Pop Culture Retro interview with Meeno Peluce from the TV show, VOYAGERS!

welcome to pop culture retro which was

recently voted the 15th best podcast by

the residents of the golden years

retirement community in boca raton

florida each show will revisit some of

your favorite pop culture memories with

insider and outsider perspectives

now please help me welcome your hosts

ike eisenmann and jonathan rosen

[Music]

hello and welcome to another edition of

pop culture retro

i'm one of your hosts jonathan rosen

along with ike eisenman and i have to

say that

when ike and i started this and i'm not

kissing up whatsoever when i get i

started this

i had two guests who were at the top of

my list

and

the our following guest is one of them

and i'm really excited to welcome mino

palouse uh from voyageurs and you know

thank you for joining us

uh my pleasure i'm good you know i'm

just wondering who the other one was was

it you know

the other one was chris made peace

from from my bodyguard

but uh i have to i have to say okay um

and you know i we've really felt because

i goes and voyagers as well but

the way you got here was a really great

story i just wanted to share it quickly

we had i posted a video one of our pop

culture video uh metro videos about uh

bad news bears

and one of our followers

uh deron redding said he oh he just

talked to mino who was in uh who was in

the tv series bad news bear says well

mino's on that wish list and he said oh

i'll arrange that and so that was great

thank you deron for arranging all that

and uh now let's get started with the

rest of the show uh so

i have here a bunch of questions now i

saw that you know like ike you started

so young

i want to know how you get into acting

and the same thing with ike you know i

was always impressed i tell him that he

was such a natural at a young age and i

thought the same thing of you when you

had the quality how did you get into it

was it something that you expressed an

interest in or did your parents kind of

steer you into it

all right so my my path to becoming an

actor in hollywood

was a fun one

i was born in amsterdam because my folks

had split america

at the end of the 60s

to go on their you know their

journey their odyssey to india

but i was i was part of that trip on the

way so i was born in amsterdam

lived there the first couple years of my

life and then into india and nepal for

the next years of my life

soaking up

all that wonderful madness that's where

i gave myself my name mino as a baby in

you know response to whatever

wild um

synthesis of

of inputs i was getting

then we came back to america

and my parents split up and so my mom

as this new single mom

had to figure out how to support herself

and her kid

and so she started catering using all

the wild foods she'd learned to cook all

over the world

and

i would go with her sometimes to these

sets

and

you know i was just a really playful

inventive little kid used to

entertaining myself from being all over

the world on the on on the road

and

we'd get home and she'd say oh they saw

you playing and they wanted to put you

in that commercial and i thought well

why didn't they why didn't you let me

well you know no you're too young you're

too young

and

i finally got a play at school

and i didn't tell her

because i thought she'd say you're too

young you can't do it

so they called to see if i could stay

late for rehearsals

and she said rehearsals for what

so it came out again

all right this is what i you know i've

got this interest you know this natural

affinity for play that i've always had

and still do

and

she said all right if you wait till

you're seven you can give it a

professional try

and on my seventh birthday i went from

asian they dug it they signed me up

and uh and that was it it was it was

real simple and it was

it was never

anything

more than just that simple

uh eagerness to go play and that's why i

was

you know as a kid that's why i was good

at it because as a little kid you're

unalloyed with preconceptions of self

and all this you just play

you get the words to say you say them

but

now as

as a director

i realized that

that kid magic

also

that kid magic for being

an actor

starts with that with that just honest

sincere ability to just be natural

but it's also tempered for the good ones

with a certain professionalism

the simple things like not looking in

the camera like all that stuff

you know people would say wow you're

really good and i would say

well that's what you brought me here to

do is to be really good no you know i

never i took all that for granted it's

not until i've worked with different

kids that i see like oh yeah some of

them have this intuitive way of just

being

while

you're just pretending inside this giant

structure of a production

you know the kids are amazed by it all

and so they can't stay

focused in the moment so

as a kid actor i learned that great

lesson of

how to do make believe

as

a profession as a as a professional

endeavor

but never having it be anything more

than yeah just a day of going to play

like that other kids go to the park to

play i went to the set to play

so it was very natural for me and i

loved it and

and i'm you know certainly thankful to

my folks for letting that happen but i

was the one who really spearheaded that

so yeah

jumping in for a second because you just

described exactly what i went through as

well and i and i and i love i love

hearing someone else bring it up because

of course i have contemporaries and

friends who are child actors and and

everyone kind of comes at it in a

slightly different way but if you don't

have those fundam those exact elements

the the play and professional

understanding it doesn't work and i'm

glad to see that you see it because i

saw it in other children as well but

that whole idea that i loved to play and

i lived in my head a lot which is what

made me a natural

but i wanted it to mean something so

doing it professionally and being with

other people that did it professionally

meant that my play meant something and

it wasn't just it was play and it meant

i mean i just for the first time i'm

putting that together based on what you

just shared so thank you for uh for

for your uh your personal insight there

one of the

one of the things i didn't understand as

a kid

was

you're on set

and like i got it that like okay you got

to go to school on set too so like

between every take you're hustled off to

the classroom whether that's in a motor

home whether that's like on a on a board

on your lap while you're sitting on a

little stool

but you gotta get in your your three

hours of school a day at least right

so i could i could dig that but what

always pissed me off was that

what felt like me to me the middle of

the day

i had to go home because i could only be

on set so many hours and all these

grown-ups who i felt totally in league

with because i was being just as

professional as them why do they get to

stay and keep working

yep i'd talk same thing same thing same

thing it's so it's so funny because you

just really get on a roll by five or six

o'clock and then

all right that's it the kids are wrapped

you know so yeah i get it

i find it hysterical that your mom said

you had to wait till the ripe old age of

seven

that's amazing and then you got you got

an

agent like so quickly

did you think it's just that easy i mean

and then you got your first gig i think

like like a couple weeks after that

yeah and you know the problem is that of

course i've i've assumed that everything

should be that easy

you know what like i've got this great

marriage i've got great kids we've got a

great home

uh i've got a great career

still in telling stories with imagery

whether it's photography or

cinematography

and

i have a hard time ever taking it more

seriously than just

let's play

uh now you got the first thing that i

read i mean that you you got like

afterwards with starsky and hutch was

the first role that you had

so it's awesome starsky and hutch

i go in for my first day on the set

right

i really have

no idea what that's going to be like

i've certainly got an idea of sets

because i've grown up on set so that's

no problem like that's not foreign to me

right

but like what's it going to be now that

i've got to do it and my first

experience

is i'm playing this little kid who's

been

beat by his mother

so my first experience of going to set

is

three hours in makeup while they

do all this stuff on my back

oh dear good grief

and so i thought okay yeah this is this

is these are the riggers this is cool

and then and then the best part is

is

like the first shot we do is

is starsky hutch pulling me out of a

trash

can a bit of trash can getting yanked

out

and like that's not comfortable

and

and those two actors man they were they

were something else because i'm trying

to like observe them right how how do

you do this

and i realize like they've got anger

issues in this stuff that they're

they're bringing their anger from off

stage onto the stage but they're

utilizing that was a good lesson like

whatever whatever you're you're working

with utilize it channel it

um these were these are the things i

picked up along the way how i did that

as a tiny kid

i was just intuitive

now were you nervous at all going in i

mean just you know you're you wanted to

act and you would literally school play

but

this is like the big time now were you

just at all nervous or nothing because

that didn't phase you

um

you know it's funny it's either

something i learned then that i bring to

life now

or

it's just

an innate response

but

like when i'm asked to do something i go

okay it's my show i'm going to do it my

way and because i'm doing it my way

i

you know

there's not an inherent nervousness to

it because i'm trying to figure it out i

just figure okay

i must be here to do it i must be here

to do me so i'm just gonna do me

and and thus

you know i get alleviated from those

weird stresses of anxiety

particularly in the moment and and so

like that's that's one of my fortes is

working in the moment and that's why

i've gravitated to

you know a lifetime in things like

making great moments with imagery

because

you need to have a facility with moments

with being in the moment with nailing

the moment with teasing from the moment

the magic that is there to be given

and uh you know and my wife's a planner

and that's why we that's why we work

well together oh yeah yeah we do we need

the planner so is mine she makes she

makes the list she sets up the honeydew

list and schedules everything except for

these shows

[Laughter]

