BONUS SUMMER RERUN: Scarecrow and Mrs. King with Eugenie Ross-Leming | TV Show Creator Interview - 80s TV Ladies

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, kids, it's Susan dropping in to let you know
that because it's the middle of summer and the decline
of Western civilization as we know it. It turns out
I'm going to Dallas, Texas. Yes, Richard HadAM and I
will be at the Podcast Movement Convention April eighteenth through twentieth.
So if you are there, let me know and we'll
try and meet up. And on Monday night, April eighteenth,

(00:22):
Richard is kicking off his twenty twenty five multi city tour,
the Light in the Dark Tour, debuting his new live
show from his podcast, Richard Adam's Paranormal Bookshelf. It will
be at the on Rotation Brewery in Dallas. It's an
all new, never before heard episode read by rich himself
live in twenty twenty five. You can get tickets for

(00:45):
the Dallas show, plus see all the other upcoming shows
we have scheduled so far at event Bright. Just go
to event Bright search for Richard Adams's Paranormal Bookshelf and
you'll get there before you're halfway through. HadAM. I will
be at all the shows, and not just because I
am a very supportive partner, but because I am producing them.
There are links in our description and if you heard
it here on our Eighties TV Ladies podcast and you

(01:07):
show up, I will buy you a drink at the show.
Now on to Sharon.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
We hope you're enjoying a good book, a great show,
a wonderful podcast like this one, and a fantastic summer.
Hopefully you're getting in a little rest and relaxation and joy.
We are so excited to rerun this early season one episode,
Season one, episode four, Scarecrow and Missus King, with Eugenie
ross Lemming, the co creator of the show.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
It originally aired August thirty, first, twenty twenty two. It
was our first interview with an Eighties Ladies creator. We're
so grateful to Eugenie for being our first official eighties
television guest and the interview is fantastic. She's been a
big supporter of the show. I'm so grateful to her,
and we were so grateful to talk about Scarecrow, Missus

(01:57):
King and her incredible career.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
Joy day An so pretty to the city.

Speaker 5 (02:10):
Jean Gunning, Hello, everyone, welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, where
we talk about female driven TV shows from the nineteen eighties.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
I'm Susan Lambert Adam and I'm Sharon Johnson. I am
super excited for today's show. Sharon, we have a very
special guest on We get to talk to the creator
of Scarecromis King, mister Genie Ross Limming. I think Susan
is going to geek out a little bit today. That
is so not fair, Sharon, I am going to geek
out a lot. Eugenie Ross Limming is a writer, a producer,

(02:45):
and an actress who created Scarecrow Miss King with her
writing partner Brad Buckner. She has had an incredibly successful
career since the nineteen seventies, when she started writing on
Mary Hartman Mary Hartman. She started as a comedian with
Second City and worked as a producer and writer in
both television comedies and dramas. Welcome Eugenie, thank you for
joining us.

Speaker 6 (03:06):
Appreciate it. Happy to be here.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Before we get to Scarecrow, I do want to talk
about Second City because that's an amazing history. Tell us
about your time in the early seventies in Chicago.

Speaker 6 (03:16):
Well, it was great first because everybody was young and
reckless and you believed everything was possible. So just generally
it was good at Second City. I had done Paul
Sills's Story Theater before it went to New York. I
was in the original company when I was still at
the University of Chicago as a matter of fact, and
so I had a background in improvisation. And then Second

(03:40):
City was looking to start what they called the next
generation of a new culturally culturally different comedy troups. They'd
had a period where they went through a kind of
a more traditional stand up not the original early Second
City with Alan Arkin and Paul Fenn and Barbara Harris,
which were you know, and Mike Nichols, who were really geniuses,

(04:03):
sort of savants in the comedy area. But then they
went through a period where they had more traditional like
stand up guys, nightclub guys, and they were looking to
change that as the country was kind of changing to
and being more youth directed. And so they had seen
me I guess at Story Theater and Paul Sills had said,

(04:24):
you should really talk to this person. She might be ready,
and so I had an audition and with Joe Flaherty,
who was a state came up and did a couple
of scenes with me, improv scenes, and they hired me,
and it was a very It was a wonderful time.
I mean, everybody my cast was really brilliant, and it

(04:45):
was Harold Rainis, John Belushi, Brian Murray, and then we
had other people that came in and out. It integrated.
Billy Murray would sometimes work in the show with us,
and Betty Thomas and everybody kind of pitched in and it.
It was a really good experience and it taught me.
You just taught me to think on my feet, you know,

(05:05):
and have a certain kind of confidence that I think
you need to survive in this community we live in.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
That is amazing. And did you know that you were
with this amazing group of people or did it just
feel like, Oh, I'm hanging out with some crazy buddies
and we're doing crazy things.

Speaker 6 (05:20):
I don't think I knew that there would be history,
you know, and a sort of a legacy company. But
I certainly knew that the people were a cut above
other other casts. I mean, I really knew you were.
We were much more political and I appreciated so I
just and we were getting a lot more attention. I

(05:41):
just felt that we were onto a good thing. But
I didn't think I didn't have a big picture, although
I assumed everyone would become intergalactically famous at some point
doing something. I just felt we were all on the
cusp of.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Something at the time. Did you have more long term
thoughts about where you thought or hoped this time at
Second City might lead to, or where you might be
wanting to go in your career.

Speaker 6 (06:06):
I think one of the flaws in my characters that
I'm not In my personal life. I'm kind of a
good planner, but in career terms, I was pretty casual.
I think I had this idea that everything was forever
and so I didn't have to make important decisions, and
I made several mistakes based on that philosophy. But I
think I always felt i'd be an actress of some kind,

(06:29):
whether it was film or stage.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
And you have been an actress.

Speaker 6 (06:33):
When I first moved to LA I came as an actress.
And there were other improv companies floating around the world,
and we all knew each other that in San Francisco
it was the Committee. In Boston was the Proposition, and
we all sort of knew each other. So when we
some of us met up in LA we would meet
for just improv classes for fun, and we'd all tell

(06:58):
each other while if there's an audition for this, and
there's an audition for that. So I went out as
an actress to audition, and in one of the early auditions,
I remember I was so I walked in the room,
you know, holding the sides, and I looked at everybody
else that was auditioning, and they were all sort of tall, willowy,

(07:19):
thin blondes with straight hair and that look that that
early late sixties, early seventies kind of Joni Mitchell hair that,
you know. And so that was so not who I
was because I had at that point, I had like
a perm so I had this huge cascading curls, and
I was ethnic looking and I was dark, and I thought, well,

(07:40):
this isn't going to I mean, it was a mistake.
It's a hideous mistake. Then I clearly can't be who
they were. So I had nothing to lose and I
read the script. I thought that was pretty funny, and
I went in and I just well, first of all,
I was so used to improvising that I didn't realize
it's really offensive to other writers when you change their words.
When I became a writer producer, it occurred to me

(08:01):
that was not cool. But at the moment when I
was in there figuring, I'm not going to get this
part anyway, so why don't I just act the way
I want to act. I kind of massage the words
a little, the dialogue and the pages that they've given me,
and I got lots of laughs in the room, and
I thought, well, okay, cool, whatever, but I'm not going
to get this part. And I did get the part.

