#234 The Art of Media and Entertainment with Fritz Coleman and Louise “Weezy” Palanker

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:29

All right, Barbara, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You got this show going each and every week, and this week was no exception. Oh, welcome, everybody to Episode 234 of classic conversations. As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Great to have you back for what's sure to be a legendary interview for the ages. I have two special guests for you today. Both la broadcasting legends Fred's Coleman, NBC weatherman for 40 years stand up comedian eight tonight show appearances, six Emmys, and Louise Weezy polenka, writer, producer, director, comedian, songwriter, drummer and distinguished filmmaker. They are both the CO hosts of the media path podcast, an amazing podcast we're gonna discuss the podcast and so much more in just a few seconds. And in these few seconds, I want to remind everyone in my amazing conversation with Courtney Cronin, Dold in Episode 233 veterans stand up comedian amazing stories. You're gonna love it. Also last week, Jim O'Hare from Parks and Recreation episode 232. So much goodness, a way to ah but so much goodness awaits you right now. Fritz and the wheeze have so many amazing stories. We're diving into the cow cells. Louise did an entire documentary on that. We're diving into how they both testified in the Michael Jackson criminal trial. There's so much this is that deep. We're going deep. All right. Let's get to it for its and Wheezy. Enjoy. All right, everyone. I'm excited to introduce you to my guests. Today. I am joined by the hosts of the media path podcast. He is a stand up comic the prince of weather honorary mayor of Toluca Lake Fritz Coleman, and she is a writer, director, producer, filmmaker, author, comedian, musician and co founder of Premiere Radio Networks if she needs to know the weather she just looks outside Welcome to the show. Lisa link or Hey Jeff,

Fritz Coleman 2:41

thank you for happy to be on with Motor City Jeff.

Jeff Dwoskin 2:44

Great day have to podcasting legends on my show six on you. So we Daisy Jones. So we say Oh 130 episodes and then it all went wrong. Let's go back in time and see where make up some final drama. We can get ready things Well, anyways, let's talk about the podcast. Then go just for a minute and then we'll go back in time and work back to the podcast. The media path podcast over 130 episodes, guests like Dee Wallace Henry Winkler, Johnny Whittaker, Marty Croft, Vicki Lawrence. I'm cherry picking the ones that I'm the most jealous. Sure, Fritz and Luis Can I call you easy is that course I do. Stock your podcasts. If you talk to someone that I'm going to have on I always listened to your guys's interview. You guys are awesome. show prep. Got it? Yeah, Fritz. I know. And we'll get into this. Yeah, you know, you had your career as number one weatherman and Weezy you're a filmmaker and what brought you guys together for this particular project?

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 3:45

Well be cool if it was a weather storm, and we both ran inside at the same moment, and locked eyes and said, Let's do stuff together. But ya know, Fritz's. Fritz's taken the art of stand up comedy to the next highest level, which is the one man show, which is a very specific art form that requires that the performer that you elicit more emotions out of the viewer than simply laughter. So you've got people thinking and feeling and crying and then laughing and, and he's done a bunch of those, but I think I went to his first one with a friend of mine. And it was at such a small theater that you could actually have a conversation with him during the show. You know, because it was just the three of us. So no, he's, he's, he's really a craftsman. And I was impressed. And I started talking to him about making his play into a TV special and things and we started talking and we've just been talking ever since I

Fritz Coleman 4:38

was 30 years ago, we became very close friends. And the great epiphany for both of us was how similar we were in all of our interests. We'd like the same books and movies and music, and we've just always had great conversations about all of those pop culture areas. And then when I finally retired from NBC, and I wasn't contractually obligated to only worked for the peacock network. She said, why don't you come on and we'll do this podcast. And we'll just make a podcast and extension of stuff we already talked about. And I thought it was fantastic. And I trusted her opinion, because she's got great history in the podcasting field. This is her fifth one. She was there at the beginning of from BC before podcasting, and really knows how to do it produces the show herself, edits, it, edits the video part of it, because she's a documentary filmmaker, and I put my self in good hands. And we've been having a blast for a couple of years ever since I retired. And it really is just an extension of our friendship. We talk about various things that catch our interest, new product on streaming and new books and new television shows and new offerings on cable. And then we have guests on and it's, it's so much fun. It's a lot of hard work, particularly for Weezy. But it's a lot of fun.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:53

Weezy Do you regret Fred's just walking into the studio and you doing all the hard work?

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 5:59

No, I value it, you know, fridge brings coffee. And it that's an invaluable resource. So, you know, I've had lots of different podcasting co hosts, and I love them all. But I do have a favorite. And it's Fritz, he's the most consistent, he's the most prepared, he's the most engaged in terms of what is the concept of the show and how to execute it. I've had other podcasting hosts who are wonderful, who are, you know, great at specific talents. But like when it came to like the show, I was attempting to conceive and have it be something that's that one can grasp or want, one can have an elevator pitch and then execute. Sometimes people have other strengths that don't match what the concept of the show was, because I wound up with them because other people failed to show up, or said, I can't do this anymore. So I was swapping hosts in and out and then you wind up with something that isn't quite the right fit. And I also did a show with teenagers for a while. Do you know any teenagers? People are not reliable, they have homework, they're on a team, you know, and suddenly they're they Oh, she's, you know what? She's grounded. Okay, well, if she were in the school play, like the parents were just like, their priorities were like raising their child. And it's like, I'm trying to do a podcast. So. So Brett's has just been, we conceived of the concept together. And we've done many projects like this, where we both understand what the goal is, and make a really nice unified front and we attack. So we've always been in sync that way, I'm thrilled with what he brings to the table. So I've never questioned you know, what our roles are

