Parental units

Kitty 'n' Red have it made upstairs

HOLLYWOOD -- The kids are all right in Fox's retro-hip sitcom That '70s Show, and while Wisconsin teen Eric Forman (Topher Grace) and his pals rule in their basement handout, there's a bit of alright happening upstairs, too.

Eric's parents, Red and Kitty, are masters of their main-floor domain, and actors Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp are winning kudos for getting real -- and sometimes surreal--with their mom-and-pop operation.

But they say the roles come naturally when you've got family models to draw on.

"My mother was in a good mood I think maybe three days in the '70s, and I think it was the hair. I think it's the hair she had to wear. So I'm doing those three days, basically," Rupp says of her compulsively cheerful Kitty.

"And, also, I had a best friend in the '70s, and her mother lived across the street and she was in a good mood much more than my mother ever was. So, there's some of Barbara Ross in there."

Smith says Red is a combination of his stepfather and the fathers of the show's three creators, Bonnie Turner, Terry Turner and Mark Brazill.

"I couldn't help but use my own father as a model, who was actually my stepdad -- I mean, but he was my stepdad from when I was four years old," Smith says.

"And, for me, I think that's the thing that makes the character work so well."

A no-nonsense, recently unemployed working-class stiff with a stern but judicious parenting style, Red doesn't let on that he knows Eric took his car, the Vista Cruiser, on a forbidden out-of-town concert trip or that Eric streaked during a speech from visiting president Gerald Ford.

And when Red's acid-tongued mother (Marion Ross) died suddenly after Eric told her it wouldn't kill her to be nice, Red understood.

But he's also made his son drop and give him 40 pushups over a minor infraction, and Eric's friends are well aware there will be hell to pay if they step out of line -- or at least if they get caught.

"You know, they fear Red because they feel that he can see -- he knows what they're up to," Smith says.

"He knows what shenanigans they're up to, but I think they also kind of love him because at the same time they realize that he also knows what's good about them."

Rupp says she and Smith are sometimes called on to get parental when the camera isn't rolling, too, but she defers to Smith when the six younger cast members need serious advice.

"There are little problems because, you know, they're kids," she says.

"And they'll come and talk to me and then I'll get all emotional ...and then I'll see they're getting emotional, and this is not really a good thing to have on the set, and then I'll go, 'You talk to Kurtwood.' And then Kurtwood calms them down and tells them what to do."

But Rupp does her part when she can, as when 18-year-old Wilmer Valderrama, who plays befuddled foreign exchange student Fez, invited her to his high school graduation in L.A. this spring.

"It was really, really hot. There were 300 kids and he's a V -- Valderrama. And I sat there, I didn't even leave, I sat through it, through the whole thing, and watched him graduate high school," she says.

Rupp says she was "stunned" when the series, which debuted last August, was renewed for a second season because she was certain it was too good to last.

Worried about making her mortgage payment a year ago, she's now in the pink financially, as is the rest of the cast.

But Rupp and Smith say one of the best rewards is in playing TV parents who aren't morons, although they are hilarious in scenes shot from Eric's point of view, as when he repeatedly imagined them naked after he caught them having sex.

Smith, a divorced dad who wasn't in daily contact with his two children when they were growing up, says it's impossible not to look like an idiot in front of your own kids.

But he thinks it's unhealthy when sitcom parents are repeatedly portrayed as dummies.

And while Kitty is almost psychotically devoted to maintaining a serene family status quo, Rupp says she's gotten smarter as the show has progressed.

"Kitty, in the very, very beginning, mostly in the pilot, was a little bit of an idiot. And I love to play that, I love to do that, it comes quite naturally," she says.

"But I can't imagine doing that for a really long period of time. And ... all of a sudden she became the glue holding things together, and I was really, really happy to see that because in my own family that's exactly what happened.

"My father lost his job, and my mother had to keep everything together. And it's just a great thing for me to be able to do, to get my teeth into."

And, hey, the sex is great, too.

"I love it, I love it. I think it's terrific," Rupp says.

"You know, one of the days that my mother was in a good mood, my parents would dance in the kitchen, you know, while she was making dinner ... and it was like a nice thing to see. It happened once, OK?"

Both actors say an active sex life just makes their characters more real, and fans constantly tell them they recognize the type -- except when they look in the mirror.

"I don't think I've had anyone say, 'Gee, that's the kind of parent I was,' " Smith says.

But I've had tons of people say, 'That's my dad,' or 'That's my dad's friend.' Oh God, there was a Red in every neighborhood. But I haven't heard anyone admit to being Red."

--AllPop