(08:21):
And then when I did the week of rehearsing and
shooting after, I continue to improvise more. I was more
discreet about it. I would go and ask the ad
or the director, can I say this slide instead? Or
what if we did this? And they were pretty cooperative.
At the end of the shoot, the one of the
producers came up to me and said, you know, you're

(08:43):
really a good You're funny. I mean not just as
a performer. You have good ideas. If you're ever interested
in writing scripts for us, we'd entertain you know, reading them.
And I thought, well, that's a good thing to know,
and that, in fact is what happened. I was between auditions,
in between trying to get other gigs and doing you know,
day work on whatever series was on the air at

(09:06):
the time. I met Brad Buckner, my writing partner, and
we came up with an idea to pitch around and
it sold as it was. It was just an episode,
it wasn't a series, but it got us on that road.
But for most of the first early years of my
time in LA I defined myself as an actress, not

(09:28):
as a writer, even though what I was doing was writing.
In fact, we weren't at the age yet were someone
like Rosanne or or Tina Fey, you know, where women
could be their own, their own producers. They were the product,
they were the brand. I was still in the age
where you you know, you had to join someone else's enterprise.

(09:50):
So and I wasn't very entrepreneurial. I just I just
thought from gig to gig, but not big career dreams.
So I was really happy, you know, because we kept
selling scripts and we're.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
And at the time, so in television this is we're
now in late seventies. I think you would go around
and pitch an idea to shows right.

Speaker 6 (10:12):
There, three writers you know. Now, shows like even our
old show was totally staff written. But in those days
you were obligated to hire freelance writers. The Union demanded that,
so I just and I became those people that would
go from show to show and write. And then we
got sort of discovered by Norman Lear, and he made

(10:33):
a deal with us, a development deal, and we just
stayed there and had a lot of luck with him,
And not even give you more confidence, but it clearly
changed my perspective on am I an actress or I?
You know, am I just doing this writing thing till
I have enough money that I can go out and
act again, you know? And I think it kept that
fantasy alive for a while well.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
And so with Norman Lear, you did Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

Speaker 6 (10:57):
And a spin off call Forever, which only lasted a year,
And then we did about three or four pilots, and
one of them came a series, Highcliffe Manor. But it
had a tragic sort of trajectory. It was design as
a like Mary Hartman, as a late night but network
strip show, so it'd be on five nights a week,

(11:20):
but at night, late past primetime, so it could have
different standard rules. NBC decided they wanted to put it
out once a week smack dab in primetime. Soap had
just come on. Soap was huge and big, and there
was a similarity in tone diluted. Once you diluted it,
you ruined it. So we only had the you know,
about eight episodes, I think, and then that was it.

(11:41):
And I was in a hideous car accident that really
almost killed me, and so I missed one of the episodes.
But I was so crazy, I said, well, I put
a neck brace on, I'll wear a scarf over it.
I'm gonna I'm gonna finish the series. But you know,
I really wasn't in fighting shape. I wasn't ready to
like go to the network and fight for the show
or do any of those things that you do when

(12:03):
when you know more network savvy, I would say the
wrong thing is to everybody about it. You know, I
just assumed what I had to say was interesting to them,
that they wanted to hear my perspective. Since Brad and
I were running the thing, surely our opinion meant something.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yeah, you would think that that would make sense.

Speaker 6 (12:20):
That's always the case. Sometimes people were enchanted by it,
but there were plenty of people who were not enchanted.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
So how did the idea for Scarecromasis King come about?

Speaker 6 (12:28):
I don't remember which one of us thought of it
or if it was a moment and insight, but I
know we were. We went into CBS to pitch several ideas.
They had wanted to take a meeting with us about
some ideas, and we had I had several half hour
ideas because half hour was our milieu. But we did

(12:49):
have a couple of one hour ideas. And there were
the usual lot of people in the room, you know,
the head of development, County Development, and then his underlings,
and they were all taking notes, and so we pitched
a couple of ideas that we were really hot and
they were kind of eh, not so much. And then
to not waste the opportunity to be in the room,

(13:09):
we sort of pitched this idea of Scarecrow Missus King
hour an hour. I think we pitched it as an hour,
but nobody was in. We left the room was very congenial.
Our agent call and said, no, they're not really interested,
so come back in another day with something else. And
then several months later, maybe six months later, we got
a phone call. CBS had switched positions and the person

(13:34):
who had been in charge of comedy development had either
been promoted or had left. I can't remember. And one
of the people who had been silently in the room
listening to the pitches had now been promoted to head
of development and Carlo Singer, and she had loved the
scarecrow pitch from day one her first outing as head
of the department. She wanted to develop the thing. She

(13:54):
wanted to develop right away and make her mark. So
she wanted us to come back, and she said, let's
buy it, and I want to do it. I don't
or so that's how it it sort of happened.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
What were you trying to do with that show?

Speaker 6 (14:05):
Well, it wasn't primarily a political statement, but certainly from
an aware point of view, we thought television could could
use a little different perspective, and things were starting to
happen anyway, you know, things like Remington Steele and all that,
and we just felt like we could turn it on
its head the traditional you know, girl, We actually saw

(14:29):
it as a funny situation. We knew it was going
to be an hour show and there would have to
be action and adventure in bullets, but we also thought
we could make a good dynamic between this guy and
this woman, and especially since she was basically a civilian
with no skills except you know, typing maybe and making
lunch for her kids. And we said we wanted to
see how her personality would emerge. So but it wasn't

(14:50):
a political statement for us. I mean, I would be disingenuous,
and I said, you know, we were on the march.
It really just appealed to us as having a lot
of comic possibilities.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
It was sort of the time like we were noticing
now as we were looking at Remington and we're looking
at Moonlighting and we're looking at Scarecrow, like there was
something happening right, Like everybody was sort of exploring this
sort of gender dynamic in this particular way that just
felt like television at the time. But I think now
that we're looking back at it, it feels like people

(15:22):
were trying to explore sort of different dynamics in gender
relationships to a degree.

Speaker 6 (15:28):
You know, it was in the zeitgeist. I mean it
was there. I don't think it was an organized movement,
but it certainly anyone who was thinking would would say
it's time to, you know, move the show down the
road a little and we can do better. So and
I think all of us fed each other, you know,
we learned from each other and saw other things and TV. So,

(15:51):
you know, Moonlighting was much more sophisticated in terms of
its familiar than Scarecrow, which was really much more main
stream you know, mom, suburban mom, kids. You know. I
think if we'd been on the show longer and stayed longer,
would have of its own momentum become This is probably

(16:13):
not the right word I would say. I was going
to say darker, but I think it would have certainly
become more complicated.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah, and so all right, So so you have the pilot,
and then how did Kate Jackson get involved? I assume
she was the first person to get involved, or did
you start looking for other actress.

