The Mommies' Accidental TV Stardom

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer Show. I'm Ted Bonnitt.

I'm Phil Proctor, fresh from an Armenian lunch with mysterious food.

You wear it well, right?

I have my baby baklava here. And we're sitting with two lovely ladies today.

The Mommies.

Yes, the mommies.

The Mommies.

More like grandmommies Now.

That's Marilyn Kentz and Carol Christensen.

Kristen said the Danish version.

Easy for you to see.

So, ladies, you are performing now after a long history of successful performance as the Mommies. You had your own television show. You had a very popular talk show for a long time.

You had a Showtime special.

Yeah.

You're back doing a show again, and you've updated it, obviously. And now it's called the Last Trimester. And it's reflecting on your accidental road to fame and how easy it was to go down the Hollywood ladder.

I'm telling you, it was. That was the easiest thing.

Everybody has a shelf life in Hollywood, but for a very few. Yeah.

I always say that Hollywood is the only place you get stabbed in the front.

It's been 30 years since we worked together.

That's grand.

So you went to the Heights and then down to infomercials.

Yeah, we did.

Yes. Oh, pitiful infomercials.

I know.

Remember infomercials? I do.

We were reviewing that tape the other day and was like, why were we dressed like dental hygienists? It was like, some of the stuff they put us in, like, Marilyn's hair in the pilot that we did for our sitcom was, like, ridiculous.She looked like a showgirl.

What's wrong with that?

We're gonna talk about this whole arc of yours, which is pretty amazing. I wanna start where you started. You were a couple of homemakers in Petaluma, which is north of the Bay Area, and you were living in a cul de sac.

Yes.

At the bottom of the bag.

I grew up on a dead end followed by cul de sac.

Oh. Oh, okay.

It made me think when you talked about the cul de sac, the aspect of living in a cul de sac. I remember as a kid finally living on a through street when I was, like, 15 for the first time. And it was a psychological thing about cul de sacs.Are you're stuck. Yeah, we didn't feel stuck.

No.

The sense of privacy and exclusion, you.

Know, Again, we had fun, like, gossiping about all the other neighbors. That part was fun. But also, the cul de sac was a safe place for our young kids.

That's right.

And so that we.

As is a dead end. Dead end.

Oh, I lived in a dead end.

Yeah, Dead ends are great. I'm not saying they were. I'm not denigrating them. I'm just saying that they were a particular mindset for suburban living.Suburban living, absolutely. You were talking in your show about how you felt a little, I don't know, contained by that.

Well, we didn't let it contain. Marilyn used to throw these elaborate parts. She did an Amish deck raising and she got the neighbors to build her deck.But she provided costumes for everybody. So all the men had to wear fake beards and all the women wore bonnets. And we cooked while the men built the deck.And damn it, she got that deck built in one day.

Nice.

We wanted everybody to help us build the deck. And we just for Sarah, she had.

The big light up Elvis on an old Carmen Ghia on their driveway at Christmas time that she decorated. They would do like soap opera parties. And she made us.

And an All My Children party.

Yeah, All My Children.

This was in the 80s.

Yeah. And everyone had to come as she.

Gave us a character that you had to dress up. So she always had something up her sleeve.

When I saw the show, it seemed like you were suggesting that it was a little square and you were a little bored. And a lot of women at that time would turn to other devices to maintain themselves. Like Mommy's Little Helper.

Valium.

Valium.

Prozac.

Sure.

Valium was very big back then.

Oh yeah, Valium was big. Yeah.

I remember taking Valium once. Cause I worked at a pharmacy and so we got to. We always have samplers. I took a Valium and I thought, this is so absolutely enjoyable.I will never take it again.

I have to take it again.

Won't ever take it again.

So I used to take it before I dropped acid.

Oh God.

That was a good idea though. You could Valium down.

It was a nice trip. Nothing scary. But dropping acid was difficult. Cause I couldn't always find it. It was on the carpet.

Get down on all floors.

I think we're both restless souls, to be honest. She literally lived across the. And the first day I met her, she was trying to get her cat off the roof.And she was wearing a very suggestive nightgown and was hanging out her window. She couldn't see the cat, but she's trying to feel for it on the roof. And I thought, that's an interesting neighbor. And then she started having.Which is the irony is that she started doing parenting classes out of her house. And I was a very young mother. Like, I had my first son when I was 22, and I felt just really out of my league.And so I went over to her house, and they were actually great. She did a great job. Marilyn's a really good teacher, but it was really good. It was like she had the whiteboard and, what's the issue?And then, how do you get to the issue? And it was good. It was helpful.

