#236 A Spoonful of Sugar with Jeffrey C. Sherman

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:28

All right, Wendy, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get the show going each and every week, and this week was no exception. Welcome, everybody to Episode 236 of classic conversations. As always, I'm your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Welcome back for what's sure to be a classic conversation for the ages. This one's going down without a spoonful of sugar. This one's going down easy. We're here with Jeffrey C. Sherman, director of the boys. The Sherman Brothers story, you know all about the Sherman Brothers. We discussed it in my conversation with Wendy Liebman, Wendy and Jeff happened to be married. The Sherman Brothers are responsible for all the songs you love from the original Parent Trap Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang, bang, Charlotte's Web, The Jungle Book, the Arista, cats, and the list goes on and on and on and on and on. And on and on. This was Jeff's dad and uncle the Sherman Brothers. He did an amazing documentary on them. We're going to talk all about it coming up in just a few seconds. And in these few seconds, I do want to remind everyone of my amazing conversation with Kathy Garver, sissy of family affair. We had an amazing conversation dove right into her memoir, surviving sissy. You gotta listen to that one. It's an amazing, amazing conversation. But right now we've got amazingness waiting for you right here my conversation with Jeffrey Sherman. We're talking Sherman Brothers. We're talking about his time on Boy Meets World helping Wendy Liebman create her hour long, special, taller on TV. So many great stories coming right at you right now. All right, everyone. I'm excited to introduce you to my guests today. writer, producer, director, song writer husband of Wendy Liebman. You loved his work with OPEC, OPEC, and OPEC trois. I learned French so I could do that properly. Because Oh Perez, French, director of the boys the Sherman Brothers story. Welcome to my show. Jeffrey C. Sherman. Hey, Jeff, how are ya? Hey, Jeff, good to have you here. I see why you have that. See there because there's other Jeff Sherman's

Jeffrey C. Sherman 2:44

it's the funniest thing when I do podcasts, usually they don't ask me and they'll go to my Wikipedia page. And I sort of share. I'm sort of merged with this other Jeff Sherman who was in a band called glass or something. So people usually start now you were in this band for years, and I have to start them over again. So

Jeff Dwoskin 3:02

were you not in the band with? Sean Cassidy.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 3:04

I was in a band with. Shaun Cassidy.

Jeff Dwoskin 3:07

So I guess I got it, right.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 3:10

Yeah, that was that was long time ago, we had a garage band with a buddy from across the Elliot Cohen and Jeff Levy. And Jeff now is a big director and producer, writer, married to the woman who invented the Juicy Couture, so he's doing fine, but in the day, he had he was a drummer, and which was hard to find. He knew a guy named Sean, who was in his class. They were a year or two behind me. So we all got together. And so Shaun Cassidy, Jeff Levy, Jamie Lee Curtis was in the band for a couple of the times we practiced another fellow named Phil Morris, who is a huge voice over talent. He was on Seinfeld said a lot of work. His dad was Greg from Mission Impossible. One of the board guys there. That was my GarageBand.

Jeff Dwoskin 3:54

So all right, yeah. No, I don't feel I feel more. It's the he was the lawyer, right?

Jeffrey C. Sherman 3:59

Yes. Charles, I think his name was Yeah. Sort of Johnnie Cochran.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:05

How long did that man? Was it your dream?

Jeffrey C. Sherman 4:08

For those days? It was a long one. I think we lasted about two weeks. But we lasted long enough. The we were in a battle of the bands. And we were driven to it by Shirley Jones during the Partridge Family era in her stationwagon, so I kind of felt like I was part of the Partridge Family. You know, but the dream was over after about two or three weeks. It wasn't like along.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:28

All right, I'll go that. Isn't that Shawn Cassidy's mom. Yeah. All right. That's, that's awesome. That makes sense that you would then grow up and marry a super famous comedian. You just been around famous people your whole life. Your wife is one of my favorite people ever.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 4:44

Oh, thank you. Mine too. She's right up there. She's

Jeff Dwoskin 4:48

when I was interviewing Wendy, who I probably stopped for a good year or so maybe she finally answered because she saw my name thought it was you for a second. But she said that now I told her I think she's one of the funniest people in the world. And she said that she thought you were the one of the funniest people in the world that no one makes her laugh. Like, you know, so that's that's high compliment.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 5:11

Usually she says this way she'll say nobody makes me laugh more than my husband husband does in bed. That's what she says in stage. Which is about the only true joke in her whole thing. So we're perfectly suited for one another cuz I'm an introvert she's and she's an extrovert, but she loves going up on stage. She she has no problem with that. I would just die. I could never do that kind

Jeff Dwoskin 5:34

of you make the magic behind the camera. Well, that's that's

Jeffrey C. Sherman 5:37

debatable to some things. I'm very proud. So Mike really works for a little sketchy, but

Jeff Dwoskin 5:43

yeah, well, we'll cover it all. I think we'll get to it. It was funny because I learned about the Sherman Brothers or because of just randomly bringing up something to Wendy right. So so I like goes, Oh, your husband and his dad wrote the Mary Poppins songs, right? And she's like, oh, yeah, well, there's the Sherman Brothers. And she started to explain the deeper rabbit hole that I just barely scratched the surface of there. She then shared the story of how you inspired the song spoonful of sugar?

Jeffrey C. Sherman 6:11

Yeah, accidentally, I really didn't. I didn't say Hey, Dad, here's a great idea for a song I, I stood in line with everybody else in my class and got the polio vaccine, which was an oral vaccine, and they were stuck on a song. So I came home and told him this I was famous or infamous for as a child. I was a big kid. And I used to, I don't know, if you're old enough that they used to bring in these trays of booster shots and they were given to you one after another in the kids doctor's office. And I was infamous for knocking the tray over and running and hiding in Beverly Hills so they couldn't find me. So that day, I got this polio vaccine told my dad and he was just amazed and kind of sparked something for that idea for that song.

