Bonus Episode: Stacy Keanan: TV Icon and Golden Girls Superfan!
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Hey, Cheesecakes. Patrick here. Two quick announcements before we get to the show. First of all, I'm going to be hosting a virtual Cheesecake Happy Hour with the one and only Stan Zimmerman tomorrow, Tuesday, November 26th at 7 p.m. It'll be happening over Zoom. All of the info is pinned in the Facebook group, so just head there to check it out. Second, and this I am so excited to tell you about, Cheesecakes, I'm going on tour. And the

The point of the tour is for me to get to meet all of the cheesecakes and for all of you cheesecakes to get to meet each other. So the tour is a storytelling event that turns into a party. For the first part of the evening, I'm going to tell you a story about a disastrously hilarious evening I spent with the Golden Girls icon herself, B-Boy.

It was a disaster because I was obsessed with her and she couldn't stand me, but she was stuck with me for the entire evening. She drank, she sang, she thought my name was Peter. It was ridiculous. And because I'm extra, we've brought in the incredible

Bea Arthur impersonator, Jason B. Schmidt, who will be appearing via video to play the role of Bea Arthur from Beyond the Grave, giving her take on the whole situation. So the story part lasts a little bit less than an hour, and then we all go to the venue bar. We've got the venue to ourselves for the entire evening. So we'll drink, we'll mix and mingle, I'll get to meet every last one of you, and you'll get to meet your fellow cheesecakes in your area. For the

First leg of the tour, I'll be coming to Seattle for opening night, then Los Angeles, Denver, Salt Lake City, Indianapolis, New Orleans, and Kansas City, with more cities to be announced soon. Tickets go on sale Monday, December 2nd, and these venues are super, super small. Most of them have just about 100 seats, so it's going to be a super fun and intimate evening, and I hope you'll come and see me. All right, Cheesecakes, now to the show. ♪

Hey, Cheesecakes. So, Mother Cheesecake is off this week because, as many of you know, she opened Death Becomes Her on Broadway on Thursday, so she's been a little bit busy. And also, we're doing a special episode this week because it's a holiday week, but everything will be back to normal next week. Jen will be back by my side for our recap of episode 22 and Jen's deep dive into the Estelle Getty, Sylvester Stallone blockbuster film that was Death Becomes Her.

Stop or my mom will shoot. I promise you, you do not want to miss that. But for now, Cheesecakes, I'm so excited to share this interview with my dear friend, the angel.

the 80s and 90s sitcom icon, Stacey Keenan. You remember Stacey from our childhood staple TV shows like My Two Dads and Step by Step. She and I became friends when we learned that she's a listener to my other podcast, True Crime Obsessed, and it just so happens that she's also a Golden Girls super fan. Stacey left the industry back in 2010 to pursue a law career, but she's dipping her toe back in with her new podcast, Killing Me.

Hi!

Hi, Stacey Keenan. Hi, Patrick. I'm losing my gay mind. Hi, welcome to our studio. I'm trying not to blow out your mic. My mic technique is not the best. You know what? And I'm trying, like, I get so, you can turn me down right next to you if I get too loud for you. No.

Hi! Welcome to the Golden Girls Deep Dive Podcast. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled. My co-host, Jennifer, is off doing her fancy Broadway show. She's starring in Death Becomes Her on Broadway. Really? And she is unavailable today, but she sends her love and she's like so sorry that she's not here. Oh, I'm sorry I didn't get to meet her. Next time. She's outrageous. She's the best. It is so wild looking at you. Because I feel...

I feel like I have grown up with you. Like, I feel like I've known you my entire life. Whoa. Do people say that to you all the time? Yeah. Yes. I feel like we grew up together. Yeah. Or I feel like I've just known you my whole life. Well, same for you, really. I mean, not my whole life, but in terms of just listening to you on TCO and hearing your voice. How long have you listened to TCO?

At least a year. Oh, my God. At least a year. If you go into my Spotify, you'll see every episode has the green check. Played, played, played. I've listened to every single one and I have ever since I discovered your show. I was telling you before we started when Jillian and I heard that you listened to TCO. We were sitting in here. People are banging on the window like...

We talked about you on a podcast. Oh my God. It was wild. Because everyone knows I'm like a huge fan. Oh, I can't believe it. It's so crazy. High DA, Assistant District Attorney. Is it ADA? Is that the title? So ADA is a much higher position. I am a lowly deputy district attorney. So I'm a, yeah, DDA, Deputy DA. Are you working your way up? Well,

Well, I don't know if management is really for me. You know, management in general is probably not my vibe. And particularly managing lawyers of all people is probably not what I want to do. That's what the higher ups do. They manage. Yes. The assistant DA is the right hand man or woman to the elected. Got it. So they are helping their administrators. They're helping to run the office. So they're not in court anymore. They're not trying cases. OK. And what I like to do is try cases.

So if I ever did that, I wouldn't be in a courtroom anymore. So that wouldn't be besides the point. For anybody who doesn't know what's going on here, Stacey Keenan is now like you're in law. You're in the legal profession. Right. Yeah. I left the industry. I went to law school in 2013. I graduated from law school. I went to acting class in 2010. I did a scene and I just sat down again and I said, I'm done. This moment has ended. Wow.

Wow. The moment has passed. Well, okay, let's go back to where it all started. Because I was reading about you today, and I learned that you really, you started in the acting business when you were like five. I was four, yeah, in Pennsylvania. And then, you know, we lived outside of Philly. So we, you know, my sister and I did, we went to the Queen of Prussia Charm School. Oh!

In King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. You did not need any schooling to become charming, Stacey Keaton. Oh, thank you, darling. Thank you. So they did a recital for the charm school. And my sister and I were in the recital. And there was an agent who came. And so she picked us up and started sending us out for stuff locally in Philadelphia. So we did print and we did commercials. And it was all local Philadelphia stuff. It was the local department store and things like that. So then we got an agent in New York and we started going everywhere.

out for auditions in New York. So we were taking the train, the good old Amtrak from Philly to New York. And it would be once a week and then twice a week and then three times a week. And then we were just coming up here so often that we finally just moved to the city. I was reading that. And do you remember where you lived? This is such a New Yorkery question. Oh, yes. How could I ever forget? In fact...