so yeah i need the same thing otherwise

i'm just yeah yeah

i think it's just the artist's life you

know i think that's that's that's just

it because if you don't think that way

if you don't function that way you can't

i don't think you really can connect to

to great art and you know that's all

about sharing it with other people

whether it's you're performing or

working in the visual field can't wait

to talk about your photography which i

absolutely love by the way

um

but uh

boy my other little uh my other little

thing here for me is i'm so glad that

you were um you know

quite a few years behind me in the

business because

i i would have been really mad losing

all my parts out to you because you were

you're one of the one of the best child

actors and i you know i i

i i always i always pointed out to the

ones that i that i recall with with

great admiration respect um

because i know we'll get to voyages in a

minute too but man it was so

great working with you and i i had a

really good time so no you were you were

fantastic and clearly your resume

supported that easily

thank you thank you yeah

well before we get before you get the

voyages i have a couple of others to

cover

but we will and we'll cover your

photography um but i had totally

forgotten when i was doing the reason i

totally forgot to do an amityville

horror

oh yeah i would have forgotten that and

i want to know what that experience was

like and if it's similar i've spoken to

ike about horror movies and he doesn't

find them scary just because he knows

all the backstage process from it so i

wonder how would you get all scared

doing that because you were so young

so

so doing it you know filming it i wasn't

scared at all

um

i was i was certainly intrigued in that

you know i had the sense that this was

an actual movie a big movie and that was

cool

um

i had

this

the sense of the story because you know

i was i was young enough that i didn't

sit down and read the script my mom read

the script and then told me the story

and she read the book and told me she

was a great storyteller and i you know

really get that gift from my mom

um

and then i would learn my lines for each

day

and learn the scenario and that's the

thing but like

when you're doing it in pieces like that

it's all broken out of the continuum

so again

there's no there's no impending sense of

doom

you're just doing the work

now you're doing the work in the context

of being scared

but

you know for me

i was doing in the context of

being

totally excited because i told him i got

to do my own stunt and i had that stunt

where i fall down the stairs smash the

light bulb and fall down the stairs into

the haunted basement

and i got to do that

oh my god i was just so stoked about

that

and you know and like going on location

the first time to toms river new jersey

that was kind of a big deal

but i mean i like maybe in my kids brain

it was as big a deal that they had an

indoor pool which seemed incredibly

exotic to me and you know we were

swimming at the pool when we weren't on

set

i'm i'm shocked that they'd let you do

that stunt

yeah i put my foot down down man

so watching it later were you able to

distance yourself i mean were you scared

watching it so that's the thing though

right so then we get invited to the

premiere

chinese theater

packed house go in

and

it was scary as

a little kid you know i didn't go to

scary movies yeah i was

you know i had all the joy all the

thrill of of a scary movie yeah it was

very scary

now did in your mind did you

differentiate

movie from tv role i mean dude this like

oh this is so much bigger now that

you're in a movie

no no no i mean

um i had done

this really funny low budget

horror flick just before that

which which turns out to like still be

in the canon of b horror movies

and the guy who directed it he's he's

still

you know an aficionado in that canon and

everything so it's called don't go in

the park or don't go near the park or

something like this i'm gonna have to

check that out

and you know and

i certainly had

the respect for the fact that that was

done

you know with like

four people and now here we're at mgm

doing it with lots of people

um

but like as a kid you're just you're

open to

the

the nuance of all new experience right

because you're not categorizing things

a priori you're just like okay what's

this how do we do this let's go and

and that that made for a really rich

childhood you know a really um vivid

childhood a lot of great memories

particularly opening opening the door we

so we had we had our little school room

on the side of the set

of

of the house the house was on the set

was in different levels right

so

there was it was kind of the main level

and there was like a lawn outside

so that lawn became our little

football field for break time out of the

classroom

and one day margot kidder comes and

she's playing catch with us and it's

awesome

because you know we're

we're all in love with margo kidder

she's this

luminous creature

and then she runs into her her dressing

room at the end of the thing there we're

waiting for her to come back out and

keep playing with us

so i just walk over and open the door

and like there i am face to face with

margot kidders

big black bush and it was it was amazing

it was it was it was my moment out of

the tin drum yeah it was

wow

must have been fun filming after that

well

now i'll have to watch the movie in a

new light

i also i just

i mean

like mentioned your career seemed very

powerful a lot of things like you were

in every everything in the 70s i mean

everything i saw every major tv show you

had a part in uh but then you get on a

series the bad news bears with jack

warden

uh which i was i remember at the time

that i was surprised got made into a tv

show

because i was wondering how they were

going to translate you know the the kids

which was i love that movie so i knew he

even played tanner uh had used so so

here you go right so

i was a huge bad news bears fan as a

little kid as every little kid in the

70s was

so now like

my mom says oh you're going in for an

interview for the bad news bears tv show

okay great and again like yeah i mean in

my brain there was no huge

differentiation between movies and tv

like this was just the stuff you

consumed i had my i was the only one in

the house who had a tv

right

um

so like that's cool i'll go do that and

i get there to this giant casting call

and they give me the sides for ogilvy

the brainy kid with the glasses

but i see these other sides for tanner

over here

and i'm thinking

i don't want to be the nerd

i want to be a tough guy

so when i go in to read

i tell them

you know i want i want to read these

other ones and they say yeah yeah but

you know we kind of were thinking of you

for this part i said

all right i'll read those

but you got to let me read the other

ones too

and of course i have read the tanner

ones and they loved it and i got the

part oh good for you i mean it's just

yeah

now what were you what are you some of

your memories of that i mean at some

point they stopped doing baseball at all

on that show they started doing

everything but baseball toward the end

of it

and uh

jack warden was like also

yeah that was i mean that was

a particularly special thing to be

involved with

at that moment in my life right because

what i

was eight years old

right my sister at that point two years

old

um

i didn't have any brothers

uh my friends were the kids you know in

this who lived in the apartment

buildings with me

so all of a sudden now i'm going to a

place where there's 12 of us

like this is heaven

right like we're we're all a bunch of

precocious little badasses

you know and so so in in scenes where

like we're looking all

scuffed up and roughed up

that that's not art direction that's

because we're playing tackle football in