Fritz Coleman 7:37

blowing our own horn for just a second, if that's possible, you can't manufacture chemistry and wheezing, I because of our relationship. And we've worked together and other projects have sort of developed the chemistry, she knows what to expect for me, and I know what to expect from her. So it kind of was a beautiful combination. It wasn't something we had to discover, live and in real time on the podcast. So it's worked out great.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:00

It's a great chemistry that you guys have, and it's in sync. And like I've listened to other podcasts where I think they think they're in sync, and they think it's funny to talk over each other.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 8:12

Well stated, well stated,

Jeff Dwoskin 8:14

I don't think they take into consideration how annoying that is to people's ears. It's hard. I think I decided long ago just kind of do solo just because I never, you know, I never wanted to rely on someone else to

Fritz Coleman 8:27

share more interesting than everybody else.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:30

Well, you know, it's like, you guys were lucky that you found each other. And clearly after 130 Plus episodes, one thing is for sure, you have to love what you're doing. And you have to love each other as co workers, because it's the only way to survive and go as long as you have

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 8:48

100%. Well, for us, it's like going to college and taking only the classes that you like, and then getting to meet the writers of all the textbooks and ask them all the questions that you had while you were reading the material. So for us, it's really quite a treat, we really, we feel honored that we get to have these these conversations. So we want to be prepared. And we want to do service to the folks that are visiting with us. It's fun, it's exciting. It's a chance to learn. And we're really we really never take it for granted,

Fritz Coleman 9:18

it will only work and I think you are this way because you have a successful podcast, it will only work if you're a naturally inquisitive person fun for me is to have a conversation about something I don't know anything about. And then just peel back the layers and have some fun learning even if it's something that might be boring everybody else. Our job is to pretend we're the audience and be inquisitive about the topic. And it's easy for me to do. I just love it. That's just part of my natural state of mind. So

Jeff Dwoskin 9:45

I think what you're good at what I strive for, and I think all good podcasts are is you're creating something that someone wants to listen to, and you're at the core creating something that you'd want to listen to. Exactly. And that's what It comes across. And I think that's why it's so successful and you can get guests when they listen, they understand they're going to be heard. And that's awesome. Weezy you've been interviewing people I saw on your website. I mean, you interviewed back in the day like Bill Murray, Bill Cosby, the Beegees. George Carlin, I mean, you had like quite a lineup in the 80s and 90s.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 10:23

Yes, I've been blessed that throughout my career, I've been conducting interviews for Rick Dees and from Premiere Radio Networks, and that we did it you know, we did it on cassette tapes, we had remote equipment, and we went, and we went, you know, and I've interviewed 1000s of people, and you kind of, you know, lose track of where that content is, you use it and you just with radio, you just keep going. And you know, next week, next week, next week, at one point, after I left premiere, I got I got a phone call from my friend, Adrian Rivas, who's still worked over at premiere, and he's like, yeah, they're all these interviews are in this storage facility. And they're about to just throw everything away. And I just want to give you a heads up so myself and another talent coordinator in a very kretek went over there. And you've been to the storage facilities where it's really just a garage door, and you open the garage door, and inside is like, there's no pathway. There's no organization, it was just like, every few months, someone dumped more stuff in there. So it was like, Oh, my God, what, you know, where do we even begin, like you had to crawl on top of file cabinets to get through broken chairs and desks to anyway, I was able to rescue. A certain number of cassette tapes were about to be junked. And so what you see on my website, which is really a link to what's it called SoundCloud. Yeah, it's a link to sorry, it's a link to SoundCloud where I got a cassette recorder and plugged it into the back of my computer and was able to with cool edit, which was the program at the time, I'm sure it's evolved into something else by now. But I was able to jack up the sound of my voice because I was never miked. I was always creating sound bites that we sent to radio stations. So just so you can hear the flow of conversation you hear when you hear me ask the question, you hear us suddenly a lot of room noise, but at least you get the gist of what I asked. And so I was able to put up on SoundCloud, about 40 of them that I thought were worthy of sharing data, some dusty stuff, but it got Whitney Houston and Bill Murray. And yeah, the list goes on and on. It's pretty crazy.

Fritz Coleman 12:14

Has anyone contacted you and said, you know, we're doing a retrospective on Whitney or Bill Murray. And we'd love to use some material for that seems like that would be a great resource for somebody doing a documentary or something.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 12:26

Yeah, I get contacted, like someone was doing something on Paul Simon. I was like, have at it, you know, that's why it's there. It's there to be shared with anybody who wants it for a documentary or for a research paper or, or whatever. There's the list of names is like phenomenal. I can't rattle it off, because it's not in front of me. But Bob Hope and just some really historically important content on some folks like Paul Simon, who was not interviewed that often. It's fun for me to go in there. And you know, just listen to the BGS. And when I was sitting with all three of them, and not knowing what a precious moment that was going to be that that very quickly. Robin and Morris will be gone. So yeah, that was I'm thrilled that I was able to salvage that stuff. Thank you, Adrian.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:08

I don't want to leave off your conversation with Bill Cosby trying to convince everyone Ghost Dad was a good movie.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 13:16

I was pretty pretty precious moment. I do believe he was offering me cappuccino that day. And it was before my coffee drinking. I was pre coffee drinking. I hadn't yet appreciated the marvels of caffeine, but pretty sure that someone asked me several times why I didn't want a cappuccino. So that's like a creepy memory that I have of that day.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:36

I'm glad you didn't take it away. This this interview would suddenly be going in a much different direction. Yeah,

Fritz Coleman 13:41

ended up in the Radisson Hotel for getting your identity.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 13:44

Bless his heart goes to him was not a good news.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:46

So interesting enough. So when I I know you guys do your deep dives and stuff like that as well. But when they when I was digging around frets. This is a source that I've never found like, oh, that websites, I'll look at Wikipedia. I'll get interviews, you know, whatever past podcast stuff you're doing, but such a robust amount of information on you on the Bob's Big Boy Hall of Fame page.

