time, but also we would see the reruns. My parents would just have the show on. So I remember watching mostly the later episodes, but what a big deal it was on TV to watch that final episode, that movie episode.
It was. It was huge. It's up until recently was one of the the most still one of the most watched all time shows ever. You know, often I'll just happen to mention that I was on the set of MASH and you can't believe how this smokes out. People who are just hardcore MASH viewers. Yeah, that show early on when they started putting out DVDs of full seasons of of TV shows, it's one of the first shows that I bought on DVD because it was Watch it all.
Yeah, I've I've watched every episode of MASH. Yeah, I love that show. See And for me, it's it's very hard to go back and watch them again. I don't think I'd ever buy a box set. I have box sets, but I, I don't watch them. Yeah, but it's also a little different for you too, because you're watching so much.
Well, you're always looking at the next thing you've got to see, just to see, you know, what's happening, what's new, what's next. But yeah, and there there are fun little things. I was on the set of Gray's Anatomy and they had a party there. And in the operating room, they had this body on, you know, on an operating table.
And it looked bloody. But what it was, was it was salsa inside the stomach and you could use, you know, there were chips all around it. So that was how they were serving the chips. It's just goofy things like that that happened. If you remember, E.R., E.R. had it looked like a really bad hospital. It looked like the last place you'd want to go because it looked so kind of worn down and everything.
And they actually had a an el station outside the thing where they would use it for exteriors. But it basically was George Clooney's basketball court. And you could see where they would play basketball out there when they weren't shooting or weren't doing anything. But inside the the actual operating slash exam room, slash whatever hospital, you could see really great equipment.
And what happened was after the show became a success, a lot of these providers would just send them the equipment so that then it was accurate, but it was like state of the art stuff. So that I'm sure that if you went to your own local hospital, you say, Well, now don't you have the XR 732, which they used in E.R. and the Thecable?
No, we can't afford that. That's like 5 hours. I think it would be one of those things where people would ask for it or whatever. But it had really great equipment in there. And they said everything was as accurate as they could possibly be. They had a lot of advisors who are medical people who would tell them exactly how to hold things, how to do certain procedures.
So they got really pretty good at it. And a lot of times when you have people who are playing doctors on TV, they are expected. A lot of times if somebody collapses on an airplane or whatever, well, come on, you know what to do. And they said it's very intimidating because people expect you to be that doctor, but you're not.
But they do. They do learn a few things that might be helpful if they ever need it. So, yeah. And hospital shows are really it's a they're cheap because you can put everybody in scrubs. Oh yeah. And you have a lot of rooms that can be remade to look like another room because aren't all patient rooms the same?
They're also. Yeah. And so, but they did have hallways and stuff in terms of something that was real big, like that. West Wing really did have those hallways where they did the walk and talks and they had the Oval Office. The Oval Office was cool to see. There were a lot of fun things. And then if you look closely, one of the the coolest places that I had where we could check out things, Parks and Rec.
And I did see a little Sebastian, by the way, I met little Sebastian, the the miniature donkey hockey so thrilled. It was like, you have to see it. There is no star bigger than this. And he was cute. And I somehow I got my picture taken with him, so I was cute. Cool. But if you go inside that city hall, they have pictures and the pictures of past like councilmen, whatever, are people from their staff.
So it was fun working on a show. You can easily get a relative's picture on the wall. And theirs was also one of those kind of sets where you walk around it and you felt like you were actually in a building. That's crazy. It's interesting you mentioned with the West Wing because it is a show where there's I mean, it's a Aaron Sorkin, right?
So it's a lot of conversation. It's a lot of dialog. So I could only imagine the set being huge for a sense of just you have to do one continuous shot, even if you're just like spiraling through hallways, back and forth and weaving. They make sure that the walls are removable. So if they have to have a camera come in, they can or they shoot them through things.
I mean, it's it's very fascinating to watch those kind of shows being put together because it's a different procedure than maybe if you saw a three camera show where you're sitting in the audience, you're just watching things happen. If you watch a show long enough, especially a show that's been on for a very long time, you'll see changes to the set.
