On the cusp of Dial the Gate’s 200th episode, Gary Jones returns to host the people behind the show and delve into what the Stargate community really means to them.

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Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
0:28 – Opening Credits
0:55 – Welcome and Episode Outline
2:29 – Updates with Gary Jones
3:35 – Gary’s Most Recent Painting
5:05 – Gary’s Son Also Paints!
8:52 – Meeting the Dial the Gate Team: Jeremy
10:30 – Walter Can Fly an Al’kesh
13:06 – Teamsters On Set
14:15 – Meeting the Dial the Gate Team: Sommer
0:17:38 – Meeting the Dial the Gate Team: Antony
0:20:14 – Gary’s Convention Time with David Tennant
0:26:29 – Meeting the Dial the Gate Team: Frederick
0:28:16 – Stargate Is Multi-Generational
0:30:01 – The Alchemy of the Cast
0:31:55 – Gary’s Audition Approach for SG-1
0:34:58 – Meeting the Dial the Gate Team: Linda
0:37:27 – Meeting the Dial the Gate Team: Tracy
0:39:52 – Gary Had to Figure Out Fandom
0:42:56 – Everyone’s Favorite Walter Moment
0:44:25 – Walter’s Costume Change at the End of “200”
0:49:41 – When Gary Met Mickey Rooney
1:02:47 – Thanking Gary
1:04:41 – Thoughts from the Dial the Gate Team
1:06:24 – Martin McClean’s Latest Creation, The Touchstone
1:08:11 – David’s High Point: Jessica Steen and People Like Martin McClean
1:09:21 – David’s Low Point: Joel Goldsmith
1:15:10 – A Teaser For Season Four?
1:17:20 – Dial the Gate Transcripts
1:19:39 – End Credits

***

“Stargate” and all related materials are owned by MGM Studios and MGM Television.

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TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 199 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. You’re watching The Stargate Oral History Project. And I am thrilled, because I am here with the people who bring you this show week in and week out here. And a cat, apparently. And I am so privileged to be able to share this space with them today. They are the ones who make this show happen. Say hello, everybody.

Everybody:
Hello!

David Read:
And Gary Jones, my dear friend, sir. Walter Harriman in Stargate. And all decked as Walter today. Thank you so much for taking this journey with me as a co-host in various episodes.

Gary Jones:
You’re welcome.

David Read:
It just seemed appropriate to have you back here, on the cusp of our 200th, to celebrate the journey that has been gathering these Stargate stories over the past two and a half years.

Gary Jones:
Thank you for having me. It’s great. Any chance to see if I still fit into this flight suit is great. And I do, so that’s something after how many years?

David Read:
What have you been up to? Have you been working on any more art? What’s going on in your world?

Gary Jones:
I have been working on some more art. If you like, I can show you my latest painting.

David Read:
Please, please.

Gary Jones:
Would you guys like to see that?

Sommer Roy:
Yes.

Jeremy Heiner:
Absolutely.

Gary Jones:
Let me fix the background. No. OK, there you go. Hang tight one second. I’ll put this over here, and I’ll bring the painting around. It’s a work in progress, but it was a photograph that I took in Mexico when I was down at the beach. And I thought, “Oh, this is a hilarious photo.” Anyway, it’s a pretty big canvas, so I don’t know if you can– Let me push this back to get it all in. Let me show you. This is what it looks like.

David Read:
That is wild.

Sommer Roy:
Whoa, look at that.

Gary Jones:
I’m pretty happy with it so far.

David Read:
The waves.

Gary Jones:
And because it’s water-based, in terms of the theme, I’m going to hang it in my bathroom. That will be hanging in my bathroom.

David Read:
Absolutely. And it runs in the family. Is your son still painting?

Gary Jones:
He hasn’t been painting. The short answer is no. But he texted me the other day actually to tell me that there was a painting that he’d started working on, which I was like, “Seriously? You’re gonna try and paint that?” And he’s in the process. He’s about halfway through it, and it’s a painting of the group Led Zeppelin on stage singing, and it’s really good. And I’ll show you, since David brought it up, why David is referencing my son’s painting. Because I didn’t know until he started doing it that my son could actually paint. I had no idea. He’d never really done it. He started sort of drawing, and I was like, “Oh, he’s pretty good.” And then he tried one or two paintings. And then this, what I’ll show you, is his third painting. Check this out.

David Read:
I love this. We’ve had this one on the show before. It’s amazing.

Gary Jones:
This kind of blew my mind when I did a photo of that. Look at that.

Sommer Roy:
Nice. That’s amazing.

Jeremy Heiner:
The reflection is amazing. It looks like a photograph.

David Read:
It’s photo-realistic.

Gary Jones:
So, people thought it was a photograph, and I said, “No, my son painted that.” And people were completely shocked, had no idea. Neither did I, really. He did it, and when he did it, I said, “OK.” He was painting it at my house. And when he finished, I said, “That’s not leaving here. That’s staying.” So, I’m really amazed at that. It’s hanging on my living room wall, and I look at it all the time. So, he’s really good.

David Read:
Are you still doing commissions?

Gary Jones:
Yeah. I haven’t been asked to do a commission, but I have done them. I did one for … I think I told you, David, that a lady contacted me through Twitter, a lady in the States. And she asked me to do a portrait of her father-in-law. And I was like, “OK. Sure.” And she sent me… God, it had to be the worst photograph of this guy. It looked like a reject from a passport photo attempt. He was just this guy, staring off. But I did it anyway. And it was really cool. I was really glad I did it, actually. It was quite a challenge.

David Read:
I think that’s the one that you had on with us, where the lens from his glasses was.

Gary Jones:
That’s the thing that attracted it to me. His face was kind of like this, and it turns out that he had quite thick glasses. And what it did was, it sort of curved … You know the way you have really thick glasses, it sort of brings your face in sometimes? Depending on severity of how bad your eyes are. And that’s the thing that I looked at. Because I look for these various things that catch my eye and inspire me to do it. That’s the thing. Anyway, I did this painting and shipped it off to her, and she loved it. And she sent me a picture of it hanging on her wall, and her father-in-law was so impressed and couldn’t believe that somebody had actually gone to the trouble to make a painting of him, a portrait. That was pretty cool. Yes, I still do commissions.

David Read:
All right. So, keep that in mind, folks. You can reach out to Gary over Twitter or message me at [email protected], the show’s email, if you’re interested in something.

Gary Jones:
But know that this was not a plug for me …

David Read:
No, this is my request.

Gary Jones:
… to do art. This is David being my art gallery representative.

David Read:
I can dream, can’t I? That’s funny. Gary, would you mind going around the circle here, and asking people about what their Stargate stories are? We know Sommer’s. Sommer may be able to amend that with a lot of the more recent stuff that she’s done with Dial the Gate. But I’m interested in knowing everyone’s Stargate story, Gary, through your lens.

Gary Jones:
Why don’t we start … and I’m looking at my screen here. So, to the right of me is Jeremy. So, Jeremy, why don’t you start? ‘Cause you …

Jeremy Heiner:
Sure.

Gary Jones:
… look like you’ve got the super official headset on.