between the shots

um

yes we had a really good time because

there was this all this camaraderie

um

there was that connection like when we

would go to

to school on the set we had our own

little school room

um

we knew that we were in

kind of this

that

you know when we go to the baseball

field and shoot that stuff it was just

kids on a baseball field you couldn't be

happier right

but when we were on the set

on the

paramount there was something really

special to that one because that was the

set

that had been the set for the brady

bunch and we knew that because there

were these there were the dressing rooms

that had belonged to the brady bunch

kids

and and so like and we knew that because

the walls were covered in all the little

class pictures that all the fans had

sent in so we knew we were in some kind

of hallowed ground to things that

actually meant something to us like we

all watched the brady bunch

later

i realized that's also the stage where

tom hagan comes when he comes to

california

to let the producer know

that

he's going to he's going to let johnny

in the movie he says i'll never let that

kid in the picture anymore a horse's

head and so that stage where he visits

him that was the stage we worked on

oh

that's outstanding it's that that always

makes it so much fun because you know

studios

have such history you know so much

happens

i had a similar experience on escape to

witch mountain working

um

because disney only has like four stages

and only one decent sized one but they

had a special effects stage called the

they called it the sodium stage and i

remember stomping around because the

the floor was kind of hollow and

and it turns out that was the stage on

which they shot 20 000 things under the

sea there was a water pit below that and

and i thought

you know i mean i don't know why that

one that one movie in that one moment

impacted me more than thinking about

everything else that had been shot on

those stages but also i thought my god

the giant squid was down there you know

the submarine so just it just makes it

rich in ways that you you know you you

just i find i find incredible and really

enjoyable

it's funny because

yeah you when you when you are

kind of steeped in the lore and you

realize that you're being given this

opportunity to be

part of that lore

that's really cool yeah um

one of the

one of my great connections to pop

culture is the fact that when we shot

voyagers on the back lot of

of

universal

we would just routinely jump onto the

trams of the tour and like lead the tour

across the bridge with the with the

shark and stuff

yeah that was great that is awesome

we you know we just got to go own that

for ourselves i i i

obviously we all worked on all the

different lots but i i did do a number

of shows at universal and that just used

to dumbfound me that i'd be walking to

the stage or past the center from the

you know the parking lot and there's the

tram waving by and driving by and people

would stare at you and take pictures i

mean no matter who you were it was it

was amazing yeah

yeah i mean that's got to be my

my closest relationship to celebrity

is is that kind of stuff where i had

been a kid on the tram that was awesome

so now i i could have totally appreciate

the kids on the tram and i would want to

give them that

that moment of connection

that's great well and how was how was it

with jack ward and how was he working

with

jack warden was great i mean that

you know that salty character with a

chomping on a cigar that was just him

that was him

of course

but you know in in so many ways also

he was part of

that you know that firmament of adults

who are making things happen

so i guess that was the difference about

voyagers because a lot of other things i

was in like i was the kid in the thing

so now i'm connected with telly savalas

because like this is what's going on

right and

but on the set with 12 other kids you're

like an animal you just revert like i'm

just going to be a kid

parents and and adults are just this

this

this weird thing that happens above your

head

but

another series i actually watched an

episode this past weekend in preparation

of best of the west i had totally

forgotten about that show too and i i

remember liking it at the time too so

what was that like i mean i would

disappoint i remember being disappointed

that it ended what were some of your

memories of that

that's one of those experiences where

like i'm the only kid on set right so

now i'm i'm much more connected to

all the really cool adults that are

making this thing and obviously everyone

where they were all

super

proficient comedians and stuff

and so i was kind of

trying again through intuition to pick

up

what is this comedic timing thing that

everyone's so good at

um

and the secret sauce was also i would

just go next door to taxi and watch them

shooting that

and watch them you know you resend like

the way those shows worked was

friday night they got done in front of a

live audience

like a play that was wonderful but that

meant monday morning

you were you had sides in your hand and

you were working it out

like an actor on stage

and so you know if you go next door to

watch taxi

watch them working out their beats their

moments their queues all that

it's fantastic

and then of course like robin williams

is walking by to lunch tom hanks it was

just that was the crew

and

so that was another like very special

time in my life

especially because

the connections with all the actors were

wonderful

the connection with

what i was doing as a craft was terrific

the

the connections

between

like place that was such an interesting

set right so this is this again you're

doing it as a stage piece

on on a floor where all sets have only

three walls

but there are these giant sets so the

wall swung

and you would open up the cabin

and then that would swing and you'd open

up the general store where you could go

in and steal

like the little gummy candies out of the

thing but they were props so they were

always

nasty and hard and then that would swing

and make this giant saloon

so total appreciation for stagecraft

there was there was thursdays when you

would now pretty much have everything

set you'd know most of your lines so now

you would kind of do a dress rehearsal

but for the cameras because now the

cameramen who hadn't been there the rest

of the week had to learn

their moves and and so i got this

this big appreciation then for what is

that orchestration of camera movement

and as an actor playing to camera and

how do all those pieces go together and

that's of course so much of where my

head is at all the time now

um

so

a time of tremendous education

and

and a time kind of a priceless time in

my own life because it was really

positive the fact that these series

would like go two seasons and then end

that was not a huge consideration to me

like i grew up you'd live in an

apartment for a year or two and then you

moved to another apartment so you would

do a show for a year or two which again

two seasons

in a kid's life that's a long time

so yeah of course of course we're gonna

go do the next thing

um

so that wasn't a big deal but but but it

was part of the

the kind of apocryphal moments of those

pieces of childhood right

and it was kind of neat

you skipped forward many years

and

and i'm

i've got this photography career now and

i'm working with interscope records and

they said listen we've got we've only

got 500 bucks to go shoot this uh this

woman called lady zydeco um she's this

kind of older black lady but she's a

guitar

wizard from new orleans so i go and i

make these beautiful pictures of her

and

the next week i get another call we got

another 500 bucks i know it's small but

like uh it's another up-and-coming

artist

her name's lady gaga and so i'm thinking

i'm gonna go shoot this another like old

