Some Time with Emily Hope Webster

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey there, Fanaritos and welcome back to a brand new episode of How Rude TANARITOS. Now, if you grew up in the 80s, you definitely remember our guest today. Oh, yeah. She was the nosy neighbor with perfect red hair who was always showing up, always asking questions and always getting into something. Just how we like it around here. Emily Hope Webster played Harriet on Small Wonder. And that was the last TV pilot that we talked about on a previous episode. She is now mentoring the next generation of actors. I am so excited to talk to her about all things nosy neighbors. And we are so grateful that we get to talk to Emily today. So please welcome her to the show. Amazing. Thank you so much. But it's so good to see your smiling faces. You too. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. We are so excited. Thank you so much for being on our show. Like, this is so exciting. We've been so eager to talk to you. Yes. I've never, maybe in the last 20 years, I think I did one other podcast, but this is kind of like my maiden voyage. So I'm excited. We are honored. We're just really excited to have you on the show. We just watched the pilot of Small Wonder because we're going back and doing some some 80s TV shows. And I just have to tell you, like, I was such a huge fan of that show. It's such a part of my childhood. Your red hair and the pig, like all of it. Oh, nosey Harriet always there. I just have to say, I just really loved the show. So it's fun to have you. You are very sweet. What about those special effects on the early AI? Oh, it was so great. Brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hope I think they should bring Small Wonder back, except this time it's a thriller. This time, Vicki's not so nice. Yeah. Megan movies. They're all like riveted of Small Wonder. Truly, they really are. Wow. That's brilliant. Yes. No, that's so funny. I did over 200 commercials before Small Wonder. Is that true? Well, that's the bio that my parents wrote for me. So then yes, then say yes. I did a lot of commercials. Didn't you guys do a lot of commercials? Oh, yes. McDonald's, Barbie, anything from Mattel. Yeah, Mattel. What else? Van Camp's Fish Sticks. Frity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles. Totally. Yeah, we were all sort of in that camp. Yeah. The commercials, I remember I'm from a kind of a showbiz family. So my siblings were in the business as well. And we had an old VHS that we would record the Saturday morning cartoons because one of one of the still men would be on a commercial, each commercial break. Oh, my God, that's amazing. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. But it sort of was like a factory. There was just there was like a handful of us that. Yeah. Record the market on all of the commercials. Yeah. Yeah, truly. What was your because commercials were important back then? Like you needed commercials. There was no streaming. There was nothing else. So yeah, that was important. Now, I think I remember your Pepsi commercial. I feel like I remember. I feel like I remember that one. But yeah, I definitely remember seeing you like in commercials and everything. I was like, oh, my gosh, it's Harry. There's one that went viral a little while ago for baby state. Because Uber child actor, Jenny Lewis and I were in that together. And yes, you dropped star and suddenly friends from out of the woodwork were sending me this slip of Jenny Lewis and I and this baby state commercial. And I remember filming that commercial because the baby state didn't work. He kept falling. Well, so much for that product. Yeah, exactly. But of course, they got baby skates for like the 15 second commercial to look like perfectly balanced and so cute and so fun. But I actually remember that, too, because the baby skates really was malfunctioning constantly with it. Wait, the baby skates were they like the ones that you strapped onto your tennis shoe and they were like little plastic wheels or something? It was a doll. Oh, what? Doll. Oh, baby. Oh, I thought you meant like actual like like the little like Fisher price. Oh, no, an actual skating doll. Yeah, no, those never worked the way they were supposed to. Yeah, you couldn't find like a flat enough circuit or a surface. Right. Her her core wasn't strong enough to stay up right on those skates. She didn't work. You know, I bet Vicky Vicky probably could have could have skated, but well, I guess we'll never know. Yeah, her core was pretty solid. She was great. She was skated all over the place. And since when did robots have super strength? They always like to have lifting up couches, but like, do robots have super strength? I mean, all the ones that I've fought did. So yeah. Yeah, that's so funny. I don't know. I've never I've never tested the strength of a robot. I don't know that I'd want to, though, because I think they might be stronger than me. Yeah. So with small wonder, your first like serious serious job after all these commercials? Or did you do a guest appearances before that? I did guest appearances. I remember doing a guest appearance on this show called Hotel, which