So this is how you forged the friendship, and then, obviously, you shared a sense of humor.

Yes.

And then.

And I did do a lot of Solid gold dancing in my garage. I was actually a. I used to do flowers for weddings as a business side business. And so I'd be out there working.All the neighbors would come by, and then we'd put on the music, and of course, I'd end up humping the garage door. And they seemed to like it.

She was the fun one.

How did this become a network television show?

Oh, it was such an accident.

We needed to get out, so we went to a drama class, and we were terrible.

We saw a couple of bored suburban housewives deciding to make it in the big time. Yeah, but you weren't even aiming for that.

No, not at all.

So this was all accidental.

This is just to get out of this house and have some fun.

Yeah.

We weren't good at it. And Carol was doing the oh, my.

Darling, My, oh, my Lord, Dost thou need another drumstick for ye Renaissance fair? It was like every. Everything they gave us was like that. And I just said, meryl, I just.

I can't. We can't do it.

And then we did improv. And that's hard. Yeah, improv is very hard. And actually, one class, I didn't know what to do.

And you know what she did instead? They called out, we're both up on the stage together. And they called out, whatever it was.And she didn't know what to do, so she just walked to the side of the stage and banged her head on the wall. Banging her head. I just.

This is so bad. So then we left that. And then Marilyn.

How did the crowd react to that?

It was the other improv people who were like, oh, come on, it's my turn next. Say yes.

Say yes.

Yeah, say ye.

And then Marilyn got the big idea. We were gonna go to the National Speakers Association. It's like a big meeting. You know, where they go.

Peter Bergman used to go out.

That was of, like, infomercials. That was a big market back then.

It was in the 90s so this.

People were like, okay, I can perform without being a professional and be paid.

And all you have to do is say the word paradigm over and over again.

That was it. And so we went, my God, being in this room was like being with a bunch of realtors, only they didn't sell houses. Cause everybody had that look.Like the women all wore the Chanel knockoff suits with the piping, and the men wore toup. And they were all very full of themselves.

And what were you supposed to do?

We decided after being there, we got inspired to do humor in the workplace seminars. And we were gonna call ourselves Comedy Camp.

Yes.

With Kay.

No. No.

Oh, shut up. That's a good idea.

Like Cars for Kids. And we started writing it.And literally, as we're writing the material, it's like everything really revolved around our life as mothers and trying to make it all work and work, get the kids off to school and all of that. And so I just said to Marilyn one day, oh, my God, there's nothing corporate about what we're doing.We should just be Comedy Camp for Mommies in Maryland. Goes, I know where to find them. Yeah.

And that's when I called the local newspaper and told them it was a show for women who don't want sex more than once a month. And they sent a reporter right over.

Literally that day. That day. Marilyn goes, you gotta get over here. And I'm like, what? And so we rented the Petaluma Women's Club.We set up 100 chairs, and we did our first show.

And we didn't know what we were doing at all.

Did you have a good show?

Sold out.

Wow.

Totally sold out. Cause so. So we thought, okay, maybe these are just all our friends. But then we did it again.And the next article they did, I put my home phone number in the newspaper. I got 300 calls to my house.

Wow.

And I was like, okay, we're onto something.

Something here.

Get a nerve. And so then, from then on, it just took off like wildfire. It was crazy.

That was wonderful.

There were, like, comedy clubs. We would usually, we early on, talked them into letting us take their dark night. And we would get the door, and they would get the bar.And they were like, this is a good deal for us. We don't really have to do anything. And I think there was a club in Santa Rosa. We sold out, like, 18 months in a row.

Oh, my gosh.

On a Monday night.

So how were you coming up with your material? How were you?

Well, we liked it. I had tea.

So this is really trial by fire.

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Throw it up against the wall if it didn't work. But they just wanted to hear about their lives. And I used to say to Marilyn, oh, my God. All the male.All the comedy out there was really mostly directed at males. And they talked a lot about just. I always say it's called the woman's chooch. It's like going up, going down, around. And it was like.That was like, the last thing we cared about. It wasn't funny to us. It was like, we just want to hear about our lives. And so did these women. You didn't really have to say much.And we got a lot of material from women. Yeah.

And this is in the 80s was when the comedy clubs were coming up.

Yeah. So this was actually 1990.

90.

Yeah.

