Our Favorite Episodes of It's A Living

Welcome to eighties TV Ladies, part of the weirding Way Media Network by and So Pretty the City. Here are your hosts, Sharon Johnson and Susan Lambert HadAM. Thank you, Melissa. I am Susan and I'm Sharon. We are excited to wrap up our look at It's a Living, the nineteen eighties workplace comedies centered on a group of waitresses working at Above the Top, the fancy restaurant at the top of the Bonaventure Hotel in beautiful downtown Los Angeles.

Okay, well, Sharon is beautiful, but I'm going to wrap this up with a caveat. We are definitely hoping to talk with some more stars and creators from this show, so we will be circling back if we get some special guests, So shout out to like I don't know and Julian Gale, Edwards, Barry Longfellow, Charley Ralph, you know whoever. That would be great. Fingers Crossed, Singers Crossed. It's a Living, also known as Making a Living for a Season, was created by Stu Silver, Jenna McMahon, and Dick Claire, and it was produced by Witt Thomas Productions.

It ran on ABC from October thirtieth, nineteen eighty, the very beginning of the eighties, to June nineteen eighty two. It was canceled after season two, but then did successful enough in reruns to be brought back as a syndicated show. That syndicated part ran from September twenty eighth, nineteen eighty five to April eighth, nineteen eighty nine. This is show where almost ran throughout the eighties, the whole thing anyway. Between the broadcast and syndication run, one hundred and twenty episodes were produced over those six seasons.

It's a Living touted itself as the first all female situation work comedy. Over the course of the six seasons, the show starred Anne Jillian, Susan Sullivan, Barry Youngfellow, Gail Edwards, Marion Mercer, Wendy Shawl, Bert Ramson, Paul Krepple, Louise Lasser, Earl Bowen, Crystal Bernard, Richard Stall, and Cheryl Lee Ralph. That's a lot of powerhouse actors. Indeed, our last episode we got to speak with the hilarious and warm Paul Krepple, who starred in all six seasons as the raucous ridiculous, smarmy piano player sunny Man. It was such a fun interview.

Definitely go back and check it out if you haven't already. We got to meet him in person after a performance of Into the Woods at the Amondson Theater here in Los Angeles. All right, now, Sharon, I think the number one thing to remember about this show is that Life's not the French riviera. I mean, believe, Life's not a charity ball, right, Yeah, it is an all a great big bed of roses. It's not like showbiz.

But the main thing I suppose is we're not the people you v believe me. We know we're doing okay, right mostly okay. We may be less than wealthy, but better yet, we're young and healthy, a little little bit young, and anyone who's young and healthy knows that that's the way the traffic flows. We've no misgivings. It's a living all right.

That was our clever and funny way to give you all the lyrics to the It's a Living theme song. It is, Sharon, one of the oddest theme songs from the eighties, and that's sang a lot, but I think it kind of reflects the oddity of this show, which is both bouncy and fun and then sometimes weirdly serious. The song was written by George Tipton and Leslie Bricus. Leslie Bricas is a British composer and lyricist who wrote music and lyrics for a bunch of stuff like Doctor Doolittle, Scrooge, Victor Victoria and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Some of his most famous songs include Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, Talk to the Animals, Candy Man, and pure Imagination.

Come with Me and He'll se'll see it's a man of pure imagination and will be a wife forgot. I don't know in your imagination if you truly wishing, We're just gonna sing Paradise, take a look around, simply look around and want to change the world. Let's do it anything, anything you want, there's nothing to That's an amazing song. I gotta tell you Goldfinger. That's my king.

Who sings that? Isn't it's Shirley Bassie? Yeah? Okay, what is Eartha kids sing? I don't think she's sang any of the the James Bond songs, but I think Shirley Bassie only also sang you only live twice.

I'm not mistaken. Goldfinger is so perfect. You only live twice, or so, it seems, one life for yourself and one for your dreams. You drift through these and life seems same. Still, one dream that appears, and love is its name.

I started way too low on this, for love is the danger that beckons you on. But something the stranger is gone. That's all I got. That's amazing. Okay, we're just going to be singing today's episode.

Sharon, you're gonna take it away. It's podcast opper day. Oh look what's coming up? Okay. The song's musical composer was George Tipton, who did themes for soap Benson, Emptying Us, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, The Love Boat and The Golden Girls, and like so many more movies.

TV film scores also worked with a lot of songwriters as well. The eighties still was a time when theme songs for TV shows was a thing. You know, I miss it, we miss you. Why can't streaming bring that back? If streaming wanted to be nice about everything, they could, but so far they haven't.

But no, I miss I missed. TV theme songs helped me remember the story of this show. That's what we said. I don't remember the courtship of it. I mean I loved the show with Bill Bixbie, right, the courtship of Eddie, Eddie's father.

