It’s A Living with Jane Espenson and Drew Z. Greenberg

Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, part of the weirding Way Media network. A quick note for our listeners. We sometimes create our shows very close to the episode drop date, and yet many other interviews are recorded months in advance. This episode was created and recorded before the Writers Guild strike happened, and I want to note that sag after has also now gone on strike, and both strikes are very necessary action for the entertainment industry and I believe for the United States, perhaps even worldwide. Without the labor of the writers and actors from the nineteen eighties and those currently on strike now, the shows we cover on this podcast would not exist.

There would be nothing to talk about around water coolers or around our earbuds. Without the past strikes where writers and actors gained not just vital compensation, but healthcare and pensions, the creative talent behind these shows and characters we love would never have been able to create careers out of bringing us these moments we hear at Eighties TV Ladies stand in support of the Writers and Actors strike and all the labor movements and unions who are currently challenging massive corporations in order to demand respectful working conditions as well as equitable compensation for labor. So cheers to a hot labor summer, and please check our description for links where you can support the writers and actors and everyone affected by the strike.

Baby and So Pretty the City. I'm Sharon Johnson. Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, where we explore female driven television shows from the nineteen eighties and celebrate the people who made them. I'm Susan Lambert HadAM. Thank you listeners for joining us here at the eight It's a Living is an eighties show you may have forgotten or never heard of, but it ran for one hundred and twenty episodes and if you check it out, it just may be your new favorite.

Undiscovered Jim, It's a workplace comedy with an interesting history. It was first a network show from nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty two, and then came back as a syndicated show from nineteen eighty five to nineteen eighty nine, and while it didn't launch the career of actress Angelian, it did make her a star and turn her into an eighties sex symbol. The show is set in an upscale restaurant at the top of the Bonaventure hotel in Los Angeles and sent hers on the lives of the women who work there. But before we get to It's a Living, we want to introduce two very special guests joining us today on the show, renowned TV writers and producers, Jane Espenson and Drew Greenberg. Jane Espenson grew up in Ames, Iowa watching too much TV.

She went to UC Berkeley, where she studied linguistics and wrote spec scripts for Star Trek The Next Generation. She was in the Disney Writers Fellowship Program and worked on sitcoms like Dinosaurs and Ellen. Her first staff job on a drama was on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She is a writer and producer for so many beloved shows, from Gilmore Girls to Once Upon a Time, from Battlestar Galactica to Jessica Jones. Drew Greenberg grew up in New Jersey, Chicago, DC, and San Francisco.

After graduating law school, he did the most obvious thing moved to LA to become a TV writer. He got a job on Buffy the Vampire Slayer office spec script and went on to write and produce so many great TV shows like Firefly, Smallville, The OC, Dexter Arrow, and Marvel's Agents of Shield, most of which I have watched. In terms of all of those shows, I have to admit, not all of them, but most of them you'vetter than I am. Welcome to the show. Jane and Drew, thank you so much for joining us here at eighties TV ladies.

Thank you. We're very excited to talk with you because our favorite topic of conversation in general is television. So Jane, I'm gonna start with Jane, because I know you more than Drew. How did you end up writing awesome TV shows? I grew up watching television in seventies and eighties, and it looked like a happy, sun, creative place to be.

I always felt that I could watch an episode of Match and then imagine an episode of Mash or Barnie Miller or whatever show it was. And so I read an article like in TV Guide I think or similar about Mash and one of the writers, a woman writer on that show, saying that the writers scented specscripts and just light bulb like, oh my god, that's well, that's the career I want. Uh, And I went on. I went to school for for other things, but always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to write specscripts and get jobs in TV. Uh and and so when I was sort of in grad school and I realized that the wheels weren't really taking me forward, that I would try that instead, and started writing specscripts for Star Trek Next Generation.

They brought me into pitch, I sold some ideas, and then it launched me on this career. Jane, would you mind explaining for those in our audience I don't know where what a spec script is. Well, they don't really need to worry about it because it's kind of gone. It's a thing that used to be and that's not really a thing anymore. Which is you used to the way you would audition to get into TV writing was you would write an episode of a show that already existed and use that your calling card.

Now you write spec pilot, so you are you have to create a show and write the pilot episode for it, which which just really wasn't a thing when I started and is a very different task. You don't see any possibility it might swing back at some point towards now, because there are so many shows now that you can't There are so few shows that you would expect any possible reader to be familiar with even a big hit show, so that person may not happen to watch it because there's just too many, too many options. Also, everything's arc driven now, which makes it harder to write a sort of sample standalone episode. You could write a stand alone Barnie Miller or even a Star Trek Next Generation like I did, or there was Ans are Frasiers that that that I used to get started for Segin Fog.

It's harder to do that with Cameas Rounds and Drew. What about you? What was tell us about your journey towards television writing. I mentioned a little bit in the in the Biot, but it sounds like a good story. I mean it is.

It entertains me. I don't know if it'll entertain anybody else. And very much like Jane, I also really just I love watching TV when I was when I was growing up and sort of got lost in that world a lot, and also had that experience of watching a show and sort of imagining what other stories could be. But I never thought that was a road that a person you should go down for, you know, for their life or career or anything like that. Um I wait to law school and first semester finals.

I needed a study break to keep myself saying. And I had read that there was one TV show in the air that would at lea submit a spet without having an agent and a star trek. And it's like, just like Jane did, I said, well, I'll try to ask and because you know, let's start taking there. So uh. Really ended up happening was that instead of writing my star Trek becoming the break, start studying the finals, studying finals, beginning to break U in between writing and U.

It was, you know, I had a lot of fun. I set it off, but I didn't think anything out of the uh. And then about nine months later I got to big back into the veil inviting me to come down and pitch. Unlike Jean, I never sold them. I never sold him a pitch blade.

