Marilu Henner, star of Taxi, Evening Shade, Johnny Dangerously, a great number of Aurora Teagarden Mysteries, costar of the original company of Grease, and author of 10 books about health made an appearance on Billy Corgan’s podcast this week. (Yes, the Smashing Pumpkins star has a podcast, and his pre-Marilu guest list is all over the road — from Dale Bozzio to Carrot Top!)
The two Chicago natives talked about a number of topics including, naturally, Henner’s five seasons on one of the all-time great situation comedies, Taxi, which ran for 114 episodes from 1978 to 1983.
“All due respect to the Cheers cast, I always thought the Taxi cast was a hotter cast,” Henner said, throwing down the gauntlet at Ted Danson, Shelley Long, the late Kirstie Alley, and the late Nicholas Colasanto.
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She continued, “We have an expression in my family — PF — it’s like BDE only it’s not size-ist and sexist like BDE is. PF measures the sexual quotient of people or things like, ‘Man, there was so much PF in that movie!’ or ‘God, I went to his new restaurant and…'”
That’s when Corgan asked for a definition of what PF stood for. (Referencing it in the context of a restaurant could simply imply that Henner dined at P.F. Chang’s.)
“PF,” Henner explained, “stands for p—y factor and penis factor.”
In addition to Henner, Taxi‘s regular and semi-regular cast included Judd Hirsch, Carol Kane, Jeff Conaway, Tony Danza, Christopher Lloyd, Randall Carver, Louise Lasser, Rhea Perlman, Jack Gilford, and, of course, Danny DeVito.
She concluded, “So I always thought the Taxi cast had more PF than most other casts. Forget about Cheers. Except for maybe Friends later.”
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Another cast member, of course, was Andy Kaufman, and it may not surprise you to learn that Corgan is someone who remains greatly under this unorthodox performer’s spell. Henner shared that she is not a fan of the Jim Carrey-led biopic of Kaufman, Man on the Moon, in which she and most of the Taxi cast appeared as themselves in character for a montage sequence.
“I felt like it did not do Andy any kind of justice whatsoever,” she said of the Milos Forman-directed project, before sharing what she called “the funniest thing that ever happened to me on a movie set” while working with the two-time Oscar-winning director.
“I am in my original clothes from Taxi and I am saying the things that came out of my mouth,” she recalled. “[Forman] said something about ‘No don’t do it like that, she wouldn’t do that.’ And I went, ‘What do you mean she wouldn’t do that? I’m the she!’ I thought this was kinda funny.”
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She added that she had great admiration for Forman and Carrey, but the film, she felt, “never captured the fun, the essence, the friend, the kinda quirky, very appealing side to Andy.” She also suggested people watch Chris Smith’s documentary Jim & Andy (technically called Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond – Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton) for a behind-the-scenes view of that unusual film.
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For more of Corgan’s chat with Henner — which includes a far longer discussion about the Andrews Sisters than you might anticipate — you can click play on the video below.
