030 Rain Man Judge Transcript (Judge Joseph Wapner)

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Michael: Hello, famous and gravy listeners. Michael Osborne here. Before we begin today's episode, I want to tell you about a podcast called seen out loud. Right now, there is a national movement underway to reimagine the child welfare system, but changing the child welfare system is gonna require a new approach built on open-mindedness curiosity and compassion seen out loud brings listeners stories and conversations that recognize child welfare transformation starts by seeing families for who they truly are. It's a powerful show and for what it's worth, I am an executive producer on it. So please subscribe and follow seen out loud on apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Amit: Welcome to famous and gravy, a podcast about quality of life. As we see it, one dead celebrity. At a time, you can also play our mobile quiz app at dead or live app.com.

Michael: This person died in 2017 at age 97. He graduated in 1937 from Hollywood high school where he briefly dated the future film actress, Lana Turner.

Friend: Okay. Hollywood high school.

Michael: Yeah, Hollywood high school,

Friend: Don Rickles.

Michael: Not Don Rickles. Great guest though. He was a decorated veteran of world war II. He was wounded by sniper fire on Cebu island in the Philippines, leaving him with shrapnel in his left foot.

Friend: Oh really? Uh, oh fucking Bob Dole.

Michael: Not Bob doll, but not a bad guess. The full measure of his celebrity was not realized until 1981 when he was approached by a television producer.

Friend: Um, Ronald Reagan.

Michael: Not Ronald Reagan, not a bad guess. but actually that's a terrible guess. I take that back. That's a God awful guess. He had an even handed approach of hearing cases in which pocket change was at stake, but let millions of viewers know that no matter how seemingly insignificant their legal disputes, they too were entitled to their day in court.

Friend: Gosh, what is his name? I'm gonna kick myself when you tell me. Yeah. That's uh, judge. Waner. Definitely Waner

Michael: today's dead. Celebrity is judge Joseph. Waner.

Archival: What you are witnessing is real. The participants are not actors. They are actual litigants with a case pending in a California municipal court. Both parties have agreed to dismiss their court cases and have their dispute settled here in our forum. The peoples court. I told you, you could shake your head all you want to. I'm just telling you wrong. Did you go to law school? I spoke to the number one specialist in this field, Larry Edwards, and then yous association. You give me a brief li to me, did you give me a brief of law as to the, did you give me a brief of law from this expert? Where is it? I don't have to give you a brief of law. You don't have to say what the. Oh, okay. That you know the law better than I did. I don't. I checked on this for, get it the homeowner for get it. Listen, I'm here on principle, your honor. I want you to know something for the defendant. Thank you, your honor.

Michael: Welcome to famous and gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

Amit: My name is Amit Kapoor.

Michael: And on this show, we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and review their quality of life. We go through a series of categories to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer a big question.

Would I want that life today, Joseph a Waner died 2017 age 97.

Category one grading the first line of their obituary

judging the first line of

his obituary judging the first line of their obituary. Joseph a Waner a California judge who became a widely recognized symbol of tough, but fair minded American jurisprudence. During the 12 years, he sat on the bench of the syndicated television show.

The people's court died on Sunday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 97.

Amit: I think they nailed the landing. I

Michael: think so, too. Kind of

Amit: great. Yeah. I'm picturing like an Olympian coming off the PMO horse and just sticking

Michael: it. so, okay. What do you love in particular? I think

Amit: it was long, but in encompassing of the career, as well as had some opinion on the impact of his career,

Michael: it was long.

Amit: Yeah. By long I'm not just complimenting the fact that yay. You wrote a long obituary, but right. They didn't just say judge with the people's court died. They threw in and added more to bookend the career, as well as put some cultural symbolism in there.

Michael: They even used the word symbol, a widely recognized symbol of tough, but fair minded, American jurisprudence.

That's a pretty great phrase. And I think it's true to him.

Amit: I think so too. Let's play some vocabulary jurisprudence.

Michael: Yeah. I like that word. And it's got stature. It's got connotations in the atmosphere of like the weight of the law behind it, you know, and laws and institutions. Yeah, law is

Amit: a final word, but also law is tactful.

Mm. Right. It's the prudent thing to do

Michael: jurisprudence. Yeah. Yeah. It's

Amit: not righteousness.

Michael: It's right. Fullness. You know, I'm actually not a hundred percent sure what the word jurisprudence means. Uh, which high

Amit: school English

Michael: teacher is turning. All it means is a legal system. Perfect. Yeah.

Amit: So it's open to our connotations anyway.

It's

Michael: good. 12 years. He sat on the bench of this syndicated television show. I like that they got the word syndicated in there. Tough but

Amit: fair minded. What

Michael: do you feel that well? Okay. So I actually have zero relationship with judge Walker. I get off your horse, dude. It's not a, it's not a high mind thing. I never.

Watched people's court growing up, like I've watched plenty of judge Shooty. I know it was on TV when I was a little kid, but I didn't watch

Amit: it. So at the Rainman

Michael: reference, that was about it. The Rainman reference was my first cultural touchpoint with judge Waner. That's it? Oh boy. That's it. You blew

Amit: it.

You don't get to see your program

Michael: one minute to Waner one minute to Waner one minute, minute to walk there one minute to walk there. You could. I got you in there. Ray. You were in there. Then plaintiff, you had it all. They are in there making legal history, rape legal history.

Amit: This is ridiculous. I don't like this revisionist history of your childhood.

We were born less than 12 months apart. There's no way

Michael: there was a choice of what to watch on television. And I wasn't watching people's court with judge Waner before. But you

Amit: have in the last few weeks. Oh yeah.

Michael: So, I mean, I've had to like fill in some gaps here because as I said, I am familiar with modern iterations of the same idea.

So part of me was interested to go back to the original, small claims justice on TV thing and see like, what does it look like? And with no other context, I have no problem signing off on the tough, but fair minded language that, that feels right. Yeah. I

Amit: don't take issue with.

