118 Frizzy Fitness transcript (Richard Simmons)

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Michael: [00:00:00] Famous and gravy listeners, Michael Osborne here. I've got two things to say before we start today's episode. First, we could really use your help growing the show and there's a very simple thing you can do. Leave a review for Famous and Gravy on Apple Podcasts. If you're listening on Apple, you just scroll down on our show page, tap the Stars, and write a few words.

These reviews help feed Apple's algorithm and help new listeners to find our show. The second thing is, if you yourself are interested in starting your own podcast and you wanna learn about how we built Famous and Gravy, we would love to have a conversation. Our email, as always is hello@famousenggravy.com.

So two things. Please write a review, and if you're fantasizing about your own show, please reach out. That's it. Thanks again. Let's get to it.

John: This is Famous Eng Gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at [00:01:00] hello@famousenggravy.com. Now here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

Michael: This person died 2024, age 76. His TV show went into national syndication in 1980. He went off the air in 1984, but he developed a wide array of other products and performances to replace his show,

Friend: 80 to 84. Bob Hope. Oh. Keep going. What? Oh, the guy from, what is that house with the two girls and the full house?

Full house. Not

Michael: Bob

Friend: Saggot.

Michael: Not Bob Saggot. He described himself to the Denver Post as a loner with few friends whose main company consisted of pet dalmatians and live-in maids. That's

Friend: kind

Michael: of a

Friend: weird combination. This is, people are getting this one. I'm not getting it. Oh my goodness. Who wrote

Michael: Salinger?

Not JD Salinger. [00:02:00] Good guess. Even people encountering him by chance reported that he was the same man they saw on tv. He had the uncanny authenticity of genuinely outrageous people.

Friend: Alan, fun. That's just outrageous. Jerry Springer,

Michael: not Jerry Springer. Good guess. We actually did a Jerry Springer episode recently, but that's a good guess.

People magazine once called him quote, a Hyperkinetic elf in an emerald green tracksuit and the clown Prince of Fitness.

Friend: Oh, um, the guy with the Afro. Oh. Richard Simmons. Richard Simmons. Richard Simmons. Richard Simmons.

Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Richard Simmons'.

Archival: How does someone love themselves? When they don't love who they see in the mirror, well, you gotta love more than what you see in the mirror. It's not all about our, our visualness, it's about what's inside. [00:03:00] What are your accomplishments? Did you go to school? Do you have a job that you like? There's so many things that you can pat yourself on the back and I say build on your success.

Don't build on your failures. You can say, oh, I didn't do this. I didn't marry this one. I didn't graduate. I lost this job I had, was it a car accident? And the plane goes down. This is all I care about doing. You know, other people had many other aspirations. If God lets me do this, I just keep doing it 'cause I know wanna make a difference because I want everyone in this class to live to be honored.

Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne. And I'm John Watts. And on this show we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century and we take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?

Richard Simmons died 2024, age 76. [00:04:00] I'm sad he's dead. I don't want him to be dead. It's fresh. You're actually getting emotional.

John: I'm trying to be, I'm giving Richard Simmons, you know, he would just cry at the drop

Michael: format. I need to introduce you a little bit. So John has been on the show a couple times. He joined us for Steve Irwin, Jerry Springer.

We did a Michael Creon episode, my

John: intellectual episode. Yeah,

Michael: you're you're Smart Pants episode. And then we're like, screw this back to daytime tv. Yeah. Richard Simmons. And honestly, I mean,

John: this is where I belong.

Michael: You've been building up to this one. Yeah. Uh,

John: this is my home. I

Michael: have to ask, talk to me about whether or not Richard Simmons was an important person in your life.

John: Oh my gosh. Okay, so if you were a fat kid in the eighties, how

Michael: fat were

John: you? I was pretty fat. I was a fat kid. Really? I was. Yeah, I was. I was definitely, I was rocking those husky jeans from Sears. Okay, okay.

Michael: You're not fat now.

John: No, I'm not fat now because of Richard Simpson. No, I'm just kidding. He

Michael: didn't, I mean, well, that is kind of the question.

I mean, did he Yeah.

John: Play a role? He put me on a diet at, I think 12 [00:05:00] years old. Then I found out about the videotapes. We got sweat into the oldies.

Michael: No way.

John: Picture it. South Bend, Indiana, maybe. No way. Yes. Wow. I was a triple threat, fat, gay, and dyslexic. Right. You know, I had it all going on. So I feel like that I'm uniquely positioned to be here today.

Yeah.

Michael: Lots to talk about in there and in here. So let's get to it. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Richard Simmons, who with dances, confessions, screeches, comedy sketches, and pep talks, established himself as America's most popular fitness instructor. Died on Saturday at his home in Los Angeles.

He was 76.

John: I think it's fine.

Michael: This was disappointing somehow, like there's so much to say and the rest of the obituary is quite elegant.

John: Yeah. The whole thing is great. The first sentence is a real snooze.

Michael: It's all verbs in a way, right? It

John: dances, confession, screeches.

Michael: It's just this sort of like scattershot of things that are kind of fun.

[00:06:00] Yeah. But when assembled together, the sum is less than the individual parts. Yeah. There's dances, there's confessions, there's screeches. Yeah. Screeches is, it's actually a boring word. That should be

John: fun. That should do some work. And it doesn't. There are many, uh, synonyms I would've chosen other than those, you know, but yeah.

Michael: Comedy sketches is not really a thing. I know him for,

John: he did that on his talk show, and No, I know they exist,

Michael: but I don't think like, oh, Richard Simmons, the guy who did comedy

John: sketches. That's comedy. Yeah. Right.

Michael: I mean that's, that's not a primary association. Yeah. And pep talks. Okay, good. Yes. Now

John: we're getting a little closer to 'em.

You're right. It is like they just threw a bunch of stuff at the wall and the only thing they got right. I think really America's most popular fitness instructor. That

Michael: was the one like high compliment, that was it. Most popular fitness instructor.

John: Mm-hmm. And

Michael: an unlikely one. I like that superlative, but there's a lot I just wanted in here.

How about the hair? How about the outfits? The iconic look? How about [00:07:00] the uh, the dolphin shorts? I mean, he's almost like, even if you were gonna do it in a derogatory way, you could say like, near manic or outrageous personality. Outrageous.

John: I could have seen that. Something about glitter. There's no personality in

Michael: here.

Right. This doesn't get at like his spirit, his energy, his charisma. Yeah. The effect he had on people. His like next level empathy, you know, his cultural

John: impact and advocacy.

Michael: It also doesn't get at any of his story.

John: I think he was also. Later in his career, mostly known for all of the talk show appearances he made.

Right. That was a big piece that people really remember. I mean,

Michael: he was a proto influencer having a unique message of fitness and connecting with a larger audience and having multiple properties, whether it's video cassettes or events or product lines. Yeah, I mean, Richard Simmons was doing all of that stuff decades before, so this doesn't get at his sort of pioneering quality.

It doesn't get at anything. He just danced, he confessed, he screeched. There's some comedy such The Ultimate

John: American [00:08:00] entrepreneur. Yeah. These fitness influencers have nothing on Richard Simmons.

Michael: I agree. Here's the other thing, John. If I'm the author, I should have

John: been more mad.

Michael: Well, I hope I'm taking whatever your score is and bringing it down because if I was the author of this.

I would've been like, giddy to write the first line of the open. I would've have been like, oh, this is the opportunity of a lifetime

John: baby. I would've woke, I would've been awake at 3:00 AM Yeah. Coffee in hand, writing

Michael: it and rewriting it.