Jeff Dwoskin 6:51

I found something on your I think it was either Twitter or Facebook, where you posted a picture from Ripley's Believe It or Not. This trivia that we're talking about right now, they felt matched perfectly with the fact that Taylor Swift had 10 singles at the same time, top 10 All Taylor Swift and the cat that Marlon Brando was petting at the beginning of The Godfather was this an accidental thing, they found a stray the third thing on that page, Jeff Sherman, about spoonful of sugar.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 7:25

The funny thing with that it's amazing to me, and I've learned in doing the documentary and other ways really kind of beyond just knowing my dad or even kind of knowing him on a surface level of you know, my dad's as famous songwriter, but then really seeing the effects worldwide has been amazing. So when the COVID prices started, I was watching a lot of a news like everybody else was, you know, stocking up a tuna fish and watching, you know, CNN and MSNBC. And I saw Dr. Gupta on TV, Sanjay Gupta talking about even when they get this vaccine, he said there were things being developed. But even when they got it, they were afraid that people weren't going to readily get a vaccine because there was all this anti backs, thought and in the country, and he was worried about that. So I remember that story that I had gotten this oral vaccine, and I thought, oh, you know, this is just a little thing. And I put it on Facebook. I just I told the story of you know, getting in school and coming home, my dad, saying I said we need to trust the doctors and scientists and and when it comes time, and then we get off. I'll get through this. Well, suddenly, I was getting all these hits on Facebook about it. People were sending it to other people. And when he said you know you should do it on put it on Twitter, and I've never done Twitter. It's like, I'm way too, I'd be we're probably all figured this out too verbose to ever put anything on a post to post since I broke it into like two tweets. And suddenly, my phone started vibrating on my desk. And the thing went super viral. And it's been seen about 13 million times. And it got all this attention, although and then ironically, person who kind of inspired me to do this. I was interviewed on Sanjay Gupta by Sanjay Gupta as associate on his podcast. And that was really cool. I mean, it's just it's really because, you know, partly because it was a worldwide thing. And nobody was looking for something cheerful during the pandemic, I think, but it is a testament to how much that music and the songs meant to people. And just the genius of my dad and uncle. The tribe always been just made a slide. When I

Jeff Dwoskin 9:20

was talking to Wendy and she starts telling me I'm like, wait a minute, those guys from Saving Mr. Banks. That's your husband, father, because I you know, I saw that movie. And I remember I'm like BJ Novak. He's like, Oh, yeah, BJ Novak was my husband's father and who's probably

Jeffrey C. Sherman 9:37

I don't know, 20 years younger than I am. It was pretty, the premier those kinds of interesting, my cousin and I made the documentary The boys the Sherman Brothers story. We've recently teamed up with former head of music at Disney Michel Liebe. We started a little company to put on a couple of my dad and uncles plays that hadn't been done before and maybe adapted a movie into a stage play and its contents and things like that. So it's really great. And the reception is wonderful. I mean, people really hungry for that, that music. It's timeless and wonderful and make somebody happy.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:08

Are these plays you're talking about on her Sherman Brothers music

Jeffrey C. Sherman 10:11

for the most part, yes. Are they they were things that almost got there the things that they really wanted to do and, and I, you know, having grown up, I was old enough and also in the business at the same time as my dad and actually got to work with him on one of the first Disney Channel shows and got to kind of learn at his my uncle's feet. How to do that sort of thing. I forgot your question. That's the age I'm at now.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:34

Yeah, you answered the question. So and then you started talking about the enchanted musical Playhouse.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 10:40

Oh, yeah, that was fun. I went to the opening, there was a grand opening when Disney Studios used to have a backlot where they used to shoot all the TV shows, they have like the Western Street and the neighborhood street and that kind of, so they had this big party to the launch the Disney Channel and my dad hadn't come with him. I'm out of film school because I had gone to UCLA Film School. And I've done a few things, a couple movies, had this idea to do a kid's musical series called taking classic kids stories and making them into half hour musicals with my dad, my uncle. So I asked me that who the head of the Disney Channel as just before he made a speech, I walked over to him and I said, Hey, I'm the son of one of the Sherman Brothers. He goes, Oh, nice to meet you. And I said, Yeah, I would love to come in and pitch a service to you. He said, well set it up here. Go talk to her as I talked to her, and she started the meeting with me. And I went in, and the meeting was going fine. And then they said, Well, it's great. But you know, we're just starting up. And I said, and I'll bring in the Sherman Brothers to write the songs we set up like, really, because they hadn't worked their ages. And they said, Yeah, and they said, Well, what's that going to cost? And I had never talked to my dad about what he made. It was like fancy goes to me to ask him what he made it. So I'm thinking nobody's my standard is a scene. I've never be good at gauging this kind of event. And I said, it's going to be you know, $5,000, and so on. And they like, through contracts in front of me. And I go home, I call my deck suite and cell phones. And I said, Dad, great news. I'm gonna get to work with you to do great. And you guys are going to work with me and you're gonna write the songs. I'm gonna write the scripts. I'll produce it. Wonderful. Yes. How much are we getting? And I said, Dad, I got your $5,000 A song. There was a loud silence. And he said, Jeff, way back in I think, 1951 I got $5,000 for a song. It's okay. We'll do it. It'd be fun to work with you. And they did. And we got to do it. And we've worked with the Osmond family mostly at Jimmy oarsmen and Donny Osmond. Were my partners on it. Let's go.

Jeff Dwoskin 12:29

So is it Was it awesome? Getting your dad and uncle to work together?

Jeffrey C. Sherman 12:34

I'll tell you a story. I don't often tell. It goes into what I've learned and why I was interested in doing the documentary about them. So I always kind of knew their stuff. And I knew they had some tensions, and they That's putting it mildly. So when I got this, I said to my dad, what do I do? How do I work with you said we'll get three copies of the same book. The first one we were doing was the Velveteen. Rabbit, Marie Osmond already said she would play it no matter what we came up with. So that was cool. And he said in Joplin at your uncle's house, now My uncle lives seven blocks up and I didn't know where he lived because we didn't socialize them. So he said, Yeah, he told me so basically down seven blocks to go right. And so I go and my uncle who I knew from the office pretty well, our families and social so he opens the door crack and he takes the book through the crack. It's kind of creepy. And he took the book through the crack and said, Thank you close to none. Okay, that's a little weird. And I dropped one from my dad and I mark up the book and I was all excited. My dad and uncle had this office. That used to be where Marilyn Monroe took music lessons, I always thought it was haunted. It's now where the Larry Flynt building is in on Sunset Boulevard that tore it down. And so I go up the steps and I walk in, and it's just so tense there, you could smell tension. My dad sitting at his desk, and my uncle sitting at his desk across the room, they're just staring. And I walk in, nobody says anything. And there's a chair in the middle of the of the room. So I sit in the chair awkwardly, and I said, so how do you guys doing my dad? So let's just jump into it. Okay. And I'm thinking, Oh, my uncle's pissed about $5,000 or something. Now, I don't know what I did. But it's not that at all. So I start talking and nobody said anything. So I said, Dad, I think the first song I've ever sung on a come on page three, where this happens with the Velveteen Rabbit, man computer sets as stupid as putting you in word, their thing I ever heard. And my dad gets furious, and he hits his desk and he stands up and he walks to the middle of the room where I have to go sticky. Talk to me like that. You can not talk to my son like that. They're both on one side of the and he goes, if he's going to work with us, he's going to work with us the way we work this and they go back and forth. And finally Michael gets this idea walks over the piano that they always had their office and he starts playing this happy little melody. My dad shakes his head books back his desk flips his pad open. They start writing a song in front of me called remedy Rabbenu. Ron says little kids song, and I look at them both. And we go, oh, this is going to be a long process. Right? So I get home I call my dad and I said Dad, I'm so sorry. I don't know what I brought out there. And guess what, Jeff? We always work. So it was kind of it fascinated me That led me into, you know, wanting to know more about it and really wanting to know, my, the other side of my family because we were strangers, even though we live seven blocks away from each other, you know, little dysfunctional family,

Jeff Dwoskin 15:11

either. That was extremely interesting that you, you know, dove into into that in the documentary. So when you got to connect with your cousin, right that you had Gregory, so did you really know him before? Or did you kind of go to him and kind of almost introduce yourself to him as well?

