BONUS: From “Golden Girls” to “A Divas Christmas” | Stan Zimmerman

Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, part of the weirding Way Media Network Eighties Ley and So Pretty to the City, Get the money Man World eight Hello, friends, Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, where we explore female driven television shows from the nineteen eighties and celebrate the people who made them. You are your hosts, Sharon Johnson and Susan Lambert had them Hello, I'm Susan and I'm Sharon, And today we welcome an incredible writer for so many Ladies of the eighties and the nineties, two thousands and beyond, all the way to now, Sharon. We are super excited for this special holiday episode to kick off December, talking about the new Lifetime Christmas Holiday spectacular TV movie Ladies of the Eighties, A Divas Christmas with one of the writers, Stan Zimmerman.

A Diva's Christmas stars Lonnie Anderson, Morgan Fairchild, Lynda Gray, Donnah Mills, and Nicolae Sheridan. It's written by Jim Berg and stan Zimmerman, directed by Christy will Wolf and with a theme song performed by eighties pop sensation Tiffany. Stan Zimmerman is a writer, producer, and director across television film and the stage. Stan and his writing partner Jim Berg also have a very special relationship to many eighties TV ladies because he started working in television in the nineteen eighties. Most excitingly on The Golden Girls, Welcome Stan to Eighties TV Ladies, what we're calling our Divas Christmas Special episode.

I may have to sing the Kataslin song, which I know, you know, she wrote a song about ladies of the eightieses she Diddy got her sad l e. She did, and we actually went to Nashville to talk her into developing a half hour sitcom because we thought she'd be the next Roseanne, and we talked her into it. Yeah, she was such a cool lady. And she's actually in my book as one of my girls, one of your girls, one of my girls. Yes, Oh that's fantastic.

We're really thrilled to have you hear today to talk about thecoming TV movie on Lifetime as Ella's your amazing career, So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Well, I was looking at your career and I'm thinking, like, you have to be one of the top experts in the world of eighties TV ladies. All of them. I lived it, I loved it, laughed at it, and a couple of tiers in there.

Yes, I kept a journal actually throughout from college actually, and I use that in my book. I pulled all the excerpts out of what I wrote about the ladies that I worked with, and I kept a lot during Golden Girls. Obviously, it was such an intense experience as a young new writer coming to la and landing on the first season. Before it was even became a thing, you know, we were there watching it every week grow into you know, a national phenomenon and now an international phenomenon. It's so funny because the show we actually haven't covered yet because it's too much.

It's the brass ring of eighties TV ladies. I will be there with you for them. I'm walking through it if you wanted, if you want to be fantastic. And that's in many ways, the first thing you're known for is being on first season or two of Golden Girls. The first season, we were literally in the writer's room going through phone books coming up with names of cities where Betty White's character came from.

We were there when Saint Olaf was born, not knowing it would turn into you know, all of her crazy stories. I mean, we got a hint in the pilot, and that's what you do as writers. You watch the pilot, you know, to get the job, and you go in and you pitch episodes. Is what we did. We wrote an episode and they loved the first draft so much that they brought us on staff really quickly.

And that's hard for outside writers, especially baby writers, to get the voices of those characters because they're just developed being themselves of what they were. But we saw that Rose would tell long stories. That's why we did the whole run of you know, No Rose. This is how you tell a story, bing bang boom, and you know, you see what they do well in a pilot and you keep you know, going in that direction to bring out the voices. Because remember Susan Harris wrote this with just certain actors in mind.

She did think of b Arthur. She wrote a b Arthur type literally in the character description, but she didn't know that Betty would play that part, and she didn't know Ru would And you know, nobody knew was Stelle, those of us that had seen her on Broadway and towards on trilogy, which I had a few summers before, never realizing that I would be writing for that woman, and then becoming friends with her and hanging out and going places and having her come to my thirtieth birthday party. I mean, what a treat all of that was for a young writer. And I I appreciated every single moment of it, all the difficult ones, the hair pulling out ones, but knowing that what that was and how lucky we were to be there writing for the best of the best, that is so amazing.

So it was you and your writing partner, Jim Berg, and you guys became partners early on, like really early on, really early on, actually in college. So I never thought I would be a writer because I didn't read books as a kid. I watched tons of television. I created my own television network in my bedroom, which I'm sure most kids do. I scheduled seven day a week schedule opposite the major networks.

I created a board, you know, with the time slots opposite. There were only three major networks then, and if I saw a show that I thought deserved to stay on past cancelation, I would put an my network. I was obsessed with Lily Tomlin because we were both from Detroit, and I felt, you know, she would do these TV specials, you know, maybe once every couple of years. And I'm like, no, no, no, Lillly Tomon needs to be on a weekly variety show. So I gave her one.

And I got to tell me that too years later when we wrote a movie for her. So it's a lot of full circle moments. I love this idea for your own television network, where shows that you love get to sort of come back to life for you. That's awesome. I wish I'd thought of something like that too, or just things like if you remember the show Love American Style, it was, you know, these little playlists, yeah, vignettes and stories, and they had one called like Love in the Good Old Days or something with Ron Howard and American Graffiti came on the scene.

It was huge, and I thought that should be a weekly series. All of a sudden, I see NABC Happy Days. I go running downstairs to my mother. I said, have you been telling anybody my ideas? Were?

Are you looking? Like? This was all a secret network? I had no one knew I had it, but I was like, someone here in this house, you know, it's still the means in Hollywood and I'm losing out on the future. And I did get to tell Gary Marshall that story.

Oh my gosh, I love that. I love picturing a young you in your room with your board and your ideas. I was a nerd and obviously not out playing any sports, so I was using my imagination and what a great way to use it. And then to come to Hollywood and actually put it to real use. That's amazing.

So what did getting on that show mean to you and your writing partner at the time, I mean everything. At first it was just a job on the show with really great actress. But you have to go back. I'm sure you have done this to the mindset of the eighties and that was not the popular wisdom that a show like that would ever be successful. If you know, if I had ever pitched that show, it would have been like, no, thank you.

It was for women in an ensemble, it was older characters. It's just it wouldn't be done. But it was, as they say, magic in a bottle. And it was just the right cast, the right brilliant script by Susan Harris, and the right time for it. Really and was it a hit right out?