Guy and I here in New York for, you know, these few days that we're here before we head over to England to see his family. On the first day that we were here, we went up to see my old building. Wow. And Guy is your husband, who I just met. He's so lovely and is now out wandering the city on his own. And so, but where was it? So it's, I can tell you the address, 63 West 106th Street, New York, New York, 102.5, apartment 60, New York.

So that's between like Manhattan and Columbus Avenues, I would imagine. How do you know that? Because I lived at 66 West 109th Street. Can you believe? What if I was like, oh, I just know every address on the island. You're secretly a New York City cabbie. It is. It is between Columbus and Manhattan. And most people haven't heard of Manhattan Avenue because it only comes up way far uptown. Yeah. But when we were there, it was the 80s. So it was a

terrible, terrible neighborhood. So to see it now. Oh, it's like fancy, fancy now. It's nice. It's clean. It was unrecognizable because when we lived there, it was Ed Koch, New York. Yes. Peak crack era. Wow. So there was famous, to me anyway, famously when Time magazine broke the story of this new drug called crack cocaine. Yeah. They had a magazine cover that had a crack house on it. And that crack house was across the street from our building. No way.

Yes. Yeah. Because when we moved up to New York, we couldn't afford to live in New York. We definitely could not afford to live in Manhattan. No way. So my mom had a first cousin who, you know, he was an artist. He was a dancer. He had his own dance company. And so he paid $425 a month for a huge apartment in a horrible neighborhood. And, you know, he was a single guy. Yeah. And it was fine for him. Yeah.

And it was a huge apartment because that area was built to be very fancy when those buildings were constructed. It's right on the north end of Central Park. If anybody who doesn't live here, if you don't know, it's right, I mean, it's like a two minute walk to Central Park. Yes, it's a block and a half off the park. And, you know, the apartment had high ceilings. There were gargoyles on the front of the building. There was hardwood floors.

It was a massive apartment, but the neighborhood was absolutely horrible. So, you know, eventually my cousin was a big activist and he got everyone. He was trying to get everyone organized because we had a slum landlord. So he got a lot done. He got all the windows replaced.

Wow. In the building, the landlord, he put so much pressure on. He replaced all the windows. The heat would come on in the winter because he wanted them eventually to buy the building and become a co-op. Oh, my God. Because he said, this guy is a slum landlord. Let's buy this building. We'll own it together. So forward thinking. Yeah, that's what he was trying to do. But unfortunately, we lived there for three and a half years and he had AIDS and he was starting to get sick.

And so he wrote my mom a letter saying, you know, you and the kids, you have to get out of here because I'm going to start to it's going to start to get bad. Yeah. So he wrote her this letter and that I mean, it was so hard for us to take that big jump and move out to L.A. But my mom knew what he was saying. She didn't want us to see him get so sick like that. So so we left and he died shortly thereafter. So he didn't get to finish all of the things.

Yeah.

It's such a sad, terrible thing to learn about. It is. And it's so sad to think just the timing, you know, if he had...

become ill at a different time or if he had contracted HIV at a different time, he would have been alive today. Because now I just learned that really by the time that he probably contracted it at least 10 years earlier, I didn't realize it had such a long, dormant period. So there really was, I mean, this was the mid 80s. There was no hope for him at that time. But, you know, had it

been 10 years later, he could have still been here. So yeah. Wow. Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that story. My God. So your family, this is what I read. Tell me if this is true, that your mom was kind of over it. Like you guys were auditioning constantly and your mom was like, we're going to go out to LA for pilot season. And we're going to give this like one final go to see if something big happens. I mean, very good research on your part. I would

Yeah.

So we went out there for pilot season to try to get one of the big jobs. Picture it. Pilot season 1987. You all go out there. Now, I was watching an interview with you today where you said you actually got to choose between like three different pilots. Is that right? Yes. So...

The way it works when you're going to go to network, which is the final step before you get offered a show, you have to, I can't remember what the term is. I want to say it's right of first refusal, but I'm not in the industry anymore. I forget some of the terminology. I think it's right of first refusal. But basically what that means is you can't go to network on multiple pilots because they want to know that if they're taking you to network, if they offer you the show, you're going to take it. They're not going to choose you and you're then going to go off and

Take something else.

Of all of the shows. So we kind of gambled, gambled on that guaranteed 13 on that other show. Which you passed on to do My Two Dads. Yes. I mean, I have to tell you, I was thinking about this today because My Two Dads was like 1987, 1988. I believe the pilot was in 1986. Is that right? And then once it was picked up. So I'm like 10, 11 years old when this show comes out. So we're right around the same age. Yes. Yeah. And I was watching some of it today and I was like, oh, yeah.

This show was like a part of my like sexual awakening. I was like between like Greg Evigan and Paul Reiser, who like I said to Steve, I'm like, I knew Greg Evigan was hot, but I'm like, Steve, you need to come look. Like you cannot describe how attractive this man is. And then like, and watching it, like, I don't know what it was about that show. I watched everything.

every single episode to explain to the people, like, it's a show about two men who dated the same woman, like, 13 years ago. She had a kid by one of them, but they don't know who it is. And so rather than, like, getting a paternity test, they just decide to raise her together. Yes. So they're all in college together.

the two guys who are best friends, even though they're very different people, they both fall in love with the same woman. And then it turns out that they've both had this wild summer where they both had an affair with her. And then they learn that, and then a huge fight ensues, and the two best friends go their separate ways. And not only do they not speak to each other anymore, they don't speak to Marcy, who's the mom. They don't speak with her either. Everyone just goes their separate ways. And then Marcy ends up dying a very untimely death

about 12 years later, and they go to the reading of her will, they get called to it, and they find out she did have a child. It's unknown. She doesn't know which of them is the father, but she specifically says in her will, she doesn't want them to find out because she wants them to heal their relationship. She wants to make them into a family because they were best friends before they fought over her. So she wants them to come back together, raise the kid together, and the

And this is the thing that is most complained about the show. And I still have people come up to me and say, well, that's so dumb. They could have just gotten a blood test. Fine. So they didn't have DNA back then, but they could have just gotten a blood test and figured it out. But that is dealt with very early on in the episode. I remember they throw it in the frying pan. They have the results and they throw it in there. Right. Am I right? Well, early in the show.