Jeremy Heiner:
It’s nice to virtually meet you, Gary. And Stargate for me is all thanks to my dad. He had Seasons One through Eight on DVD, and I watched them nonstop when I was a kid. And then I discovered GateWorld. And Darren and David were part of GateWorld back then. And I’d followed GateWorld religiously. And when David started Dial the Gate, I asked if he needed a moderator, because I’d love to be on a Stargate show, ’cause Stargate is one of my favorite sci-fi shows. And I love the ships in Stargate. I love space battles. Obviously the characters and all that. So, that’s my brief story.

Gary Jones:
Nice. That’s great. Lovely to meet you.

Jeremy Heiner:
You too.

Gary Jones:
And thanks for being here.

Jeremy Heiner:
Thank you.

Gary Jones:
A quick aside. You mentioned the spaceships. And I was lucky enough, in one episode, to drive an Al’kesh. And my memory of that was, when I first saw the script and saw that I’d be driving an Al’kesh, I was really excited. And I was like, “This is gonna be so cool,” ’cause it was out of the office, and it was out of my chair that I’d been stuck to for like nine years. It was directed by my good friend, Andy Mikita. But when I got there, the reality of it was, you’re sitting in this giant prop that they’ve made, and it’s in a sound stage. It reads way better on the page, like it actually exists. So, you get in it, and it’s all wood and plywood and spray-painted and everything. And when I sat into the chair to drive it, I was like, “Andy, how do I know how to drive this thing? You got me flying this Al’kesh. How do I know how to do that?” And Andy’s response was, “You just do.” That was it.

David Read:
“Prometheus Unbound” was the episode. And eight years in, I suspect you got some training on the side somewhere.

Gary Jones:
Where? He goes, “You just do…” And that was from the director essentially not wanting to waste any time saying, “Yeah, right.” There’s zero backstory. Zero backstory. You just get in and you drive. And I started joking, I go, “What? Are the instructions in the glove compartment here?” And when I was flying it, I had to be firing missiles and whatever, pretending to do that. And honestly, what I was staring at, right ahead of me, was a teamster leaning against a wall, eating a donut. That was literally my target. “Teamster target locked in, fire.” And I was pretending I was killing a teamster. And he wouldn’t die. And the teamsters are hilarious ’cause when they’re on set, they could care less about anything. They’re so bored and they’re standing around making so much money. And if you go to the parking lot and talk to them or walk past them, they’re either talking about two things. One is directions of how to get to a certain location. Directions. What highway to take, “What highway did you take? I took the highway… You shouldn’t have, you should have cut off at highway blah, blah and taken the other thing.” And they argue about directions, about who knows how to get somewhere faster. So that’s that. And then the other thing is all the stuff they bought, like the boats and the quads and the toys that they have ’cause they have so much money, they just buy shit. And that’s what they all talk about. Anyway, Jeremy, I hope that …

Jeremy Heiner:
That’s awesome.

Gary Jones:
… give you a little insight into what it was like in my own personal connection to the spaceship. OK, so now Sommer, go. Sommer Ann, go.

Sommer Roy:
First of all, Gary, thank you. I can’t believe I’m saying that this is like the third or fourth time I’ve been interviewed by you, so that’s amazing to me. And it blows my mind how much a part of the Stargate family I’ve become in the past four years or so. And it’s been absolutely amazing. A quick background, I know a lot of people on Dial the Gate know my story, but I have a lot of medical issues, a lot of surgery, and so the joke or the thing that I like to say is, “Stargate is my medication.” When I’ve had surgery before, it was noticed by one of the doctors and nurses one time, after one of my surgeries, my blood pressure would go dangerously high, but when Stargate would come on the TV in the hospital room, my blood pressure would go down. So my doctor and the nurses, they started noticing this and were joking, and the doctor jokingly wrote me a prescription for Stargate every day. So, I would watch Stargate every day and my blood pressure would go back to normal. So, I love Stargate, I share it with my friends and my family. It’s a bonding experience for me. It’s a healing experience for me. I love every aspect of the show. And when David went to start Dial the Gate, I was like, “I wanna be a part of that. May I be a part of that? Do you need anyone?” And he’s like, “Sure, come on board and we’ll find something for you to do.” And I’ve been helping moderate and helping out with various things about the show, and it’s been absolutely lovely. I’ve been able to meet so many wonderful people, so many people behind the scenes, in front of the camera, so many people who play parts in the show that we don’t even think about. And it’s really wonderful to see all the behind the scenes and all the little aspects of the show. And, of course, to meet everybody, all of the Stargate fandom, all of the fans that have gathered around Dial the Gate and made it what it is. And I’m blessed. I’m so excited to be here. And I hope that our journey continues a long time. We were talking about before the show that Stargate doesn’t die, and there’s a lot of people out there determined not to let it die. So, I hope it continues for a long time.

Gary Jones:
Nice. And I noticed that while you were talking, I checked my own blood pressure, and it turns out it’s SG over 120, so it’s good. I’m good. Just don’t OD on the show, you know what I mean?

Sommer Roy:
I’ll try. It’s really hard.

Gary Jones:
All right, great. Thank you, Sommer. It’s great to see you again and …

Sommer Roy:
You too.

Gary Jones:
… love to hear your voice and hear what you have to say.

Sommer Roy:
Thank you.

Gary Jones:
Antony, what’s going on? You’re in the middle of a forest with just a shirt on? You must be freezing.

Antony Rawling:
It’s the northern lights.

Gary Jones:
Yes.

Antony Rawling:
Yes. Thank you for being here today. It’s fantastic to see you.

Gary Jones:
Thank you.

Antony Rawling:
It’s an honor to meet you, genuinely. I found Stargate purely by accident. My wife had started a job several miles away, and I had to drive her there, and decided to stay for the day, and I had a portable DVD player. And I found a little market, and I was looking for a series of some sort, and I went and bought disc number two of the weekly Stargate collection, the magazine collection that they did, which was “The Enemy Within,” “Emancipation,” and “The Broca Divide.” I watched that, and I went back and got disc number three and then number four, and I eventually cleared him out up to the end of Season Six, which is all he had, and then it was onto the box sets and Atlantis and Universe from there. I spend quite a lot of time watching Stargate. For the care of my wife. She has all sorts of medical needs. So I spend a lot of time at home with my own thoughts, and Stargate is a release for that. That’s my story.

Gary Jones:
I love that you stumbled upon it in some outdoor market. That just kills me.

Antony Rawling:
It was completely accidental. I just wanted something that I knew I could sit down and watch for four or five days in a row with me wife being at work. It happened to be Stargate that I picked up.

Gary Jones:
Cool. Thank you. Thanks for that happy accident. That’s great. Wonderful.

Antony Rawling:
It certainly was.

Gary Jones:
And where are you now? Where are you living right now?

Antony Rawling:
I’m in Cornwall in the UK.

Gary Jones:
OK. I was just in the UK. I hosted a convention in Basingstoke just outside of London. It’s about an hour southwest of London. And I got brought over to host it for the weekend, and there were … who was there? Paul McGillion, Joe Flanigan …

Antony Rawling:
Rachel was there.

