Some Time With... Keith Richmond! (Part 2)

Hey there, fan of Rito's. Welcome to part two of our interview with Keith Richmond. He was with us from seasons one through eight as our stage manager and first assistant director, so his memory of Full House is honestly better than ours. Please welcome back, Keith. Was it harder to manage the kids on the show or the adults?

Like?

Was it harder to manage the babies the crying baby and the non crying baby or Bob and Dave?

What was more difficult? Yeah? You know that was that was always a challenge.

Yes, No, we had enough help with with Mary Kay Nashley, and also.

We needed Bob ring is what we needed. We had a baby wrangler, We needed a Bob a day. That was your job.

I tried to do. So.

I would go home Monday, we'd have a rehearsal. I would go home and the phone would ring and it was mister second. It was Bob, and he go this, that and the other. I won't go into specifics, but and it would go on and on, and I would listen. I go, hey, Bob, isn't it great to have your own show? Is it great to be honest?

Thing?

I'bout that paycheck.

You got right, and he go, oh man, thanks Keith, thank you so much that you thanks for bringing me back. Okay, and then click and then we'd go in the next day, we'd have a rehearsal.

I'd get home after rehearself. When I finally was able to get home and the phone would bring it was a Monday Tuesday thing. Right Wednesday, we were cool and we you know, we.

Go Monday Tuesday. Bob was like, I don't want to do the show anymore. I just made a mistake.

It was fine.

Well, speaking of Bob, you did America's Funniest Home Videos too, didn't you did?

Isn't that crazy?

I was able to do that, and so I would go, uh for Friday night after the show, we would I don't know if we did one Friday night, but I would know I would do Saturday and Sunday.

So I was working a week.

Sevent did America's Funniest People.

I did that as well.

Oh my gosh, you know, thank goodness.

These guys wanted to have me why and the producers were great. I did in America's Plenty of Home Videos for twenty seven years and run after Bob, I did Tom. Yeah, wow, I mean I didn't do every episode that they would call me when they needed me, and yeah, it was. It was a world blessing.

Yeah, I forgot that that show was on that long.

That's right, that's a long run.

It's still on it is Yeah, Oh my god.

Is that a difficult show? Was it difficult to manage that show? Or its full house harder?

You mean when Bob was hosting or.

Oh well, yeah, I should say yeah, when Bob was hosting home videos, Like, I'm just thinking of the logistics and the call sheets and the amount of people you have to manage on.

America's Fridays Home Videos. It was real stage manager. So I was able to just step in and help Flora.

Because there's no real script writing. It's introing and outro and videos that was in.

And outs mostly, And then we'd watch the videos and have fun and he.

Would okay, it was it was great fun. Yeah, it was great fun.

And then we do America's Funny People and sometimes we would take both the shows to Florida.

Oh that's right, God, I remember that.

Luckily, we'd have a hightus ever every couple of weeks.

So yeah, yeah, three on one off, always a nice schedule.

I've been very fortunate.

I can't I you know, all I can do is be grateful for that. Because also when then when I went on to the Drew Carrey show, we did Who's Line?

That is one of my favorite shows. Whose Line? I had no idea idea that I love that show so much.

It's it's just brilliant.

It was so brilliant, great fun, and we did Oh I bet that show must have been ridiculously fun.

It was just fun.

And I did everyone Withdrew, and it was the same kind of thing where there was an opportunity and Drew said, hey, can you come over there and that show I would definitely like leave her because we didn't mind.

A Tuesday shoot.

Okay, Yeah, we would stop rehearsal after run through and I jump in the car and drive into the next studio in Hollywood, right, and we would do a show that night.

And then we do a couple over the weekend. And so again, such a blessing.

I don't know.

If there were a whole lot of other guys that had that, you know, that have those opportunities, And I'm so grateful that I would do that. But yeah, definitely working seven days a week, you know, when you're freelance, even though even though I was on staff.

And doing, you got to take the work when it comes. You never say that's that's this business. Right, You're like, oh, I have so much work. I don't know what to do with it. And then you're like crickets you know exactly? You know, yeah, faster famine, Yeah, and you and it is. It's addicting you on set. It's insane and there's something about that fast pays insanity whatever. You're like, this is crazy, and I kind of love it.

So the challenge is when you retire.

Right, what do you do? I don't know.

I haven't done so yet, right, you guys have a long way to go.

But so the interesting thing is, you know, if you're not type A, you become Type.

A as a first ad right, right, Yeah, So.

Every morning I have to walk the house and make sure everything's in place.

Right do you count five? Four, three twos? You walk out the door and then just go.

