Sister Act 2 featuring Ryan Toby & Mervyn Warren!

Welcome to Movie Life Crisis.

Join us as we watch the Vest movies from 30 years ago.

From Touchdown Pictures, the students of St.

Francis couldn't sing.

Couldn't dance.

And couldn't stay awake until Sister Mary Plans showed up.

and showed up and showed everyone that miracles can happen twice.

5, 6, 7, ♪ ♪ ♪ We are the Lord, we are the Lord ♪ We'll be back in the all new Sister Act 2 rated PG.

Movie Life Crisis Season 3, episode 6, Sister Act 2.

What.

Episode 6, Season 3.

Episode 3, how did it happen.

How do we have JT and Jeff here talking about Sister Act 2.

a little punchy because we've already been recording for like an hour and a half because we just interviewed two amazing people from this movie.

I do, I'm like so happy right now like I can't.

I'm having trouble for such a good time.

And it doesn't have to be a secret because their names are going to be in the title of the episode.

So, Mervyn Warren who did the arrangements for the choir part.

Probably like the joyful joyful, happy day, his eyes on the sparrow.

Yeah.

Who's incredible.

And then Ryan Toby who plays Amal in the movie and was also super fun to talk to.

fun to talk to and it's done a ton of stuff.

So, yeah, so much stuff.

So, Jeff and I are tired because we just had an incredible time talking to those awesome guys about this movie and a bunch of other stuff that we'll probably only put up on Patreon because it's, I can't put an hour 20 interview in the middle of this hour episode.

Right, right.

Even if Jeff and I talk for negative 20 minutes, we just just.

.

.

Yes, yes.

Super fun, no man.

That was great.

Yeah, it was phenomenal and I'm excited for you guys to hear it and for those Patreon's to be able to hear the bonus extra stuff.

But Sister Act 2 is our episode this week.

Jeff and I did Sister Act last year and said at the time, Sister Act is better than I remembered.

I can't wait for Sister Act 2.

- Right.

- And here it is.

- And now we're here.

- And now looking back, this is still the better one.

- And honestly, it's still the better one.

- Yeah.

- Extric purely because of the music.

I gotta be honest.

Real quick, we got a new review that I do wanna read.

Five Stars from Apple Podcasts.

- Thanks.

- I enjoy the witty dialogue between these two guys, and I listen to every episode, whether I've seen the movie or not, I enjoy the nostalgia and the clever critique.

Nice.

That comes from Apple user David, who I know is real because he didn't use any exclamation points.

That's gotta be my friend David.

I can't believe somebody says we're witty.

That's nice.

I like that.

That's what I'm saying.

Super nice.

And I know he listens and I know he's never seen the movies, which is amazing.

And I keep forgetting to shout out our newest monthly Patreon, Molly.

Molly, thank you so much for the support.

and enjoy the bonus content, including the longer versions of these interviews, like the ones in today's episode.

- Man, these guys were so great, and there was so much fun to talk to, and it was just wall to wall laughing.

- The best, yeah, it was really, I can't believe how much fun it was.

- I don't think this is gonna become an interview podcast, we never envisioned it that way, but we are gonna talk to people throughout the year when we can get cool people coming in to talk about movies that we really like.

So, you know, we'll, 'cause the insight that they're giving, like there's stories that you can't find anywhere else, that you can't read anywhere else that yeah, like the stories that Ryan Toby, which I was like, what, that's amazing.

It's really cool and I enjoy it.

- Yeah, I also really enjoy it.

So let's launch right in 'cause we're gonna try to get through our stuff quickly and get to the interviews.

So give us the chat GPD synopsis.

- The AI synopsis.

Sister Act 2, back in the habit, is a 1993 comedy film directed by Bill Duke.

The film stars Wobby Goldberg reprising her role as Dolores Van Cartier, a lounge singer, turned none in this sequel, Dolores is asked to return to her former life as a singer to help teach music to a group of unreleased students at a Catholic school in San Francisco.

Dolores must use your musical talents and unconventional teaching methods to inspire the students to believe in themselves and perform at a prestigious competition.

The music is, it carried this film.

It's real quick, Cyster Act 2, back in the I hate puns.

I'm on the record.

That's an amazing pun.

That's an incredible title.

I mean, unbelievable.

I personally like puns.

I didn't appreciate it as a kid.

I know.

A lot of people like puns.

It's okay.

I did not appreciate it as a kid, but now as an adult, I'm just like, damn, that's a good title for that movie.

Yeah, man.

If I had a thousand years, I couldn't beat that title.

No, you couldn't.

Dude, what's wrong with dad jokes and puns.

I love them.

I'll be.

Nothing at all.

A budget grossed this movie cost $38 million.

It grossed $125 million worldwide.

- It's a good job.

- It's a good job.

It didn't do nearly as well as the first movie, but it still tripled its budget.

It still made money and then some.

But because the first movie was like $250 million movie on about a $20 million budget, it was a smash.

And this one was like, "I did okay.

" - Yeah.

- But really it made money.

- I was gonna say, it did pretty okay.

- Did pretty okay.

Did you find any awards.

- Yeah, so, "Wobby Goldberg" was nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance.

And this is the second year in a row that she's nominated for that specific category.

So in '93, she's in there for Sister Act because it was in '92.

So for '93, it was Sister Act and she was up against Robin Williams as a lad in Eddie Murphy and Boomerang, Bill Murray and Groundhog Day and Joe Pesci and Mike Hussin-Vinney.

So all of those movies we've done, she lost to Robin Williams.

In '94, she gets nominated again for back in the habit.

And she's up against Robin Williams for Mrs.

Doubtfire, Jim Carey, Polly Shore for sudden law.

And she loses to Robin Williams again this time for Mrs.

Doubtfire.

So back to back losses for her and the MTV Movie Awards, both to Robin Williams.

Yeah, and I can't say that that she should have one, but I will say, "Woopie was out here doing work.

" She was carrying this thing.

- Yeah, she frigging, I don't know if there's people out there that don't like "Woopie, but man, she was doing her thing.

" - Yeah, he got winner, "Woopie Goldberg" out here doing work.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Sequel Spinoffs, they're talking about Sister Act 3.

It's been in pre-production for a couple of years.

- Yeah, I was gonna say, the thing that I read, it will be said in like 2017, she said she won bit to happen.

In 2018, they confirmed that there were two people writing the thing and it was going to be released on Disney Plus.

And then 2020, they said Tyler Perry was going to be a producer along with Whoopie Goldberg.

And apparently it's a thing because the guys we interviewed were even talking about it.

So.

Yeah, still in development, still in talks.

Fingers crossed, it comes out on Disney Plus and we can all enjoy some most stuff.

No, cutting edge got like 11 sequels.

Mighty Ducks had like five or six.

I think we could get another sister act.

- We definitely can.

I think it should happen.

- Yeah.

- Do you remember when and where you first saw this movie.

- I don't remember seeing this one in the theater.

I remember the first one.

But this one I think was like a rental thing.

Like we rented it and watched it.

After we watched it though, I know we bought it because I remember having it.

- It was in the like sleeve type VHS.

- I remember vividly what the sleeve looked like for VHS.

- Yeah.

- And dude, and I have like, we had the soundtrack.

It's what we talk about all the time.

I mean, I had the soundtrack on CD.

When iPod came out, I bought that soundtrack so I could have it on the iPod.

Like, this is definitely a soundtrack that shaped how I listen to music and what I listen to it for.

And man, it's just, it's a big part of my life.

- Yeah, dude, I had this soundtrack too, same thing.

I think we owned the movie.

I feel like we did, but I definitely owned the soundtrack.

And I would just hit the high five song, and I hit his eyes on the sparrow, "Oh, Happy Day and Joyful Joyful.

" and occasionally if the mood struck me, Aino Mountain High enough.

- I always, I liked an Aino Mountain High enough, and when I watched the movie this time for the podcast, I watched all of that, the whole song credits 'cause it was cool.

The High Five song, where at the very end, you know what part I'm talking about, we're Tony Tony, I mean, - Yes.

- I mean, Tony Townsend, just doing this thing.

What a great jam.

- I know.

- My kids freaking love that song.

- It's a great song.

This was a great soundtrack.

Four great songs on a soundtrack makes it pretty bad ass.

- Yeah, it's hard to not have them.

- I mean, the bodyguard sold nine bazillion copies of the soundtrack, three good songs on that.

- Right.

- Well, three great songs.

- Three really great songs.

- Yeah.

I don't remember when and where I first saw this.

Either it came on TV a lot.

I think we owned it if we didn't we definitely rented it.

But really, as much as the movie is, I like it.

It's this, this movie does not start for me until a 41 minute mark when the kids sings, ♪ If you wanna be somebody, wanna go somewhere ♪ That's when the movie starts for me.

So it's all about the music for me here.

- Yeah.

- And you know what, thinking, like as I was watching it this time, I was like, "Man, it feels like they would have already "sang that, like I thought that part "that you're talking about was earlier in the movie.

" - Yeah, that should have been in the first 15 minutes because the last little bit where there's a bunch of the kids choir in the school, that's the shit right there that I love.

- Right, I was thinking it was, I mean, and then as it progressed, I was like, "Oh yeah, I remember this part.

"Oh yeah, they're gonna set this part up.