Jeffrey C. Sherman 15:30

Well, the way it worked out was we knew each other. I mean, I knew who he was. But it was like there was this invisible wall. I can't really describe it. It was like a forced deal. I saw my uncle all the time, we would be friendly. But after about after Mary Poppins or 1965, something happened. We all knew it. But nobody knew what

Jeff Dwoskin 15:50

Sorry to interrupt and create this cliffhanger. But we have to take a quick break. 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 Jeff's captivating story and how he finally connected with Greg and went on to co direct Dubois and we're back.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 16:12

So comes around, my mom has recently passed away at this point, and Chitty Chitty Bang, bang, the stage version is opening in London. So my dad says you want to come out for the opener said I'd love to so I fly out just by myself. And it's at this palladium Theater, which is beautiful, huge, old historic theater in London. And as I'm walking in, I see my cousin behind me, but we kind of go like, you know, we always did never talk to him. I'd never talked to Greg that I can think of for this. And we go in and they see us on one side of a balcony and they see my uncle's family on the other side near Andrew Lloyd Webber. We're on the other side near Halle Berry and the guy that is playing James Bond. So that was what it was because the bra material the James Bond movies anyway, so after the thing, I'm just there and they have this beautiful party at the in and out club in London, which I don't know if it's still there. But it was a really cool place in the broccolis just put on the most amazing parties you can imagine. It's like a fantasy land Alice in Wonderland party wandering around and my dad's tired and even goes to bed. And so I'm just kind of this party and then a lot of people still don't I see my cousin doing jello shots at the bar. And I said, What the hell and I walked up and I put my hand on his shoulder said, so what the hell happened? tore families, what do you think? And he turns around, he goes, I'm so glad you came over. I've always wanted to talk to you. And we ended up talking for about three hours. And we've stayed friendly ever since. And he was approached to do by somebody who supposedly had $100 million in Chinese money. No one ever has $100 million. And Chinese Lani, by the way, that wanted to do a thing about the Sherman Brothers. And he asked me to help him with that, and that evolved into working with with him and with Ben Stiller and his company and Steve Buxbaum and, and other people that we worked with on the documentary, but it really was wonderful because it's opened up this whole other side of the family. And we become super close. It's the best reward of all of it, and that my dad and uncle got to see in their time that they were still married, they were kind of forgotten. And I'm not at all tooting my own horn, this is their deal, but that we put it up there for people to see in the boys, the Sherman Brothers story, they got the Medal of Arts at the White House, they got a lot of their projects got a little more heat, and people really cared about them more. So that was a wonderful thing. My dad got to see that a couple of years before he died and got to see as his father's story told a little bit to him. So that was the greatest reward on that one for me.

Jeff Dwoskin 18:35

I love that. That was that was really cool. There's a lot of people behind the scenes that people don't realize it. Oh, they love something and they don't know that like and I remember in Motown, I think it was the Funk Brothers. And there was like a did a thing on the Funk Brothers. And it was like, these are the guys that made every sound you love you never heard of, like, that's what I was saying. Like, when I was talking to Wendy. I was like, Oh, those guys, right I was like and then and then when I watched the documentary, I've been telling everyone I got all you got to watch this documentary. It's just as incredible. It's a great documentary but it also is one of those kinds of things that you watch and it hits you different just because you can relate to it you know the with the music and you start to understand oh, these things that meant something to me and mean something to me. This is where it came from. And it's it's a really it's really interesting

Jeffrey C. Sherman 19:22

it was interesting for me to just to see it all together. I grew up I'd here's the stuff before anybody my dad would come home with the with acetate the demos they would make and stuff and tapes and things and he played them for me and my sisters at night just before we'd have dinner and so I'd hear them kind of develop and go so I do the earliest my uncle singing mic with my dad's singing the chorus is with some of the poppin songs all the way through the orchestration. So you know each iteration of that we get to see so I really learned the business that way how it really evolves and which is great for me because you know, my family if you've seen the documentary, my grandfather was a Tin Pan Alley songwriter before him, his father was a famous violinist in Ukraine and then in Czechoslovakia, and he was a concert master and came to the United States. And because it was the Jazz Age, and he was a classical violinist, he had to work playing violin table the table in Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, and was depressed and poor. So all these different generations of music in the family, it's kind of come down. And now even when he's very musical, I think she told me she was on. She was Eliza Doolittle, and my fair lady, she has a beautiful voice, and she plays piano, which was I already loved her when she did that I like grabbed her and said, No, we're gonna get married, because that's just wonderful. And now my kids are both really I have two sons, my own Sherman Brothers. And Mike, my cousin, Greg has shown brothers to a group of musical one of the kids works at Google and is also amazing composer, and the other one is just singer, songwriter. Wonderful. And maybe grandpa. So things are good. That is good. Yeah. And I've just really, you know, been exposed to it all my life. So now I'm doing my own little, I've been putting up some albums my own to just where ever since COVID. started, I just was kind of a hobby that grew into a, an obsession or something. I'm not sure.

Jeff Dwoskin 21:08

It's good to have. And Greg have their own chairman, because you and Greg obey the Sherman cousins, which doesn't really have the same ring to it.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 21:15

But the funny thing is, we did so much, you know, so many things we did the whole circuit when the movie came out, because it was a Disney release. We were in like, I don't know, 50 or 60 film festivals. So we do all this junkets and stuff, and they have always they will say, now you guys are brothers, right? Everybody always thinks we've kind of stopped the game. We would play those everybody. The question that always is asked was Do you have a favorite German brothers song? So we do each have one? I have probably two. But we made an agreement that we would always say we would just choose a random song every time. So if you look back at our interviews, it's always a difference. You know, because it's hard to kind of pick them up. They had a water. Good song.

