FANBAR: SMK 40th Anniversary with Jeanette Valliere

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, partof the weirding Way Media network, Biessy
and So Pretty to the City.Here are your hosts, Sharon Johnson and

(00:27):
Susan Lambert Tadam. Thank you,Melissa. I am Susan and I'm Sharon.
Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, wherewe explore female driven television shows from
the nineteen eighties and celebrate the peoplewho made them. As we've been enjoying
all these shows and looking back atnineteen eighties television, we are really enjoying

(00:48):
how much people love these shows evennow, and we here at Eighties TV
Ladies are really enjoying your feedback.We're reading all the responses, questions and
comments. Thank you listeners, keepthem coming. It gives us a lot
of inspiration for the next show.Now, we want to dive a little
further into how some of these showsstill resonate that even though they're dated in

(01:10):
some ways, in other ways,they still have an impact. So we're
starting a little treat we're currently callingfan bar And if you've got a better
name for this segment, let usknow you know. It's the Eighties TV
Ladies fan Bar. I like sidebaror like Belly Up to the Bar.
I don't know we're working on itanyway. It's where we're going to look

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at the love these fans have forthese eighties shows, and so today a
special guest is a fan of Scarecrowand Missus King, the action spy comedy
that premiered in nineteen eighty two starringKate Jackson and Bruce Boxleitner. We cover
Scarecrow Missus King in our first fiveepisodes of season one. I'm a huge
fan of it, so is ourguest. Jeanette Bellier has been organizing Scarecrow

(01:52):
and Missus King anniversary events every fiveyears since two thousand and three. The
next one will be this year inOctober. Welcome Jeannette. We're so happy
to have you on Eighties TeV Ladies. Thank you so much for having me.
It's so great to have you joinus, because because we've been communicating
a little bit used into some emails, we've been doing all this stuff.
Martha Smith loves you and said basicallywe needed to dock to you, and

(02:15):
so we do whatever Martha Smith tellsus to do here at Eighties t Also,
you were one of our early supportersand listeners, So I really appreciate
that. Where are you zooming intoday from Knoxville, Tennessee, USA?
Yeah, and sort of what's yourwhat's your story, Jeanette? Like,
how did you get to Knoxville,Tennessee? Actually, originally I transferred with

(02:39):
the company I worked for to Raleigh, North Carolina, and then the tech
market dropped, you know, thewhole bottom dropped out of the tech market,
so pretty much everything where I wasclosed, so everybody was out of
work and looking for a job.And I got hired by a company here
in Boxville and I've been here eversince. And what do you get here?
What do you do? I'm init technical technically, I'm listed as

(03:02):
a business process analyst, but Ido a lot of programming and business design
and reporting. So you keep thingsof the company. Yeah, yeah,
well you are. It's like Iten training some people on how to do
what I do so I don't haveto do it all the time. Oh

(03:23):
that's cool, that's cool. Andwhere are you from? Originally New Hampshire,
New Hampshire. All right, soyou've been around you've been kind of
yeah, yeah, yeah, wellEast Coast haven't made it across in Mississippi.
Well, someday'll have to come Mountto count Well, you've been out
to California. You have fans atplay. I just don't live there.

(03:44):
I just don't live and I havefamily in Arizona for sure, for sure.
So tell us how you came tobe involved in Scarecrow and Missus King
fandom got into How did you getinto that world? Well, it was
nineteen I don't know, eighty nine, nineteen eighty nine, I guess.
And I was up late one nightflipping channels and on Lifetime they were rerunning

(04:09):
Scarecrow, and I said, well, I had watched it. It was
my senior college. When it cameon. It's like, oh good,
you know I liked the show.Let's let's get into it. So I
was watching it, recorded it ongood old VHS back then, and so
I had the episodes. And Imoved to North Carolina and kind of lost
some of that there, and thenit came back on again and it was
on packs, which I think mightbe I on now that Gabot Now it's

(04:32):
I I don't know. It's kindof a strange thing, and I thought,
oh, I wonder if this isout on tape so I got on
the Internet, which was in itsinfancy kind of, I guess in nineteen
ninety and started searching and found thefandom and really got talking to people.
And even back then we were onyou know, IRC chats. Okay,

(04:56):
somebody knows what that is, andso yeah, and then of course when
a well came on and we hadinstant Messenger and Yahoo groups, so there
were fandoms and I really started hookingup a certain people got involved in fan
fiction reading, and then somebody convincedme to write some so there was that
and they so I've written quite abit. Actually, you could probably find
it if I gave you my name. It's still out there. And so

(05:20):
we made a lot of friends.A lot of fans did have informal gatherings.
There was one lady who's passed awaynow, but she did groups in
DC. She'd have a few peopleand it was only a small group,
five or ten people, but wewould go up there and once a year,
and then it expanded a little bitover time, and then more people

(05:43):
got involved and the fandom was reallyreally active then, I think, because
yeah, I think it was alot to do with it wasn't being shown
anywhere, and then when it wentcame back on, everybody was really involved
again. And then when it cameout on VHS, people got involved again,
and then it came on DVD.It just kind of every time there

(06:05):
was a release of something or itshows up, there's a group that they
get together and they do zoom viewingsin different parts of the world. They're
all on and they zoom an episode. So the technology has caught up with
us. Yeah, we were doingit the old way. So that's one
of the nice things about technology.It's made it easier to meet and keep

(06:29):
in touch with people around the worldwho enjoy the same things that you do,
which I think is really great.Yeah. And you wouldn't you wouldn't
meet those people otherwise, Yeah,exactly. Yeah, going back a little
bit further, do you remember howit was you came to watch the show
initially? I was a senior incollege when it came on, and you
know, eight o'clock it was youjust finished all your homework, you were