She says it comes out that in her dying wishes, she specifically does not want them to find out. Yeah. Because she wants them to all raise the kid together. Yeah. And come together as a family. So and they abide by her wishes. So it's acknowledged from the beginning they could have found out, but they're respecting her. Her wishes. Right. It's it.

So funny because looking at it through a 2024 lens, it's like the gayest show possible. Like these two men ahead of their time, like raising this girl together. And I was thinking today how much that show looks like my life now. You and Steve and David.

Daisy! Yes! Isn't that wild? Because Daisy's 10 and I know the character was like 13 or 14, right? When the show starts, the character is 12. Okay. So it's, she's on the precipice of, you know, teenagerdom. Yeah. And it's funny because like Greg Evigan's character is an artist, which is kind of like me. And Paul Reiser's character is much more, it's like the smarter, more organized one, which is like Steve. And it's like,

precocious, amazing, adorable daughter, which is very much like, it's like really looks like my life now. Wow, that's right. Isn't that crazy? That is wild. Except in the show, they weren't a couple. They were both straight guys. No, no, no, straight men. Yes. Who were, you know, they were having, forming a chosen family. Yeah. Kind of chosen by this deceased woman who they both love. It's so progressive. Like what an amazing, it's incredible. And so I read that you got the part, did the pilot, and then they decided to recast you. Yes. Yes.

What I was told is the network didn't really like me that much after the pilot. They just, I don't remember how exactly I came to know this, but I found out that the network just wasn't really feeling it. I think they never loved me at the outset. They didn't get it. It just wasn't what they wanted. I mean, I was 11 when we did the pilot and I was playing 12, but they thought that I was too tall.

I'm only 5'3", but I was 5'3 then. So they thought I looked older and taller and they thought I looked almost teenager-y and they wanted someone who still looked young and looked like a kid. So that was part of the issue is that they just didn't like the look. They thought I just...

came across as too old. And then they just, they didn't like me that much. They just didn't. But Michael Jacobs was the creator of the show and he just got it in his head that I was the one and he is, he's feisty and he fought them and fought them and fought them. So they insisted on recasting and auditioning a billion people and they auditioned

everyone all over again in New York and in LA. They went through the whole process and Michael the whole time was fighting them saying, this is the right one. I know you don't see it, but I see it. So they went through this whole process and ultimately Michael prevailed and I ended up on the show and, you know, I ended up getting a letter from,

from Warren Littlefield, one of the network execs, saying, Michael was right. You were the one. It's funny because you are the show. Like, obviously, Greg Evigan and Paul Reiser are, like, incredible actors. But when... And maybe it's because I was your age and I just, like, I just, like, loved you so much. And I was like, oh, she could be my sister. Like, and, like, the fantasy life that that character was having of, like, these, you know...

It's amazing. And it's also, there's a parallel to the Golden Girls there because you may not know this, but when they were casting the Golden Girls, they were, when they were looking for the Dorothy character, it was like B. Arthur type, but they didn't want B. Arthur because she had a very low Q score. Oh.

Which is like, I guess it's like the audience, the world thinks of you or whatever. TVQ, yes. How much the audience likes you, wants to see more of you, thinks you're funny. So they auditioned every woman in Hollywood except for Bea and finally they bring her in and they were just like, Susan Harris, the creator, was like, it's gotta be her, it's gotta be her. And the network was fighting her saying like, no, like she's not likable. Can you imagine? No. My Two Dads Without You or The Golden Girls Without Bea Arthur? Yeah.

How was that experience for you? It completely changed my life, yeah, because I went from going to school in New York, going to PS158 on the Upper East Side. Wow. We lied about where we lived. Of course. Welcome to New York. We all do it. You know, because we lived in this incredibly dangerous, scary neighborhood, and my mom didn't want us to go to school there. So my mom worked for our manager who managed my sister and I, and they had a good address. So we used their address. Yeah.

And I went to school on the Upper East Side and so did my sister. So that was it. Going to school, going to a billion auditions after school on most days. And then all of a sudden we're in L.A. and I'm working full time on a show, going to school on the set, which I had never done before. It was the biggest job I had ever had. Yeah. You know, so we had the whole, you know, we got an apartment in North Hollywood that had a pool. Oh, my God. That's so cool.

Of course, we move into the apartment. We're broke. We had no money, you know, which is why we were living the way we were living in New York in the first place. But we moved into the apartment and came to find out, of course, we had to do the cheapest possible cross-country move, which is where the truck comes. You put your stuff on the truck. Didn't that work? Didn't it move you? Well, no, because when we moved out, we were coming for pilot season. Oh, right. Of course, of course. Yeah. So we put our stuff on the truck and then you have to wait for the truck to drive all the way across the country and make all these stops.

So it was going to be weeks until we had our stuff. So we get to this apartment in North Hollywood, had this

brown carpeting and we were sleeping on our clothes and towels on the floor because that's all we had. We didn't have any furniture, any stuff. And then it came to be revealed that the apartment was infested with lice. So the carpet, I guess, was all full of lice. And so we all had lice. So can you imagine this kid shows up on this set and the hairdresser is doing my hair going, uh, you have, you have lice. Oh no.

They must have thought we were just such circus people. And then all of a sudden they got one of those big jars that you have in a barbershop with that blue liquid in it. And they had to put all the combs and stuff in there. They hired this kid who had lice. Yeah. That is, I don't know why this story is popping up, but I remember reading about like Tina Yeathers, like the week that they were shooting the pilot for Family Ties, she had the flu and she was convinced she was going to get fired if she didn't pretend like she didn't have the flu.