So it was pre Internet.

Yes.

Pre YouTube. You had to go out for entertainment.

Yeah. But we had 14 costume changes. We did dances. We had a ton of props and everything. It was.

So you were holding up a mirror to your audience and it was working.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. Because I had. I'm the one that had a son who got in, had to stay back in his junior year.The kid gets an F in English and a C in Spanish, for God's sakes.

Okay, so now this is starting to snowball, right? So right out of central casting, our manager showed up. Toting manager showed up.

Billy Cohen.

Billy Cohen.

He says, yeah, you don't have a manager. We said, no, I don't. And he literally. He was friends with Arthur Pryor, who ran MTM and managed Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart.And so they got us an agent. We signed with William Morris, and they wanted to put us on the road. And we freaked out. Cause we were like, what?Like, we don't want to leave our families. Like, we're really moms. We do the carpool. This isn't like a game for us. Like, we're just pretending.And so that was really hard because we went on that first tour, and Marilyn and I were miserable. We were like, we can't do this. We can't do this.

Because the tour would require you to go out for a week or two at a time.

Two.

Yeah. Yeah.

All over the country.

And there was no cell phones. There was no. There was Nothing.

No Internet, FaceTime.

So your family was pulled apart for show business.

Yeah. And that's not who we were. And then one time we were playing in Vegas, and Billy wanted us to become permanent opening act for Wayne Newton.I said, billy, you aren't getting it. We're really moms. We're not going to raise our kids in Vegas, son.

So I said, no, Donkerch. Yeah.

So you're turning down Wayne Newton in Vegas?

That's the kind of gig people back.

Then, that was like. He was like one of the first permanent actors.

Yeah, that was a big deal.

It was a big deal.

So you turned that down?

Yeah, we did.

Then what?

Then we just kept playing the Bay Area. And then Meryl and I, we did take a break because we were super stressed.And then Billy called and said, I booked you at the Montreal Just for Laughs Showtime Festival. Get your stuff together. And so we did, but we were clueless. We had no idea what it was.

Even Is that you didn't know.

What, the Montreal Comedy Festival?

No.

Biggest festival in the world.

We were living on a cul de sac. Are you kidding?

Living on a cul de sac.

My children are tardy. I'm having a party.

But my credit card was refused. Should I repair my damaged hair or buy me a new pair of shoes? Yo, go for the new pair of shoes. We digress.

And they were dancing. Oh, I wish you could see it, folks.

Now you're invited to the most prestigious comedy festival in the world.

But we didn't know what it was.

So we just went with it.

Wandered around.

So we get on the bus every night on the shuttle with a sweet, unknown comic you might have heard of named Dave chappelle. He was 18 at the time.

He was 18?

Yeah. And then we performed at a place called Club Soda, and every venue had all these famous comedians booked at them.And so Meryl and I went and we did our show, and we sold out, like, four shows in a row. And then we came home, and literally a week later, Billy called and said, you got an offer from abc, NBC, and CBS to do a sitcom.

Was there somebody up there who saw you?

Is that somebody? Yeah, because the comedy buyers. The comedy buyers were all going around.

But we didn't know that.

Wow.

Now you have offers from all three networks which are really.

Is this how you get a sitcom? And I won't say the cuss word, but he goes, are you kidding me, kids? It's a flipping miracle. Yeah.

Now you're suffering imposter syndrome more than immediately, but more than most, because you really came out of a cul de sac.

Yes, exactly.

We really. And comedians hated us.

Oh, yeah.

Because they were bitter that they'd been on the road for 20 years, trying, and they're like, who are these Chicks that show up out of nowhere and then get an offer from all three networks.

Okay, why the frenzy? What did they see in you?

The hook of the mommies. And I think Roseanne had touched on it. Her show was very popular, but that was in the day when a lot of comedians were getting sitcoms. Yes.

We went with NBC because CBS had Dr. Quinn, medicine woman, and we weren't into that. And ABC had Full House. We were like, oh, that's stupid. So we went with NBC because that.

Was Must See tv. It was Cheers and all of that. Then. So we went with them. And the producers that we hired had kids, our kids, ages.So we thought, oh, they really get us. They had produced the Golden Girls. And I think, really, we got in a lot of arguments with them. They wouldn't let us in the writing room.

Wait a minute.

What?

This made no sense.

They're doing a show about you and.

Your lives based on our comedy, and.

Yet you're not allowed in the writing process.

Correct. So they had stupid things.