(06:50):
done with everything. That was whenyou were crashing, you know, early
in the week. And I livedoff campus the last year with a friend,
the friend who lives and lived moreand so by eight o'clock and we
were just turn on something, let'szone out. We're done with everything we
need to do for the day.And it was a great it's a fun
show. It's it's not too heavyfor you know, it's an eight o'clock

(07:15):
show in the eighties. They weren'tgoing to do anything too crazy, and
it was fun. And we bothknew Kate Jackson from The Rookies and Scared
Charlie's Angels. We knew Bruce fromHow the West was one even Bring Them
Back Alive. We remember Bring ThemBack Alive, so we knew who he
was. So I thought, well, these are two great people we like.
Let's watch the show. And itwas fun, and so it was

(07:36):
a good hour to just kind ofdistress, get away from the craziness of
senior year of college. Oh that'sfantastic. I was and still am an
avid TV watcher, and as Ithink all three of us recalled back then,
it was very easy, relatively speaking, to keep track of all the
shows that were on at any giventimes. So while I remember this show,

(07:58):
I honestly don't remember watching it,but for the podcast, I went
back and rewatched and said, howwhy did I I'm assuming I didn't watch
it, since all this seems newand fresh to me, But why didn't
I? This is really a lotof fun. I mean, it's when
you think about all the shows thatwere on in the eighties that were this,
you know, the Pair, theCouple and I'm a sucker. I

(08:18):
was a thin man junkie from wayback, so that kind of that always
appealed to me. That type ofkind of screwball comedy mystery. Selenas that
even though he was a spy andyou would think seemed to be kind of
serious in the Cold War with theRussians, it really wasn't. Whereas you
had the Remonton Steel was more seriousin terms of the It certainly started off

(08:41):
a little more serious. It getspretty spoofy in it, does you know
when they get into more of theYeah, I think some of the writing
go. But then you had Moonlighting, which was just completely completely off the
wall, right, So there wasall you had three completely different things to
watch, and I think I likethem all, no doubt, but I
kind of gravitated Twist, Scarecrow MissusKing more because I could just it seemed

(09:07):
possible in the eighties that somebody wouldwalk up to you at a train station
and hand you a package and youwould take it, and it could it
could just happen. And again,you know, remed and Steel, you
had a person who studied to dosomething right and you could see yourself doing
that as well. But there wassomething really appealing about the fact that this
complete housewife, middle of America typeperson who had no business doing any of

(09:31):
this could become involved in it andyou could kind of see that maybe you
could do it. Yeah, AndI think they did a really good job
in those that first season in particularto sort of ease her into things.
It wasn't like she was thrown intothe deep end of cases, and it
always seemed to be something that was, for lack of a better word,
at her level, something she couldeither offer some insight into because of her

(09:52):
her personal life, and that thatdid, You're right, that did make
it more relatable in that way.Yeah, it's kind in me. Yeah,
the everyday person is saying to thisperson who's completely lost touch with the
reality of how real real life works, like, Hey, we're going to
go set up in this house.We have to be a normal couple,

(10:15):
so don't worry about all these peopleare going to show up and welcome must
to the neighborhood. You don't haveto worry about meeting the neighbors. So
I think that was the point ofthe writing with with Juanita and some of
the earlier I'm not Juanita with themEugenie, Eugenie and Brad saying we have
to find a way into these thingswhere something happens where they need her expertise

(10:37):
as a normal person, and soit dovetails into the story so that he
has to he has to use her. Yeah. I thought that that was
very cleverly done in a lot ofthe first season for sure, in that
she had something to bring to thetable, and it was her knowledge as

(10:58):
a person and a mom and aand a woman, and but in a
as a normal person, right right, as opposed to the Francine who's a
woman, yes in a man's world, who was you know, obviously very
good at her job that she didn'treally understand normal life. Yeah, it

(11:18):
was all spies and embassies and andhigh government right princes and yeah, I
mean she was you know, datingroyalty. So yeah, so to keep
that balance, he didn't understand herand she didn't understand him, but somehow
they worked together to get things done, although he was very disdainful at them.
Yes, yes, you know,I'm not sure he'd be able to

(11:41):
pull that off these days. It'slike you gonna be nice to me,
That's true. And she always pointedout that she didn't know what she was
doing. She was not saying,hey, I'm good at this. It's
hey, I don't know how topunch. I need training. I thought
that because we you know, welooked at Scarecrow and looked at Remington Steel
right after. They're such unique characters, both of them, and I think,

(12:03):
really really powerful in their own waywomen. But it was so clear
that, you know, Amanda Kingis not adept and would never have gone
I'm going to be a spy inher, in her world and in her
worldview, whereas Laura Holt from youknow, from early days, clearly was
like I want to be a detectiveand I'm going to do it, and

(12:24):
I'm going to do it as wellas any man, and I'm going to
do it with without a man,right Yeah, And I think you like
with Laura, she knew she wasgood, she knew she but she also
knew she had to prove herself,and she was constantly having to prove herself,
which I understand that I'm in it. I'm a woman in it.
Okay, this is that's my wasmy life for early years. A lot

(12:46):
of people who had been in thecompany forty years, these men, you
know, old rednecks, who werelike, oh, there's a woman.
What You're not going to tell mewhat to do kind of thing. So
I understand Laura's perspective. I don'tunderstand a man. You know, I'm
not married, I have no kids, but I know a lot of people
like Amanda, and so I cansee both sides. And she was perfectly

(13:07):
happy being a housewife. Yeah.I think she loved being a mom and
she you know, I think that'spart of what I liked so much,
is that her personal life. Yousaw her interact with her mother, her
kids. There was no she justI'm a mom, I'm gonna go home,
I'm going to take care of thiskind of stuff, and then,
oh, by the way, I'mgoing to go off and chase down Russians.

