It's nine O G one og with Jenny Garth and Tory spelling. Hello, Charles Rosen.
He love Jenny and Tory, welcome.
Back our friends.
What am I? Chuck Chuck liver? And there were you Amy, Hello there with all the beverages. Hello, beverages.
It's perfume. It's perfume. We all think she's a boozer too, but it's really balls of perfume.
You get me on a really great day. We just a diagnosis at one thirty that my three year old granddaughter who had been through the battle Jenny, you remember, finally today gets diagnosed to all cancer free. S's looking good and my poor daughter Lindsey just just you know, when this news came out three weeks ago, she was that there was more of a thread again. She went, just you know, just nuts. And so we're all there's a celebration going on.
Yeah, that's amazing, and you still made time for us. We're grateful.
That's amazing. Well that too, you know, but we started a nice conversation. I had fun last time.
Well that makes me feel terrible that I have to tell you that I still don't like the episode from the sixties.
Well, you know, I bet you many times, Amy you you you stood shoulder to shoulder with the Grand Old Party, so we would be looking at the history of that engagement differently.
So here's my question for you. Not to get right into it, because I am so happy for your beautiful, wonderful news.
Thank you.
Here's why I don't like it. And I do think you're right that I would have liked it more if the music was the right music. But I am so invested in these characters, as you know, like I spent many many years with them in the nineties and probably again years later and then again now. But I don't want to see them, even if it's them, even if it's Tory Spelling and Jenny Garth playing not them.
So I think, is that the only time that we do that? We do that?
Yeah, I have no other one coming.
With that one, the Western one that's coming later.
Yeah, well you know it just I gotta tell you, even in a serialized format, even when you're doing thirty two, you know, and one kind of rolls into the next and you're keeping the storyline alive, et cetera, et cetera. Sure you got to come up with ideas I had already done so many television and it was the twenty fifth anniversary of Woodstock, sure, and it was the idea of seeing them be different, that the audience gets to see them being different people, and it was only imaginary.
And then you get to the end of ye, so you see the pictures and they those people who were being described obviously didn't look like our characters. It just right cultered through it. And I don't know, you know, we only have the only really record we have of what we did is what we we ended up putting on the air. So you look at you guys' performances in there, and I mean top to bottom everybody because it was different. Everybody was having a real good time
and that kind of I agree with that. I love you the experience, you know, just for me who watches it really closely and you know remembers. Remember I got to see always outtakes. Jenny and Tory would know what I'm talking about, you know, when when the kiss would stop and the actors would break and they would run to the hills, you know, so I you know when people were not having this good time together.
Wait, Chuck, do you still have any of those You got to put those together for us.
I have to tell you this. This is no criticism of your beloved father, Torri, but he did not want you. Remember, Dick Clark was making a fortun with Gagru.
Bloomers and bloopers and practical.
Jokepers, practical all of that. You know you you probably hosted it Amy, I don't know, but but uh, but Aaron had one none none of that. Didn't want us to keep any of that any editorial group. Uh there was one good that that was kind of keeping it, you know within this would be great for that, and then you know we did the Kabash was put on, so we never even thought about that.
You're so right. He didn't like that, Like, don't you how do you I've never asked you this, Chuck, Like, what do you think he would think of reality TV?
I you know, with the first thing that came across my mind, and this is this is only a compliment. He would have found a way to own it. Yeah, fair, you know, he would have found a way. He would have looked at it as as as business, and he would have thought of it in terms of you know what he he would do in it. I mean, and I think that you know, you guys being so involved with it over it. I don't think you know, people also have you know, you know, no choice. This is
what's being done at that point. It's interesting reality television a little bit of television history here. You know, reality television really took off during the time of the eighty eight eighty nine writers strike, and that's when MTV kind of built on the all their real worlds and started building out on that, and then it just always would would keep going. But I remember I was trying to go into lobudget TV in the late nineties, early oughts.
