Mama’s Family, Golden Girls and It's Always Sunny | 90s TV Babies

Weirdy Weird Media, eighty so Pretty Babies. Through the City, the Money World. Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, where we explore female driven television shows from the nineteen eighties. I'm Sharon Johnson and I'm Susan Lambert HadAM. How are you and your friends doing?

January certainly was a tough month in Los Angeles, Yes it was. We're doing okay. Everybody I know is safe and their pets are safe and their families are safe. But a lot of people I know are still displaced. Some people lost their homes.

So many in our community lost their school, their church, their synagogue, their business. So it's really pretty tragic, and you know, but there's also been a huge outpouring of support and community outreach and people trying to help. So in the description will continue to keep some links for where you can volunteer or donate and if you need to reach out for help, it's going to be it's going to take, you know, a decade, I think to recover. I'm not sure. Alta Dina.

We're near Altadena in the Pasadena area, and that community is so generational and kind of diverse, working class, and it's got a lot of history and it's been built up over time, and so that is just going to be hard. It'll never be what it was, but hopefully it will be something good and solid and it will recover. Yeah, it's it's been heartbreaking to watch it from a distance. I'm I still haven't come back in the town from the holidays. By the time this heirs, I will be back.

But happily none of my friends have lost their houses. Only have one friend who lives in Sarah Madre, who she lives about two or three blocks from the hillside and Sarah Madre, and there were some there were some homes that were burned in that area, but not hers. Just a question of you know to what degree everybody else is affected, because you just don't know until you get in there, you know what you're going to find. But as I said, it's been heartbreaking to watch from a distance. But nevertheless, I have been heartened, but not really surprised at the outpouring of support from my fellow Los Angelinos and coming together to try to help their neighbors, to try to help strangers, to just try to do something, and that alone has been really heartwarming to see.

I'm just devastated for all the people that have experienced loss, and disheartened to see some of the rhetoric coming from people who don't know any better, or choose not to know any better about how all these rich people are getting what they deserve or you know, it shouldn't matter to them, when by far as usual, most of the people affected by this are not rich. Yeah, they're middle class folks, you know, just working hard and getting by, and they're the ones that are most directly impacted by this in so many ways, and it's devastating on so many levels for them, and as I said, my heartbreaks for them. The infrastructure of a community supports a lot of people. So we also know housekeepers who've lost their jobs because those homes that they worked at are gone, and businesses and the employees of those businesses now have no job.

So it has these rolling ramifications, as anybody who's been in a natural disaster of this size and scope has seen. And there's just you know, there's very few cities that have the scope of Los Angeles in terms of square footage and population and infrastructure, and so when there's something that is quite this size, it really is daunting. I'm curious how it felt to be outside. I feel like it would have been worrisome to also be not home when this was happening, because you did. We didn't know what was going to happen that night when the winds and the fire started.

I felt helpless more than anything else. There's nothing I can do. I'm not there happily where I lived. I was not worried about my dwelling going up in smoke. I mean, as I kept telling people, if my place is gone, we have a lot more problems than we do now, because it would have been so much worse than it is, and fire would be spreading into many, many more areas than it already has.

So I wasn't worried about it from that standpoint. I was just worried about the people that I know, and especially those in areas that were close to where the fires were or could be. Like you guys, I kept watching and looking at maps and where the fire was and the evacuation or the From that standpoint, I just really felt really helpless. When the fires started, you know, when the wind was blowing and we weren't quite sure which way the fire was going to go. There's always a sense of concern because of just the wind and the embers that were going everywhere.

But we had, you know, people evacuate to our home, and it was nice to be able to have that. There was a moment we were like, are we going to all have to evacuate from here to somewhere else? When they moved the warning. The rose bowl is often a staging and or evacuation for large animals, and when they basically were like, rose bull can't be that because it's now under evacuation warning, That's when I think it became like we might have to be prepared. And we at that point had a lot of people in our house and dogs, and like where would.

We take all of us? Yeah? Yeah, But I'm very grateful for our neighbors. We were all kind of constantly in touch, and everybody had people somewhere in the area, and so again it was a lot of neighbors helping neighbors and the community coming together. And I hope that continues, and I hope that people who are trying to make the worst of it keep their mouth shut and go away.

Yeah, because if you're not going to help, you don't say a word. Yeah, you know. Yeah, as my mom says, if you've got nothing good to say, say nothing at all. And this is not the time for you to try to make a name for yourself and point fingers and there are people hurting who need help, and that's what everything should be focused on right now. So there's plenty of time for the rest of it, not now.

Yeah, I mean whatever, So anyway, yeah, I mustay, no mistay. Meanwhile, we are here today to talk to the ninety TV babies about Mama's family. I've been missing the nineties TV babies so much. Yeah yeah, So. Unfortunately, one of our regular nineties TV babies couldn't join us today.

Sergio says hello to everyone, and he will be back soon. Fortunately, though, we have a new special guest star nineties TV baby joining us today and we can't wait to introduce her to you. So welcome back to eighties TV ladies, the smart and sassy, clever and classy nineties TV Babies, Serena Fontanesi, Megan Rubel, and the newest memory of the nineties TV Babies, Sailor Franklin. Welcome back everyone, and welcome Sailor. Welcome Sailor, Welcome everybody.

I'm so happy to see your faces. Hey, thank you. Hi. I'm really excited to be on. So I think we should do a little round of introductions.

A Sailor, you get to go first because you have the most to say about yourself. Yeah, so tell us where you're from, where you're living now, something joyful that happened. Oh, I don't know, last day month. If you have to go back a year, that's fine too. And what were you're interested in?

Oh? Boy, So, Hi, I'm Sailor. I'm originally from Indiana, but I was born here in California, moved out to Indiana, grew up there, and then recently, like two years ago, I've moved back and I've been kind of pursuing art. I'm really into art and storyboarding, but I've really dipped my hands into any sort of like creative medium, like whether it's traditional art, digital art, theater, musicals, directing, video editing, audio editing. The list goes on and on and on.

I'm kind of a. Jack of all trade situation, which is how I came to be friends with Susan. I was really caught off by the very joyful thing. I mean, there's there. I'm sure I'm thankful for lots of stuff in my life, but it's hard to pin down one on the spot.

I don't know. I'm going to be moving soon, which is exciting, and. Or are you moving too. I'm moving to Pasadena, O fun awesome. That's why everything behind me is in a state of disarray.

