Harmless Weirdo, Hair Brighter than the Sun : James Michael Tyler

Today, we discuss the life of the actor, James Michael Tyler, the man who turned barista experience and a last-minute bleach job into 148 episodes of Friends. I mean is that luck, magic or a strange version of highly-paid-hell where you are stuck being a barista forever no matter what you do?

We dig into the “arc” of his famed Friends character, Gunther in our first ever crossover episode! That’s right, we’re teaming up with Jessica and Zach from Because it Was On - the ultimate podcast for sitcom lovers.  

We follow James Michael (JMT) through the tragic childhood loss of his parents, to a geology degree turned acting MFA that leads him to good ‘ol LA. Los Angeles becomes a parade of survival jobs, including years at a coffee shop, until one “extra” gig on a new show called Friends needs someone who can actually work an espresso machine for the Central Perk scenes. And the rest is freshly brewed history. 

Then Jessica and Zach dig into the character himself: the “harmless weirdo” trope, the way side characters act as audience stand-ins, and the moments where sitcom comedy brushes up against real discomfort. 

But the actor himself was 100% lovable and oddly normal for once? On this show, that in and of itself is bizarre.

Share this with your favorite Friends fan and leave a review with a side character you think deserved their own episode.

Subscribe to Because it Was On! -https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/because-it-was-on/id1662116080 

“If You Knew” read by James Michael Tyler - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf-Gt_ZOAuc

Transcript

Welcome And Neighbor Chaos

Marissa 0:18

Hello and welcome to Dead and Kind of Famous, where we dig into the life stories of dead folks who enjoyed a touch or two of fame in their time.

Courtney 0:26

And now reside permanently in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Marissa 0:30

I'm Marissa Rivera, and I know nothing, but I do know that I'm very excited for this episode because it's our first time having guests.

Courtney 0:40

Yes, I know. And you're it's a crazy situation because Marissa still doesn't know anything, and yet she's sitting next to one of our guests.

Marissa 0:52

One of our co-hosts for this episode.

Courtney 0:54

One of our co-hosts for this episode there who's staying at her house um on a fun uh excursion trip. And uh, and so this is all just blowing her mind, I'm pretty sure. I'm speaking for you, but I would imagine, I would imagine you were imagined correctly, yeah. Yeah. So, and I'm Courtney Blomquist, and I know way too much about this episode, um, and you know, like everything else, but I don't know what's going on. This I'm gonna give you guys like this is like normal gossip where you have no idea who I'm talking about, but I'm just gonna tell you. So the people, I have no idea what's going on with these people that live next door to me. It is the biggest drama of like everybody being like, it's a crack house. They text me about it. Does it feel cracky to you? I mean, it does like look, it does. Like there was like somebody chasing someone with like a like a two by four the other day, being like, You're messing with my girl. Like that happened. So it was so, but at the same time, then these like the dog, there's two dogs and they're pit bulls, which is scary for that kind of house. So, like, you know, they ran into our yard today when I was coming back from a walk and like and I just kind of froze because I'm like, I don't know these dogs, I don't know, but they seemed okay. And Iris just kind of waved to them, they went away. And then the lady came over for the first time and was like, I'm sorry about the dogs, you know, don't call the cops on us because the guy behind us calls the cops on them like all the time. And I was like, It's okay, like, you know, whatever. And then at the meanwhile, he's the guy living back there that calls about him all the time, texting me about it.

Marissa 2:26

I was like, Are you okay? I saw the dogs.

Courtney 2:27

Are you okay? I saw the dogs. I saw the lady come over, and I'm like, I feel like everyone's watching me and I don't know who these people are, and like it's it's a lot. So yikes be that's what I don't know. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. That's part of the reason I'm a little frizzled today. But I I have to take this moment today. We have some very special guests, just like Marissa said, that we want to introduce you to because this episode is like a hybrid of our show and another

Guests Arrive And Crossover Setup

Courtney 2:55

amazing podcast called Because It Was On, which analyzes the TV shows of yesteryear, and they are all about the nostalgia and the deep dive of the entertainment industry and history of it all. So I think this is pretty much a perfect hybrid. Um, and this episode's gonna be a treat. So, you know, I want you guys to introduce yourselves. Who are you? Who is here? Who's in the room? The people don't know.

Jessica 3:17

Hi, I'm Jessica, um, host of Because It Was On. And what I don't know, I don't know how my cats are today because I am traveling. I am I'm here live in studio with Marissa, which is great. Um, but that's what I don't know. So sad.

Zach 3:37

Uh and I am Zach, the co-host of Because It Is On. And I don't know how to repair a small engine, which I didn't know I would ever need to do. But I I've been trying to get a vegetable garden going today. And uh the rototiller I got did not work. And it was it might as well have been made of magic.

Courtney 4:00

I don't I thought that they were made of magic. I I did not know where you were going with that. You were like, I was trying to do a garden after you said you need to fix an engine, and I was like, I don't know how these things are garden is the I didn't want to dig it with a shovel.

Zach 4:18

I'm lazy. No, no, no, no. Don't do that.

Marissa 4:20

No, no, no. No. I ripped up half the yard myself and uh pretty much broke my back. I like took myself out for like three weeks. Not worth it.

Zach 4:30

Yeah. I did that moving all the uh topsoil. So just don't do it. Don't yeah.

Courtney 4:39

I can't do it because there's, you know, my neighbors. So I'm just don't go outside. It's fine. Um, but uh so you guys also know it. I just have to let everybody know. Zach and Jessica also know everything that's going on about this episode, and actually like more than me in some regards. Uh so you know, we kind of have to catch Marissa up to a degree right now. Um, we've given you some clues, I feel like already.

Marissa 5:11

You've given me zero clues. I feel like if you really thought about it, you could, you know, you you could all I know is that Jess and and our friend Nora. So so Jess and Nora are together. Nora's our our mutual best friend. Yes. And so that's how this all happened. They're they're staying here and they keep whispering about this, what's going on in this episode. And I'll I'll come into a room and they'll suddenly stop talking. I'll be like, what? It what are you? I feel like you're talking about. No, no, no, we're just talking about the episode. We're talking about the episode. Yeah, you're fine, you're fine.

The Grave Reveal At Hollywood Forever

Marissa 5:42

Yeah.

Courtney 5:42

So, all right, Marissa, I don't want to keep you in the dark any longer. So let's give you something to work with here, starting per usual with a name and a grave. So this week we are discussing the life of James Michael Tyler. Marissa, have you heard of James Michael Tyler?

Marissa 5:59

No. Okay.

Courtney 6:01

It's you know, not to be confused with like Chad Michael Murray or another confusing three namer of this. Yeah.

Marissa 6:11

So three first names named.

Courtney 6:14

Three first name names. It's true. I know I thought about that. It's it's true. So let's look at this tombstone.

Marissa 6:20

Okay.

Courtney 6:20

I have a few different photos here. Are you following?

Marissa 6:23

I'm following. Okay. It is a classic tombstone. Kind of like really beautiful, like a kind of like a retro like um art deco style. Cool. Yeah, it's like curved on the sides.

Courtney 6:38

It looks like it could be like a jukebox or something.

Marissa 6:40

Yes, that's what it looks like.

Zach 6:41

I'm loving the bench that feels very luxurious.

Marissa 6:44

Yes, a place to sit and admire the headstone. Um, there is his face a colored full color image of his face. They really sprung for it. Yeah, on top of what looks like.

Jessica 7:05

The inscription I think says see you later.

Marissa 7:07

It says see you later. Okay, Angel, see you later. James Michael Tyler. Uh born May 28th, 1962, and died October 24th, 2021.

Courtney 7:20

A Gemini.

Marissa 7:21

A Gemini.

Courtney 7:22

That was so close to your birthday, Marissa.

Marissa 7:24

So close to my B-day. Um, and also his face, I just noticed his face is actually in front of a marble columned building, a white marble columned building. In the headshot. She's looking at the show. In the headshot. Oh, that's a reflection. Like, this is murder, she wrote.

Jessica 7:50

I'm like, are you looking at this?

Courtney 7:54

Is this an escape room? You can actually see the woman taking the picture. You can. It's shiny.

Marissa 8:02

That's what I was gonna say. The very well-kept headstone. Okay. It's shiny, girl. It is shiny. Oh, oh. And yeah, okay. This I feel like this was take how so how old is he? 60. What's the math here?

Jessica 8:17

That would be 59.

Marissa 8:18

59. That's kind of young.

Courtney 8:20

Yeah.

Marissa 8:20

Okay.