(13:28):
She could separate it very easily,and I don't think most people would
be able to do that. Ireally liked the way she as we're talking
about. She evolved too because whenshe realized that she did have something to
offer in this spy world because ofher personal situation that was very different from

(13:48):
what everybody else was used to,and saw that she had something off her
and then asked to be trained andwanted to be trained and wanted to get
more involved and took advantage of theopportunity because she felt she had something to
give to the situation. I reallyliked that. I really liked that a
lot because she did she had,she did have and develop skills that were
really useful in what they were doing. She had the people skills where she

(14:11):
could look at somebody say, youknow that person, there's something wrong there,
where they were always looking for thebad guy and she was looking at
the person. So she had thatlevel that they just didn't. They hadn't
developed well. And I think theygive her superpower is in some ways being
a mom, right, So likeshe's coming from a place of we all

(14:33):
got to get along, and I'vegot a broker peace between my two sons
and between you know, my momand myself, and and for school and
neighborhood and everything, and all theChinese spies and the Chinese and the Russian
spies. We're all going to getalong. We have to do this together.
So hey, I don't care ifyou're a Russian and you're a Chinese.

(14:56):
We're going to figure this out together. And I that was just like
again a very lovely and you know, as we know now, like that's
one of the things that women arereally good at typically if you want to
give them you know, usually notalways, but can be you know,
better at negotiating, negotiating. Yeah, let's let's all try to work this

(15:18):
out. And that was clearly whatAmanda King was able to take those personal
skills that she had and had developedand used them in a particular way in
this sort of high octane career,you know. And again it's pretty goofy
that the whole show is pretty goofy, but there's something really there was something

(15:39):
really empowering that that her ability tochange and to adapt to the circumstance of
I need a job, and thisjob's right in front of me and it's
kind of fun. Like she sheasked for she asked for the job.
What a day after she met theguy, it was, you know,
I'm looking for a job, youknow, and she was willing to be
every She's like, I can type, you know, she wasn't looking to

(16:03):
be a spy. She was justsaying, hey, I can help here,
and I need a job. Yeah, So she wasn't angling for something
out of her reach, just hey, this was interesting and this would be
a cool place to work kind ofvibe. And I think discovers that she's
good at it, right, thatthe puzzle making and the you know,
the figuring things out is something thatshe is clearly very adept at. But

(16:29):
also the I'm going to look froma different perspective. And I think that's
one of the things I've always youknow, you need different people in the
room to understand different perspectives, becauseit doesn't matter what job you're in.
Yes, if you have everybody who'sexactly alike, nothing ever gets done.
Yeah, And I think it's yeah, stagnant. Yeah, And I think
that was a lot of what wewere beginning to see in the seventies and

(16:52):
eighties television. Is at least womenwere stepping into the rooms or rooms where
they weren't before typically, and andthat made that made a big difference in
outcomes, Right, It makes abig difference in what happened to let's let's
say, you know, and I'mtired of hearing the world word representation because

(17:14):
everybody in the world is saying representationright now. But think about, you
know, a little girl growing upin the seventies seeing Charlie's Angels was oh
my god, women. I mean, it was the come on. It
wasn't exactly high crime and crazy,but there are three women. They all
the work. Yeah, sure,they they reported to a guy behind a

(17:36):
phone, but they're not the Theywere the ones out there kicking button,
taking down the bad guys. Sofor me, because that came out when
I was in elementary, junior,high or whatever, so I was like,
wow, that's that's more action I'veseen from a woman in pretty much
any show. Yeah, and thenyou had a couple other things like there
was a female police officer on TJoker, there was a female stunt woman

(18:00):
on The Fall Guy there, youknow. I mean, so there were
women starting to appear in roles thatyou didn't expect to see them as often
because you saw men in most ofthose roles. And although I mean you
look at Moonlighting, she was amodel, so okay, she was a
model who wound up in this becauseshe just happened to buy the business.

(18:23):
It's one of her investments. Butshe tried to fit in and do the
job sort of. But she camefrom a whole different environment and in this
case, same thing. We gota housewife who suddenly dropped into a spy
world. Whereas in Remington Steel,all right, he was a con man,
but he had the skills to bea detective, well because because he

(18:45):
knew how to con so, yeah, he knew how he was good at
reading people and doing those things.Whereas and this one was more oil and
water to begin with, they're twocompletely different like lives going on and had
to figure out how to work together. Yeah, it's interesting because they're both
conning each other. At the beginningof Remington Steel, right, she's pretending
there's a boss she's she's kind oflying, and he's lying and somehow you

(19:11):
know it sort of. It doesmake them in some ways equals and kind
of equally complicit to a degree.One of the things I liked about that
show, as opposed to a lotof other male female lead shows, was
they immediately said there's attraction here.I mean, it's right off the bat
and the pilot. There we there'san attraction, but we're not doing anything.

(19:32):
We're not doing anything about it becauseif you're going to be in this
role and I have to put upwith you, I can't do that.
So there was always the will theywon't, you know, there's that tension,
but they were really upfront about it, which you never saw. Yeah,
yeah, still really don't see.I think I was. I was
surprised in going back to watch RemingtonSteel how up front, because I'd forgotten

(19:53):
how just the front they were inconversations between Laura and Steel about that very
subject and her saying very clearly,I don't trust you, so nothing is
going to happen until I do,not for his lack of trying exactly,
and she didn't want to, butshe just you know, she just didn't
want to take that leap until sheknew more about him. Well, and

(20:15):
also again because it was a veryadult decision, right, So much of
television as people acting my children,right, that's true. People went there
in high school, you know whenyou see a show. Well, I
think that's maybe one of the positivesI hadn't really thought about with Scarecrow is
that there were children, so theyhad she had to be the adult.

(20:36):
Dodi was more of a child thanAmanda was, so, you know,
because you know, mom was offdating the ropotist and doing you know things,
learning to fly oddball stuff. So, yeah, Amanda was the adult
in the in the home, brokeringbetween her mother as a child and the
two children who really were children.So she's going off to the adult world.

