Ciji: Say, I know a boy who plays bass in the Sub-Deviates. His hair is the same shade of blue as yours.
Mama: Small world.
She undoubtedly survived unscrupulous music executives while also helping to accentuate some of celluloid’s greatest graveyard mayhem in Return of the Living Dead. But the most frightening obstacle that Stacey Q faced in her entire career just might have been Vicki Lawrence’s no-nonsense Mama.
Famously remembered as Cinnamon, a glittery pop star much like herself, from an iconic run of The Facts of Life episodes, Stacey returned to sitcom musicality in a 1989 episode of Mama’s Family, Bubba’s House Band. Based on The Carol Burnett Show skit, this show ran for 6 seasons, focusing on Vicki Lawrence’s sarcastic, hard-to-please character.
Nicely, unlike Cinnamon, Q’s Ciji here is a member of the chainsaw wielding rock band The Bonecrushers. Her fierce partners in leather include Terrah Bennett Smith (Mojo) and Lisa Michelson (Snake) & the trio, initially, turns the Harper household into a zone of dominatrix-like rebellion. But soon the women reveal themselves to be experts at crafts and the culinary arts & are more than willing to help the formerly antagonistic Mama (Vicki Lawrence) succeed at her local bazaar.
Sweetly outfitted for that event, the trio perform the standard Sugar in the Morning to help sell the titular matriarch’s candy cakes. But by the credit crawl, they have returned to their heavy metal ways, much to concert promotor Bubba’s (Allan Kayser) delight and Mama’s scowl mouthed regret.
Nicely, Q, while not really given a solo moment to shine, blends in well with her co-stars. She and Kayser have a little in common here, as well. While she harmonized her way into horror royalty on the ROLD soundtrack, he played the obnoxious Brad in another ’80s cult classic, The Night of the Creeps.
Gloria’s fellow cohorts, meanwhile, include Lucy (Anjanette Comer), a well-to-do alcoholic, Dorian (Joan Hackett), an insecure animal lover whose fantasies are her ultimate undoing, Mary Grace (Julie Sommars), a tender soul being held emotionally captive by her invalid mother and the intelligent and determined Joy (Denise Nicholas). Unfortunately, in a wildly politically incorrect move, Joy, the sole black woman of the group reveals, in a bizarrely detailed monologue, that she has blown all her educational and career opportunities through some sort of nonchalance and emotional disregard, to settle for the life of a high class prostitute. There is an interesting Tennessee Williams vibe to the exchange and Nicholas fills it with a coat of truthful bitterness and resolve, finding honesty where another may have just filled it with the anger of a minority actress forced to play another lady of the night. Equally strange, yet not as troubling, is an early scene with Mary Grace and her mother. In a weird twist, the mother communicates only through her nurse who determines what she is thinking through glances and then relays their intent to Mary Grace. It’s a strange and unsettling bit that fills this piece with a bit more artiness and presence than your run of the mill made for television affair.
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