Speaker 6 (16:31):
She had the same agent as we did, and they
saw this as an opportunity to show and back in
those days, get a package feet and we were very
They suggested, what do you think about this? And we said, well,
that's a pretty good idea and she probably can do this.
And I think we might have been a little worried
about our comedy shops. Except most of Kate of not Kate,

(16:54):
but Amanda King's stuff was reactive. The reaction is hard
to do. You have to really have timing and you know,
we do only seen that Charlie's stuff, Charlie's Angels, so
we had some questions. CBS loved the idea, which you know,
was their store. They can buy whatever they want. And

(17:15):
so we met with Kate and she was very engaging,
very bright. She had a really good energy thing going
and so we just I can't remember there ever been
me in the controversy. We just said, yeah, let's go
for it. Well, it's all so excited, right. She was
a she was a huge star, proven edity, wanted to
do it, didn't have a lot of script notes, didn't

(17:35):
want to change a lot of which you know, is
unusual when when a performer of her her stature comes in,
usually they want to they asked for certain things to
be different. She didn't. So we were to school the
big The hard part was getting the least sets in character.
We really had to find someone who was a leading

(17:57):
man but was really funny. And you know, this really
was before Renminton Seel and before Magnum, where those guys
were reasonally much straighter, they were much more earnest, and
we wanted a guy who could be could be frustrated
and charming and ironic Cass Bruce at the very end.

(18:18):
I mean I think we saw finds. I mean, we
still saw so many people. It was hard, and the
network has some people they really wanted us to see
and I don't remember who, but they just weren't right
or we felt they weren't right. And then somehow Bruce
I can't remember if someone brought up it's his name,
but it was literally the Saturday before we were going

(18:39):
to start shooting, and he was just really good. He
nailed it in the room.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
That's so great because the pairing is really special. It
really does feel like it's one of the things that's
kept the show so beloved for so long. Is there
something about their chemistry on screen that feels really unique and.

Speaker 6 (18:59):
You can't you can't to make that happen. You know,
it either happens or it doesn't.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
And so I did read a draft of the script
where Amanda King was married. Is that an early draft?

Speaker 6 (19:09):
No, she Dean was always going to be this invisible guy.
I'm trying to think of any any incarnation, but I
know we absolutely pitched her as a single mom, a
mom who had to face the world with her mother basically.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
Alone watching the show. The first time as a kid.
My mom was a divorced mother of two and and
she worked for CDC, So she worked for the federal
government and she had this like amazing day job where
she was a micrologist kind of you know, trying to
save lives and and then you know, came home and

(19:42):
you know, yelled at us to clean our room. So
there was something about that that really did resonate with
me at the time because I was like, Oh, she's
she wants to be a spy and a mom. Like
I think that was I knew that was unique in
my in other parents that I saw, and and it
felt to me it was one of the things that
first struck me about the show.

Speaker 6 (20:03):
I think that's probably really probably why they Carla at
the CBS bought it. I mean, I know she was
very impressed with that component, that this woman would be
so out of her league and yet so capable.

Speaker 3 (20:18):
So when did Beverly Garland come in? Because what's interesting,
we were just watching Remington because we're gonna go to
that show next, and she's Laura Holt's mom in Remington.
In a couple of episodes, Beverly Garden plays Laura Holt's mom,
and so we're watching it and we're like, oh my god,
was that her audition? Like did they just go she's
really good at playing moms, let's get her in.

Speaker 6 (20:38):
I think she was in the pilot we had it.
I don't. I think she may have auditioned. She was great,
and of course I knewho she was because I'd seen
her on TV a lot. So she was also enormously professional.
It was just so great to have her there as
a steadying personality, no drama, no nothing. She just knew

(20:59):
the gig, you know. And uh, days when Beverly worked
were always good days. But I think she we had
just a regular We had to We did have to
audition her. We were sort of you know, there is
a thing in Hollywood that and more so now than
when I was starting. When you're super famous or at
least have a track record, you don't audition, you know,
you just say, okay, how about you know, civil Cheherd

(21:20):
for this. But we really felt we had to see people.
We thought, you know, if Bruce was willing to read
for the part, surely everybody else would be willing to read.
And we got some resistance from some people, but not
from her. She was more than happy to come in
and read, and she was terrific.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
It's really again another dynamic that that I think is
just incredibly fun in the show, and it's nice to
sort of have that. And and then I'm also just
curious about, like Martha Smith, who's gonna she's actually gonna
come on the show and talk about Francine and mel
Stewart and how they got cast. And then I have

(22:01):
another question about Francine.

Speaker 6 (22:02):
Well, I don't remember all of this, except Francine came
in and read, and she was a nice princess, which
is exactly what we wanted her to be, you know,
poised and just unflappable, whereas Kate was, you know, multitasking
and balancing and making peanut butter sandwiches and you know,
trying to fix her kids a broken bike or whatever,

(22:22):
and scattered but really capable. But Francine was never ruffled
and someone that you think Kate might be jealous of
if she saw her as just a or admire in
a ways that I can never be like that woman
so perfectly quaffed, I mean, Francine was always perfectly quaff
and she was really good. I mean, everybody we cast

(22:44):
we liked, so it wasn't like we had to settle,
you know. And we definitely wanted a person of color
in the cast and the main cast, which I don't
think was as common back then, and but we met
no resistance with that. But that was definitely part of
the plan, so that when I'm speaking now about Mel,

(23:05):
not about Fancine, we got lucky with everybody.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
I just wondered when you were talking earlier about how
back at that time there were shows instead of having
more writers on staff they had they worked with a
lot of freelancers. To what degree were there women that
were out there like you that were also writing or
submitting scripts to shows.

Speaker 6 (23:29):
I didn't feel as much of an imbalance as there
may have been. I don't know if we just got
We just we would read sample scripts of people and
if they were good, we'd call them in the meet.
And many of them were women, so I didn't we
were good writers, so I didn't feel there was a
lot of imbalanced But of course, now looking at it
from a less narcissistic perspective, I was the only really well,

(23:54):
we had one other one writer, Patricia Green, on the show,
but it was you know, it was a It was
accepted even without knowing it that there was. Certainly it
was more of a masculine world at that time, even
though there were the woman who launched Scarecrow was a woman,
the executive was a woman at the CBS. So and

(24:15):
also I would have to say that in Second City,
the tradition had always been and for many years stayed
that tradition that in a company of seven people, five
were men and two were women, and that was unviolable.
It's only changed, I think in the last ten or
fifteen years. So I was sort of used to that.
The mathematics of that.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
What kind of guidance were you giving writers at that
point about or were you giving any about what you're
looking for in terms of stories for Amanda and Lee
and the rest of the show.

Speaker 6 (24:45):
But we didn't have an over an arc, you know,
a seasonal arc the way you would see on a
show like X Files. But we did have the sense,
not unlike moon Lighting or even a can Seal, that
there would have to be a blossoming of their relationship.
And so that was something we always said that the
constant will be, there will be challenges to there'll be

(25:09):
the caper of the week, there will be that, and
that'll be done in a week. But the overarching story
of who they are and how they grow as a
professional couple and maybe a personal couple should always be
in your mind. And so when you have the opportunity
to exploit that in a script, that should be a runner.
But it was certainly the emphasis was on come in

(25:30):
and pitch a good caper, you know.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
I also like that the way that through the course
of this each season, the season in particular, that Amanda
became began to see that she had a certain facility
for this and and something that agency, Yeah, exactly, and
she was kind of pushing for that I can do things,
I'm willing to try things I want to be trained,

(25:54):
which I thought was really great as well.

