From Coincidences to Conversations of Schoolhouse Rock

00:02 - Speaker 1 Hi, I'm SQuire Rushnell and I'm Louise DuArt. I strive to be a giant in helping people understand that they've got God winks in their lives and they can see them if they strive to learn to do that. 00:19 - Speaker 2 And I am a giant in helping people to understand how much God loves them. 00:29 - Speaker 3 I'm Brian Boyd and today, on Conversations with Giants, we are meeting, well, two giants, honestly, that have been friends of ours for years SQuire Rushnell and Louise DuArt. Perhaps you know the song Conjunction, junction, that's right, finish it up. Well, you're going to meet the guy who named it, that. And also, you know those coincidences in life that you have that aren't quite coincidences, but seem to have something else involved. Well, those are called Godwinks and we'll learn about those today too. All today on Conversations with Giants, today we have a great podcast for you. I'm with two of my dear friends that my wife and I had met years ago, that are so close to us SQuire Rushnell and Louise DuArt. Hello, SQuire and Louise, or as you call yourselves, hello. 01:27 - Speaker 2 Brian, squeeze, squeeze, SQuire and Louise. We're married. We have different names, but we are one in the same. 01:36 - Speaker 1 Yes, married 27 years now. 01:39 - Speaker 2 Yes, Madly in love, not with each other, but with other people. 01:44 - Speaker 1 More today than yesterday. 01:45 - Speaker 3 I see how this podcast is going to go. I see it's already going to go downhill, all right. Well, listen, SQuire and Louise have done so much in their lives. They're known for one thing in particular, and we'll talk about that in a second. But you guys, you've written a bunch of books about the term Godwink, and just give our audience what is a Godwink. Tell me what that means. 02:12 - Speaker 1 A Godwink is a new word in the language, speaking of new being 20, 25 years old, but it's a new word to a lot of people in the language. But it's becoming at its tipping point in the nation and in the conversation and in the culture. And the word Godwink means those little experiences that every single one of us have, that we're tempted to call coincidence. But they're coincidences that aren't. They come from divine origin. 02:49 - Speaker 3 So you're walking down the street, you run into this door, you see somebody you haven't seen in 15 years and your life takes a shift. That's true. 02:58 - Speaker 1 Or even other things right. 03:01 But the word Godwink, as it has now entered into the language and into some dictionaries, is um, is always associated with hope and um and in. In the beginning I thought the word god wink was actually another word for coincidence. But and I never bothered going to the dictionary and looking up coincidence I knew what it meant. But when I finally got around to that, I found that coincidence means two remarkable events that come together without apparent cause. Well, that's not what a gunwink is. A gunwink are two remarkable events that come together with cause, and that cause is divine. So that's why the word so easily went into the language, because it was filling a vacancy, a hole in the language that people didn't have a word for. And even many pastors have said to us you know, we always knew what it was, we just never had a name for it. 04:08 - Speaker 3 But Godwink and we're going to back up in a second. Godwink is not a religious I'll say religious term. It's a term that is sort of that coincidence as a divine origin. Right, we all have those. 04:21 - Speaker 1 No matter where you are in life, it is not religious. Yeah, it's not religious in terms of. It's not a part of a religion. It crosses over all boundaries, all faiths, but it is a word of faith. 04:34 - Speaker 2 It's a faith builder and it's a conversation starter, because everyone has God winks, but they just didn't know what to call them. You know they'd say ironically or wow, did I have a coincidence today? But then when you pull back on the lens and you see it from God's perspective, because we are really on a grand GPS, god's positioning system, and as the Bible says, in all your ways, acknowledge him, god, and he will divinely align your paths Well and he will divinely align your paths. 