black lady

and and so i go to the set

and at first i go to the dressing area

and i'm introduced to her and i'm oh

okay surprise okay this is not lady

zydeco this is a whole different genre

of of pop

and we go down to shoot

and it is a magic day

because one

this young woman

like you can really see it

through the lens when someone has it

right this translation to two dimensions

this translation to the

life through the lens

but

when you see those stars boy

you know

and

she was incredible she was it from the

get-go this is like one of her first

thing this is her first music video

and what was awesome was it was they

were borrowing the soundstage of a tv

show that had these opulent sets that

kind of went with her song

it was that stage from best of the west

right

so

you know like i'm the old hand coming

home to this world witnessing the birth

of this new star

uh with you know i'm a young guy but i'm

i'm recognizing like

i'm a veteran

the face of someone who's just beginning

their great career but i have but i knew

it was great for andy yeah that was

totally magic day oh photos of lady gaga

are fantastic i saw those two on it's on

your side

um well now now we're going to come into

you know voyagers it was absolutely my

favorite show of when i was a kid that

was the first show i remember being

devastated when it was canceled i was so

upset when that was cancelled and so

that's why it was interesting that you

said that it didn't affect you with

childhood as much as probably it did

some of the adults but for me as a

viewer i was so upset

uh just want to know how how did you get

that role

how did you uh wind up with it and you

know

what just anything you can remember

about going into that show

all right so voyagers is particularly

particularly fantastic because voyagers

was

was

really driven by the magic of chemistry

there's a mercurial nature to any

creative thing

where

you can put all the effort into the

world to it

and it's still

or

all the pieces somehow fall together

and even if it's something like looking

back now it's like oh yeah this is 80s

tv this is like it was a lot of

um

you know

production standards that were

much lower than they are now

and yet still it's total magic

like where does the magic come from

chemistry

so so voyagers

my journey my voyage to voyagers begins

again with it's a cattle call you get

called in

you get the sides you go in and read

them

and then they're like yes we're liking

this now we're going to bring you in

to meet

the

the networks right so they had rounded

it down to two kids and two guys

the other kid

he's this kind of blonde roly-poly kid

with glasses kind of you know he's the

archetypical nerd

and

the other guy

was this older more uh harrison ford

kind of guy

so we get in there

and

i go read with the old guy and john eric

goes and reads with the kid

so they would do things and it's good

you know this we know the scene we've

got it on his feet we're doing a thing

and it works just fine

and then the other guy and the other kid

go in and john eric and i start to

rehearse it

and we're like laughing to ourselves

and we walk in and we laugh

to the to the

the brass of nbc

because we've got this

it's

indisputable like this is

this is exactly what this is supposed to

be they watch us go through it once and

they say yes this is exactly what it's

supposed to be and the next thing you

know it's awesome

we're um going to our fittings at the

wardrobe department on the back lot

right so i'm

12 years old

so you know what's important in my life

um being able to throw a spiral a good

spiral is an important thing to a 12

year old boy right

so after we do our fittings john eric

says to my mom hey listen

can

can meno stay and hang out with me and

we'll go walk around the back lot and

you know we'll get to know each other

and i'll bring them up perfect

so not only am i like walking around the

back lot of universal which i've really

only seen from the tour bus before this

right

now

we have it all to ourselves like some

kind of interlopers

we're hanging out i've got like the

coolest big buddy in the world

because he could throw a spiral

a hundred yards

so we were walking through this with a

football

with all that instant chemistry that we

had there

and and that came it was it was really a

great friendship and he really was

the

hugest hardest open guy was wonderful

right

so we come we become fast pals we go to

the first day of shooting

we're at indian dunes which is this

whole neat area out past magic mountain

which

which was

you know magic california this is where

they make movies in the woods

and we're down by the river

and we're doing the scene where moses is

in a basket floating down

and

this is the scene that we know so well

because this is the same scene that

we've done so many times in the

rehearsals for for getting the gig so

now we're gonna execute it

would put it on its feet for the camera

make it magic

we do the first take wide it's beautiful

everyone's loving it the whole crew is

like

coming into the synergy of the thing

a couple takes later

move things around

john eric

says to me hey come over here because

we're the pals now right like we're

getting to know everybody else but now

we're the old fast friends and he says

to me

how come you're on the other side of the

camera

and i figured it out oh

right

i'm the veteran you're the newbie john

eric this is your close-up

oh no

wow wow

so he

he had totally bullshitted his way his

resume

into

this gig and he was just a natural

gregarious

outgoing guy

but like his one acting experience was

as a broccoli in third grade

holy cow i you know i've heard other i

could can't name them stories

similar to that where other people have

just

you know you always say well how do you

get your first gig how do you get into

the business and everyone i mean the

smarter more creative ones like john um

managed to pull that off and that's

incredible that's really incredible yeah

did you feel any

good sorry oh it's just

voyagers was magic because

think about like every

every episode

was

different sets

different

costumes

different time zones i mean you know you

couldn't get more of a of a piece of

variety in the work and this is

interesting

the crew stays the same right

but every week the cast other than john

eric and i changes

so

so we become like the ambassadors to the

show

and often the director changes as well

right sometimes you have

reoccurring directors but the the

director of photography changes and the

you know he stays the same the grips

stay the same the catering people like

that's that's the family and then you

have these other people who come in

and you realize as ambassadors your job

is to like welcome them in to get them

to be part of the magic

and

you know it was really positive

i was gonna ask that because this is the

first time i mean you were on a show but

not the main this is the first time

you're

the guy i mean one at least one of them

on on the show so you know

bringing in people and i was gonna

include ike in this one too you had to

bring in the guest stars each week uh

and so i can you know get a little bit

if you could add something about how it

felt when you came into the show well

that he watched your episode

he just described exactly what the

environment was like um

you know i really had the um the rich

experience of having worked on so many

different shows i mean so many different

shows so many different sets

and um so many different personalities

and

um

the the

the three

the three

well disney was always a favorite

because that that was a family anyway i

mean it's the same kind of thing um

the same crew same people no matter what

practically no matter what project i did

but little house in the prairie was an

incredible environment michael landon

was very very conscious of making that

