Murphy Brown
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Murphy Brown | |
|---|---|
 The cast of Murphy Brown |
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| Format | Sitcom |
| Created by | Diane English |
| Starring | Candice Bergen Faith Ford Pat Corley Grant Shaud Joe Regalbuto Robert Pastorelli Charles Kimbrough Lily Tomlin |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of seasons | 10 |
| No. of episodes | 247 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 Minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Original run | November 14, 1988 – May 18, 1998 |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
Murphy Brown is an American situation comedy which aired on CBS from November 14, 1988 to May 18, 1998, for a total of 247 episodes. The program starred Candice Bergen as the eponymous Murphy Brown, an investigative journalist and news anchor for FYI, a fictional CBS television newsmagazine. The show achieved a level of political notoriety in the 1992 presidential election when Dan Quayle mentioned the show in a campaign speech, known as the "Murphy Brown speech".
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[edit] Characters
Brown (born May 1948 in Philadelphia) was a recovering alcoholic, who, in the show's first episode, was returning to FYI (the name of the fictional TV show that is the center of the series) for the first time since a stay at the Betty Ford Clinic. Her colleagues at FYI included stuffy anchor Jim Dial (Charles Kimbrough), reporter Frank Fontana (Joe Regalbuto), who hated the toupée he had to wear for the show, and the scatterbrained Corky Sherwood (Faith Ford), a former Miss America. Sherwood was actually first runner-up until the winner was forced to resign (Sherwood remarked in the first episode, "She told everyone she loved animals, but who knew to take her literally?"). New to the staff was producer Miles Silverberg (Grant Shaud), who, at 25 and fresh from work in public television, was perfect for utter torture from Murphy.
The FYI team also frequently socialized at Phil's, a bar across the street from their studio in Washington, D.C.. Phil, the bar owner, was played by Pat Corley.
Brown was unmarried, but had a home life as well: she hired a philosophy-dispensing house painter named Eldin Bernecky (Robert Pastorelli) to repaint her house, but he had so many grand ideas that he was with the show for six seasons.
In the show's 1991–1992 season, Murphy became pregnant and had a child, and after 6 months, she decided to name the baby Avery after her mother, who was played by Colleen Dewhurst, had died earlier in real life and on the show. This story line made the show a subject of political controversy during the 1992 American presidential campaign. On May 19, 1992, then Vice President Dan Quayle spoke at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. During his speech, he criticized the Murphy Brown character for ignoring the importance of fathers and bearing a child alone.[1] Quayle's remarks caused a public discussion on family values, culminating in the 1992-93 season premiere ("You Say Potatoe, I Say Potato") where the television characters reacted to Quayle's comments and produced a special episode of FYI showcasing and celebrating the diversity of the modern American family. At the end, Brown arranges a retaliatory prank in which a truckload of potatoes is dumped in front of Quayle's residence, while a disc jockey commenting on the incident notes the Vice President should be glad people were not making fun of him for misspelling "fertilizer." When Candice Bergen won another Emmy that year, she thanked Dan Quayle. The feud was cited by E! as #81 on its list of "101 Reasons the '90s Ruled."[2] (In 2002, Bergen said in an interview that she personally agreed with much of Quayle's speech, calling it "a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable" and adding that "nobody agreed with that more than I did."[3]) Quayle would eventually display a sense of humor about the incident -- after the controversy died down, he appeared for an interview on an independent Los Angeles TV station and for his final question was asked what his favorite TV show was. He responded with "Murphy Brown-Not!" The station would later use the clip of Quayles' response to promote its showing of Murphy Brown re-runs in syndication.
Shaud left the series in 1996, and was replaced by Lily Tomlin as producer Kay Carter-Shepley for the show's final seasons. Kay proved that she had just as little experience as Miles Silverberg when he started with the show; the only experience Kay had in television was producing a daytime game show.
The show began in the Monday 9/8PM timeslot and remained there until its final season when it was moved to Wednesday at 8:30/7:30PM. The series finale aired in its original Monday timeslot.
In the show's final season, a year-long story arc aired in which Murphy battled breast cancer. The show's handling of the subject was credited with a 30 percent increase in the number of women getting mammograms. The storyline was not without controversy; an episode in which she used medical marijuana to relieve side effects of chemotherapy was attacked by conservative groups, and a women's health group protested an episode in which Murphy, while shopping for prosthetic breasts, uttered the line "Should I go with Demi Moore or Elsie the Cow?"
However, Bergen was presented an award from the American Cancer Society in honor of her role in educating women on the importance of breast cancer prevention and screening.
In the show's final episode, Murphy met and interviewed God (played by Alan King) and Edward R. Murrow in a dream while undergoing surgery. Computer editing was used to insert footage of the real Murrow, who died in 1965, into the show. Diane English, who created the show, made a cameo appearance as a nurse who delivered the results to Murphy after her surgery. At the end of the episode, Murphy walks through her house seemingly alone, only to have Eldin appear at the end to offer to repaint her house.
[edit] Ratings
Murphy Brown was a top-30 hit for 7 seasons[4]:
- 1988-1989:
- 1989-1990: #27
- 1990-1991: #6
- 1991-1992: #3
- 1992-1993: #4
- 1993-1994: #9
- 1994-1995: #16
- 1995-1996: #18 (tie)
- 1996-1997:
- 1997-1998:
[edit] Running gags
- The show did not have an opening theme song, but instead many episodes began with a Motown song whose lyrics were somehow relevant to the plot of the episode.