It's a plus with the fires currently, I'm in Santa Clarita and so the Hughes fires were kind of scary for a little bit, but then the home down. A lot of that going around in the Greater Los Angeles area lately. No, that's great. Yeah, just when you thought you were you were out, those fires pulled you back. Something about there's earthquakes and fires and mudslides and I don't know.

Something about the California area or the LA area specifically feels like, I don't know. It used to just be earthquakes and then like the fires happened, but they weren't quite like this. Locusts are going to come next, I don't know. Yeah, Serta, it's been a while. Hi, hello Serita.

Yeah, I am still here in Austin. We are moving at the end of the week, which is really exciting. We bought our first home, so that's cool becoming a landowner. And we're also really excited because I'm ten and a half weeks pregnant. Congratulations, Oh my god, that's so autumn.

Oh gosh, congratulations, Oh my gosh, oh boy. I literally cannot wait. How long do we have to wait? So I'm gonna plan C section at thirty seven weeks, so it'll be like the first week of August. So as a LEO, I am having a leo.

That's very exciting anyone who's interested. But yeah, well we'll'll be We're gonna do a California baby shower and Texas baby showers, all right, but you let me know. Okay, that's the that's the big news over here. Well, that's that's huge news and wonderful, wonderful, wonderful news. Congratulations, that's freaking joyful.

So exciting. Megan, you're up. How do you follow down that high? I'm Magan and none of my news is that exciting. I am not moving.

Still here in NoHo, but yeah, I don't know what is exciting right now. I have a lot of things in the works, which is wonderful, but nothing that I can announce officially yet because we don't have dates. But working on some exciting stuff for twenty twenty five as a producer, which is always fun. Here I can say this, I got my. Friend and I have been working together for almost two years now and officially you have titles that we just onn So I'm the executive producer of Day for Night Productions and we have chicks on the Rock syste since twenty eighteen.

So going into. Whatever year that is of this and introducing a new TRPG project which ideally will have a we're building a game, so it will ideally we know we're going to have a live element, but also will ideally have a brand new teach RPG based on one of our eighties horror slasher. Shows from two years ago. And yeah, what else and then hopefully a new ghost story based fringe project for twenty twenty five as well. Yeah, as an actor, just doing all that life, back to auditioning.

Finished my third year on the Polar Express, somehow didn't break my body dancing on a moving train, and yeah, just back to auditioning. That is fantastic. It's so good to see all of you just living and doing and moving things forward. That's awesome. Yeah, I'm really happy as soon as I see your face, as I get a little bit of joy going on here that I didn't have in my broken, little, sad, cavernous heart.

Oh my gosh. All right, but this is also weirdly your first appearance in season three and of course in twenty twenty five that felt insane to me. I was like, no, no, we had to have him on. But there's been a lot of episodes that we did. We sort of did a little look back in October on Scarecrow Missus King and had Bruce box Lightner on, which was super fun, and had a bunch of other episodes that we've had for a while, and then we got to we started Mama's Family, and so we are wrapping up Mama's Family with you guys, and so I cannot wait.

Very much looking forward to hearing, as usual, what you guys think of the latest show that we've had you take a look back on, or in your case, perhaps the first look at Professor Johnson. Would you like to start with what our assignment was? Sure? There were six episodes, plus some extra credit. The six episodes started with the pilot episode, season one, episode one called Vint and the Kids Move In, where Mama's son Vint moves in with his two children to invade her not solitude, well not solitude, but relative quiet.

And then season one episode six, Cellmates. To celebrate Unice's birthday, Vint and Ed and Mama hold a surprise party at the Bigger Jigger and it doesn't go well as you can well imagine, and hilarity ensues. We assigned you, guys, season one episode four, The Wedding, Part two, which is the second episode about Vint in Naomi's wedding. Season two, episode three, Country Club. Mama's daughter Ellen played by Betty White, is a member of a highbrow country club that selected her to receive a Woman of the Year award, and much to her surprise, Mama and the rest of the family show up as well to see her get her award.

And then the last one we assigned was season two episode twenty one, Ask Aunt Fran. Fran has taken over writing a local newspaper advice column and she finds that Mama's down to earth advice works better than her own psychological approach. So those were the assigned episodes. Now, then there were some extra credit, Yes, so there were some extra credit episodes. Season one, episode two, Rashi Mama one of my favorite episodes, but not to sway you guys at all, because I know you already have made your opinion.

But Naomi Ellen and Unice give their own version of how Mama got hurt. And then season three episode one, Farewell Franni Aunt Franny has died and Eunice's juvenile delinquent some Bubba arrives unexpectedly. So I wanted to give at least some season three because that was when the show came back in syndication with sort of a different cast and sort of new family members, and we lost some family members. And then season three episode eleven, where there's smoke as plans for the Church Ladies League presidency is jeopardized when Bubba has run away from reform school. The extra extra credit was something that we thought would be interesting to watch because it's the genesis.

It's the very first sketch on the Carol Burnett Show where Mama and Eunice and the rest of the family appear, so it gives you a sense of where it started. And we only gave you episodes and seasons one through three because those are available for free various places, and we'll listen where that is later. Those are easily found. So I can't wait to hear what you think. I don't even know who to start with.

I cannot wait. Should we start with our newbie? Should we give her? Should we have her go first? Okay, so general thoughts, What did you think of Mama's Family the eighties.

Sitcom sailor pick on the Newbie first? It was definitely interesting. I mean, I think I had never heard of Mama's Family before this. I had heard of Carol Burnett. I was only like vaguely aware of, you know, the Carol Burnett Show.

Most of what I knew was like from little clips my family would play, especially like the outtakes of all of them cracking up. I did the homework, I did the extra credit, and I did the extra extra credit because I'm I'm stubbing in for my dear friend Sergio, and I've got to step up and show out. So I went back and watched those, and I realized, like one of the like clips that I always loved watching with my family, about the elephant at the Freak Show that always cracked everybody up. Was actually a Mama's Family sketch. I was like, wait, a minute, I know this one and who is that but Carol Burnett and Vicky Lawrence and Tim conn Yes.

Yes, Like I. Said, I did my homework. I feel like, especially watching the first couple of episodes, I watched straight through episode one to episode four because I'm like, it's only two episodes between, and I got more kind of context for it all, and my brain just kept going, oh, it's like Golden Girls. Which it's sort of. Like Golden Girls, but I think it was the reoccurring room with Clanninghan and Betty White.

