A GEOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN TELEVISION SETTINGS
As this study began, I was tempted to analyze preexisting studies of regional images in
order to create a thematic framework for each region, with the intent of analyzing whether or not
the television programs in this study conformed to themes already identified by geographers and
other scholars. After vacillation on the matter, however, I decided it was better to begin with a
blank slate, and I have since discovered that this was the appropriate move. Beginning a study of
this kind with a sense of uncertainty conforms to the basic tenets of phenomenology and is
necessary to avoid prejudgment. According to Anne Buttimer, ―One endeavors to peel off
successive layers of a priori judgment and to transcend all preconceptions in order to arrive at a
consciousness of pure essence‖ (Buttimer 1976: 279). John Fraser Hart also made the point well
when he wrote that geographers ―must learn to believe what their data tell them, instead of trying
to force the facts into a mold of preconceived theory‖ (Hart 1982: 29).
Using Brooks and Marsh‘s Directory, I began to sift through each of the nearly eight
hundred programs that made up the television landscapes of the regions contained in this study. I
was not, initially, attempting to construct any sort of thematic framework, but simply mining the
descriptions of these programs for anything that might have influenced the geographic
perceptions of the audience. I recorded, for example, descriptions of characters‘ professions,
social class, apparent levels of sophistication and intelligence, overall dispositions, and
household situations. I noted if the setting was depicted as being either particularly pleasant or
tumultuous, and anything else that seemed salient to a show‘s sense of place. Once this task was
complete, I began to reexamine these data, state by state, and then region by region, and a series
of themes and key images—in terms of genre, character, setting, tone, and so on—began to
emerge. Some were obvious and some were subtle. Some were expected and others a surprise.
22
As Cole Harris had suggested, ―An initially meaningless document is understandable later on in
the study . . . . They acquire meaning in a scholar‘s mind once they are placed in context‖ (Harris
1978: 126-126).
Once this basic framework was established, I turned to the large volume of television
literature to support, illustrate, refine, and, in a number of cases, redefine the themes and images
I had compiled. I drew primarily from those works described above as product description or
reception interpretation. Some of this material was intended primarily for a scholarly audience,
some for a more general one. Because a sizable number of these are web-based, it is important to
clarify my criteria for selection. Open-source web sites constructed by fans of certain television
programs contain some very interesting perspectives, and although it is difficult to ignore the
almost monastic devotion that some viewers have to their favorite television shows, such sources
are not generally considered appropriate for an academic work. A few comments from such sites
are contained in the following chapters—for example, the exasperated remarks of a fan
unsuccessfully trying to find references to New Jersey on the medical drama House—but
because no way exists to confirm the veracity of most of the information from these sites, I have
largely ignored them. Most of the web-based sources used in this study are simply the electronic
versions of traditional ink-and-paper outlets like the New York Times or Entertainment Weekly,
or online versions of reference collections such as the Encyclopedia of Television from
Chicago‘s Museum of Broadcast Communications. A few sources are available only on the
Internet, and in such cases, I have been careful to use only those generated by organizations with
qualified supervisors and editors. For example, one of the most commonly referenced web sites
in this study is PopMatters, the film and television section of which is edited by Cynthia Fuchs,
the director of Film and Media Studies at George Mason University.
23
What follows is first and foremost a geographic study, but it is also, in part, a regional
television history. Information about the individual programs‘ popularity, longevity, and critical
acclaim is included to allow readers to ascertain which shows have likely had the greatest impact
on the audience‘s geographic perception. Another challenge for this endeavor was to decide how
much information, such as plot and character descriptions, should be left in the final product, and
how much excluded. Including too much information, I knew, might obfuscate the geographic
themes and images at the heart of the study, but too little information would rob the study of the
very qualities that draw viewers to a particular television show. While wrestling with this
decision, I happened across the following statement by baseball scholar Bill James in the preface
of his Historical Baseball Abstract:
It is . . . peculiarly unsatisfying to read a railroad track history of
baseball—this happened, and then this happened, and then this
happened. . . . It is the goal of this book to create a history of
baseball that would surround you, that would reach out to you and
take your hand. This is done, of course, with details: hundreds and
hundreds of tiny little details. . . . A linear history of baseball drops
the details once those details . . . no longer serve to move the
narrative forward. Thus, in an odd way, it drops the things that
make baseball what it is. An academic, writing a history of
baseball, often sounds very much like an academic writing about
cancer research (James 2001: 6).
I came to the conclusion that boiling the television landscape down to its bare essentials
would rob it of its meaning—that is, doing so would, to paraphrase James, drop the things that
make television what it is. In hindsight, keeping the study rich in details also kept this study
closer to its scholarly goal. When I began my research, I imagined that I would eventually arrive
at a set of definitive conclusions—something resembling a set of laws of the geography of the
television universe. A number of compelling themes and images have emerged, and they are
detailed in the following chapters. In the end, however, concrete, all-encompassing conclusions
24
about the American television landscape remain elusive. The essence of the geography of
television, much like that of the history of baseball, is found, as James states, in the ―hundreds
and hundreds of tiny little details.‖
25
TABLE 1. TELEVISION AND POPULATION SHARES
Source for population data: U.S. Census Bureau (2011).
<http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html>
T.V.
Share
Pop.
Share
T.V.
Share
Pop.
Share
Mid-Atlantic 7.94% 9.20% South 5.30% 19.06%
D. C. 3.91% 0.19% Tennessee 2.54% 2.03%
Pennsylvania 2.07% 4.06% Georgia 0.97% 3.10%
New Jersey 1.19% 2.81% Virginia 0.47% 2.56%
Maryland 0.70% 1.85% Louisiana 0.39% 1.45%
Delaware 0.13% 0.29% N. Carolina 0.39% 3.05%
Mississippi 0.16% 0.95%
New England 3.78% 4.56% Arkansas 0.13% 0.93%
Massachusetts 2.17% 2.04% Alabama 0.11% 1.53%
Connecticut 0.68% 1.14% Kentucky 0.08% 1.39%
Maine 0.36% 0.42% S. Carolina 0.03% 1.48%
Rhode Island 0.33% 0.34% West Virginia 0.03% 0.59%
Vermont 0.16% 0.20%
New Hampshire 0.08% 0.42% West 6.37% 10.35%
Nevada 1.65% 0.86%
Midwest 12.44% 21.48% Arizona 1.14% 2.04%
Illinois 6.68% 4.10% Washington 1.06% 2.15%
Ohio 1.24% 3.69% Colorado 0.99% 1.61%
Kansas 0.95% 0.91% New Mexico 0.46% 0.66%
Missouri 0.83% 1.91% Oregon 0.39% 1.22%
Wisconsin 0.78% 1.82% Wyoming 0.36% 0.18%
Michigan 0.64% 3.16% Montana 0.21% 0.32%
Minnesota 0.51% 1.70% Utah 0.08% 0.88%
Indiana 0.49% 2.07% Idaho 0.03% 0.43%
Iowa 0.15% 0.97%
The Dakotas 0.10% 0.57%
Nebraska 0.07% 0.58%
26
TABLE 2. DEFINING PROGRAMS AND COMMON TRAITS: THE MID-ATLANTIC
State Defining Programs Key Program
Elements
Other Common
Traits
Delaware The Pretender Secretive and
nefarious organization
District of Columbia Meet the Press Political talk Public service; music,
art, and science; the
noble outsider taking
on a corrupt system;
African-American
families and
professionals; crime;
the absurdity of
government and
politics; corrupt
bureaucrats and
politicians
The West Wing The excitement of the
White House; realistic
politics; the vagaries
of power
Murphy Brown A single, independent,
successful woman;
―nice and sweet are
out‖
The F.B.I. The methodical,
professional, and
unflappable G-Man;
steadfast patriotism
The X-Files Shadowy and
treacherous
government
conspiracy; a one-man
crusade
NCIS Honest and honorable
government agents
Maryland Roc Positive black role
models; challenges of
life in the inner city
Mainstream America;
science, art, and
literature; professional
women; non-
traditional families
Homicide: Life on the
Street
Crime, violence, and
poverty in the inner
city
New Jersey House Successful, brilliant
but brusque medical
professionals
New York City‘s
―backyard‖; tourism
and entertainment;
27
(New Jersey
continued)
The Sopranos Family; upscale
suburbia; blue-collar
aesthetic; seediness;
violence; sex; crime;
the Mafia; industrial-
urban wasteland;
garbage;
consumerism; loss of
traditional values;
Italian-Americans
middle-class families;
blue collar values;
mean streets;
working-class
struggle; wholesome
families; domestic
bliss
Pennsylvania American Bandstand Popular music Educational
programs; nuclear
families; a broad
range of social
classes; class conflict
dysfunctional
families; crime; hard-
boiled Pittsburgh;
struggling industrial
cities and towns
thirtysomething Yuppie angst; smart,
sophisticated,
introspective, self-
absorbed
professionals
It‟s Always Sunny in
Philadelphia
Comical sleaze; rude,
self-absorbed,
uncivilized yet
genuine,
unpretentious and
likable characters
Mr. Belvedere A pleasant suburban
Pittsburgh family
The Office Scranton as a
pleasant, friendly, but
unexciting, somewhat
unsophisticated city
with limited
possibilities
28
CHAPTER 2 - THE MID-ATLANTIC
The television landscape of the Mid-Atlantic—defined here as Maryland, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Delaware and the District of Columbia—has certainly been overshadowed by that
of neighboring New York, but these states have by no means been ignored. Nearly two hundred
programs, accounting for nearly eight percent of the television landscape, have originated from
or been set in the Mid-Atlantic, with Pennsylvania, New Jersey and D.C. leading the way. New
Jersey was represented early and often, with its shows accounting for about 1.2% of the
television landscape, but it is perhaps most notable for the dismal performance of its programs
until the 2000s. Pennsylvania has had more exposure, accounting for just over two percent of the
television landscape, and it has also been represented fairly frequently. Like New Jersey,
however, Pennsylvania has been home to relatively few successful programs. D.C., with its small
population but heavy dose of political intrigue, has accounted for 3.9% of the television
landscape—supplying nearly half of the region‘s television images. Maryland has not received as
much attention, with its sixteen mostly unsuccessful programs accounting for just 0.7% of the
television landscape, but it has fared better than neighboring Delaware, which has a fairly weak
claim to its lone program.
DELAWARE
One of the most prominent geographic features of the American television landscape is
its lack of regional balance. California has been the setting for nearly seven hundred programs
and New York nearly six hundred, while fifteen states have netted fewer than five. Two of
29
those—Idaho and Delaware—have barely avoided the dubious distinction of never serving as the
setting for a television program. Idaho‘s single entry, Manhunter (discussed in chapter seven),
got the state in on a technicality, with the show‘s protagonist returning only occasionally to his
home in the Gem State.
Delaware‘s claim to its lone entry was similarly tenuous. The 1996 science fiction drama
The Pretender was the story of Jarod Russell, who had been adopted as a small child by The
Centre, a mysterious organization located in fictional Blue Cove, Delaware. The Centre‘s team
of scientists had honed the already bright Jarod into a pretender—a genius who could, with the
aid of a little observation and a little reading, take on the role of doctor, pilot, lawyer, cop,
fireman, or any other occupation. As the series began, Jarod had escaped from Blue Cove and
was off on a quest to answer questions about the Centre‘s secrets and his own past. The
Pretender was essentially a cross between The Fugitive and Quantum Leap—Jarod roamed the
country, assuming new identities, helping people in need, and avoiding the agents for The Centre
who were hot on his heels.
The Pretender ran for four seasons, but was never a ratings blockbuster. It did gain a
loyal following in reruns, however, and cable‘s TNT channel eventually produced a pair of
follow-up movies in 2001. As mentioned, Delaware‘s claim to the show is a little shaky. Most of
the episodes took place elsewhere, and when the action shifted to Delaware, the state was often
hidden behind the fortress-like walls of The Centre.
30
PENNSYLVANIA
Pennsylvania has served as the setting for sixty television programs, an impressive
number, but much like neighboring New Jersey, few of these programs have met with much
success. Just ten of the state‘s programs survived more than two full years, and only eight of
those were on a major network. A meager three have managed to break into the Nielsen ratings
top thirty, with the state‘s highest-rated show being the Philadelphia-based situation comedy
Amen, which peaked in the thirteenth position during its first year, the 1986-1987 season.
Pennsylvania did, however, break onto the television landscape early and often, with
twelve programs originating from Philadelphia between 1948 and 1957. The city‘s network
television debut came on February, 1948, with The Nature of Things, a program that aired in
fifteen-minute segments on NBC for more than four years. Hosted by Dr. Roy K. Marshall of the
Fels Planetarium, the program featured lectures and discussions concerning scientific topics such
as astronomy, physics, and meteorology. Two more educational programs followed in 1953,
including What in the World, which aired for seven months. Hosted by Dr. Froelich Rainey, the
director of the University of Pennsylvania museum, this quiz show featured three panelists—two
professors of anthropology from Penn and a guest panelist—who were asked to identify and
discuss artifacts from the museum. Philadelphia‘s Junior Press Conference, which aired for just
over a year, featured correspondents from college campus newspapers around the country
interviewing politicians and other figures in the news.
Philadelphia‘s second network entry was the slightly less dowdy Hollywood Screen Test,
which debuted in April 1948 and featured young talent in comedy and dramatic sketches. This
show has the distinction of being the first to be seen on the ABC television network, although, at
31
the time, the ―network‖ consisted of just two stations—Philadelphia and Washington. When
ABC opened its New York station in August, production of Hollywood Screen Test shifted there,
and the show aired for five more years. Although no major future stars were discovered during
Screen Test‘s brief Philly run, the city did host the television debut of the influential Trenton,
New Jersey, comedian Ernie Kovacs. Ernie in Kovacsland was broadcast live from Philadelphia
in the summer of 1951 and featured the ―incredible repertoire of nutty characterizations‖ that
would become a staple of later Kovacs television programs (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 426).
A number of cities produced children‘s programming for primetime network television in
the medium‘s early years, but Philadelphia certainly produced the strangest example. Kid Gloves,
as its name vaguely suggested, featured children‘s boxing, with the contestants ranging in age
from three to twelve. Kid Gloves had been a popular local show in Philadelphia, and it was
broadcast live to the CBS network for six months in 1951. The considerably less violent Once
upon a Fence featured music and stories for kids, and was broadcast live from the city on NBC
for three months in 1952.
The most common format for Philadelphia‘s early programming was popular music. The
city‘s first three musical entries were not particularly successful, the first being Hayloft
Hoedown, which aired during the summer of 1948. Broadcast live from Town Hall, and featuring
comedy, music, square-dancing, and yodeling, this ―bush-league production,‖ at the very least,
had the distinction being network television‘s first country music showcase (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 593). The Ted Steele Show, a series of musical interludes featuring the title musician,
composer, singer and orchestra leader, premiered that September and lasted for a year, while the
musical interlude Melody, Harmony, & Rhythm, debuted in late 1949 and aired for two months.
32
Philadelphia‘s two other musical programs proved to be considerably more durable. The
first featured the cheerful Paul Whiteman, whose big bands had been a force in American
popular music since the 1920s. Paul Whiteman‟s TV Teen Club was a live, weekly talent show
that had its roots in an antidelinquency program that Whiteman had begun in his hometown of
Lambertville, New Jersey, a few years before. The program, which debuted on ABC in 1949 and
aired for five years, featured young vocalists, instrumentalists, and dancers, with the winners
receiving professional coaching and a shot at a return performance. One of TV Teen Club‘s more
notable finds was a nine-year-old Philadelphian named Robert Ridarelli, who later became
famous as teen idol Bobby Rydell.
The show‘s biggest future star, however, wasn‘t a musical act, but a young announcer
who read the show‘s Tootsie Roll advertisements—Dick Clark. Clark was a local Philadelphia
disc jockey, and he might well have remained just that had it not been for a poor choice by a man
named Bob Horn. In 1952, Horn began hosting a music program on Philadelphia‘s WFIL-TV
called Bandstand. It was essentially cheap weekday afternoon filler—Horn spun records while
teenagers danced in something resembling a high school gymnasium—but Bandstand became an
immediate after-school sensation. As the popularity grew, Clark was hired to handle the music so
that Horn could spend more time in front of the cameras. In 1956, however, Horn was arrested
for drunk driving, and promptly fired. Clark took over the hosting duties. Clark‘s clean-cut
image and youthful looks immediately clicked with the audience, and the show became more
popular than ever. Because of the boost in local ratings, not to mention the constant badgering of
the ambitious Clark, ABC decided to take Bandstand national in August of 1957, airing it each
weekday afternoon.
33
The new program proved so popular that it was given a shot at the primetime schedule
that fall. The primetime version didn‘t last long, and the show returned to its weekday home after
three months. American Bandstand moved to ABC‘s Saturday afternoon line-up in 1963, and
production shifted to Los Angeles the following year. One of the longest-running and most
popular musical stages in television history, Bandstand granted Philadelphia an enormous
influence on the popular music scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and helped launch the
careers of such musicians as Fabian, Frankie Avalon, and a now grown-up Bobby Rydell.
According to television historian Rodney Buxton, Bandstand‘s influence extended well beyond
the top forty:
From a cultural and social standpoint, the impact of American
Bandstand should not be underrated. Even if the show diffused
some of the more raucous elements of rock ‗n‘ roll music, it helped
to solidify the growing youth culture which centered around this
phenomenon. But the show was important in another way as well.
Once Clark took over the helm of Bandstand in 1956, he insisted
on racially integrating the show, since much of the music was
performed by black recording artists. When the show moved to the
network schedule, it maintained its racially mixed image, thus
providing American television broadcasting with its most visible
ongoing image of ethnic diversity until the 1970s (Buxton 2010:
1).
American Bandstand remained on ABC until 1987, and in syndication or on cable until 1989.
Through all of those years, the basic format changed little. Clark would play pop hits while the
youthful audience danced, and guest performers would stop by to lip-synch their records. Clark
chatted with the musicians and the audience, and introduced the infamous ―rate-a-record‖
feature—―Umm, it‘s got a good beat. . . . I‘ll give it a 95‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 45).
Bandstand returned to Philadelphia, in a sense, in the 2000s with the period drama
American Dreams, which focused, in part, on two Bandstand dance floor regulars. The show‘s
34
departure to California, however, left Pennsylvania off the television landscape for the remainder
of the 1960s. The state returned in the 1970s, and has been an almost constant presence on the
American television landscape since. Philadelphia continued to be the state‘s dominant locale. Of
the forty-eight Pennsylvania-based programs to debut between 1970 and 2006, thirty-two have
been set in the Philadelphia area, eleven in Pittsburgh, and one in Scranton. Just four programs
have been located elsewhere in Pennsylvania, and all of those have had fictional settings.
Southeastern Pennsylvania‘s first post-Bandstand entry was The Young Rebels, which
debuted in 1970. Set in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1777, The Young Rebels was a sort of
eighteenth-century Mod Squad, featuring four young spies (known as the ―Yankee Doodle
Society‖), whose mission was to harass British troops and spy for the Americans. Jeremy, the
long-haired leader, was joined by his girlfriend, Elizabeth, an exslave named Isak, and brainy
Henry. The goal of the series was to get the rebellious youth culture of the time to identify with
the American Revolution. ―Everyone was under thirty,‖ wrote Brooks and Marsh, ―and British
rule was the ‗system‘ they sought to overturn‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,557). It was an
awkward parallel, apparently, and the show was off the air after four months.
The Tony Randall Show, which debuted in 1976, represented two firsts for Pennsylvania.
It was the state‘s first sitcom, and the first Pennsylvania program to enter the Nielsen top thirty.
It concerned the professional and personal life of a middle-aged Philadelphia judge who, in
typical Tony Randall fashion, was ―something of a stuffed shirt‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007:
1,408). Tony Randall debuted in the 29th position on the Nielsen charts, but ratings fell after a
move from Thursday to Saturday night, and the show was cancelled after its second season.
35
Philadelphia‘s only other successful sitcom came along a decade later. The 1986 sitcom
Amen represented a few firsts. It was the first popular American sitcom to have a religious
backdrop, the first Pennsylvania-based program to feature a predominantly black cast, and the
only one of the state‘s entries to remain in the Nielsen top thirty for consecutive seasons until
Cold Case repeated the feat in the 2000s. Amen featured Sherman Hemsley as Ernest Frye, a
blustery, tyrannical deacon of Philadelphia‘s First Community Church. The program featured the
deacon‘s weekly meltdowns, and his battles with the church‘s new minster, Reverend Gregory,
who was quietly undermining Frye‘s iron grip on the church. Amen debuted in the thirteenth
position on the Nielsen charts, and returned for its second season ranked fifteenth. The program‘s
ratings began to slide in the third season, however, and it was cancelled after its fifth.
The Tony Randall Show and Amen were, at least in part, family sitcoms. The judge was a
widower with a son and a daughter, while Deacon Frye was a widower with one daughter, the
hapless, unmarried Thelma. If there is a single dominant theme among Philadelphia‘s sitcom
entries, it has been the depiction of family life. Fifteen of Philadelphia‘s eighteen sitcoms have
focused on families, but, for whatever reason, most of them have been unsuccessful.
A number of Philadelphia‘s family sitcoms have featured single parents. The sitcom
Dads was the story of an Odd Couple pair of single dads. Worry-wart yuppie Rick, who had a
daughter, and easygoing guy‘s guy Louie, who had a daughter and son, shared a house for about
four months of the 1986-1987 season. Philadelphia‘s first televised single mom was Theresa
Falco, the mother of the title character on the sitcom Angie, which debuted in February of 1979
and ran through October of 1980. Mr. Falco had walked out on her two decades before, forcing
Theresa to raise Angie and her younger sister alone. Another single Philadelphia mother
appeared on the sitcom Brotherly Love, which premiered in 1995 and had a sixteen-month run.
36
Claire Roman, a recently widowed mother of two, was struggling to keep the family business, an
auto customizing shop, afloat. Enter her long-lost stepson, Joe, who arrived to collect his share of
the inheritance. Joe soon realized that Claire needed help with the business and, more important,
that his half-brothers needed a father figure, so, this being television, he decided to stick around
and help. The title character of the short-lived sitcom Katie Joplin, which aired for a month in
1999, was a single mom with a teenage son who had just moved to Philadelphia from her native
Knoxville, Tennessee. Still another Philadelphia sitcom featured foster parenthood: the 1987
syndicated sitcom Bustin‟ Loose, which produced twenty-six episodes. Loosely based on a 1981
film featuring Richard Pryor, the show featured Jimmie Walker as Sonny Barnes, a bragging,
two-bit con artist who had been sentenced by a judge to community service—namely, helping a
social worker care for the four orphans she had taken into her home.
Nuclear sitcom families arrived relatively late in Philadelphia and, like their single-parent
counterparts, none of them lasted long. Of the five sitcoms to feature such households, only one
lasted more than two months, and that show didn‘t make it a full year. The first was Family
Album, which aired for two months in 1993. The show‘s lead characters were Dr. Jonathan
Lerner and his wife Denise, an architect, who moved from California back to their hometown to
be close to their families. Their daughter, Nikki, was not happy about the move and, given the
overbearing nature of the families, that was understandable. A similarly dysfunctional
Philadelphia family also appeared in 1993. Tall Hopes was a sunny comedy about an
exceptionally bright, young black kid named Ernest who lived in the shadow of his big brother,
Chester. ―Chet the Jet,‖ who was notably dumber than Ernest, was a high school basketball star
and the pride and joy of his equally dumb dad, George, a Philly transit cop. The whole family
37
―dumped on poor short Ernest,‖ but, lucky for him, the show only lasted four weeks (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 1,356).
Two more Philadelphia nuclear families experienced short runs in 1995. Bringing Up
Jack, which aired for one month, was the story of a sports talk show host Jack McMahon and his
new bride, Ellen, who had two kids from a previous marriage. The sitcom Minor Adjustments,
which had a sporadic eleven-month run on two networks, concerned Dr. Ron Aimes and his
family, although much of the focus was on Ron‘s work as a child psychologist. The sitcom The
Big House, which aired for one month in 2004, featured a nuclear family with a twist. In a
reversal of Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Big House featured a spoiled, rich black kid from California
who, after his dad was sent to prison for embezzlement, was forced to move in with his aunt,
uncle, and cousin in inner-city Philadelphia.
Happy Family, which aired during the 2003-2004 season, was the first of two
Philadelphia-based sitcoms to focus on an ―empty-nest‖ couple, although it was not quite empty
enough for dentist Peter Brennan and his frantic wife Annie, who fought desperately to salvage
the wreckage of their kids‘ lives. Son Todd, who was also a dentist, was engaged to be married,
but was having an affair with another woman. Daughter Sara was a successful banker, but had no
social skills. Their idiotic younger son, Tim, had just flunked out of junior college.
Philadelphia‘s second empty nest series was „Til Death, which premiered in 2006 to abysmal
ratings. The show got a ratings boost in 2007, however, courtesy of a post-American Idol time
slot, and managed to remain on the air for four seasons.„Til Death focused on the Starks, a
couple who had been married for twenty-four years. Eddie was a bad-tempered, sarcastic history
teacher, while his wisecracking wife Joy worked for a travel agency. The grousing Starks were
38
contrasted with their new neighbors, Jeff and Steph, ―cloyingly sweet newlyweds who were
madly in love‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,394).
Family life was also a common theme of the Philadelphia area‘s three reality entries. Two
were filmed in West Chester and featured professional hell-raiser Bam Margera, formerly seen
on MTV‘s gross-out stunt show Jackass. Viva la Bam consisted of forty-three episodes which
aired from 2003 to 2005. Its follow-up, Bam‟s Unholy Union, debuted in 2007 and aired for nine
weeks. The former focused primarily on Bam‘s outrageous stunts, many of which involved
tormenting his mother and father, while the latter chronicled the preparation for his marriage.
Parents exacted their revenge for eight weeks in 2006 on the reality entry Back on Campus,
which paired four Drexel University students with their own parents as dorm roommates.
Among Philadelphia‘s television families, and in its general television population, a
broad range of social classes have been represented. Characters have engaged in blue collar
livelihoods—welder, stonemason, waitress, beautician, mechanic, gas station clerk, plumber,
security guard—and white collar jobs—professor, physician, journalist, broadcaster, advertising
executive, lawyer, and architect. In Philadelphia‘s television world, the rich and powerful have
occasionally crossed paths with the not-so-rich and powerful. Social mismatch comedies have
been relatively common on American television, and particularly common on programs based on
the east coast. One such Pennsylvania example was Angie, the Cinderella story of a perky
waitress at the Liberty Coffee Shop. After a whirlwind courtship, she married Brad Benson, a
pediatrician and member of one of Philadelphia‘s wealthiest families. Their marriage, of course,
horrified Brad‘s stuffy family, but amused Angie‘s ―down-to-earth mama‖ Theresa (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 67). The musical sitcom Dreams, which lasted a month in 1984, focused on twenty-
two-year-old Gino Minelli, a professional welder who moonlighted as a rock musician. Hoping
39
that music would offer a way out of their working class Philly neighborhood, the band recruited
Lisa, the daughter of a rich and powerful United States senator, more for her money than for her
talent. As mentioned, social mismatches defined the two title fathers on Dads. Rick was the
uptight reporter, and Louie his free-wheeling, blue-collar, stonemason pal. A culture clash, of
sorts, was at the heart of the sitcom Teech, which aired for five weeks in 1991. Teech Gibson
was the music instructor, and token black employee, at upscale Winthrop Academy, a private
suburban Philadelphia school. Much of the comedy revolved around the contrast between hip but
down-to-earth Teech and his students, most of whom were the spoiled offspring of well-heeled
yuppies. Social contrasts were also highlighted on the somber medical drama Strong Medicine,
which aired on cable‘s Lifetime channel from 2000 to 2006. Set at Philadelphia‘s Rittenhouse
Women‘s Health Clinic in Philadelphia, the major source of tension was found in the
relationship between the clinic‘s two directors. Lu was the ―feisty‖ Hispanic ―product of the
inner city‖ whose trademark was her great compassion, while Dana was the ―rather icy, Harvard-
educated‖ physician whose emphasis was ―more on the disease than the person‖ (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 1,321).
While social contrasts have been a theme of a number of Philadelphia-based programs,
the theme of race relations has been largely absent. Although a number of Philadelphia entries
have prominently featured African-American characters, including Bustin‟ Loose, Teech, Tall
Hopes, Minor Adjustments, Strong Medicine, and Hack, none of these programs made race a key
theme. As mentioned, the city‘s most successful black sitcom was Amen, but Lichter, Lichter,
and Rothman noted that ―overt politics and social relevance themes were largely absent‖ from
the show (Lichter, Lichter and Rothman 1991: 9). Critic Donald Bogle went a step further,
40
arguing that Amen was a show that not only avoided topical issues, but one that, disturbingly,
―harked back to a past era.‖
Amen‘s Deacon Frye appeared as if he had been out of the
country—or out of his mind—during the politically restless 1960s
and the feminist 1970s. Frye was a lawyer. So you might assume
that he‘s representative of a modern, sophisticated African
American character. But as he bopped and hopped, as he shouted
and threw tantrums, Frye looked as if he knew as much about the
law (or had as much common sense) as Calhoun on Amos „n‟
Andy. Together Calhoun and Frye made the idea of a seemingly
educated African American male something of a slapstick joke
(Bogle 2001: 313).
The only Philadelphia-based television show to take a serious look at the issue of race
was American Dreams, which chronicled the civil rights movement as one component of a larger
examination of the tumultuous 1960s. This program, which aired from 2002 to 2005, focused on
an Irish-Catholic Philadelphia family headed by stern Jack Pryor and his frazzled wife Helen.
Among the issues the Pryor family faced over the series‘ sporadic twenty-two month run was the
football injury that ended son J. J.‘s dreams of playing at Notre Dame, leading him to enlist in
the Marine Corps and fight in Vietnam; the physical disability of son Will; the pregnancy of
J. J.‘s estranged girlfriend; Jack‘s election to the city council and later resignation over a
disagreement with the city‘s political establishment; and the relationship between daughter Meg
and her activist boyfriend, Chris, about whom she had second thoughts after he burned down a
military recruiting station. The civil rights movement was examined through the relationship
between Jack, who owned an appliance store, and his black employee, Henry. The exploration of
Henry‘s status as a second-class citizen in Philadelphia was a common theme, as was the internal
conflict of Henry‘s son, Sam, who was ―torn between his white and black friends during
Philadelphia racially troubled times‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 48).
41
Sam‘s inner turmoil did not mark him as unusual for a Philadelphia TV character. In fact,
the defining trait for some of the city‘s most distinguished television residents has been what
critics Tom Shales referred to as ―yuppie angst.‖ Joyce, the wealthy sister-in-law of the title
character on Angie, had been divorced three times and was so anxious and overbearing that even
her therapist hated her. The sitcom Pursuit of Happiness, which aired for about two months
during the 1987-1988 season, featured a principled young history professor‘s struggle to find the
meaning of life. But, of course, no program, Philadelphia-based or otherwise, plumbed the
depths of yuppie angst more so than thirtysomething. The critically-acclaimed drama, which
debuted in 1987 and ran for four years, painstakingly chronicled the anxieties of seven thirtyish,
upwardly-mobile, Ivy League-educated Philadelphians. The principal characters were Michael
and Elliot, two Philly ad men who had just started their own struggling agency, creating much
angst. Hope, Michael‘s wife, was an attractive overachiever and political activist who had had a
career in publishing, while Elliot‘s wife, Nancy, was an aging flower child and artist. Both of
them had given up their career aspirations to stay at home and raise children, creating more
angst. Joining the two couples were Melissa, Michael‘s cousin, a photographer who was a
spoiled and aging ―J. A. P‖; Ellyn, Hope‘s childhood friend and stressed-out career woman; and
Gary, the exuberant, nonconformist Classics professor.
The weekly anxiety attacks of thirtysomething were, on occasion, well-deserved. Elliot
and Nancy went through a painful season-long separation. Hope had a miscarriage, and was later
injured in a serious auto accident. Nancy was diagnosed with cancer. Melissa and Ellyn went
through a succession of miserable relationships. Michael and Elliot‘s agency went belly-up. Gary
impregnated a woman he had no interest in marrying. Gary didn‘t get tenure. Gary died. But
what made thirtysomething so strikingly luminous for some viewers, and so excruciatingly
42
tedious for others, were not the gut-wrenching plot twists, but the large dose of introspection that
permeated every scene. The hallmark of the show, according to critic Robert J. Thompson, was
the degree to which the characters ―unrelentingly examined the minutiae of everyday life‖
(Thompson 1996: 133). Brooks and Marsh described the show as being about ―pampered
people‖ who ―worried constantly about the true meaning of their lives and marriages, pined for
the youth they had left behind, and ran to see why babies were crying,‖ adding, ―Who said
yuppies have it easy?‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,383).
Some critics absolutely adored thirtysomething, and it was an industry favorite, winning
the Peabody Award, the Humanitas Award, a Directors Guild Award, a Writers Guild Award,
and thirteen Emmys, including one for Outstanding Drama Series. The New York Times said that
the show was ―as close to the level of an art form as weekly television ever gets,‖ and, upon the
show‘s cancellation, Newsweek pined, ―the value of the Tuesday night meetings was that art,
even on the small screen, reflected our lives back at us to be considered as new‖ (Emmanuel
2010: 1). Other critics were not quite as impressed, including Tom Shales, who wrote the
following about thirtysomething‘s anxious yuppies:
They are able to articulate, sometimes at length, every emotion and
anxiety they feel. And they feel plenty. Not a thought goes
unspoken in [their] house, and as a result, a certain nagging
whininess sets in (Thompson 1996: 131).
Chicago Tribune critic Clifford Terry was a little more direct. ―The only thing worse than living
in the middle of yuppies,‖ wrote Terry, ―is having to watch a program about them‖ (Thompson
1996: 131).
43
Still, thirtysomething was popular among its intended audience. It was a show made by,
about, and for yuppies. It appeared on ABC which, in 1987, was languishing in third place
among the networks. With thirtysomething, ABC was stealing from the playbook of NBC, which
a few years before had discovered that, if it could not beat CBS in overall viewership, it could at
least design shows that appealed to the young, urban, wealthy viewers coveted by advertisers.
ABC got its cult following. Even though it never ranked higher than forty-sixth on the Nielsen
charts, thirtysomething was one of the most popular shows among women between the ages of
eighteen and thirty-four, a key demographic.
As for thirtysomething‘s impact on Philadelphia‘s television landscape, it is difficult not
to call it the city‘s defining program, at least for the twentieth century. This has less to do with
the show‘s success than it does the miserable failure of nearly every show that preceded it. The
only credible challenger is Amen, but that program was not as thoroughly immersed in its setting
as was thirtysomething, and it certainly did not generate as much buzz. And if thirtysomething is
the show that viewers most closely associate with Philadelphia, then its geographic message is in
the eye of the beholder. The show left viewers thinking of Philly as the domain of smart,
sophisticated, introspective professionals, or as the home of spoiled, pedantic, self-absorbed,
bellyaching brats who do nothing but talk, brood, and then talk some more.
Yuppie angst did not vanish from Philadelphia‘s television landscape with the demise of
thirtysomething. Another Philadelphia professional suffering a crisis of conscience flickered
across American televisions during the 1990-1991 season. The title character of Shannon‟s Deal
was Jack Shannon, whose life was a complete mess, both personally and professionally. After
years of representing gluttonous corporate interests for a powerful Philadelphia law firm, the
embittered Shannon quit to create his own firm. The considerable downgrade in salary, coupled
44
with his gambling addiction, had led to his divorce, but he was now free to ―pursue the law on
his own, more ethical terms,‖ at least for the seven weeks the show aired (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 1,225). A similarly angst-ridden attorney was the focus of the drama Philly, which lasted
the duration of the 2001-2002 season. Kathleen Maguire was adjusting to a new law partner, her
previous one having recently been shipped off to a psychiatric hospital. The new partner, Will
Froman, was a sleazy womanizer who seemed to attract only the most despicable clients.
Kathleen also had to deal with her scheming exhusband, an assistant district attorney who not
only battled her in court, but also tried to turn their young son against her.
Even characters on Philadelphia‘s sitcoms suffered from their own measure of self-
induced misery. Critic Stephen Kelly argued that, given the incredible amount of angst endured
by its characters, the sitcom Happy Family should have been called ―Miserable Dysfunctional
Family‖ (Kelly 2003b: 1). On Minor Adjustments, Dr. Ron Aimes shared an office with a pair of
vexed yuppies—Bruce, a ―fussy‖ orthodontist, and Francine a ―neurotic‖ pediatrician—but most
of the program dealt with Aimes‘s work as a child psychologist, proving that, in television
Philadelphia, anxiety can strike at any age (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 898).
Personal tumult had indeed become multigenerational by the 2000s, particularly on the
family drama The Days, which ran for six anxious weeks in 2004. The title family included Jack
Day, who was, like Jack Shannon of Shannon‟s Way, a disenchanted corporate attorney. Jack‘s
wife, Abby, was, like Michael and Elliot from thirtysomething, a talented advertising executive.
Cooper was their bitter older son, Nathan was their anxiety-ridden younger son, and Natalie was
their overachieving daughter. Jack quit his job in the pilot episode. Unlike Shannon, Jack did not
start his own, new, morally righteous practice, but rather spent the rest of the program‘s short run
45
trying to get his old job back. Meanwhile, both Abby and Natalie found themselves suddenly,
and quite inopportunely, pregnant.
The Class, which aired during the 2006-2007 season, was a sort of next-generation take
on thirtysomething. The characters were leading equally disastrous lives, but this being a sitcom,
the take was considerably lighter. Ethan was a Philadelphia doctor who decided to throw a
reunion party for his third-grade class. The class included Duncan, a successful businessman
who still lived at home with his tyrannical mother; Holly, a reporter whose husband, an interior
decorator, was probably gay; Kat, a gloomy photographer; Lina, Kat‘s sex-starved and
romantically unlucky twin sister; Nicole, a trophy wife; and Richie, the suicidal loser. The
season followed their calamitous lives, which included a healthy dose of troubled marriages,
adultery, and ―one disaster after another‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 258).
Despite its dysfunctional families, yuppie angst, and occasional class conflicts,
television‘s version of Philadelphia in the twentieth century was, at the very least, a relatively
clean and safe place, devoid of the poverty, crime, and grime that befell many of America‘s
television cityscapes. That would change dramatically with the dawn of a new millennium. As
mentioned, the 2004 sitcom The Big House was the story of spoiled rich kid who had been sent
to live with relatives in a tough neighborhood of Philly—a neighborhood so tough, in fact, that
when the kid wanted to watch Cops, his uncle told him he could watch it ―right outside the door‖
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 140).
Police and legal dramas, which have added a layer of grime to otherwise shining cities all
over the U. S., came to dominate Philadelphia‘s entries in the 2000s. The shift was signaled,
albeit briefly, by Ryan Caufield: Year One, which debuted late in 1999. The title character was a
46
handsome young rookie police officer working in an exceptionally violent part of Philadelphia
known as the Badlands. A product of suburbia, Ryan had turned down a chance to go to college
so that he could make a contribution to society, but ―had problems dealing with the brutal reality
of life and death in the inner city‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,184). So did viewers, apparently,
as the show was cancelled after two episodes had aired. The social collapse of televised
Philadelphia picked up again in 2001 with Philly, whose lawyers ―seemed to attract the very
dregs of humanity for clients,‖ including ―murderers, rapists, pornographers and wife beaters‖
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,080).
Two more Philadelphia police dramas debuted in the 2000s, one that met with moderate
success, and another that became one of Pennsylvania‘s most popular entries. Hack, which
premiered in 2002, told the story of Mike Olshansky, who had been fired from the Philadelphia
police force after being caught stealing money from a crime scene. He wasn‘t the only corrupt
cop on the force—he was simply the one that got caught—but Hack knew that he had, in the
words of critic Lesley Smith, ―earned his place in the gutter, where he can soak in self-pity with
eye drops, caffeine, and anger‖ (Smith 2002b: 1). Mike took a job as a cab driver, and tried to
redeem himself by helping people. Stylistically, the show was modeled after (or was a rip-off of)
Martin Scorsese‘s influential 1976 film Taxi Driver and, although Mike was considerably more
balanced than the film‘s protagonist, the geographic mood was the same. Smith noted that Hack
strained ―mightily to recapture the menace Martin Scorsese infused into the tawdry city-at-night
streets reflected so fleetingly on the cab‘s glistening sides,‖ but the show never lived up to
anything like the film‘s critical reputation (Smith 2002b: 1). It did, however, contain many of the
same nasty elements. During Hack‘s two-year run, Mike cruised Philadelphia‘s streets, tackling
47
cases involving domestic abuse, homelessness, prostitution, stalkers, murderers, illegal drugs,
crooked politicians, and corrupt and murderous cops.
Philadelphia‘s first and, to date, only police detective drama was 2003‘s Cold Case
which, as if making up for all those years when Philly lacked television cops, chronicled the
effort of a detective to solve ―cold‖ cases—crimes from years before that had never been solved.
The principal character was Detective Lily Rush, the lone female detective on her precinct‘s
homicide squad, whose angelic looks masked the fact that she could be a pit bull—―I‘m just the
kind of girl who pisses you off,‖ she told a suspect in one episode (Kelly 2003c: 1). Produced by
the studio that spawned the CSI franchise and Without a Trace, Cold Case bore the same urgent
pace and splashy visual style, and while few critics found the show objectionable, it was never
lauded for being groundbreaking. It was a sort of CSI for archivists—Lily would stumble upon a
cold case, pour through boxes of old evidence, dig up past witnesses, interrogate suspects, and
solve the case. The cast and crew of Cold Case travelled from California to Philadelphia a few
times each year to do exterior scenes, but there is little indication in the critical literature that the
show had an especially evocative sense of place. It is clear that the show was relatively neutral in
its assessment of Philadelphia‘s geography. There was, of course, the message that murder was a
long-standing avocation in the city, but because the cases were cold, the show lacked the urgency
and the blood-stained, gritty streets and back alleys of many of its cop show counterparts. Cold
Case must, nevertheless, be considered an important part of the Philadelphia‘s television
landscape, if for no other reason that it was one of city‘s few successful entries. When Cold Case
wrapped up its seven seasons in 2010, it was not only Philadelphia‘s longest-running entry, but
the only one to rank in the Nielsen top twenty for four consecutive seasons.
48
If a Philadelphia program breaks Cold Case‘s seven-season mark, it will likely be the FX
cable network sitcom It‟s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which premiered in 2005 and continued
to air through 2010. Perhaps the sleaziest portrayal of Philadelphia ever to hit the airwaves,
Always Sunny was the story of four slackers in their early thirties—Mac, Charlie, Dennis, and
Deandra (―Sweet Dee‖)—who operated a South Philly bar called Paddy‘s Irish Pub. Paddy‘s
almost never had any customers, so each week ―The Gang‖ (as they were often called in the
opening credits) would set off on some seemingly innocent quest to either drum up business or
kill time. Because each of them was completely lacking a moral compass, these adventures
would always result in disaster for both the gang and any innocent bystanders who happened to
get in the way. Added in the second season was Dennis and Dee‘s father, Frank, a wealthy,
drunk, gun-toting divorcee, who was even more of degenerate than his children. The content of
the show is perhaps best summarized by its episode titles, which always appeared as a punch line
to a brief opening scene. Examples from the show‘s first three seasons included: ―The Gang Gets
Racist,‖ ―Charlie Wants an Abortion,‖ ―The Gang Finds a Dead Guy,‖ ―Charlie Gets Molested,‖
―Dennis and Dee Go on Welfare,‖ ―Mac Bangs Dennis‘s Mom,‖ ―The Gang Finds a Dumpster
Baby,‖ ―Frank Sets Sweet Dee on Fire,‖ ―Sweet Dee is Dating a Retarded Person,‖ ―Mac is a
Serial Killer,‖ and ―Dennis Looks Like a Registered Sex Offender.‖
Because Always Sunny appeared on FX, and because of its ―willful, even gleeful
abandonment of political correctness,‖ as critic Tim Goodman put it, the show was never a
blockbuster hit, but it did develop an intensely loyal cult following (Goodman 2006: 1).
Although it is difficult to argue that it has displaced thirtysomething, Cold Case, or Amen as the
show the majority viewers most closely identify with Philadelphia, it must be considered the
city‘s defining show among its young audience. The geographic message of the show was
49
complex. There was, of course, a fairly strong indication that Philadelphia could be a very
sleazy, and even dangerous, place. In one episode, Dennis was drinking at an almost empty
Paddy‘s, wondering why it didn‘t have more customers, particularly female ones:
DENNIS: I don‘t get it, Dee. There are tons of women in this city.
Where do they go?
DEE: They‘re at velvet-rope clubs on Delaware Avenue.
DENNIS: Why?
DEE: Dennis, our bar is in south Philly in a scary alley. We might
as well call it ―Rape Bar.‖
Eventually the gang hit upon a successful business model—they would sell to underage
customers. They stood around considering the enormous throng of drunk teenagers in Paddy‘s
and had the following exchange:
DENNIS: We could get into a lot of trouble for this.
DEE: And we also have a social responsibility to keep teenagers
from drinking.
CHARLIE: I guess.
MAC: Well, I don‘t know about that, though. Hold on. I mean, wait
a second. Hear me out. Hear me out. It wasn‘t that long ago that
we were in the same position as these youngsters, right? I mean,
we‘d get kicked out of some bar and what did we do? We would
get a bunch of forties from a homeless guy and we would go sit in
some park.
CHARLIE: That is true.
MAC: That is absolutely true. And what would happen? We would
almost get raped and/or murdered and/or stabbed by the crack
heads in Fairmount Park (Twentieth Century Fox 2007b).
50
The dialogue above was illustrative of the show‘s often seedy take on Philadelphia‘s
geography, but it would be incorrect to characterize Always Sunny as a wholly negative
depiction. The show did a fair amount of filming in the city, including scenes in pleasant and
charming areas. The opening credits of Always Sunny showcased some of Philadelphia‘s more
famous landmarks and locales, including the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, Penn‘s Landing, Logan
Circle, Boathouse Row, and South Street. Another notable element of the title sequence was the
Always Sunny theme song, a ludicrously lush orchestral number—―Temptation Sensation,‖
composed by Heinz Kiessling—that was actually an old public domain production piece. Most of
the show‘s background music, in fact, consisted of forgotten bits of easy listening music from the
public domain—sprightly pops numbers that were more appropriate to a 1950s detergent
commercial than to an edgy twenty-first century sitcom. The music was likely selected because it
was free to use—no small matter given the show‘s initially miniscule budget—but it perfectly
matched the tone of the show. It let the viewer know that the show was not trying to be hip or
sophisticated, and that nothing on it was meant to be taken the least bit seriously. This complete
lack of pretension might have been the show‘s defining trait, and was part of its core geographic
message—that the people of Philadelphia could be rude, uncouth, or downright uncivilized, but
they were also unpretentious, genuine, and, despite it all, somehow likable. Tim Goodman
argued that this was central to the show‘s success, and the reason why it could get away with the
things it did:
This is a series that‘s ridiculously funny, managing to be offensive
on purpose and not seem like it‘s being offensive on purpose . . . .
It‘s one thing to send up someone else‘s passionately held beliefs
(political or otherwise), but it‘s a lot tougher to do that without an
obvious and tiring snark and have it sealed with a zest that makes
the characters appealing no matter what they do. . . . The Gang
own a bar in Philly called Paddy‘s Irish Pub. That is the extent of
their ambition. They like to drink. They‘d like the bar to make
51
more money, but mostly it doesn‘t. They are all, cumulatively, not
very good in social situations or with members of the opposite sex.
They are slackers looking for pleasure of all kinds in any place, but
mostly they fail, in squalor, sometimes in pain, then restart the
process the next day. With beers . . . . The lack of gloss is
welcome, the lack of pretentiousness even more so (Goodman
2006: 1).
Like the Philadelphia of Always Sunny, most American cities have, from time to time,
been depicted on television as having a rough edge, but few cities on the TV landscape have
been so hardboiled as Philadelphia‘s cross-state counterpart, Pittsburgh. The city‘s first entry was
1978‘s Roller Girls, a sitcom that gave viewers a behind-the-scenes look at an all-female roller
derby team, the Pittsburgh Pitts. The sexy crew consisted of some common, and not-so-common,
television stereotypes, including ―Books,‖ the nerdy girl; ―Honey Bee,‖ the ditzy blonde
southerner; J. B., the ―token black;‖ ―Mongo,‖ the enormous enforcer; and ―Pipeline,‖ who was,
of all things, an Eskimo (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,169). Howie Devine was a snobby, washed-
out announcer who had previously worked for an opera, but who was down on his luck and
trying to make a quick buck. The owner and coach of the Pitts was the scheming Don Mitchell,
who was trying to save the team from constantly looming economic ruin. Apparently he was not
successful, as the show was cancelled after four weeks. As unpopular as Roller Girls was with
viewers, it was even more unpopular among television critics, and Mark Dawidziak of the Akron
Beacon Journal was probably the most succinct: ―Badly acted, badly directed, badly written‖
(Javna 1988: 103).
Pittsburg‘s second entry, 1980‘s Skag, came from the opposite end of the television pool.
While Roller Girls had been an empty-headed sitcom lambasted by critics, Skag was a highly
realistic drama starring Academy Award winner Karl Malden. It had all the makings of a hit—
52
talented actors and writers, a big budget, heavy promotion by NBC, and widespread critical
acclaim. ―All it lacked,‖ wrote one critic, ―was an audience‖ (Lichter, Licther and Rothman
1991: 113). It lasted only slightly longer than Roller Girls, and it also did the reputation of
Pittsburgh no favors, painting such an unyieldingly gloomy portrait of the Steel City that it made
life on a failing roller derby team appear enviable.
The title character was Pete Skagska, an aging foreman at a steel mill. ―It was a hard life,
but the only one he knew,‖ wrote Brooks and Marsh, ―until he almost lost it when a crippling
stroke forced him to stay home and try to put his life back together‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007:
1,253). Skag had more than a few problems. The family faced economic hardship. Even worse,
Skag‘s father had also had a stroke, which left him speechless, feeble, and in the care of Skag‘s
family, which had its own issues. Skag‘s second wife, Jo, who was Jewish, was struggling to
adapt to life in the Serbian Orthodox Skagska family. Skag‘s oldest son, David, resented having
to work at the steel mill, while his money-hungry younger son was in medical school and turning
his back on the family. Skag‘s older daughter, Patricia, was insecure and socially awkward, and
his obese fifteen-year-old daughter, Barbara, was trying to increase her popularity by sleeping
around. ―Skag, the stubborn traditionalist,‖ wrote Brooks and Marsh, ―was trying to adjust to a
changing world whose values he did not fully understand‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,253).
With story lines involving culture clashes, impotence, medical crises, prostitution,
senility, teenage sex, and unemployment, Brooks and Marsh note that ―maybe it was too
depressing to see that much hard reality‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,253). Lichter, Lichter, and
Rothman echoed the sentiment. ―Considering the problems the scriptwriters gave him, they
might as well have named him Job,‖ they wrote. ―This realistic portrayal of a troubled
53
steelworker was apparently just too downbeat for viewers looking to Hollywood‘s fantasy
factory for relief from their own problems‖ (Lichter, Licther and Rothman 1991: 113).
Skag was off the air after eight weeks, and passed into obscurity. It did, however, speak
volumes about television‘s take on Pittsburgh. It was a program widely touted for its highly
realistic portrayal of life in the city, and that reality proved to be just too depressing for the
American television audience. Subsequent Pittsburgh-based dramas were similarly downbeat.
Legal dramas, by the very nature of their content, can cast a pall over any city‘s television
landscape, but Pittsburgh‘s single legal drama was especially gritty. Equal Justice, which ran
intermittently for eleven months in 1990 and 1991, was described by Brooks and Marsh as ―a
sort of a downscale L .A. Law,‖ chronicling the exploits of the Pittsburgh District Attorney‘s
office, as they eagerly pursued the ―slime of the city‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 425). The police
drama Sirens, which was filmed in Pittsburgh and Montreal, aired for five months on ABC in
1993, and had a brief run in syndication the following year. It focused on three rookie female
police officers, chronicling their lives and loves while they weren‘t shooting it out with criminals
on the mean streets of Pittsburgh.
A slightly lighter, but no more successful, take on life in Pittsburgh was the blue collar
sitcom You Take the Kids, which premiered in December of 1990 and ran for five weeks. The
only Pittsburgh-based program to feature a predominantly black cast, this show focused on the
Kirkland family. The father, Michael Kirkland, was a school bus driver, while his wife Nell gave
piano lessons, and they lived with their four kids and Nell‘s mother in Pittsburgh‘s inner city.
The only Pittsburgh-based comedy to attempt to cash in on the twentysomethings-hanging-out
trend of the 1990s was Local Heroes, a ―blue-collar ripoff of Friends‖ that lasted a month in
1996 (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 805). Unlike their counterparts in New York, however, the four
54
guys spent most of their time sitting around in a bar, rather than a coffee shop. These
Pittsburghers were all working-class schlubs, including a pair of assembly line workers, a cab
driver, and a video store clerk.
Pittsburgh‘s lone entry in the reality genre aired for eight weeks in 2005. The ESPN
series Bound for Glory chronicled ―the attempt to lift a discouraged, ragtag high school football
team out of its doldrums with an infusion of sports star power‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 172).
The team was the Montour Spartans of the Pittsburgh-area mill town, McKees Rocks, and the
star power included Chicago Bears legend Dick Butkus and former Kansas City Chief Ray
Crockett. The Spartans once had been state champs and the pride of McKees Rocks, but as the
economic fortunes of the town had declined, so had the team, and ―now nobody could remember
the last time they had won a game‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 172). Despite its optimistic theme
and title, even this show could not lift Pittsburgh out the television doldrums, and the team
continued to lose all of its games.
Among Pittsburgh‘s hardscrabble entries was a sitcom with a relatively bright outlook
and well-scrubbed setting that was, perhaps not surprisingly, the city‘s most durable entry. The
suburban family comedy Mr. Belvedere premiered in 1985 and, although never a ratings smash,
it did manage to last for five seasons. The show featured former baseball player and talk-show
mainstay Bob Uecker as wisecracking sportswriter George Owens. George and his wife Marsha,
an attorney, were struggling to balance career demands with the responsibility raising three
rowdy kids. Along came the refined, sophisticated English butler Mr. Belvedere who, ―to
everyone‘s surprise . . . proved to be both a genius in the kitchen and an expert at solving all the
little problems of growing up and getting along‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 904).
55
The key to the Belvedere recipe was the contrast between earthy George and his proper
housekeeper, a manners mismatch that was repeated on two subsequent Pittsburgh-based
sitcoms. Hope & Gloria, which premiered in 1995 and ran for a season and a half, was the story
of a pair of single women who shared a Pittsburgh townhouse. Hope, who was a local television
producer, was cheerful and eternally optimistic, despite the fact that her husband of ten years had
just left her. Gloria, a single mom with a young son was a ―brassy, cynical hairdresser who knew
all too well what a no-goodski her gross, carpet-salesman ex-husband Louis was‖ (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 634). Perky-versus-brassy was also the formular for the sitcom Reunited, which
debuted in 1998. Joanne was a ―punk-rock, tattooed, and pierced‖ young woman who moved in
with, her uptight suburban mom, the ―perpetually perky‖ and ―cloyingly sweet‖ Nicki (Brooks
and Marsh 2007: 1,149). Joanne made cynical comments and Nicki looked after her Hummel
figurines while husband Gary groused for the duration of the show‘s two-month run.
Rounding out Pittsburgh‘s entries was the city‘s only period piece, the quirky comedy
Remember WENN, which aired on cable‘s AMC network from 1996 to 1998. Set at a local radio
station in the late 1930s, Remember WENN portrayed Pittsburgh as a second-banana city, much
in the same way that WKRP had characterized Cincinnati. With its low-ball sponsors, financial
tribulations, dinner-theater programming, washed-up on-air talent, and loony production staff,
WENN was clearly a cut-rate operation. The show is perhaps best remembered for its often
bizarre plots, as when WENN‘s manager was brainwashed by Nazi spies to commit murder
whenever he heard the phrase ―buy barley futures‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,143).
As mentioned, just five of Pennsylvania‘s entries have taken place outside of
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and four of those programs have been set in fictional locales. The
first was likely based on the real city of Pottsville, in the heart of eastern Pennsylvania‘s coal
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region. The drama Gibbsville, which ran for eight weeks in 1976, was based on the writings of
Pottsville native John O‘Hara, and told the story of John Malloy, a reporter for the Gibbsville
Courier during the 1940s.
All of the remaining programs set in Pennsylvania‘s fictional towns have been sitcoms.
Gung Ho, which was based on a hit movie of the same name, aired for four months in the 1986-
1987 season. This program was set in fictional Hadleyville, which had fallen on hard times since
the local auto plant closed. Enter Assan Motors of Japan, which reopened the plant, creating the
inevitable culture clash between a conservative Japanese management team and the easygoing
American workers. While Japanese industry helped revive fictional Hadleyville, it nearly ruined
another fictional place. Japanese imports were decimating Grand, Pennsylvania‘s leading
industry, piano manufacturing, in the soap-opera parody Grand, which aired for nine months in
1990. The factory‘s owner was the ancient Harris Weldon, who puttered around his mansion
with his moronic son, Norris; his caustic butler, Desmond; and his redneck housekeeper, Janice.
His niece, Carol Anne, had a conniving yuppie husband who had designs on the company.
Small-town Pennsylvania was also the setting for one of Dick Van Dyke‘s failed attempts to
return to sitcom glory. The Van Dyke Show, which lasted just seven weeks in 1988, cast the title
character as a Broadway musical star who moved to Pennsylvania to help (and harass) his son,
who ran a small regional theater.
The only Pennsylvania-based program not set in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, or a fictional
town was The Office, which premiered in 2005 and continued to air through 2010. Based on a
popular British sitcom of the same name, the show took place in and around the Scranton branch
of Dunder-Mifflin, a struggling paper supply company. The show had a unique, trend-setting
style: it had no audience or laugh track, and the characters often spoke directly to the camera (the
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excuse being that they were subjects of an unseen documentary film crew). Although it was
primarily a workplace comedy, much of the action, at least in the show‘s early seasons, focused
on the friendship and burgeoning romance between two of the principal characters. Jim Halpert
was a generally cheerful guy, with the talent to be a top salesman. He found the prospect of
dedicating his life to selling paper too depressing, however, so he spent most of his time goofing
off. His partner in crime for office pranks was Pam Beesly, a winsome receptionist who seemed
quietly resigned to her dull lot in life. Jim had an obvious crush on Pam, but Pam was engaged,
and their star-crossed romance was the primary reason why viewers made the show a minor hit.
The show‘s primary character, however, was Michael Scott, the branch manager of
Dunder-Mifflin Scranton. For such a simpleminded man, Michael was quite complex. He was
energetic and out-going, but also selfish, stubborn, and incredibly dense. On his desk was a
coffee mug that proclaimed ―World‘s Best Boss,‖ which he had bought for himself. Michael
vacillated between states of pathetic insecurity and delusions of grandeur, but he nearly always
thought he was the funniest man in the room. He never was (intentionally at least) and his
tendency toward poorly timed and completely insensitive jokes led to many of the excruciatingly
awkward moments that became the show‘s trademark.
The rest of the Dunder-Mifflin sales team included Stanley Hudson, an incredibly laconic
black salesman; matronly Phyllis Lapin, who rarely said a word; and Dwight Schrute, a geeky,
sycophantic part-time beet farmer, who was the most frequent target of Jim‘s pranks, and whose
devotion to the company and to Michael bordered on fascism. The accountants included chubby,
mumbling Kevin Malone; self-righteous fundamentalist Christian Angela Martin; and calm
Oscar Martinez, who was gay, and who was the target of many of Michael‘s inappropriate
comments. Ditzy, emotional Kelly Kapoor and bitter, alcoholic Meredith Palmer were customer
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service representatives, and Toby Flenderson was a nebbish human resources director. Ryan
Howard was an MBA student and new office temp who was trying to fly under the radar but
who, unfortunately, became Michael‘s favorite employee. Perhaps the most memorable
supporting character was Creed Bratton, a washed-up rock guitarist (played by the actual
musician of the same name), whose brain had been melted by years of drug use. Creed, of
course, was in charge of quality control.
If all of these characters sound vaguely familiar, that was the point. ―If you walk into an
office anywhere,‖ said one viewer, ―you are going to be able to identify the people on the show‖
(Rouvalis 2006: 1). The office set of the show was equally familiar. Located in a squat
nondescript building near a railyard, the workers sat in a jumble of desks, cubicles, and mini-
shaded offices. Keyboards clicked away above the hum of computer monitors and fluorescent
lights, a drone interrupted by the occasional ring of a telephone and muted conversation. There
was a malfunctioning copier, a gurgling water cooler, nondescript art, vending machines, and a
break room refrigerator crammed full of forgotten lunch leftovers. Although a few personal
touches also existed—Kevin‘s jar of M&Ms, Angela‘s cat posters, Michael‘s office toys,
Dwight‘s martial arts weaponry—the overall effect was that of a numbingly authentic office. In
the words of journalist Cristina Rouvalis, it was a jab at ―dysfunctional office life in Anywhere,
America‖ (Rouvalis 2006: 1).
The Office ran on Thursday nights, a tough television arena, and never did especially well
in the general ratings. It did, however, develop a loyal following among the advertiser-friendly
eighteen-to-forty-nine-year-old demographic. It was also generally well-received by the critics
and the industry, notching thirty-six Emmy nominations and winning four, including one for
Outstanding Comedy Series.
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Some of the show‘s most enthusiastic supporters came from Scranton itself. ―Any other
city in the county would be happy to be part of an Emmy-award winning show,‖ said Mayor
Chris Doherty, who had a Dunder-Mifflin banner placed outside of City Hall. ―We feel very
lucky that they would use Scranton as their mythical home base‖ (Rouvalis 2006: 1). The city
has cashed in on the popularity, too, hosting an annual Office convention that was attended by
more than 15,000 people in 2007. Of the hundreds of cities across America that could easily have
hosted The Office, Scranton was selected, in part, because it is located a couple of hours from
New York City, the home of fictional Dunder-Mifflin‘s corporate headquarters. That distance
was appropriate for the frequent, but not too frequent, visits from Jan Levinson, Michael‘s
exasperated boss and sometime love interest. According to Greg Daniels, the creator of the
American version, the rest was pure coincidence. Daniels had seen a child‘s Valentine card that
said ―Made in Scranton,‖ and decided that the city was as good a place as any for a fictional
paper company. Despite the serendipitous nature of Scranton‘s selection, Daniels and his writers
made a point of keeping The Office rooted in its locale. ―Good fiction has specifics,‖ said
Daniels, and the show made frequent references to real Scranton-area locations, such as Lake
Wallenpaupack, the Steamtown Mall, Bishop Hannan High School, and numerous local
businesses (Rouvalis 2006: 1). The local Chamber of Commerce regularly shipped authentic
Scranton props to California to be used on the show‘s set.
Maria Johnson, a British national who now serves on the faculty of the University of
Scranton, called the show ―deeply depressing and annihilating and very, very funny.‖ She also
noted that the British version of the show had been set in Slough, described by Johnson as the
―proverbial armpit‖ of England. ―Is America,‖ wondered Johnson, ―trying to say that it feels
about Scranton the way the British feel about Slough?‖ (Rouvalis 2006: 1).
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Generally speaking, the Scranton of The Office was hardly an ―armpit,‖ but rather a
pleasant and friendly, if not terribly exciting, small city. Still, it is difficult to separate the
character of Scranton from the character of Michael Scott. His key traits, in the words of critic
Christopher Sieving, were ―an inflated sense of importance; a minimal understanding of his
actual insignificance; and a willingness to shred what remains of his dignity in a colossally
misguided attempt to salvage it‖ (Sieving 2005: 1). Another point, hammered home time and
time again, was that Michael was thoroughly unsophisticated. He never attended college, knew
very little about the world beyond Scranton, and lacked knowledge of even the most rudimentary
elements of anything resembling high culture. He was, however, steeped in mainstream popular
media, and was a slave to anything and everything that was generic and mass-produced. His
favorite restaurants were Chili‘s and Hooters, he ordered anything he saw advertised on an
infomercial, and considered his Chrysler Sebring to be the height of cool. In a memorable
moment from an episode where Michael was visiting Dunder-Mifflin‘s corporate headquarters,
he bragged about knowing a great little New York pizza place, and promptly bounced off into a
Sbarro. That such a clueless character could find employment in an office, much less run one,
does suggest something about The Office‘s assessment of Scranton.
Greg Daniels insisted that these jokes were about Michael, not Scranton and, to be fair,
Michael was never intended to be held up as Scranton‘s brightest bulb. If there was a central
geographic message to The Office, it wasn‘t that Scranton was unpleasant, or that the city‘s
residents were backward yokels, but simply that it was a place of limited opportunity and limited
excitement. In a telling moment from one episode, Michael, with forced enthusiasm, said to the
camera, ―Life moves a little slower in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and that‘s the way we like it‖
(Rouvalis 2006: 1). The scene then cut to shots of Dunder-Mifflin‘s employees, all of whom had
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vacant, glazed expressions. The show‘s geographic message was most clearly delivered,
however, in Scranton‘s relationship with New York. The Big Apple was home to the show‘s far
more chic characters, such as Jan Levinson and the Dunder-Mifflin CEO David Wallace. In
addition to providing the destination for the occasional exciting road trip for the show‘s bored
Scrantonites, it represented opportunity for a number of the characters. Former temp Ryan went
from being the timid and bullied to being cool and confident after taking a position in New York.
When Pam finally decided to make something of her life, she attended art school in New York.
Jim nearly took a corporate job there. ―There‘s just an energy that New York has,‖ he said. ―Not
to mention they have places that are open past eight‖ (Universal Studios 2007).
The Scranton-New York comparison was not entirely one-sided. When Ryan moved to
the big city, he went from being a likable guy to a manipulative, drug-addled jerk. Pam hated
New York, and Jim decided not to take the corporate job because he would miss Scranton (and
Pam) too much. Still, The Office always presented New York as the big leagues and Scranton as
the farm team. The limitations of Scranton were made clear in a comment by Jim in the show‘s
second season:
Dwight was the top salesman of the year at our company. He wins
a little prize money and gets honored at some convention. It is
literally the highest possible honor that a northeastern-
Pennsylvania-based, mid-sized paper company regional salesman
can attain (Universal Studios 2006).
NEW JERSEY
New Jersey is something of an oddity when it comes to television geography. It falls
within the northeastern Megalopolis and, as expected, has been well-represented throughout
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much of its history, racking up an impressive thirty-seven entries. So, New Jersey is not notable
for a lack of programs. But it is notable for a lack of certain kinds of programs. The ―relevance‖
sitcoms of the 1970s, the ―filthy rich‖ soap operas of the 1980s, the ―friends hanging out‖
sitcoms of the 1990s, and the reality shows of the 2000s were all nearly absent from the state.
Other durable genres—workplace comedies, family dramas, medical dramas, legal dramas,
thrillers, and supernatural and science fiction programs—have also been poorly represented in
the state.
A second peculiarity about New Jersey‘s television landscape is the remarkably poor
performance of most of its entries. One possible explanation hinges on the state‘s lack of a single
large metropolitan focal point. The state is situated, for lack of a better term, in the backyards of
Philadelphia and New York. Still, if this were the case, then it is unlikely that so many attempts
would have been made to place shows in the state. The explanation becomes more suspect when
the track record of New Jersey programs are compared to those of Connecticut, a state also
wedged between two large metropolitan areas—New York and Boston. Connecticut has been the
setting for sixteen programs, a meager number when compared to New Jersey, but six of those
shows lasted at least three years, and four made it into the top thirty on the Nielsen charts. Of
New Jersey‘s thirty-seven entries, only three have lasted at least three seasons, and of those, one
was a fifteen-minute bowling program and another was available only on a subscription-based
cable network. Just one New Jersey-based show has ever cracked the Nielsen top thirty, and that
did not occur until 2004. Although it appears that television producers are more than willing to
set programs in New Jersey, viewers, for whatever reason, have not been particularly enthusiastic
about the state.
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New Jersey‘s first seven entries originated locally. The first was Big Top, which debuted
in 1950 and ran for six months. Featuring live circus acts broadcast from the Camden, New
Jersey, Convention Hall, the show was most notable for the fact that future Tonight Show
sidekick Ed McMahon appeared regularly as one of the circus clowns. Music at the
Meadowbrook emanated from the Meadowbrook Night Club in Cedar Grove, which had been an
important stage for radio broadcasts of big band music in the 1930s. The club came to network
television with a series of live musical performances for eight months in 1953, and again for four
months in 1956.
New Jersey‘s next four entries were all summer replacement programs—shows that aired
while the regular network schedule was on hiatus. The Strawhatters, which ran during the
summers of 1953 and 1954, was, in essence, an advertisement for the Palisades Amusement
Park, located across the Hudson River from Manhattan. It was a low-budget affair, showcasing
the park‘s attractions, including a talent show, diving exhibitions, and musical acts from the
park‘s ballroom. On the Boardwalk with Paul Whiteman was an amateur talent show broadcast
live from Atlantic City‘s Steel Pier during the summer of 1954. Let‟s See, which aired for seven
weeks in 1955, was a cross between the parlor game ―twenty questions‖ and a travel
advertisement. Filmed at Convention Hall in Atlantic City, contestants were asked a series of
questions by a panel, who attempted to deduce which of the city‘s attractions the contestant had
visited. The show was, not surprisingly, sponsored by the Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce.
New Jersey‘s next entry was Cowtown Rodeo, which aired during the summers of 1957
and 1958, and featured rodeo performers competing for cash prizes at Cowtown Ranch in
Woodstown. Make That Spare was telecast live from Paramus. As its titled suggested, the show
featured two bowlers who had a chance to win cash prizes by making a difficult spare. The victor
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was invited to return for the next broadcast, with the show‘s biggest winner accumulating a
grand total of $38,000. Make That Spare ran from 1960 to 1964, and was New Jersey‘s last entry
for nearly a decade.
New Jersey‘s first scripted entries appeared in 1973, coincidentally the same year that the
state‘s music icon, Bruce Springsteen, released his debut album, Greeting from Asbury Park,
N.J. Those whose images of New Jersey have been shaped by listening to Springsteen records
might fully expect to find New Jersey‘s television entries dominated by working-class families
and blue-collar sensibilities. A number of New Jersey‘s television entries have, indeed,
possessed Springsteen-esque flavor. The first was Joe and Sons, a sitcom that aired for four
months during the 1975-1976 season. It was the story of Joe Vitale, an Italian-American
widower raising two teen sons in an apartment in Hoboken, while holding down a job at the
Hoboken Sheet and Tube Company. Dream Street, one of New Jersey‘s few family dramas, was
filmed on location in Hoboken, and aired for two months in 1989. The show was produced by
the same team that created thirtysomething, and possessed the same sort of insight and realism
that had made thirtysomething a hit. Dream Street‘s working-class residents apparently did not
have the same drawing power as Philadelphia anxious yuppies, however, with one critic noting
that viewers would have trouble relating to these characters, ―unless they happened to live in
Hoboken and be connected to the Mob‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 391). Bless This House, a
sitcom featuring the infamously vulgar comedian Andrew Dice Clay, aired for four months
during the 1995-1996 season. Clay played Burt Clayton, who lived with his wife and two
children in a dilapidated apartment building in Trenton. Bad-mannered Burt worked at the post
office, while his sharp-tongued wife Alice worked in the parts department of a car dealership.
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Such bleak settings are not unique to New Jersey, of course, but some of the state‘s
programs had a particularly dreary message, recalling the sentiments of the Springsteen song
―The River,‖ which asked, ―Is a dream a lie if it don‘t come true, or is it something worse?‖ Such
a musing seems an unlikely candidate for the premise of a television comedy, but it is applicable
to two of New Jersey‘s entries. The sitcom My Wildest Dreams, which aired for five weeks in
1995, was the story of Lisa McGinnis, who lived in suburban New Jersey with her husband Jack,
a struggling sporting goods salesman, and their two young children. Lisa created radio
commercials at the Mound of Sound recording studio, and had had dreams of becoming a rock
star, but was starting to ―deal with the unfortunate realities of life: she was unlikely to get that
big break‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 948). That‟s Life, which premiered in 2000 and aired for a
year and a half, was equally bleak. It was the story of thirty-two-year-old Lydia DeLucca, who
was trying to improve her lot by enrolling at Montville State University. Brooks and Marsh
described the reactions of her friends and family as remarkably unsupportive:
Nobody understood. Her toll collector father, Frank, and nagging
mom Dolly just wanted her to get married and have babies. Her
fiancé, Lou, complained about Lydia going to college so she broke
their engagement, causing Dolly to fret that she was destined to
become a lonely old maid. Lydia‘s kid brother Paulie, a somewhat
goofy local cop who liked to needle her, thought she was screwing
up her life. Her two best friends, Jackie, who ran a hair salon, and
Candy, a former Miss New Jersey . . . also didn‘t understand why
she wanted to get a degree and were upset she spent so much time
studying (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1375).
Critic Tracy McLoone argued that That‟s Life not only featured unpleasant New Jersey
stereotypes, but dated ones at that:
Lydia and her best friends . . . play up the Jersey Girl aspects of
their characters: they all live in Brookfield, where they went to
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grade school; they wear lots of makeup and tight clothes; they have
loud mouths and hearts of gold. You do not have to listen too
closely to catch the strains of Springsteen here: back in the day,
men drove fast cars and played guitars; women were pretty,
gullible, and a little bit sassy . . . . Problem: That's Life takes place
in the current millennium (McLoone 2010: 1).
While such programs have characterized New Jersey life as a series of dreary working-
class struggles, others have gone a step farther, portraying the state as downright seedy. New
Jersey‘s first scripted entry, Toma, aired during the 1973-1974 season, and was was based on the
actual life of Detective David Toma of the Newark Police Department. Like many television
detectives, Toma was a rebel and a loner, but his intelligence and talent for disguise made him an
invaluable undercover agent against organized crime syndicates. Toma was followed, briefly, by
the detective series Big Shamus, Little Shamus, which aired for two weeks in 1979. The lead
character was seasoned private eye Arnie Sutter, who served as the house detective at Atlantic
City‘s seedy Ansonia Hotel. The city‘s legalization of gambling had saved the Ansonia, but
forced Sutter to deal with a surge in con artists, hookers, and thieves. The lighter side of
seediness was on display in No Soap, Radio, a surreal sitcom set at the Atlantic City‘s squalid
Pelican Hotel. Perhaps best described as ―the Twilight Zone of comedies,‖ it never caught on
with viewers, and was cancelled after five weeks in 1982 (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 994). The
crime drama Wiseguy debuted in 1987, and spent part of its first season in New Jersey. The lead
character was Vinnie Terranova, a federal agent, who was working undercover to try to bring
down a dangerous Atlantic City crime boss. The Street was a nightly, syndicated drama that was
in production for four months in 1988. Filmed on location in Newark, the program followed the
professional and personal lives of a group of patrolman. Shot in a cinéma vérité style, the show
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―exuded a gritty reality . . . used very frank language . . . and showed its officers to have real
prejudices and short-comings‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1316).