- Many characters often commented that Murphy was especially difficult or grouchy around the 18th of every month. (Corky Sherwood said in one episode: "Circle the 18th. We all do!")
- For a few seasons, Corky Sherwood was known as "Corky Sherwood Forrest" after marrying a lawyer named Will Forrest (Scott Bryce) in the show's 1989-1990 season, whom she later divorced (Faith Ford's husband at this time was named Robert Nottingham).
- While the other news anchors produced many serious news stories, Corky's running gag was that her stories were frivolous. Examples included a retrospective on Bert Parks, where to take one's cat while one goes on vacation, and "a dinner with the Van Patten family."
- The network regularly sent Murphy incompetent secretaries, with a different secretary in almost every episode. On one occasion, it was Carol (Marcia Wallace) from The Bob Newhart Show, who proved really good at the job but quit when Bob Hartley (Bob Newhart) showed up and begged her to come back to his office. Other secretaries included a crash test dummy, a prostitute who operated a phone sex line from her desk, and a rapper who related all Murphy's phone messages to her in verse. In the show's final season, the secretaries were played by celebrities, including Bette Midler, Don Rickles, Rosie O'Donnell, Sally Field, Laura Kightlinger, Cecily Adams, Paul Reubens, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Julie Brown. Over the course of the series, 93 different secretaries appeared in all. In the final season, Murphy learns of her former secretaries' support group, which included a Hitler look-alike, a woman who spoke with a long pause after every word and a mentally unstable man.
- In addition to the above list of secretaries appearing on the actual show, an episode of Seinfeld featured Kramer appearing as one of Murphy's secretaries.
- When Murphy became a mother in season four, she went through nannies the same way she went through secretaries, and Eldin Bernicky, the house painter, ended up looking after Avery most of the time.
[edit] Recurring characters
A number of recurring characters also appeared during the show's run:
- John Hostetter played John, the stage manager in 62 episodes.
- Jay Thomas appeared in several episodes as tabloid talk show host Jerry Gold, who became a friend of Murphy's and an occasional love interest, despite their significantly different journalistic values.
- Colleen Dewhurst appeared in a number of episodes as Murphy's mother, Avery Brown. Dewhurst won several Emmy Awards for her appearances. When Dewhurst died in 1991, the writers chose to have her character die as well, and dedicated the episode to the memory of Dewhurst. Murphy, who was pregnant at the time of her mother's death, named her son Avery in her mother's memory the following season.
- Darren McGavin appeared in several episodes as Murphy's father. He earned an Emmy nomination in 1990 for his performance as Bill Brown.
- Scott Bakula appeared as reporter (and occasional love interest for Murphy) Peter Hunt.
- Jane Leeves appeared in a number of episodes as Miles' girlfriend Audrey. Her appearances ended when she joined the cast of Frasier.
- Robin Thomas appeared as Jake, Murphy's ex-husband. Murphy and Jake had another brief relationship, and Jake was the father of her child.
- Christopher Rich played Miller Redfield, a reporter with the local affiliate who had semi-regular appearances on the show, first as a substitute anchor when Jim was on leave, and also when the team went on strike.
- Garry Marshall appeared as network president Stan Lansing.
- Jean Stapleton appeared a few times, playing Miles' grandmother, Nana Silverberg.
- Rose Marie appeared as Frank Fontana's mother.
- Paul Reubens, better known as Pee-Wee Herman, appeared as Lansing's nephew Andrew, one of Murphy's 93 secretaries.
- In the show's final seasons, when the younger Avery was of school age, he was played by Haley Joel Osment.
[edit] DVD releases
Warner Home Video released the first season of Murphy Brown on DVD in Region 1 on February 8, 2005. Due to low sales, no future releases are planned. [1] A listing for Murphy Brown Season 2 exists on Amazon.com, but neither details nor a release date is given.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| The Complete First Season | 22 | February 8, 2005 |
[edit] Awards and nominations
[edit] Awards won
- Outstanding Comedy Series (1990, 1992) 2 wins
- Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (1989-1990, 1992, 1994-1995) 5 wins
- Best TV Series-Comedy/Musical (1992) 1 win
- Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Series-Comedy Candice Bergen (1989, 1992) 2 wins
[edit] Awards nominated
- Outstanding Comedy Series (1989, 1991, 1993) 3 nominations
- Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (1991, 1993) 2 nominations
- Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Faith Ford (1989-1992, 1994) 5 nominations
- Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Jay Thomas (1992)
- Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Charles Kimbrough (1990)
- Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Joe Regalbuto (1989)
- Best TV Series-Comedy/Musical (1989, 1991-1993) 4 nominations
- Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Series-Comedy Candice Bergen (1990-1991, 1993-1996) 6 nominations
- Best Supporting Actress on TV Faith Ford (1991-1992) 2 nominations
- Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble Cast in a Comedy Series (1995)
- Outstanding Female Actor in a Comedy Series Candice Bergen (1995-1996)
[edit] Awards and reviews
- Bergen won five Emmys over the course of the series, a record for a television actress in a continuing role. After her fifth Emmy, Bergen withdrew her name from the Emmy nominations.
[edit] References
- ^ Excerpts from Dan Quayle's speech, at Forerunner.com
- ^ "Reasons the '90s Ruled 101 - 81", TV.com
- ^ Associated Press. "Bergen: Quayle Was Right About Murphy", July 11, 2002
- ^ Brooks, Tim and Marsh, Earle, "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable Shows 1946-present", 7th edition
[edit] External links
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