Gary Jones:
Rachel Luttrell was there too. It was great. I was hosting it from Friday to Sunday, and then on the Sunday, David Tennant showed up. And that was pretty cool because the woman who organized the Basingstoke Con, Jane Lowther, had actually seen me host a weekend in Chicago at the Creation Con. When she was putting this on and she decided that she needed a host, she thought of me, and I was pretty honored, and she said, “Would you host it?” And I was like, “Yeah, in a heartbeat.” I like doing more than simply appearing at a convention, rather than just getting on stage and — What that’s good for me is that I get to meet the other actors, I get to improvise and have fun, and it draws upon my comedic background, so I love that. So she had said to me, “Really all I need you to do is bring people on and off and have some fun,” and I was like, “Yeah, in a heartbeat.” Anyway, on Sunday afternoon when David Tennant shows up, he was there with his manager, and his manager’s backstage, and so they said, “OK, are you ready to introduce David?” And I said, “Yeah.” So I went on, gave a funny little intro, and then I called him on, and he comes bounding on, and the place goes crazy, as you can imagine. And I walked backstage, and his manager comes running at me. He’s like, “What are you doing? You get back up there.” And I was like, “What? Why?” And he goes, “Because you need to moderate questions.” And I said, “He seems to be doing fine. They’re loving him. He can do no wrong kinda thing. You don’t really need me there.” You don’t usually hear that from actors. Most actors are like, “Oh, yeah, OK.” No, I was trying to talk myself out of being on stage with him. And his manager was insistent. He goes, “Get up there.” And he hands me a microphone, sticks it in my face, and I go, “OK.” By the time that happened, David Tennant had already sat down and was saying hello, and then I come on, and it’s like, “Oh my God, I hate this.” And I kinda sat down beside him, and he looks over, and he goes, “Oh, hello,” and in his Scottish accent or whatever, and I thought, “Am I just gonna sit here like a lump?” Because they’re there to see him. It’s like, “What’s Gary … what’s he doing here? Trying to poach on his celebrity or something.” So I sat there for a second, and then the next thing I know, David is including me in the conversation. Guy was so generous and so lovely. Very funny, super quick, loved the fans, and at one point, he turned to me — they asked him about acting or something and he gave some answer or whatever — and then he turned to me, and he said, “Would you say so, Gary? What do you think?” And I was like, “OK, this is great.” He’s actually leveling the playing field and he’s more concerned with the greater good of the interview rather than him trying to be Mr. Man of the Moment kind of thing. So I thought, “Ah, that’s so great.” And I think I would be like that too, but I definitely took a page out of his book and I thought, “Man, if I’m ever on stage like that in that capacity and somebody comes on –” He was very inclusive and everything. And then we started to really have a lot of fun, and at one point they would bring the microphones around to the audience members and get them to ask a question. She’s over in that direction, sort of diagonal to us. She’s looking over generally at us and she gets the microphone and she goes, “Well hello, Dr. Gorgeous.” That’s how she started. She went, “Hello, Dr. Gorgeous.” And before anybody could say anything, I jumped in, I said, “Excuse me, I would ask that you direct all questions and comments to David Tennant.”

Jeremy Heiner:
That’s awesome.

Gary Jones:
It was great. And he killed himself laughing and it brought the house down and then I didn’t make a big deal out of it. I love those moments. And it’s what I was trained to do, improvising and seize the moment. And if you wait a second too long, if I’d waited even half a second, David Tennant could have started talking and then I would’ve been interrupting him to get a joke in, so what I loved about that moment is it was so clean. It worked, so that was pretty fun. Anyway, great. Thank you, Antony. Frederick Marcoux. OK, man. What’s your deal? What’s your deal and why do you need such giant headsets?

Frederick Marcoux:
Those are just headphones. It’s not even a headset with microphone. I have a microphone here.

Gary Jones:
Good Lord. Are you shrinking?

Frederick Marcoux:
Maybe. I don’t know.

Gary Jones:
All right, go. Tell me about yourself.

Frederick Marcoux:
My story is pretty basic. I started watching this show really young with my dad. He watched it in English. I’m a French Canadian, back in Montreal. So, I watched it in English first with my dad, didn’t understand a thing, so he had to answer all of my questions until we got a translated version in French and I started watching it on my own. And eventually I went from SG-1 to Atlantis to Universe, and then converted half of my friends to Gaters, and also converted my girlfriend to a Stargate Universe lover. So that’s pretty much my story. I just use Stargate as the only sci-fi show that I actually really like and can re-watch 1,000 times all over again. ‘Cause I tried that with Star Trek. I tried that with Star Wars, and I can’t. It’s not the same. So Stargate is part of me because I watched it from so young. It is me now.

Gary Jones:
It is you.

Frederick Marcoux:
I’m a merge between O’Neill, Jackson, and then Rodney.

Gary Jones:
You’ve said a lot of things that are very familiar to me. I hear it all the time. And specifically one thing you said, you watched it with your dad and so many fans, younger fans, have watched it with their parents. And that’s, I think, one of the reasons why it’s become like the cockroach of sci-fi. Is that it just continues on, it just gets passed along, because parents watch it, then the kids get into it, and then I meet the mums and the dads and the kids at conventions. So it’s multi-generational and this shows no sign of slowing down, because it’s another entire generation that loves the show as much as their parents.

Frederick Marcoux:
And I’m 27, so once I get kids, they’ll be watching it too.

Gary Jones:
Yeah. This is not unfamiliar to me. I hear it all the time. To mention Sommer again, I’ve had a lot of fans come to my table when I’m at various conventions, and they talk about how Stargate got them through difficult health issues or difficult periods in their lives and I don’t know what to say. How can you–

David Read:
How do you respond to that if it’s such a life-altering event for them? It’s like anything that you have to say in comparison is… It can’t affect that.