So they're just doing formula.

It was very formulaic and really stupid.

And there was a.

Isn't that a sitcom?

Yeah, pretty much.

So we found out. Yeah. At one point, Carol's. She was pregnant. Not really pregnant, but her character was pregnant.And they decided that once she had the baby, that her character's gonna hire a nanny. If you live on a cul de sac in Petaluma, you don't hire nannies.

We didn't know anybody who had a nanny. And it was like, that was where all the conflict and the comedy came from. As a nanny. Like, I don't.

So now you're feeling like imposters in your own characters.

Oh, yeah. It was exactly a good point.

Carol Christensen and Marilyn Kent, who are.

The mommies, are sexy boomers.

It seems like you're having a good time.

Oh, we're having a great time.

Yeah. Even through these travails.

And we said it was like, this wasn't our whole life. It was just a piece of our lives. Yeah.

A network television sitcom was just a piece of your life.

It was. It was.

That's weird, because we didn't strive for it or think of it. It just happened.

But it was an adventure. We saw it more as an adventure.

Okay, so what's going through your head when they tell you can't come in the writing room?

We were pissed.

Oh.

We were. Brought us out with literally, because some of the writers really wanted to hear. Cause we had silly Petaluma stories. Getting a ticket.And the person in front of me. I had to pay for a ticket. And the person in front of me was there because he had bad lamps.And I thought it meant lamps, like in your living room, and they meant your car's lights. And we just. We could have done a little scene there with the whole.

Something that you could possibly connect in a genuine way.

Yes.

Translate to your audience like it did on stage.

Yeah. The pilot was all our standup.

Yeah.

And the pilot did really well and rated really high. It was all our material.

Yeah.

So common sense.

It's also so unfortunately common. Phil and I did it. We did a TV show for A and E about the future.

That's right.

It was a comedic take on the future. And I was producing. And I had been producing Phil and Peter Bergman for a couple years. I knew their beats, I knew how to write with them.And for them.

Radio station.

I sold it. We got an executive production company because ae, of course, wouldn't hire me. They didn't know who I was.

They wanted a showrunner.

So I knew a friend who. An acquaintance. He had a deal with them. They took the deal, we wrote the script. I booked everybody. Alvin Toffler, you name it.

John Goodman.

Everybody did a whole bit with John. And we walked on the set and they turned to me and said, now, Ted, I'm directing. If you have any ideas, you talk to me.

Ok.

They ignored me. They didn't know any of their beats. They had an NYU student cut John's choreographed comedy bit that we worked really hard on.

John Goodman.

John Goodman. And had some kid crash cut it and it died.

Oh.

And they buried it at 2 in the morning. And it was like, wow.

We would cringe because all the executives would come and the writers on the day when you did the run through.

Oh, yeah.

And they're all laughing at their horrible, stupid jokes. And we're like, that wasn't funny. Why are we laughing? That's not funny.

This is so cool.

And then the notes come back from the network and then they change it.

And they sweeten it at the end anyway.

But there were some perks to your fame because you moved south, you came to the Valley and you had kids. So you joined the Little League, right? We did, but it was no ordinary Little League, was it? It was celebrity Little League.

No. So Marilyn and I, we found ourselves really fish out of water, living down here in almost everything we did. And when we got here, my kids were just.I had two boys. We signed them up for Encino Little League. And we get there and now in petal limit. It's very sweet. All the kids wear their uniforms.They march to the park with the vets band playing in front. And then you get a snow cone and a hot dog. We go to Encino Little League, and we get there, it's opening day.The backstop is draped in this really beautiful, high quality fabric bunting. None of that party city stuff. And then the president of the. Of Warner Brothers was also the president of the Little League.So he brought all the cartoon characters to stand in the field in costume. Melissa Manchester sang the national anthem. Cybill shepherd threw out the first pitch. They were dedicating the field to Tito Jackson.And then at the end, my son goes, mommy, when do we get our hot dog? And I go, it's Encino Little League opening day. They're having tri tip on brioche buns.

Yeah, that's right.

It was like there was nothing.

Caviar cones.

Yes.

See, this would have been great material to incorporate in your show, right?

Yes, but no, they didn't want to hear it.

No.

Damn. So how long did the show last?

A season and a half. Really? I think it was almost two.

Well, I don't know if you all. And then we went through a whole year, and then we had another.

So we had like, the first order was 22 episodes, and then I think the second time we did not quite a full season, but close to.