Courtney 8:21

Okay. So I and I just want to like point out, because you guys don't know this, but this is probably the first time that we've had someone with like a legit tombstone, actually. I think that like everyone else so far has been in like the mausoleum or one of the mausoleums, or has been like one of those graves that's actually like a p like a like a thing on the ground. I should know these terms by now that we've been talking about all this, but I don't. But I feel like I think like Elvira or not, oh my god, how dare I say Alvira? Vampiras. Not yet. Vampiras is like a little prop, you know. Not um, so like it's it's kind of on the ground, but it's like it's like looks like one of those pillows that you like read on in your bed, you know, that you like lean your back on. Um, but anyway, I also wanted to include um a map here to show um just kind of the proximity of this uh grave. If you're familiar with Hollywood Forever, it's very close to Toto's um cenotaph, which is a term I also didn't know, but they put it here. Um it's Toto's memorial statue. So very, very close to all that. It's close to the road. The dog, yeah. As in the dog.

Marissa 9:32

Yeah, Toto.

Courtney 9:33

Yeah, and we've done we've done Toto. So it's but yeah, so that's this is like a prominent part of the um cemetery, just just right.

Marissa 9:41

Right off of the one of the main pathways.

Courtney 9:44

Yeah, so just just to say. Um, all right, so Marissa, now is the point in the episode where you give us Michael's or James, sorry, James Michaels. I'm gonna pick up every time.

Marissa 9:54

Excuse me, it's James Michael Tyler.

Courtney 9:56

It's James Michael Tyler. Can you get anyway? He goes by any of his names. He does. All right, Marissa, can you give us James Michael

Fake Biography And Real Name Drop

Courtney 10:05

Tyler's entirely fabricated life story? Go.

Marissa 10:08

Sure. Hey, what's up, guys? It's James Michael Tyler, uh, JMT, as everyone knew me growing up. I'm actually um West Coast born and raised, South Bay, what what? Um, always been a California boy, born into a family, a big family uh of six. I was uh the ham in the sandwich, one could say, middle child, um, and I was often ignored and left to my own devices. So I just from a young age created an entire imaginary world for myself. And as one does when you're a California boy, I went to film school in the 70s, 80s, early 80s.

Courtney 11:07

When I was like 10. Yeah, I see what I said.

Marissa 11:10

I went to film school uh in the early 80s and like just had like a really cool ass punk rock time studying film and how to make film, and I was really interested in sound design actually, because I grew up by the ocean and the sound of the waves just always really lulled me to sleep. So I s I studied sound engineering and I started doing film and television and sound. Um, and I know my ep my epitaph should say hear you later, but I wanted everyone to know that I will see you later in the afterlife. Peace out.

Courtney 12:01

Wow. Okay, first of all, I just want to say I love, as always, I love the first person um uh obituary. Always really yeah, yeah.

Marissa 12:12

Um I switched to that like midway through this season, and then I was like, you know what?

Courtney 12:16

This is this is connected to it. Taking notes for my uh my death. Um but hey, what's up?

Marissa 12:27

What's up, everyone? I'm dead.

Courtney 12:31

It's like my will only says you must print this obituary that I wrote myself in these place. Um okay, thank you for those lies. Now let me share the truth um and a little bit more about how we are tackling this episode as a hybrid collab with Because It Was On. Um, first of all, actually before we do that though, can you guys, because I described your show, but would you want to describe it a little bit more um or you know, yeah, a

Orphaned Young And Drawn To Theater

Courtney 13:00

little better?

Jessica 13:00

Sure, yeah, yeah. Our intro tagline uh is we're like that fancy film podcast, but for people who like to talk about that episode when Tootie got trafficked in this facts of life, or you know, any plot line, right? And then we added something to it. What was it, Zach? Uh social and yeah, you got it.

Zach 13:21

But we we only say it uh like a million.

Jessica 13:23

Half the time.

Zach 13:25

We talked about it.

Jessica 13:26

Discuss the social and political political and cultural and cultural.

Zach 13:36

They discussed the social politics and histories of your favorite sitcoms with varying degrees of seriousness.

Courtney 13:44

That's perfect. That's perfect. That's fit. Yes. Like I said, perfect pairing. Yeah, perfect pairing.

Zach 13:50

So uh, we've done like a history an episode on the history of AIDS through um sitcoms. Like uh, like Mr. Belvedere uh was the like propagated the information that you couldn't um spread AIDS just through casual touch before the Surgeon General did. Um Wow. So we have an episode on that. Uh we have an episode on what what what are the highlights? What would you like to hang your hat on, Jessica?

Jessica 14:23

Yeah, there's a few ones that I really like. Um we had an episode on masculinity comparing Fraser and Home Improvement. That was great. It was really interesting, actually. That's incredible. Um there was uh working class uh home helpers, which was the nanny and who's the boss. It's really interesting.

Zach 14:47

Single moms is one of my favorite.

Jessica 14:49

Single moms who work too hard. Yeah. That one is great. That one is great. Uh is Lois a good mom from Malcolm and I listened to that episode and I loved it.

Courtney 14:58

That was great. Yeah. That was really great because you're you were very fair. I like that. I feel like you were very, very fair in assessing her as a mom, you know, criticism where it's deserved, um, like her, you know, military torture tactics, like maybe not so great, but other stuff good. What is she gonna do? You know, what is she gonna do? She's she's overrun. She's overrun.

Zach 15:22

They convinced her she had cancer.

Courtney 15:24

Yeah. Yeah. And and her husband is like, you know, I don't know what he's doing. I don't even know what he does for a job. So yes, I get it. I get it, Lois. Where look, like you're doing the best you can. I can't judge. Can't judge. So, okay, great. So perfect. Um, I will start. I have to say, James Michael Tyler is the man I thought I couldn't find in a graveyard of weirdos like Hollywood Forever. He is a very normal dude, a really nice guy, not insanely complicated or wildly eccentric. He's the dude in LA who was working in the service industry and essentially got his break by being capable, kind, reliable, and of course lucky because James Ty Michael Tyler JMT, JMT, JMT, landed a role on one of the longest-running, most popular sitcoms of all time, friends. Oh, wait, is this Gunther?

Marissa 16:20

Yes. Oh my god!

Courtney 16:22

I didn't recognize it without the bleach hair. I know. He's got dark hair in the photo. It's a it's I I so but now I see it. Chefs kiss Gunther for giving us your picture without looking like Gunther. Like this set us up perfectly for this episode.

Marissa 16:38

Yes, I told Oh my god. Yes, uh Gunther.

Courtney 16:43

Yes. So Zach and Jessica are going to cover the character arc of his famous role, Gunther, while I will be covering JMT's life details. So I will kick us off with his birth. Great. All right. James Michael Tyler was born on May 28th, 1962, in Winona, Mississippi, or Winona, Mississippi. I bet they say it Winona down there, you know. If you're from Mississippi, like the Judd. Winona. Winona, Mississippi.

Marissa 17:14

My Winona, Mississippi.

Zach 17:15

Okay.

Marissa 17:16

So I got that wrong.

Courtney 17:20

I mean, usually Marissa does default to a Southern accent, so it's funny that the one time that you could have, you know, that you didn't. So growing up, he preferred to go by his middle name, Michael, in true Southern fashion. He wouldn't start going by his first name slash first two names until he moved to Hollywood. And that makes sense because he really moved to Hollywood when he when the three name thing was like very in vogue. Yes. Um, but I will just call him James Michael because I have to make a choice that we can all follow or JMT. You know, we'll switch it up. We'll switch it up, we'll do what we need to do. Um, I probably wrote it differently a few times just to keep it interesting. So James Michael's father, DeWitt Eugene Tyler, was a retired United States Air Force DeWitt is that how you'd say that? Dee DeWitt DeWitt. Yeah, was a retired United States Air Force captain, and that was his father. His mother, Mary Sue Pullen, was a homemaker, and James Michael was the youngest of five children. Oh, I was close on that. I know you did get that. He was a big family, so not the ham, more like the like butt and the bread. Yeah, yeah. Um caboose. Exactly. All of his siblings beside him were grown and out of the house in 1973 when tragedy struck the Tyler home. DeWitt got in a car accident and died from his injuries, and less than a year later, Mary Sue died of breast cancer. So the worst double whammy, like, yeah. So by the time he was 11 years old, James, James Michael, was orphaned. So I know it's a sad start to Gunther's uh backstory here. So sad. That's really sad.

Zach 19:16

He really brings that pain to the performance.

Courtney 19:28

I know it's the yeah, that's the it's the sadness in his eyes. So his sister Linda welcomed him into her home where she was raising an 18-month-old daughter and expecting her second child. So, you know, she had like time to spare to raise her brother.

Marissa 19:47

Um To raise a preteen, too.