" Yeah, the nuns get on the bus, they go to the old folks home, like there's all that stuff.

And that's a little throwback to the old sister act with the nuns singing, doing that song.

Dude, I just wish I wish they would have done it earlier.

I think they could have explored it a little more.

Let me have Warren do some more arranging and have Ryan Toby sing some more Mariah notes back before his voice change.

Let's just get a lot of that in there.

Not that I didn't like the, like from a movie standpoint, it makes sense the way they did it and while they did it that way.

But for me, the kids choir doing those three songs, if I could have had a 30 instead of three, and I would have been just as happy.

- And I am so mad at that nun for interrupting Lauren Hill and Tonya Blunt singing his eyes on his sparrow.

- Wendy Malik.

- Yeah, so we were watching it, the kids were watching it with me.

And like, she steps on that, the piece of-- - No, Wendy McKinnis, sorry.

- She steps on that board and it creaks and they stop and look at her.

And then like, Jake was like, wait, so they're not gonna start singing again.

I was like, no, dude, it's over.

I was like, well, what the heck, that was good.

It's like, yep, it's on the soundtrack.

You can't say that.

That was good.

That was freaking incredible as what it was.

And that performance is different than the one that's on the, 'cause I asked Ryan if they pre-recorded, 'cause any say, yeah, we pre-recorded, but obviously they pre-recorded Joyful Joyful, an own happy day, the little choir songs.

But like Lauren Helen Tanya Blunt, at the piano, that the scene is in the movie is a different musical performance than the one that is on the soundtrack.

And I was kind of wondering if they just actually sat and did that or if they recorded a separate version.

- I don't know, but man, when she comes in with that harmony, God, that's so freaking good.

- Shout out to Anya Blunt, who is a badass.

- She's killing it.

So how do you rate it.

Since you're only giving it to the music and not so much the movie.

- Yes.

- Even though the movie is a vehicle to bring those songs to your plate.

- It totally was.

The movie I isn't, to me, as a film is not as good as the first one.

Yeah.

It's not as good a movie.

So I gave the movie six, but then I got a factor in the music.

Yeah.

I gave it a tan, a tan, a fucking tan.

Jesus.

Which I gave it 10, obviously.

And so, average goes out, what do you get.

Eight.

So I also gave it an eight for the nostalgia bump.

- Say eight.

- Happy eight.

- Say eight.

Dude, I also gave it an eight.

Gave it to nostalgia bump.

It's only an hour and 40 minutes without the credits.

Like, it's a tight, quick movie.

And just like we always talk about, it's so much cooler to see a movie in the theater where other people are experiencing it with you.

Watching it with my people, they were like, ooh, that was cool.

I like this part.

Or like, dude, the part when I don't know the priest's name, but Lauren Hill is singing joyful, joyful, in the beginning of the remix, and she's just doing her part, you know, by herself with the piano.

And he's like tearing up while he's standing against the wall.

Dude, I look over and Jake's tearing up a little bit 'cause he's like taking a cue from the guy on the movie and he's just like, "This is really awesome, "it's really moving.

" Those type of things make me still like the movie.

We had a ball watching it.

And I will say credit to this movie.

A lot of times we watch movies that are an hour and a half, hour and 45, whatever.

And I'm just, I'm old and I'm watching it by myself.

I might break it up over two nights.

I might watch like 45 minutes, one night, and an hour the next night.

I went right through this one.

Yeah.

Wired a wire and at the end I was like, man, that was a fun time.

Right, dude, I felt the same way.

I was like, CC was like singing a lot, like singing the song as she was walking to bed that night.

Like she, and we're gonna talk a lot about the music 'cause the music is incredible.

But the movie is good.

You know, it made money.

What he's in there doing work.

The kids are good actors.

The music again is phenomenal.

- Unbelievable.

- Cup of Nard Hughes.

It's got Maggie Smith.

It's got, dude, what's the Mary, oh, the nun that you love.

- Lazarus.

- Yeah, what's her, no, that's her real name is Mary Wicks.

- Mary Lazarus.

- Yeah, she got that gravelly voice, gosh, she's still so funny.

- Yes.

- Alma makes a brief cameo.

- Oh man, check your battery.

Yeah, dude, and it's got what's his name.

The bad guy, Mr.

Krispy.

Mr.

Krispy.

I can't think of the actors for a name, "Covered James Covered.

" Yeah, I like that guy too.

So yeah, he's good.

It's got a ton of people in it.

It's got a ton of people.

And I do want to say, I love how Woopy conducts.

The choir she conducts exactly like you would.

Like if you had like three scotches at the cookout and some good songs came on.

She's doing exactly that.

- Yeah, she's throwing that.

- But she's like, "Dance" and she's randomly pointed people and then she's like, "Spins around a circle while she's singing.

" That conducting acting is fantastic.

- The conducting acting was very nicely done.

I can remember us driving around and playing dashboard piano and singing and pointing at stuff while we're singing.

I'm saying we could probably do some conducting acting if we needed to.

- But I think we shouted out whoopies conducting acting in the original sister act, but she's still here doing it.

Nobody does it better.

- Yeah, and she's like, Mr.

Allen's Opus, forget about it.

Whoopie Goldberg is the conductor you want.

- And she's like, pointing like she's friend.

- Yeah, dude, that's what I'm saying.

It literally was like, she's had three drinks and she's at the cookout.

I was like, that's perfect conducting acting.

That's what I want from a, 'cause the old guy at the end doing his like, heavy, joyful, joyful, boring white person choir.

He was doing the like, German watchmaker conducting, which I freaking hated.

He was like, - That guy's very pression.

- Yes, very pression is.

I didn't wanna be in that choir at all.

- Right.

- They had their good points too, but they came in second, I'm sorry.

- I know that was the Ivan Drago choir, but they got the pants beat off of 'em.

(laughing) By the Lauren Hill, whoopie Goldberg, Ryan Toby, Rocky choir.

- Nobody knows who Ivan Drago is.

(laughing) - Dude, they Creed III just came out.

People know about Ivan Drago.

- Okay, good.

- He's not in that, but still.

(laughing) I'm saying the movies are still around.

- Yeah, kinda.

Nine Rocky movies.

We can't get another sister act.

- Yeah, I know, that's what I'm saying.

- So we're gonna go to the interviews, and then we'll come back and we'll do our best.

- Yeah, absolutely.

You're gonna love this guys.

Stay tuned for this.

It's fantastic.

- So the music of Sister Act 2 is iconic, and today we are lucky enough to talk to one of the men responsible for those incredible arrangements of the choir performances, including joyful joyful and oh happy day.

We've got arranger, songwriter, composer, producer, performer, Mervyn Warren, Merv his work with everybody from Quincy Jones to Whitney Houston.

He was also a founding member of Take Six with whom he got one gold and one platinum record.

He's a five time Grammy winner making him by far the most accomplished person we've ever had on this podcast.

Ever, ever.

Wow.

By a long shot.

Yes, that's awesome.

And also we said it earlier in the pre interview, but I want to again shout out Mark Shaman who who is the music supervisor for this movie who brought you in, Merv, and was kind enough to give us the intro because he seems like an awesome dude and I can't wait to chat with him.

- Absolutely, well thank you for having me.

I appreciate that.

- Absolutely.

First one just, how'd you get onto this project.

- So I was, as you've already mentioned, I had been a member of the group take six.

I left take six, I was living in Nashville, I was producing other artists.

And I produced an album, which is a compilation a lot of different artists.

The album is called Handles Messiah, A Soulful Celebration, where we took pieces from Handles Messiah.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

And we created these different gospel and jazz and R&D arrangements and pieces from Handles Messiah, as you know.

We want a Grammy for that album.

And we actually performed the Hallelujah chorus from that album at the Grammys that particular year.

I'm sorry, I forget exactly which year it was.

It was either 91 or 92.

I'm leaning I'm leaning toward 92.

You can't remember all the years you won Grammys and it's just two.

Fair enough, fair enough.

Yeah.

So we performed there and literally in less than a week, I'm thinking it was within three or four days.

If I recall, I got a phone call from Matt Walker at Disney and Mark Schaiman.

I believe they were both on the phone.

And they said, you know, we're out here in LA again, I was in Nashville.

They said, we're out in LA.

We're working on a movie.

We heard you.

We saw you on TV.

We love what you do.

We were just wondering if you would be interested in coming to LA to work on a movie.

I still didn't know what it was or who was in it or anything.

It was just, hey, I'm a guy from Disney and here's a guy in Mark Schaiman.

I didn't know who Mark was at the time.

And they're both saying, we love your work.

Would you be interested in coming in working with us.

And I had always wanted to work in movies.

So for them to say, would you like to come work on a movie.

It's like, are you kidding me.

Of course I would.

And so they said, OK, well, we'd like to fly you out and have you meet some people.

And I said, OK, and within a week or two, they flew me to LA.

I met with those guys, Mark and Matt, and I met with the Goldberg.

And I found out that this was Sister Act 2.

I think they probably told me before I got on the plane.

But yeah, that's kind of how the invitation happened.

That's how I was asked.

And I said, I'd love to do it.

They flew me out.

We had a little meet and greet.

But back to Nashville for a bit.

But ultimately, they flew me back to LA.