Michael: I would say this judge, Judy, and some of the other ones I've seen are nastier.

Amit: He's a coach tough. He's a strict teacher. Tough. Like I'm gonna teach you a lesson. Yeah. But

Michael: I'm not gonna whip you. Yeah. It's not about berating you. So I think it's the right word. And I think you put it well. Okay, well, let's grade this thing. What do you got?

Amit: I'm gonna go 10. I don't, I don't see anything missing.

Michael: It is a little long, like to read this thing in one breath. I was exhausted by the end of it. And you were a little caught up by jurisprudence. Yeah, exactly. Which is a small gripe. I mean, there's something else that I've been thinking about a lot. I think I mentioned this on a previous episode. This is also not like a really hard one.

In a way. I think there's a choice for the author to say, how big do I want to go? And they decided to go big. There's a world in which they go a lot smaller. And I think it would've been okay with that too. I don't know what necessarily needs to be said here. I think there's

Amit: a world that they could've gone longer and talked about ushering in courtroom, TV, drama.

Yeah. Which existed a little bit before him in traffic court on TV divorce court, divorce court, maybe, but there was nothing. Prior to Waner that developed this obsession with TV courtroom, reality

Michael: dramas. Uh, I think I'm gonna go 10 too. Okay. I think this is a 10, I think it's a perfect obituary and maybe there's areas to quibble with, but overall, this really gets it.

So I don't think there's a whole lot to be said here.

Amit: Good. I'm proud of you. You reached inside of your soul and said, I'm not gonna be contrarian. I'm not going to argue for argument's sake. I feel in my heart that they did a good job.

Michael: Okay. Category two, five things I love about you. Here, Amit and I work together to get five things that we love about this person.

Five reasons we want to have them basically on the show. Do you wanna start? You want me to start? I'm amazing on this. I want

Amit: you to start, cause I'll be honest. A couple of them were stripped from me in the opening quiz. Oh,

Michael: interesting. Okay. I'm gonna lead off with this. I think it's an interesting job. So I'm gonna contrast that with something that was said in the Ruth Bader Ginsburg episode, towards the end of that conversation, you were like, I don't like the job.

And I agree with that to be a Supreme court justice and to be shaping policies and have the final say on what constitutes justice and what is allowed in the law. And what's not, I don't like that. That's too much pressure. That's too much weight. It's too much power for me, but this level. Of jurisprudence.

I think it's actually great. Like it's a lot of little, you know, windows into the whole spectrum of American society. He's got all these interesting stories that would just make for great cocktail chatter. So I think it's a fun job. And I think I would like this level of power too, to be able to say, all right, I've heard you both out and I'm going with you.

Dang, it'd be

Amit: fun. And the max settlement, I think, during the peak of his career was what? 1500

Michael: bucks. Yeah. I mean, so, I mean, he did, and this needs to be said there was a whole career before he wound up on the people's court. He was a, a

Amit: superior court justice of California after serving in a law firm. And then I think about 20 years

Michael: in the judicial system where he is deciding on some really big cases.

And I mean, he was a man of great reputation, right? He's not some. I don't know, better call us all hack or something. Yeah. He

Amit: got his law degree from USC practiced law for at least 30 years. Right before he got the call up to the

Michael: people's court. Right. This whole move to TV was postretirement from that career.

Yes. So, I mean, this was an add on, in the fourth quarter of his life. So that's what I got for number one,

Amit: my number two will be a little bit of a piggyback. Okay. It said he edged his way into fulfilling his childhood dream. Yes. Which is exactly what you said. He became the TV court judge after he retired.

Yeah. But he attended Hollywood high school, which I wanna talk. More about later, he

Michael: transferred to it to like,

Amit: because he was cause he really wanted to be an actor, but the theater director at Hollywood high school said you have no talent. Yeah. And so he Hank his head down, he goes to USC fights in world war II gets a law degree, works as a lawyer and a judge for 30 plus years.

And then bam retires and. Kind of somewhat

Michael: of an actor. Absolutely. That's a great one to the extent that you and I kind of agree that being famous doesn't look like a whole lot of fun. If I was going to be famous, I'd love for that to start at 65, it's almost like a bucket list thing. You know what I always wanted to do, be an actor and he gets it.

Yes, that's great. All right. Shall I take number three? Yes. All right. At least in his autobiography, he has a habit of bringing up. War record in unexpected moments. And it's kind of great. It reminds me a little bit of Walter from big Lebowski lady. I got buddies who died face down in the muck so that you and I can enjoy this family restaurant.

The beginning of his book, I actually brought this here. He starts it off by telling this story about this woman who's in a parking lot. And there was some sort of like curb thing that had been built that she trips on. And she said that thing should not be there. She twists an ankle. This is like in a hotel parking lot.

And so she soothes the hotel. The hotel had offered a settlement and she's saying, I don't want the settlement. And judge Waner is trying to talk her into the settlement. And he I'm gonna just read this here. Ms. Swanson was a guest. She sat up straight in the chair in front of me and said, how can you even suggest such a thing?

And then she leap to her feet for getting her limb for a moment, virtually shriek at me. You can't feel my pain. I said to her after a few moments of thought, but I have had my own pain and I know what pain feels like in those few moments, my brain had taken me on a long, painful journey back almost 30 years and 8,000 miles across the Pacific to a time when pain was almost all I could feel.

Then he launches in this war story about, uh, getting shrapnel in his foot. He does this like five or six times in the book. Like he'll just be talking with somebody who's dealing with something really petty and like, doesn't matter at all. And he'll just brings this shit up. and I love that about. I

Amit: like it, that you're not just giving it that he was a war hero, but that he, like, he wears it and wears it down.

Yeah. yes, little bit, but let's give Joseph Waner a little credit. He did also have a bronze star and purple heart. Yeah. What he got it for that shrapnel in the foot was essentially, as they say, saving somebody's life. Yes. And. I mean, I think he deserves to talk about it for a while, but I do like that

Michael: aspect.