Just getting to have that meeting was exciting. And I had a couple of meetings and one of the writers, um on Deep Stas nine, said well, I'm not gonna buy it. You're showing. I said, okay, ed he said, Blade, you're good at this. If you want me to talk to you for a little bit about what you need to know to make this a career.

I'll sit with you when I talk to you, and he did. It was Une Answerbaria and he uh sat with me for for an hour and he just kind of told me what I needed to know about how to make writing a career. And it was the most wonderful thing anybody had to trend at that point. That's fantastic. It was really nice.

I didn't realize you'd had that with Rene was the one I eventually I pitched a lot at TNG. They never made one of those episodes, or I never got to write one of them. They bought a premise, but I eventually got to write A Deep Space nine and Renee A. Cheveria was the one who rewrote me and was also extremely kind, kept me in the loop, would call me, what do you think about this title? Like extremely welcoming and yeah, we may only both be here because of Renee A.

Cheveria. Wow. Great, I have a feeling we're not the only ones. I think that. I think that she has created a whole lot of the current TV writing force out there.

He was his own fellowship. Yeah, it was that is so cool that you both like, I guess Star Trek was one of the one show that took spec scripts and took pitches spec pitches and stuff. So then they had the Disney Writer's Fellowship, which was my next step was to go and do the fellowship. And can you talk a little bit about that, because it was the early days of the fellowship. It was it just started the third year of the fellowship and it still exists ABC Disney.

They sort of keep changing your name, writing, Fellowship, writing, whatever it is. And it's a great open door. When I got in, they were explicitly looking for people who weren't in LA. It was really diverse and always they were looking for women, for cultural and ethnic diversity, and also for like people who lived in Louisiana or something and wouldn't otherwise be able to make a try. Now it's become much more people who were already in LA already working toward being working TV writers.

It's a great pro rep still though it's at the time it was the only one that paid you, the Warner Brothers when you paid them. On my beliefe, I don't know what the current status ins of that, but it really allowed people with our resources to come here and are doing the things you need to do and make the career happen. That's fantastic And I love a lot of the shows that you worked on. Because I also knew someone, Tim Doyle and the Fellowship program, and so you guys were kind of coming up together. I think.

Yes, Tim Doyle was in a Fellowship program from the first year of it, so he was two years ahead. He was in the He was an also a writer in Dinosaurs, which was the word the Fellowship placed me. So I don't know if he helped get me into that room, but I know he hired me on Ellen five years later when I desperately needed a job. Yeah, Tim Doyle was very very helpful to me. All right.

So, Jane, when I sort of emailed you and said, hey, do you want to come talk to my podcast about eighties television, you were like, can we talk about it's a living? Why did that come up? Well instantly, Drew and I have two very good, very close friends, Tom Leeber and Christine Boylan, and the four of us do a lot of texting. And when the lockdowns first started, somebody and I don't even remember who it was, said we should all do something together to keep ourselves entertained. Uh, And somebody said we should do a group rewatch of It's a Living and I don't.

I cannot sign those emails, Drew, did you find those? They didn't. The only thing I remember is that we certainly and talked about it before, right, like the four of us. Did they get to come up as a thing? Your father remember?

Yeah, So you watched it at the time, So I'd love to you to talk about your memory of watching it at the time, each one of you. I'm about ten years older than Drew, I think, so we had probably different experiences of it. So I watched it premiered in nineteen eighty and I was sixteen, so it was it was very much like I got. I got all the sexy jokes, but it was still a bit naughty, and it was so sophisticated. My favorite aunt lives in La my dad's from La.

I. We would spend our summer vacations in La and LA to me sort of was sophisticated. If we would go out to fancy dinners and it felt like a trip to La. Although the establishing shots that sense of Los Angeles, the shot of the hotel, the lounge of music that tells you you're in a class he joined, like it was always a place where I genuinely felt at that place I wanted to go. Other than a lot of other shows, It really to me at a sense of place.

Andrew, what do you remember? I g's funny because yes, as only a hair gotther than Jane, then Jane was. I wasn't getting any of the Santancy jokes at all, but it was part of and I should have put this up before we started talking. I actually don't remember where Dared Are on the ABC schedule when it was on ABC, but I know that it was part of the aesthetic that was what I I always feel like a bit of an odd kid because I would be watching so and Ben said, you know, like the the shows a word necessarily aimed at my at my age, but were a little bit about something else. And I don't think I was God, there's something else that they were about.

And I certainly enjoyed that kind of kind of like feel that there was something bigger going on than like did you know, didn't like hide the fact that he had a party while Jason and Maddie were away. Um, so like I think that it was it sort of gone into that bucket for me that it was something that seemed like he was about something. And also, yes, like Jane, I also sort of just loved the setting of it, like just it just seemed very sophisticated. It seemed like workplace comedy, which appeals to me as well. And then and at the workplace was one that seemed very fancy.

Um and I I kind of kind of found myself drawn to that, which as I do now in the In their Life, so are you. I looked up I found the original review of the Tom Shales in the Washington Post when it was hadn't yet premiered and it was part of the new fall breed of sexy network comedies, Like it was specifically like this is gonna be a sexy show. Oh and he called it a female taxi, So it was that worked great description? Well yeah, yeah, and he calls wit Thomas productions witless tasteless productions. Really now, yes, well this is like before I think he's referring to like Blossom, Wait Thomas, soap bends and empty nests, Blossom and Golden Girls.

Not all of them are. I'm trying to look at them. Go which of those would you call witless and tasteless? I maybe empty nest and blossom. I don't know that's and didn't they two were Thomas two?

Like the South of Eastern Bay Like, wasn't sobarrassed? Wasn't y soap? Is them not witless? I guess you could tall so tasteless because it specifically was designed to push the envelope. Yeah, that was the point on it.