And I was here for three months working on the movie.

- That's super cool.

So when you are composing for a movie like this, I've always wondered, "Do you sit in solo with staff paper in front of you.

Are you working with Mark or with the vocalist.

Or what's that process like.

" - Okay, good question.

And I should say, Mark was very, very, you know, as you know, Mark did the original sister act.

He didn't need me on this one, but he was magnanimous enough to say, you know what, I like that kid.

I was younger at the time, a lot younger, as you know, 30 years younger.

(laughing) And he said, hey, let's, yeah, he said, hey, let's get that kid.

And so it was very generous of him to even ask for me.

But once we came out and started looking at the script and talking about the story, he said, look, he was working on a couple of other things, but he says, look, I'm gonna do the nun's music.

I just want you to do the kids music.

You just do your thing.

You just do it.

And he basically just sent me off to do my thing.

They put me in a furnished apartment in Hollywood and I had some gear shipped out from Nashville and I just set up a little studio, a little mini studio in my apartment there.

And that's where I created those arrangements with the exception of, as I said in, before we came on live, Ain't no mountain high enough, we ended up at the end of the movie, we ended up co-arranging that one.

But the others I did on my own and he just, they stuck me in the room and I did my thing.

To tie into that a little bit, I wanted to hear a little bit of, if you would about your process for composition, especially with existing tunes like these that you're doing a new arrangement for, like the, like the Janet Jackson, what have you done for him, Lely.

Like that part in joyful joyful.

Right.

Where'd you get that into your head.

Oh, that's great.

I got the idea really from the original sister act because Mark had taken all of those songs from those girl groups in the 50s and 60s and had sort of adapted them for the nuns in an entertaining way.

And they told me, hey, we want these kids, first of all, they're going to enter a competition.

They spoiled it for me.

They're going to win.

And so we need you to write an arrangement that's going to be worthy of winning this contest.

So again, they had heard my hallelujah and the kind of stuff that I had done in ways that we want this kind of over the top arrangement.

And I think even if they gave me the idea of joyful joyful, I think I came, I'm pretty sure I came up with what have you done for him lately.

And.

.

.

- Naughty by nature was in there.

- Yeah, you know, with GOD, you know me.

know me, I think I came up with those ideas and ran it by Mark and of course, Bill Duke, the director and everybody loved the idea.

So that was me sort of doing my sort of impersonation, if you will, or impression of what Mark had done in the first movie, me just kind of carrying that theme and doing the same thing for a younger group of singers.

Yeah, killed it too, man.

That was great.

Did you know that you were gonna have a Lauren Hill and Ryan Toby soloist or were you just going like, there's a solo here, get somebody good.

- You know what, they included me in the casting.

You may not know this, but you might be interested to know.

So you know the two girls that sing his eyes on the sparrow, that's Lauren Hill and Tanya Blunt.

- Tanya Blunt.

- Those two girls, those two women, when they were girls at the time, I guess Lauren was 17, I don't remember Tanya, but Lauren was 17 and had to have a shaperone.

Those two young women were the two finalists to play the part that Lauren ultimately got.

And it came down to those two, they both could sing, they both could act.

And believe it or not, Disney, I'll never forget this, the executive, they liked the fact that Lauren did more acting experience.

She was already on a soap opera, I believe, at the time.

So she had more acting experience, But Tanya is a soprano.

And they kind of had it in their minds.

We want high notes.

We want high notes.

(laughing) And I'll never forget, I found that to be sort of an odd priority for them.

But what I said to them was, look, there are high notes for sopranos, but altos also have high notes.

- Yeah.

- You know, if you decide to go with Lauren, we will put the songs in a key that shows off her voice.

And so I don't think anyone's gonna go, oh wait a minute, she's not singing that high boy.

I don't like this movie 'cause she didn't hit high notes.

Well, you know, I sort of convinced them that it would work musically to use an alto.

- You had to talk somebody into Lauren Hill, that's crazy.

It's my embeggling that anyone would be worried whether Lauren Hill would be the right, like that's my favorite female vocalist of all time, Lauren Hill.

What do you mean to tell me Disney was like, why don't know she's not a soprano.

- They loved her.

- Yeah, it's crazy.

singing they loved her they loved her acting but they were concerned that she wasn't a soprano and I had to disavuse them of those concerns.

So I guess for Oh, happy day when Ryan Toby hits that man.

I guess they liked that to high note.

Yeah, they must have loved Ryan Toby if they wanted to.

Yeah, I think he's saying the high is known in the movie.

But yeah, so I will I will never forget that.

It's all I was a part of that will process with casting all of them.

I sat there as all those kids because Bill Duke to his credit, he didn't want me to go in the studio with a bunch of studio singers and then just have these actors kind of lip syncing.

He said, let's cast, let's cast kids who can actually sing and let's actually report them.

So it was a lot of fun.

We all, we all the kids you see are the kids who sang.

That's great.

And they can all, they can also, even the ones that aren't Ryan Toby and Lauren Hill can all sing.

No, they can all sing.

They can all sing.

They may not have all been like star soloists, but they could all sing well enough to be in a choir and learn those parts.

And yes, absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, Jennifer Love Hewitt sold some records.

Tony Blunt is no joke.

Yeah, the girl did the love boat like she had some pipes.

Yeah.

[laughter] Yeah.

Love boats and we'll be making another run.

Yeah.

I love that one.

Yeah, she was a character.

That little stuff, you know, the little sort of quirky stuff that you saw her do.

That was her all the time.

Like, they had to dial that down.

They loved it.

But they captured it.

But she was like that 24/7.

That is her.

They were all great.

They were all great.

And I'm still friends with a couple of them to this day.

That's good stuff.

Did you write that high note for Ryan Toby in a happy day or were you as shocked as everyone else when he threw that down.

I did not write that note for him.

We, you know, it was decided that he would sing the song and we went in the studio and that when he just, he pulled that out of his, well, I won't say what he pulled out of it.

He surprised us with that.

And we were like, holy crap, dude.

I was going to say, whoopies reaction shot in the movie, I think, I think accurately captured for everybody because she flipped around and was like, what.

Yes, exactly.

That's how we were in the pre-record session.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

By the way, there's a story about that particular sequence that you may or may not know.

Please tell us.

I've talked about this on social media, but you guys may not have heard it.

There's the whole "Oh, Happy Day" sequence where she's teaching them and there's the whole La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la that whole thing and it's like a montage where they're learning and she's teaching and coaching them and then they get on stage in front of the, you know, the audience and and Ryan's character kind of you know he's no shy person and he opens up.

Okay.

Well, once we're on stay that that whole rehearsal idea was not in the original script or if it was it was a very simple You know like a like a couple of sentences as we were shooting the movie buildoops And hey, I want to make a bigger deal out of this, you know Can you so let's take all happy day.

But I want to work it into our rehearsal and so that was like an assignment I had to go and kind of work that thing up and when I created it I signed the vocals for whoopee to learn What she needed to learn and what it had to teach the kids Yeah, well to this day for some reason when you get to the performance in front of the audience and she says Okay, she's trying to warm them up and she's trying to you know, pet them up And she says okay you guys and she goes into that That is not woopie goberbs voice that is my voice they forgot to replace me They forgot to replace me with woopie and I sent them a note we had you know I mean, there's a million people working on a movie, doing a million things.

And I said, folks, we still have to get whoopie singing the La La La in the auditorium.

We've got to get her in the studio.

And she was doing ADR and shooting scenes and doing whatever.

And it fell through the cracks, not my fault.

It fell through the cracks into this day is my voice in the movie.

- That's an amazing tidbit.

Whoopie can really sing a little bit though, right.

- Dick and Carrie are two.

- Yeah.

- She can carry a two.

But because her voice is not recognizable, that's why that didn't, if it had been Lauren Hill, and my voice came out of Lauren Hill's mouth, somebody said, hey, someone would say, wait a second, that's not Lauren, but because they didn't recognize what these voice, I guess mine was close enough.

(laughing) And there it will forever be.

- That's crazy, I love that.

- I mean, if I was whoopee, I might just keep forgetting to show up to that recording session, just let this little nervous voice live - Come out of my mouth, it'd be fine.

(laughing) - We do have a special guest for you, Merv.

- Oh snap.

- Okay.

- Somebody that you might remember.

- Oh, Mr.

T.

(laughing) - Mr.

Toby, how are you, sir.

- The man's Mr.

Legend, what's so funny is, I just messaged Morgan on Facebook for the first time.

We've never, I don't think we've had any communication since 1993.

- I don't think so.

- I've message him on Facebook, three weeks ago, maybe.

Just, yeah.

- Yeah, not long ago.

- Yeah, and we were talking about, let's talk about Park Three, and I was asking him if he was gonna be involved, and he was, you know, I was kind of like, what an amazing moment he created.

I mean, he is the Maestro.

- He is like, you know.

Well, thank you, sir.

I appreciate that.

I appreciate that.

And you definitely made your mark on that.

Thank you, man.

You absolutely did.

And I have no clue.

I have no clue what the plot of Sister Act III is going to be.

And I'm not writing it.

But they're going to win.

But they're going to win again.

But I'm hoping they bring-- I'm hoping it's a big reunion is what I'm hoping.

That's my point.

Yeah, man.