Courtney 19:50

Yeah, exactly. He was like in seventh grade, sixth, seventh grade, something like that at this time. So um basically his nieces grew up with him as a brother. And although Linda says he was reserved, he was also very funny and always pranking his little niece sisters, sister nieces, whatever you would call them in this weird scenario. So um his brother-in-law slash father figure, Dr. James W. Clark, was on the music faculty at Anderson University, where he was living in South Carolina. Oh, did I not say that here? That's important. They he moved in with his sister Linda in South Carolina. So he had to move from Mississippi to South Carolina.

Zach 20:28

South whereabouts.

Jessica 20:30

Um that might be familiar.

Zach 20:32

Oh, yeah. I grew up in South Carolina.

Courtney 20:34

Did you? Oh my gosh. Well, it's where Anderson University is. I think it's Anderson, South Carolina. Let me see. I didn't write that here. Yeah, yeah. So correct me if I'm wrong, listeners, because I'm not looking it up at this point. Um so that was his father figure, was his brother-in-law, basically, and he got him interested in music. So although he experienced extreme tragedy, he grew up in a loving and stable home with family members and everything. So that's great. Yeah. Best case for a worst case, you know? Yes.

Marissa 21:06

Um best case, worst case.

Courtney 21:07

Best case, worst case. Yep, yep, yep. So later on, he graduated from Clemson University, where he majored. Do you know that?

Zach 21:16

Clemson University. Yeah, all the worst people that I knew in high school went to Clemson University.

Marissa 21:21

Yeah, yeah. Accurate. There Clemson is a big uh rival for Florida State. So that's how I know Clemson.

Courtney 21:29

Wow, okay. I did I didn't know. I didn't know.

Zach 21:32

It's a very fratty school. That's my impression of it.

Courtney 21:35

Got it. Okay, well, that's where he went.

Marissa 21:37

The frat boy goes Florida State. So Right, right. So I think frats are more of a southern thing than anything. I I I feel they're they're so. Yeah, they're vicious.

Zach 21:49

They run the campus in the south.

Courtney 21:51

It's like why people choose certain schools, which is insane to me. But they're like, what parties and can I go to? That would be fun. Um what themed parties? Yeah.

Marissa 22:03

Do I have to pay to be part of I I find Greek life to be so weird.

Courtney 22:08

Oh yeah. Like this is such a tangent, but I um I tried to rush for a hybrid frat sorority, which is honestly like a terrible idea. And why would anyone do that? But I didn't That to me sounds like the theater department. Basically. And then they thought that I like ratted out the like theater hazing whatever party that they had, and that I was the narc. Um, and so then they didn't let me in, and then later found out it wasn't true, and they're like, We're sorry, you can join. And I was like, Fuck you. And I did it. And then I transferred to a school that had no Greek life intentionally.

Zach 22:44

So Jessica and I went to Roosevelt, and like Greek life there was just like occasionally, like five guys would be like, We're trying to get something going here.

Jessica 22:54

Yeah. It was that and then like the one lesbian cult.

Zach 22:58

Oh, yeah, yeah. You did join a cult for a little.

Jessica 23:03

I did. I did. I left, I left before the the the service hours were done. So never was a full-fledged member. But yeah, that's those were the two options.

Marissa 23:13

Yeah. I had I literally had no idea what Greek life was. Like, I guess I had kind of seen it in American media, but like growing up in Puerto Rico, especially like we don't have that shit. And um, I remember the first week in the dorms, the girl next door to me was like getting ready, and she comes out and she's like, Oh yeah, how do I look? Um, I'm like, You look cute. She's like, I'm going to rush. And I was like, Oh, rush off to where? And she's like, She's no rush for like the a sorority. And I was like, I don't know what that like I literally she was throwing all these terms around. I was like, I don't, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't. I this is the first time I'm hearing these words.

Courtney 23:56

I don't speak Greek. I don't speak Greek.

Marissa 23:59

I speak English, kind of.

Courtney 24:02

So anyway, JMT, JTM, JMT, JMT, JMT. He graduated. JMT, JMT. He graduated from Clemson University as a frat boy. No, I don't know that. Where he majored in geology, but became very involved in theater.

Marissa 24:17

Well, since he's Southern, I'm gonna do a Southern accent and fuck everyone. Including you, Courtney.

Courtney 24:24

I always make fun of you for it. It's I'll never correct. I accept I love it.

Marissa 24:29

You do, you do, you do. I was fascinated with kind of being someone else. After I graduated, I had one job offer from Exxon to monitor oil rigs in the Gulf.

LA Survival Jobs And Friends Break

Jessica 24:41

Oh, that sounds awful. I know. That's the job you get when you're a rock boy, you know? He's got that biology degree. What else are you gonna do with rocks?

Courtney 24:50

I'm a rock man. Yeah. No, I don't climb them. I just I just drill out them.

Marissa 24:56

Yeah, drill them in the middle of the ocean. Yeah, those jobs, too, are like really well paying and they're very dangerous, though. Yeah, and they're and they're isolated. It's like six months contract. It's like you have to be out there in the water alone pretty much for months at a time.

Courtney 25:14

And when I picture Gunther in particular, like doing that, weirdly it kind of works. I actually feel like it kind of works. I feel because he's like kind of he could just like focus, he could be quiet and do his thing, and then like somebody would come by and he'd just be like, What? Like, I it kind of works for me.

Zach 25:31

Imagine like the lighthouse, but the Gunther keeps chiming in every once in a while, as Robert Pattinson uh is like arguing with a seagull.

Jessica 25:42

He's like no, I think he'd be best suited for a job where there aren't any women. So yeah, I agree. I think that's appropriate for Gunther.

Courtney 25:56

He needs to concentrate, yeah. But his fascination with being someone else won out and ultimately led James Michael to pursue an MFA in acting from the University of Georgia, which is in Athens, I believe.

Marissa 26:10

So he went to grad school.

Courtney 26:12

He went to grad school, he went all the way. He went all the way, he ran the distance.

Zach 26:17

What a pivot.

Courtney 26:18

I know.

Marissa 26:20

Rocks to rock star, I guess.

Courtney 26:23

Oh yeah. So after his graduation in 1987, he sold cars in Olympia, Washington for a time, which honestly is not explained in anything and makes no sense to me. But as someone who has been a chocolate tour guide, knife salesperson, and bong photographer at various points in my 20s, who am I to judge?

Marissa 26:43

So he had a survival job.

Courtney 26:46

Yes, exactly.

Marissa 26:47

I can't even I can't imagine him trying to sell anything.

Jessica 26:50

Oh, I know.

Courtney 26:51

He was probably terrible at it. Yeah, he was probably so bad at it.

Jessica 26:54

So all the good rocks in Washington, though, you know?

Courtney 26:56

I'm oh maybe that's what maybe that's what brought him there. Maybe he was waffling. Maybe he had some fear about pursuing acting, and he was like, but the rocks Yeah, rocks called to me.

Jessica 27:05

Yeah.

Courtney 27:06

And then they didn't. Um, so let me see here. Um, anyway, he eventually made it to Los Angeles, where he had roommates and more random jobs, just like everyone you ever known in LA, just a normal actor dude. Some of those jobs included being a barback at the palace, selling keyboards at guitar center, and working as a barista at the bourgeois pig, a job he held for several years. Apparently, his low point was handing out samples of cereal in a grocery store. He recalls.

Marissa 27:41

It was awful stuff and hardly anyone wanted it. The store didn't want it either, so I ended up with an entire case of it. I took it home and lived off of it for two weeks.

Courtney 27:52

For anyone who cares, my low point in LA was when I accepted a weekend gig at a gaming and sport convention, thinking that it would be about basketball, and ended up signing people up for a hunting magazine as a vegan and handing out free knives to strangers.

Zach 28:10

So relatable. Relatable.

Marissa 28:14

Yeah. Yeah. I remember you called me after your unquote shift, and you were like, So, what am I doing with my life? This is what my day was. And I was like, What? At a convention center handing out knives all day.

Courtney 28:29

It was weird. And then, like, they paid me in cash, you know, and they're like, Hey, can you mail this giant vinyl sign back to us? And I was like, Yeah. And then I threw it in the trash on my way out. I was like, I'm not, I'm done with this day entirely, and there's no fucking way I'm putting this thing in my car. So um, that's neither here nor there. JMT also worked as a PA on the Paul Newman war film Fat Man and Little Boy, which I had not heard of and is apparently not very good, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

Marissa 29:02

I've never heard of it either.

Courtney 29:04

Yeah, it's about the like uh atom bombs or something like that.

Jessica 29:08

Dads need more films, you know. TMC's got to show something. So right.