And I'm not necessarily talking about, you know, they just updated here and there or swap furniture. But sometimes when a show starts working on a shoestring budget, they don't know if it's going to get picked up beyond the pilot. They don't know if it's going to get picked up after season one. And then all of a sudden it's around for eight years and they really start changing up the set.
Have you ever gone back to a set that you hit maybe early on during a season one and then you go back a few years later and you're like, Whoa, what has happened here? This is totally different. Sometimes they will shoot on that on an existing set. There have been a lot of shows that because they weren't they didn't want to save money.
They didn't want to, you know, so they'll full house. They believe they use that set for a number of different things. So there are ones that they will go back and then when they start their own run they may upgraded or change things. But there is this kind of fear that if you have success and then you change the look, you could be inviting, you know, disaster or Mary Tyler Moore had that because remember how she had that apartment that was supposedly, you know, this whatever, Minneapolis apartment.
And then they decided to move her to another place downtown that looked a little more cosmopolitan and whatnot. And they were freaked that if they did move it from one place to another, the show would would suddenly lose its charm. So they made sure to make a big point of her taking her big AM from the old place and putting it in a place of honor, in the new place.
But yeah, they don't want to toy with that. But if you do have success, they will upgrade. You know, a lot of times look closely at countertops and kitchens. Yep. Because it's a faux painting that they do that looks like granite. And in granite it's painting. But if they have success, they may get real granite the next time they come around.
So if they upgrade this head so it has to be reinforced a little bit. Not too long ago before they ended, I was on the set of This is US, and they had that old house, you know, that the house that they used for the things when the characters were kids. Yeah. Oh my God. It was like walking back into my childhood because they had all of these things that I remembered, the TV sets that were old and yeah, even the kitchen counter where I think wasn't a crockpot that caused a problem and yep, yeah, it was all they had.
No crockpot, no crockpot. We don't have that, that kind of, you know. And the Goldbergs, I was on the set of that and it's filled with toys and crap that are, are unique to that era that they do watch it because if you're there visiting they don't want you swiping something because you like a Rubik's cube that you happen to see on a TV show and they will have things marked off or taped off.
So you can't walk there if you try or a guard will be standing there. The Big Bang Theory has a comic book, right? And that had real comic books that were expensive. And they did have you could not touch anything. And there you could have your picture taken in there, but you couldn't look at the comic books or, you know, touch any of the statues that they had and all the crap that was in their their apartment.
That was real stuff. And but you could I did sit in Sheldon's seat, you know, don't sit in my seat. Oh, and it was cool. It was big. But to see that they had, you know, if you lifted the cushions up, I didn't do this so don't. But they, I think they used it. There was an episode where they actually did put stuff down below and so everything isn't as it seems.
There are ways to kind of cheat it so that then if they need to do something like if somebody was to emerge from the bottom of the couch, they would have a hole built and they could pop up from that. So there are things like the Frazier, the the chair that the dad sat in was it looked horrible on TV and you thought, Oh, my God.
And it wasn't it wasn't when you saw it in person, they just added duct tape to the outside of it. And the cushions were really comfortable. John Mahoney, who played the dad, said it was like he loved just sitting there because he didn't have to do anything in the chair. But then Frazier also had this artwork that was original.
It was not a duplicate or a facsimile of anything. It was real art, and they did not bring it out until the night of shooting, so that when they had an audience there, somebody would hand carry that Kahului bowl or vase or whatever it might be and put it on the set. And then as soon as they were done shooting, they would remove it and put it somewhere else.
But they did not leave them out there just in case, because how would you replace it? You couldn't. That's fascinating, because I've always watched, you know, like I watch Frazier and I watch Big Bang Theory in those types of shows I would watch is like, wow, these are really good sets, especially with Big Bang Theory, because they're geeks and they've got all the toys and the other comic book type things, and I don't collect comic books.
I never really got into them. But I know what a comic book looks like in when they hold them up on the show. I'm thinking like, Wow, that's that's a really good reproduction, but it's not a real thing. It's there. And I'm sure a lot of the people who work on the show are hardcore geeks like that, and they figure when the show ends, somebody's going to have to get that.
I don't know, you know, unless they're just on loan. But I don't think they would be. I think they actually go and buy those. Yeah, but yeah. And so you usually ask the people, now when the show ends, what are you going to take, What do you want? And it's not necessarily the stuff you think Kaley Cuoco from that show had.