Gary Jones:
That’s the one thing I would have never expected to hear. I had no idea. But obviously it’s a testament to the fact that– I’ve always talked about the chemistry, the alchemy of the leads, and you gotta remember, you gotta think… Think back after watching, say, 10 seasons of Stargate, but you gotta know that when they auditioned those guys, they didn’t know. It’s always a shot in the dark. They have no idea how that actor that they’ve chosen is gonna pan out in the bigger picture. They just don’t know. So it’s something to think about when you’re watching the show, especially in the later seasons, to go, “What must that have been like when they auditioned them?” Because they were all good actors, and the producers, like Brad and Jonathan and all those guys, would’ve gone, “Mm, yeah, there’s like… I like this person. Yeah.” But that’s all you have to go by, whether they can act, and if they sort of fit what they had in mind. Beyond that, if you didn’t have that alchemy, what you would’ve seen was replacements. You would’ve seen this, a certain character along the way, and if somebody didn’t fit into the, into the foursome, they would’ve changed them. In other words, an example would’ve been like this. If they had hired not Chris Judge, let’s say, as an example. Let’s say they wanted this alien character, and if Chris just wasn’t cutting it for them, they would’ve then found a way to kill Chris’s character, or get rid of him, and then bring in somebody else. Because they were like, “It’s not working.” So they’re trying to get something that works, but at the beginning, they have no idea. And they didn’t really know with me either, because my audition, I turned into a comedy bit. Because when I auditioned, I did not know what the tone of the show was. I didn’t know if it was… I didn’t know anything. I didn’t even know what a chevron was. I had no idea what– When I was reading my audition sides, I didn’t know what I was saying. I didn’t know what I was referencing. I was saying, “Chevron One encoded” and I’m thinking, “What the hell is that? I don’t know what that is. Something’s encoded. Something’s lit up. I don’t know.” And I kept saying it to try and maybe sound like I knew what I was talking about. But I didn’t. Because I didn’t know, I did it in a comedic way, and it made Brad and those guys and Michael Greenburg laugh. And I got hired not because… I don’t think it was because I was anything particularly special or, “Oh my God, there’s our technician.” I don’t think it was like that at all. They told me later, they said, “You were the only guy who did anything with it.” Because when you’re reading chevrons, it’s like you’re reading a grocery list. So, everybody else who came in prior to me would read it like that, and I was the only one who did something with it, and it made them laugh and they remembered and they were like, “OK, bring this…” So when I came back for my callback, I did what every actor does. You’re waiting in the hallway and I’d say to the assistant, “OK, who else is called back for this? Who am I up against?” Because back then I would know a lot of the actors. We’d go out for the same roles, so if they called somebody else in, I’d be like, “Oh, OK.” And he goes, “No, just you. Just you. You’re the only one called back.” I was like, “Wow.” And then I got the part. So that is … it was meant to be, but relating it back to the whole alchemy of the show and then the writing, because they were such good writers, and you can’t–

Sommer Roy:
The chemistry was great, if I may–

Gary Jones:
The chemistry is unbelievable.

Sommer Roy:
That’s one reason I think a lot of people are drawn to it, because the chemistry makes it feel like family, makes it feel cohesive, and the writers and the actors make you feel a part of that family. And you’re a constant on the show and it’s not Stargate without Walter.

Jeremy Heiner:
Here, here.

Sommer Roy:
It’s definitely something that we all get really comfortable with and it’s familiar and we go to that. I know for me, personally, it wasn’t, “Oh, I’m meeting superstars,” or whatever. For me, it was along the medical lines and along the comfort lines to be able to say, “Thank you.” That is huge for me, to be able to tell everybody a part of the show, “Thank you” because of how much it mattered to me, to a lot of other people in the community. So you’re definitely right.

Gary Jones:
Thank you.

Sommer Roy:
It has everything that it needed to make that chemistry work.

Gary Jones:
Great. Linda, what’s going on?

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Life in general.

Sommer Roy:
Summer school.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Summer school. Almost done. We got this week and then I’m done. I’ve been doing pottery with the kids this Summer. And that’s been really fun. We actually got a wheel for them to use, and I’ve got them all on the wheel once, and my hands are really sore from doing pottery every day.

David Read:
Linda, what’s your Stargate story? I don’t think I’ve asked it on the show.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
I think I’ve told it before, but it would’ve been a really, really long time ago, way back near the beginning. I saw Starlog Magazine. I used to get it every month. I’d go to the mall to the newsstand and pick it up. And it had this Earth 2 article on the cover and I was like, “Oh, yeah. OK, that’s cool,” ’cause I was enjoying that, and I’m thumbing through and there’s this two-page spread on Stargate the movie, and it was showing a lot of the costumes, like the Jaffa and the Anubis costume, and it had all this Egyptian stuff in the background and was going on about how they used really huge crowd scenes like Lawrence of Arabia and I was hooked. I was like, “This looks incredible. I have to go see this movie.” So, I did, and then I did again, and again, and probably again and again. And it was actually the first DVD I ever bought when it came out on DVD. I immediately ran out and snapped it up. And when the series came on and I saw Richard Dean Anderson was gonna be in it, being a rabid MacGyver fan, I was hooked before it even aired. So, I guess my story all along is hooked before I even saw any of it. And I’ve continued to be hooked ever since. You guys did something right.

Gary Jones:
Rick certainly with MacGyver and Stargate, boy did that guy ever hit the jackpot.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Who gets that sort of career?

Gary Jones:
He could have retired after MacGyver and then he’s on Stargate. It’s like, “Holy Jesus.” Hooked before you even saw it. I love it. That’s great. That’s how we like our fans. Tracy, what’s going on with you?

Tracy Naugler:
It’s nice to see you again. I’ve been a fan of Stargate ever since the movie, like Linda. It was really fascinating and again, like Linda, I was little watching MacGyver and then when Stargate came on, I was like, “Oh my gosh, it’s MacGyver. I can’t wait.” And I started watching it back when it was airing. And then, life happens. We have family and work obligations, so I got away from it a little bit. And back in March of 2020, things went a little bit sideways and I was working a lot of hours and needed a little bit of downtime. So, you get out your phone and you start scrolling and I started looking up actors and shows that I used to watch a long time ago and Richard Dean Anderson and Stargate popped up. And then you go down the rabbit hole and you start watching everything again. And of course, the more I interacted with Stargate content, the more notifications I was getting with Google. And Google sent me a notification telling me about the launch of a new channel on YouTube and I was like, “OK.” So, I checked it out, it hadn’t aired yet, and lo and behold, it was Dial the Gate. I clicked the Subscribe button, the bell notification, and then I got the notice and boom, there was the first episode of Dial the Gate.

David Read:
I didn’t know you were with us from day one. I never knew that.

Tracy Naugler:
Yes. David, I think I was one of the first 50 subscribers to the channel. So I go way back. And then I sent David an email ’cause he was looking for people to help out with moderating and I sent the email, waited a couple of days, and David got back to me, and the rest is history. Hooked ever since, and I’ve made so many good friends. And it’s such a wonderful community and all my friends have become family, so it’s huge. It’s life changing actually. So, that’s my story.

Gary Jones:
That’s great. It really is a community and it took me a while to figure that out ’cause when I first started going to conventions, I didn’t understand it. I didn’t get it. I think for a number of conventions, I had within myself a kind of separation of church and state, that I was an actor and you guys were the fans, but I still didn’t quite get what the draw was. But I was privileged enough to be allowed to do more conventions. And the more I did, I went, Oh, that’s what it–” I suddenly got the community thing of it. And because the more people I talked to, when let’s say three ladies would show up at my table and I’d go, “OK, how do you guys know each other?” And one would live in Nebraska, the other one lives in Hawaii, and another one lives in Maine. I was like, “What?” And then they said, “We met at a convention and we became friends and now we go to conventions and we meet at conventions.” So I thought, “OK, this is a massive community-based… There’s power here.” To go to the trouble of maintaining friendships at that level, to go, “Well, I’m booking my holidays for this time. We’re gonna go to Chicago. We’ll meet you there. We’ll book the hotel.” And they got into this routine and the more I was around that, the more all my preconceived prejudices or whatever evaporated. So, now when I go, I try to make it so that there isn’t that sort of divide between church and state. I just talk to people and talk to fans. And even in a thing like this where you’ll say… You’re very kind, but you’ll say things like, “Oh, it’s an honor to meet you.” And that doesn’t sort of live in me. I’m just Gary, I played a character and a part, and we’re just having a chat. It’s equal. It’s as equal as anything to me because I was on the show. It’s great. So yes, that’s what I did and you guys watch the show, but beyond that, it’s as much an honor for me to meet you guys as you say it is to meet me. So it’s all the same.