I was had it down. I had done a low budget pilot, fun little low budget pilot for Fox called Damage Goods with Elizabeth Helden's who's gone on to do lots of great stuff in TV and network TV even but we and I couldn't and I had it and it was low budget, but I couldn't. You couldn't get lower than reality TV right right at that point, you couldn't compete.
What do you think Aaron Spelling would have thought of a podcast like this where his not just his daughter, but his stars are thirty years later watching the shows again.
Well, I think he'd loved the thirty years later. I think it blows. I know it blows my mind. And I think, you know, he maybe had a plan for it in the thirty years, but I think that truthfully, you know, and Aaron, I mean, we lived the same thing,
you know, the first seat. It was so precarious and there was, for lack of a better way to describe this, and I don't do it with malice, there was, like, you know, there was so much humiliation in one sense, Ed Corey, you would understand in the in the in the sense that we were doing this little fell for Fox and our ratings weren't good, and we didn't know what the money we were doing this and we're trying to get through. This is because he really loved the process.
As opposed to five years before then there was this was a fully functional studio with this department and that department, and that superseded all the show departments, you know, And I guess I should always I don't know how I feel. I know that we it built back up to that same thing, especially with the with the CW shows and you know, and and Charmed and and and everything that he built right back up that same kind of level of engagement.
But the bls who do you believe owns them?
Which way? Where are they?
Where are the blooper reels? Like all the outtakes? I mean not the reels, the outtakes, because we did, am I wrong? Didn't at some point, like at Christmas parties when it was just the cast and crew, didn't we play something that I feel like put together in the Kenny Millers like.
But I don't think. I think that had to be post me. I bet that was after me, because you're right, you're right, you're right.
It was towards the edge?
When when was? When is? When?
Where are the blooper reels? Where's the outtakes?
I mean?
Who would own those?
Chuck?
The early ones?
Well, all of the yes, Well, this is the question of.
There is always a question, and it was raised by an editor named Jerry Frizell whether a lot of our material burned hmm, what burned in a laser Pacific fire? M M wait.
I'm vaguely remembering this.
Yeah, around the turn of the century, around there, I guess I was not privy to it to years later, and still I'm not. I can't get my hands on what exactly was.
Burned that sounds shady old by CB. I mean, yeah, your fright, there's CBS firecom you know the ones. It was funny because, you know, the first time I.
Went to talk to them, David Staff, you know, they're and his question to me is that he said, well, how well do you know Tori or Jenny. He said, well, I haven't talked to them in a long time, you know, And they said, well, they're selling a show like that. Because I was trying just to get them interested in the music, you know, in the music in that at that time, and that's right when you started going out with you know, Oh.
My gosh, we should ask them where those outtakes are. I I would just personally like to see them, like when you sign like an NDA or something, just so we could see them. Yeah, that would be great.
Thanks that. Well, you know, here's an interesting thing that I've learned subsequently since the last time we talked, which is there was an article in the La Times that showed that Moonlighting, thirty something, La Law, Homicide on the Street, and Northern Exposure, which I actually wrote for all five of them get no streaming and are not in syndication because of the music situation. Really and then you think about the shows that have been stripped. It's not just us,
it's Quantum Leap or Happy Days and others. And so what gets me amy is that is that ours, the television industry, is the only one that has there is no even remote feeling of obligation to preservation. Have it in the music industry and you have it in the film industry different ways. I actually went to the to the federal government. I went to the Library of Congress
and said, how do I get things preserved? Because we're in the Library of Congress, right, what about like the museum and we're submitted Your dad did that toy he submitted the original nine O two one O to the Library of Congress.
Oh my gosh, this is.
Have our original music preserved because they did it at the end of every season.
And what about the Museum of TV and Radio.
They don't have the original Not a real museum.
Is a museum?
No, it's it's kind of out of business there, it's it's not where it should be where I would not. I reached out to the Television Academy, Yeah, yeah, and the UH and they were uh and they passed And I was surprised they have a legacy thing. But their legacy thing would be to like do interviews with someone like your dad or now if you were doing it you maybe you were doing with Shonda Rhymes or or or or you know Ryan.