05:03 Well, when we acknowledge God, he begins to put things in order. He divinely aligns people, places and things at just the perfect time to change our life in most profound ways. 05:16 - Speaker 3 Well, let's back up a second. Let's take it way back, because this didn't come about by accident, so either one of you can go first, but you had a career way before Godwinks books. So so, SQuire Louise, let's go back. Uh, you know, louise, let's start with you. Um, you had an amazing career still do in the world of entertainment, and a lot of people will know the names that you hung out with. Tell us about that, and a lot of people will know the names that you hung out with. 05:44 - Speaker 2 Tell us about that. Well, you know, it all started, of course, with a God wink. And just going back and I'll try to make this real short I was married before SQuire, my favorite husband. I was married to a man who just was not the greatest husband in the world. He decided to leave me for another woman. So okay, so he leaves. 06:08 And I realize I'm sitting there, I have no money, I've got two kids. I'm living in Woodland Hills, california. What am I going to do? And I called my friends over, who were all these beautiful Christian women that we would always have Bible studies with, and I said oh my gosh, I'm in trouble. What are we? We're going to pray, louise. We're going to pray. God's going to open up a door. So we prayed and then one of my neighbor's friends said to me you know, louise, all those silly voices that you do for us, of all those characters and those celebrities, why don't you go down to one of those comedy clubs and see if you can do this for a living? And I looked at her like you know, where cheese had fallen off the cracker, and I said I'm a housewife in the san fernando valley. I'm going to go to a sleazy comedy club in front and, you know, be humiliated yeah and they said well, we bet you 50 bucks. 06:58 You don't have the guts no, no well, 50 bucks is 50 bucks, and so, brian, I went down what's called an open mic night where anyone could get on stage at the, the world famous comedy store on sunset bull southern california, hollywood, the whole area there, right yep right and I got on stage and I started doing impressions. 07:23 - Speaker 5 I did you know, can we talk here? I did a little bit of Joe Rivers. You know what I'm saying, brian? 07:28 - Speaker 2 Yeah, because Joe was hot, hot in those days and then I did some Cher, who was really like fabuloso, oh, and then Fran Dresch and I did a little bit of George Barnes Remember George Barnes? So I did a bunch of characters and unbeknownst to me, Star Search scouts were in the audience. God wink, god wink. 07:53 They saw me, they put me on the show and Donna Summer was switching the channels. One day and she sees me on Star Search God wink, yes. And she calls her manager, Susan Mineo, and she says get me that girl to be my opening act. And that's how my career started. 08:10 - Speaker 3 Was Ed McMahon, the host of Star Search back then, or who was the? 08:13 - Speaker 2 Yes, okay, yes, he was yes he was, so you were on. 08:18 - Speaker 3 And how did you do on Star Search? Did you take home that gold? 08:20 - Speaker 2 trophy. I lost Sinbad, oh, come on, but you know Sinbad was winning. He kept winning and I thought my chances are slim to nothing. 08:31 - Speaker 1 But she won. Donna Summer didn't hire. 08:34 - Speaker 2 Sinbad. 08:34 - Speaker 1 That's true. She hired Louise. Yeah, and that's how she. Can you imagine? That what did the girls around the coffee table say? 08:43 - Speaker 3 You did work hard for the money there. 08:44 - Speaker 2 Louise, there you go, just saying and she was a joy to work for and with and we became very dear friends and you know she was one of the greatest talents that ever lived. When I would every time I would, you know I would be her opening act and then I would rush to go into the audience because I would, you know, I would be her opening act. 09:05 And then I would rush to go into the audience because I, just every single night I had to see her perform. She was that good and when she sang MacArthur's Park and then she hit that high note. I thought they have to be doing something in the sound booth. She can't hit that high. She was hitting that high note. I mean it was, and she loved Jesus so much and she was really precious. 09:26 - Speaker 3 So was Donna. I mean not to not to derail the conversation, but you know, donna Summer is such a legend and, uh, we definitely lost her too soon. Was? Was she great? Was she everything in person that she was on stage, or or? Uh, I can't imagine that she was anything different. 