One of the few New Jersey professional dramas not to focus on detectives or criminals
was also the state‘s first entry to feature an African-American lead. Matt Waters, which aired for
one month in 1996, was filmed on location in Bayonne. The title character was a career Navy
man who had returned to teach science at the high school he had attended a quarter-century
before. The school had certainly changed, and, in the words of one critic, the ―armed security
guards and metal detectors were a constant reminder of how tough things had become‖ (Brooks
and Marsh 2007: 868). A strict disciplinarian, Matt took a tough-love approach to teaching, at
one point fulfilling every teacher‘s fantasy by hanging a disruptive student out a classroom
window by his ankles. The show painted a grim picture of New Jersey life, examining such
topics as gang violence, murder, child abuse, poverty, and illiteracy.
Not all New Jersey-based programs have sent out such bleak signals. Many of the state‘s
television residents, in fact, have had far more in common with Ozzie Nelson than Bruce
Springsteen. Hope Edelman, who grew up just across the state line in southern New York,
described the difference between the New Jersey of the popular imagination and the New Jersey
that was reality for many of the area‘s residents:
Though we liked to imagine ourselves as the kind of characters
that peopled Springsteen‘s songs—he was, after all, writing about
us—the fit was never quite right. We had pretty much the same
anxieties, but the socioeconomics were all wrong. He sang of
working-class kids stuck in dead end towns who grabbed their
girlfriends by the wrists, leapt into their rebuilt ‗69 Chevys and
peeled out of town in search of their futures. Our hometown was
an upper-middle-class suburb where a college education was more
an expectation than an exercise in free will. Most of us would grow
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up to become just what our parents had planned, and to do just as
they had done. Doctor, lawyer, C.P.A. (Edelman 1995: 138).
Even the New Jersey programs focused on working class struggle with a hard-bitten
cynicism featured measured amounts of domestic bliss. For example, the hard-nosed cop from
Toma had his cheery side. ―Toma was also a devoted family man, never too busy to spend
quality time with his wife Patty and kids Jimmy and Donna,‖ wrote television historian David
Martindale. ―It made for quite a contrast: From the seedy high-crime urban streets to the good-
natured Toma household‖ (Martindale 1991: 486). A number of New Jersey‘s television
programs have, in fact, possessed a pervasive, almost stifling, sense of happiness and middle-
class wholesomeness. The sitcom We‟ll Get By, which aired for three months in the spring of
1975, was the story of George Platt, a lawyer living in the suburbs with his wife and three
teenage children. Here, life in Jersey was, according to Brooks and Marsh, ―one of love and
understanding‖ (Brooks 2007: 1,497). The good vibes kept coming with the 1982 sitcom One of
the Boys, which was so colossally wholesome that it was almost anachronistic. Retiree Oliver
Nugent, played by Mickey Rooney, was a sprightly and playful sixty-six-year-old who got
invited by his grandson, Adam, to share a room with him at college. In addition to dispensing
plenty of good advice, Oliver, along with fellow sexagenarian pal, Bernard, delighted the kids by
putting on shows for them at the local soda shop. In addition to Rooney, One of the Boys featured
future television and film stars Dana Carvey, Nathan Lane, and Meg Ryan, but none of them
were able to save the show from itself, and it was cancelled after seven months.
The sitcom Live-In, a thinly veiled rip-off of Mr. Belvedere, premiered in 1989 and aired
for three months. Ed Matthews operated a sporting-goods store in suburban New Jersey, while
wife Sara was a buyer for a local department store. Wholesome hilarity ensued when they hired
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Lisa, a beautiful young Australian, to serve as nanny to their three kids. Hudson Street, which
aired during the 1995-1996 season, was a heartwarming comedy that featured Tony Danza as
Tony Canetti, a conservative Hoboken police detective, who had just divorced Lucy, his
childhood sweetheart. Tony had won custody of Mickey, his loving son, but was still on good
terms with Lucy, who, despite it all, ―still liked the big lug‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 644).
Tony‘s new love interest was Melanie, a liberal, headstrong, career-driven reporter. Although
they didn‘t always see eye to eye, his wit and cheery nature eventually won her over. Like
Family, which aired during the 2003-2004 season, was a warm family sitcom with an ethnic
twist. Maddie, who was white, and Tanya, who was black, were lifelong friends. Maddie was a
career-driven single Manhattan mom who wanted a family for her cheerful young son, Keith.
Her best pal Tanya, a married lawyer who had taken leave to raise her two kids, suggested they
all live together at her home in the New Jersey suburbs. The good, clean fun—or, relatively
clean, the show being on FOX—continued with Quintuplets, which debuted in 2004 and aired
for eight months. Bob Chase lived in suburban Nutley and sold office cubicles for a living. At
home were wife Carol and their fifteen-year-old fraternal quintuplets who, of course, had
radically different personalities. Despite the scheduling nightmares and inevitable conflicts,
―they were always there to support one another‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,126).
The almost preposterous wholesomeness of so many New Jersey sitcom entries was the
subject of some parody, most directly in Hi Honey, I‟m Home, which aired for six weeks in
1991. It featured a wholesome but completely vacuous 1950s suburban New Jersey sitcom
family. The appropriately-named Nielsen family consisted of the incurably cheerful wife, Honey,
her straight-laced and well-groomed husband, Lloyd, and their two super-obedient kids, Babs
and Chucky. The catch was that the Nielsens lived in the 1990s, making it necessary for their
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friends and neighbors to constantly educate them in vagaries of contemporary life. Another
unusual, almost surreal, take on suburban life in New Jersey was The Adventures of Pete & Pete,
which was set in fictional Wellsville, and filmed on location in Leonia. Pete & Pete began in
1990 as a series of short vignettes on the Nickelodeon cable network. The spots were popular
enough that they were expanded into a half-hour format, thirty-nine of which aired from 1993 to
1996. The principal Pete was energetic ―Little Pete‖ Wrigley, a boy who seemed to be the only
person to notice how strange life in his sleepy suburban town really was. To begin, his older
brother was also named Pete, for reasons that were never quite clear. His parents were Don, a
lawn-obsessed eccentric, and Joyce, who could use the metal plate in her head to pick up radio
signals. Living next door was Artie, a wacky inventor who wore red tights and may or may not
have been a superhero. And so on.
While New Jersey‘s television residents have displayed varying levels of social prestige
and income, most have been average-to-modest in both categories. It is notable that the few New
Jersey television characters who have possessed both great wealth and social prestige have
generally served as comic foils—those who need to be knocked down a peg or two. One example
of this formula was found in Stand by Your Man, a sitcom that aired for four months during the
summer of 1992. Spoiled, naïve, trophy wife Rochelle Dunphy had thought that her husband,
Roger, was a successful businessman, but came to find that he had made his fortune by robbing
banks. Lorraine was Rochelle‘s wise-cracking, down-to-earth sister, who worked at a discount
store called the Bargain Circus. Lorraine‘s husband, Artie, had been Roger‘s accomplice, and
both men were caught and shipped off to prison in the pilot, prompting Lorraine to sell her trailer
and move into Rochelle‘s swanky Franklin Heights estate. The foil here was next-door neighbor
Adrienne, a ―horny, status-conscious matron who made constant references to the jailbirds and
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the deterioration of the neighborhood‖ (Brooks 2007: 1,290). Kelly Kelly, a sitcom set in
Philadelphia‘s Jersey suburbs, aired for two months in 1998. The title character here was also the
snobbish comic foil, a high-strung, career-driven Ivy League English professor. She had just
married Doug Kelly, a laid-back, blue-collar fireman. Doug was a widower with four kids, ―all
of whom considered Kelly snooty and not what they were looking for in a new mother‖ (Brooks
and Marsh 2007: 732). The clash of class was also a prominent theme in the sitcom Method &
Red, which aired for three months in 2004. The setting was Nottingham Estates, a very wealthy,
and very white, gated community in the New Jersey suburbs. The title characters were Method
Man and Redman, a pair of very successful black rappers, who had just moved into the
neighborhood. Along for the ride was Method‘s down-to-earth mother, Dorothea, a toll booth
operator on the New Jersey Turnpike. Although Dorothea tried to keep them in line, the guys‘
raucous parties and boisterous behavior did not sit well with most people in the community. The
conceited antagonist here was next-door neighbor Nancy Blaford, who did everything she could
to get them evicted.
Like many other states, the New Jersey television landscape of the twentieth century
featured its fair share of families, criminals, and cops, but, as mentioned, it was most notable for
what it lacked. Most other states with a fairly large number of entries have featured at least a few
programs that follow the ―single yuppie‖ formula—those where single, youngish, white collar
professionals work, date, or just hang out—with Friends, Seinfeld, Ally McBeal, and Will &
Grace among the more prominent examples. Prior to 2001, this formula was almost completely
absent among New Jersey‘s television entries, the only exception being Down the Shore, which
aired during the 1992-1993 season. It had all of the fundamental elements of the single yuppie
formula. It featured three twenty-something men and three twenty-something women, among
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them a software developer, a garment district salesman, a junior high social studies teacher, an
employee of an advertising agency, and a graphic artist. This show did not entirely buck the New
Jersey trend, however. All of them lived in New York, and came together in New Jersey only
because they shared a rental house on Belmar Beach.
Also notable was the lack of noncrime professional dramas with the short-lived Matt
Waters serving as the only example in the twentieth century. Another New Jersey drama that did
not focus on cops and criminals finally arrived in 2001 with The Education of Max Bickford,
which aired for one season. It was the story of a grumpy history professor at Chadwick, a small
women‘s college. A widower and recovering alcoholic with two children, Max was sorting out
his personal life, but his professional life was still a mess. His best friend, Steve, an anthropology
professor, had just returned from a sabbatical, during which he underwent a sex-change
operation, forcing Max to reevaluate his rather conservative views on sexual identity. Further
complicating matters was Andrea, Max‘s ex-lover and former student, who had been recently
hired for a job that Max had coveted, making her Max‘s boss. Even worse, Andrea studied
popular culture (a field Max despised), having the audacity to include references to Bruce
Springsteen in her scholarly work. The Education of Max Bickford did not portray the college‘s
student population—a good many of whom were, presumably, from New Jersey—in a
particularly positive way. Critic Elena Razlogova described the students as ―rude, silly, or
dishonest rich brats who demand high grades they didn‘t earn, download term papers from the
internet, and suck up to professors for letters of recommendation‖ (Razlogova 2010: 1).
Max Bickford received generally positive reviews, but never amassed much of an
audience, and was cancelled after one season. It did, however, mark the beginning a trend toward
more diverse genres among New Jersey‘s television entries. The 2000s witnessed the emergence
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of the state‘s first reality program, its first conventional workplace comedy, and its first
supernatural drama. The Garden State‘s lone reality entry, 2005‘s Run‟s House, premiered in
2005 and aired for eleven weeks, fitting in nicely with the wholesome New Jersey family shows
that preceded it. The title house belonged to Joseph Simmons, better known as DJ Run, founder
of the trailblazing hip-hop group Run-DMC. Run, an ordained minister, was happily married,
and the proud father of five. The good-natured show chronicled day-to-day life of the Simmons
family at their home in Saddle River. New Jersey‘s first crack at a workplace comedy genre was
the 2006 sitcom Teachers, set at suburban Filmore High. Most of the action took place in the
teachers‘ lounge, with romantic interests, professional conflicts, and pranks providing subject
matter for most of the stories. Point Pleasant, which debuted in 2005, took place in a serene little
town on the Jersey Shore. It focused on shy young Christina Nickson‘s search for her missing
mother, a Point Pleasant native who had vanished after Christina‘s birth. The real issue, however,
was Christina‘s estranged father, who happened to be Satan. The battle for Christina‘s soul was
on, with the expected havoc being visited upon the town‘s residents. None of these shows were
especially successful. Point Pleasant lasted thirteen weeks, Run‟s House eleven, and Teachers
just six. If nothing else, at least Point Pleasant gave one critic a chance to crack a joke about the
Jersey Shore being ―the perfect setting for a show about the End of Times‖ (Devine 2005: 1).
After wandering for years in the ratings wilderness, television‘s New Jersey finally struck
gold in 2003 with the state‘s first medical drama, House M.D., which was set at Princeton-
Plainsboro Hospital. It was the story of ill-tempered Dr. Gregory House, who, despite a
decidedly poor bedside manner, was an absolute genius at diagnosing medical conditions that
baffled other doctors. While House was not especially popular with patients, he was a hit with
audiences. The show checked in at twenty-eighth in the Nielsen ratings, making it the first New
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Jersey-based program ever to break the top thirty, and was soon a perennial top ten show. It
continued to air in 2010, making it the longest-running network program in the state‘s history,
and New Jersey‘s first network program since Make That Spare to last at least three years.
On the surface, House, with its splashy visuals, pulsing music, and crackling dialogue,
didn‘t look much different from many other medical dramas. But where other programs of the
genre were often a labyrinth of plots and characters showcasing nonstop action, House‘s
approach was surprisingly minimalistic. Critic Roger Holland described the course of a typical
episode:
Typically, a guest star will be admitted with a mystery ailment. Dr.
Greg House and his team will sit around in a conference room
attempting both to solve the mystery and cure the patient. House
will be gloriously insulting and witty at the expense of everybody
else in the cast. The team‘s early efforts will come increasingly
close to killing the patient. And then in the end, the patient will
(usually) be saved. Stir in a little bit of hospital politics and a touch
of the cut-and-thrust of interpersonal relationships, and there you
have it (Holland 2005: 1).
Terse, grumpy, and addicted to prescription pain killers, House more closely resembled
television‘s fraternity of hard-boiled detectives than its earnest and noble doctors, and the show
itself had the feel of detective drama, eschewing the tendency of most medical dramas to
―showcase the broad scope of the doctor‘s skills, nobility, or even dedication to a mission‖
(Fuchs 2004a). This was a mystery series, the doctors were the detectives, and the patients were
the scene of the crime. If the show was not intended to be a sort of medical whodunit, then
House‘s apartment number, 221B,—as in 221B Baker Street, London, the residence of Sherlock
Holmes—was quite a coincidence.
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The problem with House, from a geographer‘s perspective, is that, with the exception of
the actors‘ American accents, (including the one affected by the show‘s English star, Hugh
Laurie) House might very well have taken place on Baker Street in London. With the exception
of a few exteriors from the Trenton and Princeton area that were seen in the show‘s opening
credits and the occasional establishing shot, it was an interior show. The action was nearly
always cloistered inside Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, and House offered little in the way of
geographic subtext. Unlike ER, where the unending stream of trauma cases suggested much
about what was happening on the grim streets of Chicago, the emphasis on House was on
mysterious ailments which, of course, could occur anywhere. More important, passing references
to the show‘s setting, aside from the name of the hospital, were few and far between. On an
open-source web site dedicated to the show, a fan had devoted a blog to its New Jersey
references, and the entry from March 7th, 2007, began with a somewhat exasperated comment:
I apologize to anyone who has looked here for information
regarding Princeton/New Jersey locations on House. But it isn‘t
really my fault . . . . There are very few references to the good old
Garden State (House M.D. - On Location 2007: 1).
The next blog entry, dated April 12th, contained a single reference—a character was seen dialing
a number that started with 609, a southern New Jersey area code. So, despite the program‘s
longevity and ratings, both of which have exceeded every other New Jersey-based program by a
wide margin, it is probably not appropriate to label House as the definitive New Jersey show,
given its vague relationship with its setting. Even if House had been a little more explicitly
geographic, it is doubtful that it would be the single show that American viewers most closely
identify with that state. That distinction belongs to a crime drama that, for better or worse, was
more thoroughly intertwined with its geography than any show in recent memory.
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The Sopranos premiered in 1999, and quickly became one of the most influential and
critically acclaimed programs on television. Despite the fact that it appeared on HBO, a premium
cable outlet available in only a third of American television households, The Sopranos often
drew more viewers than its network competition, and took home an incredible twenty-one Emmy
awards during its six-season run. The Sopranos represented, in a sense, a culmination of themes
that had existed in many prior New Jersey-based programs, containing all the ingredients of a
typical New Jersey show. It featured a nuclear family—the concerned father, the loyal mother,
the embittered daughter, the impressionable son—living together in an upscale suburban
neighborhood. It certainly possessed a Springsteen-esque blue collar aesthetic, and it featured
plenty of seediness. The Sopranos was, alternately, darkly funny, deeply introspective, and
incredibly violent.
The primary character was Tony Soprano, who lived with his wife, Carmela, daughter
Meadow, and son A. J. in North Caldwell. ―A big, grinning bear of a man,‖ wrote Brooks and
Marsh, ―he was by turn genial, a worried father—and a murderous thug‖ (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 1,274). As the series began, the mafia boss of Northern New Jersey, Jackie Aprile, was
dying, and the capos decided that Tony, whose father had once been boss, should take over.
Tony ran his empire from a strip joint that he owned, the Bada Bing Club, and his most
frequently seen soldiers were Paulie ―Walnuts‖ Gualtieri, Silvio Dante, Salvatore ―Big Pussy‖
Bonpensiero, and Christopher Moltisanti, Tony‘s ambitious but reckless young nephew. It was a
family business, and business could be messy. Tony‘s Uncle Junior, angry at being passed over
as boss, conspired, unsuccessfully, with Tony‘s vindictive, half-crazy mother, Livia, to have
Tony whacked. Tony‘s unstable sister, Janice, just back from Seattle, also conspired against him.
Over the course of the series, loyal soldiers became stool pigeons, the F.B.I. turned up the heat,
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Tony warred with the New York mob, and a fairly large portion of the cast was killed. All of
these headaches, coupled with his rebellious kids, despondent wife, and uncontrolled appetite for
other women, drove Tony to see a psychologist. Many of the episodes were framed by his
sessions with Dr. Jennifer Melfi, who was both horrified and captivated by having a murderous
mob boss as a patient.
With its plots driven by sex, crime, deception, and violence, and its cast populated by
jump-suited mobsters lounging about strip clubs, dispensing such bon mots as, ―There‘s an old
Italian saying: you fuck up once, you lose two teeth,‖ The Sopranos‘s depiction of New Jersey
was, and almost had to be, somewhat negative (West 2005: 3). But even if The Sopranos had
been about opera singers, the landscape of New Jersey, as depicted on the show, was hardly
consonant with a place called The Garden State. Right from the opening titles, The Sopranos‘s
New Jersey was, in the words of Newark Star-Ledger columnist Mark Di Ionno, ―an ugly,
industrial, tree-barren urban wasteland‖ (Di Ionno 2007a: 1). Those credits began with a cigar-
smoking Tony driving out of the Lincoln Tunnel and up to the toll booths of the New Jersey
Turnpike. As the Manhattan skyline retreated in the side mirrors of Tony‘s Cadillac, viewers
were introduced to the New Jersey landscape. Tony cruised past the Newark airport, a shuttered
factory, a tank farm, an oil refinery, and a railyard, and all of these vistas were interspersed with
quick shots of bridges, semi-trucks, low-flying passenger jets, power lines, smoke stacks, water
towers, and concrete-encased lanes of highway. Only at the very end of the titles were viewers
introduced to a bit of green—the pleasant, shaded road that led up to Tony‘s minimansion.
There was also the garbage. One of Tony‘s front businesses was a waste management
company, something of a dark joke, because garbage was everywhere on The Sopranos—on the
streets, on the sidewalks, in vacant lots, and under bridges where clandestine meetings took
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place. Dumps, in fact, seemed to loom in the background of every exterior shot. The depiction of
New Jersey on the show was so dreary that critic Dana Polan argued that the ubiquitous refuse
was actually one of the landscape‘s more attractive features:
A scene in season one has Tony practicing his golf swing at a
range right next to a garbage dump; it‘s apt that a shot of him
against a gigantic mass of refuse displays the mountain of plastic
bottles and other garbage items as shimmering with an intensity of
(artificial) colors, as if the world of waste were the most vibrant
and visually sublime thing in the otherwise gray environment of
strip-mall New Jersey (Polan 2009: 137).
As indicated by Polan, The Sopranos not only showcased the literal trash of the New
Jersey landscape, but the figurative trash as well. New Jersey was one long traffic-congested
freeway, framed on either side by the detritus of a thoughtless and hedonistic consumer culture—
gas stations, fast-food joints, strip malls, and parking lots—and the characters on the show seem
perfectly at home in this prefabricated landscape. Many of the men on the show were, in the
words of Mark Di Ionno, ―violent, stupid, uncouth, loud-mouthed slobs‖ (Di Ionno 2007b: 1).
Some of the female characters displayed a much greater level of sophistication, but others did
not, particularly Adriana La Cerva, Christopher‘s fiancée, who Polan described as the
embodiment of ―kitsch vulgar taste.‖ She had big hair, loud make-up, and a love for ostentatious
clothes and jewelry. ―Her vulgar, overdone look is matched to a voice that signifies ethnic New
Jersey lower-classness,‖ wrote Polan, ―and serves as one further sign of Adriana‘s fundamental
lack of sophistication, her fundamental low taste‖ (Polan 2009: 138).
For Di Ionno, one of the central geographic themes of The Sopranos was the idea that
New Jersey was a place where ―consumerism and pop culture have crushed traditional values.‖
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(Di Ionno 2007a: 1). Polan agreed, writing that ―the New Jersey of The Sopranos takes place
after the fall.‖
At best there are furtive glimpses of a few last outposts of
venerable and old-fashioned ancestry, like the stone church that
Tony‘s grandparents designed and that he proudly visits with each
of his children at different moments of the series . . . . The church
is one last holdout in a neighborhood that has been taken over by
crack and that now is in disarray and dilapidation. Whatever glory
the church perhaps once had as a mark of craftsmanship and pride-
in-work is at risk of fading the context of an urbanism in ruins
(Polan 2009: 139).
Polan also noted that, while Tony marveled at glories of the past, he also profited from its ruin.
Shortly after lamenting the ultimate fate of the old church, he sold a building that housed one of
the area‘s last authentic Italian poultry shops so that a Jamba Juice could ―move in and continue
its branding and standardization of life‖ (Polan 2009: 139).
Among the many objectionable depictions of New Jersey supplied by The Sopranos, the
one that drew the greatest amount of criticism was an unrelentingly negative stereotyping of
Italian-Americans. Ethnic-awareness groups picketed filming locations, the City of New York
refused to allow a Sopranos-themed float in its Columbus Day parade, and officials in New
Jersey‘s Essex County denied a filming permit on public property because, according to Mark Di
Ionno, the show ―constantly fell back on, rather than challenged, stereotypes, as TV almost
always does.‖
Let us count the ways: Italian men mostly as angry, semi-educated,
gabagool-shoveling slobs . . . . Italian wives as either fat or slender
naggers, or beaten-down abuse victims, all happy to be bought off
by cars, jewelry or Italianate living room sets. Italian Rutgers
students as cowardly bullies and drunken frat boys . . . . They have
solidified the image of Italian-Americans as goons. Over-
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emotional, anti-intellectual, hot-headed, stupid goons (Di Ionno
2007a: 1).
Not everyone was displeased, however, as evidenced by the numerous newspaper reports
from New York and New Jersey where residents, particularly working-class Italian-Americans,
said they dreamed about being on the show. That desire was manifested in July of 2000, when an
open casting call for the show in Harrison, New Jersey, drew 14,000 people, most of them
Italian-American. According to Dana Polan, the participants made clear that they ―viewed the
show as a lark, not a consequential defamation of Italian American identity (Polan 2009: 118).
Critic Lesley Smith was particularly impressed by some of the show‘s primary female characters,
writing that they played ―against every cliché deployed in celluloid representations of Italian-
American women‖ (Smith 2002a: 1). Although none of them were without their faults, the
leading women of The Sopranos were, as Smith suggested, certainly not the brainless, shrieking
mob molls of so many gangster films. Meadow Soprano was a sensitive, inquisitive straight-A
student, and Dr. Melfi was intelligent, insightful and dignified. Most important, Carmela
Soprano was always the level-headed counterpart to the unfaithful, waffling Tony. She was
sensible, inquisitive and, at least by the standards of other Sopranos characters, exceedingly
normal.
Some of the show‘s critics admitted that The Sopranos, when at its best, explored the real
issues faced by third- and fourth-generation Italian-Americans. Even Mark Di Ionno, obviously
one of the show‘s most strident opponents, admitted this. He was impressed, in particular, by a
scene set at a backyard cookout that explored the social delicacies encountered by an ethnic
group that is slowly joining the ranks of the upper class:
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Tony was clumsily trying to blend in with a WASP stockbroker
and a doctor, who was also of Italian descent but more refined and
softer than Tony. It was a great, nuanced scene. The WASP broker
was oblivious to the way he was dismissing Tony. The doctor was
at once trying to protect Tony and be a goomba, but not enough to
alienate the WASP. And Tony was trying to be civil in the face of
being looked down on, keeping a smoldering lid on his desire (and
ability) to stuff the guy in the trunk of a car (Di Ionno 2007a: 1).
Whether or not The Sopranos‘s depiction of New Jersey in general, and its Italian-
American population in particular, was realistic or unrealistic, fair or unfair, it clearly was the
state‘s defining television program. It is also clear that New Jersey had an odd relationship with
the show. A national poll conducted in 2001 by New Jersey‘s Fairleigh Dickinson University
found that, as many of the show‘s critics suspected, viewers who watched The Sopranos were
more likely to view the state as ―rife with corruption, crime and pollution‖ than viewers who did
not. The surprising thing about the poll and, for New Jerseyans, probably the most troubling
result, was that viewers who had actually visited New Jersey had a much more critical view of
the state than those who had not. According to FDU political science professor Bruce Larson,
―It‘s not clear if the more negative view of New Jersey among Sopranos viewers around the
country results from watching the show, or whether the show just reinforces pre-existing
opinions.‖ The poll also suggested that the state‘s residents, rather than rejecting The Sopranos,
were actually more enthusiastic about the show than those outside of the state. Just eleven
percent of all national viewers said they watched the show on a regular basis, compared to
twenty-five percent of the viewers in New Jersey itself (Reid 2007: 1). Still, many state residents
worried about the impact the show had on the New Jersey‘s reputation. In a 2001 interview,
Mike Villani, a twenty-one-year-old college student from Bloomfield, echoed these concerns and
suggested much about the perceived power of television to shape the viewer‘s perception:
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―People in Iowa or Oklahoma, they don‘t know what real Italians are like. This is what they see.
This is all they know. It makes us look like a bunch of guidos‖ (Di Ionno 2007b: 1).
MARYLAND
The powers behind television have demonstrated a little more respect for Maryland than
they have for Delaware, but not much more, particularly when the state‘s television history is
compared to the rest of the Mid-Atlantic. While the District of Columbia has served as the
setting for eighty-five programs, Pennsylvania for sixty, and New Jersey for thirty-seven,
Maryland has been home to a relatively meager sixteen programs. Like New Jersey, Maryland‘s
programs have had trouble catching on, but unlike New Jersey, which would eventually have its
television landscape salvaged by the likes of The Sopranos and House, no TV savior has
emerged for Maryland. Only one of the state‘s programs—Homicide: Life on the Street—ever
managed to crack the Nielsen top thirty, and that only happened once, during the 1993-1994
season, when Homicide aired for a grand total of four weeks.
The only two Maryland-based programs to be set outside of Baltimore appeared in the
2000s. The first was 2001‘s The Lone Gunmen, which told the behind-the-scenes story of a
Takoma Park-based underground magazine that specialized in conspiracy theories. The men
behind the magazine were John Byers, Melvin Frohike, and Ringo Langly, who had for seven
years served as a source of insider information for Fox Mulder on The X-Files. This spin-off
played for laughs more often than its moody predecessor, never managed to catch on with that
show‘s loyal fan base, and was cancelled after five low-rated months. In what can only be
described as a beautifully contemptuous move by the show‘s producers, Byers, Frohike, and
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Langly returned for one more episode of The X-Files in 2002, and were promptly killed off.
Maryland‘s only other program set outside of Baltimore was Joan of Arcadia, which
premiered in 2003 and lasted for two seasons. When the series began, Joan Girardi and her
family had just moved to Arcadia, Maryland, after her father, Will, had taken a job as local
police chief. The Girardi family included mom Helen, an artist and teacher; Luke, Joan‘s nerdy
little brother; and Kevin, Joan‘s older brother, a former star athlete who had been paralyzed in a
drunk-driving accident. Joan‘s anxieties were those typical of many sixteen-year-old girls. She
was an underachiever, she and her new friends at Arcadia High were not particularly popular,
and her boyfriend was pressuring her to have sex. Less typical was the fact that God regularly
appeared to Joan. Though in various forms—as a little boy, a teenager, an old lady—He always
came for the same reason. Someone was in trouble, and it was up to Joan to help them out.
Joan of Arcadia was a mixture of familiar formulas. It was part teen drama, with Joan
and her friends dealing with school culture, romantic entanglements, and other coming-of-age
pressures. It was part family drama, dealing with Kevin‘s anger, Luke‘s isolation, and Helen‘s
ennui. And it was part cop drama, with the brutality of Will‘s job driving the plots of several
episodes. More than anything else, however, it was the story of Joan‘s relationship with God.
She was not required to fulfill any of God‘s requests, although she nearly always did, and many
of the stories revolved around questions of free will, good versus evil, the meaning of life, and,
not surprisingly, Joan‘s occasional questioning of her own sanity.
As for the show‘s geography, the people of Arcadia were neither sophisticates nor
bumpkins. In fact, the town was about as close to a ―typical‖ American place as has ever
appeared on television. This move might have been intentional. Keeping the backdrop and
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characters close to the norm provided a counterbalance to the show‘s rather fantastic premise.
God, in fact, told Joan that she was selected precisely because she was so typical. ―Like other
teenage girls,‖ wrote critic Jennifer D. Wesley, ―she‘s concerned with clothes, boys, and her
annoying family. She is neither pious nor atheist, just average‖ (Wesley 2003b: 1). Critic Lee
Siegel found this to be integral to the show‘s believability. ―With its sensitive, unglamorous,
modest-looking adolescents,‖ wrote Siegel, ―who are smart, worldly, and hip yet also vulnerable,
and self-conscious and conscientious about everything, from friendship to sex, Joan of Arcadia
is the anti-O.C., Fox‘s ‗teen‘ drama, whose teens seem more like middle-age Hollywood
producers and agents disguised as teens‖ (Siegel 2007: 118).
There is some question regarding Arcadia‘s specific location. In his review, Siegel stated
that Arcadia ―could be anywhere in the United States,‖ but it was identified on the program as
being in Maryland (Siegel 2007: 116). There is a real town called Arcadia in the state, but its
modest size is out of synch with the mid-sized city that appears on the show. Joan of Arcadia
was filmed in Los Angeles, but the establishing shots of Arcadia were filmed on location in
Wilmington, Delaware. Divine intervention, it appears, was necessary to get the First State a
little screen time.
All fourteen of the state‘s remaining programs originated from or were set in Baltimore.
The first program to originate from Maryland was The Johns Hopkins Science Review, which
featured faculty from that Baltimore university conducting scientific presentations and
discussions. The program enjoyed a relatively long run, lasting from December of 1948 to
September of 1954, but did so to a very sparse audience. The Science Review was used by CBS
and, later, DuMont as ratings cannon fodder against far more popular programs such as Arthur
Godfrey, Break the Bank, Dragnet, and Milton Berle. Baltimore‘s second entry, Key to the Ages,
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had a similar format to the Science Review, featuring discussions on art and literature from the
city‘s Enoch Pratt Free Library and Walters Art Gallery. It also served a purpose similar to that
of its Johns Hopkins counterpart, running on ABC‘s Sunday night schedule during the spring of
1955 opposite Ed Sullivan.
After the demise of these two early shows, Maryland‘s television landscape plunged into
darkness for more than two decades, and when it reemerged, not many people noticed. The 1978
sitcom In the Beginning was the second of actor McLean Stevenson‘s four failed attempts at
post-M*A*S*H success. This time around, Stevenson played Father Daniel M. Cleary, a priest
working a store-front mission in inner-city Baltimore. The show focused on the stuffy Cleary‘s
strained relationship with an optimistic, street-smart nun named Sister Agnes, and on his general
disdain for the surrounding squalid neighborhood. Viewers were as unwilling as Father Cleary to
spend time there, and the show was off the air in five weeks.
Maryland reappeared in 1986, and would serve as the setting for eight more sitcoms over
the next two decades. Of those, four had relatively short runs, including The Ellyn Burstyn Show,
which debuted in 1986 and aired for just under a year; Flesh „n‟ Blood, which aired for two
months in 1991; Life‟s Work, which debuted in 1996 and aired for nine months; and Family
Rules, which lasted just six weeks in 1999. Given their short runs and low ratings, it is unlikely
than any of these programs made much of an impression on the television audience, but if they
did, the viewers would have come away with the sense of Baltimore as a city populated primarily
by upwardly mobile women, nontraditional families, and basketball coaches. The main character
of The Ellyn Burstyn Show was a best-selling author and college professor sharing a Baltimore
brownstone with her mother, divorced daughter, and grandson. Flesh „n‟ Blood was an updated,
East Coast take on The Beverly Hillbillies, featuring an aggressive, overachieving Baltimore
86
district attorney playing host to her country-fried kin. Life‟s Work told the story of Lisa Hunter,
another aggressive, overachieving state‘s attorney. Lisa had worked her way through law school,
but still found time to marry Kevin, a basketball coach, with whom she had two children. Family
Rules was the story of a different basketball coach, Nate Harrison, a widower who was raising
four daughters in suburban Baltimore.
Along with these four duds were four other Baltimore-based sitcoms that managed
relatively long runs, though without large audiences. Shows that exhibit this paradoxical
combination of traits are, as often as not, focused on the lives of African-Americans, and that
was the case with these four Baltimore programs. There had been, of course, a number of hit
black sitcoms in the 1970s and 1980s, such Good Times, The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son, and,
most notably, The Cosby Show, but until the 1990s, the American television landscape had
remained, for the most part, a largely white world. Then, in the early 1990s the upstart FOX
network began to air a significant number of programs featuring predominantly black casts.
During its first few years, FOX executives were desperate to shake loose whatever
viewers they could from the entrenched Big Three networks, and struck upon the idea of
developing programs likely to appeal to the generally underserved African-American audience.
The strategy worked, with shows like In Living Color and Martin becoming some of the
network‘s more successful early entries. As the FOX audience expanded, however, the number
of programs with African-American lead characters declined. That niche was, not coincidentally,
soon filled by two other upstart networks, with the WB network broadcasting shows like The
Steve Harvey Show, The Jamie Foxx Show and Sister, Sister, and UPN airing Moesha, Malcolm
& Eddie, and The Hughleys.
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FOX‘s True Colors and Roc, along with UPN‘s One on One and Cuts, were Baltimore-
based byproducts of this niche strategy. Each featured predominantly black casts and
experienced relatively long runs. True Colors, which debuted in 1990 and aired for two years,
was the story of Ron Freeman, a dentist, and his new wife, Ellen Davis, an elementary school
teacher. Ron had been a widower with two boys. True to sitcom form, his older son, Terry, was
uptight and conservative while the younger Lester was a happy-go-lucky smartass. Ellen was a
divorcee who brought along a serious-minded daughter, Katie, and her mother, Sara, who was
not too thrilled with her new son-in-law. The novelty of the show was that Ron was black and
Ellen was white, and FOX promoted the show by distancing it from the story of another blended
family, declaring, ―It ain‘t The Brady Bunch,‖ which was true, of course (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 1,428). The very premise of True Colors was, indeed, groundbreaking, being that it was
one of the very few American television programs to focus on an interracial marriage, but, for
the most part, it was a standard-issue family sitcom. Its fellow FOX entry, 1991‘s Roc, proved to
be far more game when it came to tackling serious issues.
The title character of Roc was Roc Emerson, a black garbage collector who lived in an
inner-city Baltimore neighborhood with wife, Eleanor, who was a nightshift nurse at a local
hospital. The Emerson household also included Roc‘s brother, Joey, an unemployed musician
with a gambling problem, and their father, Andrew, who ―distrusted white people and attributed
nearly everything of consequence to blacks‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,163). Many episodes of
Roc involved typical sitcom fare, including stories of Roc and Eleanor‘s love life, their desire to
have a baby, their respective travails at work, Andrew‘s grousing, and the blowback from
freeloading Joey‘s misadventures. Roc ended its three-year run in 1994, and critics admired the
show for its ambition. Roc was played by Charles Dutton, a reformed exconvict who was
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determined to showcase positive black role models on his television program. Roc was certainly
that. As the series progressed, Roc obtained his GED, managed to buy his apartment building
and some adjoining row houses, and emerged as a community leader, at one point running for
city council. Further distinguishing Roc was its frequent examination of weighty social issues
such as labor strife, juvenile delinquency, health care, same-sex and interracial relationships,
interracial relationships, sexual harassment, racial profiling, the AIDS epidemic, and even the
sexual abuse of children. Roc took a similarly hard look at life in inner-city Baltimore. Roc,
Eleanor, and Andrew were all social activists, and their community needed them, as it was rife
with unemployment, homelessness, street gangs, drugs dealers, drug addicts, and gun violence.
UPN‘s first Baltimore entry, One on One, began its five year run in 2001. It focused on
ladies‘ man Mark ―Flex‖ Washington, a former basketball star (no word on who coached him)
who was working as a sportscaster at a local television station. His life was turned upside down
when his exwife took a job in Nova Scotia, leaving Flex with full custody of his teenage
daughter, Breanna. Also seen were Duane, Flex‘s womanizing best friend, and Arnaz, an
aspiring rapper and Breanna‘s occasional boyfriend. Like Roc, One on One touched on serious
issues like teen sex, alcoholism, HIV, child abuse, and racism, but it was, for the most part, a
relatively standard middle-class family sitcom. One recurring plot on the show involved Flex
taking over his father‘s barbershop and eventually selling it to a white businessman named Jack
Sherwood. That story line evolved into a spin-off. On Cuts, Flex‘s younger brother, Kevin, left a
lucrative career in California as a hairdresser to the stars to return home to Baltimore as shop
manager. The primary conflict was between Kevin and Jack‘s daughter, Tiffany, who
comanaged the shop, and who wanted to expand it to include a hair salon for women. Ultimately,
Cuts could not maintain One on One‘s momentum, and was off the air after a year and a half.
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From the storefront mission of In the Beginning to the battles against urban decay on Roc,
Baltimore‘s comedies gave the city‘s television landscape a bit of an edge, and that sense was
reinforced in a big way by the city‘s three remaining entries. The first of Baltimore‘s two
dramas, Men, was essentially an angry, testosterone-driven version of thirtysomething. The title
referred to four Baltimore professionals—a surgeon, a lawyer, a reporter, and a cop—all old
friends who met for a weekly poker game to commiserate about life. Viewers were not
interested, and the show folded after a five week run in 1989.
Maryland‘s lone reality entry, 2000‘s Hopkins 24/7, provided an incredibly gritty,
behind-the-scenes look at the staff and patients of Baltimore‘s Johns Hopkins Hospital. The
drama was as intense, the decisions as heart-breaking, and the doctors as heroic as those on any
fictional drama. The hospital‘s trauma chief, after working long shifts treating the victims of
gang and drug wars on Baltimore‘s streets, spent his free time offering counseling to the city‘s
at-risk youth. Other doctors endured the pressures of a morbidity and mortality session, while a
frazzled intern worked over 100 hours each week to prove himself worthy of a position on the
hospital‘s surgical staff. The parents of a teenage girl who had been diagnosed with cancer did
battle with a heartless HMO, while another couple faced the gut-wrenching decision of whether
or not to authorize risky surgery for their four-year-old daughter. All of this was too much for
viewers, apparently, and the show did not return after its initial six-week run.
The grim reality seen on Hopkings 24/7 might have expected by audiences since the
city‘s longest-running entry, the police drama Homicide: Life on the Street, had, for seven years
previously, been providing viewers one of the most visceral, realistic, and gritty looks at urban
America ever to appear on television. It was the story of a squad of homicide detectives working
out of a precinct in Baltimore‘s inner city. Headed by the glowering Lieutenant Al Giardello, the
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hard-nosed team included the philosophical Steve Crosetti, level-headed Meldrick Lewis, frumpy
Stanley Bolander, cynical John Munch, wisecracking Beau Felton, and tough Kay Howard, the
only female on the squad. The undeniable superstar of the team was Detective Frank Pembleton,
an intense, driven cop with a reputation as being the master of the interrogation room, which was
known in the station house as ―The Box.‖ Pembleton had a deserved reputation as a loner, and he
was not pleased when Tim Bayliss, a somewhat spacey rookie detective, was made his new
partner.
Homicide was based on the David Simon book about real-life Baltimore detectives,
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, and it possessed a remarkable air of both geographic
and technical authenticity. The show was created by Oscar-winning director and Baltimore
native Barry Levinson, and was filmed entirely on location. The detectives of Homicide, unlike
the slick, sports-car-driving mannequins who populated many other TV detective shows, were
unremarkable looking individuals in dowdy clothes who cruised the mean streets of Baltimore in
their fleet of standard-issue Chevy Cavaliers. The attention to realistic detail was so intense that
it led to a truly bizarre event during an outdoor shoot for one episode. It seems that an actual
criminal, wanted by the Baltimore police, stumbled across the set-up for a scene, and promptly
surrendered to actors Richard Belzer and Clark Johnson, believing that they were actual
Baltimore detectives. A number of other cop shows have claimed to be authentic, but few could
claim to be quite that authentic.
Critic Cynthia Fuchs believed that Homicide was a creative success because it ran
contrary to ―stereotypes of criminals, victims, and cops,‖ and, without a doubt, it looked very
unlike every other cop show on television (Fuchs 2004a: 1). Although some of its murder
mysteries unraveled in the conventional connect-the-dots fashion, just as often both the cops and
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the viewers knew precisely who the killer was from the beginning of the episode. The dramatic
tension was not the question of whodunit, but the question of whether or not the cops could pin
enough evidence on the culprit. In other episodes, neither the cops nor the viewers ever found out
who the murderer was, and, in a few cases, a suspect was pressured into a confession, leaving a
nagging doubt about their actual guilt.
Homicide also differed from the conventional cop show in that there was not much glitzy
action. Barry Levinson recalled that, because of this departure from the standard formula, NBC
could not figure out how to market the show. ―This isn‘t a mystery, there isn‘t any action really,‖
recalled Levinson. ―We arrive after the person is dead. So there‘s no car chases‖ (Fuchs 2004a:
1). What the show did have was a unique visual intensity, complex characters, and stormy verbal
confrontations. In one episode, for example, Pembleton and Bayliss were interrogating a suspect
in the murder of an eleven-year-old girl. Nearly the entire episode took place inside the Box,
with Pembleton working his magic, grilling away at the subject, but for once he was unable to
get what he wanted. Even though both Frank and Tim were entirely convinced the man was
guilty, he went free. There was no tearful confession, surprising twist, last-minute discovery, or
dramatic shootout. The likely killer walked, and even though that particular case would run along
for several episodes, it was never closed.
Despite its uncertainty about how to package the show, NBC evidently had high hopes
for Homicide. The network rolled it out on January 31, 1993, just after its telecast of Super Bowl
XXVII. This football game, which is nearly always the most-watched single telecast of any
television season, provided Homicide with an enormous boost—to the tune of 43 million
viewers—despite the fact that the Dallas Cowboys plastered the Buffalo Bills by thirty-five
points. Unfortunately for Homicide, ABC‘s Wednesday night anchor, Home Improvement, was
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beating NBC‘s Seinfeld just about as soundly that season, and when NBC decided to move
Seinfeld to Thursday nights, Homicide had the unfortunate task of taking its place. Home
Improvement proceeded to thrash Homicide so badly that NBC ordered a meager four episodes
for the following fall, and slated it to be a midseason replacement. NBC, still holding out some
hope for the show, had Homicide step in for the departing L.A. Law in January of 1994. It was in
a plum spot behind Seinfeld, which had rocketed to third place in the ratings following its move
to Thursday nights, and the popular Cheers spinoff, Frasier, which ranked seventh that season.
Despite such a strong lead-in, Homicide‘s short run was good only for twenty-fourth place. In an
almost unprecedented display of clemency, NBC renewed the show once again, but relegated it
to the wasteland of Friday night. It was there, ironically, that star-crossed Homicide finally found
its niche. It would never again put up anything like its post-Super Bowl or even post-Frasier
ratings, but the drama was always the darling of television critics, and it developed a modest but
intensely loyal following. Homicide stayed alive for another five years, making it Maryland‘s
longest-running television entry.
Homicide had a unique relationship with Baltimore. There was some grousing about the
disruptions that production caused, particularly in the crowded Fell‘s Point neighborhood, where
exasperated residents began placing bumper stickers on their cars that read, snidely, ―Homicide:
Life Without Parking‖ (Hoffman 1998: 31). Still, the city‘s residents seemed to embrace the
show as their own, as indicated by the television ratings for Homicide in the Baltimore market,
which were considerably higher than the rest of the country. Homicide showcased some of the
city‘s trademark places, including the burial site of Edgar Allen Poe, the Pimlico Race Course,
Camden Yards, and Fort McHenry, as well as some of its lesser known landmarks, like St.
Stanislaus Church, The National Aquarium, The B&O Railroad Museum, and The Bromo-
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Seltzer Tower.
Homicide was hardly a travelogue, however, with all areas of the city serving as a
backdrop, from the affluent North Side, to the working-class Pigtown neighborhood of South
Baltimore, to crime-ridden West Baltimore. It showcased the city‘s trademark row houses and
side alleys, and ventured into local watering holes, strip clubs, and porn shops. Homicide did
take a few liberties. In the premiere episode, guest star Robin Williams played a tourist who took
his wife and two young children to a baseball game at Camden Yards. After the game, they
accidentally wandered into a bad neighborhood, and Williams‘s wife was gunned down during a
mugging. The mugging scene was shot in an area that was, in reality, far away from the Yards.
―That was the one episode that caused us some concern,‖ recalled Gil Stotler, the
communications director for the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association. ―We got
several phone calls from people wondering if Camden Yards was safe‖ (Hoffman 1998: 39).
Such misgivings about how Baltimore was portrayed on Homicide must have been
frequent, since the show, for the most part, depicted it as a city populated by unsavory characters.
Critic Tod Hoffman noted that there were essentially two types of criminals in Homicide, ―the
slouching furtive-looking West-side street-corner dealers‖ and the ―extravagantly tattooed,
snaggle-toothed South Baltimore hillbillies‖ (Hoffman 1998: 30). Some of the murders depicted
on Homicide were spectacular, as when a sniper was terrorizing the city, or when a killer was
driving up and down I-95, randomly shooting victims. Others were darkly comical, as when a
visiting New Yorker killed his buddy at Camden Yards because the friend had mistakenly
purchased tickets for an Orioles-A‘s game instead of an Orioles-Yankees game. Still other
murders were just plain bizarre, such as an episode where a funeral parlor director was caught
sitting down for a romantic dinner with a female corpse.
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For the most part, the murders investigated on Homicide were realistic and disturbingly
familiar. The detectives unearthed the bodies of several young boys in a remote section of Druid
Hill Park. They investigated the rape and murder of a twelve-year-old girl. They discovered that
a string of motiveless murders were being committed by a group of kids, for the ―fun‖ of it. In
fact, the motives of the killers and their blasé attitude about killing were often just as disturbing
as the crimes themselves. On one episode, a fourteen-year-old boy named Ronnie confessed to
murder, but because he mistakenly shot the wrong kid, Ronnie believed that he hadn‘t committed
a real crime. ―Car accidents kill innocent people all the time,‖ he told a detective. ―How is this
any different?‖ (Fuchs 2004b: 1). On another episode, Frank Pembleton failed to get a confession
out of an accused cop-killer, and the killer smugly told Frank he failed because he was black.
―It‘s not your fault,‖ he said to Frank in the Box, ―Blacks have slightly smaller brains than white
people . . . . The truth is the truth, you know it when you hear it‖ (Fuchs 2004b: 1). In another
case, Bayliss was horrified by the reaction of a father after being informed that his son had been
beaten to death by skinheads outside a gay bar. ―Queers are sick, perverted animals,‖ said the
father. ―If what you say is true, it‘s better he‘s dead‖ (Fuchs 2004c: 1).
While such depictions of Baltimore and its residents were hardly charitable, the grim
nature of Homicide had to be expected. James Yoshimura, a writer for the show, recalled that the
network occasionally asked that they feature more ―life-affirming‖ stories, to which he replied,
―The first word in the title is ‗homicide,‘ and it kind of goes downhill from there.‖ (Fuchs 2004d:
1). For Tod Hoffman, the show‘s refusal to whitewash its setting was absolutely integral to its
success, as was the decision to film the show there in the first place:
There is nothing about Baltimore you‘d confuse with Los Angeles
glamour or New York sophistication. Both of these cities are
excessively familiar—even to those who have never been there—
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for being overused as sets. Indeed, Baltimore is a city refreshingly
without pretension, a city whose local flavor overwhelms chain-
brand conformity. A city with its own particular cadence, a sort of
Southern drawl revved up to a Northern tempo . . . . The city—
with its distinctive neighborhoods . . . its mean ghettoes—is a
pivotal character in Homicide: this is a very self-consciously
Baltimore show. It captures the city‘s charm and misery to
establish a distinctive sense of place (Hoffman 1998: 30).
It is certainly unlikely that Levinson set out to paint a derogatory portrait of Baltimore. He is
clearly fond of the city, as evidenced by the often affectionate depictions of the city in the
numerous theatrical films he has set there, but he seems to have few illusions about the city‘s
geographic character. ―It‘s an ordinary workaday city,‖ said Levinson. ―Baltimore is
representative of urban struggle‖ (Hoffman 1998: 30). It appears that Levinson came neither to
praise Baltimore nor to bury it. He and the show‘s writers were simply trying to create something
that was realistic, as suggested by Levinson‘s directive when the show was being launched:
―Let‘s be rough and let the roughness show‖ (Fuchs 2004a: 1).
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
DuMont was the first network to feature nightly newscasts, and they originated from the
network‘s Washington, D.C., studios beginning in 1947. New York, however, has long been the
epicenter of the Big Three networks‘ nightly news programs, but they did run a few information
and panel programs in primetime, some of them originating from Washington. NBC‘s first
prime-time entry from Washington was a success, to say the least. The public affairs program
Meet the Press has aired on NBC‘s Sunday morning schedule for more than six decades, making
it the longest-running show in the history of television. This venerable program also ran
intermittently in various primetime slots between 1947 and 1965, and featured, then as now, a
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prominent political official being grilled by a reporter. NBC‘s other primetime news entries from
Washington included Story of the Week, an interview and commentary program that aired in
1948, and Meet Your Congress, a political debate featuring two Democratic and two Republican
congressmen, which aired for four months in 1949. American Forum of the Air, a political debate
produced before a live audience began on NBC radio in 1928. It aired on the network‘s
primetime television schedule for eight months in 1950, and during the summers of 1951 and
1952. It continued on Sunday afternoons until 1957.
CBS‘s Washington-based counterpart to Meet the Press is Face the Nation, which has
aired on Sunday mornings since 1954. The show also ran in primetime during the 1960-1961
season. Other CBS primetime news entries from Washington included Capitol Cloak Room, a
live political discussion simulcast on the network‘s television and radio stations during the 1948-
1949 season, and The Big Question, a live political discussion that aired for two months in 1951.
The American Week, which offered commentary and interviews concerning news from the
previous week, aired in primetime on CBS during the summer of 1954.
DuMont‘s primetime entries included Georgetown University Forum, a televised faculty
discussion of current events, technology, and society, and Keep Posted, a public affairs program
where citizens questioned a public official. Each aired for just over two years, beginning in 1951.
DuMont revived NBC‘s Meet Your Congress for the duration of the 1953-1954 season, and it
aired Washington Exclusive, a discussion program featuring six former senators, for four months
the same year.
Six primetime network programs showcasing art, music, and science have also emanated
from Washington, most during television‘s early years, and all of them on NBC. The quiz
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program The Eyes Have It aired for four months during the 1948-1949 season, while the musical
programs Capital Capers and U. S. Marine Band were broadcast from Washington in the
summer of 1949. Heritage, which aired live from the National Gallery of Art late in the summer
of 1951, featured classical music performances, discussions of paintings on exhibit, and
interviews with music composers and conductors. A considerably less austere atmosphere came
to the nation‘s capital with The Jimmy Dean Show, a no-frills country music program that was
broadcast from Washington during the summer of 1957. NBC‘s final Washington-based summer
series, Smithsonian, aired in 1967, featuring museum exhibits and scientific documentaries.
Since the late 1950s, fictional programs have dominated Washington‘s television
landscape, with many of them, as might be expected, focusing on the city‘s chief industry. The
depictions of the capital‘s corridors of power have been relatively balanced. Eleven programs
have been set in the White House, while another eleven have focused on Congress. The judicial
branch has received the least attention, with just two programs chronicling the inner workings of
the Supreme Court.
Perhaps the most common thread running through Washington‘s political dramas and
comedies has been the ―Mr. Smith‖ factor. The 1939 Frank Capra film Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington, which featured James Stewart as a political neophyte battling corruption, was
remarkably popular, earning eleven Oscar nominations and charting as the fifth-highest grossing
film in a year that featured such films as Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. The film‘s
popularity, and its understandably appealing theme, likely inspired numerous programs that
have, at least in part, paralleled the Mr. Smith story. Television has sent a dozen Mr. Smiths to
Washington, but, unlike the movie, none proved to be a success.
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The first program in the Mr. Smith genre was actually called Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington. Although ostensibly a remake of the movie, the 1962 sitcom version of the story
was closer in spirit to The Beverly Hillbillies than it was to the Capra film. It featured Fess
Parker as the unassuming, small-town freshman senator who used ―the homilies of Middle
America to cope with urban, political Washington‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 908). Senator
Smith‘s family was along for the ride, including his wise, guitar-picking Uncle Cooter, but
viewers did not find the Smiths nearly as interesting as the Clampetts, and the show was
cancelled after one season. A slightly more somber reincarnation of Mr. Smith appeared in the
form of The Senator in 1970. Hayes Stowe was an idealistic, relentlessly virtuous, and socially
and environmentally conscious junior senator who constantly found himself at odds with both
Washington‘s corrupt old-guard politicians and the powerful forces of big business. While the
viewing public might have liked to see a politician of such high ideals in Congress, they didn‘t
want him on their televisions screens, and The Senator was cancelled after one season.
All of television‘s subsequent legislative Mr. Smith programs, whether dramas or
comedies, followed a fairly standard blueprint. The protagonist was a Washington outsider who
came to power by unusual means, bucked the corrupt system, and was quickly yanked off the air
by the network. The 1978 sitcom Grandpa Goes to Washington featured Joe Kelley, a
Volkswagen-driving, drum-playing, sixty-six-year-old retired political science professor who
was unexpectedly elected to the Senate after scandal brought down the two leading candidates.
As usual, Joe was the only honest man in the Congressional den of thieves, but viewers voted
him off the air after five months. The 1989 drama Top of the Hill featured the young and
idealistic Thomas Bell, who was selected to fill the seat vacated by his ailing father, a long-time
representative from northern California. As an idealistic, maverick ex-surfer, Tom ―found it
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impossible to toe the party line when his heart told him it was wrong‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007:
1,411). Top of the Hill lasted twelve weeks, as did the 1995 Designing Women spin-off Women
of the House. This sitcom featured a bit of twist on the Mr. Smith formula. The protagonist was a
woman, and not quite as achingly noble as her Smithian counterparts, but the maverick spirit of
the genre was still evident. Suzanne Sugarbaker, the narcissistic and ostentatious former Atlanta
interior decorator, was appointed to fill her deceased husband‘s seat in Congress. In Washington,
Suzanne ―did what she wanted to do, said whatever came to mind, and was oblivious to
Washington protocol‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,534).
Mr. Smith returned to Washington in 2003 as Mister Sterling. William Sterling, Jr., the
son a former California governor, was selected to fill one of the state‘s vacant Senate seats. As
usual, Sterling was filled with idealistic pluck, spending his time as a teacher at a prison before
being called to Washington. As usual, Washington was filled with power-mad, haughty, corrupt
and out-of-touch scumbags and, as usual, Sterling set out to change the system. As Brooks and
Marsh described it, ―Lobbyists pursued him, reporters ambushed him and the Senate power
brokers were livid, but . . . he outsmarted them at almost every turn‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007:
909). Mister Sterling lasted just ten weeks—eight weeks longer than the sitcom Charlie
Lawrence, which also appeared in 2003. A former television star, Charlie Lawrence had just
been elected to Congress, representing his home state of New Mexico. What happy-go-lucky
Charlie lacked in experience, he made up for in high ideals. And so on.
Mr. Smith went to the U. S. Supreme Court twice in 2002. The Court told the story of
newly minted justice Kate Nolan, who had been the governor of a midwestern state before her
appointment. The rest of the Court consisted of four intractable liberals and four narrow-minded
conservatives, allowing idealistic Kate to serve as the voice of reason. First Monday featured Joe
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Novelli, who had also recently been appointed to a Supreme Court that was similarly divided
between liberals and conservatives, forcing Joe to agonize over his swing vote. The Court was
pulled after three weeks, while First Monday managed to survive for five months.
The only instance where a Smithian character managed to rise to the presidency was
Commander in Chief, which premiered in the fall of 2005. Mackenzie Allen was a former
college professor and congresswoman when she was selected as the running mate of Teddy
Roosevelt Bridges, largely because the conservative Bridges wanted to court the female vote.
Bridges won, but no one took Mackenize seriously—that is, until Bridges died of a brain tumor.
The political establishment urged her to step down, but she refused, declaring herself an
independent and becoming the first female president of the United States. President Allen was, of
course, sickeningly noble, and while her virtues eventually won the respect of her peers, it failed
to hold an audience. After a good deal of initial interest in this highly touted series, ratings
plummeted, and the show lasted less than five months.
While few of the entries in the Mr. Smith genre have possessed plausible protagonists or
situations, no show tested the limits of the genre quite like 1983‘s Mr. Smith. Described by one
critic as ―the most talked about but least viewed series‖ of the season, it was the story of an
orangutan named Cha Cha who, after swallowing an entire bottle of an experimental concoction,
gained the ability to speak (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 908). More important, his I.Q. was now
256, so, clad in a suit and eyeglasses, he was shipped off to Washington to serve a special
consultant to the federal government. Despite such an enticing premise, Mr. Smith lasted only
two months, as did 1992‘s animated series, Capitol Critters. The lead critter was Max, a field
mouse from Nebraska who moved to Washington to live with his cousin Berkeley, a radical
hippie who lived with the roaches and rats beneath the White House. The series wove political
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commentary with Tom & Jerry style shenanigans. True to the genre, the establishment was
represented by the presidential pets who, this time around, were literally fat cats.
The only television program in the Mr. Smith vein to last more than a year was The
Farmer‟s Daughter, a sitcom that aired for three seasons beginning in 1963. Its success was
perhaps aided by the fact that the title character was not a politician. The title referred to Katy
Holstrum, an attractive Minnesota farm girl who went to work as a nanny for Congressman Glen
Morely, a widower with two young sons. Although much of the show revolved around little
domestic mishaps and the budding romance between Glen and Katy, it possessed a distinctly
Smithian flavor, with the naïve yet intelligent Katy disarming Glen‘s officious Washington
colleagues with her simple midwestern charm.
Just as viewers have been generally unimpressed with stories of the noble and idealistic
outsider confronting the cesspool of corruption and incompetence that is television Washington,
so have they dismissed programs that dispensed with idealism and nobility altogether to focus
strictly on the cesspool. Such was the case with the 1985 sitcom Hail to the Chief, the first
television show to feature a female chief executive. The premise sounds noble, but the
atmosphere was pure sleaze, leading critic Tom Shales to suggest that ―after watching it, one
may feel the compulsion to disinfect the television set with Lysol‖ (Lichter, Lichter and
Rothman 1991: 88). Not much Lysol was needed, as Hail to the Chief was cancelled after four
months. The administrations of two real-life presidents were also chronicled in situation
comedies, and the ratings and level of respect for the office were about the same. The first was
The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, the title diarist being a gambling addict who had fled from
England to escape his debts. He landed in Washington and managed to get a job as a butler in the
Lincoln White House. The show portrayed Lincoln as a moron, Ulysses Grant as a stumbling
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drunk, and Mary Todd as a mean-spirited slut. Critics were horrified, activist groups protested
the jokes about slavery, but it didn‘t matter much. Desmond Pfeiffer was off the air after four
weeks. The 2001 sitcom That‟s My Bush fared only slightly better, lasting two months, but did
have the distinction of being the first television show based on the life of a sitting president—
George W. Bush. The atmosphere was not as licentious as on Desmond Pfeiffer, and it was as
much a spoof of brainless 1980s sitcoms as it was political commentary. Bush was cast as the
typical sitcom dad—a man with good intentions who constantly found himself in a jam—but the
ultimate message was fairly clear—the man just wasn‘t that bright.
A fictional Democratic senator received a similar treatment in the 1992 sitcom The
Powers That Be. The protagonist, William Powers, was no Mr. Smith. A career politician,
Powers was charismatic and handsome, but also a clueless idiot and willing party drone. Most of
the stories revolved around the attempts of his calculating family and staff to salvage his fading
popularity, but they couldn‘t save the show, which was cancelled after a sporadic six-month run.
The 1995 political drama The Monroes was even less successful. The story of a Kennedy-like
clan of politicians, it had the allure of ―power, sex, politics, and ruthless people,‖ but lasted just
one month (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 717). A lighter, but not much more affectionate, look at
Washington came with D. C. Follies, a syndicated comedy set in the title bar, which was located
near the White House. Fred Willard played the bartender, and was the only bona fide human
regular on the series. His clientele, with one weekly guest star as the exception, were all puppets
who represented various celebrities, usually Washington politicians. Seventy-two episodes of the
satirical series were produced from 1987 to 1989.
Given the poor track record of both the Mr. Smith and politico-bashing genres, at least a
few television producers must have drawn the conclusion that politics were the problem. Some
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programs attempted to utilize the allure of the Washington political environment while
dispensing with overtly political themes. One was the 1987 sitcom Mr. President, in which the
business of politics was secondary to the adjustments that the president‘s wife and two children
were forced to make once they moved into the executive mansion. The show‘s main attraction
was George C. Scott, who played President Sam Tresch, and who bluntly admitted in an
interview that he was only doing the series for the money. Once the novelty of seeing General
Patton in a sitcom wore off, the show‘s ratings faded, and it was cancelled after six months.
Having failed in the legislative comedy Women of the House, Delta Burke tried the executive
branch in the sitcom DAG, which aired during the 2000-2001 season. She played the president‘s
―bothersome wife,‖ with most of the stories focusing on her stormy relationship with Jerome
Daggett, a Secret Service agent who had recently been assigned to protect her (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 314). The last comedy, to date, to be set in the executive mansion was Cory in the
House, which premiered in 2007 and lasted about a year. The title character was Cory Baxter, a
―happy, chubby, black kid‖ who moved to the White House after his dad was hired as the
president‘s chef (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 286). The show was decidedly non-political, relying
instead on the same brand of sunny slapstick comedy as That‟s So Raven, the show where the
character of Cory had originated.
Congressional staffers were the focus of Hearts Afire, a sitcom that was set in
Washington during the 1992-1993 season. The program was something of a D. C. spin on The
Odd Couple, focusing on the developing relationship between John Hartman, the assistant to a
conservative southern senator, and George Ann Lahti, a liberal reporter who had been hired as
the senator‘s press secretary. George Ann didn‘t have a place to live, so John invited her to stay
at his home with his two sons, and the sparks flew. The show fared well in the Nielsen ratings,
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checking in at number twenty during its first season, but Washington‘s first taste of sitcom
success was short-lived. The setting of Hearts Afire shifted to the South at the beginning of its
second season.
On balance, programs that have focused on Washington politics and politicians have
failed, some spectacularly. Viewers, it appears, are not interested in politicians who are either
preposterously righteous or alarmingly lurid; nor are they interested in Washington-based
programs that eschew politics altogether. It is notable that the only true hit in the Washington
political genre managed to borrow elements from all of these formulas, while not completely
adhering to any of them. That was the drama The West Wing, which premiered in 1999 and ran
for seven seasons. It was the story of the inner-workings of the administration of President Josiah
―Jed‖ Bartlett, a liberal Democrat and former governor of New Hampshire. There were some Mr.
Smith elements to The West Wing. Bartlett was a highly principled outsider who found himself
constantly at odds with the pigheaded Washington establishment, as was evident in the following
line from the President: ―I want to call senators. Start with our friends; when we‘re done with
those two, we‘ll go on to the other ninety-eight‖ (West and Bergund 2005: 63).
His staff was a similar mix of pragmatism and idealism. Among them was Leo McGarry,
Bartlett‘s grizzled but incredibly wise Chief of Staff; Josh Lyman, Leo‘s spirited deputy; C. J.
Cregg, the whip-smart and sharp-tongued press secretary; the quietly philosophical
communications director Toby Ziegler; and Sam Seaborn, Toby‘s erudite assistant. The dramatic
climax of many episodes involved an impassioned homily from Bartlett, as in the following fiery
admission of guilt:
I was wrong. I was, I was just . . . wrong. No one in government
takes responsibility for anything anymore, we fuster, we obfuscate,
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we rationalize. ―Everybody does it,‖ that‘s what we say. So we
come to occupy a moral safe house where everyone‘s to blame, so
no one‘s guilty. I‘m to blame. I was wrong (West and Bergund
2005: 63).
What set The West Wing apart from the legion of Mr. Smith entries, however, was the
fact that Bartlett and his staff were, indeed, often wrong. Bartlett was a political animal, willing,
as often as not, to sacrifice his principles in the name of expediency. For much of the series he
hid his serious health problem, multiple sclerosis, from the public. He loved his wife Abby, but
the two had frequent, heated disagreements. He was also often seen impatiently barking at the
members of his staff, who had more than a few flaws of their own. Leo was a recovering
alcoholic, Josh had a terrible temper, C. J. seemed overwhelmed at times, and Toby could be
impractical and stubborn, as could Sam. The entire staff had disastrous personal lives, which
were partially responsible for the scandals that constantly haunted the administration.
Another element of The West Wing that set it apart from Washington‘s political program
also-rans was the realistic (or, at least, seemingly realistic) depiction of the White House as the
scene of barely controlled chaos, exemplified by the show‘s trademark ―walk and talk‖ scenes, in
which the characters zipped down claustrophobic corridors exchanging rapid-fire dialogue about
the crisis du jour. Balancing this intoxicating sound and fury were scenes that were touchingly
mundane, as in one episode where a pair of sleep-deprived staffers, after hours of heated political
warfare, reasserted their humanity by agreeing to share the last package of cheese crackers from
the vending machine.
Whatever the reason for its popularity, The West Wing was definitely a critical and
popular hit. It won a remarkable twenty-five Emmy awards, including four straight for
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Outstanding Drama Series. The show ranked in the Nielsen top thirty for all but its final year,
peaking in the eighth position during its third season.
The television programs that have followed the lives of Washington‘s journalists display
patterns similar to those that have chronicled its politicians. Some programs have lionized the
Fourth Estate, while others have lampooned it and, like D. C.‘s political comedies and dramas,
most have been failures, with one major exception. The first was the sitcom All‟s Fair, which
aired during the 1976-1977 season. This show chronicled the romantic and political fireworks
between middle-aged, ultraconservative Washington columnist Richard Barrington and his
spunky, ultraliberal young girlfriend Charley Drake, a photojournalist. On the 1986 drama
Bridges to Cross, Tracy Bridges and Peter Cross (get it?) were the top reporters for World/Week
magazine in D. C. The show focused on the pressures of turning out a major weekly magazine,
with a fair amount of romantic sparring thrown in for good measure. Bridges to Cross lasted just
eight weeks, which was twice as long as the run of the 1990 newspaper drama Capital News.
Steamy romance was, for the most part, dropped on this series, which focused on the city‘s
National and Metro desks. National ―stalked he corridors of power, uncovering scandal and
abuse‖ while Metro ―explored the seamy underside of Washington‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007:
218).
Television turned an eye on itself for the three other shows about the Washington media
establishment. The sitcom Lateline, which aired for five months in 1998, featured comedian and
writer Al Franken as Al Freundlich, the chief correspondent on a Nightline-like show. While Al
considered himself to bet the ―the torch of journalistic integrity,‖ the shrewd, driven, and
occasionally sadistic Lateline crew all knew that Al was, in reality, a fatuous and vain moron
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 768). The show suggested what The Mary Tyler Moore Show might
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have looked like if it had focused on Ted Baxter instead of Mary Richards. Oddly enough, the
cancellation of Lateline propelled Franken into a political career that culminated in his election
as a U. S. Senator from Ted Baxter‘s own Minnesota. The 2003 sitcom Wanda at Large was
another assault on a Washington news television. Wanda was a down-on-her-luck stand-up
comic who was hired to liven up a dowdy political roundtable program called The Beltway Gang.
Her frank opinions and brash attitude drove up the ratings, but horrified her stuffy coworkers.
While The Beltway Gang prospered, Wanda at Large did not, and the show was cancelled after
six months.
The only truly successful program to tell the story of a D. C. journalist was Murphy
Brown, which began its ten-year run in 1988. Murphy was a legendarily tough journalist for the
CBS newsmagazine F. Y. I., which originated from Washington. Working along with Murphy
were Jim Dial, an unbelievably uptight anchorman, and his cohost, a peppy former Miss
America, Corky Sherwood. Frank Fontana was a fellow reporter, and Miles Silverberg was the
anxiety-ridden producer, whose boyishness was a constant target of Murphy‘s barbs. ―I just can‘t
help thinking,‖ she told him in one episode, ―about the fact that while I was getting maced at the
Democratic Convention in 1968, you were wondering if you‘d ever meet Adam West‖ (Prince
2010: 1).
As might be expected, there were numerous satirical references to the Washington
political establishment and current events, exemplified by the fate of Phil, the bartender at the
news team‘s favorite watering hole, who was periodically spirited into protective custody by the
CIA because he knew too much about Washington‘s power brokers. References to the national
media were also plentiful. Murphy Brown featured guest appearances by some of the giants of
television news, including Walter Cronkite, Larry King, Paula Zahn, Connie Chung, and Linda
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Ellerbee. Ultimately, however, the show was about the trials and tribulations of a modern,
independent woman, creating obvious parallels between Murphy and the female protagonists of
One Day at a Time, Roseanne, Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Maude. In many ways,
however, Murphy was unlike any character that had ever been the focus of a sitcom. Unlike
Alice Hyatt, Roseanne Connor, Maude Findlay, and Ann Romano of One Day at a Time,
Murphy was not married and, initially, did not have any children. Unlike Roseanne and Alice,
she was certainly not working class. Unlike Ann Romano and Mary Richards, she was not
struggling to make it to the top. She was at the top.
Acerbity was the most memorable element of Murphy Brown‘s personality. Alice Hyatt,
Ann Romano, and Mary Richards had been strong women, but they were ultimately kind, gentle,
and vulnerable—three words that were not in Murphy‘s vocabulary. In that way, she was closer
in spirit to Roseanne and Maude, but for different reasons. Roseanne‘s bitterness appeared to
stem from the constant struggle to make ends meet. Maude Findlay did not have money woes,
but she was on her fourth marriage, this time to an alcoholic. Whereas life had made Roseanne
and Maude tough, Murphy Brown‘s toughness had made her life. Murphy Brown has been
described as a reflection of her times—the ultimate ‗90s woman—but she was also a product of
geography. It is notable that the only other regular female character on the show in its early years
was Corky, and she had coasted into her job by virtue of charm and looks. The D. C. of Murphy
Brown was largely depicted as a men‘s club, and a central theme of the program was that
Murphy had broken into that club with a sledgehammer personality.
Murphy worked nonstop and, until a stay at the Betty Ford Clinic, was a chain-smoking
alcoholic. At the office, she was obstinate, cynical, and bossy. Most of her coworkers were afraid
of her, and she was hell on subordinates—a running gag on the show was that she had a new
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secretary nearly every episode, totaling ninety-three by the end of the series. She was even
tougher on her interviewees. She had been banned from the White House by both the Bush and
Clinton administrations and, in one memorable episode, Murphy continued to grill a corrupt
judge after he stopped answering her questions, not realizing that he had died in the middle of the
interview. In short, Murphy Brown was no Mary Richards. ―Nice and sweet are out,‖ said series
creator Diane English. ―TV‘s new women aren‘t trying to please other people . . . . Not being
afraid of what people think is in (Lichter, Lichter and Rothman 1991: 78).
It‘s not that Murphy was cruel—sitcoms generally don‘t last long if their protagonists are.
Despite her confrontational nature, she had deep friendships with some of her coworkers.
Murphy‘s good nature was, appropriately, most often on display when she was away from the
office. She had warm relationships with Phil the bartender, who treated Murphy as a sort of
surrogate daughter, and with Eldin Bernecky. Eldin had been hired to paint the walls of her
house in the first season. He was a muralist at heart, however, and so took six years to finish the
job. Eldin was on the job day and night, and Murphy treated him with the sort of warmth,
courtesy, and patience that her many secretaries could have only dreamed of.
One of the most memorable moments in the show‘s history came in 1992, when Murphy
gave birth to her son Avery. Avery‘s father had offered to marry Murphy, but she declined,
deciding to raise the child on her own. That decision set off an almost surreal conflict between
Washington‘s most famous fictional comic character and its most famous nonfictional comic
character. In a speech concerning the deterioration of American family values, Vice President
Dan Quayle singled out Murphy Brown, stating, ―It doesn‘t help matters when prime-time TV
has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today‘s intelligent, highly paid
professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it
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just another lifestyle choice‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 933). Murphy responded on the show by
saying ―Perhaps it‘s time for the vice president to recognize that whether by choice or
circumstances, families come in all shapes and sizes‖ (Golden 1996: 85). Some members of the
American public sided with Brown and others with Quayle, but they certainly kept Murphy on
the job longer. The show ran for ten seasons, ranking in the Nielsen top thirty seven times. It was
in the top ten for four of those years, peaking in the third position during the 1991-1992 season.
While Washington‘s television landscape has been dominated by journalists like Murphy
Brown and public servants like Jed Bartlett, a few programs have chronicled life outside of the
world of politics, government, and the media. One of the earliest was Temperatures Rising, a
sitcom set at (fictional) Capital General Hospital. It was the story of the hospital‘s ―no-nonsense‖
chief, Dr. Vincente Campanelli, and his ―all-nonsense‖ staff of doctors and nurses (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 1,365). The program was seen sporadically from 1972 to 1974, undergoing two
major overhauls to the cast and scenario, but none of the versions drew many viewers. The 1975
sitcom Karen was the story of smart, young Karen Angelo, with the action alternating between
her work with an anticorruption advocacy group called Open America, and her personal life in
and around a Georgetown apartment. Karen lasted just five months, or slightly longer than Ball
Four, a locker room comedy about the fictional Washington Americans, a major league baseball
team. The show featured former big league hurler Jim Bouton, and it was based on his best-
selling expose of the same name. Ball Four struck out after five weeks in 1976. The period
comedy Goodtime Girls, about three young women sharing an apartment during the housing
shortage of World War II, aired intermittently for four months in 1980. The sitcom I‟m a Big
Girl Now was the story of a dentist and his daughter, both of whom had just gotten divorced.