Seacrest.
Yeah, you know the just the yes, well you know whoever, yes, people of real celebrity and real stature, and in that interview, that's what they're preserving. But it's not the content of the right right right that really surprised me. But at the same time, it's just one that's that's not there and you're seeing it in the nature right now.
And let me ask you this question thirty years later, if you if somebody went back to try and get rights in perpetuity to the original songs, wouldn't it be cheaper now, because it's so much that music has got to be cheaper now than at least most of it than it was even in the nineties.
Well you would think so. But what happened really was when Napster came out in nineteen ninety nine and people there wasn't you know, didn't have to buy the recorded music anymore and wouldn't and didn't. The record industries went scrambling for places that they could where they had ownership, and they leveraged this to a nauseating catastrophic level at the UH. And it was very interesting because you know, i'd left after I left two and zero a fewyears,
I had one season at Dawson's Creek. That's right, I said that, And I was not It was not a I wasn't really that much on the creative enterprise there. It turned out much more on the business enterprise. And one if it had to do with get the Music, that that for a much lower rate because the heads of the studios at Warner Brothers at the time felt that we're giving promotion. Why are we paying all this money for the promotion that we give? And and it
was really the right way to look at it. But that was, you know again right at the time, right before the the market, you know, change humbled.
Yeah, now not to make an abrupt change in conversation, do you feel that Brendan, sorry, Brenda, and I know everyone I.
Get really irrito Peeve and she will.
Call him Brendan.
But Brandon and Brenda played other and sister slightly too flirty. That's my one criticism of them. I love them as siblings. But the kissing on the cheek and then grabbing of the waist is slightly strange.
I don't know, you know, one of the things is especially from the beginning, and so I go back to that far. But I think that our audience always knew we were making a television series, and they did flirt with each other in that way. I think that the audience mostly enjoyed it. I think that that at that point, given the statue that you guys had what you wanted from it, that they were coming back that they hadn't seen that. Could it mean that, you know, I wasn't
that much of a stickler. I don't know.
Chs to me, but you guys can't.
But you guys noticed it, Like people were like, wait, they knew that.
We were making a TV show. No, I know, a real brother and sister. The way the fans are now they think it's the burial brother and sister.
I it was, I know, but at the time, like, did you guys watch dailies and say like, oh, why is that happening? But okay, it's fine, like or no one noticed.
It very obvious.
Somebody had to notice. Yeah, no, we noted, we knew what was going on we had we watched it. Well, that was one of the things stories. And Jenny, I don't know when you were making your shows if you had a luxury of doing that, but you know, one of the key things was to be the first to get to watch dailies, to get it before anybody else thought. So you knew, and you could be and you could be conversant because, yeah, your dad would watch dailies and he he would get worried. As he was your dad,
he'd worried about things. So you better knew what was going on in dailies and and and stuff and and be able to be conversant.
Chuck's we're we're we're in season four. This is the very end of season four on our podcasts.
All that great stuff you did.
Jenny, Shannon, Oh, thank you. Shannon is going to be leaving the show the beginning of season five, end of season.
Four, right, correct? Yeah, did did you know, like at the.
What point did you know that she was not going to be returning and what at what point did we know? Because we're having trouble remembering the timeline of it all.
Fair enough, it was it was when we got picked up for season five.
Nil, because was that when we were we.
When it was that was when it was clear when the network picked us up for season five was about I think Shannon at that.
There was when we were doing a pig as a boy as a dog, all the environmental yeah ones, the animal rights ones, yes, okay, so there you go, Amy, Why did I do animal rights ones? Well? Fun? First of all, Larry Mullen had an idea about and he wanted to do it.
I was all for those.
Diane's reasonch yes, But I mean I got that because Jenny was was interested in Peter at that point and had interesting you know, it's just oh, well, my cats, so this art will. So I tried to always do things that you guys were well, I was seeing in your personal life I could incorporate into these characters. I tried to do that at least I'm all for that.