So that's a lot of good work.

Did you do well, at least on the first season?

Oh, yeah. We put our kids through college.

Oh, you meant money. We didn't do well. Actually.

It doesn't much matter.

By the second season, we got a new executive producer who we really liked, Tim o', Donnell, who did Growing Pains and stuff. And he got us more. But the ship had sailed. It's like you get one shot and people watch and then they go away.

There's nothing like Fresh Blood in Hollywood, right?

I'll tell you who watched us. Our biggest audience was prisoners. Yeah.

Was that because of.

You had a captive audience?

You did because they didn't have cable in prison, right?

Yeah.

I think it was their punishment. It was like, oh, you tried to make a weapon out of your toothbrush. You're gonna have to watch the mommies.

No, no. We got a lot of mail from prisoners. I always suggested that they send back the photos laminated.

They're loyal.

They're very loyal.

Yeah.

Did you do any performing while you were.

Oh, yeah, we were doing stand. We did. We did a lot of standing.

And were you getting residual Audiences, obviously, from your fans.

Sure.

We had great audiences when we were in Boston and we were performing, and we got a call from the producer for Oprah saying, we're gonna fly you tomorrow to be on Oprah, and we'll fly you back for your show.

Wow.

So they literally helicoptered us.

No kids.

From o' Hare to Harpo. So that we could make. Because we said, we have to be back the next night. We gotta be back in time to do our show.And they're like, okay, we can do it. So they flew up, helicoptered us to Harpo, back to the plane, and my husband was like, you said no small planes and no helicopters.I'm like, yeah, but it was Oprah.

So the show ends after a season and a half.

Yeah.

Now what?

We got to do a Showtime special.

Okay. Now, was that Tyson fight, Was that your first step down the ladder, you think? Or was that a lateral move?

Oh, I don't know. It was so much more fun.

So I'd say that was a step up. Yeah.

Yeah, a little bit. I mean, you know, especially that kind.

Of slipped by at the Tyson fight.

Yeah.

How in God's name I know. Did that happen?

Now you're like, yeah.

Now we're like. So we became friends with the woman who produced our Showtime special, but she also did the live fights at the MGM grand in Vegas for Showtime.

Oh.

So she would invite us to the fights.

Yeah.

And we were fish out of water there. There were celebrities beyond celebrities. And of course, I don't recognize Meryl, to be truthful.

Marilyn is. She's so lame when it comes to celebrities.I had to develop a signal so that when we were with somebody who was famous and I felt like they needed to be recognized, and she had no idea I'd say, hey, mama. That was the code. Hey, Mama.

Hey, Mama.

Hey, mama.Only at the Tyson fight, we go to this dinner that Judy, our producer, had invited us to, and it was literally like 12 people, and it was Don King, Robert shapiro during the O.J. trial. Run DMC, the rap group, Jesse Jackson Jr. And us. So we're talking to Run DMC and this one, blank.

I don't know. She's trying to say, hey, Mama. And I'm looking all around the room.

I said, oh, my God. I'm going, hey, Mama. Nothing, Nothing.

But you got intimate with Don King, didn't you?

Yes, I did. I did. Intimate.

No, clearly. It's like Judy comes over to me, and she goes, what is Marilyn doing? And I said, looks like she's running her hands through Don King's hair.

Vertically.

Yes, vertically.

I was getting his hair as tall as I could.

All the way to heaven, baby. She loved Aquanet back in the day when. In the 60s. And I could just see she was wishing she had it in her pocket to just spray it all up.

And he was cool.

Yeah. Oh, he was more than cool. He was digging her.

I never recognized anybody. Jeffrey Dahmer can walk right past me, chewing on somebody's leg, and I wouldn't get it.

You're in Vegas for this fight? This is the infamous fight?

Yes.

Oh, this is the Tyson Holyfield fight.

When Tyson bit off Holyfield.

Yes. So we were ringside. Marilyn and I are ringside. And yet we got there, and our husbands were with us, too.

That's hilarious. Just the thought of you two.

Yeah. Like, hardly the demographic they're looking for. Right.

But it was Judy. It was the producer who got us, but still.

And the taxi driver says. We ended up telling the taxi driver we had ringside seats.He said, oh, if you want to sell those tickets, I could sell them probably for $10,000 a piece. And my husband looks at me, and I'm like. Like, don't even think about it. We're not gonna show up and have Judy sitting next to God knows who.

Yeah.

Carol sold us your tickets.

