From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section describes a work or element of fiction in a primarily in-universe style and may need cleanup. Please help rewrite this article according to the guidelines on writing about fiction, or discuss the issue on the talk page.

Katherine "Kitty" Forman (née Sigurdson) (born early 1930s, on the 13th of the month) is a fictional character on The FOX Network's That '70s Show. She is played by comic actress Debra Jo Rupp. Kitty is a nurse but sometimes takes a break from her career to make peace in the family. She also has a very recognizable laugh and a fondness for square dancing.

She is married to Red Forman (Kurtwood Smith). She is mother to daughter Laurie (Lisa Robin Kelly), with whom she has a stressful relationship, and son Eric (Topher Grace), whom she has a habit of overprotecting, even to the point of saying that his girlfriend Donna Pinciotti seduced her "poor boy and tricked him into having sex with her," a statement that could not be further from the truth. Unlike Red, Kitty also seems to enjoy Eric's friends hanging around the house, sometimes mothering them. One of Kitty's favorite pasttimes is being a mother — making sandwiches, baking cookies, and looking after children. She does not want Eric to move out, fearing that if he does, she will have no one to take care of. She was the one who convinced Red for the family to take in Steven Hyde (Danny Masterson) when his mother left him. Like many fictional mothers, Kitty puts on a facade of a vacuous, cheerful, doting mother, yet has huge problems of her own. She likes to give off the appearance of goodness and be everyone's favorite mom in the neighborhood, but Kitty is somewhat of an alcoholic, with a passion for kahlua. Despite being a nurse and knowing the consequences of her actions, she is also a smoker, and has tried to quit more than once, but to no avail (Kitty's cigarette smoking was slowly phased out after season three, due to Debra Jo Rupp kicking the habit in real life). Her mood swings are usually attributed to her menopause storyline. As Red puts down Eric and favors Laurie, Kitty puts down Laurie and favors Eric, mainly because Laurie is known to be loose and cares little, if at all, about school. In clichéd fashion, she and her late mother-in-law, Bernice Forman, have a rocky relationship, throwing insults at each other in the guise of friendly, formal conversation, a "tradition" Kitty almost passed down to her would-be daughter-in-law, Donna. Though they mutually hate each other, Kitty does feel guilty about antagonizing her mother-in-law after she dies.

Kitty's parents are Bea and Burt Sigurdson (played by Betty White and Tom Poston). They live in Arizona but have appeared in a few episodes of the series that takes place in fictional Point Place, Wisconsin. Burt is a kind, laid back man who frequently tries to avoid his wife Bea, an aggressive, loud nightmare. Eric sums up their relationship as "Grandma yells, Grandpa drinks." To get away from Bea, Burt will occasionally step outside to have a cigarette, though he doesn't smoke. Whenever Bea is looking for Burt or trying to get his attention she will call his name soft and sweetly twice, to which Burt will ignore as if he hasn't heard her, Bea will then scream his name in a shrill blast of fury. She teaches this method to her grandson's girlfriend Donna. Laurie proves to have inherited her grandmother's talent for shrill yelling, which to Kitty confirms that "evil skips a generation".

In the episode Your Time Is Gonna Come (a.k.a. Get Off My Boyfriend) (which premiered on January 29, 2003), Burt and Bea arrive at the Forman's doorstep flat broke after Burt makes a financial blunder buying an ostrich farm next door to a coyote farm. At the end of the episode Burt is found by Eric unconscious on the drive way (having suffered a coronary after accidentally seeing Donna, Jackie and one of Kelso's girlfriends in their underwear through Donna's bedroom window) and later dies in the hospital. Unusually for a television mother, the aftermath of her father's death delves into Kitty's role as a daughter; after the funeral she feels unloved by her mother for a brief period of time.

In season five, Kitty told Red that she was pregnant, only to go to the doctor who told her the reason why her periods had stopped was because she was beginning menopause. To help his wife through menopausal mood swings, Red got Kitty a wiener dog she named Schatzi (German for Little Treasure). A notable consequence of her menopause is that she drinks considerably more than she used to.

In the episode, Kitty's Birthday (Is That Today!?), it is revealed that Kitty's birthday is the 13th of whatever month it was. Her maiden name implies that she is of Swedish descent. This is confirmed in Streaking, where Kitty reveals that her grandmother was Swedish.

Kitty has a younger sister named Paula (Valerie Harper) who appeared in Eric's Naughty No-No. Paula is a cosmetics sales-woman and very successful which makes Kitty jealous as Kitty was once the more successful one. After an argument about what each of them had that was better than the other, the sisters made up and Paula gave Kitty a make-over.