set very family-like and welcoming and

everyone was she seemed like everyone

was in a good mood all the time no

matter how hard they were working

and then when i came um

you know instantly my first moment on

the set of voyagers i mean you were

exactly that you were completely

welcoming john eric was just an amazing

guy and i just remember him being so

freaking funny

all the time which is you guys just made

it fun

and um

i

you know i i always had a little bit of

a love-hate relationship working with

other child actors and

because sometimes it was good sometimes

it was like pulling teeth sometimes it

was awkward and maybe we got along maybe

we didn't but you were just a joy to

work with i mean so incredibly

professional and and and

what made it even better for me was

my little secret about my my time on

your set and i'm so sorry if anybody

else suffered for this but

i got the flu like the day before my

first day

and i was sick as a dog i had like 103

degree fever

um almost every day i worked with you

guys and so i i was just i was beat up

and i was just dragging myself to the

set i don't even know how i drove myself

there

and i felt like in a weird way that it

was like some of the best work i did as

a guest as a guest on another show

because i had to work twice as hard just

to just to keep my eyes open and i'd go

to my dressing room and pass out when i

had a break because i was just worn out

so um

you guys made it so easy and it was just

so much fun it was just such a fun show

to do and i just watched it again this

weekend

that episode

and i haven't seen it in ages so it was

so much fun to revisit it that was a

show i loved to watch as well i was as

disappointed as jonathan when uh when it

went off the air but you know such as

the nature of so many shows back then

but but that very environment you

described as as

you just you did you created that i felt

exactly that way and i had a blast total

blast

all right so i tell you the the

mirror story to that

um

so

i had never had any formal acting

training right

um

i i was i was vaguely aware especially

as i became more of an adolescent that

like oh when you really learn things you

can do them really well

but like you can also just go do them

and do them well if you happen to be

gifted in that right

um

and so like with voyagers it was

interesting because different actors

would come in and you would see that

some of them had

technique that they were bringing to

their craft like

preparation and things like this

you know like they'd get quiet before

their scenes they'd be introverted

whatever it was i think oh wow okay so

this person really understands

the craft of this they're not just

coming and playing like the rest

of us

and and i of course was a fan of yours

i'd grown up watching you

and here you were like coming to our

world and i thought oh wow look see he's

he's one of those ones that really like

understands the craft

because but usually quiet and internal

between scenes that's that's something i

should think about

you had the flu i was oh yeah

oh yeah no it wasn't i can't i can't

claim i can't claim any level of craft

in my work i i was another organic

organic performer i mean i understood

the fundamentals i learned what i like

you what i could from other people but

yeah on that show no i wasn't i wasn't

the moody quiet internal processing um

performer yeah at all i i was just

trying to keep up right now

and i was thinking wow this guy's doing

some of that brando this is

that's great oh my gosh that's great

well nina like i think you said that i

mean you hit it on the head to me there

was unbelievable chemistry i i just

like i said i watched it i was first i

loved it because i was a history buff i

was a history kid and then time travel

too so i loved everything about it but

you know the chemistry between the two

of you was just phenomenal and again uh

so can you feel a little bit about you

know john eric hexham again and

how it felt afterwards i mean uh

i thought i mean i thought this guy at

the time i remember i thought this guy's

gonna be a huge star i i thought this

guy was going to go on his career was

going to skyrocket and i remember loving

him in the show just like you know every

every week he you know he was he was the

suave he got you you knew he got laid

every week with with whatever uh you

know person he met

right

so

that's what that's what we're doing

could you say a little bit about him in

particular yeah so it was

it was

it was

you know it was so awesome having

you know again like this big brother

this

this pal because

you know like his openness to

camaraderie was fantastic so

here we were

you know this

this team

that would work with all these different

people that would come and go

and and that was always wonderful and it

was funny because like like we would

often both get crushes on the heroine of

that episode right

but again like at the end of the you

know 6 p.m or whatever it is i got to go

home and i'm thinking yeah and he's

going to work another few hours and then

go home with her

and you know but like i couldn't be

happier for him um there was there was

one woman

who was a tour guide operator that we

both really had a crush on you know and

she was more of a constant because like

she'd come by

on the tour more often than just the

heroine of the week

and um

i remember like there was a great um

like

for a moment there like we were we were

three pals that was a great feeling like

yeah these are my pals

um

and

look what you know when you're a kid

you've got someone to look up to they

just they chart the way they chart the

course in so many ways

uh knowing that

like his

his magnanimity his charisma his fitness

his charm

that was such a great um

he's such a great role model for me

um

and and then the series ended it's a

bummer but again i'm a kid i go on to

all the other things in my life i go

back to my little school that i had

always grown up at so i always had kind

of a certain continuum

between shows because it was the same

kids i was growing up with and all that

and right around that time oh and and

that's interesting too because that

school was k through 12. so like we

always looked up to the big kids so i

was totally good with like looking up to

a big kid john eric was just a big kid

and then i was kind of in middle school

where like the little kids were looking

up to me now and i i could feel the

weight of that right

and that was

right after the show ended was the first

time

two of the older kids who had been

kind of part of the the hierarchy of

this

of this

round table that we all ate at right

this was our

this was our camelot this little school

and two of those greatest oldest kids

got wiped out in a car crash

and

so it was my first introduction to

dealing with death

and it was heavy and it was dealing

within the community of all my friends

and shortly thereafter

the second death in my life

the second great pal

and

you know it was it was not believable

like how could he how could he die this

is this is a person who is

just

manifestly more full of life than anyone

else you meet

how could he be gone

you know that was a real growing up

moment for me

so

how did you find out you just on the

news or

i remember um

i was asleep and

my mom's boyfriend rushed in

there's been an accident and my mom

behind him with this look on her face

like no you gotta you gotta break it

more gently

you know that's one of those moments of

childhood that stick in your craw

and you know and i thought okay oh he's

around because it was like we

always around on set there was

there was a time i remember where we're

screwing around

you know kind of like shadow boxing

and i caught his nose

and we're like rolling and he's like

wait hold the roll watch this

watch and the blood starts to come out

oh jeez

[Laughter]