is sort of the loveboat, but on a hotel. Or in a hotel. And I did a scene with James Rowland who is Rowland's dad. Yeah. and the joke was that he met a fortune teller and the fortune teller said there was a redhead in his future. So he kept looking for all these sexy redheads. And then as always, I was the butt of the joke and I was like an annoying little redhead holding a cock or spaniel. And it was like, hey, this is the redhead in your future, a redheaded dog and a redheaded brat. I remember that. And I think, oh, I did, I did a guest spot on a TV show that Kirk Cameron was on before growing pains called Two Marriages. And not only was Kirk Cameron on that show, but C. Thomas Howell, AKA Pony Boy from the Outsiders. Yeah, yeah. He's a big boy on that show. And so, yeah, these are like, you know, 1980s. Yeah. Oh, man. The guest spots that I have a big memory of. And then landed Small Wonder, which I was on for like four and a half years. Yeah, we didn't realize that Small Wonder had gone on for that many seasons. I knew it was like at least two, but I didn't realize it was like four and a half. Yeah. How many storylines can you give a robot? Like that's pretty impressive actually. I know, I remember a lot predicated on the actress who really wanted to flex her wings and not have to have that robot voice. I think in the last season, they like humanized Vicki. And so she got to wear like regular clothes and speak in a more human voice. And then I also negotiated that instead of wearing two pigtails, I graduated to a side pony sale, you guys. Yes! Whoa! Side pony fam, here we are. You guys had similar, you had like an iconic look, right? And then add two scrunchies, curly hair. You had an association in terms of how we presented and how we grew up and how they would let us grow up. Yeah. Yeah, I had curly hair and my hair is stick straight. So that was my... And in later seasons, I always had the half up pony tail with the scrunchie right on top. That was my signature. Half and half, the thing on top, yeah. Half and half, well, Goody, you and I have the inverse because I have, it's actually quite embarrassing. And people within my circles knew this about me and my family, but my hair is crazy curly. Like stick my finger in an electric socket. So you had to straighten it constantly. Not only straighten it, but my parents were unique. And they had this woman who ended up being like the little fairy godmother to me, but her name was Nadia. And she came to my house five days a week, straighten my hair. I did not wash my own hair in the shower until small wonder was canceled. So I was about 11 years old. Wow! 11 Nadia came to my house and washed my hair in the kitchen sink and straightened my hair and my parents wouldn't let the studio hairdressers touch my hair until it became sort of this urban legend which was the truth. And people that I had to wig because there was this mystery, no one's ever had hair. Maybe you were the robot. How this construct happens, but it ended up sticking. And the bangs and the ponytails, it was all very engineered construct of my parents. Wow! And Nadia was the sweetest woman in the world and she ended up again being like this, you know how those hairdressers and makeup artists would be like little profit guys and they kind of take care of it. For sure, yeah. It was, you and I sort of switched. I know, right? If we could have, we should have switched wigs. That would have been easier. And how long was the process to straighten your hair and did they use like, were their hair straighteners back then like flat irons? What was that process? I just got a hairdryer and a like a rounded brush. Oh, just the pulling. She had it down to a science. So she's about 45 minutes. But it was definitely not like one of those stories that I don't actually share. Unless to you guys, you get it, but anybody else would be like, what? Yeah, you're like, no, that's just what you do. That becomes normal. You're like, that's just what we gotta do. Yeah. Well, Candice would go to a salon to get her, that's the, when she had the signature bangs, like the big 90s bangs. The barrel bangs. Yeah. She would go to a salon and get that done before we would shoot the show. So yeah, the hair was a big deal back in the 90s. We're extremely close. I was, I was on your set a few times because Candice and I shared the same agent. He was the legend, Iris Burton. I was going to say Iris. Yes, yes. And the cameras and the showmen were actually quite close. We were those sort of big multi-sibling. Yeah. Now, did you, did you, how did you and the rest of the cast get along on the show? Was it like, were you guys all about the same age and you got along well, or was it like you guys were all the same age and it was like oil and water or what, you know? Well, are you ready for the behind the scenes? It was kind of a battle of the stage parents. Ah. Work is very, very different, very different. And it ended up that we had to have three different studio teachers, which was so unverted at that time because we were all about the same age. I was, I was a bit younger than Gary and Tiffany, but they, you know, we were a couple of years apart in terms of