Tracy Naugler:
Nice. Honorary family members. Absolutely.

Gary Jones:
Honorary family members. It’s really nice. David’s crying.

David Read:
No, Dave’s got something in his eye.

Gary Jones:
David’s got something in his eye. “Quick, I better brush my hair again.” So, we’ve gone around the room. We’ve seen everybody and talked to everybody. What else? What else are we–

David Read:
This is a question for the room. Anyone, jump in. What’s your favorite Walter episode?

Frederick Marcoux:
The coffee scene when the Stargate is stolen. That will always be… And also the scene after where they interrogate both of you guys. It’s so funny. It’s just perfect. It’s like you’re scared, but you’re not scared, but at the same time, you’re really scared.

Gary Jones:
Yeah.

Sommer Roy:
My favorite’s the later seasons when he is more like the Radar character from M*A*S*H. I think that is perfectly played in the SG scene. You did beautifully. I laughed almost every time you came on screen in the later seasons, because it was perfect.

David Read:
He’s such a great opposite for O’Neill. O’Neill’s like, “No bunting?”

Sommer Roy:
“Zero Hour.”

David Read:
“No, sir. No bunting.” “It just won’t be the same.”

Jeremy Heiner:
For me, it was moment in 200 when first General Landry’s like, “Come on, Walter, you too.” And it’s the instant wardrobe change when you enter the Gate room. And also when you voice the puppet for the other bit and you’re like, “Chevron seven also lit up.” I love it.

David Read:
“I feel so stupid.”

Jeremy Heiner:
Exactly. I love that episode.

Gary Jones:
That instant costume change was pretty much, believe it or not, real time. They did a thing called a camera lock-off. They locked the camera off and nobody was touching it, and it was just pointed at… Once it followed me out of the control room and I disappeared, I’m about to come out, they just held the camera in place. And thanks to many, many theater productions in my past, where sometimes you’re asked to go offstage, do a costume change, and come back on, and you gotta be back on in 10 seconds, and you try doing the costume change. And every actor’s like this. They’re like, “Well, that can’t be done. It cannot be done. It’s gonna take way too long.” And the director goes, “Well, you gotta make it work.” How you do it is that you have everybody who’s backstage, the stage manager, the assistant stage manager, anybody who’s got a spare set of hands, and you slow walk through it. And you go, “OK, when I come through, I’ve gotta change my shoes, and I’ve gotta get these other shoes on.” And somebody will literally take your shoe off, and then you slip your foot into another shoe that somebody else is holding. It’s literally like that. And I got so used to doing that, so I knew, after numerous theatrical productions, that you can’t actually say it can’t be done, because you just gotta do it. And it has to be done. So, when we had to shoot this thing of me leaving and coming around… Because remember, I was in my flight suit. But then when I come around, I’m black ops. I’m just gacked up. So what that was, was you can’t really tell, because the camera’s so far away in the Gate room where I am. First of all, I have no shoes on. I’m underdressed, so I’ve got a T-shirt and a black jacket underneath me. My flight suit is over the other suit. And so I go, “Ah, sir, I’m not dressed.” He goes, “Ah, come on.” I go, “Ah, OK,” and I just walk. And I said to the camera guy, “So when I’m leaving,” and the camera’s looking at me, “when am I out of frame? When do I leave the frame?” And I took a couple of steps, and he goes, “Right there. We can’t see you. You’ve just left the frame.” So I knew that I had three steps to take, and as soon as I took those three steps, I was unzipping this thing and starting to pull it off. So I pulled it off down to my waist, and then I went down the stairs. There’s like eight steps down to the little hallway. And when I got down there, I’d already had this thing pulled down to my waist. They just ripped it down, tore it off me, and as they tore it off me, I held my arms like this, and they put the flak jacket on me, stuck a helmet on my head, zipped up the flak jacket and I just stepped into a pair of boots without doing them up. And then they handed me a gun, and I just jogged around the corner. And it was literally like that. That’s pretty cool, right?

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
That’s awesome.

Jeremy Heiner:
I need to go rewatch that. That’s incredible.

Sommer Roy:
Stopwatch.

Gary Jones:
It was so bloody fast. It was unbelievable. And that’s what I was happy about, for my part on the show, to be able to bring that to the show, so that I wasn’t an actor going, “Oh, I don’t know if I can do this.” I was a seasoned theater actor. So as soon as they said, “Well, you’re gonna have to do this,” I was like, “Oh yeah, no problem.” And that’s what you have to be. You had to be that kind of actor on Stargate, believe it or not. You had to go, “Yep, no, we can do that. That’s not a problem.” “Gary, are you able to do this?” “Yep, we can do it. Let’s work it out,” so that you never showed up with any kind of, “Oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t think I can do…” They don’t wanna hear that. Productions don’t wanna hear that, unless you go, “Well, I think that’s really unsafe,” then everybody’s ears prick up. But if you just go, “Oh, I don’t think…” No. You gotta be the one… You gotta be a problem solver and not a problem creator. And I felt pretty proud of the fact that I could change so quickly because of my past experience. And, of course, look what happens years later. I’m talking to you. I’m talking to you, Jeremy, and you remembered it. It was something that you remembered, but now you know even more about it, which I love to be able to tell you. It was great.

Jeremy Heiner:
That’s incredible. Thank you, Gary.

Gary Jones:
You’re welcome.

David Read:
Gary, I know you gotta get moving here in a couple of minutes, but I would love… So, you’re gonna be like, “What?” Can you please tell us the story, so we can have it on record on here, of when you met Mickey Rooney?

Gary Jones:
Mickey…? Oh!

David Read:
I love this story and I’ve heard it one time, and I was like, “You know what? I really want this as a part of the Oral History Project.”