Trying to manage it, you know, micromanage everyone in my family. If the kids are if the kids are cooking in the kitchen, and I would walk in and they would start screaming get out of here, because they know I would start cleaning up.

That's all I see. I do that, I am. I have that same energy. I get it where you're like, oh no, this isn't right. You just can't. You can now do this right, let me do it.

Yes, I had come to terms with the fact that OCD is a real thing.

Yeah, and I mean yeah, but it's kind of what who you need for stage managing a D. You need somebody that's like yep soup that is detail oriented and also big picture orient like that can deal with the minutia and.

The big that's right, exactly right and linear. Well, you guys are both directed, so you know what I direct?

Yeah, Andrew died.

Oh that's fabulous, you know. I mean, I'm always You're always two days ahead and right and you at the same time, you better be ready for camera.

Yeah, you're next week and today and tomorrow's shoot.

Camera doesn't wait.

And I also better be ready again, especially on a Monday Tuesday show. I would get right Friday night, I have to redo the schedule. That's what my Saturday was.

Right.

Then we're starting a new episode on Wednesday.

Yeah, that's the Monday Tuesday shoots always seemed weird to me.

Yeah, after Sunday, after break down the show and create a schedule so that when I do that production meeting Wednesday morning, I have something to tell people at least to give them an overview.

And I don't have time to do it on Monday or Tuesday.

Right, the camera's there, So that would be Sunday, Saturday and Sunday, and that's what I have to do every week, and so there was no day off.

Really, wow, it would takes six hours to break break down the script.

Yeah, sure, you know because I put in every element on the schedule and right, and then by Wednesday, you know, you're in there doing the pressure meeting and then all the departments, would you know, surround you and go that's not going to work.

I need right, I need this, don't do right?

You got there? And can you do that? Oh? I love it?

Yeah, yeah it is. There's nothing like the chaos of it. It's really it's like your fight. It's like a being in a street fight with twenty different people. You like, I got to be ready for anything.

So when you do, uh, I think retirement.

And my my wife taught me this because.

Her fathers to say it that when you need to have something, to do something to look forward to the love I have those three things you can you can.

Survive or hi, right, that's actually that is really yeah, yeah, that is great advice because it does. I remember when my dad retired from his first job before he started his like handyman business, my mom was like, you need to go do something because he went from working all the time for forty seven years at the same place to like sitting around and you know, driving my mom nuts.

You know, you really got to work hard. And I know that both of you guys probably are really have refined it. You need self care.

You need yeah, make sure that you allow yourself that time that you drive yourself crazy and.

You really yeah, fashion with it. You're battling with yourself.

Oh it's the hardest battle I fight.

Yeah.

I have a lot of respect for both of you guys and what you've been through.

And thank you.

You're fabulous, Thank you.

It is it is pretty fabulous. And to be able to walk through it all again and do this show and like revisit stuff, you know.

Yeah, well it's brand new for Jody and I. We didn't see most watch the episode, so we're watching these episodes for the first time.

Show.

Oh that's why, because you're rekepting each thing on them.

Yeah, we're so. We're we started at the very beginning and are watching the series all the way through in chronological order, and we've never seen most of these episodes. Like I remember the pilot, I remember, you know, but like some of these I'm like, what were we doing was that? I don't remember that storyline, you know, And it's yeah, it's like all of these sort of memories coming back of things that.

How many episodes as you guys do.

On Fuller We did seventy five? Yeah, we did five seasons, sometimes thirteen episodes, sometimes eighteen.

Oh wow, yeah yeah, yeah, I think three was three was our three and five were our eighteens, weren't they? Yeah?

I think those were the eighteens.

Yeah, once you go over thirteen and it comes home.

Right right, dang, you know what do we do now?

Right?

Well, especially now god, you know, we talk about it all the time. Like the schedule of the old school sitcom, the you know, the running You had nine months of work. You're like, oh, I'm going to be working for the whole year. This is great. And I feel like every time you start a streaming show now you're like, okay, so this is going to work for now, But what am I doing in two months?

Right?

You know, it does make it really hard.

It doesn't make it hard freelance, it's hard. And yeah, yeah, well you guys did one hundred and ninety two full houses.

Yeah, just shy of two hundred. We were looking through stuff and I didn't realize that the Drew Carrey Show had two hundred and thirty two episodes.

That's true, we did.

So I did eight years on Full House, you know, not counting the one accounting the one, right, but I'm still working in there.

But nine years on their car show.

I had ida ran for that long. That's amazing.

Yeah, yeah, really it was great. And we did a lot of.

Dance and yes, I do remember that a lot of dance numbers on that.

Yeah, so adience. Yeah, it was really good.

So I mean, basically, besides all the other stuff, I mean, that's a career, right, there.