And so she was like so sick that whole first week. What you all put yourselves through, it is wild. It's just ridiculous. But, you know, again, I have to credit my cousin Jim with what happened when we came to L.A. because he was very ahead of his time. He was very into health food and...

And he was the one who introduced me to rice cakes. Oh, wow. But he was eating rice cakes in the 80s. And he was always going to the health food store and getting all these supplements and all this stuff. And he was right about so many things. And when he would go to those float tanks where you float in the dark. Oh, yeah. Isolation tanks or whatever. Yes. So.

So he really believed in affirmations and positive thinking. So he sat us all down one day, my sister and my mom and I, and he made us write. We had to pick something, some affirmation or something that you wanted, and you had to write it a hundred times. And I was sitting there complaining, going, but I can't even write cursive yet. I had to

print and everyone else could do cursive. And what I wrote was, I will be on a series. This was when you got to LA? No, this was back in New York. This was years before we came to LA, back in New York. One of the first years because we learned cursive in third grade, which is when we got there. So it was right when we got to New York. So this is about three and a half years before we came out to LA and I booked the show. Wow. My mom and my sister, we all had to write something. I wish I knew what they wrote.

But mine was, I will be on a TV show. And you were so young. TV series. It was specifically a series, not just a show. I wanted the whole series, not just an episode. And so he made me write it a hundred times. He made you write it a hundred times? Wow. That is incredible.

So, okay. So My Two Dads ends after three years. Yes. Right? And so was it immediately like back out into the audition game? Yes, absolutely. Because of course, every actor, you think I'm never going to work again. Yeah. I don't think I had those thoughts yet at that age. I wasn't quite at that...

neurotic level. I got there later. But at that point, I still just kind of didn't care that much, which I think was part of the secret of my success. I think when I got older and I had my hooks in it a lot more, I couldn't audition anymore. I used to be so good at auditioning because I didn't give a damn about anything. It's wild that like you would still be auditioning in my brain. You know what I mean? Like you're famous. You like two amazingly successful series. Make it make sense. I can't.

But yeah, well, thank you. But yeah, that's the way the industry works. They just, it's, no one has any memory for anything. And I guess there is that element too of chemistry or seeing the words on the page come out of your mouth in particular and how, you know, how it feels and all that. A lot of it is so spooky, you know. But yeah, so back out.

back auditioning. I booked a show called Going Places. It was a very short-lived show. It had a good cast, but it just, it wasn't right for that TGIF lineup. It was a house full of single people. And then I was the girl next door. And so I would show up and give these single characters a chance to sort of parent this character and show that side of them. So that didn't get picked up, but the same producers were doing step-by-step. So they offered me step-by-step off of... No audition. Right. Right.

Yeah, because I wasn't even on every episode of the show. I was recurring on Going Places, but they offered me Step by Step, which I was like, whoa, because I'd never been offered anything before. So Step by Step, if people don't remember TGIF, like that was the biggest thing. And like, I mean...

I can't even imagine. So Patrick Duffy, Suzanne Somers, this cast of like this incredibly, I don't know, seemed like a loving cast. Very much so. Talk about coming into that show, coming off of like being the only kid on My Two Dads to being one of seven on Step by Step. Like, was it fighting for lines and fighting for scenes or was it very, was the camaraderie there? No, it wasn't like that at all. It was very loving, very warm. Everyone,

got along really well right from the beginning. And it stemmed all the way from the top, I would say, because not only were those producers, it's Miller Boyette who produced that show. They are the loveliest people in the world. They're so nice, so kind. And they don't have that at that point. I doubt that they ever did because they're just such lovely people. But they didn't have that. I have to have to make it, have to prove it. This has to work. They had proved themselves a billion times already. They were very relaxed.

at that point. I mean, they produced happy days, for God's sake. They had been around forever. So they were very relaxed. If this show didn't work, the next one is going to work. Exactly. So they're very, you know, they have nothing to get cutthroat about. So it came all the way from them. And then everyone that they hired

was lovely. They just didn't work with jerky people. It was just not their thing. So it was just a lovely environment. And then from there, you have Patrick and Suzanne, who are also just lovely and got along so well together. They seemed like they did. I remember even as a kid being like, they seem like they really like each other. Yes, they did. And Patrick is a goofball. He is

very fun, very funny. He doesn't have a serious bone in his body, really. I mean, Dallas, it's weird to even imagine him doing that kind of work because that's so not him. And so he was just having a great time. And then Suzanne is, she loved that. I mean, and she's also very funny and fun and, you know, self-deprecating and warm, just very easygoing. So the two of them vibed out and had great chemistry and they were so nice. So, you know, from the producers down to the, you know, Patrick,

Patrick and Suzanne as the leaders of our cast, it just trickled down that it was just such a lovely environment. And not every show, not every show is like that. Shows are, I would say, more often like what you might think or like what is portrayed on TV about the making of those or movies about the making of these types of things is super high pressure, high stress. Everyone is freaking out at all times.

you know, kind of strung out on the pressure of it all, how expensive it all is. It has to work, has to be funny. And it wasn't like that for you. It wasn't like that on Step by Step, no. And it wasn't like that on Going Places. It's interesting because there's such a conversation going on right now about kid actors who...

with Quiet on Set, with, you know, the Nickelodeon. And it's like lovely to hear that that wasn't your experience. Yeah, it really wasn't. And it's, I always feel even before Quiet on Set and all that, you know, discussion started about it, I was always kind of hesitant to say how good of an experience it was because I'm afraid people will think that, oh, you're just saying that. Oh, everyone was so nice. Oh, it was so lovely. Or, oh, we were like a real family as though, you know, okay, you know, you're trying to just present

present that picture. But it really was. But I've always been kind of worried that people wouldn't believe that. But I think if you asked anyone in the cast, they would say the same thing. Yeah. You know, My Two Dads was much more a very high pressure, high stress environment. And I wouldn't trade it. I'm very grateful to have had that work and grateful for everything it did for my life and my career. And, you know, we had a life in L.A. and were able to buy a house and, you know, all of that stuff I'm very grateful for. And I'm grateful for the

The tough parts of it were beneficial in a lot of ways. I think even at a young age, learning to withstand that kind of pressure and keep your composure and still do what you need to do. It's a tough lesson, but it's useful. Now you can get Cox Internet and one unlimited mobile line for $80 a month, all with Wi-Fi equipment included and no annual contract. If only getting it all was always that easy. Like having a night out.