Like did you know, you were riding on top of a rocket at that point, not because remember it hadn't when we got the episode to write, it wasn't on the area yet, so it was just a show. We're just like, it's another show. We had already been on a show that was canceled twelve episodes in, so we didn't know, is this going to happen again. But then when we got on staff at the Monday table reads, they would read the ratings. Because remember there weren't computers, we didn't know what the ratings were.

So each week they would say, hey, guys, good news, we're number twenty, and the room would erupt so happy. And then each week it would go up and it would be like and we just look around, going wow. And then you saw the studio audiences start to come in. Once the show started airing. They knew the characters, and so what is called the laugh spread, which is how long the laughter would be for jokes kept building.

Because people knew the characters. They would almost you know, when somebody, you know, Betty White, would say something dumb, they would cut to be Arthur and they would just be laughter, like before she even opened her mouth. Because people were expecting. They knew a great line was going to come out, and so really what we ended up doing mostly is trimming scripts just because the laughing lafspread got longer. That's amazing.

That's amazing, and it's something that obviously a few people have a chance to experience, and for you to have that so early in your career just amazing. Yes, I would serve on the stage like and I would look to one side and I would see all these great actors that I had grown up watching Maud, watching Mary Tyler Moore, and then I would look up at the stands full of all these audience that come in, and I just felt like, how did I get so lucky to be here? And you just felt the energy, and each week it just got the energy got bigger, and then it got to be you know, like going out in West Hollywood on Saturday night you could go walk down Santa Monica Boulevard and hear Golden Girls being played in all the gay bars.

I mean, it's just interesting. I didn't realize it even from the beginning, Yeah, at the very beginning, but once it caught on, it became a thing, and you know, it was appointment television and back then it was probably before VCRs, I think Golden Girls. So when you had to watch it, if you wanted to see it, you had to watch the Saturday night Yeah, and people did. That's awesome. And so what were some of your favorite episodes?

Obviously, maybe I'm assuming the one I wrote, Yeah, yes, but there were moments too, and moments we were like having that I can't believe be Arthur is saying this line that I just wrote. Yeah, was there a first time you heard one of the ladies speak a line that you wrote? Is that sort of embedded in your brain that, Oh, my gosh, there's my words. I think the first table read of our first episode, because we had heard that, be Arthur was very upset at the age of the writers. I mean she looked over and you know, we were so young that we probably even looked like I was fifteen.

Back then, I didn't have glasses, and I started wearing glasses to pitch meetings so I would look older and now I just have to wear them. But yeah, she was not shy, but that was the word on the street. And then she started seeing the scripts and she was like, no, they got it. But I think probably the most that I remember was our first episode, and that is Rose's Mother, or it's also called Blanche and the Younger Man. And that week be Arthur's mother actually passed and the producer said, you know, we'll cancel the show, like you can't obviously film this episode.

It's all about mothers and daughters. And she comes from the theater like I do, and the slogan of the show must go on, and she said no, I mean, all these people that work here would be out of work for a week. I can't do that to them. I'm going to do it and go through it. And there's a beautiful scene in the kitchen between Stelle Getty and be Arthur, and Estelle says to be you know, you don't treat me like a little girl.

You treat me like a woman. And still when I see it, the hairs on my arm stand up. You see. Be Arthur can't even look into Stelle's eyes. She has to look away.

It's so emotional, those words on so many levels that that's I just remember that and every time I see it, it brings me back to that moment. Oh my goodness, that is stunning. That is so stunning. It had to be just an incredible I mean, hats off to you for having just the gust to show up. I could think at that age, I would be like, I'm just gonna keep my mouth shut.

We did for a mouth shut. We literally got stuck in an elevator one time after a table read. My writing partner. I would just like we would get out of there as quick as possible, you know, because they the higher ups, would get notes from the network, and we ran to the elevator and then we hear like, hold the elevator and it's be Arthur, and it's like the three of us in an elevator, and we were just like, you know, just keep the job. So I'm just looking down at her feet because she didn't wear socks, you know, this whole thing.

She wore sandals all the time. So I'm just I'm looking at Arthur's big feat. I mean, this is crazy. And we may have said goodbye. I don't remember.

You know, we were terrified, and you know a lot of that job was walking around being scared. You know. We wanted to do a good job, and they kept giving us more scripts to write, so obviously we were doing something right. We got nominated for Writers Build Award for one of the episodes. Yeah, and but it was it was terrified.

It was also very weird when you're staff writers you don't get credit every week on the show, even though you're in the writer's room with everybody else, which I don't think is particularly fair. Then you don't get residuals. It's again a way for companies to save money and the networks and this producers never gave us those structors chairs with their name on it, like everybody had a chair except the two of us, and so that's, you know, kind of weird to go to work and just and there was one NBC executive that noticed that, David Newman, and he would always get up and say, here, you guys, you useduld be sitting now you're the writers. And we were appreciated though by the four actresses, and I've never had that to this day, where almost every interview I've seen of them on television, they always say it's the writers, the writers, the writers, the writers, And you don't see that a lot.

And I think, you know, because they had been on so many shows, they knew good writing, and we knew that if they couldn't land a joke we just need to write a new joke because you know, they just knew that art form of sitcom so well, that's amazing. What were some of the most important things you learned on that show? It was writing one on one for us because I know it's funny, but I didn't think I was like joke funny. And so we learned about writing from character. We learned on there.

But you couldn't just take one joke from one character if it didn't work and give it to another character. Like the actors would know. You know, you have to write specifically for them that jokes come out of character. It's not just I'm not a stand up comic. I don't write like that.

So it has to come literally from the character and that makes it more honest. And we saw that a lot on Roseanne, because Roseanne and Tom Martold would put on staff a lot of their stand up comedy friends. We had twenty one writers as opposed to Devin on Golden Girls Wow. But it was like Norm McDonald and Pat Bullard and Laura Kitlinger. They were standing up Lois Brownfield, but they had never written before, so we had to teach them what we had learned on Golden Girls and just storytelling.