It was just like, oh, it's Golden Girls. It's like, it's not Golden Girls. Take a step back, sailor. Everybody in that show is a lot more at each other's neck than Golden Girls. I don't want to keep comparing it, but that's that's like my eighties television was Golden Girls and recently Moonlighting.

So that was also on your mind as you were watching it too, So it makes sense that that's part of what your thought pattern was as you were watching it. I definitely think Mama Harper was my face. Just I love a character that can immediately think of a quick, snappy comeback to say and just lay anybody out. That was a joy to watch. And all of the other characters.

I mean, I love McClanahan and whatever she's in. The husband that came back and lived with them is a bumbling man, as is what I've discovered. Every man in this series was. I mean, no one in this show was like a fantastic person. They loved and cared about each other, but they were definitely at each other's throats the entire time.

And uh, I think this is my modern TV brain talking. But I'm like, it's people who don't. Quite like each other but stick together out of love, who do not quite the right thing and are at each other's throats. Like I said, I'm like, this is giving me a little bit of definitely not to the same stent. But it's always sunny in.

Philadelphia, but they take it to like a farcical extent in that show. I am in no way saying that these are, you know, one and the same. I just it had a smattering of that. I that's so interesting. Oh my god, Okay, that is very exciting.

Serta. I saw you were nodding at some things. I'm curious, did you know Mama's family? Carol Burnett and what'd you think. So, I don't think i'd ever seen like a full episode of Mama's Family before.

It was one of those shows that was like either on really early in the morning or kind of. Late at night, and you sort of like clicked through. We were certainly a family matter's house, shocking no one. So yeah, like I wasn't very familiar. I have always known of the Carol Burnett Show, but again, like.

Didn't have a ton of like context around it other than like some thirty rock references, right, so very much like. Came into it super like I don't know what I'm getting myself into. Fully, I a thousand percent agree with the it's always sunny vibes, like this is certainly like a much more tame eighties version if it's always sunny. Sure, but like in the sense of like there isn't really anyone that you're really. Rooting for, Like they're all kind of awful to each other, but if any outsider were to come in and like be the problem, like they would all band together to like get that person back or like get one over on them whatever.

And so I think that and like the sun kind of reminds me of like a Charlie Day character where he's just sort of this like like maybe not quite as like lovable as Charlie sometimes is, but just sort of this like goof that like is pretty easy to like convince of anything and like gets taken advantage of in that way, but also like does things that are absolutely maddening and irritating, so like any bit of sympathy that you had your life, like listen, I don't know how to help you with that. I also had to keep reminding myself that this is not Golden Girls, so like I can't expect. Blanche Devereaux to come walt seeing through. So that definitely took a minute to like adjust to as someone who's like I've watched Golden Girls start to finish so many times.

Certainly those are characters that are like deeply embedded in my mind. I also found it really fascinating and this made me like jumping ahead a little bit, but like, the men were significantly more the butt of the joke in this show than the women were, which is like super non traditional whatever in that type of writing, especially at that time, which. You know, that's the point of the show and that's why we're here. But I still, like I enjoyed that and like found that really interesting to see like the not just like the matriarch like really driving the story, but like the men are kind of always waiting around for the women to either like give them approval of something, give them validation for something, give them direction for something, and like we see that trope and like later shows of like the Bumbling Husbands and like the like goofy sidekicks whatever.

But it was just really interesting to see it in this like kind of closed like uh set right of like this family dynamic because I also think that oftentimes, like when we hear stories of families that like have a matriarch in particular, they're always this like this like enigma, this like revered like incredible, huge figure, and like Mama certainly has a personality, but like she in no way is this like esteemed like figure, but still like really commands the family and therefore like pushes the story of the show. Fantastic. That is so Yeah, I'm so excited about The Golden Girls, which I see because it's got two cast members but always sunny in Philadelphia is such an interesting comparison. I would never have looked at that but now that you say it, it makes a lot of sense.

Well, dare I admit I have never seen one episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I'm aware of it. But you Always Sunny fan, you are a better person because you haven't watched it. Yeah. Like I just watched the Abbot Elementary crossover and like Quentin Brunson was talking in an interview and she was like, to all my Abbot Elementary fans, if you've never watched It's Always Sonny, you don't need to watch the crossover like with them, with like Abbot Elementary cast in Philadelphia.

I'm so scared to watch that episode because it's like, it's great. The cast of Abbot Elementary is like, what if the best people who ever existed had a hard time always? What if the worst people who ever existed just existed? Honestly, it was such a great episode. We can we can.

Talk about it later. But I had a great time watching. Oh man, okay, I can't wait. Oh my god. All right, Megan, I hi, I feel like I wait.

I'm going to chime in on the Always Sunny thing first, I think the only I do totally see that parallel. Thank you for pointing that out sailor, that's so good. I think the only thing where I'm like, oh, this is different is Always Sunny is the worst people of all time, doing awful things and still being selfish. They really don't care about it. That's why it's basically a parody in a lot of ways of a sitcom, whereas like, yeah, everyone in Mama's Family is awful, but they're trying, or at least in the episodes that I watch, they're trying to be better, they're trying to love each other.

They're just broken, and I think that's what takes it from being something like Always Sunny, which is very much again, I love that show. It's hilarious, but this is heartwarming, and I think that's what puts it very firmly in that category. Is you feel warm because it's people like you, well hopefully not ideally like you, let me, other broken people who are trying to love. Well. That's what I think is fascinating because we have like the in the smack Dab middle is Mama's Family where it's like, not the greatest people, but they have a little heart.

And then we go to this end of the spectrum, which let's we're going to this end of the spectrum, and it's like it's always sunny, which is the worst people ever, And maybe one episode a season they will have a heart to heart or like Seinfeld and it will last for five minutes and then it will be immediately undercut with some awful thing that they do. And then I think on the other end, on the complete opposite spectrum is Golden Girls, because I feel like in an episode of Golden Girls, it's always like driven by heart, and like every single episode of Golden Girls ends with like, we had an argument and I can't believe we did that. You're my best friend, and let's never let's promise never to do that again.

It's always like a heartwarming ending. And I feel like Mama's family is like right in the middle there. It's more powered by spite than heart, but it's still there, you know. Yeah, that's my. It's always in Philadelphia to Golden Girls sitcom spectrum.