Speaker 6 (25:56):
So I mean, uh yeah, that's part of the ongoing
evolution that we wanted to see. And you know, as
a writer, you you may have some plans in your head,
but your most fun comes when you surprise yourself when
a story actually takes a turn you didn't expect. While
you're write it, you think, oh, well, instead of going
this way, what if I did this instead, and would

(26:16):
this further another element deepen the characters somehow, and so
that would happened less and less to man. These things
happen in a controlled world like fast TV writing. But
once in a while you find you take a moment
and you're and you're in another another path and you
know it pays off. So that's part of the fun
of writing, too well.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
I want to I want to talk about Martha Smith
for a minute. We were sort of arranging for her
to come on the show and she sort of mentioned something,
she said that you created the freant scene. Was the
friend scene she liked the most. The friend thing that
you guys worked on, I think in creating the show
was the friend scene that I think she felt maybe

(27:00):
later and we'll find out when we talked to her,
kind of drifted somewhere else. And so I'm I'm really
curious because the other thing that was nice to see
is even though there was a there was sort of
a snark between them and they were they were different,
it was also this very unique relationship that was started
and I thought was, you know, had a lot of possibility,

(27:20):
the Franccee Amanda relationship.

Speaker 6 (27:23):
Neither one of us wanted to do the traditional women
rivals thing, which we thought was old school and sort
of not useful and counterproductive and corny. So we wanted
someone that would start out being who she was and
really never lose that in franc semness, But as you

(27:43):
saw more of her and she was allowed to develop
over time, there would be a deepening and there'd be
more to her that would be less snarky and more
I mean witty, but you know, a certain level of
humanity and compassion and all the the things that we
like about people, and that she and Kate would appreciate

(28:05):
each other and appreciate each other's differences and not it
reduces women when you have to make them rivals, as
when they can both be capable colleagues, even though one
may have one strength and one may have a different strength.
And so I think we never had a manifesto put out.
But the way we write is to develop people to

(28:27):
be the best they can be, and that would have
had we stayed with the show, I think we would
have absolutely evolved it, I think in a little more.
And I did not continue watching Scarecrow in large after
we left, but I think we would have been a
little I like to think it would have been a
more complicated relationship and less easily defined. The way it

(28:51):
sort of was sort of careful, and I think even
in the third year, I think didn't a guide the guy.
Right the third year, Anita Bartlett took over when we left,
but she was only I think for a year.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
She was on for the end of season one, and
then season two and then three and four were run
by men. All right, all right, and all right, so
we're going to come back. We're gonna take a little break.
We're gonna come back. We're going to ask some more questions.
All right, Sharon, welcome back.

Speaker 6 (29:23):
There you go.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
We haven't a suet. Genie ross Lemming tell us about
ndy department.

Speaker 6 (29:27):
Juanita's kind of, you know, feisty, and I mean she was,
you know, I like Jandia Bartlett's vibe. I don't know
what went on creatively under her regime, who else was
working with her, and how you know, how she was
accepted by Kate or anything, but I do know that

(29:48):
I think France scene, what little I saw was under
exploited in a way and diluted from what I would
have done had Brad and I hung around.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
So all right, well let's talk about it, you know.

Speaker 6 (30:02):
We were. I can tell you that we were young
and excited and inexperienced when we got this gig. And
as I've told you before, I always thought everything's possible,
and let's just all get together and talk about it
and we'll come up with the best answer. But not
everybody sees the world that way. And I'm sure there
were things that I was disappointed in, and Brad was

(30:22):
disappointed in, and Kate was disappointed in, and Bruce was disappointed.
Everybody gets a little disappointed. It just it stopped being
as much fun as it we felt in our youth
it was supposed to be, and we were willing to
work around the clock. It wasn't that we were, you know,
malingering and wanting to go to you know, happy hour
at some club and you know call it a day

(30:43):
or go play tennis. When things became a little more
complicated and a little abusive, perhaps we just felt this
isn't healthy for us, and we you know, now, looking
back at it now, I think we should have stayed
and fought for our position. But I just felt, well,
there's always something else better, and I don't need to
be unhappy.

Speaker 3 (31:03):
You know, being happy is really a very important part
of life, and particularly in this industry and the industry
that you're in. I think it's interesting when people make
healthy decisions for themselves, even if it may not be like,
oh I can five with this. And I don't think

(31:25):
you know how to fight when you're in your twenties
and thirties the same way you do when you're older.

Speaker 6 (31:30):
I certainly didn't. There was no paradigm for me and
proper behavior. I just thought, well, I'll be clear, and
Brad'll be clear, and we'll be honest. And there were
just so many forces, there were so much mistake. When
the show premiered, it was like the highest rating of
any premiere that Warner Brothers had and like you know, forever,
so everyone was really excited. But with that excitement, some

(31:50):
people became, I think, fearful of losing that peak and
became not confident in what got them to that moment
and started to rethink everything. And when you start rethinking
your instincts, I think you can do more damage than good.
You should go with what works and not say, oh no, no,

(32:10):
it was a mistake that it worked, or it was
just black magic, you know what I mean. I think
there was a lack of faith in well, on a
deeper level, I'm sure it's lack of self confidence, but
I think you can lay it at anyone else's feet.
You could say, oh, if you had been a better
tennis coach, I would have won Wimbledon. If the ball
maker had made a better ball, I would have had

(32:32):
a better chance. So there was a lot of if
numbers wobbled, there was a lot of anxiety among some people.
And constancy is the most important thing in a creative enterprise.
You have to have faith in the team. You just
can't not. That'll undermine you faster than you know, fan

(32:54):
fickleness or anything. So we were all, I mean Brad
and I were really young, really inexperience, and over our
heads in terms of the politics of what makes the
show work. We just thought, well, if the show works,
everyone's going to want it to keep working. And it
turns out that's not always true. So it was. It
was difficult, but I certainly I learned a lesson.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
And yet you created such a dynamic show. But I
think it actually continues to steer in a direction. I mean,
how much of the first season were you in do
you remember?

Speaker 6 (33:29):
I think we did the first, my memory was we
did the whole first season, but it may have been
only the first twelve episodes. And I think in those
days we did twenty three episodes.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
Maybe, yeah, crazy crazy amount of episodes, And.

Speaker 6 (33:41):
So I think we did through the Hey, we did
the first twelve, I think, And it was just I mean,
I'm not saying it was easy to leave, but you know,
in my mind and Brad's mind, we thought, well, the
shows that that we sold and that we produced is
being changed. It's not the same show. So if people

(34:02):
are fighting for the things that we don't believe in,
what are we gonna What are we gonna do? I mean,
you know, I can't put my name is something that
I don't like, and uh, you know that's of course
really stupid, because I'm sure there would have been a
better way to see that. But you know, and there's
so many levels of power that you're you're when you're

(34:23):
that young and naive. I mean, I didn't think of
myself as iive, but you know, there's the studio level
of power, there's a network level of power, there's the
talent level of power, and then there's the agency. So
it was just so tiring to have to navigate. It
took away from the writing and the thinking. You know,

(34:45):
you can't really think if you're always under under see
you feel under siege. It's hard to uh be clear
about what you're doing. And you know, we made great
friends on that show. There were great people the studio
and that I like, and there are people that the network,
and there were a lot of really good moments. But

(35:07):
there were some issues that I just think challenged us
in ways we weren't ready to be challenged. And I
might and our only ability, I don't think it was
the correct choice, but our only ability was to remove
ourselves from what we considered too big a challenge.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
And then one Nida Bartlett came in and so you
did you work with Bernie the Bartlett or you were
just like, here you go.