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They decided to live together, at least for the duration of the 1980-1981 season. FM, a workplace
comedy set at a D. C.-area public radio station, aired during the 1989-1990 season.
The first nonpolitical program to emanate from Washington was Elder Michaux, a
religious program featuring the sermons of Church of God pastor Lightfoot Solomon Michaux
and the enthusiastic gospel music of his Happy-Am-I Choir. Michaux had been a fixture on
Washington radio for years, and his revivals were seen over DuMont‘s national network from
October of 1948 to January of 1949, making it one of the first examples of black programming
on television. The American television landscape has long been criticized for its dearth of
African-American characters. Such an absence is particularly objectionable in a place like
Washington, since African-Americans represent more than half of the District‘s residents.
Programs with black leads or predominantly black casts were essentially absent from
Washington during the medium‘s first few decades, but the number of such programs increased
steadily after the mid-1970s. While this was lauded as a welcome change, concern existed (as
with programs set throughout the country) about just how African-Americans were portrayed. In
Washington‘s political and journalistic comedies, African-Americans have generally been
depicted in a positive manner, and have, in fact, often been the only reasonable characters in a
sea of absurdity. A black Secretary of State was featured on the comedy Hail to the Chief, and he
was the only competent member of the president‘s cabinet. The title Secret Service agent of DAG
was black, and while he was ―all business,‖ the First Lady he was assigned to protect was
―bossy‖ and ―bothersome‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 314). Even the black protagonist of the
much-maligned Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer was characterized as being ―the only person in
the White House with any taste‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,211). The political sitcoms Wanda
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at Large and Cory in the House also had African-American protagonists, and they were
portrayed in a generally favorable manner.
As for black characters on shows set outside of the political and media establishments,
one of the first was found on Temperatures Rising. At first glance, Cleavon Little‘s Dr. Jerry
Noland was a mixed bag in terms of image. He was, of course, a doctor but also a ―free-swinging
product of the ghetto and the hospital‘s chief bookie‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,365). An
exploration of the literature, however, reveals few opinions about Dr. Noland. He is not cited as
being either a positive or negative representation of African-Americans, setting a trend for many
Washington-based sitcoms with predominantly black casts. There is little indication that anyone
found these programs to be especially ground-breaking in their portrayal of African-Americans
or especially objectionable, an oddly apolitical pattern for shows set in the nation‘s capital.
The first Washington sitcom to feature a predominantly black cast was That‟s My Mama,
which premiered in 1974 and aired for a year and a half. The protagonist was Clifton Curtis, who
took over management of the family‘s barber shop after his father‘s death. Action alternated
between the shop and Clifton‘s home in a middle-class neighborhood. The title referred to
Eloise, Clifton‘s hefty mother, who wanted him to give up his cherished bachelorhood and settle
down. Like all of the other black D. C. sitcoms that would follow, That‟s My Mama was not
considered either groundbreaking or slanderous. A 1974 article in Jet magazine indicated that
That‟s My Mama drew both positive and negative reactions, but intimated that the general view
was that it was just another sitcom:
Certain television critics have attempted to write off That‟s My
Mama as a stereotype or with psychological arguments about the
show‘s effect on Black audiences. The public, however, has
embraced the series as a funny slice of life involving Black people
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in believable situations. Other critics have found the show a
welcomed addition to the usual television fare. So far, Blacks have
not publicly objected to the show as ―just another stereotype.‖ (Jet
1974: 60-61).
In the same article, Theresa Merritt, who played the title mama, echoed this assessment,
acknowledging that the show was never intended to redefine racial discourse in America, but
also saying that she believed ―a great deal of good will come from That‟s My Mama. We‘re
coming in just like real humans . . . . We‘ve got arguments. We don‘t lead perfect lives. And
we‘re not necessarily poor, don‘t speak bad English and aren‘t uneducated‖ (Jet 1974: 61).
The second Washington-based sitcom to feature a predominantly black cast was 227,
which premiered in 1985 and was D. C.‘s most successful sitcom until the arrival of Murphy
Brown four years later. 227 ranked in the Nielsen top thirty during the first three seasons of its
five-year run, peaking in the fourteenth position during the 1986-1987 season. The show
chronicled family life in a black neighborhood, where best friends Mary and Rose were often
seen chatting on the front steps of their apartment building at 227 Lexington. The building‘s
other residents included Sandra, the flirty bombshell; Brenda, Mary‘s fourteen-year-old
daughter; Calvin, Brenda‘s boyfriend; Lester, Mary‘s agreeable husband; and Pearl, Calvin‘s
grouchy and meddlesome grandmother. Like That‟s My Mama, 227 was neither ambitious nor
objectionable in its characterization of African-American life, as noted by critic Donald Bogle:
The series‘ view of women—who spent a lot of time gossiping on
the stoop—was a clichéd one. Yet Black audiences liked the
various scrapes and shenanigans that Mary and friends
experienced; they were sometimes reminiscent of those of Lucy
and Ethel . . . . In fact, 227 itself looked like something out of the
1950s. Its main appeal was that here were African Americans
living together in an urban setting, one not seriously fraught with
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any social problems, and managing to enjoy life and each other
(Bogle 2001: 310).
A third Washington-based sitcom with a predominantly black cast and sunny outlook was
1997‘s Smart Guy, which was the story of a ten-year-old genius named T. J. Henderson. T. J. had
been skipped ahead to the tenth grade, and was struggling to fit in at Piedmont High School,
where his older brother and sister were not wild about having him as a classmate. Smart Guy was
never a ratings smash, but did well enough to remain on the fledgling WB network for more than
two years. NBC‘s inappropriately named sitcom Built to Last premiered the same year, but lasted
just three weeks. It was the story of Royale Watkins (played by the comedian of the same name),
who gave up a career in the computer industry to take over the family construction business.
Although Built to Last didn‘t, it did reinforce a long-standing trend in D. C.-based
African-American sitcoms. Whereas four of television‘s most iconic black sitcoms—The Cosby
Show, The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son, and Good Times—focused on high and low ends of the
socioeconomic spectrum (a doctor, a successful businessman, a junkman, and an often-
unemployed journeyman), the adult male figures on D. C.‘s black sitcoms have always been
squarely in the middle. Clifton Curtis of That‟s My Mama ran a barber shop, while, in an odd
coincidence, Lester on 227, Royale on Built to Last, and Floyd, the father of the Henderson
family on Smart Guy, were all construction contractors. These programs did not depict African-
Americans as being either comfortably rich or uncomfortably poor, and that is appropriate to
D. C.‘s traditionally noncommittal approach to black sitcoms.
The first Washington-based dramas to feature black lead characters were Snoops and A
Man Called Hawk. Both were detective yarns that premiered in 1989, both lasted for about one
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year, and both featured deliberate attempts to provide sophisticated and urbane representations of
Washington‘s African-American community. The title character of A Man Called Hawk was the
tall, scowling, black man first seen as Spenser‘s mysterious street contact on Boston‘s Spenser:
for Hire. In 1989, he returned to his hometown of Washington to offer help to those in need.
Powerful and intimidating, Hawk cruised around D. C. in his sleek BMW and carried a silver
.357 Magnum tucked away in his expensive suits. He was a man of impeccable style and taste,
not some meat-headed gumshoe. He was a knowledgeable gastronome, a talented jazz pianist,
and an aficionado of fine literature. Critic Donald Bogle called Hawk ―one of television‘s most
interesting symbols of Black masculinity,‖ and, although Bogle lamented the fact that such
masculinity was often connected with violence, he lauded the show for its surprising attention to
African-American culture:
Hawk‘s one close friend is Old Man, a lofty philosophical soul
whom Hawk skips off to see for advice or solace. In one wholly
unexpected sequence, Gunn began reciting Langston Hughes‘s
poem ―The Negro Speaks of Rivers.‖ As his recitation becomes all
the more rhythmic and fluid, you assume the sequence will cut
away to something else. But Gunn delivers the poem in its entirety,
an astonishingly powerful and moving television moment.
Throughout the run of the series, the writers juggled the demands
of the basic format with those of a more personal, African
American cultural point of view. On one episode alone, the
characters spoke of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and
Sterling Brown (Bogle 2007: 307-308).
Snoops featured the husband and wife team of Chance and Micki Dennis. They were not
professional crime fighters—Chance was a criminology professor at Georgetown and Micki the
State Department‘s Deputy Chief of Protocol—but they certainly had the knack for stumbling
into, and solving, various crimes. In a 1989 interview, Tim Reid, who played Chance, described
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the Odd Couple-style relationship between the husband and wife, and revealed that they were
hardly what could be considered pejorative black stereotypes:
The two are very different, like country mouse-city mouse . . . .
She‘s well-educated, has travelled the world. I‘m a guy from a
Black college who just happened to get his act together. He‘s from
a poor family but moved up and succeeded (Jet 1989: 58).
As for Snoops‘s depiction of its Washington setting, Reid said that ―We deal a lot with what‘s
going on Washington,‖ but acknowledge that the show was ―not going to do a lot of dark
stories.‖
You will not see drugs on our show. There will not be any Black
people in handcuffs and shower caps. Most of the villains in our
show will be the upscale people America loves to hate (Jet 1989:
59).
Making sure that the criminals on Snoops were rich and politically powerful, rather than
members of the general community, was not an unusual move for a Washington-based program.
Despite the fact that Washington has a relatively high poverty rate and one of the country‘s
highest murder rates, the mean streets of D. C. have not been particularly mean on the majority
of programs set in the city. Exceptions exist, of course. One was the newspaper drama Capital
News, which portrayed Washington as ―America‘s murder and drug capital,‖ and another was
Szysznyk, a sitcom that aired for three months during the 1977-1978 season (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 218). The title referred to Nick Szyznyk, a retired U. S. Marine who had taken a job as
supervisor at a community center on the city‘s northeast side. Szysznyk depicted Washington as a
city of troubled youths and decaying neighborhoods underserved by a bloated and ineffective
municipal government. A similarly grim picture of the nation‘s capital was found in the legal
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drama The Lyon‟s Den, which aired for one month in 2003. It focused on Jack Turner, a talented
young lawyer who walked away from a life of power and luxury to provide legal help to the
legions of impoverished and powerless citizens of D. C.
One of the most troubling portraits of D. C. came in the police drama The District, which
premiered in 2000. It was the story of Jack Mannion, who had just been appointed as police chief
of Washington, and who led a crusade to reshape the ineffective force and reduce the ―obscenely
high crime rate in the nation‘s capital‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 356). Along the way he had to
deal with stubborn cops, political corruption, and muckraking reporters in a city torn apart by
violence, organized crime, riots, police brutality, prostitution, and drugs. Whether it was the
downbeat premise, or the show‘s position on CBS‘s lightly-viewed Saturday night schedule, The
District put up mediocre numbers, but still managed to stay on the air for four seasons.
As if Washington did not have enough to contend with, it was also plagued by criminals
from two centuries in the future on Time Trax, a low-budget, syndicated science-fiction program
that produced sixty-six episodes over a two-year period beginning in 1992. It seems an evil
scientist in the 2100s was transporting criminals back in time to 1990s Washington so that they
could avoid capture. A heroic cop was then sent to track them down and transport them back to
the future, using a ―device that looked like a garage door remote control‖ (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 1,396).
In general, however, private investigators and local police, whether from the present or
the future, have been overshadowed on Washington‘s television landscape by agents of the
federal government‘s numerous intelligence and investigative agencies. The city‘s first scripted
dramatic series dealt with such agents. Pentagon U. S. A., which aired for two months during the
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summer of 1953, was an anthology series adapted from the U. S. Army‘s criminal files. The only
regular character was the Colonel, portrayed by actor Addison Richards, who would debrief
investigators at the beginning of each episode from his office in the Pentagon.
The federal agent genre returned in the mid-1960s, and has been a fairly constant feature
of Washington‘s television landscape ever since. Many of them were not unlike police
procedural programs set in other American cities, but the broad jurisdiction of these agents did
offer a wider range of stories and settings than is generally possible with a ―local‖ cop show.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about such shows is that they often provide, in retrospect, a
sense of the nation‘s social and political sentiments at the time they aired. That said, the message
from one show often contradicted that of another, particularly in two programs—The F. B. I. and
Get Smart—which debuted the same week in 1965.
The F. B. I. featured Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. as Inspector Louis Erskine, the television
prototype for the unflappable G-Man. Erskine‘s quarry would vary from week to week, but
whether it was a bank robber, a kidnapper, an extortionist, a mob boss, a counterfeiter, a
communist spy, or an antigovernment radical, he always tracked them down. Emotionless,
methodical, and ultraprofessional, Erskine‘s trademark was that he had no trademarks, save a
furrowed brow, a nondescript blue business suit, and a shiny, late-model sedan. The Ford Motor
Company was the sponsor of the series—each year Zimbalist was sent to Washington to be
filmed rolling out of the Bureau garage in the company‘s latest model—but it is arguable that the
true patron and chief beneficiary of The F. B. I. was the F. B. I. itself. Critic David Martindale
wrote that that the show was ―as steadfastly patriotic a bit of flag waving as had ever appeared on
television,‖ adding that J. Edgar Hoover and the Bureau ―couldn‘t have paid for better PR‖
(Martindale 1991: 154).
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The show‘s creator, Quinn Martin, nearly decided not to go through with the show. ABC
was seeking approval and cooperation from the Bureau and Martin balked, not only fearing
creative limitations, but also because he saw himself and the F. B. I. as being ―in two different
political and philosophical camps‖ (Cooper 2010: 1). After a meeting with the network and
Bureau representative, including Hoover himself, Martin decided to proceed. He later
acknowledged that Hoover and the F. B. I. were never a real hindrance, and that they actually
provided useful procedural notes. According to Larry Hein, an F. B. I. agent who served as an
advisor on the show, the only thing the Bureau insisted upon was that there was ―absolutely no
unnecessary violence‖ (Golden 1996: 78).
Such unvarnished patriotism might seem a little incongruous for a show that ran during
the political and social turmoil of the late 1960s, but it was not at all out of place on the
television landscape. In 1969, for example, Rowan & Martin‟s Laugh-In was the highest-rated
show on television, and in many ways it captured the rebellious and iconoclastic spirit of the
time. The top ten that year, however, was rounded out by the likes of Gunsmoke, Bonanza,
Mayberry R. F. D., Family Affair, Here‟s Lucy, The Red Skelton Hour, Marcus Welby, M. D.,
Walt Disney‟s Wonderful World of Color, and The Doris Day Show. Such shows could hardly be
considered subversive, and they suggest a good deal about the appetite of the viewing audience
at the time. In other words, there may have been revolution in the air, but, for the most part, it
was not televised.
The F. B. I. gave viewers what they wanted, and they responded by making it one of the
longest-running and most popular of the Washington-based shows. It was ranked in the Nielsen
top thirty for all but the first and last of its nine seasons, peaking in the tenth spot during 1970-
1971 season. The F .B. I.‘s counterpart, Get Smart, offered a decidedly different take on the
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federal agent genre, and was, for a while, actually more popular. This time around the G-Man
was Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 for a top secret federal agency called CONTROL. Played to
deadpan perfection by Don Adams (who won three Emmy awards for the show), Max was, in his
own mind, every bit the secret agent that James Bond could ever hope to be. In reality, he
screwed up nearly every assignment he was given, and was always being bailed out by his far
more competent partner, the beautiful Agent 99. Thaddeus (the ―Chief‖) was Max‘s exasperated
boss at CONTROL, which was tasked with battling the shadowy, evil, vaguely Soviet
organization known as KAOS.
At its heart, Get Smart was a parody of the James Bond films and the countless other
slick spy thrillers that filled both the big and small screens in the 1960s. Created by comic
legends Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, the show was a sublime mix of ludicrous plots and
characters. In one episode, the world was threatened by murderous bananas, and in another Max
had to escape from a KAOS concentration camp that was located in New Jersey. Like James
Bond, Max had a nifty array of superspy gadgets, all of which were as ingenious as they were
pointless—the most famous being Max‘s shoe phone. Max‘s adversaries were clearly spoofs of
Bond villains, the most frequently seen being the leader of KAOS, Mr. Big, and his right-hand
man, Siegfried, who was KAOS‘s Vice President of Public Relations and Terror. In addition to
the always reliable 99, Max got help from other CONTROL agents, such as Hymie, the star-
crossed spy android; Fang, CONTROL‘s asthmatic spy dog; and Agent 13, who was always
showing up in the most unusual place, like a mailbox. Max‘s catchphrases became the stuff of
pop culture legend—―Sorry about that, Chief‖; ―Would you believe. . . ?‖; ―Missed it by that
much;‖ and ―The old _____ trick,‖ as in ―The old Professor Peter Peckinpah all-purpose
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antipersonnel Peckinpah pocket pistol under the toupee trick. That‘s the third time I‘ve fallen for
it this month!‖ (Layman 2008: 1).
All of this added up to what critic Will Layman called ―the most powerfully hilarious
sitcom of the ‗60s‖ (Layman 2008: 1). Although the show certainly offered an antidote to the
unabashedly boosterish spirit of shows like The F. B. I., Get Smart was never highly politicized.
Still, the show was, by nature, somewhat rebellious, offering a mocking take on the U. S.
government that was rare for the time. That Max, an elite federal agent, was a complete boob
was only part of the show‘s subversive message. Get Smart was filled with thinly veiled jabs at
the government‘s security apparatus. One of the most memorable was the ―cone of silence,‖ an
unwieldy contraption that allowed Max and the Chief to converse without being overheard. The
problem was that they couldn‘t hear one another, either—a subtle, but not too subtle, crack at the
inherently dubious nature of the Cold War intelligence game. Perhaps the most overt political
gag on the show was a jab at the simplistic message of shows like The F. B. I. and, for that
matter, many politicians of the time—that viewers had only two options: CONTROL or KAOS.
Get Smart was, initially, one of the more popular comedies on television, ranking twelfth
on the Nielsen charts in its first season. The show dropped to twenty-second the next year, and
then met its slow demise in the face of withering competition from such hits as My Three Sons
and The Lawrence Welk Show. In 1969, Get Smart moved from NBC to CBS, where it spent its
fifth and final season. Get Smart proved to be quite successful in rerun syndication and
developed a devoted following, ultimately spawning two theatrical films. The latest, which had a
new cast, was released in 2008.
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Washington‘s next televised federal agent was Glenn Gregory of The Delphi Bureau. The
title organization was a secret government group tasked with gathering intelligence and
defending national security. It was so secretive, in fact, that the hero‘s lone contact was Sybil
Van Loween, a mysterious D. C. socialite, who met with Gregory at the Delphi Bureau‘s
headquarters, which was, memorably, a rolling limousine. Despite the intriguing premise, The
Delphi Bureau didn‘t last long, possibly because it suffered from tragically poor timing. It ran
during the 1972-1973 season, when a pair of reporters from The Washington Post were almost
certainly sapping the viewing public‘s appetite for government spooks. Correlation does not
always indicate causation, but it is notable that, in the decade following the Watergate scandal,
programs focusing on politicians and government agents virtually disappeared from the
airwaves.
When the government operative formula returned to television in the mid-1980s, the two
entries indicated that the viewing public, at least in the minds of television producers, were not
ready for programs that possessed particularly dark or complex themes. The first was 1983‘s
Scarecrow and Mrs. King, which possessed many of the usual elements of the spy genre. The
title ―Scarecrow‖ was Lee Stetson, a handsome operative for a top-secret government outfit
known simply as ―The Agency.‖ While being pursued by Russian operatives in the first episode,
Scarecrow was forced to enlist the support of an innocent bystander, a divorced suburban mom
named Amanda King. She was so effective that Scarecrow recruited her to work full-time for the
Agency. ―Chasing foreign spies was certainly more exciting than vacuuming and PTA
meetings,‖ wrote Brooks and Marsh, ―and Amanda warmed to the challenge of her double life‖
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,200). Scarecrow and Mrs. King was light on both violence and
serious political issues, but heavy on comedy and romance, and viewers made it a minor hit. The
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program ranked in the Nielsen top thirty during each of its first three seasons. In the fall of 1986,
when the show moved from Mondays to Fridays, ratings fell, and the show was dropped the next
year. Washington‘s other 1980s spy entry was The New Adventures of Beans Baxter, a teenage
spin on Scarecrow and Mrs. King, with a dash of Get Smart thrown in for good measure. The
title protagonist was a normal suburban teenager who attended Upper Georgetown High School
in the D. C. suburbs. As it turned out, his mild-mannered father was a spy, and when he was
kidnapped by the treacherous Underground Government Liberation Intergroup (U. G. L. I.),
Beans was recruited to serve as courier for his father‘s secret employer, a shady government
organization known as ―The Network.‖ Like its counterpart, Beans Baxter was played largely for
light thrills and laughs, but it was not met with the same reception, and lasted just nine months in
1987.
In 1989, fifteen years after Lewis Erskine closed his last case, the Bureau returned to the
airwaves with Mancuso, FBI. The title character was a grizzled Bureau veteran who had first
been introduced to viewers the year before in the mini-series Favorite Son. Nick Mancuso
certainly presented a different side of the Bureau than had Inspector Erskine. On The F. B. I., the
agency had been a well-oiled machine, and there was absolutely no hint of dissent or a lack of
cooperation within the ranks. Mancuso, on the other hand, was a loner in an agency dominated
by politically motivated superiors, who regarded the hero as a ―lonely misanthrope with no
respect for authority‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 848). More significantly, Agent Mancuso‘s
quarry was very different from that of Inspector Erskine. He was not hunting common crooks,
mafia bosses, bomb-throwing radicals or foreign agents with Slavic accents, but murderers and
corrupt officials within the government itself. It is notable that Mancuso premiered a few weeks
before Berliners began taking sledgehammers to their infamous wall, and the show was an early
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indication that, in the post-Cold War 1990s, the threat was not going to come from Moscow, but
from Washington. Mancuso did not last beyond the 1989-1990 season, but the theme of an
ostracized F. B. I. agent fighting a one-man crusade against corruption and conspiracy would be
revived with much greater success a few years later.
When The X-Files premiered in 1993, the odds of a long and successful run were not in
its favor. It was a dark and low-key thriller, shot in Canada on a shoestring budget and with a no-
name cast. It also occupied the worst time slot on a lowly network, initially airing on FOX‘s
Friday night schedule. To the doubtless surprise of programmers, The X-Files developed a
fanatical cult following. With a move to Sunday nights, the show prospered, peaking in the
nineteenth spot on the Nielsen charts during its fifth season. While that hardly qualifies it as a
blockbuster by conventional network standards, it was a bonanza for FOX. It was just the
second of the network‘s programs to rank in the top thirty, and the first to do so for three straight
years. The X-Files ultimately ran for nine seasons, and spawned two theatrical films, two
television spin-offs, and a legion of imitators.
Played in a pitch-perfect monotone by series stars David Duchovny and Gillian Welch,
F. B. I. agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully possessed the same icy, business-suited Bureau
professionalism that had characterized Lewis Erskine of The F. B. I. Like Erskine, they had few
interests outside of work, dedicating their lives to the tireless pursuit of justice. What made the
show different was the quarry. The X-Files was part F. B. I., but it contained liberal doses of the
supernatural and science-fiction elements that had conferred cult status on The Outer Limits, The
Twilight Zone, and Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
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As the show began, Special Agent Fox Mulder was a once-promising criminal
psychologist who had become a pariah at the Bureau due to his obsession with unsolved cases
called ―X-Files‖—those that defied logical explanation. Dubbed ―Spooky‖ by his colleagues,
Mulder had been relegated to a cramped office in the bowels of Bureau headquarters and, adding
insult to injury, was given, against his wishes, a new partner. That was Special Agent Dana
Scully, a scientist and medical doctor who had been assigned to be a rational watchdog to the
apparently irrational Mulder. Scully‘s skepticism was challenged early and often. Mulder and
Scully found themselves confronting all manner of bizarre adversaries, among them aliens,
werewolves, vampires, ghosts, demons, mutants, serial killers with psychic powers, and a large,
humanoid tapeworm that lived in the sewers beneath Newark, New Jersey. Like Lewis Erskine,
Mulder and Scully were up to the challenge, but in the end, physical evidence of these
otherworldly encounters always managed to slip away.
Another significant difference between The F. B. I. and The X-Files was its view of
government. Woven among the encounters with supernatural phenomena (dubbed ―monster of
the week‖ episodes by fans), was a continuing story arc detailing a shadowy and treacherous
conspiracy that involved highly placed government officials, many of whom worked at the
Bureau. Unlike the external perils encountered on The F. B. I., the deadliest threats on The X-
Files were internal, a theme that was never present in Cold War federal dramas, and something
that certainly would have not met with the approval of J. Edgar Hoover. The story was that
powerful and clandestine government agents had been covering up evidence of extraterrestrial
activity on earth, and that they were complicit in an alien attempt to colonize the earth and breed
a race of human-alien hybrids. A pair of government informers, one named Mr. X and the other
Deep Throat, brought this conspiracy to the attention of Mulder, but both men met untimely
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deaths. Mulder‘s chief adversary was the sinister and mysterious Cigarette Smoking Man, who
seemed to be at the heart of the conspiracy, and who had been involved in everything from the
Kennedy and King assassinations to the cover-up of the Roswell U. F. O. incident.
The X-Files‘s more overt political messages were summarized in its catchphrases, which
mixed a sort of call to action—―I want to believe‖ and ―the truth is out there‖—with a large dose
of wariness regarding the government—―trust no one‖ and ―deny everything.‖ That one of
Mulder‘s informants was named Deep Throat reveals the obvious roll that Watergate played in
the show‘s somewhat paranoid political atmosphere. In fact, Chris Carter, the show‘s creator,
called that scandal ―the most transformative event of my youth,‖ and research by FOX confirmed
that Carter was not alone in his mistrust of the government (Lowry 1995: 12). When focus
groups were asked to rate the plausibility of the show‘s depiction of government, few questioned
the notion that government was conspiring to conceal important information from the public.
―The thing that was amazing to me in that test marketing,‖ said Carter, ―was that, to a man,
everyone believed that the government was conspiring.‖ Carter also admitted that he was amused
when the conservative Media Research Center accused The X-Files of having a deliberately
liberal bias, stating that the show ―proffered conspiracy theories alleging outrageous government
atrocities.‖ Carter shrugged off these complaints, pointing to the show‘s slogan—―Trust No
One‖—which he believed to be inherently conservative. ―It‘s really more libertarian,‖ said
Carter. ―Don‘t trust anyone. That summarized my political views in a nutshell‖ (Lowry 1995:
27).
Whatever the show‘s politics, the intoxicatingly shadowy world of government intrigue
was almost certainly at the root of the show‘s popularity, as indicated by critics Jon E. Lewis and
Penny Stempel:
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The X-Files‘ ultimate ―turn on‖ factor was its ability to articulate
late twentieth century fears and phobias. With its quasi-
documentary feel. . .it appeared to inform Us about the secret
things that They, the government, wanted kept hidden. The end
scene from the pilot lingered over the entire series: an
unwholesome government official placing evidence of an alien
visitation in a box, next to thousands of such evidence boxes, in a
secure basement room in the Pentagon‖ (Lewis and Stempel 1996:
52).
The X-Files spin-off Millennium, which was originally set in Seattle, split time between
D. C. and Virginia for three seasons beginning in 1996, and also featured an F. B. I. agent
investigating a shadowy group bent on world domination. The X-Files itself ended in 2002, after
a pair of seasons in which the series‘ two leads reduced the size of their roles—a move that, in
turn, reduced the size of the audience. Had the show lasted deeper into the decade, it would have
represented an anomaly among shows of its genre. Just as the end of the Cold War appeared to
have precipitated programs in which the antagonists were part of the Washington power
structure, the terrorist attacks of 2001 appeared to have had a profound impact on the
characteristics of television‘s federal agents. The conflicted, ostracized, and occasionally fallible
characters in the vein of Mancuso, Mulder, and Scully were gone, replaced by federal agents
with sometimes superhuman capabilities working for a once-again righteous government. The
Bureau drama Sue Thomas, F. B. Eye, which debuted in 2002 and ran for two seasons, was based
on a true story. The title character was a ―spunky deaf girl from the Midwest‖ whose remarkable
knack for reading lips made her a valuable member of an F. B. I. surveillance team (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 1,327). The title character of the spy thriller Jake 2.0 didn‘t need to read lips, for he
had super hearing in addition to incredible vision, speed, and strength. Jake Foley had been a
lowly computer technician for the National Security Agency when he found himself the
accidental subject of a top-secret government project that gave him his unique powers. He put
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them to good work, thwarting terrorist threats to the nation for four months during the 2003-2004
season. Similarly uncanny powers were showcased on the F. B. I. drama 1-800-Missing, the
story of a clairvoyant Bureau agent. The show arrived from Indiana in 2004 and continued in
Washington for two more seasons, with its title shortened to Missing (viewers had been dialing
the number, which connected them to the Montana Livestock Crimestoppers). The title character
of the 2005 crime drama Bones had no supernatural powers, but she did possess some
remarkable talents. Temperance ―Bones‖ Brennan was a forensic anthropologist for the
Jeffersonian Institute of D. C.‘s Natural History Museum, and she moonlighted as a mystery
novelist. Her third job was as a consultant to the F.B.I, for whom she analyzed the remains of
murder victims to determine their identity and cause of death. While never a ratings blockbuster,
Bones has been good enough to remain on the air for at least five seasons, and continued to air
through 2010.
The decade‘s most popular entry of the federal agent genre was Navy NCIS (later
shortened to NCIS), which premiered in 2003 and continued to be produced in 2010 after seven
high-rated seasons. The title organization was the D. C.-based Naval Criminal Investigative
Service, headed by hard-driving Special Agent Jethro Gibbs. Bearing no small resemblance to
crime-solving teams of Pentagon, U. S. A., The F. B. I., and those from a litany of other
procedurals, the NCIS squad was charged with investigating crimes involving Marine and Navy
personnel. Cases involved crimes of passion and profit, including blackmail, illegal drug and
arms smuggling, racketeering, espionage, and, more often than not, murder. The NCIS team was
not without its flaws, crimes were sometimes committed by members of the military, and the
show occasionally examined the squabbling among the various federal investigative agencies,
but it fit in with the spirit of the decade, generally presenting the government and its agents as
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honest and honorable—there was no Cigarette Smoking Man here. NCIS also exuded a post-9/11
zeitgeist by frequently using Islamic terrorists as antagonists. The pilot of the series, in fact,
involved a terrorist plot to assassinate President Bush while he was aboard Air Force One. For
critic Marco Lanzagorta, the show‘s handling of the plot revealed a troubling trend in the
media‘s reflection of the United States‘ war on terror:
Even though Navy NCIS deals with current ―hot‖ issues, their
many complexities are ignored, obscured or trivialized. Thus, the
villain of the episode is a faceless Al-Qaeda terrorist who appears
on screen for less than a minute. Like most other U. S. media, the
show can‘t acknowledge the ideological, political, and religious
reasons that prompt Al-Qaeda attacks, as twisted as these reasons
may be. Even though Osama bin Laden is still at large, the popular
demonization of Al-Qaeda that Navy NCIS takes for granted
illustrates the success of the U. S. media war against terrorism
(Lanzagorta 2003: 1).
The thriller E-Ring, which aired for five months of the 2005-2006 season, took a far more
strident view of Islamist militants. Named for the outermost section of the Pentagon, the show
focused on military experts who specialized in counterterrorist activities. Their leader was the
grizzled old Colonel Eli McNulty, played with off-kilter bravado by Dennis Hopper, who was
known to unleash such philosophical musing as ―When these knuckleheads bring Allah into the
picture, body bags are sure to follow‖ (Fuchs 2006: 1). Unlike NCIS, E-Ring‘s antagonists were
not faceless terrorists, but provided with often intricate backstories. The effect was not to bring a
more nuanced picture to the war on terror, however, but to provoke a simmering sense of
injustice in the viewer. One such target, named Mustaffeh, was believed to be plotting to attack
the London Underground. He was described by one of the E-Ring team as a ―British citizen,
second-generation rich kid with an Eton education who got radicalized and signed up for
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finishing school in one of Bin Laden's training camps‖ (Fuchs 2006: 1). Critic Cynthia Fuchs
described a similar situation from the show‘s second episode:
The second episode has the team target a villain associated with
Bin Laden (plus, the colonel observes, ―He assisted the Chechens
in that preschool blood bath in Russia‖) . . . .McNulty complains
that Tariq got his degree at MIT: ―We educate ‗em here and they
take big dumps on us over there,‖ and Tariq pops up in frame
every time the folks in the States mention his name, in fast-cut
shady shots, wearing beard and turban, and tap-tapping on his
laptop (Fuchs 2005b: 1).
Essentially a four-month commercial for neoconservative politics, E-Ring not only
targeted foreign terrorists, but also took aim at another traditional neo-con foe—the government
bureaucrat. Bureaucrats and political appointees were nearly always portrayed as being either
ineffectual cowards or snooty country-club fat cats who cared more about political
gamesmanship than the security of America. ―If only the Pentagon was run by soldiers, and not
those snivelly civilians,‖ wrote Fuchs. ―This is the simple premise of the even simpler E-Ring‖
(Fuchs 2005b: 1).
CONCLUSION
It is highly unlikely that many Americans automatically connect Delaware to The
Pretender, and even those who do were not given much geographic information by the show,
since so much of the action took place out of state. So, Delaware has largely been left in the dark
by television, as has much of Maryland. Joan of Arcadia gave viewers a look at a typical
American teen living in a typical American city, but, as noted by critic Lee Siegel, the show
could have taken place anywhere in America, and, with the exception of the summary written by
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Brooks and Marsh, the show‘s Maryland setting was not mentioned in any of the critical
literature. It is almost certain, then, that most viewers would identify Maryland with the shows
set in Baltimore. Although the city‘s early programs were not especially successful, they
presented Baltimore as a mixture of successful professional women and nontraditional families.
Baltimore‘s two defining programs, however, projected a much seedier image of the city. Roc,
while providing viewers with a somewhat rare television glimpse of a loving, responsible, blue-
collar, socially conscious black couple, also indicated that Baltimore was characterized by racial
strife, crime, and urban decay. The situation was even grimmer on Homicide. In addition to the
expected murders, there were constant reminders that the city, as indicated by the show‘s
producer, was representative of urban struggle.
New Jersey‘s television landscape, while substantially fuller than that of Maryland, has
not been much different. Like Baltimore, New Jersey hosted a number of shows in television‘s
early years, although they were not quite as heady. Early television New Jersey was essentially
depicted a playground for New York City and Philadelphia—the home of amusement parks,
rodeos, bowling alleys, big band music, and tourist traps. After a long absence, the state returned
to the television landscape in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, with a large number of largely
unsuccessful programs. On these shows, the state was an unusual mix of wholesome themes and
crushed dreams; upper-middle class families and working class struggle; domestic bliss and very
mean streets. Most notable during this period was a lack of programs chronicling the work lives
of successful urban professionals. This trend was reversed in the 2000s with the smash medical
drama House, but that show was, for the most part, isolated from its setting, leaving The
Sopranos as the state‘s defining program. This critically acclaimed crime drama essentially
reinforced pre-existing television images of the state, with its emphasis on both family life in an
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upscale suburb and crime and violence on the seedy streets of northern New Jersey. The
Sopranos was thoroughly immersed in its setting, and depicted the state as a garbage-strewn,
postindustrial wasteland where traditional values were discarded in favor of shallow
consumerism.
Pennsylvania‘s television history has largely been the story of Philadelphia and, like its
Mid-Atlantic counterparts, the city began its television life with a series of home-grown
programs. Some of these were erudite educational shows, but the most influential was American
Bandstand, which placed Philadelphia at the center of the teen pop music world from the late
1950s to the early 1960s. Philadelphia returned to the television landscape in the 1970s and has
been an almost constant presence since. Like the shows set in New Jersey during this period,
Philadelphia‘s entries have examined a broad range of social classes and show family life to be
both blissful and dysfunctional. Unlike New Jersey, however, Philadelphia had more than its fair
share of yuppies, with their anxious lives examined most memorably on thirtysomething.
Families of the 1980s and 1990s yielded to a far seedier Philadelphia in the 2000s, most notably
on the comedy It‟s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The setting for that show was comically
sleazy, as were its rude, self-absorbed, and uncouth protagonists, but the show was, as its name
suggests, positive in its portrayal of Philadelphia, presenting it as a place where people were
genuine, unpretentious, and ultimately likable.
Pittsburgh has not received as much television exposure as its cross-state counterpart, and
that might be a good thing for the city, given the tendency of its programs to focus on crime,
economic hardship, and family dysfunction. For many viewers, however, such images were
balanced by the pleasant suburban surroundings of the cheerful family sitcom Mr. Belvedere,
which was the city‘s most popular entry. With the exception of a few fictional struggling factory
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towns, the only other Pennsylvania city to receive television exposure was Scranton, which
served as the backdrop for the workplace comedy The Office. The geographic messages of the
show were mixed, with depictions of Scranton as pleasant and friendly, but also unexciting and
somewhat unsophisticated.
Washington, D. C., began its television life with a series of music, art, and science
programs that originated from the city, plus, of course, a substantial number of discussion
programs dedicated to news, politics, and public service, most notably Meet the Press and Face
the Nation, two of television‘s longest-running programs. Like the rest of the region,
Washington‘s television landscape eventually expanded to include a number of shows dealing
with workaday life in the city, and some of the more memorable examined the lives of African-
American families and professionals. That said, the most prominent D.C.-based shows were
those that dealt with the personalities and organizations of the federal government. The
archetypal G-Man—capable, low-key, steadfast, methodical, and unflappable—was Louis
Erskine of the long-running drama The F. B. I., and his fundamental character traits could be
found in nearly every subsequent TV federal agent, including those on the popular programs The
X-Files and NCIS. In retrospect, one of the more interesting elements of such programs was their
tendency to serve as a barometer of the political zeitgeist of their respectable eras—from the
steadfast patriotism of the 1950s and 1960s, to the apolitical nature of such shows after
Watergate, to the conspiratorial tone of the post-Cold War era, to the restored esteem of federal
agents in the post-9/11 era. Interestingly, such crime and spy thrillers have generally had a more
substantive political sense about them than their electoral counterparts. The most common trait
linking shows that chronicled Washington politicos were poor ratings and short lifespans,
probably because such shows tended to characterize the political process as an over-simplified
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battle between the forces of good and evil. The only truly successful program from the political
genre—the White House drama The West Wing—was the one show that examined the
complexities and contradictions of political life. Despite a heavy dose of stirring speeches and
breathless excitement, The West Wing characterized political life as a daily grind of infighting,
backbiting, and more than a few mistakes, lies, scandals, compromises, and broken promises.
The few political programs that attempted to shatter Washington‘s glass ceiling, such as
Commander in Chief, Women of the House, The Court, and Hail to the Chief, were all short-
lived. That said, probably the most memorable character from D. C. was the title journalist of
Murphy Brown, who decisively demonstrated that a woman could survive and thrive in cutthroat
Washington, even when pitted against the sitting vice president of the United States. Murphy
Brown was also among the first programs to confirm that viewers were not necessarily interested
in Washington characters who were wholly virtuous and irreversibly gracious. With each pink-
slipped secretary, the character demonstrated that, in Washington, at least, nice and sweet were
out of style.
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TABLE 3. DEFINING PROGRAMS AND COMMON TRAITS: NEW ENGLAND
State Defining Programs Key Program
Elements
Other Common
Traits
Connecticut Bewitched Upper-middle class
suburbia; family life;
the role of women in
the suburbs
Pleasant, quiet,
serene, sometimes
dull suburbs; quaint
small towns; loving
families; the upper-
middle class; New
York City suburbs;
WASPs; Italian-
American families;
African-American
families; traditional
values
Who‟s the Boss? Idyllic suburbs;
escape from New
York; professional
woman; family life
Gilmore Girls A quaint small town
populated by
charming eccentrics;
the limitations of a
small town; class
―warfare‖
Maine Murder, She Wrote A picturesque small
town populated by
friendly people, and
with an alarming
murder rate
Quaint small towns;
murder; the
supernatural
Massachusetts St. Elsewhere Brilliant, dedicated,
but troubled doctors
working in a
decaying, crime-
ridden neighborhood
Sensitive, erudite,
and intelligent
professionals;
crowded, troubled
inner-city schools;
wealth and privilege;
African-Americans;
class warfare; Irish-
American
stereotypes; taverns
Ally McBeal Successful, neurotic,
self-absorbed young
attorneys
The Practice Brilliant attorneys
defending the dregs of
society
Dawson‟s Creek Idyllic small town;
intelligent teenagers;
teen angst
Cheers The interaction of the
sophisticated and
pompous with the
earthy and crude;
witty banter; inviting
atmosphere
Wings Witty banter; sedate
charm
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New Hampshire Falcon Beach Picturesque resort
town; townie vs.
tourist
Small towns; despair
Rhode Island Providence Charming urban
environment; a loving
family; genuine
people and old-
fashioned values
Off-beat
professionals; family
life; blue-collar
aesthetic
Family Guy Nuclear family;
banality of the
suburbs; bizarre
events and behavior;
Anytown, U.S.A.;
blue-collar vs. blue-
blood; unusual mix of
deliberately offensive
material and old-
fashioned values; the
―New England
loudmouth‖
Vermont Newhart Attractive, sedate,
charming small town;
refugees from New
York; eccentric,
traditional, and
unsophisticated locals
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CHAPTER 3 - NEW ENGLAND
New England‘s share of the television landscape is relatively small—just 3.78%—but
that is not entirely surprising, given the region‘s relatively small population. Four of the six
states in New England—Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont—have a collective
population of approximately 4.3 million, or roughly equal to that of Kentucky. These four states
have charted a combined fifteen entries that have accounted for about 0.9% of the television
landscape. New Hampshire‘s three entries have all been failures, while the television landscapes
of Vermont, Rhode Island, and Maine have each been rescued by one long-running program.
Connecticut alone has been home to fifteen programs, many of which have been successful, and
has accounted for a relatively respectable 0.7% of the television landscape. The television story
of New England, however, has primarily been that of Massachusetts, with the state accounting
for more than sixty percent of the region‘s entries and about 2.2% of the American television
landscape.
CONNECTICUT
As noted in the previous chapter in a comparison with New Jersey, many of
Connecticut‘s programs were quite durable. Six of the state‘s fifteen programs lasted at least
three seasons, four reached the five-season mark, and two were on the air for eight years. A
quick glance at Connecticut‘s television landscape reveals the likely reason for the longevity of
these shows. If many viewers are drawn to programs that offer an escape into a world of loving
families and pleasant environs—and the success of The Cosby Show, The Andy Griffith Show,
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Home Improvement, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Happy Days certainly suggests they are—
then Connecticut is prime television real estate. Nine of the state‘s programs have been family
sitcoms, and another three have been family dramas. Just three of Connecticut‘s programs have
lacked a family focus, and none of them lasted more than four months. While all of these
families have had their own unique problems—most shows don‘t last long without a little bit of
conflict—the central geographic message of these programs is that Connecticut is a land of quiet,
leafy suburbs and ridiculously quaint small towns where the people, when it‘s all said and done,
truly love one another.
Given Connecticut‘s strong television connection to family, it is only appropriate that the
state‘s first entry featured the First Family of American television. I Love Lucy was, for the most
part, Lucy‘s show. Most of laughs resulted from Lucy Ricardo‘s many, many screwball
misadventures—Lucy getting plastered while appearing in a commercial for the highly alcoholic
health tonic, Vitameatavegamin; Lucy being pinned to the wall of her kitchen by a giant loaf of
bread pouring out of the oven; Lucy getting into a brawl while stomping grapes in Italy; or Lucy
doing battle with the conveyor belt at a candy factory. For the most part, husband Ricky Ricardo
was the perpetual straight man. He usually didn‘t get into the act until he discovered, often with
wide-eyed disbelief and a fevered rant in Spanish, what Lucy was up to. Lucy Ricardo became,
and deservedly so, one of television‘s most iconic and beloved television characters. In many
ways, however, it is Ricky who best captured the zeitgeist of the 1950s, whose character most
closely approximated the American dream of the mid-twentieth century. He was an immigrant
who had worked hard to get what he had. He made enough money to support his wife and,
eventually, their young son. The harder Ricky Ricardo worked, the better life got, and by 1957,
in I Love Lucy‘s sixth season and final season, he had landed his own television show and
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opened a night spot, the Ricky Ricardo Babaloo Club. With the money pouring in, and at Lucy‘s
behest, Ricky decided it was time to move to the country. It seems only appropriate that the most
iconic American sitcom of the 1950s, a decade so closely identified with the evolution of modern
suburbia, began with a young couple in an apartment on 68th Street in Manhattan, and ended with
a nuclear family living in a charming home in Westport, Connecticut.
Once in Westport, Lucy did all the things one might expect of 1950s suburban housewife.
She joined a country club, the Westport Historical Society, and the PTA. She built a barbecue
pit, entered a flower show, dealt with competitive neighbors, and occasionally pined for a night
out in the city. Lucy also did things that only she, and possibly E. B. White, would do, such as
ordering five hundred baby chicks to start a chicken farm in her back yard. I Love Lucy ended its
long and successful original run in the spring of 1957, and episodes from the last season were
rerun on CBS in the summer of 1960 under the title Lucy in Connecticut, leaving viewers to
assume that the Ricardos lived out the balance of their days safely in the suburbs.
In 1962, five years after the departure of I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball returned to the
Connecticut television landscape with The Lucy Show. This time around she was Lucy
Carmichael, who lived in a pleasant suburban home with her daughter, son, her friend Vivian,
and Vivian‘s son. The show revolved around their home life in (fictional) Danfield, Connecticut,
and around Lucy‘s work life at the Danfield First National Bank. The show was an important
milestone in the evolution of the American television landscape. Lucy was a widow and Vivian
was divorced, making them two of the earliest single mothers to appear on the small screen. That
said, the tone of the show could hardly be confused with that of later single-mom-coms like One
Day at a Time. It was primarily an excuse for Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance to play out the same
kinds of madcap catastrophes that had made the pair popular on I Love Lucy. More importantly,
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unlike later single television women such as Mary Richards and Ann Romano, Lucy and Vivian
were not looking to establish themselves as career women, and did not have any interest
whatsoever in staying single. According to Brooks and Marsh, ―both women were desperately
looking to snag new husbands,‖ and Lucy took her job not out of economic necessity, but rather
―in an effort to keep busy and meet eligible men‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 822). While the
characters Lucy and Vivian often had trouble wooing men, the actresses Lucy and Vivian had no
trouble wooing audiences. The Lucy Show was in the Nielsen top ten during each of its three
years in Connecticut. The setting for the show shifted to California in the fall of 1965, and would
air for an additional nine years.
Another Connecticut sitcom accompanied The Lucy Show in the fall of 1962, and it
followed a similar formula. The New Loretta Young Show featured the title actress as Christine
Massey, a widowed single mother living in suburban (and fictional) Ellendale, Connecticut, with
her seven children, who ranged in age from six to eighteen. The show focused on the typical
growing pains of Christine‘s children, and on her work as a freelance magazine writer. Like
Lucy and Vivian, Christine was not content with staying single, and much of the show
chronicled her romance with a publishing magnate, who she married at the conclusion of the
program‘s first and only season.
In the fall of 1964, seven years after the Ricardos left Manhattan, another of television‘s
most enduringly popular married couples moved to Westport. Darrin Stevens worked at the New
York advertising firm of McMann and Tate, and commuted home each evening to his charming
home and beautiful blonde wife, Samantha. Over time, they had a daughter, Tabitha, and a son,
Adam. Darrin did his best to put up with Samantha‘s intrusive family, including her domineering
mother, Endora, and her raffish Uncle Arthur, while Samantha put up with a nosy next-door
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neighbor, Gladys Kravitz. The Stevens family of Bewitched appeared to be a typical upper-
middle-class family living in a typical upper-middle-class suburb. The twist, of course, was that
Samantha was a witch—with a trademark wiggle of the nose, Samantha could accomplish all
sorts of astounding feats—something that Darrin did not discover until after their wedding.
While Samantha‘s family, particularly Endora, was horrified that she had married a mortal,
Darrin was equally horrified that he had married a witch, and he made Samantha promise never
to use her magical powers. She agreed, and did not, most of the time.
Bewitched was an instant success, ranking as the second most popular show, and most
popular comedy, of the 1964-1965 season. It ranked seventh in the Nielsens during its second
and third seasons, and eleventh during its fourth and fifth seasons. The success of the show was
largely attributable to its skilled cast and creative team, who collectively garnered twenty-two
Emmy nominations, but its popularity might also have been a result of the show‘s subtextual
message. At the risk of reading too much into a show where a witch occasionally turned her son-
in-law into a goat, it is reasonable to suggest that Samantha‘s domestic quandary may have
resonated with viewers in a country that was undergoing profound cultural changes. Like many
American women of her era, Samantha was an intelligent, talented woman cloistered away in the
suburbs while her husband worked in the city. She was, quite literally, full of magic, but was not
permitted by her husband to use that power. It is not much of a stretch to read Bewitched as a
statement about feminism, although critics differ on what exactly that statement was. Critic John
Javna described Samantha Stevens as a housebound wife ―trying to expand her limited role, to
the consternation‖ of a husband who constantly spouted ―chauvinistic nonsense about a ‗wife‘s
place.‘‖ Javna did not see Samantha as a feminist hero, however, noting that she never did
―something really strange, like getting a job,‖ and believed that it maintained its broad audience
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because viewers ―didn‘t find that fairy-tale situation threatening at all.‖ Critic Marc Gunter
appeared to agree:
What were the light fantasy shows really about? Is it possible that
programs like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie were really
reaction to the early feminists? After all, they gave us a
comforting, traditional world into which both men and women
could escape, as opposed to the frightening prospect that men and
women would have to reinvent their roles.
Critic Diane Albert, while not seeing Elizabeth Montgomery‘s Samantha Stevens as a
revolutionary television character, felt that she was, at least, a step in the right direction:
Elizabeth Montgomery exudes so much warmth that I can‘t help
but like her no matter what she‘s doing. And every woman can
identify with the idea of being able to just twitch her nose and
having the house magically cleaned up in seconds. Also, the
relationship between Sam and Darrin was about as adult as they
got in family shows of that era. Darrin was often presented as a
buffoon, but you always felt that there was a balance—an
equality—to their relationship. Samantha was probably one of the
most positive female role models on ‗60s TV (Javna 1988: 60-61).
Ratings for Bewitched began to slide as the show aged, but it managed to remain on the
air until 1972, and its eight-season Connecticut run was matched only by Who‟s the Boss?,
which debuted in 1984. The twelve-season gap between these two shows were Connecticut‘s
leanest television years, in which only one show appeared. That was The Montefuscos, which
continued the state‘s run of family-based sitcoms in 1975. The lead characters were middle-aged
Tony Montefusco and his wife Rose, who had their four grown children and four grandchildren
over for dinner every Sunday. The stories told around the table served as the focal point of the
series. The Montefuscos was cancelled after only seven weeks, unable to survive the stiff
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competition of The Waltons and Barney Miller, and its only notable contribution to
Connecticut‘s television landscape was the fact that it introduced working-class, Italian-
American culture into what had otherwise been a primarily WASPish state.
That cultural contrast was a key element of Who‟s the Boss, which was the story of
macho Italian-American Tony Micelli, a ―Brooklyn mug‖ who took a job as a domestic in an
upscale Connecticut suburb for Angela Bower, the sophisticated and successful president of an
advertising agency (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,516). Career-oriented Angela was a divorcee with
a young son named Jonathan and a saucy mother named Mona, who offered Angela frequent,
unsolicited advice. Widower Tony, a former second baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, had
taken the job mainly to get his teenage daughter, Samantha, out of tumultuous and crowded New
York City. The image of Connecticut as an idyllic sanctuary from the noise of the city was never
clearer than on Who‟s the Boss, and Connecticut never looked better. The show‘s opening
credits, which rolled to a song called ―Brand New Life,‖ featured Tony‘s beat-up old van pulling
out of an industrial New York landscape, driving into a stunning, picture-postcard, autumnal
New England landscape, and then up to Angela‘s beautiful colonial revival home, which came
complete with a white picket fence.
Who‟s the Boss was a bright, cheerful sitcom, focused on culture clashes, gender role
reversal, comical misunderstandings, growing pains, and the slow, almost tortuous evolution of
Angela and Tony‘s romantic relationship. In addition to its portrayal of Connecticut as a haven
from the city, a central geographic message of Who‟s the Boss was that the state‘s people were
somewhat staid and tradition-bound. In other words, the show characterized Connecticut as a
domain of WASPish squares, a trait identified by critic Nikki Tranter:
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Who‟s the Boss? is all about stereotypes. But rather than challenge
them, it uses them, and rather than injecting freshness into the
family sitcom, it falls flat. We‘re supposed to delight in the role
reversal of Brooklyn tough guy Tony Micelli working as a
housekeeper for the rich ad exec Angela Bower, seeing it as a step
toward equal opportunity. But we‘re also expected to chuckle at
Angela‘s inadequate parenting due to her busy lifestyle and Tony‘s
dunderheaded antics that usually stem from his ethnicity or his
maleness . . . . Nary a single episode . . . passes without at least one
gag about the apparent wrongness of Tony‘s place in Angela‘s
home. ―This is my housekeeper, Tony Micelli,‖ Angela says again
and again, to employees, friends, nosy neighbors, and even her ex-
husband, eliciting predictable scoffs and sexist remarks.
Apparently the idea of a male housekeeper is just too ludicrous for
anyone in suburban Connecticut to comprehend (Tranter 2004: 1).
As mentioned, Who‟s the Boss ran for eight seasons, and proved to be quite popular. The
show spent six years in the Nielsen top twenty, including four years in the top ten, capping a
remarkable run for Connecticut-based programs. Between 1957 and 1990, the state hosted just
seven sitcoms, but they managed to spend eleven collective seasons in the Nielsen top ten. A few
duds were mixed in, particularly shows that strayed from the bright and sunny, family-friendly
Connecticut formula. The first was The Mike O‟Malley Show, which featured an immature 30-
year-old paramedic and hockey enthusiast who lived in New Haven with his roommate, Weasel.
It ran for just two weeks in 1999. Only slightly more successful were Style and Substance, a
short-lived 1998 sitcom about a domineering and self-absorbed lifestyle guru named Chelsea
Stevens, and Connecticut‘s lone reality/competition entry, 2005‘s Wickedly Perfect, which
featured contestants who desperately wanted to become domineering and self-absorbed lifestyle
gurus. These shows were, of course, thinly veiled jabs at real-life Connecticut media mogul
Martha Stewart, but neither could hold a candle to the real thing, and both left the air after three
months.
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Two programs that stuck with established Connecticut formulas also had brief runs,
including 1989‘s Free Spirit, which lasted for four months, and 1992‘s Scorch, which burned out
after three weeks. Like a number of Connecticut characters before them, the dads on these shows
were single parents and white-collar professionals. Thomas Harper of Free Spirit was a divorced
lawyer with three kids, while Brian Stevens of Scorch was a widowed weather man with one
daughter. Brian Stevens should not be confused with Darrin Stevens, but the premise of these
shows might well be confused with Bewitched. On Scorch, the Stevens family‘s quiet suburban
life was turned upside down when the title dragon moved in with them. Meanwhile, over on Free
Spirit, the Harpers‘ quiet suburban life was turned upside down when they hired a pretty young
housekeeper who turned out to be, yes, a witch.
Beginning in 2001, the suburban Connecticut family comedy formula was successfully
resurrected for four seasons by My Wife and Kids, the first Connecticut program to feature a
predominantly black cast. Set in yet another immaculate, colonial-revival home behind a white
picket fence, My Wife and Kids featured comic Damon Wayans as Michael Kyle, the successful
owner of a trucking company in Stamford. Michael spent most of his time as a stay-at-home dad
with his three children, while his wife, Jay, pursued a career as a stock broker, restaurateur, and
student.
Although it was not nearly as tame as Who‟s the Boss or Bewitched, perhaps no show
suggested more about the soothing power of Connecticut‘s carefree television landscape than My
Wife and Kids. Viewers who remembered Damon Wayans from the groundbreaking sketch
comedy show In Loving Color must have been more than a little surprised by just how relaxed
and cheery Michael Kyle was. Wayans had been the edgiest star of a pretty edgy show, seen
playing a homeless man with his own home improvement show called This Ol‟ Box, selling
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stolen goods on the Homeboy Shopping Network, or, most famously, playing Homey the Clown.
Homey was an angry ex-con, working as a children‘s clown, who refused to perform any tricks
(―Homey don't play that!‖), and whose performances usually devolved into a bitter rant about
The Man. Michael Kyle occasionally showed flashes of nastiness, berating his wife about her
weight gain, or asking his son, ―Have you given any thought to what you‘re gonna be when you
graduate— besides 28 years old?‖ (Fretts 2002: 1). The show also occasionally tackled some
serious themes, but its outlook was, generally, as sunny as any of Connecticut‘s previous entries.
Critic Julie Salamon wrote that Wayans was ―playing it safe, working in the confines of a family
comedy—a surprisingly old-fashioned family comedy.‖ Salamon added, ―That doesn‘t mean My
Wife and Kids isn‘t likable—it is. It‘s just familiar‖ (Salamon 2001: 1). Critic Bruce Fretts was
less enthusiastic about the series, and noted its anachronistically sweet nature:
The series recycles ancient sitcom plots, updating them with
smuttier jokes. Overprotective dad Michael tries to keep Claire
from dating, explaining of one potential beau, ―He‘s a sperm
bomb, and I don't want my daughter anywhere near when he
detonates.‖ Not to worry; by episode‘s end, Claire‘s reassuring her
father that ―even after I‘m married, I‘ll always be your little girl.‖
Didn‘t Princess make that same promise to her dad on Father
Knows Best? (Fretts 2002: 1).
The central geographic message of My Wife and Kids was that life in the leafy
Connecticut suburb was almost entirely pleasant, but also a little dull. The banality of life in
Stamford was not lost on Michael Kyle, who referred to it as ―the city that always sleeps‖
(Salamon 2001: 1). In one episode, Michael kidded his son for thinking the world of gangster rap
applied to him, reminding him that he was ―from the mean streets of Stamford, Connecticut‖
(Fretts 2002: 1).
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Even Connecticut‘s three dramas have left the state‘s reputation relatively unscarred.
There have been no grisly medical dramas, no seedy cop shows, and no sex-drenched soap
operas to sully Connecticut‘s quiet and serene television landscape. Of course, there has to be
some tumult to make a watchable dramatic series, and no show was more tumultuous than The
Book of Daniel, which premiered in 2006. Like nearly every other show set in the state, it was
the story of a family, but it was a remarkably screwed-up family, particularly by Connecticut
standards. The title character was an Episcopal priest named Daniel Wesbter. He was good at his
job, and was an essentially good man, but his life was an absolute mess. He was addicted to
Vicodin, his mother was suffering from Alzheimer‘s, someone was embezzling church funds, his
martini-swilling wife continued to grieve over their son‘s death to leukemia, his other son was a
gay Republican, and his daughter was dealing marijuana. NBC canned the show after three
weeks, partly in response to angry protests from Christian groups and the resulting dismay of
advertisers and network affiliates, but mainly in response to rock-bottom ratings.
Two earlier Connecticut-based dramas had been less tumultuous, less controversial, and
far more successful. Judging Amy premiered in 1999 and ran for five seasons, ranking in the
Nielsen top twenty-five during its first three years. Amy Gray was a high-powered New York
attorney who, having gone through a nasty divorce, moved back to her hometown of Hartford.
She and her young daughter, Lauren, moved in with Amy‘s single mom, Maxine, a social
worker, and her brother, Vincent, an aspiring author and part-time dog groomer. As one might
expect from a Connecticut-based show, Judging Amy dealt extensively with the relationships
among these four characters and other members of their family. On the professional front, Amy
was appointed to the bench where she dealt with (what else?) family law. As would be the case
on The Book of Daniel, life in Judging Amy‘s Connecticut was not entirely tranquil. The show‘s
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star-crossed suburbanites had to deal with a number troubling events and developments,
including unwanted pregnancy, alcoholism, drug addiction and trafficking, homelessness,
domestic violence, divorces, custody battles, miscarriages, heart attacks, shootings, stabbings,
and even an explosion in Amy‘s courtroom. Despite all this, Judging Amy maintained a subdued,
almost soothing, tone, particularly when compared to other dramas of its era, such as the violent
Sopranos or the hectic West Wing. Critic Michael Abernethy wrote a positive review of the
show, but admitted that it was far from edgy, tellingly comparing it to the least edgy of all
television shows:
Issues raised in Judge Gray‘s court are explored for their dramatic
elements, not for their broader implications. Even in Amy‘s
personal life, social commentary is to be avoided. Amy's attraction
to Bruce, an African-American, could raise questions regarding the
status of interracial relationships in the 21st century, but the show
presents the relationship as one between two nice people . . . .
Some critics have faulted the show for its lack of perspective on
moral issues, while viewers have flocked to the show, much in the
same way they flocked to Little House on the Prairie (Abernethy
2010b: 1).
Another long-running Connecticut drama, Gilmore Girls, premiered in 2000. The title
girls were mom Lorelai and daughter Rory, who lived in Stars Hollow, Connecticut, a village
that was ―even more quaint than its name suggests‖ (Bornemann 2005a: 1). Rebellious Lorelai
had become pregnant when she was just sixteen, much to the horror of her aristocratic Hartford
parents: Richard, a stuffy insurance company executive, and Emily, a status-conscious, passive-
aggressive socialite. Partly to stake out her own independence, and partly to save Rory from the
same icy childhood she had suffered through, Lorelai fled to Stars Hollow when Rory was a
baby, taking a job as a maid at the appropriately named Independence Inn.
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As the show began, Rory was now sixteen and, in many ways, the two Gilmore girls were
a mother-daughter odd couple. Lorelai had worked her way up to manager of the inn (as the
series progressed, she eventually opened her own), and she was perfectly content with her lot in
life. Lorelai was gregarious and cheerful, but underneath, somewhat insecure. Rory, on the other
hand, was remarkably ambitious for her age. A stellar student, bookish Rory had made up her
mind to attend Harvard when she was just six years old. Unlike her mother, Rory was reserved,
and even a little timid, but she possessed a quiet confidence. Despite these differences, the two
had an intense connection, and the rapport between the two more closely resembled a pair of best
friends than that of parent and child. In the words of critic Ken Tucker, it was a connection
defined by ―an intense mutual understanding of love, loneliness, meals and secrets shared, jokes
and pop-cultural references understood‖ (Tucker: 99-100). This unique relationship, coupled
with the show‘s intelligent, rapid-fire dialogue, made it a surprise hit for the WB network, even
if its position on that now-defunct outlet guaranteed that it would never break any records on the
Nielsen charts. It was a critical darling, with an audience that was both intensely loyal and
demographically appealing, and it remained on the air for six seasons.
At its heart, Gilmore Girls was an examination of age-old questions about family,
romance, and friendships, but it was also a show deeply rooted in its geography. To begin, the
setting was not simply a back wall before which the action played out, but an integral part of the
program‘s unique feel. As had been the case with the denizens of Mayberry of The Andy Griffith
Show, the people of Stars Hollow served as a sort of extended family to the main characters. It
was a town where, for better and for worse, everyone knew everyone else, and where every last
resident was charmingly quirky. Among the recurring characters were Babette, a gossipy
exflower child and the Gilmores‘ neighbor; Kirk, the town‘s oblivious oddball, who seemed to
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have a new job in every episode; Michel, a stylish, stuffy and often quite rude concierge at
Lorelai‘s inn; Miss Patty, a melodramatic middle-aged dance instructor who, apparently, had had
quite a past; Sookie, Lorelai‘s effervescent, scatterbrained best friend and the chef at the inn; and
Taylor, Stars Hollow‘s self-absorbed, self-serving, and self-appointed leader, who organized the
village‘s never-ending string of festivals and historical reenactments.
Despite this heavy dose of eccentricity, Gilmore Girls‘s depiction of a little New England
village was almost entirely positive. Reinforcing this message was the contrast between life in
Stars Hollow and that in Hartford. In the pilot episode, Rory was accepted into Hartford‘s
exclusive Chilton prep school. Lorelai, wanting the best for her daughter, but unable to afford
Chilton‘s hefty price tag, went to her parents for the money. Richard and Emily agreed, but with
a catch. They would pay the tuition, but Lorelai had to start bringing Rory, who they barely
knew, to dinners at the Gilmore mansion every Friday night. At these dinners, predictably, sparks
between Lorelai and Emily flew. Emily was constantly reminding Lorelai that she had been a
tremendous disappointment, and Lorelai responded by recounting bitter memories of a
suffocating blue-blood childhood. This was, of course, classic mother-daughter conflict, but it
was also a statement about geography. Lorelai had embraced life in Stars Hollow, which
balanced limited prestige and possibilities with endearing, friendly, and carefree charms. Emily
represented life in upper-class Hartford, embodying its wealth, power and sophistication, but also
its musty self-importance. Gilmore Girls made no bones about which side of the argument it
came down on, with the show almost always giving Lorelai the last word. ―These people live in a
universe where they feel entitled to get what they want when they want it and they don‘t care
who‘s in their way,‖ said Lorelai. ―I hate that world. Vapid. Selfish‖ (Bornemann 2005a: 1).
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The battle between earthy Stars Hollow and genteel Hartford was also manifested in a
battle between a pair of Lorelai‘s potential suitors. One was Luke, the gruff owner of the diner
where the cooking-averse Gilmore girls took most of their meals. Despite an obvious affection,
the friendship between Luke and Lorelai remained platonic through the show‘s first few seasons,
much to the chagrin of the show‘s viewers. The other was Chris, Rory‘s father, who had
reentered the lives of the Gilmores after a long absence. The difference between the two was
substantial. Chris, the charming scion of a wealthy Hartford family, had drifted from one failed
business venture to the next before striking it rich through a sizable inheritance. Luke, on the
other hand, was all small-town. Perpetually clad in a ball cap and flannel shirt, the curmudgeonly
but hard-working Luke lived in a spartan apartment above his diner, which, itself, had been
retrofitted from a hardware store once owned by his father. When the two became rivals for
Lorelai‘s affections, Rory was torn, but finally told Chris he needed to stay away. Emily, on the
other hand, had different ideas. While obviously not completely enamored with Chris, she found
his ―good breeding‖ and ―impeccable family‖ preferable to that of Luke. Emily urged Chris to
win Lorelai away, and her condemnation of Luke was, by extension, a condemnation of Stars
Hollow:
He‘s uneducated, he‘s not a proper stepfather for Rory, and he‘s
completely unsuitable for Lorelai. My daughter‘s stubborn, but
she‘s capable of greatness. And watching her settle down with a
man who could hold her back from that is unacceptable. You at
least won‘t hold her back (Bornemann 2005a: 1).
When Luke and Chris finally came to loggerheads, Luke, in true working-class fashion, argued
that he deserves Lorelai because he had served for years as Rory‘s surrogate father while Chris
was nowhere to be found. ―Where the hell were you,‖ asked Luke ―when she got the chicken pox
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and would only eat mashed potatoes for a week?‖ Chris‘s response smacked of upper-class
entitlement. ―Lorelai and I belong together,‖ he said. ―Everyone knows it. I know it. Emily
knows it‖ (Bornemann 2005a: 1).
If Luke and Lorelai represented salt-of-the-earth Stars Hollow, and Richard, Emily and
Chris represented haughty Hartford, then Rory was the character trapped between the two
worlds. In many ways, the entire show was about the battle for Rory‘s soul. At sixteen, she was
still searching for her identity, and Lorelai made it a mission to protect her daughter from the
―gauzy trappings‖ of Richard and Emily‘s world. Lorelai bristled when Rory, under the sway of
Richard, abandoned her childhood dream of Harvard for a go at her grandfather‘s alma mater,
Yale. To make matters worse, she eventually moved in with her grandparents. For critic
Samantha Bornemann, this was one of Gilmore Girls‘s central questions—―Were sixteen years
of humble but happy living enough to inoculate her against the breezy swagger of the entitled
rich?‖ (Bornemann 2005a: 1).
As the show began, Rory‘s heart was with Stars Hollow and all it represented. The show
reiterated, time and time again, that Rory‘s affection for her hometown was tied, inexorably, to
an affection for her mother, but it also made clear that the entire town had its own maternalistic
relationship with Rory. This relationship, along with Rory‘s emerging geographic dilemma, was
made clear in a 2003 episode. Rory was preparing to head to Yale, and she and Lorelai wanted to
engage in all of their favorite mother-daughter and Stars Hollow activities before she left. As
Rory was passing by the window of Taylor‘s soon-to-open sweet shop, she was shocked to see a
poster with her picture on it, announcing that she would be present at the grand opening to serve
as the ―Ice Cream Queen.‖ She confronted Taylor, who told her that she needn‘t worry, as he had
already rented the cape and crown. Rory explained that she was busy, and said that she would
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have to pass. A surprised Taylor explained that he thought she would be happy to participate,
citing her past participation record as the pilgrim girl on Thanksgiving, a leprechaun on St.
Patrick‘s Day, ticket-booth operator on Groundhog Day, head of the manger procession at
Christmas, and Esther at the Purim Carnival, but Rory said that she was sorry:
TAYLOR: Oh, don‘t be. It‘s my own fault. I should have figured
that once you got into Yale everything would be different.
RORY: That‘s not fair.
TAYLOR: No, I understand. You‘re no longer our little Stars
Hollow Rory Gilmore. You belong to the Ivy League right now.
It‘s time to cut those small-town ties and go off and do something
important like go to drama school or have one of those high-class
naked parties with that Bush girl.
Toward the end of the episode, Rory encountered Taylor again, as he explained to a crowd of
distraught children that the Ice Cream Queen was too busy for them. At that point, an
exasperated Rory seized the microphone from him:
RORY: Okay, that‘s it. I humiliate myself at least six times a year
for this town, and just because I‘m going to Yale, that‘s not going
to stop. Now the reason I am not the Ice Cream Queen is because
Taylor never asked me. I didn‘t know about it, and that‘s why I
was busy. Now I love this town, I will be back in that ridiculous
pilgrim outfit at Thanksgiving, so everybody just get off my back.
The confrontation bothered Rory, as revealed in a later conversation with her mother:
RORY: That Taylor thing is still bugging me.
LORELAI: Me, too. I can‘t believe you didn‘t call me in to see the
fight.
RORY: Maybe I am different. Maybe I do have an attitude.
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LORELAI: I think you do.
RORY: I mean, I‘ve always had time for the town in the past, and
now suddenly I don‘t? Am I changing? I don‘t want to change. I
don‘t want to be the antitown girl (Warner Home Video, 2009).
Despite her desire not to be the antitown girl, Rory was certainly torn. Bornemann‘s
description of her childhood as ―humble but happy‖ said it all. A life in Stars Hollow could
provide happiness, but it also carried with it a degree of meekness clearly at odds with Rory‘s
ambition. Just as Rory‘s sparring family members represented her geographic dilemma, so did
her two closest friends, Lane and Paris. Lane was Rory‘s Stars Hollow friend. The daughter of
extremely strict Korean Seventh Day Adventists, she was forced hide her love for all things
secular from her conservative parents, often quite literally—she kept a collection of rock albums
hidden beneath a loose floorboard in her room. Lane married shortly after high school, and
almost immediately found herself pregnant with twins. Rory met Paris at Chilton, and later they
were roommates at Yale. Paris was wealthy, intelligent, and extraordinarily ambitious, but unlike
the cheerful, loyal, and kind Lane, she was neurotic and rude, often more of a competitor to Rory
than a real friend. Both girls represented the promises and trappings of their respective worlds.
Paris was destined for greatness, to be sure, but she was almost certainly doomed to a life of
sadness. Lane was intent on happiness, but her horizons were limited. This geographic
symbolism also extended to Rory‘s boyfriends. Dean was the Stars Hollow guy, a loveable, kind,
puppyish kid, but who lacked sophistication and, when compared to Rory, intelligence. His chief
rival for Rory‘s affections was Jess, Luke‘s juvenile delinquent nephew from New York City.
Unlike Dean, Jess was withdrawn, sullen and, often, downright mean, but he was also bright with
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excellent taste in literature and music. Once again, the geographic message was clear—small-
town Dean would probably make Rory happier, but big-city Jess would challenge her intellect.
In the last episode, which aired in 2007, Rory had graduated with a degree in journalism,
and she had decided to leave Stars Hollow. In a remarkable show of prescience on the part of the
show‘s writers, she had gotten a job covering the presidential campaign of little-known U. S.
Senator Barack Obama. That she chose the allure of the wider world to the comfort of Stars
Hollow was a profound geographic message about the limitations of small towns. With that
exception, however, Gilmore Girls left the reputation of New England villages unscathed. In
fact, according to a 2001 interview with the show‘s creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, the
program was intended, from the outset, to be a glorification of small Connecticut towns. A
California native, Sherman-Palladino had come up with the concept for Gilmore Girls while on
vacation. She had stopped, by chance, at the Mayflower Inn in Washington Depot, Connecticut,
and was so enamored with the place that she worked out many of the show‘s details, including
dialogue that ended up in the pilot episode, right on the spot.
We‘re driving by, and people are slowing down saying, ―Excuse
me, where is the pumpkin patch?‖ And everything is green and
people are out, and they‘re talking. And we went to a diner and
everyone knew each other and someone got up and they walked
behind the [counter] and they got their own coffee because the
waitress was busy, and I‘m, like, ―Is this out of central casting?
Who staged this thing for me?‖ And the inn was so beautiful. And
everything looked like it was covered in sugar. It was just like one
of those eggs that you stare in at Easter. If I can make people feel
this much of what I felt walking around this fairy town, I thought
that would be wonderful . . . . It was beautiful, it was magical, and
it was feeling of warmth and small-town camaraderie. . . .There
was a longing for that in my own life, and I thought—that‘s
something that I would really love to put out there (Pierce 2001:
1).