And this is what Thomas before, or at least without Paris. But uh, it's a living did have a female co creator, this Jenna McMahon, which was a pen name for Mary Virginia Skinner, who was a Carol Burnett show writer who I didn't know that. That's amazing. She also co created The Facts of Life. I didn't know that.

Why did she have a pen name? Was it just I don't know her name was Mary Virginia Skinner? And who worked? It's Jenna McMahon, a whole entirely different name. I don't know.

That is that's a good, good little top. I love that she created tax of Lights. I'm really interested in sort of learning more about her, and we will it will be a show at some point. I'd like to look at as a different as the Facts of Life is from it's living. I actually almost remember us maybe even talking about this, that there are also similarities we're treated the two and you know, like, certainly you're talking about two shows that in a culture where it probably will said done that much, they took are in what women are facing day to day in a very realistic way, funny way.

I think maybe two different stages of life. But I think they both at least attempted at first to try to handle some about it. It's kind of fascinating to hear that there is that connection, and so I'm interested because again on rewatching it, what struck you as working not working well? So we talk about the archetypes. True, this is a show where the archetypes.

Yes, yeah, it's like, here are five different women. Wait is it six if you can't Nancy? Or is it five if you can't Nancy? So these are different women, which is too many, So they drop one right for season two. They they sort of they let wouldn't go away because it did that to go away, and brought in one new one.

So it was a net lost one, which is them definitely trying to correct course. But they did a terrible job of it because the one they brought in wasn't wasn't working. But at the time, Ju, do you remember you sent the scene mail where you said, there's a world where you can map the archetypes here to the classic Golden Girls, Sex and the City, Facts of Life, Designing Women, Living Signaled, Desperate Housewives and model Cassie. It's Man Hungry, Blanche, Samantha Blair, Lois Is, grounded POV character, Dorothy Kerry, Joe jan Is, Smart Alex, Sophia, Miranda, Natalie, etc. But they've taken the wide eyed innocence of Rose Charlotte Tutti and split her into two parts, daffy Dot and naive Vickie.

And that we found as we watched, we all had the same reaction in one of my males, I said, they're moving Dot and Vicky around the chessboard like their two ponds taped together. They very similar characters. And then they gave them b stories together consistently. They wouldn't even split them up so that it was clear they had one too many. Yeah, and they couldn't develop into something else because they were just being used the same way.

Yeah, Exactly, if they'd split them up, they could have at least said oh, let's give Dot a whole bunch of lat things. Let's give her crystals and yoga and stuff. But they just kept putting the two herkey innocence or at least bubbly people together. Gotta split them up, guys, dare do right. Dot was sort of the aspiring actress, right and Vicky was the wide eyed in situ cad from a n He was literally an overalls end the pilot.

She was literally overalls about it, exactly right, brag lucold overalls wait from yeah, the kind you wear on a farm. Everyone was wearing stuff that told you who they were unless they were in uniform, which which mostly mostly they are in a dazzling array of unify. By the end of episode three, you'd see four different waiting. That was what struck me because I watched. You know, I haven't yet been able to explore the whole thing.

I haven't done a full rewatch. I'm so impressed that you did with the group of people during COVID. Such a genius move. But I was struck by how many outfits they had, and they started off very sexy outfits. They started off they looked like nightclub girls.

We even commented on it in the in the pilot, like you came to work dressing your uniform. Isn't that a well suggestive rout on the street. Jane was the one, if I recall correctly in our egails, Jane was more you figured out one purpose than different because we were all saying like, why are they wearing wood restaurant has four different uniforms that they all coordinate and where random times. Gane, I think, was one who figured out that that's how on TV you can figure out them it's a new days and the pink and barracle ones away seemed to be the launch uniforms, and the black and white ones at the dinner and from sy you can't immediately know if it's a new day, and you also know if you're to day or night, even though you're interior in a place without windows that are giving you a lot of clues.

So it really worked for them, And I think the ones in the pilot are different because it was the pilot. You can tell there was a note those are too sexy, We're going to get letters town them down. Had different ones depending on character too, So there was one scene in particular it felt like, oh, she's in THEE one shoulder, she's in the you know, middrip like it was just an interesting It's like, oh, are they just doing it too again? Identify character because there's so many women to follow, or is it like the actresses were like, no, I'm not wearing that like bridesmaids or something. Those are the ones we called mixed swim because they're like different all the different kinds of swimtops you can get um and I suspect they were chosen to flatter the actresses at and revealed character.

And you can never tell if there's an actress going, I won't wear that, But these girls were up for wearing those real skippy ones. In the pilot, they seemed they seemed happy to wear whatever. I thought the cast was really amazing, and of course particularly a Julian just really pops out. But I thought that was it. Susan.

Susan Sullivan. She she was my favorite, and I was very unhappy when I got to season two and saw that she was calling it was the first one to go yeah, yeah, So it's Susan Sullivan and very young fellow who went on to voice work, and Julian and Wendy Shaw and Gail Edwards and Miriam love her too. Yeah, oh yeah, these are some These are great. These are all really good performers. But yes, and Jillian is a gosh darn star.

She seems like a secret weapon on this show where even on the occasions when Ryan doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense or or you know, isn't you know, as funny as it could be, she you can hand her the line clearly and she would make it funny somehow. And as a writer, that's always a gift because he never, you know, like you want to. You always want your words to be in the hands of somebody just gonna make it better. And she's one of those actors who does make it better. I think, Yeah, I again, she just really pops.

But they were all really, really amazing. I was very impressed with sort of each of them, even if it felt like maybe they didn't have a lot of places to go because and it's funny. I said the same thing. Rich and I were watching it, and I was like, there's too many characters, but they're very well defined. I'm like, but it's a lot a lot of lads in the room.