He actually ends this story in this introduction by saying at the end. And actually I could feel her pain. I mean, he opens the book saying it's important to be empathetic and I have life experience. So when somebody comes to me in a state of pain, I try and harken back to the hardest things I went through in my life.

I think that's actually genuine, but it also. He's unintentionally hilarious to me just the way he does it. Cuz it's a little clumsy when he references his war record. That's my number three. What do you got? So we're at number

Amit: four. I'm gonna go high, moral ground. Mm. And I will. That with anti whining, he cut a lot of people off, but not in a terrible reality way.

He just simply wanted facts distilled on 24

Michael: hours a day. Are you being literal 24 hours a day? He had up up your phone three weeks. He called day at night, six o'clock in the morning. How much time did he tie up your phone? Three months. He's he even called and said about three months, 24 hours a day. So that he was a, a marshal Warren, would you please?

Sorry, your honor, please be realistic and answer my questions. I'm very serious about this. I know it you're wasting a lot of my time. He wasted a lot of my time in money, but you're now here in my, your honor. Yes, your honor. I mean, I'm just very up to how much time did he take tying up your phone? Three months.

God bless.

Amit: and that is what he tried to elevate. People's understanding of the court of law to be, it's not about emotional arguments. It is about presenting the facts. And that's the best that you can do even in this sort of simulated court of arbitration. Right. And he stopped a lot of people from whining.

Again, he very much distilled that this is the best we can do in our judicial system is evidence based and he always reduced to that.

Michael: You haven't satisfactorily answered the question as to why you would write a check for $250 when you didn't know him a dime, he acted like as, as if that I should give him something in return return for what?

I don't know. That's the point, sir. And I don't believe you case is finished. I've heard all the evidence I'm gonna. And that's what this case turns on. It turns on cred.

Amit: Well, I was also gonna tag it and this is also in his opposition to judge Judy. So Waner hated the shit out of judge Judy. Yeah, because of her abrasiveness and the way that she did not, in his opinion, take the high road in correcting people.

She was more of a disciplinarian saying you bad person for doing. We're awarding them X a hundred dollars because of your bad deeds and your misdeeds. Yeah, he was more saying based on the evidence and based on what I understand, this is the court of law

Michael: over and over again. When both as I read through his book, as I listened through some of the interviews he did after the show, I think he.

Has an attitude of, if we are going to put the law on some version of reality TV, it's gotta be done in a certain way. He understands a kind of responsibility that I think that that's why he hates judge Judy, is that he sees this as, oh, I get it. This is better television, but it's also communicates the wrong message about what law actually represents.

And what's important what these values are. I don't think it's personal, cuz I think he's got an educational mission. I think he's very clear about that. He sees like I am doing something good for society in terms of helping make the law experience more transparent. Well, they tried to sell it originally to the networks.

The networks wanted to have an actor play it and do a comedy show out of it. And uh, to Ralph fed Edward's credit and Stu Billett, they decided to do it the right way. And that's how I got. I think you could have said, and this was not in the Obi, but you could have said symbol of reason and maybe that's implied in American jurisprudence.

But I think that more than anything, like what he cares about is not the emotionality of a thing, but what is knowable and what's

Amit: not. Symbol of reason. I like that. I'm gonna change it instead of saying high, moral ground. I however, do not wanna lose the judge Judy thing. Okay. Because that he, he saw you really,

Michael: really came to talk about judge Judy, didn't he?

No, I

Amit: just loved it. I loved that. He didn't like her yeah. It's exactly that he did not see her as a symbol of reason. Yeah. And the things that he said about her, I found both entertaining. And unexpected. I just thought that they would be an allegiance of TV, court judges. They said that she's not portraying a judge.

As I view a judge should act she's discourteous and she's abrasive. She's not slightly insulting. She's insulting in capital letters. She does things. I don't think a judge should do. She tells people to shut up. She's rude, she's arrogant. She demeans people.

Michael: Incredible. I kind of want you to take number five.

I've got something, but if you've got a fifth here, then maybe you take it. Okay. I'll.

Amit: He's so California. Oh, interesting. I always like the sense of place. I think we talked about this a lot with Larry McMurtry of being so Texas. Yeah. This man was so California.

Michael: How do you see that? I can expand on your, uh,

Amit: essentially his entire life was in the LA metroplex.

Yeah. Born studied. Career retirement death all within the area. Yeah. He attended to Hollywood high school, attended USC, practiced the law in LA and in the superior court of LA and then became a TV judge. In LA in a studio, everything is California with him. Yeah.

Michael: It's only in LA. Well, it's really

Amit: Southern California and it's only in LA that like, you can go to Hollywood high school and say that you can't be an actor and say, fine, I'm gonna go have a law career for 30 plus years and return to aha.

I'm an actor. Yeah. and so it's, it's a California story. Yeah, I agree with, I like that. And may I talk more about my Hollywood high school rabbit hole please? So I just wanted to dig up the other alumni. Hollywood high school. Oh, I'm so glad you did this. Did you do this? No. Okay. So we know, uh, Lana Turner, 1936, judge.

Waner 1937 also in judge Wapner's class, Mickey Rooney. Wow. In 1937, dead her alive. Uh, if only there were an app that we could play this game on

Michael: oh, you mean dead or live

Amit: app.com debt or live.com best played on a mobile device. Um, so that was chronological alphabetically, Carol Burnett class of 1951 Lawrence still with us.

Yes. Lawrence Fishburne class of 1980, Judy. Garland class of 1938, Ricky Nelson class of 1957, Sarah Jessica Parker, class of 1983, John Riter class of 1966, Iona, a sky class of 1986. Wow.

Michael: All Hollywood high alum. So let's recap. So first interesting job you

Amit: had, uh, number two shoehorned in his childhood dream.

Michael: Number three, shoehorned in his war record. Number four, we had.