Fritz Coleman 14:14

I'm gonna tell you something, my friend I am in Toluca Lake and the 91202 zip code. I'm huge.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 14:23

Yeah, he needs protecting the honorary

Fritz Coleman 14:24

mayor of this town for 30 years, which means absolutely nothing on the political hierarchy. I can't even get a parking ticket fixed in this town. And I only have one responsibility of the year. And incidentally, this is not an elected position. So there's no there's no malfeasance that got me in there or anything. He does have a campaign slush fund though. That's right. I do have a super PAC please send. It's just a volunteer. It's a ceremonial position and I do use it to raise money for the beautiful little community of Toluca Lake. I only have one responsibility of the year and that is to on the first floor. Right as of December every year, I stand in front of Ramsay shilling real estate, and I turn on the magical, monstrous five foot Christmas tree and that officially starts the holiday season in the Metroplex of Toluca Lake.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:14

Awesome. And if you could just confirm this for me how often you eat a Bob's Big Boy Burbank the following two eggs poached, which I love poached Turkey, sausage, fruit and buttered wheat toast.

Fritz Coleman 15:30

You know what, you're starting to really scare the crap out of me. Now, Jeff, you know, a little too much information. I actually stopped that particular diet about halfway through the pandemic because my doctor said I had to gain a little weight. So now I have corned beef hash. And on top of that, three eggs over medium bananas and strawberries buttered we toast every single morning.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 15:53

Yeah, my my ask are you having Fritsch followed?

Fritz Coleman 15:58

Yeah, you. You've done your work, my friend.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:01

All right. Well, all right, let's Sorry to interrupt, but for it's needed in a moment to finish his breakfast. I do want to thank everyone for their support of the sponsors. When you support the sponsors. You're supporting us here at Classic conversations. And that's how we keep the lights on. And now back to my conversation with Fritz and Weezy Weezy. I know we we didn't go down the Bill Cosby route. Do you need to know eight? No, it's so you testified in the Michael Jackson trial.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 16:31

Oh my god, Jeff as good. I don't even know Fritz and I go on podcasts and they ask us the same questions. Nobody goes. You're good. You're

Fritz Coleman 16:40

good. Now we both testified raising tell him the story.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 16:43

We both testified. And it's such a long story. Let me do you want me to bullet pointed or and you could just interrupt me at any moment.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:52

You just go with it. speak from your heart Weezy I mean,

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 16:55

there's probably millions of Google search results on this on the subject of the Michael Jackson trial. But it starts with Jamie Masada at the Laugh Factory was conducting a summer program for to teach stand up comedy to under underserved youth. Both Fritz and I went down and worked with kids. We met this family called the RV Zoes. We brought them presents at Christmas time and shortly thereafter, Gavin was stricken with cancer. He was about 10 or 11 years old, we thought he was going to die. And therefore when their mom told me that they were going up to Neverland. Gavin was a bald child in a wheelchair. And although I had my suspicions about Michael Jackson and his interest in children, I figured that the sick children were the smokescreen for the child he was dating that year. as horrific as that sounds. It just I didn't say anything like let him go to Neverland. He's going to die. He didn't die. He's thriving still. today. He's we're very close. And he, at some point when Michael when Michael was making this documentary about living with Michael Jackson, he had the whole Arvizu family, the kids anyway, come up there and to show the world how he cures cancer and he's so magical. And it was during that time period that Gavin was molested and the ensuing trial, so my connection and Fritz's connection is with Gavin, we don't know Michael Jackson. No one was in the room. No one knows anything people pretend to know something you don't know something unless you witnessed it. The only person who witnessed it was Star Gavin's little brother, Michael, Gavin and star know what happened. Nobody else knows what happened. So my sentiment and my belief, my sincerely strong belief is to believe Gavin, and I was interviewed by both sides. But it was clear that I wanted to be a witness for the prosecution rights was a witness for the prosecution. And the rest of it is another, you know, gigantic story.

Fritz Coleman 18:52

We were character witnesses. They wanted to use us to prove that this was molestation for its own sake. And at the RV Zoes. We're not out to Bill Michael out of money. And we had to testify when we bought Christmas presents for them. We went down to their house. They lived in East Los Angeles, an economically lower rung place. There were three kids and two people living in one room where they divided the room with sheets and ropes across the space. And we took presents down there and they were a Gavin was this kid who Weezy and I both thought had the potential to be a major star. He was he just had that thing. He had this magical spark about him. And we became very attached to the family. The family. I think the Weezy you'll bear me out on this piece. Kids took like three buses on Saturday mornings to go to the comedy camp at the Laugh Factory. It was really bad. So what we had to do is to testify to the fact that these people were living a really a subsistence level life and we didn't feel in our hearts that they are the tribe to bilk anybody out of anything. Of course the defense attorney, Mr. Meza row, a famous defense attorney just made these people look awful. And it ultimately lost the case for him. So it was too bad. But we both testify, we had to go to Santa Barbara and testify was one of the scariest things that we're ready to do.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 20:16

And these people they are resource I've never looked for one dime resulting in this case, they don't speak, they're not interested in being known. They just want their lives and they want their their freedom to be who they are in the world without people Googling them and seeing this and jumping to some sort of conclusion about who their character, you know, time has proven that Gavin Starr and David and the kids are just great people and they remain my friends and you don't see them out there on the interview circuit trying to monopolize on on these sad events. Yeah, that was a big chapter of our lives.