John: I would just, I would have a quill in a, in a, in a parchment. I would feel like I was giddy.

I would write it in blood, getting my oats of this, and this person just like, yeah. Farted something out.

Michael: Yeah, I, yeah.

John: Yeah. So it's not,

Michael: it's not very good, is it?

John: No, it's not good. I think the best part was America's most popular fitness instructor.

Michael: The more I look at it, it's almost like a petering out to a superlative.

John: Mm. You know, like

Michael: they're sort of like, oh, and I guess he was the most popular fitness,

John: so maybe this person was really having a bad day. I've got my

Michael: score. Do you want me to go [00:09:00] first?

John: Yeah, you go first.

Michael: I'm giving this a three.

John: I gave it a four.

Michael: Okay. This needs to be low, man. Yeah. They could have done better.

They should. They have done better. Should've done better. Better. It should have been. This should have been the one of the best sentences America has ever experienced.

John: They've given way better sentences to those. Less deserving, I think.

Michael: Exactly. You know, we're joking about it, but he is such a singular figure.

Yeah. You'll never get the chance to write a line like this again, so swing in a mess, man. Three and a four. Let's move on. Category two. Five things I love about you here, John and I will develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who this person was. And how they lived. I would love for you to kick us off.

What do you have for thing number one?

John: I have body positivity. Fore runner with a little question mark. Why the question mark? I have a little ellipses question mark. Because it was the eighties. He apparently had an ellipses thing, didn't he? He loved ellipses. Yeah. I guess he was an ex. Yeah, he looked punctuation.

That one. Yeah.

Michael: Maybe describe the thing and then tell me why the question mark.

John: Okay. So unlike other sort of, you know, workout tapes, featuring [00:10:00] like models, dancers, you know, actors,

Michael: beautiful people. Actors. Actors, beautiful actors, actors, actresses. Yeah. Chiseled and Suzanne Summer Shapers. Yeah. You know,

John: he showcased everyday people.

Yes. In sweat to the oldies videos. Yes. Um, they were the people who would come to his fitness studio, Slimmons. They were visibly overweight people in the front row. Yeah. It wasn't like he was putting them in the back row. They were in the front row dancing next to him. This is absolutely vanguard. For that time period, it's

Michael: still not done that much.

Right. I mean, he had a connection with people who had issues around eating. We'll get into that more as we go. Absolutely. But I mean, and this was his community, but that's who he was there to represent.

John: Yeah.

Michael: And put on camera. I mean, that's your point. Yeah, yeah,

John: yeah. I would say like the majority of the people were just, you know, normal people.

Michael: Mostly women. You mostly women bodies. It's like sprinkle

John: a dude in there, you know? Yeah. Like a token man. A token dude. And like Yeah. And that makes it feel more welcoming to people who [00:11:00] want to explore fitness. Also, you're doing it at home on this speech chest, and you see yourself in that video. And as most of us know now, in the year of our Lord, 2025, visibility matters.

Michael: I'm trying to understand. Your question mark.

John: Uh, well, you know, I think the other thing about this time periods, uh, it just, fitness was still so new and so every, it felt very sort of exclusive and aspirational, and he made everyone's participation visible. Like beginning,

Michael: democratized fitness in a way.

It's not just an LA thing. This is exercise is good for everybody in America. Older people, younger people, disabled people even.

John: Yeah. And, and I think, like, you know, he said, you, you don't even need leg warmers. Yeah. And a tight butt to come in here, forget the leotard, just get on the floor and dance. But the reason I have this question mark is was he really proponent of body positivity?

Because there was still that sort of tough love about Richard Simmons with people who of a size, he was very much like, no, you gotta change.

Archival: Americans are sweating over a lot [00:12:00] of things right now, but not their workouts. Look, you can sit around all day long and go on and off those flavor of the month diets, but you will never succeed in your goals to feeling better until you find an exercise program you can fall in love with.

Michael: What is interesting is that it's not just representation, it's also visibility. When you are marginalized, and I think this is true to this day, with the kind of judgment we bring to how we look at people in the most literal way, some people don't get seen. Mm-hmm. He's seeing them. Right. And there's love, you know, and you see him expressing love, right Through visibility.

Great. Number one show, uh, let me give you my number two.

John: Please do.

Michael: I wrote from waiter to weightlifter. So this book, his memoir still hungry after all these years, which the picture of him on the covers of Buzz, it's him holding a, he's nibbling a fork. A fork. He's for nibbling a fork.

John: It's his glamor shot.

It's amazing. If you haven't seen this, please immediately [00:13:00] search word. It's true. I died.

Michael: Yeah, it's good. So this has been sitting on my bedside table and I've been a little bit like, oh God, okay. I've gotta read this. This book is awesome. Yeah, this book fan fantastic. And it goes right to my thing. Number two, I did not know the backstory.

First of all, he grew up with, I don't know what you call it in terms of the language of eating disorders, but there are problematic, if not pathological patterns that emerged at a very young age. He was very heavy growing up. He was raised in a household where food was love and other forms of love were kind of absent.

Right. You know? Right. His dad's a real problematic. Right. His dad's kind of an interesting figure 'cause he's strict and his dad and mom had been in show business. Yeah. But his dad hid that history from him and he was a stay at home dad in the fifties, which was kind of unusual. Yeah. They're in New Orleans anyway in high school.

You know, becomes friends with a bunch of different girls. Some of them introduce him to diet pills at [00:14:00] one point. Mm-hmm. Later he's out of high school. Somebody shows him sort of the mechanics of bulimia. Yeah. He, at one point is almost 300 pounds.

John: Yeah. He loses 125 pounds in two months.

Michael: Yeah. Starves himself at one point, fully starves himself, had some water and dangerously starves himself, winds up in the hospital at some point.

So he does have a relationship with food that even as he gets fit comes with a tremendous amount of rules and structure.

John: It's fraught Right. Throughout his life. Right. His relationship with food.

Michael: So as you're reading the book, you're like, when is the moment where Richard Simmons becomes Richard Simmons?

And it's not actually all that clear to me where. The personality emerges from, I think he was sort of born mischievous and flirtatious and a little bit gregarious, but he's also bullied for most of his Yeah, youth. He does a, a trip abroad in Italy. That's where he was, uh, starving himself. Works as an artist for a little while, winds up in New York and then starts waiting tables and then.

He becomes, he's a great waiter. Like [00:15:00] he's one of those waiters. Well, this is my thing. Number two, from waiter to weightlifter. Being a waiter is where the personality of Richard Simmons seems to come out. Yeah. He is charming. The tables, he becomes the guy that they go to the restaurant to see, like, you gotta get a load of this waiter while he is in New York.

He meets somebody who says, you know what? You've got a lot of personality. I'd like to hire you. And he goes into makeup sales, and then he's traveling all over the place, travels to la. Calls the company and says, I gotta quit. I'm moving to la. This is where I want to be. Ends up waiting tables at this marquee restaurant in Beverly Hills, and that's where it all happens.

He starts to become this waiter that everybody wants to know about. Yeah, he takes an interest in exercise there. He goes to this gym that is very kind of body affirming, where it's a lot more, he, he finds an exercise regiment that he likes. They kick him out of there because he's a man. Mm-hmm. And then he.

[00:16:00] Winds up saying, you know what, I'm gonna start my own gin. Yeah. I love that the Richard Simmons we know all began in the food service industry. Yeah. Right. But that's such a great fantasy for waiters. Oh God. And Richard. Yeah, please. In la Yeah. Come on. Exactly. All of a sudden.