I think I love that. Rue McClanahan came up to us very early on, you know, anytime like one of those actors would start walking towards you, she's coming to talk to us. And she just said, you know, she's an actor's actor, and she just said, challenge my character. So we listened to her literally and went back to her office and say, okay, Blanche, you know, was a very sexual person, so what stories could we come up with where she might go to that sexuality first and then think, oh, I shouldn't. And that's how we came up with the episode of adult education when she's propositioned by her teacher and she could have easily have just had sex with him and got the good grade, but like, no, I can't do that, and we brought that to Roseanne.

That's how we came up with the lesbian kiss. At the time, the character Roseanne Connor was very liberal, so we were discussing what could we throw at her that would suddenly make her question that what if she kissed another woman? And then you see all the people's reactions to it and how does she feel about And you know, that was a great episode because it was groundbreaking at the time, and the network's ABC did not want to put it on the air, and it became a story on the nightly news, and to the credit of Roseanne and Tom Arnold, they said to ABC, if you don't put it on, we'll buy it back and we'll put it on HBO for the night. So they really had a throw down over that episode. Oh yeah, it was huge, fight, huge And then the length of the kiss it could be you know, and how you shot it.

We couldn't see this and it's so short. But it changed television in the world, didn't explode, and we actually got more viewers watching the show. And I like to think that, you know, it was another baby step after soap, another Susan Harris show, but obviously before Ellen and Will and Grace. Yeah, you know, we we had on Matt Baum. You probably in the book You're in the book Okay, which I had I Deserve af Full, you know chapter, because Jim and I were one of the of the first writing gay writing team that came out of the closet.

And people find this hard to believe when I do panels about Golden Girls, that we were in the closet on the show because they think of Golden Girls as such a progressive show. But again remember back in the eighties, this is in nineteen eighty four eighty five when you got that show. Yeah, our agent said you cannot say you're gay or you might not be fact, there's a job. So so your agent said that to you. Yeah, it was just common knowledge that was just told to us.

Is that if because I remember reading about Gary Marshall on staff for his shows, they would in between writing, they would go out and play basketball outside the office. I'm like, well, we can't get that job. I can't play basketball. Uh, you know, anything like a ball like brings back memory of them and then walking around with that imprint, you know for three days. So we couldn't say anything.

So it was very strange. It was also during the AIDS epidemic, and you know, we couldn't really talk about you know what I was. You know, went to Studio one in West Hollywood over the weekend or I remember on Golden Girls, we came in and we were living in Silver Lake and we had gone to a garage sale and I'd gotten these old inch sweaters and someone on the staff said, oh, you know the sale was because if someone died of AIDS, you have to go home and burn those sweaters. So it was we didn't really know that much about it, but yeah, I went home. I didn't burn them, but I threw them away.

So it's very hard to go to work and everyone's talking about their personal life and we obviously we couldn't. That's so because it is it's such a big part of television writer staff room thing is any job, you're there and what did you do or who did you see? And to close off such an important part of your life. It was And again because we're working with telling our stories in the writer's room, we couldn't tell, you know, dating stories from our perspective. But years later when we did get to work with Morton Nathan and Barry Bannero, you know, they're like, oh, we knew, why don't you say something?

And then we would be we work with them, they produced our first pilot for Paramount and we'd be working in their offices at the Paramount a lot and like a really beautiful woman would walk by and they would go nothing there, we go no. And then like a hot guy would walk by and we go to them nothing. Both so I mean, can I ask you what point you guys came out as writers or as people are in the industry. Years later, it was I don't know if you remember the LA Weekly, which is a free newspaper, join said we're doing a story about gays in Hollywood and would you can we interview you? And our agents are like no, And I was just like at that point, like, you know, and we were at Warner Brothers and they shot us on the Western backlock real talk characters.

Yeah, And again, the world didn't explode. It was free. It just felt like I mean, obviously our friends knew, my family knew, but it was just wonderful to be able to tap into them and just say, yeah, that's who we are, and we come with all of that, being an outsider looking at the world from that point of view in our writing. Obviously, when was that I should look, I want to say, maybe late eighties, late eadies, Okay, yeah, still pretty early in your career. Yeah, so that's great, that's fantastic, you know, and I remember that, you know, I actually went to high school with the Indigo Girls, and I remember when they came out in People magazine, and then I was basically back in Atlanta.

They were playing in Alabama and my mom hadn't seen them since high school, and she was like, oh, we should go see them. I was like, yeah, mom, we should. So we're driving and I'm like, we're going to go like backstage, and I think Amy's girlfriend is going to be there, and I don't know about Emily's girlfriend, and like, I better say something. And I was like, so, Mom, you know they're gay when you're invested everybody, I'm like, you know they're gay, right, And she's like, oh, I know. It was in People magazine.

I'm just I'm wondering what, you know, their mom thinks, what Amy's mom thinks, you know? And I was, well, it's you know. And but it was those little baby steps you were taking your parents through, you were taking everybody through. And then we get there and they're like again, it was a huge crowd, and she's like, they're rock stars. That was more shocking to her than anything else.

And I remember my mom taking me because I was obsessed with Lily Tomlin. She was performing at a Now meeting in downtown Detroit and I was the little kid. I mean I was maybe twelve thirteen and she was explained to me. She says, just so you know, when we get there, you're probably going to see a lot of women, and they're a lot of them are lesbians. And she had no judgment.

She was just explaining, this is what you know, and that's part of the now movement, you know, And so as a young kid, I like, okay, sure, like you know, and I was like, that was that was? That's life, you know, yeah, part of the fabric, part of the fabric. But I love that. You know, that show, The Golden Girls is such a beloved gay iconic show in some ways, even though none of them are gay, but the Coca was. But they got rid of Coco before us, before you we had nothing to do with the demise of Coco.

I know that was That was sort of strange because it's the pilot and then just never again. It's actually a little surprising to me. It always has been that he was even in the pilot. I mean, how did that happen? And then and then I can see where the executives would go, yeah, maybe not yet or not.

I mean I think from Susan Harris, she obviously had tapped into the whole gay world with soap and I think she wanted to push the envelope more. And then you know, Estelle was only supposed to be, you know, like a semi regular, and when they saw the chemistry between the four of them, it was like, we don't really need somebody coming to the jokes, like we need to be going to Estelle for that. And I'm glad they, you know, changed course. I feel like when we were there, we might have pitched, like hey would have Cocoa came back or had an episode, but they really at that point did Yeah, we moved on. We moved on.

