Patrick Duffy Jokes That ‘Step by Step’ Leaned Into ‘Horny’ Subtext ‘Every Chance That We Could’

Patrick Duffy praised Step by Step for not shying away from the more adult implications about the relationship between his and Suzanne Somers‘ characters.

During an episode of Staci Keanan and Christine Lakin‘s “Keanan and Lakin Give You Déjà Vu” rewatch podcast, the former costars addressed how some viewers referred to the show as “horny” after watching it back over the years.

“I could not believe that anyone would say that,” Keanan, 49, said in an episode from earlier this month. “I thought, ‘What are they talking about? Our show is a very wholesome and sweet family show.’ Now I start [re]watching the show [and I understand].”

Duffy, 75, joked about the undertones, adding, “It’s not like we demanded it. But we always pushed for the reason these two families got together on a whim and on a vacation. They got married after knowing each other for two days.”

Step by Step chose to lean into the subtext. “It wasn’t because we were both good at playing poker. So every chance that we could, we wanted to go upstairs and we couldn’t because we had a house full of kids, you know. And they wrote to that — and we played to that,” Duffy recalled. “We thought it was important. We could be appropriately attracted to one another and also good parenting models.”

The sitcom, which aired from 1991 to 1998, followed single parents Frank (Duffy) and Carol (Somers) who each had three children from previous relationships. They met by chance and quickly married, blending their families together.

“People have come up to me and have said that watching that show was pivotal for them as a child. They wanted — if they didn’t have one — a dad like that,” Duffy recalled. “One young man came up and said, ‘I watched the show and ever since I started watching the show as a young person, I said, I want to be a dad like that. I wanna have a dad like that and then I wanna be a dad like that if I ever have children.’ So we fulfilled a certain function.”

Duffy did have one plot point he wasn’t thrilled to explore on screen.

“I had a disagreement [with the writers] when Suzanne wanted to get pregnant,” he shared about his costar, who died in October 2023. “I thought it was irresponsible. I thought we were a six-child family of a woman who was theoretically a beautician — but we never saw her work after the first two seasons — and a struggling contractor.”

Somers, however, wanted the story line so their characters welcomed daughter Lilly in season 4. “It wasn’t so much that she wanted another child on the show,” Duffy explained. “She just thought she could act that out, being pregnant, and she could. It’s a funny thing to have her doing all the Lucille Ball stuff. She was in heaven, it made her happy. So I was fine.”