How Anne Beatts Taught Me To Rebel
I always tried to be a good girl. I have learning disabilities so some things like doing double division, using scissors, cursive, keeping my desk clean, was simply impossible for me. So I always tried to be a good girl. I was quiet in class, raised my hand, and read more than everyone else in the class. I went to Catholic school so I tried to read the Bible every night and I said the rosary. Until Fall 1982.
My father called me one night in September. “There’s a new show I don’t think you should watch,” he said.
“Okay, what show is it?”
“God, I wrote it down,” I heard muffling on the line. “Oh yeah, Square Pegs.”“Daddy, that’s supposed to be a good show. Sarah Jessica Parker, she was one of the Annies, is in it…”
“I don’t care. It’s supposed to be bad for kids. I just read a review in the paper.” At the time the TV reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle was Terrence O’Flaherty, a man who had a fondness for Bob Hope and often badmouthed Hollywood people he didn’t like.
“Let me talk to your mother,” he ordered. Mom was worrying if she was going to get laid off from her insurance job, but she went over to the phone. “Yes, what is it?” Then I heard her say “Uh-huh” “Okay.” “Sure.” She studied her nails as she listened to him talk. She hung up the phone.
“I can’t watch Square Pegs,” I said, pouting. “Daddy said I couldn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“You heard Daddy. I can’t watch the show.”
“What time is the show?”
“Eight on Mondays.” It would be against That’s Incredible! and Little House, which had gone downhill since the character Nellie Oleson left the year before.
“That’s an hour before your bedtime. You can watch it if you finish your homework.”
“But Daddy said…”
She held up her hand. “I’ll watch it with you. Do you want to watch that show? Let’s watch it.”
So that was my first rebellion against my father-and patriarchy in general- was watching Square Pegs. The teenagers on the show were glamourous. I knew if Parker (who played nerdy Patty) took off her glasses, she would be beautiful. Her best friend Lauren (Amy Linker) would be beautiful just when the braces were removed. Muffy (Jami Gertz) reminded me of the go-getters in my class who always seemed perfect and were on the student council. I wished boys like Johnny Slash (Merritt Butrick) and Marshall Blechtman (John Femia) existed in real life, boys who were odd yet kind. Especially Johnny, who was very New Wave and if he liked something would say: “Totally, man. Totally.” It felt oddly thrilling, watching a TV show my father wouldn’t approve of. What I didn’t know was the show’s creator Anne Beatts was used to rebelling.
Beatts was the first woman writer for the National Lampoon magazine. She had to learn to hold her own with the men, and soon got a nickname: Ball Buster. Her most famous contribution was to the Encyclopedia of Humor. On the page was a photo of a VW Beetle submerged in water. The text read: “If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkswagen, he’d be President today,” Ouch. They faced a lawsuit from Volkswagen and they had to remove the ad from future books.
It didn’t stop Beatts from being hired at Saturday Night Live, the new variety show her boyfriend Michael O’Donoghue was going to write for. She dared to disagree with Lorne Michaels, the producer of the show, by saying she disliked Lily Tomlin’s TV specials (Michaels co-produced the specials) and liked Cher because she wore outrageous clothes. Beatts and Rosie Shuster created the Nerds sketches. The nerds were Todd and Lisa and were played by Bill Murray and Gilda Radner. One sketch came under fire: When Lisa played the Virgin Mary in a holiday pageant, and the show’s censor told the writers: “You cannot give noogies to the Virgin Mary!” Todd was always on the noogie patrol and gave them often to Lisa. It was explained several times that Gilda was not playing the Virgin Mary, she was playing Lisa who was playing the Virgin Mary in a holiday show. Yes, this is convoluted.
Michaels decided to leave the show in 1980, so the performers and writers followed suit. Beatts headed for Hollywood and created Square Pegs. She made the show stand out: she hired five-woman writers for the show, thinking they would know how to write for teen girls. She hired a young writer named twenty-four-year-old Andy Borowitz, his first big writing job. Three other men were hired. Edie Baskin who the photography on SNL did the opening credits in pastels. The Waitresses performed the theme song. Unlike other teen sitcoms like Happy Days or Facts of Life, there was no wise adult to give counsel to the kids. They were pretty much on their own. Every episode started off with this dialogue:
Lauren: Listen. I’ve got this whole high school thing psyched out. It all breaks down into cliques.
Patty: Cliques?
Lauren: Yeah, you know. Cliques. Little in-groups of different kids. All we have to do is click with the right clique, and we can finally have a social life that’s worthy of us.
Patty: No way! Not even with cleavage.
Lauren: I tell you, this year we’re going to be popular.
Patty: Yeah?
Lauren: Yeah. Even if it kills us.
There were backstage rumors of drugs (Beatts disputed the rumors) There were also rumors Beatts was short-tempered, something she admitted to TV Guide: “I snapped people’s heads off. But I usually regretted it afterward.” CBS canceled Square Pegs. Yet the show left its mark inspiring other shows like Degrassi Junior High, My So-Called Life, and Freaks and Geeks. As Johnny Slash would say, it totally made a difference.
Beatts did the first season of A Different World. The show was a rating hit (it was right after Cosby Show) and she created the iconic characters Dwayne Wayne and Whitley Gilbert (played by Kadeem Harrison and Jasmine Guy) There were rumors Beatts didn’t get along with the show’s star Lisa Bonet. Both of them were fired by Bill Cosby by the end of the 1987–1988 season. Beatts wrote scripts and taught TV writing, mentoring students. Her last credit in the 2004’s 56th Annual Writers’ Guild Awards.
When she died, all I could think of was Square Pegs. It helped me make a small rebellion by not listening to my father who thought he knew best. I looked for her to be mentioned in New York Times’ The Lives They Lived section and didn’t see her mentioned. I suddenly had an image of Johnny Slash looking at the website, shaking his head, then saying “They totally missed it, not writing about Anne.”
Totally, man. Totally.