You know, maybe we'll forget, you know, not realizing now that everybody analyzes every episode, you know again back then because it wasn't recorded, it would go away after it was on. Okay, So I am curious one more question about Golden Girls, which is like what golden girl are you? And like has it changed? What golden girl were you when you started on Golden Girls and what golden girl are you now? Uh?

Well, I always feel I'm a Sophia just because that was the one that I got to know the best. So she will always be in my heart and but uh, you know, whenever I passed by her, old apartment. She's living in an apartment on Hollywood Boulevard on the second floor and right by where the garden there's an outdoor garden. You know, we're a community guard. Yeah, so I always like high style when I go by there, and I remember going there.

She had a birthday party there and I'm just sitting there, you know, with my plastic cup with whatever, you know, wine was in it, and in walks Betty White room McClanahan together, like they drove together. Like that was like, okay, I'm just out up, you know, party in West Hollywood and sitting on a couch with these people. It was pretty wild. I don't know. I think my friends would probably say I'm most like be Arthur, but I you know, I hope I have a little Blanche in me.

Probably not Rose. I'm not really that dingy. Yeah. So and so Sophia was your favorite character to write for? Well, for her, but also she there was just something about her that I always envisioned.

It was like a star baseball player and she would just hit the jokes and you see them go over the fence, every one of them, over the fence, over the fence, over the fence. So you just have her walked through at the end of the scene, which we call a button or a blow to a scene, and we'd like bring a Stelle in, you know, and it was just like always, I mean, how many actors can just do that, just nail it all the time. So she she had a gift. Although she was terrified of tape nights, and you know, she was very open about that, and I think she started having dementia, which we didn't know at the time, and she wasn't used to you know, the other three ladies had been on so many sitcoms where the lines change, you know, between tapings and rehearsals, and Estelle was used to doing theater where you have your script and you you do the same thing every night.

And so every time Friday night would roll around, she you know, would panic and everyone would have to go it's gonna be okay. Oh, that's tough. That's tough because she's so great, right, and you want people to enjoy themselves when they're doing something so great. Yeah, I'm sure you know a lot of people that are a work situation where they can't enjoy it for whatever reason. Yeah, and you know that's not really been my issue.

I so take the moment and appreciate I'm here. And you know, as an actor, I was taught being present. It's all in the moment. And so every moment that I was on all these shows, I really stopped and you know, said thank you. It's difficult, as certain jobs were, how lucky I was to write for such talented people, have them say words they came from here or here.

And so after Golden Girls, where you're like, I'm only working with women, well, you know, growing up, I just gravitated. I had female friends. I just you know, I was always listening to my mother, my grandmother, my sister. The only way I can explain it. It's weird is that I feel if there's any body part that's a woman, it's my heart.

I just feel like I have a female heart. I just think and feel there's some connection that I just I love directing plays when I'm just in a room full of women and rehearsing with women, I just I just it's just I wish I could find the words for it, but it just feels like calm to me. Oh my gosh, Well, how did you and your partner get started in the first place? Let's go back before Golden Girls. For that, I in my mind, living in Detroit, I would watch like the Dick Van Dyke Show, and I would see like what a writer's room was.

But I knew I couldn't write, but I had these great ideas. So I envisioned having a writing partner, not even really knowing what that was, but somebody out there that could compliment me. That was more learning. And I met this guy at NYU who was a journalism major, so he came from words. I came from acting and emotions.

And then we just we got together and for some reason said let's write a pilot. And we just started writing in between classes and after school jobs. And he had a writer's manual that had agents listed in there, and we sent it to a bunch of agents and we found one who only handled newscasters and us and he liked it, and he sent our stuff out to LA and this guy Gary Keeper, who would later become our mentor read it a He had a job at Paramount and Development and really liked it. Pilot. So was it a sitcom that the two of you wrote?

Was a sitcom? Actually we wrote it for Kate Jackson and Andrew Stevens because you know, they were we were together. They did Yeah, that was called double take, and they were a couple on a soap opera, love it soap opera which connects to ladies of these does it? Just said in a daytime soap opera. I just realized that I've literally come full circle in my life.

You have crazy, It's crazy, it is crazy. So that's we wrote. We had a little presentation and an actual script. Oh that's amazing, and I'm really excited about you worked on an episode of Brothers, which we talked about on the episode with Matt Boum because it was one of the first gay main characters in television. Yes, so that came about.

We got offer to write an episode and we went and pitched a bunch of stuff because they had read our cheer spec and they ended up not liking any of our episodes. And then someone in the room said, why can't we just take your cheer spec story and adapt it for this show. We're like, oh, actually we could, and so that's what we ended up doing. Oh that's so cool. So I'm so curious because that show doesn't it sort of lost a little bit and it feels so groundbreaking.

It was. I mean it was on Showtime and our mentor had gone to work at Showtime and that's he suggested us for that show. Yeah, it was. It was a wild experience. It was actually the first time when I heard about drug use in Hollywood.

So like, we were working in a writer's room and some writers left the room. We couldn't figure out a story, and they came back really energetic, and I'm like, oh, they're so smart. They just solved the problem. And my writing partner said, didn't you see some white on their nose? And I'm like what I was?

So, I mean, I was like, maybe I was a little rose back then. I was so innocent. I didn't know that that was, you know, going on. But again, that was back in the eighties, ye, you know, and there that was just a part of it. I guess that was the only time, really I ever saw that on a t I didn't see it, but I heard that that was something may have happened or whatever.

And then and then you guys wrote an episode of Fame, also a favorite show of mine. He did again, we went in the pitch for that, and that was a full circle moment for me because in college I had auditioned for the movie. There was a yeah cattle call and all my acting student friends, we all went to it. I was the only one, I think, cause I look like such a baby that I got called back. And suddenly I was in a room with Alan Parker, not even knowing that he was a director, like all of a sudden, oh yeah, there was some British man and they're going, that's the director.

And I read for the gay boy in it, didn't get it. And then, because God has a sense of humor, I had sublet up an apartment that summer across the street from where they were filming all summer long. So they're dancing in the street and I'm going, thanks a lot could have been me. But I got them back when we went in and pitched, and we pitched an episode, and if you remember, but Janet Jackson, I was going to say, it's a Cleo episode, right, like Cleo episode, And Debbie Allen directed it and she used a song from Janet's first album, Dreams Street and it was Janet Jackson's first music video, You're welcome very much. Did you get to be there?