There was a picture that she said she always stared at and she wanted that because she remembers that's what she'd look at whenever she was sitting in a seat. She was talking to somebody. It was and it was a big nothing picture. It was not something. You go, Oh my God, it's Spider-Man 1952 now. It wasn't anything like that.
So there are things that mean something to them but don't necessarily mean anything to the show. I know that there were things on Friends that, you know, were iconic and certain people did get those, but boy, they still talk about it. Now, you say yeah, that she that Jennifer she got that and I'm still mad about it and you know, do they even put it in their house somewhere?
Probably not. Yeah. I think somebody took the door or from the set of Seinfeld because it was it was so iconic, you know, like, like Kramer flying through the door. And I don't know who it was. It might it maybe it was Jerry. But I thought one of the big actors walked away with that. Did you ever make it to the set of Everybody Loves Raymond?
But any chance I did. I did. They did. But it was like a just a regular house. Did you get to at least sit on the the couch that was covered in or zip zipped up in plastic? Yeah, well, but, you know, I was on Roseanne's couch, too, in case. Oh, yeah, Yeah. Usually they'll let you sit there so that then you can feel like you were at the show or you were part of this show or whatever.
And you meander around the sets and you look at things and you see things that you don't see when you're watching, you know, And there and I'm not naming names because but there are actors who don't memorize their lines. And so they'll stash them and they'll have things like there might be magazines on the table, and if you open up the magazine, you might find a script in there that's crazy.
So they would you know, they would act like they were reading a magazine when they were actually reading the scripts. Now, in recent years, some of these shows were done not not any big show that you know, but some of these cable ish shows, if you will, they would shoot three episodes in a week. And it was impossible for for the actors to memorize those scripts.
So they had huge, big screen TVs like like they were teleprompters that would be behind the characters so they could just read the lines off them. And that's fun to see because you go, Oh, I thought they had to memorize all this stuff. Maybe I could be an actor. I, you know, I would worry about that. But yeah, so it it varies from where you go on the Disney campus, if you will.
A lot of those Disney Afternoon shows that you'd watch on the Disney Channel or wherever were nearby each other. And it all got to be real good friends with each other. You know, they all knew Miley Cyrus. They all knew the Jonas Brothers. They all and they hang out together. They were actually friends and did things together. And it's it's amazing to see now, you know, when some of them moved on to other roles and other things, how what part that played for some it was for worse and for some it was better.
I was with the Zack and Cody kids, the Sprouse kids deal and I'm blanking, but they took me back to their their dressing room and they show me where they actually studied with a tutor. You know, they have to have so many hours a day with a tutor if you're using a kid and they can only work so many hours a day.
Though one of the boys said, you know, truthfully were able to, I think as actors were about a four. We're not that good, but we're trying to make money to get our college people. And so, you know, we buy into this. We see what this is all about. We know and they are far more sophisticated than you think on these kids shows.
These are not kids who are, you know, just throwing it out there and wanting to be stars. Some are. They're just because it's a job. Yeah, I the money and both the Sprouse boys did go to college. Now one ended up on Riverdale and they're both working in the business now but it was never the goal that that was that's kind of a byproduct that they still get to work.
And I always remember Demi Lovato telling me about kids today. I said, you know what don't they realize about being a young actor on a TV show? And she said they think it's all about the purse. I said, What? And she said, They think that you can have a really expensive purse and they don't realize what you're giving up or what you have to do.
And it's not all about the purse. And I thought, well, that that was a very kind of fascinating way to kind of size it all up, because I think fans look at these things and they think it's much more glamorous than it is. It's not sets. Are you doing these huge warehouses, kind of barn facilities where mice can easily be running around?
There's not a hesitation there. There's a huge craft services table, but you don't know whose touch that food or where that food's been, you know? So, I mean, there are a lot of things that don't make it seem like, Oh my God, here comes Greta Garbo and Clark Gable walking down the street. Not at all like that. It really is a factory.
Yeah, Factory of entertainment. Yeah. And a lot of those Disney ish Nickelodeon, Nick Junior kind of shows to that. Not I'm not saying that the sets don't look good, but you see a lot more artificial grass on the shows, which clearly isn't crass. The production value isn't necessarily is as high as you would expect either. And they would talk about how there's a Disney style at all.