um

so that we were always messing around on

seven so i thought oh okay he's playing

he did some you know he fell down he

hurt himself

and then as it

was explained more like no no no he

somehow this

fake gun

this is the story that i heard right is

that it's the

because you know we we've been around ex

guns and exploding stuff a lot

and you know squibs going off in your

face shooting hot dirt into your face i

was used to that

um

but the

the blank and the gun

is a bullet

that has gun powder in it so it goes pow

but instead of putting a bullet in the

front of that to hold that gun pattern

they just stuff a piece of paper in

there

but that paper has got to pop out

and at close range on the soft of your

temple

it can deer you in

and again it just it seemed unimaginable

and yet there it was

brain dead

what is the brain dead that was my first

uh intuition of brain dead

and so he's he's what you saw on the

show he was just that that was him he

was just so full of life like he's like

you're saying

there was no method acting there he

would just we were all just being

ourselves

well like i said i go back and watch the

show probably i i watch the whole series

probably like every couple of years i go

back and revisit do you have a

particular favorite episode

um so the pilot was really special

because

there was kind of more expanded stuff

like working

with the guys who were the wright

brothers right like these were great

actors

they were wonderful

getting to do

the ricktofen

fighter plane stuff that was that was

really special i loved

um the

the caesar episode

right the the spartacus episode

and um

you know because again i was getting to

do some stunts and stuff here i give you

one of the drawbacks to voyagers we had

a seven o'clock time slot

and

there's all these special morality rules

that the television had imposed upon

itself so they wouldn't be

so they wouldn't get

uh

manhandled right by government

um

one of the things was that at 7 pm time

slot

you couldn't have

violence towards kids

i'm like wait a minute i want to be in

the fight scenes

and

you couldn't throw punches

if you watch the show there's no punches

there's fights but that's elbows and all

this

so you know there were a few times where

i got to like

do some stunts and all that kind of

stuff and be in a little bit more peril

which is a lot more fun to shoot right

oh absolutely yeah

and um

so those you know those world

it was it was the shows that were

that had those and then of course like

the guy who played abe lincoln

he was a profound actor

and he looked like abe lincoln

so i was like this is great man i am

acting with abe lincoln this is really

special

do you ever go back and watch the shows

now at all

well you know it's really funny because

i get to show to my kids

right

and uh what do they say

oh they loved them i mean they're grown

now and

yeah they loved it when they were kids

and and i i get to see

and be transported to that world again

now as a filmmaker right

what are you looking for you're looking

for that you're looking for chemistry

that's magic

now uh your sister soleil moonfry

you know punky booster fame what was

that dynamic like growing up you know

having two

working actors in the family

so all right so

the beginning of solai's life

she's one of those people that comes out

fully magical

like this mop of dark hair

i remember

like walking into the to the bedroom the

first morning after just come home

and seeing her

and just feeling that feeling you have

like i didn't get to feel that feeling

again until i saw my own child just like

that overwhelming love like oh i just

want to eat this creature i love this

creature so much i want this i want to

consume them

have their soul in mind

um

she was a great great character

and

and her dad you know in a lot of ways he

was

kind of in his own

world

uh so like i did a lot of the

with my mom raising the two of us i had

to help a lot with the parenting i did i

changed a lot of diapers all that kind

of stuff

um when i had my own daughters years

later

no problem i've done this before this is

familiar territory i was six years older

right

so

so we had this great relationship

because you know we had our

you know the imaginative world of kids

that we inhabited and all that and

she was always very gregariously

creative and

into that and boy she loved her big

brother like when i showed her the trick

like when you take

the laundry bags down the stairs to go

to the laundromat you can jump

halfway off the stairs into the laundry

bags and you know

so she loved all that stuff

but i also noticed that she was very shy

outside the house with other people

and then i also remember that day when

she kind of came out from behind mom's

legs on one of my set and said

now it's my turn

i thought okay yeah it is like we've

been waiting

and um you know what happened to voyages

voyagers

voyagers was the victim

of the nielsen ratings box the nielsen

rating box was literally a box that sat

on top of

people's televisions and monitored what

they watched

and

they watched 60 minutes

like the whole country watched 60

minutes that was the number one show

sunday at 7 pm

but now there was a second tv in the

house that's where the kids were

they were all watching voyagers

but that didn't have the nielsen box on

it

and voyagers had these big sets it had

all these characters all these

explosions it was an expensive show to

make

so after

two seasons of us each week looking at

the ratings from the bottom up to find

ourselves

it got canned

that time slot was filled with the first

show to ever give 60 minutes a run for

their money

a show called punky brewster

[Laughter]

do you have any plans to appear on the

reboot

you know what they didn't ask me oh

i'm gonna have to start a massive uh

email campaign wow

that was it was really fun when i got to

be on the show back then right right

because back so you have to understand

so

after voyagers i did one more series

with judd hirsch

but we did one season of that it didn't

go anywhere but that was great working

with jed hirsch because again i'd known

him from taxi next door when i did best

of the west

um i did a few more things

but by then you know i'm becoming an

adolescent

in the 80s i had long hair that

i didn't want to cut off

i wanted to do rock and roll

um

and

so

so my stake in the game of doing

tv

was

waning and the parts were waning and the

fact that i wouldn't cut off my hair was

counting me out and all this kind of

stuff and but that was all right because