Did you see that happen? Were you watching that moment?

Yes. We were ringside. And literally, he spit out the ear, narrowly missing the cute little Hawaiian dress I was wearing.And then we had to leave because all hell broke loose because he got disqualified, Right?

Yeah. And the audience went crazy.

Cause they'd spent all this money to go to the fight. And then it ended in the third round. So people were ticked off, and so they started throwing food and drinks and screaming obscenities.And so it just. The whole place got tense in a weird vibe. And so we were like. We got. And my husband. Our husbands were like, we're out of here.

Look. Come on. A fight in Vegas, that kind of money, that's a whole nother aspect of human nature.

Yeah. And it attracts a certain audience. Yeah.

And instead, they got an earring.

My wife and I were coming. My wife and I were coming home one evening in our. We just live. We park on the street. And there was one spot open, and I needed to take it.But there was a guy sitting on the tailgate of an suv, like a car, and he's intently looking at his screen on his phone, and his legs are hanging off, and I don't want to crush his legs. And he just keeps on being very careful. And as I'm doing that, he looks at me and goes, go ahead, park. Park. He gets very intact. Just really anxious.And I do. He goes, no, it's fine. And I get out of the car and I say, I recognize that it was Floyd Mayweather.

Oh, my God.

I go in the house and I go, wait a minute. Because I'm also the same way about celebrities. And I go. And I go, yeah.And I read real quickly online like that everybody was ridiculing him for a comeback. He wanted to win his 50th and come out of retirement the third time to win his 50th fight. So I gotta walk the dog.So I go out there and walk the dog, and I come. I said, are you Floyd? He goes, yeah, man. I said, what are you doing here?

What are you doing in front of our house?

He's all by himself. He goes, oh, I love this neighborhood, man. I come here, I just love this neighborhood. Nobody bothers me. I said, sorry.And he said, my sister lives in the marina, and everybody always comes around and grabs at me. And I said, hey, listen. I said. I said, it's our secret, and welcome to the neighborhood. And can I get you anything to drink? Right. No, that's cool.He goes, come here. He goes, come here. And he comes over and he says he's watching YouTube videos. Of Connor? No, of Conor McGregor. Oh. And he's going, this punk ass.I'm gonna kick this punk ass.

Kick his ass.

I'm gonna kick ass. Yes. And he said, bet on me. Bet on me as I'm leaving. And I said, okay. And I'm walking away. He goes, come here. You want a selfie? And I said, sure.So we take a selfie.

Oh, that's cute.

And he was so sweet. And, like, everybody was laughing at him. A year later, he made it happen.

Yeah, he did.

He made $300 million on that fight. And he's sitting in the back of that car dreaming it up. And that's. I realized the dynamics of the fight industry is That's a real competitor.Incredible. Incredible.

So when we went to the fight, we were leaving, and then we're in this corridor that connects the casino and the MGM grand arena, and all of a sudden you hear this pop, which clearly was gunfire.

And then later, they said, oh, no, they were just popping champagne bottles.

Yeah.

Which was BS Cause a champagne cork sounds just like a gunfire.

And so literally in that cork, thousands of people who were leaving the fight turn around and run in the opposite direction. And the adrenaline is like running through me. And I'm just thinking, I don't want to die in Vegas.And Meryl and her husband scooped behind this big marble pillar smartly. She's smart. Yeah. I was not so clear headed. And so I dove through a big open window of an Italian restaurant because it was the first opening I saw.And there was a window box out front. And I dove and did a ninja roll on a spaghetti bolognese for four. And then I ended up in the kitchen.And my husband was like, why didn't you just take the door? And I'm like, I don't know. I didn't see the door. And then he asked me if I got any breadsticks. And I was just like.And I went back the next day, the window box was gone. Cause I had just mowed it down.

What was that about? Did you ever find out?

We heard that they would comp a lot of gangs. Gang members. Wow. And that they wanted to rob the casino. So they shot blanks. And then what they did was they locked the doors to the casino.Like you can't get in or out. And then what they do is they tip all the tables with the chips into the pit because they know that they're trying to create chaos.And so all those chips and everything go into the pit and then they cover it all up. And then they.

That sounds like a great night out.

It was wild. So we did the Showtime special and then the Showtime special begot the talk show.

The Showtime special was your material?

Yes.

So you got to do your thing.

And it was fun.

So that was satisfying.

Yes.

Is it still available? Can people see it?

Yeah, it's actually on YouTube.