(21:00):
But half the time you see hertreating Lee like he is a child.
She knows how to deal with that, so she treats him in that
manner, and he responds to it. Yes, because in his backstory he
has not been raised, but hisparents were died so young. Yeah,
so he didn't have that. He'sworking through some some some evolving issues,

(21:23):
right what you see when you knowin the ACM kid when he's taking care,
he's got the kid there and he'sbuying him all this, you know,
and she says, what are youtrying to do when father of the
Year, I mean, this isridiculous all these things that you've done.
But he's basically saying, well,this is what I wish had happened.
But she's saying, this is nothow you treat it this is he's a

(21:45):
young adult kind of here, that'snot right? Yeah? Yeah, all
right? Well so what all right? We we We could talk about scarecram
asking all day clearly, but keepshowing me. I'm a TV jucking.
I'm a jucking myself too. Sowhat you know you were you were sort

(22:07):
of part of this fan group.How did it end up? Basically because
you're running these anniversary events now?Yeah, so can you tell us a
little bit about that? Well,it had been bandied about for a long
time. People were always saying,oh, we should try to do this,
but nobody ever really did anything.And a lot of people always had
the ideas like, oh we shoulddo it in DC, or hey,
I live in Texas, let's doone, you know, let's have them

(22:30):
all come to Texas. And mostof us like, yeah, you do.
Do you realize how expensive something likethat would pay to, you know,
bring people to Texas? And soone girl had it was on the
packs form. I think she gottalking to some people and said, I'd
really like it would be fun todo this, but I have no knowledge.
How would we do it? Arethere is there anybody out there who

(22:52):
would be interested? And another girlhad said, sure, you know,
I'll be I'll give it a stab. I'll try to reach out to some
people, and so a few ofus got on board because I said,
well, you know, you gotto pay for it. You you got
to have a place to have it. It's not going to be in somebody's
backyard because I really don't. Well, actually knowing Bruce and Martha, they
would show up, but typically you'renot. You probably need a venue,

(23:17):
and so you have to pay forsomething, and you have to pay for
guests to come. And she wasall over the impression, Oh no,
they'll all come for free. Everybodywill just show up. I'll be a
big party. And it's like,I think you've got the wrong idea.
So as this time went on andwe realized that only one of us really
knew what we were doing, soI kind of wound up producing it all.

(23:37):
It was co coordinator when we started, and then it my shirt says
cord and my friend actually gave methe start. So yeah, she did
it for me for the twentieth becauseyou're really yeah, you're really the coordinator.
So it kind of started there,and that first one was quite the
learning experience, and so the firstone I went to three two thousand and

(24:00):
three. It was the twenty twentiethanniversary of the show. And I first
called Beverly. I was like,you know, she's at the hotel,
and they called Beverly, so Icalled and left. I just called the
hotel and said, you know,basically, it's like, well, I'd
like to speak to her about potentiallydoing this, and we would we would
use the hotel. Why not,it's convenient, she owns it. It

(24:22):
seems like a good idea. Andthey put me through to Beverly. So,
oh my god, you're You're mysuperhero now. And I was like,
okay, well, I wasn't expectingto talk to her. So I
was a little time and we chattedand she's lovely, and I said,
well, I'm gonna she I wouldlove this, This would be fantastic.
Let's do it. You know,you know my daughter and her daughter in

(24:42):
law at the time was the headof hospitality or whatever she was. We'll
get you hooked up. So Iwent out there and I met with Beverly,
and Martha came down and we wenthead lunch and discussed things and said,
okay, let's do this, andso That's how we kind of got
into the hotel and we got things, and we've been to a couple of
where Bruce was. So I talkedto him at one of the cons because

(25:03):
have you heard about this from yourfan club president? And he said,
no, I haven't. She hasn'tmentioned it. So I said, well,
I'm not sure did she get themessage or what. So here's the
information. Are you interested? Yes? Okay. So we had Bruce and
Martha and Beverly on board, andI had already I had met Martha and
Greg. They had gone to afan club event for Bruce, so they

(25:30):
were surprised guests. He didn't knowthey were coming. His fan club president
had or whatever she was, hadsprung this and oh here's a surprise.
Here are Martha and Greg. SoI had met them, and I was
seated next to Martha's husband, Keith, So Keith and I chatted throughout that.
So when I pulled Martha and say, hey, you know, we
met back at this thing. Sothat's how I knew Martha and we just

(25:52):
all we got along grade we hada great time. I'm telling you,
I'm so happy I got to meetand spend time at Beverly Land. Oh
yeah, she is what you know, was one of the most amazing woman
I've ever met. She's just wonderful. She was a mom to everybody.

(26:14):
I'll tell you the first event wesaid, well we had you know,
it was held in October, andsaw was in October. The we got
big birthday cakes for Martha and Beverlybecause their birthdays were just a couple of
days apart in October, and Beverlyinsisted on cutting the cake and handing it
out to everyone. Literally sliced thecake and walked around and handed everybody a

(26:36):
slice of cake, and just justshe's just wonderful. I said, she's
my definition of a Hollywood broad.She's just she's out there. She's very
real, down to earth. Nothingseems to phase her. The book about
her so happy she was there.I'm glad to hear that that is true
in real life. Oh yeah,absolutely, she and she did. She

(27:00):
was happy to do anything we wantedto do. She was all for it.
She just loved the show, Sheloved working with them. She had
a great time discussing it at theQ and A. She told some fun
stories that they're on the DVD.But I don't remember all of them.
I would, but it's been along time. Yeah, long time since

(27:21):
two thousand and three. Yeah,but she had she was wonderful. I'm
so glad I got the chance tohave her at the event. She came
to the first two and then ofcourse she was ill. Also, that's
fantastic and so then so two thousandand three success, and you're like,
oh, we should do this againwhen you're like, I need a break
for five years. Yeah, wellyes. Before the thing was even over,