09:40 - Speaker 2 She was the most humble person and, like I said, love the Lord so much and appreciated everything that she had. But she was very open about you know that she wasn't a perfect person and actually she told us the story she wrote. She works hard for the money. She was at one of the award shows and she went into the ladies room and there was a woman you know attending the ladies room. People were giving her a a woman you know attending the ladies room. 10:05 People were giving her a dollar and you know, and she's cleaning up and everything and and donna's thinking, wow, now that's a woman who works hard for the money no and then she went back to her seat and she wrote the song come on actually in a little, uh, a cross reference here. 10:21 - Speaker 3 In a future episode we are going to have Michael Amartian on. 10:27 - Speaker 1 And. 10:27 - Speaker 3 Michael Amartian produced. I believe she produced that track, so we'll learn some more from Michael when we have him on our Conversations with Giants podcast. So, louise, you tour with Donna Summer, you're doing All the. Voices, and then you continue on. I believe you did some more touring with a couple of famous people. 10:51 - Speaker 2 I did. But what had happened in those days? It was in what was it? I can't remember the dates when comedy was hot. Then, you know, comics were getting a lot of TV series. It was the mid-'80s to early-'90s. Yeah, robin Williams, roseanne Barr, and they were all getting series. And I was asked to do a special with Jonathan Winters, which he was one of my heroes, so I loved that on Showtime. And then Showtime gave me my own special, two specials, and things just started. Then I started getting corporate dates that would ask me to speak. You know, in those days comics were big for these corporations to entertain. So I was, I was doing really good. 11:36 But, brian, the best God make I ever had was meeting SQuire. Because all of that success, if you want to call it that, and I was doing well financially, my heart was hurting because I wanted so much to have a husband that I prayed with. And I prayed for my ex-husband for 20 years. I said, lord, please, I want a Christian husband I can pray with, because I accepted the Lord a year after I was married to this man. So for 20 years I prayed for him and when he left me I said, god, you didn't answer my prayer and then when SQuire and I got together, I realized he did answer my prayer. I do have a praying husband, it just wasn't the one I thought it was going to be. 12:22 - Speaker 3 Sure, wow. So, SQuire, let's hear your side of the story here a little bit. So you had a career in entertainment and beyond. Back up, in fact, there's some famous names in your repertoire too. I wanna think about Scrappy Doo. If anybody knows what Scrappy Doo is, we'll talk about that. If he'll talk about I'm not sure. But back up, tell us, tell us that how you, what your career trajectory was well, I would say that, um, the I've been as we all do. 12:57 - Speaker 1 I learned principles that I have lived by at every, from every, stage of my life. I was a paper boy at the age of nine and there were principles about hard work that I learned. When I was into the early days of college. I read a book by Dr Norman Vincent Peale, who talked to me personally in that book. I felt that that book was written especially for me about the power of positive thinking, and I've been an obnoxious optimist ever since. And so as I moved on through life, I found that I had great principles. 13:38 When I actually got to be the head of children's television at ABC, vice president of children's television, children's Television at ABC, vice President of Children's Television, I learned some principles of KidVid that took me through every stage of my subsequent life. For example, if you think about Schoolhouse Rock, you think about keep it short, keep it entertaining and infuse it with empathetic characters, and those principles were actually the principles that I took on to Good Morning America and into my writing of the Godwink books and so forth. So if you go back to Conjunction, junction, conjunction, junction. 14:26 - Speaker 3 What's your function? I think everybody knows that one. 14:31 - Speaker 1 All right, that is the most popular Schoolhouse Rock song. Come on, how long was it? Three minutes, it was three minutes. 14:40 - Speaker 3 Three minutes on the phone and it was on ABC. It was like an interstitial, wasn't it? It wasn't like in between TV shows. 14:46 - Speaker 1 Well, it was at the end of shows, at the end of Bugs Bunny. 14:52 - Speaker 3 Everybody listening. If you remember Conjunction Junction and Schoolhouse Rock comment in the notes. Schoolhouse Rock Just say I love Schoolhouse Rock. I want everybody to spam the comments with I love Schoolhouse Rock. I want everybody to spam the comments with I love Schoolhouse Rock. Let's show him this. I mean. I mean I know about politics because of that SQuire. I mean I'm just a bill on Capitol Hill. Come on Everyone. 