Jeff Dwoskin 20:55

You know, there's YouTube video of the entire transcript. It's not your voice. They use like this voice synthesizer to do the whole back and forth.

Fritz Coleman 21:03

I can't believe we weren't paid for. Jeff, I

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 21:05

don't like to I don't come on these shows to brag. But I did have a reenactor Yeah, on the channel, I had an reenactor I met my husband at the trial by married the prosecutor. So the story does have a happy so you

Fritz Coleman 21:19

were involved in the Michael Jackson trial for financial and benefit you got a husband out of

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 21:26

married up? I mean, your life throws these twists that you are I remember going home for Thanksgiving and this was on TV and my mom just kept saying it's going to be Gavin You know, they were waiting Neverland and you know, a child was accusing. I said, Mom, you know, Michael Jackson molest lots of kids, it's not going to be Gavin. And then my child had been watching a black and white TV and they're like, cancer patient. I'm just like, oh my god, it's Gavin

Fritz Coleman 21:52

Weezy was Gavin soulmate and escorting him through his adolescence and his young adulthood, it really has been one of the people that saved him in his life. What was weird for me was I was on television in LA at the time, it became known that I was subpoenaed to speak at the Michael Jackson trial. And I just for that brief moment in time, it turned out to be five or six days got a sense of what it's like to be a TMZ target, or the target of the media that's trying to get information and they want to be the first to break the story. I got calls 24/7. In my house, I had to have meetings with my boss every day about what I could and could not say about this. Nobody wanted me to say anything to any media outlet. Because news, people are not supposed to be part of the story. So it was really an eye opening experience. Looking through the other end of the telescope, at this process, media frenzy happens with big stories.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 22:47

Yeah, it really was. I mean, you get actually used to hearing your name on TV. And on the radio, it starts it stops, like, usually when people hear their own name, it registers were there, it can be a crowded room. And if you hear your own name, you'll turn where, you know, we're kind of programmed to recognize our name, but you stop even like twitching the needle because you just like for few days, you just hear your name all the time. And it's sort of like, oh, this is this is kind of like being a Kardashian. I get it. But the trial was very star studded and people were treating it like, you know, some sort of media event. A lot of celebrities that went there, went there with a film crew or had a press conference afterwards, which they were not supposed to be doing. And Fritz and I went up there without a lawyer, we we just went up there and did what was asked of us and drove back home. And

Fritz Coleman 23:34

the really interesting thing was, and this is a product of Santa Barbara not being the world's biggest metropolis, but it was a really small courtroom and mesurer this big, flame haired, you know, gray haired, dark figure who was you know, the, the defense attorney to the stars is standing like a foot in front of your face. And Michael Jackson and the Jackson family and the defense team are literally no more than five or six feet away from you. It's a very intimidating physical setup. There was weird,

Jeff Dwoskin 24:04

I can't even imagine. I mean, it's one thing I guess, to have positive press flying, but when it's Yeah, tied to a negative, and people are just trying to dry Yeah, it's,

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 24:15

yeah, it's pretty overwhelming, because, you know, they threw a lot of money at the defense and their whole thing was to just present this united front that Michael is this wonderful person who's being maligned. And all we had in our corner was word state employees who aren't allowed to talk to the press and so it's not it's not an even match the the amount of money spent to defend Michael Jackson is astronomical and you're dealing with the Santa Barbara civic employees you know, whether they're lawyers or investigators or what have you. There's still people that don't do this all day every day. You know, sometimes there's some drunk driving or another. It's too much dumpfile avocados

Fritz Coleman 24:52

from the grove next door.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 24:55

Still up. But yeah, so they I mean, they did fantastic because they had to gear up for like the entire world coming to their parking lots and setting up shop the press from around the world. It was pretty overwhelming.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:09

So the upsides are Gavin's doing well and you got married,

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 25:13

Gavin's married, He's amazing. He's got a wonderful wife. He and his brother are both thriving because they're brilliant. And if you can survive that childhood grown up, life feels easy. Maybe comparatively.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:28

i Let's move on to another scandal. That's common. Oh, they're mad yet not having a meteorologist degree. Why?

Fritz Coleman 25:36

That is the scandal. It's the biggest ripoff since the Bernie Madoff scandal. Fake weather.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:45

So, right, so you started out as a DJ, way back.