school age. Right. And all had to have different studio teachers and we had to stay sort of siloed off because our parents had a lot of different ideas on what should be occurring on that set. And that ended up being. That's always right, right. It's not the kids, it's the parents. Then the, yeah. Wasn't this fraternity of, yeah, the kids are all together. So there was not a lot of peer to peer interaction. They kept us three very separate. Ah, that's, that's too bad. And I, that's a bummer. How did, how did you feel about that personally? Did you, did you want to go hang out with the other kids or were you kind of like, I don't need to hang up them? Smallest role, whenever there was a guest star, they would join my classroom. So I ended up benefiting from it. So every week there was a different guest star. So it was, it was fun. We were sort of the host school for them. Right. So it worked to my advantage. And I do remember that at the end of the show, the three kids all got together and were like, what, what was the, what was there? Five, what happened? Right. Was it us? And everyone's like, no, I think it was our parents. Yeah, exactly. And so that was nice that there was sort of some sweet closure there. And then I was very close to all the adults on the show, which was, it's a, a guest. I actually really enjoyed all my connections with all of the older cast members. Do you, do you still keep in touch with anyone from Small Winter? I keep in touch with Marla, who played Joan, who was the mom. Yeah. And she, she's really iconic because I remember that she was always being marginalized as like the mom with no lines. And yeah, she's always had a dish in her hand that she was drying or something she was taking out of the oven or yeah. Yeah. I love that you said that because that's the story was going to tell. So we all sort of like, I deflect. You wanted to talk in a normal voice and I wanted one ponytail. And Marla advocated that she had a character arc. So they, in the last season, they made her a substitute teacher in G-Class. And it was like a victory. She was so excited. She would be able to be in more scenes and have more to do. But unfortunately, all the writers stayed was have her say, like, welcome to the class. And then she had no voice. And so one day she had this great plan during the run through, which is before we would go to the stage for a hammer block. Yep. Oh, she does the little perfunctory welcome to the classroom scene. And then the action is happening between the kids. And yet again, she's in the foreground. So she's in the classroom set and she takes out a cutting board and first celery to show them. Right. A lot to come as a podcast. Oh, yeah. So the writers kind of they were like, are you so unimaginative? And I just remember thinking and what an incredible move that was. And it's a baller move. Baller move. And even though we were on this, you know, little sitcom, which I guess at the time wasn't a little sitcom, but she really she wanted to bring integrity to her role. And she wanted to show that women don't have to just be like cutting the celery in the background. Yeah. And that message was loud and clear. They were like, what are you doing? You're not in the kitchen. And she was like, oh, you could have fooled me. Right. Good for her. Oh, Marla. Cheers. And so that's amazing story all the time. And I learned I remember cheering up even as like an eight year old because I was like, whoa, that's the way to do it. Yeah. Yeah, don't say anything. Just do something. And they're like, oh, that's very telling. And it's interesting to juxtapose that between the women on our show, like Aunt Becky, she was a full time career woman. As soon as we met her, she's always putting her husband in her in his place. So that's really interesting that, you know, Small Wonder took place a few years before Full House premiered. But that's such a drastic difference between how the mother figures were portrayed. Wow. I do think that Full House was almost like a literature compared to Small Wonder. It was a different type of sitcom storytelling. That whole Miller Boyette, you guys really read the very beginning. You had multiple layers. You talked about grief. You had it wasn't just like a gimmick. There was a creative and there was a lot of rich character development. And Small Wonder really was in that out of control. What was like few others were just relying on the gimmick. Right. Not even a family sitcom. It was more like the show with the robot, the show with the alien, you know, those kinds of. Right. Right. Right. So I hope that moves like what Marla Pennington did, how producers could see. Oh, wait, we should tell more rounded stories that involve mothers with agency that brought us up an upteller addiction. I mean, I haven't watched the show consistently in years. And I made the joke that she was always dry. Like, I just remember I was like, she didn't. She was just always in the kitchen, like doing cooking, doing, cutting, cleaning, and that was really it. Well, you said that because that was exactly what she was afraid of. But that was even. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Emily, I got to talk to you about this annoying neighbor trope because I was going to say you guys so many things in common with your with your moment. Because yeah, it sounds like so it sounds like you were a little typecast even before Small Wonder, if you were playing an annoying redhead in commercial in a commercial as well. Tell me what that felt like as a young child. Like, were you aware that you were being typecast as the, you know, the offbeat or the annoying one? And what was that like growing up with that hanging over you? I mean, I got my own thoughts, too, but I would love to hear yours. I'm so grateful. I mean, part of why I'm doing this podcast is because the person who connected us is my favorite person on the planet. But I know. I I'm I welcome an opportunity to connect to somebody who has got a specific perspective on the world. I'm pretty emotional about the experience. There's a reason my camera's off. I'm extremely self-conscious to this day. And I remember when they there was articles about you that were like, Amy Gibbler is hot now. And so what does that mean? Thought those two were thought and now. Right. That means that's a damage. I wasn't back then. Yeah. It's right. And then that somehow got to get to be considered hot by who by what standard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was it was difficult. I mean, Harriet didn't even make it into the house the first season. That's right. She was always out the window at the door, getting it slammed in her face, either the kitchen or the front door, or she was lurking outside the bedroom being a peeping Tom. Yes. And it was I mean, I have some intense ideas about it acting. I think now that I am a mom, I see that there is treachery everywhere, right? The soccer moms, the dance moms, like assholes and angels everywhere. So I get that now. But there's something about the money involved and the the extremely public eviscerating that we subject ourselves to that take it to a whole other level. And it was it was very difficult for me to always be the butt of the jokes. Right. We being insulted. Yeah. There was that one line I had where I was like, braces on top of freckles. I'll never get married. And that one just stuck in my head. But I mean, constantly, my entire stick was how annoying I was. And the show didn't last long enough for I mean, Kimmy's out of boyfriend. And you know, you got to see you evolve. Right. Right. And died as the annoying next door neighbor. And I I definitely carry some of that heartache that I experience every day for five years. Of the joke, like truly insulted. People were the characters would insult me. Yeah. Right. And you know, it's you know, you're playing pretend, you know, this is fiction. You're playing a character. But when you play this kind of role for years, well, and when it's based on a physical attribute that about, you know, your right. Or your personal or your personality or your person. Right. Like. After a while, that that that weighs on you and it affects. Well, for me, it affected my interactions with fans outside of the show because people felt very free to come up to me and just say, you're so annoying. And like, that's not me. That was my character. Of course. Well, that's where the fiction part is so tricky, because if the world on mass is seeing you as Harriet, I mean, people would see me and go, Harriet, we hate you. Like, right. Yes. Thanks. And how do you respond to that? You know, you're supposed to say thanks. Like that's it's it's really hard as a kid to navigate that. It's hard as an adult to navigate it. But as a kid, I think it's it's a particular kind of pressure. It's not even even if we are those get actors that we hear about who are dragging their moms to the auditions because they want to do it. We're also complicit in this machine. There's a lot of people either making money through us or off of us. And we we don't have a ton of me over. We can't make, you know what? I really don't want to do this part. I really am five people and I don't want to start anymore. That was in the conversation I was having with my parents or certainly Iris Burton. No, no. I don't think anyone ever had a conversation with Iris Burton. You have incredible insight. Um, so not only are they saying they they hate me, but I had no control over even becoming a Harriet. Right. Yeah. I was trying to do my my job, taking the line and hit my mark. Right. Yeah, you're just we call ourselves 90s robots. You just do what you're told, you know, hit your mark, say your line. Yeah. Wait for the laugh. And that's what we did week after week. And I'm not as bitter as I used to be because I think I'm a culmination of all my experiences. And I really liked my life and like where I am. And and seeing that again, like there's that kind of exploitative energy around lots of activities and lots of parents are again, like on the soccer field or any parent that wants something for their kid more than the kid wants it is problematic in whatever it dance, sports, performance, all of it, you know. Yeah, that's a distinct way to say it. Yeah. The problem Hollywood is that there's just a whole industry right that is surrounding that impulse of a parent, which