Amit: Mine was high, moral ground. You changed it

Michael: to symbol of reason. Uh, also did not care for judge Judy. Yes. And then five was California, man, California, man. Okay. Shall we move on? Yes. All right. Category three, Malkovich Malkovich. This category is named after the movie being John Malkovich, in which people take a little water slide into John Markovic's mind and they can have a front row seat to his

Amit: experiences.

I want you to go first, cause I'm a little worried about overlap

Michael: here. In judge Wapner's biography view from the bench, he talks about the story that wound up in the Guinness book of world records. Do you know this one? No, I don't. Okay. He is very, very, very big on settling out of court. He sort of thinks that court should always be a last resort and he sort of impassioned about it.

And that chapter, he speaks on this. Somewhere in the late seventies, there is a very high profile divorce of a man named Jack Kent cook and Barbara Jean Carnegie. This was the former

Amit: owner of the Washington Redskins,

Michael: correct. Okay. He and also the Lakers, uh, the LA Kings, the LA wolves, which is the soccer team and the Toronto maple leaves.

They were having a hard time settling on the. And this judge who's involved in, it calls in Waner. Uh, he has this sort of marathon settling session where they go for eight days. And at the end of it, he's able to reach a settlement between the two parties, which at the time wound up being the largest divorce settlement ever.

Barbara Jean gets something like 42 million, which in today's terms, according to Wikipedia is about 157 million. I like this as a Maich moment, because to feel so strongly about being able to settle a case and to like find resolution between parties and not have it go to trial, that you think you care more about that process than anybody else.

But then at the end of it, you actually wind up in the Guinness book of world records for having accomplished it. I wanna know what that accomplishment feels like. Is that trivial or is it super dure meaningful? I don't know,

Amit: I would think meaningful. I think, I mean, I think if you can, if you can settle that out of court, you've gotta think, can I negotiate peace treaties?

Michael: That's a really interesting comment in a way, because I do feel like he's got that kind of confidence and his ability to get people in the middle of disagreements to move closer together. I mean, I think he sees himself as sort of a unit. You know, I mean, he's obviously dealing every day with people who the very nature of his work is adversarial, but I feel like what he sees as his mission in life is to remove points of disagreement.

So that's my Maich moment. Great.

Amit: One. What have you got, I'm gonna go with the firing from the people's court. Ah, okay. This is very, very Yogi Barra. Yeah. It's almost an identical story. So his stint on the people's court ran from 1981 to 1993, upwards of more than 2,400 cases. Mm-hmm and it started to wane in popularity as other nineties programs ushered in and they canceled him and they did not.

Tell him. Yeah. They claimed at least the producers that they tried to reach out to him and couldn't reach him. So instead they just leaked it to the press. I think

Michael: he disputes that.

Amit: Yes. So his brother-in-law like reads it in the paper that people's court is not being renewed, tells him, and Waner learns that way that he lost his job.

And so this is a man who was a symbol of reason mm-hmm whose career stood for due process and in his view, fairness. Yeah. And he was treated unfair. His exact words, my feelings were hurt. My feelings were very, very hurt. Yeah. Not in cancellation, but the fact that he had to find out in a roundabout way.

And so what I want to know in the Mavi water slide behind his eyes is, was his sense of carmic justice shaken or shattered. In that moment, I stand for something. I stand as a symbol of due process of doing the right thing. And this is how I'm

Michael: treated. I, I got so many questions. I want to talk about that maybe outside of famous and gravy, but I'm gonna do it a little bit here.

The first one I have is I don't think we ever covered how you felt about judge. Waner growing up. I said I never watched people's court when I was a kid. I mean, I assume that this was your introduction to what a courtroom looks like. Yes. What's your take on him or what was your childhood impression of the.

Amit: I liked him. I think I was scared of him in the same way. I'd be scared of a school principal, one that I was deferential towards. Okay. And so I did watch the show. I did like the show. However, I think it's had an undue impact later

Michael: on, on me. Elaborate on that. Cause that was kind of my second question. I spent

Amit: some of the last week rewatching episodes.

I think I told you this, this morning on the phone. I was like, sorry. I slept in, I was up late last night watching Waner. Yeah. And this is what I didn't like about this show. What it did for me as a child was make me think that half the world are liars because every case, whether it's about a slice of pizza or a bicycle or a lawnmower.

They were so contentious about this side is a liar and I'm telling the truth and their, and on the other side is a lie and everyone stood their ground so firmly. And I remember having this thought that so much of the world's problems could be solved if people just didn't lie.

Michael: Because I think this ties into your Malkovich question in an interesting way, the interviews I watched with him, the interviewers were kind of pushing on this, like was the people's court a good thing for.

Kind of question I consulted with the chairman of the ethics committee of the state bar, asked him if there'd be UN anything unethical about doing this. And they both assured me it was fine. There's a funny, kind of true crime element. What makes it interesting is like, is this person lying or not? And so you cannot help, but watch something like people's quarter judge Judy or any of them and, and, and size people up, you know, and, and make judgements in your mind and play the role of judge in a vicarious way.

I'm not sure that's a

Amit: healthy thing. I am a hard, no on whether it's

Michael: positive thing or not, but that's not where Waner landed. Waner landed. And I am educating America. Law and the legal system is all about and how great it is even though it's imperfect. And I think this is the question you're raising with your Malkovich moment.

I don't think he saw a conflict in turning that into some form of entertainment on a syndicated television show. However, the moment he is unceremoniously, not renewed or canceled. Does he question that line of thinking? Is that what you're getting.

Amit: Yes, exactly. Yeah. That what he believed he was doing was showing the country or the world, how the court system works.

Yeah. What he was actually doing was hosting an entertainment show, which he was unceremoniously dismissed for. Right. What I'm also adding to that, or what you're adding to that is that I think it was bad for us. And I think it was bad for me. Yeah. Of forming this impression that half the people are lying.