They've been bringing us all back.

Yeah.

I don't know why we can't have whoopie go back to teach kids how to sing and have Ryan in their teaching too.

And now we're talking.

I'm ready.

That's awesome.

I'm not asking for a story credit, but I think that would be badass.

You know what's always so funny to me when I see means or people DM me, literally almost every day, I'm getting some type of DM, some type of message from fans and friends or whatever family.

the the O happy day moment and when the camera's on who'd be in she's singing to she says now everyone's thing has to mean la la la la la la like I last every time because that's his voice that's not their voice that's great that's awesome wait so Ryan Murph said he was in on the cast and do you remember do you remember getting cast and asked you remember him being in there I so I I had, I think a total of seven or eight auditions for it.

- Wow.

- So yeah, yeah, the first one obviously was kinda like just that big open catacore.

Then I got a car back and then another car back, another car back and I think when it got down she maybe set in this car back, was like in LA, seventh or eighth and then it was like down to like me and like two other young men.

And I think I remember moving coming in on maybe some of those, those auditions would be with producers, Bill Deuce was in the room, and then people from Disney were in the room.

- Do you even remember who the other people were that you were going against at the end.

Is it anybody that anybody would recognize.

- So fun fact, this direct was the first thing I ever auditioned for in my life, ever.

I never do for the most.

- Yeah, I never had any acting experience.

I was just kind of like a kid from a small town, grew up singing in church, you know, that type of thing.

And when I would go to the other, I didn't have an agent.

I wasn't with SAG.

I wasn't in the union none of that.

And so when I would go to these auditions, especially when it started getting into like the fourth and the sixth and the sixth callback, I was seeing Ted and Campbell coming into audition.

I was seeing, you know, Totsy on Ali, I was seeing Tony Thompson from the group, I was like, "Totally Thompson.

" So I was like, "This is no way I'm getting this.

" Like all these, you know, the top, I was a little bit more of a kid of the time so I don't come into the audition.

So I was still mesmerized that I was able to, you know, get the man to roll.

- I remember, David Faustino was one of the guys from "Married with Children.

" I believe he auditioned.

- Oh yeah, if I'm not mistaken.

- Yeah, I remember him being good.

So I don't know, I didn't make final decisions but I remember sitting in the room.

Obviously, and I had no idea you had like six or seven calls.

I would have been involved in like the last one or two.

- Yeah.

- By the time they brought me and-- - I just found out Mark Wahlberg was gonna read for Frank A.

I just found that out.

(laughing) - Oh, that's crazy.

- I think I remember that.

- I was watching an interview with Mark Wahlberg and he was talking about how they sent him the script and they were talking about it.

- Yeah.

- And then I ended up working on a movie with him where he did rap, which was Renaissance man.

- Oh, nice.

- Dude, I love that movie.

- We cannot wait to do that when I think it's '94.

We already got that on our list.

- All right, just call me back, I'll be good.

(laughing) - Good stuff.

(laughing) - Well look, the music from Sister Act 2, I mean, I watched, obviously Jeff and I watched the movie to get ready for our episode.

But I watched the stuff on YouTube.

I watched Oh Happy Day, a joyful joyful, his eyes on the spare, I watched that stuff like once a year.

And I still get goosebumps every time.

I just thank you guys so much for bringing that into the world.

- Thank you man.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- And it is timeless and like I was telling JT earlier, I teach 18 year olds, I'm a senior high school teacher.

I play music in the hallway just to get everybody going.

Well, since I was gonna talk to you guys and since we're doing this movie, I'm like, I'm gonna play Cisterac music.

These kids lost their mind.

- You hear me.

Happy day and everybody singing along.

Everybody knows every single little vamp that you're doing at the end and little ad lib, they know it all and they, and none of them can hit the high note.

No, none of them can hit the high note.

No, no, no.

(laughing) But it's still a thing.

It's still a thing.

I tell you, when you're, I mean, I remember having a lot of fun, I remember having a lot of fun in the studio and on the set.

You, but you never know and I don't think anyone ever sets out to make a bad movie.

You're just doing the best you can, but you never know that something that you're working on is gonna someday be considered sort of a classic.

I'm not comparing this with going with the wind, but people love this movie.

- Better.

- It's a classic, it's a classic.

You can say it is a classic.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Absolutely a classic.

- People love the movie.

I meet people all the time and they say, "Oh, what have you worked on.

" And if I say this is right too, they fall out like, "Oh my God.

" (laughing) - I would say that's awesome.

- Well look, Merva, I know we're over time with you, but I wanna Ryan to be able to say what's up to you, but we'll let you get back to your day.

Thank you again so much.

Thank you.

- Yes sir, hope to be with you.

- Thank you.

- I hope to be with you.

(laughs) - Man, I can't thank you enough for doing this.

Yeah, for real man, this is great.

We just, - I'm so thankful that you let me jump in with Merwin.

Like, you don't understand man, you don't understand like that brother ranging all the music, I remember.

You know, I'm sure he's worked on the kinds of projects.

I remember it was a big deal.

He was a master and he was putting so songs together.

He was a hersselled word.

We're brutal.

He was getting all the power.

All that dope singing all that time.

Like you said, the kids know every part and it still slam to the day.

With 30 years later in the songs of Phil Damman, people that still want to hit the notes.

Kyle is doing a pull and he came up with all that shit.

the part where those girls are doing that tiny little step while they're the kids were doing that in the front of my class as they were walking in at that part.

Do they.

Exactly.

And you know what's so crazy is, you know, how things play out, and especially nowadays things play out really, really fast, right.

And things look old and you know, your kids are that old and you know, kids love it like it just came out.

Absolutely.

They love it like it's fresh, like it's new.

They feel it like is this, you know what I mean.

- And those arrangements are great.

And we talked to him a little bit and he just said, "Marx Shaman saw him performing "on the Grammys and just said, "like, come in and do this.

" And like, I'm gonna do the nuns, you do the kids.

And he just went to his apartment and just like, what set up in there and did his mad genius shit.

And like, and it still is so incredible.

- It still does.

- So good.

- Yeah, and it still resonates, you know what I mean.

- The amount of stuff that you've had your hand in that have shaped what we've listened to is staggering.

So I just want to say thanks for doing what you do.

- Let's talk about the only reason your ass went to Miami.

(laughing) - So I'm going to be hitting you guys with a lot of fun facts tonight, all right.

- Nice, nice.

- So fun facts number one, and then we're going to get to Miami.

I'm going to show you.

So fun facts number one, in the joyful, joyful, joyful wrap, I wrote that, I wrote that wrap part.

That was my first case of song publishing.

my first gold record plaque is a sister at two plaques.

You know what I mean.

Nice.

And I remember being in rehearsal, murdering you know, whatever, whatever, and we were on break and I was looking for the kid Ron, the actor, his name is Ron, who played sketch.

Yeah.

And uh, like where's Ron.

Well, he's in one of the other break rooms.

I go on a break room and he's got a CD, the CD player, whatever, and he's playing the track over and over and I'm like, what are you doing.

He's like, oh they want me to do like a rap part in the breakdown of the song.

I'm like, oh, we got so far.

So he kind of like, ah, I just got a couple of lines.

He wraps a little bit.

I'm like, no, I don't say that.

And you should say this.

And I was just like, choice for choice for a movie and freestyle the whole shit.

- No lies.

- Great.

- I can wrap my ass off, bro.

Like, like, let's like, (laughing) He was like, man, write that down.

Write that down.

So I wrote it on a napkin.

I wrote it on a napkin and I walked up the room.

Didn't think anything of it.

I think maybe like two days later, my attorney called me from New York He's just checking on me, making sure that he knows my first time in LA.

Is there arti treating you right.

Are they doing this.

Is there just checking on me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Everything's great.

The house was good.

Oh, they're going to use this rack that I wrote.

They're going to put it in this.

It's like, wait, who's going to use what.

What.

Yeah, this little rack thing I wrote for the song.

I don't know.

They said they want to use it.

I'm 15, 16, 16.

He's like, let me call you right back.

He called me about 30 minutes later.

Ryan, let me talk to you about something called "strong publishing.

" Yeah, we need to talk about publishing.

Yeah.

"Polishing.

What publishing.

" Yeah.

That's how you get paid young Ryan Toby.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

So I got schooled to the game real early and yeah man, I didn't even know if that's it.

That's so cool man.

I remember when we were in high school because Jeff's, he and I I go way back, his mom was a huge Beatles fan and Boystemen 2 came out and they did yesterday, Acapella, and we were going like, "Man, this song is amazing.

" She was like, "That is not the real version.

Let me get you all the real version.

" We were like, "That version is awful.

This right here is the new hotness.

" (laughing) - Exactly.

- You can tell who they're trying to aim commercials for by the music that they play.

And I'm like, "Man, I think I need diabetic medicine because that song was fire.

It was awesome.

" I might get a reverse mortgage because that was my shit.

- That was my fault.

- You know, it's such an interesting feeling.

Like, what's in TV now and the commercials come on and it comes from our generation but the product that you're marketing is like, oh people here, like, wait, it's supposed to be not the one that's said, uh, when did I become the same age as old people.

(laughing) - For real, for real.

Yeah, we always remind our listeners to take an ibuprofen before they go to bed tonight because man, you gonna need it.