John: Yeah. Yeah. Just rocketed. Yeah.

Stardom. I mean, he talks about this in an interview where he was at eight years old, was selling pre liens, uh, in the French Quarter. Yeah. And he found out that if he was funny. They would buy more pings. This is eight years old. Yeah. And that was a threat. He carried through

Michael: it. It has a little bit of, anybody could be famous.

Anybody might find their thing. Yeah. There there's no shortage of waiters and waitresses out there who feel like I'm destined for something more. I get a reaction from people when I have a chance to interact with them one-on-one. Where can I take this? You know, what can I do with me? Because I mean, it's a dream.

John: I wonder too, if it's just the ma, you know? Sometimes I think we're preparing for something we don't even know we're meant to [00:17:00] do. Very well said. It's maybe he always wanted to be famous, but that he didn't realize that all of this food work that he was doing was going to prepare him to do something else.

Michael: I don't know that he always wanted to be famous. I am convinced he always craved attention. Yes, because I do think that his upbringing. Speaks to a lack of a certain kind of attention, right? That created a deficit, and it was a hole that he was not able to fill for the majority of his life.

John: It's a big defense mechanism.

It looks like it. Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so that's my thing. Number two, what do you got for number three?

John: Okay. Number three, America's sweetheart. Nobody's straight answer.

Michael: Oh, say more.

John: Okay, say more. Oh, good. This is

Michael: the part of the conversation I can wait for. I, I know

John: we're just wad into these waters and I know, I, when, when I hear other people talk about it, he never publicly came out.

Michael: I cannot tell you

John: how many questions I have for you about this. I just feel like it's, it's so fascinating thing about him is I feel like he, he never came out, but he didn't hide. That's so unique to me. There are others in, in that [00:18:00] time period of gay men in Hollywood who sort of had to be a clown, Peewee Herman, in order to survive.

Yeah. Peewee Herman is one. I'm thinking about Wayland Flowers and Madam uh, yeah,

Michael: you are talking already as if we know he's gay.

John: No, this is, I'm not saying that

Michael: he never, 'cause do we know he's gay, John?

John: We don't know.

Michael: We actually don't know. We don't

John: know if he's gay.

Michael: Like there is a possibility that all the signs, the, the flamboyance, the love of Barbra Streisand, the selling of makeup

John: bedazzled tank tops, the leotards.

Yeah, heartfelt affirmations bursting into song, mid-sentence.

Archival: She seems so sweet. The lips, the gers and everything, the hair. And I said, I didn't think she was gonna be this tough, you know? Well, she's a journalist. Oh, is she? Oh, okay. That was why. Okay. 'cause she comes with this little sweet look and then cruel.

Cruel. I'm not

Michael: cruel. I'm just

Archival: kidding.

Michael: All of these things that are [00:19:00] honestly stereotypes are, aren't these stereotypes?

John: I do all those things too, but yeah. But you

Michael: are kidding. No, but we know that. So there's

John: stereotypes for a reason. Well, I

Michael: guess this is why I wanted to talk about it.

John: Yeah.

Michael: Okay. So finish on why this is a thing you love and then let me ask my questions.

John: So I just think he existed on national television as exactly. Himself, in a way is emotional, but. Fabulous. Affectionate with men.

Michael: He's flirtatious. He's

John: fully flirting with like news anchors on Fox News. Yes, like fully crawling across tables like seducing them. Good behavior, responsible behavior.

Archival: Make yourself fitter.

I'm just finding it so hard to talk to you because I wanna climb on this desk so bad and just get closer. Well, I wish you wouldn't just get close. I wish you wouldn't. I wish. I want you to sit down. I enjoy you too. Okay. Please. I'm sorry everybody I, I know, I know that you know he's happening now. You

John: know what I mean?

He's fully out there living out loud and loving [00:20:00] visibility In an era when like few people were as queer coded and these queer coded men were not welcomed in American living rooms. Yeah. His star rose in complete tandem with the AIDS epidemic. Right? Right. Where gay people were scary, right. They were diseased.

Michael: Right. And for someone, the religious right, they were, God had sent them this curse.

John: Yeah. So he's somehow living it. Out loud, but also not, first of all, it's full camp.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. It's just like,

John: he's just like, yeah, what about it? And, uh, you know, I, he never says he is gay when he is ever pressed, uh, with that question from anyone.

He just always diverts. He says, like, my work is, you know, my, my work is my, my mistress. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I live with my housekeeper who's we're almost like a married couple. He's, he's

Michael: asked dozens of times. Yeah. I got curious about this, like, did he ever give an answer? And the answer is no.

John: No.

Michael: I don't know what to make of that.

John: I think it's fabulous.

Michael: I mean, I do, I love it. I think it's great. I'm just like, he's just like, look, I don't

John: care. I'm gonna go over here and do this thing. I'm [00:21:00] gonna shake this acid front of this, uh, this Fox news. But is it

Michael: important that we know? I guess that's the big question I have. What he's doing is still innuendo.

It's still suggestive. Like we know nothing, right? Nothing about private his sex life.

John: No, absolutely nothing that I think is, I kept

Michael: waiting for it in this biography. It was great. His, he would say like, and then I got to puberty, and then he would change the subject to food. Ugh. He does this. Here it is.

This is from the book. I was now approaching the major event in a teenager's life, puberty. But you have to realize I was raised in a very sexless way. I never saw my parents kissing each other except the occasional peck on the cheek. Remember when I took you on a tour of the house and I pointed out the separate bedrooms?

Parents grew up in separate bedrooms, and then two paragraphs later, the only time that love was thought of in our house was in connection with food.

John: Honestly, I think that could be honest. I think he probably really didn't know what was going on. Yeah, because again, he had no visibility in that, that age where he really didn't know.

I know. And I

Michael: think that there could be some honesty for the rest of his life, I guess. What, what's funny is it's, he's not asexual. [00:22:00] We just don't know anything.

John: He's super flirty and horny. Totally. Yeah. Like especially with, it's so interesting with women and men, so Yes. Like he basically, you know, in the Rosie O'Donnell show comes out and like, like malls, Celine Dion,

Archival: Richard Simmons, put down the talent, put down the talent.

You try to lift me, I'll hurt you and you'll hurt yourself. I was the best about your have here I'm with Rosie and High,

Michael: which is, which I guess this raises for me or a woman. What boundary is he drawing? Exactly. Here by not giving us an answer,

John: it is performance art. That's why I love it. It is like just a big sentient middle finger to, yeah, to the world that wants this clear cut answer to things and he won't give it, but he is gonna live like this and be this person.

I love that it sort of, I think,

Michael: a stubborn performance art that way. That which is, which is very similar to Paul Rubins. It reminds you that for [00:23:00] all his vulnerability, for all his emotions on his sleeve, for all his transparency, we never really get to know the guy. There is a limit

John: here. It was like he was such an open book and then except is not.

That chapter was locked. Right? It was double locked, which

Michael: leads me to believe other things were locked, which helps us understand some of. The end of his life in the last 10 years. And the choice to pull back from the, from the, yeah. Which we'll get to. Let's move on. Uh, let me give you my thing number four.

This is maybe obvious I could have even led with it, but I wrote Self-love preacher. Okay. And it relates a little bit to your body positivity for runner. Yeah. I think he's after a deeper thing every time he's asked about. What advice do you have for us, Richard? The first thing he says is love yourself.