And getting a good night's sleep. Get it all with Cox. Get Cox Internet and one unlimited mobile line for $80 a month. Visit cox.com slash value. Limited time offer for new customers only. No annual contract means no minimum term agreement and no early termination fees. Additional restrictions apply. Oh, no, not on the carpet. I'm the vet. I'm the vet.

Can we talk about the Golden Girls? Yes!

Please. So we asked you what your favorite Golden Girls episode was, and you had such an interesting answer. So your favorite episode is Clinton Avenue Memories. And whenever we ask people, it's always like the Grab That Dough episode, or it's like the Murder Mystery Weekend episode. This was...

Very unexpected. This is one I hadn't heard before. Really? Yeah. Before we get to it, what is your relationship to the Golden Girls? Was it a thing that you always watched? Are you like a big fan? Always watched. I was addicted. I still am addicted to TV. I will never get over it. I will always be addicted. I don't think there's any recovery for me. I used to come home, latchkey kid, come home to the apartment in New York, you know, lock the 500 locks on the door. Yeah.

Immediately turn on the TV. My mom was still at work. My sister would be with her friends. She was older. And I would just, the TV would be on at least eight hours a day. Wow. So if I got home at four o'clock until, my mom was not strict about bedding.

We didn't do any of that. So 10 or 11 o'clock at night, all those hours the TV would be on. I would eat in front of the TV, do all the homework in front of the TV, everything. I love this because you're such a raging success of a person. And I'm just thinking about the number of hours my daughter would like to sit with the iPad. So I'm very happy to hear this. Oh, thank you.

Yeah, totally hooked. So I watched all TV, but I loved sitcoms. Yeah. I definitely watched Golden Girls. Absolutely. And I just loved, I don't know, there was no show that I watched and said, oh, well, that's not for me just because I'm a kid. Yeah. I definitely watched Golden Girls. Like in its original airing. Yeah. Yeah.

Right, because we would have been like 12, 10, 11, something like that. Like, I remember watching it in its original form. Right? Yeah. And it seems straight. You know, why did we, you know, it's about retired ladies living together in a house. Why did we like it, do you think? Well, it's such an interesting question. Number one, it's just fascinating.

funny. Like, just no matter what, it's just funny. Well-written. Well-written. Good acting. It's one of the reasons why I think you love Step by Step. There's nobody on that show that's intimidating to you. It's like, it feels very welcoming. The Golden Girls especially feels adult, but you understand it, you know? Yes, and it's aspirational. Totally. At least it was for me as a kid. They live in a nice house. Yep. They don't seem to

work barely although that comes up in this episode yes they have nice clothes yeah it's also my mom is gay so I was raised in the gay community so I think that the elements of like understanding chosen family even then those themes really spoke to me like there was

something about, we didn't have any extended family. It was my mom and us and my mom's friends, all of whom were like the freaks of the gay community of Cape Cod who raised us. And so it felt very similar. Not that the characters on the Golden Girls were like that, but it felt very similar to like, you can pick the people that you love to be around. Ah, now it was you and your sister, right? Me, I have two sisters and a brother.

Oh, okay. And just my single mom who like worked all the time and latchkey kid and would come home and what is bedtime and what is structure. And so like, I was thinking too, you were working in the industry when the Golden Girls was like being made and airing. Did you ever cross paths with them? Were you ever like, do you ever see them?

on the lot or whatever? Like, were you around them ever? No. I believe I met Betty White at one point and she was as lovely as you might imagine. But I never met... Any of the rest of them? The others, no. We just didn't really cross paths. But I think you're right. The chosen family thing. Because, you know, when we lived with my cousin Jim in New York, we were kind of a chosen family. For sure. I mean, that was my mom's first cousin. Yep. They were around the same age, same generation. They had grown up together. You know, a super Irish Catholic family.

Yeah.

is Blanche needs $300 for a haircut. So she takes a job working as Rose's assistant and Rose is working on a project for Enrique Mas, who's like the news guy that she works for. Which is funny because we don't usually get storyline carryover episode to episode, but like we learned in another episode that Rose was working for Enrique Mas and that comes back up in this episode. And then the other story is that Sofia is starting to lose her memory. Yes. And it's funny because I don't know if

this is how memory loss really works. I think if you're losing your memory, what you lose is the short-term stuff. And what you remember is the things from your childhood and much older memories remain untouched. But it's the, you know, someone tells you, you know, we're meeting at four o'clock and immediately it's gone and you don't remember it. But in this episode, it's that the issue is the longed Sophia's forgetting past

Right. When her kids were little, her husband. I love that in the end we learn it's nutrition based. Right. Wow. And then it's just her diet. A miracle. I know.

That's nice that it's so simple. Wrap that one up real quick. Yeah. But they decide, Sophia and Dorothy decide they're going to go back to Brooklyn to see the old apartment. Sophia can kind of refresh her recollection and reconnect with that past that she's starting to lose. Yes. Now, what about this episode speaks to you? The sweetness of this...

Killed me. The scene where she, so they go back to the apartment. There was a great part where they go to their old apartment where Dorothy grew up and they knock on the door and this man opens the door and he says, buenos dias. And he's looking at both of them and Sophia goes, oh God. And Dorothy just claps her hand right over Sophia.

Sophia's mouth. And just the physical comedy of it, because of course, Bea Arthur is about a foot taller. So when she wraps her arm around, you know, Sophia's, I mean, it is literally like her elbow is resting on Sophia's shoulder because she's so much taller. She's

We've talked about this before. Like, they abuse poor Estelle Getty. Like, poor Estelle Getty gets, like, shaken. And the way that Bea Arthur, like, grabs her. Like, you're going to hurt her. Just manhandles her. And then later, when she hits Betty White with the newspaper. The metro section, Rose. Yes, the metro section. And then her hair gets all messed up. Oh, my God. Poor Betty White.

