Episode 1 - The One With My Dad's Confession

Did you ever feel like your life was a TV show?

“If millions of people were tuning in every Friday night to see what kind of crazy antics”

you and your family and friends are getting into, do you think they'd be watching a sitcom or a drama? I know what you're probably thinking right now. You're probably saying to yourself, "Uh, Holly, life's not that simple." Sometimes it's hysterically funny and sometimes it's fucking horrifying.

"That's me, by the way, I'm Holly, Holly Brown, nice to meet you." And trust me when I say, "I agree with you." But I hope you won't think it's cliche when I also say that growing up, I genuinely believed my life had to be scripted. I desperately wanted it to be a sitcom, so badly.

I mean, I was the daughter of a man who literally helped build sitcom worlds for a living. Growing up in Los Angeles this San Fernando Valley in the 90s, show business was part of

“our physical reality, something you could come face to face with every day.”

Especially since my dad Mark worked behind the scenes on the kind of shows that made families look perfect, or at least perfectly dysfunctional. "You want to do your minds? I've gone just went off in here, Niles bought a starter's pistol, and there's no need to get snippy.

Accidents happen, you know. "Oh, I'm sorry. Was I snippy?" "I didn't realize it was too much to ask that there'd be gun play in my living room."

I always assumed that's where my intense love of sitcoms came from.

Those tidy, 30-minute universes full of love, lessons, and the kind of laughter that only exists because a producer is holding up a sign telling a live studio audience how to react. sitcoms didn't just play in the background of my childhood, though. They consumed it. My dad worked his way up through Hollywood, from being a best boy, and no, that's not

a tiny little groomsman in a wedding. Then he paid his dues in various other roles behind the camera, eventually establishing himself as the lead man in the art department. And as a Hollywood obsessed kid, I loved being on set with him and going to take things. Roaming the paramount backlock felt like a dream, filled with recognizable sets and celebrities

just existing like normal. I thought it was so cool that my dad played basketball with George Clooney and chatted with Michael Keaton like it was nothing. But more importantly, he got me, original art from the Rugrats, the Rugrats, and Salem Sam Saverangans, Paw Prince Signature from Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

I mean, these kinds of things made me feel pretty special, different from other kids. In my house, our furniture was mostly props from Frazier's Sets, a pair of barstools, a wooden hutch, our dining room table, I'd sit my chocolate milk from the same caffeine or vossa cup as Frazier crane, and think, "See? My life is a TV show."

But as I got older, I started to wonder if maybe it wasn't that I loved sitcoms because my dad helped create them. Maybe I loved them because I needed to believe my life could become one. That this world I was living in, the one filled with intense sickness and screaming matches, where pain pills and silent prayers for someone to step in and save us were all conveniently

off camera. It all felt so unbelievably cruel and absurd that it had to be cooked up in a writer's room, because if it were scripted, maybe it could be rewritten, maybe it could still have a happy ending. When you stripped away the props that filled our house, the autograph book signed by my

TGIF heroes, the golf cart rides around the studio lot as a kid, you'd actually see that my life was anything but wholesome family fun.

In reality, the worst things that could happen always did.

But just like the spotless sitcom perfect sets my dad helped build, everything looked fine from the outside, and people saw what we wanted them to see, or maybe but they wanted to see.

“Everybody wants to believe in a happy family, right?”

After all, ours pretty much looked apart with all the tried and true stereotypes. The kind mom, the older sister on the honor roll, the rebellious middle child that zany little brother and the perfect sitcom dad. Tim the toolman Taylor, Danny Tanner, how?

He looked like a sitcom dad, too. Dark hair, broad shoulders, a mysterious grin he flash right before doing something ridiculous.

His looks and likability always reminded me of John Ritter growing up.

If John had been just like a lot more rough around the edges. Two glasses of white wine, please. I'll have the same.

“I think everyone sort of idolized your dad because he had such a strong personality.”

He could take over any room he walked into, take over any party we were at. He always wanted to perform. He always wanted to entertain people and he did for years. He just was somebody that I think a lot of people looked up to. That's my Aunt K.J.

One of my dad's four siblings, who knew full well that in a family so big, you had to have something special to stand out.

And that didn't end once he grew up and left home to make it on his own.

No matter what my dad did, his charm and imagination knocked you off your feet. Take Movie Night. In our house, Movie Night wasn't just throwing on a VHS, it was an event. Or every movie we were served by our Butler, Jeeves, who bore a striking resemblance to my dad in a ponytail.