Speaker 6 (35:31):
Through the keys. Yeah, she's a veteran, she'd been around
one hundred years longer than us. She was tougher than us.
She wouldn't be bothered. I felt pretty sure she'd triumph.
That she would or she'd get fed up and leave,
which I think happened, and she was so well, Yeah,
we just went off and just started developing other stuff

(35:52):
and doing other gigs. And you know, we didn't feel
I don't know that anyone could have stayed in that
situation longer than we did and survived.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
Frankly, did you know? Because the show has has kept
a fan base, right, Scarecrow Missus King has a very
passionate fan base in ways that other shows of the
nineteen eighties don't necessarily have. Although I think everybody love
us eighties TV, which is why we're doing a podcast
about female driven eighties TV. But it seems it has resonated.

(36:24):
It's still like in you know, over the pandemic, people
found it again and there's a very strong fan base.
I'm curious how you feel about that, having created a
show and then you know, walked away from it, and
then but you created it.

Speaker 6 (36:41):
And well, you know, I walk. When you walk away
from something, I think something happens in your brain. You
click it off and you don't. I mean, you can
either nurture, regret or ill will or whatever. Which didn't
seem to be an idea for us. We didn't want to.
We just had other ideas we wanted to develop. So
I'm always surprised when I meet someone who says, oh

(37:03):
my god, Scarecrow and miss Kidding, my favorite whatever I
used to watch with my mother, blah blah. You know,
it surprises me. It takes me a minute to absorb
that because it was so early on and it was
the first show, you know, major network show we'd sold,
and so early on in my career that I just
I just filed it away, you know, as a step

(37:24):
towards other things. And there's other things I remember more
completely because they're more current in my brain and I
have more I have more tools to appreciate them than
I did Scarecrow. I mean, but you know, looking back
on it, obviously I would have liked it to have
turned out better. I mean I would have had you know,
longevity would have meant that we could have developed more
between Kate and Bruce, more between Francine. When you create

(37:49):
star character templates, you have in mind you're going to
develop more than what you've sold. You know, what they
are in the pilot is not who they're going to become,
So that would have been nice. But I don't know,
I just can't. I think I've just decided to appreciate
what it did give us and not regret what we
didn't get.

Speaker 3 (38:09):
I mean, you've had an incredible career, and you've worked
on huge, huge, huge shows Supernatural and Lois and Clark.
You have the same writing partner that you had when
you started. You've been married to producer Robert Singer for
a long time, and that's really impressive to have that
in an industry like Hollywood. And I'm curious if you

(38:32):
ever think about that or if it's been a very
conscious effort to have that.

Speaker 6 (38:37):
I think I couldn't imagine doing all this without Brad
because we are in each other, We have each other's backs,
and you need that more than anything. So for me,
there was never a well, I just and first of all,
he said, we have a really good relationship. So it's

(38:58):
not a stormy relationship. It's not it's not uneasy. He
has a very solid personal life with his wife and children,
so it's not it's not a contest. There's not a
lot of contention in our lives. But I think we
really know that we got lucky when we met each other,
that we had such an instant synergy that that's kept

(39:23):
us afloat. You know, so when someone is really to
at least you know Brad's going to be in your
corner and vice versa. If I have a bad meeting
with someone, or a bad phone call, or a fight
with an actor or an actress or anybody a stuntman,
you know, if I just know that when no one
understands me, Brad does. And so that is a really

(39:44):
important element in I suppose whatever success I have. My
relationship with my husband is, like all relationships, more complicated
and more story than my relationship with Brad, because you know,
it's everything. It's got work, it's got romance, it's got survival,

(40:05):
it's got family, it's got finances, it's got policy. You know,
it's in everything relationship. So they're more fronts to take
care of in a personal relationship than in a work relationship.
But you know, we just are conscious. We just work
on it, you know. I mean it's not always great.
You know, there's bad things where we don't talk to
each other, but you know, that's everybody. It's you know,

(40:26):
whether he was an accountant and I were a neurosurgeon,
that would happen. I'm sure so, But I think probably
the what sanity I do have, and it's not great,
but what santitay I do have is more, I think
because Brad and I are so loyal to each other
and comfortable with each other's opinions. I don't believe that

(40:47):
if I write something that he doesn't think works in
a scene, if after the conversation we have over it,
I don't question his motive for wanting to change something.
I always think it's for the best for the scene.
I don't always agree, nor does he, but I never
doubt his how straightforward he is, you know, and that's
really important to know that someone in this business, which

(41:10):
is very fickle, who is not situationally your friend, but
eternally your friend. You know, we just laugh all the
time when we're together, Brad and I and I mean,
even when things are horrific, somehow we find the funny
thing in that and we just get there's a sort
of relief system we have. I guess that just makes

(41:30):
it bearable. So, because you know, it's it's really hard
to maintain anything in this business.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
I'm curious in terms of you know, basically women in television,
both behind the scenes and in front of the camera,
what your perception of what has happened over the last
since the eighties.

Speaker 6 (41:49):
Well, you know, Lewis and Clark was maybe the end
of that kind of epic in a way, that period,
and it had some really wonderful ingredients to it. But
Lewis and Clark was definitely still old school screwball comedy
kind of men and women. You know, it was a
little more promiscuous. People did sleep together obviously, I don't know,

(42:14):
you know, in the Scarecrow days on CBS at eight o'clock,
it would have been you know, implied, but it wouldn't
have been you know, you wouldn't have people waking up
on the same bed. We had a not a lot
of women, and I don't think we had any female director.
I directed Lewis and Clark, but I don't think there

(42:34):
was anyone else. And I had an inside, you know,
with my shows, so you know, and I had a
lot of help. I don't know that I have a
metrics to employ to tell you about the shift, because
I think the shift into a female engagement and authority
is more subtle than I can identify as like, oh,

(42:57):
it happened, then, you know what I mean. It just
seems to be something since I've been living inside it,
It's just always been happening. As I got better and stronger,
more opportunities were throwing my way. I suppose I had
an advantage because I had already a history in the community.
But for new people starting out, you know, there weren't

(43:18):
all those programs yet, like writers diversity programs that the
studios run now. It certainly helped that really dynamic powerful
women writers LIKEDINGA. Fay became or Amy Poehler became producers.
I mean, that's a big step and that would have
been what a how many years ago helped? When did
thirty Rock start?

Speaker 3 (43:39):
I mean two thousand, two thousands, I think so.