Did you get to meet Janet Jackson to meet j Jackson. I have met Debbie Allen a number of times, and she's such a sweetheart and so freaking talented. I did not get to meet Janet. I have any Jackson connection. I am the I am the gay Kevin Bacon.

So there's some okay, all right, Well that's good because now you're never leaving the Showbie Allen, everybody. But I remember going to the Revolver Bar in West Hollywood and all of a sudden, I hear Dreams Street and I'm like, they're playing my from Fame that they cut it into a real music video and got it out to bars and things. Isn't that wild? That is totally wild. That's a great Fame Janet Jackson story.

There you go, thank you. The last time was that I'm just gonna name drop please. It was at a birthday party for Raven Simone, who we had worked with on a project, and you know, I saw Debbie Allen. I'm marching right over there and talking to her and just reminded her of what a great job she did on that episode and how cool it was to write for Jackson and whatever happened to Jannet Jackson. I don't know.

Yeah, she did some things little room music career, there's a career. I think she's like and again, I don't think she gets enough flowers because she's freaking amazing and has had an amazing career and you know, got overshadowed and also like you know, I don't know, well in the way she was just excoriated for the super Bowl performance while I don't know, somebody else just kind of walked away. Scott Free is just wrong on so many levels. But we're not here to talk about music right a different podcast now, But me she goes back. She was an actress on a sitcom and you know, and she was on Good Times yeah when she was what twelve thirteen something like that.

So yeah, so incredibly talented. Okay, So I have created a theatrical musical piece using over forty TV theme songs, everything from I Love Lucy to Big Bang Theory, Good Times mod and we've done a couple of red it. We did a big one here at Gary Marshall's Theater where I got to meet him with Megan Hilty, who did an awesome rendition. She turned Charles in Charge into a torch song. The amazing and Emmy winner chery Lee Ralph.

She sang a wonder Woman was one of her songs, and she was just and she's become a good friend, and I'm so excited for everything that's happened to her. Stan. I'm just coming over to your house and I'm going to follow you around. I'll carry your bags. TV theme songs, I love TV's theme song, your favorite, Oh my gosh, so many though.

Well, we did an episode. We did a crossover episode with I Know I Saw. I will tell you that when I came to the to the Rose Bowl, I think it was nineteen eighties when my college team was playing, we went to the parade. Beforehand, we're sitting in the stands waiting for things to clear out. Where the bus comes takes us wherever they're taking us.

Next, somebody starts singing Gilligan's Island theme song. Everybody joins in, and then we move on to Green Acres, Brady Bunch, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, because everybody knew the words. Everybody knew theme songs back then for TV shows about the musical. So thinking of Charlie Rauls singing wonder Woman or Maud, it was great I mean the Jefferson's moving on up.

Oh, that's such a great song. I just started dancing, you know when I hear that song, that's one of the that's one of the best. I think You've done a lot of theater, You've done a lot of writing directing. I got back into it after I had been the host showrunner on a Bravo TV reality show produced by Sean Hayes called Situation Comedy, and then through him, I met someone running a theater and they asked me to direct, and then I was directing some shows, and then a Broadway producer said, you're a writer. Started writing plays, and I didn't think anything I have to say in theater, And then all of a sudden came up with a show called Meet and Greet about four actresses of a certain age who end up in the lobby of a casting office at a major network and they're auditioning for a really bad sitcom written by two men and something you know nothing about talking about.

And we ran there for a long time, but it started great people like Teresa Ganzell and Vicky Lewis from news radio. We did a reading in New York with Sherry Shepherd and Rachel Dratch, So that's another player. We ran for five months in LA but I still would love to do that somewhere. And then now I've been directing more serious things, like a Latink version of the Diary Band Frank, which has been going on since twenty eighteen. And then to get really heavy play about Suicie Side, a very close friend of mine died by suicide about twelve years ago, and I created a play using real suicide notes like Virginia Wolf and Kirk Cobain and war veterans and LGBTQ, and I've been playing me the narrator all across America.

We did a five city tour last year with cast members from Gilmore Girls and Virginia Mad. So it's being done all over now and hopefully provoking conversation and saving lives. I love those kind of plays where you're laughing one minute and then suddenly you know tears are coming down your face. I love the concept for the Diary of Van Frank, and it sounds like it's been really very impactful. Because I saw a CNN story about a Jewish woman in twenty eighteen who was hiding a Latin a mom and her two daughters when her husband was deported by ice, and that made me think we're literally living in the times of Van Frank And that's what made me think, what would happen if I can as everyone in the attic with LATINX actors.

So my vision of the show is it's a woman handing out scripts to two LATINX families in the beginning to play. They're just reading it, and then suddenly the scripts magically disappear, and I add sound and lights and then suddenly act to their full period costumes. So they are putting their feet in the shoes of these characters to see the differences the similarities of what happened. Then you know, as we say as a Jew, never again, and yet here we are in the world and never again is right now? Really y not real serious?

Let's talk about the eighties, ladies, that sense of like how did we get here where it feels like we've now gone backwards? And as much as we actually love eighties television, eighties ladies and the joy of that, there's also a real underlying true questions to be asked of, like why are we having the same conversations we had forty years ago? Why are we still not able to solve these huge things that are solvable, you know, And why is and Frank so resonant for so many communities right now? That's like, that's not just a lesson. Yeah, because we're so afraid of talking about you know, sexuality, racism.

Let's eliminate all that history from schools in Florida. Like if we don't talk about it, and sometimes there are going to be some messy conversations. And as much as it's so painful to watch some of the things happening in the world today or tearing down missing children, I don't understand that we've got to start having these really tough conversations to move forward and find where is the point where we intersect. Let's just start, even if it's a sliver, and then we can move from there. But if we don't talk about it and my suicie, I know, play has been canceled college in Florida that we were having a special student show in Virginia two months ago.

One woman didn't even have a kid in the school, got it canceled to the students because she didn't like that there was LGBTQ content. You know, all those kids that we could have saved that didn't get to see it because of one person. I always think about how post World War two Germany and also post apartheid South Africa have shown that you can really make some headway and healing these kinds of wounds by talking about it. Germany made it a point to teach in their schools what had just happened in their country and why, And in South Africa they have had to do something similar as they left the apartheid system and open things up more. Did it solve every problem?