It was just this idea of a dissolution of meaningful relationship over petty

Michael: things. It's funny, cuz it looks so like sort of quaint and innocuous now, but I agree maybe it's an indictment of reality television overall, but I agree with you, Amit. It doesn't look harmful and it

Amit: is. And I think we need to stew on it as we build up to the regrets category.

I agree. But no question, there's also this butterfly effect that we need to contemplate about all the things that followed that. Yeah. In terms of televised court, right. OJ happened two years after Waner left

Michael: the people's court. I think you put your finger on an interesting moment that actually highlights some of the stuff I'm hoping we can talk about, so, okay.

All right. Let's go on category four. Love and marriage. How many marriages also, how many kids? And is there anything public about these relationships? I'll take this one. Marriage to Mildred. She went by Mickey though. Yeah, but her name's Mildred. I love

Amit: the name Mickey. I think

Michael: that's adorable for a name. I love name Mildred, but yeah, they're both good.

71 years. They're married. Looks like old timey love. I wrote down old timey love. How is that? He definitely like pays her tribute in his book and, and brings her up in, in a sort of loving way. But it's not effusive. This isn't Marty and Ruth looks like a more, I don't

Amit: know, banana splits and doop dances.

Yeah.

Michael: For a marriage that lasted 71 years. I kind of wanted to hear it a little bit more about it and had a hard time finding data. I

Amit: couldn't find much either on the actual marriage.

Michael: So Joe was 27 when they got married, three kids, two sons who both went into law and his father was in law too. So, uh, he did have a daughter who died when the daughter was age 56.

This was just a couple years before Waner died. Yeah. She died

Amit: in 2015.

Michael: Correct. And he had four grandkids, one great grandkid. I wrote overall very nice. Very boring. I'm not sure. There's a whole lot to be known here or said, okay. Okay. Should we move on? Yes. Category five net worth. I found 15 million.

Amit: I mean, you're on the people's court for 13 years.

It's syndicated. That's it? He had a couple of endorsements afterwards. There was the animal court. Mm-hmm that's royalty

Michael: money, I think. Yeah. Maybe. What do you think his net worth would've been in 1980 before he does people's court.

Amit: If he was strictly a lawyer and

Michael: then, and then a judge. Yeah. I mean, it seems like middle to upper middle class income.

Part of the country club is sort of the vibe I

Amit: get his net worth. Had he still lived to 97 would

Michael: be 1 million. I suspect that's right. I don't know. I didn't have a major reaction to this. Yeah. I don't have

Amit: an additional. Strong reaction positive or negative to it. Yeah. I'm saying good for you, Joseph, if you were able to get that extra 14 million of value by going in this route of being a TV judge, we're halfway in the middle of this discussion of whether it was harmful or not.

Yeah. So I'm not sure quite yet about that, but at least good for you.

Michael: Did you also see animal court?

The animal court is now in session 20. How do you do it's what? Objection is overruled. No, no, no, no. I don't wanna hear from you either you or the duck anymore. Yeah. I

Amit: just briefly watched clips of it. Were you aware of

Michael: it before getting ready for this? Vaguely. I, I, I bring it up because I wonder what the compensation for animals court looked like.

So animals court was on the. Planet channel mm-hmm for about two years. And every, it was the same thing as people's court, except every case involved a

Amit: animal. Exactly. Like somebody had hurt somebody else's pet. Yeah. Some pet had chewed up wires or something.

Michael: So all I did was watch a super clip of this thing and it looked ridiculous.

it does look ridiculous. It looked and it looked a little demeaning, honestly, for him. Yeah. For what? Yeah, I think so. I mean, one of the things we're kind of touching upon along the way is. By participating in an, uh, a presentation of justice that really does get turned into entertainment. Did he cheapen the institution?

I think exhibit a, for me is animals court, which is like, ridiculous. I agree with you. Maybe there was some money there too,

Amit: which eventually led, but did he need it that much more if he died with 15 million in the bank? I don't think the extra one or two that may have come from a couple of years of animal planet made a difference in his life.

Yeah,

Michael: I

Amit: agree. I'm saying bad

Michael: move, judge. I agree with that. I actually have this in regrets. All right. Category six Simpsons C night live or hall of fame. This category is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on SNL or the Simpsons as well as impersonations. All right. For the Simpsons, the only thing I got was there is an episode in season five, called Springfield with the S as a dollar sign.

The subtitle is how I learned to stop worrying and love legalized gambling. So Springfield legalizes gambling. I remember this episode. Yeah. Homer becomes a dealer. Uh, and as he's at the blackjack table, cartoon characters that look like Tom cruise and Dustin Hoffman are at the table. And do that card count thing again.

Come on, do it again. Definitely have to leave the table. No face, face, face, please. Kinda watch what in there. Leave the table. Yeah, leave the table. No. And then you remember Rainman has that kind of flip out where he is, like hitting his hand against his head and going, ah, he and Homer both start doing that.

It's actually a funny little 32nd clip. Okay. That's it for the Simpsons SNL? Uh, there's actually kind of a lot here. So Phil Hartman impersonated him on a skit modeled after people's court. There's also, and I couldn't find the video for this, but in an impersonation with Joe Piscopo, um, this is in the Eddie Murphy years, Eddie Murphy was playing velvet Jones.

If you remember that character. I do. Yeah. Velvet

Amit: Jones. He was asked by the way to appear and never did that. I saw, and he said his kids were, were

Michael: pissed at him that he never did. This is a regret. Yeah. He declined. And his kids and his wife were like, you should have gone on Saturday night live.

Amit: Yeah.

You're gonna do fucking animal court later. That's right. And where

Michael: you're declining Z night lives. Somehow he is too good for it. Thought there was something cheapening about it, which I didn't totally get. He does have a Hollywood walk of fame, which he got in 2009, according to IMD B, he was on arsenal hall really?