I was gonna say, that's yeah, the Natalie, you know, seventeen years' worth of a career. You'd be like, all right, good done, thank you, you know.

Yeah, But then they kept coming out.

Man.

I went over to Disney and ended up doing a lot of their you know, kid shows.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, they I feel like, I remember when you went over to Disney, or we're talking about it, like in the end of eighth season, or maybe you were already working on some of it or something, but I do remember that you were heading more into Disney territory Disney.

Yeah. Yeah, so we did Good Luck Charlie, which.

Oh okay, oh yeah, okay, okay, I did. Yeah, I remember that show.

I actually took over. I was becaming a baby.

Whisperer, really, Charlie no Way.

Yeah. Yeah, with Mia Tillery and thing, I had learned a full house I transfer and I was able to get her to do all kinds of behavior and also having my own girls.

Right, yeah, you had your two daughter. Yeah.

I was able to transfer that.

Yeah.

And so when she came on the set, they basically handed her over to me. This is what we need, is what we need out of her? So I get her to say what she needed to say, and I also would get her to behave the way she needed to do. So we did have one scene where she was supposed to pull on a curtain and it was like a Rube Goldberg. Everything would fall. No, it's special if I said it on. So how do we get her to do that? And what happened was she used to come out and you know, you know, I.

Had my lanyard and I kept my pen there.

She'd always play with my pen.

So I took my pen and I taped it behind the curtain and I showed her that it was there over and reached for it and we had.

The shop.

Perfect. So yeah, it's I mean, it's like working, you know, and not everybody works with kids, not every you know, it's working with kids is its own unique? Uh sort of hell?

And I yes it is.

So I have my training and all my experience with you guys, and then I was able to translate it. And then of course you know again it's like, oh he did.

Four whiles, right, it's your street grid.

Yeah, so that's part of why I kept working well.

And yeah, but once you kind of have that reputation where people are like, oh no, he's really great with like kids family sitcoms, Like you need somebody like that, because it is you don't need a screaming a d or someone who's super stretched like you that can't be around kids and a kids show. It just is not

Must have been really a great experience.

Oh it was amazing. I loved it. I loved it, and I want to do a lot more of it. But yeah, it was a good opportunity.

It's a real good time, I think for you.

I mean maybe I don't know, but you know, the industry is right now.

Page but you know it's it's it's opened up to you know, women.

That's true, that's true. A lot more female directors in here, we have a lot better shot.

Yeah.

And also and writing, Andrea think there is if you don't have that.

You don't have anything right at the words on a page.

Yeah, and Andrea is an amazing writer, just an incredible writer. You really are.

You also have the most power as a writer because you know, you really do, because if you if if if you don't have if those words aren't on the paper, they don't have anything to work with, you know, so you can actually kind of call your shots more I think than right, and you know, and I mean, directing is great, but it became a producers.

Media, the TV especially it's yeah, TV is the producers.

Joel was talking about that and his you know, I was listening to him and what he was talking about is what happened was once the producers could see what was going on because back in the day.

Once there was village monitors, right, you know, they.

Had to go with what the director was talking to the cameras about.

Right now, it's like, wait, I have some thoughts, exactly, I have ideas now.

Great.

More so you have to be collaborative with yeah, for sure, and they have to trust to you.

So you know that's great.

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Now.

I'm speaking of writing. We heard that you wrote a book.

I did. I do have a book on Amazon.

What happened to tell us about it?

Well, when I met when I met my wife Kathleen, and I've been married a couple of times before, although I.

Joined the club Athlete. Yes I haven't we all well maybe not all of us.

Here I started writing poetry. It's crazy, okay. The guy on the stage was yelling and screaming at everyone, then goes home and makes words rhyme and also about it's all about romance, because it was really a journal of what I was feeling.

And so I do have.

I put the first fifty into a book and it's on Amazon. What's it called Prince of the Garden of the Heart, and it's available on Amazon. And I also have a Facebook page called Prince of the Garden and I have thirteen thousand fans from.

All over the world.

Oh my god.

What happened was when I started writing.

Alison, who is a director of a marketing Okay, they said to me early on, she goes, Dad, you know you have to get a Facebook page.

So you have your book. You'll have a place for people you know, you.

Can right to come find you build.

It, you know.

So that's that story. And I wrote every day.

That's incredible.

Oh I don't know how many years, and enough to make six hundred poems. And again it was a journal. You know, I have to think of all the poetry as a journal. Yeah, when I was feeling at any given time with the working, you know, wasn't always able to be you know, close with Kathleen. And but she's great, She's wonderful. Uh, she's she's it.

And that's such a great story.

I love that.

It's pretty great.