Gary Jones:
This was years ago after… Remember the movie Black Stallion that Francis Ford Coppola made about the black racehorse on the island and everything? And they get rescued and they come back, and the horse gets put on a farm. And Mickey Rooney is a trainer. And the kid becomes the jockey and everything. So Mickey was in that film, and then in Vancouver, they made a TV show about it, called The Black Stallion. And it was pretty cheesy. It was kind of low budget and it was… I think it was a vehicle for Mickey Rooney to pay alimony. ‘Cause he had like eight wives or something like that. But having said that, he was a total movie star. He was a legend. And I got a day working on The Black Stallion as the horse’s vet. And there’s something wrong with The Black — that’s what Mickey called the horse, The Black — something wrong with The Black, and they called the vet in. And so there’s a little scene between me and Mickey, and I show up and I’m like, “OK, so what’s going on?” And he just sort of tells me the symptoms of what’s up with the horse and he doesn’t know what’s going on with it and for me to have a look, like you’d say to a vet. ‘Cause he didn’t know. And then end of the scene. I’m like, “OK.” First of all, my first thought when I got cast was, “I need to get a picture of me and Mickey Rooney to show my parents because this will prove to them that I’m working as an actor.” Because outside of that, they had no clue what I did. Nothing made any sense to them. But as soon as I thought, “Well, Mickey Rooney, they know Mickey Rooney, so if I show them I’m working with him, they’ll be like, ‘Oh, OK. We get what you’re doing now.'” So a buddy of mine was a 1st AD on that show, Mike Rohl, and I’d known Mike forever from doing theater sports and improv, and Mike was transitioning into becoming a director, so he was working on that show. And I said, “Mike, listen. I’m on the show. I’m gonna bring a camera.” Couldn’t… This was before even smartphones. I had a little camera. I go, “I’m gonna bring a camera and you take a picture of me and Mickey Rooney on set.” And he goes, “Yeah, OK. But just so you know, we gotta get it before they yell cut because he’ll be gone.” I go, “What do you mean he’s gone?” He goes, “No, he’s really quick. He’s really fast.” I go, “Guy’s like 85.” He goes, “Yeah. Listen. I don’t know what to tell you. He’s got a lot of energy.” I go, “OK.” And he also ran the set. He was a bit of a tyrant on the set. He’d show up late, or if they were too late… Mike told me this one story about when they had a problem with lighting or something. Mickey’d be like, “What’s wrong with the lighting?” And they’d be like, “We’re trying to fix it, Mick.” And he goes, “Nope, nope, that’s it. I’m out of here.” Then he’d get in his limousine and leave and drive and go somewhere. And the lighting would be fixed five minutes later and they’re like, “Where’s Mick?” And they’re like, “I don’t know. He’s gone.” And then he’d be gone for however long and then he’d come back an hour later and they’d be like, “Is it fixed?” They’re like, “Yeah, an hour ago.” He’s like, “Well, you should’ve done it quicker,” or whatever. So he ran it and Mike also told me something funny. He goes, “Yeah, this is the only show we work on what we call a Mickey Rooney hour.” “A Mickey Rooney hour,” I go, “What is that?” He goes, “Well, it’s not 60 minutes. It’s 50 minutes.” I go, “Why?” He goes, “Because the producers figured out that for every hour that we work, Mickey needs ten minutes to talk about Hollywood.”

David Read:
That sounds about right.

Gary Jones:
So, I was like, “OK.” So I was getting this picture of him. So I get on set and I’ve got all my lines memorized. And I’m waiting and I’m waiting and Mick’s not on set. And then suddenly you hear, “Mick’s here. Mick’s here,” and the energy changes on the set. Everybody’s waiting around, waiting around, waiting around. Suddenly, Mickey’s coming in. I look out, and it was shot out just a ways away from Vancouver at a horse stable ranch kind of thing. And I look out and down this long dusty road, there’s this tiny little fat guy stuffed into a pair of cowboy boots and he’s walking like this. And people are running behind him, trying to catch up with him, and I’m like, “What the hell?” So I was like, “OK.” So he gets on set, and he’s like, “All right, all right, let’s go!” Now that he’s here, he’s running the show. And I’ll never forget, he goes, “Does somebody have a… Who’s got a script?” And I’m like, “That’s weird.” And somebody hands him a script and he goes like this. He goes, “Uh…” puts his finger on it, he goes, “OK, all right, let’s go.” And I thought, “Was that Mickey Rooney learning his lines? Was that… Did I just witness that?” He’s like, “OK, all right. Let’s go, let’s go.” And they go, “Oh, by the way, Mick, this is Gary.” And he goes, “Ah! Hi, Gary.” And he’s crazy. He’s massive energy. And I go, “Hi, Mickey.” And he goes, “Call me Mick. Call me Mick!” He’s just screaming at me. I was like, “OK, OK, Mick.” And again, like any actor, I’m prepared, got my lines, gonna be in my scene. The director goes, “OK. And action,” and Mickey just launches into some speech that is not written. It’s like he just starts talking. “Doc, I don’t know what’s up with The Black. It’s crazy. Blah, blah, blah. The leg and the this and the arching back.” And I’m just looking at him, going, “What is he talking about?” I don’t even know what he’s talking about. “What the hell?” And I’m staring at him, and now I’m panicked, ’cause I’m thinking, “Did I not read my… What lines are these?” And I’m waiting now for Mickey’s cue line, and it doesn’t come. And he just gets to the end, and he just goes, “So you gotta take a look, Doc.” And he just hangs there. And I’m just staring at him. And I’m waiting for the cue line. That’s not it. Big pause. Director goes, “Cut. Problem, Gary?” And what do you do? Call out, “A Hollywood legend?” And I go, “No. Sorry. Brain fart. My bad.” Anyway, they go, “OK, going again.” And before they go, Mickey looks at me and he goes, “Hey, come here, come here.” And I’m like, “What?” And he goes, “This is how it’s gonna go. They’re gonna yell, ‘Action.’ I’m gonna start talking. When I stop talking, you talk.” And I was like, “Got it.” So I didn’t actually have to wait for a cue line. I just had to wait for Mickey to stop talking. And again, we did the take a couple of times, and each time, he just said something different, but it didn’t matter. He was just… When he learned his lines, “Uh, OK,” he was just learning the gist of the scene. Mickey could say whatever he wanted. And so we did it a few times and got it. Everything was fine. And then I said to Mike– They’re like, “Cut. OK, we’re done. Great.” And I hand Mike the camera, and Mickey’s gone already. He’s like, “Oh, my God.” I go, “Mike, did you take a picture?” He goes, “He’s gone.” I was like, “What?” And he goes, “Well, you better catch up to him. Better go and run after him.” Oh, my God. So I’m running after Mickey Rooney, and he’s already way the hell down the field. And I see him run up into his trailer, and Jeremy, this is like the version of 200, what I just explained to you. He goes up into his trailer, and five seconds later, he comes out in a completely different outfit.

Jeremy Heiner:
That’s funny.

Gary Jones:
And I’m like, “How did that even happen?” And he spots me with the camera, and he just goes nuts. And he starts swearing at me. And he’s like… I can’t even really say it on the air, but he just rips me eight new ones ’cause I’ve got a camera. And I just go, “OK, Mick. No, don’t worry about it. It’s OK. It’s no problem. Bye.” And I’m backing up, and he goes, “Ah, no, come here. Give it to me. Get over here.” And I’m like, “Oh, God.” It’s like I’m already getting PTSD from this weird little celebrity encounter. And he hands the camera to a nearby production assistant. And he’s like, “Get over here. Take the photo!” And then he just grins, and he’s got his arm around me. And I’m just… I’ve got that Vietnam thousand-yard stare, just like, “What?” And then the production assistant goes, “One more for safety.” And he goes, “What?” And he just goes nuts again, goes mental at her. And he’s like, “Oh, my God! Jesus Christ!” And we take the other photo. And then he gets into his limo, and all I can hear is him singing along to the theme tune to Cats on the drive back. “Memories will always…” and he drives off. And I think I was traumatized for days. But strangely enough, I will say that, in retrospect, I tell that story, and he sounds like a crazy man. But I thought, in a way, I got the best acting lesson from Mickey Rooney, because that’s what you do in real life. You don’t know what the person’s gonna say, so you’re just listening. I listened more in that scene, better than I’ve ever listened in any other scene, because I was like, “What is he saying? When’s he gonna stop talking?” And I had to really concentrate on what he was saying. And I thought, “Wow, what a great acting lesson.” Because it’s like, “Isn’t all acting listening?” And it’s basically, “OK, I’m gonna talk. And then when I stop, you talk.” They spend thousands of dollars going to acting classes just to do that. So that they’re not thinking ahead, or “How do I get to the end of the scene?” In other words, looking back now, when you think about waiting for the cue line, you can literally zone out in a scene. You can just be not engaged. But as soon as you hear the cue line, you go, “Oh, here comes my line.” But he wouldn’t give me a cue line, so I had to listen to every single line that he said. And it was pretty good. Anyway, I have to get going. I do have to get going.

