Jamie Lee Curtis came to Today on Wednesday morning to talk about her new sitcom, and the show had a surprise waiting for her from 45 years ago. Carson Daly played her a clip of herself on the same program in 1981, a 22-year-old Curtis being interviewed by Tom Brokaw, and her face lit up the moment it started. She beamed, threw a hand in the air and laughed out loud at the sight of her younger self.
In the old interview, Brokaw teased her about the week she was having, telling her that NBC that weekend “stands for Nothing But Curtis.” The young Curtis smiled and answered that somebody had told her that on the radio, and that she thought it was so sweet. As the interview noted, the original Halloween was about to air on NBC that Friday, while Halloween II opened in theaters the same Friday night.
It really was her weekend. On Friday, October 30, 1981, John Carpenter’s Halloween made its network television premiere on NBC, on the very day Halloween II arrived in movie theaters. The 1978 original, made for about $325,000, had turned Curtis, in her first film role as babysitter Laurie Strode, into horror’s defining scream queen, and by 1981 audiences could watch her run from Michael Myers at home and at the movies on the same night.
Watching it all back this morning, Curtis laughed through the whole clip, at one point doubling over in her chair. When it ended, Daly told her the line still works: “Well, we said it back in 1981, and we are saying it again today. NBC stands for nothing but Curtis.”
The conversation also turned to why so much of television right now reaches backward. Daly asked Curtis about the wave of remakes and revivals, and about people clinging to something from 20 years ago to feel a certain way again. Her answer started with one word: “Safe.” She said someone had called Newlyweds comfort food, and that the label should be on the banner of every advertisement.
“The reason nostalgia works is because it’s safety,” she said. “It’s comfort food. We are feeling out of control. The world feels dangerous. AI feels dangerous. Wars are going on. Politics are raging. What do we want?” She connected that feeling to why she wanted to make a broadcast sitcom in the first place. “In a world where nobody has money for gas, for electricity, for healthcare, for education, you get to turn on a TV and something comes in for free on a Friday night that’s funny, charming.”
Curtis was on the show to promote Newlyweds, the NBC sitcom she co-created and executive produces, in which she plays Claudia, the ex-wife of Tim Daly’s character. The series premiered last Friday, October 23, and airs Fridays at 8:30 p.m. on NBC and streams on Peacock, which means Curtis is once again spending her Fridays on the network, this time in a Friday comedy pairing with Reba McEntire’s Happy’s Place. Forty-five years after Brokaw’s joke, and right in the middle of Halloween week, it is not a bad time to be Nothing But Curtis.