Fritz Coleman 25:49

I get everything I did. My first broadcasting was in armed forces, radio and television where I get a radio show five days a week, and I did the news. And I did the weather. And when I got out of the Navy, I was a disc jockey for 15 years. And then while I was a disc jockey in Buffalo, New York, I started doing stand up comedy. And I came out to Los Angeles. And I was actually performing on stage at the Comedy Store, when the news director from Channel Four was in the audience and saw me perform and offered me an opportunity to audition to do weekend weather and have some fun that was back in the time when there was no threat of global warming. So and I said to the guy, you know, I don't know anything about weather. He said, perfect. There's no weather in California. That's a workout. Great. So I auditioned. I got the job. I did vacation relief for two years, and I was bumped up to the main weather position a couple years later, and retired two weeks shy of my 40th anniversary a couple years ago. I've been around the horn with broadcasting, but that was 40. I had to be a meteorologist. The evening newscasts in Los Angeles are very similar to the morning newscast around the country, where they're sort of familial atmospheres and you tell some jokes. It's like Regis and Kathie Lee, everybody sits around and sort of what you what you do over the weekend. And it's that kind of thing. And then oh, you know, here's a car chase, we better go to that. So they were to have some news and go to the news, but it was very informal, and it was very loose, and they hired me for my ability just to have fun and be like the class clown amongst the semi serious anchor people now it's a completely different now you have climate change. All Weather people have to have a meteorology certificate either a degree in atmospheric sciences of meteorology, whether it's becoming threatening it's the end of the world to different ballgame now, I couldn't even get the job if I applied for it now I'm sure I did. I explained myself well enough or do you still not trust me?

Jeff Dwoskin 27:39

No, I get it. My question is being in LA being like one of the most famous weather guys I looked on your IMDB of IMDb credits with some of those like an hour Fritz with the weather like guy in Detroit like Bill bonds was on one of the news guy was on one of the Planet of the Apes movie, you know where they cut to a news thing and

Fritz Coleman 27:58

I was on a movie starring Steven Seagal called glimmer man, and it was so bad that I refused to watch it. I don't know how my performance was. I'm sure it was okay. Because I get it in my studio. I didn't have to go down to the set and do it where they were doing I recorded this thing with their verbiage like and here's the seven day forecast for Armageddon, and then I would do the thing. And so it was but that was my only movie. I've done lots of TV shows. i That was the only movie I did the Bob Hope Christmas special. He always had a theme for his shows. And this particular one was called H n n the hope news network. And I was the weatherman on the hope news network. And one of their sketches. I was Brooke Shields boyfriend. And her father was Tony Randall. So this is Hi cotton my friend for somebody with no talent. I was I was barking with the big dogs back in those days. I've done lots of TV, but I only did one movie.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:51

All right. So you were a DJ Weezy is a musician. Drama right? And has an album out which I listened to some of the tunes and they're quite delightful. I enjoyed them. How do you work music into your life?

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 29:06

I? That's such a tricky question. Because I'm not I don't consider myself I dabble. And I have weird pockets of musical genius. I was born a drummer this I can't explain. I've just always been drumming and I always had melodies. Creating in my mind is always creating melodies. And I'm I'm a harmony savant, but everything in between is real spotty. So I just decided one year that I was going all these melodies that I'm always creating that I and I also love writing lyrics that I would I would record them and I would find some help and record them. So I went on wind and started looking and I wound up I guess on a site called thumbtack, which is where you find people to help you with various various tasks or various you know, talents and I wound up connecting with With John Maddox, who's also a drummer, so we got each other like, instantly he's got a studio in his garage, he lives near me. And for a few years, I think maybe, I don't know, maybe two or three years every Wednesday is before I started doing media path, which requires more of my time. But I had this window where every Wednesday I'd work with John all day, until we had an album. And I would bring people in to sing, who sing better than me who play better than me. But I always had the melodies and the counter melodies and the lyrics, I always had all that I just needed help getting it out with people more talented in those areas. And Bob Castle helped me he came and sang and played guitar on a bunch of tracks, and my cousin Steven and his daughter, Emma, and like, John knew some people. So there's some talented people on this album, helping me realize my musical concepts.

Fritz Coleman 30:52

Let me just interrupt for a second Weezy. And that's why if you were to ask us our say, our favorite genre of podcasts, it would be when we have musical guests on there because I was a DJ for 15 years. And I love music and all kinds of music as those Wheezy so the firecrackers go off. And we have a musical guest we had Melanie on that had a brand new key and candles in the rain and these anthemic hits of the 60s and 70s. And she performed at Woodstock, when we have a musical guest on it's so much fun. We both are way into that.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 31:25

Yeah, we're both music freaks. And I'm grateful that I was able to complete an album and put it out it's a it's called drummer girl. And it's wherever you get music, it's there. And if you think you're hearing, Bob, counsel, you are he's played one track for my sister. And she's like, I think you just sang a duet with Bob Council. And I was like, I believe I did. My voice is, you know, so other people filling in makes it makes it sound pretty good. And I've got some music music videos to accompany it on my YouTube channel.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:53

Since you brought it up. It's probably a good pivot to the documentary that you did the council story, family band, the cow cell story, I have to admit, I didn't know who they were. And so I was digging in. Do you want to tell everyone how you do it?

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 32:08

Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, anyone who's interested in a band that is a family, you know, you'll find them pretty quickly. They were the real life inspiration for the Partridge Family, they hadn't four to five hits. And their you know, their trajectory was kind of like flipped because they had a dad who would bust down all the doors to get them in and then continue breaking their entire room until everyone has them believe so you know, it wasn't a kid's fault. It was just, you know, they were all miners and he their dad was kind of running, running the show a lot many stage parents, but the talent is real. And these people are phenomenal. So I wanted to figure out just as a fan, I had been a fan as a child like what you know, like what happened, I think now in our information age where it's so easy to share. There's a lot of people that grew up with artists before the Internet, whether it's Melanie or blood, sweat, and tears, which is going to be on our next show where the cow cells are where a lot of people are going what happened you I was right like you guys were really good. Like my 17 year old or 12 year old mind wasn't playing tricks on me like you guys, these were great songs. They still play on all the all these channels. So what you know what exactly happened? There's always a story there. There's 100 stories do you have 100 stories, we all have 100 story. So So I went in search of that. And it took eight years, because I didn't know how to make a movie. And I was figuring it out along the way and made the movie it was on Showtime for a couple of years. And now you can find it on prime. And it's definitely a ride.