It's on YouTube, I think.

Yeah, it's on YouTube.

Great. Cool. And from there you got a talk show?

Yes.

On abc?

On abc.

Because the president of NBC Television actually ended up going to Viacom. He just always was a big supporter and believer in us. He signed us at NBC and then he moved over to Viacom and said this would be a great talk show.And so we did a deal with Viacom and abc and then we did that.

What was the name of the show?

Carolyn. Marilyn. Carolyn.

Marilyn. Yeah. Real.

It was like 10 in the morning, wasn't it? 10 in the morning?

Yeah. 10 in the morning.

Was it syndicated?

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Marilyn and I were in Little Italy in New York one day and we're walking down the street and I kind of spy out of my private eye. I see JFK Jr. The cute one with his wife, and they're eating dinner.

Code word.

And, oh, I didn't have a chance to. Hey, Mama.

Her.

And I was just like, who is that?

And I was like, yeah, hey, Mama.

Of course I'm not gonna say anything, but he's out on one of the. Those kind of patios, and we're walking past, and he jumps up from the table and he comes over and he goes, if it isn't the mommies.

Always.

And I was like, oh, my God, how do they know who they. This was the part that used to blow us away because we never felt famous. And it was just like, how does he know who we are?And he said, I get on the treadmill every morning and I watch your talk show while I work out.

So you had great fans and you had a good time with the talk show. I saw some clips.

We had a great time.

You could do your thing.

Yes.

Yeah. It was so much better. And Carol and I, we are easy friends. And so there wasn't. It was just fun and easy to do. And yet Rosa Parks came on the show.And I just was so excited.

We show the picture in our live show. The picture of Marilyn and Rose. I was actually in that picture. She cut me out of it. That's right.

How long did the Doctor last? The Doctor last?

It was about a year and a half, too.

And then Barbara Walters came back and said.

Wanted our time slot.

Her. She could have our time slot because she was fighting with Diane Sawyer over stories and the fact they let Diane Sawyer host 20 20.And so they just said, look, Barbara, if you stay at abc, we'll give you the time slot for the View. And then that's when the View placed us.

So this was definitely a step down the ladder at this point.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

It got canceled.

They didn't offer you another time slot.

Yeah. So, yeah, so we got offered an infomercial. We really went down the Hollywood ladder. And we sold Walk Away cookware.

Cookware. It's like a Crockpot. The whole thing was.

Supposedly the idea was that you could. You start the meal on the stove, and then you put the top on it.

She's going into it.

And you put it in your car and you just walk away.

You could put it in your.

And so the chili would put it in your car. Yeah, the chili would keep cooking while you were gone. Cause it was like this double insulated. It got so hot.It was like a crock pot that you didn't have to plug in.

So after work, you get in the car.

And someone says, oh, the whole concept of it was ridiculous. My son, who's been helping us with the media for the show, he goes, ma, did you realize how much they were asking for that damn thing?

He looked it up.

No, because on the thing it says three payments of 59.95. It's like it was expensive.

Well, because three quarters of it was marketing.

Yeah.

Oh, it was really. And then we did QVC and all that, and we were like, oh, we went. We really went down the Hollywood ladder.

That's a weird world.

Yeah.

So infomercials.

Walk away. Just walk away.

Yeah. And we did.

You walked away?

We walked away. We moved back up north.

So you left Hollywood?

He did. I stayed.

Yeah.

I did first. Yeah. Yeah.

Could you go back to the cul de sac at that point?

No, I can never go home right now.

This has only been a space of, what, 10 years, if that.

Oh, no, I think it was more.

Than that at the time.

We.

I don't know.

Maybe about 10 years.

It was a lifetime.

Okay, let's call it 10 years.

It was a lifetime.

Yeah. Yeah. And then I. I became a college counselor.

Really?

I did.

I went back to ucla, got my certification, and I would counsel kids on how to get into college.

Not show business.

No. Interesting. But I worked with a lot of show business families.

And Marilyn. What did you do?

We moved up north, and I just went back to my hippie way.

And she's an artist, and she taught art classes.

Yes, I do. My daughter was going to college up in Berkeley. That was my motive for going there. Yeah.

Do you know Marilyn had a business card, and it said on your business card, you put your credentials and Marilyn under Marilyn's name, it says itsac.

Yeah, I took some art classes.

Because you didn't live for this career, you kind of.

It was easy to let go.

You didn't have any withdrawal.

It was kind of transition when you were.