15:12 - Speaker 1 Well, there, there again, is there again. I have a kid with. Principle that I learned from I'm just a bill was not only keep it short, keep it entertaining, but have the messenger be empathetic. Empathetic, having a feeling for the person that they're communicating with, empathetic. So when you think about I'm Just a Bill, which was the number two most popular schoolhouse rock song, remember the scene of the bill, the rolled up bill sitting next to the boy on the steps of the Capitol. 15:53 And what were the words the bill says? I know I'll be a law someday. Oh how I hope that I will, but today I'm just a Bill. Actually, I missed out. I actually misquoted the words. 16:13 I left out the most important words that we infused into that song because Bill said oh, how I hope and pray that I will, but today I'm just a bill. Now that character was empathetic. We as kids felt for him. He wanted something, he wanted to be a law, but today he's just a bill and we started seeing in that little video all the obstacles that he had to go through. And of course he had a sidekick, a kid that we had empathized with, and the kid was empathetic as well. So those principles were the ones that I took away from Schoolhouse Rock and when I went into the next job that I had, which was Good Morning America, I ran Good Morning America. And Good Morning America had longer segments, like eight to ten minutes. We shortened them to about six minutes to keep it shorter. We thought about entertaining people, not just informing them. And then the most important thing about Good Morning America in those early days was that we had empathetic characters delivering the message. 17:39 Think about David Hartman. If you assigned a color to him, I felt that it would be gray plaid, nice, warm gray plaid. Well, what makes gray plaid look more interesting? If you surround them with color like hermabombeck polka dot yellow and and white polka dots. Surround him with hermabombeck, crimson, red or maybe julia. I always thought of her as kind of orange and pumpkin pie 100%. 18:13 - Speaker 4 Wouldn't you agree with that? If I were Julia Child, I absolutely would. 18:18 - Speaker 1 Wait. 18:18 - Speaker 4 Julia, how'd you get in this? 18:19 - Speaker 3 chat. Okay, you're in the wrong Zoom meeting Julia Wrong one. 18:26 I'm just a bill. Oh, I guess that's not it. We're over that. Okay, julia Childs just popped in the wrong Zoom meeting. We'll have to. Well, but SQuire, the Schoolhouse Rock series, is so iconic I know it's actually replaying now on the Disney Plus app, the Disney Plus channel. Replaying now on the disney uh plus app, the disney plus channel, and, and and lately here as we record this is 2025. There's been a resurgence of interest in the in the uh retro stuff like the 80s and the 70s. There's a huge research. 19:00 People are buying albums again at vinyl albums yeah, yeah, so so there must be a huge research of interest in that series and that sort of stuff. The animation of that was so cool too. It wasn't like a fancy digital animation, it was all hand-drawn, I'm sure. 19:17 - Speaker 1 And the music was great too. Yeah, well, you know it started with two guys who were in an advertising agency. They were the two guys who created it. They were they were guys who made commercials, and and the commercials that they made that brought them to this situation was um, was the uh. They were doing the uh, the advertising for ABC Saturday morning, and. 19:47 - Speaker 5 ABC daytime. 19:49 - Speaker 1 Because at that time my predecessor was a guy named Michael Eisner and he had hired McCaffrey McCall to do those advertising. Well, the two guys that came in to sit in Michael's office one day. They said, you know David McCall, who is the owner of our ad agency. His child is having a hard time understanding mathematics and the math tables, and so we thought it'd be interesting to do a little series of little three-minute programs called Multiplication Rock. And so Michael was kind of listening to this, nodding his head and so forth, and they said, you know, for example, and they started singing a song, three is a magic number. And coming out of that meeting then what they didn't know was that divine alignment had taken place. They had an idea. They were divinely aligned to be at the same place where they needed to be. 20:58 Michael Eisner. What they didn't know, number three was his favorite number. He always felt that that was very important in his life. He also felt that there was a faith component to that, because three in the Bible is obviously very important the Trinity and Michael. Although he grew up Jewish, he went to a Catholic college and he had his child in a Christian school, and so he felt that that trinity was very important to him. And now these guys are sitting there singing a song about threes, a magic number. 