Fritz Coleman 33:33

And I'll tell you what resonates. What immediately resonated with me, and where I think will resonate with the public. It's the family dynamic, you know, and you look at the Jacksons as examples of a dysfunctional family dynamic, but with a squeaky polished surface. And you know, Joe Jackson was apparently a very abusive father in many ways. And that same pattern shows up in the council's this amazingly talented family with a father who was an alcoholic. And it's all of those things it's performing to not only make a living, but also to please your father so he doesn't beat your brains in at night when you get home. It's a really interesting movie about family dynamics. And there's some twists and turns in her movie, why don't want to give it away because it's really worth watching. One has to do with Hurricane Katrina and how it affected one of the brothers. I mean, it's it's a mind blowing story, but it's an American story, how we created the squeaky clean, beautiful band with 70s music and what happened to them and the reality of their lives and not the press release version of their lives. It's a beautiful piece of work. Thank you.

Jeff Dwoskin 34:44

I started to watch it as I was doing the research just to kind of get a feel for it. It's exactly the kind of documentary I love. So I'm excited to dive into that because I didn't even know this existed. It's always fun when you learn about these this story behind the story or the thing that inspired that no one talks about

Fritz Coleman 35:03

even if you weren't a fan of their music, the human aspect of it. And you know, if you have brothers and sisters, the sibling tensions and stuff, it's really, it's a great piece of work.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 35:13

I have a lot of behind the scenes footage and, and various clips of special feature clips on my YouTube channel. And the comments that I get are from people that grew up in very similar families, but without the musical talent. This, you know, this goes on in families everywhere, and sort of the parallel for me, you know, the every family parallel is that, you know, you look a certain way on the Christmas card that gets sent out to everybody from church, but like, nobody knows what else going on behind. Yeah, right on the camera lens, you know, in real life, but that's how you want to present like, everything's fine. And they

Fritz Coleman 35:46

survived it and they're performing. The last time we had them on our podcast. They were doing a little residency in Branson, Missouri, and they were hysterical, they getting this like a half hour before they went on stage. And they're still singing and they're still sharing their talent. Pretty amazing. They survived the whole thing. Really.

Jeff Dwoskin 36:04

Sorry to interrupt, but we have to take a quick break. And we're back. We're just going to talk about how she met her idols, the cow sales Weezy Do you know them before? Or did you

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 36:15

know? No, it was a classic case of as soon as you could Google, you know, what do you google you Google someone you went out with in high school or meat, in my case, you Google the cow cells. And I found that of this website that fans had created and this whole community where everybody who had been in their fan club, but at age 12 was here they were and a girl who I call Karen with a seed, Karen Oldfield, she wrote to me and said, hey, you know, it looks like you're from LA, you should come see Bob at this pub. And I've interviewed 1000s of celebrities, and I was terrified. You know, because I was a 12 year old girl, the moment I pulled up, you know, I don't know how I was driving. But because 12 year olds aren't really good drivers. But my point is, I parked the car across the street from Pickwick pub, and I was afraid to get out and walk across the street. It was, it was facing my 12 all my 12 year old emotions like whatever we love it 12 We love forever. And that's across the board, every human it's, there's something in your heart that it just stays that way. So when I when I went, it was it was just kind of a weird meant to be coincidence. But it turned out to be the night that Bob's younger brother, John was marrying Vicki Peterson of the bangles. And they were extending the wedding party into this pub. So everybody was in town. And all a lot of fans knew everybody might be at the pub. And so there was a lot of excitement in the air. And then they all walk with their kids. And man, I was just blown away because they sounded as beautiful as I always imagined that they still would. And the question then is what you know what happened? Here? They all are under a dartboard. Let me see if I can, you know, I'm not a filmmaker, but I was in radio at this point. So let me see if I can figure out how that how to help them tell their story. And would they be open to that? So I entered into that journey, and I'm really honored that I had a chance to tell their story.

Jeff Dwoskin 38:08

That's amazing. It's so cool. Yeah, that's a that's a really good full circle moment. All right, Fritz, go stand up comedy Tonight Show eight times. You can't go like Oh, yeah, I did stand up and then like, oh, go a little deeper eight times. And it's Nigel, that makes you more than just a stand up. That's a tremendous, I know, huge stand ups. It's my job. At times.

Fritz Coleman 38:33

It's, you know, I look back and can't believe it. Pretty amazing. That was back at the time on late night television, the Carson show for a while Merv Griffin, those shows really had an impact on your career. It really didn't have any impact on my career. Because I was already on TV in Los Angeles. It was an odd thing. But I was so very proud to be on there. And just crazy. Looking back on it. I was on with Johnny, Jay Leno, Gary Shandling and Joan Rivers, when they were hosts,

Jeff Dwoskin 39:02

then you were on with Jimmy but did you perform stand up with Jimmy?