Although I usually like a lot of ladies in the room. You know, I was very impressed by that that it was about them. Its to the time, two men in the whole show, And I don't think the chef has a line in the pilot Sonny. It only sings that I can compile that, or if he has lines, he doesn't have many of us. They are clearly setting out there are only women here that are going to be real people.

Yeah, I kept wondering what Sonny's purpose was. He just didn't seem to really matter in terms of whatever their stories they were telling. He's an irritant, He's someone to provoke them, and he's going to reliably sexually harass at least one of them per episode. And then they actually do a very good job with them and they making sympathetic. He gets a couple episodes where he's in a spotlight and he manages to generally be horrible again by the end, but they Paul Krapple plays that character.

We adore him. I think Sonny not a character you could make likable now, but given the loris of the time, he's got his own charm well. And I was also surprised about like the musicality of it. I think that he was. Also, they do a lot of musical numbers.

They literally do a dream sequence and in they're like pulling out the top hats, and you know, a lot of crazy performances by everybody. And I thought that they use music in a really interesting way. I mean, he is singing in every show right practically, yes, and pretending to play the piano. He doesn't play the piano. They've got a guy hitting under the piano.

Oh my god, that's hilarious. And also it felt like every episode somebody slams his fingers with the pig. They use it every time, every every episode. But it never occurred to me that he was singing how or that he was playing the piano. I just assumed that he was faking it the whole time.

I don't know it just to make sense, I guess, or maybe because I just wanted him gone. So I was just gonna say. The original reviews slammed him, saying like this is just Bill Murray's lounge sing Our character comes out in an Alive which was at the same town. I think he's a lovely actor, and I you know, I like him as an actor. I just don't think the character had anything to do, But at the same time you're like, oh, that's fine, he's not the point.

I don't just thinking of this as we're talking about now, but I think he's a good example of what you were willing to put up with then and made funny, you know, And now I think obviously some of us would try very hard to to rethink the way that character is presented. And even evedn't you know to the extent that he was he did awful things in the in the original show, Like do you think it's also interesting that he wasn't the point of the other show and as they really did keep the focus on the women, and I don't know how couple in that was the like he was right, He served very like he was. He was irritating, and they never easuerly, as Jean said, they human understand as the show, but then I always brought him back to being the guy that he was, and they never lost sight of the back that, yeah, he is.

He's a dude in this world woman, and he's not like the leader, he's not the daddy figure. He's the one that they outsmart and at to get around. And there's there's something that that they think is interesting from a sociological point of heal. Yea, Sonny never wins, even when if the best thing that Sonny can do is grudgingly earn in brief moment of respect before losing it back to having his finger slammed in the pan. Well, and I love that the boss was a woman.

Yeah, I was really impressed by that. It could have been the chef yelling at them, it could have been a male matre d kind of figure in the pilot. I was excited about where that character could go, but just the fact that it's women working for a woman was neat Well, wasn't a time where they in most shows that they would take a character who's an antagonist, which is essentially what her purpose was, and they might give them some moments of humanity. But everybody sort of stayed in their box to a large extent, because I think that's what the audience expected, especially with episodic shows as opposed to shows that these days have more of an arc to them. But nevertheless, I'm a big fan of hers and I was thrilled to see her in this.

I don't think I watched it when it aired originally. I think I probably was watching magnum p I at least first season, because that's what it was on against at home in the days before you know, VCRs and such you had to pick. Sorry, you know, it struggled along and went quickly to syndication, but it did well in syndication, so in the reruns, that's where it came back, right, just like if twenty seven episodes they had made and then and did so well that then they wanted to produce more episodes in firstyndication directly, which in and of itself was unusual at that time, was it not. I don't have the specifics on it, but I think you're right. I think that that was to hold more the exceptions that will.

But I also feel like I'm getting I'm doing this. I think a research in front of me. I feel like it's a living in syndication was probably just at the forefront of that wave of first rounds indication that happened in the late eighties. Yeah, and right, And I think that was and that was both like action dramas and also multicam hours. I think that, um, this is this is part of that wave or the birthfriend of it.

It's about the stake, what's the Robot Girls show, right, wonder Yeah, slow wondering, Yes, but that that kind of show started coming along, and yeah, first round syndication and this one had jumped, but then fit in with those shows that were made to be syndicated. I know there are some other shows Webster went to syndicate it at the end. I believe, oh, nine to five, the TV show and Charles in Charge Charles and Shows and ended up their Daywatch was it was a good example of one that started on NBC and ended up becoming a huge international get in syndication instead. And I believe making a Living is the title that they put on it in syndication, because you'll often see this show listed as making a living.

Our rewatch got to that fantasy musical episode and we were all like, that was one of the best episodes ever, can't wait to keep watching. And then we never watched another episode. So I don't think we watched the past episode ten, but we had watched a lot to that point. I feel like we we we patted ourselves on the back, Rodge, having achieved that you did quite a bit. I was gonna say, well, what other takeaways did you like?

I'm just curious what else the group saw in that show. As you were watching it, you see a lot of like house, things have changed and now things have stayed the same. There were some jokes in there where I was like, oh, I've written that same joke and used it last week. So there were some definitely where you're like, oh, things haven't changed much, and then there are other things where you're like, oh, gosh, bringing an episode back to status quo every week, boy, that feels old fashioned. Now.

I don't know, Drew, what what it'll take away. You know, obviously we talked about sort of Angeliette and Marian Mercer and a sort of appreciating them. It is a big part of what we talked about one at least I remember. Other than that. Again, if you look at it in the context of when this was Eric, when episodic sitcoms were very much one thing, this was a show that wasn't afraid to have this sort of like written of tartness weaving through even among the heightened you know, you're heightened reality of the multi camera world.