In 1999. Yeah. I thought she'd like that. Okay. And then of course we have to mention the tonight show appearance, even though this is kind of outside. The category, the Johnny Carson, David Letterman dispute, where they brought in judge Waner to settle it. It's actually a hilarious 15 minutes. Would you welcome please?

Judge Joseph Waner

gentlemen, since this is, uh, an arbitration, I'm gonna have to ask you to be sworn you and of you Des solemnly swear the testimony you were about to give in these proceed. So be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you God, more or less, sir? Yes. Yes. There gotta be more. Yes. Yes sir.

Do I, do I begin judge you? What happens? You wait for me, Mr. Le. Oh yeah.

we'll show notes. It we'll show notes. It, but this is also the very first time, at least according to Waner that anybody was allowed to sit in Johnny Carson's seat during a skit. Really? Yeah. But this kid is definitely worth a watch. Okay. Overall pretty famous. Although I do think name recognition has dropped off a cliff for the younger folks.

I think if you're over 40, you know who judge Waner is, if you're under, I really

Amit: wonder something that we should just all be a little ashamed of. The Washington post poll conducted in 1989, ask people to name. Any of the nine justices on the Supreme court? no, in two thirds of their survey population could not name a single one.

Then they ask who is the judge of the people's court? 55% of the people. Got it, right?

Michael: Yeah. That tracks. Yeah. that's incredible. So I don't know. He falls into the mean gene category of fame. Robin leach in that era too. Yeah, totally. There's that like next level? Eighties, fame, and then all but

Amit: disappears.

Yeah. This whole thing. Smells of Robin leach. Yeah. Of our very first

Michael: episode one. I agree with that. Actually. I think there's some real similarities. All right. Category seven over under. In this category, we look at the life expectancy for a year. Somebody was born to see if they beat the house odds. And as a measure of grace life expectancy for men in the us in 1919 was 55.3.

He lived to 97. So over by about 42 years, incredible, incredible with shrapnel in his foot with shrapnel. And I wanna go right to the grace, honestly, because. Like the interviews I saw of him in his eighties. I mean, he's still really pretty sharp. Yeah. And lifelong tennis player pretty fit, you know, he, he wore it.

Well, he did.

Amit: He's very graceful. He looked good. He was very articulate all throughout everything I saw. Yeah. He maintained a, a handsomeness. I would even say I agree well into it. Yeah. And

Michael: certainly a authority and like a presence. Like, I mean, he's very, like, I don't know there, you

Amit: know, so did we get any secrets?

Like what's the secret to longevity? From Joseph Waner that's a good question. I couldn't

Michael: find any, he's pretty emphatic about exercise. Yes. And I like that about him. Actually. Tennis comes up quite a bit. Anyway. Hi marks for grace. All right, let's take a break.

Amit: Michael. I want to talk to you about void in my life.

Michael: Uh, this is very famous and gravy. What's missing it's in my

Amit: liquor cabinet, Michael. I have lots of great whiskeys things that I stand behind. Very flavorful ones. Yeah. I don't have that in gen. Um, I have good gins. Yeah. I have nice labels, but they all sort of taste the same.

There's not the, oh my God. Gin.

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Amit: I have not, but I think I know how to spell it. I'm pretty certain it's L I N D E N.

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Dan quail,

Michael: former vice president. Oh, he's alive. The rules are simple. Correct? Dan quail is still with us at 75 years. Here we go. Ralph Nader. That's a hard one. Dead or alive. Uh, Ralph. Is alive, correct? Ralph Nader is 88 years old and still going. He's a plant-based diet. That's what I went with. I was like, there's only one thing.

it's he had to do it, probably a vegan based on everything I know about the people who voted for him. He's a vegan test, your knowledge, dead or alive app.com.

We're now gonna get into the more introspective questions, what we think it would've been like to have been this person, the first of these categor. Man in the mirror. What did this person think about their own reflection? I didn't complicate this. I went definitely liked it. Definitely liked it. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Let's move on. okay. All right. Next category, outgoing message. Like man, in the mirror, how do we think they felt about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on, on answering a machine or outgoing voicemail and would they have left it or would they have used the default setting? I wrote definitely like.

Loved it. Yeah. Yeah. And I also think that he would've left the voicemail on his answering machine.

Amit: Yeah. And let's not discard that, uh, a lot of the reason for his long streak on the people's court is he was very sarcastic. He threw in a lot of side jokes. Yeah. Right. And I think this harks back to the, wanting to be an actor as a child.

So I think he would also have fun with the outgoing

Michael: message. He is an interesting figure to have been cast at this role. Like he does have both an authority and a little bit of like a in charge. As you put it earlier. Principle kind of quality, but he's got a likability too. Are you scratched his car?

Admit what you scratch it with my key ring. What did you scratch on his car? I don't know if I'm allowed to say that and you're allowed, you're allowed to tell me what you did. I wrote bastard in the back of it. Bastard. Yeah. I've heard that word before. It's he's good on camera. Yeah.

Amit: That simple rewatching, a lot of this stuff in preparation for this episode, I had a lot of TBE yeah.

Similarities that I was sensing both in appearance, voice, subtle jokes.

Michael: Also kind of like, I know what I'm there for and what my role is here in terms of playing the role of myself on. All right. Category 10 regrets, public or private. What we really wanna know is what, if anything kept this person awake at night?

So we had a couple of the

Amit: easy ones that came

Michael: up earlier. Yeah. In fact, all the stuff I have has already come up. I think I wanna talk about it a little bit more. Certainly being UN unceremoniously dismissed. I don't know if that's a regret, but I think it does say something about how he was communicating with the show runners and the producers.

Amit: I think it could be a regret in putting too much

Michael: trust. Yes, I think that's right. I think that's a good way of putting it. I'm gonna, this is in the private category animal court. This is a joke. Are you kidding me? There's like ducks and cows in the fricking courtroom. Is that what he thinks of your testimony?