I believe it was instrumental. Maybe not, Yeah, all right, he was the musical composer. Let's see, here you go, welcome my board. It's exciting. Yeah, I mean the one for Soap was also just music.

Let's see, I'm gonna play. I'll let all right. That's French hearted person boats mentality end people. Let me tell you about your friend's one boy country, tell him up, my town, my parential people, let me tell you about him so much, whether we're walking at Manna, walking sun to suck to sweet friends friends up? Is that like Paul Williams?

Okay? Is it just going to be a Courtship's Father podcast today? I've forgotten all about that one. Gosh that that song always made me very very happy. Yeah.

God, we were we were littles and that show was on. Uh yeah, but there was syndications. Watch a lot of stuff in syndication that's true. Was it Barry Williams, the blond guy who was also did acting on like the Love Boat. It was kind of when you say Barry Williams, all I think about Paul Williams.

Yes, Paul Williams said he was on Brady Bunch Greg, He's Craig Paul Williams. The theme song was written with Tipton, but the lyrics were Harry Nielsen and I think he before yeah and he wrote uh oh. No, he didn't write, but he performed the version for Midnight Cowboy. That became so popular. Themes everybody's talking, oh yeah, oh, that was a good one.

And that was that was a song written by somebody else, I want to say Fred somebody, but he and George Tipton made it super famous because of the arrangement and his performance for the movie. For the movie Midnight Cowboy. I've never seen that movie. It's I saw it in film school. It's interesting.

It's I mean, the performances are freaking amazing. Yeah, amazing, Okay, but we digress. I Meanwhile, back at it's a living back at the top of the bun Avenger. So in this episode, we're going to cover a little bit more about some special episodes, the stars and five things you need to know about it. It's a living and apparently a lot of songs.

One of my favorite things. One of my favorite things about this show, and I had forgotten about it, right, We talked about that is just how eighties it is. The clothes are pretty good eighties, not like outrageous eighties, but really strong eighties. I think, I love there's a pay phone in the locker room slash employee lounge, and they talked about eighties stuff in the show. They mentioned concerts and TV shows sort of throughout episodes.

But that was really like sort of a surprise because many shows don't do that kind of mentioning of like stuff, right. They try to sort of be a little more timeless, like TAXI wasn't talking a lot about, you know, the movies of the day or the TV shows of the day, but this show would, I think maybe because they did spend a lot of time in the kitchen and the employee lounge wherever you want to call it, where they kind of hung out talking about what their plans were after work, what they were doing on the weekends. Is people often do would work, you know, and they obviously couldn't talk about that much when they're out with the guests, but when they were by themselves, and when they were that's what they talked about, which is what most people talk about when their work.

What are your plans? What's company doing this weekend? Yeah, exactly exactly. As far as favorite episodes, I think probably the one that really does stand out for me is the one where Nancy gets fired. Now I say this as someone who did not watch this show when it originally aired, and I don't remember catching it often, if at all, during its syndication run, so most of my knowledge, I mean, I knew of it, but I didn't really know the show like I have some of the other shows we have talked about and we'll talk about because I watched those.

But the one where Nancy got fired really kind of stuck out for me, I think because it showed that even back then, they were already starting, because it was in the first season, they were already starting to talk about things that mattered because she was five, because of her age, her her lofty age of mid forties. For goodness, I know. It's so this is called You're not Old, You're Fired. It's from season one, episode thirteen, and Nancy's fired and the girls convinced her to file an age discrimination suit, and they also work together to try to help her get her job back. And that's a great thing in some ways about this.

Nancy is both the antagonist of the show and yet one of the girls, right, And this is sort of one of those episodes that shows you that, right, that reveals that as much as she's kind of writing them and in charge of them and kind of snarky to them, when push comes to shove, they'll have her back exactly. And that continues throughout the show. You know, she is often in the same episode Nancy will be played by Marion Mercer, who will be matronly and loving and sort of motherly to the girls, and then you know, in the next scene be you know, yelling at them and telling them do their getting to work. So she doesn't turn into like the from Taxi. She's not Louie.

She's not Louie. She's actually a real person in the show. And amazingly, I think season one set the tone for the show that pretty much sustained even even when there's a like almost three year break in the show. When they come back, they come back with the same cast that they left the season two with and a very similar tone, and that's really odd, particularly when you look at, like say a show like nine to five, where the first two seasons are vastly different tone from the final seasons of that show. And so that's one one of the things I loved, is it it's being funny, and looking back at it that I'm not sure I appreciate it as much, having again sort of sparsely seen it.

It sort of keeps the funny coming, and yet it really is taking on some serious episodes like season one, Season one, episode nine, Making the Grade. Jan goes on a date with a professor she's taking classes and he wants to sleep with her, or you know, threatens to give her to failor and you're like, okay, wow, all right, we're just going right in with these very serious things. There's the they talk about guns, right, and more than one episode of this show. So what else did you like? Well?