And she yeah, she was a hospice nurse and she really has a huge heart.

And as I say, she must have a very very big heart, a lot of love.

Yeah.

So yeah, so that's the Princes of the Garden.

Oh my god, look at you writer poet, congratulating manager first a d multiicam. Yeah, what can't you do? This is right?

Yeah. And I also one of my hobby could do a lot of cooking and baking.

Oh, Andrew was just telling us about her baking exploits this morning.

Ba I made her cimon bread yesterday, per cimon.

Bread, cinnamon bread.

Bread.

Wow, it was delicious.

I put some chocolate chips in there, so it was delicious regardless, but.

Right taste, the chocolate was great.

It's healthy, right, yeah, its banana bread.

Uh. There's a place on Malay called Aunt Sandy's.

Yes, I've been at Sandy's when we did the We did the whole drive all the way around with the kids. When I had an eight hour car ride with two children and I almost threatened to leave them in Hannah because I was like, this is I can't do any more with this car ride with you. But we did. We stopped yea road to Hannah. Yeah, we got to Hannah and then our guide got out and I turned around. I was like, you need to stop it. They were just.

Recipe for aunt Sandy's, so.

Really please do Yeah, that was we stopped at. It was so delicious, So Andrew, you would do it.

I'm sure you do well with it.

She's in her fall baking mode.

Let's go for all baking mode.

Yes, yes, oh I love it well. Keith, this has been such an awesome interview. First of all, was just so good to see your face and I look the same, and like that thing has changed. The glasses.

The voice, the voice is bringing me back.

Yeah, I know. I feel like I need to go on a mark somewhere. Where's my mark? And Keith? No, thank you so much? Huh.

I need you guys on the set right now.

Yeah, guys, back to one, Back to one back to one. No, thank you so much for coming on the show. This is incredible and like like I said, it's so much fun to get to really talk to and get to know all of these incredible artists and people that we grew up with and grew up around that we I don't think ever, really we're realized as kids that how just how gifted everyone around us really was, and that it's really cool to be surrounded by that.

It was.

We've all been very lucky, I think, and there's a lot to be grateful for. It's great to see you, guys. I can't believe that.

It's like, I know, so good to see you. To please tell your girls I said hello and my love yeah.

And Brian Kale to see you next week.

Amazing. I love that. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been really really lovely and it was so good to fun.

Absolutely, thank you, We love you, Love you so much.

Good to see you to you later bye bye. Oh it was so great.

I'm smiling so big right now.

Every time we finished an interview with somebody that we worked with, his kids, it's like, yeah.

It's so visceral, like just again, the glasses, the voice the demeanor like he's got that a D demeanor where it's completely calm on the outside and going inside.

Yeah.

No, just it was really great and such a again, such a big part of our lives.

Yeah yeah, well he did. He did so many episodes of Full House. He was there episode the very beginning, so.

I will never forget. So I had a birthday party down at Bullwinkles of all places in Orange County, like Fullerton or something, and you know, you and and I and our families were kind of the only Orange County people right right, And it was pouring down rain, and I believe Keith lived in like Woodland Hills or something, and he and Alison and his and his wife at the time and other kids like showed up for the word and it just, like literally to this day, it

That's just That's what I hope the faner itos understand from listening to all these interviews that we do. I know, I know everybody loves when we interview the celebrities and the way round names. But for us, like, it's so cool to interview and get to know better the people we grew up with behind the scenes, behind the camera because they were just as important to us.

Yeah.

Again, all those videos that John Stamos has of his barbecues and his pool party.

Many great videos.

There's they were all there. You know, Keith was there and all of the.

Everybody's parents, you know, and the adults parents, you know. Bill was on the grill and.

Yeah, no, there was no like hierarchy between cast and crew, Like no, it's like everybody was one big family, like he said, and.

Yeah, and that is that is rare and not always the case. So I'm so glad we got to do that. What an awesome uh, what an awesome interview.

Yeah, I love that. He's so great. He's so great.

Well, everyone, that was an amazing interviewer. We're so glad that you got to listen to our interview with the wonderful Keith Richmond, who is just so talented poet and listening to him talk about working seven days a week. Oh yeah, I don't know how he did it. It's incredible, I know.

And he looks the same too. It doesn't look like as not at all.

But thank thank you guys so much for listening. We absolutely love doing these interviews and we hope that you're enjoying them. And it's just so much fun for us to get to introduce you to our extended full house family. So this has been great. Uh, And if you want to check out more, you can find us on Instagram at how Rude podcast, or you can send us emails

Line, is it anyway?

All the videos, call sheets just coming out everywhere? Yeah, yeah, yeah, nightmare. I love it all right, Y'll see you next time.

I wish