I guess what. A great spectrum, what a weird spectrum? But it's perfect. Now. And I think that's what I feel like.

I always qualify my opinion on here, but I think it is important. I think that's one of the things where like, as I was watching it, I don't think any of them will listen to this, and if they do, I mean it as a compliment. It made me miss one side of my family a whole lot because I was like, oh, yeah, it my one of my grandmother is absolutely that person who like somebody is always living there, always, and it's she never wants them. Or she does like she does, but she doesn't. She's always like I just want to be alone, but somebody's always there and there.

I've been present for those arguments that are just like do you guys, like you know you love each other? Why are we speaking to each other this way? But like it's it encapsulates that family dynamic so well and makes fun of it while also being like yeah, but there's like there's a lot of heart and there's a lot of care here. And I think that spectrum that you just set up, Sailor is so perfect because like reality tends to live in the middle of that, right, And so while it being completely hilarious and very big humor, it felt very real and especially though like in was it Cellmates, Yeah, the mother daughter dynamic that gets broken down there and also like you have like just moments of complete crazy Carol Vernett hilarity, which we don't really do right now whatever is going on in TV in front, we don't have humor like that right now, and I miss it, and so it's.

So fun to watch. But then also to watch a heart to heart of yeah, maybe we haven't been to each other what we could be or what we want the other person to be, and maybe part of it is our own fault. Yeah, is such a true mother daughter dynamic that I see a lot and have experienced a lot, And like, it was so lovely to see that reflected. The other thing I was thinking as I was watching it too, is a conversation I've had with multiple people recently of we really don't have sitcoms in a more classical sense anymore, even like Abbot Elementary, which is technically a sitcom, right or well always honey, we'll put to the side for a second, but like. They are constantly growing.

There's a tone to Abbot Elementary that is very clear, but like that story is moving forward at all points in time. It isn't like a lot of classical sitcoms that we see that are you could miss three weeks and come back and honestly, you haven't missed anything. You can just pick it back up. There's a recognizable rhythm. It's very soothing, and I think, in like our world being extra chaotic in the not even month we've made it through so far, at least in LA and definitely throughout the US as well, that's really comforting.

It's really comforting to sit in something that you can engage with the storyline, but if you don't, there's still that pulse to it. There's something that just kind of feels like a warm blanket story wise around you. And so it was really nice to watch something that had that tone to it. Okay, we're going to take a little break and we'll be right back with more of this fantastic conversation with our ninety TV babies. And we're back.

I can't wait. Let's go ninety CV babies. Serena and Megan. I take it you watch the assignment the assigned episodes. But I'm also wondering what exposure, if any, to Mama's family before we started doing this, or to the characters from the Carol Burnett Show at all.

Sailor had mentioned she had seen a couple of videos over time I don't know if any of those had ever crossed your path at some point. No, I no Carol Burnett in terms of like cultural phenom, right, but like couldn't say like a specific character sketch or something. So I think also what was interesting for me coming into Mama's family without having that like context was like I fully was just like who are these people? What are these people? Like?

I don't know how we got here, right, And like again like really only knowing Carol Burnett in terms of like being referenced and like the Carol Burnett Show being referenced in other and like more contemporary shows of like okay, you're like I get who you are as sort of like yeah, just this cultural figure, but like I don't really have any like depth to. That, Megan, what about you? Yeah? I also came in completely cold, and I thought about looking some stuff up and then I went, no, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna watch it. So Carol Burnett came on screen, I was like, oh my goodness, it is Carol Burnette.

But yeah, completely cold, hadn't heard of the show. Yeah, now, but you had heard of Carol Burnette? Had you watched any Carol Burnette. I've watched a little bit, and I think I've only seen clips. I don't think i've sat down in Actually, I know I have not sat down and watched the Carol Burnette Show.

And I probably should because I'd probably love it. But yeah, I've seen clips of certain sketches, but not this one. Yeah, so no clue that is that is so fascinating to me. I mean, Carol Burnette was such a culture she was sort of the lucy of her oh yeah time, and yet she was also like female run variety show meggat. I would very much say you should go and watch some of the top Carol Burnette because just as an actress and a comedian, which I know, like that is some incredible work.

And I will also say that the first family sketch you guys watched was Roddy McDowell as the son that's come back. That's the Pulitzer Prize winning brother, right brother. Yeah, and then the next sketch because there were a ton of them in the Carburnet show. But the next sketch, Alan Alda is a son that's come back and is a successful commercial illustrator. But they don't understand what that means, so they think he's just out of a job all the time because he works freelance.

And so it's just like those two. Are actually very much sort of establishing kind of what's in some way missing from the Mama's Family sitcom, which is a normal person being dropped in. If you want to keep going, I highly recommend at least the Alan Alda the next one. That one's quite quite lovely. And in that same episode, she and Alan Alda sing a duet.

Megan, I highly recommend you see that. It's beautiful. You should all see it. But I know Meghan will this is a podcast, so I'm going to clarify the faces that I made through that. I'm sorry, love of my life, Allen, all that what seeing you?

Well. It was also one of the beautiful things about that era of television when you would get to see actors actresses from various walks of television and film life come on these variety shows and do things that they don't do anywhere else or haven't done anywhere else. For five minutes on a show in a sketch. It's really pretty amazing. Yeah, And I think one of the other things you'll find if you do have a chance to go back and watch some of those things.

This is the tenor of the show on Mama's Family is much different than how it evolves on the Carol Burnett Show. It's a much more just kind of, oh, this wacky family kind of show. And it kind of gets a little serious sometimes with Carol Burnett, which was also really interesting for this comedy show. Of the episode you watched anyone or couple that you particularly enjoyed. So the country club one reminded me of a friend's wedding that I went to a few years ago, where her like closest male relatives, like all of her uncles, like we had grown up together in a small town in New Mexico.

They got to the wedding reception and they were mad that the bar didn't have cores light. So they went to the CBS next door and bought like two thirty racks of cors light and had it put behind the bar as if somebody else was going to want to drink their Core's light. And like my friend, like the wedding, it was just wine and beer, but like it was wine from this like local winery and like locally made beer, like craft beers. And they were like, where's the corp's light? And that was all I could think about during that episode of just like wow, it really it really is your own people who will like embarrass you in ways that like you cannot imagine.