- Yeah, if you remember this movie, you got Backpane.

Or your parents are awesome.

It's one of them, it's one of those two.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Well, dude, let's get into sister act.

I mean, I would talk to you all day about freaking, by the way, you wrote "Caut Up" with Poo Bear for Usher.

That is also my jam.

- Dude, such a good song.

- So literally this time, 30 years ago, I was a part of Sister Act 2.

I'm being honest, not knowing it would be a time of classic right.

- Yes.

- This same time, same time of the year, 20 years ago, we flew to Atlanta to work with Usher on what would become his biggest album of his career.

- His professions, part two.

- You know what I mean.

So it's his very, this time is very surreal for me.

Like wow, like I made some pretty big leaps in my life.

And just to be a part, I've been blessed, Let me say it that way.

I've been blessed to be a part of things that would be classics, like real classics, like, you know, little fun fact, when the Usher superstar challenge went viral like, you know, last year and stuff like that.

That little ristening, (imitates a russian song) that's my wrist.

That was in the demo when you fit it to him.

- Of course it is.

- You know what I mean.

Like I referenced that, did the run, wrote the song, You see the LA read, LA read, love date, the pluice from "Fillings with Lanna.

" I sure hated the song, my dude, another little fun fact, he hated the song.

And then he sang it obviously, it came off super dope.

And then here we are 20 years later and people are doing a challenge to kick that rip.

And I'm just trying to hit your riff.

Yeah, that's great, man.

I just feel so honored and so humbled all the time.

Like, you know, it's just so humbling.

- All right, let's hit a little bit of sister act too.

So I'm always wanting to know, well hold on, let's do this first.

Jeff and I were absolutely shocked to learn that Sister Act Two was not as commercially successful as the original Sister Act, because in our mind, Sister Act Two is 10 times the movie.

- 1,000 times better.

- Like we did Sister Act last year on the podcast 30 years ago for that, and we're like, yeah, Sister Act, whatever, that's cool, but really we want to get to Sister Act Two.

And then that we do this one, we're like, that one did a lot more business.

I had no idea.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what happened.

So obviously I think, let's start by saying, what makes Chesterak to work is probably, the mixing work culturally, it's probably the same thing that hindered it economically.

(laughing) - Right, absolutely.

That was a very proper way to say that by the way.

- Right, the first one was a super white.

It's all white ladies.

It's super Catholic, you know what I mean.

So obviously that has a broader appeal when you think about how big the Catholic and his in there.

Yeah.

And they're singing those songs that are old too.

Like those old songs, that's the people spending money in the room to the show.

Exactly.

They're sending, they're singing all baby boomer music, you know what I mean.

So, so you have that element now, then here we go with Tuxerat 2 and they go more urban.

They go, you know, it's more hip hop and they go way younger than the seven.

I'm saying.

Yeah.

So that's probably where we took the hit in the box office, but because of video and then because of movies coming to television and lifetime and HBO and then every year it running over and over and over and over and over and the soundtrack and all that, it took on another life and another group like people don't realize it's 30 years old because they always say, man, I grew up watching that movie and it's like, yeah, think about that.

You grew up watching it.

- Yeah, you were a kid and now you're not anymore.

- Right.

- And then like all my family, we would wear that.

You sound like out, we would play it every year.

Every year we'll come on during Thanksgiving.

Every year we'll come on during Christmas.

- Exactly.

- For 30 years, you don't even realize you were 10 years old, well, like you know what I mean.

- Well, so what I was gonna ask is, did you, did you all know as actors after the movie came out, were you disappointed with how it was received and then over the years you started to realize how deep it had gotten to the culture.

Or did you all feel pretty good about it from day one.

- I was too young to think anything.

It was just kind of like, okay, I'm doing a movie.

I didn't, it was my first time, how we did, first time doing a film.

I didn't really know what to think.

It was just kind of like holy shit.

It was like holy shit the whole time.

I didn't, you know what I mean.

I remember the film coming out and I couldn't even watch it.

It was like, I had that nervous feeling of like I would get sick whenever I was getting into the movie theater because I just was too critical and too nervous and it was just such a weird feeling like I'm on a big movie screen.

You understand what I mean.

And now I'm in fact a high school, my dude.

I just need to sleep.

That's the school.

So I was back in high school.

I was back with my friends.

I didn't get something record deal.

My life didn't like you know, nothing happened.

You had to go back to science class after you made sister act to.

Yep I went back to class and and the movie wasn't like a big smash in the theater so nothing changed.

I was just back home and it was in the school of six maybe seven years later so I'm like what 23 24 now I'm like going out and going to clubs.

I'm hanging out a little bit and it's like hey you want to do it.

Hey you want to do it guys.

Hey, look at you guys.

And then it was like, oh, okay.

(laughing) Then it started to become like a thing.

Like, oh wow, you were in the movies, you were in the movies, you were in that movie.

I just thought that movie.

- Do you ever just go into a karaoke bar and just throw on a happy day and just blow the doors off.

- Never.

(laughing) - You oughta do that.

- Never.

I just had lunch with some friends and I said ironically, I hate karaoke.

(laughing) I hate karaoke.

You know, I feel like everyone else keeps just keep drunk and sing some silly song and have fun.

I go out to karaoke and everybody's like, "Okay, perform it son.

" All right, I gotta put on a concert for free.

(laughing) So it was never fun.

That's the part I love.

I get serious, I do warm-ups and stuff.

I'm in the background, do my vocal warm-ups.

I get a dented 58 with a bunch of reverb.

It smells like beer and I get up there and I go, I go, "Hey, put on careless whisper and then let's get after it.

" They do love it though, man.

I've been there when he's done it and it's great.

Wait, so how much did you get hit up about this movie every single day.

Every day.

That's crazy, man.

There was a time where once a day, what.

Or two days, or sometimes it'll just be, "Man, can you go to Jefferson High School.

" - I'm not gonna lie to you.

- I'm gonna lie to you.

- You're from my tightness.

- No, no, no.

Are you from Charleston, no, no, no.

I'm like, why are you so familiar.

And I just like to have, I always play dumb.

I don't know.

- I don't know.

- I don't know one of those faces.

(laughs) I gotta, I've always wanted to notice about movies where there's a musical component like this.

Did you all pre-track everything in the studio.

- It's so funny.

That's something that's very funny to people.

And I get it.

People don't know how Hollywood works.

but like, do you really think you did that live and they caught by reaction, whoopies reaction, the police react like all the same.

You don't think we were hurt and sad.

Like, you really think that happened in the moment.

- I know the oh happy day stuff on the stage is obviously pre-recorded, but I'm wondering like Lauren Hill and Tonya Blunt, his eyes on the sparrow, just the two of them.

- I think that was life.

Like, that makes maybe the more intimate stuff they did live.

Lauren.

- Or like, even the kids when you're like rehearsing and it sounds like dog shit, like that probably could have they probably could have boomed that and it had been fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the big performance, the production stuff was pre-recorded.

Yeah.

So you'll do that before you all start even rehearsing the film.

You'll go do the cast recordings.

Then you have them.

First thing is, what was the first thing.

First thing we did was just song rehearsal, just learning and song.

So we're coming to basically like coming to choir rehearsal, let me get it.

We were doing that while we were also learning choreography.

Yeah.

So, so the choreographer, she wasn't coming up with the routine.

So we were learning the song, learning the parts and learning the choreography.

Once we got that locked down, then we go on the studio to record the song.

That's cool.

Gotcha.

And then we filmed, then we filmed it obviously and they do play that.

So you're just, you're just mouthing along with it while you're out there.

Yeah, that's cool.

That's cool.

Thank God.

I mean, - I'm like, I'm sitting there and having a 100 paint.

- 100 paint.

- 20 years.

(laughing) Let's get a good one good time.

- Get it one time and then we go home.

- Yeah.

- Can you still hit that.

- That's the question of the day.

I'll never tell you what.

- No man, I can but it's gonna be a little more of a grown man, a little more grown man, like style, not gonna be that baby pre-peed decent, making out for it now.

Even as an even one 13 minutes movie comes out even as a pre-pubescent who has a good falsetto I could not get to that.

That was like some whistle tone.

Yeah, that's the Mariah stuff.

Yeah, it was pretty.

I was listening to a lot of Mariah Carey during that time and I think everybody.

I was I was a late boomer.

I didn't really hit my vocal change.

Fun fact, I hit my vocal change immediately after recording that.

How about that.

I remember showing up to set the new the next day and just doing lines in a scene and it's like, "This is a very close.

" [laughter] That was just amazing, guys.

You need to cut.

You okay.

You need some water.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

Oh man, that worked out great then.

Yeah, I did.

[laughter] That was good.

Good timing.

Yeah, your body was like, we don't ever need to do that again.

Let's go ahead and go.

We're going to the next phase.

Good drop these things down.

So let these things go.

Did you get that on tape.

'Cause we're moving on.

(laughing) Really.

(laughing) Oh man, that's awesome.

I stopped counting after 120 million views on YouTube, but oh, happy day.

64 million on your YouTube channel, by the way, but unlike 15 different channels, that song has more than a million views.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, man.

And I think only like six or seven million of them is me.

(laughing) - Yeah man, he's not joking either.

