from 2008
JOHN RATZENBERGER
talks about his career and his cause

by Scott Wolf

When I met John Ratzenberger and asked him to do an interview, he gladly agreed but requested that I do some research on his organization at www.nutsandboltsfoundation.org. While we did discuss his worthy cause, he was kind enough to also discuss his career, including his role in the 1980s top rated television show "Cheers" and being the only person to voice a character in every Pixar feature film. I hope you enjoy this interview with John Ratzenberger

Scott Wolf: Can you tell me about the Nuts, Bolts and Thingamajigs Foundation?

John Ratzenberger: Everyone thinks that the arts is the most crucial elements of a kids education, but it's really the manual arts, because people don't stop to think that it's great if you're child can play the piano, but we forget that someone's got to build the piano. Someone's got to make those machines. Everyone seems to take advantage that someone will just be there to do all of that.

What I discovered when I was going with my show "Made in America," that that's exactly what we're running out of. It's really coming to a crisis because there are companies don't have enough people to fulfill the orders, so it's really come to a real crisis which is unfortunately at the same time as everything else that's happening now.

SW: Did you form Nuts & Bolts?

JR: Yes, I did.

SW:When did you start it?

JR: Almost two years ago.

SW: What kinds of programs and things does it offer?

JR: What we do is we give grants to camps that want to have an industrial arts and manual arts program, whether it's for a day or a week and we give them the necessary funds to buy the materials and hire the people that come and show the kids how to work with metal, etc.

SW: And it's getting more recognition just after a couple years?

JR: Oh yeah, we've won some fairly sizable national awards for our efforts and we've teamed up with the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association out of Rockford, Illinois. With them in the same battle, we're a much more formidable organization.

I spoke to congress a few months back in a speech that I entitled "The Industrial Tsunami Heading Our Way," afterwards the members of congress came up to me and said, "We had no idea that there was no more shop courses being taught in school." My response was, "You're congress, you're supposed to know, that's your job." Yeah, we can see financially what's going on across the country and it really doesn't surprise me because it seems that most of them are just concerned about their next election. There's a real disconnect between our elected officials and the country, that's for sure. It's all becoming very apparent now.

SW: I had no idea that there were no more shop classes. Was it for financial reasons?

JR: Financial reasons is one, then the push to send everybody to college is another. I was told in the city of Los Angeles they cancelled them because they deemed them discriminatory. It's astounding, the logic that goes through. The city of Oakland, when they cancelled their shop courses the dropout rating went up 30%. That's normal. Any time you get rid of those industrial arts courses and home ec, the dropout rating goes right up. In the African American communities the dropout rate is even higher, it's 50%. A lot of kids could have a great life if someone would teach them a skill and nobody's doing it. Everyone's got this idea that everybody's got to go to college. I think we have enough sociologists and attorneys. We really need the plumbers. If you're a brain surgeon, that's great, but if there's not hot water coming out of the faucet before you do the surgery to wash your hands, you're not doing the surgery. So the degree of brain surgeon is useless if you couldn't find a plumber.

SW: You said in one of your books, "Why do we read movie credits right down the grips and gaffers, but can’t name a single person who built the cars we drive?"

JR: Right, it would be nice to have a list on your refrigerator, who made that? Or your car, somewhere undernearth the trunk or something, a list of everybody whose hands touched that vehicle. We just shouldn't take it for granted. Especially guidance counselors, they're really one of the problems in all of this because somehow they consider factory workers, skilled manual laborers dirty work. That's because they've never done it. Somehow everybody has this idea that everybody needs to go to college. It's nice to go to college, there are people out there making fine livings and living dignified, productive lives as a brick layer or an electrician or a welder.

SW: Yeah, where would be without those people?

JR: The entire nation would just grind to a screeching halt, because actors and sports celebrities and TV news anchors are just the icing on the cake. We don't make the culture function.

SW: I think it has more of an impact coming from you being an actor rather than the brick layers or electricians saying, "We deserve respect!"

JR: But I was a house framer before I was an actor, I actually worked as a carpenter and I still dabble in it, I have a shop in the garage and all that.

SW: So how did you end up becoming an actor?

JR: I was in college, Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. That's where I started.

SW: Was it a concious decision? You wanted to be an actor?

JR: No. Yes and no. It wasn't my idea to actually make a living at it, but lo and behold, here I am, but shortly after college I went off to England. I spent ten years there. That's really where I honed my craft and started my trade there.

SW: What was your big break?

JR: I co-wrote and toured my own comedy shows throughout Europe. My partner and I, we were really well-known in Europe in the comedy circles. The name of the troupe, there were two of us, was called Sal's Meat Market.

SW: What kind of act was it?

JR: It was just the two of us, we would do twelve to fifteen characters apiece throughout the show so we would change characters in the blink of an eye by grabbing a hat or a coat or some other prop from behind the curtain, but yet keeping with the same story.

SW: How did you get from that into films and television?