21:39 Now what happened is is that Michael had also gotten a lot of pressure from people that there was at that time. There was a group called Action for Children's Television that was putting a lot of heat on the networks about television being too violent on Saturday morning. There weren't enough, you know good, all the commercials were non-nutritional, that kind of thing. And so Michael actually was trying to figure out what he was going to put into his affiliate speech. Two weeks from then, divinely aligned, and what he started thinking about was what they were telling him. Two weeks later, he gave a speech. They got their pickup when they heard the speech. By the way. He said we're going to do this Saturday morning program and it's called Multiplication Rock. It's going to be three minutes long. It's in and around all of the Saturday morning programs and that is how Multiplication Rock got launched way. 22:44 The God wink is is that whenever there is a divine alignment, you where you are on a path, two paths of divine alignment, whenever they cross, there's always a God wink there. We'll get back to that, but now I come along about a year and a half or two years after that and I am christened the new vice president of children's television, the guys who had done Multiplication Rock were scared to death that this new guy who was coming in from Chicago was the guy may not like their Multiplication Rock. They were sitting in my office and they said you know, we want to start some new shows because we've done the multiplication tables, we want to do history, we want to do English and that kind of thing. And I was nodding my head and they started talking about some of the things they were doing. I'd already bought the idea and I was thinking, because I always think of titles, how important titles are. 23:47 - Speaker 3 I want to come back to that, by the way. So go ahead. I always think of titles. 23:49 - Speaker 1 how important titles are I want to come back to that, by the way. I was thinking, well, we can't call this Multiplication Rock anymore. We got to have a new title and I looked down and the name of their company is Scholastic Rock, their production company that does the Multiplication Rock. I thought, well, there's scholastic publishing, so we can't do that. So when they came up for air, I said, well, you know, we need a new name for this right. And they said, well, yeah. I said, well, what about Schoolhouse Rock? They wrote it down oh yeah. 24:23 - Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, oh okay, yeah. 24:26 - Speaker 1 So they got the order they thought, but they also got a name that they hadn't thought about, and that's how Schoolhouse Rocks started and got stuck. I didn't do much after that. I just approved everything that they did by and large, and all I did is come up with the name. 24:50 - Speaker 3 Let's go back to this. You were known as the title guy, is that correct? Yeah, when I was creating this podcast, I needed a title and I actually came to you with some ideas and you actually helped me reframe this whole title for this podcast. Conversations with giants sounded very good. I didn't know you were going to select us. Well, we had, we had a few, but it you helped me put it together. You are really good at making titles, I'll give you that so yeah, so well, thank you so we're very thankful for that. 25:24 So zoom ahead. You eventually leave ABC. 25:28 - Speaker 1 So the principles of that came out of KidVid were principles that I took to every other aspect of my, my life, my career, because, as I said, good morning. America was short, with colorful characters, and by the time I got into a middle-aged period where I started thinking about God winks, they were directed by those same kind of principles Keep it short, keep it entertaining and use empathetic characters to be your messenger. So now we have Louise and I have Louise has authored half of the books short, entertaining, and we seek to find the empathetic characters that will tell the story and take us through their story. 26:41 The stories are all true and that is also a big dimension, I think, in today's marketplace. They're authentic. 26:51 - Speaker 5 Yeah. 26:52 - Speaker 1 The authenticity If you want authenticity. In fact, I think that's why our Hallmark movies have always been number one when they premiered and people always say to us they love that it's a true story. 27:07 - Speaker 4 Right. 