In Episode 2, we welcome our first guest and it's someone we go way back with. Blake McIver Ewing, known to most as Waldo from The Little Rascals, sits down with us to talk about a career that started before most kids learn to ride a bike.
Blake's story begins with Star Search, where he talked his way onto the main stage at six years old and won. From there, it was Full House, The Little Rascals, a groundbreaking run in Ragtime, and a path through Hollywood that most people never hear the full version of.
We get into all of it, the audition grind, what it was really like in that final callback room with Spielberg, and how being under contract to Full House almost kept him out of the movie entirely. Blake opens up about the moment he walked away from acting (turning down what turned out to be High School Musical), the years he spent figuring out who he was outside of the industry, and what eventually brought him back to performing, on his own terms.
There are stories about go-go dancing on vocal rest, getting recognized while folding gym towels, and a full-circle reunion with his Ragtime castmate decades later in upstate New York. We talk about rejection, taxes, the Coogan law, what it's like when your on-screen dad becomes a controversial figure, and why theater, especially the immersive kind, might be the future of live performance.
It's funny, it's honest, and it's a conversation that reminds you why this podcast exists: because the real stories behind the kids you grew up watching are way more interesting than anything that made it on screen.
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