Um, it still allowed these in movements and grounded realness and disappointments and even sadness to creep in even at the end of an episode, you know, Sunny finding out that the kid isn't really his kid, and Jan almost giving back together with her ex husband and nots and like it just I don't expect that from a typical half hour Briman nineteen eighties. And it's one of things that surprises me a little bit about twa shows his review that you brought up, Jane, Like, I suppose that he's working out the pilot only, which is its own bank. But to me, the show had a level of groundedness that surprised me. You're gonna midst all the sort of noise and I perfectly of a multi camcercom. I think that was something here I remember striking me a little bit.

Yeah, it certainly could. There are episodes of are Diad episodes. You could see it changing season to season as writing staff changed and as they we should talk about sort of the misfire that we sort of felt the season two was where they lost their way and then they found their way back in season three. So what do you think missfired in season two? Wow, they got rid of Vicky and Lois and they brought in Maggie, which was Louie's Lasser and Louise Lasser has a very specific vibe which is very low energy.

That's sort of where her comedy comes from, and is low energy. What you want, I'm near your hard drive and work in girls sitcom. No, the answers no. You could tell that they were afraid. The show was two sex.

So, oh, these girls all look like prostitutes. Well, let's show them with wholes and all of the time. Let's bringing an older woman who's a widow recertainly rid out her husband's only jetting year, so we'll have a little funny grief. Oh, with her a lot. She can nurture the girls, and she can be dumb as a plank.

And it just was not the show that you wanted to see these bright young things in a show that felt like show business. The show the opening theme was sung like a big Broadway number. The opening shot of the credits is then walking practically in a kick line down the street. The solo references show biz. The backs daye area of the restaurant is where we see them and getting ready to go out and perform.

When they're waiting, it feels like a show about young chorus girls. And then you bring in this sort of grieving momb take care and it just it's not the show. And also again, if people would just follow the forty of them, it's very easy, right, just follow the sex and the City girls stacks of like living single designing with formula, It's very easy, everybody. And what they did was in okay. So they lost Vicky, who was conflicting with took up space that Dot needed.

Great, but then they gave Maggie both the sort of like wise mom role and also the, as Jane said, dumb as a plank role. So like, well, now we're back to mixing our like and he didn't. I'm fine mixing. I mean, I kid, you know about the formula thing. Fine, mix up the formula, but don't give your maternal character, he screaming.

Also, don't make her the butt of your dumb jokes like that is very hard. Allow. Yeah, you'd sort of see like they were trying something u and good and good for them for sort of trying it, but it was I think, I guess and practice not super successful in that way. Yeah, you could see of them was trying to fit her into this show and she's just not the show. Like in the first season, it was so impressive how punchy it was right, how funny it was and perky it was.

But also like the episode where they have the sleepover and then Beef comes in and they sort of that was brilliant and had a lot to say about what it was to be women. They were like, we're gonna we can do this, And I thought that was just very very clever, and it felt aware. It felt the show felt aware that they were a bunch of women and they were also being funny. It had the moment, It did have that Golden Girls element. Now that once you mentioned it and I sort of won't stop thinking about it.

Yeah, and I think I'm doing this sea in a little bit from memory, but if I'm not mistaken, some of that punch he needed in season two, to my sight, hear it's very clear that somebody was somebody was trying to pull the show. Like you know, so much of the time you get you get direction from yeah, we're executives, we're studio executives, were whoever you know who who end up giving you the note And so I'm trying to show it in the direction and it doesn't It doesn't always work. I think one of the things that made the show really pop, and I think it is one of the reasons why some of us it stands out as like a cult classic is because it had that sort of like it's said something about what it was like to be five or six working women, you know, in the world, and I feel like back out a little bit dampened, and you could tell that it wasn't just trying to fit her into it that made it feel less sexy.

You could tell that making it less sexy was definitely the mandate because they took away Cassie's edge and you've got gold, You've got you've got may West, and you're and you're trying to make her I don't know what what what's the non sexy May West? There's not. Yes, she does become more wholesome, I think in the show. Yeah, in that second season, And that's at the point, right, oh my gosh. All right, we're gonna take a little break and then come back and kind of finished talking about that and maybe talk about some of the other shows you guys have worked on and iconic female characters.

We'll be back after the break. We actually kept talking during the ad break. So here's a little stipid of that conversation that I think you will enjoy. So, how are you, Jane? I'm really good?

How are you? How is Rich? You guys doing good? This is my sister Anne, who's Yeah, I'm thrilled to be here. I'm huge fans of both Through and Jane.

So am Sharon now of ADCV Ladies with my favorite podcast. Oh, thank you so much. So I'm thrilled to hear you guys talk about one of my favorite sitcoms. It's a living well. I know that I have heard which talk about both of you, sisters, because it seems to me like when you're in Atlanta, you take him to a place called Piggy Barbecue.

We do barbecue. There's a little song about Piggy Barbecue which basically goes Piggy Barbecue, Piggy Barbecue, pe barbecue, and so you sing it and you eat it. It's delicious. Yeah. Rich told this whole story about how he got all excited to go to Piggy Barbecue.

It's actually in Spartanburg, South Carolina, but it's worth the side trip of an hour and a half to go get it. It's perfect. Well, he said, but then you pull up at the place and he realizes, after all that set up, the whole song and everything, the place isn't even called Piggy Barbecue. No, it's called Carolina Barbecue. It does have a little piguet have a little pi.

Oh my gosh, that's great. I'm that story. I feel like I know you ladies. You know well, I know you all from your writing, your wonderful writing that I love so much, so many great television shows and Jess, this it's a living makes me so nostalgic. Yeah, what a Jillian should have had the career that I don't know somebody else should have had.

What what is she doing now? She was very ill, she had that breast cancer thing, and you can and you can see it in starting in season three or four. Um, she looks on well. And I think that's probably maybe why we stopped watching when we did, is it started feeling a little sad. Think that probably took her off track a bit.