David Read:
Gary, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing this time with us as we approach our 200th. Thank you so much for joining us and meeting everyone, some of us again, and sharing stories together.

Gary Jones:
It was great. It was great. It was lovely to meet all of you. It really was. Thank you so much for coming. I had a great time.

Jeremy Heiner:
Thank you.

Gary Jones:
It was wonderful. Thank you so much.

Sommer Roy:
Thanks for coming too.

Gary Jones:
And David, always a pleasure, my man.

David Read:
Thank you, sir.

Gary Jones:
Whenever I can jump in and help you achieve your goals, give me a call, OK?

David Read:
It means a lot to have you, and we’ll stay in touch, all right?

Gary Jones:
Oh, I’ll be at Dragon Con too this year.

David Read:
I may be in Costa Rica. We’ll see. So, my folks wanna do the Panama Canal, so we’ll see. I may just do it. But hope to see you.

Gary Jones:
OK, great. Lovely to meet you all. Chevron Seven is obviously locked.

David Read:
Be well, Gary. All right, gang. OK, I’m gonna wind things down here. Do you guys have any thoughts before we close?

Sommer Roy:
Wow, show 199.

David Read:
Right?

Sommer Roy:
That’s insane. That’s great.

David Read:
I know.

Jeremy Heiner:
I’m used to being behind the scenes. And then the last two weeks, I’ve had the pleasure and opportunity to be on the show, and it’s awesome. So thank you, David, for that.

David Read:
Absolutely.

Tracy Naugler:
Yes, thank you.

David Read:
I really appreciate you guys joining. I’m not prepared yet to announce who’s going to be on for the 200th episode, but I hope it’s someone who’s indeed special. And we’ll see what comes up from that. So, anything else before we wrap?

Sommer Roy:2
Just that I’ve made the best group of friends ever working on Dial the Gate. And I don’t see you guys anywhere near often enough in person, and I don’t see you anywhere near often enough online either. And we must get together and have game night soon. Virtually.

Jeremy Heiner:
I would love to participate. I wanna meet y’all in person at some point, and be as involved as possible with Dial the Gate.

Sommer Roy:
I’m sorry. I usually am the host of game nights, but with all my surgeries and recovery, I haven’t been able to do that lately. But I so miss you guys.

David Read:
Life happens.

Sommer Roy:
But we’re gonna do it soon.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Absolutely.

Sommer Roy:
We’ll do it in the next month or so. Let’s plan it.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
I’ve got a good new game we can try.

Sommer Roy:
Woo-hoo, OK.

David Read:
All right.

Jeremy Heiner:
Kudos to David. I followed you guys for years on GateWorld, and now I’m part of this, and it’s just an amazing opportunity. So thank you guys so much for that.

Sommer Roy:
You guys are great. Amazing. I know the mod team especially, everybody is amazing, but I work directly with the mod team, and I can say I am ecstatic about you guys. You guys are amazing. And when I can’t be here, you guys take care of David, and I’m so glad he has all of you. Not just the mod team, but I’m so glad he has all of you.

David Read:
Safety net. Absolutely. Antony?

Antony Rawling:
Yes. Hello.

David Read:
Tracy? You guys good?

Tracy Naugler:
Absolutely. Thank you, thanks to my honorary family members. Take care, and bye-bye.

David Read:
I have to share something. On Wormhole X-Tremists, we’d been going through and watching the re-watch of the show. And I’ve been looking at a lot of the props that have been appearing on the earlier seasons of the series. And I came across one, and I mentioned it to Martin McClean, “You know what would be so cool to have? One of these.”

Sommer Roy:
Is that the weather … Wait.

Jeremy Heiner:
That’s a touchstone.

Sommer Roy:
Yes, it is a Touchstone. It’s a weather stone. Yes.

David Read:
And over the course of about a month, he went and fabricated … the guy’s a genius!

Sommer Roy:
That’s beautiful.

Jeremy Heiner:
Details are insane.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
No wonder the weather’s been so wonky lately.

David Read:
I know. I’ve been messing with it. I apologize.

Sommer Roy:
Turn it down in Texas for me, please. It’s too hot.

David Read:
I gave him a look at some of the artwork that I had, and he just went and created this thing. He designed it for me. It’s about two-thirds scale, one-half scale. It’s somewhere in there. But it’s a perfect desk toy for the rest of the … for Season Four.

Tracy Naugler:
He’s so talented.

David Read:
At one point or another, that’s going to the start, so absolutely. Anything else before I wrap it up with you guys?

Sommer Roy:
Thank you, David.

Antony Rawling:
Just a quick question for David. We’ve all had a chance to say our little bit today. What are your highs and lows from doing Dial the Gate?