Fritz Coleman 39:05

No, no, no, I you understand the dynamics of the show? You know, Questlove is his music director from the roots, right? Love them? Yeah, there was a time they took all the weatherman from all the NBC stations in America and flew them back to New York. And they were all going to do individual promos with Jimmy as a way to promote his show. The setup for the promos was that thing he does where he puts headphones on and you say something and he tries to figure out what you're saying. And it's really funny because he doesn't know what you're saying that I don't know what that thing is called. But anyway, he's going to do that with each one, the weatherman. So we're all this is a Friday and we're we're going to take these promos after the show's over. So I'm out in the hall and Questlove comes out to get a cup of coffee at the coffee machine. And I went up to him and Questlove from Philadelphia as am I and I said quest love Fritz Coleman and the aging weatherman from Channel Four in Los Angeles. So, I just want to tell you that my high school prom was held at the Treadway Inn in Wayne, Pennsylvania. And the band at that prom was Lee Andrews and the hearts and his father Questlove. His father was Lee Andrews. Well, he almost dropped his coffee. He said, You saw my dad perform. I said, I certainly did. I was drunk at my own prom and I still remember very lucidly, like they were a great they were like a Philly harmony group. That was my only claim to fame with the Jimmy Fallon show. I got to tell Questlove I saw his dad performing. That was

Jeff Dwoskin 40:36

really cool, actually. Yeah. And not to be outdone, Weezy was a paid regular at the Comedy Store. Oh, yeah.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 40:45

I think I technically still am. I don't think that they're allowed to take your picture down. Every now and then a friend will be in the lobby and take a picture of my picture in the lobby and send it to me. But I did not have a happy experience being a paid regular at the Comedy Store was as close as I've come to combat

Fritz Coleman 41:02

sexual harassment. It's a very dark place was that I think it's

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 41:07

improving a lot. So let's not cast aspersions that aren't necessarily currently being earned. But at the time, yes, that was my experience.

Jeff Dwoskin 41:15

Yeah, I read I read that blog. It sounded like it was. It was toxic.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 41:19

Yeah, it was. It was it was during a time period where Mitzi was still alive. She was letting guys compete with each other for her time and attention and for stage time. And so there were a bunch of people that worked at the club that were not yet paid regulars, and they got stage time, but they but Mitzi never came in. So they would kind of manipulate things. If she gave me a spot, they would erase my name, and then it would look like I hadn't shown up. So there was a lot of hostility, really bad politics. Yeah. And I think they, they're improving on that they think they, they're owning it, and they're improving on it from, from what I've heard. And there's a lot of women that I really admire, who did really well there, there's a strength to them or resiliency to them that I don't possess. And so I think, you know, you could make the Comedy Store work for you, if you had the right set of attributes, and I just kind of a kind of folded, like, like a card table. You know, I kind of like remember just walking down the steps and knowing I would never, I would never return. It wasn't healthy. For me as a comedian or as a person.

Jeff Dwoskin 42:21

I watched a clip I'm gonna I'm paraphrasing it, but it was your opening line was hilarious about Paris Hilton being so drunk, but they took her away before we had time to find out what she really thought about the Jews. That was so funny.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 42:35

That was like a, it was a Mel Gibson. That was definitely that's a joke. I even forgot. Because it was like sometimes you you do a topical joke for six months, and then you'd let it go because it was no longer in the news. But they got shoved pulled over for drunk driving. And you know, similar to what Mel Gibson had recently done, and I said, you know, they took her away before we had any idea what she thought about the Jews, because of course, Mel got in some of his opinions as they were wrestling him into the squad car.

Jeff Dwoskin 43:04

There's no shortage of Mel Gibson opinions out there, but we don't have to go into that. Yeah. Okay, so one of my favorite movies Anchorman. I know Fred's you've got to call out in the wake up Ron Burgundy, which was sort of the the second movie they made from footage from the first movie, which was an entire movie.

Fritz Coleman 43:24

Well, it was an interesting story. How I got to thank you at the end of the film, I've known Judd Apatow for years, Judd was a host at the Improv for a long time before he got hired as a writer on The Larry Sanders Show. And then his career took off. He and Adam McKay, the director of that show, and went on to direct many fantastic films, went to my high school, Adam went to my high school. So one day, Judd calls me and said, I'd like to take you out to lunch, we want to talk to you about the anchor people, you work with us, this is going to be fantastic. So we went to this restaurant, and we like a two and a half hour conversation. I don't want to mention his name, but one anchor man that may or may not have been one of the templates for Ron Burgundy. And I told them this long series of anecdotes about this man's personality. And at the end of the day, they said this is all very lovely, but we can't use a lot of this because it's so outrageous that nobody will believe it's real, because this guy, you know, he was he had problems and he was, you know, had the social skills of a 13 year old, but they picked my brain about male anchor people. And that movie was hysterical. And I laughed really hard. I was proud to have a shout out at the end of it.

Jeff Dwoskin 44:41

One thing that caught my eye on it was because I heard you talking they were talking about the person it was based on and it's my understanding that it was based on more Crim who was in Detroit for decades.

Fritz Coleman 44:53

It was also in Philadelphia. Ky. Gov again.

Jeff Dwoskin 44:57

It was based on him when he not when he was in touch.

Fritz Coleman 45:00

Right now Adam Adam McKay told somebody that it was based on a San Diego Anchorman by the name of Jack White. Everybody in LA all the narcissistic television anchors in LA were convinced it was then Harold Green Channel Seven familiar channel for everybody thought it was them. It's obviously based on me it's my life. But I guess in an Off the record conversation, Adam McKay said that it was this guy by the name of Jack White. That was like a 35 year old Anchorman in San Diego. I don't know. But the beautiful thing is that everybody can plug that personality into their hometown weatherman. I mean, Anchorman because so perfect.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 45:38

It's like a Carly Simon song, this story.

Jeff Dwoskin 45:41

And then I did watch a commercial that you did Fred's where you had a. If you find better, whether on another stage

Fritz Coleman 45:48

just passed across the Rubicon. You've done too much research now and that were assaulted.