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MASSACHUSETTS
The television landscapes of Massachusetts has been thematically balanced, made of
nearly equal parts drama and comedy, and the demographics of its settings have not been entirely
unrealistic—about two-thirds of the Massachusetts‘s population lives in the Greater Boston area,
which has been the setting for roughly four-fifths of the state‘s programs. Twenty-four of
Massachusetts‘s forty-seven entries have been dramas, and six of those, including the state‘s first
entry, were from the detective genre. I Led Three Lives was an espionage thriller that ran in
syndication, with 117 episodes produced between 1953 and 1956. The show was loosely based
on the exploits of real-life Bostonian Henry A. Philbrick, who, as viewers were informed in each
episode‘s opening narration, ―for nine frightening years did lead three lives—average citizen,
member of the Communist Party, and counterspy for the FBI‖ (Britton 2004: 23). Philbrick, an
advertising executive, had inadvertently discovered that a local organization to which he
belonged included members who were communists. When he took this information to the
F. B. I., they recruited him to become a counterspy, infiltrating the communist party and
reporting their activities to the bureau. The show had an intoxicating air of intrigue, with
Philbrick forced to hide his communist affiliation from both his colleagues and his family,
including his wife, Eva, until she herself became an agent. The more dangerous task, of course,
was hiding his bureau affiliation from the communists. When Philbrick wasn‘t disrupting
nefarious communist plots, he was saving innocent Americans from the toxin of Marxism, as in
one episode where a naïve teenage girl was ―cleansed of her Communist infection‖ (Lichter,
Lichter and Rothman 1991: 208). The show, whose scripts were approved by the F. B. I.,
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certainly made no bones about its political views, or its vilification of communism. In one
episode, Henry Philbrick‘s mother-in-law stumbled across evidence that he and Eva were
communists, but her fear ―was assuaged when she saw the children saying their bedtime prayers‖
(Britton 2004: 24). Brooks and Marsh described I Led Three Lives as ―perhaps the most explicit
political propaganda ever found in a popular dramatic series on American television.‖
In this show, Communist spies really were behind every bush, and
anyone with liberal political views was suspect . . . . The
Communist schemes included sabotage of vital industries, stealing
government secrets, dope-smuggling (to poison the nation‘s
youth), and spreading the party line through infiltration of
organizations such as labor unions, university faculties, and even
churches . . . . Any indication of left-wing views could cause a
raised eyebrow, and the whispered comment, ―Maybe he is . . . a
Communist‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 651).
I Led Three Lives was popular in its initial run, and was successful in re-runs well into the
1960s. It is perhaps best remembered now as a McCarthy-era footnote, or for the later revelation
that one of the show‘s most obsessive fans was a young man from Texas named Lee Harvey
Oswald. Nothing like it ever appeared again on Boston‘s television landscape, but the demeanor
of its primary character was not an anomaly when it came to the city‘s television crime fighters.
Philbrick, the sophisticated, pipe-smoking Boston ad-man, was never characterized as a right-
wing thug, but rather, in the words of historian David E. Kaiser, ―as an intelligent and rather
moderate man, who protests the bureau‘s persecution of well-meaning citizens innocently drawn
into one front group or another‖ (Kaiser 2008: 171). Philbrick‘s intelligence, sensitivity,
erudition, and savoir faire made him something of an archetypal Boston sleuth.
Unlike the hard-boiled, tough-talking, shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later sleuths that
populated other cities around the country, Boston‘s investigators have tended to offer something
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for clients who ―wanted a little class with their private detecting‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007:
1283). The city‘s second detective drama, and its third overall entry, was Banacek, which ran for
two seasons beginning in 1972. One of the show‘s gimmicks was an ethnic twist—Thomas
Banacek was Polish-American. He was constantly spouting Polish proverbs as he tracked down
his quarry, and the show received a special commendation from the Polish-American Congress
for providing such a positive role model. What really made Banacek different from other TV
private eyes, however, was the quarry itself. He earned his living by tracking down valuable
stolen property—usually prized works of art—and he never chased down anything cheap. The
ultracool Banacek collected commissions from insurance companies when he inevitably
recovered the goods, and those checks were hefty enough to provide him with a home in the
exclusive Beacon Hill neighborhood, a chauffeured limousine, and a closet full of expensive
suits. His principal contact was not a street-tough ex-con, as was the case for many other private
eyes, but snobby Felix Mulholland, who ran an upscale antique book shop. Although he was not
above giving the bad guy an occasional sock in the jaw, Banacek was defined more by his good
taste in food, art, and women.
The title private eye of Spenser: For Hire, which premiered in 1985 and was filmed on
location in Boston, was certainly tough enough. He was not only a former cop, but an exboxer as
well, and a typical episode of Spenser contained far more violence than had been common on
Banacek. That said, Spenser brought the same highbrow sensibilities to his sleuthing as had his
1970s Boston counterpart. A lover of poetry—Wordsworth, in particular—and a gourmet chef,
Spenser could be heard, between car chases and shootouts, ―dispensing pretentious quotes from
the classics‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,283). His street contact, an intimidating black man
named Hawk, was similarly cultured. With a love of good music and literature, and a penchant
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for fancy cars and expensive clothes, Hawk provided Spenser with both useful information and
the ability to physically dismantle any adversary.
Not only was Spenser one of television‘s most literate private eyes, he was also one of its
most sensitive. Critic John J. O‘Connor wrote that ―one curious problem with the series so far is
that Spenser is a touch too nice,‖ but he also noted that the show‘s thoughtful nature allowed it to
go places where most other detective dramas dared not venture. O‘Connor cited one particular
episode where Spenser gunned down a thug on the streets of Boston:
Spenser learns from Hawk that the dead man had two young
children, both of whom seem delighted that they will never have to
see their father again. Taking the youngsters under his wing
temporarily, Spenser begins to notice that [his own girlfriend]
Susan is looking troubled and distant. Finally guessing that she‘s
pregnant, he urges her to have the baby, but she is reluctant to give
a child life with a father who is constantly on the edge of violence
and uncertainty. Watching Spenser winning the affections of the
dead man‘s children, Susan, exasperated by his sense of justice and
obligation, asks, ―Are you ever going to realize you can‘t take on
the world?‖ Sure, he says, ―when I grow up.‖ Susan is charmed but
not convinced. In the final scene, she is in a hospital bed,
obviously having had an abortion. A disappointed Spenser
confides: ―Susan and I had gone to war but still, unyielding, loved
each other. Guess that‘s the only road to peace‖ (O‘Connor 1986:
1).
Whether or not such somber introspection was typical of a Boston resident, much less of
a private detective, the show was very popular there. It was rescued from cancellation after its
second season by a grass-roots campaign in the city and, reportedly, because of a personal plea to
ABC from Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. Unfortunately, Spenser proved to be about
as popular with the rest of the country as Dukakis was, and the show was cancelled after its third
year.
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At about the same time, Boston got its third private eye in the title character of The Law
and Harry McGraw, a spinoff of Murder, She Wrote. Harry was a bit gruffer than Spenser or
Banacek—he was more likely to be found slouched over the bar at Gilhooley‘s than cooking up a
gourmet meal or examining fine art. Cranky, absent-minded, and disheveled, Harry was,
nevertheless, a ―bright guy with good analytical skills‖ who always managed to crack the case
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 770). Viewers preferred their Boston P. I.s to be a little more refined,
however, and Harry McGraw was cancelled five months into the 1987-1988 season. Greater
Boston got its next sleuth when The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, a youth-oriented cable series
about an amateur teenage detective, moved from Florida to Massachusetts for its final season in
1999. Just as she had in the Sunshine State, the bright and ever-inquisitive Shelby made herself
an honorary member of the local police department and set about solving the mysteries that
baffled her grown-up colleagues. The most notable change in the show was the I. Q. of her main
contact on the force—whereas Detective Hineline in Florida had been rather slow-witted,
Detective Delaney was, in the tradition of Boston‘s other television detectives, very sharp.
Boston‘s most successful crime drama was Crossing Jordan, which premiered in 2001. It
was the first Boston detective show to rank in the Nielsen top thirty, which it did for three of its
six seasons. It was the story of Jordan Cavanaugh, an attractive young medical examiner whose
doggedness and intractability had cost her a job in Los Angeles. She moved back to her
hometown of Boston, and her old job, where she always proved capable of both irritating her
coworkers and solving complex murder mysteries. Crossing Jordan was a good program, if not
an especially unique one, leading critic Gillian Flynn to quip that the show ―has always had the
comforting vibe of an Applebee‘s: The menu‘s solid; the staff is competent; and the end result,
while never dazzling, certainly does the job‖ (Flynn 2004: 1). While Jordan Cavanaugh may
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have lacked the grandiloquent affectations of some of her Boston counterparts, she was similarly
brilliant, and she was far more introspective than most other television crime fighters.
One of the peculiar features of Boston‘s television landscape is that it lacks any
representative of the button-down, square-jawed, straight-arrow breed of cop exemplified by the
likes of Joe Friday, Eliot Ness, and Steve McGarrett. For that matter, it has lacked anything
resembling a straightforward police procedural. Although a few characters on Boston-based
programs have been police officers, no shows focused on regular street cops executing their daily
duties. This has left the televised streets of Boston relatively free of the crime and grime that
characterized, for example, the New York of Law & Order, the Chicago of The Untouchables,
the Baltimore of Homicide, or the Los Angeles of Dragnet.
Oddly enough, perhaps the grittiest portrayal of life in Boston was not found in one of its
detective dramas, but in the first of the city‘s three medical dramas. St. Elsewhere, which made
its debut in 1982, was the story of the staff and patients at Boston‘s St. Eligius, a run-down
teaching hospital in a decaying neighborhood. The title of the show said it all. ―St. Elsewhere‖
was an actual bit of medical industry jargon, used when a hospital‘s staff couldn‘t remember
where a referral had come from. On this show, the term implied that St. Eligius was a dumping
ground for patients who were too desperate or too poor to be treated at any of the city‘s more
modern, expensive, and prestigious hospitals.
St. Elsewhere immediately became a critical darling for its unflinching portrayal of the
realities of modern medicine. The show was, in the words of critic John J. O‘Connor, ―valiantly
trying to bring a dash of freshness to a formula that has long been on the verge of total
exhaustion‖ (O‘Connor 1982: 1). The cases detailed on the show were often controversial, and
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nearly always depressing. A woman discovered that her unborn child would have Down‘s
syndrome, while another discovered that her mentally handicapped daughter was pregnant, and
they both agonized over the decision to have an abortion. A young couple employed every
possible technique to become pregnant, to no avail, while, at the same time, a man and his
children watched, hopelessly, as their wife and mother succumbed to a brain tumor. St.
Elsewhere, as described by television historian Robert J. Thompson, was frank, and even casual,
in its depiction of medical issues that had long been considered too graphic, risqué, or shocking
for American television:
Various patients suffered from prostate cancer, hemorrhoids,
hernias, infertility, impotence, premature ejaculation, an inability
to urinate, and an inability to defecate. Doctors performed
mastectomies, hysterectomies, vasectomies, sex change operations,
colostomies, foreskin reconstructions, and once they even had to
treat a colleague whose penis was stuck in his zipper (Thompson
1996: 80-81).
St. Elsewhere was not only willing to push the anatomical boundaries of television, but its
social, cultural and political boundaries as well. A recurring theme of the show was how ―politics
and poverty could get in the way of patient care‖—patients dealt with astronomical medical bills,
doctors dealt with the huge, profit-hungry corporation that owned the hospital, and everyone
waded through the ―bureaucratic nonsense‖ that pervades modern health care (Murray 2007a: 1).
But perhaps the greatest departure taken by St. Elsewhere, when compared to previous medical
dramas, was its pervasive sense of hopelessness. As noted by Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman,
doctors on other medical shows rarely lost a patient, and were ―usually hip, attractive, brilliant
medical practitioners who could cure any illness and still find time to engage in affairs of the
heart and other avocational pursuits‖ (Lichter, Lichter and Rothman 1991: 189). This was rarely
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the case on St. Elsewhere. Robert J. Thompson agreed, writing that ―while earlier medical
dramas like Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey, and Marcus Welby, M. D. featured godlike doctors healing
grateful patients, the staff of Boston's St. Eligius Hospital exhibited a variety of personal
problems and their patients often failed to recover‖ (Thompson 2010: 1). St. Elsewhere‘s
executive producer, Bruce Paltrow, was a little more direct. ―If you checked into St. Eligius, you
died,‖ he stated in an interview. ―If you were healthy and you accidentally got checked in, we
killed you‖ (Golden 1996: 8). Critic Jeff Alexander echoed these assessments:
Man, was that show a downer. Ever get the idea that hospitals are
gleaming cathedrals of science and healing and hot doctors? The
medical hellhole called St. Eligius will straighten you out on that a
lot faster than it could straighten out your tib-fib fracture. An hour
of watching St. Elsewhere is an hour in a place with not enough
funds, too many deaths, and a staff of doctors who actually look
like doctors as opposed to models . . . . From St. Elsewhere, we
learned the reassuring lesson that doctors were just as miserable
and emotionally fucked up as the rest of us; they just know longer
words and have worse handwriting (Alexander 2008: 118).
Perhaps the greatest cause for hope among St. Eligius‘s fictional doctors was the fact that
St. Elsewhere‘s writers were more than willing to put them out of their misery—during its six
year run, St. Elsewhere dispensed with no fewer than five principal characters. The show‘s
resident heartthrob, Dr. Robert Caldwell, was the first major character on a network series to die
of AIDS; Dr. Wendy Armstrong committed suicide; Dr. Peter White was discovered to be a
rapist, and was shot and killed by another principal character, nurse Shelly Daniels, who was
then sent to prison; Dr. Elliot Axelrod survived cardiac bypass surgery, but died when he
disconnected himself from his life-support system; Dr. Daniel Auschlander, the brilliant liver
specialist, discovered he was suffering from liver cancer, and eventually died of a stroke. For
those on St. Eligius‘s staff who were not relieved by the sweet embrace of death, life was no
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walk in the park. Dr. Cathy Martin was a nymphomaniac, obsessed with having sex in the
hospital‘s morgue. Dr. Donald Westphall‘s wife died, forcing him to raise his teenage daughter
and young autistic son alone. Dr. Jack Morrison worked himself to exhaustion, neglecting the
needs of his pregnant wife, who eventually died in an auto accident. Later, Morrison and a young
female resident were working in a prison‘s hospital ward, where the prisoners beat and savagely
raped both of them. Several of the doctors were divorced, one suffered from bulimia, and nurse
Helen Rosenthal was forced to undergo a mastectomy. The doctors who were not having misery
thrust upon them were busy thrusting it on others—Dr. Ben Samuels was a brilliant surgeon, but
an ―indefatigable womanizer,‖ while Dr. Mark Craig was the ―chronic complainer, the snob who
yearns for the good old days when serious care was monopolized by the rich and administered by
eminently clubbable fellows‖ (O‘Connor 1982: 1).
The geographic message sent by St. Elsewhere was decidedly mixed. Despite their own
troubles and the incredibly high mortality rate of their patients, the doctors of St. Eligius were
portrayed, with a few exceptions, as being incredibly brilliant, dedicated, and caring—character
traits that are not at all uncommon to Boston‘s television landscape. That said, St. Elsewhere‘s
overall sense of place was grim. Doctors were mugged in the emergency room, drug addicts
raided the pharmacy, and mentally ill patients slipped away, unnoticed, into the city streets.
Whatever the merits of the staff, St. Eligius was, in the end, ―still part of its surrounding
neighborhood,‖ with its patients ranging ―from junkie children infected by dirty syringes to bag
people and other such types living on society‘s fringes‖ (O‘Connor 1982: 1).
What probably kept such unceasingly grim material on the air for so many years was the
fact that it mixed in a substantial amount of extremely dark comedy. A conversation about a
risky surgical procedure, for example, would blend in with an exchange of a favorite recipe, and
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all the while the hospital public address system crackled with an endless stream of comic non
sequiturs. For a number of historians and critics, the show‘s most memorable moment was
―network TV‘s first full moon shot,‖ in which Dr. Westphall dropped his pants in front of his
supervisor, and then abruptly resigned from the hospital (Thompson 1996: 80). For critic Jeff
Alexander, the show‘s ―most memorable single image is probably that of Dr. Craig head-butting
Dr. Ehrlich over a surgical patient‘s cracked chest‖ (Alexander 2008: 118). In one episode, the
hospital‘s most hated patient, the cranky Mrs. Hufnagel, died when a hospital bed folded up on
her, and in another, Dr. Craig‘s mother-in-law dropped dead of a heart attack when a severed
head was mistakenly mailed to her. Mary Tyler Moore‘s MTM Enterprises, which produced the
show, always featured an orange kitten mewing at the end of its programs‘ closing credits. After
the final episode of St. Elsewhere, the kitten was shown slumped on its side, hooked up to life
support. It flat-lined as the credits faded to black.
St. Elsewhere spent most of its six years on Wednesday nights opposite ABC‘s popular
soap opera Hotel and, as a result, never ranked higher than 49th on the Nielsen charts. Still, it did
very well in the young, wealthy, urban demographics that advertisers coveted. It was also an
industry favorite, ultimately raking in sixty-three Emmy nominations and thirteen wins.
Boston‘s two subsequent medical dramas were not nearly as successful. The medical
soap opera Hothouse, which concerned a family of doctors who ran a psychiatric hospital, aired
for just two months in the summer of 1988. Gideon‟s Crossing, which was set in a large Boston
teaching hospital, did slightly better, lasting the entire 2000-2001 season. It was the story of Dr.
Ben Gideon, the hospital‘s passionate and extremely gifted chief of surgery, and was perhaps
most notable for being the first Boston-based drama to feature an African-American lead.
Gideon‟s Crossing was otherwise unremarkable, a show in which ―most of the stories were
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heavy-handed dramas filled with serious speeches about the meaning of life‖ (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 534).
As mentioned, Boston has been home to a few television private eyes, a medical
examiner, and communist hunter Henry Philbrick, but it has never hosted a conventional police
procedural. And although the medical drama St. Elsewhere was Boston‘s most critically
acclaimed dramatic entry, it was neither the city‘s longest-running drama, nor its most popular.
The genre that has defined Boston‘s dramatic landscape, particularly in recent years, has been the
legal drama.
The city‘s first law show, and first network program, was 1970‘s The Young Lawyers,
which stood in stark contrast to the syndicated entry I Led Three Lives. It was a justice-system
spin on The Mod Squad and, had the title attorneys been around in the 1950s, they were the very
sort of people that Philbrick might have found suspect. They included Aaron Silverman, the
idealistic, shaggy-haired leader; Chris Blake, the WASP with a heart of gold; and Pat Walters,
the ―well-educated but street-wise black chick‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,557). With the help
of courtroom veteran David Barrett, the three hip young attorneys ran a neighborhood law office
that provided pro-bono legal help to poor, inner-city clients, taking on slum lords, scam artists,
and brutal and corrupt cops. A thematically similar legal drama, Against the Law, premiered two
decades later. It was the story of Simon MacHeath, a brilliant and principled, if somewhat
irascible and unconventional, lawyer who had left a prestigious Boston firm to start his own
practice, catering to the powerless and underprivileged. While such idealism might be
commendable in real life, it apparently did not make for very compelling television, and both
The Young Lawyers and Against the Law lasted just one season. An attempt to dispense with
idealism altogether was made in 1995‘s The Great Defender, which featured Lou Frischetti, an
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energetic street lawyer who had made his fame with a series of tasteless television commercials.
In the pilot, he was recruited to work at a high-dollar Beacon Hill law office, much to the chagrin
of the firm‘s stuffy attorneys. It didn‘t matter much, as a second episode never aired.
After these three false starts, three more Boston legal dramas hit the air, all produced by
L. A. Law veteran David E. Kelley, and all experiencing relatively long and successful runs. The
first was 1997‘s Ally McBeal, which contained equal doses of legal drama, postmodern comedy,
and soap opera. It was the story of the professional and romantic entanglements at Boston‘s
ultrahip Cage/Fish & Associates law firm. The protagonist was Ally McBeal, a waifish, highly
caffeinated young lawyer who wore infamously short skirts and who quickly emerged as one of
the most popular, and controversial, television characters in recent history. In a 2000 article for
the United Kingdom‘s Independent newspaper, Jonathan Ames travelled to Boston in search of
the ―real Ally McBeal,‖ and summarized the show‘s characterization of the city‘s lawyers:
Fans of the cult US sitcom Ally McBeal will reckon they know a
thing or two about legal practice in Boston. They will be confident
that most of the women lawyers in the city are painfully thin
neurotics who appear before judges in micro mini-skirts and tight,
low-cut tops. They will also be certain that the male lawyers are
kitted out in sharp suits and are either laconically lascivious or
endearingly idiosyncratic. They will be convinced that the
prosecution never wins, that communal lavatories are the order of
the day at law firm offices, as is an almost free-love atmosphere.
Indeed, the Ally McBeal aficionado would tell you that so randy
are the Boston lawyers that frequently their affections are targeted
beyond their own circle and towards esteemed members of the
judicial bench . . . . Any programme that involves dancing babies,
face bras, whistling noses and impromptu chorus lines is, of
course, a huge fantasy. For their part, Boston lawyers seem at best
bemused by Ally McBeal, and at worst harbour outright hostility
towards it. As one local community advice lawyer says: ―The
whole programme irritates me, from the shortness of the skirts to
the length of time the lawyers have for daydreaming (Ames 2000:
1).
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As Ames indicates, much of Ally McBeal revolved around Ally‘s star-crossed love life.
Billy Thomas was Ally‘s exboyfriend, who she had followed to Harvard Law School even
though she didn‘t initially have much interest in the law. Billy had left Harvard to attend law
school in Michigan, where he‘d met and married fellow law student Georgia. Now all three of
them were working at Cage/Fish, and that, of course, caused a good deal of personal and
professional friction. The firm was led by John Cage, a self-confident and self-absorbed
maverick, and Richard Fish, a shy, enigmatic, but brilliant attorney known for both his
unconventional courtroom methods and strange tastes in women.
One of the show‘s quirky trademarks were the fantasy sequences, in which Ally‘s
emotions were manifested on screen for the viewers. When Ally found a man attractive, her face
would morph into that of a panting dog, or her computer-generated tongue would sail across the
room and lick his face. When she was sad, Barry Manilow followed her around singing sad
songs. And, most, famously, when Ally‘s biological clock was ticking, a computer-generated
baby followed her around, dancing to the song ―Hooked on a Feeling.‖ Such odd touches,
coupled with the show‘s eccentric characters and sharp dialogue, made the show a critical
favorite and the ―hot topic around the water cooler‖ in 1997 (Abernethy 2010a: 1).
The most enthusiastic supporters of Ally McBeal were viewers who, to the doubtless
delight of FOX and its advertisers, most closely resembled the protagonist—young, single,
independent, college-educated, professional women. As Brooks and Marsh put it, Ally McBeal
―struck a chord with many young working women who could relate to the emotional and
professional struggles of the impulsive young lawyer‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 38). Ally
McBeal also struck a chord with some feminist activists and scholars, and not an entirely
pleasant one, as indicated by Ginia Bellafante‘s response to the show:
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The point, of course, is that there are no obvious leaders of the
women‘s movement anymore, and the most popular woman on
TV—hardly an uninfluential medium by the way—is Ally McBeal
. . . . I think feminism worked long and hard to erase stereotypes of
women as neurotic incompetents unconcerned with matters of
public life. Ally McBeal, in my humble opinion, is helping undo
that work.
In a joint interview with Bellafante, psychologist and feminist activist Phyllis Chesler agreed that
the fundamental problem with Ally McBeal was her obsession with all the wrong things, and her
lack of interest in matters important to women:
Remember who controls the media—it is a sexist man, who likes
his women young and stupid, and adoring him . . . . I would say
that if Monica Lewinsky goes to law school and continues to
behave in the same fashion, she will turn into Ally McBeal—
obsessed with men and sex and love and short skirts, and not with
children being beaten to death in their own homes and not with
women losing child support. These are not Ally McBeal‘s fantasy
concerns (Bellafante and Chesler 1998: 1).
Whatever impact Ally McBeal had on the feminist movement, Bellafante and Chesler
were certainly correct about one thing—the single greatest concern of the lawyers on the show
was not society‘s ills, but themselves. This is not to say that the characters were wholly
unlikable, but they were certainly self-absorbed. Their cases ranged from quirky to touching.
They represented a man who was fired from his job because he thought he was Santa Claus and
they took up the case of a boy with leukemia who wanted to sue God. But the usual purpose of
each case was not to explore a pressing social issue, but to allow the characters to delve a little
deeper into their own lives. Critic Margo Jefferson described Ally McBeal as a romantic comedy
in which ―the woman in question is having an ongoing, quite intense romance with herself‖
(Jefferson 1998: 1).
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The show did sometimes smack of hedonistic hubris. Unlike many other legal dramas,
where the weary protagonist, having fought a long and hard battle, would head home to an
almost nonexistent personal life, nearly every episode of Ally McBeal ended with the characters
drinking expensive cocktails and dancing at a posh nightclub. The show was an unabashed
celebration of wealth and privilege. In one telling moment, John Cage, who was representing a
wealthy woman accused of murdering her husband, spoke to television reporters. ―Marie Hanson
is a rich woman,‖ he said. ―If she wanted her husband dead, she would have hired someone‖
(James 1998: 1). If there was a central geographic message of the show, it was that Boston was a
city filled with young, attractive, successful, privileged, and quirky professionals who were
thoroughly obsessed with their own well-being.
Ally McBeal remained on the air for five seasons, peaking at twenty-third in the Nielsen
ratings during the 1998-1999 season. That was something of a feat for the show, as it was one of
only two programs that the then-lowly FOX network placed in the top thirty that year. The
second entry from David E. Kelley‘s Boston law universe was even more successful. The
Practice premiered in March of 1997 and aired for six more seasons, placing in the Nielsen top
ten for two of those years. There were two significant contrasts between the shows. First, The
Practice was pure legal drama, with the principal characters‘ private lives almost never shown
and rarely even referenced. The more distinct contrast, however, was in the nature of the two
firms. That difference was made clear on a crossover episode, in which John Cage contracted
Bobby Donnell and his team to assist in the defense of an axe murderer. ―What an awful place,‖
said Cage, strolling into Donnell‘s law offices. ―Are they themselves criminals?‖ (James 1998:
1).
The shift from the swank, yuppie-chic, corporate law offices of Cage/Fish to the low-rent,
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wrong-side-of-the-tracks atmosphere at Donnell and Associates would, under normal television
circumstances, suggest that Bobby Donnell and the team of lawyers from The Practice were
idealistic, social-justice-seeking paladins in the tradition of The Young Lawyers. That was not the
case. Although the firm occasionally did the noble thing—defending the wrongfully accused,
proving justifiable cause for a crime of passion, or taking on heartless tobacco or pharmaceutical
companies—they were usually defending the dregs of society. They did it well, too, using every
ruthless tactic in the book. Among their reprehensible clients was a man who knew the
whereabouts of a kidnapped seven-year-old girl, but who would not divulge the information until
he got a cushy sentence; a man accused of raping and murdering his teenage stepdaughter; a man
accused of the brutal beating of a security guard during a riot; a young boy who murdered his
mother for no apparent reason; and a man accused of raping, murdering, and dismembering nuns
and stuffing their remains in a closet. As the judge in the last-named case put it, ―You people
fight for murderers better than anybody‘‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1100). As mentioned,
sometimes these clients were almost certainly guilty, but much of the time, the lawyers and the
viewers simply did not know.
In the last season of The Practice, Donnell and Associates hired a new lawyer named
Alan Shore, an icy, arrogant, amoral shark who had been fired from his previous firm for
embezzlement. A few weeks after The Practice was shuttered in 2004, Shore reappeared as the
primary character on the final installment of David E. Kelley‘s Boston legal trilogy—the
succinctly named Boston Legal. Shore was now working for Crane, Poole, and Schmidt, a posh
firm headed by Denny Crane, a formidable veteran attorney played with scenery-chewing
aplomb by William Shatner. Crane was even more self-important than Shore, and possibly the
only character in television history whose catchphrase was his own name—―Denny Crane!‖
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(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 170). Denny was a character ―whose behavior oscillates so virulently
between brilliant and bizarre that his colleagues doubt his sanity,‖ and many of Boston Legal‘s
subplots involved speculations about the source of his bizarre behavior, with Mad Cow Disease
as one possible explanation (Smith 2004: 1).
Although Boston Legal occasionally tackled serious issues like censorship, police
brutality, corporate corruption, and even ethnic cleansing in Sudan, it was best known for its
bizarre cases—a man fought for the right to be cryogenically frozen while he is still alive; a
woman sued her ex-fiancé for leaving her at the altar; a department store Santa sued when he
was fired for being a transvestite; an African-American child actress sued when she was turned
down for the title role in Annie. Many episodes ended with Alan and Denny sharing a celebratory
cigar and snifter of brandy in Denny‘s penthouse office, spouting off-kilter observations about
the meaning of life.
Boston Legal premiered to relatively strong ratings, ranking twenty-fourth on the Nielsen
charts in its first year, thanks in large part to a strong lead-in from ABC‘s popular soap opera,
Desperate Housewives. Its time slot was changed after its first season, however, and ratings
suffered, but the show managed to remain on the air for four seasons. Despite the almost
cartoonish egocentricity of Denny Crane and Alan Shore, of the three Kelley-produced Boston
law programs, Boston Legal may have had the most overtly political message. It was said by the
New York Times to be analogous to ―liberal talk radio.‖
In almost every episode, the hero, Alan Shore, shakes off his
sardonic detachment and delivers a long, uninterrupted rant about
the Iraq war, the credit card industry or the Roman Catholic
Church . . . . Shore remains icy and cutting, but he has shed much
of his wickedness to champion causes. In a recent episode he
represented a young woman suing the United States military for
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the death of her brother in Iraq, lashing out at the administration
and a complacent, indifferent public. (―At least with Vietnam we
all watched and got angry.‖) He lost the case but won over the
judge, who agreed with Shore‘s assessment that the war was a
―disaster.‖ Shore has morphed from someone who was despicable
even in his finer moments to a conventional prime-time hero
(Stanley 2006: 1).
That said, others did not find Boston Legal‘s basic outlook and, by extension, its
characterization of Boston‘s lawyers, to be fundamentally different from the self-absorption of
Ally McBeal or the moral ambiguity of The Practice. Critic Lesley Smith wrote that Boston
Legal ―unrepentantly endorses and exploits traditional assumptions about lawyers: white
privilege, boys are for business, girls are for sex, greed is good.‖
The excesses go beyond the politically incorrect. Boston Legal
openly celebrates the privileges capitalism offers to a tiny
minority, visible in their gleeful Olympian amorality in public,
private, and professional life. By repackaging the morality of
Enron, Halliburton, and widespread mutual fund mismanagement
as frivolous eccentricity, the show valorizes the super-rich
behaving super badly and getting away with it, over and over
again. Moreover, the tenor here is quite different from earlier ―rich
folk behaving badly‖ shows which made unlikely heroes out of
J. R. Ewing and Alexis Carrington. Those characters directed their
venom at each other, or fellow competitors for family and business
wealth. In Boston Legal, the venom sprays downwards, at
everyone who is not ―like us.‖ Clients (blatantly less privileged,
women, African Americans, and Latinos) are merely the means to
money and fame, or better, notoriety. Those involved in the show
describe it as ―light‖ and ―funny,‖ as if it were just a frothy
entertainment. And several reviewers celebrate its ―loopiness,‖
―fruitiness,‖ and ―La-La Land‖ wackiness. Nothing, however, can
hide the fact that, despite its idiosyncrasies, Boston Legal is all too
accurate in its portrayal of our cultural moment, in which the gaps
between richer and poorer grow ever larger and social and political
empathy grows ever more anemic (Smith 2004a: 1).
In the middle of unleashing a tide of Boston lawyers who were either self-centered or
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self-destructive, or both, David E. Kelley produced Boston Public, which debuted in 2000 and
aired for three and a half years. The show demonstrated that grim surroundings and uncharitable
characterizations were not strictly the domain of Boston‘s doctors and lawyers. Set at a crowded,
sprawling, urban high school, Boston Public at least had a respectable protagonist. Steven Harper
was the understanding, devoted, yet tough principal at Winslow High. Working for Steven were
a handful of achingly idealistic teachers, including Ronnie, a lawyer who had left a lucrative
career in corporate law to become an English teacher, but most of the faculty were a mess. Harry,
the geology teacher, referred to his classroom as ―the dungeon,‖ and packed a gun at work.
Harvey was the aging, jingoistic history teacher, whose thinly veiled racism did not sit well with
Steven, who was black. Marla was a special education teacher on the verge of a nervous
breakdown. Milton was an English teacher who was having an affair with Lisa, a student at
Winslow who had been teaching her own English class for months (the original teacher had
stopped coming to work). Charlie was an investment banker who had been convicted of fraud,
and he was teaching math at Winslow as part of his sentence.
A quick overview of the student body reveals why so many of these educators were on
edge. Students stabbed one teacher and stalked two others. One student handcuffed his abusive
mother and locked her in the basement of their house, while Steven‘s own daughter, Brooke,
started attending Winslow after she was kicked out of private school.
While Boston Public occasionally addressed very real issues facing American public
schools—violence, overcrowding, drastic budget cuts, and poor performance on standardized
exams—the show spent precious little time in the actual classroom. For critic Jessica Harbour,
that was Boston Public‘s undoing:
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It probably seemed like a good idea to decide to stage an hour-long
drama from the teachers‘ point of view, to show what it‘s like to
work in a job simultaneously thankless and important. The
problem is, this idea has resulted in Boston Public, which does
high school teachers no service at all . . . . Instead of seeing the
teachers actually teaching the students, we watch them fighting
with students in the hallways, holding whispered conferences with
them in out-of-the-way areas, or kissing them in classrooms (after
everyone else has left) . . . . Their interactions are rarely about
grades and almost never about actual academic topics. Usually
they consist of the student making disdainful statements and the
teacher issuing threats. Boston Public's actions speak louder than
its words: in this show, the students act, and the teachers react,
with fear, hostility, and scorn (Harbour 2010: 1).
Although Boston‘s professional dramas haven‘t exactly been ringing endorsements of life
in the city, they have been the most successful of Massachusetts‘s dramatic entries. Of the state‘s
nine remaining dramas, just one lasted at least two seasons, and none cracked the Nielsen top
thirty. Boston has been the setting for just two family dramas, and that genre got off to an
inauspicious start with Beacon Hill, a lavishly produced period soap opera. Set in Boston in the
early 1920s, and almost certainly inspired by Upstairs, Downstairs, a similar soap that had been
a smash hit in Britain, Beacon Hill was the story of the wealthy, powerful, Irish-American
Lassiter family and their household staff. Despite its big cast, equally large production budget,
steady stream of family turmoil, and enormous doses of alcohol and sex, the show proved to one
of the biggest flops of the 1975-1976 television season, ranking third-to-last in the Nielsen
ratings. Called ―a fiasco on every level‖ by one critic, and an example of ―commercial television
once again refusing to trust the intelligence of its audience‖ by another, Beacon Hill was pulled
off the schedule by CBS after only thirteen episodes had aired (Andrews and Dunning 1980: 9).
The network had apparently forgotten its lesson by 1998, when it aired To Have and to
Hold. This time around the large, tumultuous Irish-American family was the McGrails. They
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were not as socially prominent as the Lassiters, but the levels of sex, alcohol, and critical acclaim
were about the same. Sean McGrail, a detective for the Boston police, had just married Annie, an
outspoken public defender. At odds professionally, the two did a fair amount of arguing, but the
sex was great. As Sean‘s father, Robert, philosophically put it, ―There‘s nothing so wonderful as
being with a women you want to ravish one moment and strangle the next‖ (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 1,398). One obvious problem with the show was its tendency to stereotype Boston‘s Irish-
American population, as noted by critic Mike Flaherty:
In the pilot . . . Sean McGrail is shown stumbling home drunk from
his bachelor party with two of his brothers, who are also—you
guessed it—cops and—right again!—drunk, and live a few doors
down (they‘re provincial, too, these Irish). Seconds later, gunshots
sound after a spat between the old Irish couple across the street
overheats. Why, you ask? Because they were drunk. In fact, as we
soon learn, they‘re always drunk (Flaherty 1998: 1).
Whether it was offensive or just bad to TV, To Have and to Hold, like Beacon Hill, lasted just
thirteen weeks.
Despite all of their flaws—egocentrism, arrogance, and occasional depravity—the
characters presented in Massachusetts-based dramas have, at the very least, rarely been
characterized as slow-witted or unsophisticated. The tendency of the state‘s dramas to feature
characters with above-average IQs was exemplified in a pair of teen dramas, James at 15 and
Dawson‟s Creek. Both shows featured young people whose lives were, as might be expected,
filled with turmoil, but who possessed a level of intelligence, introspection, and sophistication
that far exceeded that of the often monosyllabic, hormone-driven brutes who regularly populated
other teen soaps. James at 15, which debuted in 1977, was the story of James Hunter, an
exceptionally bright and creative young man who had moved from Oregon to Boston after his
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father accepted a position at a nearby college. The show dealt with some weighty and often taboo
topics—cancer, alcoholism, venereal disease, and premarital sex, to name a few—but thoughtful
James got through with the help of his new friend, Marlene, a ―plain but very intelligent girl who
always took the intellectual point of view‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 691). In the tradition of
Hawk on Spenser: for Hire and Pat on The Young Lawyers, James also had a cool, street-wise
black pal named Sly, ―who always had a little sage advice, or ‗Slychology,‘ when James needed
it‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 691). James at 15 may have been ahead of its time, causing quite a
stir when James lost his virginity to a foreign-exchange student (on his birthday, apparently, as
the show was then retitled James at 16), but the likely cause of the show‘s demise was not
controversy, but competition. It was placed on Thursday nights opposite Barney Miller and
Hawaii 5-0, both popular programs, and was not renewed after its first season.
Dawson‟s Creek, which premiered in 1998, was certainly not ahead of its time, but part
of an avalanche of teen soaps inspired by the success of Beverly Hills, 90210. The show
represented a pair of firsts for Massachusetts—the first drama to be set in a small town, and the
first successful one not focused on the legal or medical professions. In many ways, the show was
not much different from the melodrama of 90210. Set in a sleepy little Cape Cod town,
Dawson‟s Creek was the story of four high school sophomores—Dawson, Joey, Pacey, and Jen.
Dawson was the show‘s moody protagonist, who dreamed of a life as a filmmaker; Joey was the
pretty, tomboyish, lovelorn girl next door; Pacey was Dawson‘s sidekick, a nice guy but a
perpetual screw-up; Jen was the blonde temptress from New York whose promiscuous past had
landed her on the Cape with her Bible-thumping grandmother. The plot lines were not
revolutionary by soap standards. Joey lived with her sister Bessie, a single mom, because their
mom was dead and their dad was in prison on a drug charge. Pacey had an affair with his English
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teacher, who had to flee the town in disgrace. Jen got drunk with Abby, Capeside High‘s resident
―manipulative bitch,‖ who fell off a bridge and drowned in the title creek (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 334). Dawson‘s mother had an affair, and his parents eventually divorced. Dawson
brooded.
Dawson‟s Creek quickly became the most popular program on the fledgling WB network
and, although it was never close to the Nielsen top thirty, it was a big hit with its target audience
of teenagers. What made Dawson‟s Creek different from the typical disaster-of-the week soap
opera was its frequent attention to the mundane details of teenage life, and the remarkable, or, as
some critics argued, irritating amount of time the protagonist spent being sullen and
introspective. As critic Rachel Highland put it, ―the protagonists attend dances, football games,
and graduation, and they get together, break up, make up, talk, talk, and talk about it‖ (Hyland
2010: 1). Like the sensitive teens of James at 15, the high school sophomores of Dawson‟s Creek
were incredibly intelligent and responsible for their age. ―The most interesting thing about this
small-town soap opera is that the adults act more like teenagers than the kids,‖ wrote critics
Beverly West and Jason Bergund. ―The parents in Dawson‟s Creek are forever fouling things up,
leaving it to their freakishly perceptive and emotionally mobile kids to clean up the mess‖ (West
and Bergund 2005: 90). Critic Joyce Millman found the teens‘ relentless acuity to be a little
wearying:
All four of them talk in glib, show-offy flourishes of annoying
screenwriterese: ―Fasten your seat belts, it‘s going to be a bumpy
life‖ ; ―I was sexualized way too young‖ ; ―Is monogamy such a
Jurassic notion?‖ (Millman 1998: 2).
Critic Jeff Alexander, on the other hand, was simply relieved that he never had to live up to the
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standards set by the Dawson‟s four:
I‘m actually glad Creek didn‘t start until I was well out of high
school. If I had seen it before starting ninth grade, I would have
completely stressed myself out thinking that once I graduated
junior high, I would be expected to start talking in long, complete
sentences about my feelings. How these kids could spout off like
they were in an advanced stage of therapy is completely beyond
me (Alexander 2008: 16-17).
Just as Dawson, Joey, Pacey, and Jen set an impossibly high standard of emotional
maturity for New England‘s small-town teenagers, the fictional town of Capeside was setting an
impossibly high standard of charm for New England‘s small towns. It was ridiculously
picturesque. Quaint shops, cafes, and the charming old Rialto Theater lined the streets
downtown. The waterfront featured strings of lights and park benches, while out at the Icehouse
restaurant, tourists and townies munched on seafood and burgers as sailboats glided by on the
sparkling water. Seen in the opening credits was the beach and, of course, the title creek itself,
lined with marsh grass and bathed in sunlight. A typical episode involved Joey rowing across the
creek to Dawson‘s waterfront home.
In reality, it was not Dawson‘s Creek, but Hewlett‘s Creek, located near Wilmington,
North Carolina. Dawson‟s Creek was filmed at Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington and at other
locations along the Cape Fear Coast. The show was created by Kevin Williamson, a native of
Oriental, North Carolina, just up the coast from Wilmington, and he reportedly based the
character of Dawson on himself. The fact that the show was created by a North Carolinian, based
on his childhood, and actually filmed in the state, begs the question of why the show was not
actually set there. Unfortunately, no existing literature addresses this matter. It is possible that
network executives, or even Williamson himself, felt that the show‘s formula—the charm of its
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setting, the sophistication of its young characters, or even the sexually charged atmosphere—did
not fit with common perceptions of small-town North Carolina. That is, of course, pure
speculation.
Dawson‟s Creek concluded in a manner not uncommon to small-town programs, whether
set in New England or not. In the final season, Dawson went off to L. A. to attend film school,
while Joey, Jen, and Pacey enrolled at colleges in Boston. The final episode took viewers five
years into the future, when the now grown-up leads returned to Capeside for a wedding. Dawson
had become a successful Hollywood producer (developing an autobiographical teen melodrama
called The Creek), and the girls both lived in New York, where Joey was a book editor and Jen
managed an art gallery. Only slacker Pacey remained behind, managing a local restaurant, but
even he eventually decided to head to the Big Apple. An underlying geographic message of
Dawson‟s Creek had always been that Capeside, for all its charm, placed limits on the ambitions
of the bright young characters, and the show‘s conclusion reminded viewers that true success for
an ambitious small town kid was always to be found beyond the horizon.
Just two other Massachusetts dramas have been set outside of Boston, and both, in their
own ways, turned the Dawson‟s Creek formula inside out. For those who preferred their dramas
a little less heated, there was 1998‘s Little Men, a period drama based loosely on the novel by
Louisa May Alcott. Set at a private boarding school in rural Massachusetts of the 1870s, Little
Men was the story of headmistress Jo and her young, mostly male students. Episodes revolved
around timeless coming-of-age stories, but all were done in the squeaky-clean manor typical of
the PAX network, where the show aired for a year and a half. October Road, which premiered in
2007, was Dawson‟s Creek in reverse, featuring a successful writer named Nick Garrett who had
returned to his little hometown of Knight‘s Ridge. His best-selling novel had been an unflattering
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account of life in the small town, and the locals were not terribly pleased to have him back.
There were the usual eccentric characters and plenty of torrid affairs, but not many viewers, and
October Road lasted less than a year.
Rounding out Massachusetts‘s dramatic entries was a pair of Boston-based supernatural
dramas, neither of which was especially successful. The first was All Souls, the story of Dr.
Mitchell Grace, a first-year resident at the title hospital, which was haunted by evil spirits,
demons, and the ghosts of departed patients. It was followed by Miracles, an ecclesiastical spin
on The X-Files in which young seminarian Paul Callan investigated, with the help of a creepy
retired Harvard professor named Alva, all manner of strange activity, including demonic
possessions, hauntings, and clairvoyants. All Souls lasted for five months in 2001, Miracles just
two in 2003.
A pair of unscripted television programs originated from Boston in the 1990s. The first
was a weekly talk show, Clapprood Live, which premiered in 1994 and aired on cable‘s Lifetime
network for nine months. Hosted by former Massachusetts state legislator Marjorie Clapprood,
the show featured discussions of current events with a focus on women‘s issues. Three years
later, MTV‘s pioneering reality show The Real World left sunny Miami Beach for the ice and
snow of Boston in its sixth season.
Massachusetts has been the setting for twenty-one situation comedies, but just five of
them lasted more than a year, and only four entered the Nielsen top thirty. The state‘s first
comedy, Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers, arrived to a warm critical reception and came
equipped with favorable production pedigree. The show was a product of Mary Tyler Moore‘s
MTM Enterprises, which produced Moore‘s landmark program, Bob Newhart‘s two hit sitcoms,
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and many more popular and critically acclaimed series of the 1970s and 1980s, including Rhoda,
Lou Grant, WKRP in Cincinnati, Hill Street Blues, Remington Steele, and, as mentioned,
Boston‘s own St. Elsewhere. Like the stars of a few other MTM sitcoms, Paul Sand was a
veteran of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Friends and Lovers was a kindred spirit of that
program. Sand played Robert Dreyfuss, a young bass violinist for the Boston Symphony
Orchestra whose affably shy demeanor had won him lots of friends, but few lovers. That was a
problem, since he fell in love with nearly every pretty girl he met. Boston Globe critic Ed Siegel
remembered that ―the show was funny, but it also had a gentle sensibility and literate writing that
made it a standout‖ (Javna 1988: 96). Friends and Lovers was ranked twenty-fifth on the Nielsen
charts during the 1974-1975 season, but was still considered a substantial flop because of the
company it kept. It was broadcast on CBS‘s Saturday night line-up after All in the Family, which
ranked first on the Nielsen charts, and Mary Tyler Moore, which ranked eleventh. About a third
of the households that watched Archie Bunker did not stay tuned for Robert Dreyfuss, and
Friends and Lovers was canned after three months.
In the most bizarre example of copycat programming since CBS and ABC rolled out The
Munsters and The Addams Family during the same week in 1964, CBS and NBC unveiled
Highcliffe Manor and Struck by Lightning in 1979. Highcliffe Manor was the story Helen Blacke,
who had inherited the title manor—a huge gothic mansion on an island just off the
Massachusetts coast—when her husband was killed in a laboratory explosion. Along with the
manor came a cast of horror-tale archetypes—a mad scientist and his Frankenstein monster, for
example—who immediately began to plot against her. On Struck by Lightning, Ted Stein was a
young science teacher who had just inherited the rundown Bridgewater Inn in rural
Massachusetts, which came with its own caretaker, a big, menacing character named Frank. Ted
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soon found out that he was the great-great-grandson of the original Dr. Frankenstein, and that
Frank was the original, 231-year-old Frankenstein monster. Struck by Lightning and Highcliffe
Manor were both gone in less than a month.
When Massachusetts‘s fourth sitcom debuted in the early 1980s, it looked as if it was
going to be even most disastrous than the first three. Set in, of all places, a bar, Cheers had all the
makings of a flop. The show came on the heels of an era dominated by sitcoms like All in the
Family, Maude, M*A*S*H, and One Day at a Time, which had become hits by being politically
salient and socially relevant. Cheers, for the most part, was politically incorrect, but it went out
of its way to avoid social commentary, as noted by television historian J. B. Bird:
The main character was a womanizer . . . and the collegial
atmosphere centered around drinking. Though several of the
characters were working-class, the show completely avoided social
issues. And Cheers never preached to its audience on any subjects
whatsoever. Even the poignant moments of personal drama that
quieted the set from time to time were quickly counter-balanced by
sardonic one-liners before any serious message could take hold
(Bird 2010: 1).
Just as Cheers was not part of the ―relevance‖ school of television, it was also not part of
the wildly successful ―fantasy‖ school of sitcoms exemplified by Happy Days, Sanford and Son,
Laverne & Shirley, and Three‟s Company, which got their laughs from outrageous situations and
cartoonish characters. If anything, Cheers seemed to be a crusty relic of a bygone era, mining its
laughs from the kind of verbal sparring popularized in 1930s screwball comedies featuring the
likes of Claudette Colbert, Cary Grant, Carole Lombard, William Powell, and Myrna Loy. About
the only hope for Cheers was the fact that it was created by the talented trio of James Burrows,
Les Charles, and Glen Charles, all veterans of highly regarded shows from MTM Enterprises.
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When Cheers debuted on a Thursday night in September 1982, it bombed. In the words
of television historian Rick Mitz, ―People didn‘t like it. People didn‘t get it. And—worse—
people didn‘t watch it‖ (Mitz 1988: 341). This first broadcast came in seventy-seventh place in
the Nielsen ratings—dead last—and the show‘s ratings continued to be dismal for the rest of the
season. But, in what would turn out to be an extraordinarily fortunate act of clemency, NBC
renewed the show for a second year. Cheers might have been saved by the Emmys—it received
five awards for its rookie season, including the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series.
The likely reason for the survival of Cheers was the fact that it aired on a weak NBC
Thursday night line-up. During its second season, Cheers‘s lead-ins were Gimme a Break,
Mama‟s Family, and We Got it Made, shows that not only brought in few viewers, but which
also attracted viewers who were unlikely to stay tuned for the literate bon mots of Cheers. The
show‘s ratings inched up, slightly, and it was renewed for a third year, but the lead-in situation
did not appear to have improved much in the fall of 1984. It now followed Family Ties, another
third-year show that had never ranked in the top thirty, and a new program about a black family
that was considered so unpromising that it had been rejected by ABC not once, but twice. That
show, of course, turned out to be The Cosby Show, an enormous surprise hit. Cheers finished its
third season in twelfth place, and the trio of Cosby, Family Ties, and Cheers transformed NBC‘s
Thursday night slate into television‘s hottest real estate.
The premise of Cheers was remarkably simple and, for its time, refreshingly gimmick-
free. The protagonist was Sam Malone, a charming ladies‘ man. A former relief pitcher for the
Boston Red Sox, Sam had won a battle with alcoholism and was now the proprietor of the title
bar. Sam‘s employees included Carla Tortelli, an acerbic, diminutive waitress and single mother
of eight; and Ernie Pantusso, called ―Coach,‖ a fatherly ex-ball player who was as kind and
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gentle as he was forgetful and naïve. Diane Chambers, a third employee, was a haughty Boston
University graduate student who had stopped in for a drink in the pilot episode. When her
professor fiancé eventually abandoned her for his ex-wife, Diane was forced to take the only job
that her years of studying poetry had left her qualified for—a waitress at Cheers. Two recurring
patrons of the bar were central characters, too. Norm Peterson was an overweight, sarcastic, but
friendly accountant who spent most of his spare time at Cheers, avoiding his often-mentioned but
never-seen wife, Vera. Cliff Clavin was a mailman with a thick Boston accent who had little
practical knowledge, but, having spent years reading magazines while delivering the mail, had
become a treasure trove of useless facts that he freely dispensed in the bar. One example—―due
to the shape of the North American elk‘s esophagus, even if it could speak, it could not
pronounce the word lasagna‖ (Golden 1996: 5).
A few changes to the cast occurred over the years. After Coach‘s death, Sam hired
Woody Boyd, a spectacularly naïve Indiana farm boy whose greatest ambition in life was to tend
bar in the city. After a heated on-again, off-again relationship with Sam, Diane dated Frasier
Crane, a pompous psychiatrist who was capable of solving everyone‘s problems but his own.
Eventually, Diane left to pursue a career as a writer, and Sam sold the bar to a huge corporation,
which sent the smart, ambitious, neurotic, and perpetually unlucky Rebecca Howe to manage the
place. Sam eventually got the bar back, forcing Rebecca to change her aspirations from climbing
the corporate ladder to marrying rich, and the chief target of her affections was a pompous,
manipulative British billionaire named Robin Colcord. Frasier married Dr. Lillith Sternin, an icy
psychiatrist who rivaled him in arrogance, while Woody pursued Kelly Gaines, a good-natured,
old-money heiress who rivaled him in stupidity. Despite these plot developments and cast
changes, the spirit of Cheers changed little over the years. The series rarely ventured outside the
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comfortable, oak-paneled bar room and the plots were always secondary to the verbal warfare
that took place among the bar‘s staff and patrons.
Few shows have had as big an impact on their state‘s television landscape as was the case
of Cheers with Massachusetts. In the thirty-four seasons between the dawn of network television
in 1948 and the premiere of Cheers in 1982, only seven shows were set in Boston, and just one
network entry, Banacek, lasted more than a single year. In the twenty-five years following the
premiere of Cheers, thirty-one programs were set in Boston, with ten of them lasting more than
two seasons. The city has been the setting for at least five programs in each of five different
seasons since 1982, and Cheers seems to have created for Boston shows a sort of brand identity
that few other American television cities have achieved. The city itself has become a distinct
selling point, featuring programs with titles like Goodnight, Beantown, Boston Common, Boston
Public, and Boston Legal. Of course, it is difficult to determine whether this ―Cheers effect‖ is
coincidental correlation or direct causation, but there is no denying the show‘s popularity.
Cheers climbed to the fifth position on the Nielsen charts during the 1985-1986 season, and
would remain in the Nielsen top five for six more years, ranking in the top spot during the 1990-
1991 season. It also garnered an almost unprecedented amount of praise from critics and the
industry, collecting twenty-six Emmy awards out of a record 111 nominations.
As mentioned, Cheers had a stylistic connection to film comedies of the 1930s and
1940s, and it had a thematic one as well. Screwball classics such as It Happened One Night, My
Man Godfrey, The Lady Eve, and The Philadelphia Story centered on the comic mishaps and
verbal sparring that occurred when the conceited and refined collided with the earthy and
unsophisticated. Cheers characterized Boston as a city that was not exclusively blue blood or
blue collar, but as a place where people of different levels of income, education, and
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sophistication interact. The following exchange is classic:
DIANE: Last night I was up until two in the morning finishing
Kierkegaard.
SAM: I hope he thanked you. (Javna 1988: 108).
A unique attribute of Cheers was that the show was not a relentless attack on one end of
the sociocultural spectrum or the other. When the haughty characters—Diane, Frasier, Robin,
and Lillith—were not being verbally ripped to shreds by Carla and Sam, they were having their
conceit and posturing exposed, usually inadvertently, by Coach or Woody. At the same time,
Diane, Frasier, Robin, and Lillith openly mocked the crudeness of the bar‘s less educated and
less refined denizens. Woody, the simple farm boy and Kelly, the wealthy socialite, were equally
naïve. One of the most common themes of the show was, for lack of a better term, a ―you-are-
who-you-are‖ message, with characters inevitably coming to ruin whenever they tried to move
out of their particular corner of the cultural universe. Cliff‘s attempts to appear sophisticated,
Fraiser‘s attempts to be one of the guys, and Rebecca‘s attempts to claw her way into the upper
class always ended disastrously. The character who seemed most resigned to, if not especially
happy with, his lot in life, was the character in the middle of Cheers sociocultural spectrum—a
man not coincidentally named ―Norm.‖ This everyman was a witty, suit-wearing, white-collar
professional, but he also swilled beer for hours at a time and had become legendary for his
gastronomical prowess at his favorite restaurant, the Hungry Heifer. He was not especially
sophisticated or especially unrefined. He was just an average guy. It is notable that Norm, the
cultural center of the Cheers universe, was the only bar patron to appear on every episode of the
series.
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The blue-blood versus blue-collar motif that characterized Cheers has actually been a
common theme across Boston‘s television landscape. Major Charles Emerson Winchester, the
haughty, aristocratic Boston surgeon on M*A*S*H served much the same purpose on that
program as Diane and Frasier did on Cheers—a foil for characters like Hawkeye and Trapper
John, who were more down-to-earth. The urbane private eye on Banacek was contrasted with his
blue-collar mug of a chauffeur, Jay Murray, while the similarly classy private eyes of Spenser:
for Hire were contrasted with Sgt. Frank Belson, Spenser‘s slovenly contact with the Boston
police. On Crossing Jordan, the sophisticated title medical examiner often sought advice from
her dad, a retired cop with a broad, Down East accent who ran a bar called Pogue Mahone, an
Irish Gaelic term meaning ―kiss my ass.‖ The central theme of the short-lived drama Beacon Hill
was the contrast between a wealthy family and their servants, and class conflict was a constant
on St. Elsewhere, including one episode where ―the wealthy, snobbish parents of an ill child . . .
insisted that she be transferred to a fancier hospital‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,188).
The class wars and culture clashes of Cheers were most evident in the relationship
between Sam and Diane. Diane was the foil for most of the barbs that floated around the tavern,
and with good reason. Critic Stephen Tropiano applauded actress Shelly Long for making the
character of Diane likable, since there are ―so many reasons not to like the self-righteous,
judgmental, snobby Diane, particularly when she starts tossing around literary references and
French phrases.‖ Tropiano added that audiences still liked Diane ―because she‘s vulnerable, has
a good heart, and tries to hold her own when up against her tart-tongued co-worker, Carla . . . .
Using names like ‗Pencil Neck,‘ Carla enjoys taunting Diana and then watching her slowly
unravel‖ (Tropiano 2003a: 1). Truly, the only leverage that Diane held in the bar was over Sam,
who, for reasons that he did not fully understand, was smitten by her. She roasted him as often as
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the others roasted her. ―Let‘s go to the back room,‖ Diane told him one episode. ―It‘s empty and
quiet and dimly lit, like your mind‖ (Javna 1988: 108). Another typical exchange:
DIANE: Sam, that is the stupidest thing I ever heard.
SAM: I thought you weren‘t going to call me stupid now that we‘re
being intimate.
DIANE: No, I said I wasn‘t going to call you stupid while we were
being intimate (Javna 1988: 109).
As mentioned, most of the Cheers verbal battles took place indoors, with the show rarely
venturing to any of Boston‘s famous locales or landmarks. Still, few shows are as thoroughly
fused with their setting as Cheers. The actual bar shown in the opening credits of the show was
Boston‘s Bull & Finch Pub, and that establishment‘s owner gained the rights to market Cheers
merchandise. By the time of the program‘s final broadcast, he had sold 175,000 Cheers hats,
450,000 sweatshirts, 675,000 glassware items, and 2,000,000 T-shirts. Not only that, the Bull &
Finch Pub ranked as Boston‘s second most popular tourist attraction, trailing only the U.S.S.
Constitution (Golden 1996: 6). Beyond providing a tidy financial windfall for a pub owner,
Cheers left an indelibly positive mark on the television landscape of Boston. Unlike the
―relevance‖ and ―fantasy‖ sitcoms that preceded it, the characters on Cheers were both likable
and relatable. It cast the city as a place where people were witty, sophisticated, and earthy at the
same time, and where the atmosphere was welcoming. It was a place, as the show‘s famously
mawkish theme song suggested, where everyone knows your name.
A dozen Boston-based sitcoms followed Cheers, but nine of those shows ended in less
than one year, and just one broke into the Nielsen top thirty. Nearly every major American city
has, at one time or another, served as backdrop for a sitcom set at a local television or radio
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station, and Boston is no exception. The spring of 1983 brought Goodnight, Beantown, a comedy
about the expectedly whacky news staff at station WYN-TV. The twist was that the coanchors of
the evening news, Matt Cassidy and Jenny Barnes, who had a highly adversarial relationship at
work, were secret lovers. Goodnight, Beantown returned in the fall of 1984, but was not renewed
after its first full season. Boston‘s only other office comedy was the short-lived Blue Skies. Set in
the offices of a mail-order outdoor-goods firm, the show lasted just seven weeks in 1994.
Given that so much of Boston‘s dramatic landscape has been dominated by lawyers and
doctors, it is odd that so few comedies have had an office setting. Stranger still is the fact that
Boston, with its real-life reputation as a hotspot for young, well-educated professionals, was
almost a nonfactor in the avalanche of yuppies-hanging-out sitcoms in the 1990s and 2000s. For
more than a decade, the network schedules were crowded with young professional ―Friends‖ in
New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, but Boston‘s only entry in the genre was the memorably
titled Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place, which debuted in the spring of 1998. The two guys
were Berg and Pete, graduate students who shared an apartment and worked as delivery boys at
Beacon Street Pizza. The girl was ―sexy and successful Sharon, who lived upstairs and made big
bucks selling chemicals‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,443). The show was never a big hit in the
ratings, likely because ABC moved the show to a new night seven different times, but it did
manage to remain on the air for two and a half years, making it the longest-running of Boston‘s
post-Cheers sitcoms.
A sitcom genre that has been given slightly more play on Boston‘s television landscape is
the traditional family sitcom. The most conventional entry featured Bob Saget, who had had a
long, successful run with the family-friendly Friday night entry, Full House, which was about a
goofy, likable widowed sportscaster raising three daughters in San Francisco with the help of his
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brother-in-law and another buddy. Raising Dad, another Friday night sitcom that aired for the
duration of the 2001-2002 season, featured Saget as goofy, likable widowed English teacher
raising two daughters in Boston with the help of his father who, in a not-so-novel move for a
Boston sitcom, was a former player for the Red Sox named Sam. Raising Dad was followed in
2002 by Do Over, set in the Boston suburbs. In the pilot, viewers were introduced to Joel Larsen,
an unhappy thirty-four-year-old whose parents and sister were nearly as screwed up as he was.
Then, his girlfriend accidentally zapped his head with a pair of defibrillator paddles, and Joel
was transported back to 1981, when he was fourteen years old. Armed with knowledge of the
future, Joel set out to change his fate and that of his friends and family, but only for about four
months.
A few of Boston‘s family sitcoms focused on Irish-Americans, and, like their dramatic
Boston counterparts, did not go out of their way to shatter Irish stereotypes. The Cavanaughs,
which premiered in 1986, was the story of crusty old Francis ―Pop‖ Cavanaugh and his family.
His son, Chuck, who managed a construction firm, was a widower with four kids. His son,
Chuck, Jr., was a glad-handing priest; daughter Mary Margaret was quiet and shy, while youthful
twins Kevin and John were even more insufferable than Junior. Pop‘s daughter, the free-
wheeling Kit, was a retired showgirl who had gone through several husbands. She was now back
in Boston to help her brother with his family. There was a good deal of grumbling, most of it
from Pop, who was ―as Irish as a shillelagh, and about as blunt‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 227).
CBS tried to make The Cavanaughs work three different times from 1986 to 1989, but none of
these attempts were successful, and the show aired a total of just twenty-six episodes.
The sitcom Lenny was a little more earnest, but no more successful, and lasted just four
months in 1990. It was the story of Lenny Callahan, a cheerful, blue-collar guy who worked two
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jobs—at the municipal electric company by day and as a hotel doorman by night—to support his
wife and three children. Most of the episodes revolved around Lenny‘s philosophical ramblings
as he tried to build a better life for his family.
Also trying to better her life was Sue Murphy, the protagonist of 1998‘s Costello, which
starred comedian Sue Costello. Sue worked alongside her mother as a waitress at a South Boston
bar, the Bull and Dog (not to be confused with the Bull and Finch). To the shock of her father,
who was a carpenter; her sexist brother, who had made a career out of being unemployed; and
the other mean-spirited, beer-guzzling losers at the bar, Sue had done the unthinkable. She had
decided to go to college. Critics crucified the series for its crudeness, but the real problem with
show was, in the words of Brooks and Marsh ―its one-dimensional stereotyping of Boston‘s
working-class Irish‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 288). Critic Mike Flaherty who, as mentioned
above, took umbrage with the portrayal of Irish-Americans on the Boston drama To Have and to
Hold, was equally displeased with Costello:
Costello‘s lead is a woman anxious to shake off her oppressive
past and find herself. The setting for this journey of discovery? A
South Boston bar, of course. The tough-talking barmaid, Sue
Murphy (Sue Costello), who‘s as irritating as nails dragged along
the Blarney stone, endures a clientele of beer-bellied shlubs and
catty wenches whom she dispatches with scabrous gibes—―bitch‖
and ―suckbag‖ being two of her favorite epithets. (This is not one
of those Beantown watering holes where everybody knows your
name.) As for her family: Mom‘s a sexless, tea-stained pill; Dad a
blustering blowhard. In the pilot, Sue dumbfounds both of them by
breaking up with her boyfriend after he lands a job at the transit
authority, which would‘ve kept the couple in potatoes for the rest
of their days. In Costello's cartoonish world, this is upward
mobility (Flaherty 1998: 1).
Four of Boston‘s post-Cheers sitcoms made use of one of Boston‘s most durable
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television themes—the culture clash. It Had to Be You was the story of Laura Scofield, a wealthy
and respected Boston publisher who, against all odds, fell in love with Mitch Quinn, a carpenter
she had hired. Playing the ―surprisingly literate blue-collar carpenter‖ was Robert Urich who, in
a previous television life, had played the surprisingly literate private detective on Boston‘s
Spenser: for Hire (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 674). It Had to Be You could not replicate the
success of Spenser, much less that of Cheers, and lasted just five weeks in 1993. In the pilot
episode of Boston Common, which debuted in the spring of 1996, Wyleen Pritchett had just
moved from her small Virginia hometown to start a new life as a freshman at Boston‘s Randolph
Harrington College. To her horror, her big brother Bo, who had driven her up, decided to stay,
taking a job as handyman at the student union and moving into her cramped apartment. It seems
that Bo had rather abruptly fallen in love with Joy, an effervescent graduate student who was
studying southern culture and who, unfortunately for Bo, was in love with a high-minded and
self-absorbed professor named Jack Reed. The culture war was on. Bo began to win Joy over
with his backwoodsy charm, and he actually proved to be ―smarter than most of the oddballs
who populated Harrington‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 170). Boston Common was an instant
success, ranking eighth on the Nielsen charts after its abbreviated first season. When it returned
in the fall, however, the show was moved from Thursday to Sunday nights where it met a quiet
demise at the end its first full season.
Perhaps the quintessential post-Cheers Boston sitcom was It‟s All Relative, which
combined a culture-clash theme with a new romance, bickering families, an Irish pub, and tired
stereotypes. Liz was a bright, cheerful, WASPish Harvard student who had been raised by a gay
couple. Her dads were Simon, a sophisticated yet sensible school teacher, and Phillip, a wealthy,
fluttery, flamboyant art gallery owner. Liz had fallen in love with Bobby O‘Neil, a blue-collar,
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sports-loving guy‘s guy who tended bar at O‘Neil‘s Pub. The pub was owned by Bobby‘s dad,
Mace, a loud, meat-and-potatoes Irish Catholic. The culture war was on, at least for the duration
of the 2003-2004 season.
The theme of class warfare continued, in a fashion, with the slapstick kidcom The Suite
Life of Zack & Cody, which premiered in 2005 on cable‘s Nickelodeon network. Carey Martin
was a singer who had landed a job as headliner in the lounge at Boston‘s swanky Hotel Tipton.
Along with the gig came a posh suite on the twenty-third floor and full use of the hotel‘s
amenities for herself and twin sons Zack and Cody. For two seasons, these two incredibly high-
strung and precocious boys terrorized the hotel‘s stuffy staff. Their favorite targets were Marion
Moseby, the persnickety manager, and London Tipton (not to be confused with Paris Hilton), the
wealthy, conceited daughter of the owner.
Four Massachusetts sitcoms from the 1990s were set in locations outside of Boston. The
first was Wings, the state‘s second-most-successful sitcom, which bore a strong resemblance to
its legendary predecessor. Created by a trio of Cheers writers, Wings was actually part of the
Cheers universe, featuring crossover appearances by Norm, Cliff, Frasier, Lillith, and Rebecca.
Wings also featured the same basic premise, with a single setting serving as the backdrop for
most of the action, and a gang of friends and coworkers trading good-natured barbs with one
another. Instead of a bar, the setting was the small waiting room of the Nantucket airport. The
primary characters were Joe Hackett, a straight-laced pilot and operator of a one-plane airline
called Sandpiper Air, and his wisecracking, blasé brother, Brian, who was also a pilot. Other
characters included Helen, who ran the lunch counter and dreamed of being a professional
cellist; Roy, the antagonistic, Oliver Hardy-esque owner of Aeromass, a rival air service; Faye,
the motherly yet still saucy exstewardess who ran Sandpiper‘s ticket counter; Antonio, the
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philosophical and naïve Italian cab driver; and Lowell, the likable but incredibly strange
maintenance man. As was the case with Cheers, the plots were generally secondary to the witty
banter.
Wings premiered in 1990 and ran for seven seasons. While it never put up Cheers-like
numbers, it did make it into the Nielsen top thirty for four years, peaking in the eighteenth
position during 1993-1994 season. Because the show‘s creators were trying to distance it, both
geographically and stylistically, from Cheers, the original intention was to set Wings in the
Pacific Northwest. The producers scoured that region for a suitable location, but did not find one
with the ambiance they were looking for. They eventually settled on Nantucket ―because it
offered the right amount of sedate charm‖ (Golden 1996: 30). That is, in essence, the show‘s
central geographic message—sedate charm is what the producers were going for, and coastal
Massachusetts provided this in spades, as noted by critic Stephen Snart:
The setting is the standard workplace-cum-social gathering (the
show comes from the creators of Cheers after all) but the airport
locale and the small island setting lend just a hint of variation (in
spite of their blatant artificiality). The social function of an airport
intrinsically offers the prospect of adventure and the transitional
shots of Nantucket exteriors lend the show a small-town sense of
geniality. Further to that effect is the bouncy, Franz Shubert-
inspired score by Bruce Miller that plays over the blissful closing
credits that depict an airplane in flight against a majestic sunset
(Snart 2009: 1).
Another pair of sitcoms set outside of Boston brought the same sort of good-natured
characters and quaint backdrops. Something Wilder, which debuted in 1994, featured Gene
Wilder as Gene Bergman. Gene ran a small ad agency, Berkshire Hills Advertising, in rural
Stockbridge, where he lived with his wife and young twin boys. There were the usual trials
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brought about by cranky coworkers and loony family members, but the atmosphere was gentle
and good-natured, as indicated by the theme song, ―You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me.‖
The atmosphere of 1997‘s George & Leo was not quite so good-natured, but there was plenty of
quaintness. George Stoody was a quiet and philosophical New Englander, living his ideal life—
running a small bookstore in picturesque Martha‘s Vineyard. The peace and quiet was shattered
when Leo, George‘s son‘s father-in-law, a two-bit shyster from Las Vegas, moved into the spare
room over the store. Like Something Wilder, George & Leo lasted a full season, but was not
renewed for a second.
Two other sitcoms offered a considerably less quaint look at Massachusetts. Thanks,
which lasted just five weeks in 1999, was a goofy period comedy about life in the Plymouth
colony, featuring generally awful jokes about witch hunts, puritanical Pilgrims, and horny
grandmothers. Townies, which aired for three months in 1996, was the story of three young
friends who were all waitresses at a restaurant in Gloucester. They worked, hung out, and flirted
with guys, but their unifying ambition was to get out of Gloucester, to which the show was not
particularly kind. One character said of her hometown, ―the economy sucks, there‘s nothing to
do, and everything I own smells like fish‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,416).
RHODE ISLAND
Compared to its two neighbors, Rhode Island‘s television life got off to a late start, and it
began with a pair of forgettable sitcoms. The first, Doctor, Doctor, made its debut on CBS in
1989. It was the story of Mike Stratford, a young man who shared a group practice with three
other physicians in Providence. The show was, in part, a workplace comedy, contrasting the
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idealistic and eccentric Mike with his more straight-laced and money-driven colleagues, but the
show got off to a slow start, and the producers began to tinker with its format. During the show‘s
run, Mike gave writing a try, penning a novel called Panacea. He also hosted his own morning
television show, Wake Up, Providence. In 1990, a romantic element was introduced in the person
of Leona Linowitz, and a family sitcom element was added via Leona‘s young daughter, Emily.
The show also took a stab at social commentary with the introduction of Mike‘s brother,
Professor Richard Stratford, who was gay, and their dad, Dr. Harold Stratford, a grumpy
traditionalist who did not approve of Mike‘s antics or Richard‘s sexuality. Added to the show‘s
fragmented personality was sporadic scheduling. Although more than two years passed between
Doctor, Doctor‘s first telecast and its last, CBS put the show on hiatus three times, with one
break lasting for five months. The network tried the show on four different nights of the week,
but none of them brought many viewers, and the show was finally cancelled after thirty-nine
episodes.
Rhode Island‘s second sitcom, Maybe It‟s Me, focused on fifteen-year-old Molly Stage.
Molly had recently shed her glasses, braces, and a lot of weight, and was adjusting to a new,
more popular self-image. Molly lived in (fictional) Wickettstown with her typically loony sitcom
family, including dad Jerry, a nutty optometrist who coached the local girls‘ soccer team; her
oblivious mom, Mary; her brothers Grant and Rick, one a troublemaker and the other an aspiring
Christian rock star; her oddball grandmother and grouchy grandfather; and her twin sisters
Mindy and Cindy, who no one could tell apart. Maybe It‟s Me debuted in 2001 to ratings that
were meager even by the WB network‘s standards, and it was cancelled after nine months.
The impression of Rhode Island created by these programs, for those who bothered to
watch, was that of a state populated by well-meaning, if a little offbeat, white-collar
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professionals and their families. This pattern was also present in the state‘s lone dramatic entry,
Providence, which debuted in January of 1999. As the series began, Sydney Hansen, a successful
plastic surgeon to the stars, was flying from Los Angeles to her hometown of Providence for her
sister‘s wedding. Sydney‘s family included Lynda, her salty, chain-smoking mom; Jim, her kind,
sensitive veterinarian dad; Joanie, her high-strung, self-absorbed, and quite pregnant sister; and
Robbie, her unrepentant loser of a brother. On the day of Joanie‘s wedding, Lynda died suddenly
and Joanie‘s fiancé left her at the altar. A shattered Jim asked Sydney to stay in Providence, but
she returned to California, only to find her boyfriend in the shower with another man. Figuring
this to be a sign, Sydney returned to Providence and moved in with Joanie, Robbie and Jim in the
old family home. Stories on Providence alternated between family drama, Sydney‘s incredibly
complicated love life, and her work as the new resident physician at St. Clare‘s, a health clinic
for poor families in an old converted church. The show‘s gimmick was that Lynda, the departed
mother, continued to appear to Sydney, offering her a steady stream of unsolicited advice.
For the most part, critics were not especially kind to Providence, with New York Times
critic Caryn James figuring that ―when a show sounds this cockamamie and is meant to be a
drama, you know it‘s in trouble‖ (James 1999: 1). Critic Ken Tucker, not known to mince words,
referred to the show as ―chicken soup for the soulless,‖ adding that it excreted ―oily snail‘s trails
of sentimentality and despair‖ (Tucker 1999: 1). Nevertheless, the show did find an audience, at
least for a while. Providence ranked in the Nielsen top thirty twice, peaking in the twenty-second
spot during the first of its four years on the air. Critic David Grove acknowledged that the show
was hackneyed, but suggested that its ―total break from reality‖ was precisely what made it
popular. ―The Hansens are the way we wish our own families could be,‖ wrote Grove. ―Nothing
bad ever happens to the Hansens that can't be solved by the end of the hour‖ (Grove 2010: 1).