Speaker 6 (43:43):
I mean the two thousands of obviously been beneficial. I
know that in Supernatural, towards the end of the run,
we were and we started using women directors years before,
but we really increased our women director schedule, and you know,
it worked. It wasn't like surprise that it would be

(44:05):
a good idea. But you have to have a pool
to draw from.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
What is a feminist show to you or a female
driven show, and what are the components of that that
you feel are necessary to sort of take that batch.

Speaker 6 (44:18):
Well, you know, I don't write generally or haven't written
a from an ideological posture, so I don't define things
as feminists or I really just wanted this to be
a story, not a mission statement, but a story about
one woman's emergence from a phase of her life that

(44:39):
was no longer viable and how she turned it into
something satisfying. And so just from a personal, non political statement,
it was about her journey through disappointment and dissatisfaction. And
we never got to develop what happened with her in
Dean and why didn't work, But we we always saw

(45:04):
it through more intimate eyes than culturalize and always knowing
that it would have obviously cultural resonance. But it wasn't
a mission statement about it's time for women to get
up and to do more. Personally, I think it would
be doing a disservice to women. Like in my own life,
it's very hard when I hear women say, you know,

(45:26):
you can have everything. You can have it all. You
can be a mother, you can be a neurosurgeon, you
can be a sex goddess, you can be a great
cook and you'll be happy. It's more, there are surges
where some of those things are possible sometimes and then
they become more they received a little and other things

(45:47):
emerge in your life. I think for a woman who
can't live up to all those opportunities. I think the
woman a woman should have those opportunities, but too if
she doesn't succeed at all for colum of motherhood, career, romance,
she'll feel less and that she'll feel she will have

(46:08):
failed the call that her sisters gave to her, you know,
and I don't want women to feel well.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
I had all this.

Speaker 6 (46:15):
And I couldn't make it work. I still got divorced,
or my kids still not like me, or my son
doesn't want to be a doctor, he wants to be
a roller skater. I just felt it was a show.
I wanted to show a woman who could make opportunities
for herself, that the world would allow her to make opportunities,
and she would be ingenius enough if the world gave

(46:36):
her obstacles to make those to make her own opportunities
that could be then expanded into a cultural program. But
I really thought of it as a woman's story because
I didn't want anyone to be to carry the burden
of having to be, you know, joan of arc for
everybody else, because you can feel really bad about yourself

(46:57):
if you don't have children, if you don't have a
good job, if your husband doesn't love you and want
only you in his life. You know, if when I
hear everyone says you can have it all, nobody can
have it all. You should at least have the opportunity
to try to have it all. But if you don't
have it all, you shouldn't feel less because not everybody

(47:17):
has Kardashian money. Not everybody you know where they can
have their own nanny and their own plane and they
can go off to Barbados and at the same time
come back to la and run for mayor. You know,
it's just it's an unfair there's no equivalency in those lives.
I know, I'm all over the place on this, but
it kind of I felt like we feel like something

(47:38):
as we do, a disservice to women when we say
you can have it all, there's nothing holding you back. Well,
it's true, you may have the talent to do everything,
but circumstances may not permit you at the same time
to do everything. But you shouldn't be guaranteed at least
the opportunity to struggle and fail, because I've had as
many failures as I have a lot of failures, and

(48:01):
I've learned a lot from them.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
Notice any of that makes sense, It does, It makes
a lot of sense. I completely agree with you. I
think what you know, it's sort of what I mean.
I think women should have the opportunity to sort of
do what they want to do, which seems like it
doesn't mean having at all. To me, like it means
I can decide for myself what I want my life,

(48:24):
what I want to try to achieve, and that that
again isn't really a political statement, and yet still continues
to be a political statement, you know, and I agree
as well.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
I mean, to me, feminism has always been about being
able to make the choice.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
If your choices.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
You want to stay home, you don't want to have
a career, that's fine, your choices you don't want to
have kids, and you want to have a career, that's fine.
If something in between, that's fine too. But you should
have the ability to choose what that path is and
not be forced into something that doesn't fit you.

Speaker 6 (48:56):
And that's why I think it's hard a little bit
for me, Dane. I mean for me, I always resist categories,
and so I think I've always resisted any category except
a king. I'm okay with activists or abolitionists. Those two
categories I'm okay with. But my feminism is a little

(49:17):
more idiosyncratic than I think the norm, justin by what
I've said. I also think the story, I'm glad that
Scarecrow is embraced by and fulfilled feminist standards. But the
idea when we wrote it was really one woman's transition
through different moments in a complicated life.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
Yes, which I think is what makes it feminist. Or
again and again, I know feminist is a loaded word, right,
It's a loaded word for my generation. It's a loaded
word for generations above and below me and so, but
I use it. So I use it to basically be
female driven.

Speaker 6 (50:03):
Absolutely a female driven story. It had to be written
from a female's perspective, from multiple female perspectives, and so
that I am raised totally. And I'm not sure if
I feel that way about I'm not sure how I
feel about you know, I love Moonlighting as a show.
I just loved it, but I'm not sure for me

(50:24):
it was almost more his show.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
Yeah, And I think and Remington actually starts because Pierce
Brosnan is such a discovery that it actually starts to
veer away from her a lot. But then but then
it fears back.

Speaker 6 (50:41):
And it's wonderful. I mean, she's wonderful, isn't it. But
he has like a secret, there's a thing about him
that's unfinished, you know, which just draws you more into
his aura.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
But I will say they sort of start to write
back in to try to to give her stories too.
But anyway, this isn't Brimington yet. We're not there yet.
But but I agree, like it's fascinating. And again we're
also talking about these are these are only like male
female gender explorations, which now also feels pretty quaint. I'm

(51:15):
curious about some fond memories and just like memorable moments
from the you know, the beginning of Scarecrow, and like
some of like oh it was really great when this happened,
or it was really terrible when this happened.

Speaker 6 (51:29):
It was great. We had a great pilot experience. Rod
Holcomb was a supreme director. Kate was great in the pilot.
She was at her peak of generosity and willing to
do I mean, she was really lovely. We had fun
in Washington, d C. Where we had to go to shoote.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
It's a beautiful pilot.

Speaker 6 (51:50):
It's really, I'm very proud of it. But I have
to tell you, you know, we shouted as if it
was aut of it. It was like a nine thousand degrees.
So that Bruce, who was wearing suits, we had to
have like four suits available. Every time we finished a shot,
we had to take off his shirt and his jacket
of finished when we were outside, and then dry him
off and put on a new shirt and jacket. But

(52:10):
he was probably miserable. But the city looked beautiful and
she was delightful. He was delightful. It was like a
field trip. We all everybody got along and we had
a great time. So that's a wonderful memory because pilots
can be very fraught with oh my god, everything's on
the line. We don't do it, We're never gonna have
this location again. We have to do this scene right.

(52:32):
And everybody just rose and they brought their best game,
you know, So it was that was a lovely memory.
And we all got really drunk at night after we've
done shooting, and I remember having from a champagne at
a bar and having to go spend the night because
the room was moving, standing up in the shower for
about four hours, just because it was anyway I could

(52:52):
not get sick, so that was great.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
There was an injury, like so Kate Jackson gets injured.
And I did think it was very clever that, like
she's wearing basically a footcast in one of the episodes,
and it felt so very much in character. She's like
I heard it slide teaching the kids how to slide
into home, and it just felt it really sort of
I think one of the few times I've seen that

(53:16):
happen and you're like, oh, this is totally working for
the character, even though it might have been a nightmare.