Jeff Dwoskin 21:50

Yeah, there was a lot. I got other questions on that the documentary does it. You mentioned your grandfather, Al Sherman. So it talks about him and he was he was famous in his day he had he's known for a bunch of songs as well. I'm gonna list these but I'm not gonna pretend like I know that.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 22:09

Well, off the top of my head,

Jeff Dwoskin 22:11

I have to dump my head. You got to be a football hero and potatoes are cheaper. Right. But I did read interestingly enough, he's so unusual was covered by Cyndi Lauper. She tweaked it a bit. That was an interesting bit of trivia.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 22:24

I was in college. My dad calls me up because he would get my grandfather's royalty checks, which at that point, they'd kind of gone down to the hundreds of dollars, and suddenly it was like, hundreds of 1000s of dollars. Like, I don't really know because again, I didn't talk about it. He said it's crazy. And he said he called me a college and he said it was Berkeley at the time. He said suggests you know, this artists named Cyndi Lauper and I said why? Because said she covered grab l song. I said, Wait, Cyndi Lauper and I have the album I didn't even put it together. It was he so unusual and, and her her album was called she's so unusual or first album. So that grandpa post generation suit?

Jeff Dwoskin 23:02

Yeah. Oh, no, cashed a check before someone might realize it's a mistake right. Before you realize my wife watched the documentary with me and she's wanting me to tell you this. Her great, great uncle was J Gorny. J Gournay. Road Brother, can you spare a dime? Oh, yeah. Great. So he also had a writing partner, who then stole his wife and that didn't end well. But

Jeffrey C. Sherman 23:29

was that cinta anally? Yeah, yeah. A bit. My grandfather knew him. He the grandfather wrote this book that was never published, but I just read it again. And it's it's fascinating to be an adult now because I started my grandfather's is very staffed, easygoing guy, and he was like Sammy Glick. I mean, he was he would see an artist in an elevator, grab the elevator go in. And he was principally a composer. So I worked with a lot of different lyricist. And there's this whole book about it. It's wonderful. It's called tears are cheap.

Jeff Dwoskin 23:57

Oh, all right. Well, I have to check out maybe, maybe your relative and my wife's is in your grandpa. What was his name again? Jay? Carney. Yeah, he also I guess, is credited with bringing Shirley Temple to 20th Century Fox. Wow. Yeah, pretty. We both we both have such a history of music royalty. And just the other day, she got a royalty check for 900,000. Okay, so your grandpa out moves to California as the story goes, and then has the Sherman Brothers.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 24:30

My grandfather was not that famous for it, but put together some famous teams. He worked at a place called the remix music, which was at the time people they didn't have a lot of wasted convenience. Some people go to this place and you go to this little music rooms and the guy on a piano would play sheet music for you if you'd like to. You could bring it home and someone could play it in your parlor it was called Parlor Music. So my grandfather worked there is one of the demonstrators in the next room was a guy named George And George was a really nice guy, they would go to lunch all the time. They hung out with each other's families. And George started writing songs. And he said, you know, Al, you should start writing. So what was George Gershwin? And so So George is wedding with different people. So my grandfather knew the whole family, and he met IRA, his brother. And I was working, I think, as an accountant or something. He had another gig. They really wanted to write lyrics. And he really wanted to write them with George George was a big star at this point. So he said to my grant that out, this is his book, he said, You know, I don't know what to say to him. And I said, Leave it to me. And he took George and he said, George, come with me to lunch. Here's why guys, I'm going to introduce you to the next writing partner. And he had Ira sitting in the diner nearby, and he sat him down. And that's how that started. And I don't know how much of that is legend or how much is real. But that's what he tells us. And I heard that from my dad. And my grandfather wasn't really like a Posty guy. It was kind of like the him is like natural. But then he saw my dad and uncle as we show him the documentary, and my dad's is this English major, and in writing books, and my uncle wants to read symphonic music, and they're both starving, and he's supporting them. So he challenged them to write a pop song that kids would spend their lunch money on. And they wrote a bunch of songs. And finally, after about, I don't know, 15 or 16 songs, they wrote a song called Gold could buy anything but love and they went at the time, the New York music business had moved to Vine Street in Hollywood, because all the stars come out their music publishers were there. So my dead uncle went found a publisher who liked it and started their career that song kind of blew up. And that's how he kind of challenged them into becoming guys that ended up writing 1000 published songs and 50 movie soundtracks. Just amazing. All the half the songs at Disneyland, you name it. It's amazing goes on and on

Jeff Dwoskin 26:47

in the documentary. Is it maybe al that ties your grandpa dies or grandma? And then there's two shifts? Yeah. So I found this part of the story interesting, not just because it was like, oh, that's the drama of the story and the conflict and all that is in my own purse. I mean, I'm sure everyone, a lot of people can relate to it in their own way. But I grew up not talking to my cousins for many, many years. And then at one point like you, we reconnected and then became very close, and there is family that at some point, my parents decided we weren't talking to them. And my brother had hers. And my brother happens to be good friends with him. But it's a coincidence that we're just cousins. Right? It says nothing to do with that, you know, that part of it is like, I was just interested like your father, your grandfather had such a role in connecting them and giving them that challenge, which kind of led to snowballed into they're working together and becoming the Sherman Brothers. Did they not hold the family together? Did they not have any? I'm guessing not but like Did they not have any like traditions were Passover, the fam ball, the family over like there was nothing where that centered around them.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 27:52