But you know, where they have to do kind of those broad gestures and everything. And some of the kids really thought that that was wrong, that they didn't want to do that. And you can see where now they've shifted with some of these shows that they aren't as kind of obvious. Maybe that's a term for, but they are a little more adult and they talk about themes that are more contemporary than they did back in the day.
Any shows you've been on because you mentioned Star Trek, some of those shows, especially the SCI fi shows, where there might be a lot of green screens and and other things. Any any one in particular that we watch on TV that looks like, Wow, that is impressive. You know, there's the deck of the enterprise, but you're on the set and you're like, what is this?
What is this? This is the most unimpressive thing I've ever seen. Oh, well, Star Trek, The Next Generation. I mean, they had like an area that was basically every planet they visited. So it had parks and things and they just redressed it and put up a different. Yeah. So that that was what you're talking about. The Orville. Do you ever remember the Orville was on Fox for a while?
No, I don't. I think it's still going to be honest with me. It was Boeing, but I'm I'm not going to vouch for that. But they had an actual ship that you walked on. You walked through the whole hallways. It seemed like it was the real deal. And that's because Seth Macfarlane, who was producing it, was able to, you know, say, I want the real thing.
Okay. And you saw the costumes that were just bizarre. I got to shoot the guns that they they had. And it was like you were actually if it was a an amusement park, that's what it would be like. It was cool. But first of all, a lot of those ones, boy, they cheat a lot of stuff. You know, Star Trek was a real key one.
And if you looked at the Paramount that you would say, Well, I think I've seen this place before. What I watch sometimes you'll see buildings that they love to do schools, and it's just the outside of the of the paramount lot. Yeah. Executives place and you go well that's there's no school like that but they'll dress it up and make it seem like it is another one that was like shot at a place.
Scrubs okay. Scrubs was in a used to be a hospital and they just took it over and, you know, and there was a bet that they had going on that if anybody would spend time in the in the morgue, they would pay them extra. If they would go do that. But because it had been a hospital, they constantly had people coming in and acting like, I need help, I'm bleeding, can you help me?
And they'd have to turn them away and say, no, this is this is not a real hospital. It's a movie set of these. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One's like that. The office was shot in a warehouse kind of situation with offices. It was real offices. So when you see them all sitting around like that, that's how it was. And you could walk around all of their desks, look at everything, and they said that their computers did work and they would do like one did Christmas cards.
Mm hmm. Well, they were because they had to be on the set. You couldn't leave. You had to be there. Well, other scenes were shot because you're Mr. Right. Right. You're an actor, but you are also background. So they would do stuff like that or they'd chat to each other on their their screens and act like they were working.
Sir, there was the warehouse that was attached to it, and this was out in some industrial area, you know, outside of Los Angeles. It wasn't, you know, there was a fence up and all of that. But the the, the storage area or the loading dock was actually filled with paper. Wow. Yeah. Cool to see. Very cool. You know, And yes, I do have a name, plaque that says I'm assistant to the assistant regional manager or whatever.
But yeah, very fun because that I think those kinds of shows make it feel like you actually are. There is a lot of the ones where you're sitting in seats and they will do that If you happen to go to California and you want to see a show shot, there will be tickets available to the public. Now, usually if you go to Universal Studios, they have a ticket box or a counter or whatever that they will let you know which ones are available.
Things like game shows have a lot of availability, so you could probably go to prices, right, and sit in the audience. You won't necessarily get picked, but you could go watch something like that. A sitcom could be a little more difficult because they have different nights that they shoot and they will suck up X number of tickets just to hand out.
Or if they're really bad, they will hire people to sit in the seats and laugh. Yeah, well, and they say that they used to have prisoners that would come and sit at the. Oh, jeez. 0i1 thing I did meet was paid laughs. Or did you know that they have people who are paid to laugh? Well, I knew there was laugh tracks, but I didn't know there was paid laughs.
And these were some of those series that do not have an audience. But the kids need to know when to hold for a laugh. And we had like five or six people honest to God, this was the strangest thing I've ever seen sitting at a table, and they would get her. Her? Oh, well, oh, different kinds of laughs.
