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Watch My Show: Playing House's Lennon Parham, Jessica St. Clair Answer Our Showrunner Survey

Not only are they best friends in real life, but Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair keep playing them on TV. The comedy duo, last seen on NBC's Best Friends Forever, are back once again playing BFFs, but this time on USA's new sitcom Playing House (Tuesdays at 10/9c). Parham stars as Maggie Caruso, who decides to raise her baby alone after catching her cheating husband in an online affair. St. Clair is her best pal Emma Crawford, who gives up her career to help Maggie raise the baby. Parham and St. Clair, who are also executive producers on the show, filled out our TV Guide Magazine showrunner survey to explain why Playing House is worth an appraisal.

Michael Schneider

Not only are they best friends in real life, but Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair keep playing them on TV. The comedy duo, last seen on NBC's Best Friends Forever, are back once again playing BFFs, but this time on USA's new sitcom Playing House(Tuesdays at 10/9c). Parham stars as Maggie Caruso, who decides to raise her baby alone after catching her cheating husband in an online affair. St. Clair is her best pal Emma Crawford, who gives up her career to help Maggie raise the baby. Parham and St. Clair, who are also executive producers on the show, filled out our TV Guide Magazine showrunner survey to explain why Playing House is worth an appraisal.

TV Guide Magazine: I've got room in my life to watch just one more show. Tell me why it should be yours.
Parham and St. Clair: Playing House will make you laugh so hard you need to physically punch the person next to you, then cry on their shoulder, then laugh again (punch the other arm).

TV Guide Magazine: Who should be watching?
Parham and St. Clair: Ladies and gents alike! The couple that laughs together stays together. But it's not for babies. Babies should be asleep!

TV Guide Magazine: What happens if we don't watch your show?
Parham and St. Clair: We'll come to your house and act out these scenes in your living room just like we do when we write the show. In our pajamas. And Lennon is gonna play all the man parts. And her man voice will haunt your dreams (in a good way).

TV Guide Magazine: What's the best thing anyone has said or written about your show?
Parham and St. Clair: That after they watched Playing House, they called up their best friend and told them how much they loved them!

TV Guide Magazine: What's the worst thing?
Parham and St. Clair: We don't know because the last time we Googled ourselves, we found a whole website devoted to Lennon's feet. So we don't do that anymore.

TV Guide Magazine: What's an alternate title for your show?
Parham and St. Clair: Two Ladies and a Baby.

TV Guide Magazine: Give us an equation for your show.
Parham and St. Clair: It's Laverne and Shirley plus Bridesmaids, minus the crapping in sinks, times Modern Family, divided by Thelma & Louise (sans suicide) plus Debbie Allen's speech from Fame.

TV Guide Magazine: What credit of yours would you prefer we forget?
Parham and St. Clair: Lennon played a hooker with a heart of gold in a lost NYFA short film and Jess karate chopped a Chinese chicken salad in a Wendy's commercial.

TV Guide Magazine: Tell me one thing about your cast.
Parham and St. Clair: Our cast is chock full of all of our friends from the alternative comedy world — Keegan-Michael Key (Key & Peele), Zach Woods (Silicon Valley, Veep, The Office), Bobby Moynihan (SNL), Jason Mantzoukas (The League), Lindsay Sloane (Horrible Bosses), plus we've got Malcolm in the Middle's Jane Kaczmarek and the delightfully filthy Gerry Bednob from The 40-Year Old Virgin.

TV Guide Magazine: If you weren't on this show, what series would you most like to be an executive producer on?
Parham and St. Clair: Jessica would love to get a kickstarter going for Gilmore Girls: Season 14 and Lennon's been angling for a judge's seat on RuPaul's Drag Race.

TV Guide Magazine: Let's scare the network. Tell us an idea that didn't make it on to the screen.
Parham and St. Clair: Emma takes over Maggie's shift at the town's local wi-fi cafe owned by Burning Man aficionado Seth, who is famous for homemade granola that he makes in a special pan that has never been washed. During a particularly chaotic shift, Emma mistakenly washes the granola pan and Seth's old hound dog Janet dies in Emma and Maggie's arms after a long bout with rheumatoid arthritis. Seth believes that Janet's soul will live on inside Maggie's baby.

TV Guide Magazine: Finish this sentence: "If you like _______, you'll love our show."
Parham and St. Clair: If you like best friends, Coke floats and spaghetti-covered strippers, you'll love our show.

TV Guide Magazine: Pick another show, any show, to start a fake feud with.
Parham and St. Clair: Well, you didn't hear this from us but word on the street is that Suits buys their "suits" at Ross Dress For Less.

TV Guide Magazine: What other show would you like to do a cross-over episode with — and how would that go?
Parham and St. Clair: We'd like to bring back the hunks from Psych.  Shawn and Gus agree to babysit while we journey to Long Island to take down an underground murder club. When a nasty case of diaper rash strikes, Shawn calls us to ask where he might find the Boudreaux's Butt Paste and his psychic abilities help us crack the case. We all celebrate by throwing a bangin' house party on Block Island, DJ'd by Mark Feuerstein from Royal Pains (DJ MD).

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