i was also

very serious about my education and knew

that soon enough i'd be going off to

college and so

there was

there was no

there was there was no um

great heartache about the fact that i

just wasn't coming home from school

every day and having mom come out while

i'm skateboarding you got this job you

got that job you got this job you got

that job

because i was on to other things

but then they asked me to come in and do

punky and that was really special

because i got to do a juicy roll

and

and you know i got to the the role

included me being fraternal to her

so i got to really bring the truth of

that

to it and watch

my kid's sister in the world where she

was really the star

but i still knew once again

i'm the veteran here

[Laughter]

i i also read for a little bit that you

did the same thing that i did for a

while that you taught history and i i

want to know first of all which subject

and what was it like for kids oh i'm

being taught by a voyager did that ever

come up all right so so the so the way

that comes about is that i go off to

college i get my degree in comparative

literature

um

that means nothing other than i've

become educated i've you know i've i

have taken those critical faculties that

i've always had

all the ability to kind of like

synthesize intuition into what's

interesting about this and how does this

work and

you know autodidactically

bring

new knowledge into my life

but now i'm out of college and i got

some

wonderful fast friends i got this great

girlfriend

and

i just live in

and then that little bit of money that i

still had

runs out

oh

i gotta get a job

like how do you get a job i've never

gotten a job before i had an agent who

said go take this interview and i did

the interview and i got the gig

but i had no idea how to go get a job

and someone said well you know if you've

got

if you've got a

bachelor's you can go substitute teach

and because i'm autodidactic

i've always been a good teacher because

i've got a sense of like well if you

don't understand something here's some

of the ways that you can begin to

understand it piece by piece by piece

adding to what you already understand

and now you will understand a bigger

thing

and and i i've gotten to teach a bit in

college when i was a senior i got to do

a course where i taught

the freshmen coming in their core course

so i was already i already knew like

well that's a gift i've got let's go use

that

and boy was it a wild ride and

because i'm substituting teaching in la

right which means like they just send

you wherever there's a hole for the day

and that typically means there's no

lesson plan that's been left and now

you're just going into the most ghetto

schools of los angeles and you're trying

to

entertain

so i brought all my entertainment skills

to bear

and

you know that was humbling and that was

eye-opening and all this stuff

but every once in a while you'd find a

school and they would they would say uh

listen we actually don't have a teacher

for this position we're going to have

you back tomorrow and then you'd fall

into

a position for a while i was the spanish

teacher for a while i didn't know any

spanish but um but then i wound up at

hollywood high and yeah for sure enough

i was the history teacher

and it was profound because now like i'm

sending kids off to college who are

writing

you know i'm in college and it's your

fault

and thank you so much it's really

wonderful

and

and sometimes we're learning things in

history and i can tell them and i met

this guy

let me tell you

um you know they didn't know me as an

actor they just knew me as mr mino the

teacher and it was funny because because

because then like people through my life

have come up to me and go oh and i

figure oh they're recognizing me as an

actor and they're like no no mr mino i

you i was in ninth grade i remember

okay great

and so

so i had that wild ride of teaching

but again it was it was like this side

track

that i didn't understand like why it was

persisting for a few years

and i knew i had to get out of it to

like actually go make a career as an

artist by then i was really involved

with my photography

and

i got out i said okay that's it at the

end of the semester thanks so much

hollywood high you've been great

but i gotta go

so i come back

to have a beer one day with one of my

pals who was the head of the history

department and he says you know we

haven't filled your position yet we

still need you and at that time in my

life i had no one who needed me

so like the call of the kids all right

i'll be there first day

so i walk into the office

the old woman there who always signed me

in she goes oh we're so happy to have

you back

thanks

she says but

you're not the history teacher anymore

she says no no now you were the

ballet teacher

and so literally like i've done this a

couple times in my life where i just had

to just kind of square with the universe

and go okay wow tell me and i literally

like why am i here

on this gray day in this gray office on

this

gray moment of my life

why why am i here right now

i turned to walk out and the new art

teachers walking in and i said that's

why i'm here

and now it's 22 years later wow these

fabulous kids and

my my dharma is fulfilled

that's great

well let's transition into your

photography you're a very successful

photographer you know right behind the

camera fans can see your work at

menophoto.com which i've been to

great work there what are your days like

there what are your responsibilities i

mean you you i see a lot of celebrities

i i know that but what uh

what can you tell us a little bit about

that now

all right so so my my current

uh

incarnation as a person who works in

image storytelling that's what it's

always been right it's always been about

go to work for the day and do make

believe

do make believe believably do it well

find the chemistry

synthesize out of the moment the magic

that is necessary

so yeah i've had this fantastic career

because i had a friend who was working

at

at interscope and i went and showed her

the pictures i had and she was like yeah

come start coming and i started coming

and i started you know building this

whole a list of of music people

and

and then one day

one of the guys there he says i love

what you're doing you're gonna come work

with me and now all of a sudden i'm

shooting for beats and that kicked off

like the the

the advertising wing of my world

and

through all of that

i'm doing it in stills which are in my

mind

single movies right

[Music]