I liked that the women got along. Too Often, when there's a group of women in a show, they tend to get pitted against each other. But these were, in all its iterations, a group of women that were all very different. Some had kids, some were single. There was an age disparity amongst them by they really tended to just get along, which I thought was really great, and be supportive of each other.

I've really found that to be something that that stood out to me as well. Yeah, and I thought the ensemble nature of the show kind of worked really well. But you know, the only thing that sort of would derail it for me is sometimes there's a lot of Paul Krepple like and I you know, we adore Paul Krepple, but there's a lot of sunny shows right like that are that are sort of centered around him. And I'm like, that's great, but you got you know, four to five other ladies here, and we need more more of them. But I feel like in the season one, and we talked about this, I think with Jane Espenson and Drew Greenberg that there really is one too many women in that room.

I think they have five waitresses in that first season for a really small restaurant, and can imagine there's another side, another room, and that I couldn't. I'm so glad they moved the salad station out of the break room. Yes, and that should be crazy. I couldn't get over it. I'm like, stop talking around the salad station.

You really like you are thinking like, okay, the you know, food grading and they're gonna need a little screen for that salad station. It's called a sneeze plate for a good reason. But I do appreciate that it gave a lot of depth to the when they moved it into the kitchen and it's circular, there's a lot of depth in that shot. First it come right like when they're in there, having there. They often fought over the salad station.

Then it would have been great, but or like and like some kind of venting fan over the grill. Okay, you're you're going to be Safety Inspectus sitcom. Were there sneeze guards over you know were there's were there salad bars with sneeze guards in the in the early eighties where people can earned about that sort of thing. Okay, listeners, do we have sneeze bards sneeze bars cards? It's a good question.

I'm trying. I got I did that coming? Do you remember there was the what was the crazy restaurant that had it was a bit of a chain that had the big long salad bar. There's two plantation, but before that, there was a big salad bar place crazy salad bar, and I remember like that, Oh that was why a dream when you got to go there as a kid, because we didn't get to go out that much. Yeah, we didn't either, But I don't remember initially.

I remember there being a change in vaguely, have this thing in my head that says there was a change at some point that the Sneeze Guards came along. Right, So maybe in the eighties it wasn't right, yeah, but still looking at back with my modern serving, yeah, but still it wasn't Sizzler, But I do remember Sizzler had a pretty good salad bar. Are you thinking about the hometown cafe m Rosam p Rosa is a good one. That was a good place. No, it wasn't.

We'll have to We'll have to come back and then and then and then, like when did soup Plantation come? Oh that would have been nineties, I think so. Yeah, I was here in La when that thing opened up. That's my feeling as well. Yeah, I remember the Sizzler scissors are always great.

That they had really good cheese bread. During one of my vegetarian phases, I would go there and get the cheesebread. It was very cheap, and this valid bar, which was pretty cheap too, because what they were really trying to sell you is steak. Yeah, and I'd have a whole meal with cheesebread and a salad bar, all you can eat. Salad bar may have started at Pizza Hut.

Pizza Hut's a really old chain, and he used it was a big thing, like when it first took penned up. I can remember, like as a family dinner going out to the Pizza Hut to sit down and eat there, not just delivery. But I think I remember the same thing with the Burger King. I remember like the first burger King and that was they had a salad bar. No, no, just the first burger King.

Going out to the first Burger King. It was like a big event. That was good times. Okay, well we have once again digressed him to food. Food well appropriate to this episode.

Yeah, it's a restaurant. They don't do a lot of food episodes. There's there's early on, there's one about the fish is bad, the fish has gone bad. I think they avoided a lot of food, you know, the obvious food stories. But all right, so some of my other favorites was in deeper seasons, I really liked Season four.

Episode one is called the Roof Show, and everyone's trying to leave early, but but the staff gets basically sunny and gets stuck up on the roof and then everybody goes to look for him, and everybody, like four of them end up stuck up on the roof and it's absolutely charming. And I really like Shirley Ralph in this. She plays Ginger and she's trying to get out to meet a guy that she's talking to pay phone at the start of the show and she's like, I know I'm not coming. I can't believe him never talking to you again. And then by the end of the phone call, she's like, Okay, I'll come heet you at then one am in the morning and at the airport and then Gail comes in.

Gail Edwards comes in and is like, wait, who are you meeting? What are you doing? She's like, I talk to no one, I'm going nowhere, and I have to get out of here early to do it. I thought that was funny, that's cute. And then so they were all trying to get out, but they all end up stuck on the top.

Yeah, and I'm like, and again we're talking about food safety, where you should be talking about roof safety. They shouldn't. You should be able to open the door to the top of the roof from the outside. But you know what, it's a sitcom, you buy it. There's one of the shows where they are talking about like sort of referencing modern things, and this is more in the theme of the episode.