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Aside from occasionally grim details of Sydney‘s work at the free clinic and a season-
ending cliffhanger in which Jim was shot by a group of drug-dealing thugs, the show provided a
highly idealized version of the city of Providence. It was a safe, pasteurized place of quaint
parks, leafy streets, rivers and bridges, giving the city an almost Venice-like quality, as noted by
Grove:
With exteriors shot on location, the city looks like paradise: it‘s
charming and warm, without a hint of menace . . . . The camera
glides over the buildings and streets, and we feel an almost
overpowering pull to want to visit this place. These images, like
the show itself, are surely not reality, but they mirror the
unbelievable life of the Hansen family (Grove 2010: 1).
That Providence‘s images of Providence might be unrealistic, or at least incomplete, is
not surprising, given the show‘s dreamlike quality, and the fact that the city was probably chosen
for its name and not any of its actual qualities. From a geographic standpoint, Providence could
have just as easily been Hartford or even Milwaukee, but the names of those cities did not
provide the show‘s writers with a trite play on words that became an integral theme of the show,
as noted by Caryn James:
Providence is loaded with uplifting messages about divine
guidance and wishful thinking about the comforts of home . . . . At
the start of the second episode, Syd trots out an ancient cliché,
reading a Webster‘s dictionary definition. The first meaning of
Providence is the capital of Rhode Island; the second, she finds, is
―divine direction.‖ And so . . . Syd returns permanently to what she
calls ―Providence, my hometown and God's will‖ (James 1999: 1).
If the show had any other significant geographic message about Providence, it was, quite
simply that it was not Los Angeles, which was treated on the show as a modern-day Gomorrah.
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Nobly, Sydney swears off her lucrative practice in cosmetic surgery, clearly the devil‘s trade,
and takes up saving the lives of the poor. Some critics found Providence‘s syrupy treatment of its
setting to be a bit grating, and both Tucker and James singled out Syd‘s first homecoming
romance as a prime example of the show‘s saccharine tendencies. An old high school classmate
of Syd‘s, Kyle was now a ―none-too-bright‖ limo driver who caused Sydney to gush, ―He‘s
something I never encountered in L. A., a real man‖ (James 1999: 1). Tucker, in particular, found
the relationship to be wholly unbelievable:
If ever there was a guy who had loser written across his driver‘s
cap, it‘s . . . Kyle, yet Syd and the cameras take him in as if he
were a Roman god . . . . Syd giggle[s] and squirm[s] when Kyle
asks her to split a sandwich with him, straight from his gen-u-ine
brown lunch sack. Honestly, you‘d think these people lived in
Podunk. Correct me if I‘m wrong, but isn‘t Providence a fairly
worldly metropolis? Populating it with aw-shucks guys like Kyle
and a puppy-tickling vet who makes house calls . . . bespeaks a
certain amount of TV-industry condescension (Tucker 1999: 1).
Whatever its virtues, Providence remains the only Rhode Island-based show to date to
break into the Nielsen top thirty, but it is not the state‘s longest-running entry, falling well short
of both Ghost Hunters, which debuted in 2004, and Family Guy, which premiered in 1999. Both
programs continued to air through 2010, and owe their longevity to extraordinarily devoted, if
not extremely large, fan bases. Ghost Hunters began as a relatively crude documentary/reality
series that followed the exploits of The Atlantic Paranormal Society, headquartered in Warwick,
Rhode Island. The lead investigators, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, travelled around the
Northeast, and later around the country, employing high-tech equipment to investigate
supposedly haunted locations. Hawes and Grant were both professional plumbers—episodes
often opened with the two taking on leaky pipes before they took on supernatural phenomena—
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and the first TAPS headquarters was a construction trailer parked in Hawes‘s front yard. These
images, coupled with the show‘s shoestring budget and largely working-class support crew,
created an atmosphere that had been largely absent from previous Rhode Island entries. Ghost
Hunters was also a surprise hit, drawing about three million viewers each week, making it
something of a jackpot for its television home, cable‘s SciFi Channel.
Rhode Island‘s longest running entry was the animated comedy Family Guy, which was
far more surreal than anything Hawes and Wilson ever encountered in their investigations. It was
the story of the Griffin family, headed by portly dad, Peter, and his level-headed wife, Lois.
Their kids included sixteen-year-old Meg, thirteen-year-old Chris, and one-year-old Stewie.
Brian was the family dog. They lived in fictional Quahog, Rhode Island, a suburb of Providence,
the skyline of which could be seen in establishing shots of the Griffins‘ quaint Cape Cod-style
home. Peter was a safety inspector at a toy factory, and Lois was a stay-at-home mom who
taught piano lessons. The Griffins‘ next-door neighbors included Glen Quagmire, an airline pilot,
and Joe Swanson, a paraplegic cop. Joe‘s wife was the perpetually pregnant Bonnie, and Kevin
their teenage son. Cleveland Brown, an African-American deli owner, lived across Spooner
Street with his wife, Loretta, and his son, Cleveland, Jr. Taken at face value, the lives of the
Griffin family and their neighbors were as ordinary as any that had ever been portrayed on
television. The theme song was a splashy, big-band number sung by Peter and Lois, who sat at a
piano in their living room in the manner of All in the Family and sang:
It seems today that all you see
Is violence in movies and sex on TV,
But where are those good old-fashioned values
On which we used to rely?
Lucky there‘s a family guy! (20th Century Fox: 2003).
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The living room ―set‖ then gave way to a large, splashy variety-show stage, where the Griffins
sang and danced as the opening credits rolled. All of this suggested to the viewer that Family
Guy was a throwback to an era of television wholesomeness—something along the lines of The
Donna Reed Show, Happy Days or even Donny and Marie. What the viewer got, however, was
one of the most anarchic, controversial and, to some, deliberately offensive programs ever to air
on television.
Peter, the heart and soul of the show, was fat, stupid, and obnoxious. Completely lacking
any sense of self-censorship, Peter‘s tactless acts constantly horrified Lois, but behind her calm
façade was a kleptomaniac with a penchant for binge drinking and bouts of rough sex. Chris, a
fat, dumb kid who was clearly destined to be just like his father, owed his existence to a broken
condom. Meg was slightly more intelligent, but she was a painfully shy wallflower who was
unpopular at school. Like Chris, her birth was the result of a faulty contraceptive, and Peter
thought so little of her that he once sold her to the town pharmacist to settle an outstanding debt.
Brian, the talking family dog, was far more cultured and intelligent than his master. He had
attended Brown University, was a fan of sophisticated jazz, collected rare first editions, and
when not dishing out scathing bon mots, could be found sipping a dry martini and thumbing
through the Utne Reader. Stewie, the football-headed infant, slept in a crib with his teddy bear,
Rupert, and still wore a diaper, but was also a diabolical megalomaniac who spoke in a clipped
Rex Harrison accent. A sort of thumb-sucking Bond villain with a closet full of futuristic super
weapons, Stewie had plans for world domination. His consuming passion, however, was to
murder Lois, who he despised. The neighbors were similarly dysfunctional. Joe was prone to fits
of rage, Cleveland so emotionless as to almost be catatonic, and Quagmire a relentless sex fiend,
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who once bought a Winnebago for a cross-country, ―bang-a-chick-in-every-state‖ road trip
(Sawyer 2005: 1).
The Family Guy formula relied on sight-gags, one-liners, a fair amount of gross-out
humor and frequent, and often incredibly obscure, cultural references that ran the gambit from
Longfellow through arcane Hollywood musicals to Charles in Charge and The Thundercats. But
the show‘s seemingly banal setting was also central to its humor. Familiar plots and the all-
American sitcom set-up—mom, dad, the three kids, the family dog, and the whacky neighbors—
were used as a sort of straight man to offset the bizarre antics of the characters. On one episode,
for example, Peter and Lois learned that a drug problem was sweeping through Meg‘s school. As
they prepared for bed that evening, they had a very serious conversation about what they could
do to clean up the school and keep Meg off drugs. That dialogue was played straight, and the plot
was one not at all unfamiliar to viewers of family sitcoms, but the difference was that, as Peter
and Lois had their solemn bedtime conversation, they were donning intricate S&M gear.
This gag was actually a relatively mild one by Family Guy standards. The show often
strayed into gray areas of what is permissible on television, finding humor in such generally
hands-off topics as child abuse, physical and mental disabilities, death, rape, and even the
Holocaust. The show was not afraid to tackle the subject of race, particularly in broadcasts from
Quahog‘s Channel 5 News, where anchors Tom Tucker and Diane Simmons referred to the
reports from the Al Roker-like weatherman Ollie Williams as the Black-U-Weather Forecast,
and where Asian reporter Tricia Takanawa was always introduced as just that—―Asian Reporter
Tricia Takanawa‖ (Booker 2006: 85). Many of the show‘s off-color moments resulted from
Peter‘s lack of tact, as when he revealed a grim diagnosis to an AIDS patient with a colorful
musical number from a barbershop quartet. Family Guy also rewrote the rules about sexual
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taboos. Brian the dog lusted after Lois, made out with Meg, drunkenly hit on women at bars, and
once brought home a prostitute. A recurring character on the show was Herbert, an elderly
pedophile who was constantly trying to lure Chris into his house with the promise of popsicles,
and a running gag was Stewie‘s confusion about his sexuality, including a full-blown musical
number set on the deck of a ship that employed a not-too-subtle pun on the word ―seamen.‖
Critic Jennifer D. Wesley wrote that ―enjoying Family Guy is akin to laughing at a nasty
joke in church: it may be screamingly funny, but you‘re pretty sure you‘re going to Hell for
thinking so‖ (Wesley 2003a: 1). A number of viewers were willing to throw spiritual caution to
the wind, apparently, as Family Guy quickly developed a rabid following, and it was this small
but intensely loyal group that managed to bring the show back from the dead on two different
occasions. FOX, it appears, saw the show‘s potential but was never quite sure what to do with it,
airing it in nine different time slots during its initial run. The network cancelled Family Guy after
it first full season. They revived it after a barrage of angry letters from fans, but cancelled it ―for
good‖ after another year. Family Guy refused to die, however, with reruns of the show drawing
big audiences on cable‘s Cartoon Network and DVD collections becoming best-sellers. In an
unprecedented move, FOX brought the show back in 2005. The first new episode, almost
predictably, began with Peter Griffin listing off the scores of duds that FOX had aired and
cancelled during the show‘s three-year absence.
Family Guy has been a bulwark of the network‘s Sunday night line-up ever since its 2005
revivial, and it continues its manic mixture of broad comedy and cutting social satire. In many
ways, the purpose of Family Guy‘s Quahog, Rhode Island, has not been much different from that
of the little Colorado town of South Park or The Simpsons‘s Springfield—a sort of Anytown
used as a vehicle for skewering all manner of American culture—but the show did contain some
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distinctive regional flavor. Meg attended James Woods Regional High School, and Chris was a
student at Buddy Cianci Junior High. The former was named for the actor, a Rhode Island native,
while the latter was named for the longtime mayor of Providence who did four years in a federal
prison on conspiracy charges. One episode reflected New England‘s uneasy relationship with
New York, when the Griffins and Swansons were enjoying a day at the lake. Brian noticed, to his
horror, that a leaf on a tree had begun to change color, and Quahog was instantly infested with
―leafers‖—loud, obnoxious New Yorkers who had come to enjoy the fall foliage. The most
frequent regional reference, however, was to Rhode Island‘s maritime culture. Quahog takes its
name from the hard-shell clam that is, in fact, Rhode Island‘s official state shellfish, and the
fictional Quahog hosts an annual clam festival, itself a spoof of Wickford, Rhode Island‘s annual
International Quahog Festival. After Peter lost his job at the toy factory, he worked as a
fisherman, and he and the gang were often seen swilling Pawtucket Patriot beer at a bar called
the Drunken Clam. There they would receive frequent ominous warnings from Seamus, a
grizzled old sea dog who sported an eye patch and four wooden pegs in place of his arms and
legs.
Of course, it would take a particularly guileless viewer to mistake Family Guy for a
realistic look at anything, much less for an authentic look at modern New England culture. It did,
however, have a few fundamental themes that were consistent with the broader television
landscape of southern New England. Like a number of entries from Massachusetts, Family Guy
drew much of its humor from the frequent clashes between working-class and upper-class
cultures, the gag here being that the family dog and infant were the most sophisticated characters
on the show. In a manner perfectly, and probably deliberately, suited to his Rex Harrison accent,
Stewie, in particular, often found himself in the same position as Henry Higgins in My Fair
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Lady, disgusted by the low-brow antics of the more stereotypically blue-collar members of the
family. The same juxtaposition was featured in Peter‘s relationship with his in-laws, the wealthy
Carter and Barbara Pewterschmidt, who lived in a spectacular mansion in Newport and whose
pals included the likes of Ted Turner, Bill Gates, and Michael Eisner. Peter had met wife Lois
while working as a towel boy at her country club, and the Pewterschmidts had never forgiven
their daughter for marrying so far below her class. Another connection between Family Guy and
a number of other New England entries is the fact that, as the show‘s theme song suggested, it
did celebrate good old-fashioned values. As noted by critic Jennifer D. Wesley, although Family
Guy ―often obliterates the boundaries of good taste, it also espouses faith in the American
Family, however mutated‖ (Wesley 2003a: 1). For all their faults, the Griffins were an intact,
loving, nuclear family in a world of broken, dysfunctional television homes. They attended
church, had a warm relationship with their neighbors, and were active in the Quahog community.
Despite the barrage of often patently offensive material, nearly every episode ended with one of
the characters, usually a previously oblivious Peter, delivering a little homily on the importance
of family. In that sense, and despite a profound difference in tone, Family Guy was delivering a
message not entirely different from that delivered by programs like Providence.
If nothing else, Family Guy brought to the small screen a character that its creator
considered to be, for better or worse, a classic New England archetype. Family Guy was the
brainchild of Seth MacFarlane, who also provided the voices for Peter, Brian, Stewie, and a
number of other characters. MacFarlane began developing the characters while a student at the
Rhode Island School of Design. It was there that MacFarlane discovered the voice for Peter
Griffin, as he noted in a 2010 interview:
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The character is every . . . big, fat loudmouth New England guy
that I grew up with. And . . . the voice itself came from a security
guard where I went to college. And he had just this . . . impossibly
thick, loud, boisterous Rhode Island accent. And it just always
made me laugh whenever he opened his mouth. There was no self-
editing mechanism, but just the biggest hearted guy that you ever
would want to meet. That‘s the essence of Peter. He‘s got a big
heart (CNN 2010: 5).
NEW HAMPSHIRE
In television‘s version of New England, the pavement ends just a few miles north of
Boston. Of the ten programs set in northern New England, just one has been set in an actual city,
and that one city—Lewiston, Maine—was hardly depicted as being a teeming metropolis.
Northern New England‘s remaining nine programs have all been set in fictional small towns, and
the characterization of these towns is relatively uniform. The townspeople vary depending on the
nature of the program, but are usually depicted as being just a bit off-center, ranging from
cheerfully eccentric, to tortured and brooding, to downright insane. With few exceptions, the
landscapes of these little towns are appropriately charming—the word ―quaint‖ appears with far
greater frequency in the descriptions of northern New England settings than in those of any other
region—but often this quaintness masks a horde of dark secrets. If there is a unifying sense of
place in these programs, it is that there is not much for people to do in these little towns other
than have an affair or murder someone.
Such a slow pace of life is not always conducive to great TV, of course, which may
explain the relatively sparse television landscape of northern New England. There have been a
pair of major hits based in the area, however, and the first set the gold standard for the primetime
soap opera. Based on a best-selling 1956 novel and popular 1957 film, Peyton Place was a smash
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hit right out of the box, debuting in ninth place in the Nielsen ratings in 1964. At the height of its
popularity, the show was airing three times per week, with a remarkable 514 episodes produced
during its five-year run.
Peyton Place also set the standard for television‘s small New England town. On the
surface, the title community was a museum-quality portrait of quaintness. Surrounding the serene
village green were the offices the town newspaper, The Clarion, the Peyton courthouse, a
bookstore, the Shoreline Garage, Peyton Pharmacy, and a chandlery. Not far away was Ada
Jack‘s Tavern, offering libations to the town‘s fishermen as they came in from the docks. But, of
course, life was not what it seemed, as noted by television historian Stephen Tropiano, who
wrote that ―everyone who lives in or is just passing through Peyton is battling a personal demon,
guarding a family secret, or engaging in some form of criminal activity (Tropiano 2000: 123).
On each episode, viewers learned of another round of affairs, murders, disappearances, or other
forms of skullduggery.
Strangely, viewers never learned the specific location of Peyton Place, or even what state
it was located in, only that it had a coastal location and was situated about ninety miles from
Boston. The 1957 movie was filmed on location in Camden, Maine, and the television show was
shot in Hollywood. What is certain is that Peyton Place was dreamt up by author Grace
Metalious, and when she wrote the novel she was living in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, a little
town about fifty miles inland, near the southern shore of Lake Winnipesaukee. A heavy drinker,
Metalious died of a liver disease at age thirty-nine, just a few months before the television
version of her novel debuted. No love was lost in Gilmanton, where most residents were
resentful of the novelist‘s fictionalized version of their small town, but, in a way, Metalious has
had the last laugh. Whether for dramatic or comic effect, it is Metalious‘s version of the New
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England small town that has persisted on television. ―To a tourist,‖ she said, ―these towns look as
peaceful as a postcard. But if you go beneath that picture, it‘s like turning over a rock with your
foot—all kinds of strange things crawl out‖ (Golden 1996: 27).
Just three programs have been set in New Hampshire, and none of them were especially
successful. The state‘s first entry, the situation comedy Willy, was a bit ahead of its time,
featuring a smart, single female attorney as its protagonist. When it premiered in the fall of 1954,
Willa Dodger was a recent law-school graduate who had opened a practice in her hometown of
Renfrew, New Hampshire. Renfew, quaint as it was, was also among the sleepier New England
television towns, and since there weren‘t many cases to be found in the tiny village, Willy
relocated to New York in the middle of the show‘s first and only season.
After Willy‘s departure, New Hampshire, save for the guilt-by-association of Peyton
Place, disappeared from the television landscape for nearly half a century. The Brotherhood of
Poland, New Hampshire, which premiered in 2003, might have made people in the Granite State
wish it had remained that way. Filmed in part in Plymouth, New Hampshire, The Brotherhood
referred to three middle-aged brothers, Hank, Garrett, and Waylon Shaw, who had spent their
entire lives in the small title town. They had been star athletes in high school, but their adult lives
were a mess. Hank, the police chief, had a violent temper, and was in therapy with his wife
because of his sexual dysfunction. Garrett, the mayor, had had an affair, and was now being
blackmailed by his mistress. The only nice Shaw brother was Waylon, but he was unemployed,
not very bright, and constantly being duped by get-rich-quick schemes. Also seen were the Shaw
brothers‘ wives and children: sullen, angry characters who didn‘t brighten the picture any.
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As mentioned, a few New England programs have followed the formula of examining the
dark secrets behind the charming façade of the region‘s small towns, but in Poland, New
Hampshire, there was no façade. It was created by David E. Kelley, the man behind a quartet of
Boston-based dramas about self-absorbed professionals. While Kelley did not always paint an
endearing portrait of Boston, he seemed to have it in for small-town New Hampshire, as noted by
critic James Oliphant:
Small towns of America have enough on their plate. Do they really
need David Kelley piling on? The answer, of course, lies in the
prolific producer's latest offering: Kelley seems to feel the urge.
The setting of his new family drama, The Brotherhood of Poland,
NH, is, by all accounts, the most miserable small town in the most
miserable state in the United States. Kelley, the show's creator,
grew up in a small New England town and (you don't need your
state college psych degree for this one) must have hated it. What
else explains this ensemble piece that tastes as sour as poorly
pressed apple cider? Brotherhood comes off as Kelley‘s equivalent
to the millionaire who travels all the way to his high school
reunion just to tell everyone to go screw themselves. If the
residents of Poland weren‘t fictional, they might want to consider a
defamation action (Oliphant 2003: 1).
With David E. Kelley channeling his inner Grace Metalious, the series was intensely gloomy
from the outset. Hank‘s wife Dottie summarized the feelings of the entire town in the first
episode when she said ―I‘m going dead inside‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 188). The show
apparently also left viewers similarly sedated, and it was cancelled in less than a month.
New Hampshire‘s third and, to date, final show premiered in 2006. The relatively
standard teen soap opera Falcon Beach was set in a small New Hampshire resort town and
featured plenty of skin, sun, and romantic entanglements. The primary geographic theme was the
rich, spoiled summer kids versus the poorer townies, who rented the boats, ran the arcades, and
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dealt the drugs. Produced for Canadian television, Falcon Beach‘s twenty-six episodes were
released in syndication in the United States. Programs for Canadian consumption were set in
Manitoba, with most of the rich kids coming from Toronto. The same actors also filmed an
American version, set in New Hampshire, with references to Boston.
VERMONT
Vermont waited until the 1980s for its first entry, when it would serve as setting for one
of the more popular sitcoms of that decade. Low-key comedian Bob Newhart, who had struck
gold in the 1970s playing a harried Chicago psychiatrist on The Bob Newhart Show, returned in
1982 with Newhart. This time around he played Dick Loudon, an advertising man and successful
writer of home-improvement books. Fed up with the hectic pace of New York City, Dick, along
with his wife Joanna, decided to leave the rat race behind and buy the Stratford Inn in rural
Vermont. This inn, which had been built in 1774, was in need of some work, but it was the
town‘s local kooks who supplied Dick with most of his grief. Coming with the property was the
incredibly stoic George Utley, whose family had been caretakers of the Stratford for two
centuries. Kirk Devane was a compulsive liar who owned the café next door, and Leslie
Vanderkellen was a wealthy student at nearby Dartmouth who had taken a job as a part-time
maid at the inn to see how ordinary people lived. Kirk departed Vermont after he married a
professional clown, and Leslie left to study in Europe. She was replaced by her cousin, the
completely self-centered Stephanie, who came to the inn after she walked out on her marriage
and was cut off by her wealthy father. A few years into the program, Dick began hosting a local
television talk show, Vermont Today, which was produced by a vain yuppie named Michael
Harris, who eventually started dating Stephanie.
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Despite the change of setting, Newhart essentially picked up where Bob Newhart had left
off. Dick Loudon was a reincarnation of Dr. Bob Hartley, the only sane man in the world, who is
morally supported by a sensible and loving wife. Hartley‘s patients were replaced by guests at
the inn and, eventually, by the nutty guests on Vermont Today. The humor still revolved around
Newhart‘s impossibly staid persona, as exemplified by the titles of the ―how-to‖ books Dick had
authored, which included Building Your Own Patio Cover, How to Make Your Dream Bathroom,
Care of Your Low-Maintenance Lawn Sprinkler, and How to Grout Your Bathtub. Like its
predecessor, Newhart developed a loyal fan base, who tuned in each week to see Newhart‘s
patented slow burn as his orderly world descended into chaos.
Although the Wayburn Inn in Middlebury served as the stand-in for exterior shots of the
Stratford, the name of the fictional town in which the show took place was never actually
mentioned. Since Leslie was a student at Dartmouth, it is probably safe to assume that the
Stratford was just across the Connecticut River from Hanover, New Hampshire, near Norwich.
The show‘s more general geographic message was a bit mixed. On one hand, the show
practically served as a commercial for the Vermont Department of Tourism, particularly in its
opening credits. As a pleasant Henry Mancini theme bounced along in the background, viewers
were introduced to a Vermont of lush woodlands, secluded lakes, and country lanes that wound
past whitewashed churches, charming, well-groomed barns and homes, and, of course, that
beautiful old inn. Much like that of its protagonist, the aura of Vermont was nearly always
friendly and sedate.
On the other hand, one of the central themes of the show was that country living is not all
it‘s cracked up to be, making the show, in the words of one critic, a ―sort of a sophisticated
version of Green Acres‖ (Javna 1988: 112). Very early on, Dick finds himself at odds with the
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―stubborn, simple townfolk, who refer to him as ‗the writer guy,‘‖ while Joanna discovers that
her ―interests in literature and the arts make her a little lonely among her practical rural
neighbors‖ (Javna 1988: 112-113). Newhart fully embraced the television maxim—exemplified
earlier on The Andy Griffith Show and later on shows like Northern Exposure and Picket
Fences—that the personalities and customs of people in little, out-of-the-way places were often
just plain strange. On one episode, Dick derided the locals for believing in the Great White Buck,
which, according to local lore, would bring good luck to the town. Dick changed his mind when
he saw the fabled creature for himself, right before running over it with his car. To reverse the
resulting stream of misfortunes, Dick was forced to ―don antlers in front of the town and perform
a wood nymph dance‖ (Tropiano 2000: 92). On another episode, Dick‘s guest on Vermont Today
was a man who claimed to have the world‘s smallest horse. In classic Newhart fashion, enraged
callers lit up the phone lines, claiming to have an even smaller horse, and eventually besieged the
station with their animals, one of which was a dachshund wearing a saddle.
Even Dick‘s beloved Stratford was not quite as idyllic as he had imagined. In one episode
he discovered a stack of letters revealing that the Stratford had been a brothel during the
Revolutionary War (known as the ―Best Little Inn in New England‖). On another he found out
that the three hundred-year-old corpse of Mrs. Sarah Newton was buried in the inn‘s basement.
She had been deposited there after being hanged as a witch and being refused burial in the town
cemetery, a fact that horrified Dick, but which the locals accepted as a matter of course. To solve
the problem, Dick phoned for the services of a local business called ―Anything for a Buck,‖
which was run by a group of brothers named Larry, Darryl, and Darryl. The three unkempt,
tuque-wearing, flannel-clad backwoodsmen would become the show‘s most popular recurring
characters, and were always introduced with the same catchphrase, ―Hi, I‘m Larry, this is my
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brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl‖ (Ring 2010: 1). In the tradition of the
Darling brothers from The Andy Griffith Show, neither Darryl ever said a word, and served as a
constant reminder to viewers that Vermont, despite the presence of sophisticated outsiders like
the Loudons and the Vanderkellen cousins, had more than its fair share of hillbillies.
In the end, Newhart proved to be even more popular than The Bob Newhart Show. It
debuted at number twelve in the Nielsen ratings, and continued to rank in the top thirty for the
first six of its eight seasons. When it finally left the air in 1990, it did so in appropriately
eccentric fashion. Everyone in the town—except the Loudons—had sold their property to a
group of Japanese investors, who converted it into a country club, but five years later, they all
returned, intent on moving into the Stratford. As Dick was vehemently protesting the idea, he
was struck in the head with golf ball, and when he awoke, he was in the Chicago bedroom of Dr.
Bob Hartley of The Bob Newhart Show. He turned to his wife, Emily, and said, ―You won‘t
believe the dream I just had‖ (Ring 2010: 1).
After that memorable finale, Vermont virtually disappeared from the television
landscape, returning only briefly with the 2006 science-fiction drama, Three Moons Over
Milford. In the pilot, the moon broke into three pieces, causing the people of Milford to fear that
the end of the world was near. Residents, though perhaps not as kooky as those of the little town
near the Stratford, were indeed peculiar. The show focused on Laura, whose husband had
abandoned her, leaving her to raise a Wiccan daughter and a computer-geek son on her own.
Mack was the town‘s lawyer and plumber, and Michelle was a scheming real estate agent who
started buying up as much property as possible on the off chance that the Earth would not be
destroyed. Looming on the outskirts of Milford was the mysterious Snyder Corporation, which
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had been conducting experiments that might have caused the moon‘s disintegration. Milford was
unable to distill the Newhart magic, and was cancelled after eight weeks.
MAINE
Maine‘s five television programs present a remarkable uniformity. As mentioned, only
one was set in an actual Maine city—Lewiston—while the other four occupied fictional villages.
Life in Maine is almost universally depicted as charming, quaint, idyllic—and deadly. Two
programs have focused on the subject of murder—containing, in fact, that word in their titles—
while the other three have centered on darkly supernatural themes. The juxtaposition of charming
locales with sinister occurrences is, of course, nothing new. The murders in an ornate island
mansion in And Then There Were None, the bloodsucking vampires prowling the serene hills of
Transylvania in Dracula, the demonic, glowing-eyed children in the seemingly quaint Village of
Damned, and the piles of dead teenagers who attended the wrong summer camp in countless
slasher films all serve as precedent for Maine‘s television entries. So, if the high casualty rate of
Maine‘s television landscape seems, at first glance, unenviable, it is important to note that a
perception of the state as lovely and serene is necessary before the blood can begin to flow.
Maine‘s first entry, Murder, She Wrote, was also by far its most durable, premiering in
1984 and enjoying a run of nearly twelve years. Set in the picturesque coastal village of Cabot
Cove, the program concerned a middle-aged widow named Jessica Fletcher. A chess enthusiast,
PTA volunteer, and retired English teacher, Jessica had attained midlife success as a mystery
novelist. Each week, Jessica would stumble upon a real-life mystery, most often a murder, which
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she would spend the rest of the episode solving. In the fall of 1991, Jessica got a job teaching
criminology in New York, spending her weeks in Manhattan and her weekends in Cabot Cove.
Murder, She Wrote, which was always most popular among older audiences, never
generated the critical buzz of some of its contemporaries, such as Cheers, The Cosby Show,
Seinfeld, or Northern Exposure, but it was, by the measure of longevity and overall ratings, more
popular than each of those shows. The program was the third highest-rated show of the 1985-
1986 season, was ranked in the Nielsen top ten in seven seasons, and in the top fifteen an
additional three. Although it only received one Emmy award, it was nominated a remarkable
forty-one times. It also had the distinction of being the longest-running drama to feature a
middle-aged woman as its protagonist, and one of the longest-running television dramas set in a
contemporary small town.
Angela Lansbury‘s Jessica Fletcher, as one might expect from a long-running drama, was
an entirely likable character. Despite the wealth and fame that her novels had given her, Jessica
still lived in the same pleasant old home she had shared with her departed husband, Frank, and
many of the episodes ended with her having a friendly conversation with one of the neighbors.
Cabot Cove was fictional, with the town of Mendocino, California, serving as a stand-in for
exterior shots, but a televised New England village was never more picturesque:
Matronly Jessica frequently bicycled across town, boiled lobsters,
planned fishing trips on a friend‘s trawler, or dropped in at the
beauty parlor. She wore conservative pantsuits and spoke with an
occasional New England influence. Her signature was her ancient
manual typewriter, and the opening credits showed her tapping
merrily away on one of her mystery novels (Riggs 2010: 1).
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The charming backdrop almost certainly was one of the reasons large audiences tuned in
week after week for more than a decade, but it also created a conundrum for the show‘s writers.
All television programs run this risk of becoming formulaic, but the odds of that happening to a
murder mystery are even greater, given that the fundamental plot is the same every week. In her
sketch of Murder, She Wrote‘s basic template, television historian Karen E. Riggs recorded that
episodes nearly always began with a group of people all having a grudge against a bully:
An innocent person, often a friend or relative of Jessica‘s, publicly
threatens or criticizes the bully. The audience sees the bully
murdered, but the killer‘s identity is hidden. The authorities accuse
Jessica‘s ally, based on circumstantial evidence. Jessica notices—
and the camera lingers on—details that seem inconsequential but
later prove central to the solution. She investigates, uncovering
various means, motives, and opportunities and eliminating
suspects. A few minutes before the program ends, she suddenly
realizes the last piece of the puzzle and announces that she knows
who the killer is . . . . Almost always, the killer confesses, and
Jessica presents the person to the police . . . . Jessica always
happens to be on the scene when a murder has just taken place and
makes time in her schedule to solve the crime. She usually happens
upon the body herself. The police never get it right. Her friend is
almost always innocent. Jessica is always present when crucial
evidence comes to light (Riggs 2010: 1).
A particular problem for Murder, She Wrote was the fact that Jessica Fletcher was an
amateur sleuth. It was not at all unbelievable that the detectives on Columbo or Hawaii 5-0
should stumble across a murder each week. That was their job, after all. But, in the words of
critic Robert J. Thompson, ―Watching Jessica Fletcher solve a crime in any given episode makes
perfect sense; thinking back on how many murders she‘s coincidentally stumbled upon doesn‘t‖
(Thompson 1996: 173). Even more preposterous was the notion that so many murders (more
than fifty) could happen in such a small town. Jessica‘s friends and family were sometimes
among the dead and, far more often, among the accused, with her poor nephew Grady being
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hauled off to jail on several occasions (he was always innocent, of course). During the show‘s
early years, this problem was addressed by having Jessica travel frequently and stumble across
murders while on vacation. By 1991, even that became a somewhat worn plot device, and Ms.
Fletcher began spending far more time in New York City. That move coincided with Angela
Lansbury taking the reigns as executive producer, a move made, she said, because ―the New
York locale just allows us to introduce a far wider ethnic diversity than Maine‖ (Golden 1996:
304). Jessica‘s new job as a criminology professor also provided a more believable explanation
for her involvement in unsolved cases.
Maine‘s other small-town murder mystery, 2001‘s Murder in Small Town X, solved the
plausibility issue by lasting just seven weeks. This series was filmed in quaint Eastport, Maine
(fictionalized as the village of ―Sunrise‖ in this series), with locals serving as extras in this reality
show with a homicidal twist. Contestants acted as detectives trying to solve the murder of Nate
Flint and his daughter, Abby. The killer had also kidnapped Flint‘s wife, later killing her and
dumping her body in the bay. In each episode, a contestant was given an envelope containing the
names of two spooky locations, one of which they had to choose to investigate. At one, the
contestant would find an important clue while at the other the killer would be waiting to
―eliminate‖ the contestant.
Maine‘s three other spine-tingling entries solved the plausibility issue by making the
sinister activity a bit implausible to begin with. In 1991, NBC briefly revived Dark Shadows, a
cult classic that had run on daytime television in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Set on a spooky
old estate in coastal Collinsport, the show began when a 200-year-old vampire, Barnabas Collins,
escaped the family crypt and began feasting on the locals. Action alternated between the present
day and 1790, with the dark history of the aristocratic Collins family serving as the story focus.
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The Dead Zone, based on a novel of the same name by Stephen King, began its five year run on
cable‘s USA network in 2002. The main character, Johnny Smith, who lived in the small town of
Cleaves Mills, had been involved in a car accident that left him in a six-year coma. Upon
awakening, he discovered he had the ability to see into the lives of those he touched, often with
disturbing results. At one point, while shaking the hand of a ruthless and corrupt politician,
Johnny was greeted with the image that this man would eventually bring about Apocalypse.
Stephen King‘s works also inspired 2004‘s Kingdom Hospital, but it was not quite as durable as
the first King effort, lasting less than four months. Set in the spooky Kingdom Hospital in
Lewiston, the series focused on Peter Rickman, a hit-and-run victim who could communicate
with the spirits—some good, some evil—that roamed the hospital‘s halls. The trouble, it
appeared, stemmed from the fact that the hospital had been built on the site of a nineteenth-
century mill fire that had killed several children. Adding to the fray was a bizarre hospital staff,
including strange surgeon Dr. Hook, who lived in the hospital basement and occasionally
performed séances.
CONCLUSION
Whether it was the quaint village abandoned by the protagonist of Willy, the miserable
little burg of The Brotherhood of Poland, NH, or the tumultuous resort town of Falcon Beach,
the television landscape of New Hampshire has almost certainly been forgotten by all but the
most ardent TV trivia buffs. That said, the town of Gilmanton, New Hampshire, has had a
spectacular impact on the television landscape by way of its evil twin, Peyton Place. The quaint
little village that harbored a Pandora‘s Box of dark secrets has been replicated many times across
the television landscape, particularly in New England. Whether it was the murderous streak of
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Maine‘s quaint Cabot Cove on Murder, She Wrote, or the staid kookiness of the charming little
Vermont village on Newhart, the television landscape of northern New England has had the
effect of a beautiful picture postcard with a cryptic and/or threatening message scribbled on the
back.
Southern New England has had more of an urban tilt, particularly Rhode Island, where
nearly all programs have been set in or near Providence, and the dominant trait of these shows
has been a working-class aesthetic and a focus on family life. On Providence, the title city
exuded grace and charm, and served as a sort of ―Anytown, U.S.A.,‖ where familial love,
genuine, earthy characters, and traditional values were par for the course. Fictional Quahog of
Family Guy played a similar role, but often for very different reasons. This show was a long
parade of bizarre characters and plots, and the material was often deliberately crude, with the
banality of its suburban setting serving as a sort of straight man for the offbeat comedy. Still, the
viewer was always left with the impression that family love and ―good old fashioned values‖
were, in the end, alive and well in Rhode Island.
Family Guy also frequently examined class ―warfare‖—pitting the sophisticated and
pompous against the earthy and crude—and that has been a relatively common theme on
southern New England‘s programs. It was prominently featured on Connecticut‘s Gilmore Girls
and Who‟s the Boss?, with the former contrasting the aristocrats of Hartford with the earthy
villagers of fictional Stars Hollow, and the latter contrasting Italian-American Tony with WASP
Angela. As can be expected from all television programs, there were bits of tension and conflict
here and there on Connecticut‘s television landscape, from the tumult of the courtroom on
Judging Amy, to the subtextual battle of the sexes on Bewitched, to the limitations of small town
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life on Gilmore Girls, but the central geographic message of the state‘s television images was
that it was a collection of almost absurdly idyllic suburbs and villages.
Massachusetts‘s defining program, Cheers, set the gold standard for class warfare shows,
and that theme could be found in a good many of the state‘s other programs—both those that
predated Cheers and, probably not coincidentally, in many that followed it. Sociocultural
differences permeated Cheers, manifested most distinctly in the unlikely romance between Sam
and Diane. Despite these differences and the show‘s trademark barrage of scathing remarks and
rejoinders, the fact remained that the staff and patrons of Cheers seemed to enjoy one another‘s
company, leaving the viewer with the impression that Boston was an inviting and egalitarian
city, where the people were terribly witty, and where the erudite and the earthy downed beers
side by side. Outstate Massachusetts was similarly pleasant and inviting on the television
screen—a trait most clearly demonstrated in the charming seaside village of Capeside on
Dawson‟s Creek and in the genial, Cheers-like atmosphere of Nantucket‘s Wings. Boston itself,
like many television cities, sent out some mixed signals. The darker side of the city was most
evident on St. Elsewhere, where death seemed to be the preferred form of egress from the
decaying neighborhood that surrounded the title hospital. The most convoluted messages about
Boston were found on David E. Kelley‘s quartet of programs—Ally McBeal, Boston Legal,
Boston Public, and The Practice. The latter two, in particular, showcased some of the dregs of
Boston society, but the mixed signals were sent primarily by the shows‘ regular characters. Each
program showcased successful professionals who were intelligent and, more often than not,
devoted to their careers, but these same characters could also be described as self-absorbed,
lacking in integrity, and wreaking of an undeserved sense of privilege. Among these diverse
images, however, was the overarching message that Massachusetts‘s residents—from the witty
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barflies of Cheers and the highly skilled courtroom sharks of David E. Kelley‘s legal dramas, to
the brilliant staff of St. Elsewhere and the remarkably astute teens of James at 15 and Dawson‟s
Creek—were far more intelligent than the average TV character.
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TABLE 4. DEFINING PROGRAMS AND COMMON TRAITS: THE GREAT LAKES STATES
State Defining Programs Key Program
Elements
Other Common
Traits
Illinois Garroway at Large Casual, charming
personality; informal
and quirky
atmosphere;
innovative production
Mixture of high art
and the practical—
erudite quiz shows
and cattle drives,
symphonies and
polkas; crime,
poverty, and violence;
law and order;
unemotional, stodgy,
gruff, crime fighters;
working class
neighborhoods;
gloomy outlook;
political corruption;
gritty inner city;
pleasant middle-class
suburbs; tumultuous
upper-class suburbs;
warm and loving
families; yuppies;
African-Americans
ER Dedicated medical
professionals; intense
atmosphere; tragedy
and squalor
M Squad Tough dedicated cop;
mean streets;―seedy,
glamorous, decent,
sleazy‖ Chicago
The Untouchables Emotionless,
dedicated cops;
mindless violence
The Bob Newhart
Show
Urban, white-collar
professionals; stylish
urban setting; ―square,
white
midwesternness‖;
self-deprecation;
rejection of pomposity
Good Times African-American
family; urban housing
projects; poverty and
crime; sympathetic
black lead; black role
model; controversial
black stereotypes
Married with
Children
Cash-strapped,
dysfunctional, sleazy,
working class family
Roseanne Working class, small
town life; ―ordinary,
real, truthful, and
resolutely non-urban,
non-yuppie, and non-
upscale‖; sarcastic
take on family life
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(Illinois continued) Family Matters Middle-class African-
American family
living in a pleasant
suburb; goofy good
nature
According to Jim Friendly, pleasant,
happy, square,
middle-class suburban
family
Indiana One Day at a Time Single mom and
modern teenagers;
social changes; hard
knocks; upward
mobility; relatively
gentle nature
Urban settings; class
warfare; yuppies; blue
collar sensibilities;
violence and crime
Cheers (Woody
Boyd)
Cheerful, optimistic,
naïve, honest, loyal
bumpkin
Michigan Home Improvement Loving upper-middle
class family in a
pleasant suburban
home; likable
characters; politeness
and understanding;
blue-collar
sensibilities; lack of
sophistication ―low-
key, predictable,
intelligent but not
particularly well-
educated‖ protagonist
Working class and
middle class families;
traditional values;
pleasant suburbs;
African-Americans;
blue-collar
sensibilities; small
town life
Martin Black urban
professional; sarcastic
outlook; African-
American popular
culture
Ohio Mary Hartman, Mary
Hartman
A typical American
housewife; traditional
values; close-minded
small-town
Ordinary and
provincial citizens of
small towns; bizarre
events; the epitome of
mainstream America;
characters returning
home
WKRP in Cincinnati Tradition-bound; a
modern metropolis,
but a professional
dead end; warm and
friendly characters
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(Ohio continued) Family Ties Middle-class family in
Columbus; white-
collar professionals;
Ohio as microcosm of
America; shifting
cultural attitudes;
sincere, heart-
warming familial love
The Drew Carey
Show
Blue-collar and
middle-class
Cleveland; friendly,
self-effacing and
unpretentious
characters;
industriousness
3rd Rock from the Sun A small Ohio town as
a microcosm of
America; warmth and
friendliness;
mediocrity
Wisconsin Happy Days Wholesome nostalgia
in 1950s Milwaukee;
a nuclear family;
―Middle-American
gooeyness‖; safe,
clean, setting;
industriousness
Hard-working,
guileless, and upright
citizens living
relatively uneventful
lives in small towns
and modest cities;
working class and
middle class Laverne & Shirley Wholesome nostalgia
in 1950s Milwaukee;
blue-collar workers;
escapism; optimism
Step by Step Happy, blue-collar
nuclear family living
in a wholesome small
town
That „70s Show Mix of wholesome
nostalgia and bawdy
humor in a small-
town; acerbic but
loving and supportive
nuclear family
Picket Fences Oddballs in a quirky
small town; sincerity;
mainstream America
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CHAPTER 4 - THE MIDWEST, PART 1: THE GREAT LAKES STATES
The Midwest‘s share of the television landscape has not been equal to its share of the
country‘s population, but it certainly has not been ignored. The region‘s television programs
account for 12.4% of the television landscape, or just over a third of the images analyzed in this
study. Because of the volume of television programs to be analyzed, the Midwest will be
discussed in two sections. The Great Lakes states—defined here as Ohio, Indiana, Michigan,
Illinois, and Wisconsin—will be addressed in this chapter. The Midwestern states that fall west
of the Mississippi River (including Minnesota) will be discussed in chapter five.
Of the five Great Lakes states, Indiana has been the least visible. It has served as the
backdrop for a dozen programs, but only one has been a genuine success, with the state
accounting for just 0.49% of the country‘s television images. A few of Michigan‘s sixteen entries
have been successful, putting the state‘s overall share at 0.64%. Wisconsin has been the setting
for just thirteen programs, but a number of them have been successful, pushing the state‘s share
of the country‘s television landscape up 0.78%. Ohio, the second most populous state in the
Midwest has also been its second most televised, accounting for a relatively impressive 1.24% of
the American television landscape. The most prominent state in television‘s Midwest, however,
has been Illinois. That state has served as the setting for 150 programs, significantly more than
all of the other Midwestern states combined. Illinois has accounted for 6.68% of the American
television landscape, making it one of the few states whose television share exceeds its share of
population.
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OHIO
The first nationally televised program to originate from Ohio was not exactly a television
classic. Practice Tee, a fifteen-minute golf lesson from pro William P. Barbour, was broadcast
from Cleveland, airing on NBC‘s Friday night lineup for six weeks during the late summer of
1949. Ohio‘s second entry was more durable, and certainly more influential. Midwestern
Hayride, which originating from the NBC affiliate in Cincinnati, premiered in June 1951 as a
summer replacement for the hit comedy series Your Show of Shows. It was one of the earliest
examples of a country-themed comedy, music, and dancing showcase on network television,
preceded only by Pennsylvania‘s short-lived Hayloft Hoedown, and its success surely paved the
way for Springfield, Missouri‘s Ozark Jubilee and Nashville‘s Grand Ole Opry. Hayride danced
around the schedule every summer for the remainder of the decade, and proved popular enough
to appear on NBC‘s fall slate in 1955, running for the duration of the 1955-1956 season. The
program showcased such regular acts as the County Briar Hoppers, Slim King and the Pine
Mountain Boys, Zeke Turner, Bonnie Lou Ewins, and the Hometowners. Cleveland countered
with a network country music series of its own, The Pee Wee King Show, during the summer of
1955. It featured King, a popular country and western bandleader, and his Golden West
Cowboys.
Hobby Lobby premiered in September of 1959, three weeks after Midwestern Hayride
bowed out for good. This program featured comedian and Toledo native Cliff Arquette‘s alter
ego, Charley Weaver, chatting with people about their hobbies. Some of the guests were ordinary
folks, but some were bona fide celebrities—Zsa Zsa Gabor, for example, dropped by on one
episode to talk about her passion for fencing. In what started as a minor element on the program,
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Charley would also tell stories about Mount Idy, Ohio, his (fictional) hometown. These stories
became so popular that the hobby feature was eventually dropped altogether, and Hobby Lobby
became The Charley Weaver Show. Each week a celebrity or two would ―visit‖ him in Mount
Idy, and Charley would spin tales about the local residents, who had names like Elsie Krack,
Birdie Rudd, Wallace Swine, Clara Kimball Moots, and Grandpa Snider.
Charley Weaver had a short run, departing in the spring of 1960, and Ohio would be
absent from American television for nearly sixteen years. When the state reappeared, the spirit of
Mount Idy was alive and well. In many ways Ohio‘s television landscape has contradicted its
actual geography. It is one of the most heavily industrialized and urban of the midwestern states,
something at odds with the popular image of the Midwest, described by geographer James R.
Shortridge as a ―landscape of red barns, silos, John Deere tractors, and two-story, white
farmhouses‖ punctuated by small towns, ―each full of friendly Main Street merchants, quiet
churches, courthouse towers, and grain elevators‖ (Shortridge 2007: 59). The contradiction is not
lost on the state‘s residents, a decreasing number of whom, as noted by Shortridge, consider
themselves to be midwestern. Given that fact, one might expect Ohio to follow the lead of other
Steel Belt states and present a television landscape with a strong urban tilt. Michigan, for
example, has most of its programs set in and around Detroit, and Chicago has almost completely
dominated Illinois‘s television landscape.
Ohio‘s television shows have not featured altogether rural settings—few midwestern
states have—but its television landscape has much more in common with states like Wisconsin,
Kansas, and Iowa, where a large portion of programs have been set in small, often fictional,
towns. Of the eighteen programs set in the state since 1959, Ohio‘s cities have served as the
backdrop only half the time. Columbus and Dayton have each been represented three times,
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Cleveland twice, and Cincinnati only once. The other nine program settings have been the small
towns of Mount Idy, Harper Valley, Dacron, River Run, Rutherford, Stuckeyville, Fernwood,
and Normal, all of which are fictional. Fernwood has, in fact, served as the setting for two
scripted programs, equaling Cleveland and besting Cincinnati, the state‘s two largest
metropolitan areas.
Ohio‘s television landscape is distinctive not only for its settings, but also for the nature
of the characters who have populated it. The television residents of Ohio are generally not rich
and fashionable; they are either middle class or blue collar. Of the twenty-two Ohio-based
programs, only two have been dramas, and the state has not served as backdrop for any police,
crime, legal, or action series. It is not glitz, fashion, glamor, and action that have defined Ohio on
television, but the lack of it. The state‘s television cities and towns are usually very ordinary and
characters often naïve and provincial.
Despite some unenviable characterizations of the state‘s residents, it would be wrong to
conclude that Ohio‘s television entries represent a concerted effort at defamation. As much as
any state, Ohio‘s television landscape casts it as America‘s spiritual hometown, a fact made
evident in the 2000s, when all five of the state‘s entries featured a protagonist who had just
moved back home to Ohio. The state often serves as the epitome of mainstream culture—average
people living square in the cultural middle of America—and, because of that, forming a sort of
Petri dish for examining the country‘s shifting cultural values and conventions. Of course,
characters and places that are completely normal do not make for particularly exciting television,
so most Ohio programs feature the unusual seeping through, or crashing down upon, the
ordinary. Quirky, odd, and even bizarre behavior is par for the course on Ohio-based programs,
with the banality of the setting serving as a sort of straight man for the comic character or event.
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The Ohio-as-straight-man motif was never more evident than in the program that brought
the state back to television in 1976. The title character of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was a
typical American housewife living the sleepy little town of Fernwood with her husband, Tom,
and her daughter, Heather. Tom worked with Mary‘s father, George Shumway, at the local auto
assembly plant, while Mary took care of their pleasant home at 343 Bratner Avenue in the
Woodland Hills subdivision of Fernwood. On the surface, the characters and setting of Mary
Hartman were as normal as any that had ever appeared on a domestic sitcom. It was not,
however, a typical show, but producer Norman Lear‘s frontal assault on the conventions of both
television and the conventions of the American middle class. Mary was typical, all right, but
typical to the point of being deranged. She was not very bright, and was completely
impressionable. Almost everything she knew about the world came either from Reader‟s Digest
or television commercials—her concluding point in any argument was invariably ―But I read it in
a magazine!‖ (Javna 1985: 132).
Mary‘s life was full of tragic and bizarre events. Tom was impotent. Heather was
kidnapped by a serial killer. George disappeared. Her sister Cathy was a swinger, and her
grandfather, Raymond, was a public exhibitionist known as the ―Fernwood Flasher.‖ When Mary
made chicken soup for the town‘s whiskey-swigging, pill-popping basketball coach, he fell into
it and drowned. The Lombardis—Buck, his wife, and three children—lived next door. At least,
they did until they were all hacked to death, along with their eight chickens and two goats, by an
escaped lunatic. Through it all, the thing that haunted Mary the most was the waxy yellow build-
up on her floors.
Perhaps the most controversial element of the show was its skewering of Christianity or,
at least, some Christians. Mary Hartman contained vicious assaults on the Bible Belt, and the
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writers seemed to delight in torturing Fernwood‘s born-again residents. One was the town‘s
conservative mayor, Merle Jeter, who had hired an exconvict as police chief, and who
transformed his eight-year-old son, Jimmy Joe Jeter, into a televangelist to raise money for a
housing scam called ―Condos for Christ.‖ Another was the sickeningly sweet Loretta Haggars, a
Christian country music singer who launched her career performing in the lounge of a bowling
alley. Loretta and her husband Charlie lost their house, and, later, as they were driving to
Nashville, she was paralyzed when their car collided with a station wagon full of nuns. In the
end, things almost worked out for Loretta. Her single went to the top of the country charts, and
she was given a chance to perform on the Dinah Shore Show. Chatting with Dinah, Loretta
mentioned that she had met a man backstage who was very pleasant, even if he was Jewish.
Loretta then reminded a horrified Dinah that ―the Jews killed our Lord‖ (Javna 1985: 132).
Loretta‘s career was ruined. Merle Jeter did not fare much better. He was ensnared in a
prostitution scandal, and his televangelizing son was electrocuted when a television set fell into
his bathtub. Merle remained mayor, however, swaying public opinion by standing naked before
the voters and confessing his sins.
Lear had shopped Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman to the major networks, but was rejected
by all of them. Undaunted, Lear released it in syndication, and a number of local affiliates began
running his show as part of their weekly, late-evening schedule. Mary Hartman was, for a time, a
sensation. More than three hundred episodes of the program were produced through 1978, when
the series ended following the departure of star Louise Lasser. Although Mary Hartman
contained a number of withering assaults on small-town midwestern values, the primary target
was television itself. It was artful parody, poking fun at soap operas and even Lear‘s own
―relevance‖ sitcoms. In one episode, for example, Mary suffered a nervous breakdown and was
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committed to the Fernwood Psychiatric Hospital. When she sat down to watch the communal
television set, Mary noticed that there was a telemeter connected to it, making Mary and her
fellow psychiatric patients a rather large Nielsen ratings family.
Mary Hartman spawned a syndicated spin-off in 1977, Fernwood 2-Night, the Ohio
town‘s local television talk show. Hosted by Barth Gimble (Martin Mull) and his sidekick, Jerry
Hubbard (Fred Willard), Fernwood 2-Night‘s primary purpose was to skewer talk shows in the
same way that Mary Hartman had skewered soap operas. Barth was an egotistical moron, the
former host of a Miami-based talk show who had fled to Ohio while being investigated for a
string of felonies. Jerry, who was somehow dumber than Barth, had previously hosted a local
quiz show for the elderly called Dialing for Dentures, a job he had gotten only because his
brother was station manager. The music was provided by Happy Kyne and the Mirth Makers.
Happy was a miserable lout, who took the job so that he could plug his fast-food restaurant, Bun
‗n‘ Run.
The guests and performances on Fernwood 2-Night were nearly always surreal, or at least
odd: a pianist in an iron lung; the developer of a new childbirth technique called La Fromage; the
leader of the Church of the Divine Lemonade; and the Salvation Army Singers, who dropped by
to perform their rendition of ―Da Do Ron Ron.‖ Like Mary Hartman, the primary target was
television itself, but Fernwood 2-Night aimed its sights a little more squarely at the naivety,
provinciality, homogeneity, and downright ignorance of the small-town Midwest. The Fernwood
Gun Association appeared to promote their new Kiddie Krime Korps (KKK), a program that
would distribute firearms to children as a means of fighting street crime. Barth interviewed a
couple who feared that their son had been brainwashed by a religious cult. He had started
dressing in black, they explained, and was constantly dropping to his knees and chanting in an
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indecipherable language. When their son was finally brought onstage, viewers discovered that he
was, in fact, a Catholic priest. Other guests included a patriotic Vietnamese-American who had
written a book called Yankee Doodle Gook, and dancer Darryl Washington, the show‘s first
black performer, who had been bussed in from Cincinnati. Another very special guest was
Morton Rose, a Jewish man from Toledo who had been pulled over for speeding through town.
He was featured on the show because Barth was certain that most people in Fernwood had never
seen a Jew before. The phone lines were then opened for a ―Talk-to-a-Jew‖ segment.
After moderate success during its initial summer run, the show was brought back the
following spring. Perhaps to the relief of some Ohioans, the setting had shifted to California, and
the title changed to America 2-Night. Ohio‘s next entry, the workplace comedy WKRP in
Cincinnati, debuted in 1978, and was the first Ohio entry to appear on a network schedule since
1960. It was Cincinnati‘s first entry since Midwestern Hayride and, to date, its last. Set at a local
radio station, WKRP was a far kinder representation of Ohio than the two Fernwood-based
shows. Still, Cincinnati was not exactly depicted as a prime destination for sophisticates and the
upwardly mobile. WKRP had been bleeding money for years. It specialized in easy-listening
music, and the station‘s primary sponsors included the Shady Hills Rest Home, Bo Peep Safety
Shoes, Rolling Thunder European Regulatory Tonics, and Barry‘s Fashions for the Short and
Portly. Les Nessman, WKRP‘s news director, knew very little about current events, but was
intensely proud of his numerous Silver Sow awards for farm reporting. Herb Tarlek was the
tasteless, rude, and equally inept sales director. Arthur Carlson, the general manager, might have
been the station‘s least qualified employee, but he kept his job because his domineering mother,
Lillian, owned the station.
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It was Lillian who hired the hip, young Andy Travis as the station‘s new program
director. When he converted the station‘s format to rock and roll, WKRP‘s once-staid world was
turned on its head. The move sparked a backlash among the station‘s mostly elderly listening
audience, who picketed the lobby and released a threatening statement: ―We‘re a small bunch,
admittedly, but we‘re a determined fringe element that cannot be counted upon to do the sensible
thing.‖ (Johnson 2008: 141).
The events of the pilot episode established WKRP‘s central geographic messages. It is
notable that the station‘s change in format, one that simply brought the station up to speed with
the rest of the world, was precipitated by an outsider. WKRP did not change on its own, an
implication that Cincinnati was a tradition-bound, change-resistant place. This idea was neatly
summarized in the lyrics of the show‘s opening song:
Baby, if you‘ve ever wondered,
Wondered whatever became of me,
I‘m living on the air in Cincinnati,
Cincinnati, WKRP.
Got kind of tired packing and unpacking,
Town to town, up and down the dial.
Maybe you and me were never meant to be,
But baby think of me once in a while.
I‘m at WKRP in Cincinnati (Twentieth Century Fox: 2007a).
That song, which one can probably assume is written from the perspective of the show‘s
protagonist, Andy Travis, doesn‘t exactly characterize Cincinnati as a place where Andy is going
to fulfill his wildest dreams, but as a place he finally decided to settle for. It is difficult to
imagine such a song being written for a show set in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. Even
Minneapolis was given more credit. When Mary Richards of The Mary Tyler Moore Show took
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her job at WJM in Minneapolis, it was the place where she was going to ―make it after all.‖
When Andy Travis took his job at WKRP in Cincinnati, it was what ―became of‖ him.
In this regard, Andy was not alone. The prominent disc jockeys at the station were also
imports and, probably not coincidentally, were also the two hippest characters on the show.
Neither the spaced-out Dr. Johnny Fever nor the ultra-chic, flamboyantly attired Venus Flytrap
(―What‘s happening, white folks?‖) were in Cincinnati because it was their first choice (Johnson
2008: 141). Johnny had lost a string of jobs in more prestigious markets for insubordination and
being a stoner. Most recently he had been fired for saying ―booger‖ on the air, and Cincinnati
represented, for him, a last chance. Viewers eventually learned that Venus‘s real name was
Gordon Sims, and that he had gone AWOL from the war in Vietnam. He took on his pseudonym
and was hiding out in Cincinnati, presumably because it was the last place anyone would look
for him.
Still, WKRP did not create an entirely unappealing portrait of Cincinnati. The opening
and closing credits of the program, filmed on location, revealed a thriving American metropolis
with busy freeways, crowded sidewalks and local landmarks such as the Tyler Davidson
Fountain and the Brent Spence Bridge. When Andy arrived, the station‘s original staff, while not
especially cool, was warm and friendly; and at least two of them even knew what they were
doing. Assistant station manager Bailey Quarters was smart and ambitious and Jennifer
Marlowe, who, at first glance, appeared to be the stereotypical blonde bimbo receptionist, turned
out to be the most intelligent, sophisticated character on the show. Perhaps the strongest indicator
of the show‘s generally affectionate portrayal of its setting is the degree to which Cincinnatians
embraced the show as their own. Former WKRP cast members are regularly invited to civic
events, and the city plays host to an annual ―Turkey Drop,‖ inspired by the WKRP Thanksgiving
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episode that included the memorable line, ―As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly‖
(20th Century Fox: 2007).
Although WKRP in Cincinnati remains a memorable show for many, it was not a terribly
successful series during its initial run. It managed to remain on the air for four seasons, but the
show entered the Nielsen top thirty only once. During the 1979-1980 season it ranked twenty-
second. After its cancellation in 1982, however, syndicated reruns built a loyal following,
prompting producers to reassemble much of the original WKRP cast and produce new episodes
for syndication from 1991 to 1993.
Two more Ohio-based sitcoms premiered in 1981, both based on popular material from
another medium. Set in Dayton, Maggie was based on the best-selling series of books by
humorist Erma Bombeck. The title character, Maggie Day, was a beleaguered wife and mother
of three who chatted about her problems with the staff and clientele down at Loretta‘s House of
Coiffures. Her problems were usually of the mundane, everyday variety, the sort of issues any
American family might face—the drains were clogged, the kids needed braces, and so on.
Maggie‘s Dayton was pleasant and appealing, a sort of anti-Fernwood, and a solid, if short-lived,
example of Ohio as America‘s hometown. While Maggie represented a celebration of
midwestern values, its contemporary, Harper Valley P.T.A. was, in many ways, a condemnation
of them. Harper Valley was a sort of midwestern Peyton Place—beneath its sedate and
puritanical surface lurked a world of drunks, lowlifes, and sinners. Based on a 1978 movie that,
in turn, evolved from a 1968 hit record, Harper Valley was the story of Stella Johnson, an
independent, outspoken woman who was constantly at odds with local social conventions. Stella
was a widow with a thirteen-year-old daughter, and she had recently been elected to serve on
Harper Valley‘s P. T. A. board. This horrified the smug and sanctimonious women who
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dominated the organization, who felt that her ―short skirts, flirting, and radical ideas‖ made her a
―disgusting role model for their children, not to mention a temptation for their husbands‖
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 586).
Maggie, Harper Valley P.T.A. and WKRP in Cincinnati all left the air after the 1981-1982
season, but the void on Ohio‘s television landscape was filled the following fall. Family Ties
proved to be not only one of Ohio‘s most durable entries, but also one of television‘s most
endearing portraits of life in the Midwest. It was the story of the Keaton family of Columbus,
headed by mom Elyse and dad Steven. Family Ties is a clear example of the use of Ohio as a
microcosm of America. Elyse and Steven embodied the liberal zeal of the 1960s, and the show
filled their backstory with archetypal activist activities—they had met at a peace rally, worked
for an underground newspaper, joined the Peace Corps, and even lived on a commune. They
were now white-collar professionals—Elyse an architect and Steven the manager of the local
public television station—and they channeled their liberal zeal into love and lessons for their
three children: seventeen-year-old Alex, fifteen-year-old Mallory, and nine-year-old Jennifer.
The focus of the show, at least initially, was the generation gap between the parents and
children. Steven and Elyse‘s eternal optimism was challenged by Jennifer‘s pessimism, and their
high-minded idealism contrasted with Mallory‘s mall-rat materialism. The greatest conflict,
however, was with Alex. An unabashed 1980s conservative, Alex (played by Michael J. Fox)
was a clean-cut teenage entrepreneur. Rarely without his briefcase and always clad in a suit and
tie, Alex slept with a picture of William F. Buckley hanging above his bed.
What ultimately defined the show, however, was not politics or social commentary. Critic
Michael Saenz lauded the show for its ―imaginative dialogue, laudable acting, and carefully
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considered scripts,‖ and the general critical response to the show was similarly positive. Most
writers focused on its atmosphere of heartwarming familial love (Saenz 2010: 1). ―No matter
what differences and conflicts the Keatons have,‖ wrote critic Rick Mitz, ―the message of the
show is that family ties are stronger than family differences‖ (Mitz 1988: 348). Critic John Javna
echoed Mitz‘s assessment:
Maybe Alex will always wince at Steven‘s Bob Dylan records.
Maybe Steven will never understand why Alex wears a tie to gym
class. The point is, they love each other . . . . As Alex himself once
said in a rare burst of insight, ―We‘re all good people, and that‘s
the real message‖ (Javna 1988: 124).
Each week the show‘s theme song assured viewers that ―there ain‘t no nothing we can‘t
love each other through,‖ and the ensuing episode would provide proof. Family Ties became
famous (or, from the point of view of some, infamous) for its ―very special‖ episodes—serious
storylines where a character was shaken to his or her foundations, and then rescued by the love
of the family. One example was an episode entitled ―A, My Name is Alex,‖ in which Alex
suffers the loss of close friend in a car accident. The friend had asked Alex to help him move,
Alex had declined, and as a result, had not been in the car at the time of the crash. ―My life was
saved out of smallness, out of lack of generosity for a friend,‖ said a tearful Alex. ―Why am I
alive? Why am I alive?‖ (Mitz 1988: 347). Some critics, including the reliably snarky Jeff
Alexander, found such earnestness almost impossible to handle. Alexander described a typical
episode:
One of the Keatons would do something stupid or selfish (it was
usually Alex), hilarity would ensue, and then Steven and/or Elyse
would blow another inch of dust off their entropying authority over
the household, triggering a confrontation. It helps if all your
confrontations are, like theirs, miniature transactional analysis
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workshops with everyone always effortlessly using their ―I feel‖
statements and trying to understand one another‘s point of view.
Otherwise, every argument would have ended with somebody
spitting, ―Screw you, Alex!‖ and then grabbing him by his tie and
punching him in the head (Alexander 2008: 33).
While Alexander‘s alternate ending never happened, it was not an unimaginable
conclusion for All in the Family, a show to which Family Ties is often compared. The two
programs were essentially photo negatives of one another. The tone was completely different,
however. While Family Ties always ended with a figurative or literal loving embrace, All in the
Family usually began and ended with discord. And while the yelling matches of Archie Bunker
and Mike Stivic echoed down the streets of Queens, all of the warmth and sincerity of Family
Ties was taking place in Columbus. That fact was likely not lost on the viewer. The writers of the
show made frequent references to real Columbus locales and the set designers pillaged the city
for props from local establishments. According to historian Andrew Cayton, the philosophy of
Family Ties was deeply rooted in midwestern values:
The nuclear family was the center of the universe, and it taught the
core values of honesty, decency, respect for others, hard work, and
ambition tempered by realism. There was little that love could not
overcome. In Family Ties, the twist was to feature a conservative
son with liberal parents, reversing a conventional stereotype of the
1960s and 1970s. Yet the political differences mattered little in the
end when family ties triumphed; as always in midwestern
television, the private takes precedence over the public, individuals
are more important than groups, and family is the alpha and omega
of existence (Cayton 2007: 77).
Now remembered as one of the most evocative and popular shows of its decade, Family
Ties actually got off to a slow start. The show earned modest ratings during its first two seasons,
but got a substantial break in fall of 1984, when it was placed behind wildly popular Cosby Show
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on NBC‘s powerful Thursday night line-up. Family Ties rocketed to the fifth position in the
Nielsen ratings that year, and then to second place, behind Cosby, for two seasons. Its place as
one of the defining programs of the 1980s was cemented, in the minds of some, at least, when
President Ronald Reagan mentioned that it was his favorite television show. The ratings began to
drop after a move to Sunday nights in 1987 and the series ended its run, appropriately, in 1989.
Three more Ohio-based sitcoms appeared in the wake of Family Ties‘s departure. All
relied strongly on the Ohio-as-straight-man formula, and none of them were especially
successful. The People Next Door, which had a short run in 1989, was the story of Walter
Kellogg, a New York cartoonist and widowed father of two children who had recently married
Abigail MacIntyre. Walter and the kids moved with Abby to her small hometown of Covington,
near Dayton. The gimmick here was Walter‘s imagination, which was so vivid that the things he
imagined actually came to life, manifested as everything from a talking, stuffed, trophy moose
head to Dr. Joyce Brothers. Of course, Abby and all the other straight-laced, sensible
Midwesterners in Covington would never understand, so Walter and the kids did their best to
keep it a secret. The similar, and also short-lived, fantasy sitcom, The Mighty Jungle, appeared
in 1994. Here the protagonist was Dan Winfield, a caretaker at the Cleveland Zoo, and the
gimmick was that the zoo‘s animals suddenly decided to start talking to him. Of course, Dan‘s
wife, kids, and co-workers had no idea. Good Grief!, a comedy set in a funeral parlor (yes, a
comedy set in a funeral parlor), premiered in 1990 and met its demise in less than a year. The
setting was Dacron, the 63rd-largest city in the state. That the setting was named after a form of
polyester says much about the program‘s take on Ohio. The protagonist, if that is the proper
term, was Ernie Lapidus, a conman who had married Debbie Pepper, whose family owned
Dacron‘s Sincerity Mortuary. Ernie, with the help of his father, Ringo, tried to increase the
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mortuary‘s profit margin by running various scams and by starting an aggressive ad campaign
that with a series of tasteless television commercials. Raoul was Ernie‘s mother, who had
undergone a sex change operation. Debbie‘s brother, Warren, played the role of the abstemious
midwesterner, attempting to end Eddie‘s schemes and restore some dignity to the mortuary.
None of these early-1990s entries lasted long, but Ohio‘s sitcom fortunes were reversed
with two popular shows that debuted in the middle of the decade. The Drew Carey Show, which
featured the title comedian as a fictionalized version of himself, premiered in 1995. Drew Carey
split its time between Drew‘s professional role as assistant personnel director for Cleveland‘s
(fictional) Winfred-Louder department store, and his personal life, which mostly consisted of
hanging out with his friends Oswald, Kate, and Lewis. In that regard, the basic premise Drew
Carey was not profoundly different from that of a number of its successful sitcom
contemporaries. It mirrored ―friends hanging out‖ hits like Friends, Caroline in the City, Mad
About You, Ellen, and Will & Grace, and such popular workplace comedies as Suddenly Susan,
Spin City, and Just Shoot Me. Still, substantial differences existed between Drew Carey and its
sitcom cohort. While its competition was usually set in either New York or California, featuring
characters who were, in general, hip, sophisticated, physically fit, and successful, The Drew
Carey Show was set in the comedian‘s hometown of Cleveland, and featured characters who
were, in general, none of those things.
Drew and his associates were all working-class stiffs. Sporting a crew cut, thick-framed
black glasses, and usually clad in a cheap suit, Drew was overweight, drank too much, worked
too hard and, when depressed, was not above eating an entire birthday cake by himself.
Tomboyish Kate O‘Brien was pretty and charming, but perpetually moving from one low-paying
job and unsavory boyfriend to another (she broke up with one man because his carnival was
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leaving town). Tall, laconic Lewis Kiniski worked as janitor at the mysterious DrugCo
pharmaceutical company, while his spectacularly dense sidekick, Oswald Harvey, drove a
package delivery truck. The Drew Carey gang didn‘t sip wine in fashionable restaurants or toss
about witty banter in coffee shops. They drank beer either in Drew‘s kitchen or at a
neighborhood dive, the Warsaw Tavern. Drew lived in an unremarkable home in a working-class
neighborhood. It had belonged to Drew‘s parents and possessed only one real luxury—a pool
table. But the table, for reasons that were never fully explained, was in the backyard, frequently
covered in dead leaves or snow. At work, Drew‘s nemesis was Mimi Bobeck, the mean-spirited,
heavy-set, garishly-attired secretary, and the two exchanged nasty barbs and played elaborate
practical jokes on one another. Drew‘s boss was Nigel Wick, a mentally unbalanced Englishman
whose laziness, vanity, and pretention stood in clear contrast to the usually friendly, self-
effacing, blue-collar spirit of the show‘s native Clevelanders.
Like fellow Ohio entries Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and Fernwood 2-Night, The
Drew Carey Show injected a fair amount of lunacy into its scripts, perhaps best exemplified by
the bizarre stories related by Lewis about DrugCo, which, among other things, was genetically
engineering a hybrid monkey/hippopotamus (a ―monkopotamus‖), breeding super-intelligent rats
(who took control of the Warsaw Tavern for a time), and developing a new sex drug (which
Lewis confiscated after battling the test monkeys who had been using it). Unlike the Fernwood
entries, however, the surreal mechanisms employed on Drew Carey were rarely used to take jabs
at midwestern culture. In fact, the series was almost exclusively positive in its portrayal of
Cleveland. With the exception of Mimi and Wick, the characters on the show were kind-hearted,
and Drew always did the right thing, even when such action came at his own expense, which it
usually did. Drew was also an industrious character. He had gone three thousand consecutive
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days without missing work and, most of the time, he was good at his job. He also possessed
enough ambition to start his own company, Buzz Beer, which sold caffeinated beer that the gang
brewed in Drew‘s basement. The Drew Carey Show did not veil its affection for Cleveland; for
many years the opening credits of the show featured the cast, along with hundreds of extras,
running deliriously through the streets of Cleveland to the strains of the song ―Cleveland Rocks.‖
The Drew Carey Show was never an absolute blockbuster, though it did post decent
ratings. It ranked in the Nielsen top twenty-five during its second, third, and fourth years,
peaking in the fourteenth position during 1998-1999. Its tumbling ratings in later years were
largely the result of stiff competition from NBC‘s hit drama The West Wing and a significant
amount of indecision on the part its own network. ABC moved the show‘s time slot sixteen
times, with Drew Carey appearing, at one time or another, on five different nights of the week. It
was, in any case, popular enough to remain on the run for nine seasons, and when it left the air in
2004, it did so as Ohio‘s longest-running series to date.
Ohio‘s next entry, the sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, first aired as a mid-season
replacement on NBC in January 1996. 3rd Rock was the story of four aliens who landed in a
small Ohio town, took the form of a human family, and set about to study the culture of Earth,
the least important planet in the universe. Dick Solomon, the mission‘s High Commander, took a
job as a physics professor at a local university. There, he became a major irritation to a sardonic
anthropology professor named Mary Albright who, nevertheless, would become his love interest.
Dick‘s lieutenant, an aggressively macho security officer, took the form of his statuesque blonde
sister, Sally, while the wise, old information officer was transformed into Dick‘s libertine
teenage son, Tommy. Rounding out the crew was impressionable, slow-witted Harry Solomon,
Dick‘s brother, who later discovered he was on the mission only because he had a ―thing‖ in his
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head that allowed them to communicate with the home planet. They tried to learn as much as
possible while appearing as normal as possible (literally trying to be any Tom, Dick, and Harry),
but they usually found themselves caught up in the middle of disastrous misunderstandings.
3rd Rock was set in fictional Rutherford, Ohio, (possibly a nod to President Rutherford B.
Hayes, an Ohio native) which was said in the pilot episode to be in central Ohio, fifty-two miles
from Cleveland. Because the program sought to examine, and often skewer, numerous facets of
American culture, the size and nature of Rutherford varied from one episode to the next,
sometimes a small town ringed by miles of cornfields, sometimes a relatively large city with its
own arena, the Rutherdome, but there was one constant—the city was intended to represent
average America. This idea fits squarely into the concept of Ohio as a microcosm of America,
and it was a deliberate choice. The producers of 3rd Rock stated that they wanted ―the best cross-
section of America and people that we can find.‖ They noted that Ohio was selected because it
―epitomizes our collective image of what the country should be,‖ adding that ―there are no trends
being set in Ohio‖ (Cayton 2007: 75).