David Read:
Jessica Steen, having her on and having her get to explain her story about why she felt she wasn’t returned to the show, that was pretty extraordinary. That was… I look at that episode, and that’s really why I made the show, was to get some of those stories out where every 15 minutes, someone’s coming on to Facebook’s Stargate fan club and asking that question. And I wanted to have a definitive answer for people. And I think that there are examples like that. Also examples where I’ve met wonderful people like Martin McClean, who make such wonderful gifts that the whole fandom gets to witness and experience. You can’t ask for these things. The generosity from people who have — right there — such talent is unfathomable. I think that those are the real highs for me. The lows, it’s not specifically about Dial the Gate. It’s an experience that I had with people who were involved with the show. I’ve been debating whether or not to share this story for a long time. Joel Goldsmith and I had an interesting relationship. We were pretty tight there for around the time that Stargate: Continuum was out. And when he died, it really hit me hard because for the last few years before, I wasn’t really talking with him. And it’s a regret of mine that I didn’t go back to him to talk about his music on Stargate Universe, because his music on Stargate Universe, in my opinion, was the best from all of his body of work that he did with Stargate. We did two interviews with him while I was on GateWorld. And I was really young at the time, and so I didn’t really know the ins and outs of what you’re supposed to do in terms of making sure that information is correct. I would just post it out there, and I would do audio interviews with him, and I had him on twice. The first time I had him on, he wrote me a series of corrections to spelling. A lot of the musical lingo that he used, I was not spelling correctly in the article. And so he wrote me corrections after the fact, after it had been published, to correct my spelling basically, to make sure that it was getting right. Because he recognized that GateWorld was kind of an archive for a lot of this. I misspelled Neal Acree’s name. I spelled Acre, A-C-R-E, as in a plot of land. And that was first. I think Neal actually wrote me himself. The second time we interviewed him, I did the same thing again, and Joel called me. And he wasn’t nasty, but it was really clear that I was not doing as good a job as far as he was concerned as I could be. And he wasn’t wrong. And I took it personally. And I never said anything to him about it, but I didn’t communicate with him again until the day he died. So, I never spoke with him again. And I blew an opportunity to get over my ego and communicate with him and tell him how much I loved the past couple of years of the music that he did. And I regret that every day. No, not every day, but a lot. Frequently, to this day, I regret that I didn’t say, “You know what? You’re absolutely right. Even though I’m a 20-year-old kid doing this, I could probably do a little bit better with making sure, at least to come to you before I publish these things to make sure that I’ve got all the lingo correct, so that people can reference what we’re talking about.” And he didn’t directly express his frustration to me that second time that we did an interview where he went out of his way to call me to correct some things. But under the surface, it was very much like, “OK, I really shouldn’t have to be doing this.” And I took it personally and gave him the cold shoulder for the rest of the time that he was working on Stargate and to the point where Stargate Universe was over. And I lost an opportunity to tell him how I felt and to apologize for being sloppy, and to have him on and discuss what I felt was his best music. And since I’ve been doing Dial the Gate, I’ve really been going out of my way to make sure that we get as many folks on as possible to tell their stories, because we don’t know how long we’ll have them around. Cliff Simon, we lost him before he could even come on. But I had already interviewed Cliff, and there’s some stuff with Cliff that you guys haven’t even seen yet. There’s a whole… He recorded a whole commentary on Stargate: Continuum that I’m looking forward to publishing, I’m just looking for the right place and time. Willie Garson, we had him on the show. He’s passed now. There are people… Not everyone’s gonna hang around forever. I say all this to say that if there is someone out there that you’re not on solid footing with in terms of a relationship or something that’s being left unsaid, don’t wait. Because you never know how long you’re gonna have. You’re never promised tomorrow. So, those are my highs and lows.

Sommer Roy:
David, you’ve done an amazing job highlighting everybody and you were a kid back then, and I know they’re looking down going, “Wow, what a great job, kid.” You’ve grown up and you’re highlighting so much of the things, and you’ve grown, and you’ve really… That kid’s not you anymore. You learned from that experience. And I know there are so many grateful people out there that are very appreciative of all your work.

David Read:
I appreciate you guys. I appreciate everything that you have done to get the show where it is, that we continue to celebrate this excellent franchise. We have a lot of people still to cover. Some people won’t come on, there’s nothing that we can do about that. But the ones who do, I’m thankful to every one of them, and I’m thankful to all of you for sharing this moment with me as we hit our 200th episode in the next little bit. And thank you, Frederick, for giving me the idea.

Frederick Marcoux:
No problem.

Jeremy Heiner:
Yep, thanks Fred.

Frederick Marcoux:
I have one question. For you, David.

David Read:
Uh-oh.

Frederick Marcoux:
Can we get a teaser for what’s coming for Season Three? Perhaps …

David Read:
You mean Season Four?

Frederick Marcoux:
… some content– Season Four? Or maybe, I don’t– I’ve lost track with too many episodes.

David Read:
Content?

Frederick Marcoux:
But can we get a teaser, or maybe something we made back at Gatecon? We made a lot of content there and a lot of it hasn’t been seen yet.

David Read:
Yes. So, we did a whole location series while we were at Gatecon, the day after Gatecon. Linda, you were there, and Frederick, you were there, and there’s no place like home. But we went around for a couple of days and filmed at the various locations. And I’m still trying to figure out — the various shooting locations — I’m still trying to figure out how to work that into Dial the Gate. I may release them between Seasons Three and Four. I don’t know when Season Four is gonna start, because I’m gonna be, hopefully, filming a feature here in the next few months. So, I’m taking Season Three a little bit further into the Summer to get some episodes in that I would have normally probably plotted for Season Four, so I’m talking with people that I was gonna put off. But I don’t know when we’re gonna be back. We’re gonna go probably till around episode 207, 208, and then I’ll probably break. But I’m still planning July guests, and that was not the intent, but we’ll see. And then the Stargate location series with Nicole and Yvie and Linda and then Frederick and Adam, you guys tagged along as well and did camera for us, too. So it was …

Sommer Roy:
Can’t wait to see that.

David Read:
… it was quite a couple of days. We were exhausted.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
It was so much fun, though. But I slept for three days straight afterwards.

David Read:
No, absolutely, those of us who were lucky to avoid COVID and everything else.

Frederick Marcoux:
Yeah. ‘Cause me and my girlfriend got it.

David Read:
Oh, man. Absolutely. Guys, anything else before we wrap?

Jeremy Heiner:
Nope, thanks again.

David Read:
All right.

Sommer Roy:
Thank you.

Jeremy Heiner:
For everything.

Frederick Marcoux:
Thanks again for the opportunity.

David Read:
Thank you, Tracy.

Sommer Roy:
Thank you.

David Read:
Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you, Antony. Thank you, Sommer. Thank you, Linda. Thank you, Fred. Frederick and I have got a lot of work to do. We have plans to build out the website. I have a team of people who are working with me right now to make the transcripts for the entire catalog of the show so far, so you can search specific quotations from the entire Dial the Gate archive.

Sommer Roy:
That’s great.

David Read:
Susan, Suzie, Max, and Claire, and then Tracy is gonna be working with me to build these out. And I’m really excited about this, because a lot of these stories were just locked in video, and now we’re building a searchable text database. If you go and check, several of the closed captions from more of the recent episodes already have the corrected text put into them, so it’s coming along. But it’s costly. It’s one of those that, “Gotta throw money at this thing to make it happen.” There’s AI software that’s assisting us with the time codes and with the first half of the text. But I’ve gotta throw money at it in order to make it happen, so I’m thankful that it’s working. I’m gonna need a couple of people to read through the transcripts by themselves to make sure that it all makes sense. So, if you’re in the audience and you wanna read the transcripts of some of the interviews, I’m looking for a couple of people to audit them. So, reach out to me at [email protected] if you wanna participate in that. ‘Cause we’re building a Dropbox of all the transcripts.

Jeremy Heiner:
Let me know if you need help. I’m always willing.

David Read:
Appreciate it. I just need highlights of where, “This doesn’t make sense,” so I can go in and correct it. I wanna make sure that they read as well as they sound so that people can do the best independently. And we have to straddle the line between what people say and some people repeating words and everything else. That’s what’s going on. Thank you guys.

Sommer Roy:
Thank you.

David Read:
I appreciate y’all tuning in, and I appreciate y’all joining me for this episode. And we’ll see who we’ve got on for 200 in the next few days. It’s all good.

Frederick Marcoux:
All right, looking forward.

David Read:
All right, guys. See you on the other side, everybody. Bye.