Courtney 29:13

So as far as acting goes, he didn't get much work for six years outside of being an extra, and that is originally how he made it to the set of friends on the first day of filming in 1994. An assistant director he had met on another job tipped him off to the opportunity, as James Michael recalls.

Marissa 29:32

He said, Hey, there's another extra opportunity for you tomorrow. It's this new show called Friends, and it might even go six episodes. If you want it, you get paid 40 bucks and you get a free meal. And at the time, that was very important to me. So he wanted to eat. I guess that the first few years in LA, you're like, free food? What? Free food? I'm there.

Courtney 29:58

Yeah. So the reason James Michael specifically came to mind was because they needed someone who could stand behind an espresso machine and appear to be using it properly for the central perk scenes. Most of the available extras had no barista experience, which is honestly kind of shocking. Um I was gonna say, right? Yeah, super bizarre. Like who we're 90s.

Jessica 30:21

It was 90s. We just learned about coffee.

Courtney 30:23

That's true.

Marissa 30:24

Coffee just got popular just now.

Courtney 30:27

Yeah, people were still drinking Folgers. It's fine. Um, but James Michael had several years of experience under his belt at that point.

Marissa 30:35

He was later quoted as saying, I honestly always thought my master's in fine arts would get me further in the acting world than knowing how to work an espresso machine. That was a happy accident, and I am very, very grateful to have had the skill.

Courtney 30:52

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess whatever's in your I don't think that would get you that far today. Be like, yeah, yeah, me too, asshole.

Marissa 30:59

Yeah.

Courtney 31:01

Also the night before he showed up on set, James Michael had decided to help out an aspiring stylist friend.

Marissa 31:08

The evening before I went on for the first episode, filming as a background performer, a friend of mine wanted to practice on someone's head because they wanted to be a stylist. And I just volunteered my hair and they bleached it. And I showed up with that for the first episode, and the executive producer liked the look.

Zach 31:27

Big risk for I don't think you're supposed to do that. Just randomly show up with a radically different hairstyle.

Courtney 31:34

I guess, but if you're an extra, like, does it, you know, like who's watching? Right. They're like, we don't care. Like, is the idea. But I right. So, like, I think I think that's why he's like, whatever, I'm making 40 bucks and getting like a lunch. It worked. It worked, it worked. So, um, they also appreciated his attire choice, a bold maroon blazer and a wide gaudy tie. He was doing his best to dress the way he imagined a New York barista would look.

Marissa 32:06

So honestly, I love that.

Courtney 32:09

Yeah, I knew you would love that because you are so good at that. Marissa is so good at, I mean, it is why, it's not why, it's just part of why you're so good at what you do. But I feel like you're like, okay, this is like these four lines that I'm getting about this person. And now I'm gonna create an entire outfit that is exactly who they are, and it's like always perfect. And I'm just like, how do you do that? It's it blows my mind. It's an incredible ability.

Marissa 32:34

And I must say, like, not to toot my own horn, but a lot of the times I'll show up to the wardrobe fitting and they'll ask me to bring what I wore to the audition and callback. Because I also do that, I wear the same outfit for both the audition and callback. Because if I figured out the outfit, I'm not gonna figure it out twice. You know what I mean? So I wear the same thing and I always bring it in. I would say probably 70% of the time, I wear at least most, most of what I wore in in the audition. I wore my own wardrobe, which they pay you for, which is nice. Wow. Clothes I already own, and they pay you to they pay you extra to use your clothes.

Courtney 33:17

What about when you borrowed stuff from me? Like, did I get a cut? I just don't remember that. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marissa 33:24

Remember all those coffees I got you?

Courtney 33:26

Because coffee was really popular. And although he was required to look like he knew how to operate an espresso machine, James had the unique challenge of convincingly operating an intentionally defunct antique espresso machine. So it looked really pretty, didn't work um on purpose. Grinding espresso beans would have been, you know, would have caused sound issues. So he passed empty cups to the other extras and they mimed drinking. Um, and then they brought in like real coffee for the main characters, basically, from somewhere else. So that's how it was done. That's how the magic was was made.

Marissa 34:03

To this day. So you'll have a coffee at coffee station or a coffee sort of coffee and tea truck um at Crafty, and a lot of the time uh the higher ups will prefer a different coffee, and so uh the higher ups will order out coffee and get special coffee delivered, even though there's like coffee on demand, and it's fine coffee, but there's coffee like on demand. That is a baller move.

Courtney 34:36

Yeah, that's what they were doing in like the final four seasons of Friends, I bet, you know. Before that, they're like, we can do that. Yeah. They're like, no, we are we're worth a million bucks an episode or whatever it was they're making. So um executive producers David Crane and Marta Kaufman took notice of him.

Marissa 34:55

Now I'm Marta. Okay. When he started as an extra on Friends, his unique spirit caught our eye, and we knew we had to make him a character.

Courtney 35:06

Sorry, Marta. By the second season, Marta asked him if he had real acting experience. James Michael responded with a deadpan.

Marissa 35:15

Well, I do have a master's of fine arts degree.

Courtney 35:20

The next week he was given a name Gunther and a line.

Marissa 35:24

Yeah.

Courtney 35:27

Said with gusto. Um he went on to appear in 148 episodes and have a long-standing storyline of harboring unrequited feelings for Rachel Green, which I'm sure we will discuss. He continued to work at the bourgeois pig for the first four years, but then decided to go, mostly because he felt guilty for taking the shifts.

Marissa 35:49

Once Gunther was more established, they would have me on all week, not just one day a week, basically. I thought, okay, I don't really have time for this. The bourgeois pig managers and owners said, Honestly, you're only here like one or two shifts. And there were other employees who were friends of mine, he continued. I loved it for the social aspect. It was like my way to see everybody in the neighborhood, but I'm like, I really should give these shifts up because it just didn't seem right.

Courtney 36:19

I feel like you've had this exact same scenario in I was gonna say, yeah.

Marissa 36:25

I was I kept my day job for like way longer than I needed to, and I would always just like give up my shifts and stuff. And I it got to a point where I was working like one or two times a month at uh a comedy club I was working at, and we had TVs in the bar, and so a lot of times I would be working a shift, and the bartenders would be like, Marissa, your commercial's on TV. What the fuck are you doing here? Please leave. Why are you here? Why are you here? Yeah, yeah. So you get it. It's hard, it's hard to let go of that safety net, though. It really is.

Courtney 37:02

Yeah, and and also like he started as an extra. This is like, you know what I mean?

Marissa 37:06

It's kind of like, yeah, you give me a name and a storyline, but like where he thought he might be used for maybe six episodes if he got lucky for $40 a day.

Courtney 37:15

Right. Yeah, totally. I get it. So he didn't, he didn't need it anymore. Although estimates of his earnings vary. Celebrity Net Worth calculated that he earned an impressive $4.65 million from playing Gunther on Friends, which doesn't account for another one to two million that he collected when the show was sold into syndication. So not too shabby for barista, who was originally cast as a background barista, you know.

Marissa 37:45

And that's why you unionize, baby. That's incredible. Yeah. That is amazing. Good for him.

Courtney 37:55

Yeah, really good. So he definitely rose above his original casting, and many fans even refer to him as the seventh friend. But he was humble to the end.

Marissa 38:06

When asked about how fans react to him, he said, Fans don't really quote Gunther lines back to me, but I often have people saying, Hey Gunther, make me a coffee. And I'm like, Hey, dude, Gunther was a character I played, but I'll make you a coffee just to be nice.

Courtney 38:22

So nice.

Marissa 38:23

What a sweet, what a sweet, sweet, sweetie pie.

Courtney 38:25

Yeah, what a kind soul. Um, fans may not be calling out their favorite Gunther lines on the regular, but James had a few favorites of his own. In an interview with today, James said that he especially enjoyed getting to say the line to Phoebe's loose-shorted commando boyfriend.

Marissa 38:44

Hey, buddy, this is a family place. Put the mouse back in the house.

Zach 38:49

Put the mouse back in the house.

Marissa 38:51

Put that mouse back in the house.

Courtney 38:54

That is a great line. That's a great line. That is a great line. So another notable tidbit is that James Michael married his first wife, Barbara Chadsey, in 1995, just a year after beginning working on Friends. They separated in 2003 and didn't file for divorce until a decade later, which is interesting. Um, some sources list Barbara as a personal trainer, but I don't really know who she is or what she did for a living, but you know, fun facts. Like just a just a side note. He was married a lot of this time. So now I want to pass the baton to Zach and Jessica so they can tell us all about the character of Gunther. But real quick, let's hear how James Michael himself would describe the character.

Marissa 39:37

I would say Gunther is a nice guy. He's a very shy guy, inexperienced in the ways of love, but a good soul, a good heart deep down for everyone, except Ross.