I can kind of give you it's a multi step story. But when my my family had to leave Ukraine, they were from a place called Eco tuna slob, which was, which no longer exists, but they were killing all the Jews that are so they had to come through Hungary and Czechoslovakia. And one of the places they stayed while they were waiting to reunite family in Europe before they came to America. They stayed with a rabbi. And the rabbi came my grandfather Al was the oldest boy in the family. And so he wanted to show him that God was magic. And he held, he told how to close his eyes, and was handover. And he said, If you believe in God, he'll give you a reward. And my grandfather peaked and saw him drop the candy and then never believed in God after that, partly because he thought being Jewish meant that you had to leave your home, people wanting to kill you. So he was always Jewish, but he wasn't you know, he wasn't not like George Santos. They observed that but I didn't know any of this as a kid. And then they can and then my dad was an American GI Eaton listed at 17 going to this event in the documentary too. And he had been raised that you she had a bar mitzvah, his only guest apartments and was Sam Baldwin, Jr. I mean, that was he grew up in Beverly Hills too, after coming to LA. So he goes in, and he's landing at Normandy and, and he fights his way through Europe. And one of the last places he went was he was the first American GI to liberate Dachau concentration camp. And when he figured it out, because they were trying to communicate with him, they started speaking Yiddish. And he recognized that he was the only Jew in his little battalion that came in. And he looked and they could tell he was Jewish, and it freaked him out. And he again these nightmares kind of stayed with him and really gave him problems throughout his life. So that always equated with him so he didn't really believe in and there could be a god if that existed. And so my uncle also just never was raised that religiously. I have jokes I could say about it, but I want because I love when he's Jewish, in a sense to my mom was raised pretty strictly Jewish. I had a Bar Mitzvah and I, you know, she was the influence on that, but that was never really a basis for them. So it really came down to this when we were doing our interviews, Hayley mills of all people said the most amazing thing, she said, so they didn't, she was third sort of surprised she wants to know, she said they didn't get along. Just what's not surprising, if you think about it, they needed time away from each other to be creative in the time they had gather, they needed that space allowance. And maybe they just repelled into that. And there was another guy who told us unless you're different enough, and they were such different guys, and really growing up with my dad, so different. I mean, just people in their app, my dad lost his New York accent intentionally when it came to my uncle still has the New York accent. I mean, it was like they kind of looked alike, and they stop looking like just different personalities. But if you don't have that friction of those two personalities might as well write alone. They call it Siri optics, they look at the world slightly differently. My dad had these firsthand experiences and in the worst parts of World War Two, I mean, just I can't even describe them. He's, he described to me a few times, my uncle was stationed conducting a band that toured California within his service. So that's kind of how they just went different ways. But that magic, but to really bipolar personalities really makes those magical things happen.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:08

Yeah, it was interesting, the whole the whole friction of it, but the whole liberating Dachau thing, and I mean, that's got to change, you know, how do you ever see those things firsthand?

Jeffrey C. Sherman 31:18

He had those those horrible nightmares you You see, in movies and stuff. We have a much younger brother. He only grew up with that part of our lives. But my my two sisters and I would hear screaming in the middle of the night and we thought my parents were having a fight we look in it was just my dad flailing on the bat. I mean, it was to his horrible. One little side interesting story about him. He's also a painter painted all the time. It was one of his main things. He'd love to do his passions. And he went through this, these different periods are like Picasso or whatever. But he went through his dark period, where he was painting just concentration camp paintings, and he did about four or five canvases. I used to come in and watch them sometimes. And he was in a dark place. And we had a fire pit in the backyard. I was walking and looking out the window and I see black smoke spewing from the backyard. I think what's going on here, we're having a fight come up. My dad's throwing the canvases, the concentration canvases on the fire. And I said, What are you telling us? I got them out of me in another wall? Look, here's a very deep guy. Oh, my Wow. Which gives context to there. So I mean, that's what I didn't want to do like a Mommy Dearest story about because, you know, there's, it's not like you said, it's in your family to it's not unusual, especially in Jewish families to have these you know, I'm ripping my shirt, you're dead to me kind of arguments, especially when they're in business together, but they miraculous we created these wonderful things. So that's what we really wanted to celebrate that our theme for it was brothers, partners, strangers, but the real miracle of them was that they weren't together their whole lives, really. And when they work, they ascended from this friction place to this wonderful place. So when you were with them, and you'd go there it was, it was like sitting there the violins in a big symphonic Symphony kind of lifted you up watching them just kind of get to this little they became little boys again, but just part of the reason I call Greg and I call the boys them because Waltons, he called them, but they were they were like little boys. They argued like little boys. And they played like,

Jeff Dwoskin 33:14

Were you there at all, when they were working on Mary Poppins or just inspiring from home taking vaccines?

Jeffrey C. Sherman 33:20

No, because most departments they wrote in their office, they didn't really write in each other's house. The real dark secret was our moms hated each other. So there was not a lot of mixing there left. We touch on it in the movie, but they just really, God was my mom and my aunt Elizabeth, who I'm friendly with, you know, but they just could not connect the different

Jeff Dwoskin 33:38

wants and needs. Did you ever go to the office and hang out with him there a lot.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 33:43

That was how I knew my uncle really offices, soundstages and the recording sessions, I would go to a lot of the recording sessions, especially after Disney they got an office right near Beverly Hills High School where I went to school and I'd ride my bike. And I that was my course going home. So I would often just go to their office, bring my bike up. And my uncle and dad play the songs that they'd written this batch of songs. And these are the same songs that ended up in Tom Sawyer and Charlotte's Web. And you name it. I mean, just, it was magical. It just made I think for me what it did, people just go, oh, that environment really what it was, for me it was it was possible to take these, it wasn't really a ridiculous stretch to think you could take what you're thinking and if it really got in a way to connect with people, that you could actually do something with it. And so if especially nowadays, it's like me, you know, I really never pursued my music. But nowadays with technology, you know, for $35 on an online thing, I won't name them because they're not, I'm not advertising for them. But you can I'm sure there are many services like this. If you record your music and put it on and it goes all over and people can hear it, share it and it's my stuff's been on TV shows now so I didn't even intend for that. I just wanted to share it with people. I guess just being around it meant you could express yourself my grandfather will be He would give me piano lessons on Saturdays, we'd either fly kites or go fishing. And then we go back either to his apartment in the Miracle Mile in the Wilshire district, or we go back to our house, and I have a picture with him. It's one of my favorite pictures. So I'm sitting next to grandpa at a piano lesson lesson. And he would give me these lessons at the end of the lesson, he would say, firstly, play me just off the top of his head, he would just start playing and he'd say, you'd start thinking about a place or a person or a time and light your fingers on a find it and express it. That's almost like painting. And he would give me this kind of psychological lessons. And then he would play me a medley of his skates. And the wonderful thing was, he still hadn't stick Russian accent. So you do these American standards, like football hero, and you got to be your football hero. And he would write those kinds of things. But that was wonderful. And then I learned so much from my dad, I can't even put it in words. I'm writing a book now and putting some of that in there. And my uncle recently recently, he's armed, he's almost 85. He's still doing okay, still plays piano every day. And he's in really good spirits, and great, but he said, I said, How do I know that my dad approaches I never really asked you what was your process. And this is one of the most amazing things. He said, Well, you know, your dad and I will talk about the idea. And then he got to his corner, I go to my corner with those kind of, in my case, I would take in the world and breathe in the world. Think about that idea and let it come out through my fingers on the keyboard, not you know if your musical that anybody out there is musical, you'll know what that means. And one other thing I'm going to convey, because I just think it's magic to convey these things, when we were interviewing Alan Menken, Alan gave a description, which is what I do, every time I sit down, I forget him. And he said, music is like water, it's always running. It's always running. And what we do as artists is we put our fingers in the water and shape it and reshape it, but it's always run. And it's a wonderful kind of a place to get in your head kind of almost do a meditation before I start, and it takes me away to like my grandfather's cells to places like that. It taken the whole world and I reshape the water. That's where my music,