27:07 - Speaker 3 And that we show the real people at the end so this is conversations with giants and, uh, we are talking with SQuire rushnell and louise duart, the creators of the godwink series, the godwinks books, movies and store. You can go to godwinkscom for more information. So go to godwinkscom. You can learn all about SQuire and louise's uh books and also pick up a cool godwinks mug if you like. Um, louise, I got a question for you. Let's, let's, let's, pretend SQuire not here for a second. Um, why is the q and SQuire capitalized? What's up with that? 27:46 - Speaker 2 Well, when SQuire was at ABC, his secretary took a week's vacation and he invited his daughter, hillary, to take her place for a week. So she was his new secretary for one week and SQuire would always sign his letters to people you know, capital S, capital Q, and that was it, and he'd send it off. So Hillary said one day dad, you know, when you write a letter with S-Q-U-I-R-E, it looks weird, you know, because I'm so used to seeing capital S, capital Q. She said why don't you make your name capital S, capital q? And then you'll have a logo. And she was into marketing. And so he said well, whatever you want, honey whatever you want, darling so it just stuck and so like his name isn't odd enough SQuire. 28:41 But now he's got a capital s, capital q, and it always stuck and and sometimes people say well, well, isn't that arrogant. You know his name isn't weird enough, but it was really an homage to his daughter. 28:54 - Speaker 3 Hillary, I love it. So if you send an email to SQuire, be sure and capitalize the S in the Q. That's all I'm saying. 29:08 - Speaker 1 Well, I like it because it's my defiance against technology. 29:13 - Speaker 3 My spellcheck never works right. 29:15 - Speaker 5 That's right. 29:18 - Speaker 3 So we created the Godwink series. There have been many books. There have been several movies. I want to talk a little bit. There was a big movie that came out about three years ago on Netflix called Rescued by Ruby. Now it did very well on Netflix, I think millions of minutes viewed. Was that, rescued by Ruby, one of your stories for one of your books? 29:42 - Speaker 1 Yeah. It was the number one story in the Dog Wink book, and Louise should tell that story because it came out of a prayer. Let's talk about it because it's still available on Netflix today. 29:54 - Speaker 3 So listen everybody. Don't do it right now, but when we finish this podcast, go to Netflix. Look up Rescued by Ruby. It had a couple of great A-list stars in it. Great movie and, by the way, it's a dog movie. No dogs die in this creation of this movie. 30:11 - Speaker 2 That's right, not in our movies. Yeah, that's right, and it's absolutely a true story and it's just phenomenal. I mean, the ending is so great and you have to stay through the credits because there's a double Godwing dog. 30:24 - Speaker 3 Oh you're crazy, oh my God. 30:26 - Speaker 1 Before you tell the origin, let me just clarify. Rescued by Ruby reached 100 million viewers in its first year Wow, and that's a great plateau Not terribly unusual at Netflix. But what really surprised them and amazed them was that 80% of those 100 million watched the movie to the very end, and they still do today. And so I have no idea what that number is, because you know, I mean a streamer you pay the weekly or the monthly fee and if you don't like something you can just go to something else, and they can measure everything. 31:12 - Speaker 3 They do. 31:12 - Speaker 2 Which is a little scary when you think of it. They know when you get up and go to the bathroom, so you had your book, the Dog Wink Book. 31:19 - Speaker 3 The Dog Wink Book is a God wink where there's a dog in the center of it. I suppose Is that correct? Yeah? 31:24 - Speaker 1 Okay, that's exactly right. 31:25 - Speaker 3 Rescued by Ruby, one of the stories of your Dog Week book. Yeah, not all the details, but apparently you pitched that to Netflix or something. They loved it and they greenlit the movie. Now you shot the movie. Where did you shoot the movie? 31:38 - Speaker 1 We shot it on Victoria Island. 31:41 - Speaker 3 In Canada, in Canada, in Vancouver, british Columbia. 31:46 - Speaker 1 So it recreated the Rhode Island scenery very well and the true story took place in Rhode Island with a trooper that had ADD and always wanted to get in the K-9 Corps because he thought if he had a dog with super scent, that he that would offset his add deficiencies. And um, and he got teamed up, through divine alignment and god winks, with an add dog, and the rest of the movie is unbelievable yeah, it's beautiful movie. 32:24 - Speaker 3 We and I I gotta be honest I, my wife and I had the opportunity to go to Rhode Island for the premiere of rescued by Ruby. Yeah, we met Ruby we met Ruby, we had a chance to meet trooper and it's such a great film. I think, if you're looking for a film that's 90 ish minutes long, that when the end happens you're like that was not a waste of my time. I enjoyed that. You go to bed happy, not stressed out. Rescued by Ruby is a great movie, so you just congratulate your success there. 