That is so much harder to do. Mm-hmm. Than it sounds like. Yeah. And I do think that he's not saying love your body. I think he's saying Love your soul. I think that a lot of his persona is way more like a preacher than it is like a scientist. [00:24:00] You know? He is not a trained expert Oh, really? In any way, shape or form.

Oh, he has no

John: certification. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael: Zero qualifications to actually be doing what he's doing professionally. Mm-hmm.

John: In the seventies, you

Michael: don't think you need it. And, and he is a kind of cult of personality. A guru in a way. Yeah. But I had a friend say, God, you know, self-love is not fried. Chicken and masturbation self-love is self-love is doing things that make you proud of you.

I can't, you know, I can't imagine

John: masturbating after I eat fried chicken. It's not in that order. Gross. I'd be like, Ugh. I'd be like, we're not doing anything sexual for the next two days after I ate this fried chicken.

Michael: Uh, so, so I. I think I know something I've had to learn the hard way is what a self-love really mean and what it ultimately is about, to me is demonstrating lovable behavior.

It's me being of service, it's me showing up for other people. Mm-hmm. It's me reciprocating in relationships. It's me doing things that I don't want to do often. [00:25:00] Yeah. That are really uncomfortable and his. Message does go beyond vanity. While he is maybe encouraging people who are in his exercise class and his audience to have a body type that's more conforming to Right.

Some generic standard. I actually think he's more interested in helping people understand how to relate themselves with self-compassion and demonstrate lovable things to themselves.

John: Yeah. I think his ilk is very much the, I have self-esteem because I do esteemable things. Exactly. But there's not a lot of self-acceptance.

There's still that drive to say, we gotta change who we are if we don't like what we see in the mirror. I thought the same thing about this, but I also wondered if he really believed it.

Michael: I don't know. And it's a good question. I know the message is right and I know he's a powerful messenger, whether or not he got there himself.

Yeah. I have questions because I do think that there are major deficits of love in his heart and that his [00:26:00] ability to get to a place of self-acceptance. Mm-hmm. And actually love himself. The fact that he never has not only a life partner. I mean, I think that there's a sort of striking deficit of intimate friendships in a way.

Yeah. I mean, we haven't really talked about it yet, but he has this sort of bizarre parasocial relationship with his audience where he is calling people 40 to 60 times a day calling strangers and saying, how you doing? Yeah. And like women in Nebraska would be like, I couldn't believe it was Richard on the other end of the phone.

Right. And then he called me every Sunday for the next 30 years. Is that friendship? It looks like it's not. It doesn't because it's so spread thin.

John: The key idea of evangelism is that you know, you, you preach to other people so that you believe more. I

Michael: can't think of anybody who was saying it as loudly as clearly with as much originality as Richard Sons.

No. He

John: was the original voice of this and that sort of empathy that he had really put him in a place to say that to other people and for them to believe him. Yeah. [00:27:00] And they saw themselves in him and they said, you're right. So I think he did a lot of good.

Michael: That's right. Okay. What's your thing, number five?

John: Ooh. Okay. Mine's sort of similar to the other one, but, uh, it's glitter in the manosphere. Okay.

Michael: Okay.

John: What does that mean in exactly? I had, uh, uh, you know, the eighties and nineties, late nine TV and talk radio formed a kind of proto manosphere mm-hmm. Like we have today where they talk about the manosphere on the podcast.

Right. Hello? Mm. Does that ring a bell?

Michael: Not this one, but yes. I know what you're,

John: I'm aware. I'm aware. So this proto manosphere of like spaces dominated by masculine energy, this like locker room humor, traditional gender roles. You had David Letterman, Jay Leno, Howard Stern, that sort of built their brands on like wit dominance.

Yeah. You know, overpowering other people.

Michael: A little bit of takedowns, you know. Yeah. A lot of

John: takedowns

Michael: and a lot of like pointing and laughing and yet these

John: guys. Loved Richard Simmons. Yes, they did. They? Yes,

Michael: they did. Gave

John: him

Michael: [00:28:00] up. He was on talk shows all of the time. All the time. He was an unbelievable talk show, darling.

John: Specifically, 33 times on Letterman. 24 on Leno, 60 plus on Stern. Wow. I mean, these guys ate him up and yes, if you watch those clips, they veer into like some mockery, you know, like, look at this spectacle running around, look at this little dweeb. But you know, Richard could throw it right back at him. Yeah.

Like he could throw it back. He could hang. Yeah.

Archival: How much does this

John: run you?

Archival: Why am I doing this? Well, how much does it cost? We're trying to, it costs like $55. Holy crap. And it's in all the stores. But listen, you're kidding me. 55. Well, it's less than that. Tie, David. See that's $125 tie. I know that tie. I

John: love that.

So that to me was first of all, his talent for improv, right? He was good improv. Genius. Genius. He was quick. He was quick. He was so quick.

Michael: I love that. Glitter in the manosphere. Well said. All right, let's recap. So number one, body [00:29:00] positivity for runner with the question mark, question mark. Is that right?

Okay. Mm-hmm. Number two, I said from waiter to weightlifter. Number three, America's sweetheart. Nobody's straight answer. Mm-hmm. Is that how you put it? Number four. Uh, I said self-love, preacher, and number five, glitter in the manosphere. Awesome. List some good ones. Those are some good ones. All right. Let's take a pick.

Okay. Category three, one love. In this category, we each choose one word or phrase that characterizes this person's loving relationships. First, we will review what we know about the marriages and the kids. Bless. That was easy. Nothing. Bless, no marriages. Theresa, we should mention Theresa. Yeah, Theresa the maid who maid in the podcast.

She was accused of being a witch, which was probably not okay. She's not a witch. It doesn't sound like keeping a prisoner in the house. And that was, yeah. And maybe working some black magic. Yeah, and actually, no. Just sounds like they were close and it sounds platonic. From what I can [00:30:00] tell. Everything is platonic.

After

John: he died, she did an interview and said, yeah, we were basically husband and wife, you know, but not sexual.

Michael: Right? Yeah. You know, we already talked a little bit about dad and he's got a brother who is close to an older brother. Yeah. Who's like Mr. Perfect grew up mm-hmm. In New Orleans.

John: He loved his mom.

Michael: Loved his mom. Yeah. My God. Are you kidding me? The last. 20 pages of the memoir are the mom's funeral. It's like Right. Die. Yeah. You spend all this time yada ying, all the interesting parts of like yada, yada. They asked me to write a book and then, you know, I'm God, how's that? So, and then I got going through from puberty, right?

And, but then when mom dies, oh my god, Richard, get to the point. Anyway. Uh, I'm dying to know what you got here.

John: I put zero calorie. Oh,

Michael: oh, that got me man. That's really good. That's really good. Really good. Say more if you need to. That feels pretty self-explanatory, I guess,

John: or that one. It's like sweet, satisfying. He was very like lovey dovey with people. There's

Michael: nothing in there. There's nothing. But ultimately

John: no substance, not [00:31:00] something that filled him up.

Zero calorie. Zero calorie.

Michael: That's so perfect. Yeah, that's perfect. Uh, I'll give you mine. I said disco ball. Oh, okay. I was thinking a little bit about the Elizabeth Taylor episode where my one love in the Elizabeth Taylor episode was Funhouse mirrors because I see love as how we are reflected back on ourselves through other people.