And then the directors say, Okay, tone it down a little bit here. We don't need that much. And it would it would help the actors learn how to react to this crazy this thing. But yeah, and they would like read they be reading the newspaper. Well, they're laughing or knitting or doing something else. But it was a job and I had paid laughter.
I want that. I want to be somebody who's paid to laugh. Can you get me the gig? I'm there with my luck, though I'd be on the the absolute least funny show you can think of. Like, okay, we need you to laugh right now. Oh, my God. And that's the way it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to see how success changes people, because the first year of friends, nobody knew who they were.
And they were very they were more nervous than I was to interview them. And we had, they had given us mugs that said friends on it, you know, those big latte mugs or whatever. Right. Right. And they were so thrilled that the name of the show that they were on was on a mug that they started grabbing up as many as they could.
So they at least had a set of them. So here you see these big stars who, you know, went on to make what, millions of dollars serve this series, swiping mugs that were supposed to be swag that was given away to the media. And then when they had the last episode of Friends, we went to this set and they would not let us get down on the set.
Isn't that all? They don't have taken anything or didn't want us touching anything. We could not talk one on one with the actors and the boys. It wasn't like it was covered or anything. It was just that's how the world had changed. These were big stars that did not. Unless it was cleared, you were not able to talk to them.
And. Yeah, sorry, I don't have time for Bruce Miller. No, I'm not doing some low class person like Iowa. I'm speaking as the one from Iowa. Yes, I believe we have somebody who's serving coffee over here who's from Iowa to talk to him now. One of those kind of. Yeah, but it's for me, it's a fascinating thing to look at the sets and just see stuff close up, how they dress that and how they add all those things has really changed.
In the old days, it was very kind of minimal. You wouldn't see much on the counters and stuff and now, boy, they pack this and to make sure that it matches, you know, the others, they'll shoot pictures and everything and make sure that every box is where it needs. And I went to how I met your mother or father, Both mother and father, but father.
And it was such a mess on that set. It was like last year, this last year. And I thought, how would you keep track of all that stuff? Because it's just it's like litter, basically. But they, you know, they keep an eye on it. I was on the set of How I Met Your Mother just before it ended, and we were in the bar and I'm not sure what the bar.
Claire MacLaren's Yeah, what it is, okay. Gloria Bar set. And we were sitting at the table where the, the group usually sits and Neil Patrick Harris had carved his initials on the table and then he and it had plus D be his husband's name, David Burtka, and drew a heart around it. And I thought that was really cool and the picture of that.
But, you know, a little a little thing that you probably didn't know when you were watching it on on TV. Yeah. Because you would never see that. No, it wouldn't show. What's interesting to me too, is because all these shows generally have like real life exterior shots. Right? And I remember taking a trip to Boston and taking a walk to the Bull and Finch Tavern, which is where they shot the exterior shots for Cheers.
And the bar inside was kind of used loosely to inspire the look of the real bar. And I remember how cool it was like, Whoa, you know, here's the sign. And at this point, too, they had put up a sign that said Cheers, you know, downstairs because they wanted you to to recognize it. And and they had the seafood restaurant was there, too, that you can walk into.
But I remember walking down the steps to cheers and then opening the door. And then how unimpressed I was, because this is just this tiny little, you know, like eight seater of a bar. It's not anything impressive at all. And the real thing was huge. Really huge. Yeah. And it did work. So if you were there visiting, they could make you a drink.
Do you know, was there alcohol in them or was it. Well, if there were if they're shooting, you couldn't have alcohol. But when you're there there's out there with alcohol. And I remember sitting in one of the booths that were on the side with the actors, you know, it was funny about Cheers. They sure didn't have faith in that when it started.
Right? They did room. They did a room interview where you'd go in the room with the actors and they had just had five actors in the room with one reporter. And you're thinking, well, normally you'd kind of wouldn't you try to maximize size your exposure? Right? And I think we're just trying to blow it off. And then we went to a party on the set of it and we got to sit on Norm's stool and, you know, walk around and look at everything.