Jessica 39:53

Okay, time for our bullshit.

Gunther And The Harmless Weirdo Trope

Jessica 39:55

Oh, yeah. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Time for what we do. Um, yeah, I think there's like two ways to think about the character of Gunther. Um, I know this time's like set aside for us to talk about his arc, and it's like, Gunther, Gunther doesn't really have an arc.

Zach 40:16

It's arc is a big word for what's so he was in 148 episodes, but a lot of the time he's just doing whatever.

Jessica 40:25

He's just saying, here's your coffee. Um, no, his whole thing is he's in love with Rachel. So it's like I think he's best contextualized in like the the trope that's really common, which is like the harmless weirdo. Uh the harmless weirdo who's in love with a woman well out of his league.

Marissa 40:46

Um doesn't really know he exists.

Jessica 40:49

Yes, who doesn't, you know, at best doesn't know they exist. At worst, um, you know, is is hostile to the affection. Um, and so this is like other examples of this trope are like Screech from Saved by the Bell with Lisa.

Zach 41:06

Extremely harmful weirdo.

Jessica 41:09

But also harmless. I you know, I think we'll talk more, we'll talk more about the trope, right? Of the harmless weirdo and kind of like what that means and why it exists and like what it might say about our culture because that's our bullshit that we do. Um and yeah, so Screech is an example, uh, Fez from that 70s show is an example. Um, what are some other ones? Craig from Malcolm in the Middle. Zach, you got any harmless weirdos? You can think about it.

Courtney 41:39

Wait, Craig from Malcolm in the Middle. Who is Craig?

Jessica 41:41

He worked at the grocery store with Lois.

Courtney 41:43

Right, yeah.

Jessica 41:44

Oh Urkel. Urkel fair. Urkel, the biggest one of all, perhaps. Urkel. Yeah, yeah.

Zach 41:51

Um, related kind of to the nice guy trope, I think we talked about the stuff.

Jessica 41:55

I they're the opposite ends of the the, like, they're the flip side of the coins, right? Like the nice guy trope is like girls don't like the nice guy, and like, you know, she I just guys always finish last. Ross is the nice guy, Gunther's the weirdo. Okay. That's just yeah, you know, if it's that 70 show, Eric is the nice guy, Fez is the weirdo, right? Like, there's they don't always come in pairs um because no one on Saved by the Bell is the nice guy. No, they're in hell. That's our canon for Saved by the Bell is it actually takes place in hell. Um Zach Morris is the devil. Zach Morris is the devil. He can control time. He's he is the devil, or at least a higher level demon.

Marissa 42:41

That's so funny. That's such a hilarious take.

Courtney 42:46

And I just remember the diet pills or whatever was happening with that episode.

Zach 42:50

Yeah, I'm so excited.

Jessica 42:52

Yeah, classic, classic episode.

Zach 42:55

Um and again, entirely Zach Morris's fault.

Courtney 43:00

What did he call her fat or something?

Zach 43:03

He he wanted her to be like uh he kept putting pressure on her to uh do his sexy girl dance video. Um, and so she and she was also like studying for a test or whatever, and so she's burned the candle open. She's having a panic attack, and he's like, Well, okay, well, I'm sorry you're weak, but but you still need to do it.

Jessica 43:26

Get it together. Yeah, you're like an act. Yeah, yeah, it was like an energy pills situation. Yeah, yeah. Most things in Save by the Bell, they come back to Zach. So go ahead and watch it through that lens if you guys are interested in a rewatch of Save by the Bell in Hell.

Zach 43:43

Um but harmless weirdo.

Jessica 43:46

Yes, the harmless weirdo.

Zach 43:47

A few characteristics of it is uh there's sort of like a neutered, um uh like emasculated version of a man a little bit uh the screech article. Um like there There's that one joke in um Friends where Gunther is in his usual spot, just like lurking behind the couch, listening. Um, and Rachel's talking about her man problems, and she's like, I want, oh, I did I want to date somebody. He gets excited in the back, and then uh she says, I want a man, and he like walks away. Like, oh, it's and walks away.

Marissa 44:24

He's like, Oh, not me then. Let me shucks.

Courtney 44:29

Yeah. Interesting.

Zach 44:32

And you just sort of like in the periphery of the woman's life, sometimes a sex pest.

Marissa 44:39

I don't know if Gunther necessarily is a sex pest, but I would say I would just I was just thinking, I would say Janice might be the female, you know, version.

Jessica 44:51

Uh, you know, the female version does exist. I think the the interesting juxtaposition is the female versions of this are more resoundly hated. Um, whereas the male versions of this are seen as like classic characters.

Zach 45:05

Yeah.

Jessica 45:06

That's so true.

Zach 45:07

I think um Tina in uh Bob Sperger's would be like a beloved version of it.

Jessica 45:14

That's the closest we're gonna get. Yeah. Yes.

Zach 45:17

Bob Sperger's breakfast and mold.

Jessica 45:19

Yeah, they intentionally do that. But yeah, they the the male versions. I think that's like part of what I think about with this trope is like how do we expect like the objects of their affection to react to them in these shows? And I think that like says a lot about where these characters are like why this trope exists. And it's like I think we expect that everybody knows that the the character that they're after is out of their league. Um, we do sometimes like root for them to get what they want, but on the whole, we know it's not realistic because it falls outside of like our pecking order of what types of men get what types of women and what types of women should, you know, um go for certain types of men. But on the whole, there's an expectation for women to see this type of behavior that these characters like Gunther, he's he's on the more harmless end, I would say. But characters like Gunther exhibit as something that they should just tolerate and think is sweet and nice, and harmless, and harmless when um Gunther was her boss. Gunther was Rachel's boss for like a considerable period of this show, and that's uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable power dynamic, and it's a weird situation to be in. Um, not so harmless when you're literally someone's employer. Um, and then I think like on the other end of it too, the other way women who are in this position are treated is as though they are taking advantage of this person's like goodwill and good nature. Like there's a time where like Rachel has a hairless cat and Gunther's the only one who will like buy it from her, and he buys it from like a like a thousand dollars more than if she paid $1,500 more. Which at the time in the 90s, yeah. I don't know where he's getting it from his barista job. That's his whole life savings is gone.

Marissa 47:23

I'm gonna see I'm gonna see what $1,500 in 1994 is exactly.

Jessica 47:27

So it's like, and and like I think a little bit of how that is framed is like she's aware of his affections. That's part of the joke, is like she's aware of his affections, and like she essentially takes advantage of it when no one else is available, and so I think that's like a slightly harmful way for this dynamic to be set up because I think it just gets like it's a way of normalizing harassment that women face, and also like it's it's a way of saying that like women essentially can take advantage of it when at the end of the day, Gunther's just been weird to her this whole time, right? But we're supposed to love him, I think, as an audience.

Marissa 48:13

Yeah, and just so everyone knows, fifteen hundred dollars in 1994 equates to about three point three thousand three hundred to three thousand almost thirty four hundred dollars.

Jessica 48:26

I've never met a barista with three thousand dollars in their bank account ever. No, he affirmed that cat. That was a Klarna purchase. That was like that was a buy now pay later cat and Klarna cat. That's his name, Klarna. It would be a good name for his cat. He's still paying it. There's Smelly Cat and there's Klarna cat. That's Klarna Cat. He Klarna that cat for sure. Some lay away.

Courtney 48:51

Damn. Well, I want to know. So tell me like some of the things that when you have this perspective, like what are some of the instances of Gunther's behavior that are the most um problematic? Yeah.

Zach 49:08

I would be interested to hear this because I have a slightly less harsh take on Gunther. Like, I was looking for it too. I was, I was, I was combing through and I was like, all right, I know this trope. He's gonna smell her hair.

Jessica 49:22

He does smell her hair. He does smell he does smell her hair regularly. Regularly smell her hair. Anytime he's near enough, he's getting a whiff. Oh my god. That's you know what?

Courtney 49:33

That would be they probably just didn't from an actor side of it. He probably just was never really. I mean, he definitely wasn't getting a lot of lines most of the time, right? So it's like he was doing a lot with a little.

Jessica 49:43

Yeah, he was doing a lot with a little. Uh Gunther is like a nicer version of this character. It's like as tame as this version of this character can be.

Zach 49:52

Um, internal monologues and stuff, mostly.