And that was interesting to me about Elizabeth Taylor, is that she had all these distorted images of herself, all these relationships where the reflection back to her was very imperfect and maybe of a shape that she didn't quite recognize. Hmm. I went disco ball. With Richard Simmons because there's an infinite number of little mirrors, all pointing outward, all trying to shine.

It's,

Friend: yeah,

Michael: beautiful light all over America, and I'm not sure there's anything being reflected back in. Yeah, you know, it's glamorous, it's theatrical, but more than that, it's not clear what's inside. All of the light is turned [00:32:00] outward in a thousand directions, and I'm not sure what love is ever reflected back except maybe the last 10 years.

We don't know, but we should speak about this. Like for people who have not listened to the missing Richard Simmons podcast or have followed the story, he retreats from the spotlight sometime around 20 13, 20 14. Yep. And I mean, it was John

John: Full Irish goodbye.

Michael: Yeah. No explanation. It was very, very hard to find out why there was this podcast that was in ultimately very intrusive.

Yeah. Trying to get at this answer, even though I do think it was probably good spirited who mm-hmm. You know, you have questions about the good spiritedness.

John: I don't, yeah. I just felt like the podcast or the, it just, it went too far. It, it did, but also it just, every time they would interview his friends and people talk about, it was just like, all I could hear were just like.

These people who wanted something from him.

Michael: Well, that was the question Dan tab Bursky in that podcast kept asking is, does Richard have a responsibility to his fans?

John: Yeah. The whole relationship was based off of [00:33:00] something like even Dan, they were, they, they met at Slimmons, but their initial kickoff friendship was about Dan maybe producing a documentary about him.

Right. It was about business. Most of his stuff with these people were about business, and they were like, but he was my friend. But I don't know if he really thought that. Well, I

Michael: don't know. I mean, I do think it does sound like it. It it is a real thing that he had hundreds of telephone numbers and he was on the phone all the time with people whose lives he had defected, largely middle-aged women that he met in malls.

I mean, in that show, you hear him on the phone crying.

Archival: You say that you never go to a restaurant and pick up. No. Ever. Never. I can't. 'cause you're so right. You can't, right? No, no, no. I owe it to people to be a good example. I've had eating disorders on my life when I call 30 to 40. Overweight people today.

Do you think I can eat? Yes, I do. I can't. Yes, you can. Now I starve. I don't believe it. Well, that's the truth.

Michael: So I guess what I'm, what I'm [00:34:00] after, well like I think the question of does he have a responsibility? On one hand, no, this isn't a normal friendship. On another hand, this was somebody who had a major impact and was proactive about reminding people of that to then disappear.

No extra explanation whatsoever. That can have a boomerang kind of negative God. Was I ever worthwhile, was I ever important? Should I have loved myself? I mean that can sow. Yeah. Seeds of doubt. The question is not without merit. Did he have a responsibility to, I don't think explain himself, but just give us enough of a reason so that we understood why he retreated from the limelight.

John: Right.

Michael: And you and I cannot answer that question. I'm not sure anybody ever will be able to. Yeah, I do think, the story I think I like to tell is, I like to think that somebody said what you're doing is not self-love. And you need to find a way to love yourself, Richard. Mm-hmm. Outside of the, the world of fame and validation.

Mm-hmm. And you need to give yourself [00:35:00] stubborn, strict rules the same way you have around sex, the same way you have around food.

John: And that's what he did. It makes total sense to me that he would just. Cold Turkey, his friends, because that's how he was successful in life. He could cold Turkey food. It was about this hard stop.

Also, you know, once the people lost the weight, he kind of became uninterested in them. Yeah. As a friend. Yeah. Maybe he was so obsessed with his career. All of this was work to him and not friendships or a deep connection. His version of love may have just been performance based. Yeah. And that was who he was.

It was big, bold. You'd get this sort of full experience and feel like you're being chosen and you were getting his affection, but when the lights went down, it wasn't the same for him. Well,

Michael: and how many disco balls do

John: you see these

Michael: days, John?

John: The metaphor point was that like, it's all out there. It's all, it's all, it's it's shining

Michael: light without direction.

Yeah. And it's shining light back in a, an infinite number of places. Yeah. In all directions. But, but is maybe ultimately hollow inside.

John: Hollow [00:36:00] inside edge. Each mirror can only give so much. Yeah, yeah. So he is spread thin.

Michael: Exactly.

John: Yeah, exactly. I think that's a beautiful metaphor. Hollow inside is sad.

Michael: Hollow is wrong. Empty, I think not fed it. It's just not, it's not clear what's filling his cup,

John: you know? Yeah. It's really hard to know what fills that cup.

Michael: Zero calorie and disco ball. Good metaphors. All right. Category four net worth in this category. We write down our numbers ahead of time. We'll then talk a little bit about our reasoning.

We'll then look up the net worth number in real time to see who's closest. And finally, we'll place Richard Simmons on the famous and gravy net worth leaderboard. I had a suspicion he might be secretly rich.

John: Yeah,

Michael: no Dependences first of all. Second of all, those DHS tapes in the eighties were expensive.

He's also doing an unbelievable amount of events. He is an influencer with multiple revenue streams in workaholic in Beverly Hills. What else is he doing but making mo money? I also think he might be frugal. I think he's spending money on dalmatians [00:37:00] and outfits. He had a very simple life. I think he's secretly rich.

So let's go ahead and reveal. So John Watts wrote down. 20 million.

John: Michael Osborne wrote down 100 million.

Michael: The actual net worth number for Richard Simmons. 20 million.

John: No, sh

Michael: You got it right. Are you kidding me? I never get it right. Ah,

John: this is so perfect.

Michael: Did it?

John: That totally came out of guesses.

Michael: That's so good.

I didn't look at anything. You understand this man? You understand this? Man?

John: I, you there? I think we're kindred.

Michael: I think there's some real connect tissue. I did call him before we, we started and I said, Richard, enter me. That's so good,

John: but not in that way.

Michael: All right, let's place in Richard Simmons on the famous eng gravy net worth leaderboard.

I gotta say, this is my new favorite number. So the $20 million net worth dinner table on the famous Eng gravy. Net worth leaderboard is the best dinner table. Stephen Hawking, Betty Ford, James Garner, curly Neal, [00:38:00] Maurice Sinek, Gary Sling, Tom Wolf, gene Wilder, Eddie Money, Sidney Poitier, Rodney Dangerfield, and Leslie Nielsen.

John: Whoa. Is

Michael: this not the best table of all time? This

John: is a, this

Michael: is like,

John: if it's, if this is like, it's like the seventies threw up on that table.

Michael: It's so perfect. I love it. But it's so rich. Like there's intellectuals, there's comedians. Yeah, there's athletes. It's diverse. It's really nice. It's really, really nice.

And Richard

John: would love that. And Richard would

Michael: love this dinner table route on Richard Simmons's. $20 million. Right. What Richard? I, I thought it was gonna be a lot more. I'm kind of glad it's not He sure had

John: that empire.

Michael: He did. Yeah. And I wonder, I just kind of wonder where some of that went. Um, I bet he

John: gave a lot of it away.

Michael: Okay. Category five, little Lebowski, urban Achievers.

Archival: They're the little Lebowski. Urban achievers. Yeah. The achievers. Yes. And proud. We are, of all of them

Michael: in this category, we each choose a trophy and award, a cameo and impersonation or some other form of a hot tip that shows a different side of this person.

What do you got? I

John: [00:39:00] had a hard time with this one. You had one? Okay. I did. I had a hard time with this one, but he does make this a really amazing appearance on whose line is it? Anyway,

Michael: I saw this. I didn't actually watch the clip. Is it great?