I also know is not always an affairious impulse. Sometimes it's a protective impulse or it's a kind of out of my kid impulse. Right. But it compounds with all the other elements. Right. So, yeah, it was very difficult being the annoying next door neighbor. And that that was sort of clinging to me. And I did another TV show after that where I played a version of that character. But she also got to grow up a little bit. And that was that I did. And that was it was a show called Christie and it was part of the Doctor Quinn Medicine Women. Oh, yeah, yeah. The vein of shows. OK. I remember that show. Wasn't that the one with Kelly Martin? Exactly. Yes. And so you know how I pulled that out. I have no idea. Her neighbor is always next to like the ingenue, always next to the DJ or always to the Christmas. Yeah. So I still was I played Ruby May and it was supposed to be like a hillbilly from the turn of the century. But but there was some feeling there because she got to grow up and I saw that those characters, much like Marla as Joan, the cutting board, that you can bring integrity to those characters and those characters. Like Kenny Gibbler getting to see her grow up and getting to see her evolve and not just becoming the sidekick and especially in the people that you guys did. You know, I mean, I it's nice to see that the next door neighbors don't just grow up to be hard. They grow up to be great, amazing people. Yeah, Fuller House was very healing for me, too, that Kimmy wasn't. So now the legacy of Kimmy Gibbler is not just she's that annoying kid on this show that nobody wanted around. Like she's a great woman. Like she's fashionable. She's great now. Part of the family. She's a career woman. She's a good mom. Yeah. Yeah. So I wish you had been able to do that with Harriet because it really did. Like not that anything was broken, but I do feel like that made me accept the character so much more because it's like, OK, she is likable. She was just misunderstood as a kid. And I think it poorly written as a kid, too. Like the tanners were just so mean to her in the later seasons. And I thought, guys, this is a teen teenage girl you're talking to. Like stop being so rude to her in front of her face. Yeah, at least talk about that, guys. Come on. Exactly. You know, exactly. So did that affect your career trajectory? Like did you continue acting after that? Or were you like, I'm out? I wanted out quite early on, but it was a machine that was operating within my entire family system. I had tried to get out my family relocated from the West Coast to the East Coast for different reasons within my family. And I was excited. I was going to reinvent myself and do theater. And I was 13. I'd never even gone to like regular school before. Wow. And I did a little bit of theater. And it's so funny because I'm watching the comeback right now with Lisa Kudrow. So good. And on a much, much, much smaller scale, because I was 13 years old. But I was a half bin by the time I was 12, it was just mortifying. But like, I'm going to wear leg warmers and be a serious actor. Yes. But for, again, various reasons in the way that the machine all worked. My parents were, you know, pushing to get me into commercials. And so then I remember doing a commercial, but I'd already graduated from that. But now that we were back in New York and now that I'm older, I see that that was also that was how to make money if you go back to commercials. Right. And then there was a need for that. So I started doing commercials and then Kelly Martin was another kid actor who grew up with us and who was in all the commercials. And we done. Yeah. She was a Scott Wenger's girlfriend for like seven or eight years who played Steve on our show. Well, I have an amazing Scott Wenger story. Oh, yes. Bring it. Hi. OK, so Kelly. Literally gets me the job on Christie. I did not even have to audition. Amazing. Yes. She had a lot of cash. Yeah. That's gone on. Life goes on. She had an Emmy nomination and was going to be living on her own in Tennessee. And she said, please can you cast my best friend, Emily, to come hang out with me and she can play Ruby May and she got a great resume. And I didn't even have to audition. They offered me the part all because of Kelly. And I blew up Tennessee when I was 16 and then I lived there from 16 to 18. And we actually had a really special time together. Oh, I love that. It was really sweet. I kind of picked it up because I like sewed my wild oats and kind of got in trouble on that set. What at 16? That's a right of passage. I know that. I mean, like, like, like fell in love with the camera operator who was 23 years older than me. And like, and I'm really, I'm really digressing, though. So anyway, that's what happened on that set. But. It was the first season. Kelly and I are training on horses because we have to horseback ride in this show. Right. And I a horse rears its head up on me and my face gets stabbard and I rush the hospital and all this stuff. And basically, I have a king cousin and cannot. But I was. Heated. But there was some sort of trick where because it was filmed in Tennessee and they hired me as a local and we like finagled all this stuff. I