Oh, God. So he lets them in. And Sophia is upset because she is recalling there's this carving in the kitchen where her husband, Sal, wrote, Sal loves Sophia. And they go to the kitchen and she can't find it. So she's misremembered this. Yes. And she's really devastated. How could she get that wrong? And Dorothy thinks that she's got it right. And Dorothy's like, no, Ma, that's our height chart. And the height chart is there. Right. The height chart is what's carved into the kitchen paper.

pantry. Right. It's not this heart. So Sophia is just devastated and she goes upstairs to check out the bedroom. And once she gets to the bedroom, Sal comes back. In like a vision from heaven. Her late husband, Sal, comes back and they have this dreamy scene where, and he's not young Sal. No. This is not her husband the day that she married him. This is the older Sal, probably as he was when he passed away. He's like wearing the suit that he was buried in. Yeah. Yeah. And she's getting to ask him, you know, what

what's heaven like and what's God like? And they have this whole conversation and then he's helping her with her, with what ails her. Yes. You know, he's saying that the problem is, is,

that she's lost her spunk. Right. Because she is feeling defeated in this moment. And she's kind of surrendering to this despair of, that's it, I'm 83 years old. My memory is going, that's it. And he's saying, no, the problem is you're losing your spunk. And then once she starts getting back in the game and giving him a hard time and getting her spunk back, that's what she needs to kind of heal. Right. And he knows, like he knows what to say to her, like how to needle her so that she'll get where she calls him a badger galoop. Yeah.

Yeah. But it was so, the sweetness of it just kills me because I think we all wish we could have that scene with somebody who's passed away that we could say, how are you? What is heaven like? What is God like? What are you doing all day? And to have them say to us who are still living, here's what your problem is. Yes. Here's what,

I can see from where I am, here's what you need or here's what you need to reconnect with. And it's the confirmation that like someday when the time is right, we'll be reunited. You know, it's like heaven confirmation almost. Right. You know? Yeah. I was thinking too about...

It's so funny because you like, you took away the sweetness, which is so sweet. And I'm like, that apartment's too big. Like the way that we see this apartment, which is this enormous, and we see it in other episodes. Remember the actress who plays Dorothy as like a 30 something? I'm like mildly obsessed with her. We see her like in other episodes. Oh, okay. But this apartment is enormous. It's massive. It has a second-

four. Sophia goes upstairs to the bedroom and fine. It was Brooklyn. When they're looking through the photo album together, Dorothy is looking at photos going, oh, you know, 1939. Exactly. So fine. We're talking Brooklyn way before it was, you know, Brooklyn as it is now. But that apartment would have been cut into four different apartments. The upstairs would be his own separate unit. It's got an eat-in kitchen. It's

Huge. I also love that Sophia recognizes the wallpaper. I'm like, it's been the same wallpaper since 1933. The same wallpaper. She touches the wallpaper and she recognizes it. And then ultimately she finds the carving, but it was in the closet door in the bedroom, on the back of the closet door. Yes. And then she sees the reason why she misremembered it is because Sal used to hang his salamis in there. Exactly. So kitchen, bedroom, you know, easily confused. Yes.

Because there's the carving. No one has sanded it off. It's still there. So the permanence up against this impermanence. Yes. Sal appears and then he literally, he's diaphanous. He vanishes. He disappears. Diaphanous Stacey Keenan. Good word. Yeah.

My other favorite moment from this episode, and when I went to watch it, I realized I had specifically, whenever I watched this episode last, I'd gone to find this moment and then turned it off because it was right after this moment. It's when Blanche enters for the first time and it's so dramatic because she needs a haircut, but she doesn't have the money for it this month. And she walks in and she goes, whoa, it's me. Oh, whoa, oh, whoa, it's me. And she like leans against the counter and it's,

So perfect. She actually says, woe is me. She gets to say that. Oh, woe is me. Oh, woe is me. And she's kind of deflating her shoulders and kind of slouching over. And then, right, because she needs to go see Robert. Robert. Because her hair is listless and it has split ends. And then, so Rose is suggesting that she just, you know, works more. Yeah, exactly. So that she has the $300 that she needs to go see Robert. And she says, another job. Rose, I'm...

I'm already working my fingers to the bone. 12 hours a week at the museum. Picasso to the left. Snack bar downstairs. It's a wonder I'm not an alcoholic. Yes. Do you memorize the lines? It's so good. It's so, so, so, so good. 12 hours a week. 12 hours a week. Working my fingers to the bone. I know.

So you are revisiting Step by Step Now on the fantastic podcast, Kenan and Lakin Give Us Deja Vu. Welcome to the podcasting world, my love. Oh, thank you. How did this podcast come to be? I'm obsessed. I love it. Was it Christine's idea? Oh, thank you. It was my idea. It was your idea. Yeah. You know, of course, there were other rewatch and recap podcasts, including people that were part of the cast. So

So I listen to every podcast that there is practically. So I was listening to some of those and I just thought, what if we did one for Step by Step? And I had never watched the show. I never watched it when it was on. So interesting. Most of the episodes, almost every episode I have never seen at all. There are some that I had to watch when it was time to do a reel. Yeah. And you had to pick scenes. So my mom would make me watch a few scenes here and there. But most of the episodes I have not seen ever.

ever. Not in any part. So but then I was afraid that Christine wouldn't want to do it. You know, she already had a podcast called Worst Ever, which is really good. And they did really good and funny interviews, her and her part.

partner Allah on that show. So I just was afraid she would say no. And then I was going to be so disappointed. So I thought about it for about a year until I finally pitched it to her and she was down to do it. So then we recorded the whole first season. So we recapped every episode of season one of the show back in 2021. And then we didn't because the social media existed for a long time. I remember seeing it and being like, but this podcast isn't out. Where's the podcast?