I'm not joking.

Like we pick up people, we're like, hey we're going out, let's go.

Hop in the car, we're like gone down to like New Orleans.

I'm like, yeah let's get in the mood.

And we're like, how about joyful joyful from the sister act two soundtrack.

What the hell is this.

I'm like, did you just.

.

.

- That's your doctor pregame talk.

- God is hype.

- Absolutely.

Do you have anything else about sister act two.

You remember that you want to tell us because I'm out of Cis Track 2 questions.

I'm distracted by Usher and Miami and Songwriting.

Oh great story.

I bring my ankle, real bad, the last week of filming.

And we had to come up with an alternate ending.

A lot of people don't know.

We shot an alternate ending where my character sprang his ankle.

Really.

Yeah, and I spray my ankle being a complete knucklehead some with my one-flame chas and and we used to hang out at our apartment in Lawrence Hill.

We used to hang out all the time and we were messing around in Lawrence car doing donuts in the parking lot.

And I like your spouse too.

Yep.

And so I thought it would be a great idea to see the donuts, but I'll hang out the passenger window like with my legs out the window.

Oh man.

And let's do that, right.

Yeah.

Because that's smart.

So we're doing the donut.

I'm hanging my feet off the window.

Of course I go flying out of the window.

Yeah.

Under the car.

Car rules up on my ankle.

[SCREAMS] Car rules up on my ankle.

Whole shit show.

Everybody's freaking out.

I call the ambulance.

Calling ambulance.

They take me in.

Buh, blah, blah, blah.

I show up to set last week of shooting.

the rats crew is ready to go.

Everybody this is it last week.

We're gonna shoot the big dance scene and we're done.

Okay, now my dude is a big budget film.

So I think every week of shooting is at least a million bucks.

Yeah, production call.

You done it in a week.

Right.

Here I come in on Christmas Day.

And it's not like you messed it up when your shoot didn't open on a stunt on the movie.

No, I'm picking around over the weekend.

So after weeks and weeks of press rehearsal choreography, here we are.

And here I come in on the cut.

Hey, Did you tell him what happened.

Are you made up something.

I can't tell him what happened.

Did you say Lauren did it.

No, I didn't.

I don't know if I told them.

I'm that part.

I don't remember what I said.

I do not remember.

I don't remember.

but I know they were hot.

The dubption was hot, directing, Bill Deuce was hot, Lizzy.

Lizzy.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Lizzy was supposed to shoot this dance scene today.

(laughing) - Did you have like a whoopee had the idea to shoot an alternate ending.

Whoopee says to me, so she's the true OG, right.

So she pulls me aside and she says listen.

Everyone's mad, whatever rightly so, But you hurt yourself, right.

So I don't give a f*** what they say, you know, don't let them just treat you like anything.

If you can't film, you can't film.

So her advice was like, you know, don't let them just treat you any time away, you know what I mean.

And then she, from there, commences to come up with an alternative.

She came up with the alternative.

- That's awesome.

- She's like, she tells the kids, take your roads off.

She says, a male character, he's taking his little bump or something, he gets real excited and tricks over, you know, whatever takes a tumble.

Ah, I can't go on, go on without me, go on without me.

And then, and then they go on without him, but then when it comes to my partner, "I'm a regular, I'm a regular.

" I'm a regular, we like find the strength.

And then like I come out with crushes.

And I sing my little thing with the crushes.

And me and me will be do the little hit bump.

And I'm on crushes.

And we shot that shit.

the width crutches.

That's amazing.

So we filmed that and then they were like they were like so did they just wait until you got better and then filmed it again like how they do it.

No, so we shot that for like maybe two days.

They looked as a daily, they hated it so they're like you need to get them rehab quick.

So they bring in like like pop sports therapists people.

Yeah, she did her little thing, Yali, and got me back out there, patting me on the ass, like, if I can again, hit, and then, so then we shot the regular ending.

So to save production costs, you were already like two P-Dade behind schedule, whatever, shooting at other coaches.

So then, so they spliced together, seen from the one performance where I'm kind of not in it, and seen from the one where I am.

So if you look closely at that performance, if you certain cuts to the camera, I'm dancing next to Lauren.

You cut this way and I'm not next to Lauren.

- You're not there.

- And they spliced it all together.

- Yeah, that's awesome.

- It sounds like y'all in the cast had a good time shooting that movie.

- Yeah, I mean, you saw.

- Like is y'all all teenagers, you know, just hanging out and stuff.

- No, no, no, only me, Lauren, and Jennifer were teenagers.

Everybody else was grown itself.

Oh, got you.

And so three teenagers and then a bunch of old people playing teenagers.

Standard Hollywood stuff.

Standard Hollywood stuff.

It's like, Chris, are you sure these people are teenagers.

Because they don't look it.

Well, dude, thanks so much.

You got anything you want to plug.

You want to tell us to check out our listeners check out.

Yeah, man, the only thing right now, let's see.

Shoboken on this news, a com called "Hang in the Containers" the news show working with the new director, and Stacy Gated, she's out of South Carolina.

She's a new director and screenplay writer.

And we just, you know, we shop with some sitcoms, we shop a pilot.

We got it picked up on this small network, called the Impact Network.

So checking local listings, if you have the Impact Network in your city.

And so we got picked up for a second season.

So we're shooting with like a season in them.

So I'm working on that.

I'm having a lot of fun with that.

Shout another independent film with her called Another Christmas that was fun.

and working on usher from the album.

But you know, super busy then.

Well look man, I don't like to brag, but I figured out a new way to cook chicken thighs.

So things are pretty good over here too.

(laughing) A serum is what I do.

Serum on both sides and then in the oven until they get to temp and they're juicy and delicious.

- Oh, you killed me.

- You killed me.

- Tell us your, that's what I got going on.

(laughing) See how he feels about that.

- Please be able to help that.

- This is Raymond.

(laughing) - That's great, Ryan, thank you so much.

- Thank you, man.

- Thank you so much, thank you so much.

- Thanks.

- And when Cystrak 3 comes out in three years and then 30 years from now, we'll have you back on again in 33 years to talk about it again.

- I'll be 76.

- Jeff will not be there, but me and Jeff's son will do it.

- Jake's gonna take over and it'll be fine.

It'll be the same thing.

Matt, keep doing what you're doing.

Thank you so much for, Matt, I can't thank you enough.

It's great to see you.

- That means the world to me.

Thank you so much.

That really means a lot.

Thank you, man.

- Have a good one.

- Y'all be good, brother.

- Thanks, man.

Appreciate it, dude.

What the, this is so fun.

(laughing) This is ridiculous.

- All right, so you guys just heard something that Jeff and I have not at this point yet heard, which is our edited interviews with Merv Warren and Ryan Tobey.

We only got the full uncut version, but you will have just heard the edited version.

you all need to hear the full uncut version.

You gotta get it.

- Yeah, we'll put the full version on Patreon, but these guys are so nice and they're so smart and they're so knowledgeable and they have incredible stories about the making of this movie and how they both got to do the things that they got to do.

And it was just beyond cool to be able to talk to 'em, honestly.

- Unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

And they had stories about everything, like they, 'cause they've worked with so many different people and so much stuff is going on in their life.

It's crazy that.

- Dude, Murrf talking about having to talk to studio to Lauren Hill because she wasn't a soprano.

- That's an amazing story.

- Yeah.

- Going to Quincy Jones's house and hanging out with the statue.

- Yeah, hanging out with the statue on the coffee table from the city cover.

- Yeah, we'll probably edit that part out 'cause we're gonna keep the interview to Sister Act 2.

But Merv worked with Quincy Jones and there's great Quincy Jones stories on the Patreon.

- Yeah, it's so good.

- And Ryan Toby wrote Miami for Will Smith and wrote "Caut Up for Usher.

" So he's got great stories.

- Great stories.

We'll probably keep the interview just to the Sister Act 2 stuff, but.

- It was great.

You guys gotta check it out.

- Strictly for time purposes.

I know people on Groundhog Day got mad that we cut out some of the Steven Tobelowski interview.

We just only got so much time.

- Right.

- We are putting the bonus stuff up, and it is available for people.

- Absolutely, it's good.

- But anyway, let's do our best three scenes.

I can tell you real quickly, his eyes on the sparrow, oh happy day, joyful joyful.

Those are my three scenes.

- I didn't want to put all the songs.

So yeah, so I did his eyes on the sparrow.

and I did the joyful, joyful at the end.

And I had in there, which I erased.

I had in there, "Oh, Happy Day.

" But I was like, "Can I just pick songs.

Is that the three best scenes.

" 'Cause that's what I had originally.

It's definitely the three best scenes.

Well, then I'll just go with that.

I mean, no, you picked something different if you want to.

No, no.

Oh, Happy Day was my favorite of the bunch, honestly, because we talked about it with Merv.

They did the, like, "Oh, Happy Day, like, choir training montage," which you know I love a training montage, and this one also incorporated gospel choir, so really, there could be nothing on film that I ever would like more than that.

- Doubly awesome.

- Gospel training montage that ends with the "Oh, Happy Day" song.

- No, it was really good.

And that was built for me.

- That's what I had.

I had those same exact three, obviously.

Dude, I didn't know how long his eyes on the sparrow has been around.

- Long coma art.