Is season five, episode two. They have an episode entitled her Back to the Future And now I'm blanking on who who who has her has this dream? I think it's Nancy. Nancy is dreaming about what's going to happen ten years from now, and it's you know, chaos. But Charlie Ralph gets to perform in that episode, and I love that they had a lot of musical numbers scattered throughout the show as soon as they know like, okay, we've got Paul Kreppeld.

I think Gail Edwards is a big awesome singer, and of course Charlie Ralph dream Girls, thank you very much. So I liked I liked those episodes, and I liked the second to last episode of the entire show, which in some ways I kind of was like, maybe that's the last episode of the show I don't know or like for me emotionally is called a very special It's a living and this is one of the things I loved about it. It was sort of making fun of tropes even as it was doing them, but it also was referencing Beauty and the Beast, a real nineteen eighties show which we might have to cover, starring Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman. And at the start of the show, Amy Crystal Bernard's character is reading through the television listings and whatever she's reading is across between the newspaper and the TV guide, and she's trying to decide what's worth recording on her VCR and she literally talks about that.

She's like, oh, I'm trying to figure out what to record, And then she reads these descriptions of Beauty and the Beast, and they're making fun of the concept piece, and they do it twice. They do it at the top of the show and the end of the show. But the story they pack a lot of crazy story into the thirty minutes. The story is that jan is prey. It goes into premature labor, she ends up in the operating room with preclampsia.

They do an emergency c section and she dies on the table. Then gets a visit from mister d the Angel of Death who's played by Danny Thomas. She takes him back to the restaurant to show how much her friends love her and then basically talks her way out of dying. And so then at the end we cut two three months after that's happened, and she brings the baby over to show them the baby, showing that she took three months off for maternity leave and still has a job. That's astonishing, which was not happening in nineteen eighty.

Well, he would especially think not so. In the restaurant and the services, they held her job for her for three months. But I do love that they bring a very cute baby back into the show and everybody gets to own ah around the baby. And then Howard gives the baby a jo giant soup bone to hold and totally the baby totally grabs it and holds onto it for the rest of the scene. That to me, you could just then in the show.

But there you go. So those are my favorite episodes. There's a lot I love the music in this show. I love that they literally just do big musical numbers all the time in this show, and so that was super fun. So we want to talk about the numbers.

Let's do it all right, So you know, we like to look at the numbers of female representation behind the scenes on these shows. And again we should be looking at everybody, but we look at directors and writers. Out of the sixteen directors listed on IMDb, by the way, sixteen directors for one hundred and twenty episodes, so they use their directors a lot, there seem to be two female directors twelve point five percent. Actually not bad for the eighties. Yeah.

The two directors are Chris Steen Ballard, who also worked on Alice, the Original Night Court and Charles in Charge, among many other television shows. And Niema Barnett, who is the first African American woman to direct a network sitcom. That was in nineteen eighty six on What's Happening Now. And let's just say with that, Sharon the first African American woman directed a sitcom in nineteen eighty six, less than forty years ago. Apparently not before that according to Wikipedia.

It doesn't surprise me, but yeah, well I took that long. Yeah, Melissa, we're going to try to get Anima. I want to get miss Barnett on the show if we can find her. She is still directing today. She has directed television movies and plays.

She has done fifty three television shows and TV movies, including Hooper and China, Beach, Cosby Show, Seventh Heaven, Gilmore Girls, The Equalizer, All Rise, reasonable doubt. I gotta tell you, I don't know why we don't know more about nam and Barnett. Yeah, she's definitely somebody that should be more well known. I would think at this point after the amazing career that she's had. But I am going to credit that show for you kind of had to actively seek out female directors.

Yeah, I think. And hopefully if we get her, if we're able to get her on the show, we can find out how she ended up working on this one. Yeah, how did that happen? All right? So, but let's look at writers next, and out of the thirty nine listed writers, thirteen or women.

That's thirty three percent and that's pretty great for the especially for the eighties. And the female writers on the show were Shelley Zellman with her partner Wally Dalton, Barbara Benedeck, Gloria Banta Depra, a Lession, Alicia Marie Should and Paula A. Roth. So, I'm those numbers are pretty good. Those are very I can't exactly remember what we said about Cagney and Lazy, but Cagney and Lacy seems a little bit better from what I remember.

Wouldn't surprise me. But nobody else comes close. The other shows that we've looked at so far have been smasher than that. For women. Absolutely, I'm I'm even today and even today, I mean yeah, And it'll be interesting.

It would be interesting to know how that compares with, maybe with other comedies as we look at some of the other comedies we're going to talk about, do they do their numbers match up? Are they are these numbers high? Are these numbers look in comparison? That would that'll be very interesting to see. All right, So did you have any favorite cast members?