“With a British accent and an applicant draped over his arm.”

Dad like primed us to believe in everything though. Like we just lived in a kind of magical childhood. I don't remember what he did. I just remember the towel and his British accent and that he had three Jeeves, had three kids in England named Yisak, Leigh Hall, and Suncar.

So just pick that in version of our names, I guess. I forgot about that. And he would tell us all about his kids in England who were shockingly similar to us. And so many ways, but British. My older sister Kasey, who you just heard, has some conflicting memories about exactly

which version of him had the ponytail. Because after all, he did have multiple characters. There was also Bob of the Boller, a fast-talking pro-boller from New York, New Jersey. And the region is fuzzy, but our local bowling alley was his stage.

“You know, I think you think about it when you're an adult and maybe people would be like,”

"What the heck?" Guys, I mean, he's really thought you were a Butler that flew in from England. But like, you know, we would drive up to Sierra Graham on Grandpa. They lived like three hours north of us in California and you drive past the ocean. It went along most of the way.

And our dad would be driving and like, I mean, this is a man with a trade actor. The most convincing would be like, "Guys, did you see that? Did you see that?" And he'd be like, "No, what?" He was like, "I saw a mermaid tail out there.

I can't believe you'll miss it again." But you know, you're living in a world where like, "Mermaid's a real fairies are real fairies and sprites and snickers." Music was another part of his magic. My dad was music and every sense of the word.

We would sit as a family and just wait for him to come home so he could play whatever new song he's really. About our family. I mean, I don't have heard all the Christmas songs he wrote and all the Thanksgiving songs and all the wedding songs.

But he always wrote very personal songs.

I wish that we had a recording number of weddings that I asked him way too late to please record it, but he was so sick. I can't do it, I can't do it, just but it was beautiful, it was a beautiful song. He'd played Beatles songs so well on his guitar that I thought he must have been in the band himself.

He could listen to a song on the radio and without a single lesson, play the melody on a piano every time. He wrote songs for his siblings and niece's weddings and recorded an entire album in our garage that I swear to you holds up. Tell me this country song doesn't slap, I dare you.

Wherever we went, my dad carried an energy that polled people in. He talked to every cashier, asking them about their day as though it were the most interesting conversation he'd ever had. He'd tell stories about jumping on to moving trains, driving his motorcycle off a bridge

And you've believed him. Not because the story sounded real.

“I'm honestly not sure what was and what wasn't, but because he did.”

Everybody put my dad on a pedestal, everybody. He was just everybody's friend, everybody's hero. I mean, how could they not see him that way? He was the epitome of main character energy.

He was the funniest man I've ever known, always committed to making someone laugh.

And for the better part of the last decade, I have been too. Time out, you know my name, but you don't really know me. I'm a stand up comedian who shares a little too much of her cell phone stage. But there are some things I've never been able to talk about openly. Talking about them openly means I lose control of the narrative, which honestly scares

the shit out of me. Because I spent most of my life with zero control over what was happening to me. And really, it means I'm going to finally have to confront a bombshell that my dad dropped on me almost 15 years ago. One I've been actively avoiding ever since.

“A secret that forced me to reckon with what family secrets do to you and how they quietly”

rearrange everything you thought you knew. Okay, so this is the part in the sitcom where the themes on kicks in. I pull up in my cool, last convertible in front of a totally non-descript suburban house. I walk up to the door. My key hits the lock and as it turns the title slams onto the screen.

Everybody knows what me. From next chapter podcasts and companion arts, this is episode one, The One With My Dad's Confession. It's just so interesting how family dynamics, you can see it coming from a mile away and when it's happening, you just can't, you're blind to it. Well, and you're living it, it's hard to separate yourself.

But I have seen that since the time you were a little girl, you and your dad are more like than Casey and Carson, you know, you're just so much alike.

And so I knew there were so, I'm always going to be some kind of like, in that funny,

you could be twins with somebody, and you're like, "What do I hate you?" No. Yeah, my dad and I are too much alike sometimes. I've always felt the most similar to my dad, and as magical as he was, I was never quite sure that being so much like him was a good thing.

That was something I really struggled with because my dad was fun, charming, and deeply, deeply flawed. But the myth of Mark Brown wasn't.