Speaker 6 (53:22):
If she were playing Queen Elizabeth or something, it would
not have worked. But I have to say it, Yeah,
we got lucky. I mean because and she's a real jock,
so she's not she's tough, and she could admit hurt
her to stand up even on that thing. So it
was hard for her to do those scenes. But she
you know, she didn't she didn't ask for special you know,

(53:43):
we had a like wheeler across the room, so or
we had a double. We had to find a body
devil who could walk across the room because she really
couldn't walk, and then have her pick her up on
the other side having arrived, and we were lucky to
find someone who was sort of sort of built like Kate.
We could do the hair and all that. But it
happened so fast. She got hurt on a weekend and

(54:04):
we had to do all this, you know, in twenty
four hours, find a double, and we range the shooting
schedule because at the beginning she couldn't. I think we
had She was odd for about a few days, five days.
Maybe it was tough, but she was game. She wasn't like,
you know, a baby about it. She said, I'll do it.
Just point me, I'll do it. And it did work
with who she was.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
We haven't really talked about Kate and working with Kate Jackson,
and again based on stuff that was happening at the time,
there was there was talk that it was difficult, but
I also know that that happens with a lot of
actors that are the lead of a show.

Speaker 6 (54:41):
Well, she was very complicated. She I'm sure she felt
an enormous amount of personal responsibility to breaking free from
the trio, you know, the cultural phenomenon that was Charlie's Angels,
and I'm sure she felt the pressure of carrying the
weight of this show. I'm sure she saw it as
her gig. Any rejection would be a rejection of her.

(55:02):
That of course wasn't the case, but I could totally
see why that would affect her, and that's so I'm
sure it was difficult for her.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
The kids are really sweet in this show, and they
come off really well, and yet they also don't feel
like Hollywood kids in a lot of ways.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
Right.

Speaker 6 (55:21):
They don't. We got lucky. I mean they didn't. They
felt like they weren't precocious or presenting themselves. They just
felt like we caught them in life sort of. That's
at least that's what I tell myself if I felt like,
oh gee, I don't feel like I'm watching a you know,
a precocious child actor. I just feel like I'm watching
some kids stumble through something.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
Yeah, and it was a really sweet part of the show.
I really appreciated the balance between basically working home and I.

Speaker 6 (55:50):
Think she was very good at that. She had a
good vibe with them on camera. She portrayed that woman
very that that reality. I thought she covered really well.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
Fans are going to kill us if we don't talk
a little bit about supernatural, even though that's not a
female driven eight TV show. It's super famous and popular
and a force of phenomenon. So how was working on Supernatural?

Speaker 6 (56:19):
It was the greatest experience. It was totally brilliant. It was,
and I would like to say that while it is
definitely the story of two brothers, we introduced a lot
of serious and long term women characters to that show.
Rowena the Witch, and Amara, who was equal in the

(56:43):
in the mythology, she was God's equal, his sister, his,
his twin his. So we had a lot of women
characters and never had a problem and no one ever
said you can't have people liked it. We're at the
age now, I think in television where I mean people
know that boys and girls can play together and it's

(57:04):
just good. Clearly the perspective is the perspective of this family.
But we bring back the boy's mother and see her
life revealed a little more, uh and why because she
was just sort of a myth in the early years
of the show. Just her death was all we ever
knew about. We didn't really know about her life. We
bring her back, so there is a female component to

(57:30):
the to the casting. But in terms of selfishly, it
was just a great experience. The actors were all wonderful
as people, I mean not just not only as performers.
The crew was fantastic. Our cinematographer, Surgeon Le Ducier was
was just I mean, this stuff looked great. You know.

(57:51):
He was a brilliant lighter. And I don't know, we
just had a great time. You know, Vancouver is a
great city, so we we had it was it was
really a work of It was a team effort. Everybody
worked really really hard, and I'm like, everybody were sorry,
but we got tired, you know, we just couldn't do anymore.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
We sort of asked all our guests these week three questions,
besides Scarecrow, Miss King, what was the eighties ladies driven
television show that resonated with you at the time.

Speaker 6 (58:23):
I don't watch a lot of tele I didn't watch
a lot of telema television back in those days. I
was either writing or working or dreaming up my idea
for the next show, So I kind of I kind
of stayed away from television. But I you know, I
know we've discussed the degrees to which these shows are
ladies driven. I was a fan of one Lighting, and

(58:47):
I was a fan of Reaving to steal and I'm
not sure, and I wasn't a fan of those other
I think they were eighties shows. What was that show
that Western with Barbara Stanwick, Big Valley or some things?
It was her place. I kind of liked the idea
that this stately woman had three grown sons and sort

(59:10):
of and she took in the son of her not
her physical song but her husband's lover's son. I guess
I kind of liked that as a I liked her
as a woman. I thought Barbara Stanwick was really stand up.
I wasn't a fan of the show, but I liked her. Yeah,
And that was I felt, even though it was a
cowboys show and there were a lot of guys and horses,

(59:31):
she had the authority in that show, and you felt
that even if she wasn't in every scene, and if
she wasn't, I really liked But this is earlier. I
was just coming up really, when I was at Norman's
place at Tandem, I loved I thought Maude it was good. Well.
I liked in the early days talk about complicated Roseanne Ye.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
It was hugely groundbreaking.

Speaker 6 (59:55):
And I loved her stand up back. I thought she
was great, and I thought she was really dangerously unpredictable,
but at the time it totally went with my worldview.
I thought, yeah, that's right. So yeah, I guess mod
I mean not mod. Roseanne was something that I really dug.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
No, it's a hugely groundbreaking show and it did have
that really like huge raw energy in some ways because
of her. But I also really loved the kids. There
were two, you know, the girls on the show really
got to do a lot, all right, And so our
other question is, are there what are your favorite female

(01:00:36):
driven TV shows now that are out? Do you watch
any television?

Speaker 6 (01:00:39):
Well, I'll tell you what I watched and we'll see
if if any of them I watch when it comes
on The Crown, which is female driven, but it's also
it's the Empire, so there's a lot of vibe there. Uh.
I think if there's anything new I've seen that you
know this is not female well, if it's talking about airtime,

(01:00:59):
I think, even though my heart goes out to the
character of Ted Lasso, the women have keep getting more
and more meat, and so I love that show. I
love the woman, you know, the team owner, and I
love Temple.

Speaker 4 (01:01:16):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Yeah, they're great, They're amazing.

Speaker 6 (01:01:19):
And they're really in so many ways. They their perspective
does drive a lot of what happens. While the guys
are spinning out of control or having problems, the women
somehow manage to move the move the act down the road.
So I kind of like that show. I don't think
if that counts.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
Well that's there are strong female roles in there. I
would definitely say that.