3rd Rock usually examined themes that were timeless and universal, such as love, sex,
jealousy, conformity, aging, death, and the meaning of family, but it occasionally examined more
topical issues such as inequality, prejudice, crime, political corruption, and class warfare. Such
episodes occasionally revealed the seedier nature of life in and around Rutherford. On one
episode, Dick discovered that Nina Campbell, Mary‘s secretary, was attending a black students‘
association meeting. Surprised that Nina would not invite him, Dick decided to find a similar
organization that celebrated his race, and ended up taking the entire family to a white
supremacist rally. The tone of 3rd Rock, however, was never terribly serious, and the varied
landscapes of Rutherford tended to lean toward the positive. It was a warm and friendly place,
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and generally peaceful, which was a good thing, given that Rutherford police sergeant Don
Orville, a Solomon family friend and Sally‘s occasional love interest, was one of the most inept
television cops since Barney Fife.
Because 3rd Rock‗s Rutherford was intended to present a cross-section of American life,
the depiction of this fictional town and, by extension, Ohio, was sometimes affectionate and
sometimes disparaging, with a heavy dose of mediocrity mixed in. As was the case with the
characters on Drew Carey, the Solomons were never intended to be sophisticated or cool. In fact,
when they attempted to be so, the results were always calamitous, exposing just how
unsophisticated and uncool they really were. The Solomons lived in an attic apartment that was
both quaint and squalid, an odd mixture of flea-market kitsch and postmodern installation art.
Their landlord and downstairs neighbor was Mamie Dubcek who, likewise, managed to be
fabulously regal and unrepentantly trashy at the same time. From the downscale digs of the
Solomons to Mary Albright‘s more stylish suburban home, the landscapes of Rutherford were
equally varied. The town contained upscale bookshops, restaurants, and boutiques, colorful
college bars, charming cafés, and a posh gay bar called the Spartacus Lounge. There were also a
few downscale locales—seedy streets and back alleys, a subpar public high school that Tommy
attended, greasy fast-food restaurants, a few dive bars, and the Liquor Mart, which was located
across the street from the Solomon‘s home. Pendleton State University, the academic home of
professors Mary and Dick, was also a study in contrasts. Pendleton was depicted as a quaint
liberal arts college consisting of old brick buildings and warm, wood-paneled interiors. The
faculty was generally intelligent, if a bit eccentric, but clearly the place was not an elite
institution. When Dick and Mary found themselves locked in the basement of the Pendleton
library over a weekend, for example, Dick expressed surprise that the library was closed on
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Saturdays. An exasperated Mary responded, slowly, ―Dick, this is not a good school!‖ (Anchor
Bay Entertainment, 2006a).
When compared to The Drew Carey Show, 3rd Rock was held in somewhat higher regard
by its peers. Whereas Drew Carey was nominated seven times, it never won an Emmy. 3rd Rock
received twenty-six nominations and won eight Emmys, including two for Kristen Johnston
(Sally Solomon) and three for John Lithgow (Dick Solomon). In other ways, 3rd Rock from the
Sun had an experience similar to that of The Drew Carey Show. It bounced around on four
different nights of NBC‘s schedule and saw its time slot change nineteen times during its five-
year run. In an odd twist, despite the restless scheduling of both shows, they actually ran
opposite one another on Wednesday nights for two years.
Perhaps the most noteworthy connection between 3rd Rock and Drew Carey was the
steadfast refusal of both programs to take anything seriously. Drew Carey‘s program, in
particular, resembled the television exploits of fellow Midwesterners like Johnny Carson, David
Letterman, and Dave Garroway, always mindful of the fact that this was, after all, just a
television show, and always willing to turn convention on its head, apparently just for the hell of
it. Drew Carey included a gratuitously gimmicky 3-D episode, for example, and several
improvised live episodes performed three times each for the Eastern/Central, Mountain, and
Pacific time zones. One of the stranger gimmicks was a series of ―What‘s Wrong with this
Episode‖ telecasts, which included deliberate mistakes, with the viewer who wrote in with the
longest list of errors receiving a cash prize.
3rd Rock from the Sun was also mischievously good-natured. It included, for example,
regular, winking references to Lithgow‘s previous melodramatic turns in theatrical films such
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Terms of Endearment, Footloose, and The Twilight Zone. Episode titles made frequently bawdy
references to the protagonist‘s first name, such as ―I Enjoy Being a Dick,‖ ―Father Knows Dick,‖
―World‘s Greatest Dick,‖ ―Will Work for Dick,‖ and ―Just Your Average Dick.‖ French Stewart,
who played Harry Solomon, identified this playful nature as the show‘s strongest element. ―I
think the thing that 3rd Rock does best, as opposed to other sitcoms, is [that] it‘s unabashedly
goofy,‖ said Stewart. ―I think it knows it‘s a sitcom, and I think it‘s not afraid to be that.‖ Joseph
Gordon-Levitt, who played Tommy, concurred: ―What I‘m most proud of is that it never takes
itself seriously—ever. In that way, I think we‘ve had more integrity than any other show on TV‖
(Anchor Bay Entertainment 2006b).
Both 3rd Rock and Drew Carey echoed two popular midwestern sitcoms of the 1970s—
Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart—that were a little more dedicated to laughs and a little less
dedicated to weighty social commentary than their New York counterparts like All in the Family
and Maude. In the 1990s, when many New York and California-based sitcoms were often
studied in their cool sophistication, Drew Carey and 3rd Rock were splendidly screwy. Perhaps
the strongest geographic message of both programs was that the Midwest (or, at least, Ohio) was
a fun, genuine, and forthright place, and one fully comfortable with its lack of panache.
Not all Ohio entries were out for laughs, but the state‘s two straight dramas used a device
familiar to both Family Ties and 3rd Rock—Ohio as a backdrop for exploring American social
conventions. Homeftont, which debuted in 1991 and ran for two seasons, began as GIs were
returning to their (fictional) hometown of River Run, Ohio, after World War II. The show
featured some characters who challenged their town‘s and, by extension, America‘s entrenched
conventions and taboos, including a tough, independent, widowed mother named Anne Metcalf
and her enlightened daughter, Linda. The two had worked at a local factory during the war, but
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both were fired as soon as the men began returning home. The factory‘s slimy, avaricious owner,
Mike Sloan, aggressively fought unionization at the plant, and so created turmoil that would
eventually lead to violence and a Communist witch hunt that targeted union organizers. Robert
Davis was a black soldier who had recently returned home, hoping that his sterling war record
would ease the discrimination he had faced, but it didn‘t. While these and similar themes of
racial, gender, and class politics were significant elements of Homefront, it was essentially a
soap opera—a sort of principled Peyton Place—and there were plenty of love triangles,
conflicted war brides, unwanted pregnancies, and untimely deaths to go around.
The medical drama Body and Soul, set in present-day Columbus, was first and foremost a
medical drama, but it also challenged several entrenched conventions. Dr. Rachel Griffen had
returned to Columbus‘s Century Hospital after spending two years in East Asia, where she had
come to accept the use of alternative medicine, which focused on ―healing the mind and spirit as
well as the body‖ (Brooks and Marsh: 163). She opened an alternative healing center, drawing
the ire of the hospital‘s traditionalists, including her mentor, Dr. Isaac Braun, and the hospital‘s
profit-driven chief, Dr. Phillip Grenier. Like most medical dramas, there were a fair share of
romantic entanglements and near-death experiences, but the show failed to inspire viewers, and it
was cancelled in 2003 after a one-season run.
Conventional family sitcoms, which had been absent from Ohio‘s television landscape
for more than a decade, returned in 2003 with Hope & Faith. It matched neither the critical
success of its predecessors (just one Emmy nomination), nor their popularity, but the show did
manage a respectable three-year run. It was light family fare, bright and sunny. That is not a
great surprise, given its inclusion on ABC‘s Friday night line-up, which has featured, over the
years, Ozzie & Harriet, The Flintstones, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, That Girl,
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Donny & Marie, Webster, Diff‟rent Strokes, Mr. Belvedere, Full House, Family Matters, and
Sabrina the Teenage Witch. The title sisters, flaky Faith and sensible Hope, would have felt right
at home on any of those shows. The series blended a pair of common Ohio sitcom themes—the
return of a character to his or her hometown, and the wacky and/or cool outsider causing uproar
in a community of typically sedate Midwesterners. In this instance, Faith performed both
functions. She had left Ohio to pursue an acting career in Hollywood, and had landed a major
role on a soap opera called The Sacred and the Sinful. When her character was killed off and she
discovered that she was broke, she fled back home. Hope, meanwhile, was living with her
husband and three children in the pleasant Columbus suburb of Glen Falls. Faith moved in with
Hope, and the pair was soon embroiled in a long string of whacky Lucy-and-Ethel-style
misadventures.
Another early 2000s sitcom also featured the return of an Ohioan from California. It also
added a third familiar element—the use of the state as a laboratory for examining shifting
American cultural conventions—which probably should have been expected from a show called
Normal, Ohio. This sitcom featured John Goodman, fresh from his tenure on the enormously
successful Roseanne, as Butch Gamble. A few years before, Butch had announced that he was
gay, and had moved to Santa Monica. In the pilot, he came back to attend the college graduation
of his son, Charlie. For the sake of his troubled son, and to the horror of his conformist family,
Butch decided to stick around. Butch‘s father, Bill, supplied a constant barrage of cringe-
inducing gay jokes, while his more tolerant mother, Joan, hoped he was only going through a
phase. The implication, of course, was that small-town midwesterners were unsure how to handle
homosexuality. Normal, Ohio didn‘t know how to handle the topic, either, awkwardly mixing
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heavy-handed social commentary with tired stereotypes, and the show was cancelled after just
six episodes.
The 2006 sitcom 10 Items or Less featured yet another Ohioan returning to his
hometown. In this case it was Leslie Pool, who moved to Dayton after his father‘s death to take
over Greens & Grains, a supermarket that had been in his family for five generations. He had a
tough task ahead of him because of competition from Super Value, a chain store located nearby.
The owners of Super Value were attempting to drive Greens & Grains out of business so they
could convert it into a parking lot, but Leslie was determined to stick it out. Greens & Grains
may have been intended as a metaphor for a common struggle in the small city Midwest—
maintaining local flavor amid the onslaught of standardized mass culture—but, like 3rd Rock and
Drew Carey, 10 Items or Less did not take itself very seriously. Whatever its message (if there
was one), 10 Items or Less found an audience, and it aired on cable‘s TBS network until 2009.
Although the show did contain some Fernwood-like elements, it represented a generally positive
spin on life in Ohio. According to the show‘s creator and star, Kansas native John Lehr, ―We
really want to get into the Midwestern element without making fun of it. It is a funny show
because of the dialogue, not because it takes place in the Midwest‖ (Lowry 2006: 1).
The title character of the 2000 comedy/drama Ed was another Ohio native returning
home to take charge of a crew of oddballs. Ed Stevens had been a successful attorney in New
York, but, in the course of one bad day, lost his job and discovered that his wife was having an
affair with the mailman. Dejected, and with not much else to do, he decided to head back to
(fictional) Stuckeyville. There Ed reconnected with schoolteacher Carol Vessey, a girl who he
had admired in high school, but never had the nerve to ask out. Carol was seeing someone else,
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but that did not deter him. He bought the local bowling alley, the Stuckeybowl, and set up his
own legal practice.
Ed had all the makings of a hit program. It had a talented cast, and writers with a
respectable pedigree—series creators Jon Beckerman and Rob Burnett had spent many years
writing for David Letterman. The show employed elements of a legal drama, but its closest
television relative was Northern Exposure. Ed contained the same quirky blend of comedy and
drama, the same romantic tension, and the same sort of likably eccentric characters that had
made its Alaskan counterpart a hit. It was a critical success, receiving three Emmy nominations
its first year, but failed to gain much of an audience. NBC stuck with the show for three full
seasons, trying it in three different time slots, but finally cancelled it midway through its fourth
year.
Despite its modest run, Ed was, in many ways, the quintessential Ohio television show.
Like Fernwood, Rutherford, and Drew Carey‘s Cleveland, Stuckeyville had its fair share of
quirky characters and unusual situations. The show‘s eccentricity was perhaps best exemplified
in the running gag in which Ed and his pal Mike would bribe one another to do something stupid
or humiliating—drink a whole bottle of maple syrup, eat dog food, touch a stranger‘s bald spot,
yell ―I love kitties‖ in public, ask for Kenny Rogers‘s autograph from a man who was clearly not
Kenny Rogers—for the princely sum of ten dollars. Ed definitely reflected the Ohio-as-
microcosm theme. Ed Stevens‘s cases were sometimes unusual, as when he represented a woman
suing her hairdresser over a bad prewedding haircut—but just as often they took a topical turn,
examining such issues as the health-care crisis, racism, sexual harassment, and gay rights.
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Stuckeyville was classic Middle America. The characters were prosperous, but not too
prosperous. They are ambitious, but not mercilessly so. Ed also contained the placid spirit of
Family Ties, with most of the characters coming off as warm and amiable, and combined it with
the blue-collar aesthetic of Drew Carey‘s Ohio. No one in Stuckeyville seemed to think twice
about a lawyer who dispensed free legal advice if his client bowled three games. Although the
show‘s audience was limited in number, it appears to have been broad, as evidenced by its
winning an award from both the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and The Family
Friendly Programming Forum. Stuckeyville came as close as any other Ohio setting to being the
idealized American hometown, a notion reflected by television critic Michael Abernethy:
―Despite the fact that I live in a beautiful neighborhood and have very nice neighbors, I have had
the urge to move for the last few weeks. I want to move to Stuckeyville, Ohio‖ (Abernethy
2010c: 1).
INDIANA
The demographic characteristics of Indiana‘s television settings are substantially different
from those of Ohio. Ohio is home to three of the Midwest‘s ten largest cities—Cincinnati,
Cleveland, and Columbus, while Indiana has only one. Still, since 1959 Ohio‘s large cities have
served as the setting for just six television programs while seven programs have been set in or
near Indianapolis, the largest metropolitan area in Indiana. Stranger still, while nearly half of
Ohio‘s television programs have taken place in fictional small towns, just one Indiana program
has, with the state‘s non-Indianapolis entries taking place in the mid-sized cities of Bloomington
and Muncie or in the Chicago suburbs of northwest Indiana. Finally, and even more unexpected,
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the themes, characters, and events of many of Indiana‘s television entries contrast sharply with
Michael Cayton‘s 2007 assessment of midwestern television:
Images of the Midwest on television conform to the stereotypes of
a bland region somewhere in the middle of the United States where
life is neither complicated nor sophisticated . . . . The region served
as a backdrop of heartland stability in an era of rapid social change
. . . . The overall image was of a safe, relatively nurturing place
where decent people lived and worked in a relatively timeless
world far from the social and cultural upheavals convulsing
America (Cayton 2007: 75).
Indiana‘s television landscape is surprising, not so much for what it contains, but for what it does
not. While many of the characters on its programs are not necessarily suave and sophisticated,
they are also not the polite, well-scrubbed, and guileless Hoosiers living a life of quiet serenity
that one might expect.
Indiana did not find its way to American televisions until 1975, but its first program
seemed predestined to be a hit. One Day at a Time was produced by Norman Lear, the guiding
force behind a number of popular 1970s sitcoms, including All in the Family, Maude, Good
Times, and The Jeffersons. The new show bore some resemblance to The Mary Tyler Moore
Show, another hit sitcom about a single woman in a Midwestern city, and it was given a plum
spot behind M*A*S*H on the CBS schedule. It did not disappoint. Despite a late arrival in
December 1975, One Day a Time managed to rank twelfth in the Nielsen ratings during its first
season, and peaked in eighth place the following year. It was in the Nielsen top ten for four
years, and in the top twenty for all but its ninth and final season.
Given its popularity, longevity, and the simple fact that it went first, One Day at a Time
must be considered the defining Indiana program. One prominent message sent by the series was
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that the contemporary urban Midwest was often anything but the safe and nurturing environment
described by Cayton. It was the story of a divorced working mother, Ann Romano, and her two
teenage daughters, Julie and Barbara. The three lived in an apartment in Indianapolis, where Ann
had to dodge the constant advances of Dwayne Schneider, the womanizing building
superintendent. Ann had married at seventeen, and was now single for the first time in years. She
didn‘t have a college education, and found few encouraging career prospects. Her exhusband had
recently lost his job, and could no longer afford child support, so Ann faced the daunting task of
raising her two daughters alone. In the words of the show‘s creator, Whitney Blake, ―Our
divorcee isn‘t a chicly turned out woman of the world. She is vulnerable and scared‖ (Mitz 1988:
301).
The Indianapolis of One Day at a Time displayed most of the ―social and cultural
upheavals convulsing America‖ at this time, as noted by television historian Cary O‘Dell:
The series, like other Lear comedies, strove to be topical,
progressive, even controversial, and to mix serious issues with
more comical elements . . . . The program centered around Ann
Romano, a television character who found herself struggling
through many of the same experiences facing real American
women . . . . Romano was not TV‘s first divorced woman or
mother, but she was probably—to that time—the most realistic
. . . . Its decision not to shy away from difficult themes, its warts
and all portrayal of contemporary life, especially of women‘s lives
and of female adolescence, sets it apart. Thus the series helped
expand the dimensions and role of U. S. television comedy (O‘Dell
2010: 1).
If Ann Romano was television‘s first realistic depiction of a divorced single mother, then
her daughters were the medium‘s first depiction of modern teenagers. One Day at a Time took
hard looks at a number of serious issues facing young women in the 1970s—virginity, sexuality,
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and birth control; alcohol and substance abuse, and teen suicide—the sorts of things that 1950s
and 1960s television teens never dreamed of. Julie, in particular, was a problem child, having an
affair with a forty-two-year old man and, at one point, contemplating dropping out of school.
One Day at a Time must be considered one of television‘s first ―dramedies.‖ Plenty of
laughs occurred, but all of the characters were graduates of the school of hard knocks. Julie
married in 1979, but her husband was quickly laid off from his job, forcing them to move to
Texas for work. When they eventually moved back to Indianapolis, Julie disappeared, leaving
her husband and young daughter behind. In 1981, Ann got engaged, but her fiancé was killed in
an auto accident by a drunk driver, and Ann became the legal guardian for his teen son.
Despite its significant departure from expectations of Midwest television programs, the
show did embody some of the region‘s signature characteristics. The heroines of Lear‘s New
York sitcoms were financially dependent upon their husbands, and two of them—Maude Findlay
and Louise Jefferson—had maids. Ann Romano did not have that option, and she displayed a
remarkable degree of midwestern industriousness. She began the show as a secretary, but when
one of her daughters entered college, Ann went to college as well. Once she had her degree, she
began a career in advertising, working her way to partner before leaving to start her own firm.
She worked so hard, in fact, that she drove herself to a heart attack, and received a ―finger-
wagging lecture from the doctor on the virtues of moderation in work‖ (Lichter, Licther and
Rothman 1991: 128). As the series ended, Ann was a comfortable upper-middle-class
professional, departing Indianapolis for an exciting new job in London.
Perhaps the most distinctively midwestern trait of One Day at a Time was its relatively
gentle nature. It was never cloying—this was a Lear sitcom, after all—and the barbs flew thick
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and fast in the Romano apartment, much as they did in the Bunker, Jefferson, and Findlay
households. One Day at a Time, however, possessed a warmer atmosphere than other Lear
comedies. Whether or not the program‘s writers were consciously injecting a spirit of
midwestern graciousness is a matter of speculation, but there is no doubt that there was slightly
more love, and much less nastiness, in the air in Indianapolis. In the words of Rick Mitz:
Ann Romano was . . . TV‘s first feminist—not a liberated
loudmouth like Maude, but a reasonable feminist . . . . Like other
Lear shows, One Day at a Time was still a member in good
standing of the Crisis-of-the-Week Club. It was always Big
Dilemmas that were being tackled . . . but they were solved and
resolved much more calmly and quietly than on All in the Family
or The Jeffersons; more discussion than outbursts of emotion.
Unlike most other Lear ventures, there was little controversy
surrounding the show. Not that it was bland. Just that it was
sensible . . . . Schneider seems to have been Lear‘s throwback to
Archie Bunker, but over the seasons he became more seasoned and
softened . . . . He became the friend of the family, Uncle Schneider
(Mitz 1988: 301-303).
Since One Day at a Time‘s 1975 debut, Indiana has been home to eleven more programs,
a respectable number, but none of these programs were especially successful. Six failed to last a
full year, two relocated to different locales after their first season, and another two were
cancelled midway through their second season. None of the four sitcoms that followed One Day
at a Time lasted long enough to make much of an impression. Breaking Away, a sitcom about
four buddies living in Bloomington, aired during 1980-1981 season. The most prominent theme
of Breaking Away was class warfare. Bloomington is home to Indiana University, and much of
the action involved friction between the four primary characters, who were high-school students,
and the university‘s snooty fraternity men, who haughtily referred to the townies as ―cutters,‖ a
reference to the Bloomington‘s working-class stonecutters. Dave was the leader of the gang, and
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his passion was bicycle racing. His father, Ray, was a former stonecutter who now worked as a
used-car dealer, and he wanted his idealistic son to ―settle down to a meat-and-potatoes existence
like his own‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 180). Cultural conflict and family differences also
highlighted the sitcom The 5 Mrs. Buchanans, which aired for seven months of the 1994-1995
season. Four of the title characters had little in common with one another except for the mutual
dislike of the fifth Mrs. Buchanan, their demanding mother-in-law. The four daughters-in-law
were a study in regional stereotypes. Alex was a ―fast-talking‖ New York Jew; Delilah the ―sexy,
sugary sweet and somewhat dimwitted Southerner;‖ Bree the extroverted Californian ―whose
youthful blonde good looks were the envy of her sisters-in-law‖; and Vivian, the ―obnoxious,
class-conscious Midwesterner‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 479). Most of the action took place in a
thrift store in suburban Indianapolis where the four daughters-in-law worked.
Set in Avon, near Indianapolis, the 1995 family sitcom The Jeff Foxworthy Show
continued the class warfare theme established in Breaking Away. The program featured
Foxworthy, American‘s most famous ―redneck‖ comedian, as the owner of a heating and air
conditioning company. His success had enabled him to move his wife and young son into an
upscale neighborhood, where his country ways were looked down upon by snooty neighbors, and
his conceited father-in-law, a college professor. ABC cancelled The Jeff Foxworthy show after
six months, and when NBC picked it up for a second season, the setting was changed to Georgia.
The wave of sitcoms featuring young, single friends hanging out that swept across
American television in the 1990s made its way to Indiana with Men Behaving Badly in 1996 and
Maggie Winters in 1998. Both had more in common with Cleveland‘s blue collar contribution to
this genre, The Drew Carey Show, than they did with New York‘s more fashionable entries,
Seinfeld and Friends. Men Behaving Badly was the story of two beer-guzzling slobs sharing an
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apartment in Indianapolis. James, a photographer, was a chauvinistic weasel, while roommate
Kevin, the manager of a security company, was a little more intelligent, and somewhat more
successful with women. The title character of Maggie Winters had divorced her cheating
husband and moved from Chicago back to her hometown of Shelbyville, an actual city of 17,000
located about twenty miles southwest of Indianapolis. She got a job at a local department store,
moved in with her ―dumpy, doting Mom,‖ and began to reconnect with old high school pals
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 834). Neither show was able to replicate the success of Drew Carey,
much less that of Seinfeld or Friends, and were cancelled midway through their second seasons.
Indiana‘s only fictional television town was Eerie, the setting of a campy comedy/drama
that aired during the 1991-1992 season. Eerie, Indiana belonged to the fish-out-of-water meets
oddballs-in-a-small-town category, a genre it shared with such programs as Northern Exposure
and Manhattan, AZ. Thirteen-year-old Marshall Teller and his family had recently relocated to
the appropriately named title town from New Jersey. Only Marshall and his new pal, Simon,
seemed to notice the strangeness. Among the town‘s residents were the pistol-packing mailman,
the caretaker of the Bureau of Lost Items (which contained, among other things, misplaced
socks), a woman who hermetically sealed her children every night to keep them young, dogs at
the local pound who were plotting an uprising, and, of course, Elvis Presley.
While Indiana‘s sitcoms have lacked the polish of similar programs set in New York, Los
Angeles, or even Chicago, none of them could exactly be called ―gritty.‖ The state‘s sitcom
residents, particularly those on One Day at a Time, had their trials, to be sure, but crime, poverty,
and tragedy were largely absent from Indiana‘s television landscape through the 1990s. That is
not too surprising, given that all seven Indiana-based programs that debuted between 1975 and
1999 were comedies. Things changed significantly with the dawn of a new century. All five
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Indiana-based programs that debuted between 2003 and 2007 were either dramas or reality
programs, and four of them presented a considerably darker take on the Hoosier state.
The crime drama 1-800-Missing, which premiered in 2003, was the story of Jess
Mastriani, a recent college graduate who, as a result of having been struck by lightning, began
having visions that helped the F. B. I. solve missing persons cases. 1-800-Missing‘s setting
shifted to Quantico, Virginia, in its second season, but Indiana‘s television landscape wasn‘t safe
for long. An Indianapolis-based legal drama, Close to Home, debuted in 2005 and aired for
nearly two full seasons. It was the story of Annabeth Chase, a dedicated prosecuting attorney
who had recently returned to work after giving birth to her first child. Given its pleasant
suburban setting, the outlook was remarkable bleak. Annabeth‘s husband was killed by a drunk
driver, her best friend was gunned down by the mob, and her work as a prosecutor constantly
exposed her to the dregs of society. As noted by critic Cynthia Fuchs, horrific events abounded:
Violence and oppression are everywhere in Close to Home. And
that ―everywhere‖ is specific—the burbs, outfitted with lawns and
driveways and pretty white houses with no bars on the windows.
The first episode of the new CBS series began with a sort of tone
poem comparing the ideal and the danger of the domestic sphere
. . . . As the soundtrack grows ominous, new mom Annabeth
cuddled and splashed her baby, down the street, sirens sounded. A
fast-building fire raged, burning down a home and bringing out the
slow-motioned firemen, one going so far as to roar in slow-audio,
―Weee gawwwwt peeeeple in therrrrre!‖ The shape and point of
these dramatic couple of minutes are hardly standard for network
TV, where most times, the city is the site of trauma and the
suburbs where everybody loves their well-intentioned patriarchs.
But in the Indiana burbs of . . . Close to Home, something like evil
lurks perpetually (Fuchs 2005c: 1).
Two of Indiana‘s reality entries, Armed and Famous and Juvies, both of which aired in
2007, provided a similarly grim take on Indiana. Armed and Famous featured a group of B-list
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celebrities and their stint as reserve officers for the Muncie Police department. After training,
each celebrity was paired with a Muncie police officer for actual street patrol. While it was
difficult to take this show seriously, it did deal with real issues, and didn‘t do Muncie‘s image
any favors. On the street the cops and their celebrity sidekicks encountered, among other things,
burglars, shoplifters, drug dealers, drunk drivers, and even a murder suspect. Juvies was even
more serious and sobering, following adolescent criminals at the Lake County Juvenile
Detention Facility in northwest Indiana‘s Crown Point. The offenders were in for such crimes as
assault, drug use, and drinking, and the show followed their rehabilitation and featured
recreations of their crimes.
Three television Indianans played closer to the midwestern archetype. Michael Essany,
Jim Gaffigan, and Woody Boyd all appeared to be products of the safe, nurturing, uncomplicated
and unsophisticated environment described by Cayton, but only one of them was actually seen is
his native habitat. The Michael Essany Show, a reality show that aired in 2003 on the E!
Entertainment cable network, featured a nineteen-year-old college freshman from Valparaiso
who had been producing a cable talk show from his parents‘ living room since he was fourteen.
This program was not the talk show itself, but a behind-the-scenes look at the life of the ―fresh-
faced, deferential, yet confident‖ young man (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 890). It ran for just
thirteen weeks, and the fame it afforded Essany did not get the best of him. He continues to live
in Valparaiso, where he publishes motivational books and, as might be expected of an ambitious
midwesterner, works as an executive of the Indiana Grain Company.
Two of television‘s Indiana archetypes were not seen in their native state, but as
neophytes in large eastern cities. One was comedian and Indiana native Jim Gaffigan, who
played a character of the same name on the sitcom Welcome to New York. Produced by another
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Indiana native, David Letterman, the show premiered in 2000 and aired for four months. The
fictional Jim was a Ft. Wayne weatherman who had recently taken a job at a television station in
New York City, where his coworkers included Marsha, the brusque producer; Amy, the brash
production assistant; and Adrian, the station‘s self-absorbed news anchor. Much of the humor
derived from uneasy interaction between the earnest, mild-mannered Hoosier and the snarky,
worldly New Yorkers. In the pilot episode, Marsha met Jim for the first time in New York, and
taken aback by his plain appearance, said: ―Somehow you looked elegant in Indiana surrounded
by the pear-shaped folk.‖ In another episode, Jim landed two tickets to a Colts-Jets game, and
offered one to Marsha, who responded ―Maybe in Indiana it‘s okay to fraternize with your co-
workers at T. G. I. Fridays, share your onion rings and nacho supremes, but this is New York.‖
Adrian then snatched both tickets from Jim‘s hand before even being invited and attempted to
suck up to Marsha by offering her the tickets. When that didn‘t work, he scalped them to the
FedEx man for cash. A frustrated Jim went to Marsha‘s office to complain:
JIM: Back in Indiana, tickets aren‘t some form of currency used to
manipulate people or to make a quick buck.
MARSHA: That‘s because tickets hold very little value when they
are to a . . .
AMY: Tractor pull. (Tropiano 2010: 1).
Despite these regional digs, the show was not entirely devoted to slandering Indianans. Gaffigan,
in the words of critic Stephen Tropiano, ―never comes across like a stereotypical midwestern
hick, but rather, as someone who‘s smart and perceptive, only having a little trouble keeping up
with his co-workers‘ snideness‖ (Tropiano 2010: 1).
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The experience of Gaffigan‘s character resembled that of Letterman (who had started his
career as a weatherman), and it was also somewhat similar to the experience of another Indiana
innocent living in the big city. Huckleberry Tiberius ―Woody‖ Boyd, played by Woody
Harrelson, became a bartender at Cheers in the hit Boston sitcom‘s fourth season. Even though
viewers of the show never saw Woody in his (fictional) hometown of Hanover, it is arguable that
he is television‘s most famous Hoosier, and that Hanover is Indiana‘s most famous television
town. It is also arguable that no television character, with the possible exception of M*A*S*H‘s
Radar O‘Reilly, ever played midwestern stereotypes to the hilt quite like Woody Boyd.
Some of those stereotypes surely displeased Indiana viewers. Hanover‘s claims to fame
were being both the UFO and the placemat capitals of the world. It was a town where women
who became pregnant out of wedlock were stoned for moral turpitude, where people who
welshed on bets were rubbed in bacon fat and locked in a sty with ―Romeo the friendly hog,‖ and
where bachelor parties involved dressing farm animals in women‘s clothing. Woody once
recalled an old Hanover saying—―the pigs are smarter than the people‖—and then added that
this saying was invented by tourists (Bjorklund 1997: 206).
Not all of the Indiana jokes on Cheers poked fun at bizarre backwardness. Just as often,
the humor contrasted Woody‘s cheerfully optimistic attitude with what sounded like an
unbelievably tragic Indiana childhood. He once maimed a man in a bowling accident, suffered
from smallpox, survived a cave-in, and fell off of a beanstalk, puncturing a lung and cracking
two ribs. When a snarky Cheers denizen accused him of having just fallen off the turnip truck,
Woody admitted that, in fact, he had once fallen off a turnip truck, which dragged him 300 yards
down a gravel road and into a rose bush. After hearing the story, someone asked Woody if he
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had any fond memories from childhood, to which Woody responded ―the roses smelled nice‖
(Bjorklund 1997: 204).
Despite the barrage of tragic and disturbing stories from Hanover, one cannot regard the
character of Woody Boyd as a wholly negative representation of Indiana. He was immensely
likable, never failed to be honest and faithful, and was a true optimist. A devout Lutheran
(Missouri Synod), Woody volunteered at a suicide hotline and cooked and delivered meals to the
elderly. He was also ambitious, actually getting himself elected to Boston‘s city council during
the final season of Cheers. And although he was the constant target of jabs from his more
sophisticated friends, Woody‘s guileless character frequently exposed the often petty, bitter, and
desolate lives of modern American urbanites around him. In one episode, Rebecca Howe, who
was trying to live a healthier lifestyle, had a typical exchange with Woody:
REBECCA: Until I began eating clean, I never realized how a good a
nice, dry, rice cake could taste.
WOODY: How can you eat those, Miss Howe? They don‘t have any
flavor.
REBECCA: Oh, if I eat these I‘ll live longer.
WOODY: Well, I have a question. You know how you‘re always
talking about how you hate your life? How come you want to make
it longer?
REBECCA: Shut up, Woody (Paramount 2008).
ILLINOIS
Illinois has been the setting or origin for 150 television programs, ranking a respectable
but distant third behind California and New York. The majority of those states‘ programs have
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been set in or near Los Angeles or New York City, and Illinois‘s television landscape has
followed suit. Only three of the state‘s programs have taken place outside the Chicago area, and
those three did not stray far. The first was 1950‘s Hawkins Falls, Population 6,200. This
fictional title town was modeled after the real-life town of Woodstock, located about forty miles
northwest of Chicago. The second was the short-lived 1993 sitcom A League of Their Own, set in
Rockford, about seventy miles northwest of the city. The third, and most significant, was
Roseanne, the state‘s most popular situation comedy, which was set in the small town of
Lanford, Illinois. Lanford is fictional, but the nearest large city referenced on the program was
Elgin, which is located on the northwest edge of the Chicago metro area, about twenty-five miles
from the city proper.
Of the state‘s 150 entries, ninety-eight (about two-thirds) have been serialized, fictional
dramas or comedies. The remaining third have come from a wide variety of formats, many of
them originating live from Chicago, and mostly before 1958. They included eighteen musical
programs, seven quiz shows, six anthology programs, six variety shows, and four children‘s
programs. Chicago also served up five instructional/educational shows, four sports programs,
and three programs each in the documentary/reality and discussion/commentary genres.
The first variety show to originate from Chicago was ABC‘s short-lived Vaudeo
Varieties, which began its four month run on January 14, 1949. NBC‘s first Chicago-based
variety program debuted that April, and introduced one of early television‘s most influential
figures. Garroway at Large, featuring both guest stars and regular performers, was hosted by the
amiable Dave Garroway. Raised in St. Louis, Garroway brought a quirky, self-deprecating sense
of humor to the show—a style not unlike that of later television icons, and fellow midwesterners,
Johnny Carson and David Letterman. His program, like those of Carson and Letterman, was
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casually cool and little off-kilter, featuring, for example, a summer broadcast from the roof of
Chicago‘s NBC studios, and a New Year‘s Eve broadcast that honored the building‘s cleaning
women. The show was a low-budget affair, but rather than trying to mask the fact, Garroway
exploited it, producing an intimacy and warmth absent from the slick, high-budget variety
programs originating from New York or Los Angeles. Television historian Joel Sternberg
described the show‘s charm:
Taking advantage of Garroway‘s intellect, unique personality and
relaxed, intimate broadcasting style, Garroway at Large scripts
were more conceptual than specific and placed minimal emphasis
on elaborate production . . . . The show worked to create illusions
and gently shatter them with the reality of the television studio. In
the best tradition of Chinese Opera, commedia dell‘arte, or the
Pirandellian manipulation of reality, Garroway would wander in
and out of scenes or from behind sets stopping to hold quiet
conversations with occasional guest celebrities, the home viewing
audience, technicians and cast members . . . . Using raised
eyebrows, slight gestures and knowing shrugs, he communicated
eloquently and brought a ―cool,‖ glib and wry offbeat humor to
prime time television (Sternberg 2010: 1).
Garroway at Large is frequently cited as the archetypal example of the ―Chicago School‖
of television broadcasting. While the city‘s role as a significant source of national primetime
programming would be short-lived, it is difficult to overstate the influence that Garroway and
other early Chicago broadcasters had on the medium. Whereas early television efforts from New
York and Los Angeles were awkward attempts to retrofit Broadway and Hollywood for the small
screen, Chicago‘s television minds were aware that a new medium required new thinking. Radio
icon Fred Allen, whose venture into television was a notorious flop, blamed this failure on the
fact that he didn‘t produce the show in Chicago. In a 1951 article from Theatre Arts magazine,
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he went so far as to say: ―They ought to tear down Radio City, rebuild it in Chicago and call it
‗Television Town.‘‖ The same article went on to illustrate the influence of the Chicago School:
Of television‘s total output, a scant five percent originates in
Chicago. But it surpasses others for ingenuity, charm and
distinctive showmanship. In Chicago, bless their integrity, they‘re
copying neither the New York stage not the Hollywood cinema.
They‘re evolving an art form that is peculiarly television‘s own
. . . . Chicago improvised first with the cameras. This was the
boldest stroke of all. And the best camera you‘re likely to see on
video today is, more often than not, on a Chicago show . . . . They
use a TV camera the way an artist uses a brush . . . . And you, the
viewer, get a view of the show that transcends description. Do you
wonder that people in the trade say the Chicago touch is to
television what the French touch is to cooking. It‘s that je ne sais
quoi, that zest plus. You can‘t define it, but oh what a pleasure to
savor it . . . . If the day ever comes when television establishes a
true ―academy,‖ a place where the young and hopeful may go to
learn the art of television programming, Chicago is the only
conceivable place for such an institution (Van Horne 1951: 36-39).
Garroway at Large premiered in 1949, and was followed the next year by three more
Chicago-based variety programs. One featured the legendary Chicago radio broadcaster Don
McNeill, whose Breakfast Club program had first aired on network radio in 1933. Like
Garroway, McNeill‘s style was unassuming and sincere, one that had enabled him to ―almost
singlehandedly turn early-morning network radio into a profitable medium‖ (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 378). Don McNeill TV Club brought the radio show to the small screen almost intact,
featuring the same off-the-cuff interviews, musical numbers, comedy acts, and McNeill‘s
trademark sign-off, ―Be good to yourself‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 378). Another of NBC‘s
1950 offerings was the Chicago variety show Saturday Square. Broadcast from a mock-up of a
Chicago street scene, viewers were invited to wander about the square watching music, comedy,
or other variety acts. Among the Saturday Square venues was a tavern run by garrulous author
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and radio host Studs Terkel. Saturday Square was not very successful, but the Terkel element
was popular enough to get its own program, which first aired in October of 1950. Studs‟ Place
featured Terkel as the owner of a Chicago barbecue joint that hosted occasional music or comedy
acts, but the main attraction was the ―philosophical ramblings of its star‖ (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 1,325).
―It was on Studs' Place,‖ wrote the Chicago Tribune‘s Rick Kogan, ―that large numbers
of people discovered what Terkel did best—talk and listen.‖
Terkel, arms waving, words exploding in bursts, leaning close to
his talking companions, didn‘t merely conduct interviews. He
engaged in conversations. He was interested in what he was talking
about and who he was talking to (Kogan 2008: 1).
In contrast to the informal styles of Garroway, Terkel, and McNeill, The Jack Carter
Show was a slick variety hour hosted by the title stand-up comedian. Featuring musical acts,
comedy sketches, a big budget and big names, Jack Carter was the Chicago counterpart to Sid
Caesar and Imogene Coca‘s Your Show of Shows, which it preceded on NBC‘s live Saturday
night line-up in the spring of 1950. When Jack Carter returned to the air in the fall of 1950,
production had shifted to New York. Dave Garroway followed suit in 1951, moving to New
York to begin his influential stint as the inaugural host of NBC‘s Today Show. Whether it was
the time of day or the medium, viewers never responded to Don McNeill‘s evening television
program, and the TV Club was cancelled in December 1951. After a failed attempt at daytime
television three years later, McNeill abandoned the medium altogether. He remained a force on
radio, though, with his Breakfast Club continuing to run until 1968. Studs‟ Place left the air in
1952, not because of a lack of interest, but because of opposition he generated in certain circles.
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―I was blacklisted because I took certain positions on things and never retracted,‖ said Terkel. ―I
signed many petitions that were for unfashionable causes and never retracted.‖ Like McNeill,
Terkel returned to radio and, remarkably, remained on the air until 1998. He signed off from his
last broadcast with his trademark phrase, ―Take it easy, but take it‖ (Kogan 2008: 1).
Chicago‘s early television landscape also featured a number of pioneering children‘s
programs, including the critically acclaimed puppet show, Kukla, Fran & Ollie. Puppeteer Burr
Tillstrom, hostess Fran Allison, and their Kuklapolitan Players were part of NBC‘s primetime
schedule from 1948 to 1952, and ABC‘s evening slate from 1954 to 1957. While both primetime
runs were respectable, the show‘s off-primetime lifespan was nothing short of remarkable.
Originally titled Junior Jamboree, the program was first seen on experimental television
broadcasts in 1939. It became a regular series in Chicago in 1947, and continued to run on
NBC‘s daytime schedule, on PBS, and in syndication from time to time until 1972.
Chicago‘s second network children‘s program was the cut-rate Cactus Jim, on which the
title cowboy hosted old Western serials. The program premiered in 1949 and aired for two years
on NBC. Two short-lived 1950 children‘s entries were Sandy Strong, a puppet show, and The
Magic Slate, which featured children‘s stories performed by Chicago‘s Goodman Children‘s
Theater.
The first instructional/educational program to originate from Chicago debuted in 1949.
Dr. Fix-Um, which aired for fifteen months, was a pioneer of the do-it-yourself genre, offering
tips and demonstrations for household repairs. R. F. D. America featured similar instruction
about plants and animals, including, in true Chicago fashion, meat-carving. This show, which ran
for five months, is notable for being the first program to broadcast an entire herd of cattle being
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driven into a television studio. Chicago‘s third 1949 instructional entry was the youth-oriented
Science Circus, which aired for three months. Pet Shop, which debuted in 1951 aired for sixteen
months, featured guests and their pets, and provided information about pet adoption. Chicago‘s
most memorable contribution to educational programming, however, was the venerable Watch
Mr. Wizard, with Don Herbert and his kid-friendly science experiments. The show aired in
primetime from 1951 to 1955, when its time slot was changed to Saturday mornings and
production shifted to New York.
Seven quiz shows originated from Chicago during television‘s early years, the first four
debuting on ABC in 1949. Identify, a sports program, premiered in February of that year,
followed in April by Majority Rules, Treasure Quest, and Ladies Be Seated. None of these
entries lasted more than a year, and neither did ABC‘s last Chicago-based quiz show, Sit or Miss,
which aired for three months in 1950. The only DuMont quiz show to originate from Chicago
was one of the network‘s most popular programs, Down You Go, which debuted in May, 1951.
This show, based on the simple hangman word game, was regarded as one of the ―wittiest, most
intelligent,‖ representatives of its genre (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 386). Much of the show‘s
charm derived from the wit of its host, Northwestern University English professor Bergan Evans.
Production of the show shifted to New York in December, 1954, and the show was popular
enough to survive the demise of DuMont, airing for a time on each of the other three major
networks through 1956. Another popular Chicago-based program, Quiz Kids, had been heard on
the radio for nearly a decade when it was brought to NBC‘s evening television schedule in the
spring of 1949. The show featured a panel of young people—aged six to sixteen—who amazed
the audience by coolly answering a series of exceptionally tough questions. The show ended its
primetime run on NBC in the fall of 1952, but was revived briefly by CBS in 1953 and again in
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1956. The second Chicago-based quiz show to appear on NBC was the word game Super Ghost,
which aired in the summers of 1953 and 1954.
Chicago‘s early musical entries were mainly fodder for the lesser networks—emerging
ABC and doomed DuMont. CBS did not air any primetime musical programs from Chicago, and
NBC just two—Chicago Jazz, which ran for five weeks in late 1949, and Wayne King, which
aired for two and a half years, but only on NBC‘s Midwest stations. The ABC network led the
way with Music in Velvet, a low key music and dance program that premiered on January 16,
1949, and ran for four months. Other short-lived musical offerings from ABC in 1949 included
The Skip Farrell Show, Sing-Co-Pation, The Little Revue, and ABC Barn Dance, the last a
televised version of the country music radio program National Barn Dance, which had aired on
Chicago‘s WLS since 1924. ABC‘s 1950 musical offerings included In the Morgan Manner, a
variety program featuring the musical stylings of Russ Morgan and his Orchestra, and Tin Pan
Alley TV, which featured music from a different composer each week. ABC revived Music in
Velvet for a short run in 1951, and the network‘s Chicago Symphony Chamber Orchestra aired
for most of the 1951-1952 season. ABC‘s last musical offerings from Chicago were thoroughly
midwestern, but ultimately short-lived. Polka Time aired during the 1956-1957 season, and
Polka-Go-Round during the 1958-1959 season.
DuMont‘s first Chicago musical entry was Al Morgan. Featuring the title singer and
pianist, it aired for about two years beginning in September, 1949. Two 1950 entries from
DuMont included Windy City Jamboree and Rhythm Rodeo, both of which were pulverized in
the ratings by Ed Sullivan. DuMont‘s increasingly bare cupboard was reflected in the spartan
titles of its next two musical programs—Music from Chicago, which aired in 1951, and The
Music Show, which premiered in the spring of 1953 and lasted for fifteen months. The network‘s
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final Chicago musical entry, Chicago Symphony, debuted early in 1954 and aired for fifteen
months. It featured classical music and expert commentary about the evening‘s compositions.
In addition to coverage of the city‘s professional franchises, Chicago has hosted four
primetime sports entries, including Harness Racing from Maywood Park in 1951 and Stock Car
Races from the 87th Street Speedway in 1952. National Bowling Champions, which was
broadcast live from Chicago for nine months in 1956 and for four months in 1957, featured a pair
of contestants competing in a three-game match, with the winner returning the next week to
defend his title. Baseball Corner, which featured news, films, and interviews, originated from
Chicago during the 1958 baseball season.
A number of successful daytime talk shows have Chicago roots, the most notable entries
being those hosted by Oprah Winfrey, Phil Donahue, and Jerry Springer. Three primetime
commentary programs also have originated from the city, including What Do You Think?, a
short-lived book discussion program that debuted in January, 1949, and Paul Harvey News, a
folksy commentary that aired during the 1952-1953 season. One of the most popular and durable
syndicated programs to originate from Chicago would come years later. At the Movies, featuring
the infamous ―thumbs up‖ or ―thumbs down‖ movie reviews of a pair of contentious critics—
originally Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times—
debuted in 1986 and aired for two decades.
At the Movies was the last successful, unscripted, primetime program to originate from
Chicago. The city would not be much of a factor in the torrent of reality/competition programs
that hit the small screen in the 2000s. Its lone entry, a flop, was nevertheless an appropriate
choice for a city whose television programs have, more often than not, leaned toward comedy.
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My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss brought twelve contestants to Chicago to compete for a job with a
huge investment company called IOCOR, headed by Mr. N. Paul Todd. The twelve were
subjected to an array of insane challenges, including selling steaming-hot bowls of soup on the
Chicago sidewalks in the middle of summer, and creating a cute mascot for a manufacturer of
toxic chemicals. If this all sounds a bit like Donald Trump‘s The Apprentice, that is no
coincidence. Unbeknownst to the contestants, Obnoxious Boss was a hoax. IOCOR did not exist,
Mr. N. Paul Todd (an anagram for Donald Trump) was played by an actor, and all of the
decisions were actually being made by a wheel-spinning, business-suited monkey. The
contestants were not amused and neither were the viewers. The show as pulled after five weeks.
Chicago‘s two other recent unscripted entries were far more earnest, resembling
conventional documentaries more than reality fare. Both dealt with similar topics, and both had a
striking thematic resemblance to the hit John Hughes films of the 1980s that depicted the angst-
ridden life of local high school students. Yearbook, which aired for three months in 1991,
followed the home and school lives of a group of seniors at Glenbard West High School in the
western suburb of Glen Ellyn. American High appeared nine years later, this time following the
lives of students at Highland Park High School in the northern suburbs. Both were relatively
sincere assessments of the hopes and anxieties associated with grades, dating, sports, identity,
and growing up. American High‘s initial ratings were poor, and FOX pulled the show after two
weeks. The show was then picked up by PBS, which ran the entire series, winning an Emmy for
Outstanding Non-Fiction Program.
The majority of Illinois‘s television entries have been fictional, including six anthology
series, all of which aired in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Some of those were relatively standard
and forgettable, including the mystery anthology Mr. Black and the low-budget legal anthology
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Your Witness, both of which began their short runs on ABC in 1949. Another unremarkable
Chicago-based anthology series, seen only on NBC‘s Midwest network, was Short Story
Playhouse, which aired during the summer of 1951.
A few of the live anthology programs were more memorable examples of the ―Chicago
School,‖ constructed around unique premises and relying heavily on improvisation. One of the
earliest programs was ABC‘s entry Stump the Authors, which premiered on January 15, 1949 and
ran for three months. This program involved the title authors creating a story based on a random
set of props they had been given. NBC‘s first live Chicago-based anthology series was The
Crisis, which aired for three months in the fall of 1949. Each week a guest would tell about a
dramatic event that had happened in his or her own life. The story would end when it reached a
critical moment, and the show‘s actors would then improvise a scene detailing what they
imagined might have happened next.
The most popular of the early anthology programs was the legal drama They Stand
Accused, which first aired on CBS in 1949, and continued its run on DuMont from 1949 to 1954.
The setting was a courtroom where the cases ranged from standard civil disputes to more serious
criminal cases, including homicide. The trials were fictionalized versions of actual cases from
the desk of Illinois Assistant Attorney William Wines, who debriefed the trial‘s participants
before the show. Plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses were all professional actors, but the judges
and lawyers were real, and the trial played out in a spontaneous, improvised fashion before the
studio audience, who then served as jury. ―So realistic was the presentation,‖ wrote Brooks and
Marsh, ―that many viewers were convinced that they were watching a real trial‖ (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 1,378).
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All of Illinois‘s remaining ninety-seven programs have been serialized—fictional
programs with recurring plots, settings, and characters—and, of those, thirty-seven, or just over a
third, have been dramatic series. Within television‘s dramatic genre are numerous subgenres, the
most popular being westerns, professional dramas, soap operas, family dramas and crime and
mystery dramas. Chicago, of course, has not been the setting for any westerns, although the
protagonist in 1959‘s The Man from Blackhawk, which featured an insurance investigator who
travelled throughout the frontier West, did work for a Chicago-based firm.
Virtual battalions of lawyers and judges have populated American television dramas for
decades, but for whatever reason, most of those televised professionals have chosen not to call
Chicago home. There have been, in fact, only two dramas that focused exclusively on legal
matters in the city‘s television history, and both were live anthologies (Your Witness and They
Stand Accused, described above) that first originated from Chicago in 1949. The closest that
fictional Chicago lawyers ever got to having a serialized show was the ninety-minute drama
Chicago Story. This was a unique attempt to crossbreed crime with legal and medical dramas,
featuring a public defender, an assistant district attorney, a group of police officers, and a pair of
trauma surgeons at Cook County Hospital. The format was simple—the cops would chase the
crooks, someone would wind up in the hospital, and then the crooks would go to trial. Perhaps it
was all just a bit too much—Chicago Story lasted just six months in the summer of 1982.
Chicago‘s television cops would have plenty of other opportunities to showcase their talents, but
the city‘s attorneys have otherwise been shut out.
Although a portion of the short-lived 1965 soap opera Our Private World involved life at
a Chicago hospital, medical dramas have also been relatively scarce. This is somewhat
unexpected, not only because of the general popularity of the genre, but also because the two
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programs that ventured into Chicago‘s hospitals were quite popular. Chicago‘s ER proved to be
the most durable medical drama in the history of the medium, but it was not Chicago‘s only hit
in this genre, nor was it technically the first. Chicago Hope made its debut on Sunday,
September 18, 1994, with ER premiering the next evening. Both shows then moved to their
regular Thursday night position on the fall schedule, and ran opposite one another for a time.
These series focused on the professional and personal dilemmas of their talented staffs. The
physicians at the title hospital of Chicago Hope were led by Dr. Jeffrey Geiger, a stubborn,
insensitive, ill-tempered, but exceptionally skillful physician with a penchant for risky and
revolutionary medical procedures. His personality stood in stark contrast to that of his best
friend, Dr. Aaron Shutt, who was subdued, amiable, and kindhearted. They often clashed with
Dr. Phillip Watters, the harried hospital chief who struggled to reconcile the needs of his staff
and patients with Draconian budget cuts imposed by the hospital administration. While Chicago
Hope‘s staff performed miracles on the job, their personal lives, in the fashion of most
contemporary medical dramas, were a mess. Geiger‘s wife had murdered their young son and
was in a mental institution; Shutt was in a bitter child custody battle; and the rest of the staff
dealt with divorce, affairs, suicide, and addiction. The drama largely stayed within the walls of
the state-of-the-art hospital, although some of the story arcs put Chicago‘s darker side on display,
such as when Alan Birch, the hospital‘s legal counsel, was gunned down by a member of a street
gang.
Chicago Hope had a respectable six-year run, placing in the Nielsen top thirty during its
first three years. Its success, however, was dwarfed by that of rival ER, which emerged as one of
the most popular dramas in the history of television, exceeded only by Gunsmoke in terms of
popularity and longevity. ER checked in as the second-most-popular program of the 1994-1995
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season, propelled actor George Clooney to Hollywood stardom, and went on to anchor NBC‘s
Thursday night line-up for fifteen years. It was the most-watched program on television for three
seasons, including two consecutive years, and in the Nielsen top five for each of its first nine
seasons. In addition to its runaway popularity, ER was a critical success, taking home twenty-
three Emmys, including one for Outstanding Drama Series.
Set in the emergency room at Chicago‘s (fictional) County General Hospital, the
characters and plot lines of ER were not profoundly different from those of Chicago Hope. The
original crew included Dr. Doug Ross, a handsome pediatrician; Dr. Mark Greene, the quietly
intense chief resident; Dr. Susan Lewis, a lonely resident; Carol Hathaway, the emotionally
troubled head nurse who had recently survived a drug overdose; Dr. Peter Benton, an ill-
tempered but skillful surgeon; and Dr. John Carter, a rookie resident who was a bit overwhelmed
by it all. The doctors and nurses usually performed several medical miracles per episode, often
involving controversial and unauthorized procedures, and they wrestled with such ethical
dilemmas as assisted suicide. Their personal lives were, of course, messy. Doug Ross had had a
traumatic childhood, which he dealt with by tirelessly devoting himself to young patients and
sleeping with anything that moved. In one memorable episode, Ross awoke to find his one-night
stand dead, and was forced to admit to investigating police officers that he didn‘t know her
name. Mark Greene‘s marriage to Jennifer, an ambitious lawyer, fell apart, and she moved to St.
Louis along with their daughter Rachel. Mark eventually started to put his life back together. He
fell in love, got remarried, and promptly dropped dead of a brain tumor. Dr. Benton dealt with
his mother‘s dementia and eventual death, and then with his son‘s deafness. He also fell in love
with his mother‘s physical therapist, Jeanie Boulet, who he later discovered was HIV-positive.
All of this, of course, was only the beginning.
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The show‘s trademark was a pressure-cooker atmosphere. ER was created by author,
physician, and media mogul Michael Crichton, who meant the show to be ―an uncompromising
look at the relentless stresses attending the lives of overworked residents in an urban emergency
room.‖ He succeeded, according to critic John G. Nettles, who described ER as a ―quantum leap
beyond the sedate theatrics of most medical dramas—only M*A*S*H ever came as close to
depicting this kind of nerve-wracking chaos‖ (Nettles 2010a: 1). A breathless pace was
established right from the start. The ninety-minute pilot episode featured eighty-seven speaking
parts and chronicled forty-five separate medical emergencies. To create a sense of urgency, the
cameras were constantly moving, the sound effects loud and abrupt, and the sets intentionally
claustrophobic.
Like Chicago Hope, most of the action was confined to the hospital, but Chicago was a
more active character on ER. City streets were seldom seen, but there was always the implication
that, just beyond the sliding glass doors, a frigid world pulsated with violence, squalor, and
tragedy. The drama of an emergency room is, of course, supplied by emergencies, and the
Chicago of ER provided a steady stream of them. In addition to the bloody aftermath of
shootings, car crashes, and freak accidents, the staff of ER dealt with the grim realities of
abandoned children, suicide attempts, child prostitutes, and methadone-addicted infants. On one
episode, an ER doctor was beaten by someone angry over a patient‘s death. On another, a doctor
was stabbed by a deranged patient, and, in one of the more memorable doses of comeuppance in
television history, villainous Dr. Robert Romano had his arm sliced off by a helicopter. Critic
Jeff Alexander described ER‘s hectic atmosphere as follows:
In the late eighties and early nineties, everyone I knew was
complaining about how long you had to wait every time you went
to the emergency room . . . . Then ER premiered and we quickly
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got to see why: it‘s because doctors and nurses are too busy
swarming around victims of car and subway accidents . . . . And
that‘s before the paramedics start slamming their gurneys laden
with yet more grisly products of the latest traffic holocaust through
those incredible noisy double doors. Emergency-room people don‘t
have time for me and you, because as soon as they‘re done flailing
and tubing and jargoning and statting around one poor maimed
bastard, another one (or fifty) is on the way (Alexander 2008: 119).
The gritty atmosphere of ER fit in nicely with that of many of other Chicago dramas.
Twenty-three, or just under two-thirds, of Chicago‘s dramatic offerings have been about crime.
Lawmen were, in fact, featured on the first network program to originate from the city. ABC‘s
live Stand by for Crime was the first program broadcast from Chicago to the east coast,
beginning on January 11, 1949. Like many other local programs of that period, the formula of
Stand by for Crime was unique. Viewers were shown the action leading up to the point of the
crime, usually a murder, which would then be investigated by Chicago detectives Webb, Kidd,
and Kramer. Before the mystery was resolved, however, the program was stopped, allowing
viewers to phone in their guesses of who had committed the crime. The show was not especially
popular among eastern audiences, and was cancelled after eight months. Stand by for Crime was
most notable for including the network television debut of Myron Wallace, the young actor who
played Lieutenant Kidd. Myron would later change his first name to Mike, and become
something of a television institution on 60 Minutes. Chicago‘s second police drama,
Chicagoland Mystery Players, featured a team of criminologists tracking down wrong-doers and
made its debut on the DuMont network in 1949. This show ran for eleven months, and would be
the last crime drama to originate live from Chicago.
The city‘s crime fighters returned to the air in 1957 with M Squad, an exceptionally gritty
program about an elite detective unit (the ―M‖ stood for ―murder‖) of the Chicago Police. The
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show featured Lee Marvin as the tall, menacing, gravelly voiced leader, Lt. Frank Ballinger.
With a cigarette clinched between tight lips and a snap-brim fedora jammed on his head,
Ballinger and his squad were prototypes for nearly all of Chicago‘s subsequent crime shows. ―M
Squad was as square as an LP jacket, and just about as old-fashioned,‖ wrote critic Noel Murray,
―but it was also more action-packed and gritty than the average TV procedural of its era.‖
From the establishing shots of snowy Chicago streets to the tours
of drug dens and seedy brothels, M Squad sports a down-to-earth
verisimilitude that helps it overcome the conventionality of its
storytelling. The show is also elevated by Marvin, a flat-faced
macho man who didn‘t go in for the robotic professionalism and
morally righteous anger of Dragnet‘s Jack Webb. On M Squad,
Marvin‘s detective showed flashes of fear and frustration, and
would even confess in voiceover, ―Sometimes I feel like giving my
job up to the first guy who comes along.‖ The Chicago underworld
hated him, and his bosses rode him hard. But before each half-hour
was up, he'd put another bad guy behind bars (Murray 2008: 1).
Critic Ken Tucker agreed that, while Chicago‘s M Squad bore a strong procedural resemblance
to its Los Angeles counterpart, it had an atmosphere that was substantially different from
Dragnet:
Unlike the stiff Jack Webb in that series . . . Marvin is a loose-
limbed energy junkie, impatiently jiggling his leg when forced to
sit at his squad desk, and possessed of a blithe cockiness that‘s
enormous fun to watch . . . . ―I‘m not a nice guy,‖ Ballinger says at
one point . . . and you believe him. Cutting off crooks answering
his questions as though they‘re wasting his time in getting to jail,
Marvin creates a man who you just know lives by a pre-Miranda,
confess-or-I‘ll-slug-ya code (Tucker 2009: 1).
In addition to casting the mold for the city‘s lawmen, M Squad set the standard for the
depiction of Chicago itself. The show sometimes showcased the city‘s more famous
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landmarks—the Wrigley Building could often be seen looming in the background—but most of
the time the cameras followed Balliner ―out of the dingy squad room into even dingier exterior
locations on mostly marginal Chicago streets‖ (Tucker 2009: 1). Donald Liebenson of the
Chicago Tribune felt that M Squad ―captured Chicago in all its seedy, glamorous, decent, sleazy
and neon-illuminated glory.‖ Ballinger‘s assessment of the city was similarly mixed. ―I love
Chicago,‖ he said in the first episode. ―It‘s my town.‖ At the end of another episode, he
observed, ―The people of Chicago, they look pretty good to me right now. The town looked
clean, honest and innocent.‖ Just as often, however, Ballinger revealed a wild and wide-open
city. ―In a town like Chicago,‖ he said, ―anything can happen and usually does.‖ Perhaps the
show‘s geographic spirit was best summarized by actor Lee Marvin. In a 1959 interview praising
Chicago‘s police officers, he revealed much about his perception of the city: ―I know Chicago
cops. They‘re tough. They have to be. The whole city could explode. It‘s like a bomb, Chicago‖
(Liebenson 2009: 1).
As mentioned, nearly every single Chicago crime drama since 1957 appears to have been
influenced by M Squad. While murder and other heinous acts are de rigueur for all police and
detective programs, many follow what could be described as a ―trouble-in-paradise‖ formula,
featuring backdrops that are quaint, glitzy, or just plain stunning, as in Murder She Wrote, CSI,
Hawaii 5-0, Magnum P. I., Simon & Simon, Charlie‟s Angels, or Miami Vice. The Windy City‘s
entries are better described as a ―crime-on-grime‖ formula, with the backdrop often the worst
imaginable part of the city and the crimes and the criminals who commit them equally vile.
Television‘s crime fighters are, of course, rarely the delicate type, but those on Chicago‘s
programs tend to be particularly hard-boiled. They are stolid, square-jawed, and cold as Lake
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Michigan in January. Like Marvin‘s Ballinger, they are obsessed with their jobs, leaving little
time for romantic interests or anything else.
M Squad ended its three-year run in 1960, but by that time Ballinger had been joined by
the equally icy Eliot Ness. The Untouchables debuted on ABC in 1959 and soared to eighth
place in the Nielsen ratings during its second season. Ratings then sagged and the show ended its
run after four years. Such a meteoric rise and fall is not unusual on television, but few other
shows did so amid such a maelstrom of controversy. The Untouchables was set in Chicago of the
early 1930s and based loosely on the real-life exploits of Eliot Ness, who had been instrumental
in bringing down gangster Al Capone.
The show‘s distinctive look—flashy period clothes and cars contrasting beautifully with
rough 1930s streets—attracted scores of viewers. It was not the cars, clothes, or sets that many
viewers noticed, though. Some protested the fact that nearly all the criminal characters had
Italian last names. Others argued that the show glamorized crime, with one critic noting that a
street gang in Cleveland had begun to refer to itself as ―The Untouchables.‖ Al Capone‘s family
brought a lawsuit against the show‘s producers, and F. B. I. agents complained that Ness, a
Treasury man, was getting credit for Bureau victories. That The Untouchables could get the
F. B. I. and the mob on the same side of an argument speaks to the show‘s power.
The most controversial aspect of The Untouchables was, in the words of Brooks and
Marsh, that it was ―perhaps the most mindlessly violent program ever seen on TV up to that
time‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,458). The show made M Squad tame by comparison, turning
the streets of Chicago into a weekly bloodbath. Usually at least three gun battles occurred per
episode, and everyone from snitches to prostitutes were mowed down with alarming regularity.
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―The Untouchables elevated TV violence to an art form,‖ wrote critic John Javna. ―Never had so
many bullets been fired into so many people in one hour of television drama‖ (Javna 1985: 112).
TV Guide wrote that ―In practically every episode a gang leader winds up stitched to a brick wall
and full of bullets, or face down in a parking lot (and full of bullets), or face up in a gutter (and
still full of bullets), or hung up in an icebox, or run down in the street by a mug at the wheel of a
big black Hudson touring car‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,458).
Producer Quinn Martin argued that violence was an historically accurate product of the
show‘s place and time, but it was clear that the show‘s primary motivation was to stay ahead of
an increasingly violent, and increasingly competitive, television landscape. ―More action, or we
are going to get clobbered,‖ wrote Martin in a message to his writers (Lewis and Stempel 1996:
115). Another note said ―I wish you would come up with a different device than running the man
down with a car, as we have done this now in three different shows.‖ (Collins and Javna 1988:
76). In response to increasing pressure from media watchdog groups, violence on The
Untouchables was eventually toned down. The less bloody version of the show was, of course,
not nearly as popular, and ratings plummeted.
Aside from blood and guts, The Untouchables‘s greatest legacy was Eliot Ness, a second
archetypal Chicago television cop. Brooks and Marsh described Ness as an ―upright, virtuous,
and humorless enforcer of the law‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1458). John Javna called him ―the
most humorless character ever to appear on TV,‖ a ―steely-eyed, stone-faced avenging angel
with one purpose in life—to destroy anyone who broke the law‖ (Javna 1985: 112). Actor Robert
Stack, who played Eliot Ness, described his approach to the character as follows:
The way I played Eliot Ness, he has no odd-ball characteristic, no
offbeat mannerism, no schtick. He‘s merely a decent, honest
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citizen who also happens to be angry because, basically, he hates
crumb bums like Al Capone, and he resents bringing home only
twenty-five hundred bucks a year to support his family and his
kids, while thieving coppers are taking thousands a week in bribes
from Capone and his henchman (Collins and Javna 1988: 75).
Such characteristics—a lack of polish, a sense of moral decency, a strong work ethic—
have certainly not been uncommon among midwestern television characters. Those traits could,
in fact, easily be applied to Indiana‘s Woody Boyd or Iowa‘s Radar O‘Reilly. That said, the
thing that made Eliot Ness so appealing was that he would, in the words of critic Jack Mingo,
―blow away the bad guys without a second thought‖ (Collins and Javna 1988: 76). That trait, at
least in the Midwest, is something usually reserved for a character from Chicago. Dialogue from
a scene in which Eliot Ness was holstering his gun after a battle with the hoods, said it all:
HOOD: I didn‘t do bad, did I?
NESS: No, you didn‘t do bad. You just got yourself killed (Collins
and Javna 1988: 76).
Despite its relatively short run, The Untouchables became a cult favorite. It resurfaced in
1987 as a hit theatrical film featuring Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, and Robert DeNiro, and
again in the 1990s as a syndicated television show. It was also the last Chicago crime program
for quite some time. After the show left the air in 1963, television lawmen were off Chicago‘s
streets for more than twenty years. One possible explanation might reside in the reaction of
longtime mayor Richard J. Daley to earlier programs and to theatrical films such as 1969‘s
Medium Cool, which Daley believed cast aspersions on Chicago and its police department. Film
historian Arnie Bernstein described this angle:
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To this day, Daley‘s contempt for Hollywood portrayals of his
beloved city is legendary. Hizzoner, as Daley was often referred to,
couldn‘t stand to see Chicago or its police department portrayed in
a negative light and for many years made it difficult for out-of-
town filmmakers to use Windy City locations. Said one Chicago
policeman who occasionally dealt with Hollywood crews, ―If it‘s
not Mary Poppins, the mayor doesn‘t want it‖ (Bernstein 1998:
189).
In a 1959 interview, M Squad star Lee Marvin indicated that his show was not welcome in
Chicago, at least by those in power:
We shoot locations, twice a year. No permit, no cooperation, no
nothing. They don‘t want any part of us . . . . Any public building,
but nothing else, no stopping traffic. We shoot it and blow
(Liebenson 2009: 1).
Whether or not the late mayor was responsible for the drought of crime dramas is
debatable—television shows are not required to film in the city in which they are set, and often
do not. Whatever the cause, just two Chicago-based crime or mystery dramas appeared on
television in 1970s, and neither featured police officers as protagonists. Carl Kolchak, the title
character of 1974‘s Kolchak: The Night Stalker was not tracking down mob bosses or other such
mundane quarry. A crime reporter for a Chicago news service, he had the unique and unfortunate
habit of encountering all manner of strange phenomena. Each week, he faced vampires, zombies,
aliens, swamp creatures, witches, werewolves, a reincarnation of Jack the Ripper or, in one case,
a ―flesh-gobbling ape-like creature‖ (Collins and Javna, 198: 104). Of course, the evidence
always slipped through his fingers in the end, and the full version of the story never made it past
the desk of his disbelieving editor. Inexplicably placed by ABC on Friday nights behind the
family friendly drama Apple‟s Way, the show understandably never found its audience, but did
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inspire a number of later programs, most notably The X-Files. Kolchak also kept alive the
tradition of Chicago-based crime dramas with decidedly unemotional leading men. Television
historian David Martindale described Carl Kolchak as follows:
Unlike his handsome and distinguished TV newsman
contemporaries, Kolchak was a muckraking slob, loud and
obnoxious. He broke no rules simply because he never observed
any to begin with. He was a hard man to befriend (Martindale
1991: 273).
The title character of The Duke, which aired for seven weeks in the spring of 1976, was
as inelegant as Kolchak. Duke Ramsey was a boxer who had hung up his gloves to open a bar
and to start a new life as a private investigator. Using connections from his days in the ring,
Duke was able to finesse information from both lawmen and hoods, but when the chips were
down, he did what came naturally. Described by David Martindale as a ―two-fisted‖ detective, he
had the ability to ―‗duke‘ his way out of sticky situations,‖ a tactic his Chicago crime-fighting
predecessors would have approved (Martindale 1991: 142).
Chicago cops finally returned to the air with two programs in the 1980s. The first, Lady
Blue, which aired for five months during the 1985-1986 season, was the story of Detective Katy
Mahoney, who demonstrated that Chicago‘s tough-guy cops were not always guys, and that the
city was just as seedy as it had been when Eliot Ness mowed down his last criminal. Dubbed
―Skirty Harry‖ and ―Dirty Harriet‖ by critics, Mahoney spent a good deal of time cutting bad
guys in half with her .357 Magnum. Lady Blue topped several television watchdog groups‘ lists
of most violent shows, and it is not difficult to understand why. Critic John J. O‘Connor,
describing the show‘s pilot, wrote that:
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In the middle of getting a pedicure, Katy looked up from her
magazine only to see a robbery in progress at a bank across the
plaza. Pulling on her boots and clutching her outsized gun, she
rushed to the scene of the crime and, with pedestrians scurrying for
cover, proceeded to shoot several perpetrators. Returning to the
beauty parlor and pointing to her toes, she sweetly asked, ―Can you
do something with this mess?‖ Those were the first five minutes of
the show . . . . After the opening teaser found a concerned Katy
talking about ―three weird, crazy homicides in 72 hours,‖ the
viewer was treated to the sights of victims being killed by a
poison-dart blowgun, bow and arrow, and crossbow. And in
perhaps the most vivid scene, a man‘s leg was caught in a rope
trap, leaving him dangling by one leg over a stairwell four stories
high. After the killer cut the rope, the plummeting body was
carefully framed in an overhead camera shot. The hour ended with
Katy blasting the demented murderer into a river with her trusty
gun . . . . Standing nearby, [her partner] Terry, perhaps speaking
for all of us, could only say, ―Unbelievable!‖ (O‘Connor 1985: 1).
Lady Blue was filmed on location in Chicago, as were the exteriors of the influential
police drama Hill Street Blues, which ran from 1981 to 1987. The South Side‘s Maxwell Street
Station served as the stand-in for the fictitious station house, and although the show is listed in
some sources as having been set in Chicago, it was theoretically in a ―large, unnamed eastern
city‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 616). According to television historian Fran Golden, ―care was
taken not to show any recognizable Chicago landmarks,‖ so it is likely that only a few sharp-
eyed viewers, particularly those from Chicago, would have made a connection between the city
and Hill Street (Golden 1996: 158). If they did, then the show, which was ―rife with drugs,
prostitution, burglary, murder, and the decay of a rotting neighborhood,‖ would have settled in
nicely with the rest of Chicago‘s crime dramas (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 616).
While Hill Street Blues converted Chicago into a typical American city, Crime Story was
thoroughly rooted in its Chicago setting, at least for a while. The program debuted in 1986 and
was no less grim than Lady Blue in its urban portrayal. Its protagonist was as dedicated and cold-
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blooded as any of the city‘s previous lawmen. Set in the early 1960s, the program chronicled the
efforts of Lt. Mike Torello, head of the city‘s Major Crime Unit, to solve heinous crimes. Much
of the action revolved around attempts to bring down the syndicate of Capone-like mob boss Ray
Luca. The homicides could be memorably gruesome, as in one episode where a disturbed
teenager was convinced that his dead mother was watching him through his television set. He
eventually remedied the problem by killing a hooker who lived next door, lashing her in a
cruciform pose to a television transmitter and electrocuting her.
In the fashion of the classic Chicago television detectives, Torello and his team were not
fazed by any manner of crime or degradation. In the pilot, as Torello and another cop were
examining the blood-spattered scene of a double homicide, they had the following exchange:
TORELLO: Looks like a Jackson Pollock.
COP: Pollock?
TORELLO: He‘s an artist. Used to paint stuff like this.
COP: Yeah? Well, he‘s got a sick mind (Lee 2004: 1).
Torello was cold-blooded, single-minded, and didn‘t have much in the way of a personal life.
Like Frank Ballinger and Eliot Ness, he also let the crooks know who was in charge. In one
episode, he informed a hood that ―When this is over, you hurt anybody else, I‘m going to find
out who you love the most—your mother, your father, your dog—it don‘t matter. I‘m going to
kill it‖ (Collins and Javna 1988: 79). Crime Story also made it abundantly clear that, when it
came to Torello, no line existed between business and personal. In his pursuit of Luca, for
example, Torello was not driven by the love of the cat-and-mouse game, nor by a deep and
abiding respect for the law, but, according to co-creator Michael Mann, by ―an all-consuming
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hatred.‖ ―I wear my obsession for Ray Luca,‖ said Torello in one episode. ―I get up in the
morning, and I put it on like I put on my suit, my tie and my .45‖ (Lee 2004: 1).
To match its grim stories and characters, Crime Story had an equally grim visual style,
with its ―stark nighttime scenes‖ and a ―low-life period look‖ (Lewis and Stempel 1996: 66). For
the most part, the show avoided Chicago‘s more notable landmarks, opting instead for filming in
the city‘s workaday neighborhoods, like Wicker Park, Irving Park, and Pilsen. An iconic shot at
the end of Crime Story‘s opening credits was of the show‘s primary characters standing, heavily
armed, in front of the Superdawg drive-in on Milwaukee Avenue. Adding to the ring of
authenticity was the fact that the show‘s co-creator, Chuck Adamson, and its star Dennis Farina
(Torello), had both actually been Chicago cops.