JR: Well, because we were popular over there I just got asked to do a film which was "The Ritz" directed by Richard Lester and from there I just worked, probably twenty five films there, then I started writing comedy for the BBC and Granada Television. It was a writing job that took me here to Los Angeles. I was writing a screenplay based on the life of Gorgeous George, the wrestler.

SW: Was that ever released?

JR: No, it wasn't, because another wrestling film had come out and didn't do well so the studios didn't want to see another wrestling film. I wrote that for a production company, I didn't write that for myself. I don't know where that lies now, but I was paid to do that. Then I was hired to write a late night comedy for CBS based on the life of the emperor Nero, which was really fun.

It was during that time that the "Cheers" audition came up.

SW: Did you audition for Cliff?

JR: I invented the character Cliff. Cliff is my invention.

SW: Then what did you audition for?

JR: I forget. It was just another character at the bar. I think it was a character named George.

SW: So how did you get to create your own character?

JR: I left the auditions, I had never auditioned in my life up 'til that moment. All the work I had gotten I had just gotten by reputation in England and I was doing real well over there. So I really didn't understand it. I never went to acting school. In college I did a couple of plays there and that was it, but there really wasn't any acting coach or acting class at the time. So when I was asked to audition I didn't really understand the process. It was a little embarrassing, but on my way out the door I said, "Do you have a bar know-it-all?" Glen Charles looked at me and said, "What are you talking about?" I walked back into the room and just improvised my version of the bar know-it-all. That's how Cliff was born.

SW: It's interesting that Cliff goes along with theme we've been talking about, recognizing the common man but where would we be without the mail carriers?

JR: Right, and the people who repair the mail carriers truck, we're literally running out of those people.

The postal carrier, as far as the infrastructure you're delivering something, but to me when you get down to the minutia of it, somebody has to make the envelope that the mail carrier carries. Someone has to build the machines that makes the envelope, somebody has to build the machine that makes the parts of that machine. That's what is becoming extinct now and unfortunately people won't realize it until the problem hits them in the head and there's trouble and then it's too late.

SW: What steps do you think could be taken to change that? What advice would you give to the readers?

JR: Let your children go outside and play. That's the bottom line. When was the last time you saw a child building a treehouse? That's where artisans and inventors come from, it all starts as a child in your sandbox. Parents now let the children play computer games and watch TV so they're actually raising helpless adults.

SW: I have two children and they do like TV and computers, but it is also amazing to see them create.

JR: Do you have a yard where you live?

SW: Yes, we have a backyard.

JR: Do you have a sandbox?

SW: We have a big trough filled with sand with toys and things in it.

JR: Yeah, that's where it all started. Most parents won't allow their kids to go outside and get dirty. As funny as it sounds, it's true. They think that keeping them inside somehow is keeping them safer but it's also putting their health at risk. Right now, type 2 diabetes is commonly called adult-onset diabetes. Twenty years ago it was thought impossible for a child to get type 2 diabetes. Today it's an epidemic amongst children.

SW: Because they're not moving and exercising and doing things?

JR: Right. It doesn't have to be sports. My kids don't want to do sports, but there's no reason a kid can't build model planes or do some little carpentry project. It's still activity. Sports is fraught with its own problems as well. The bigger, tougher, stronger kids usually excel, but the rest of the kids are left to fend for themselves. If you give a kid a toolbox, watch what happens!

SW: One thing I've noticed is if I am using a screwdriver for example, my three year old will pick up a toy screwdriver and do whatever I'm doing.

JR: That's because your God. A parent is God. Whatever a parent does... if you drank and smoked your kids will grow up being smoking drunks. But if you're productive and your kid sees you actually doing something, well, it's not a surprise he's going to be doing the same thing.

SW: Of all your work, what are you most proud of?

JR: Apart from my children? You mean professionally?

SW: Actually, I think that's a pretty good answer, but what about professionally?

JR: The work that I did in Europe, in Sal's Meat Market I'm enormously proud of because noone has done that before or since, what we accomplished, for two Americans living overseas hardly knowing anybody, not having any contacts and just doing it ourselves, that was an enormous undertaking but at the time we didn't know because we were having so much fun with it. Kind of like growing up poor and not knowing you're poor. Sal's Meat Market, I feel in hindsight, was my biggest accomplishment. I landed in England and I only had five dollars in my pocket and I ended up staying ten years. Just on the basis of that it's a big accomplishment.

SW: What other things are you doing nowadays?

JR: I just got finished with a feature film for Hallmark and this afternoon I go in, some people want to talk to me about directing a film for them, that's another company.

I got the rights to the series of books called "Haunted Kids," written by a man named Allan Zullo, so I just did some recordings (audio narration) of that which are probably for sale now on the Internet.

SW: And you bought the rights to those?

JR: Myself and a partner, yeah. Joel Engel is my partner on that, and we got the rights to do the TV shows and movies and the audio recordings.

The copies of the books have sold I think three or four million worldwide. They're like stories people used to tell around the campfire, so we have the rights to that and some other projects that we're involved in.

More from John:
Voicing a character in every Pixar feature film

See other interviews