I did. . It's just, you might have to throw all the animals out. It's just become so cartoonish. It does seem like there's a story here of a television program that was created in the early eighties. That as ratings went down, the producers eventually decided, you know what? We need somebody nasty. We need more conflict on TV.

We need somebody who's gonna be abrasive. Like judge Judy. And then the move to animal court almost looks desperate. Yes. I mean, it almost, it's a little pathetic. I don't wanna get on too much of a high horse here, but I do wonder if another possible regret here, I think is that he describes over and over that he has a, a mission of education.

And I think that it's possible. He failed in that endeavor. I'm not sure he ever saw that necessarily, but I think your point earlier that. The story. This is really telling is half the people out there are lying and people need a judge in a white robe to settle petty disputes. And that actually most people are cheap and petty or, or something like that.

And the third

Amit: part to trouble me is that petty things can sever connections. Yes.

Michael: I mean, one of the things he says in his book is that he talks about the neighborliness. He felt during the great depression years and during the war years, you know, he tells this story about a friend who. Children die. And they all just like went and were around him.

And he's like, I, I see less and less neighborliness. And he's like, if there's anything I want you to take away from this book, it's that I value loyalty and friendship. He has this thing about two word idioms. He wrote on his bench, patience and restraint. And every time he got frustrated, he would look at a little note that said patience and restraint.

And then at the end of his book, he tries to land the whole thing on this. Message of friendship and loyalty,

Amit: but I think this is the paradox of him, right? So he is a character. Is, has the patience and restraint. He presented that way. He had an educational mission, the show as a whole conveyed the exact opposite.

It started by saying. These are not actors. These are real people in real disputes, and this is being settled. And so people out there are forming this impression of a divided world yeah. Of love and friendship disconnected because people lie.

Michael: Now, have you ever heard of this book, amusing ourselves to death?

Yes. Have you ever read it? No, I just finished it. I finally picked it up and I can't do it justice in this conversation, but I mean, really the argument is that when you move from a world where most people are reading information, Whether that's through newspapers or books, or what have you, when you move from that into an electronic world television.

And now today, social media, the internet screens that what you are now doing is forcing institutions to go through a medium that is built around entertainment. And there is no way of preserving the sanctity of that institution once you do it. And I don't think Waner or any of us maybe understood what he was up against.

He may have had this mission of, I wanna show America the morals and values and high mindedness that we bring to disputes in a court of law. And instead, what he showed is look at how petty people are and look at how like flawed we are and most people are lying. So is this a regret or not? I have to believe that somewhere at three in the morning.

You know, as he's thinking about how he lost the job and all that, that idea had to have crossed his mind. Cause he is a

Amit: smart guy. I have to think so too, especially living into 2017. Yeah. Post all these things that reality has done reality, meaning reality television to our psyches and our views and divisive opinions on everything.

I think he was just an engineer hired for Skynet. I think he was hired to do something that he was good at and he did it properly and he. Through his own definition and through his own values, but what they created was a beast. Yeah. I think he is smart enough just to see where that beast reached,

Michael: but how much personal responsibility do you take for that?

You

Amit: know what I mean? I think it's weighed in. Yeah. But I don't think personal responsibility is part of it. He can't be responsible for knowing or having future binoculars, but then who is where this

Michael: impact is, but then who is right. If you're not somebody who has authority and respect and 55% of Americans think you could be running.

You know, on the Supreme court um, you know, I mean, he, he does have power. That's the thing. And, and I think he's like striving to convey all this sort of moral high ground, and yet at the end of the day, I I'm not even sure it's possible.

Amit: Your question of who is though, I don't know. Is it the producers of the show?

Is it these people that just created programming for entertainment's sake, but actually sampling from real lives and confusing? The audience on what the difference between real and staged is.

Michael: Yeah. I don't know. I think it is an important question. Let's move on. Okay. Category 11, good dreams. Bad. This is not about personal perception, but does this person have a haunted look in the eye?

Something that suggests inner turmoil, inner demons, unresolved trauma. I

Amit: went. I went good. Also, you said something a minute ago about being kept up late at night by the, the, where, where this whole thing ended out. Yeah. In reality, courtrooms, I'm just gonna add another point. He even one up to Alex Eck on the work week.

So one of the things I loved about Alex Eck was he did it all in two days a week. Yes, judge. Waner worked one day a week. That's great. They did 10 episodes in one day and done offer six days. Slept. So sleep tight.

Michael: Sweet judge. that's pretty good. All right. Category 12 mm-hmm cocktail, coffee or cannabis.

This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity? Uh, this may be a question of what kind of drug sounds like the most fun, or maybe this is about access and trying to get at a part of their personality. We're most curious about. Good. I went cocktail. I think a martini at the tennis club.

Sounds nice. I think he's got great stories and I, of both of you in all whites, absolutely the white socks, you know, pulled up. I think he's got good cocktail chatter. I think he's got a lot of interesting stories of today what happened and he has an opinion about how he wants the world to be. But I also do see himself as somebody.

Striving for peace and saying, can you believe these people, not in a way that's judgemental to laugh at them, but just to shine light on the world, that if you wanna understand people and you wanna understand society, then you need to understand their conflicts. What are they arguing about? And what are the stories they're telling themselves about the world?

I think he'd just be great to sit and listen to story after story. And that is for what it's worth, how his biography

Amit: reads. Yeah. And you would get some highly entertaining stories. Addition. His

Michael: educational life. Totally. I mean, and I think the question of what is justice, you know, and how do we achieve it is an interesting question for any society.

And I think, you know, he'll say over and over, world's not perfect. The system's not perfect, but it's the best thing we've gotten. It's here to be honored. And I think every story he would tell would be about his effort to hit that cloudy standard. You know, that goal that's just outta reach.

Amit: Yeah, I went coffee.

Yeah. I wanna have this debate that we talked about in regrets of the idea of harmless entertainment, cuz I don't think it is. He's told himself a story that he's stood by, at least for as long as we know that it was an educational tool and I don't want to have a combative debate, but I want to hear him out.