But she's currently a motivational speaker and goes and does speaking events a lot, so so we hope to get her on the show. Yes, maybe we'll have to get miss Jillian on A question for you, just you mentioned something that I'm not sure maybe our listeners understand. It was also very interesting getting the show back to baseline. Is that what you said, Yeah, at the end of the the the episode, Yeah, yeah, yeah. The TV used to be episodic, and that you didn't you'd come back next week and all the learned lessons would be forgotten.

Everyone would be the way the Simpsons. Everyone's always the same age and things just returned to where they were, and there's not a ton of arking because there wasn't there wasn't streaming, there wasn't DVRs or the VCRs, So people missed a week, they had to still come back and be able to watch. I suppose maybe, well that makes sense, and they didn't want them to come back and feel that they'd missed something that they weren't ever going to be able to see, So it would make sense that that would be the reason they would do that. Also, you would rerun the episodes all summer long, so and they always told us, right these episodes so they could air in any order. So if there were a network preemption because the football game went long or something in an episode dropping, you've had to be able to follow.

And now will actually take an ad break. Welcome back. We're still here talking with Jane Espenson and Drew Greenberg about It's a Living and we're also going to hopefully get a chance to talk to them a little bit about things that they've worked on. So welcome back everyone. All right.

We were talking about female characters and the iconic female characters. As a writer, as a creator of shows, what are the ingredients when you're building those characters, Particularly for building iconic women. I have always tried to write characters who could be women or not that instead of trying to think of them as a female character, just think of them as a person, because I think you've fall into a lot of subconscious traps. Even as a wolf, writing women, you'll subconsciously make them slightly less active. Unless you start thinking, oh, what if a man played this part, you suddenly see Oh my god, I see the trap I fell into.

So that's a little trick I do is try to recast the roles in your head, switch them around gender wise, and make sure everybody still feels like a human being. I think that's the smartest thing. I remember Jane talking about that when we first met on Buffy and I remember I said, yes, I do, like I can, I can hang with her. Once I'd written my spec episodes that got me on on Buffy, I had written a pilot as well. When I remember very specifically writing a teenage there was one of the leads the restaurants, the teenage girl.

I remember thinking when I wrote it, I mean, yes, the fact that she's a girl is important to her experience. But I wanted to do whatever I could since I'm not a teenage girl, I'm wanted to try to write her from as objective a point of years I could, very similar to Jake was saying, and I would try to just make sure that if she became a teenage boy that the same problems would would apply. It's funny, I'm as I search eloping shows now again I'm not it's I even feel funny talking to all of you about all this stuff, as I'm not a TV lady um myself. But you know, I do my best just to make sure that any time that I've got a woman that i'm writing, I want to make sure that she is flawed and also you know, right like, she's not she's not unnecessarily evil, and she's not an angel but then she's got to real things that she has to work through so that she gets her own story, her own agency, that she has her own stuff that she can deal with and make her just as much of a force as any character on the show.

And sometimes that means what's the you know, what's the story you could tell with her that you couldn't tell with characters. And sometimes that's kind of fun too, but but it's it's always important to make sure that she gets to stand on her own two feet um and have her own story as much as as I mean Kara on the show and flawed, he said, flawed. That's so important. I think so often people think they're doing you a favor by making the woman smart and no not like like, oh, she's the grown up in the realm, which just means she's the one going like, hey, everybody stop having fun. And it's like, like, this is not helping us.

Let her beef flood. I love drunken bad leader Sarcy. Like, usually in the efforts to make sure women are depicted as good leaders, they're always depicted as flawless leaders. That was something I loved on Battlestar was that that President rosalind rigged that election. It's like, just like a man, you're gonna have good days and bad days, days where you're on the right and wrong side of the long balance sheet.

I love that if you look at like recent homes, and a really good example is that sort of peak of difficult men, the shows that you know, we're like sopranos and bad men, and then Breaking Bad where the women so often had to take on the role of of a gatekeeper, you know, and and we're there and Breaking Back as an amazing show when my favorite shows of all time an amazing portrayal of Skyler who got eaten up by the fans because they felt that she was standing in the way up there hero who really wasn't the hero at all right of worlds because she was a good, a good person. So I thought it was genius when they did better Call Saul that that Kim Lexler could have been the same thing. But it's that they gave her her own past, her own slaws, and she fell into the same traps and yet had a different take, a different point of view on it than Jimmy did.

And I feel like that's a that's a good example of Okay, you try it this way. Oh she had what happened here with the audiences stray? And you know, I I atinued, that's exciting stuff. When when when we get to be the lead three nential and complicated and how reasons for doing what they do? That's the way it should be great.

You know. I was thinking about just the other day, and I want to get you guys's temperature on it. I was thinking about that episode of The West Wing that I think is called These Women, and at the time I loved it, and I look back now and think, wait, with that incredibly patronizing where it was like this defining shot of the episode is the men looking at the female characters and go on, man their aces, And now I just feel like, like that seemed good at the time, but boy, I'm not sure that war Well, am I remembering that right? You are remembering correctly. I am a huge West Wing fan, and I have the exact same reaction to that episode now as well.

It just yeah, good intention, I guess, but oh good not great execution whatever he was going for. Good the things things change in the world and you look back and you go, oh, no, look what happened? I feel like we people say we played the game sometimes say in a rider show where you go around the table when you say, what's the thing you could give a Ted talk on? And the only thing I have is is the West Wing. So I'm obsessed with it.

And also I have the same experience to sharing that you have, where you look back now with the faces Yeah, I love it too, the type well say that, yeah, so yeah, that's yeah. There's a lot of that in eighties television. Oh absolutely, stuff that at the time you were like, oh wow, I'm glad someone finally said it. Can you look back down and oh wait, what was I rooted for? I watched you on the right side of this issue.