I also love the sort of even though the other characters were in it. I love when Brandon went to San Francisco and it's sort of a Brandon centric episode. I even like when when Dylan goes off what's her name?
Jenny? Oh? And am all I get is yes? Say it? When we started that was the A story and the B story had to do with Dana getting roughed up by David Arquette. That was the story, if you'll notice in the episode that's completely shifted around, And we just kept cutting it and cutting it and cutting it because it really was it was an experimenting quite couldn't work.
We thought it would be really cool. And I bet if it wasn't in the hands of a different director at that moment, no offense to my director friend who directed it, it would be a different It would have worked slightly better.
So I have a question. Sorry, So us watching it back now as fans in a different way obviously than how we experienced it originally, we are seeing foreshadowing, so we thought, oh, they must have known Shannon was leaving like it just there's so many signs. Was that Did you put that in on purpose because it was questionable?
Well, we well, you really got to go back since you're when that's this conversation you you really have to go back to when we started season four and and Brenda went to a different university. I mean, we used all that to sort it out and try to let's calm things down, Let's let's have a little summer break.
We don't have to shoot summer episodes for the first time, you know, we had a little little bit of a breather, all of us, and and that was the first time to see how it would all work, uh in the in the season. Uh and and once it it fell apart, you know when when at that point, that's when the clean break happened and we were all gonna be moving on and your dad even had second thoughts about that,
you know, we I don't. I don't think I said that on this podcast, but I said it on the other one that I got a call from business affairs that he still was going to send out the pickup letter to to Shanon. Did my business affairs person want me to do that? I know, we better check. We know, no, no, no, please don't. And you know when Deck down and reminded Aaron that the network had signed off on this and it was the right decision for us right at that moment,
it felt like for the show. And then I often feel and this is what you guys were talking about, starting kind of for me with the sixties episode, but certain moving into Divas in that is that she connect reconnected with the character reconnected, Yeah, and really brought Berenda Brenda to life in a way that look, the whole arc that you had, story arc that she had with the rich boy m hm, David Gale a nice guy,
nice actor. We all liked David mm hmm. But that was one that was done off to the side so there wouldn't have to be interactions and fictions and whatever else would be going on. I mean, we did think so guilty as charged weed to affect ourselves.
Were you worried on your side of things? How her absence would you know, affect the show in the ratings.
I let mister do the worrying for me, you know, I just had to get all this big number done. And I felt that Look, as I've said, I think we talked about it, I always feel I did five different TV series and building it and developing it with in season five and creating you know, the Valerie character, and knowing we were becoming just straight into a pure serialization and that and that it was heading that way after my tenure even more so, you know we we uh so that was I was, well, we did lose Ray.
We certainly we didn't catapult, but certainly, uh you know, Brenda Shannon had a following, and and uh, and there are people who pick up the show new and then who move away from it. But I felt that I felt really good going into season five. I feel whethered it. You know, we made the transition into college. Our ratings
are really strong. And I had this great moment that as you're getting near to the end of it, because you're gonna pay off the the storyline with with Dylan and his and his his estate and being ripped off. And when I originally pitched it to your dad with Jessica Klein, and he said, you know, Chuck, they're gonn't know,
they're going to see that these people are grifters. And and I said, Aaron, trust me, I'm going to carry this over fifteen episodes, and by the time we get to the end, you won't even won't even cross your mind. And you get to that end episode, those last few shots, right, you know, and people were not expecting it, and it was a first and the critics liked being full or having a different thing there, and so some of them who were not our big fans started to become fans.
And it was a good It was a good time.
Yeah, we only know because we know. I'm not sure I would suspect it. I didn't know. It all seems kinda peache weachee.
Because there are times we've talked about this watching back as fans now that there's a storyline that'll start and it happens too fast, so we see it coming on with the end will be So it's nice that the Kevin Susanne Erica was fifteen episodes.
It's hard. I mean I remember sitting doing this with my kids back in the day, you know, and I try to show them the great shows of the movies and things of the seventies and this, and it just all moved away too slow, you know, you know the facing is such Yeah, no that the patients for that, you know you want to Yeah, it's that they do condense and move.