Well, they're the characters. It's really hard to pick, but I will I love Marian Mercer mainly because I just love her in general. And I loved Susan Sullivan because I watched her on Another World before she went to Primetime and have watched her and she's she's long been an actress that I've enjoyed watching. She was on Falcon Crest, if I'm not mistaken, and yeah, so I don't I don't want to guess beyond that. And of course Cheryl Lee Ralph was great on this show as well.

Yeah, I think I caught it mostly with Chary Lee Ralph in terms of shows that I saw at the time, because I remember her being in the show and I just assumed she was there from the beginning, but she was not. And I also I just loved Susan Sullivan. I really could watch her do a lot, and she left the show I believed to go take the one of the starring roles in Falcon Crest, which she then was on for nine years, So that was great. But I just I felt that Susan Sullivan's character, which was kind of the mom of the Lois, was a great character to have. And yet I think it also they may have felt it clashed a little bit with Marian Mercer's character Nancy, because she sort of became more motherly and then led the waitresses, you know, kind of less less motherly.

Although they became mothers, some of them were mothers, some of them became mothers over the course of the show, so I thought that was kind of interesting but just so strong, like you know, and of course I love Angelian. I remember Angelian from the show as well, so I had to have watched some some of those episodes too. As being brassy. I think I may have watched Angilian star as May West in a TV movie about Maywest, and I think that may have been my introduction to her, and that would have been I think before It's a Living you know. It's it's funny.

I have been trying to remember what my introduction to Angilian was because I have this feeling that I was familiar with her before this show, but for the life of me, can't remember specifically from where. Even looking over her credits, I can't say, oh, okay, I remember it was this. It's like, I'm really not sure. And of course, back then, you know, things, things came and went, and it's it's you know, we were lucky if you had a chance to go back and rewatch something and a rerun or something. But it just it just never quite I never quite could figure that out.

Yeah, and I do think that season two starred Louise Lasser just for that season and Louise Lasser, of course, most familiously being Mary Hartman from Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, but an amazing actress, very interesting to watch in this show in a different show. Yeah, I think she, for all of her talents, I'm not sure she was the right actress to be on this show and this ensemble, which may have something to do with why she was only on for that one season. Maybe they figured that just wasn't quite the right She was sort of doing a different thing. Yeah, Like, and I could totally just watch her. I liked her more as that character than I really liked her and Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, because I always had trouble getting into that particular character when I would watch.

I didn't catch it when it was running, but in looking back at it, but I means such interesting choices, very quirky, very like unusual choices, but a different rhythm altogether from the rest of this show. I could not a sitcom rhythm at all. And I'm not sure this show lended itself to quirky. You know, if some shows don't, it just has, you know, it just is. But Yeah, And of course Crystal Bernard, who played Amy, would go on to be like the star of Wings, right, the female star of Wings, and what is amazing they had cast She's also a singer, right, so they just had singers everywhere, right and left and up and down, and on both this show and on Wings they used her Texas roots.

They used her yeah, her real for lack of a better word, real voice, if you will, and just use it as part of her character, which I thought, well, that's great. I mean, she's she's very talent. She's she's very good on the shows. He's very good on Wings, And I really kind of liked that they just said, hey, we'll just use this great Yeah, I really yeah, I'm Wings starring. Of course Tim Daily's little brother.

That's how I always think of him. Now, doesn't Louise Lasser have no degree of separation from our very favorite Martha Smith. Weren't they both an animal house? Wasn't Louise lass Or an animal house? Didn't she play one of the sorority sisters of Laser for in Liebowitz where they go all right, now now you're now hold on it just popped into somebody else.

I kind of I Louise Lass or an animal house. Okay, we're gonna now we're going out to see I don't think so. Okay, I don't think so. I think you need somebody else. Looked like Louise last she was, you know, with Woody Allen.

Didn't ton of Woody Allen early, so a lot of her her style feels varied that in New York style. Yeah, but she was not an Animal House. Okay, that would be a very different Animal House. She would have been really young too, so I know, but she would have she Yeah, but who so I know role you're talking about. I'll go out on dates after Fern dies.

They read the they read the obituary, to go giant and meet the girls from Vassar or something. It's an old girl sky. You know. I've seen Animal House, but honestly, I don't remember a whole lot of it. There's there's certain things I remember about it, but beyond that, Admittedly I've seen it a lot of times.

I haven't seen it in a long time. I should rewatch it, but I'm a little bit afraid. Anyway. Gail Edwards I love because she's so very like, She's so very watchable. Also gets to sing.

She plays dot right, so she sings a lot with Paul Kreppel, I think, and a couple of episodes in this but she you know, she of course blossom full House. I think she came back for fuller House. Oh let's say go look, you know, but amazing because again, not easy to carry. She's sort of season one, they were doing a lot of here's the dumb one, and here's the mother, and here's this. They were doing a lot of the forward character sitcom trope, and they lightened up on that.