Yeah. The Instagram came out a few months beforehand. So we just, we had a producer, but we just, I don't know, we couldn't quite get it together. And Christina's really busy. You know, she's a choreographer. She's a director. She's doing, you know, she's still acting. She does all these things. So, and then with my work, my work is really busy too. And we just couldn't get it done. And then Stephen Ray Morris, famously from My Favorite Murder. Of course, we love Stephen Ray Morris. Oh my God, me too. Steve!

Steven! Steven! So, you know, my husband had said at one point before...

you know, we actually finalized that we were going to work with Steve. And he said, well, what about, what about Stephen Ray Morris? Because he had come to dinner at our house one time with Christine years ago. And he said, what about him? What about him producing the show? And I said, he is the most famous podcast producer in the entire world. He doesn't want to have anything to do with our show. Nothing show. What are you talking about? And then ultimately Christine, because she had worked with him on Worst Ever, she approached him about coming on and he agreed to produce our show.

Oh, my God. That's amazing. I still can't believe it. So he took this raw stuff and made it into a show. So how is it for you now to be watching the episodes? It is wild. Yeah. I can't believe it. I can't believe I am shocked by the show all the time. I'm shocked by how raunchy it is. Yeah. I'm shocked by, yeah, how horny and raunchy it is. Blows my mind. So.

Yeah.

something today and you were talking about the reason you didn't watch it was because how hard it was to like actually get a VHS and like set it to record a show. There was that really it that was part of it. But also at that age when the show started, I think I was 15. I could not handle watching myself. I mean, can you imagine being that age and watching yourself the sound of your voice? Oh, God, I know you look at the body, the face, everything just I could not

handle, it just was just excruciating the idea of watching it. Yeah. And I never, never got to that point, even six, seven seasons in to be able to watch it. When you watch it now, are you like, oh, what a sweet kid that kid is? Like, do you disassociate and sort of like see the 15, 16 year old you and think of that person as like a different person than who you are now? Yeah, I do. I do. And I'm not really sure who I was. Oh,

At that time, I'm watching her wondering, who are you and do you know who you are? You know, you're so unformed still at that age. But, you know, I was working and having this career and, you know, but I don't know who she is. Yeah, yeah.

Well, so Step by Step ends after in 1998. I mean, it ran for a long time. Right. Seven seasons. Yeah. And then what I read was that you just were no longer satisfied with the kind of work that you were getting. Yeah. I wasn't getting good work anymore. It just seemed like... Did you do a lot while you were doing Step by Step? No. No.

I mean, I would audition sometimes, but it's always hard to get work that just works out. Like the summer hiatus, yeah. Yeah, because you have a hiatus, but then you are going to go back to the show. So you're limited in what work you can actually take if you even get that work. But then once the show ended, I mean, the industry is just kind of

Brutal. I mean, I just remember going on auditions where, you know, I just remember so many dudes kind of sitting on couches all sprawled out and kind of looking down their nose at me and, you know, just comments about stuff. Oh, well, what are you now, 35? And it was like, no, I'm 22. I'm 18.

You know, just because I had been on TV for so long. And then, of course, crossing over from TV to movies is so hard to do. Really, I think I figured it out, Patrick. If you're going to be a movie star, the way to do it is to start as a child, but you have to start in movies. You cannot do TV. You have to be Christina Ricci or somebody like that, where you start in film. You never touch television.

And then not only do you have to continue working and grow up and be able to act, not just as a kid, Natalie Portman, but as an adult, but you have to be beautiful. And then you don't get into drugs and you don't lose your mind. And you have to stay stable. Yes.

You meet all those criteria, the looks, the talent, and you keep working. That's how you become a movie star. Don't try to become a movie star when you're 20 years old. It's too late. Yes. Start when you're 10 or earlier, but then you have to hit all of those really difficult criteria. Would you encourage parents to put their kids into the business young? Because obviously you have to also have to be a kid whose parents are willing to let them do it. Yes. Would you recommend it

for kids, like to parents whose kids want to do it. I feel like one of those TikTok videos where they're asking man or bear right now.

That is hard. I think if the kid really, really wants to do it and enjoys it, then you think about it because I think you're exactly right. It will take over your life. Yeah. Because at a certain point, it's going to get taken away from you. It's not going to be just what the kid wants or what the parents want. You're going to have agents and managers going, I'm sorry, what? We got you this audition and you're telling us you're not going because she has vaginal

volleyball? Are you nuts? It's a professional situation. And you are in, you know, a symbiotic relationship, business relationship with these people. And yet you also have a child. Who's well-being you're trying to manage. Right. And who's doing child things and feeling child ways. And then you have all the other things that are going to crowd in. You have all of the rejection. You have the things that don't make sense where you're

10-year-old or whatever is in the room going, oh my God, they were laughing the whole time. We had such a great conversation afterwards. They were saying that they just love me. And then you don't get the job. The parents probably don't even understand that. How are you supposed to explain that to your kids? And then is the kid going to keep wanting to do it? It is an art form. So are you just going to rely on the kid being cute and natural charisma? Or is the kid ever going to get training and learn to actually act?

learn to use their voice, learn to use their body. When's that going to happen? Are they going to want to do that training? Or are they just going to want to be like, I'm sorry, but a lot of people in LA, at least, where they're like, hey, I look good. I can walk and talk at the same time. I can act. And you're like, no, you're a hack. You don't know anything. You don't know how to act. You know, hearing this, your journey is incredible. I mean, your success is one in a billion, right? I feel like a failure, but...

So to hear you say that, when someone else says it, I'm like, I think, oh, okay, I could see it like that. But I do feel, yeah, I feel like I failed because I feel like I had, you know, I had a good career in the industry. So I never knew how to work the business right. Because, you know, Suzanne Somers, I read all of her books cover to cover. And in one of her memoirs, she talks about

being on Three's Company and someone, she had this, I want to say it was a famous publicist or manager, and he was saying to her, look, look,

once you're hot, you ain't never going to get hot again. Yeah. Unless you set yourself on fire, it's never going to happen again. So in other words, he was saying, you're hot now, you know, Three's Company and your career is really hot. You have to be able to capitalize on that and move to the next thing and make that next thing happen. Yeah. And if you don't, it's just the fire is going to go out and you're done. Yeah. And I read that and I

I never knew how to do the business. I just didn't know how to do it. I didn't know how to do the publicity or the marketing or have the right agent or manager. I feel like if I was really successful, I would have known how to do those things or learned how to do it. And I would have made it keep going. Yeah. But the fact that I didn't, to me, feels like, oh, well, what bigger opportunity could you possibly have? And you didn't make it work. You didn't make it go on to the next thing. That's true.