Oh? But they are further down the road than our country is with the wounds that we have lived through, and we'll never get past them. Whether it's something big like racism or sexism or anything else, but even the small things like talking about suicide. If you don't talk about it, if you don't make it clear that it can be talked about, you're simply making it, for lack of a bet already easier for somebody to go further down that road. Then maybe they did not save somebody who could have been pulled back from the brink.

They don't feel they don't feel heard, they feel alone. That makes them write notes. I don't want any more notes. I want people to talk about it. But for ran Frank, I learned when we were auditioning girls fran Frank, it's not required reading in California schools anymore.

So that's why we've been bringing it back three four times in this past year the Colony Theater in Burbank, and we've been specifically bringing in school groups. So for a lot of these kids, this is the first play they've seen and the first time they've heard about who am Frank is? So we always have a talk back after with the Holocaust survivor who was ninety two years old. But also when Roseanne got fired and that whole thing with Valerie jareded I went on some talk shows and I talked about I wish she had used it as a teachable moment, and she did. She'd blamed on an ambient.

What if she really would have said, all right, let's get in there. I didn't know this, or I did know this, or I thought this was funny. We had something awful happened at one of the last performances of and Frank. Some boys at towards the beginning of the play did the Heile Hitler sign and said, Hyle Hitler out loud, Oh my god in the audience, some boys in the audience, and that really threw my cast. Yes, after we used a talkback to turn it into a teachable moment.

Even if you think it's funny, why is it not fun? Let's talk about the Roseanne trajectory is heartbreaking to me as someone who loves that show, who knows that she was such a groundbreaking force in television, in comedy and was really a part of changing conversations. But like the craziness of television, like, do we not talk about things now? Can we please still love Rosanne and all its goodness? I think so.

I mean in her case, I think we can. There are other situations where it's a little bit harder, But in that case, I wonder what we could be talking about. Yes, in Roseanne's case, I think we can. I think we can look back at what the show is, the original show is, what it was, what it did, I mean, listen, even then she wasn't perfect. All the stories about what went on behind the scenes.

Do you talk about that in your book? Oh of course I do. You know. We were there the year when they ended out numbered T shirts because they didn't want to learn the names of the writers in case you got fired, so you would just be like, hey, number thirteen. The first day on set, we had all the writers get in the line, and they thought it was funny.

Tom and rosanded that all the writers had to wear number T shirts. We re bolted and said, we're not wearing them. But my birthday is October thirteenth, so I got in line to get that thirteen team. I still have it today. Of course I wore at the reunion picket line.

I see Tom Arnold. What's the first thing he does. He knocks into me, spilling coffee all over it. No way, really, the second time I've worn the shirt out in public. But everyone was laughing, going if it had to happen by anybody.

Yes, all right, we're going to take a quick break, but then we'll come right back and we'll talk about oh my gosh, Something Wilder, Brady, Sequel, Gilmore Girls, and a Diva's Christmas. Finally, yes, finally, all right, so we're back. We got to get to Diva's Christmas. But first I have to ask what it was like working with Jeene Wilder on Something Wilder. He smelled like baby powder up close, isn't that odd?

I thought, what I thought you were going to say? Yeah, I know, you know again it was he wasn't a lady. But that'll be in my next book about the men in my life. But uh, you know, he was a genius. But it was interesting to see him struggle with the sidcom format because he was such a physical comic.

And I remember he came into the writer's room he said, can't you write me a scene where you don't have to talk? And we're like, Geene, it's a sitcom, there's words. And then I'm like, wait, wait, wait, we can come up with something. So we came up with this idea. He was afraid to go to the dentist and so he got really nervous.

And the hygienist she was her first day on the job, and she ended up doing the novacane, but she slipped and got into his leg and then she kept doing all so then he lost his ability to walk, and then an arm and then how it was so funny and he didn't speak a word in it. He just mumbled and got to do that. So that's what I love about television is you know, you're kind of in a sandbox. To plane, but there's definitely corners of it, and then you could be as creative as you want in the middle of it. Oh my god, how fun.

All right, and you guys wrote a very Brady sequel. We wrote both Brady Bunch movies, so both of them. The awful thing about one of the things about the Writers Guild is they only allow the first I think three or four writers to get credit. So we came on. We were the fifth writers right before production started.

Before casting. We were only supposed to do like a week or two polish and they loved what we did, so they kept having us for two more weeks, and two more weeks and two more weeks, so we were there. While we were there all during casting, Paramount suggested we get credit. It's not how it works if you don't change because it was locked as far as locations. You have to change the structure of a script to get credit.

So the structure was already there, so they would say, literally, we are you have jan and Missus Cummings in her office. Write anything you want. So we couldn't change where it was, but every word in there we could change. Well, coming up with idea to cast through Paul changed everything. So unfortunately we did not get credit.

My mother did know that we wrote it, and everyone in town did. But I lost a lot of money because our names went on. I think it's very antiquated idea back in the old days and early movies you'll see at the end of the movie like additional dialogue. I think at least seems to be somewhere there, like there were you know, pet groomers and bartenders. Everybody got credit, not us.

Wow, And I found, uh, there's a transition to Ladies of the eighties. You know, there's been a lot of publicity because obviously those women are icons of the eighties. There was just a People Speaking as People magazine a big article about the movie, quoting some of the funny lines. Nowhere did it say who wrote the script in the whole article. Yep.

I find that shocking because they're written by writers, so you would think writers would would support other writers. We just had a huge, right long writer strike, like why can you not find anything to say written by you know, there's like five words you'd have to put in there. So with Ladies of the Eighties, we were in Dallas almost about to open our Silver Foxes play and our old assistant Jason Wood, who staid of casting a lifetime called and said, can I throw your hat in the ring. There's this TV movie I think you might be right for. And he told us, you know five the five actresses at that time that were attached.

This is the middle of March. It had to be written by May first pens down because of the strike. Yeah, oh wow, one set, one location, fifteen days shoot go. I said, give us less than twenty four hours. We came back to them, you know, a bunch of writers were pitching stuff.