John: I just loved it. Really? Okay. The best part is he is just, it's just like pure gold, so he just so fully committed to the bit.

There's this sketch where the premise of the scene was that he couldn't speak. So you take away his voice.

Michael: Oh, no.

John: And you think like there's no Richard Simmons left.

Michael: Yeah, but he did. Oh, I bet he was awesome. Actually. Nailed it.

John: He landed it. He had to like mimic, mimic a jet ski passenger, uh,

Archival: straddled Wayne Brady.

Ryan and Colin act on a scene. And during the scene they have to use a number of props, however. So I don't have any real props to work with tonight. I'll be the prop. Right. Wayne and Richard. Wayne and Richard Simmons are gonna stand and become the props. I'll be all the props to these men. Man. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, huh?

John: It was just like zero inhibit. He was a master [00:40:00] improv and he got to like really show his chops on, on that show. That's a good

Michael: venue for him. Yeah. Actually now that the more I think about it, 'cause it, it's very sort of silly, but wholesome, but also, I mean, a little adult, you know? Yeah. But, but, but not R rated.

John: Yeah. He could get like all up in their faces and, you know, if he's just, it was, but it's so

Michael: physical too.

John: Obviously. It's so physical. So I mean he obviously was very physical person. It, I lost it. The audience loses it. The cast loses it. I can't wait to see this. They can't stop laughing. He's sort of like Robin Williams in a way.

Right. They just let him go.

Michael: Right, right, right, right. But when they

John: put him on this floor like Fuse and

Michael: get away

John: Yeah. It was like this was, uh, they tested his medal Yeah. On this improv show and he blew them away. And I just thought that was so cool.

Michael: Does make you wonder about an alternative life for him?

Mm-hmm. Like he probably could have done comedy. Oh yeah. In fact, that kind of segues into mine. I went with General hospital. Word. And he was on General Hospital, the Marques Soap Opera. So his rise to fame. To go back to the story a little bit, he is a waiter [00:41:00] who decides to open up this fitness studio. It begins to attract a community.

There's this segment in the seventies called Real People. It's like this, like funny personalities around the community. Yeah. And local tv. I watched it. Mm-hmm. It's great. It's really interesting to see Richard Simmons. This was back before it was called Slims. It was called like the Anatomy, asylum

John: Anatomy.

Anatomy Asylum,

Michael: awful name. And it had

John: a, it had a salad bar connected to it called Roughage.

Archival: If the place looks like an asylum, it is. Richard calls it the Anatomy Asylum. The asylum is adjacent to a salad bar, restaurant he owns, called Roughage on the edge of Beverly Hills. Twice a night, six days a week, women and men pack the place.

And if it weren't for Richard's voice, you could almost hear the pounds fall off this,

Michael: this, it took some time before he got his brand. After the, the thing you're gonna, you need to poop. Yeah, exactly. I was like, this is

John: not gonna last. Like,

Michael: but, but, and there's clips of the studio back in the seventies that are, it's really like you see the [00:42:00] character coming into form.

Archival: Mm. In between

Michael: that and his TV show, which the TV show is kind of what introduced him to a national audience. But in between that is General Hospital where he gets approached to be on this soap opera. They ask him to play himself. Yeah. And, and I watched a little bit of this. It's like. He's good. He's

John: really good.

He won Emmy's.

Archival: Yeah, he won Emmy's. Kim, let me talk to you a minute. It's like being an alcoholic Beverly. I mean, you know, one drink leads to another drink and, and one of these candy bars leads to another candy bar, and then you stop trying forever. Go back to the doctor, the one that said you could come to this class.

Tell him that I think you have about 30 pounds to lose now he's gonna give you a good. Food program, and I'm gonna help you do it. I'm on your side. Is that a deal? Yeah. And amazing. Okay, so

Michael: the reason this is also my Lebowski is soap opera feels very natural to him as well. He's just so bursting [00:43:00] with drama that to put him in a soap opera and have him be like, unbelievably melodramatic, it's like, oh, that's kind of

John: perfect.

It's so perfect. You know? He's like, what?

Michael: Which is when you take those two things, our two leki John, like improv and daytime soap opera, and then remember that this guy's not a trained actor at all.

John: Yeah. It

Michael: gets back to your thing number three about performance, art,

John: living, performance art. Yes. Just, that's all.

Yeah. Yeah. It's,

Michael: it's, it's sort of an, uh, astonishing.

John: Yeah.

Michael: All right. Let's take one more break.

All right. Category six words to live by. In this category, we each choose a quote. These are either words that came out of this person's mouth or was said about them. I liked this one. No one is perfect. Absolutely no one like precious stones. We have a few flaws, but why focus on that? Focus on what you like about yourself and that will [00:44:00] bring you happiness and peace.

I can't get enough of the self-love message, Sean.

John: Mm. I I, you are really feeling that tonight. I, I, I love that It, I love it. It has

Michael: been a major point of emphasis in my life where I would say the last four or five years, I still struggle with this. They talk about this in recovery. I'm an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.

Yeah. And I have voices of self-doubt that want to take me out all the time. And I have had to learn, I have to continue to learn to like not honor those voices. Yeah. And not pay attention. I never realized this about Richard Simmons. I grew up. Assuming, you know, I, I think I've said this before, I grew up in a fairly homophobic environment, right?

Mm-hmm. I grew up around boys who would make fun of gay men. I didn't know if Richard Simmons was gay or not, but I kind of assumed so and so. For most of my life, I have dismissed this man, and I have dismissed this message because it has, I don't know if I should or use this word, but because it was gay.[00:45:00]

You know what I mean? And, and when gay was used growing up and is used in a derogatory way, it means not tough, it means emotional, it means sensitive, it means weak, maybe Uhhuh, uhhuh, you know? Yeah, totally. Um, when used as an insult, that was how that insult was meant to be interpreted. None of those things are bad, man.

And it has taken me to my forties to realize being vulnerable. Being sensitive.

John: Mm-hmm. These

Michael: are not bad qualities. These are not bad traits.

John: Singing show tunes

Michael: not a bad thing.

John: Not a bad thing. Love to break into a show soon. Right now that I'm

Michael: gonna, I might do it in the shower tomorrow morning. Okay. I think this is profound.

That's my point with Richard Simmons while that, while he may be over the top and a lot to take manic, even, maybe actually the message is 100% on the money. There is very little that he has to say or share that doesn't have a tremendous amount of truth to it and a [00:46:00] tremendous amount of power. I'm not even sure we fully got the message.

I think we've dismissed him as a clown and we shouldn't. Yeah. I've had a journey with him and with the word gay and it's captured for me in this quote.

John: It's so easy to just wake up in the morning and just be like, God, I'm a piece of shit. I mostly do. That's, isn't that like

Michael: I start worrying about, yeah.

That, that's, that is largely how I wake up. Who told

John: me that in my sleep? I don't understand. It's so easy to do that, that it's just like such, talk about weak

Michael: and and dangerous, so I need to hear these voices. So yeah, that's a gay quote. Michael, you are beautiful. You are loved. So what'd you have for words to live by?

John: Okay, this was from an interview he did on The Big Idea on CNBC. So everything started from my stage. I built my own stage. I was afraid to be on Broadway. I was afraid to do theater, but I thought, Hey, I'll get a space. I'll put in a hard floor. I'll play great music, and people who are overweight outta shape.