- Yeah, long, long time.

1905, this one the lady wrote it.

I went down a long ass rabbit hole and that's on, of course.

The lady who wrote it, who wrote the lyrics, "Savilia Martin, dude.

" She met some people on a holiday and the dude was in a wheelchair and the wife was bedridden, but they had like a very upbeat feeling about them and she was talking to him and the lady, whose name is Mrs.

Do Little, who's bedridden, she goes, "His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me.

" And then she was the lady who wrote it, was like, - Yeah, and I would just been reading the Gospel of Matthew at the same time where they talk about the same stuff.

It's, she put it together and made that song, that's ridiculous.

- Quick confession, when Jesus is my.

.

.

- Portion.

- Portion.

- Yeah.

- That's what it sounds like, but that doesn't really make sense.

When Jesus is my portion, a constant friend is he.

- I know when you take the, when you eat the cracker, you're supposed to be taking a portion in Jesus, but I didn't think that was the same thing.

- That is Psalm 119, verse 57, the Lord is my portion.

- Okay, cool.

Dude, that's what I've been singing for 30 years.

Every time I'm like, - Is that right.

- You get right.

- I don't know if that makes sense.

- Do you want me to get that on a nice piece of whitewashed wood written in script that you can hang in your room.

- If it looks weathered, that would be great.

Just put that up in my office.

- And then we'll have just the word Jesus in script and then the bottom will be written in print.

(laughing) - So yeah, I do.

If you have another scene, I'm happy to hear it.

I just-- - No, I don't really have any scene.

I just took that one out and I was like, I don't know what else to put.

I feel bad picking just the three songs, but you're right, that's the reason.

- I go watch those three songs on YouTube at least once a year, and not that there's not other good stuff, there is other good stuff, but those are so far in a way of my three favorite moments of that movie that I don't know how to not to put those there.

Quotes, and when Jesus is my portion, that's my first one.

- In script on a weathered white watch.

- Old piece of, it looks like it came from a beach, - Ideally, piece of wood.

- Oh man, that's.

.

.

- Everybody who has that in their house is unsubscribing right now.

- Can I get the word Jesus written vertically so I can lean it against my front door and my suburban household.

- All right, I didn't have any quotes from this.

- Dude, I just, I do have a couple of songs.

- I have a couple of them.

- I mean, go get them.

- They're all dead quotes.

- Perfect, that's great.

- So Mr.

Chris is talking to me, he's like, I don't know, teach him how to play soccer.

- And then Father Marisa's like, we don't have the balls for that.

- I could Bernard Hughes, man.

- Oh God.

- Somebody check Hollywood for knives.

I don't wanna operate none of me in case he's a sneeze.

- He does a Walt Whitman.

- It's just one of the long Whitmans.

We love Bernard Hughes and Doc Hollywood, one of our second or third episode from season one.

He's still great.

He's got a great voice.

He's got great timing.

He didn't have a lot to do in this movie, but I just was delighted every time he was on screen.

- Yeah, I really like him.

Also, there was father Ignatius and Sister Mary Clarence were talking and he says, "Sir, some corda.

" She's like, "Wait a minute, what was that.

" He's like, "It's Latin, it means lift up your heart.

" She goes, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you said insert some quarters.

" I was like, "God, I freaking love jokes like that.

" That is terrible.

But that's just like, that scene is another one that, 'cause I like how the first, like maybe 15 minutes this movie kind of beat for beat mirrors.

Like it opens with a big musical number on Wobby and she's doing the mega mix, which Mark Shaman put together, which is incredible.

- It's done.

- And then she gets to the like, convent and then she sits down on the table with all of them.

All that stuff is beat for beat from the first movie, but in the first movie, that scene with them at the dinner table had like four funny lines.

- Yeah, yeah, the whole, her prayer and stuff.

- Yeah.

- It's like, and then they're trying to take it away.

She's like, no, no, I'll eat it.

I'm gonna eat it.

Let's get some salt.

- Yeah, they tried to do that too at the dinner.

I know we missed some jokes on this one, which is why I think the first one is slightly better movie.

- I wonder if they didn't let whoopi like riff as much.

- I don't know.

Well, this movie came out, this movie comes out 21 months after Sister Act, which is an unbelievably short timeline for a movie to come out, do well, get a sequel Greenlit, write it, set up pre-production, cast, shoot it, and then that's a crazy timeline.

So I'm sure that the three writers for this movie were probably sitting on set, scribbling frantically in their notepads to figure out what they were gonna say tomorrow.

- Yeah, they should have called some comedians to punch it up, and how they do, they get people to do it.

- Well, they had a winner, whoopie Goldberg, but she can only do so much.

She's already carrying this thing like a backpack.

- Yeah, she did.

- Everything it wasn't singing, it was just whoopie out there doing work.

- Right.

- And Bernard Hughes and Maggie Smith.

- All right, you got any more quotes.

- No, no more quotes, what about characters.

- First character for me, no surprise, whoopie Goldberg, you got winner.

- Yeah, me too.

- Dolores Van Cartier, - It's Lister Mary Clarence.

- Lister Mary Clarence.

She's, dude, she's funny, she can act, she can sing, she can dance, I mean, she's not, she's no Lauren Hill, but she sings okay, she conducts like nobody's business.

- Yeah, the conducting acting was so superb.

- Top notch.

And I love Wuppie Goldberg.

- Yeah, I do see.

- I'm happy that we're in the period of the '90s where we're gonna get to do a couple Wuppie Goldberg movies.

- Yeah, good stuff.

Who's your second.

'Cause I had Wuppie also.

- Second Lauren Hill.

- Oh, I see I didn't put Lauren Hill.

- She just, she was on a soap opera before this, but this is her first movie role, but she's really good in this movie.

Obviously she's an incredible singer.

I said to Merr, I think she's my favorite female vocalist of all time, she's a phenomenal singer.

She's a really good actor.

- Yeah.

- She does a really good job of playing it like Brattie kid, who's like too cool for school, but also her mom doesn't want her to be in the choir, so she's gonna have to quit.

- Right.

- She just did a good job.

- Yeah, she did.

- I can put her along with my second one who is Wesley Glenn Amal James played by Ryan Toby.

I liked his part, maybe I could put both of those together.

So we'll do Amal James and Rita Louise Watson together.

- Yeah, those two actors, Lauren Hill and Ryan Toby, and singers, I think those are the critical roles for this movie because both of those have to be good actors and great singers.

- And good singers, yeah, yeah.

- Or the movie really doesn't, not that it doesn't work, but it just doesn't have the impact on the culture that this movie does, like the singing obviously, the arrangements and the performance is ridiculous.

But what makes the movie still enjoyable to sit through is that they're good actors too.

- Yeah, they are.

- Yeah, you're right.

And they carry the heaviest load, other than we'll be Goldberg.

So yeah, definitely shout out to both of them.

I just had to go number three on my list, Bernard Hughes, 'cause that's the biggest-- - Father Mariam.

- Yeah, me too.

Dude, it's the same.

I really like that guy.

And I like how he spells his name, Bernard, with a BA.

- Yeah.

- Dude, great voice, great comedic timing.

and really great delivery.

I like all of the stuff.

I'm glad we picked him together.

(laughing) - We really liked him.

- A lot.

(laughing) - All right, writers and directors.

Hang on, sorry, I was trying to look.

I thought the choreographer was a guy who had done some Michael Jackson videos, but now I can't find that anywhere.

I wanna make sure I didn't read that somewhere that's not true.

- Michael Peters, that's the guy who worked on Thriller.

- That's the guy, but did you find him on Sister Act 2.

On the credit cell somewhere.

- Yeah, he's on Sister Act 2.

As soon as I pulled up choreography for Cystrak and it brought up Michael Peters, I know that guy 'cause I've seen the making of thriller like a thousand times.

- Yeah, so that's what I found for the choreography.

Michael Peters, who's a guy who choreographed the beat it video and the thriller video was the choreographer for, I guess, probably not all this, but I think probably like joyful, joyful stuff at the end of those dances.

But pretty cool to get the choreographer from thriller and beat it to do the choreography from this.

- Yeah, that's pretty amazing.

I didn't even catch that the first time - Yeah, that's great.

Good stuff.

- Yeah, so in three writers, James Orr, Jim, Kruck, Shank, and Judy Ann Mason.

Judy Ann Mason from Bozier City, Louisiana, shout out.

- Yeah.

- Born on Groundhog Day, shout out.

Also went to Gramble Inc.

shout out.

- Shout out, man.

- Yeah, she doesn't have a lot of movie credits, but she did some TV writing, worked on Good Time, Sanford and Sun, different world.

Beverly Hills 90210, stuff like that.

And I think this may be her only screenplay.

- Yeah, I didn't see too many others.

- Yeah, I didn't see too many stuff, too much stuff about it.

- Jim Krickshank, I don't see any credits, other credits for him, at least not where I'm looking.

James Orr wrote stuff like three minute of baby.

- Man, that's the only one that I recognize, I think, from his group of stuff.

It was like three minute of baby and Mr.

Destiny.

- And the director Bill Duke is actually a guy that I knew from his acting work.

- That's what I was gonna say.

I've only known him from acting.

- He was in Commando, he was in Predator, He's an action-jaxon, a minister of society.