She's still she's playing sort of an actress who's a little bit dumb, but it's not the point of her character by the by season three, and that's I appreciated a lot and I love that they also the girls would would fight over things, but it would be about real things. I'm thinking of the episode where Cheryley, Ralph, and Amy are roommates. They're living together and Ginger finds out that she has a gun in the house that she keeps under her pillow, and it becomes sort of about gun storage safety, and you're like, okay, yeah, still having that conversation, but that's the fight is I'm going to move out right, which I would? You know, I told a boyfriend he had to get his gun out of this. Yeah, I'm sure those are discussions that happened in a lot of relationships over the years, roommates, significant others.

Yeah, So that's how weird this show was. Who was a comedy that then did an episode about gun storage and who feels safe with a gun or not? And another episode where they'd take self defense lessons because there's been there's been attacks in the parking lot. You know, I wonder if part of that had to do with shows in generals at that time seeming to do a lot of for lack of a better word, issue episodes, very special episodes, as I like to call it. Sometimes I don't feel like that's done as much, if at all, anymore on TV, But it just feels like there was a whole lot of that going on at that time as a way to maybe get publicity or get eyeballs or whatever.

Well, it's certainly made for a good little blurb in TV Guide, right like, you know, so I think that it was such, but I think, you know, when Barney Miller was totally doing that Taxi lesso, I'm trying to think of other shows that were workplace comedies, Alice, I think less so, But I don't remember. I may have just not seen it. I may have just not noticed because I was, you know, a child or a childlike young adult. All right, anyway, so I think it's I think it's done to take a little break, and then we'll come back for five things to Know about It's a Living and we're back to our show. After all that good, delightful conversation off offline.

Maybe we'll do a whole episode with just our blathering, just the blathering that it'll be extras. That's that's available due on Patreon. Seriously, that's what you want, we'll give it to you, right, go to patreon dot com, slash adies TV ladies and then okay, but okay, no, we're really, really, really back now, Sharon, And you know, I gotta tell you it's a living. So here we go. Five things to Know about its Living?

Are you ready? I am ready? All right, Melissa, are you ready ready? You can visit the Bonaventure Hotel to this day, it's still there at four oh four South Figaroa Street in downtown Los Angeles. There is a restaurant and lounge at the top.

The Bona Vista Lounge is a revolving lounge with some pretty sweet views of a downtown Los Angeles. But the restaurant La Prime is actually down a level and does not revolve. I have learned one of the pictures looks remarkably similar to the set for It's a Living But I have not been to the restaurant. I would say twenty eight years ago I went to the revolving part. I did too.

I took a tour with the La Conservancy in downtown Los Angeles, a nighttime tour, and we ended at the lounge after the tour was over. And I will say the architect of the Bonaventure also created the Peachtree Plaza Hotel, which is basically the Bonaventure but stacked into one tower in Atlanta to Georgia, and it too has a revolving restaurant at the top of it. And it was most famously in the movie Sharkey's Machine. They did one of the largest stunt falls out the window of that of like the seventieth floor or something insane. In the movie Sharkey's Machine.

Was Tom Cruise involved, and now it sounds like something would no, he would do it. Now. It was a Burt Reynolds movie. It's remarkably terribly sexist, really shocking, I know, and a little bit kind of insane, like you're like, wait, what is happening in this movie? But it was totally like that kind of movie that I guess still gets made somehow it ends up on streaming.

But yeah, it was a tough, gut cop in Atlanta and he's he's making his own rules. Well, for number two on our five Things you Need to Know About, it's a living Dick Claire and Jenna McMahon are credited with a creation of the show, but are all me credited with one story by writing on episode one. It's just the pilot, just a story by credit. So, I mean, I was curious because Paul Kreppel said he never saw them and they weren't around, and so they probably were. Just it was just the machine that helped sell the show because they were so immensely well known and popular from Carol Burnett and Mama's Family and all the other things they invented and created.

The show was produced by wit Thomas Productions. Now you've seen a wit Thomas show, if you've watched any kind of television whatsoever. It was wit Thomas Productions was Paul Younger, Witt and Tony Thomas. Tony Thomas being the son of actor Danny Thomas, who, by the way, played the Angel of Death on the very special episode Wit. Thomas is credited with producing over twenty three television shows and another fourteen shows as w Thomas Harris with writer creator Susan Harris, who and we're talking about Benson, Empty Nest Golden Girls being their biggest hit, I would imagine, but just a ton of shows to this day.

I think with Thomas is the office as well as on the office credit. So they're just a big production company who have been impactful in television since the seventies. And as far as I know, they've done comedies. I don't remember them doing much, if any drama, but I'm prepared to be wrong. The number fourth thing you need to know, Tom Whedon and Mark Stkin wrote twenty seven episodes of the show and produced ninety three of them.