Jeff Dwoskin 45:54

Or whether on another stage and bring it to me, I'll match it. And you call yourself the prince of weather.

Fritz Coleman 46:01

Back in the days when that we did very foolish commercials, that costs a lot of money. But I benefited from people responding to those commercials. One of the ad campaigns they did for me and this was 30 years ago was Fritz said it would be like this. It was just a billboard with my name written and there was no picture of me it was a blue background and white font. It said Fritz said it would be like this. Well, when this ad campaign came out, Jimmy Carter was running for president united states and his vice presidential candidate was Fritz Mondale, Walter Mondale. So we got written up in this conservative Orange County, California, you know, Orange County was ground zero for the Reagan Revolution. very right wing, very Republican. We got written up in a newspaper saying Finally, one of the television networks has the guts to admit their liberal slant. Do you see this thing for fruits that it would be like this. And so they I was nobody knew who I was. So this is a new campaign to introduce me. So I sent them an autographed picture. And a thank you note asking them for the additional publicity. No, it was me. It wasn't, it wasn't for tomorrow, but thank you for giving it more legs than it had when we originally did the commercial.

Jeff Dwoskin 47:14

Alright, so for decades, as the weatherman, retire, and our full circle, you and Weezy get together and start the media path podcast? Do you have a favorite interview, like if you were to if someone were to say, hey, what's two or three, these are some great ones just to kind of start to bathe into the media path podcast world.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 47:39

We know that like, just like the internet itself, everyone kind of goes down the rabbit holes of interests so that you can scan through media path and find the names that spark an interest in none of our shows are related to each other, you can cherry pick them and have a ball. So you know, it's hard to know what's going to interest every individual prints. And I can certainly talk about the ones that interest interested us or that surprised us, you know, because we enter into every show, just kind of like an open book to what we're about to learn. And there's some that have been surprising. And there's some that we were definitely always looking forward to. You know, for me it was talking to Adam Schiff, who's currently running for Senate here in California. The people I liked the best we've already had on twice Adam Schiff and Henry Winkler, we both had them on twice, then there's been shows where it was like, just really wonderful and surprising and, and fun, and something that that we hadn't expected. And

Fritz Coleman 48:32

one of the fun things for me is the revelation that occurs when you have like a child star. From the 60s, we had all the guys for my three sons, we had Tony Tao. I don't know if this is true, but it might have been one of his last interviews Weezy before he passed away, we had Chris Knight from The Brady Bunch. And the most fun is to discover, for instance, Tony Dazz, a very accomplished sculptor, he's an artist. And it was fun to sort of learn that about him and and Christopher Knight is like a computer genius. He started a computer company from The Brady Bunch. And it's just fun to learn that they're not the one dimensional actory type kids you might expect them to be. These are fully fleshed out human beings with great talent over and above their one time acting success. So that's always fun for me is to find somebody else's side.

Jeff Dwoskin 49:20

That's awesome. You guys are awesome. Oh, my goodness. Thanks for spending all this time with me. I let me tell you

Fritz Coleman 49:25

something. I we've been we've done a lot of podcasts. This is our 40th this week. And I'll tell you, you, you, you do your research. Very, very, I am really impressed with how you dove into our paths. You do an excellent job, Jeff.

Jeff Dwoskin 49:42

Thank you. I felt that I had to come to the table pretty hard with you guys as we did.

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 49:47

You did well and ensure that well thank

Jeff Dwoskin 49:50

you guys. Do you want to plug any particular well, I'll put everything in the show notes of course, but is there anything you want to website anything like that you want to kind of just throw out there real quick

Fritz Coleman 50:00

Media path podcast. We have a website that's been updated and we're very proud of it. The new iteration of that coming out soon and you can find everything about us. Our social media handles media path pod on Twitter and Instagram right wheeze we have a Facebook page for fans media path podcast with fritzing Wheezy. We have a page

Louise "Weezy" Palanker 50:22

and we have a group. Yeah. So we're giveaways on the on the group if you'd like to join the group, we're only mildly invasive invasive with our notifications. And I sometimes put clips on my tic tock, because I'm all modern like that. And we just, we're just having a lot of fun media pet podcast, we'd love it if you would subscribe on Apple or Spotify and give us a nice review if you enjoy it. And maybe get yourself as like knowledgeable on the fritton Wheezy front as Jeff is because that's, you know, that could be one of your 2023 goals is to at least have you know, listen to my album and watch my film and see watch all of Fritz's tonight show appearances. And then you'll be up to speed now, we just hope you enjoy the podcast. We'd love to get to know you better and what you've been watching because we're always on the lookout for great content to talk about on our show.

Jeff Dwoskin 51:12

Amazing, great content you have for sure. So everyone, check out the podcast drummer girl on iTunes and Spotify. Everything for its and Weezy. Thank you so much.

Fritz Coleman 51:25

Excellent job, Jeff. pleasure talking with you.

Jeff Dwoskin 51:28

All right. How amazing was Fred's Coleman and Louise Oh, he's a polenka. So much covered in that interview. So fun. Check out their media path podcast. They have tons of great gas, check out their individual websites, the cow cell documentary drummer girl, Fred's doing comedy on YouTube. And if you get to see his one man, show in person, so much goodness awaits you. All the links are in the show notes. Can't believe the episodes over just flew by another huge thank you to my special guests, Fritz and Weezy. And of course, thanks to all of you for coming back week after week. It means the world to me, and I'll see you next time.

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