(27:42):
people were saying, are we goingto do it next year? And
I said, you've got to beout of your mind to do this again
next year. Most people don't understandwhat goes into planning an event, especially
when you're doing it from the otherside of the country and it's not cheap
and trying to pull everything together andyou know, get the people there,

(28:02):
get the commitments, you know,get a good goodie bag, you know,
all sorts of things that go intoit, dealing with the hotels.
So you just you don't want todo some fundraising in between if you can,
so I said, well, we'lldo it again, but let's do
five years, because it'll be thetwenty fifth so it'll be the silver anniversary.
So that's kind of a big dealfor most people. Let's do it
five years. So of course whenthe twenty fifth came around, it's like,

(28:23):
we're going to do it again fiveyears, right, So so it's
become an every five year thing.Well maybe I'll be done in the fiftieth
as the as the organizer coordinator,Are you able to enjoy any of the
events or any of the Yeah,I, well, you know, I
because I've been dealing with these folksfor so long. I you know,

(28:45):
it's not I'm not in the ohmy god, I got to see him
and get an autograph thing, SoI don't have that pressure on me.
Like a lot of fans, it'slike their first time meeting them, so
I get to observe them being soexcited to meet them. The day before
the event, we always do aWarner Brothers tour and that's always fun from

(29:06):
moust because they get to see filminglocations on site. We usually stop by
stage twenty five to see it's theirnames on the plaque, you know,
the show name is there pictures.One year we were able to go to
the ranch. One year we wereable to go to the Disney ranch.
So we've done other things for thefans, and then on Saturday, the

(29:26):
day of the event, I'm prettybusy. But really, once everybody's signing
autographs and people are in line,I can kind of back off. You're
kind of like, okay, yeah, the train is, that's the station.
It's time for It's time for everybody. You know, I don't have
to do anything because it's self regulating. As people just get in line and

(29:48):
get their autographs. People are comingup and asking questions just you know,
when are you going to do thedrawing or what are we doing after lunch
kind of things. But I cankind of just sit back and assess at
that point, and then I canunder around and see what's going on.
But the nighttime, yeah, Ican really enjoy that because we sit for
dinner and then we have the Qand A, which I just walk around
with the microphone, handing it topeople to ask questions. So everybody's enjoying

(30:14):
that. That is fantastic. Andso how many have you had? So
twos? I'd have to do somemath. What's twenty? What what's the
next one? This is the thisis the fortieth, so it'll be the
fifth one we'd started with twenty okay, all right, all right, so
this is twenty years. This nextyear will be twenty years since the first
one. Yeah. Does it seemlike a well oiled machine at this point

(30:34):
in terms of the events and thingson your play well knowing what needs to
be done? Yeah, I meanthere's a list we know, you know,
what we need from the hotel,what we need to get the guests
and everything. And this year,because we knew ahead of time a few
things, and we already had thecomplete dossier from what we did last year

(30:57):
of what we needed at the hotelin a PD file, we just sent
that to hotels and said, thisis what we need and these are the
dates we want are can you doit? You know? So last time
we took a vote with the fansand said, would you prefer going back
to the Beverly because now with Beverlygone and her name's not on the hotel
anymore, or would you like ahotel closer to the airport so you don't

(31:19):
have to rent a car? Andthe response was, let's let's be closer
to an airport. So most ofthe people didn't rent anything, and so
we said well, if we're gonnado that, then let's get a bus
and we'll everybody can pay to takethe bus, and we'll go to the
Warner Brothers tour on the bus.So everybody hopped on the bus and went

(31:40):
to Warner Brothers. So that wasan added wrinkle. We never did that
before. So there's always something newwhen you're producing, sure, I mean,
something always comes up you don't expect. And so how many people were
involved last time you did it?I think last time we had sixty fans.
We had uh, Bruce, Marthaand Greg and Myron and of the

(32:06):
main cast the for them, DennisStockwall, who's one of the producers.
And we had guest stars usually RichardHatch is Richard Richard Hurd, Sorry Richard
Hatch, wrong show about a Starkgaticize that one too. No, no,
but you know I have met DirkBenedict and Richard has the Dirk Benedict

(32:27):
was on my bucket list, onmy list, and I have met him
too. It was fantastic. Wecan said stories later. I just have
to get to the Shan Shan Cassidyconcert, because I said, I told
Eric Astrata I had met Dirk Benedictand I met Eric and I said,
you know, if I could justbeat Sean Cassidy, I'll have met elder
posters that were on my wall.So yeah, I'm working. I'm working
toward it anyway. So we hadso Richard used to come because he's a

(32:51):
friend of Myron's. And Myron said, at the very first one, the
twentieth, he said, are youinviting guest stars because I know Richard.
Sure, let's bring Richard. SoRichard Hurt has came to everyone. He
couldn't come last time he was ill, he had had and then of course
he's he passed away not long afterthe thirty fifth. But last year we
had Stephen mos came. He wasone of the guest stars. Andrea,

(33:13):
Oh good god, I can't rememberour last name. It's going right out
of my head. She played DavisBanelli and oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, I'll remember or it's herlast name is dropped right out of
my head. So and Paul PaulStout actually was there for the first couple,
then Greg was the last two werelike, we're trying to get the
two of them. Yeah, andPaul just he didn't see the email,

(33:36):
and yeah, he doesn't check hisemail. He's terrible about it, so
we're trying to get them both there. We've got a couple of the people
that we've invited. Peter Jurassic camea few years back. He was a
guest star and the woman who playedhis wife in the episode was his real
life girlfriend during the episode. Sohe said, you know, she lives
in la Let's see if she cancome. So he got her to come.