Jeff Dwoskin 37:07

I was gonna mention our man King, because I thought one of the things he said was, it was so interesting that it was subtle, but the way you captured it was when he explained the realization that he was replacing his idols. Now, that always happened, right? There's the people that are hot, and then the new person comes in and, and that person is hot. And you could tell like it was, it was just that that moment of like, oh, like you could tell like he was going to accept the baton, but it also kind of broke his heart.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 37:33

You also know you're gonna next year, it's you're walking down a plank. You know, I'm the guy at the end of the plank. Oh, there's someone behind me. I had that one time I was, again that 3 million workers moving every day. But I was in a bidding, I wrote a screenplay back in the mid 80s. Suddenly, it was scooped up and it was in this bid when bidding wars were going on scripts. I got into one of these become this huge client at CAA like ever in two weeks, I made like five deals and they just kept go here, go here, and I'm doing all this stuff, right? And I think I'm the Big Shot and my gun agents office that go in because I something happened. And he says hold on a minute. He's on his phone. It's one of the big agents and he goes yeah, can you wait like five minutes I've got the next Jeff Sherman coming in. I realized that was already done. Like in two weeks I was it was like so fast and your flavor but it was a month I was like flavor of like six days and over the over the plate. But it was fun while it lasted

Jeff Dwoskin 38:27

at least Yeah, those six days was gone. Sorry to interrupt, but I have to take a quick break and look for the next Jeff Sherman. And we're back with Jeff Sherman. I didn't abandon him we're back and we're going to talk all about his albums. So you have four albums, afterglow, respite, Wishing Tree and begin again and you can get those anywhere look up Jeffrey C. Sherman when you're doing it because there's other Jeff Sherman

Jeffrey C. Sherman 38:51

he may be better than I am so you can check them both out there mostly piano and symphonic pieces and few electronic pieces and and just to kind of give you a you know, it's good for a nice walk. I listened to him on my watch or if I'm driving or something like that nice non nonverbal I don't sing anybody knows my voice will be happy to know that it's just musical compositions.

Jeff Dwoskin 39:12

So you can get those anywhere I enjoyed. I can't remember trying the Wishing Tree one. I like that because I liked the cover. I like I picked that. Thank you. I think that one

Jeffrey C. Sherman 39:22

that's a tree that's unlike b i do a beach walk about once a week. That's about a 16 mile walk. That's right I'm getting the end of the walk. So always make little wish on that tree and I took a picture and put it on the cover. So that was

Jeff Dwoskin 39:33

a cool photo. I think one of the things you've written songs for is three bears Christmas. Yeah, it was funny because when I read that, it reminded me like how many Christmas songs were written by Jewish people. Almost all of them chestnuts roasting I looked at Rosianna openfire let it's no Santa baby. most wonderful time of the year Silver Bells White Christmas Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer rocking around the Christmas tree Walking in a winter wonderland. Everyone not Jewish right now is going

Jeffrey C. Sherman 40:07

yet my dad and uncle wrote a couple they wrote when they got cut out of the happiest new enter, which is beautiful song called that it won't be long till Christmas, but you can find on YouTube. It's a beautiful song, but it just they cut out for whatever reason at the time, and Disney was going to and they wrote Christmas in Los Angeles, which is I think still the official Christmas of Los Angeles Christmas song. They won some something or other that they did. But yeah, I've written a couple. Yeah, I wrote the three bears Christmas, a friend of mine, called me and he, Billy Butler, he's a director. He used to be an actor and a bunch of movies. And he called me and we'd work together on a, we were working on a number of things, including a stage musical about three dog night. Then he said, Hey, you know, I know you write songs. I'm doing this movie as a Christmas movie. Can you write something about this? And that? No, yeah. And so sat down piano just kind of came to me, then went my office and recorded it. And about two hours later, I sent him like a little quick mix of it. And he goes, Great. I'm gonna use this in the movie. I said, Great. You want me to? Just no, no, I'm gonna use this recording. So that's what's in it. Although he had an actor sing because again, it was my voice. But the tracks in my tracks I just kind of threw together. But he put them in. And then I wrote another song with him. So that was fun, because I'm doing a lot more of that. Now. I'm doing a lot of musicals and worked with country singer, Shelley. Right. If you know, Shelley and Kristen Chenoweth on a musical a couple years ago, an animated musical and I wrote another one with my son Alex, and based on a story by my son's both my sons, Alex and Ryan. So getting into that just trying to explore you know, this this point, I'm 65. Now so I'm kind of at this point in my life where I've taken it in and gone, what do I still want to do? You know, what is it that I you know, I'm at that age where my I told wedding, we have to start making younger friends because the older ones are all going everybody that you kind of take stock, you know, had relatives and close friends pass away. So writers that I was on staff with on Boy Meets World, one of them just passed when he was younger than I was. So you get to that point, you go like, Okay, I'm not afraid of that. But what is it I really want to still do? You know, when I was interviewing my dad, the last time I interviewed him, I had always interviewed may times for the movie. And I said, he kept this question for him. And I've waited to the last one on finally said to my dad is on film, I haven't. It's not in the movie, though, too long to take. And I said, Dad, you know, you've done all this stuff in your life. But is there anything you wish you'd written that you had written or done, that you hadn't done? He looked off camera, and it really for like two minutes? And like camera man's, like tapping me like, do you think he did an interview or, and then my dad looks back and he has not done it. And I've said, that's the goal in life. You know, if you got to get there where you don't feel like you didn't try to only my dad used to say to me, you only fail when you stop trying, and which is that cliche, but it really is true. So too embarrassing length sometimes would have gone just because I believed in something or someone and I still do. So now I'm doing a couple things with people. I really love a couple ideas that I really want to take whatever wisdom I've gotten and kind of turned back and give back. I've done that through my career a bit, but really some life lessons and give a forum for other writers and actors and directors and NGOs in whatever I know to have that forum to express themselves at this point in their lives to that's where I'm kind of going now.

Jeff Dwoskin 43:18

They're very cool. other awesome stuff you've done besides music you mentioned Boy Meets World you were there a long time you produced 66 episodes. You wrote 14 episodes.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 43:27

Was there longer. I was there for about 100 episodes fit into credits. I'll get weird.