They would go on to be executive producers and head writers of The Golden Girls, and Tom Wheedon is a father of Jed Zach and Joss Whedon, all who also work as writers and do other directors and yes and producers and comic books. Yes, so very that's where it all began basically, Well, except that I think Tom Wheedon is the son of a screenwriter. This is like three generation at least Hollywood, all right, number five. One of the reasons it may not have had huge success in its first two seasons is that it's first season it not only went up against the premier season of the mega hit Magnum Pi, which also almost killed Cagney and Lacy, but it lost a major sponsor in its first season. Procter and Gamble apparently pulled out after the pilot because they thought the ladies outfits were too revealing, and the storyline was that one of the waitresses, Dot, who was a virgin, was sort of trying to decide if she should go on vacation with her boyfriend because it meant she was probably going to have sex with him, and some of the ladies were like, yeah, you should do it.

It's time. I would imagine there wasn't a lot of that happening or discussion happening on on television in nineteen eighties. Well, it's an interesting discussion because they are all adult women. Yes, they you know, and you know, and it's it's handled, you know, kind of interestingly, and it's an interesting subject for a pilot episode. Of course, I think it was the pilot episode that was anyway, it was just sort of a crazy.

So that's our five except guess West, Sharon, we have a bonus, our bonus thing you need to know. Louise Lasser, Marian Mercer, and Richard Stall would go on to guest star or have recurring roles on other Wit Thomas Harris shows, including The Golden Girls and Empty Nest, So they kept some of these actors in the family as I think that was a Yeah, I think that was sweet and they were really good actors exact. Let's help when that is true. And again it feels like everybody got along because even though people came and left the show, the fact that the entire cast came back for season three, you know, practically was pretty amazing, and that they all seem to be fairly friendly, yeah, and think highly of the show in their time there.

It's audioography time. So where can you find this show? It is available right now on Amazon Prime and for free on free v and on Roku. Channel four. Seasons are available to be Pluto Tobi.

Thank you thank you. I didn't think I'd had to write that down, but apparently I did, or have Sharon remind me, so thank you. There is also a Facebook fan group that will drop a link to in our audiography part of our description, thank you for listening to a testv Ladies. Our next episode, we will belly up to the fan bar and start a new mini series of episodes looking at the fandoms of some of these beloved eighties shows. We're throwing it back to a year ago to Scarecrow and Missus King.

We will be bringing on fans of SMK, as the cool kids call it, starring Jeanette Valier, who will be on to talk about so much cool, Scarecrow, Missus King, and the anniversary events she organizes annually. This year's event will be October thirteenth to fourteenth in Los Angeles, and it will be celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Scarecrow and Missus King. Then we will be bringing back our favorite nineties TV babies to talk about It's a Living. If you want to join in and watch It's a Living selections, check our description for what episodes we've assigned the nineties TV babies for this special Eighties smart com I can't wait to hear what they think, Sharon. They always baffle and surprise and delight me.

That's the best part about our nineties TV babies. We never know what they're going to think. I can't wait. Coming up soon our first Patreon only exclusive episode of Eighties TV Ladies. We're going to break out of the nineteen eighties and talk about a sixties toy that was a big eighties franchise and is now the billion dollars highest grossing film of the year.

That's right. Get ready for a very special modern Barbie episode of Eighties TV Ladies will be joined by the nineties TV Baby, So get ready. And In other news on Scarecrow and Missus King, we heard a rumor about the upcoming famed Scarecrow and Missus King book written by David Johnson no relation, and that it's on its way very soon, very soon, like this fall, maybe in time for the fortieth anniversary of SMK. I can't wait. Stay tuned.

Be sure to check out patreon dot com slash Eighties TV Ladies and support this podcast if you're liking us, if you're a big Scarecrow and Missus King fan, you may want to know about the fortieth anniversary event held in Los Angeles this October. If you're interested, check out the Facebook page Scarecrow and Missus King Anniversary. Confirmed guest are Bruce box Lightner, Martha Smith, The Boys, Greg Morton and Paul Stout Played, Jamie and Philip King, and a lot of special guest stars. It's pretty exciting. It should be a great time.

I think some eighties TV Ladies podcast people are going to be there. I think that's entirely possible. We'd like to take a moment to shout out some fans of our podcasts that we've heard from. First of all, there's Devin, who's an SMK fan Scarecrow and Missus King fan. We really appreciate your comments and the fact that, like us, you came to the podcast or came to the show because of Kate Jackson and Bruce box Lightner, and so glad you're enjoying the show and that you're also a Revington Steel fan, so hopefully enjoy those episodes as well.

Awesome. And another fan who contacted us through our website eightiestv Ladies dot com is Jeremy, and Jeremy heard about our podcast on the Derek and Romain two point zero Show, which I'm so excited that we did that show that was so much fun. You guys check it out, The Derek and Romain two point zero Show. They have a podcast. They're super funny and smart, and it was delightful to be on their podcast and they brought us Jeremy.