Like it was a wedding, right, so we all know each other, we've all grown up together. We are very aware of these men and how they are and also couldn't help but be like, God, this is so embarrassing for today, Like. I can't believe they're doing this. So like that one like really spoke to me in a very specific way. Also, I love mess So the whole episode around the grave plot, I was like, yes, let's get into it because I was like, these are people who will absolutely act a fool like I am ready for However, this is gonna unravel itself.

So I think I had the most fun with those two. So I and to clarify to you, I don't think I answered this. I only did the assignment. I did no extra credit this time. It was not for lack of wanting, it was for lack of time.

Totally understand perfectly fine. I think yeah, country Club definitely stood out to me. I also just love that dynamic. I really love the dynamic of like the highbrow and the low bred and exposing how dumb both of them are. Yeah, absolutely wonderful.

Also, just like her getting a little stand up routine in the last quarter of the. Episode, I was like, this is fantastic, Absolutely I want this. And then yeah, cell Mates, I kind of mentioned it before, but I think I really liked that in a very silly series, there was a moment where we got to be serious and there was a moment where we got to address something that is like very nuanced but fairly universal at least. I love wacky actors, I really really. Do, and I love that usually they are also incredible serious actors as well.

So like speaking of Alan Alda, every time he gets to have a like genuine moment on Mash, brilliant, right, Carol Burnett getting to have like a. Very serious moment to like drop in and be like, actually, I'm very hurt lovely really love that. So yeah, I'd say those were my two favorites. I also really liked the Cellmate's episode, like it was a really beautiful moment between a mother and a daughter. I have an observation not to skew this away.

But if I had a nickel for every time in a sitcom some of the main characters were arrested but in the same cell and mistaken as sex workers by another Lady of the night arrested, I would have two or three Nichols, which isn't a lot, but it's weird. It's happened that many times, Like it happened on Bold and Girls, it happened on Mom's family, and it's in a different world. I know Whitley and what's his name's mother got arrested in the Thanksgiving episode. I don't remember if the second part or the Lady of the Night part happened, but I do like, what is it with sitcom characters getting arrested and put all in the same cell. It happened on Seinfeld, but that's a ninety show.

But and Designing Women and see, it's it's a trope. It's a trope. It's a reoccurring truth. Such a perfect way to force a whole episode to only be on like two or three characters, right, Like it's a really easy like in terms of like confining where the plot can be. And also I think to the other thing that you mentioned, like we are just now even starting one to call sex worker sex workers.

Two to acknowledge it as real and valid work. And even that is like in some places like a burgeoning mindset, right, And so like when you think about like who is it easy to take a joke app that quote everyone will laugh at like that is a like population or like demographic and like, oh, how embarrassing someone thought you were a sex worker in jail. It's like that actually, like who cares, like. Whatever, but like it's like a it's an easy job to take, and I think and again I can't even really say that, like, oh, it kind of dates the show because like I guarantee those jokes are still happening now, and like you know that's a sign of how far and how not far we have come. But you know it serves both plot device and like like especially wh I'm thinking of the different world one because it's Dwayne's mom, which is Patti LaBelle, And so you've got Patti Leabelle and Jasmine guy being like forced into a jail sale and mistaken as like a jail people I don't know whatever, and like that's hilarious, like how silly it's Patti LaBelle.

I do think I agree with what you said, like it's super easy for people to take sex workers and you know, throw a jab at them. What I did like about what they did in Mama's Family is like Scarlet, I remember her name, which is that's a miracle because I don't remember any of the other characters. I remember Scarlet because she was great. I loved her. She has no nonsense, she put Unice in her place.

It was it was a enjoyedable well. I also love that, like we had to force the husband to acknowledge Scarlet, Like, let's not forget sex work exists because of clients, right, Like we always want to put it on the sex worker, but like they wouldn't be in business if people weren't pulling up. I think it was also not perfectly done, but kind of cool because once, yeah, once a sex worker was introduced, I was like, oh, this will be interesting. A lot of the jokes, actually though, were Scarlet was the normal person, and the jokes were what. Is wrong with you two?

And I don't think that was exclusive. I'd have to go back and rewatch it to see if that was exclusively true. But I did think that that was kind of cool that it was like, Oh, this person's going to be the butt of all of these jokes. And that wasn't actually fully true. Like it was very much Mama in Unice, where it was like Scarlet was the only person paying attention to Mama and.

Was like, you guys are messed up. That goes back to something that Susan said earlier, where she was like everybody in this family is crazy. What Mama's family lacks is a straight man most of the time to like bounce off and be like, what are these crazy people doing? Maybe I think the audience truly is the straight man who just has to sit and watch this. It is no in for the audience.

You're just here, buckalonare along for the ride. But yes, cell Mats was great. It was just the idea of a mother just not telling everything to a daughter is I'm sure something that a lot of people can relate to, especially when it's about very personal things like their family. Speaking of watching this episode made me appreciate something, which is I'm so glad there's like less emphasis on getting married as a young entrepreneurial woman because every woman in this series, almost every woman hates her husband, despises him, can't stop saying bad things about him, or is worried about her husband cheating. Or something like that.

And I'm like, it's a different time because to me, it's like, well, why did you marry him? And that's when they go into the episode he was the last Like I tried. Mary for love and I got screwed over, and then I tried putting out and got screwed over. So I just grabbed the nearest guy and married him. And I'm like, god, I could never do that in a million years, which is why Aunt fran is truly the winner in the space because she never got married.

She is. McClanahan. At least we're like. Being honest for once, right, Like there was part of me that kind of appreciated the like, yeah, listen, I got tired of trying and picked the closest guy. Might not be the choice I would make for myself, but like I think, also this is where like living in a small town also it comes up for me of like the number of people that I'm like, you two are miserable and it's obvious, and did you know you don't have to be together, But like people will just pick like the comfort of living this idea of this fantasy whatever and make themselves miserable through it.

But at least like we're being honest of like yeah, he's an idiot, Like we're not really not in love, but like I wanted to be married, so I made a choice. It's like, all right, well, I can respect consenting adults making choices. Some metes was great, but the real start was ras Sho. Mama, which I saw this episode list and I saw Rasho Mama and I'm like, whoa, that looks like raw Schoman And then I read the description. I'm like, this is ra Schoman.