Yeah, And I think that a young person now watching It's a Living would probably have a very different reaction because it doesn't have the nostalgia for them than it does for us. We look at Sonny pinching the girls butts or whatever he's doing, and we go, oh, that's Sonny, because we remember that's how we reacted then, and if we watched it for the first time now, I think we'd be slapping poor Paul Prepple's face. It's also that we bring the context of the time. We remember what the times were life, and for that moment, yeah, it was pretty revolutionary, and yeah it was it was a great step forward, but we've taken other steps forward since, so yeah, that step is a little bit further back from where we are now.

And I'm like, I try to be, lack of a better word forgiving about those kinds of things, because it was great for its time, but yeah, it's not necessarily as great for now. There's a great essay written by Molly Ringwald when she rewatched her movies with her daughters. I don't know if you've read it, and she's like, I it made me see the movies I made in such a different light. And so it's a really amazing essay because she talks a lot about John Hughes and how I'm poor and that relationship was, and how much those movies spoke in a language that no one was really speaking for young people, and yet now looking back at it, recognizing just how horrific so many things were that were in those and considered really funny.

And so it's a really really fascinating article. I recommend it. Brandon Mine just did a rewatch of crocodile Dundee, and he was like, remember how funny it was. No, it's terrible anti trans like really like he commits essentially do sexual assaults in the course of the movie. It's apparently just's awful.

Now you take your eyes off something for a second, it was bad. It's like an avocado avocado all right. Well, I want to get us back to talking about how you guys met and the show that I love also so dearly. I think it probably holds up. Well, I haven't rewatched it recently, but I'm sure it does must with Dust, can we talk a little bit.

I'm a peach Buffy fan, and so can we talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and how you guys met and the female characters on that show. Sure, I was at Buffy before Drew was. And I remember Drew's first day. I was sitting in that fuzzy green chair in Doug's office and Drew came in and joined us and sat like on the floor next to where I was sitting in the chair, and I was like, Oh, it's the new guy. I don't know.

I'm having fun with Doug. And then Drew said like two sentences and I was like, oh, this guy's in the act. He's one of us. I'm so happy he's here. I wonder what I said, what what ridiculous less came out of my mouth?

You said something I don't remember what the setup was being. You said something like, well, I've been called worse, and I was like, ah, he's funny and stuffed apprecating, and I was just I was charmed. I will say I had a very similar experience that that I team in right away. Jane was the person who I said, yes, I do like I can, I can hang with her and uh, I'll be I'll be okay. You just you know, you want to surround yourself people who are smarter than you, funnier than you, and that's that's Jane for me.

So I really I'm in a very first day and you know, setting into an especially it was my first staff job, and it's it was my favorite show and it's a group of writers who have been together, you know, for her a little while. At that point, what season did you come in? One and six? And so it was a yeah right there. So Jane was one of the first people who made me to welcome uh and Hakamata was was bonding over pie, probably, but it was that was a big was a semitic part.

You gave me a great joke set up there, and I didn't get in fast enough. You said I was funnier than you and smarter than you, and it would have done a great thing if I'd said, oh, I'm not funnier than you. I can go again, you back. That's one I like that you thought of it later. I'm not yea.

That's why I'm good at This is the thing about writing. This is why everyone should do writing instead of talking, because talking the moment slips by and you don't say it quite right. But I've about writing. You can always go back and have the great idea right in the right time. Right.

Yeah, that's brilliant. No one is the wiser exactly the time. Yeah, exactly. They think you're They think you're smarter and funnier. What Jane were you on the show from the beginning?

I joined in season three. You wrote a lot of episodes, Emily, both stay still till the end. We both went there all the way through seven. Yeah. What were your favorite characters to write for?

Jonathan? I love a tertiary character, Jonathan and Andrew on Yes, Spike. The hard ones to write are the ones closer to the metal. Buffy's the artist to write. Angel was hard to write, although he was already moving off to the show by the time I was there.

Would you like to write, Drew? I? You know, I always say like, I can never choose, but I always had a good time writing on there, Like Lake Jane, I always had a good time writing on the especially had a good time writing UM like un characteristicly angry Angya. That was somebody bad I know spoke to me for whatever reason. H and I like that.

I liked um. I liked writing me Andrew a lot. I was lucky that he came in when I came in on Link is so funny. He's one of those one like you were you were saying about about Angelian The line doesn't have to be funny. He'll make it fun make a classic like that's something like you can't handle anything alternatives to a comedy classic.

Yeah, yep, that's what I meant the whole time. Yeah, I didn't write in Storyteller. I didn't write vampires. So I just wrote vampires. And he said he made it into whatever it is he made into, and it just made comedy out of nothing, very very good.

That's amazing. Why do you think that that show and that character hit so big and so hard at the time. I'm always I'm curious looking back. She was a red rule with an authenticity like she was nobody ever questioned her ability to be the leader. I think that was pretty Neil during you go, I gotta think more you I see I was listening to you.

That's what I'm saying. I think that's right. I think there's also and I'm not saying anything new, but I think there's also an element in there of the character who is who is by outsiders, underestimated, the person who's seen as an underdog, right, And I think we all kind of relate to that in so, I mean, I think we don't all have. I'm very much taken on the approach, especially in the last two years. It's not my job to make everybody in the audience relates to everything about every character.

Specifically, when I write a gay characters, I don't need straight people to necessarily say, oh, yes, that's just like in my life. No, you have plenty of straight characters that you can get it right, like this is a gay character for gay audiences get at the same time, if there's something about a character that does speak to things that we all go through, great and that's if you can find someone in it, and that's great. And I feel like Buff he didn't have to speak to men as well as women. But I think that Buffy had this sort of like universal quality to her and that she was undervalued by the outside world, that she was considered an under dog and that people expected less of her, and she rose to the challenge every single time.