That is so interesting. So you failed, you know? Yeah. I mean, I hear what you're saying. I don't accept it, but I hear what you're saying. Because to me, you're an icon of my childhood. Like, you're truly an icon of my childhood. And, you know, it also sounds like you made a conscious choice to walk away. Like, it wasn't serving you anymore. You weren't happy anymore. And you wanted to go do something else. I did. But only after I said, you know...

this is not working. You know, I was getting some work sometimes, but I didn't like the work that I was getting. I didn't like the projects that I was doing. But it's also hard to, after a job that good and a group of people that great and an experience that great, when are you ever going to get that again? Maybe never. So perhaps, maybe if I had been this savant of the business and I did know how to do it, maybe I would have gone straight into the next show and it would have been a horrible pressure cooker environment with mean people, right?

So there is that. But at a certain point, I just the work I was getting was not cutting it. Yeah. And would you go back? I don't know, because I don't know. Even then, nothing was good enough. I felt like I couldn't act. I felt like I never looked good enough. I you know, I wasn't skinny enough. I wasn't pretty enough. I wasn't couldn't act well enough. So if that was the case in my 20s, I can't imagine now in my 40s.

having to be on camera, look a certain way, be skinny enough, be this, that enough. I don't know. I would love to do voiceover. I love voiceover. You have such a good voice. I'm hearing you in my headphones. It's perfect. Thank you. I love voiceover and I would love to do that because you don't have to look any kind of way. You can just roll in and show up however. And I

I do love voiceover. I always have loved that. And I've done voiceover since I was a kid. And do you love your law career? I do. I mean, it's very... I say that with reservation because it's very, very, very intense. And sometimes I think...

The work that I do being a DA, you know, that means I'm a prosecutor. So I'm prosecuting felony cases and my caseload is about evenly divided between murder and other homicides. And the rest of it is either domestic violence or other major assaults, attempted murders, etc.

So things get very dark and I feel like I live, me and all of my colleagues, I feel like we live on this other, in this other world that is right underneath this one. And everyone else, it just, things are not as dark. You know things that we don't know. Well,

I feel like we get onto this little elevator that goes down to hell and we spend all day there. Yeah. And there is great camaraderie in it. It reminds me of the theater. Yeah. It's everyone is very funny, has a gift to gab. Yeah. The jokes and the things that go on, you just would not believe just this dark humor because we're seeing the worst of human behavior. Yeah.

the worst human impulses all day. So I feel like we're kind of eyeball deep in a shit jacuzzi. Sorry, I don't know if we're allowed to cut on here. But that's the way I look at it. We're just in that all day.

And then the day ends and we kind of get back in our elevator and we go back up to the normal world. Sometimes I just feel like the darkness is so much that I don't know. I'm a little worried about what the costs are of that darkness. But it's hard to leave also because it's what I went to law school to do. It's the only kind of law I wanted to practice was not only criminal law, but specifically to be a prosecutor. So

I mean, and there's so many it's so hard won the skills to be able to do a jury trial, to do a murder trial, to be able to pick a jury, to be able to talk to jurors, to be able to work with victims and their families and, you know, manage that experience with them and be by their side through that whole process and everything.

It's a very hard one, so I don't want to leave it lightly, but sometimes I'm afraid the darkness is going to close in because it's dark. Jillian's going to have 800 questions about that. Does your celebrity ever get in the way of it? No, not really. Sometimes people will. Actually, I work with police a lot, detectives, and they'll

they'll just kind of be chuckling and say, oh, well, hi, you know, I looked you up or, you know, oh, you know, I recognize you from that show kind of thing. Like if I was in a jury, I would definitely be like, that's Stacey Keenan-Fox.

I would totally lose my mind and I'd be excluded from the jury. And you'd be like, I'm sorry, but now you can't. I would be totally biased. Well, thank you. It comes up sometimes. Sometimes people do say because the jurors get asked if they recognize anyone in the courtroom. So sometimes they you know, it does come up. But I can't believe it's not every trial. What is wrong with everybody?

Daisy Keenan, I love you so much. Patrick, I love you more. Thank you for doing this. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so thrilled. I can't believe I'm meeting you, seeing you in person. And I recognize this background from all the reels on Instagram. I know. That's it. I know, I know. You're going to see yourself in one of these reels when this goes out. I know, it's going to be crazy. I'm obsessed with you. Thank you for doing this. Thank you so much for having me.

Oh, Cheesecakes, how much do we love Stacey Keenan? Don't forget to go check out her podcast, Keenan and Lakin Give You Deja Vu. And don't forget, Cheesecakes, I'm going on tour. I'm coming all over the country to get to meet all of you in person. Tickets for the first six cities go on sale next Monday, December 2nd. Those cities are Seattle, Los Angeles, Denver, Salt Lake City, Indianapolis, and New Orleans, with many more cities to be announced soon.

And, and, and, I'm doing a virtual Cheesecake Happy Hour this Tuesday at 7 p.m. Eastern with Golden Girls writer Stan Zimmerman. All the info is in the Facebook group, so just go there to check it out. And we'll be back next week for our regular recap of episode 22 and Jen's deep dive into the Estelle Getty, Sylvester Stallone movie, Stop or My Mom Will Shoot. You know you are dying to hear that. We love you, Cheesecakes, and we'll see you soon.

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Cheesecakes, Patrick here. The holidays are upon us and we just wanted to let you know you are going to be getting episodes from us every single week. We are taking no time off for the holidays. Just make sure you're subscribed to the Golden Girls Deep Dive podcast so you get our episodes as soon as they drop. And we love you.