“I think he definitely wanted to be everybody's best friend, he always wanted to please”

everybody, and especially mom and dad, mom, idolized. Really? I mean, parents are supposed to have favorites, Mark was mom's favorite. You could tell. No, dad.

I think it's a safe assumption to make that my dad was literally everybody's favorite. I just remember, he would come out and go rabbit and bat it and bat it cakes, and just loved him so much. I didn't know he came up with a baby cake. Yeah, he came up with baby cakes, oh yeah, for sure.

And the rabbit and bat it and bat it cakes. What is that?

And he would just always say that's me, he'd go rabbit and bat it cakes.

And then he would always give me a hundred kisses on my face. Oh, that sounds so ham. Fifty on each cheek every time. Oh, I'd be like, no, no, and I just, you know, and I loved every bit of it. Yeah, that just feels like anything he could do to attack you with affection.

Yes, of course. Or something he would do. That's my aunt Cheryl, the youngest of my dad's siblings. My grandpa was in the Air Force, which meant the family moved around a lot. In the mid 1960s, when my dad was about eight years old, they landed in a small town

off of California's central coast called Lampoc. That's known for its flower fields, a military base, and a very large prison. And with a family of seven, I can only imagine how chaotic things were. There was my granddad, Cecil, but we called him Charlie Brown. Joyce, my grandma, or as we called her, Mammoo.

My aunt Cecilia, the oldest, two years later, came my dad. Three years after that, my aunt KJ, then my uncle Matt, and finally aunt Cheryl.

For most people, it would be pretty hard to stand out in a family that big. Somehow, my dad made it sound pretty easy.

The first time I realized what a performer he was, I was properly in elementary school.

I might have been in junior high, and Gabriele High School, which is where your dad and your aunt Cecilia, they were in high school together.

“And I think your dad might have been the freshman in high school, and they were putting”

on the play hour-town, and he didn't get a part in the play. And I think your aunt Cecilia did in the play, but your dad did not, but he was a freshman. And they had seniors trying out, so they had to give them to the seniors. But before the play started, and during the intermission, and stuff, they asked your dad to sing, to play the guitar and sing.

And we were sitting there waiting for the play to start in your dad, walk down the aisle of the theater, singing. He was walking and singing at the same time. And playing this guitar, and I thought, "He's so great!" And he had played the guitar at home.

I don't think at that time in his life, he had written his own songs yet, maybe and I didn't realize it.

“But that was the first time I'd heard him in public singing, and I thought, "Oh, he's so”

good! He's that's my brother in how great!" And how great! I was more proud of him than I was at the play. I mean, you know, Cecilia was in the play, and that was fine, and she probably had a lead

role. I don't know. From that point on, my dad had dreams that were too big to stay inside him, and way too big to stay in a small town like Lampoke. After attending college in Texas, he moved to the place where serious theater people

go to make a big. New York City! He auditioned for plays, was so broke he slept under the bar at his job, and let's be honest. I know he did a lot of farting, and out of all of his children, why did I have to inherit

the performance bug in this economy? I couldn't have loved math or plants. I had to love art and attention. A few years after I started doing stand-up around 2018, I was digging through some boxes in the garage when I found a very old journal.

It was immediately clear that it was my dad's, because the first page was a very long

list of women's names. On my recognize from his stories, some, I didn't recognize it all, and some that were just written out as "my real hot tub" or "lucy's friend." Yeah, you're hearing that right. The first page of my dad's journal was his incredibly long sex list.

I told you, everybody loved Mark Brown. The last number on his list was left blank, and I liked to think that's when he met my mommy, but more on that later. Most of the rest of the journal was illegible. Bits of songs, fragments of plays, his handwriting was historically terrible, but there

was one passage I could read, and it said, "I don't like bartending, I have to act."

The problem is, New York offers no money to actors.

You have to have money in New York.

“Money is the key to come for here, but I'll be back.”

Jesus, I am 25, I need to start making money at my trade. Maybe things will come from 26. I was 25 when I found that journal, reading words my dad had written when he was the exact same age as me. I could feel him on those pages.

Honestly, I felt like I could have written them myself. Not much has changed about acting or performing since then. You still need money, neither of us had it, but God did he love the craft. And there it is again, a reminder, I am so much like my dad. I remember Dad told me a story about an audition he went on for a soap opera, and our dad

did a lot of Shakespeare, as we mentioned. It was a huge job, just to say, very pretentious, like loved to talk about how smart he was, and he does a soap opera, and he gets a call back, and he decides during the call back that he can't be on a soap opera because it's been me, him, as an actor, and he

And apparently, granted Dad, the person who got the role in the soap opera, Kelsey Grammar. No way. Who are Dad later worked for? I got the talk to Kelsey. I'm not kidding, I got to figure out a way to talk to the Grammar.