And it had changed. It had really changed. Once success hit again, you never know what's happened there, but Cheers is fun. But yeah, if you go to the bar, the Cheers bar in Boston, it's not the same. No, no, definitely not any. Any other stories? I have one to share. Once we're ready to wrap, let's come on out.
All right. I'm just going on. You got to shut me up. Okay, So I was sort of on the set of the movie. Annie. Do you remember Annie from 1982? Annie. Annie. Dust until come now. Tomorrow. Were you one of the authors? I know. So I went to college at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey, and in the University.
It's on it's kind of in this old neighborhood in West Long Branch, in the centerpiece of the campus is, I believe now they call it Shadow Lawn Mansion. They used to call it Wilson Hall. They use the mansion as Daddy Warbucks mansion in the movie. So they shot almost the entire movie on location at my college. And I remember taking, you know, before I before I decided on where I was going to go.
And you take those campus visits and they bring you on tours and the big selling point at Monmouth at the time and probably still is, was this is where we filmed Danny in the hall, which is Wilson Hall when I was there. It's where the president's office is. It's where the registrar is. There's some classrooms in there, too, is always very cool.
You would get a class because they didn't have a ton of classrooms in that building because a lot of them it's a lot of very small rooms. But you would you would go in there and occasionally have a class and it was very cool to have a class there. They would have receptions for, you know, honors students there.
I worked in my freshman year. I was tutoring foreign language students who were they were struggling in English and I was helping tutor them. And the tutoring center was in the basement of Wilson Hall. And you would walk on the floor and you could sense there was something hollow beneath it. And it was because the big pool, if you remember the scene, was the pool in Annie.
That's where the pool, the pools in the basement of Wilson Hall. But they had covered it over and converted into two classroom space. So yeah, so it was, it was very, very neat. And there is a scene, I think it's early in the movie when they're first bringing Annie to the mansion and you see the car turn down into the gates.
But it's one of those scenes where if you look very closely, you could see the dorms across the street, but you wouldn't know it If you're watching the movie. You just see some building in the background. But it's like, oh, there is. There's the dorms, which is crazy. They ask anything, Well, where did you start seeing Hard Knock Life at some point?
I did not know, but I did watch. I did actually watch the movie after I went to school there because I it wasn't high on my list of movies to see as a as a child, it didn't quite appeal to me. But once I got there, I watched it. It was it was fun to watch and then see the different locations and think, Oh, LA, you know, I've been there.
I had to I had to register for my sophomore year there and I had to go pay a late book fee or something there. And yeah, that was crazy. So that's where we kind of relate to these things, is that we can find the real place that was used and go, What was that for? I know. And if you ever go on the Universal Tour or the Warner Brothers tour, anything, recycle these things all the time.
So I, you know, like you, when I was in college, I was in a movie. They needed extras and they said, if you come, you know, maybe you'll get on camera, maybe you won't. It was Ice Castles, Ice Castles with Lin, Holly Johnson and Robby Benson, and it was about a figure skater who lost her sight. And we were supposed to be in the audience watching her.
When you realize, Oh my God, she's blind. She can't see where she's skating. And then. Right. And Robby Benson comes out to greet her and everything. Well, I happened to have a camera with me because it you know, if you're not with the camera, are you anybody you need a camera. All, all situations. And these were not cell phone days.
This was back in the days of a camera. And so they were they were thrilled that I had my camera there. And if you watch for a millisecond, you will see that I am in the movie Ice Castles because I happen to have a camera and it's me holding my camera. It captured that moment when they discover that she's blind.
Wow. Is that not real? But there's my movie. Yeah, well, I don't think we can top anything else now that we know. Now we've done it. It's done it. Okay, well, we're going to do another episode like this sometime because this is fun. I enjoy story time with Bruce. Well, if anybody has shows that they're interested in or want to know about, if they want to drop us a line, we'll be glad to put them on a list and then we'll talk about them.
Because like I say, 47 years I've been just about everywhere that you could go unless there was some ban put on people. And no, you can't talk to those people. And maybe I'll tell you my Zendaya story some oh, I want to hear that one. So you can you can reach out those podcasts at least dot net. I check the email regularly and I will screen those emails and we will get back you and talk about it in a later episode.
That sounds great. All right, everyone. Well, thanks again for listening to this episode of Streamed & Screened.