(33:59):
She's a lawyer now, so she'snot got nothing to do with it,
but she came just to come andfor the afternoon and she didn't know
what to expect, but she hadShe had a good time. So yeah,
it's kind of snow But one personsays, oh, I know this
person. We had a crew membercome last time popped in. Martha had
run into him and said come onbuy so he showed up and yeah,

(34:22):
so we've we've kind of just networkingthrough Kurt Galveo, who he was one
also producer. He he came forthe first one, might have been there
for the second, he was busy. We've Brad and Eugenie. I hit
him up last time, but theywere busy that weekend. So I'm hoping
that we're going to get him thistime. So every year, we were
probably still working on Supernatural at thattime, and October is yeah, well

(34:45):
they had they actually had an eventthat day at that evening that was pre
planned because it was last year.It was the sixteenth, It was right
before Halloween, so they had someevent that was that Saturday, so they
couldn't be there. So I'm hopingwe're I didn't give enough advanced notice that
maybe they can one or both ofthem can come this time, because God

(35:05):
knows, I would love to picktheir brains and would be a lot more.
It would be so much fun.And and again we got to inter
talk with Eugenie and she's just delightful. Yeah, and there are some people
I spoke to. Yeah, I'mblanking on her name, but she she
actually was in How the West wasOne with Bruce's well, she played his

(35:30):
girlfriend for a couple episodes and thenshe was brought on to kind of be
his love interest. But she onlylasted one episode of course, because that
was because it was like a hardyboy, I wasn't going to end well,
she no, she just she wasthere for an episode and then they
just she didn't get mentioned again,but she was stating him at the time,

(35:51):
and so I I didn't have away to reach her. She's not
doing anything thing, So I herdaughter is an actress. So I literally
sent a message to her daughter's agentand said, this is a long shot,
but I'm trying to reach her mother. And I got a phone call
from my mother. Oh that's awesome. Yeah, and we had we had

(36:15):
a wonderful but she said, no, I'm just so out of the industry.
You know, I just it wouldI would feel like I don't be
along. I said, no,trust me. With these fans, they
would be so happy to see you. It's like, no, I just
feel like I've been out of ittoo much. So you know, I
understand that I'm going to work onher again. I'll send her another message
and say come on, all right. So your first event, do you

(36:37):
remember how many people were there forthat one? Fifty? No, it's
it's actually kind of been in thefifty to sixty range every time because it's
a different mix of people. We'veonly had their act a matter of fact,
at the last one, we hadfour people who've been to had been

(36:59):
to all four. That's cool.So so they got a little extra hey
for four time attendee on their ontheir little name tag at dinner. But
it's been like there is one awoman and her mom who came to the
first one and they said, yeah, we're only going to come every ten,
so she came to the twenty ofthem the thirties. So they may

(37:20):
show up. They just might,all right, can you tell us a
little bit about where and when andhow people can come? Sure you have
the website. I'm pretty sure.I sent you the website and we have
a Facebook page. And it willbe in La. It's going to actually
be at the same hotel we werelast time, in the lax Hilton,
which is right near the airport.So they have a shuttle so you don't

(37:42):
need a car. If you dohave a car, they do have on
site parking, which is helpful inLA. And it will be on October
fourteenth, twenty twenty three, sothat's the Saturday of the day long event,
the Friday we usually organize our WarnerBrothers tour. That is so fantastic.
I'm really excited. You know,I don't know, maybe maybe eightes

(38:04):
TV LAS to come for well,maybe you should come into a podcast,
right there. We might have todo a special podcast that would be fun,
that would be super welcome. Ohmy god, absolutely welcome to come.
We've got a haul all your equipmentdown there. I'm sure the little
portable. I'm sure we've got someportable portable ways to do stuff. I'm
looking at Kevin. It's given methe to to interview you know you just

(38:31):
you know, well, yeah,like I said, Andrea was there last
time. I don't know she'll makeShe just happened to be in town.
She doesn't live in La. Shejust happened to be there, and she
said, oh I'm about to bethere. Sure I come, but only
for the afternoon evening. I couldn'tdo the morning, so she came for
part of the day. And Soyou run a Martha Smith's website and Facebook

(38:52):
page. It's our Facebook page.It was a website. We did have
a website, and then when Facebookcame on, they had groups. I
said, you know, I'm payingfor I'm paying her website and this,
and we can do everything on Facebook. So I switched it all to Facebook.
So it's the Martha Smith Official usuallybecause I've shared your posts on there,
and I share it on our Scarecrowpage, the Scarecrow Anniversary page as

(39:13):
well. All right, well,Martha Smith seems like a delightful person,
so I'm excited to hear that sheis as well. She's not anything like
Fancy, No, she is not, I got that for sure. She
is definitely a Midwesterner, you know, her sensibility is very very much rooted

(39:35):
in her Midwestern you know. Andshe's a friend. All yeah, she's
just she's just absolutely lovely. AndBruce is the most on too earth guy
you'll ever meet. Paul and gregOr Gray, you know. All everybody
in the cast is really very niceto guest stars. And I have Matt
Kate on numerous occasions. She's alwaysbeen very nice to me. You know,

(39:57):
we've we keep hoping that she'll she'llcome, but forty one. She
doesn't like crowds much. So it'sI understand if you're that's not your thing.
But we would love to have her, yea, if she could,
she could come, So we keephoping. Well, we keep hoping too.
You never know when someone's going toshow up. It's somewhere. Yeah,

(40:19):
she showed up once when Bruce couldhe had to drop out of his
fan club event because he got arole, so he couldn't be there.
She came up and took a spot, came in his dad Yeah, because
her his fan club president, wasn'treally her fan club or she did something
with her, so she nowhere.So she said, well, can you
Bruce can't be here? Can youcome because all these fans are here,

(40:42):
so she she stopped for him.Oh that's great, that's really we would
like the two of them to getin the same room together. Some people
who would love that. I think, Hey, so I know we talked
about your fan fiction. Will youtell us what your nom the plum is
that it's my yeah or my pseudonymor whatever you call. It's Bohemian Fling.