Jessica 49:57

Mostly internal monologues, yes. Um his like he he sits within this overall trope of this type of character. Um, he is like he's weird with her and like how he interacts. Enough that like if you're a woman, you notice this type of behavior, right? Like he's not doing anything to like outwardly harass her or abuse his power, but it's weird enough to be like, yeah, my boss smells my hair, you know, smells your hair, calls your sweetheart. Uh he outwardly hates my like hostile to my boyfriend, like hostile to my boyfriend. My boss has built an entire fantasy life in his head of running away with me, you know. Like there, there's enough there for it to be like uncomfortable. He is the more tame, mild version of this. And at the end of the day, like this character only exists to make Ross look cool because that's hard to do.

Marissa 51:00

Comparison, yeah. Because that's hard to do. Yeah, that is very hard to do. That is, yeah.

Jessica 51:05

Yeah, it's there to make like Ross suck less. Like, that's the entire reason Gunther exists. And like Zach probably, we should probably should just let Zach talk more because every time we go in hard on friends, we get eight up. So I should like it. It's true. People don't like people don't like that at all.

Marissa 51:29

He's stepping up to the plate, he's ready for the fight.

Jessica 51:31

Yeah, he's cracking his knuckles. Well, we just won't put this one on TikTok, you know. Yeah, we get ate up. But go ahead, Zach, go ahead. With your you have a charitable view. You go ahead. So speak on behalf of the hair sniffers.

Zach 51:43

No, I think I mean I basically agree with you. Like, as far as the trope goes, he's probably like on the end of the spectrum. Uh it's probably not a trope, but there's way worse. Uh absolutely.

Jessica 51:56

Screech is way worse. Yeah, screech is way worse.

Zach 51:58

Uh uh, Gunther is just a sad sack that pines for uh a girl that comes to his coffee shop. Um, and he sniffs her hair. So let's not get it twisted. Um, but I so you say he only exists to make Ross uh look better by comparison. That's definitely one thing that Gunther does. He also um, and this this is like a thing with the trope of it characterizes the um the woman character as desirable. So um Rachel is this it girl and like everyone's obsessed with her, and yeah, like she's floating through this New York life and stuff. Um, and so Gunther uh being one of the people that's obsessed with Rachel um is part of like defining her character, and that in itself can be a little problematic because it's um uh defining her by her desirability uh for men.

Courtney 53:01

Um by the male gaze.

Zach 53:03

By the male gaze, yeah. It's very male gazy. Um and the other thing that I think like Gunkler does is um it's the writing style of Friends, where um it's it's a very meta show. It likes its references to itself. Um it um it's just sprinkled throughout. Uh there will be like cold opens where um like they did um the one I think it's called the one with the ovaries, um, where they did like a quiz show about themselves um as like a little parlor game, but it was basically friends trivia. Um they do that kind of thing. They uh will have like the other friends like listen in to Ross and Rachel arguing and like they're acting as like an audience stand-in. Um there's references, like they'll call out the absurdity that you would ever be able to consistently get um the same couch in a New York uh coffee shop, uh, that sort of thing all the time. And Gunther plays a role in that a lot. He uh is sort of he acts as the audience stand-in in a lot of the bits, uh, where like Joey will be um flirting with a girl and lying about himself, and Gunther will be the back going, huh, huh? That kind of thing. Like I think Gunther uh had a bit where Joey walked up to him and said, Where's Chandler? He's like, I thought you were Chandler.

Marissa 54:30

Yeah. Um it's just uh so that's funny. Yeah, that's funny. He had he also it's like the one-liner trope too, like the the one sort of side character that has the good one-liners, you know, every other episode. Yeah, he's that too. Which I'm I'm I was always like, yeah, Gunther, get him, get him with that line.

Courtney 54:54

Yeah, yeah, because yeah, because Marissa, you know, you have the unique gift of being able to have like one word, honestly, and and like a side eye, and you get the whole point across. And it is a skill. It is a skill, you know?

Jessica 55:09

Yeah.

Marissa 55:10

Flips her pixie. I'm flipping, I'm flipping my pixie cat. Thank you.

Jessica 55:16

Yeah, he's definitely the only one taking the like taking shots at pretty much anybody on the cast. Um, outside like he is the only nod that like they're living in a fantasy world, but so is he with three thousand dollars for a cat.

Courtney 55:29

So yeah, he did uh he did an unspeakable crime to get that cat. He did something awful. He like, I mean, if he was he stole from the central perk for sure.

Jessica 55:43

He stole it.

Zach 55:45

He took some of those golden beans out. Damn.

Courtney 55:48

Yeah, he did something shady. What if he did something really dark and that's the spin-off series? It's like breaking.

Jessica 55:54

It's just like breaking, yeah. That's where I was going to.

Courtney 56:00

With the dad from Malcolm in the middle, just for just to make sure that you know they can pull it off.

Jessica 56:06

Just espresso flavored meth, you know?

Marissa 56:09

Oh my god. Can you imagine?

Courtney 56:13

That's where all of it's hiding. Duncer and grinder.

Zach 56:16

Yeah.

Courtney 56:18

It is interesting to think about for a character that has only like one line, you know, or two lines in an episode, uh, who and and in your life who that person is, which would be somebody like your barista. And then you don't really know anything about them. To you, they are a person who says like two or three things, but like what the hell is going on back there? A lot. They're a person, they have a life. So I feel like there is a lot to fill in with Gunther for sure.

Zach 56:43

Yeah. I was thinking today um that he he's kind of a little bit like a more modern character um in like comedy, like a Dan Harmon sort of character, where like in community, there are lots of uh like Dan Harmon's style a lot of the time is that uh like a side character will have like a surprisingly rich, detailed life, and we get like a glimpse of that, and it like challenges uh the narrative of um or the structure of the show a little bit, where there's like a main cast, and it'll complicate things by having a really rich side character. And Gunther is like that a lot of ways. He speaks Dutch, he speaks fluent Dutch.

Jessica 57:23

Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, he had a soap character. He was a soap star, yeah.

Zach 57:27

Um he had roommate $300 to throw on a crowd.

Jessica 57:32

It's so Joey Joey gets killed on his soap opera, and he goes to and he complains to Gunther about it, and then Gunther tells him about how he was once killed on his soap opera. The joke being that, like, you're done for man, like you're next to be a barista.

Courtney 57:47

You're about to be a barista.

Marissa 57:51

Gaze upon your future. I am I love that. I am the ghost of Christmas future.

Courtney 57:56

That's a good joke. That's funny.

Marissa 57:58

Yeah, I feel like funny.

Courtney 58:00

Okay, all right. So I didn't know that one. I missed that. Okay, I didn't know that. I yeah, I a soapstar speaks fluent Dutch, um, which feels realistic. Like he must be. Did they ever explain it?

Zach 58:12

No.

Jessica 58:12

I mean, I think they uh with the hair, my thought was that they like you know, they're like fill in the blanks Dutch, yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah. Like who are some of the whitest people we know? The Dutch. They're the only ones with hair that like kind of naturally can look like that.

Zach 58:29

Yeah, it's like ionically he dyes his hair.

Jessica 58:33

Oh, okay, okay, okay. Oh, so he's just like in a Dutch affinity then?

Courtney 58:38

Yeah, he might be like a weeboo for uh I was did they say that he dyes his hair on the show though?

Zach 58:45

Yeah, there was a bit about it uh where Joey's like, uh he's uh Gunther says, um, hey, I'm gonna go off to dye my hair or something. And Joey's like, but I love your natural color.

Jessica 58:58

Damn. So Barisa's just always been like that, huh? Yeah. Barisa's have just always been this way.

Marissa 59:05

I I wonder if because he became more of a character, I wonder if he had to dye his hair constantly, or if they did it for him. Because the hair and makeup department does take over that kind of stuff. If you like constantly have to have a certain color or cut or something, I they do they do like groom you, like they groom you to have the same haircut so that for continuity and stuff. So I wonder if he is in charge of his own bleaching, if his friend just always did his bleaching.

Courtney 59:40

Yeah. But if his friend did a stylist job on him, that would be incredible. That would be so great. But I do know that yes, he had to, it was um, that was like a one-off hairstyle for him where he's helping a friend and then he had to bleach his hair every two weeks, he said for 10 years.

Jessica 59:57

My God. And that's expensive. I'll do it for four million dollars.

Courtney 1:00:02

I mean, yeah. I don't do it every two weeks for the rest of my life.

Jessica 1:00:06

It's fine by me. Button by me.

Courtney 1:00:08

I'll shave my head, whatever.

Jessica 1:00:10

Literally, yeah, fully hairless. I'll do the eyebrows. I don't care.

Marissa 1:00:14

You'll be the hairless Klarna cat. Yeah, I'll be the hairless for four million dollars.

Jessica 1:00:18

Yeah, I'll do it. It's fine by me.

Courtney 1:00:22

That's amazing. Um, all right. Is there anything else that we don't know about Gunther? That I mean, that we know about Gunther, actually, is what I want to say. Like that have been established details.