Jeff Dwoskin 43:31

Yeah, IMDB. You were there forever. Boy Meets World Jeff Sherman made it invented Boy Meets World. Now you did I just I'm just making stuff up. No, I

Jeffrey C. Sherman 43:39

did not. That was one of the first one. I was an original writer on the show. I wrote the first episode after the pilot, the one with the squirt guns and painting the fence that people know the show. And then I wrote the first season I only got two episodes per season because I was the lowest man on the the writing stuff totem pole. But the second one I wrote was the fugitive which kind of boosted the Shawn character kind of turn the show in a direction I wanted to do. The reason I did it partly was the first year of the show. It's kind of interesting. We shot that Disney Studios on stage two, which was the big stage there. Well, I grew up on that studio lot in stage two when I was a kid was cherry tree lane. That's where in Mary Poppins where the banks house was. So we're shooting on that stage. And my office is right underneath where my dad's office was in the animation. And I just feel so whatever. But to me, television didn't seem as interesting. I had been a screenwriter. I've done a couple of movies prior to that. And I was like, Okay, I'll do this. And I have kids and I got to get a paycheck and I didn't really care that much. And then after my first episode aired, we were top 10 Show and Michael Jacobs, our executive producer walked up to me. He's reading the Nielsen's that he has, you know, Jeff, did you see the Nielsen's? I said, I don't know what that's all about me. Well, last night, we were a top 10 show. So that's great because you don't seem excited. And I said, Well, I That's great. No, that's fantastic. My god he goes, Do you realize that last night or Last Friday night, more people watched your episode of Wayne's World than have ever seen a Shakespeare play. And he added me on the shoulder and walk down the hall. And I think that's that's BS. I don't think that's true. But it was it really made me think. And that combined with working on the stage where my dad had done his greatest work in the on the lot where I used to walk around with Walt Disney, and I'm hearing this place I went, I want to say something important here. So I made it a point that every year I had, they called me special, Jeff on the step that I would do that that important episode. There were other ones too. But I would I would always sort of stand up to do one about child abuse or running away from home or school vandalism, or my final year, I just insisted that I wanted to get Eric, the brother in college, and I had a lot of not hardly anybody in the writers who had finished college and gone to college. And there was no you don't need college. And I said, Well, I don't think being the number one kid show on the air that we should be telling kids that they shouldn't go to college, we're working against what they should be doing. So I want my bow and I got Eric into college. So there were those kinds of victories for me where I kind of felt I was pushing that envelope. But I loved working on that show. It was one of the best things I did. And I love the people on it. Still do I still see most of them. That's awesome.

Jeff Dwoskin 46:13

Well, two things when I was gonna ask you if you tried to get William Daniels to talk like kit? That was? Yes. I'll assume no. And then and then you kind of glossed over hanging out with Walt Disney. Um, it just

Jeffrey C. Sherman 46:26

well, the bill Daniels thing. The funniest thing with Bill was of course, who hasn't seen the graduate who hasn't seen it to the rubber? All the great movies of parallax. I go on and on and I mean this scene elsewhere. My God, I watch every episode I knows. And so here he is on our on our little kids show and I'm like, Oh my God, and I became really friendly with him and his wife, Bonnie, there was a year where I wanted to do I never really written I've in some good scenes for a bill. I want to write good monologues for him. So this monologue trick though, in the school vandalism when we almost quit, Mr. Feeny almost quits because his house is vandalized and the school has to handle it. So I write in this thing and go to the table read and usually sit around and nobody's having breakfast networks and studios there. So builds really and built I don't know if even what did the script before the table really gets to his monologue and he reads and it's beautiful and everybody's so moved. It's a really movie about what it is to be a teacher and you put yourself out there and every year you can re examine yourself and this isn't long like Paige Longley right so I think he's gonna Just love me right? And we're walking out of the table reading ghosts, Sherman, too damn many words. Oh my God. So he cut it down a little bit. So it's still there in the shape of it. But he made it feel Daniels easily. Like I don't want to sit there and do it to be or not to be I want to be part of the show. And it was a great lesson for me. You know, just make it work for the show. And you'll make it work great. So he was wonderful. The Disney stories I have several, the one that every seems like is so I met him about five times and I'd been up to his office and you know, the coolest thing I thought was that he had Disneyland I thought that's my dad was the guy and whenever Dad, dad and uncle Dick wrote starting with the tiki room they started writing of the Disney ride songs so we would go down there first and go on them so I was on you know when smart World opened at Disneyland after the World's Fair we were on the first boat I think or something. So we got to do all that. But this guy had his name on Disneyland and studio because I knew he is a big shot. He was my dad's boss. So anyway, I was dying to see the sets. Everything Mary Poppins was shot in England but it was shot at the Burbank studios that Disney Burbank studios on the soundstage. And like every soundstage, you go in one it was the the Tea Party on the ceiling, I got to watch them shoot a little of that when they haven't, it's on the wires and stuff and gave that away. But I got to watch some of the stuff that as I said cherry tree Lane was on stage to where we shot going it's world etc. They said dad I really want you to show me this because he grabbed me the stories and I really wanted to see what they were doing. So he took me out of school and they took me around from all the sound stages and showed me I said the merry go round horses against the yellow screen become those things and jolly holiday and just all the different kinds of stuff and and I'm like, Okay, it's you know, it's just water walking and people are hammering does what it can't wait for us because they had the best tuna sandwiches officer in the coral room, which was executive dynamics. I can't wait that activities out. And we go in and Walt Disney walks in at the same time with these two guys in suits. And he looks in the new me because he met me a few times and he had an amazing memory for people's names and their kids names. So he gets down to near me go so Jeffrey, I understand. You took a look at the sets for Mary Poppins say what do you think? And I'm holding my dad's hand and I stood out there okay, I guess that my dad's hand goes limp. And I look up like I don't know what I've done is he looks upset and I was kind of quiet. And he goes, What do you mean? And I said, I don't know. John's you come with me and he took my hand and walked me out of the commissary back over to one of the soundstages where they had the rooftops of London for stepping time and he told the guys to stopped working on it. He turned to work lights just right. And he said, Okay, so what's wrong with it? And I said, No one's gonna believe it. And he said, I've had the greatest art. I mean, he was so exasperated when I was a little kid, because I had the greatest artists actually go up there and take pictures. And this is all authentic. I said, I know but it's supposed to be the rooftops and it's sitting on the ground, and he starts laughing, and I feel horrible. And I think I'm never getting invited to Disneyland again. That's gonna get fired. I think the whole thing that just ruined everything for my family, we're gonna have to move back to the valley. So he comes down next to me, he does the frame like a camera for him. Because now if you don't understand See, this is all the people are gonna see. That's the camera lens just sees this. They don't know it's on the ground. Don't think it's on the roof when they could look that way. And that's called Movie magic. And you can never tell your friends. They nodded. He takes my hand and walks me back to the commissary and there is a writers table where all the big Disney writers would sit. My dad and uncle were there and there are my dad's freaking fix scotch. I remember just thinking like you drinks at work. And then this thing comes in whispers to my dad and my dad probably goes back in his face. He starts laughing He tells everybody starts laughing turns out that, you know, he told them what happened that I didn't give a damn because I got a tuna sandwich almost got my Deadfire that.