And I want to tell him that this is honestly, I think this programming amongst one of just very few in my child is one that led me to a belief in the world that was negative. Yeah. And I wanna have that out

Michael: with. I do too, actually. So by the

Amit: third martini, yeah, you can bring up the tough times. Well,

Michael: I mean, but I don't know that he would also have something to offer he's inside of this problem.

He's gonna say, well, that's why every day I sat down and I had this note on my bench that said patients in restraint. And that's why when I wrote my biography, I talked about how I want to feel your pain and. Think that everybody is in a state of pain. I think he's got a lot of heart and a lot of compassion.

And if you were to present him with the case that maybe reality TV and reality justice and courtroom justice is actually a bad thing for America and for the world, I think he would say, well, here's me trying to do my best part in it. I don't think you'd get a satisfying answer from that. I think you should still have the coffee with him.

I don't mean to throw water on that. I'm just, I'm not sure that he's got. The answer we would want to that question, you know, then maybe I just wanna plant the seed. Yeah. Fair enough. So you want two coffees. You want a coffee on Sunday and then maybe talk to him on Thursday?

Amit: Maybe. So if he's available, I mean, if it's a, Thursday's not the one Workday,

Michael: it's 97, he's got a lot of time.

This is true.

Amit: Well, we really need to get our timing. Like where are we placing ourselves

Michael: in this whole there. So look, don't dig into the categories now, man. There's some creative liberties we're taking. All right. I think we're here. The VanDerBeek named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said in varsity blues.

I don't want your.

Amit: so why don't you start? Okay.

Michael: You know, if you look at it in a superficial light, long marriage, lots of children, little bit of tragedy in there, but that's gonna happen if you lived to age 97, an interesting job well-compensated latent life fame fulfilled the childhood dream, a good stories and good storyteller.

What's not to. Maybe it's a little boring, but I don't know what makes life interesting to me is stories and getting to know other people, you know, that's what makes life interesting is finding out about other people's experiences. And this is a great way to do it. So all science kind of point to, yeah, I'd take this life.

And I guess if I was to sort of push myself a little bit more on that and. Is there anything missing here? There's something lacking here for me that I can't quite put my finger on and until I can put my finger on it, I, I feel like the honest jurisprudence is to say yes,

Amit: what about you? I really felt strongly last.

Week rewatching, these shows from 30 years ago and what I think they did to my psyche of just believing how much lying there is out there and how much division in combat and all there is amongst neighbors and friends. I really, really don't like what that message sent. But you said earlier, who is actually responsible for that?

I don't know that Joseph wa. Is cause I do not think that we can place the burden of him being a. Fortune teller of where this is gonna lead. It seems like the best decision you can make with the information available to you at the time. You've justified it with a very good moral reason to work in the education of the law on a public platform where.

Television leads beyond that where a young mind gets further shaped after that you can't isolate the negative impact. 40 years later. I just don't think that's fair. And so if I take the superficial view, the word that you used of fulfilling a childhood dream, going to the same high school as Lawrence Fishburn, and I own a sky.

Yeah. Serving your country in the war, having what seems to be a. Long, stable marriage, having children, also having grandchildren and great grandchildren taking a pretty good career pivot, even though you never left Los Angeles, you went from being a court justice to essentially a TV spokesperson and a personality.

Yeah. And you were also doing it in the way that maybe bill NY or Neil deGrasse Tyson might see the same type of pivot. I wouldn't wanna be betrayed. As he was in being dismissed from the show, I certainly would not wanna do the animal's court. And so, yeah, I'm also a lean. Yes. I'm not an emphatic. Yes. I have a feeling I'm leaning a little more than

Michael: you actually I'm leaning a little harder cuz something in there made me think of something that I don't think we've quite talked about enough.

You know, it's come up before on the show that I'm basically scared of old age. I'm scared of my body, deteriorating of not having all my faculties of not being respected. He actually makes old age look pretty fun. Yeah. You know, if you stop the whole Waner life at age 60, it's pretty good. What's not the love, but the last 30 years are kind of great.

I mean, they're more great than not great. You know? I think I'm actually maybe an emphatic. Yes. Because he also stands for something. So I like the integrity. Okay. Well, are we there? Yeah. Pearl, the

Amit: gates. Michael, you are Joseph a Waner at the Pearl gate standing before you, as St. Peter the proxy for all things after life.

Uh,

Michael: but I'm Jewish.

Amit: Uh, I am the Unitarian proxy for all things afterlife. Okay. Make your case

Michael: St. Peter. You're a judge. I'm a judge. So you and I both understand justice. I. I'll tell you what I understand about justice. It is an imperfect standard. I'm not sure any of us can knock it outta the park and be perfect.

But I think the point is to always try to be a little bit more perfect. And I tried to do that in my life and in my profession. And more than that, I tried to communicate to everybody around the world that. What we should all be striving to do is to be a little bit more perfect, to find compromise, to see other people's points of view, to bring humanity and compassion, to all our interactions.

I think I did that well on the people's court. And certainly that's why I took the job. I was there to elevate the rule of law as something that we should all honor and strive for, because while it may be confusing to some people. Having a standard of law is what sets us all free and gives us all the opportunity to be the most we can be in life.

That's what I was about for all of my career and all of my life. So as you judge me, I hope you'll definitely let me in.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of famous and gravy. If you're enjoying our. Please tell your friends about us, help spread the word. Also, if you're interested in participating in the opening segment, where we quiz people about who today's dead, celebrity is feel free to submit your name. You can reach us at hello@famousandgravy.com.

That's hello@famousandgravy.com. Find us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at famous and gravy, and we also have a newsletter which you can sign up for on our website. Famous and gravy.com famous and gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, original theme music by Kevin Strang.

And thanks so much to this week's sponsor Lindon leaf, organic molecular spirits. Again, you can get a 20% discount on our website. If you use our promo code famous. That's two zero. Thanks for listening. See you next time.