Zach 1:00:34

Established details. What do we know about Hunter? Uh Gunther. I don't even know his name.

Jessica 1:00:39

Umbody else does either. Uh, he kissed Phoebe one time.

Zach 1:00:44

He did kiss Phoebe.

Jessica 1:00:46

Consensually.

Zach 1:00:47

Well, Phoebe kissed him. Phoebe kissed him. Phoebe kissed him.

Jessica 1:00:49

Non-consensually, actually. Phoebe was the predator in this situation. Oh, well, she is the lovable weirdo. Yeah. She is the lovable. She needed uh he had a cold and she was like trying to get her voice back, and she thought, like, let me get this cold and maybe I can get it back. That was her logic. So she kissed him, and then he felt he felt like he cheated on Rachel.

Zach 1:01:10

Yeah, he confessed to Rachel uh that Phoebe.

Courtney 1:01:13

Wow.

Jessica 1:01:15

Wow.

Courtney 1:01:16

They actually Phoebe, Phoebe and Gunther would have made so much more sense together.

Jessica 1:01:20

They would I mean they have some funny bits. Um there's one time where like Phoebe's talking to Ross about Gunther, and she's like, Yeah, Gunther's more classically sexy, but you have all of these other things going for you, Ross.

Courtney 1:01:39

Um, getting us today with these lines, man. It's pretty funny. I feel, yeah, they got some humor out of him. I get it. They they were like, that is a that is something we can squeeze. That's something we could squeeze some funny out of.

Jessica 1:01:54

Yeah, you had to have like a node that's so opposite the rest of the group, right? To provide sort of balance to that universe. Um, he's everything that they're kind of not.

Gunther Facts And Best Bits

Zach 1:02:05

He even like the way he speaks, it's just so deadpan.

Jessica 1:02:09

Deadpan, short, slow, yeah.

Zach 1:02:12

The main cast they're talking in like sitcom speak and highs and lows up and down, and he's just Gunther. Yeah.

Marissa 1:02:19

Yeah. That's very true. That's very true.

Courtney 1:02:22

Yeah. Um all right. Is there anything left to say about the character of Gunther?

Zach 1:02:30

No.

Jessica 1:02:33

There's not much. I mean, in the course of 148 episodes, he probably speaks for like a total of 10 minutes, you know?

Zach 1:02:41

Like you can't you can go on YouTube right now and just see all of all the Gunther parts, only the Gunther parts, and it will take you about 10 minutes.

Jessica 1:02:50

It's not really that time consuming. You can do that. Uh we did that. That's how we got here.

Zach 1:02:56

If you want to talk ARC, uh, he he does have a line in the last episode where he gives this big um like confession of love to Rachel. Yeah, yeah. Uh again, very very meta character, because it's like Ross. Um he's foiling Ross there.

Courtney 1:03:15

Yeah, because Ross is like literally behind him.

Jessica 1:03:18

Yes, and yeah, the joke of it being that, like, oh, Rachel doesn't know this. Um, right. Yeah, that's the entire joke, which of course she does. Uh right.

Zach 1:03:26

She's I think she's like, uh there's one scene where uh she thinks that he's gay, and I think that's like big air quotes things. I think that this was a deflection strategy of just yeah.

Courtney 1:03:40

Oh, I have no idea. Yeah.

Zach 1:03:42

I'm gonna keep insisting you're gay.

Courtney 1:03:44

Yeah. I do feel like this whole angle on it is very interesting because for some reason I wasn't even thinking that way, and it might be because I'm not like such a friend's head that I'm like really thinking about the characters in a deep, deep way at all. But that's your job, and that's why you guys are here.

Jessica 1:04:01

So I believe to be fair, uh well, we do we're not like I want to avoid the allegations here of friends head or podcast. Oh, I'm not saying that. You just we invited you here and and told you the. Yeah, I want to refute the allegations of the friends head. Um, no, we do it, we do talk about friends uh begrudgingly on the podcast. It's neither of our favorites.

Zach 1:04:26

We did one episode on friends, and it's like physically painful to listen to because uh we did not know how to do audio.

Jessica 1:04:32

It doesn't spark joy. Yeah, that's true. We still don't, we still have no idea what we're doing. Um but yeah, one of our first 10 episodes was the Ross and Rachel uh love story. Yeah, the will they won't they. Uh got it, got it, got it. Yep, yeah. I I remember having some fun.

Zach 1:04:50

It was fun, it was just literally hard to hear because it's hard to hear, yeah.

Jessica 1:04:54

We don't know what we're doing in the audio. We're really good.

Zach 1:04:57

Every time we laugh, it's like screeching.

Courtney 1:05:00

Yeah. Well, I make no promises with this episode, hopefully. I'm kidding. But um, I feel, yeah, I think I think that that's a very interesting take on it. You're bringing me back to like on the reverse side of it, actually. Like my head is going, as we've established in this episode, I feel like I've had a million weird jobs, and I've had definitely my fair share of service jobs. And I feel like on the other, like I feel like if I was Gunther, I would feel that's such a weird thing to say, but I've like the it's just maybe just because I'm a woman, but I would feel like Rachel in his job. Do you know what I mean? Like it's like the where people, you're like, oh no, that person's coming in again, and now I have to keep standing here.

Zach 1:05:38

I'll tell you what, I would hate the those clowns that kept hogging that couch day in and day out.

Jessica 1:05:46

Yeah, and really buying one cup of like black coffee if that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Rachel was giving them free coffee too. So they're not that's right. They're not even paying, you know. Wait, how long did Rachel have the job? She was not a waitress at Central Park all that long. Like Okay. That's what I thought. I want to say it lasted like maybe like a season and a half. And didn't she get the job because he liked her? Because she needed it. I think she just had it. Yeah. The first episode ends with her like running a runaway bride style. And I think she ends up uh getting that job just because they all go there.

Zach 1:06:29

I think the Gunther having a crush on her bit only started in season three.

Jessica 1:06:35

Yeah, yeah.

Courtney 1:06:36

Right. Because he wasn't even like a much of a character.

Jessica 1:06:38

He barely had any lines or anything, yeah, up until then. So yeah, it wasn't it wasn't because of that. But yeah, she by season four, she's working for Ralph Lorenz. She's working for one of the designers.

Courtney 1:06:53

Yeah, she stepped up for sure.

Jessica 1:06:55

Some sort of fashion thing. But yeah. No, I I think I was uh I I was obviously very very rough on Gunther. I think the actor does a great job. Um, and I don't I think the character is more harmless on the overall like spectrum of things.

Courtney 1:07:08

Yeah, how do you feel now that you know he was an orphan at 11, Jessica?

Jessica 1:07:13

Yeah, the thing that you see you see his need for attachment, you know, he's he's seeking attachment, constant rejection, you know, from the friends is probably very triggering. Yes.

Zach 1:07:24

Um, so personally, I can see a love for rocks and geodes in uh the character. You do you see an appreciation for you know the the strata uh striation he's just sitting he's sitting there behind the couch waiting for someone to talk to him about tectonic plates.

Jessica 1:07:43

So yeah, you could tell that's what Gunther's doing when he's not thinking about coffee. I bet he was studying geology. He probably has a rock collection.

Marissa 1:07:51

Gunther would have a rock collection, he would totally have a rock collection, or or at least a pet rock.

Jessica 1:07:56

Yeah, I could see that. I could see that for sure. Yeah, you know, gotta have something that loves him.

Courtney 1:08:01

And honestly, he probably just had a pet rock because somebody got him a gift and they had like no idea what to get him. Like they're like, what is your personality? I don't know. I'll just give you this.

Zach 1:08:10

And now it's like a beloved item.

Jessica 1:08:14

Right. It's the only gift he's ever received.

Courtney 1:08:16

Yeah, it's the only gift he's ever received. Oh God. Yep. This is such a this is turning out to be such a sad episode. Um, sad, sad actor, sad, um, sad uh and you know what? I'm about to make it sadder. Um let's let's take us past the character. So rolling into the post

Prostate Cancer, PSA Test, And Advocacy

Courtney 1:08:35

Friends Life of James Michael Tyler, um, Gunther was 100% his claim to fame and his biggest role. No surprise there. Um, but he did have some guest star moments in other iconic shows of the time, like Just Shoot Me, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Scrubs, iCarly, and Anger Management, to name a few. Okay. I mean, yeah, those are I mean, right, like, right. I feel like Marissa, your perspective on this is important because it's like that's that's not bad.

Marissa 1:09:03

It's not bad, but also like uh he made way less money on those and yeah on friends, you know.