Jeff Dwoskin 51:16

That's really funny.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 51:17

It's a testament that because this is a guy who had everything and he cared a little, you know, whatever it was five year old kid thought of his work, you know, and that's the magic. If you care about it, and you make it for people, that real reward is connecting with other people. And that's what he was with and that taught me something to

Jeff Dwoskin 51:36

it's amazing. How was the pilot that you wrote for Turner and Hooch with Bev? Tom Wilson?

Jeffrey C. Sherman 51:42

Yeah, a good friend of mine. He was one of my agents for a long time. And then he went off and foolishly wrote Beverly Hills Cop and became one of the biggest writers and directors for Hollywood. Dan Petri, Jr. Dan had a deal with Disney. And he had done Turner and Hooch the movie, and his brother, Donald Petrie, who went on to do like Mystic Pizza and 1000 other things was directing the pilot. We were all friends. We all played poker together. And Dan said, Look, we had this writer on it, but it's bad. It's the scripts bad and we're going to shoot in about a week. Can you come on the set and just kind of rewrite this? So I said, Yeah, but I didn't know was the huge dog. If you remember the Bucha dog, we're shooting in the middle of August. It's really hot, which is his big, fat, hairy, heavy. I don't know what they're called. But they would get exhausted. They come out in the heat and fall asleep in 10 minutes. So they had four of them. So part of my job and rewriting on the set while we were going was to cut stuff out the scripted say, Gooch picks up the newspaper, runs to the car jumps in licks, the guy says he goes just having jumped in the car. So it's like, he can't go, that's all he's gonna do. And then we got to put him back in the refrigerator because he's got a cooler, so it's doing kinda bad. Whereas I love Tom Wilson. He was really a nice guy, and he was wonderful, but he looked like he was gonna kill hooch. He looked like he could actually it was built for me. He was that tough guy kind of thing. Where's Tom Hanks look like who you know, he was going to be a soft guy. So it just never kind of kind of came together. I guess. I don't know. But it was it was fun to do because I got to do it with Don and Dan.

Jeff Dwoskin 53:11

I think later they try it. They did least for a short time they brought it brought that idea.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 53:16

They did it. Yeah. premieres on so somebody to

Jeff Dwoskin 53:19

let's finish with the comedy special you did for Wendy and it's sort of a plug for Wendy to taller on TV, which you produced with John Landis.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 53:27

Yeah. So Wendy for her 50th birthday said to me, I said, What do you want to do? 350 If you want to go to Hawaii, she was well, you know, I've done half hour special for HBO. And I've done there's something million things that I've done an hour special. I said, so she was can we do that? And I said, Are you sure you don't want to go to Hawaii because I love producing but there was and she wanted me to direct it. And I said I can direct but I'm not doing a live show. And I was friendly with John because John and I'm actually not in the making of the boys. He was one of the people I first interviewed with Greg and we made good friends and we were at lunch he asked me what I was doing. I said my wife wants me to direct this thing. And he goes oh, and he hadn't met Wendy yet. So he said we'll set up another lunch let's let's sit with Wendy I like to meet her and so I sat with her and by the end of the lunch she said I'll tell you what I'll help you with fantastic so we kind of figured out a way we couldn't really afford John as a director. So we had Wendy direct it but she had it all in her head and this is all her material and she put it in a lot of her prose writing to and her philosophy she's very she's kind of known as the queen or the one liner and then the after joke, but she is a deep thinker and I mean she you know she runs very deep and so she got to get that across in the special so we make this special and we just did it. I did it with my company at the time traveling light productions. We did it on a shoestring. We had one investor Andy who became one of our partners in the business and he put up like $30,000 and I called in every favor it couldn't be shot at cut it John call Well, Dan, his longtime producing and editing partner, George falsly, who I hadn't worked with, since I believe, coming to America, and we all worked in a garage. It was very down and dirty. But we did this thing and worked in as George's friend Brad's garage. And we cut this thing together. And we hadn't sold the we wanted to make it and then sell it. So we go out, we tried to get people but they said everybody's making them an unsigned. So we go into Showtime. And John says, Let me come with the outcome. And we'll show it together. And we walk into this guy at Showtime and the guy almost Pat, he's one of the top executives there. He's passed away. So it's really nice, almost passes out with these weak in the knees, because John's there. And he said, You don't know how excited I am that John Landis is standing in my office videos, and he looks at me and he goes, I always wanted to sleep with Wendy Liebman and you're married to her what a great day. This is for me. And John goes, I think we sold it. But I don't know if we want to go that far. And we ended up selling it to showtime and then getting it distributed. And it's a wonderful kind of a time capsule of Wendy at 50. And all of her work and it's, it's fun. We have a couple of surprises in the special, which were really fun to do. Her parents both have little cameos, and I will ruin it for anybody who hasn't seen it, but I know you can like rent it on Amazon and all that kind of stuff. And there's some places it streams but it's called taller on TV. I was originally called Playmate of the Year because when he has a joke that she was voted Playmate of the Year in nursery school. But we got a call from Playboy enterprises telling us that they would sue us if we use the Playmate of the Year because that was their property. So we changed it to talathi

Jeff Dwoskin 56:33

Nisa a live in a world where word God's playboy.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 56:37

You can't believe how fast things that if you shoot in Los Angeles, everybody knows whatever you do. That's all I'm gonna say. That's really funny. If you try to shoot without a permit, they'll know and they're there before you struggling. So you just my advice is shoot out of LA or get burned. Because I can tell you

Jeff Dwoskin 56:52

great advice and great stories. Thank you so much, Jeff, for hanging out with me. This was so great.

Jeffrey C. Sherman 56:58

My pleasure. Nice talking to you. And again when he says hi and schedule integrity.

Jeff Dwoskin 57:03

Jeffrey C Charmin thank you so much. And give me a good fast as well. You bet. Take care. All right. That was Jeff Sherman. How amazing was that? So many great stories. He hung out with Walt Disney. You have to watch his documentary The boys, the Sherman Brothers story on Disney plus. So worth watching. It's amazing to watch the backstory and get the full feel of the family and everything that was going on behind these amazing songs that I'm sure there's so many that means so much to you. So definitely check that out. And definitely check out Jeff's albums there on Spotify. You can stream them there, check out Wendy's comedy, special links in the show notes to all that good stuff. All right, well with the interview over can't believe it. How do these episodes fly by so fast? Huge thank you to my guest, Jeffrey Sherman, and of course a huge thank you 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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