32:59 - Speaker 2 When we did that showing in Rhode Island, you and Fran were with us and of course, ruby was the star and Officer, dan dan, so great um. That was at the time when the police were looked down upon. 33:16 - Speaker 1 remember they had. 33:17 - Speaker 2 They had like it was after uh, the uh floyd era and uh, and there was a lot of concern about police yeah, they and, and we almost didn't make the movie because they said I don't know if we want to do a cop movie right now. Cops are not, you know, on the high list of likable characters. Well, network executives are so fickle, they're so fickle. 33:41 - Speaker 3 You were one. You were one. SQuire, I was one. 33:44 - Speaker 2 Yeah, all that to say, we did a special screening there and we had all the officers there from the Rhode Island State Police and when the film finished I'm just going to cry when I think about it they were so touched and the commander said you know, we've been given such a bad rap for so long and this brought us back to what we really are cops for to help the people and you. You exemplified that in that film and we're so grateful for that. And and it really was very special to see the reaction of. You know, we don't, we don't see the reaction when people are watching netflix, you know from the movie, but we sure saw it that applause I, that applause lasted, I thought, for five minutes yeah five minutes? 34:34 - Speaker 1 maybe it was only three minutes. What do you think, brian? 34:37 - Speaker 3 yeah, it was it was really incredible. 34:39 - Speaker 1 And then not to minimize your hallmark movies. 34:43 - Speaker 3 So so what's happened is hallmark came and and, uh, found some of your stories or you. You show them to them. And there's been several Christmas movies. Listen, I know there's a lot of crazy Christmas people out there that love the Hallmark. Isn't there a whole throng of people that watch Hallmark Christmas movies? 35:02 - Speaker 1 It's like Wait a minute, we resemble that. Yeah, I think Christmas starts in July. On. 35:05 - Speaker 3 Hallmark Channel? I'm not sure. Oh, I know I'm one of them. I think Christmas starts in July on Hallmark Channel. I'm not sure. 35:09 - Speaker 2 Oh, I know. 35:10 - Speaker 3 I know. 35:10 - Speaker 2 Well, you know it's the feel good. You can even have it on in the background. You know, when I'm cooking, sometimes I'm watching the news and I'm thinking, oh, I just can't, I just can't hear another newscaster tell me a horrible story. I'm going to turn on Hallmark. Oh, it's July, oh christmas, you know. So I have them cooking and I'm listening. It's in the background and it just makes me feel good. They're always fun feel good movies. The difference with. 35:37 - Speaker 3 Come on, we all know the girl leaves the big town, she goes to the countryside. She meets the boy. Oh my gosh, I'm in love with you. It's not going to work out, and then it works. 35:47 - Speaker 2 Yeah, it's the same story, Except that the Godwink stories are true. 35:53 - Speaker 3 That's true. How many Hallmark movies have been made? 35:54 - Speaker 1 We love the title A Godwink Christmas. 35:56 - Speaker 2 We did four, don't you love that? Four A Godwink Christmas. 36:00 - Speaker 1 One, two, three, four, the fifth one is in script, but you know getting decisions in Hollywood. 36:07 - Speaker 3 So what? It's tough. No secrets for our podcast audience here listen. No one's listening, no one's listening. 36:14 - Speaker 2 We don't have anything at the moment there, but we may have another series, but we can't talk about it Okay. 36:20 - Speaker 3 Well, there's more to come, but clearly your success, you know, thankfully. 36:26 - Speaker 1 We can talk about the series. We can't talk about the network. Oh you know, thankfully, we can talk about the series. We can't talk about the network. Oh, okay, just take 30 seconds. 36:31 - Speaker 3 That's actually a good segue. What's next for Godwinks? And this is your focus right now. So everyone listen, go to Godwinkscom, Learn all about it. But SQuire and Louise, what's on the horizon for Godwinks? Tell us what's in the future. 36:46 - Speaker 2 Well, Brian, believe it or not, we're about to do a reality show Not me and SQuire, but we're producing it. But SQuire and I started praying when we got married. 36:58 - Speaker 1 Yeah, this is not God Winks. 37:00 - Speaker 2 This is not God Winks. This is another brand, but there's God Winks in there, yeah. 37:04 - Speaker 1 There's God Winks in everything that we do, and we started a 501c3 about 15 years ago called Pray Together, stay Together, and that emerged from the book that we wrote called Couples who Pray. 37:20 - Speaker 2 The Most Intimate Act Between a man and a Woman. 