I'll [00:47:00] tell them my story. That was his seed being, you know, we talked about what could he have been an actor full time? Could he have gone into theater? He looks like he thought about that. Yeah. But he was too afraid to, but somehow he had the courage to just sort of like build a theater around him,

Michael: built his own stage.

John: And that to me is so baffling because I feel like I would lean more toward, I need to fit into someone else's standard and go with that pack. But that's just the way my brain works, you know? And it just was so insightful for me to hear somebody. In other words, you

Michael: need to walk onto somebody else's stage.

John: Right. And I feel like that's what I sort of find myself and leaning in that direction. But he said, no, I'm, I'm just, I don't want to go that way. That's actually too scary. I think I could just kind of do it my way. And that seems safer. And, and, uh, but also maybe it's just a, an interesting sliver of his brain, how he thought he was meant for performance.

He's such a, an interesting intersection of things. It is a deep desire for [00:48:00] attention. Hmm. And maybe that was his version of love that fueled him, and then also his experience with weight that seemed to haunt him even late in life. Yeah. You know, he would talk about how he was still really struggled to eat after talking to all these people about weight all day.

Michael: He nibbling on a fork on the cover of his memoir written in the year 2000. He is still hungry after all these years. Haunted. Yeah.

John: By that intersection was the perfect storm for it. Richard Simmons in that way, that's where he built the stage and was, you know, America's favorite fitness instructor. Yeah, that's a fascinating route to fame.

Michael: Next category. This is gonna be a complicated one man in the mirror. This category asks a fairly simple question. Did this person like their reflection? Yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence versus self-judgment. This whole conversation has been about. Self-love. Yeah, and I think we've laid the groundwork for this [00:49:00] category, and I could not be more on the fence about how I would answer it.

Part of the reason for me, it's a coin toss is that if I had just tiniest sliver of evidence that after his retreat from the spotlight, he was able to say, I'm doing this because of self-love, and that's all I'm gonna tell you. I would've been satisfied with that, John. Or if you said, I've just had enough of you and I won't be able to ever love myself because I'm famous.

That would've told me something too. I don't know. I don't know how to answer this question.

John: Yeah. Yeah. Where'd you

Michael: land? Did you land somewhere?

John: I, yeah, I landed in, I don't think he liked his reflection. It's kind of where I'm leaning. Yeah. I, I do think he really struggled. He, I think he was a deep empath.

Michael: Yeah. And that's a channel, that's something that comes in and goes out.

John: Yeah.

Michael: And I don't think came in for a long period of time, and I think that that created a, a void, that barrier that became insurmountable.

John: Oh, I think it probably drained, but that, I think his understanding of all of this [00:50:00] was is if I can just keep performing

Michael: Yeah.

John: On this stage that I created, that I'll be Okay. Well, and, and I wonder if that really actually. If I look at like the way it ended with the, the cutoff and I just don't know if that if he got there, he does no friends, he doesn't leave the house. It just didn't seem like there was a lot of love for himself and also just a lot of joy.

Michael: A few years ago, Allison did a retreat at the Lin Institute and she came back with this mug, and I'm probably bastardizing their framework for this, but the mug had, and I understood it, to be a hierarchy, body, mind, heart, soul. Hmm. I saw that. Coffee mug and came to understand it as a journey of self-awareness that begins with developing a relationship with your body.

Yeah. And then a relationship with your mind, and then a relationship with your heart, and then ultimately a relationship with your soul. I think the spiritual journey is meant to try and take you as far down that path as you can. And [00:51:00] I don't think there's a, a rival there. I think that's always a process, but I bring this up because his life's work is really preoccupied with the body.

Mm-hmm. You know, and I do think he cares about the mind and I think he is in touch with his heart, but whether or not he gets to the soul Yeah. Doesn't quite look like it. And that's sort of the man in the mirror question. Right? That's right. You know, the core

John: here. Yeah. Seems like he didn't quite, because

Michael: the challenges that surround that top layer of the body remain a preoccupation initially with trauma and then with, you know, liberation via exercise, but then ultimately return with age.

Right. And pain. So he's just up against a lot. Yeah. And I don't think he ever plus the hair, you know, could you, would you really look in the mirror and be like, I love his hair. I know. And I think he does too. But he does make self face jokes. He also love, he was 19. I know. Poor guy. I

John: know. But yeah, the, yeah, there's also a lot, lot of hair.

There's also

Michael: a lot of plastic surgery, which is evidence. Yeah. Yeah.

John: No, he, the, uh, later in [00:52:00] life had a spot on the Wendy Williams show and he a quote from that, I haven't here, if you look in the mirror and you don't like what you see, then you've gotta change it. And I do feel like that's, that not quite reaching the soul piece Yeah.

Of saying like. I'm okay with or without pla any, and this was to say, get that plastic surgery, lose that pound. You know, it,

Michael: it's a little superficial ultimately.

John: Yeah. And, and I get it, he's coming from a different time where maybe he wasn't, you know, we were so in tune with therapy talk and like really under, we've unpacked self-love a lot more, but I think that to me was a, a really, it was a tip of the hat to say, like, the way it, he got it read.

It's

Michael: like, I don't think he got it. Yeah. I don't think he got it. All right. So we're agreed. He does not like his reflection. I think that's the right answer. All right. Category eight. Cocktail coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. I'll just tell you what I had.

John: Please do.

Michael: I want marijuana, but I went indica dominant. Uh, I heard about something called Granddaddy Purple. I don't know what that is. It's supposed to be like a major [00:53:00] body high. Yeah. Granddaddy verbal. Yeah. Well, indica is less psychoactive and more about the body, so I want some pot that is not gonna get me super duper high and go to Slimmons.

I wanna do those workouts.

John: Oh, you wanna do it high? You God

Michael: damn right. I actually, I used to enjoy hiking or riding a bicycle high. Mm. You know, being a little bit out of my mind and a little bit like body kind of floaty, you know. Oh, wow. Okay. I,

John: I couldn't leave the room because, well, for the,

Michael: for a lot of pot that went right to my head, it'd make me sort of paranoid and uncomfortable.

Super. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm, I'm looking for something that again, is indica dominant. Something like Granddaddy Purple.

John: Grand Canyon Purple. That's what they call it. All right.

Michael: And that was

John: my name in prison. And

Michael: so I, I wanna, I want to eat a gummy and I, and I wanna work out, I, I kind of want to be badgered by Richard Simmons.

I want him yelling at like,

Archival: get in up there. I wanna see 25 of these. 10, 10 and five. Stop complaining. You've gotta go home with this body. Not me. Now let's do them. Gimme 10. 10.

John: [00:54:00] Hell yeah.

Michael: And I, I have no questions here. I don't need a conversation with Richard Simmons to try and get at a deeper truth, 'cause I'm not sure.

I would trust whatever he has to say.

John: Right. Yeah. You either really wanna know, or you're kind of like, I'm at peace with this. And I'd rather just have fun with Richard Simmons and I, I'm good

Michael: with the cliffhanger ending.

John: Yeah. I'm good. You know, like it's,

Michael: we never get to know. It's the last episode of The Sopranos.

John: Yeah.

Michael: So what'd you have?

John: Oh, I had a cocktail.

Michael: Okay.

John: There's a really great clip on YouTube of him. He didn't think the cameras were rolling. It wasn't, it it, oh, really? A hot mic moment. It was a hot mic on the, and he is sitting back with this reporter and he's just spilling the tea and talking shit with this reporter about this other person and all this drama.

