The Facts of Life - Season 6, Episode 10

Natalie kills air time with her one woman news program

"Talk, Talk, Talk"
Original airdate: 11/28/1984

Episode summary: Jo enlists the help of the rest of the Facts cast to provide entertainment to campus radio listeners.

---

Recap: Jo arrives at Langley's campus radio station with Natalie in tow, ready to start the night-long shift required for the Radio Management class she's taking. Her professor storms in, snarks at her about her incomplete log reports, warns her that she's falling behind in his class...and that if she doesn't shape up immediately, he's going to flunk her. Once he's out of hearing range, Natalie stares over at Jo in alarm and reminds her that if she fails the class it'll mean losing her scholarship, but Jo breezily retorts that she's not worried about that in the slightest. 

Natalie heads off for an night bowling tournament - just as Victor, Jo's DJ partner, stumbles in. When it's clear that he's inebriated past the point of being remotely functional as a DJ, he admits to getting shitfaced during a frat initiation, and that he forgot to bring the keys to the record cabinet. Jo's all, "The fuck..?" and calls Edna's Edibles to leave an urgent message for Mrs. Garrett and the Facts gals to gather up as many records as they can carry and rush them over to the campus radio station. Victor, who seems wholly unconcerned by the chaos he's caused with his binge-drinking, promptly falls over in a useless drunken heap.

"Can you tell me where you put the keys to the record cabinet?"

"No. But would it help if I continue to stare back at you in drunken confusion?"

Jo rushes from the announcer's booth to the record player to re-announce and replay the songs from the only album she currently has available - just as Mrs. Garrett, Tootie, and Natalie rush in with a stack of records. Blair saunters in a few seconds later and tells Jo she really really needs to talk to her about Brad...aka, the latest guy she's been seeing, even though last I heard she was supposed to be committed to Cliff, her stripper-turned-med-student boyfriend who moved to Dallas last season. Jo brusquely says she's too busy to counsel her on account of she and the rest of the Facts gang need to run around the radio station like headless chickens to announce the song titles/artists before racing back to the record player to put needle to vinyl. Following that, they take turns reading aloud various news and weather briefs...and Tootie approaches DJing like an acting exercise, which irks Jo to the point that she eventually barks at her to get lost. Victor, meanwhile, regains consciousness long enough to fumble around and break the record player, and everyone's all, "Ack!" and starts panicking about how they're going to provide entertainment for the radio listeners [who are, by this point, too despondent to reach the dial to switch stations] without the ability to play music.

Natalie decides 'why not take up as much airtime as possible pretending to be a news anchor who's talking to multiple reporters out in the field?' ... while Tootie haphazardly launches a talk radio show to give relationship advice. She advises her first caller to dump her shithead of a boyfriend...resulting in the shithead of a boyfriend calling the radio station to threaten to "straighten out" the idiot who just advocated his dumping. Mrs. Garrett takes the 1:00am shift and urges women to think about the consequences of hitting the sheets with their boyfriends...then quickly decides that this is an episode less about the perils of premarital sex than it is the merry bedlam of the hapless Facts cast trying to keep a radio station going with zero interesting content, and happily lets Blair take over the mic to report the latest Langley sports news.

Tootie wigs out to Natalie about how terrified she is that the angry dumped boyfriend might follow through with his threat to straighten her out, and says she's going to preempt a possible attack by stacking what looks like empty boxes in front of the door.

"What if the angry boyfriend comes here and kills me?"

"We'd all consider that a win win."

Later, everyone takes a souvlaki break and lets the souvlaki deliveryman take to the campus airwaves to fill some airtime. When Jo remarks that they only have one hour left in her shift, Natalie and Mrs. Garrett offer to do a movie review.

Blair settles on Tootie to unload her latest boyfriend troubles, which are that Brad left her waiting at a party while he went to get them drinks and chat with his ex-girlfriend. Tootie points out to Blair that she assumed the worst and didn't give him a chance to explain...then suggests that she go on the air to apologize to Brad for her haughty 'tude. Blair mulls that over, decides 'sure, why the hell not?', and issues a public apology to Brad for bitchily jumping to conclusions.

Natalie is wrapping up the shift by reading aloud the latest newspaper comics (you heard me) just as Brad arrives at the station to tell Blair how much he appreciated her apology. Victor, meanwhile, awakens from his drunken slumber and stares around sheepishly, and Blair offers to give him a lift home [instead of depositing him onto the nearest curb like I would have had no problem doing]. Jo tells everyone she's grateful for their help...and they wrap up the idiocy of what passed for a Facts of Life Season 6 episode by belting out the national anthem.

Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying TVofYore's recaps, consider thanking me by buying me a "coffee"!

---