We were in Oprah's helicopter, for God's sake.

Yeah. But then we were selling walkaway cookware. We're done.

And the sitcom. At least you didn't get bitter.

No.

And I. Yeah, we didn't get bitter. Just a little.

I felt like when we were doing a live show.

Bittersweet.

I really felt like we had something to say. And then I didn't feel like that anymore. I just felt like I said it all. I'm done. And then I was like. It was fun.

And you have since moved back.

I moved back to Petaluma.

Yeah. Okay.

And my husband and I built a house, and we're actually living on a farm.

Oh, nice.

Farming flowers.

So full circle, right?

Why, absolutely.

And it seems like the disassociation you had with it from the beginning, the genuine.And not in a negative way, the genuine imposter syndrome that you felt protected you from the inevitable disappointments that so many people suffer in show business.

Yes. We didn't feel like a failure. We just moved on to the next thing.

How great.

Very good.

That's really wonderful.

And it's funny that you said that, because I think a lot of people. Thing was that when they would ask us, like, oh, yeah, I know.

And we're good.

We're like, no, we're good. If we had been syndicated, that would have been fun. Would have been good.

Sure, you went back and you went your separate ways, but you didn't give up your friendship.

We partnership. But she was up in Northern California, and then I was in Southern California, so it wasn't like it was conducive to working together necessarily.We both were on a different trajectory. And then. And then a couple years ago, when I moved back, I actually went to a birthday party for Marilyn. With her.

With my 75th, I think.

Yeah. For your girl group in solving. And on the way up, we were talking, and I said, what do you think about.Should we attempt, like, something to do it again? I said, Cause I don't know about you, Marilyn, but everywhere I go, people ask me questions like, what was that like?And what was it like to do a sitcom and stuff? And people were fascinated by the story because. Because it was such an interesting way of getting a sitcom.

Yeah.

Yeah. But on top of that, our goal in the first iteration of the Mommies was to let women know that they're not alone.So we would talk about my bad teenagers or my daughter having a hissy fit or something, that they were like.

Oh, okay, I'm okay.

Yeah, we're not alone. And so in this new version, we want aging people. We're both grandmas, and I'm 78. Go to bed by 8. But we. Yeah, so it's the same goal.We want women to feel like they're not alone.

I just think the whole aging thing is. It's gotten away from us. I think people had an easier time aging back in the day, whereas now there's such pressure to, like, still look.

Like your father because they died 20 years earlier than you.

That's true.

That's true.

That's a good reason.

But I also think that there's things that we can do to stay relevant and active. And it's don't quit on life. Don't quit on life. You want to do something, go for it.

I think that's the key word. Relevancy. Anyone who's a free thinker, who wants to still be a participant, relevancy is the biggest threat to becoming older.And yet you're still holding up the mirror as you always have done, and your audience has aged with you. There's still. Your material is still very universal, universally relevant. Right.

Yeah.

But you're doing it again, and the show is very funny. You're reflecting the indignities of age, among other things.

Yeah.

It's like when there was a PSA on the television show. Okay. That said it was against women or anyone taking meth, but I heard it as math.And so this woman comes on and says, my life was just fine until I did math. And I'm thinking, I hate math, too, but did it ruined your life?

You've done about 15 shows in this new iteration. Where are you going from here?

We're thinking podcast.

I think you should do it. Podcast.

Oh, definitely.

You should do a podcast.

We'll be your first guest.

Oh, yeah. That'd be awesome.

More than welcome.

Yeah. It's the stories to tell, advice to impart. Oh, I think it's gonna be okay.

I think it would be ideal for what you're doing.

I think just, like, encouraging people to just keep at it. It's like, you don't have to just sit in a chair and watch TV because you're over there.

I do like that.

Yeah. How can people get in touch with.

We haven't. We don't have a website, but we do have an Instagram account. It's called the Mommies 2025.

The Mommies25.

And the same thing on Facebook.

The Mommies 2025.

M O M M I E S.

To look up Carol Christensen and Marilyn Kent. Mommies. Thank you, Carol and Marilyn, for coming on the show. What a delight.

So great getting to know you.

Yeah, likewise. We wish you all the best. Keep us posted.

We will.

We'll be watching that last trimester.

Yeah, that's right.

You're listening to Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer Show.

Can't believe it goes by so quickly.

Yes. I'm Ted Bonnitt.

I'm Phil Proctor.

Thanks so much for listening.

Bye.

Bye.