(41:07):
That's the email address that I createdbecause I got into I was online.
I needed my original email, whicha lot of people's screen name,
the old timers who recognize it,it was SMK Junkie, and my mother
said, I don't like that.I don't like Junkie, So so I
took Bohemian Fling. And if youwant to know where it came from,

(41:30):
it's from an episode, so youhave to pay attention. It's the it's
she makes a drink called the BohemianFling. So I took the name of
a drink. That's fantastic. Itsounds like something my husband would do.
Why not take the name of thedrink. Yeah, that is awesome because

(41:51):
we talk about fan fiction on theshow, because I think it's one of
the things that's really very special tothe fandoms of television. Shows are unique,
I think in their own way.I mean, I think we're starting
to see the franchises, certainly withstarting to become like that. Yeah,
there's a little bit more of it, but it's just really spectacular how inspiring

(42:13):
these shows are to people and thatthey want to continue with those characters and
continue with those stories and just expandthe world for themselves. In our kids
who was continuing the series, therereally was. There was a group that
put together Season five. There's aseason five fan fiction. A group of
a group of people said Okay,yeah, let's get together and let's let's

(42:37):
let's make season five. So Ilove that instead of doing an alternate universe
or just a story within a story, they said, well, let's let's
see if we can extend the series. Because that didn't happen, so let's
you just tell me, do youkeep the secret marriage or oh, I
don't remember. It's a lot,but no, that's you know, pretty

(42:58):
much universal. Everybody hates the secretmarriage. I don't know too many people
whole of the secret marriage. Andcome on, if you're gonna get marriage,
he's come on. And it wasn'ta let's say it wasn't a secret
at the office. I think everybodythere knew what was good. But yeah,
just keeping it from mom and thekids was kind of silly. Sure,
yeah, all right, Well thishas been fantastic. We could talk

(43:20):
all day, but unfortunately we can'ttoday, but we can. We can
have you back on and we candefinitely I'd love to. I really think
we should be there or part ofthe anniversary event because it's right up our
wheelhouse. Oh yeah, it's agreat place to talk to fans and get
their opinions. Like you know,you'd ask, you know what Martha saying,
you know, what is it aboutthe show that people keep coming back

(43:43):
to? You're gonna get a hundreddifferent answers. I mean, I don't
know. For me, I thoughtabout that because we were talking about it,
and you know, I think it'sjust there's heart to the show that
isn't in other shows. There's that. It's something that give a long time
ago. It's like every character haschemistry with every character. I mean Lee
even has. He has chemistry withDottie. Yeah, he has chemistry with

(44:06):
the kids. Joe shows up,he's fine. You know, they do
fine. It's not that it again, unlike many shows of the the ex
husband isn't the jerk. He's justhe's there. He's just the ex husband,
no problem, he's part of thelife. Things move on. Dottie
has chemistry with Francine when she showsup out of the or with the dogs.

(44:30):
The dogs she was a monkey.She had a pet monkey. Yes,
of course she did, you knowso. But every you know,
Billie has chemistry with all the differentpeople, even when he showed up,
when he has to talk to them, there's just there's no division in there.
So there's just these little sparks ofeverybody somehow melts together even though they're

(44:51):
all in completely different worlds. Ithink for me, because it's it seems
to be the patterns most of theshows that I like. Most of the
shows that I watch, I likethe characters and I want to spend time
with them. So I'm happy togo on whatever journey the writers are taking
them on this week because I'm I'mI'm very much enjoying spending time with these

(45:13):
these these characters because certainly the plotwith plots were not yeah anything, yeah,
which is fine, deep yeah,And even Bruce said, you know,
you're an eight o'clock show, andhe'd say things like, can't I
just shoot him? I mean,I got a gun, I have a
gun. I have a gun,and he's a run Why wouldn't I just
shoot? You can't do that ateight o'clock TV. So you know,

(45:37):
there were things. There's some latitudethere because it was back then it was
Family Hour. So the plots,yeah, they were a little goofy sometimes,
and it had to be because ofthe time, the time we were
in. Yeah, that's why Moonlightingwas so different, because he was doing
things on that show that yeah,yeah, we took a left turn somewhere.
You're not fitting the norm, andthat's why people liked it so much.

(46:00):
I think you know that, boy, this is different, but there's
something familiar about the silliness of theLike I said, I was a huge
Nick and Nora fan, So theFinman I loved it. My mother,
you know, introduced me to that. It's like, boy, I love
this stuff. These are great typethings. So when this came up,
it reminded me of that for sure, for sure, no doubt. And

(46:22):
I think I don't know if wetalked to Eugenie about this, but but
but definitely influenced heavily Scarecrowmisus King andRemington Steel, no doubt. Yeah,
I wish I had. I'm alittle behind sometimes on where you are,
and because I don't know when you'reactually doing the interview to ask Eugenie,
because Bruce has said a few timesthat he seems to remember, but he
doesn't know if it If it's truethat Eugenie would write his part and Brad

(46:45):
would write Amanda, that's how yougot that weird juxtaposition of how they behaved.
That is really interesting. We I'msure we didn't ask her about that,
but that's really interesting. And Ihad thought about it too late to
send it to you before you wereactually going to be interviewing her. But
it was a question that It's comeup many times. I keep thinking I

(47:08):
probably should just email Brad and say, hey, this came up, tell
me. But it's one of thosethings. It's like, maybe that's why
some of this stuff worked the wayit did because she was thinking in a
different way. I'm thinking like awoman, but I'm acting like a man.
So how is he going to behavein the situation. Well, we
did talk about in our interview withRobin Bernheim for Remington Steel, like the

(47:30):
idea of like, how you know, who gets to create characters? Do
you have to be the gender thatyou're writing for or not? I mean
that seems unwieldy and not possible.How would you do that? As I
how would you do that? Buthow do you put yourself into those other
shoes? Like? And it wasin the you know, Michael Gleason and
bub Butler created a very feminist character. Yes, and they may not even

(47:55):
have known they were creating. Theywere just creating a Yeah, I think
that was more of the point inthat regard. This is something that we
haven't seen on TV. So we'respending it, we're taking it, spinning
it on its head. We're gonnahave the female detective who's just frustrated by
the man who's walked into her lifeas opposed to the other way around.