And today, I mean, things are so nobody has any patience for anything. Can you imagine this show today?
You have one scene to get to lock them in. That's it. Like, I know we're not at season five yet, but we did mention Valerie Tiffany. Was there anyone up for the character of Valerie or was it always Tiffany?
You know, I've been reminded that it was. They were also that who was the terrific? Oh god, I'm doing such to have a senior moment, And who's the boss? Who was the Yeah, I think a listen, your dad liked her a lot, clearly because then he did go on yeah, and he was always a fan wanting to use her, and and I was, you know, I just was gonna work with whoever it was. I mean, you know, well,
you know Tiffany's from Saved by the Bell. I had, you know, my my relationship to Saved by the Bell was with the executive producer, who I would call up every once in a while because he would just blatantly. Once we got to college, he just stole everything we did. And I would call him on the phone and go, what do you? What do you? And he was shameless about it. There's another guy named Tommy Lynch. Do you know Tommy Lynch? Aamie, No, Oh, Tommy's that she just shameless.
I mean producers who just don't think of this and oh yeah it's fine, and so I so, you know, I didn't know much about her, but she certainly wasn't she was Saved by the Bell, and you know, but I didn't, but they could play this different kind of character in this would have been good. And then I enjoyed my year with her. I enjoyed season five. I liked you know where we what we did, and.
Yeah, we haven't even gotten to Jamie Walters, like, we've got a lot. There's some big names in season five, like Jamie.
There's some other Well, Jamie came because he had the independent relationship after how do You Talk to an Angel?
And after yeah, crazy, I think I think Casper van Dien comes. I might be an idiot. I think come, yeah, yeah.
Well they know you guys had nice Kivy. He was terrific. But the fact of the matter is we went we had to go. We're going with the working class guy. That's where we were going. We had to stir up the drama there.
Get we haven't even gotten Rebecca Gayheart. I think we don't really jump the shark till sorry.
You take that back.
Sorry, maybe seven eight. I think five six, it's still very solid. Anyway, Well, Chuck, you're the best. Sorry, Look, I love it all, except for maybe the sixties episode.
We should do.
This at the end of every season. Have Chuck on for like a we have like make our list of story of questions through the season and then have them back on at the end of it.
We're five after that.
Yeah, we can still have you on for your.
Please Joe, just chance to get to see you both. Thanks.
I like it makes me feel so happy being with you, even though it's on zoom, but being with you and getting to hear the memories and how you know, I mean to me, it's like, I know this sounds crazy, but it was like my dad like was the boss, but you were my boss too. So now being able to have a relationship that I can ask you, like, how did this work out? Why did this happen? Ask you questions now that I you know, didn't feel like I could ask back then you know.
Right right, Well, what we did on the other way, we don't do very that much on the other on the other show, but we we did one with on the early episode, the seventeen year itch from season one, so Carol Potter was there, and it's a surprising just you know how that one actual hold I held up, you know, and the network, the network kept at that going way back in the way back machine. You know, we need adult appeal, We need adult appeal, So we did an adult to show, No more, adult show, no more?
What did you do that? You know?
Oh my gosh, Well, Chuck, we're so happy about your wonderful news and you're so the best.
Correct questions you.
Yeah, we're gonna I'll email you so come so we.
Can do you again.
Bye, thank you, bye bye.
I want to squash him.
He's he's got a better memory than you guys.
He's can make it up and he's.
Good to just believe. I believe it. Everything is one.
Oh my gosh. I just want to hear so many stories because I feel like those are the things I didn't hear from my dad back then, Like I did, I didn't nowadays. If if he was around, I would say, well he would that he'd be a hundreds, so that wouldn't make sense to ask him questions now, But like I want it as an adult, I would want to say, like,
why'd you do this? What are the choices? So it's like vicariously I get to hear it like I get to hear from Chuck, and I want to hear all the stories, all the decisions and what was the process behind them.