We came back. We pitched a bunch of things, and they said, we like all of these, which one do you want to do? And like writers aren't used to hearing that, We're like, well, what do you want to do? But then we said we think this is the best because of the speed we had to do it in and because we had heard and found out that most of the actresses had gotten their start as daytime soap opera stars. So that's what it's about about, you know, And all those daytime shows like I grew up on One life to live and all my children they're all being canceled.

What if they were all on the show at some point and the show is being canceled, and they asked for one more live Christmas Day episode because they're known for their Christmas family episodes. And so they meet up at a house in the hills of Beverly Hills and you get five divas in one house and all outbreaks loose. There's also a little bit of a romance between the producer and the director. Yeah, so you know, as in all Christmas movies, they like to have a gun love story. So we came up with that.

The guy was the writer producer on the show. He actually started as down and Mills baby, you know, like a baby actor. Oh wow, I love that show. And they came like his sorga real mother when he had his mother passed, which is based on my mother passing, and he found out that he wanted to write more than he wanted to act, and so he became a writer producer and he brings on a female director that he was in college with and there we'll see if sparks fly, right, Yeah, and the ladies have to like come together in order to keep the romance going. Well, you know, they can be conniving like they were on the show, and they have to, you know, get their fingers into everything.

And you know when you get especially those five together that come with you know, so much history and some had history, like Nicolette and Donna being on the same show and they were both on not Landing. Yeah, and you know, having Chris Ratkin come on as as Linda Gray's husband, so there's fun stuff like that. And Patrica Darbo, you know who's one Emmy's for soap operas the Days of Our Lives, so she has a little guest spot on it. That's great. We wanted to work together.

And Alec Mappa is in the show as well. And the Past was originally going to be Joan Collins and Jacqueline Smith and unfortunately, because of the strike, we had a short window to film it before the actress went on strike. And unfortunately Joan and Jacqueline, even though they had committed to the script, couldn't shoot it at that time. So May first pens were down, computers were turned off, and the good part of that was they couldn't change much of the script, and the bad part was that we couldn't go to set right. That was awful.

And I could say, can I wear like a you mustache and a hat or dressed like as a palm tree and to sneak on. But you know, we didn't want to get the down, so we kind of stayed away, which was too bad. So before our pens were down, we did I get to, you know, talk with a bunch of the ladies and get their thoughts and you know, do some tweaking of the script, you know, for Linda and Morgan. So that's when Lnnie Anderson and Nicolette came on and Morgan Fairchild actually took Joan Collins role. Okay, so there was a little bit of shifting.

Yeah, so you're getting the dirt now, I know. I love it. I don't know if I'm supposed to tell these stories. Well it's fine, will be out. It's not dirt.

It's just very interesting stuff. So I think I think we're good. I think we're good. Everybody wanted to Everyone wanted to take the Joan Collins role, you know. So we had actually tried to develop a sitcom for Joan Collins years ago.

We just thought she was so funny, and she wasn't, you know, given props for being funny. Yeah, we pitched to something she wanted to do. It never ended up happening, but Joan Collins is in my book. Somehow they all connect back to it. But I didn't know any of these, just enjoyed them from afar.

You know, we have the connection. Morgan Fairchild was on Dan as my friend Sandy Bernhardt's love interest. But we never got to write for any of them. Now but hopefully if people watch, there will be maybe a sequel or as Christmas too. Oh yeah, we already have some ideas.

They go on vacation or there could be even a series in it, you know, getting back to the beginning. So the idea was something an idea that Lifetime came up with in terms of so it was something you guys came up with. They came up with five actresses wanted to do a Christmas movie one location. You we came up with different ideas to use, and we picked different locations as seemed to be like a house, a big house, and then you could redecorate some of the rooms to be like an office or you know. But we had one that was at a hotel.

I can go back. I should go back and look at it. The other one, know, you got to save them for you know, them out here. You know, Susan might steal well, right, all this playwriting, you could take one and do whatever you want with it. Was it always going to be women who were eighties TV ladies or so that was also that was all ours was just five actresses.

Anything you want? Oh wow. So we brought it to this because obviously it was in our wheelhouse. You know, they come with that knowledge of people knowing that about them, so we thought, why not play into that. And it just seemed it was so rich with you know, their their beginnings and they could talk about their young days as actors together and being on those shows and how crazy those soap operas were.

You know, we started delving into some of the crazy things that happened, you know with you know, there were ghosts and evil sisters and you know, you know, end up on some island and then you know, you could do anything. And you know that one actor replaced another actor and the fighting and all of them. Oh fantastic. That is so great. As far as we know.

Did the divasol get along? Oh? I can't tell you that. I mean they just had fifteen days. How much trouble could they get into?

Yeah? Hours? And we actually used the title. We had written a movie, a New Line movie for it's it's called The Great Lakes. That was their daytime soap opera and their last name was the Lakes.

But we stole them from a movie script that we wrote for New Line, starring Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson, a mom and her three daughters. And we developed it with Kate and Goldie and it never happened, a totally different idea, but it was about a mom and three sisters, and it was Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Kate Hudson on away with that. Oh my gosh, we wouldn't want to make that movie, but they didn't, and so we just couldn't let that title go by. So and I got to use my niece's name, nel and so I named the young female director. Now, even though they kept saying it's such an old fashioned name, I'm going it's my niece.

You know, she's a girl. So you know, it's fun to use family members names and shows. Well, in these days there are a lot of people who are naming their kids long ago names for lack of what I said, Yes, exactly really, but you know, when you get notes like that all the time. You know, We've got some crazy notes in our career, and was like, you know, usually you do change if they have a problem, but I'm like, guys, it's the name of a character. Come on, you know that's you know, there's micromanaging and then there's you know, insanity.

And Jim I right partner used his nephew, Alex, so we had our niece and nephew and my cousin when I was growing up used to write for Mad magazine and he put my name in like you know those letters from Campa. So maybe I just was stealing you know, that idea from him that you know, and that gave me such thrill. I would show it to my friends. That's that Stanley's me you have worked with If not, you didn't get to be on set with these ladies, but you have worked with an incredible lineup of comedians and actresses, and you know who would you work with again at the drop of a hat, like like, I don't even care what it is if she calls, you're on. There's so many all of the the two that come to my mind the most Melissa Peterman and Wendy Malick.