(48:16):
But yeah, Laura was very youknow, you talk about feminists and I
don't know what my real definition offeminism is. For me, it's more
I'm a woman, I can doanything a man can do. It basically
a poison down to that. Andso with Laura, she was like,
I'm taking the reins. That's whyI had said Murphy Brown Designing Women.

(48:37):
Those were the two shows for methat were like, Hey, these they're
in charge and they're taking any guffand they don't care if they're single.
They don't care if somebody says youshould have kids, It's like, no,
I don't care. Laura didn't careabout that. She had a sister
who was doing that. Yeah,and of course you know there's there's Beverly
Garland telling her you should be doingit too, But that, to me,

(49:00):
that part of her was very feminist. I'm in charge, this is
my agency and yeah, you hadmentioned it on the first one for that
was you know, yeah, itgot watered down. She wasn't written as
strongly. As the seasons went on, they became more partners instead of her
being in charge. And I thinkshe was bristling at it to begin with.

(49:21):
Yeah, because he came into herworld and getting the way and so
that I like that. I thinkthey probably could have done more with that,
but I think they found their nichewith the banter and now it got
into that. Yeah that's what happens. But yeah, I think when you're
a writer of anything, books,movie scripts, if you're going to be

(49:43):
the writer, you got to figureout how to write from a child,
an adult, an old man.You haven't been any of those things.
I haven't. I was a child, but it was a long time ago.
How do you put yourself in thatrole to write? I mean,
Philip and Jamie actually were pretty goodcharacters for kids on TV. They were
they weren't brats, they weren't Yeah, they were actually I loved I love

(50:06):
that, and you sort of wantedmore of them, I think, which
is weird. I mean usually forkids stuff, particularly when it's kids in
a not kids show, right,it's not the party. But it wasn't
about that. It was a flavor. But I was very because they felt
like real kids. They really didright. They were often when they were
they were going to school, theywere falling off their skateboards, they were

(50:28):
going to baseball, and she wasinvolved in those things. So you saw
them as a family unit, andthey weren't just screaming bratty children who just
ran in, screamed something and ranout. Yeah. Yeah, so they
well they participated. Yes, well, Jeanette, it's been so fantastic to
have you on. I mean,this is great. So we're gonna stay

(50:51):
in touch. Thank you for youknow. I'm so glad Martha put us
together. And it knows everybody.Martha does know everybody. She is like
one of that. She's the connector, like she is really remember, I
mean there are other people that,like the other fans are going to talk
to ye. Here's the thing.It's like, I've been involved in the
fandom since the early nineties, lateeighties. Some of these people have just

(51:12):
kind of popped up over the years. It's like, wow, they where
do you come from? I knewthe well, yeah, it's kind of
funny. It's like yeah, it'slike well, and then it's like oooh,
now we're we're the experts. Wherethe thing it's like like I don't
care about any of that. Iguess I've reached you know, when it
was new and it's fun to godo these things, and now it's more
I've kind of backed off the onlinestuff because it got really it was a

(51:36):
lot of drama. Can yes,So it's like, you know, I
just don't I don't need that inmy life. So I'm happy to do
the anniversary events and keep my handin and I'm on the you know pages,
and I hear stuff, but Idon't care about you know, the
day and day at all that kindof stuff. So I'm just kind of
taking that step. Yeah, we'regonna try to talk to the podcast folks,

(51:58):
and yeah, Casey and and alsoDavid David. Yeah, so we're
we're excited because it's it's it is. You guys are really robust. You're
you're keeping the love alive. Ilove the you know, I'm finding out
things I don't know, so that'sgreat. Oh yeah, we know all
sorts. You guys know every story. I've been hearing stories from Bruce and

(52:19):
Martha and Beverly for a long time. Thinks I don't repeat. Okay,
we might have to have you onwith Martha, and then I think we
can just start telling tales. GetBruce on, forget about get Bruce and
Martha together. Bruce will tell youall about everybody Martha's ever dated. I
know, we want to hear aboutthe Germans. Oh in the Italian,
you know about the Italian, theItalian. Oh my god. All right,

(52:43):
she was in Europe. She hadfun. Let's just say that I
love her. Well, she's goodfor her. Oh my god? Thank
you? Why yeah, thank youvery much. Thanks talking to you.
Take care, Thanks, have agood night. First, in today's audioography,

(53:04):
you can find Jeanette at Facebook dotcom and we'll drop the links to
her fanfiction and the SMK anniversary siteon the Eighties TV Ladies website. But
you can also find info on thefortieth anniversary at Facebook dot com slash Scarecrow
and missus King Anniversary. Don't forgetFor ad free versions of Eighties TV Ladies,

(53:25):
go to patreon dot com slash Eightiestv Ladies. As always, thank
you for listening to Eighties TV Ladies. We love hearing from you, so
send us your thoughts or questions atour website eightiestv Ladies dot com. That's
eight zero stv ladies dot com.We read every email. Be sure to

(53:46):
tune in for our next episode.We will be bringing back our favorite nineties
TV babies to talk about It's aLiving. If you want to join in
and watch our It's a Living selections, check our description for episodes. We've
assigned the nineties TV Babies for thisspecial Eighties smart com I can't wait to

(54:06):
hear what they think. Sharon's wenever know what they're gonna think. I
can't wait. Coming up soon ourfirst Patreon only exclusive episode of Eighties TV
Ladies. That's right, a veryspecial modern Barbie episode of Eighties TV Ladies
will be joined by the nineties TVBabies, so get ready. We hope

(54:27):
Eighties TV Ladies brings you joy andlaughter and lots of fabulous new and old
shows to watch, all of whichwill lead us forward toward being amazing ladies
of the twenty first century. Thanksfor listening, and so pretty the sy

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