Thanks for listening, Jeremy. We love to have you on board, and I'm glad you enjoyed the Time Daily and Sharon Glass episodes. Next, we heard from Clementine, who went down kind of a streaming road that led her to finding or Rewatching Scarecrow and Missus King, and after watching some episodes, she went looking for a podcast and to our delight, found us. Thank you so much, Clementine. Work so glad you are enjoying the podcast and enjoying Rewatching Scarecrow and Missus King and hope you continue enjoy both.

And I'm so excited that Lena found us because she got to enjoy the Remington Steel and especially the Stephanie Zimbalist interview. Thanks for listening, and I want to shout out our YouTube of fans and followers, thank you for listening. At YouTube. You can find us at YouTube dot com. Slash eighties TV ladies, especially enjoying the comments of from Miss mass Rhea one two four six, that's my best attempt at your name, but I hear you more of a nineties kid.

But I'm really excited that you had some thoughts on maybe we should give more episodes to our nineties TV babies, and we did for It's a Living because I think you might be right. So, but I really also enjoyed your comments about Remington Steel. Thanks for listening. And also on YouTube, s Tupper and D D. Green had an interesting conversation back and forth about their thoughts about the relationship between Stephanie Zimbalists Laura Holt and Paris Brosden's Reming and Steel.

We enjoy that our listeners are reaching out to each other. I think that's great. I love that it's sparking conversation. Yes, just remember to be civil. Yes, they were very they Again, I love a deep discussion as long as it's respectful, and I think they were both incredibly respectful.

Indeed, shout out to Victor malhow I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but just a lovely comment about Cagney and Lacy and Sharon Glass. And then also from YouTube, Allison is a huge Kate Jackson fan. Loved her in SMK. So glad you're listening, So glad you're enjoying the podcast, and of course enjoying watching or perhaps three watching as Scarecross. We're just kidding.

We've covered too many shows. I was flipping them all around, chicken. I can't get my brain and my mouth to listen to each other. So anyway, that's okay. People will love us anyway, you know.

But what I liked is that Alice was like, like all of us would have loved a fifth season of scarecromisis King, but we'll live on in our dreams. We'd like to salute some eighties TV ladies we've recently lost this year. First Nancy Vrancioni, who was an actress on Another World, All My Children, Matt Locke, Buck Rogers in the twenty fifth century, and The Nanny and Shelley Smith, who did a lot of television in the eighties, including Heart to Heart, Magnum Pi, Fantasy Isling, Love, Boat Hunter, and one of my favorites, Tenspeed and Brown Shoe. Vicky Max Brenner was a gaffer for television and theatrical from Solid Gold All the Way to Rue Paul's Drag You. Diane Bouderback is a camera operator who started in the seventies on shows like Threes, Company, Welcome Back, Cotter, and Fish, and in the eighties started working on a lot of television and award shows, variety shows like Golden Globes and Country Music Awards.

She was nominated for seventeen Technical Emmy Awards and won three for her camera work on shows like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars Wait to Go. Diane Ingus Swenson is best known for portraying the executive housekeeper Gretchen Krause on Benson for one hundred and fifty nine episodes. She was nominated for three Emmys. She also has two Tony nominations. Leela Goldoni is an actress who starred in The Italian Job, the original and lots of seventies and eighties television, including guest appearances on Vegas and Cagney and Lacy.

Judith James was a television and film producer of quiz Show, Mister Holland's Opus, and American Playhouse. Carlin Glenn is an incredible actress from the eighties before and also the mother of Mary Stuart Masterson. Andrea Evans is an actress on eighties shows like Chips and is probably best known for the more than seven hundred episodes of Passions, The Old and the Beautiful and One Life to Live. Glenda Jackson is a film and TV actress and two time Emmy winner. We also have honorary Eighties TV Ladies men Stu Silver, Tony Bennett, and of course Paul Rubens.

We're sad. Maybe we'll be remembered and missed. Hey, shout out to the People's Choice Podcast Awards. Eighties TV Ladies has been nominated in three categories. Do you believe that?

No? Yes, no, it's we started this a year ago in no way, shape or form. Did we ever do it to thinking that there might be some sort of nomination, let alone and award possibly in our future. We just we just loved it and wanted to have some fun. I know.

So it feels amazing. And the other podcasts that are nominated we were nominated and Best Female Hosted Arts and TV and Film were so excited. It's such an honor and the other people nominated a great so check them out. There's a Facebook page for the Podcast Awards, the People's Choice Podcast Awards, and keep your fingers cross for us. We're going to find out in September if we won.

And you know, you hear this all the time from people who get nominated from various awards about how it's an honor to be nominated, and as a first time nominee of anything, I can honestly say that is absolutely true. It boggles my mind that we are considered for awards against some of these amazing podcasts. It's it really is an honor. So thank you Podcast Awards. Yes, 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. Thanks so much, and treat it gunning work hard for the money world by Delay