Chicago‘s next crime-fighter was a freelancer. Sable, also filmed on location in the city,
was the story of Nicolas Fleming, who by day was a straight-laced, nerdy children‘s author. At
night, though, he would don greasepaint and a black costume to fight crime as the title superhero.
Sable was quite a departure from the city‘s other crime dramas, and it aired for just seven weeks
in 1987. Another unconventional, black-clad crime fighter hit Chicago‘s streets in 1989. The title
priest in Father Dowling Mysteries was played by Tom Bosley, who brought the same low-key,
earthy likability as he had displayed while playing dad Howard Cunningham on Happy Days.
Much like Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote, Father Dowling was always stumbling into,
and ultimately solving, murder mysteries. Very little violence was shown on-screen. The city‘s
television spirit was perhaps best captured by Dowling‘s sidekick, a nun named Stephanie, or
―Sister Steve,‖ a surprisingly worldly young woman who was ―equally adept at picking a lock,
cutting a deck of cards, or picking up information on the streets‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 462).
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The pair patrolled the streets of Chicago in Dowling‘s run-down Ford station wagon over a
twelve-month run scattered between 1989 and 1991.
The Chicago crime drama returned in force in the 1990s. While just six Chicago-based
crime dramas made their debut in the 1970s and 1980s, another six began in the first half of the
1990s alone. These included the syndicated remake of The Untouchables, which aired in forty-
four installments beginning in 1993, but the first was Gabriel‟s Fire during the 1990-1991
season. The protagonist was Gabriel Bird, a kind and intelligent man, but one also tortured by a
seething sense of injustice—an anger that seemed to simmer all the more in the basso profundo
delivery of actor James Earl Jones. A former Chicago cop, Bird had been wrongfully convicted
of murdering his white partner in 1969. After twenty years in prison, he was sprung by an
ambitious young lawyer named Victoria Heller. He found that life could be tough for an excon,
particularly given that most of the white officers on the Chicago Police force still detested him.
Using his knowledge from both sides of the thin blue line, Bird became a private investigator for
Victoria. He proved to be as calloused as any of Chicago‘s crime fighters, and the streets of
Chicago were never seedier, but the show‘s outlook was perhaps too gloomy to attract many
viewers. So, for the show‘s second season, the setting shifted to Los Angeles, and the show was
retitled Pros & Cons. Victoria was gone, Bird had started his own firm, and he was now happily
married. Free of the gloom and doom of Chicago, Bird was now cheerful, his rage seemingly
evaporated in the California sun. He smiled all the time now—in the words of one critic, ―too
much, really‖—suggesting that all these aloof Chicago cops ever really needed was a change in
climate (Bogle, 2001: 382).
A number of other early-1990s Chicago crime dramas were similar in spirit to Gabriel‟s
Fire, forgoing the icy bloodlust of The Untouchables and Lady Blue while maintaining the gritty
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realism that had come to characterize the city‘s television landscape. Reasonable Doubts, one of
the few Chicago programs to feature a lead character who held a law degree, was the story of
Tess Kaufman, an assistant D.A. who had been assigned to the felony division of the Chicago
Police Department. The twist was that Tess, like actress Marlee Matlin who portrayed her, was
deaf, communicating with the detectives through sign language. Otherwise, Reasonable Doubts,
which premiered in 1991 and ran for two seasons, was a fairly standard police procedural. Tess‘s
task was to protect the rights of the accused, the implication being that those rights were often
ignored in Chicago. Carrying on the tradition of the city‘s television cops was Tess‘s hard-
boiled, ―bust ‗em at all costs‖ partner, Dicky Cobb, who, given the choice between law and
order, tended to choose the latter (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,136).
The protagonists of 1992‘s Angel Street were Anita King and Dorothy Paretsky, a pair of
homicide detectives who operated in an extremely dangerous section of Chicago. The intended
hook, beyond the novelty of female detectives, was a personality clash between sophisticated
King and street-smart Paretsky, but viewers didn‘t bite, and the show was pulled after four
weeks. The cops of 1993‘s Missing Persons were slightly softer around the edges than their
Chicago television counterparts. They were led by Lt. Ray McAuliffe, who was played by Daniel
J. Travanti with the same subdued sincerity he had honed for years on Hill Street Blues. There
were few squealing tires and not much flying lead, but Chicago was as grim and chaotic as ever.
In one episode alone, a young woman was abducted by a religious cult, a boy was taken from his
mother, and a dying man kidnapped his two young sons. Critic John J. O‘Connor described the
show‘s format:
The weekly formula provides two or three cases to be solved, just
about always within a single episode. Happy endings are obviously
preferred, but there is usually at least one case that ends tragically.
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Children figure prominently in any given week. One episode had a
2-year-old waking in the middle of the night and, unable to find his
parents, wandering through dark streets crying for Mommy and
Daddy. Primal fears; fail-safe gimmicks (O‘Connor, 1993: 1).
In the end, the gimmicks were not quite fail-safe, and Missing Persons vanished after five
months. The most successful of the early 1990s flurry of Chicago police dramas was the most
light-hearted. Due South premiered in 1994 and aired for two seasons on CBS before moving
into first-run syndication for another year. The protagonist was Constable Benton Fraser of the
Royal Canadian Mounties, who was perhaps the straightest straight man in the history of
television. The preposterously courteous Fraser had been assigned to the Canadian consulate in
Chicago, where he befriended Detective Ray Vecchio. Gruff and unpolished, the wisecracking,
pizza-eating, and poker-playing Vecchio was an amalgam of nearly every cop in Chicago‘s
television history. ―Being an American,‖ he once told Fraser, ―I . . . know where my strength
lies, and that‘s in being as heavily armed as possible at all times‖ (Mouland, 1998: 42). The
Chicago of Due South was as hard-edged as Vecchio. ―We are in the middle of a war,‖ said
Vecchio‘s supervisor, ―a war against crime and corruption‖ (Mouland 1998: 18). The show had
its serious moments, but was primarily an action comedy, with Chicago serving up the contrasts
for the ever-polite Fraser. ―His straight-arrow demeanor,‖ wrote Brooks and Marsh, ―softened up
some of the harder cases on the mean streets of Chicago‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 396).
Chicago‘s last police drama of the 1990s was Turks, which was also the city‘s last
conventional police program to date. The protagonist was Joe Turk, yet another hard-boiled cop
with a failing marriage. Joe was a sergeant in a tough part of the city, the 29th precinct, where his
two sons were also officers. The show was an odd mix between family drama and cop show, and
it never caught on with viewers, lasting for three months in 1999.
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Many of Chicago‘s more recent entries in the mystery and crime genres have involved
gimmicks, none of them stranger than Early Edition, which premiered in 1996. It was the story
of Gary Hobson, a down-on-his-luck stockbroker who was mysteriously given the unique
opportunity to right wrongs before they had actually occurred. Having just lost his job and wife,
Gary awoke one morning to find an orange cat sitting on his doorstep atop an early edition of the
Chicago Sun-Times. It was such an early edition, in fact, that it contained the next day‘s news.
Faced with the choice between using this information to make a fortune or to help others, noble
Gary chose the latter. Every morning the cat would reappear, and each day Gary set out to
prevent bad things from happening to good people. The show was filmed entirely on location
and, by its very nature, set the city up for a weekly round of catastrophes. The Chicago of Early
Edition was rife with personal tragedies, natural hazards, and unspeakable disasters. The city also
presented the show‘s hero with a wide variety of crimes to prevent, including murder,
kidnapping, gangland hits, bombings, blackmail, robberies, arson, police corruption, and even an
attempted presidential assassination.
Despite all this, the tone of Early Edition was considerably softer than its kindred shows.
Little violence was depicted on screen, and Gary Dobson was a warm, unassuming guy,
described by critic Ken Tucker as a ―likable sweetie,‖ a phrase that was never used to describe
Eliot Ness or Mike Torello. And despite the barrage of misfortunes that Gary was forced to
prevent, Chicago lost some of its hard edge, with Tucker noting that Early Edition ―is so genially
ludicrous, it makes the Windy City look like Fantasy Island‖ (Tucker 1996b: 1). The show was a
mild success, airing for four seasons, one of just three Chicago-based dramas in any genre to last
that long.
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A pair of Chicago-based dramas from the 2000s picked up where Kolchak had left off.
Special Unit 2, which began a ten-month run in 2001, featured police detective Kate Benson,
who had been recruited into the title squad. It was a top secret team charged with hunting down
various monsters who plagued the Windy City, including dragons, trolls, demons, werewolves,
mummies, and witches. Despite the unusual quarry, the city and its cops were the same as usual.
The unit‘s headquarters were located in an ―abandoned subway tunnel under a seedy Chinese
laundry,‖ and Kate‘s partner, Nick O‘Malley, was a ―fast talker with a short temper who tended
to shoot first and ask questions later‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,282). A similar entry, The
Dresden Files, featured a modern-day wizard living in Chicago who aided the police whenever
their cases got too strange to be solved using conventional methods. The show had demons,
ghosts, and vampires, but not many viewers, and was cancelled after twelve weeks. Tracker, a
syndicated program that ran for twenty-two weeks beginning in 2001, concerned a group of more
than two hundred aliens who had escaped from a prison in the Migar Solar System. Naturally,
they chose Chicago as the place to hide out. Enter Cole, an alien cop, whose job was to recapture
these prisoners and send them back to the interplanetary slammer.
Wild Card, which contained elements of comedy, mystery, and family drama, was the
story of Zoe Busiek, a spunky Chicago native who had moved to Las Vegas to become a
blackjack dealer. She returned home to care for her nephews and niece after the death of her
sister in a car accident. Zoe suspected foul play, and after exposing the culprits behind her
sister‘s murder, she was hired by an insurance company to investigate other mysterious cases.
Filmed primarily in Toronto for Canadian television, Wild Card also aired on the Lifetime cable
network, with thirty-six episodes produced from 2003 to 2005.
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Crime was seen from the inside out on the drama Prison Break, which was set at a
penitentiary in the Chicago area during the 2005-2006 season. Michael Burrows was a structural
engineer whose brother, Lincoln, had been framed for murder and sent to death row at Fox River
State Penitentiary. Michael subsequently had the blueprints of the Fox River pen tattooed on his
body and deliberately botched a bank robbery so he could be sent to the same prison. The first
season, as the show‘s title suggests, detailed the development of Michael‘s elaborate, and
ultimately successful, plan to spring them from Fox River.
The name of the fictional prison was possibly drawn from the actual Fox River that flows
west of the city. All of the nonprison scenes were shot on location in Chicago, while most the
prison sequences were filmed at the Joliet Correctional Center, which had closed in 2002. While
any show set in a penitentiary is not going to be full sunshine, life in Fox River was particularly
gloomy. The warden was corrupt, the inmates would ―cry, fight, screw, and bleed‖; and the
prison guards were almost cartoonishly menacing, with one telling Michael that ―The Ten
Commandments don‘t mean a box of piss in here‖ (Bornemann, 2005e: 1). Some credit for all
this gloom must be given to the Joliet facility itself, which lent its own special weariness to the
program. One journalist reported that the ―claustrophobic cells, rusty steel bars, guards‘ turrets,
and stone floor engravings with sayings such as ‗It‘s never too late to mend,‘ imbue the complex
with an atmosphere the actors describe as haunting, ominous and depressing‖ (Associated Press,
2001: 1).
The Burrows brothers, along with a handful of other convicts, managed to escape the
prison in the first season finale, and when Prison Break returned in the fall, the show detailed
their cross-country flight from the law. This departure may have come as a relief to Illinois
residents who had grown weary of seeing their home depicted as a landscape of crime, violence,
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and corruption. Upright citizens could also take solace in the fact that few of the state‘s many
crime dramas have met with much success. Just five such dramas lasted two full seasons on
network television, and only three—The Untouchables, M Squad, and Early Edition—lasted
three years or more. The Untouchables remains the only Chicago-based crime drama to break
into the Nielsen top thirty.
The eleven remaining Illinois-based dramatic entries—a hodgepodge of romantic and
family dramas, period pieces, and soap operas—have been similarly lackluster. Only three aired
for a full season; just two lasted more than one year; and none of them placed in the Nielsen top
thirty. The earliest was Hawkins Falls, Population 6,200, which originated during the summer of
1950. Hawkins Falls, a typical American small town, was modeled after Woodstock, Illinois,
footage of which was seen over the show‘s opening and closing credits. Clate Weathers, the
town‘s newspaper editor, would narrate major stories that had happened in the town over the
previous week. Hawkins Falls has been cited as one the first primetime soap operas, which is
partially true. Its sponsor was, in fact, a soap—in this case, Surf laundry detergent—but the show
also contained some comedy and, on occasion, even musical numbers. After its summer run,
Hawkins Falls returned for a few months in the fall of 1950. The show eventually moved to
NBC‘s daytime schedule, where it became more of a conventional soap and ran until 1955.
Likely in response to the success of ABC‘s Peyton Place, CBS aired Chicago‘s second
primetime soap opera in 1965. Our Private World was a rare primetime spinoff of a daytime
soap opera, featuring a regular character from As the World Turns. Recent divorcee Lisa Hughes
had left her hometown of Oakdale, Illinois, to start a new life as a nurse at a Chicago hospital.
Stories alternated between the lives and loves of the hospital staff, and those of the wealthy
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Eldredge family, who lived in suburban Oak Forest. None of it proved to be as interesting as the
goings-on in Peyton Place, and the show was not renewed after its four-month summer run.
One of Chicago‘s few historical dramas, Studs Lonigan, appeared in 1979. It was the
gritty story of the working-class, Irish-American Lonigan family in the early twentieth century.
The focal character was Studs, who was ―struggling into adulthood in a brawling city full of
temptations‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,325). This show never found an audience and was
cancelled after just three weeks. Another dramatic entry, American Dream, was equally gritty
and only slightly more successful, lasting just seven weeks in 1981. It was the story of Danny
Novak who, bucking the trend, decided to move his pregnant wife, three children, and father-in-
law from pleasant suburban Park Ridge to a gritty part of Chicago‘s inner city, partly because it
was more a affordable and partly to ―put a little ‗reality‘ into their lives‖ (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 47).
The 1986 romantce Jack and Mike, which aired for one season, was a marked departure
from the formula of other 1980s Chicago dramas. Here gritty and grimy gave way to young and
successful in this story of a stylish and ambitious columnist for the Chicago Mirror and an owner
and operator of three trendy restaurants. The show focused on the pair‘s attempt to balance their
heated romance with demanding careers, and the similar tribulations of their yuppie cohort,
which included an editor, a reporter, and an attorney. American Dream and Jack & Mike were
both filmed on location in Chicago, as was the 1990 period drama Brewster Place, which starred
Chicago television icon Oprah Winfrey. Set in Chicago‘s inner city in 1967, this show focused
on Mattie Michael. She had had a rough ride in life, but remained both strong and
compassionate, always willing to serve up both good food and earnest advice from the small
restaurant she ran along with her best friend, Etta Mae Johnson. A heartwarming and inspiring
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slice of life, the show received mixed critical reviews, but was generally praised for its good
intentions. In the words of critic Donald Bogle, Brewster Place sought to ―give television
viewers a dramatic Black series with positive images and some sense, no matter how simplified,
of African American history‖ (Bogle, 2001: 368). Ultimately, though, Winfrey was unable to
bring her daytime magic into the evening hours, and the show lasted less than three months.
While viewers were apparently not up for urban warmth, they were more than ready for
suburban depravity, at least as indicated by the long run of Sisters. This soap opera debuted in
the spring of 1991, and returned for a run of five full seasons, making it Chicago‘s third-most
durable drama, trailing only Chicago Hope and ER. The show was set in the ―deceptively
peaceful‖ northern suburb of Winnetka, and followed the incredibly tumultuous lives of the four
Reed sisters (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,248). Alex had wed a WASP plastic surgeon named
Wade Barker, but their marriage was on the rocks, much to the dismay of their over-achieving
daughter, Reed. Frankie was a powerful businesswoman who was in love with Mitch, the ex of
her free-spirited sister, Teddy, an alcoholic artist turned fashion designer who had just returned
from California with her teenage daughter, Cat. Georgie was the relatively sensible sister, a real-
estate agent whose somewhat screwy husband John was unemployed, leaving her to provide for
their sons, Evan and Trevor. Most of the episodes began with the sisters commiserating in a
stream room, and they had plenty to talk about. Alex divorced, had an affair with her plumber,
began a new career as a talk show host, and married Big Al Barker, who was then sent to prison
for tax evasion. Her daughter Reed eloped with her boyfriend, had a baby, and moved to Los
Angeles. Teddy had an affair with a millionaire named Simon Bolt, then married a police
detective named James Falconer, who was promptly murdered by a drug dealer. Frankie quit her
job to run a malt shop, and eventually went on to manage a prizefighter named Lucky. The show
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dealt with some fairly weighty topics along the way, including divorce, childhood leukemia,
breast cancer, rape, Alzheimer‘s, and assisted suicide, as well as the requisite car accidents, car-
jackings, and some occasional cross-dressing. Beatrice, the sisters‘ harried mother, was,
understandably, drunk most of the time.
Sisters was followed in the early 1990s by a pair of knock-offs, neither of which was
successful. 1992‘s Middle Ages, also set in Winnetka, was the story of five upper-middle-class
fortysomethings dealing with the insecurities, fears, and adjustments of their respective midlife
crises. 1994‘s Winnetka Road was not set in Winnetka, but in the fictional suburb of Oak Bluff,
where ―tight jeans, bare chests, and easy sex seemed as much in evidence as on the beaches of
Southern California‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1528). The show featured typical soap opera fare,
but was perhaps most notable for having the chutzpah to feature a character named Jack Passion.
Middle Ages lasted just five weeks, Winnetka Road six.
Chicago‘s last family drama to date was Once and Again, which debuted in 1999. It was
the story of a romance between Rick, a divorced Chicago architect, and Lily, who worked for an
internet company. Lily, who would eventually get her own radio show, was also going through
an ugly divorce and, like Rick, had two kids. They eventually married, merged their families, and
found themselves surrounded by suburban angst. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution put it,
―You don‘t just watch an episode of Once and Again, you survive it‖ (Govil 2010: 1). Once and
Again was a critical darling and, although never a ratings smash, was popular enough to remain
on the air for three seasons.
If the three programs above are any indication of the state of romance in Chicago, then
the couples there could use a little help, which they got for five months during the 1998-1999
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season. The protagonist of Cupid was Trevor, a wisecracking young patient at a Chicago mental
hospital who claimed to be the title cherub. Upon his release, he set out to help couples discover
or, in some case, rediscover romance. These encounters served as the basis for the show‘s
episodes, as did the relationship between Trevor and a psychologist named Claire, who was
researching Trevor‘s case for a book.
That Illinois has mustered thirty-seven television dramas is certainly impressive,
particularly when compared to its Midwestern neighbors. The Untouchables, M Squad, Early
Edition, Sisters, Once and Again, and Chicago Hope all lived respectably long television lives,
and ER was a ratings behemoth. Nevertheless, it was the situation comedy that came to dominate
Illinois‘s television landscape. The state‘s sixty-one sitcoms represent about forty percent of all
Illinois entries, and more than sixty percent of its scripted, serialized programs. Even more
impressive are their durability. The mortality rate for situation comedies is notoriously high, but
just over half of Illinois‘s sitcoms have lasted a full season. More than a quarter lasted at least
two years, and better than one in ten survived five seasons or more—a ripe old age in the world
of television comedy. Illinois-based comedies have been a Nielsen mainstay for a number of
years, with the state‘s sitcoms spending a collective twenty-five seasons in the top thirty.
Sitcom success did not come early, for Chicago‘s early live telecasts included just one
comedy, Those Endearing Young Charms. This show followed the exploits of the Charm family,
who ran a mail-order catalogue business that sold household tools and appliances. Despite this
intriguing premise, the show aired for just two weeks in March 1952, followed by another short
run in May. Nearly two decades passed before the city‘s next sitcom debuted, and it wasn‘t any
more successful. The Chicago Teddy Bears was the story of Linc McCray who, along with his
Uncle Latzi, opened a speakeasy in Prohibition-era Chicago. Business was good, but Linc had to
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deal with his cousin Nick, a two-bit gangster who was trying to take over the business. The
Untouchables it wasn‘t, and the show disappeared after a two-month run in 1971.
The six other Chicago-based sitcoms to debut in the 1970s all had contemporary settings,
and featured both urban and suburban settings and characters from varied ethnic and class
backgrounds. Two entries from 1976 starred actors from supporting roles on earlier sitcoms who
tried, but failed, to break out on their own. The first, Mr. T and Tina, featured Pat Morita, who
had recurring roles on M*A*S*H, Sanford & Son and, most notably, on Happy Days as
restaurateur Arnold Takahashi. Here, he played a successful Japanese engineer who had been
transferred from Tokyo to Chicago, bringing along his wife, two children, uncle and sister-in-
law. All of them had their orderly world turned upside down by the arrival of a ―nutty,
effervescent, Nebraska-born‖ housekeeper, Tina Kelly, who taught them the ways of America
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 909). Ethnic mismatch comedies were relatively common in the 1970s,
and some, such as Bridget Loves Bernie and Diff‟rent Strokes, became quite popular. Mr. T &
Tina was not one of them. It lasted just one month and is notable only for being the first situation
comedy to feature an Asian-American in a lead role.
Luckily for Morita, the axe fell so quickly on the series that he was able to return to his
duties at Arnold‘s Drive-in in Milwaukee. McLean Stevenson did not have such a safety net, as
his M*A*S*H character, Col. Henry Blake, had been killed after he left the show the previous
spring. One of many ―crowded house‖ sitcoms to appear on American television, The McLean
Stevenson Show was the story of Mac Ferguson, a mild-mannered, middle-class man who ran a
hardware store in Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago. Mac and his wife, Peggy, had two
grown children, Chris and Janet. Ne‘er-do-well Chris had dropped out of college to bum around
Hawaii and find himself, but he eventually moved back to his parents‘ basement. Janet had just
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left her husband and, along with her two kids, moved in as well. Unfortunately for Stevenson, his
NBC series could not survive the competition from CBS‘s Wednesday night slate, and the show
was pulled after three months. A similar fate befell Working Stiffs, which spent a month being
crushed by CHiPS in 1979. A contemporary, male version of Laverne & Shirley, this show
featured brothers Ernie and Mike O‘Rourke, bumbling but determined young janitors who
worked at a Chicago office building. They lived in a crummy apartment over a café, where they
wiled away their idle time.
The two Chicago-based sitcoms of the 1970s to emerge as bona fide hits were The Bob
Newhart Show, which debuted in 1972, and Good Times, which followed in 1974. The Nielsen
rankings for both peaked in their second seasons—Bob Newhart at twelfth and Good Times in
seventh—and each show resided in the Nielsen top thirty for the first four of their six seasons on
the air. All the featured characters lived in high-rise apartment buildings, but the two shows
offered very different views of Chicago—Bob Newhart from the North Side, and Good Times
from the South.
Like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, with which it was paired on CBS‘s Saturday night
schedule, Bob Newhart split its time evenly between the home and professional lives of its
protagonist. Bob Newhart played Bob Hartley, a low-key psychologist who had a successful
practice in downtown Chicago. Frequently seen at the office were Carol, Bob‘s sharp-tongued
receptionist; Dr. Jerry Robinson, a hedonistic dentist who had an office across the hall; and
Bob‘s patients, some of whom were seen on a recurring basis, including the seemingly incurable
Elliot Carlin, who had turned paranoia, passive aggression, and self-hatred into something of an
art form. Each evening, as seen in the show‘s opening credits, Bob would walk across the
Wabash Bridge to the El, and take the train home to his luxury apartment on Lake Shore Drive.
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His wife, Emily, an elementary school teacher, would greet him with a kiss. Bob and Emily
didn‘t have children, but they did have Howard Borden. Howard, the airline pilot who lived in
the apartment next door, was both a good friend and a constant nuisance. He ate many of his
meals with the Hartleys and asked them to water his plants, even when he was home. Howard‘s
dimwittedness was one of the show‘s running gags. Others included Bob‘s one-sided telephone
conversations; his habit of trying to explain things using analogies no one could possibly
understand; and his bedtime conversations with Emily, where they would switch off their
respective lamps, and then one would turn the light back on to get in the last word.
The Bob Newhart Show borrowed heavily from the Chicago native‘s very successful
stand-up career—most notably the telephone conversations—but it also bore a strong
resemblance to Mary Tyler Moore. Produced by Moore‘s MTM Enterprises, Bob Newhart was
also the story of single, white-collar professionals in their thirties and forties, and the show did
for Chicago what Mary Tyler Moore did for Minneapolis—depicting it as ―joyously urbane,
mod, upbeat, stylish, and consumer savvy‖ (Johnson 2008: 124). The characters drank cocktails
and went out on the town frequently, and shunned the suburbs. Bob, like Mary Richards, was
witty and worldly.
Also like Mary, though, Bob cannot quite make the jump to cool and brash. He was torn
between the sophistication afforded him by his income, education, and environment, and his
inherent, entrenched, incurable dowdiness. Bob and his friends were wedged between two
distinctly different American eras. As Carol complained in one episode, ―I‘m stuck between two
generations here and I don‘t get the good parts of either one‖ (Buening 2005: 1). This position,
according to Victoria Johnson, was related to Bob‘s ―square white midwesternness‖ (Johnson
2008: 137). One of the more memorable scenes in this regard involved a group of prisoners who
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were about to be released. Bob was supposed to talk to them about the transition back to the
outside world, but had trouble connecting with them. He failed, for instance, to impress them
with his ―criminal past‖ by recounting the time he moved down to better seats at Wrigley Field.
He also had trouble wresting control of the group away from Mr. Tatum, a black prisoner who
dismissed Bob‘s attempt to communicate as ―jive.‖ Bob tried to make the best of it:
BOB: You want to go with that, Mr. Tatum?
TATUM: How you going to help us, Jack? You don‘t even speak
our language!
BOB: Well, I don‘t think that‘s true.
TATUM: You a suit that‘s fat-mouthin‘ cause you ain‘t hip to
what‘s cold in the joint or what‘s right up the street, man, you dig?
BOB: (after a very long pause) I‘ll be darned. You are right.
(Johnson 2008: 138).
Bob‘s most famous trait, however, was his inability to communicate his emotions, which,
of course, made his job as a psychologist that much funnier. According to critic Michael
Buening, this was not only the core of Newhart‘s comedy, but a trait perfectly suited to the
show‘s geography:
I knew a lot of Bob Newharts growing up. Midwesterners are
known for being friendly, down-to-earth people, but this
friendliness is strictly enforced at the expense of allowing outward
expressions of difficult emotions, particularly in men. The
acceptable way of getting around this psychological barricade is to
make jokes, since laughter recognizes but also defuses pain . . . .
To convey sorrow and turmoil, Newhart relies on his nearly
immobile face. With the subtlest shift of his eyes he conveys
exasperation, befuddlement, amusement, wariness, and
desperation. I saw those expressions on many ―Newhart‖ faces in
my Midwestern youth (Buening 2005: 1).
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Bob‘s inability to express heartfelt emotions led to many classic exchanges on the show,
particularly with Emily:
EMILY: Bob, do you love me?
BOB: Sure.
EMILY: Why?
BOB: Why not? (Mitz 1988: 238).
The Bob Newhart Show left the air, of Newhart‘s own volition, in 1979. It remains one of
Chicago‘s more successful sitcoms and most positive takes on the city. Bob Newhart—both the
man and the show—are, in many ways, one of the Midwest‘s most enduring works of art.
According to Vitoria Johnson, the defining element of Newhart‘s comedy is rooted in the region.
It is a sense of humor ―based on self-deprecation—in knowing one‘s ‗place‘ and being true to
one‘s inner square—and the deflation of ‗outsiders‘ pomposity‖ (Johnson 2008: 113). The New
York Times used similar language to describe the man—using images that are not all that
different from those often used to describe the Midwest itself:
[Newhart is] Mr. Mid-America in a crowd, Charlie Everybody, the
American flag with ribbon tied around him . . . . If comedians were
articles of clothing Bob Newhart would be a classic navy blue
blazer: not faddish, not flamboyant, hardly at the fashion vanguard
and yet an essential component of a man‘s wardrobe. Always in
good taste . . . . Timeless (Johnson 2008: 128-129).
Bob Newhart‟s South Side counterpart, Good Times, was the story of Florida Evans, who
had previously been seen as the housekeeper of the title character on New York‘s Maude. For
reasons that were never explained, Florida now lived with her family in a tenement building in
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Chicago. She was married to James, a good man who did his best to make ends meet, but who
found employment hard to come by. Michael, the youngest of their three children, was studious,
while Thelma, the middle one, was sensitive. James Junior (J. J.), in contrast, was the jive-talking
and outrageous one, whose penchant for get-rich-quick schemes, and trademark expression ―Dy-
no-mite!,‖ made him, for better or worse, something of a national television sensation. Also seen
frequently was man-hungry Willona Woods, the Evans‘s neighbor and Florida‘s best friend.
Good Times saw a number of significant changes during its six years on the air. In 1976,
James died in auto accident, forcing J. J. to become the breadwinner for the family, a role that
inspired sometimes dubious money-making schemes. Florida‘s new love interest was Carl
Dixon, who owned a small repair shop, and the two of them moved south for health reasons in
1977. Willona was now the stand-in mom for the Evans children, and J. J., who had always been
a talented artist, started working at an advertising agency. Florida returned the following fall, and
Thelma began dating Keith Anderson, a college football star. Although they all struggled to
make a living for most of the show‘s run, in the end, everything worked out. Thelma married
Keith, and he inked a lucrative contract to play as a professional. Willona got a big promotion at
the clothing store where she worked, and J. J. sold a comic strip for national syndication.
Along with The Jeffersons, Good Times was one of the first television shows to focus on
an African-American family, and it set the tone for many other black sitcoms to follow. Much of
what was laudable about the show involved its geography. Set in an urban housing project—
shown in the opening credits as the Robert Taylor Homes on south State Street—Good Times
was television‘s first attempt to depict, with a modicum of seriousness, life in a poor black
neighborhood. For viewers used to mostly white, middle-class settings, it was, indeed, quite a
geography lesson, with various episodes revolving around drug abuse, evictions, gang warfare,
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rent parties, bussing, street crime, endemic unemployment, racial bigotry, and corrupt ward
heelers. For the first time, viewers were introduced to a sympathetic black character, in the
person of James Evans, who was not satisfied with his government‘s policies concerning the
poor, and to a family whose finances required their two sons to sleep in the living room, and the
hocking of its television set to pay rent.
Many critics, though, had problems with J. J. Over time, the noble intentions of Good
Times fell victim to the popularity of a character who had, in the words of television historian
Pamala S. Deane, ―metamorphosed into a coon-stereotype reminiscent of early American film:‖
His undignified antics raised the ire of the Black community. With
his toothy grin, ridiculous strut and bug-eyed buffoonery, J. J.
became a featured character with his trademark exclamation, ―DY-
NO-MITE!‖ J. J. lied, stole, and was barely literate. More and
more episodes were centered around his exploits. Forgotten were
Michael's scholastic success, James‘s search for a job and anything
resembling family values (Deane 2010: 1).
Good Times was produced by Norman Lear, the man behind such groundbreaking and
controversial sitcoms as All in the Family and Maude. Lear was certainly used to having his
shows both praised and condemned at the same time, but Good Times was unique in that it was
often praised and condemned by the same critic. That was the case with Donald Bogle, who was
not alone in revealing mixed emotions. Of the show‘s positive characteristics, he wrote:
Good Times was considered a breakthrough because it
acknowledged poverty and other urban ills confronting a segment
of the African American community. Unlike Sanford and Son‘s
soft treatment of life in Watts, Good Times was edgy, pushy, and
in-your-face about its issues. The opening theme song told of
―temporary layoffs and easy-credit rip-offs‖ and ―keeping your
head above water‖ . . . . John Amos played James with warmth and
intelligence. What made his character all the more affecting was
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that he was no blind victim of the system. James understood its
workings, which made him feel at times all the more trapped and
frustrated . . . . He was quick to articulate his plight as an untrained
Black man in America. Returning home after unsuccessfully
searching for a job, he told his wife, ―I lost out on the last one by
only four years of college, four years of high school, and two years
of grade school.‖ On another occasion, unable to find a better job,
James recalled that ―the President said he was going to bring us all
together, but no one told us it would be in a breadline‖ (Bogle
2001: 199-200).
As mentioned, any positive strides made in the person of James, or any other character,
were quickly dismantled by the emergence of J. J. as the show‘s heart and soul—or at least as its
face. Bogle described the character, and decried his effect on the show and the country:
Tall, beanpole skinny, given to mugging, clowning, and flashing
his teeth . . . . Jimmie Walker‘s J. J. often dressed outlandishly—
floppy hats, bright shirts, ill-fitting jackets—like the old-style coon
figure and usually didn‘t seem to have a serious thought in his head
. . . . J. J. was a blatant caricature. For a spell, J. J. became a pop
hero and a favorite of kids around the country, who gleefully
imitated him and bought J. J. T-shirts, belt-buckles, and pajamas.
They loved the Dyn-o-mite line, which was heard in schoolyards
around the country. For children, he was as unreal as Saturday
morning cartoons; they loved the exaggerations, the wild getups,
the stylized movements. For others, the character became an
embarrassment. Here was television‘s most visible young African-
American male, and he was devoid of any signs of maturity and
intelligence. To have given him any kind of challenging political
consciousness seemed unthinkable to the writers, most of whom
were white (Bogle 2001: 201-202).
On many subsequent black sitcoms—or, for that matter, on any show that raised
objections for culturally insensitive material—the show‘s stars would quickly defend the
program‘s intentions. That was not the case on Good Times. John Amos left the show in 1976,
and Esther Rolle, who played Florida, did the same in 1977. To dispel rumors that she left
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because of jealousy over co-star Jimmie Walker‘s increased screen time, Rolle commented that it
was ―a matter of pride, not pique‖ (Mitz 1988: 259). In a later interview, Rolle made her
objections to the J. J. character clear:
He‘s 18 and he doesn‘t work. He can‘t read and write. He doesn‘t
think . . . . Little by little . . . they have made him more stupid and
enlarged the role . . . . I resent the imagery that says to black kids
that you can make it by standing on the corner saying ―Dyn-o-
mite!‖ (Bogle 2001: 203).
Rolle returned to Good Times in 1978, having been assured by the show‘s producers that
they would turn J. J. into more of an upstanding character. They kept their promise—J. J. did,
indeed become more respectable—and, in a result that was oddly similar to the one Quinn Martin
received when he scaled back violence on The Untouchables, ratings plummeted. Good Times
met a quiet end in 1979.
Whatever the merits of Good Times, it represented, along with Bob Newhart, the first
successful television exposure for Chicago since the days of Eliot Ness. These shows also
marked the leading edge of a torrent of Illinois-based situation comedies. The number of new
sitcoms more than doubled over the next decade, from seven in the 1970s to fifteen in the 1980s.
The 1980s sitcoms painted a similarly diverse portrait of the city, with roughly equal numbers of
family and workplace comedies, white-collar and blue-collar characters, and urban and suburban
settings. As had been the case in the 1970s, the first sitcom of the new decade was a period piece,
and it was a dud. The Happy Days spin-off Joanie Loves Chachi debuted in the spring of 1982,
and returned for a full season the next fall. Chachi was Fonzie‘s young cousin, who moved to
Chicago with his girlfriend Joanie to start a career in the music business. Along for the ride were
his mother Louisa and stepfather Al, who opened a new restaurant in the Windy City. The
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singing career didn‘t work out, and neither did this program. A similar fate met It Takes Two,
which was cancelled after a single season in 1983. It was a standard-issue family sitcom,
featuring upper-middle class professionals Sam and Molly Quinn, and their teenage kids, Lisa
and Andy. Sam was a surgeon and Molly was a recent law school graduate who had landed a job
as an assistant district attorney. Molly‘s new career put a dent in their love life and sent their
household into disarray, but Sam, a steadfast liberal, refused to complain for fear of sounding
chauvinistic. The twist was that Molly, now exposed to Chicago‘s vast and seedy criminal
underworld, was becoming a hard-line conservative. She was heard saying about a murderer‘s
defense, ―Says it‘s because he comes from a broken home. Of course he comes from a broken
home—he killed his father!‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 675).
Molly‘s rants were the last indication, at least for a while, that anything was amiss in
Chicago. For some reason, many of the city‘s more successful 1980s sitcoms would be defined
by their incredibly sunny outlook on life. Blood had been flowing freely on the streets of
Chicago since the days of M Squad, and even the city‘s hit sitcoms—Bob Newhart and Good
Times—had something of a downbeat tone. Beginning with Webster in 1983, however, things
changed. Webster actually began with what sounds like a grim scenario—a cute, pint-sized black
kid named Webster was orphaned after his parents were killed in a car accident. Webster‘s dad
had been a pro football player, and seven years earlier had asked his burly white teammate,
George Papadapolis (played by former Detroit Lion Alex Karras), to be Webster‘s godfather.
George was now a Chicago sportscaster who had recently wed Katherine, a somewhat stuffy
psychologist, and they were both more than a little surprised when Webster showed up on their
doorstep. Neither George nor Katherine knew the first thing about parenting, but they made
adjustments, unable to resist Webster‘s charms. Webster charmed audiences as well, spending
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the first two of its four seasons ranked twenty-fifth in the Nielsen rankings. Critics, including
John Javna, were not quite as enthusiastic as the viewing audience:
Webster, a little black kid, joined Alex Karras‘s white family when
his parents were killed in a car accident, and he brought love and
joy into their lives. And sweetness. And cuteness—lots of
cuteness. And good feelings and heart. And warmth. And cuteness.
Pass the Pepto Bismol and insulin, please (Javna 1988: 136).
For critic Donald Bogle, the disturbing thing about Webster was not its saccharinity, but its racial
undertones:
The series did not seriously question why Webster had no relatives
to care for him. Unlike Diff‟rent Strokes, on which jokes were
made about race and culture, Webster, in tune with the
conservative 1980s, did all it could to ignore such subjects. Race
problems, we‘re to assume, have vanished from the land. So too
have cultural differences. Little Webster had no major problems
adjusting to his new life in the Papadopolis household. On one
episode, Webster takes a new white friend home to meet his
family. The kid registers no surprise at seeing that his Black friend
has white parents. That was the perspective of the series itself . . . .
Nonetheless, beneath the sugar-coated, fake exterior of Webster,
comments about race unintentionally surfaced. Webster always
addressed his adopted mother as Ma‟am ―‘cause it kinda sounds
like Mom.‖ This made him sound all the more like the little
pickaninny finally allowed inside the master‘s home . . . . Black
parents complained that the series sent a poor message to Black
children: that whenever advice and comfort were needed, both
would be dispensed by knowledgeable whites . . . . The subtext
was that there was no Black community to nourish these kids‖
(259-261).
Chicago became home to another seven-year-old orphan in 1984. Punky Brewster was
the story of a plucky young girl who, having been abandoned by her parents, holed up in an
empty apartment with her dog, Brandon. She was soon discovered by the building‘s cheerless
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owner, a professional photographer named Henry Warnimount. In a matter of minutes, Punky‘s
warmth had melted Henry‘s icy old heart, and, as could only happen on television, he persuaded
the authorities to let Punky stay with him. Over the next few seasons, they learned quite a lot
from one another. ―My life was empty, Punky, until you came into it,‖ said Henry. ―You brought
the sunshine to me‖ (Javna, 1988: 134).
Punky Brewster was not a smash hit, but it was popular enough to air for two seasons on
NBC, and to return for a run in syndication in 1988 and 1989. If Webster had made critics recoil,
however, Punky Brewster made them gag, and John Javna collected some of the more
memorable assessments. ―Punky Brewster is one of those shows that make you want to shower
after you‘ve seen it once,‖ wrote critic David Bianculli of the New York Post. ―And I don‘t think
anything could make me see it twice.‖ Rich DuBrow of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner
offered a similar judgment: ―Gives a new meaning to the word juvenile. It‘s cute beyond words.
Everything about the show was cute. It‘s so boring I can‘t imagine why anybody would watch
it.‖ Jim Gordon of the Gary Times Register was the most succinct, and the most direct: ―I really
resented the hell out of that show‖ (Javna 1988: 135).
A third warm, gentle comedy from the mid-1980s, Valerie, did not kill off its parents
right away. It was the story of a typical suburban nuclear family. Valerie Hogan was a part-time
graphic artist and full-time mom, raising three kids—rambunctious David and lively fraternal
twins Willie and Mark—in a picture-perfect home in the quiet, upscale suburb of Oak Park. Her
husband Michael, a commercial airline pilot, was frequently absent, which added to the cheery
chaos of Valerie‘s life. The show occasionally tackled some serious issues, like drunk driving
and AIDS, but the outlook was nearly always sunny—so sunny, in fact, that even the death of its
protagonist could not dim its horizons. Series star Valerie Harper left the show in a contract
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dispute after the second season, and was written out as having been killed in a car accident.
Michael was around more often, and his divorced sister Sandy (played by the always
effervescent Sandy Duncan) moved in to act as a surrogate mom to the boys. The show was
ultimately retitled The Hogan Family, and was a success, running for five seasons, including two
years in the Nielsen top twenty-five. The plots were more or less interchangeable with those of
any other suburban family sitcom, and the trademark of The Hogan Family was safe,
comfortable, escapism.
The 1986 comedy Perfect Strangers, which aired for seven seasons, did not feature any
orphaned children, but its formula was not far removed from that of Punky Brewster and
Webster. It was the story of Larry Appleton, a high-strung nerd who had moved to Chicago with
hopes of starting a career as a photojournalist. He got a small apartment above the Ritz Discount
Shop, where he worked for an avaricious lout named Donald Twinkacetti. Larry began to enjoy
the rewards of the big city, and became friends with Susan, a nurse, and Mary Anne and Jennifer,
a pair of stewardesses who lived down the hall. Into Larry‘s carefully structured world came
Balki Bartokomous, a shepherd by trade, and Larry‘s very distant cousin from the Mediterranean
island of Mypos. Balki was an archetypal comedy immigrant, with his unbridled optimism,
profound naivety, comically thick accent, and tendency to take everything literally. He was
childlike in his enthusiasm, wearing Spider Man pajamas and marveling at such miracles as pop-
top pop cans, color television, and the fact that the morning paper was delivered right to the door.
He moved in with a very reluctant Larry, and the adventure began. The show was not complex,
but it was funny, building on a tradition established by Lucy and Ethel and Laverne and Shirley,
where a pair of likably hapless characters had the remarkable ability to turn a minor disturbance
into a major catastrophe.
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Perfect Strangers was never a ratings behemoth, but remained on air for more than seven
years. Critic James Greene, Jr. believed the show‘s popularity was due to simple sincerity,
writing that Perfect Strangers and other late-1980s/early-1990s warmth-coms were ―strangely
comforting in a world where Magic Johnson could get AIDs and the Vice President couldn‘t
spell potato.‖
They really do need and care about each other . . . and the episode
that best displays this is the surprisingly sweet and touching
―Falling In Love Is . . .‖, in which Balki is duped by a beautiful
woman he is sure truly loves him (despite Larry‘s numerous
warnings). The closing scenes where Larry comforts a crestfallen
Balki over a pint of ice cream are neither corny nor pained nor
overly maudlin. They‘re just nice (Greene 2008: 1).
In 1987, Larry finally got his big break, going to work as a reporter for The Chicago
Chronicle, while Balki got a job in the newspaper‘s mail room. Another employee at the
Chronicle was Harriette Winslow, the sharp-tongued but cheerful black elevator operator. In
1989, she and her television family got their own spin-off. Family Matters had the same breezy,
bright, and amiable spirit as Perfect Strangers, and ultimately proved to be even more popular,
running for nine seasons, including three in the Nielsen top thirty. Harriette lived in a middle-
class suburb with her stocky husband, Carl, a crabby but lovable Chicago cop. They shared their
home with their three lively kids, Eddie, Laura, and Judy, and also with Harriette‘s widowed
sister, Rachel, and her infant son, Richie.
Audiences initially gave Family Matters a lukewarm reception, as did critics, who
dismissed the show as ―bland, predictable, and little more than a watered-down, working-class
version of The Cosby Show‖ (Bogle, 2001: 330). Then came Urkel. Steve Urkel was a skinny,
nerdy neighbor kid, intended as a one-time character in an episode where Carl recruited him as a
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date for Laura. His big glasses, suspendered high-water pants, squeaky voice, and snorting laugh
led one critic to describe him as ―a cross between Pee-Wee Herman and Spike Lee,‖ but
whatever Urkel was, he became wildly popular with viewers (Bogle 2001: 330). He began to
appear on nearly every episode, and although his presence didn‘t appear to budge the critics‘
assessment of the show, Urkel transformed Family Matters into a hit. The program soared to
fifteenth on the Nielsen charts in its second season, and Urkel became his own industry. There
was an Urkel action figure, Urkel trading cards, and even a breakfast cereal, Urkel-Os. Urkel
took over the show, and stories began to focus on his fruitless pursuit of Laura and the
consternation he caused his comic foil, Carl. Eventually, having been rendered homeless when
his parents left the country and forgot to take him, Urkel moved in with Winslows. The show
became more and more outrageous, often focusing on the small disasters caused by one of
Urkel‘s many outrageous inventions.
Having a cartoonish, sensational character take over an otherwise straightforward
African-American family sitcom brings Good Times to mind, but Steve Urkel did not raise the
same kinds of objections as had J. J. Evans. In fact, Harvard psychology professor Alvin
Poussaint, a noted critic of black characters on American television, said of Steve Urkel, ―He‘s
not up on street talk, not a dancing, bopping kind of kid. The fact that he‘s a nerd and very bright
may be a step forward—accepting that a Black kid can be bright and precocious and might end
up in an Ivy League school‖ (Bogle, 2001: 332).
For viewers whose sense of Chicago was shaped by Webster, Punky Brewster, The
Hogan Family, Perfect Strangers, and Family Matters, the city was a place of unremittingly
wholesome bliss, where problems were trivial and love abounded. Mixed in with these
successful sitcoms, however, were several indicators that the cynicism of Bob Newhart and Good
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Times, and even the bloody legacy of the city‘s crime dramas, were not entirely dead. The first
such sitcom was 1985‘s Charlie & Co., which was the story of a working-class, African-
American family living on the South Side. Charlie Richmond, played by veteran comic Flip
Wilson, worked for the Department of Highways, and his wife Diana was an elementary school
teacher. They lived with their three sharp-tongued children and Diana‘s caustic Aunt Rachel,
who had a wholly antagonistic relationship with Charlie. In fact, the whole atmosphere was
contentious, leaving Charlie & Co. standing in stark contrast to its sugar-coated Chicago sitcom
cohort. The 1986 entry Tough Cookies was a comic spin on the tough-Chicago-cop-in-a-tough-
Chicago-neighborhood formula. Detective Cliff Brady lived in the same seedy South Side
neighborhood where he had grown up and, when not at work, hung out at the Windbreaker, a
local dive bar populated by the expected array of bums, barflies, and bookies.
Charlie & Co. lasted eight months and Tough Cookies just eight weeks, so the grittiness
they attempted to display was probably lost in the wake of their clean-living and far more
successful sitcom counterparts. Viewers hoping for a little more grime on Chicago‘s television
landscape got exactly what they were looking for, however, in April of 1987 with the unheralded
premiere of a family sitcom called Married with Children. At first glance, it is difficult to call
Married with Children a revolutionary situation comedy. It was not groundbreaking in technique
like I Love Lucy, and did not possess the artful wit of Cheers, the socio-cultural import of Mary
Tyler Moore, the geographic significance of The Andy Griffith Show, or the astute political
commentary of M*A*S*H. The show was more like a bomb-throwing anarchist—upending the
status quo for the sheer thrill of it.
Six family sitcoms existed in the Nielsen top thirty when Married with Children made its
debut, including the occasionally funny but safely banal programs Growing Pains, Who‟s the
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Boss, 227, Kate & Allie and Alf. The top two shows on television were The Cosby Show and
Family Ties, both programs of unquestionable quality, but also earnest depictions of upwardly
mobile families bound together by love, respect, and understanding. Married with Children made
it immediately and abundantly clear that it was none of those things. The title sequence of the
show opened with a spectacular shot of Chicago‘s Buckingham fountain, spouting to the
sprightly strains of Frank Sinatra‘s ―Love and Marriage.‖ The title card then faded in and began
oozing green slime. The credits ended with the abrupt sound of a cell door slamming shut.
Viewers then met the Bundys, a working-class family who lived in the Chicago suburbs (the
home shown was in Deerfield). Al Bundy, a former high school football star, was now a bitter,
loutish salesman at Gary‘s Shoe Emporium who had been married for fifteen years. Peggy was a
homemaker, but only in a nominal sense, as she never cooked or cleaned. Although they
sometimes admitted that they didn‘t hate each other, the couple spent most of the time arguing.
They fought about money, Al‘s lack of sexual prowess, and Peggy‘s laziness. Daughter Kelly
was perhaps the dumbest dumb blonde ever seen on television, and viewers quickly learned
about her extreme sexual prowess—she once claimed to be ―one paternity suit away from a
Caribbean home‖ (Stuller-Giglione 2010: 1). Eventually, Kelly somehow managed to graduate
from high school, and worked as a waitress and part-time television model for Ice Hole Beer and
the Pet Boys exterminating company. Bud was her younger brother, a borderline delinquent who
at first seemed destined to follow in his father‘s shoes. He did attend and graduate from college,
however, working his way through as an employee of the Illinois Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
The Bundy‘s were contrasted with their newlywed neighbors, Steve and Marcy, a young
pair of successful bankers and political activists who were very much in love. Then, they started
interacting with the Bundys. When Steve, a banker, authorized a loan to Al, he defaulted, and
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Steve lost his job. After several months of unemployment and an extended nervous breakdown,
he left to become a park ranger at Yosemite. A heartbroken Marcy eventually married Jefferson
D‘Arcy during a drinking binge at a banking convention. Despite his charm and good looks,
Jefferson proved to be a freeloading lout. The story of Steve and Marcy made it clear—things do
not turn out so well when one begins to fall into the Bundy orbit.
Married with Children was created by Michael Moye and Ron Leavitt, who made a
concerted effort to make it everything The Cosby Show—then television‘s highest-rated
program—was not. The hallmarks of Cosby were class, sophistication, and family warmth, while
Moye and Leavitt redefined what it meant to be tasteless, vulgar, and cynical. Married with
Children was known informally among its cast and crew as Not the Cosbys, and the name of the
self-righteous next-door neighbor who the Bundys wantonly destroyed, Marcy D‘Arcy, sounded
more than a little like that of Cosby executive producer Marcy Carsey.
While much has been made of Married with Children being was the stylistic antipode of
Cosby, one of the more notable things about the show was the difference in social class. While
the Huxtables of Cosby lived a comfortable upper-middle class lifestyle in a well-groomed
Brooklyn brownstone, the Bundys were digging through the couch cushions for change and
scraps of food. The Bundys were one of the first sitcom families in years for whom money, or
the lack thereof, was a constant source of anxiety. Critic Steven D. Stark described the
socioeconomics of a typical television show:
From Leave it to Beaver and Perry Mason to Friends and ER,
television has been grounded in the upper-middle-class experience.
On TV, even the cops live in homes or co-ops which would make
an investment banker envious . . . . One look at the Huxtables‘
wardrobe on The Cosby Show . . . and viewers are bound to find
something they wish they had, but don‘t (Stark 1997: 353).
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While Married with Children never explored social class, or anything else, in a serious
manner, it was quite something, in the era of Cosby, Family Ties, and Growing Pains, to see a
family take their folding chairs to the supermarket produce aisle during a heat wave because they
didn‘t have air conditioning. In one episode, while the Bundys were attending a family funeral,
they stole the dead man‘s refrigerator—not so they could sell it, but simply for its food. In
another episode, Al forced Kelly and Bud to keep a live chicken in their car because it was
cheaper to register a farm vehicle at the DMV. Unfortunately, Al, in a moment of weakness, got
hungry and ate the chicken.
In addition to such bizarre happenings, Married with Children gained notoriety for
constantly pushing its luck with the lowly FOX network‘s part-time censor. Controversy
surrounded the running story of Al‘s antifeminist activist group NO MA‘AM (the National
Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood), the meetings for which mainly involved
alcohol and pornography. The only activism in which the group actually engaged was a trip to
Washington, D. C., to save Al‘s favorite television show, Psycho Dad, which was a celebration
of domestic murders. In two instances FOX actually delayed episodes— one called ―A Period
Piece,‖ which dealt with menstruation, and another, ―Her Cups Runneth Over,‖ featuring Al‘s
road trip to a Wisconsin lingerie shop. Eventually, both episodes did run. That such stories made
it to air, particularly in an early Sunday evening time slot, irked a number of viewers, including
one from the Detroit suburbs named Terry Rakolta. Running a campaign to boycott FOX and
companies that advertised on Married with Children, she took her crusade to Nightline, where
she made the following case:
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I picked on Married with Children because they are so consistently
offensive. They exploit women, they stereotype poor people,
they‘re anti-family. And every week that I‘ve watched them,
they‘re worse and worse. I think this is really outrageous. It‘s
sending the wrong messages to the American family (Stuller-
Giglione 2010: 1).
Television historian Joan Stuller-Giglione described Rakolta‘s eventual, but rather dubious,
victory:
Advertisers such as major movie studios and many retail stores
refused to buy commercials on the new FOX network . . . . Media
brokers cited a bad connotation. Newsweek magazine featured a
front page story on ―Trash TV‖ . . . . Among FOX‘s greatest
problems at the time of the controversy was limited viewer
awareness. Many viewers simply did not know a fourth network
existed . . . . Many FOX stations had weak UHF signals which
were difficult to receive. Rakolta‘s complaints garnered substantial
national publicity and this seemed to assist the network in solving
many of its difficulties. After Nightline, Good Morning America,
Today and most other national and local news shows featured the
controversy over Married with Children viewer awareness rose
dramatically. People purposely sought out their local FOX affiliate
and Married with Children became a success (Stuller-Giglione
2010: 1).
Despite FOX‘s subsequent rapid growth, it would still be many years before the network
could host a show capable of putting up Cosby-like numbers. That said, Married with Children
was a ringing success. By 1995, it was the longest-tenured situation comedy on television. Its
decade-long run made it Illinois‘s longest-lasting sitcom, and the second-most durable of all the
state‘s entries, after ER.
The success of Married with Children, in conjunction with the continuing popularity of
The Cosby Show, Growing Pains, and Who‟s the Boss?, suggested that television audiences were
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perhaps now primed for a show that would occupy the vacant middle ground between Cosby
sincerity and Married with Children anarchy. It got precisely that in 1988 with Roseanne, a show
that critic Ken Tucker called ―the finest portrait of white working-class life in TV history‖
(Tucker 2005: 111).
Set in the fictional small town of Lanford, Illinois, Roseanne was the story of the
working-class Conner family. Roseanne was the mom, and she held various odd jobs over the
years—at a plastics factory, and as a waitress, a barmaid, and a beautician before opening her
own sandwich shop. Husband Dan was a small-time drywall contractor who eventually operated
a motorcycle shop. Their three children included stressed-out Becky, moody tomboy Darlene,
and quiet D. J., who was constantly being dumped on by his sisters. Also seen frequently was
Roseanne‘s sister, Jackie, who worked with Roseanne at the plastics factory before becoming a
cop.
Like many of its successful sitcom contemporaries—The Cosby Show, Seinfeld, and
Home Improvement, to name a few—Roseanne was based on the stand-up routine of its star.
Roseanne Barr had developed quite a following in the 1980s, having adopted the classic Phyllis
Diller formula of a harried, underappreciated housewife. ―My husband complained that he
needed more space,‖ she would say, ―so I locked him out‖ (Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman 1991:
80). Another typical Roseanne line—―I figure by the time my husband comes home at night, if
those kids are still alive, I‘ve done my job‖ (Butler 2010: 1). What made Barr different from
Diller and other comics in the same vein is that her exasperation sometimes bordered on rage, as
indicated by the following statement from a New Yorker interview:
I gave birth to ya and I can take ya out, too. I think that‘s what
makes me a bit different from other women. Because I‘ll beat the
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shit out of them, and not just verbally. I‘m not opposed to violence.
In fact, I think it‘s great. I think women should be more violent—
kill more of their husbands (Stark 1997: 356).
When this material was transferred to the small screen, it was unlike anything viewers
had seen before. Critics hailed the show as ―ordinary, real, truthful, and resolutely non-urban,
non-yuppie, and non-upscale‖ (Johnson 2008: 156). The cast, while not necessarily unattractive,
was certainly not TV-pretty. Dan and Roseanne were overweight, overworked, and underpaid.
They were always short of money, they didn‘t like their jobs, and they blew off steam by
drinking beer, watching television, or bowling. Ken Tucker wrote that the show was ―about the
strains of marriage when two people work hard all day, about how difficult it is to pay attention
to the emotional growth spurts and withdrawals of your children when you‘re preoccupied with
thinking about how to grab some overtime money, about how love and fury constantly
commingle under the roof of a too-small, messy house.‖ No other show, said Tucker, ―made the
effort to pay the bills so engrossing‖ (Tucker 2005: 140-141).
Viewers, without doubt, were engrossed. Roseanne became the second-most-watched
show on television during its rookie season, a feat it would pull off two more times, and tied the
venerable Cosby Show at the top of the Nielsen ratings in 1989-1990. Roseanne resided in the
Nielsen top four for its first six years, and was in the top thirty for all but its ninth and final
season. The show was a commercial and critical success, and something of a cultural revolution.
A study by Advertising Age determined that Roseanne Barr had, in 1989, appeared on more
magazine covers in a single year than anyone else in American history.
The primary reason for the initial success of Roseanne was, quite simply, because it was
genuinely funny, but it is also hard to ignore that it came, like its more controversial working-
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class counterpart, Married with Children, on the heels of a decade dedicated to upper-class
hubris and upper-middle class egocentrism on shows like Dallas, Dynasty, L.A. Law, and
thirtysomething. ―There was something refreshing,‖ wrote critic Steven D. Stark, ―about a loud,
studiously sloppy comedy whose lead was a woman 50 pounds overweight‖ (Stark 1997: 352).
In addition to shaking up television‘s caste system, Roseanne constantly rebelled against what
had been a decade of slushy sitcom wholesomeness, pushing the limits of what was permissible
on a mainstream comedy. Jackie had a baby out of wedlock. Leon, Roseanne‘s boss, married
another man. One episode dealt with the subject of masturbation, and another concerned
daughter Becky‘s desire for birth control. Probably the most famous (or infamous) was an
episode in which Roseanne and Jackie visited a lesbian bar in Elgin, where Roseanne kissed a
woman.
As mentioned, the most remarkable thing about Roseanne was that, despite angering
some viewers with its caustic humor, it put up Cosby-type ratings. ―Marriage stinks with a
capital suck,‖ was a typical Roseanne observation (West and Bergund 2005: 9). When her kids
left for school, she commented ―Quick. They‘re gone. Change the locks‖ (Butler 2010: 1). On
one episode she jokingly offered up one of her kids in exchange for a new dishwasher, and on
another, when one of her children asked why she was so mean, she replied, ―Because I hate kids
and I‘m not your real Mom‖ (Stark 1997: 355). For Steven D. Stark, this was revolutionary.
―Instead of venerating children, like virtually all other domestic sitcoms,‖ he wrote, ―Roseanne
good-humoredly violated the once-inviolate (Stark 1997: 355)
All of this was, of course, terribly out of character for a hit midwestern sitcom. Roseanne
lacked the wholesomeness of Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, the friendliness of The Mary
Tyler Moore Show, the abundant familial love of Family Ties, and even the bittersweet familial
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love of One Day at a Time. Without doubt, the most significant geographic legacy of Roseanne
was its depiction of a small-town, midwestern family that was not afraid to take the gloves off or,
for that matter, throw a few sucker punches.
That said, the Connors were not wholly dysfunctional. Deep down they loved one another
and Dan Conner, in particular, upheld the midwestern tradition of being a loving, supportive dad,
particular in his relationship with his moody daughter, Darlene. Ken Tucker singled out a scene
in which Dan was comforting Darlene after she cut her finger by ―telling her to ‗think about a
pretty flower‘—a touching leap of banal imagination for a blue-collar hero:‖
If Dan would go to some lengths to avoid fixing a clogged sink or
toilet, he never let down his family—and when he did, by, say,
getting low-balled on a contracting-job bid, he always kept up
appearances, such as his were, kidding the kids about their
romances or fights with friends. I always noted that Dan knew the
names of his kids‘ friends, an infallible sign of a good father, I
have noticed in real life. He‘d waggle his enormous fanny as he
bent over into the ‗fridge, looking for that last beer, knowing that it
was best to take comfort in the small amusements of life to achieve
larger happiness (Tucker 2005: 111).
While Dan upheld the midwestern tradition of the humble ―blue-collar hero,‖ Roseanne
(both Barr and Conner) continued to demolish regional stereotypes. The show was deliberate in
depicting the small-town Midwest as a world that, while not chic and sophisticated, could still be
witty and worldly. For Barr, this was not artistic license, but simply the result of an attempt to be
realistic, as indicated in an interview with the New York Times:
I want to do a show that reflects how people really live. Telling the
truth at any point [on TV] is really revolutionary . . . . When you
tell the truth you don‘t insult the audience‘s intelligence . . . . I
grew up with people in the Midwest and, in fact, they‘re as hip as
anyone else. In fact, you grow up with more minority people in
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your neighborhoods in the Midwest than you do in L. A. or New
York, because we were factory working-class people, generally.
So, we grew up in the same neighborhoods. We‘re not so isolated.
It‘s all kinds of colors of people in the Midwest. All that talking
down to the audience stuff really drives me crazy (Johnson 2008:
156).
Although Married with Children and Roseanne represented a significant break in tone
from the saccharine family sitcoms that otherwise characterized Chicago and much of the rest of
the country, in the mid-1980s, they were still family sitcoms. The difference, for Illinois, was
that sitcoms set primarily in a workplace or public space—shows like Alice, Newhart, Cheers,
Night Court, Designing Women, and Murphy Brown—were comparatively rare in the state.
Four of Chicago‘s 1980s entries did focus on the workplace, but none of them were
especially successful. The first was, if nothing else, an interesting television footnote. In
September, 1984, ten years and three days before the blockbuster Chicago-based medical drama
ER first aired, a Chicago-based medical sitcom called E/R made its debut. This show chronicled
the antics of the emergency room staff and patients at (fictional) Clark Street Hospital. The
central character was Dr. Howard Sheinfeld, a wisecracking general practitioner who
moonlighted in the emergency room to cover alimony payments. Sheinfeld was played Elliot
Gould, who originated the character of Dr. ―Trapper‖ John McIntyre in the film version of
M*A*S*H. The program also featured a young emergency room doctor played by George
Clooney, who would later play another, slightly older, emergency room doctor on ER. The first
E/R, however, could not measure up to either of these shows, and was cancelled after one season.
Chicago‘s second 1980s workplace comedy came with an equally impressive pedigree. Mary,
featuring Mary Tyler Moore, was the story of Mary Brenner, a divorced journalist who lost her
job when the prestigious magazine she worked for went under. She then was forced to become a
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consumer-advocate columnist for a trashy tabloid called The Chicago Eagle. Viewers did not
take to Mary Brenner as they had to Mary Richards and Laura Petry, and the show lasted just
four months. The 1989 sitcom Have Faith, which featured the antics of a group of nutty priests
and their equally nutty flock at St. Catherine‘s Church in inner-city Chicago, did not fare any
better, lasting just three months.
The most successful Chicago workplace comedy to debut in the 1980s was Anything But
Love, a journalism comedy that, as its name suggested, contained a dash of romance. Marty Gold
was a reporter for Chicago Weekly magazine. He was respected for his skill and toughness on the
job, but his personal life was a mess. He met aspiring writer Hannah Miller on an airplane. The
two hit it off, and he helped her land a job as a researcher for the magazine. The series
simultaneously chronicled the slow but sure development of their romantic relationship together
with the inner workings, and expectedly zany staff, of the newsroom at Chicago Weekly.
Anything But Love debuted in the spring of 1989 and did exceptionally well, ranking tenth on the
Nielsen charts. That success, however, was largely attributable to following Roseanne on ABC‘s
Tuesday night schedule. When Anything But Love returned for its first full season that fall, the
network inexplicably placed it behind the goofy teen comedy Doogie Howser, M.D. on
Wednesday nights, and ratings plummeted. The show managed to survive until the summer of
1992, but its air time was sporadic, with ABC placing the show on hiatus five times during its
fifty-six episode run. While poor management appears to have been the primary reason for
Anything But Love‘s demise, critic Noel Murray suggested that the show‘s struggles might have
resulted from being just a little ahead of its time:
The mid-to-late-‗90s were a golden age for TV in general and the
sitcom in particular, made all the more special because it came
after one of the medium‘s most fallow periods, when only the
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occasional St. Elsewhere or Cheers offered relief from an unending
tide of Family Matters. One of those rare signs of life was
Anything But Love, a smart, genteel romantic comedy that . . . gave
Richard Lewis and Jamie Lee Curtis a forum for their curiously
complementary talents. It took Lewis‘s cuddly version of neurotic
kvetching and Curtis‘s engaging take on the literate, lonely single
gal to break a good show out of the kitsch-com box . . . . Still, it‘s
clear now that Lewis and Curtis were straining against late-‗80s
sitcom strictures, trying to turn their show into a Mad About You or
Friends just a few years too early (Murray 2007b: 1).
If Murray was correct in his assessment—that Anything But Love was a prototype for
programs like Mad About You and Friends—then the show represented a rather ironic vanguard
of the Chicago television landscape as it moved into the new decade. These were the very shows
that most of the city‘s 1990s sitcom entries seemed intent on replicating. While some of Illinois‘s
preeminent 1980s family sitcoms—Married with Children, Roseanne, and Family Matters—
would carry on well into the next decade, most of Chicago‘s new sitcom entries would focus on
characters who were young, single, urban professionals. Suburban settings and the nuclear
family almost completely vanished. Twenty-three new Chicago-based situation comedies
premiered in the 1990s, an increase of nearly fifty percent over the 1980s, but the collective track
record of these new programs was miserable. While eight 1980‘s Chicago sitcoms lasted at least
two full seasons—and some much longer than that— just three of the city‘s 1990s sitcom debuts
would endure that long, and none would break into the Nielsen top thirty. For whatever reason,
American audiences were more than willing to tune in and watch single yuppies grouse about
life in New York, but not Chicago.
The first Chicago-based sitcom to debut in the 1990s was not actually a yuppie-com, but
an extension of the working-class aesthetic perfected by Married with Children and Roseanne.
1991‘s Top of the Heap was, in fact, a spin-off of Married with Children, containing all of the
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crassness of its parent program, but experiencing none of its success. The protagonist was
Charlie Verducci, the superintendent of a Chicago tenement who, like Al Bundy, was always
into one sleazy get-rich scheme or another. His latest was to have his son, Vinnie, move up in
class by marrying rich. To that end, Charlie got Vinnie a job at the posh suburban Rolling Hills
Country Club. Top of the Heap lasted just three months, but FOX attempted to resuscitate the
show the following summer under the title Vinnie & Bobby. Charlie was gone, but Vinnie was
still living in the same crummy apartment, this time with his friend—a freeloading misogynist
named Bobby. This time around, Vinnie was trying to make good by working construction and
attending night classes at Dick Butkus Community College, but the show disappeared after three
months.
Most of Chicago‘s other young and single apartment dwellers of the 1990s were a bit
better off, and considerably brighter, but most of their shows were not any more successful. As
mentioned, the 1990s television landscape was awash with yuppies-hanging-out sitcoms,
exemplified by Seinfeld, Friends, Mad About You, Ellen, Caroline in the City, Suddenly Susan,
The Single Guy, and Dharma & Greg. So, no simple explanation exists for Chicago versions of
this formula being unsuccessful. It is possible, however, that while viewers could accept Chicago
as a land of nuclear families, be they functional or dysfunctional, or as the gritty urban quagmire
of its police and medical dramas, they could not quite accept the city as one of young, trendy,
professionals.
A second explanation for the lack of success among Chicago‘s yuppie sitcoms is that they
were not very original. Most appeared to be put together from a box of spare sitcom parts. They
typically featured a pair of pals, often thrust together by fate. They worked together or shared an
apartment or both, and that apartment, as often as not, was across the street from Wrigley Field.
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One roommate was stuffy and responsible, the other free-spirited and/or free-loading. Sometimes
one was black and one white, sometimes they were brothers, and very often the free-loader had
just been kicked out of his apartment by a vengeful girlfriend or ex-wife. When these Chicago
yuppies were not spending time at the corner bar, they worked in the media industry, the sports
industry, or were artists struggling for that big break.
The Building, which aired for five weeks in 1993, featured Bonnie Hunt as the
stereotypical struggling actress. Chicago Sons, which aired for four months in 1997, was the
story of the three Kulchak brothers, one an ambitious architect, and two freeloaders. When not
chasing girls, they hung out at Murphy‘s Bar. Between Brothers, which ran on FOX for four
months in 1997 and on UPN for eight months in 1999, was the story of four black roommates,
two of them brothers, again all with distinct personalities. Again, when not chasing girls, they
hung out at the Corner Pub. The sitcom Buddies, which aired for four weeks in 1996, mixed
black and white roommates, both aspiring filmmakers. The sitcom Guys Like Us, which aired for
four months of the 1998-1999 season, featured another pair of black and white roommates. The
gimmick here, in a nod to Urkel, Webster, and Punky Brewster, was Maestro, a six-year-old
brother of one roommate who moved in after their dad got a job in Venezuela. Wild Oats, which
aired for four weeks in 1994, featured Brian, a photographer, and his buddy Brian, an
unemployed freeloader. They hung out with friends Shelly and Liz at a bar called The Hangar,
where they mainly talked about sex.
Four of Chicago‘s yuppie sitcoms of the 1990s featured single parents, but they were not
far removed in spirit or formula from their childless counterparts. Getting By, which premiered in
the spring of 1993 and returned in the fall for a full season, featured still another pair of
roommates. Divorced Cathy and widowed Dolores were social workers, with two kids each, who
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decided to save money by sharing a home in the near-west suburb of Oak Park. Cathy was
cheerful and optimistic, while Dolores was a no-nonsense realist. Their kids learned to get along,
while Dolores set out to teach her ―goody two-shoes partner the ways of the ‗real‘ world‖
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 532). Second Half, which aired the same season, was the story of John
Palmaro, a sportswriter for The Chicago Daily Post, who had just been kicked out of the house
by his wife. Slovenly, disorganized John barely managed to survive on his own, and could
usually be found ―slouched in his sparsely furnished apartment watching TV, surrounded by
empty pizza cartons‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,209). Luckily, his sister Denise, the sensible
one, lived just across the hall, which came in handy when John‘s two young daughters visited
him on weekends. Home Court aired during the 1995-1996 season and was the story of Sydney J.
Solomon, a family court judge and single mother of four who was almost as tough at home as
she was in the courtroom. The Gregory Hines Show, which aired during the 1997-1998 season,
was the story of Ben Stevenson, a widower who was trying put his life back together after the
death of his wife. Ben had a young son, Matty, and worked as an editor for a small publisher in
Oak Park.
With all of these young, eligible professionals scurrying about Chicago, some were
bound to meet up eventually, as they did on For Your Love. Also set in Oak Park, the story
involved three couples in various stages of commitment. Dean, an architect and former NFL
placekicker, and Sheri, a facialist, had been married for five years. The newlyweds were Mel, an
attorney, and Malena, a psychiatrist, who were self-described ―buppies‖ (black yuppies). Mel‘s
brother, Reggie, was a successful restaurateur who was trying to overcome his fear of
commitment and take his relationship with divorcee Bobbi to the next level. Story lines revolved
around the usual domestic tiffs and the characters‘ struggles to build their careers. This yuppie
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comedy appeared to be doomed to the same fate as its Chicago counterparts, being canned by
NBC after three months in 1998, but was salvaged by the WB network the following fall. That
the majority of the principal characters on For Your Love were black fit in with the WB‘s
strategy of catering to minority audiences, and the show enjoyed a moderately successful four-
year run on its new network.
Just as the 1990s brought a shift in sitcoms from nuclear families to yuppies, the decade
also witnessed a significant increase in the number of workplace comedies. The first Chicago
version was a homecoming for Bob Newhart. After two successful shows in the 1970s and
1980s, he returned in 1992 with another sitcom entitled Bob. This time around, Newhart played
Bob McKay, who, after twenty years as an artist for Chicago‘s Schmitt Greeting Card Company,
finally got an opportunity to fulfill his dream of creating a comic book. Whether it was a sign of
the times, or simply Newhart wanting to try something new, McKay represented a distinct
departure from the lovably low-key exasperation that had characterized the actor‘s other sitcom
heroes. In this incarnation, according to Brooks and Marsh, Bob ―had a temper, railed about the
short-comings and faults of his co-workers and friends, and even threatened to microwave Otto,
the family cat‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 158). While viewers had embraced such churlish
behavior on Roseanne and Married with Children, they were not looking for the same from Bob
Newhart. Bob was cancelled five weeks into its second season.
Five more Chicago workplace comedies made their debut in the 1990s, but only one
survived its first season. In 1995, a decade before Dunder-Mifflin‘s Scranton branch hit the air, a
Chicago-based sitcom called The Office made its debut. It focused on the relationships among
secretaries and bosses at a packaging design firm, and lasted just six weeks. Bonnie Hunt
returned to television the same year in the newsroom comedy, The Bonnie Hunt Show.
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Attempting to channel the spirit of Mary Tyler Moore, Hunt played a ―terminally nice,
relentlessly naïve‖ Wisconsinite who moved to the big city to take a job as a television reporter
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 615). Unlike the relatively congenial atmosphere of WJM in
Minneapolis, the environment of Chicago‘s WBDR was hurried, intense, and competitive.
Hunt‘s second sitcom was only slightly more successful than her previous Chicago entry.
Whereas The Bonnie Hunt Show lasted ten weeks, The Building ran for only five.
Chicago‘s other 1990s workplace sitcoms reflected the increasingly diverse television
landscape of the time, with all three featuring African-American leads. Getting Personal, which
aired for seven months in 1998, starred Vivica A. Fox and Duane Martin as employees of a local
commercial production firm. Damon, which aired for eight months the same year, featured comic
Damon Wayans as a master-of-disguises undercover cop and fellow In Living Color veteran
David Alan Grier as his bumbling older brother, a security guard who would have given anything
to become a cop. The most successful of the trio was The Steve Harvey Show, which premiered
in 1996 on the new WB network. Harvey played Steve Hightower, a former front man for a soul
group called the High Tops. With his career in decline, Steve took a job teaching music and art at
inner-city Booker T. Washington High School. Other school employees included Cedric
Robinson, an out-of-shape gym coach; Regina Grier, Steve‘s former classmate and the school‘s
usually sensible principal; and Lovita Jenkins, her boisterous secretary. Students included
Romeo Santana, a slacker ladies‘ man who always strolled into class late; Stanley ―Bullethead‖
Kuznokci, a dimwitted yet devious teachers‘ aide; Lydia, a pushy soon-to-be valedictorian; and
Coretta Cox, a bulldozer of a girl who had the hots for Romeo. Episodes revolved around the
students‘ various coming-of-age scrapes, the professional and personal lives of the faculty, and
the developing relationships between Steve and Victoria and between Cedric and Lovita.