I just am in love with both of them, and maybe I need to put them in something together. They're just so hysterical and so loving and so giving, and you know, especially Melissa will come up with jokes like I said, I want to put you on staff as a writer. She's just one of the funniest people. And so but I've worked with just great people. I'm like I said, Teresa Ginzel and Vickie Lewis and Andrew Bowen from Desper Housewives, And yeah, there's been a lot.

I mean, I wish I could work with the stell Getty, but yeah, I have talked about writing a one woman show about her. So that's still wow or you should totally do that. Do that get real Perlman to play her. Oh, but also as a producer, there's a lot of ladies actor ladies all over the country who need a good role to play. And I was going to say, who would you love to work with that you haven't been able to.

That's like on your list of like the ladies, where do we start? Meryl stre Ellis and Janny Oh my god, the list can go on. There's so many people, but those have to be the big one too that I need to have them in my life. Okay, all right, the book happened. Oh yeah, we'll work on it.

We gotta have some lunch. We'll make it all happen. We'll put a bunch of plays together. I did make Alice and Janny laugh one time at a party, and the minute that happened, I'm like, I can go home. Now I've lived.

I'm done. I can never I don't have to go to any more parties ever again. In Hollywood. That's just like you know, when you make someone like one of your idols laugh, that'st feeling in the world. That is amazing.

All right. The book tell us about the book how it can you be? The girls from Golden to Gilmore, And it's stories about all the wonderful women I've worked with and Roseanne, you take that as you will, and it's a really valentine about all these amazing women that I've been so lucky to work for, develop ideas for that maybe not have gone all the way to script and my journey and using my old journals where I kept during all the shows. And then the last chapter is really about my mom and her passing and very difficult thirteen days in hospice and realizing that she is my one true golden girl, and so it's a real tribute to her, my biggest cheerleader, and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her support all these years as a young kid.

Just you know, if this is your passion, we're going to make and do whatever we can to make it happen, and she did. How did you come up with the idea for the book? Where did it start? Where did it start? You know?

But I guess because I always get to ask, like, how did you as such a young guy right for older women? That was the number one question. And then it just became a pattern of all these great women that we ended up writing for. And then I thought of the title all the g's. I love a good alliteration.

Then I thought, all right, I'm going to bring it up at the Gilmore Girls Fan Festival, and if I say it out loud, then I'll be forced to write the book. Not realizing how hard it is to write a book and how painful it was to go back in my life and relive those and re look at how I viewed the world back then as opposed to now where I am now in my life the lessons I've learned all of that, and so they kept me accountable my Gilmore Girls fans and family there, and that I was lucky to get into Goo River Publishing to get behind it. And here we are. It's coming out February thirteenth, just in time for Valentine's Day, and I can't wait for everybody to read it. A lot of hard work, but I hope people have some laughs.

It's like sitting with me, you know, for coffee or a glass of rose or or or martini. I will not turn down a martini, and you know, just gabbing and hearing stories like we did today. Were there any stories as you were compiling the things you were going to write about in the book that looking back on it, you found that your feelings about it have changed over time for whatever reason. Yes, my view on Betty White. Hmmm, how so well?

I can't tell you. You got to read I've given you like My Blood today. I can't wait. I'm so glad it's only a couple of months away before the book comes out. Wow.

Very easy, very easy, quick reading, little chapters and you know, divide like Golden Girls, Gilmore Girls, the Brady Bunch, the next Lucy, which about all the women we met with to develop shows, because they all want to be the next Lucy. So you'll you can Oh my god, I can't wait, and you clearly good writer knows how to end on a cliffhanger. Keep them, keep them continued, indeed to be continued, because we also talk about Lily Tomlin. I mean, come on, that's a whole other one. I can't get into that now, but yeah, she's just that.

I even consider her friend, and she returns my emails and we've had so many meals together now like that as a little kid, idolizing her to that, that's been quite a journey and such a special, special, special woman, and we'll always be I got to see her speak at the strike they came. She and Jane Fonda came down to one of the strikes outside of Netflix, and I was thrilled to be there and be like right there, they just walked right up. I'm like, don't they have security. Somebody should get some these ladies some security. I've had meetings with Shane Fond and I couldn't pitch.

I'm just looking at those beautiful eyes of hers. I'm just like a oh yeah, and then I was at her house talking when she yeah, that's again in the book. Okay, well, we're gonna have to get the book, so, but you're gonna sign it for us, right, we get in person signature. Okay, awesome, Thank you so very much. This has been fantastic.

We could clearly just keep talking for days. And I'm just so delighted that you planned a season when you were seven and uh of for your network and that now you get to create television and theater always very important in this day. Well, thank you, thank you for keeping the eighties ladies alive and going and laughing with them and learning from them. We are happy too, and I'm really glad that you're also a fan, So thank you. Thank you for doing this and having me and talking about the movie and everything.

Absolutely, thank you. Stan. Can't wait to actually meet you in person one day so you can sign our books. We'll do that today. O.

Great, all right, have a great Sunday. Here's today's audioography. Ladies of the Eighties at Davis Christmas premieres on Lifetime Saturday, December two, tomorrow at eight seven pm Central Time, and the link is in our description. You can pre order Stan's book The Girls from Golden to Gilmore at bookshop dot org and the link is in our description and you've got to order it so you can find out what he's teasing about. Betty White.

I have to know, so do I. I cannot wait till February. I may have to go sit outside his house by can tell me. Thank you for listening. Please be sure to rate, like, and review us.

It really helps us out a lot. And you know, the advertising you hear on this show covers very little of the cost of producing it. The best way to support our show and not hear ads is on Patreon dot com, slash eightiestv Ladies. Be sure to tune in for our next regularly scheduled episode. We're going to jump back into designing women with our fabulous nineties TV babies.

I can't wait to hear what Sergio, Serita and Megan think of Juliet, Charlene, Mary, Joe, Suzanne and Anthony, and who knows what other surprises and totally rad guests we might have in store for you soon on our podcast. So follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and of course at Eightiestvladies dot com and wherever you find your podcasts. We hope eighties TV ladies spring through joy and laughter and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch, all of which will lead us forward toward being amazing ladies of the twenty first century. Happy holidays, eight hands Pretty through the City, Pull the money in a world