Do you know what I never do on the show? I will tell you what I never do on the show. Because I'm going to do it today, kind of. Kind of, sort of, a little bit.
I don't know. Kind of, sort of, a little bit. I'm going to do what I never do on the show. This is The Daily Grateful.
I'm Michael Kroos, and today we're going to talk about something that is perhaps political, but more kind of, sort of. Because I'm kind of, sort of, kind of guy. I was speaking some years ago, many years ago, at a home show. Because I used to do that survey.
I would speak at home shows. And I was speaking at a home show in Tampa. I believe it was at Fairgrounds. And I did my little thing.
You know, did my little speaking. Jerry Mathers, you know, Jerry Mathers as the beaver, was there. And I thought that he was going to be one of those people who spoke. Because somebody else that was there was a woman who had a cooking show.
She was there, and she went on before I did. And I was backstage with her. And, you know, I said, okay, this is good. I'm not going to mention who she is.
But she cussed a lot. But not on stage, but backstage. But anyway, I thought Jerry Mathers as the beaver was going to be there. And I did my speaking thing, and I decided to walk around and look at all the stuff that they have at home shows.
And I love going to home shows. Because you can find tiles, and you can find flooring, and you can find mowing equipment. You can find curtains. And then I turned the corner, and I found Jerry Mathers as the beaver.
Jerry Mathers as the beaver was sitting at a table all by himself in the back, way back corner of this home show. And people were just walking past him like he wasn't there. And he was sitting there, and he had a big pile of Jerry Mathers as the beaver photographs of himself. And he had a black Sharpie.
And I walked up to him. I said, you're Jerry Mathers as the beaver. He laughed at me. And he goes, yeah, would you like an autographed picture?
I said, sure, why not? And so he autographed the picture. And I said, you know, I just started talking to him. I was really interested in, you know, what you do.
I said, I do radio, and I was a speaker here. I thought you were a speaker here. He said, no. He said, they just paid me to sit here and autograph pictures.
And I said, oh. He said, here, pull up a chair, have a seat behind the table with me. You're kind of a celebrity. I said, yeah, kind of, sort of.
He laughed at me because he always would say, kind of, sort of, in the show. And he was just a really nice guy. He was just a very, very, very nice man. And here's what I wanted to know from Jerry Mathers as the beaver.
I wanted to know what he did for a living now. I said, you haven't been a beaver in like a gazillion years. The show was, you know, when I was a kid, because we're the same age. And then there was a comeback that happened in the 80s.
I said, what do you do for a living now? I said, you're doing it. This is it. I said, can you make a living doing this?
He goes, yep. He goes, I'm doing this one now. And then I'm going to Miami to do another one. And he just flat out told me how much he made.
I'm not going to tell you what it was. But it was, you know, for, when was this? This was in the early, early 90s when I ran into him at this home show. It was a big chunk of money for the early 90s.
I used to make personal appearances on radio in those days. I had an agent named Stu. And I got $2,000 for doing those things back in those days. And, you know, and he got quite a bit more than that.
Yeah, quite a bit more than that. So he says, I got this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to fly down there to Miami.
And he said, I'm either going to fly down or I'm going to drive down. I said, the drive is nice. And so, you know, we just sat there and talked. And then all of a sudden, somebody I knew come walking by.
And he sees me. And he doesn't see Jerry Mathers as the beaver. Next to me, even though there's a big banner there that says, Jerry Mathers as the beaver, free autographs. Now they sell them.
Now they sell autographs. But back then they were free. And nobody was taking them. You know, maybe he should have sold them.
I don't know. But, you know, this guy came to me. I said, I want you to meet Jerry Mathers as the beaver. Now, when you look at Jerry Mathers as an adult, he looks like Jerry Mathers as the beaver.
Just a lot older. Kind of like me. I look just like I did when I was younger. He said, I'm a lot older.
And he was totally surprised that he was talking to Jerry Mathers. It was kind of cute. Jerry Mathers gave him autograph. And then off he went.
So we just talked about that. And I said, do you do any other acting? He goes, I did a commercial now and then. He said, commercials.
You know, I was doing commercials then too. But I was doing radio commercials. And he says, if I do a television commercial, it depends on what it is and how long it's going to run and what market if it's on broadcast, if it's on cable. And I said, yeah, it's kind of the same way it is with me in radio.
I do car commercials in one market. It depends on how long those commercials are going to run and how much I get paid. And we just had a very, very, very nice talk. It was a lot of fun.
I enjoyed it. But that's not what I was going to talk about today. I was going to talk about something a little bit more controversial. YouTube and TikTok and Facebook.
You know what I don't like to see? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're going to totally disagree with me on this. Maybe you're going to think I'm nuts.
I do not like seeing people put their children on YouTube videos, Facebook videos, TikTok videos, Instagram stories, any of that stuff. I do not like seeing children on social media like that. Why, you say? Because there's a lot of strange people out there who have very strange ideas about children.
And your children are too young to give consent to being put out in public to make you more popular. It just pisses me off. I don't like seeing that. I watch a lady on TikTok.
She's got five kids. She will not have them on there. I know another family that used to have their kids on their YouTube channel. And they got a bunch of kids.
They had them all on YouTube channel. And they were doing YouTube for a living. And then all of a sudden, they kind of had an experience where they learned, hey, that's not a good idea. And the kids are no longer on that channel.
As a matter of fact, the wife has pretty much taken over that channel. And she's hysterically funny. And she does cooking videos. And she does shopping videos.
And house cleaning videos. And organizing videos. And I love watching it. And I'm so delighted that they got their kids off of there.
But there's still a lot of kids on social media that their parents are putting out there to make themselves more popular. And I don't like that. Do I want a law against it? No.
I just want people to not be stupid. And not exploit their kids. Yeah. That's what I wanted to do.
I raised five kids. I was always a radio person. Radio personality. I was always very private about my kids.
Yes, my audience knew about my kids. But I did not. And they knew the experiences that I had. But their photographs were never put anywhere back in those days.
Any articles that were written about me in newspapers and magazines. They always wanted pictures of me with my family. And I said, nope. You can have a picture of me, but not the kids.
So that's my thing. I'd like to know how you feel about that. I mean, you know. Jerry Mathers is the beaver.
Was a kid when he started. Did he get consent? I don't know. I just have this.
There's a lot of stuff that's being exposed now about kids. Especially that were on like old Nickelodeon shows and things like that. They did not have good childhoods. They really did not.
Some of them did. Some of them was fine. But I don't know. Not happy about that.
Anyway, we'll see you next week. But as a postscript to all of this, I should also tell you that when my son Kyle was about nine, I auditioned him to be in a movie with Burt Reynolds. And it was an amazing experience. But the truth of the matter is now, as I look back, probably shouldn't have done that.
Because when we were in a room, there was probably 300, 400. It was an open call. And there was about 300 or 400 parents in there trying to exploit their kids. I just showed up with Kyle in a picture of him.
And everybody had all this professional stuff and all this other weird stuff. And as it was, he got a couple of callbacks, which was strange. He didn't get the movie. Another kid got the movie.
It was called Cop and a Half. But yeah, I was guilty myself. So let me just be the one to tell you that. I'm not going to let's thank you.
I was in the movie. But how did you tell me? Thank you.