37:22 - Speaker 1 And that book came from the fact that when Louise and I were married 27 years ago, we had come from two failed marriages. 37:30 - Speaker 2 You know, I'm Mrs Roshanel III. You know that, Brian. 37:37 - Speaker 1 And the idea that husbands and wives would pray together was such a cool idea when I heard it and I had never thought of it. And when you stop and think about it, in our culture, praying together with your partner is not something that is really promoted in churches and synagogues or anywhere. And yes, we pray at the Thanksgiving table. We pray, we say grace together, we go to church, we corporately pray with other people and our wife is there, and so on and so forth. But I'm talking about praying together, two people getting together, as it says in Matthew where two of you get together and agree in prayer, my Father in heaven will give you anything. And that is what we learned to do and that is what was amazing. 38:36 - Speaker 3 So we can look forward to that on the horizon, and is there a website for that project, SQuire? 38:44 - Speaker 1 Yes, well, praystaycom, yes, and there is a conceptual trailer there and the series will follow several couples who are in marriage trouble, that either it's stagnant or in trouble. And we guarantee just about every. We guarantee that every couple who takes that challenge and prays together five minutes a day for 40 days as we follow through that 40 days with the cameras, that their marriages will improve yeah, some more than others. But we also guarantee that the divorce rate in America will go down as a result of this television series Amazing. 39:34 - Speaker 3 Well, you guys are not slowing down at all. You have a lot going on, and I just got word from my producer that Joan Rivers has just come into the Zoom room and I think she wanted to say a couple things about this podcast. 39:51 - Speaker 5 Yeah, she's always pushy, Pushy, pushy, pushy. And you know, I'm glad that you had SQuire and Louise on, because they're terrific you know, oh, that's good, that's a big voucher, that's amazing. Yeah, and I'll be honest with you, SQuire and I had a little thing together. Yeah, I slept my way to the middle with him. 40:10 It's true, it's true. But you know, brian, you and Fran, you know we're so close, you're like such dear friends. You know everything about me, everything from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. You know that my bra size is a 34C. It used to be, now it's a 34 long. I mean, you know everything, brian. 40:32 - Speaker 3 Everything SQuire. I think you probably wonder who you wake up with every day. 40:37 - Speaker 1 I never know who I'm waking up next to. 40:39 - Speaker 3 There you go. I borrowed that. I knew he was going to say that I do that. 40:43 - Speaker 1 A guy with a cigar this morning. That's right, I was a hundred old man this morning. 40:50 - Speaker 3 I know. I know it's Louise. Here's the trick. It's all of the latest crazes with the young people that you have to get those new voices in your repertoire. 41:02 - Speaker 2 Well, yeah, because most of my act is in heaven. But we just talked about how they said Gen Zers want to go back to albums. 41:11 - Speaker 3 It's true. 41:12 - Speaker 2 So my act could be hot again, Brian. 41:15 - Speaker 5 Yes, absolutely. 41:18 - Speaker 3 You guys are amazing. Before we sign off, is there anything that you wanted to mention that we didn't talk about today? 41:27 - Speaker 2 Well, just when are you going to visit? 41:30 - Speaker 3 Oh well, we won't say where SQuire and Louise live, but they are very, very hospitable hosts and amazing, amazing couple, and I really encourage everyone to visit Godwinkscom that's Godwinks with an S dot com and you can learn all about their series. You can actually download some of the movies, purchase them on Amazon. I personally am looking right now at a Godwinks mug that is so wonderful to have coffee in, and when I drink my coffee I'm reminded of those little coincidences in life that we know aren't coincidences, that have a divine origin. And for another episode we'll tell you a couple stories that are remarkable, but for now we just want to thank SQuire and Louise for joining us on the Conversations with Giants podcast. You're very hospitable. Thank you for your time today and just thank you for being here, thank you, we love being with you. 42:29 Amazing, thank you so much. Amazing, thank you so much. 42:33 - Speaker 4 This episode of Conversations with Giants is brought to you by CCB Marketing. No-transcript. No-transcript. A global marketing agency helping brands and organizations grow through smart strategy, bold, creative and powerful digital execution. Learn more at https://ccbmarketing.net.