Speaker 6 (01:01:41):
If I look at you know, I also liked, well,
this is not a long time series, but I don't
know if you saw un Orthodox.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
I did not, but I heard about it.

Speaker 6 (01:01:53):
Well, it's only about four episodes. It's it's so brilliant
and it's complete. I mean, there are men in it,
but it is a woman's journey and of liberation and validation.
It's eloquent and brilliantly acted by an Israeli actress, Shira
has So I recommend you see that. I also love Stitzel.

(01:02:16):
The women over the three seasons that it ran emerged
more and more. But it's clearly the story of a
man and his son, but it's the whole family.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
What are you watching, Well, we've been watching Abbot Elementary,
which I'm really excited about, and they're doing this thing
now instead of just dropping everything, you have to like
wait week to week, which has been very frustrating to
my concept. I don't understand. It's so eighties.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
I'm watching Missus Maisel. I also just recently finished watching
On the Other Side of the Spectrum Reacher, which was great.

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
Not a female driven chow at all, and we've been
watching that. Rich is a huge fan.

Speaker 6 (01:02:56):
Not at all.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
I mean, this is outside of the things I'm watching
for the podcast. But I am still watching Grey's Anatomy.
I am one of those people who is still watching
Grey's Anatomy.

Speaker 6 (01:03:08):
I watched it last week for a while, and I
liked it because you know, it's addictive. I always ask
myself that when they're all together, like watching a surgery
or in the hall talk who's running in the hospital.
All the leads are in the same room something, and
you know, I'm sure their gunshot victims in somewhere needing attention,

(01:03:31):
but you know, it's kind of a Hollywood hospital.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Is your most sort of action hero television moment that
you've experienced in real life, or you can tell me
your favorite moment on set.

Speaker 6 (01:03:43):
I can tell you my one of my favorite moments.
It was very stressful. But it was the first time
I directed Lewis and Clark, and it was a big
action sequence. It was it was the first night. It
was a night shoot. It was the first night. So
I had the whole whatever ten days ahead of me.
I had to, you know, keep my sanity for ten
days and it's really hard work and I felt, you know, overwhelmed.

(01:04:07):
And so we were on the back lot at Warner
Brothers in Burbank. You guys are all from the neighborhood,
so you know what that looks like. I mean, it's
the Warner brother studio and we were shooting outside on
the street and my husband, who was on a different show,
was shooting a night sequence way up the hill at
Universal looked Warner Brothers, and we happened to be doing

(01:04:32):
night sequences together action sequences at the same time, and
we were sharing the same stunt crew. So even though
a lot of the guys were different, the head the
sunt director was having to go back and forth between
both sets and I felt particularly needy this since I
was I was a neophyte. I wanted him with me,
but you know, I couldn't quite get pulled that off.

(01:04:53):
So he was going back and forth. It was night
lights were glowing everywhere, and I had a sequence where
the the third story window in this building, all the
glass was gonna break, and these guys were gonna catapult
out verdict, yeah, horizontally, not you know, not fall drop,
but somehow or and then PLoP. And everybody swore it

(01:05:14):
could be done. It was gonna work. Fine, fine, fine,
And you kind of shoot these things a couple of
times because you have to reset and rebuild glass windows
and all that. So I'm there and the guy is
not there. He's up with my husband on his set.
But I've got I'm covered, I got people right who
know more than I do. And you could sometimes hear

(01:05:36):
what was happening the way the sound patterns were. My
husband said, you could sort of hear gunshots and explosions,
and you could sort of and he could hear mine
every once in a while. So all this odd noise
was happening, and I was feel like I was in
a dreamscape, you know, it didn't feel real. So I'm
under such pressure to not screw this up. It's nighttime,
it's a full on movie set that I'm saying words

(01:05:58):
like action, you know, em and I can barely get
the words I'm seeing loud. I don't want to upset anybody.
I'm terrified, but I say action. They come out of
the window. There's some explosion at Universal at the same
time from Bobby set, and so the two things happened.
I'm only focusing on what I'm happening, and it works.

(01:06:21):
It's you know, it's fine. The guys fall on mattresses,
They're okay. And I hear later that Bobby who has
a full view, Bobby, my husband, has a full view
of He can see his set and my set, so
he can see what's happening on my set while he's
keeping an eye on what he's doing. He said. It
was like, so it's really almost more his story. He said,
it was like this Hollywood, this cheesy Hollywood story of

(01:06:44):
the couple that like works together and plays together. Because
we're both shooting and the star of our of our
movie is the stunman who has to go back and
forth and tell each one of us what to do
and you know, and say action. And it was like,
I mean, there's no big punchline except that I can't
explain it. It was like this on Nexus, which I
felt was a metaphor for my life at the time,

(01:07:05):
of reality and imagination meeting somehow and both having the
same power over me because I was living in this moment.
I mean, I had to produce this scene. It had
to happen. But I was also kind of worried and
interested about what was going on with my husband's life.
He was doing the exact reverse. And I don't know
if that makes any sense, but it was such a

(01:07:27):
It just felt like this ought to be in someone
else's movie. It felt like it really was in my life.
I was part of a bigger movie. You know, you
could say it's a metaphor for everybody, but it was
so palpably grand to have two big, highly lit, expensive
action sequences happening by a couple. I don't know that
was so I always remembered that as a fun thing

(01:07:49):
to be able to tell people.

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
That's a great that's a great story, that's amazing. This
has been so great. I've been so excited and to
have you on and thank you very much.

Speaker 6 (01:08:01):
Please say hi to Martha when you see who I
haven't seen in decades. But she was really a stand
up person. She was good.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
She seems amazing We've really enjoyed our email conversation, and
so we're excited. Maybe we're going to try to do
a little well, we'll get you all back on at
the same time and just let you guys tell stories.

Speaker 6 (01:08:21):
Thank you so much for doing this.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
I really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
All right, And today's audiography. We have the Facebook fan
site for Scarecromas is King Facebook dot com slash Scarecromas
is King, and I want to do a shout out
to the SMK fans who are incredibly lovely and helpful folks,
especially Jeanette Valary and Talia Johnson and the entire team
over the podcast Missus King Chronicles. You guys should check

(01:08:44):
that out. They do a walk through every episode. It's amazing.
They're adorable. It's really fantastic. The books I want to
talk about, and again, these are on the website When
Women Invented Television by Jennifer K. Armstrong and Ladies of
the Evening Women Characters in Primetime Television by Diana M. Mehan. Anyway,
check those out if you want to read more. And

(01:09:05):
the website again is eightiestv Ladies dot Com. That's eight
zero s TV Ladies, La d ies dot com, and
of course you can follow us on the social media's
at Eighties tv Ladies. That's at Eighties tv Ladies.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Let us know if you're liking this podcast, Giving us
a shout out on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram really helps a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:09:29):
We hope you will join us for the next episode
where we continue our scarecrow Missus king love because I
love it. So please send us your questions and we
will ask them. We want to hear from you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
We hope Eighties TV Ladies brings you joy and laughter
and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch,
all of which lead us forward toward being amazing ladies
of the twenty first century.

Speaker 4 (01:09:52):
Eighties by Stapilar having train, a gutting were going had important,
A band pled anything Night Pas

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