Yes, I think that's huge. And at the time we would get sometimes there'd be like this basket of fan letters that you could look through, and so a lot of teenage girls saying I only got to high school because of Buffy. And then I feel like a couple years after Buffy ended, all the reactions you would see online were gay mend saying I only got through high school because of Buffy. And I bet now, I bet there's a lot of trans people getting too high school because of Buffy. And it's like whatever group is feeling undervalued and unseen at the time finds Buffy.

Right. It was such an incredible metaphor. I just I remember from first season there was a. This so struck me. It was like the perfect scene where she's got to go out and stake some vampires because you know, the world's gonna end, and her mom is like, noe, you're grounded and you're staying in and she's like, Mommy, you don't understand, and she's like it's not like her dad that you're going to stay in, and you're like it was the perfect metaphor scene for or how you feel in high school that everything is life and death and everybody's telling you it's not, or they not paying attention to you, or they're ignoring you.

And that was like kind of the moment I sort of fell for the show and I was like, oh, I'm in I'm in certain here now. Yeah. I think that scene was the one where there's a line something like Carlin saying have you ever tried just not slang vampires? Where you're like, oh, this is the closest we ever got to saying there was a game out of poor here. Yeah, yeah, that's what to me.

Again, I was on the show yet, I was watching it at MOLL. I was a big fan, and I saw that because you know, like, oh I am seeing I am like people know what this is like as a plenty as it was too, you know, like it's hilarious say that you're also like bo Yeah I did that. Yeah, all right, Well now you guys have worked on shows together since boffing? What shows have you worked done together? What have we ten to?

Davis? Any enough to it about you going to come spend a summer working on Cafrico when she was there. I had had a break the show that I was on, and so I got to go hang out in a room with Jane, a writer show with Jane for first summer she was released on Man. We both worked on Where I Was thirteen, but at different times, That's right, did that separately? Yes, yeah, I wish you get bit out of the same time.

I felt like them. Maybe some other show where we did I guess not some other show that we both worked on at different wait the OC No, different times, but yes, different times. We both worked on the at different times. Yes, I was always I was also just about to say, and Gillow Girls and I remember diver Rose Gilow Girls only in your head. Yeah, just a band thick we developed.

We couldvelop one show together that didn't that didn't go anywhere. That's right. That's right so far. Who knows what we'll do in the future, that's right. Gee is one of those people also that I feel like I can go to when a guy I think I just did this last week, when I've got like something and I'm like help, I just email the pages to Jane and she can take a look at over the end, so you know, that's not that's that's a different kind of brain together.

That's such a great thing to talk about for I mean again, I don't know if anybody listening is wants to be a writer, but how often incredibly successful writers help each other, like even when they're developing something on their own, or you know, it's such a lesson to keep using your friends and really smart people in your life to help you all the time. That's right. TV is really collaborative. But I believe feature writers do this too. That it's just you're cooking for your own taste buds, but your taste buds get exhausted and you need a second opinion.

Does this still taste good? Or I can't tell if there's too much salt anymore? I always find it's And I talked about this a lot which is where I talk to people who are have questions about this. But there's this one common misconception that, like you know, success is a high and there are only so many slices to go around, and it's definitely not true none, I mean not really true. And it's better to have people around you who know what they're doing, cool and cool, who have done this before, who use opinions you trust, because then you have somebody you can go to when you need help.

You need either for them when they need help, and you can go to them when you need help. And it's so much better than to isolate yourself, especially in TV which is collaborated. It's right as you gotta have to go around you that these opinions you trust. I'm very fortunate that I have Jane, I have my brother as a TV writer as well works he's a comedy writer, and so I have people whose opinions matter to me and my trust who have not guns it could me yet because you're funny and self deprecating, only something and kind. Well, this has been amazing, yay Ken, thank you both enough for we're agreeing to do this and talking to us about it's a living and everything else TV.

It's been great, and thank you for sharing all your stories with us. I'm so thrilled to meet you, Drew, and any friend of Jane's who is now a friend of mine or I want them to be. But I am always happy to see you Jane, even to resoom when. By the way, thank you for letting me be a part of this also in a delay for me as well. I am just so excited that you guys watched eighties TV, Eighties Ladies TV during the pandemic.

That's how this podcast started. So awesome. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Our audiocraphy for today includes a book A Girl in the Show Three Generations of Comedy, Culture and Feminism by Anna Fields.

I also want to shout out the Molly Ringwald New Yorker essay that I mentioned. It's from twenty eighteen called what About the Breakfast Club? Revisiting the movies of My youth and the Age of Me two. It's really interesting. You should check it out.

Follow Drew Greenberg and Jane Espenson on Twitter. Drew's at twitter dot com, slash Drew Zachary Zac a r Y. Jane Espenson can be found at Twitter dot com slash Jane Espenson, and you can watch It's a Living on YouTube. For more information on the writers and actors strike, please check our description for links on info and how you can help. The terms the WGA and SAG after are asking for are not unreasonable, and the fight to win them is existential to the future.

Thank you all for listening. We love hearing from you, so send us your thoughts or questions at our website eightiestv Ladies dot com. That's eight zero stv ladies dot com. And if you want to help support the making of this podcast, please go to Patreon dot com slash eighties TV Ladies. You can support us by becoming a patron and their special content exclusive for subscribers.

Stay tuned for more episodes in our It's a Living series. We'll be talking about the creators, showrunners, and Breakout Star and Julia. In fact, our very next episode is a super fun interview with the ever charming Paul kruppel Yep, who played the lounge singer pianist sunny Man for all seasons of It's a Living. He is also a Tony Award winner and still performing, most recently on the tour for Into the Woods. Tune in next time to hear all about it.

We hope eighties TV ladies ring from joy and laughter and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch, all of which we'll lead us forward toward being amazing ladies of the twenty first century. Thanks for listening. Babies play the City. I'm so pretty input into the city. Dread God, baby Ladies,