But apparently, you see if I can confirm that. Yeah, supposedly, Kelsey got that role that my dad went out for. That's him, age. I mean, I'm assuming that. They're be close, and age, yeah.

Wow. From everything I've known, and from everybody I've ever talked to, it's clear he had it.

“Being a performer was the most important thing to him.”

Second, only to being a dad, a legit boy.

Lucky for me, in the mid 1980s, he headed back west and met my mom before any star-making role ever came. And when he moved to Hollywood, dreaming of being in front of the camera, the next best thing is getting as close as possible. So he moved behind the scenes, and it couldn't have happened at a better time.

The golden age of sitcoms. Well, seven kind of the day, alright? There are plenty of other hot-looking chicks who are dying to go with me. On a sick people off their mind. Jeffrey, go fetch my tools.

You're mainly a knife and full. But first, the kids who ruined his dreams, I mean, the kids who gave his life new meaning. I've already met my sister, she's a year and a half older than me, and arrived the same year as the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Whether she liked it or not, she was going to be my greatest friend.

I wasn't even one yet, when my dad landed a job on a brand new sitcom in 1993 that would basically become the wallpaper of my childhood. Frasier. You can probably tell how enmeshed our lives were with Frasier by the Niles Crane Tributat to I have, or the creative arts Emmy he won as part of the show's crew, which now hangs

above my desk. But the real impact was less trophy, more childhood. My sister and I wrote letters to Santa on the back of Frasier scripts. We went to Halloween parties at Kelsey Grammers House where my dad designed Kelsey's annual haunted houses like they were his passion projects.

We attended every single Frasier softball team game. Timeout. Did you know every sitcom had a softball team?

“And I mean every show, sign-felt, friends, two of a kind, remember that one.”

We spent hours watching my dad win over yet another crowd from the bleachers. I even met Malcolm in the middle himself in the middle of a game. All I'm asking is for the courtesy of not being treated like an idiot. The season's one through six of my life had a loyal audience, consistent storylines, and familiar characters.

And then, in 1997, the same year south park burst onto the airwaves. We got a surprise ratings boost no one saw coming, a baby boy, my little brother Carson. It was kind of cool to like be in that guy's orbit when you're like, like, oh, I guess it might, you know, that's my dad, you know, but just felt like when he entered the room, the room was, like, the lights turned on.

You know what I mean? That's beautiful. I don't know. I just felt like he was like, when people say the life of the party, he was the life of the party.

Oh, I don't know. I just, I'd say probably some of the earliest memories I have would be, like, going trout fishing and bokeh canyon with him. That was fun. I remember him teaching me how to play catch, but I just wouldn't hold the glove right.

I was scared. I remember him getting really mad at me because I wouldn't do it. I just, I also, I remember like doing stuff in the garage.

I've always liked to, I was worried, always interested in what he was making, and he was

not a very good craftsman. [laughter] What? That Bong he made? What is it?

Expert level craftsman? He had all the heart, and he didn't have the connection to the brain. One of the most unique experiences my brother had was when my dad actually gave him a cameo in an episode of razor.

“I little six year old brother, how many people can say that?”

He had a way of making us all feel individually loved, like you were his favorite co-star. But depending on the era, you were meeting a very different version of that larger than life-leading man. I do think a lot of my memories are either tied to home videos or photos, so pre-cancer, I don't remember much.

Really? I don't really feel like I ever had a memory with like a sound-bodied father. Really?

Yeah, I don't ever remember dad with like, to me, dad's always been frail.

but other than that.

That's so crazy, because I just remember when I was little thinking dad was like the

strongest man in the world, you know, it's just, it's a different experience, because he would like pick us each up on each arm and he, like, show us big muscles and get that weight machine and the garage and everything, and so I just remember thinking like, "Well, we have the strongest dad, period." It must be the strongest dad in the universe.

He's the strongest and he told us, and so it's true, and he can pick up a child. He's the strongest dad. Yeah, he can pick up a 40 pound kid, but yeah, so I just, that was my little kid memory

“of dad, and then it's like, I think, I think there is photographs, you can see in photographs”

like when the drinking got really out of hand, because he got pretty pretty pretty. It was pretty, pretty puppy. Oh my god. I'm pretty fluffy in a lot of pictures. You're very, very red.