The nineteen fifty a Kirakur saw a movie. His mama's family is doing, like like a well renowned Japan These directors like great work, and this is this hit like so so in the right place for me because I am less of a TV person. I am far more of a movie person, like eighties television Golden Girls and Moonlighting, and Moonlighting only happened about two months ago. Loving it by the way, so sad I missed the episode, but. Oh, why did it happen for you?

It's because I work for one thirty four West. I started doing learned about Moonlighting, and I was talking to my father and he's like, oh, they did Moonlighting. They interviewed Glenn Gordon Karen and like, I enjoyed those episodes. And I had gone home for Christmas to Indiana. We were sitting watching die Hard and then my dad has mentioned Moonlighting to me many a time, almost always in the context of die Hard, because we will be watching die Hard and every single movie we watched together.

We watched so many movies together. He's the person, He's the reason why I'm such a film buff. But we'll be watching die Hard and he'll tell me, like, did you know that Bruce Willis was a nobody in a comedy show. He was filming that show in the day and filming die Hard at night, and no one thought he could do it. And that was that was like the anecdote I heard for years and years and years.

And then we finished die Hard. I'm like, Dad, why don't we watch Moonlighting? And over the course of like the two and a half weeks I was back, I watched a season and a half of Moonlighting and then kept watching it. This is Mama's family, and that's the last thing I'm gonna say about it. I could talk about Moonlighting forever, but that bus has left the station.

Perhaps another day. Raw Show Mama, I could not believe it. I love a cure Kurosawa. I've watched so many of his movies. And seeing it recreated from recreated in Mama's Family with Harold Vernette and Vicki Lawrence instead of Tashira Mfune, that was crazy.

It was great. I thought it was beautifully done because that's that's exactly what happens in Raschomont. It's three people telling the same story from three different perspectives, and each of them is trying to make themselves look like a good guy. And I adored it. It was great.

It was super fun seeing like each each person was acting their character, but to like different extremes, because you know it from one person's perspective, Naomi is a just a ditz and the other perspective, she is a let me find a choice word here, looking for the choice word that's not love, that goes like yeah, she's just yeah muppet. She is a kind of kind of what Blanche Devereaux was in Golden Girls. Let's put it that way. That's what's coming to my Harlot, thank you. I could only think of a very derogative, not good word, Manhunter.

I first of all, we're reclaiming the derogatory words. Second, I was raised by your grandmother. I am very familiar. My mom's one was with alternatives for loucy. My mom this is this is the craziest one, because when I was little, she would want to say, like, you're wearing something that's too revealing.

And it wasn't like in a demeaning way. She's just like you should probably put something on. She would say, like you look like a fruit loop. It wasn't until I was older that. I'm like calling you gay.

Like no, she was just that was her word for saying, like you look a little bit like a hussy. Oh see, my grandmother didn't have a word for it. She just had a face. And like I knew if I got that face. She did not like what I was wearing.

On my wedding day. My grandmother told me I was showing too much cleavage, so like there there was no winning. And to this day she'll be like, you know, at your wedding dress with your boobs hanging out, all. Right, your wedding dress was beautiful. It was by the way it was done.

It timeless, a sweetheart net. It was gorgeous. It was you. It looked absolutely gorgeous and it was perfect. Thank you so much.

But my Grandma's got strong opinion. I loved meeting your grandma. That was I love her. But your dress was gorgeous. Thank you.

So I make a lot of sense when you meet my grandma and my mom. So Rossio Mama was my favorite. And one last, one last observation before a move on. I think it's hilarious that Vicky Lawrence looks like the youngest person there, but she's. Just clearly wearing a wig.

Because it's like I'm seeing Betty White as her daughter, and I'm like, hmmm, not. I mean, Betty White looks fantastic, but you can all like the hair is only doing so much for her, like she looks so much younger than everybody else, And that was driving me crazy. I forgot to say this earlier, going in blind and then being like, wait, how are all these people related when she is clearly, like, very youthful looking. It took me a second, and it did take me till the second episode, which which was the Carol Burnette episode to be like, oh, I bet this is a spinoff of a sketch and therefore that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, but definitely had the same reaction of hers.

The wig was very like. High school theater production, right when you a bunch of fifteen year olds doing like The Crucible or like Death of a Salesman, Like what, guys, there's not enough makeup, and. Listen, we're all suspending our disbelief. We'll buy in. Okay.

Every time I saw the sock she was wearing, it was just like zoom, like that's the only thing I can pay attention to. Was those like little rolled up socks. Okay, someone who currently has on rolled up socks and slides. Uh respectfully, mama. It's like the nude illusion, like what I have.

I have no idea what those were. They looked like some sort of shape where thing pantyhose. I have no earthly idea it was. I was just they were just knee highs that had like fallen down. I thought they were support hose.

I thought they were supportives. Yeah, yeah, anyway. That is that is so funny. I love all of this. Oh my god, Okay, now is it feminist?

Is it progressive? I can go first because I think it's simple. I think it's feminist. I think it presents a number of different women who are empowered in different ways, who have made choices and are dealing with struggles that like women deal with on a constant basis. I don't think it's progressive even a little bit.

But yeah, I definitely think it's feminist. Yeah, I have a similar take again, Right, we've got a woman lead who's a full character in the context of the show, right, and the men often are the butt of the joke, which I think that is actually progressive for the time, Right, Like men got to always just be like the coolestwove guys and this is my dumb life, like, you know, so it was fun that they were idiots. So sorry to your comments. You know, there's the usual, like it's a very white show, like it is pretty like you know, we've talked about how it's sort of this like sweet spot between the the it's always sunny and golden girl spectrum. But still like characters are pretty like one dimensional, like with the occasional like really deep conversation or moment, but for a character from already a woman driven show, the Carol Burnett Show to the character to be so enjoyed that it got its own show.

I think it's like pretty incredible. Like I mentioned Dirty Rop earlier, right, Like the whole premise of Lisliman's character is she's like this modern producer for a Carol Burnett as show. The Girly Show is what it technically is before Tracy comes on, and there's like repeated jokes about can less woman be a feminist? Like is she for a woman? Because like you know where we're constantly being held to these other standards.

So side note, But yeah, this like random character, like could you imagine like like the Kristen Wig like target lady, like she got some ads, but like getting her own show, Like that's that's wild, Like we'd be like that, like what do you mean? So I think like in terms of saying like yes women are funny and yes women can carry a whole show in a script, I think it's very progressive. In that sense. Obviously the content most did not age well and that's the reality of a lot of these shows. And yeah, certainly certainly feminists in that regard of again, like the women are they've got their own quick comebacks.