in a moment

and but then i'm beginning to realize

like i need to get back to movie making

as well

and

this is also right at the time where

because i'm autodactic the way i do it

is i just buy the and i start using

it and then i start getting hired to use

it and then i become proficient at it

you could start to buy buy

cinema cameras

that weren't seventy thousand dollars

and

i taught myself filmmaking and i came to

it first from that that early place of

yeah like everyone gets together inside

this kind of communal dream

but now to actually execute a day's

shooting so that the dream can be cut

together

you have to think like a photographer

who's painting cubism right because it's

not just this one perfect angle it's got

to be all these angles that come

together

and then you realize oh i've got to

learn to edit

so now

the stuff i do i shoot

i usually write it i cut it i color it

i've taught myself to do the cgi on it

and

and it's you know really edifying

because

again it's my language

it's my

signature

and that's how i've always

that's how i've always been guided in my

relationship to art is that

everyone can go out and make these

things

the fact that you are doing it means you

should do it to the best of your ability

to the best of what that voice in your

mind says here's the way to do it

because that way it'll come out your way

and it will have your signature and thus

it won't be done

like anybody else in the world has ever

done it

um

and

and you know it's brought a lot of um

a lot of grace to my life

because that's what i get to do

professionally you gotta hustle you

gotta make it work

you still have to you know build the

world around you and again i've been so

blessed to have my beautiful wife these

are her legs

i had a feeling

and

and this

you know and again because she's a

because she's a planner

right here want to know a little secret

to life

run your business on a mileage credit

card

and have a wife who's really good at the

start of the year using the miles to

book tickets for later in the year

for the whole family so like you're

going on that trip like it's it's now

set in stone you don't have to think oh

i'd like to go do this trip it's set

and so we

raised the kids traveling around the

world my wife and i were married in

india i mean it's a big

part of our connection is that that

voyaging that adventure spirit

um and we've imbued our children with it

our oldest daughter goes to college in

berlin now

and so so that's been wonderful but we

also have this great sense of building

home when i first walked into

this wonderful woman who i was becoming

friends with we are you know we are

working every day together at the school

i know that i'm in love with her and i'm

going to be in love with her the rest of

my life but i've still got to make sure

that she's convinced of that

um

but i went over and visited her house

and it was the first house i'd ever seen

that was as colorful

and

every piece of it made into a piece of

art

as my own house and so again i knew all

right well that's that settles that part

of it i know we can live together and

make life together

and um

and and so

those elements of harmony that's wealth

right that's that's what makes you a

wealthy person is

the pieces

that make up the constituent

bastions of your life

i've been really really blessed to have

all those

that's fantastic

do you ever get you ever get the bug to

appear in front of the camera again

not really because like when i'm around

the camera man i just want to go

and do it and get the thing oh here's

how i'm going to see this all this stuff

how often curious how often do fans

reach out to you

um

not so much anymore really um so here's

this is funny wait wait i think i can

grab this standby

oh yeah it's right here um

so my mom was recently um cleaning out

the garage and she saved a few things

for me this is one of them

this is the

early

menopause fan club

folder

inside which

wow

you know a loose fan club

card official

expires ongoing because

mom's card she's a member she gets

did you get a head shot

your friend mino

some articles and then she stuffed in

some of these great old photos of me as

a little kid that's awesome that's great

and of course you get the pen like you

got of course i love me

that's fantastic

um you know i never took

celebrity

that the celebrity part of it seriously

at all um

i didn't seek that and it did not seek

me

i was a working actor

when i wasn't working i went back to

this tiny private school that i'd gone

to

preschool through high school

i

i like i can remember

the

big day of receiving largesse of my

celebrity

was

a day at the go-kart place

where like i was there as a celebrity

and when i came around the go-kart i

could say i want to go again and they'd

say go ahead and they didn't

you know that was a big deal

but i i was certainly aware of the world

of celebrity because

it

it welcomed my sister in with open arms

right like that was there was celebrity

existence in our world

and it was her show

and again by then like again i'm six

years old i

certainly was not um

in any way there was no com there's no

competition right right

um but i was i was totally

jazzed that my sister was

enjoying that and

that was great and i was certainly

jazzed by the fact that when they would

say oh well we need you to come do a

junket in australia

my mom would say that's fine but you got

to fly all of us and you got to fly us

to fiji first and you know so like

mom made it into some some family

travels for us and so that was great

um

a little later because soleil's

you know her expanded world like i got

into some clubs and things when i'd be

home from college on

her

coattails but

for the most part that was really that

was her world that was

that was what she liked doing and was

good at

um

my relationship to limousines

was

like before i could drive if i wanted to

take a girl out

how am i going to go on a date mom goes

rent a limo go pick her up

and let me tell you priscilla presley

thought that was a little fishy when i

came to pick up her daughter who's this

guy in this limo picking up my daughter

well i have to hear about that but

do you ever uh you ever do and decide to

do any conventions at all do you you

know fan things

no so yeah

again that's just not been part of

nothing that interests you right

well i i then i i thank you very much

for being here today i you know honestly

it was you know great pleasure for me

uh i love getting to speak to you

welcome back anytime and uh if you're

welcome if ever in florida you have a

lunch waiting if you want fantastic

thank you guys so much

thank you this is uh jonathan rosen with

ike eisenmann again thanks to our

special guest mino palouse and uh

yes this has been fun

thank you

and remember subscribe

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thank you for listening to pop culture

retro where no one was hurt during the

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