Memories are weird like that, and I'm trying to fill in the gaps of my own.

Even my older sister, who remembers everything, doesn't remember one of the most important

moments of our lives. The moment our dad sat us down, when we thought we were learning one thing and we found out something else that changed everything entirely. I have more questions for him, and ultimately the rest of my family. Why did he try to shield us from the truth?

Was he trying to protect himself or us? Is there more I still don't know who and my family can I trust and and why did everybody know about me? So get ready, because we're going to explore the answers to these questions and a lot more.

And occasionally, my extremely fucked up life will act like the sitcom I always wished

it could be. Everybody knows but me is recorded in front of a live studio audience. It's so hot out, I can barely move. I need to honey, oh I've gotten off the couch in days. Fifteen different prescriptions at once probably didn't help either mom.

Well, sounds like Carson's on the roof again, at least this time he's trying to fix the AC unit.

“And he was on the roof, is anyone know what a Phillips head screwdriver looks like?”

Also, does anyone know what a pair of guys who isn't 12? Good news says it's actually somehow colder outside than it is in here. We can't live like this. I thought Dad said he was going to get the air conditioning replaced weeks ago, four weeks six days, nine hours and 14 minutes actually, but who's counting?

Where is Dad anyway? Didn't he want to tell us something? Oh, yeah, he, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to be the exciting glow of your father's big enough. I think the heat got to her.

Yeah, Casey, the heat.

“Is it just the cancer in me, or is it cold as hell in here?”

Hot, dad, hell is hot, which is why I'm pretty sure we're living in it. Technically, in Dante's inferno, the deepest circle of hell is a frozen wasteland. Okay, Dad, out with it, why the family meeting? We get in central air, or what? Well, I, um, I've actually got something to tell you.

Uh, did the doctor say something? This isn't the big bad news, is it? Oh, it's big news, all right. So what is it, Dad? It's pressure coming back, do you have your own job again?

Are we trading top rom-in for Toss salad and scrambled eggs? Come on, you know what, Stevie shows end, they don't ever come back. I, uh, I don't know how to say this, but I, well, I had a relationship with someone who wasn't your mother. And you have twin brothers, they're five years old.

Oh, I'm dying, all right, dying of thirst, what does a guy have to do to get a beer around

here? Dad, you can't have a beer, you have cancer. Our show is proudly brought to you by upside-down backwards visors and the memory of smoking indoors.

“Remember, when we used to be able to smoke inside, life seemed a lot simpler back then,”

didn't it?

And if you weren't around for it, well, you really missed out.

Anyways, thanks again for tuning in to everybody knows, but me. Everybody knows what me is a production of companion arts and next chapter podcasts. This episode was written by me, Holly Brown. The scene you just heard is a fictionalized version of very real moments from my life.

“Scripted by our lead producer, editor, music supervisor, and sound designer, Pete Musto.”

It featured Danny Ross playing my dad, Valerie Tossie playing my mom, Maddie Worth as

my sister Casey, Garrett West Camp as my brother Carson, Casey Rose as me and Pete Musto as our show's announcer. Our associate producer is Elana Nevinz, our story editor for episode 1 is Brad Lewandowski, original theme music by Kyle Murdock. Our show artwork was created by Erin Hill, our video producer is Emily Reeves, our videographer

is Dalton Politka, our animator is Justin Cortese, our marketing team is Tink Media. Our executive producers are Jeremiah Tittle and also me, Holly Brown. Special thanks to AJ Feliciano, Laura Montenegro, Farid Haji and the whole companion team. Lauren Pacell, Ariel Nissimblatt, Brian Bartletta, Alex Shaffert and Michael Goodfran for believing in this show.

And thanks most of all to my family and friends for supporting and being a part of this. New episodes of Everybody knows but me come out every Wednesday. Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, youtube.com/everybodynozpodcast or wherever you get great content like ours.

“Do you have a story of family secrets or darkly funny drama that you want to share?”

We want to hear it. Email us at [email protected]. Follow me at Holly Brown comedy and follow the show at everybodynoz but me on Instagram. And come back next week to find out what crazy hygiene is the brown family is in for and hear more of the stories we tell ourselves to survive.

We want to hear more of the stories we tell ourselves to survive. Next chapter podcast.