They've got their own jokes, like, they are not reliant on men giving them airtime. I believe it's feminist. I initially was struggling a little bit because in my mind I had the idea of that light like, the men are frankly idiots in this show, but being mean to men does not equate to feminism, and so, uh. I'm mean, what was that, Serena? I am.

It's progressive in that it is mean to men, but that doesn't in fact make it feminist. But what I do think is feminist is that you'd be shocked. But there's a large amount of female characters. It is a female character driven show, and it shows how each of them are horrible in different ways. They're not all the same character.

They're different women with different struggles, and they all handle it poorly in their own way, is how I describe it. Yeah, I don't think it's very progressive either. There's absolutely no intersectionality as far as the episodes that I have watched. It took me a while to think of it as a feminist piece because it's not the typical, like empowering girl boss kind of thing. But it's, like I said, it dares to show women as human creatures that can have flaws and could be very funny while doing it.

Women deserve to be bad too, Yeah, we do. Like I screech about this a lot of I yearn for black mediocrity. I'm sick of being excellent. I'm tired, I want to lay down, I want to go to bed, and in that same regard, right like, I want to phone it in and people be like, whoa great job? Like women.

Welcome to therapy would say that, but like women are often held to this standard of to your point sailor right of, like for it to be like, yeah, women, like she's got to be a single mom who works too hard and loves her kids and never stops, like she's gotta be going above and beyond, like beating the odds and like showing that like girls can do it too, and it's like what if? And I again, this is part of the fun of it's always sunny that we were saying, like everybody's awful. Sometimes humans are just. Bad and like that it is what it is, right like uh even and to your point right of, like they're all awful in their own special way. And that's also fun because like wow, look at these multi dimensional like not cookie cutter characters.

But like I am I say it all the time. I support women's rights and women's wrongs, like I am of I am sick of it if dudes can have entourage and entourage movie and like thing after thing where like they're praise for being terrible, like let's go girls. And I think if if we're talking specifically about feminism within art, like we're telling stories, if you're only presenting one version of us or like one flavor of us, then you're not representing us. Like yes, of course each story needs disturb its purpose, but like yeah, if we're only girl bossing and being awesome, that's not all of us. And it's not even me on any given day.

Some days I'm a scumbag, and I want to see that reflected in the media exactly. Yeah, some days I have girl boss too close to the sun and I. Listen, that's a lot of days. Well, like that's like kind of the fun of like Broad City, right like we yeah, like if you're a fan of Broad City, like you got to see these like two women just like figure their shit out and it not always be perfect in a little bow and they not always be the best version of themselves because like who is And again, like we can all we've we've all said right that, like Mama's Family lacks a lot of intersectionality and like depth beyond like a sitcom trope in a lot of ways. But I do think.

There is something to be said for like a show that said we're gonna cast a bunch of women. They're all gonna be funny, and we're not going to force them to be perfect people. I came on this episode, I would like to say, prepared to talk about not liking the show, like I have no desire to watch Mama's Family again after this, But turns out I love a soapbox to just hop right onto. So many bad women doing bad things. But I think I think we need to give our flowers to Carol Burnett.

Who did it? Who did it? In the best unis is so much fun to watch be just marching around that studio making the I literally I have notes viewers at home, I have notes, and I literally have written down Carol Burnett look where she like she like tilts her face up, but she's continuing to like stare down whoever she's looking at and it's the funniest thing. I kept I kept noticing it that I literally have it in my notes with a little doodle of Carol Burnette's. Face doing this She's a menace and it's it's great.

That is so funny. So did you like it? And Sarita just answered it, yeah. I mean, like I said, like, I have no desire to keep up with Mama's Family. I just like I got what I needed out of it.

But turns out I have a lot of strong feelings. I did enjoy it, but I don't know if I'd continue with it. And I'm going to go back to my now patented on sale soon sitcom spectrum of you know, horrible people too full of heart, and I feel like Mama's Family's in the middle. But I feel like if I want to do if I want to watch bad people doing bad things, I'll go watch It's Alway Sunny, And if I'm feeling in the mood for something a little more joyful, I'll go watch Golden Girls. Like It's it's good.

I enjoyed my time. I feel like I might spend it somewhere else though. For your patent copy of the Sailor Franklin sitcom Spectrum. You can spend moth three thousand dollars directly in as. Description.

Yeah, I think similarly to Sailor. Actually, I think I'm more inspired to go watch the Carol Burnett Show than I am to watch more Mama's Family. I do kind of want to watch some of the extra credit episodes, just because I usually get around to that and just couldn't. But yeah, it wasn't like. I think the only one I've been like was Designing Women and Broken Hearts.

Broken Heart, Okay, I'm okay with dying that way. I think we have some homework to do to send them just a few of the just flat out hilarious Designing Women episodes that we should have included, because that's yeah, because it's there, try me. It's there. Yeah, the one where Mary Joe is trying to decide whether or not she wants to get breast implants, in particular, Oh my God, that she has test boobs that she's wearing throughout the episode. It's pretty hilarious anyway, but we digress.

Yeah, but I think that's the only one that I've walked away being like no, but yeah, so like I would like to but I'm more inspired to be like, hey, it's time, I like actually watch watch as much of the Carol Burnett Show as I can hunt down. If you're a musical, theater or comedy fiend, you should definitely check out the Carol Burnette Show and the special she did a special with Julie Andrews in the sixty nine something like. That, like. What I've seen. Yeah, And then even later she did a special it was uh Carol, Carl Robin and Whoopee Whoa.

And it was a special with Carl Reiner, Cara Burnett, Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg. And there's a sketch where Willpie plays her child from infant to all the way up, where they just do these vignettes. It's stunning. Excuse me, I cannot tell you how amazing they both are, but particularly Woopy Goldberg is absolutely stunning. I've seen on one or more of the streaming channels, like free ones like Pluto or t B or somewhere else where, they have a channel where they are just running the half hour versions of the Carol Burnett Show called cal Burnett and Friends, which was sold in a syndication a cut down of an episode, so it may be worth it you just sort of wander into that.