- I know I know him from Predator and from minister of society.

He always plays like the, he's like a copper detective and almost everything that I can think of.

- He's definitely got a detective kind of face.

- Yeah, I like it.

I like it.

He's a pretty good actor.

- Yeah, totally.

And he, but he's directed, you know, 15 or so films and he directed this guy.

- Yeah, and he's only 80, so he's got some more, I know.

- He's got some time.

- Yeah.

All right, so what about the words.

You wanna talk about the words.

I got no more best.

I didn't have any worst scenes or characters, although honestly, Mr.

Chris, the movie really could have done without that particular villain.

The school could have been going bankrupt without him actively trying to pull the kids out of the competition, but I don't care about that.

What about the nuns ball of confusion at the old folks home.

I didn't like that ball of confusion as a song choice.

I mean, that's what I was going to say.

Not that I don't love the temptations and it wasn't a great arrangement.

I just wanted them, I would have liked for them to do a different, if they had done, I wish it would rain, come in.

Yeah, how do you make that about Jesus.

I don't know, that will, Mark Shaman can probably do that, but I can't.

- He can do anything.

- Right, right.

- That's also not my, not my wheelhouse of temptations, Jams.

- Yeah.

- Once they started getting a little political, late 60s, early 70s, I wasn't feeling the temps as much.

- No, no, I like the Marvin Gaye political era in that from that same time period, but I don't like the temps.

- Yeah, I don't know why.

I don't know why.

I just don't know either.

- So what else you got for worst.

That's all I got.

- Really.

I mean, worst effects.

I know Ryan Tobi was telling us that because he was injured.

You could see from Joyful Joyful, there's some shots where he's in the shot and there's some cuts where he should be there and he isn't, 'cause they actually had to, they filmed an alternate ending because he sprained his ankle 'cause him and Lauren Hill were doing donuts in the parking lot.

(laughing) And there's also some stuff.

I think we're like similar things like that where you can kind of like see a boom arm, but I didn't notice any of that.

- For me, that's not the, that's not super important in a movie like this.

- No, no.

Like little continuity stuff like that, doesn't bother me at all.

- Right.

I've never even heard out about finding those things.

I don't.

It does not bother me.

If I'm watching a Christopher Nolan movie and there's some continuity error, I either think I must have missed something and that was supposed to be there purposefully.

Or I can't believe that's there.

It's something like this that does a bother me.

Going back to the best though, Bernard Hughes was wearing glasses that are actually corrective lenses, which I appreciate.

They were in fake glasses.

They were not fake glasses just with just glass in there.

Not only that.

People know that.

do there's a ton of old tech.

We didn't capture it, but like girls are wearing pages in this movie.

People are talking on payphones.

Lauren Hill's mom takes away her tape recorder at one point.

- These kids don't know what life is like.

They really, they don't know how good they got it.

- Yeah, dude, they're just, they're hanging out on the corner in front of the store and sketch.

It's just graffiti in the store that he works on, which is amazing.

And Lauren Hill's mom just leans out the window and it's like, "Read to Louise Watson, get up here.

"Do your homework.

" - Yeah.

- She's like, "I'm coming.

" - Yeah.

- Like just like no, textin, just straight up yelling out the window.

That takes me way back.

- Yeah, I like that.

I was gonna say, I can remember that.

- I do too.

- Cameos, we don't really have any cameos although Jennifer Love Hewitt is in this movie and does not have a lot to do.

So you kinda gotta look carefully and she's credited as Jennifer with love and quotes.

- Right.

- So it's like before she officially started going by her full name.

- Full, full Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Yeah, she's just a 14 year old that wears makeup all the time.

- Five questions, is it okay for kids.

- Yeah, even my five year old loved it.

She was singing and dancing and slapping hands the whole time.

- Yeah, it's great for kids.

- Yeah, kids loved it.

- Would this movie get made if it were pitched now.

Well, they have-- - They're open on another sequel as in development.

- Disney Plus, let's make it happen.

Do the things.

- Send all your prayers up to Fishnu that we go and get this third one going on.

- Yes, yes.

So it's gotta be a movie though, right.

- Yeah, movie or TV show, it's gonna be a movie.

What if it's a TV show, but it takes place in the school like Sister Act II does, and every day they have a different song.

- Like Glee, another show that Mervor and War worked on.

- Oh nice, circular.

Like, and it has a different awesome song each week.

- That's what Glee was and it was a huge show.

So yes, do you wanna do Sister Act set as a weekly.

- Yeah, let's do that.

Change from mine, I wanted it to be a TV show.

- Yeah, I would absolutely love that.

Who plays the lead if we remade it.

- We'll be gober.

- We'll be gober.

- We'll be gober.

- It's gonna play the lead still around.

- Well, I mean, I guess the difference is we're not remaking it, we're gonna make a sequel.

So yes.

- I wanna, even if you remade it though, I put, we'll be in the same spot.

It doesn't, her age doesn't matter.

- No, no, it doesn't matter at all.

- I tried to think like, oh, maybe we could have some younger nuns and priests or like, somebody in their thirties that were the same ages, these people that can sing but also can act.

I couldn't think of very many, like, Anakindrik.

- Yeah, they're the same ages, these people, but I do that.

- Got nothing.

- Selena Gomez, like, it's hard to cast.

Like, even those people are in their thirties, you know.

- Right, it's hard to cast teenagers, 'cause we're old now, we don't know any teenagers.

Which is good, we shouldn't know any teenagers.

- Dude, no, listen, I tried to look it up.

I was like, all right, let me give me some 18 year old singers and I pull up the list.

And I was like, I know one of these people.

(laughing) Like, I don't, it was a list of like 100 people and I knew one of them.

- I'm sure I would know zero if you only knew one 'cause I don't, I know nothing.

- How do I, I thought I was finger in the pulse of America's youth and trying to stay, trying to stay hip, trying to stay with it.

If anybody wants to talk to me about high five or after seven, I'm here, but-- - High five, take six, after seven.

- Any of the numbers.

- Any of the numbers.

- 112, just, I'm ready.

Six appeal.

- The guy.

(laughing) - Last question, can you still watch and enjoy this movie in 2023.

- Yes, yeah, you can.

- For sure.

- And you can watch the songs on YouTube if you don't wanna watch the whole movie.

Although the movie's on Disney+, you can totally watch it.

- Yeah.

Or you can just buy the soundtrack.

- You can also buy the soundtrack.

- But you have to buy it 'cause I couldn't find it anywhere streaming.

Did you have a streaming.

You have Spotify.

- No, it's not on Spotify.

Spotify tricks you up, man, 'cause if you just tell Spotify to play Oh Happy Day from Sister Act 2, there's some dude who has made a Sister Act 2 soundtrack covers album that uses the Sister Act 2 soundtrack poster for the heart.

- How illegal is that.

- Not legal at all, I don't think.

I mean, those songs are all released.

So as long as he pays the mechanical royalties, I'm sure it's fine.

But as soon as he starts singing, I'm like, this is not Ryan Toby and Lauren Hill.

- I was gonna say, how is it.

Is it good.

- Not compared to Lauren Hill and Ryan Toby.

- Right, right, right.

- Is it about on the level of something that you and I might make on an old Dell PC with a microphone that looks like what Drew Carey holds and when he does the prices, right.

- Yes.

- It's on that level.

- So what you're saying is we need to go ahead and release an album of covers from each of the movies we do on Patreon.

That would be fun.

- I mean, we did the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle theme song on Patreon.

I gotta go, I'm gonna go back and listen to that.

- I'm gonna go back and listen to that.

- I promise you don't.

'Cause as soon as I heard my voice, I was like, "Yik.

" I was like, "Why did I do it like that.

" (laughing) I was like, "You know how when I start rapping.

" - Because we dropped it in one take, like, great Charles, 'cause we were in a hurry.

- You know though, when I start rapping for some reason, it goes into a New York accent.

And I don't know, I heard it, and I was like, "Why the hell did I do it like that.

" - That's it.

I maintain that as a great song.

- Just, just, soft, like some old coffee table.

I'm like, what.

- Yeah, you definitely did the Brooklyn coffee table.

- Why did I do that.

- Yeah, so you can find a streaming on Disney Plus.

It's for rent.

The soundtrack is nowhere to be found.

Although the whole thing is on YouTube and just the scenes from the movie are there as well.

- Yeah, that's the way to do it.

- Check out the full interviews on Patreon.

If you're interested, our lowest Patreon tier, five bucks a month gets you all the bonus content.

- You'd love it.

And we got some new stuff coming out.

We're gonna work on it.

- Yeah, we'll keep doing some new movies from different years on Patreon.

We'll keep putting up full versions of the interviews there as well.

And you can also come chat with us on Discord, leave us a review.

We actually have more reviews than I had thought, which is awesome.

- That's awesome.

- So definitely appreciate that.

- Yeah, you can leave in reviews, Peeps.

We like it.

- We don't know what episode is next 'cause we're gonna reshuffle the calendar a little bit 'cause we wanna try and get some more interviews lined up.

And so we're gonna rearrange a little bit.

But regardless, we will see you in two weeks with another movie.

- Viacondias.

Check your battery, Alma.

I've freaking loved Alma.

Thanks for listening to Movie Life Crisis.

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