I can't

Michael: believe I didn't see this. Oh, it's

John: fantastic. And did you

Michael: see something in that that you had not seen anywhere else?

John: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I realized through this that he was a great shit talker. A good shit. I love it. [00:55:00] I love, I

Michael: know that. I know,

John: I know. I wanna sit down. And his, I, his house was apparently very beige.

He was definitely like a different, it wasn't wacky and wild, he was just kind of bitchy and um, and chill. And he was like, he was honest and, and hilarious still, but also just kind of a, you know, it'd be just like two, like gossiping guys gossiping and on his beige sofa in his house. You know, I'm gonna go with, since it's beige, uh, it, we're going with like a clear liquid also, I assume a vodka drink of some sort.

I'm going with actually Chardonnay. Oh. Oh. You know, it's not clear. Clear, but, you know. Yeah, no, but it's, it's, it's not gonna stain, right? Yeah. Oh, he's, I'm gonna go, he's white Zinfandel. Yeah. By the way, baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Chardonnay a spritzer.

Michael: Yeah.

John: So we're gonna do some spritzers. I love

Michael: it.

John: Yeah. And we're gonna sit there and we're gonna talk some shit.

I'm gonna, we're gonna let him have it. Yeah. I want to know. Yeah. All of the good goss about like eighties. Yeah. His celebrity people, you know, you know, he hated Ellen. I bet. He

Michael: [00:56:00] sounds like he did not get on well with Jane Fonda

John: and he didn't Yeah. Suzanne Summers. Yeah.

Michael: Oh, he didn't like any

John: of these queens.

And I wanna hear

Michael: about it. Yeah.

John: I want it. I want all that good drama. And so he was a big shit talker, and I love that. Yeah. So, yeah. That's

Michael: beautiful. All right. Category nine, the Vander beek named after James Vander Beek, who famously said Varsity blues. I don't want. You're live in that varsity blue scene, James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on just a few characteristics.

So here John and I will form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how Richard Simmons lived. I can think of two or three things that fall into the counter argument Thing. Number one, there is some real loneliness here. Mm-hmm. I don't know the nature of his friendships. I don't know what filled his cup. I don't know if he knows what fills his cup.

Mm-hmm. He's got Theresa and I think that he's got dalmatians and I think that there are other people in his life, maybe hangers on. Maybe actual friends. There are certainly people who [00:57:00] love him, but there's some loneliness here.

John: I think if you're fueled by a, and I'm going out on a limb, but I think if you're fueled by a need for attention, it's just never gonna end well.

Michael: Yeah. And if he, he mastered the art of attracting attention. Yeah. There's a question. So much so that when he removed himself, all this attention came upon him, you know? Yeah.

John: A really tough childhood. I think it's a fat kid. I think as a second,

Michael: yes. A traumatic upbringing. One that put him into position to have, in some ways an at times adversarial relationship with his body and that reared its ugly head.

Yeah. You know, and then I think maybe that kind of groundwork for the second point I was gonna make is that while he comes to know and understand that self-love and self-forgiveness. Are essential. He seems to still struggle with those things kind of for forever. I think he makes progress. I wonder just how much progress he's able to make.

I don't know. I could make the case the other way. And maybe that's a good transition into why you would want this life. I. [00:58:00] I called him a self-love preacher.

John: Yeah.

Michael: I've been making the case throughout this episode that his message is one of the more important messages that exists there. Mm-hmm. There. That he is at least working towards that as best he can for what looks like a vast majority of his adult life.

To transmit that to people, which he does, it does feel like you have to have it at least somewhat. So that'd be my thing, number one for why I would want this life.

John: Yeah. Why would you want this life? I would love this life because it looked like a lot of fun.

Michael: It did look like

John: a lot of fun. It looked like a lot of fun to me.

Michael: It looked like, I mean, I think he was having a blast, being in the gym, yelling at people, just having a blast, getting up there, being flirtatious, being gregarious, being physical.

John: Yeah. It looked like he just had like these really simple ideas. I'm gonna just do a, a workout class where we just kind of move and dance.

Yeah. It's not really like even working out. He had like at one point, like, I forget, six. Dogs. I mean he, I think it was nine. Nine? Was it nine? And he named

Michael: him all after characters and gone [00:59:00] with whip. Yes. Come on.

John: I love that he had that get up. Like I think there were so many fun things about him.

Michael: Okay. So if we're assembling the argument for why you would want this life, and I say self-love is an important message and you say it's a fun life.

Are these separate things? I'm not sure they are. I think that him choosing to have fun the way he did is actually self-love. Yeah. Right. But I do think that there's like no question there's darkness here.

John: Yes.

Michael: And then he shows us how he's managing that darkness. And the question is, are we persuaded by

John: that?

I think he is a wild onion that would, yeah. There's no question You gotta peel. And like, who knew? Like when I was sweating to the oldies at, at 12 years old, that this complex man was standing before me, I had no idea. So

Michael: what I mean, have we already stated the. Full throated, most compelling case for why you want this life?

John: I think he did a lot of good, he helped a lot of people.

Michael: He probably saved a lot of lives.

John: He saved lives. He, [01:00:00] I, I mean, I

Michael: mean that, you know, like, like he had a purpose. There is such a thing as pathological eating disorders. Right. Whether it's overeating or undereating. And I think he taught us something about his battles with how he tried to have a different relationship with food and fitness.

John: Yeah. He had radical honesty with these people. And he shared his message.

Michael: Yeah.

John: And brought people in and they saw themselves in him and he helped them.

Michael: Okay. So those are the two reasons, and that's all I need. Number one is ambassador, preacher for self-love and maybe wisdom around self-love. And number two is the service.

I do think that that is actually coming from ultimately an empathetic, selfless place in as much as it ever can. Mm-hmm. So with that, James VanDerBeek, I'm Richard Simmons and you want My life?

Before we close, if you enjoyed this episode and you're enjoying our show and you've got your phone in your hand, please take a moment to [01:01:00] share it with a friend. We are trying to grow our podcast, one listener at a time, John speed round plugs for past shows. If people enjoyed this episode of Richard Simmons, what else might they enjoy?

John: I'm gonna go with Steve Irwin. Yeah,

Michael: that's good. Come

John: on. Your first appearance, those two in the room together. Come on. Oh my God. Matching energies. Wow. They both have these sort of not, uh, acting. Fame. Yeah. Uh, both had these sort of just like life passions. It's perfect. It's the, they're the same person, but one is is Spangled and the other one is khaki.

Michael: Uh, couldn't have put it any better. Episode 99. Crikey. Inner child, Steve Irwin. You know what? I'm gonna go episode 11, stiletto Comic Joan Rivers. I think that there was more to her story than what we realized, and I just love that episode. Uh, and if we're gonna have a little grace and understanding and re-imagining of a figure, she's a good place to start with.

Alright. Here is a little preview for it. The next episode of [01:02:00] Famous Eng Gravy, he emerged as a leading male voice in support of the Me Too movement.

Friend: I don't remember any man coming forward on the Me Too moment, particularly so. Honestly, I'd

Michael: forgotten this one. I'd forgotten that. Yeah. All right. Famous Eng Gravy listeners, we love hearing from you.

If you wanna reach out with a comment question or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousenggravy.com. In our show notes, we include all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels. Famous Eng Gravy is created by Amit Kippur and me, Michael Osborne. Thanks so much to John Watts for guest hosting.

This episode was produced by Ali Ola with production assistants from Jacob Weiss. Original music by Kevin. Thanks. See you.