Courtney 1:09:11

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Marissa 1:09:13

I feel like I've I don't know what I I don't know what I'd want. If I'd rather like have a big character for a small amount of time or a small character for a big amount of time.

Courtney 1:09:26

I honestly be a fa uh what the money is always a factor, Courtney.

Marissa 1:09:31

I've I mean I know it's a stupid question.

Zach 1:09:33

You gotta go for June Squid career.

Marissa 1:09:38

I feel like for me, I would probably I would I would assume or hope that like a bigger role would then create opportunities for other bigger roles. You know, that's you know, kind of like what you hopefully do. Like I think I would be fucking miserable stuck playing a barista.

Courtney 1:09:58

When you already when you already were a barista.

Marissa 1:10:01

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would hate that shit.

Courtney 1:10:05

It's kind of like being stuck.

Marissa 1:10:06

I applaud, yeah. I applaud his his good humor and and excellent attitude, which is probably why they asked him to stay on and and kept kept writing him in. Yeah, because like ultimately it when you're working with the same people day in and day out, you want good, affable, roll with the punches people around you all the time.

Courtney 1:10:27

And I do I think that that's uh that's I think that's 100% true. Yeah. So um, so anyway, he was he was always a true ambassador for friends. He made appearances at a London pop-up of Central Perk in 2009, and in honor of the friend's 20th anniversary in 2014, he made appearances at a Central Perk replica in New York as well. So he was always he was always showing up for these kinds of things that nobody else was, I'm sure, showing up for. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so in 2017, he married his second wife, a PA named Jennifer Carno, and he was absolutely crazy about her. Cute. Yeah, so happiness for Gunther, but then sadness again because unfortunately, just a year after they married, James Michael was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer.

Marissa 1:11:18

No, that died so young. Yes.

Courtney 1:11:21

No, for anyone listening who doesn't know the way you detect prostate cancer is with a PSA test, and men, you should start asking your doctor to add that test to your blood panel by age 45. Apparently, they don't think of that, which is crazy. But so you have to advocate for your own health and ask for this. Um, a normal PSA is one. James Michael's PSA was around 640. So that's that's stage four. Um What's PSA?

Marissa 1:11:51

What does PSA stand for?

Courtney 1:11:53

I don't know, but prostate screening something.

Marissa 1:11:57

Prostate prostate So PSA stands for a prostate specific antigen. Okay. That makes sense. So yeah, you're not supposed to really have any of you know, one is fine, but 640 means something is wrong. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's a blood test, it's a blood test that measures the level of a protein produced by the prostate gland used primarily to screen for prostate cancer. Yes.

Courtney 1:12:24

Yeah, so it's right. Your doctors could be like, yeah, you're fine, but I guess like the age is like 45 is when you're supposed to do it. So he was treated for a while, like in the first year or so with hormone therapy, like a like a pill basically that you took every day. And he was feeling fine, but then during the pandemic, the cancer mutated and went to his bones, causing fractures and tumors in his spine that paralyzed him from the waist down.

Marissa 1:12:48

So God, that's awful.

Courtney 1:12:51

Awful. So um, in 2021, there was a friend's reunion special, but James Michael chose to attend over video call rather than in person, as he said himself in one of his final interviews.

Marissa 1:13:05

It was bittersweet, honestly. I was very happy to be included. It was my decision not to be a part of that physically and make an appearance on Zoom, basically, because I didn't want to bring a downer to it all, you know?

Courtney 1:13:18

Yeah. So he was he was being being sweet, um, I guess. As always. Yeah. So knowing the seriousness of his diagnosis, he had only two final goals to make it to his 59th birthday, which he did, and to save at least one life by spreading the word about prostate cancer and the PSA test needed to diagnose it. So to support that mission, he worked closely with the Prostate Cancer Foundation until his final days. And on October 24th, 2021, he lost his cancer battle. His castmates left touching tributes via social media. Jennifer Aniston.

Marissa 1:13:54

Friends would not have been the same without you. Thank you for the laughter you brought to the show and to all our lives. You will be so missed. Heartbreak emoji.

Courtney 1:14:04

Courtney Cox.

Marissa 1:14:05

The size of gratitude you brought into the room and showed every day on set is the size of gratitude I hold for having known you. Rest in peace, James. Lisa Coudreau. James Michael Tyler, we will miss you. Thank you for being there for us all. And David Schwimmer. James, thank you for playing such a wonderful, unforgettable role in Friends, and for being such a big-hearted gentleman and all-around mensch off-screen. You will be missed, buddy.

Courtney 1:14:36

And then Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry were like not specific enough to read. So let's just skip those. But one work of Tyler's that I did not mention earlier was a spoken word performance by James Michael of a poem titled If You Knew by poet and sometimes Beach Boys lyricist Stephen J. Kalanick. Having always dabbled in music, James Michael also composed the music behind the song, and it was featured on a 2016 tribute album to Kalanick. It was actually nominated for a Grammy for Spoken Word album, which I didn't know was a category.

Marissa 1:15:12

Whoa.

Courtney 1:15:13

Yeah.

Marissa 1:15:14

Did you also did not know that that was a category?

Courtney 1:15:16

Okay. Right? That's one they don't show. Um yeah. In the award ceremony. So after he died, a short film was made to accompany his recording and serve as a fundraiser for the charity he cared about so much, the Prostate Cancer Foundation. And the poem itself reflects on life and mortality. So it's very

Tributes, Grave Offerings, And Farewell

Courtney 1:15:35

fitting. I will include a link um in the show notes if you guys, you know, want to check it out. It's kind of interesting, non-Gunther performance from James Michael. I almost played part of that for the ending of this episode because it's kind of fitting. But I think Rachel's line after Gunther finally professes his love to her is a hard one to beat for a memorium.

Marissa 1:15:57

After she breaks his heart gently, she says when I'm in a cafe having coffee, or I see a man with hair brighter than the sun, I'll think of you.

Courtney 1:16:10

So R.I.P. James Michael Tyler. Your character, yeah, your character gives us complicated feelings, but also we are proud of you as an actor for uh making so much damn money and saying so little. Jesus, so little, so few lines. People are always like, How do you remember all those lines? It's like, because I didn't have any.

Marissa 1:16:32

Have any.

Courtney 1:16:33

Yeah. Um, but I think the one question we always ask at the end, and we keep forgetting to ask, actually, Marissa, is um, what would we offer to a box of bleach? Put it at his grave.

Marissa 1:16:49

That's a box of bleach or um like a little bag of coffee.

Jessica 1:16:55

Yeah, coffee, cup of coffee.

Zach 1:16:58

A bottle of Tresemme so he can smell Rachel's hair forever.

Marissa 1:17:04

A little, a little airplane, like travel size bottle of Tresemme for the road. Yep. For the road beyond.

Zach 1:17:11

Yeah.

Courtney 1:17:11

These are good. I like it. I hadn't thought of anything, so I feel like these are all great and I accept them. Okay, you guys, this was so fun. And I think all of our listeners, please, please listen to because it was on. You get a flavor for it, you know, right now, what that show is all about. I feel like you guys are. I feel like we're, I feel like we're pretty similar. I like it. Yeah, this was fun. I love this. Yeah, this is great.

Jessica 1:17:37

Thank you for having us. Thank you so much for coming.

Marissa 1:17:40

I can't believe it.

Jessica 1:17:41

I ended up just being here. It worked out.

Courtney 1:17:43

I know it's fantastic. I love it. And and also like Marissa hadn't met Jessica until this moment. I love that.

Jessica 1:17:48

This is true. Like two days ago. And now look at us. Now look. Yeah. Collaborators.

Courtney 1:17:54

And I've already given you as Nora's, as your girlfriend's best friend. Um, I've already given, you know, my stamp of approval because I've already met you. But what about you, Marissa?

Marissa 1:18:04

Yeah, you want to do it right now? Um, she's okay.

Courtney 1:18:12

We'll talk about it later. Yeah, we'll talk about it later. Thank you so much for listening. Your support and enthusiasm for the show are the reason we keep doing it. So thanks for the kind words. They really mean the world. If you liked the show or have ideas for episodes we could or should do, please drop us a comment in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. And if you haven't yet, please follow the show and tell every Cinephile and Tafophile, fun fact, that's a person who loves graveyards, about your new favorite niche podcast. And if you want to see transcripts, photos, and sources for our episodes, check out our substack Dead and Kind of Famous. Dead and Kind of Famous is written, produced, and edited by Courtney Blomquist. It is hosted by Marissa Rivera and Courtney Blomquist. And special thanks to Jesse Russell, my husband, for allowing me to yammer on about the episodes before I can spill it all to Marissa. He tends to have some good insights and ideas, so thanks. Until next time, you might not be famous, but you've got a story to tell you.