The Alan Alda episode though, is on YouTube. Yeah, we'll have that in the show notes as well for those are you're listening. And I also just want to point out, in terms of Vicky Lawrence and the wig, when she first the very first sketch of the family as it was known on the Caraburnett Show, she was twenty five how old I am when she started playing that. So she was like nineteen when she started on the Carol Burnett Show. And Vicky Lawrence still tours today doing a two woman show with her and Mama.

So half of it is just Vicky Lawrence talking about her life and doing her sketches and singing and stuff, and the other half is Mama. So there you go. Please tell me that she still wears the wig. Please tell me that like the wig over she. Looks exactly like the same Yeah, it's the same house dress in the same wig.

It's great, it's good stuff. Twenty five is crazy. That's how old I am, which is I don't know if I don't think I could dress up as an old lady and do what she does. There's this surreal element to it all the way through where you're like, what this is like just another world, We're just going to completely extra sitcom sitcom it is. It's like high school sitcom.

It's kids in the Hall sitcom. I love that and the fact that she's the only one right, It's not like, oh, they're all dressing up, but we're all pretending to be a different age, you know. I don't know, there's something so bizarre about that show, and so beloved. That show is very, very beloved. We have a lot of people and that have found eighties TV ladies because we started talking about Mama's Family and so welcome to Mama's Family fans, because I think it was the time of sitcoms in the eighties where they were the comfort food of television, right, very much so, and so people grew up on those sitcoms.

And if you grew up on those sitcoms, whatever they are, they are meaningful to you. And I also think that mother daughter relationship as sort of as in the middle of awful versus heartwarming, that it is very much resonated with the way a lot of mothers and daughters interacted with a really loving, antagonistic judgmental worldview from their mamas. I think it also helped as far as Vicky Lawren's playing mama, since she started it on a show where various actors played all kinds of characters of all kinds of different ages, so people were kind of like just kind of went with it. Okay, we know she's not older than Carol Burnett by any stretch of the imagination. She's playing her mother.

All right, we'll go with that. So I think had it not been for that, I don't know that her walking into the show playing that character would have worked as well. But they had already built an audience. The audience was already ready for it, expecting it was okay with it, and so off they went with the show. And of course she did such a great job.

She was just fantastic at that role. She really was. Well, I do think it's worth thinking about too, because like we're in an era of hyperrealism, which I love personally, but also it's worth thinking about what we lose by clinging to that right of being like, oh, well she can't she's only twenty five, and it's like she did and she did great, so like what else are we missing out? On by not letting creativity be really far out of the box. I think it's worth learning from that.

That is awesome. Oh my god, thank you nineties TV babies for once again giving me context to a eighties show that I would never occur to me. It would never occur to me to start talking about always Sunny in Philadelphia with Mama's Family. Our official apology to the Mama's Family crowd is going up on. You need to apologize.

We're being ourselves and we love. It, and I will. You know, I know that you've you've advised against it, but I have for some time been thinking I need to at least dip my toe into the always Sonny and give it a shot. I make no promises about doing anything more than that, but I gotta do that. I got at least, you know, check it out.

Like it. Yeah, don't start with the first episode. Don't start so okay, Like the first episode is literally called the Gang gets Racist, Like every episode is the Gang something. So like listen, we said from the jump, they are all terrible people doing terrible things. No one's redeemable.

Uh, you know, I feel like I should get we should give you homework. We can okay, yes. Yeah, okay, I have. I'm obsessed with Charlie Day and so like I have, I mean like. You're gonna have to watch the dam Like, Okay, I like this episode of the show.

Send me, send me a list of like four or five episodes that you think. Okay, watch these. Yes, I will do it. I promise I will watch. It, and then we will post them for eighties TV Ladies listeners and uh and then they can do the homework too if they want.

It will be like reverse ninety TV Babies episode. I love it. And maybe we'll do a little Patreon episode with me discussing my thoughts. Yeah, sign me up. I'm there.

I'm so excited. Available for three thousand dollars donated to the pat. Megan doesn't get out of bed. None of us should get out of bed for anything less. Than That's what I've decided.

Thank you. You make me so very happy and joyful. So this makes me joyful. In this moment, I got to forget the world for a minute, so very very excited to see your happy faces and all your goodness and badness and real womanness and real personness. I love it.

Thank you. You know this is this is great and all of your good news and good things coming and every everything in between. It's always such a pleasure to talk to you guys. All right, and so next up the next show that we're moving to. Would you like to know what our next show that we'll be covering is?

Sure? Okay, I can't wait. The Facts of Life, You take the good, you take the bad. I quote the themes on the Facts Life so often. I was always going, you know, you take the good with the bad, and that's the facts of Life.

It's been really fun to revisit that show too, so I can't wait to bring it to you guys. And it was all new to me because I did not watch it when it aired, and I haven't watched it since because you know, as I've said before, shows about teenagers was really nothing that particularly interested me. So it's been fun. It's actually been a lot of fun watching it. You guys have a brilliant.

Week ahead of you, please, and all my love to all your people. Thank you, guys, Thank you so good to see you guys. Thank you guys. I had so much fun. Well done, Well have you back?

Now? We have four nineties TV babies, whoop, whoop. For today's audiography. You can find the first three seasons of Mama's Family free on Pluto TV, and some episodes are also on YouTube. The entire series is available for sale on Amazon and Apple TV.

And you can find the nineties TV Babies episode assignments and links to where you can watch them in our description. Thanks for donations, volunteering and support around the Los Angeles fires will also be in our description Stay Strong Los Angeles. That's a wrap for this episode. Thank you all for listening, and thank you for your feedback and comments. We love hearing from you.

Please send us messages at our website Eightiestvladies dot com. That's eight zero S t V l A d I E s dot com and reach out on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook at eighties tv Ladies. Hey. If you're liking the podcast and if you want to support the podcast, go to Patreon dot com slash eightiestv Ladies. Hey, Sharon, you know what do you remember a song skinnemer Rink or a show called The Elephant Show?

I do, I do not? I could sing skin Amerrink for you? Please don't? Okay, all right, but our next episode takes a look at a Canadian musical children's show that became a hit in the States, mostly because of the Skinna Merink song. Tune in for this delightful episode with Sharon Hampson and her daughter Randy Hampson talking about being the musical sensation Sharon Lewis and Brand in the nineteen eighties and how they translated into a children's television show, skin.

A ma Rink, Think Youdink, skin a Marink God. As always, we hope Eighties TV Ladies brings you 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. Let's do it so pretty into the city, good World,