did not have to have a guardian. And so I ended up getting it right. Well, and at 16, you could also be emancipated, right? Because I remember everybody at 16 was getting emancipated so that you didn't have to do school and you didn't need a guardian. Right. But I didn't get like officially emancipated. I never had that paperwork, but I did graduate high school. Yeah. G.D. was. Yeah. I actually did it through a correspondent school through Mexico College, which is so funny. But I graduated high school and they hired me. I actually don't know all the specifics. It ended up being kind of a womp, womp, because that's when I found out that I like my money wasn't getting saved. And, you know, there's all sorts of excuses. OK, but back to the stop part, I have to be. I have to be a concussing protocol. There's no guardian. Of course, Kelly is the star of the show. And of all nights, there's a night suit that night. And they have nobody to like watch me and make sure that I'm not going to go to sleep, except for Scott. Oh, my. He must have been a nervous wreck. I know Scott well enough. He is. He is. Yeah. What was the neurotic mom's name? What was her name? Oh, Babs. Oh, Babs. Babs. They were there. Babs and Todd. Yeah. Oh, my God. So we. Scott was actually. I always say like Aladdin saved my life. But he stayed up with me all night. We watched the fugitive. And then somebody else came and like swopped with him. Right. I ended up like taking over for him. But it was like so fun. And that's amazing. It was amazing. And when I told my kids that they were like, Mom, that is the weirdest story ever. Right. But we all have those weird. You're like, you'll never guess this story. Yeah. And it was sort of the fun of growing up back then. I mean, we've all got some interesting stories, some better and some worse. And a lot of, you know, I think we've all definitely been on a journey and sort of had to I think now that I know I'm an adult, I have a much different appreciation and realization of kind of what I did as a kid and can look at the good and the bad and all of that. Yeah. For way, way more famous and way more in the spotlight than small wonder kids. But it is interesting that trajectory of like. Disparaging it and then owning it. And then like if you just constantly are it's like a Russian doll. Like, right? All these layers of perspective and somewhere in there still are like little baby cells that had the head thought and, you know, right over you when you started full house. I would just turn five. And I was 10 in that first season. So all the awkward formative years. Well, Emily, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Like we really appreciate it. And like I just it's been such a pleasure to talk to you. And I'm so happy to hear that like you're in a place where you're happy and fulfilled and enjoying life. And I'm so glad that we got to talk and cross paths along the way. Well, thank you so much for inviting me. And I really just honor the two of you and everything that you brought and all the joy that you brought as kids, but even more so than meaning that you're bringing now as adults. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I would love to keep in touch with you. So I'll get in contact with Rachel. And if that's OK, I'm going to really start to cry if I talk about Rachel. But I love that woman so, so much. But she got my number, so let's reach out and let some cat offline. I would love that. I would love that, too. Yeah, we have we have so many, so many similar stories. Oh, you're a gem. Thank you so much, Emily. Oh, my gosh. That was what a treat. Yeah. She's fantastic. She is great. Like, she is like so smart and yeah, able to articulate her feelings and really like dial in to like just it's such an interesting perspective talking to somebody who experienced such a similar career as me as a child. And so you don't, you know, there's there's I mean, there's one. There's Erkle, there's Screech. Yeah, there's a few of us out there, but like to have another another female. Yeah, absolutely. It's different. It is different as a female playing that kind of role. So she was fantastic. So the Rachel she keeps mentioning is my manager, Rachel, who I love and adore and Emily apparently loves and adores her too. And they work together like it's as early baby agents like 20 years ago. So anyway, yeah, the again, the world is small. Yeah, yeah, so true. Well, thank you so much for joining us, fanaritos. We really appreciate you. Remember, check us out on Instagram at How rude podcast or send us an email at how rude, Tana Ritos at Gmail dot com, the merch store, how rude merch dot com. And I believe it. That's it. Yeah. OK. Yeah. All right, everybody. Well, we will see you next time. So remember, the world is small. But the house is full. Of wonderful next door neighbors, not annoying ones. Wonderful next door neighbors. Quirky, thank you. Interesting, creative. Yes, beautiful. There's so many positives. So many things. So many things. That's that's what that's what I want to live in. That's what the house is full of. Yeah. OK. Yeah, we'll do that. Bye. Bye. This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.