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The WB‘s somewhat lowly status prevented The Steve Harvey Show from achieving stellar
ratings, but it managed to run more than five years, and was significant to the Chicago television
landscape in a number of ways. It was the longest-running Chicago-based sitcom to debut in the
1990s; one of the longest-running Chicago-based programs to feature a predominantly black
cast; the first successful sitcom in a number of years to take place in Chicago‘s inner city; and
the only Chicago-based program in any genre to focus primarily on a school. The Steve Harvey
Show never ranked above 125th on the Nielsen charts, but it was, for a time, television‘s highest-
rated show in African-American households. Wendy Raquel Robinson, who played Regina
Grier, said she believed the show was popular with black audiences ―because the characters and
situations are so easy to identify with. We try to keep it as real as possible,‖ she added, ―and
people respect that and find humor in it as well‖ (Jet 1999: 62).
As with many popular black sitcoms, the show was not without its detractors. Critic Ray
Richmond called it a ―typically pandering comedy from the WB that takes a smart sitcom
performer and magically transforms him into a buffoonish black stereotype.‖ Richmond added
that the show played ―shamelessly off such black stereotypes as big-butt jokes and jive talk, a
formula that the WB appears oddly to have adopted as its mandate‖ (Richmond 1996: 1). Steve
Harvey, of course, could have responded by pointing to the fourteen NAACP Image Awards the
show received during is run. He spoke about the show‘s image and appeal in a 1999 interview:
We always try to have, even though it‘s a comedy, a positive
portrayal of ourselves on TV. I will not allow any stereotypical
humor . . . . I don‘t allow my character to participate in any
buffoonery. No slapstick . . . . The main characters on the show
always portray a positive image of us as Black people . . . . Black
people can identify with us. The principal of the school is stylish,
bright and articulate. I think that‘s one of the main appeals. Then
there‘s Steve who‘s Steve. I‘m not going to deviate from who I am.
(Jet 1999: 60-62).
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The Steve Harvey Show ended its run midway through the 2001-2002, and, in a sense,
represented the end of an era for the WB network. In 1996, when Steve Harvey made its debut,
seven programs with mostly African-American casts ran on the network‘s fall schedule. In the
fall of 2002, none did so.
Amid the avalanche of programs focusing on young, single, urban professionals, few
Chicago-based sitcoms of the 1990s featured suburban settings, the nuclear family, or the
working class. One short-lived example was The Good Life, a ―rather pedestrian home-and-
workplace comedy‖ about John Bowman, a good-natured, blue-collar guy (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 550). He lived in the suburbs with his wife and three kids and managed a loading dock for
Honest Abe Security Products. The Good Life lasted less than four months in 1994.
Another 1990s program that partially embraced the family sitcom formula was the youth-
oriented Kenan & Kel, sixty-one episodes of which were seen on cable television‘s Nickelodeon
network from 1996 to 1999. Kenan was a goofy, chunky black teenager whose schemes caused
endless grief for both his parents and for his hypertensive boss at Rigby‘s grocery store. Kenan‘s
strict dad, Roger, was an air traffic controller. Sheryl was his savvy and somewhat more
forgiving mom. The focus of the show, however, was always on the Abbot-and-Costello-like
misadventures of Kenan and his sidekick, Kel.
Another Chicago-based kidcom, Two of a Kind, aired during the 1998-1999 season. This
show starred the eleven-year-old Olsen twins of Full House fame, and featured the same sort of
sugary, family-friendly misadventures that had become a staple of ABC‘s Friday night slate.
Baseball fanatic Mary-Kate was tomboyish, while sister Ashley was straight-laced and studious.
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Their lovable goofball dad Kevin was a widowed professor who had just hired one of his
students, high-spirited Carrie, as a nanny. The whole gang lived, of course, in an apartment
across the street from Wrigley Field.
The only Illinois-based sitcom of the 1990s not set in Chicago was A League of Their
Own. Based on the hit film of the same name about the Rockford Peaches, a women‘s
professional baseball team of the 1940s, the show continued the trend of having at least one
failed Illinois period sitcom per decade. It lasted just three weeks in 1993.
Despite the generally lackluster performance of its 1990s entries, the blitz of Chicago-
based comedies continued in the 2000s, with fifteen more sitcoms added in the first six seasons
of the new decade. Ten of these programs continued the trend of focusing on young urban
singles. Like their 1990s cohort, the plots and characters of these programs were, for the most
part, interchangeable and forgettable. Emphasis was again placed on members of the marketing,
finance, advertising, and media industries, with a handful of frustrated artists thrown in for good
measure. Roommates were often a mismatch of the sensible and the slovenly, some of whom had
just been thrown out of the house by their significant others. Obsessions involved either sex or
sports, which they discussed at length at the corner bar, and, as usual, few of these shows
managed to last a full season, making it appropriate that the title of one of the decade‘s earliest
entries was Cursed.
Cursed was the story of Jack Nagle, who had everything going for him, at least at the
start. He was charming and handsome, and had a successful career in marketing. Unfortunately
for Jack, he upset the wrong woman on a blind date. She placed a curse on him, and everything
began to unravel. The show lived up to its name in the ratings, and NBC pulled the show off the
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air for retooling numerous times. It ultimately scattered seventeen episodes from October of
2000 to April of 2001 before finally being removed permanently. Other cursed yuppie sitcoms of
the decade included Then Came You, the story of a recently divorced book editor who fell in love
with a younger man, which aired for six weeks in 2000. What About Joan?, which aired for four
months in 2001, was the story of a neurotic high school English teacher. Stories involved
friendships with fellow teachers and her relationship with boyfriend Jake. Andy Richter Controls
the Universe, which premiered in the spring of 2002 and aired for six months, was the story of an
aspiring writer who toiled away at an enormous, impersonal corporation called Pickering
Industries. He wrote technical manuals, dealt with his bizarre co-workers, and often let his vivid
imagination run wild. The yuppie sitcom Coupling, succinctly summarized by Brooks and
Marsh, was a show about ―six young singles who hung out at a trendy Chicago bar and talked
about sex‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 290). Coupling was based on a hit British sitcom of the
same name, but the American version lost something in translation, and lasted just four weeks in
2003. The Bad Girl‟s Guide was the story of JJ Hayden, an executive at a Chicago advertising
agency who, according to the author whose books inspired the series, was ―a woman who was
sassy, provocative, questioned authority and knew what she wanted in life and how to get it with
style, confidence, and humor‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 98). JJ‘s roommate, Sarah, was, yes, the
sensible one, but she was sometimes drawn in to JJ‘s bad-girl world. Almost certainly inspired
by the wild success of New York‘s Sex and the City, Bad Girl‟s Guide lasted just eight weeks in
2005.
Happy Hour was the story of Henry Beckman, who had been kicked out of his apartment
by a girlfriend, forcing him to move in with his friend Larry. The guys were complete opposites,
of course, and hung out at Teddy‘s, a local bar. The Loop, which aired for two months in the
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spring of 2006 and returned for another two months the following summer, was the story of Sam
Sullivan, a young executive at Chicago-based Trans Alliance airline. Sensible Sam lived with his
brother, Sully, a slacker, and they both hung out at a bar tended by their friend, Lizzy. Pepper
Dennis, which aired for three months in the spring of 2006, was the story of the professional and
personal life of a Chicago television reporter. At work, Pepper dealt with the typical array of
allies and adversaries, while on the home front, confident Pepper had just gained a new
roommate—her unconfident sister, Kathy.
The mind-numbing lack of originality that characterized most of the above programs was
not lost on television critics. In his review of What About Joan, critic Andy Denhart identified
the show‘s fundamental flaw, both in terms of formula and geography:
The situation in ―What About Joan‖ isn‘t inherently funny or ripe
with possibility; it‘s just a tired amalgam of a woman with a job
and some friends and a boyfriend. The show doesn‘t use Joan‘s
high school workplace for much more than another set on which to
angle for a few laughs. Likewise, although the show is set and
entirely filmed in Chicago . . . the city is hardly ever used except
for a gratuitous El reference here and a painting of the Wrigley
Building there (Denhart, 2001: 1).
Although Denhart‘s assessment of the show and, by extension, most of Chicago‘s recent
sitcom entries, is certainly correct, he errors in thinking that stylistic originality is a vital
ingredient in building a more successful Chicago sitcom. Andy Richter Controls the Universe
was universally adored for its fresh, deadpan, and dead-on assessment of modern corporate life,
with one critic calling it ―one of the few truly great comedies on TV‖ (Goodman 2002: 1).
Another declared that ―most sitcoms aren‘t even remotely funny by comparison‖ (Chocano 2002:
1). Despite such accolades, Andy Richter was a ratings flop. No simple explanation exists for
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why some shows succeed and others fail, but it is notable that the one yuppie sitcom of the 2000s
to experience any degree of longevity was the one that, while not being stylistically
groundbreaking, made the most of its backdrop. My Boys was thoroughly immersed in Chicago‘s
idiosyncrasies. Perhaps all that viewers were looking for in a Chicago yuppie sitcom was a little
more Chicago.
My Boys was the story of P. J. Franklin, a pretty blonde tomboy, a baseball fanatic, and a
sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. She loved hanging out in bars, playing softball, and
hosting a weekly poker game for her boys. These boys included P. J.‘s married, henpecked
brother, Andy; Bobby, a rival sportswriter for the Chicago Tribune; Kenny, who sold sports
memorabilia; Mike, who worked for the Cubs; and Brendan, a disc jockey at a local rock station
who crashed on P. J.‘s couch whenever his girlfriend kicked him out. Such details—the
obsession with sports, the propensity for hanging out in bars, and the freeloading apartment
crasher—are hardly groundbreaking for a Chicago yuppie sitcom. My Boys even drew some
comparisons to New York‘s Sex and the City for employing a narrative device in which the
protagonist pecks away at her laptop while a voice-over monologue ponders matters relating
both to the episode at hand and to her upcoming newspaper column. Beyond that, though, the
two shows could not have been more different. Unlike her Manhattan counterpart, P. J. did not
sip cosmopolitans in trendy clubs, but instead drank cheap beer in sports bars and pizza joints.
She also opted for a t-shirt, jeans, and beat-up tennis shoes. Described by series creator Betsy
Thomas as ―anti-Sex and the City,‖ My Boys dispensed with cool sophistication and embraced a
Chicago that was, in the words of one critic, an ―ESPN-filled, deep-fried . . . beer-battered
comfort zone‖ (Kipp 2008: 1). The show included frequent scenes at Wrigley Field and
references to iconic Chicago establishments such Ed Debevic‘s, Al‘s Beef, Leon‘s Famous Ribs,
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The Hideout, and The Billy Goat Tavern. My Boys production designer Greg Grande described
the sense of place that he and his team attempted to capture on the program:
Chicago is so unlike New York and Los Angeles in that it has this
intimacy about it . . . . It‘s made up of real neighborhoods. There
are lots of people walking around; everybody‘s just hanging out.
Bars, restaurants, shops and neighbors are right outside your front
door. Those layers of character and intimacy translate inside
people‘s homes as well (Wunderlich 2007: 1).
For television critic Ted Cox, the geographic savvy of My Boys was not found in its
production design, but in the demeanor of its characters. Among the cast, he singled out
comedian and northwest Indiana native Jim Gaffigan, who played P. J.‘s brother Andy ―with a
self-deprecating cynicism so familiar it seems to have been passed down from one generation of
Chicagoans to the next with mother‘s milk‖ (Cox 2006: 40). Whatever the source of its charm,
the show was the longest-running of the Chicago single yuppie sitcoms of the decade, from 2006
to 2010.
It is important to note that My Boys was one of the first original sitcoms to be produced
for the cable outlet TBS, so its audience was smaller and its leash longer than it would have been
on one of the major networks. No truly successful Chicago-based yuppie sitcom has yet appeared
on any of the major networks, at least since The Bob Newhart Show left the air in 1978. In the
2000s, the city‘s sitcoms began to slowly return to the territory that had created so many hits in
the 1980s. Family life was prominently featured in five of Chicago‘s sitcom entries in the 2000s,
although the first had to split its time with the workplace.
Bonnie Hunt finally found a modicum of success in 2002 with her third go around on a
local sitcom. Life with Bonnie, which ran for two full seasons, was the story of a frazzled but
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friendly host of a local television talk show. At home was her doctor husband, Mark, and their
three young children. Bonnie‘s work family included her obsessive producer, David, a hip piano
player, Tony, and glib stagehands Marv and Holly. The most memorable moments of Life with
Bonnie were ad-libbed interviews with such guest stars as David Duchovny, Tom Hanks, Carl
Reiner, Robin Williams, and Jonathan Winters.
Two family comedies from the 2000s featured a heavy dose of ethnic flavor. My Big Fat
Greek Life starred Nia Vardalos, and picked up where her sleeper hit theatrical film My Big Fat
Greek Wedding had left off. Nia had just married husband Thomas, a WASPish English teacher
who was writing his dissertation. Most of the episodes revolved around the newlyweds trying to
stave off waves of advice from her big, intrusive Greek family. The program never managed to
replicate the movie‘s success, and lasted just eight weeks in 2003. The sitcom Freddie, which
aired during the 2005-2006 season, was formulaic in having intrusive relatives and a suddenly
crowded house, but it had the distinction of being the first Chicago program to focus on a Latino
family. Freddie, a successful restaurateur and ladies‘ man, saw his dream life end when his
apartment was invaded by four females. These included his sister Sophia and niece Zoey, who
moved in after Sophia‘s divorce; sister-in-law Allison, who moved in after the death of Freddie‘s
brother; and Freddie‘s fearsome grandmother. Things got more crowded still when Freddie‘s
(what else?) freeloading buddy Chris moved in.
Just two of the numerous Chicago-based sitcoms of the 2000s were conventional sitcoms
about a nuclear family living in the suburbs, but they were among the most successful. The Jim
Belushi comedy According to Jim, which premiered in 2001, and its counterpart, Still Standing,
which debuted the following year, were completely gimmick-free. In fact, they were so
formulaic as to be almost indistinguishable from one another. Brooks and Marsh described
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According to Jim as ―another one of those sunny family sitcoms in which a lovable lug was
married to a beautiful and much smarter wife‖—a description that could just as easily have been
applied to Still Standing (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 10). The title character of According to Jim
was a aself-absorbed construction contractor who lived in a charming suburban home with his
wife and three kids. Bill of Still Standing was similarly situated.
Both According to Jim and Still Standing could easily be written off as sad anachronisms
adrift in a sea of far more trendy programs about young, urban professionals had they not been so
popular. According to Jim lasted eight years, making it Illinois‘s longest-running sitcom since
Family Matters. Still Standing aired for four years, reaching the nineteenth spot in the Nielsen
ratings its second season—the highest-rated Illinois-based sitcom since Roseanne. Nevertheless,
critics crucified both shows, and were particularly hard on According to Jim. USA Today argued
that the show ―is the kind of sitcom that makes people hate sitcoms,‖ while The Washington Post
called it ―an inexorably execrable‖ sitcom, and Entertainment Weekly facetiously described it as
―another worthy addition to the Belushi canon‖ (Rice 2005: 1). These complaints have some
merit, for According to Jim was hardly groundbreaking comedy. The following exchange was
typical for the show:
JIM: What do I need to get in shape for? I‘m in great shape.
CHERYL: Oh, what shape is that . . . a circle? (Rice 2005: 1).
The central geographic message of Still Standing and According to Jim was as simple as
the shows‘ dialogue. Both programs depicted the Chicago suburbs as friendly, pleasant, and
happy places. ―We‘re not reinventing the wheel here,‖ said Jim Belushi. ―We‘re doing a straight-
up family show at a time people want to see a family show‖ (Rice 2005: 1). Perhaps the most
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important element of these programs was found not in the geography of their setting, but in that
of their audiences. According to Jim was always far more popular in the central United States
than on the coasts—its number one market was Louisville, Kentucky—and the show‘s producers
appeared to have had more than a passing interest in that fact. After years when the conventional
wisdom of television suggested that all shows should cater to the largest markets and trendiest
audiences, According to Jim focused instead on the rest of the country. ―We look at the comedy
from the prism of our own eyes, when we should be looking at it from the prism of the country,‖
said producer Mark Pedowitz. ABC‘s president of primetime entertainment, Stephen McPherson,
agreed, and supported his argument with a little-known geographic fact—―There are a lot of
people between L.A. and New York‖ (Rice 2005: 1).
MICHIGAN
Michigan‘s primetime television landscape got an early, if somewhat brief, start, courtesy
of a legendary children‘s comic. Soupy‟s On, featuring Soupy Sales, began as a local program in
Detroit in 1953. Soupy Sales became the state‘s first national primetime television entry in 1955,
airing each week night from 7:00 to 7:15 on ABC as a summer replacement for Chicago‘s Kukla,
Fran & Ollie. Soupy continued to produce shows in Detroit for the network‘s Saturday afternoon
line-up until 1961. After that, production alternated between New York and Hollywood, and
Soupy continued to entertain children until 1979.
Michigan was all but absent from the television landscape from the 1950s through the
1980s, placing only four more entries, none of which lasted for more than four months. Then,
following the debut of its most successful entry, Home Improvement, a flurry of eleven
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Michigan-based shows appeared between 1991 and 2006. Michigan‘s television landscape has
had a strong urban bias, particularly toward its largest city. Eleven of Michigan‘s fourteen post-
Soupy entries have been set in the Detroit area, with one in Grand Rapids, one in Flint, and
another in an unnamed small city. Just one has had a rural setting, and that show was at an
interstate truck stop. Most, but not all, of Michigan‘s entries have had a relatively sunny outlook,
with the working-class or middle class family sitcom being the most common genre represented.
The Fitzpatricks, which aired for just over three months during the 1977-1978 season,
was something of a Rust Belt version of The Waltons. It was the story of a blue-collar, Irish
Catholic family living in Flint. Mike Fitzpatrick, a steelworker, and wife Maggie, a waitress, had
four children and a grizzled old dog named Detroit. Little life lessons abounded as Mike and
Maggie struggled to make ends meet and the kids went through the usual coming-of-age
tribulations. Taking place at the opposite end of the socio-economic spectrum, but featuring a
far gloomier tone, was the boardroom drama Wheels. This was the story of National Motors, a
Detroit-based auto company trying to stay afloat in the cutthroat industry during the 1960s.
Wheels was based on a successful Alex Hailey novel that NBC had turned into an equally
successful miniseries, but the regular series was a flop, lasting just three weeks in 1979.
Michigan‘s first sitcom, Joe‟s World, which debuted in 1979, was in some ways a comedy
version of The Fitzpatricks. The world in question was that of Joe Wabash, a working-stiff house
painter from Detroit. The show divided its time between his professional life with a typically
zany sitcom crew and his home, where he and wife Katie had five children. Joe‟s World lasted
just four months, but its central theme—that of a traditional, blue-collar, man‘s man struggling to
adapt to a changing world—would be a prominent theme in many subsequent Michigan sitcoms,
particularly in its next, and most successful, entry.
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When Joe‟s World left the air in the spring of 1980, Michigan‘s television landscape
disappeared for more than a decade, but when it re-emerged, it did so with one of the biggest hits
of the 1990s. Home Improvement, which premiered in 1991, was based on the popular stand-up
comedy routines of series star Tim Allen. Allen played Tim ―The Tool Man‖ Taylor, the host of
Tool Time, a local Detroit TV show on which Tim and his sidekick, the bearded, flannel-
wearing, and preposterously earnest Al Borland, dispensed advice on home maintenance and
auto repair. Tool Time gave the enthusiastic, yet very accident-prone Tim an opportunity to
showcase the latest products from the show‘s sponsor, Binford Tools, and these demonstrations
ended, as often as not, with disastrous results. Tim shared a pleasant suburban home with his
wife, Jill, and their three young boys, Brad, Randy, and Mark. Jill was pursuing a master‘s
degree in psychology, which often came in handy, as Tim‘s efforts at self-improvement were
often as disastrous as his tool adventures. Also ―seen‖ was Wilson, Tim‘s next door neighbor,
who was always offering sage advice. Although he appeared in nearly every episode, Tim and
the viewers never got a glimpse of Wilson‘s entire face.
Home Improvement was an enormous success. It finished its rookie season ranked fourth
on the Nielsen charts, and was in the top three for each of the next seasons. Such ratings are
roughly equivalent to those of other sitcom juggernauts like The Cosby Show, The Andy Griffith
Show, and Roseanne, but few critics seemed to notice. Television historian Steven D. Stark noted
that Seinfeld, which Home Improvement beat senseless in the ratings when the two went head-to-
head in 1992, garnered volumes of praise. Home Improvement was, by comparison, ―perhaps the
quietest Number 1 in TV history, eliciting few critical comments and winning little more than a
slew of (what else?) People‘s Choice awards, in which the public does the voting‖ (Stark 1997:
379).
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Although Home Improvement was a truly funny show with a very likable lead character,
it was hardly groundbreaking television. Plots for a typical episode were as old as the medium
itself—a botched romantic dinner, a camping trip gone awry, a forgotten birthday, mishaps at
Christmas, parents enduring a school play, or swapping a live pet for a dead one. A recurring
theme, at least in early episodes, was Tim‘s obsession with adding more power to every
household appliance he encountered, the very thought of which caused him to grunt like a
gorilla. The result, of course, was always an elaborate sight gag—Tim attempts to turbocharge
the dishwasher and the kitchen counter explodes.
An important factor in Home Improvement‘s runaway success was the relationship
between Tim and Jill. The family sitcom world, particularly in recent years, has been populated
primarily by husbands who were either self-absorbed jerks or bumbling idiots, married to wives
who were either exasperated care-takers or screeching harpies, leaving the viewer to wonder why
on earth the two ever married. Tim and Jill, on the other hand, seemed perfect for one another.
Like many television husbands, Tim could not possibly understand why Jill found things
like opera and dance interesting, but unlike many television husbands, he tried. A recurring
theme on Home Improvement was Tim‘s frequent, and usually disastrous, attempts to impress his
wife. Likewise, Jill, who found Tim‘ antics a bit frustrating at times, did her level best to be
understanding. These exercises in politeness and understanding might be the show‘s most
quintessentially midwestern trait. Although she did not put it down to geography, critic Nikki
Tranter acknowledged that Home Improvement‘s married couple stood in stark contrast to the
New York couple of the equally popular Everybody Loves Raymond:
The love shared by Tim and Jill and the awareness and
understanding of both characters (especially Jill towards Tim) is
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exhilarating to see in light of a show like Raymond . . . . Ray is
always lying his way out of watching the kids or attending his wife
Deb‘s book club. Though Tim also considers Jill's interests For
Women Only, the difference between the two couples is Jill‘s
relentless understanding of her husband's obsessions. If Deb rarely
goes a scene without referring to her husband's inadequacy as a
father or a husband, Jill remains resilient and supportive. Tim‘s
destruction of the dishwasher in Home Improvement‘s pilot, for
example, perfectly demonstrates her patience. ―I'll get the broom,‖
she sighs . . . . It‘s up to Tim to learn his lesson in his own way—
Jill doesn‘t snipe, but only waits for his apology, which he makes
without conniving on her part. When Tim‘s enthusiasm crosses
into insensitivity . . . she makes clear her disapproval. When he
brings a radio to dinner to hear the Pistons game, though, she
laughs off his selfishness . . . . No matter how infuriating Tim‘s
perpetual childishness might be, Jill assumes he means well
(Tranter 2005a: 1).
Whether or not the reasons for the differences between midwesterners Tim and Jill and
New Yorkers Ray and Deb is really a matter of geography, there is no denying the fact that Tim
Taylor was a midwestern archetype, ―low-key, predictable, intelligent but not particularly well-
educated, with a little dirt under his fingernails‖ (Stark 1997: 383). Tim was hardworking and
successful, but not an overly-ambitious workaholic. Nikki Tranter characterized him as a man
who relished his place in the home as ―breadwinner and fix-it man,‖ adding that ―not only does
he go out of his way to make life easy as can be for Jill and the kids, he‘s receptive to just about
any of his family‘s desires‖ (Tranter 2005a: 1).
To be sure, Home Improvement‘s scripts took occasional jabs at Tim‘s lack of
sophistication. A common gag was his mangling of Wilson‘s worldly words. When Wilson noted
that the ―Koran honors its jesters,‖ Tim replied, ―Yeah, those Koreans know what‘s funny.‖ On
another episode, when Tim was struggling with the death of an old friend, Wilson listed some of
the ways that different cultures express grief:
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In parts of Mexico, the bereaved decorate the grave with smiling
puppets, and they eat chocolate coffins. And on the Solomon
Islands, they hang the dead man's arms on his hut. And in feudal
Japan, when a Lord died, the Ronin samurai would show their
loyalty by disemboweling themselves.
When Tim tried to relay this same information to Jill, it came out as, ―In some cultures they put
chocolate puppets in coffins and on the Chinoogie Islands or someplace, they hang arms on
aluminum siding. And Ronnie the Samurai—you don‘t wanna know what he does‖ (Tranter
2006: 1).
Despite the digs at Tim‘s cultural illiteracy, Home Improvement stands as one of
television‘s most thoroughly appealing depictions of life in the modern Midwest. The show was
free of cynicism, yet had the ring of truth, as evidenced by a 1990s TV Guide poll in which
young Americans voted Tim and Jill the television parents most similar to their own. Home
Improvement was, in the words of critic Chuck Eddy, a return to the ―semi-extinct idea of a
nuclear family whose members actually like each other‖ (Stark 1997: 383).
Home Improvement paved the way for seven more Michigan-based sitcoms. None of
them came anywhere near matching the success of their predecessor, but two—1992‘s Martin
and 1994‘s Sister Sister—enjoyed relatively long runs. On Martin, another comedian brought the
themes of his stand-up act to the small screen. Martin Lawrence played Martin Payne, an
abrasive, somewhat misogynistic talk show host on Detroit radio station WZUP. In a gimmick
reminiscent of the stand-up acts on Seinfeld, episodes of Martin involved Payne discussing topics
on the radio that somehow related to the theme of that particular episode. At the end of the
second season, WZUP was sold, its format changed to country music, and Martin was fired. He
eventually got a job as a producer, and then host, of a local TV talk show, Word on the Street.
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Martin was one of a number of 1990s FOX programs that featured predominantly black
casts. The show rarely took hard looks at issues of race and racism, but, to be fair, Martin didn‘t
really take hard looks at anything, as noted by critic Jamie S. Rich:
Structurally, Martin didn‘t break any new ground. A young
professional in the city hangs out with his friends and his girlfriend
and gets into trouble—that pretty much sums up the premise for
any number of TV comedies. Individual plots weren‘t overly
creative, either, falling back on standard situation comedy lines
like a group of friends all winning a car and having to share it, a
man getting sick and acting like a baby, and even putting on a
variety show (Rich 2007: 1).
When Martin referenced racial issues, it did so with sly, funny references to serious
matters. In one episode, for example, a fat white plumber choked on some food while working in
Martin‘s bathroom. After trying unsuccessfully to resuscitate the man with a plunger, Martin
tried calling 911 and, to ensure a rapid response, imitated the voice of a white man. The
emergency dispatcher was not convinced. Before help could be sent, Martin would have to pass a
racially biased pop culture quiz to prove that he was, indeed, Caucasian. Finally, believing the
plumber to be dead, Martin and his friends proposed a variety of outlandish schemes to get the
corpse out of the apartment, knowing full well that it was not good for a black man to have a
dead white man found in his apartment.
Martin was deeply rooted in black popular culture, and featured frequent appearances by
African-American television and comedy icons, such as Garrett Morris, Sherman Hemsley, Chris
Rock, and Will Smith. As a broad comedy, it could appeal to anyone, but it was particularly
popular with black viewers. In a sense, Martin was to African-American culture what Seinfeld
was to the New York scene—a total immersion in the culture was not necessary to enjoy the
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program, but an appreciation for it certainly helped. That fact, according to Rich, is what made
the show unique:
A lot of the humor in Martin is race specific, but only in that FOX
was letting Lawrence be true to the culture without having to cater
to white audiences. This means references to African American
pop icons and leaders, as well as more community-specific jokes.
It was a smart move, as it gave Martin a fresh pizzazz most
network sitcoms were lacking back then (Rich 2007: 1).
While Martin occasionally, and deliberately, crossed the boundaries of good taste, Sister,
Sister was a gentle, cheery family sitcom, typical of the ABC Friday night line-up where it made
its debut. The title twins were Tia and Tamera, who accidentally discovered one another fourteen
years after they were separated at birth. The girls vowed never to be separated again, which
proved problematic for their parents. Working class Lisa, a loud, pushy seamstress, had raised
Tia in inner-city Detroit, while subdued Ray, a black yuppie who owned a limousine service, had
raised Tamera in an affluent suburb. The family was reunited, and most of the episodes involved
the girls‘ sitcom misadventures, coming-of-age tales, and the unlikely rekindling of Lisa and
Ray‘s romance.
The runs of Martin and Sister, Sister were typical of many 1990s sitcoms with African-
American casts. Neither had impressive ratings, but both had long runs. As mentioned, upstart
networks like FOX, UPN, and the WB often catered to African-American viewers in order to
establish a core audience. Martin never cracked the Nielsen top thirty, but remained on the air for
five years. Sister, Sister initially struggled on ABC. The network changed the show‘s time slot
five times during its first season, and ultimately cancelled it after little more than a year on the
air. The show was then picked up by the WB network, where it aired for four seasons. Like
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Martin, Sister, Sister never cracked the Nielsen top thirty, but, then, neither did any other WB
program.
The state‘s other post-Home Improvement sitcom entries did not fare well, but all
contained elements similar to their more successful brethren. Rhythm & Blues, which appeared in
1992, was, like Martin, set at a black Detroit radio station. A hip new disc jockey named Bobby
Soul had been hired, sight unseen, by the station‘s owner, Veronica Washington. The twist was
that Bobby was white, and when Veronica discovered that, she fired him. To her chagrin, both
the station‘s staff and listeners came to Bobby‘s defense, and she was forced to bring him back.
Rhythm & Blues‘s audience was not as enthusiastic as WBLZ‘s, and the show was off the air in a
month.
Thunder Alley premiered in 1994 and ran for a year and half, and Soul Man lasted for the
duration of the 1997-1998 season. Both bore a resemblance to Home Improvement, starring
television icons as easy-going, earthy gearheads trying to domesticate themselves for the sake of
their families. Thunder Alley featured Ed Asner as Gil Jones, a widowed former stock-car driver
who now operated a prosperous Detroit auto shop. Gil‘s world was turned upside down when his
daughter, Bobbi, got a divorce and moved in along with her three kids. Soul Man featured Dan
Aykroyd as widower Mike Weber, a man who had forsaken his wild, hell-raising youth to
become an Episcopal priest in suburban Detroit. Although he kept his motorcycle and leather
jacket, he was now doing his best to become a role model for his parishioners and children.
Run of the House, which premiered in 2003 and lasted six months, was a standard-issue
family sitcom, although it did take the novel approach of dispensing with the parents. It was the
story of the Franklin family of Grand Rapids, whose parents had moved to Arizona due to the
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father‘s health problems. The three older Franklin kids—Kurt, Chris, and Sally—were all in their
twenties, while the youngest, Brooke, was fifteen. They stayed in Michigan, where they had
standard sitcom misadventures, all the while disagreeing on how to raise Brooke, who appeared
to the most mature one in the lot.
Whether they were well-crafted and enduring hits such as Home Improvement and Martin
or warmed-over bits of trifle like Run of the House, Michigan‘s entries of the 1990s and 2000s
all exude a strong sense of midwestern optimism. Unlike the characters from the earlier Joe‟s
World and The Fitzpatricks, these more recent entries appear to have escaped the economic
calamity that has befallen the state. Featuring numerous employees of the local television and
radio industries, several business owners, and a host of college students, everybody appeared
financially secure. And unlike many other major American cities depicted on television, Detroit,
ironically, is depicted as largely free of crime, unemployment, and poverty.
The sitcom Muddling Through, the cartoon God, the Devil, and Bob, and the drama Blade
offered somewhat less buoyant views of Michigan life. Muddling Through was the story of
Connie Drego, who had recently been released from prison for shooting her two-timing husband,
Sonny. As the series began, Connie went back to work at Drego‘s Oasis, her family‘s
combination diner/motel/truck stop somewhere in rural Michigan. Once home, Connie had to
deal with resentful daughters, a sleazy ex-husband, and Drego‘s mostly disreputable clientele.
Muddling Through aired as a summer replacement on CBS in 1994, and the network never gave
the show a shot on the fall schedule.
NBC had higher hopes for God, the Devil, and Bob, giving it a shot in the plum post-
Friends time slot in the spring of 2000. As the show began, God and the Devil were meeting for
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a couple of beers in a seedy Detroit bar, and they had just made a bet. The Devil would select
one man, whom God would put through a series of tests. If he proved to be a righteous man, God
would spare humanity. If not, God would scrap creation and start over again. The Devil, of
course, selected the biggest screw-up he could find. Enter Bob, a man who drank too much,
loved pornography, went to strip clubs with his fellow auto workers, and who was a generally
lackluster husband and father. Bob was hardly Tim Taylor, but he did resemble a pair of classic
midwestern television characters, mixing the habits of Al Bundy from Married with Children
with the demeanor of Bob Hartley from The Bob Newhart Show.
In the first episode, Bob was encouraged to connect with his gloomy daughter Megan, so
he took her to her favorite place, the shopping mall, for a heart-to-heart conversation:
MEGAN: I lied about getting my period last year. All my friends
had theirs and I felt like a little girl . . . . Pretty lame, huh?
BOB: Well, girls mature at different ages, there‘s no right age.
There‘s a whole range from, uh, well . . .
MEGAN: Ten?
BOB: From ten . . . all the way to . . .
MEGAN: Sixteen.
BOB: Sixteen . . . . Okay?
MEGAN: No, I wanna be like all my friends.
BOB: Yeah. Well, I guess we all do (Tranter 2005b).
In that brief exchange, Bob established himself as one of television‘s standard-issue midwestern
dads. He wanted to help his daughter, but was clearly uncomfortable with any sort of emotional
intensity, particularly when it involved the topic at hand. So, he offered the kind of emotional
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support that midwestern television fathers offer best—commiseration. Critics loved God, the
Devil, and Bob, but some religious groups cried blasphemy. Supporters pointed out that the show
was not a critique of Christianity, but rather a modern twist on the Biblical story of Job.
Nevertheless, a number of affiliates refused to air the show, and NBC caved, pulling the show in
less than a month.
Perhaps the darkest of all of Michigan‘s entries was the ultraviolent action drama Blade,
which premiered on cable‘s Spike TV in 2006. Blade was an intimidating black vampire who
had learned to control his thirst for blood by injecting himself with an artificial serum. Now a
force for good, and a deadly one at that, Blade made it his mission to seek out and destroy evil
vampires, prowling ―the dark, mean streets of Detroit looking for evidence of the latest vampire
schemes to ravage the city‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 153). Despite being based on a popular
movie series of the same name, television‘s Blade drew a meager audience, even for cable, and
was cancelled after three months.
A similar fate befell NBC‘s 1999 entry Freaks and Geeks, which told the story of two
groups of students at a Michigan high school in 1980. Freaks and Geeks was a difficult show to
classify. While the show was primarily a comedy, its hour-long format, lack of canned laughter,
and often serious undertones placed it outside the world of conventional sitcoms. It was also
geographically ambiguous. The town in which the show was set was never named or even
identified by general location. The very first lines in the script for Freaks and Geeks‘s pilot
episode, however, established the show as somehow thoroughly midwestern:
William McKinley High School: Michigan. We are on the football
field of a medium-sized high school in a semi-rural part of
Michigan. Flatlands. Roads stretch into subdivisions one way and
green fields the other (Cohen 2004: 7).
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From there, viewers were introduced to the two title groups. What distinguished freaks
from the geeks was their place in the school‘s social hierarchy. The freaks were rebels. They
slacked off, drank, smoked pot, and willfully rejected cultural conventions. Geeks, on the other
hand, were at the bottom of the student pecking order whether they liked it or not. They were
scrawny, nerdy, and bullied. The lead geek was freshman Sam Weir, who worshipped
cheerleader Cindy Sanders almost as much as he did comedian Steve Martin, whose poster
adorned his bedroom wall. Sam‘s buddies included wisecracking Neal Schweiber, a borscht-belt
comedian in a fourteen-year-old‘s body, and spaced-out Bill Haverchuck, who wore braces and
coke-bottle glasses. The freaks included burnout Daniel Desario, smartass Ken Miller, good-
hearted Nick Andropolis, and sharp-tongued Kim Kelly. At the heart of the show was Sam‘s
older sister, Lindsay, herself a geek and champion ―mathlete,‖ who increasingly found herself
drawn into the circle of freaks.
Freaks and Geeks didn‘t take home many industry awards, and was a ratings flop, lasting
just five months. It has, however, become a cult classic in its DVD afterlife, largely due to the
subsequent popularity of stars James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Jason Segal, and the later
theatrical film success of series creator Judd Apatow. Critics adored the show, applauding the
realism of its characters, who were neither one-dimensional nor unbelievably complex, and for
capturing the spirit of the times. In the words of critic Fred Kovey, Freaks and Geeks was a
―subtle and sublimely amusing look at life in the eighties that downplays the kitsch and instead
offers a realistic look at high school in the Reagan years‖ (Kovey 2010b: 1).
Just as Freaks and Geeks captured the zeitgeist of the 1980s without resorting to
cartoonish nostalgia, it captured the ortgeist of the small-town Midwest without resorting to
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worn regional stereotypes. The young characters on the show were smart and worldly, as tuned
into youth pop culture and counterculture as any of their coastal, big-city counterparts. That said,
the viewer got the sense that all of the kids (Lindsay in particular) felt the limitations of life in
their little hometown. The more buffoonish midwestern stereotypes were reserved for the show‘s
adults, especially for Sam and Lindsay‘s father, Harold Weir. A modest, straight-laced owner of
a sporting-goods store, Harold was a loving father and a good man, but also hell-bent on keeping
Sam and Lindsay on a tight leash. When Lindsay brought one of the freaks home, Harold was
beside himself, later exclaiming to his wife, ―Next thing you know she‘ll be Patty Hearst! She‘ll
have a gun to our heads!‖ (Tucker 2005: 128). For Fred Kovey, the omnipresence of parents was
the key difference between the lives of these small-town Michigan teenagers and those of their
Southern California counterparts:
Unlike most programs aimed hard at a teenage audience, Freaks
and Geeks makes parents visible: they are everywhere. Just when
the kids are about to have the type of improbable adventures that
litter Popular (as they did Beverly Hills 90210 before it went all
Melrose Place), an authority figure steps in and ruins the fun . . . .
Sounds like high school in real life—frustrating and a little bit
boring. Meanwhile, the gang on Popular is off to a show and then
back across town to hang out in a friend's mansion where mom and
dad never seem to be home. Their only limits are the ones they
impose on themselves, that is, they live the teenage fantasy. No
wonder teenagers who love Popular find Freaks and Geeks
unappealing (Kovery 2010c: 1).
WISCONSIN
If the Midwest of the popular imagination can be characterized as a region that awakens
nostalgia for a time when hard-working, guileless, and upright citizens lived relatively
uneventful lives in small towns and modest cities, then no state‘s television landscape is more
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thoroughly midwestern than that of Wisconsin. Of the state‘s thirteen entries, only three have
been set in Milwaukee, the state‘s metropolitan area. Of those, two were set in the 1950s, and
they could hardly be considered urbane. Wisconsin‘s ten remaining entries took place elsewhere,
either in midsized cities such as Racine and Madison, small towns like Port Washington and
Rome, or in fictional locales with such quaint names as Waterford Falls and Point Place. With
few exceptions, television‘s Wisconsinites are not detectives, surgeons, artists, entertainers,
business magnates, or high-powered attorneys. They work in hardware stores, breweries,
factories, and beauty shops, or as mechanics, contractors, teachers, and nurses. Nearly all of the
state‘s entries have been sitcoms, sparing Wisconsin the grittiness of programs like ER, the
pettiness and greed of programs like Dallas, and, with the exception of its lone dramatic entry,
the piles of corpses from programs such as the CSI franchise. Of course, comedies can be as
caustic as any drama, but not in Wisconsin. The state‘s sitcoms have tended to be devoid of the
snarky attitude that characterized Seinfeld and Murphy Brown, the cynicism of All in the Family
or Roseanne, and the indelicacies of shows like Three‟s Company or Night Court. Television‘s
Wisconsinites are decent, respectable, and genuine, and tend to demonstrate a positive outlook. It
is fitting that the state‘s most successful show was called Happy Days.
Originally the story of a group of high school kids living in Milwaukee, Happy Days
began as a half-hearted attempt on the part of ABC to cash in on the nostalgia for the 1950s that
swept through America in the 1970s. Happy Days debuted in January of 1974 as a midseason
replacement for the struggling Temperatures Rising. To the network‘s surprise, Happy Days
evolved into a smash hit. It was television‘s most-watched show during the 1976-1977 season,
spent three years in the Nielsen top three, and all but two of its eleven seasons in the top thirty.
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The show‘s initial success was aided by the presence of Ron Howard, who had endeared himself
to American audiences as Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show, and as star of the 1973
theatrical blockbuster American Graffiti, which had played no small part in sparking the
nostalgia craze. Howard played Richie Cunningham, a character he originated in a skit called
―Love and Happy Days‖ on the anthology series Love, American Style. Also seen on the series
were Richie‘s pals, Ralph Malph and Warren ―Potsie‖ Weber, and the Cunningham family,
headed by dad, Howard, who operated Cunningham Hardware, and mom, Marion. Richie had an
older brother, who was eventually written out of the series, and a kid sister, Joanie. While not
attending Jefferson High, Richie, Potsie, and Ralph hung out at Arnold‘s Drive-in, sipping malts
and listening to a jukebox filled with the records of Fats Domino, Connie Francis, Bill Haley,
Johnnie Ray, and Kay Starr.
Whenever Richie found himself in a dilemma—which was often—he would turn to his
parents or, just as frequently, Arthur Fonzarelli, for advice. Fonzarelli, also known as ―Fonzie‖
or ―The Fonz,‖ was the supercool and streetwise dropout who could make all the girls in
Milwaukee wilt. He rode a motorcycle, wore a leather jacket, and held court at Arnold‘s, where
the men‘s room was known as his ―office.‖ The Fonz, played by Henry Winkler, was initially a
minor character. He had been added to the cast by series creator Garry Marshall to ―lessen the
show‘s middle-American gooeyness,‖ but when the character quickly became a television
sensation, Happy Days increasingly focused on the close friendship of the two opposites—
straight-laced Richie and rebellious Fonzie (Lewis and Stempel 1996: 254).
Happy Days regularly, almost relentlessly, reinforced the notion that the Midwest was a
safe, clean, morally righteous region. To be fair, the show, particularly in its early years, was not
as pure as the driven snow. Although the details were always muted, evidence abounded that
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Fonzie was not a sexual novice. Richie was, of course, and much of the comedy revolved around
his attempts to deal with roiling hormones. He went to a stag party, visited a strip club, and, in a
rare show of rebellion, mounted an organized resistance movement against a plan to build a
freeway through the local make-out spot, Inspiration Point. And when Howard decided to build a
bomb shelter, Richie pondered not the threat of a nuclear holocaust, but what a great place it
would be to take a girl. Still, the show was fairly tame, presenting, in the words of television
historian Lisa Anne Lewis, a ―saccharine perspective on American youth culture of the 1950s:‖
With rock and roll confined to the jukebox of Al‘s Diner, the kids
worried over first loves, homecoming parades, and the occasional
innocuous rumble. The Cunninghams represented the middle class
family values of the era. Minor skirmishes erupted between parents
and children, but dinner together was never missed . . . . There was
no inkling of the ―generation gap‖ discourse which was beginning
to differentiate youth from their parents in the 1950s, and which
was still active in the mid-1970s when the show was created
(Lewis 2010: 1).
A cast change on Happy Days led to a common event on midwestern television shows,
when the character with the most promise is forced to leave their hometown to fulfill his or her
ambitions. From the beginning, wrote Lewis, the audience knew that Richie would ―someday
outgrow Milwaukee‖ and that ―Fonzie had fewer choices, and was the type to stay behind‖
(Lewis 2010: 1). That is precisely what happened. When Ron Howard left Happy Days at the end
of the show‘s seventh season, his character was written out as having joined the army after
graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Happy Days was now Fonzie‘s show,
but remained strongly connected to popular notions about its setting. Although Fonzie was
rebellious and extremely cool—two traits that don‘t exactly conform to regional stereotypes—he
was still, in many ways, a midwestern archetype. Despite his defiant attitude, the Fonz was
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always a font of moral righteousness. In many ways, his character paralleled that of Mr.
Cunningham, as he was ―as likely to dispense careful, family-oriented wisdom, as to suggest
rebellion of the slightest sort‖ (Lewis 2010: 1). Fonzie also reflected midwestern industriousness
and upward mobility. As the seasons passed, he went to night school, became co-owner of
Arnold‘s Drive-in and Bronco‘s Garage, the shop teacher at Jefferson, and, eventually, the Dean
of Boys at George S. Patton Vocational High School. The Fonz never lost that supercool edge,
but for a character who had started the series as a dropout and street tough, he had certainly
gained an air of respectability.
By the time Happy Days ended its long run in 1984, it had, likewise, become a prominent
element in American society, its position cemented when Fonzie‘s leather jacket was enshrined
at the Smithsonian. It also became a cultural institution in Milwaukee. Despite the fact that the
show had never done any filming in the city—even the exteriors for Arnold‘s and the
Cunningham home were shot in California—Milwaukee embraced Happy Days as its own. In
1983, the cast of Happy Days visited Milwaukee, and actor Tom Bosley, who played Howard
Cunningham, was presented with the key to the city before a crowd of 150,000. Fifteen years
later, Henry Winkler was on hand when the city dedicated a life-size bronze statue of the Fonz
along the Milwaukee River.
Of course, Happy Days was only part of the 1950s Milwaukee television universe. One of
its early episodes featured a pair of working-class girls named Laverne De Fazio and Shirley
Feeney, and in 1976 they got their own spin-off. Laverne and Shirley were roommates and best
friends, and much of the comedy was derived from their contrasting personalities. Shirley was
quiet, naïve, and almost childlike, while Laverne was loud, boisterous, and aggressive. Also seen
were their goofball neighbors, Lenny Kosnowski and Andrew ―Squiggy‖ Squiggman, who, like
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Fonzie, sported the 1950s greaser look, but with none of the cool. Another friend, Carmine ―The
Big Ragu‖ Ragusa, was a singer who had the hots for Shirley.
Laverne & Shirley proved to be as popular as Happy Days. It debuted in second place in
the Nielsen ratings, just behind its parent program, and then climbed into the top spot the next
two seasons, giving Milwaukee the highest-rated show on television for three straight years. Its
success, however, was shorter-lived. When it moved from the safe harbor behind Happy Days on
Tuesday nights to Thursdays in the fall of 1979, ratings plummeted. In 1980, the setting was
shifted to Burbank, California, and the show returned to its old turf on Tuesday nights. One or
both of these moves helped, and the show returned to the Nielsen top thirty for its remaining
three seasons.
Laverne & Shirley bottled the same nostalgic wholesomeness as Happy Days, but its
aesthetic was even more deeply rooted in the 1950s, with producer Garry Marshall explaining
that he deliberately created the show to replicate the same kinds of madcap misadventures that
had befallen Lucy and Ethel on I Love Lucy. While Happy Days occasionally examined serious
themes, Laverne & Shirley was steadfastly slapstick, and some critics derided it as ―TV junk
food‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 770). The plots were, without question, a bit on the light side—
the girls discovering a ring of German spies out to steal the secret formula for Shotz beer;
planning their high school reunion; trying to be fashion models; and falling in love with the
fireman who came to put out a small blaze in their bedroom. In the words of Rick Mitz, the
message of Laverne & Shirley was that ―there is no message here. Relax. Have a good time.
Watch us. It was entertainment for entertainment‘s sake‖ (Mitz 1988: 297).
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Laverne & Shirley contained themes common to a number of midwestern programs. As
Marshall indicated, the show was decidedly blue collar. The girls worked as bottle cappers at
Schotz Brewery (a fictional spoof of actual Milwaukee breweries), where Lenny and Squiggy
were also employed as truck drivers. When not at work or in their apartments, the gang hung out
at the Pizza Bowl, a combination pizza parlor, beer bar, and bowling alley owned by Laverne‘s
loud-mouthed, but kind-hearted, widower father, Frank. The show‘s working-class aura was
epitomized in a brief exchange between Laverne and Stanley, a man Laverne had a crush on. She
had intentionally dropped her bracelet to get his attention, and when Stanley picked it up he
noticed it was adorned with small metal cows:
LAVERNE: Yeah, it‘s a souvenir from the Chicago stockyards.
STANLEY: I didn‘t know they had a gift shop.
LAVERNE: It‘s right behind where they slaughter the cows—you
really gotta look for it (Mitz 1988: 295).
As mentioned, Garry Marshall had intentionally patterned the show after I Love Lucy to
set it apart from the wave of ―relevance‖ sitcoms in the early 1970s. According to Marshall, the
attitudes and actions of the characters were intended to have the same effect:
The other ladies on sitcoms are classy—they‘re well-off, smart,
and they dress well. Laverne and Shirley are not classy. They‘re
blue-collar workers who went to work right after high school.
They‘re decent people (Mitz 1988: 300).
Fundamental decency was another of the show‘s hallmarks. Like the characters of Happy
Days and many other midwestern shows, Laverne and Shirley were relentlessly wholesome. In a
way, the protagonists were in a state of arrested pubescence. Laverne adorned all of her clothing
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with large cursive ―L‖s and the strongest beverage she would usually drink was her trademark
milk and Pepsi. Posters of teen idols adorned Shirley‘s walls, and her closest confidant was an
enormous stuffed animal named Boo-Boo Kitty. And while they might have been a little man-
hungry, Laverne and Shirley always ―took offense whenever their virtue was brought into
question‖ (Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman 1991: 29).
The most prominent feature of Laverne & Shirley was its relentlessly optimistic outlook.
Like Mary Richards in Minneapolis, Laverne and Shirley were independent women bent on
making something of themselves. Even though they had little education and less money, the girls
were determined to succeed, a determination spelled out in the show‘s optimistic theme song,
―Making Our Dreams Come True,‖ which boomed the lines, ―There is nothing we won‘t try,
never heard the word impossible, this time, there‘s no stopping us, we‘re gonna do it!‖ For
television historian Dawn Michelle Nill, those lines neatly summarized the outlook of the two
protagonists:
With the advantage of two decades of hindsight, Laverne and
Shirley painted a picture of the 1950s from the single, independent
woman‘s point of view. The plots of the episodes reflected
concerns about holding a factory job, making it as an independent
woman, and dealing with friends and relatives in the process of
developing a life of one's own. Many plots revolved around the
girls dating this man or that, or pondering the ideal men they
would like to have met: sensitive, handsome doctors. If on the
surface the characters appeared to be longing to fulfill the
stereotypical 1950s role of woman, their true actions and attitudes
cast them as two of television's first liberated women. They
thought for themselves and made things happen in their social
circles. Together they fought for causes, from workers‘ rights at
the bottling plant to animal rights at the pound. They helped each
other and they helped their friends (Nill 2010: 1).
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Although Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley were never intended to serve as hard-
hitting examinations of life in the 1950s, they do suggest much about what television producers
thought about life in the Midwest. Rick Mitz, for example, argued that ―Happy Days was pieced
together to appeal to the big, glutted, beer-filled potbelly of Middle America‖ (Mitz 1988: 323):
Shows like Happy Days . . . were not created to appeal to
everyone. In fact, they were designed to appeal to the minority of
U. S. TV watchers, those people who watch seven to ten hours of
programs a day. In the industry these people are referred to as ―the
heavy-viewing center,‖ ―the wad,‖ and ―Billy and Mary Six-Pack.‖
An NBC programmer said it best: ―Most TV watchers are like a
kid with candy, who eats and eats. They‘re nice people. They have
good jobs. But they don‘t want to think. Dummies, I call them‖
(Mitz 1988: 265).
Whatever the virtues of their viewers or producers, Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley
were unquestionably popular, and remain Wisconsin‘s two most successful television entries.
Since their debut, eleven more programs have been set in the state. Three managed to last more
than one season, including the sitcoms Step by Step and That „70s Show, and the state‘s lone
dramatic entry, Picket Fences. No Wisconsin program, however, has managed to crack the
Nielsen top thirty since Happy Days checked in at the twenty-eighth position during the 1982-
1983 season.
Step by Step, which premiered in 1991 and aired for seven seasons, was essentially a
retread of The Brady Bunch. The series began when a pair of Wisconsinites, contractor Frank
Lambert and beautician Carol Foster, met on separate vacations in Jamaica, fell madly in love,
and flew home to merge their families—Frank‘s three kids and Carol‘s three kids—together. It
was a bright, happy sitcom, in the vein of most other programs that aired on ABC‘s lightweight
Friday night schedule. Stories revolved around the pains of dealing with new stepparents and
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stepsiblings, and the standard-issue array of crises associated with growing up. Step by Step
played on some familiar midwestern themes. It was set in a small town—in this case, Port
Washington, Wisconsin—and featured a pair of leads who were unquestionably blue collar. The
show‘s defining element, however, was its profound and pervasive atmosphere of
wholesomeness. This might have surprised some viewers, given that the show‘s two stars,
Patrick Duffy of Dallas and Suzanne Somers of Three‟s Company, made their mark in a pair of
shows whose preoccupations were, respectively, avarice and sex. It would not have been a
surprise, however, to anyone who pays attention to production credits. Step by Step was created
by Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett, the same team who created the equally clean-cut
sitcoms Family Matters, Full House, and Perfect Strangers. Writing for Entertainment Weekly,
critic Ken Tucker (who gave Step by Step a ―C‖ on a ratings scale that mimicked the A to F
academic scale) summarized the show‘s character, popularity, and intended audience in a 1991
review:
It‘s exactly what you might expect: a sitcom as well-executed and
weightless as everything else produced by what ABC calls ―the hit
comedy workshop‖ of creators Thomas L. Miller and Robert L.
Boyett . . . . The kids squabble, but fairly amiably, and Duffy
shows an unexpectedly goofy side of his personality that is
charming. Somers is Somers, beaming out a smile so wide it
threatens to split her face in half . . . . You‘ll see my Step by Step
grade below, but you should also know that the youngsters in my
house, who have made ABC‘s Friday-night slate of Miller-Boyett
sitcoms a devout ritual, give the series a strong B+. It pains me to
write that, but fair is fair (Tucker 1991b: 1).
Wisconsin‘s most recent success was That „70s Show, a sitcom that debuted in 1998 and
ran for eight years. While the show‘s sunny disposition invites some comparison to Step by Step,
That „70s Show was clearly channeling the spirit of Happy Days. The most direct correlation is
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spatial and temporal, with both shows set in Wisconsin, twenty years in the past. Point Place,
which served as backdrop for That „70s Show, is fictional, although users of the Internet Movie
Database cite evidence that it is near Kenosha. It was the story of a high school kid, Eric
Forman, and his friends, which included Michael Kelso, a likable yet self-absorbed buffoon;
Jackie Burkhardt, Kelso‘s equally self-absorbed rich girlfriend; Donna Pinciotti, a sarcastic,
pretty, and tomboyish redhead who lived next door; Steve Hyde, a scruffy and brusque rebel; and
Fez, an impressionable and thickly accented foreign-exchange student whose place of origin and
real name were never revealed. As was the case with Richie and the Cunninghams, much of the
action focused on Eric and took place around the Forman home. Eric‘s cranky but endearing
father, Red, worked at an auto parts factory, while his sweet and bubbly mother, Kitty, was a
nurse.
Parallels between these two Wisconsin nostalgia shows were sometimes striking. On
Happy Days, for example, the rebellious Fonzie, whose father had abandoned him, moved in
with the Cunninghams and learned the ways of a loving nuclear family. On That „70s Show, the
rebellious Hyde, whose father had abandoned him, moved in with the Formans and learned the
ways of a loving, if someone sharper-tongued, nuclear family. Such obvious parallels were given
a sly acknowledgment in one episode, when Marion Ross, who had played Richie Cunningham‘s
mother on Happy Days, showed up to play Eric Forman‘s grandmother.
There were also some significant differences between the two shows. Bill Haley and Fats
Domino were replaced by Alice Cooper and Cheap Trick, ducktails and leather jackets by long
hair and platform shoes, and sipping malts at Arnold‘s by smoking pot in the Forman basement.
Likewise, innuendo was replaced with overtly sexual references, and the boundless economic
optimism of the fifties gave way to grim economic realities. The factory where Red worked shut
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down, forcing him to work at Price Mart, a large discount store that was threatening to put the
appliance store run by Donna‘s dad, Bob, out of business. Despite these differences, however,
Happy Days and That „70s Show were kindred spirits, sharing a consistent, and thoroughly
midwestern, set of moral values, as noted by critic Fred Kovey:
Episode after episode, the central joke of That „70s Show is that the
kids who should be enjoying their post-sixties cultural freedom
spend all their time hanging out in the basement of the squarest
household on the block. Granted, part of the attraction is that they
can smoke pot when no one‘s home, but mostly, the show
suggests, they just crave the staid, structured atmosphere that is
missing in their broken, ―modern‖ families . . . . That „70s Show
has faith in the central truth . . . that there is nothing so bad that
family, real or surrogate, can‘t get you through it. It‘s a point that
is made over and over. This past season, Hyde . . . found himself in
dire straits after his mother ran off and left the already fatherless
adolescent totally alone. Even though they were low on cash due to
factory scalebacks, the Formans did the right thing and took the
boy in . . . . It was totally in character for the Formans, as always a
beacon of sense and solidity in the chaos around them (Kovey
2010a: 1).
Some of Wisconsin‘s other sitcom entries featured themes familiar to midwestern
programs, but none were around long enough to leave much of an impression. While Happy
Days, Laverne & Shirley, Step by Step, and That „70s Show aired for a combined thirty seasons,
Wisconsin‘s eight remaining sitcoms lasted, collectively, less than two. The first of these lesser
entries was 1978‘s The Waverly Wonders, a comedy featuring former NFL quarterback Joe
Namath as a retired pro basketball player who returned to his small fictional hometown of
Eastfield, Wisconsin, to coach the title basketball team, which hadn‘t had a victory in three
years. The kids of Waverly Wonders may have been terrible at basketball, but they were, in
typical Wisconsin fashion, very polite, including John Tate, a player who was so painfully shy
that he wouldn‘t even take a shot. The blue-collar aesthetic of Wisconsin‘s more successful
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sitcoms was resurrected in the short-lived 1995 entry George Wendt Show, in which the portly
Cheers alum played the host of a Car Talk-like radio show that was broadcast from his repair
shop in Madison. The similarly amiable 1990 entry American Dreamer was the story of Tom
Nash, who was trying to break off a piece of Wisconsin‘s serenity and graciousness for himself.
Tom had been a successful international television news correspondent, but when his wife died,
he moved with his two teenage kids to a small town to write a thoughtful newspaper column
about life in the wilds of Middle America. His editor tried to to convince Tom to come back to
Chicago and cover hard news, to which Tom replied, ―Why do you torture yourself by coming
up here once a week? You know the fresh air and the general decency of the people upset you‖
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 47).
That these comic retreads depicting Wisconsinites as earthy and decent people were
failures should not suggest that viewers were looking for shows set in the state that were edgy or
critical of their setting. Programs that attempted to do so fared just as poorly. The outlandish
1987 sitcom Women in Prison was a case in point. Set at the fictional Bass Women‘s Prison, the
show‘s title said it all, as did its gaudy theme song, which included the lines, ―So misunderstood,
now you‘re missing a life that was so good . . . . While other girls make dates, you make license
plates . . . . you‘re in JAIL!‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,534). The 1988 sitcom Raising Miranda
had a similarly unappealing premise, telling the story of a Racine construction contractor whose
wife had left him to raise their fifteen-year-old daughter alone. 1995‘s A Whole New Ballgame, a
backstage look at a local television newscast, was a thinly veiled rip off of WKRP in Cincinnati,
and had the distinction of being the only television program set in contemporary Milwaukee. It
was also unique for Wisconsin in that its central character, a self-centered, misogynistic former
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baseball player named Brett Sooner, was almost entirely unlikable. Not surprisingly, none of
these shows lasted a full season.
Viewers have rejected not only all Wisconsin-based shows with disagreeable premises
and characters, but also those that belittle life in the state‘s small towns. 1990‘s nightly
syndicated My Talk Show, a strange sitcom/talk show hybrid, bore a striking resemblance to
Ohio‘s Fernwood 2-Night as it examined a bizarre small town through the lens of a bush-league
talk show. Set in fictional Derby, Wisconsin, My Talk Show was hosted by fictional Jennifer
Bass, whose living room doubled as the set for the show, complete with bleachers for a live
audience. Some of the guests were real—mostly C-list celebrities like Jerry Mathers and Mr. T—
while others were actors who played Derby‘s eccentric citizens, including Anne Marie, the
pompous star of the local dinner theater, and Marty, Jennifer‘s insufferable brother-in-law,
whose trailer was permanently parked in Jennifer‘s driveway. My Talk Show never found an
audience, and was out of production in three months. 2003‘s A Minute With Stan Hooper was a
fish-out-of-water variation on the same theme, and had an even shorter run. A fictionalized
hybrid of Andy Rooney and Charles Kuralt, Stan Hooper was a New York television journalist
who specialized in folksy segments about small-town America. As the series began, Stan and his
wife decided to go native, moving to fictional Waterford Falls, Wisconsin, where Stan
encountered the expected array of small town oddballs. The plots of the program‘s thirteen
episodes were essentially interchangeable with those of Green Acres or Newhart, with Stan
Hooper‘s distinguishing feature being that it almost certainly set a record for frequency of jokes
about cheese.
Wisconsin‘s lone dramatic entry was also set in a quirky little town. Picket Fences, which
debuted in 1992 and ran for four seasons, took place in Rome, Wisconsin. There really is a Rome
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in Wisconsin, and still photographs from there were featured in the show‘s opening credits.
Jimmy Brock, his wife, Jill, and their three children, Kimberly, Matthew, and Zach, were the
central characters, supported by a large cast of eccentric townsfolk and equally strange visitors.
Given Rome‘s similarity to the little towns of Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure, Picket Fences
was certainly part of a 1990s trend, but Picket Fences was a difficult show to pigeonhole. Jimmy
was the town sheriff, and many episodes revolved around his job, making Picket Fences
something of a police show. Jill was the town doctor, and many of the episodes revolved around
her job, making Picket Fences something a medical drama. The familial relationships of the
Brocks were also central to the show, as were power struggles among the town‘s residents and
the cases that came before Rome‘s crotchety old Judge Henry Bone. The show was, alternately, a
family drama, soap opera, and legal drama, leading critics to compare it to everything from L. A.
Law to Murder, She Wrote to The Waltons to Dallas.
Whatever Picket Fences‘s genre, it was, above all, strange, lending to Wisconsin an eerie
motif also common to television‘s version of Washington, Maine, and Kansas. Plot
developments on Picket Fences included, but were certainly not limited to, the lethal poisoning
of the Tin Man from Rome‘s community-theater production of The Wizard of Oz; a schoolgirl
who brought a severed hand to show-and-tell; a circus midget‘s attempt to save an elephant from
animal cruelty; a serial bather who broke into people‘s home to use their bathtubs; and a murder
victim who had been stuffed into her dishwasher with her cherished collectible plates. A teacher
at the elementary school was a transsexual, the town coroner had a genital fixation, the town
priest had a shoe fetish, the mayor spontaneously combusted, and Jimmy discovered that a
nearby farm was using cows as surrogate mothers for human fetuses.
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While the above themes are hardly the things one might expect from the home state of
Richie Cunningham, Picket Fences did contain some thoroughly midwestern elements. A
number of the region‘s television programs have used their settings as a sort of American
microcosm—as a laboratory for examining American cultural values—but none more palpably
than Picket Fences. The show addressed some serious contemporary issues, including date rape,
abortion, birth control, religion, sexual freedoms, racial prejudice, and euthanasia. Ann Donahue,
one of the show‘s writers, felt that these moral explorations were at the heart of the program,
calling Picket Fences a ―First Amendment Show:‖
What you‘ll find time and time again is that the episodes deal with
everybody‘s right to their space, their religion, their death, their
life. Everybody‘s always saying, ―I want to do this,‖ which is what
we do in America. Everybody says, ―Well, that‘s fine until it‘s in
my back yard or against my beliefs or . . .‖—fill in the blank . . . .
That‘s where the drama and humor come from (Thompson 1996:
171).
And as far as Picket Fences seemed from the ―Middle American gooeyness‖ of Happy
Days, the moral uprightness of the Cunninghams was not entirely lacking in the citizens of
Rome. Critic Robert J. Thompson argued that ―in spite of all this quirkiness and relevance,
Picket Fences remains strikingly sincere and without irony,‖ adding that ―characters seem to
listen to reason in the show, and most of the people in the town seem to be struggling to do the
right thing‖ (Thompson 1996: 173).
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CONCLUSION
Wisconsin‘s television landscape has been steeped in positive midwestern stereotypes.
Although its programs have varied in tone, the universal message has been that the state is
populated by hard-working, sincere, and upright working-class and middle-class families. Most
of them lived in small cities or towns, the rest in a nostalgic, small-town version of 1950s
Milwaukee. Two of Wisconsin‘s earliest and most popular shows, Happy Days and Laverne &
Shirley, were a mixture of nuclear-family serenity and working-class optimism, and depicted
Milwaukee as a place where even the most rebellious character—Arthur Fonzarelli—was a font
of altruistic wisdom and a model of industriousness. Such warm and sincere messages were
reinforced in a contemporary, small-town setting on the cheerful, wholesome, and long-running
family sitcom Step by Step, and were also evident in the state‘s less sanguine entries. Despite its
acerbic language and slacker characters, That „70s Show was ultimately a wholesomely nostalgic
show that celebrated family love and loyalty to friends, and despite the darkly comical tragedies
that forever plagued their little town, the characters of Picket Fences remained remarkably
optimistic and sincere.
Across the lake, Michigan was similarly stocked with working-class and middle-class
families, traditional values, and pleasant neighborhoods. Michigan‘s archetypal television man
was a likable, well-meaning, blue-collar gearhead, the most popular of which was Tim Taylor of
the cheerful family sitcom, Home Improvement. What Tim lacked in sophistication, he made up
for in earthy sincerity, and the entire program was one long exercise in politeness and
understanding. Michigan‘s television landscape has been slightly more urbanized than
Wisconsin‘s, and the population slightly more ethnically diverse. Detroit was the setting for the
long-running sitcom Martin, about an African-American radio and television show host. The
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material on Martin was much more abrasive than that of Home Improvement, but in keeping with
the overall tone of the state, the mood was generally carefree. Michigan television has, for the
most part, been devoid of poverty or crime. Although allusions exist to the mean streets of
Detroit and other urban settings, such landscapes were rarely seen.
Indiana has, somewhat surprisingly, had a much higher dose of urban struggle. Very few
of the state‘s programs have been set in small towns, and the rate of crime and violence in the
state‘s television cities has been relatively high. Programs focusing on such images have been
balanced by a few shows featuring young urban professionals, albeit those with decidedly blue-
collar sensibilities, but the unifying trait of most of Indiana‘s programs has been a lack of
success. The state‘s only truly popular show was One Day at a Time, the first successful
television program to realistically examine the life of working single mother, and one of the first
to take a hard look at the often troubled life of the modern teenager. One of television‘s first
―dramadies,‖ One Day at a Time put its Indianapolis characters through a long series of trials and
tragedies, but it could hardly be considered a condemning take on its setting. If anything, the
show was an affirmation of midwestern values, with the industrious Ann Romano always rising
above her modest and tumultuous lot in life. More important, the show struck a much gentler and
loving chord than other Norman Lear ―relevance‖ comedies of the era. Television‘s other famous
Hoosier, Cheers‘s Woody Boyd, was a lighthearted take on the same story. This naïve Indiana
farm kid, while not exactly a paragon of intelligence and sophistication, had nevertheless risen
above what sounded like an incredibly tragic childhood to achieve his goals, and was always
depicted as being far more cheerful, optimistic, honest, and loyal than his urban, east-coast
counterparts.
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Woody Boyd‘s Hanover, Indiana, could easily have served as a sister city to most of
Ohio‘s fictional small towns, the most famous of which were Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and
Fernwood 2-Night‘s Fernwood, 3rd Rock from the Sun‘s Rutherford, and Ed‘s Stuckeyville.
These and other Ohio small-town programs were, like the stories from Woody‘s unseen Indiana
hometown, both a celebration and a condemnation of small-town midwestern values. The
characters from these towns were usually earnest, if a bit provincial, and the settings were
thoroughly ordinary. A comic approach running through all of these programs was the ―Ohio-as-
straight-man‖ technique, with the banality and mediocrity of the setting contrasted with often
bizarre events, but the ultimate message was that Ohio was a physical manifestation of
mainstream America—that it was, for better or worse, America‘s spiritual center.
Surprisingly few programs have been set in Ohio‘s largest cities—Cleveland, Cincinnati,
and Columbus—but each of these cities hosted one popular situation comedy. WKRP in
Cincinnati sent mixed messages about its setting. Although the show‘s Cincinnati was generally
unsophisticated and tradition-bound, it was also depicted as a modern, thriving metropolis filled
with warm, genuine, and friendly characters. The Drew Carey Show‘s take on Cleveland was
similar. The young, single friends on the show were far less successful and chic than their New
York and California counterparts, but Drew Carey‘s take on Cleveland was almost entirely
affectionate, featuring friendly, self-effacing, and unpretentious characters. Columbus‘s middle
class family sitcom Family Ties was an even more positive spin on life in the modern Midwest,
and with its examination of the new 1980s generation gap, no show put Ohio closer to the
spiritual center of America. Although the show gave viewers a weekly dose of tension and
conflict, its ultimate message was that there was nothing that family love could not overcome.
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Another element of Ohio‘s television landscape that reinforced its image as the
wholesome, friendly, ordinary heart of America was the fact that it never hosted a successful
drama of any kind. That has not been the case in Illinois, where Chicago has set the industry
standard for urban squalor. Depictions of the Windy City have varied widely from program to
program, but have been awash in crime, poverty, violence, and corruption. Fortunately for
Chicago‘s television residents, there has also been no shortage of tough, aloof, and icily
dedicated lawmen in the city, beginning with M Squad‘s Frank Ballinger and The
Untouchables‘s Eliot Ness.
Chicago‘s seediness was also on display during the very long and successful run of the
emergency room drama ER. Although the crime, violence, and tragedy of a typical Chicago day
were not regularly displayed for the viewer, the bloody aftermath of such events was. The
emergency room of County General often resembled the triage unit of M*A*S*H, and the
hospital itself occasionally resembled a war zone. On the upside, ER provided Chicago‘s
television landscape with a long parade of successful, dedicated, and very skilled, if somewhat
weary and unlucky, professionals. Successful programs that have chronicled the work life of
white collar professionals, other than those in law enforcement, have actually been relatively rare
among Chicago‘s entries. Along with ER and its medical colleague, Chicago Hope, a prominent
exception to this rule was The Bob Newhart Show, which presented the work and home life of
psychologist Bob Hartley. Hartley and his wife lived in a luxury high rise in a Chicago that was,
for a change, depicted as being stylish, clean and upscale. They were successful and intelligent,
but had no children. This childless trait was typical of Chicago‘s television landscape in the
1990s and 2000s, when it was absolutely littered with programs about young, successful,
childless urban professionals. Strangely, however, nearly all of them failed. It is possibly a
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coincidence, but certainly a peculiar one, that while some similar programs set in California and
New York did exceptionally well, none of the sitcoms featuring young, handsome, glamorous,
urban professionals in Chicago have clicked with viewers.
It is possible that viewers simply did not expect Chicagoans to have Hollywood values.
While cops Eliot Ness and Frank Ballinger certainly possessed a large measure of cool, the term
―young and glamorous‖ would never be used to describe either of them. The same can be said of
many, but not all, of ER‘s doctors and nurses, and it certainly applies to Bob Hartley. Much of
the comedy on Bob Newhart was derived from what Victoria Johnson (2008) called Bob‘s
―square white midwesternness,‖ and many of Chicago‘s television icons match Noel Murray‘s
(2008) description of M Squad—―as square as an LP jacket, and just about as old-fashioned.‖
This old-fashioned stolidness was evident in a rash of successful Chicago sitcoms chronicling
suburban, nuclear families. Those shows, such as Webster, The Hogan Family, and Family
Matters in the 1980s and Still Standing and According to Jim in the 2000s, were so squeaky-
clean that they made Family Ties look like a Peckinpah film.
A lack of glamor might be the defining trait of the Illinois television landscape, but it has
not always been manifested in such a straight-laced way. Just as often, Chicago has rejected
glamor in the manner expected of the hog-butchering, stormy, brawling, big-shouldered city
described by Carl Sandburg. In its earliest television entries, Chicago was a city of erudite quiz
shows and symphonies, but it was just as often a city of polkas, stock car races, cattle drives, and
meat carving demonstrations. The folksy, informal style of Chicago programs hosted by Studs
Terkel, Don McNeill, and, most notably, Dave Garroway, provided a sharp contrast to the often
slick productions from New York and Los Angeles. Years later, Chicagoan Bob Newhart would
make self-deprecating humor and the rejection of pomposity central to his landmark sitcom. At
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the same time, Good Times offered television‘s first serious look at life in a black ghetto. A few
years later, Married with Children would break from television convention and offer a comical
portrait of a cash-strapped, dysfunctional, sleazy, working-class family. It would be Roseanne,
the acerbic take on working class, small-town family life, and the one successful Illinois program
set outside of the Chicago area, that would best capture the fundamental spirit of the state‘s
television landscape—a spirit described by Victoria Johnson as ―ordinary, real, truthful‖ and
resolutely ―non-yuppie and non-upscale.‖
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TABLE 5. DEFINING PROGRAMS AND COMMON TRAITS: THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI MIDWEST
State Defining Programs Key Program
Elements
Other Common
Traits
Iowa M*A*S*H (Radar
O‘Reilly)
A shy, quiet, and
unassuming,
unsophisticated but
also honest,
hardworking and
dependable farm kid
Idealism; family love;
small towns; farms;
mainstream America;
sanctuary;
industriousness;
independence;
loyalty; honesty
Kansas Gunsmoke A strong, fearless,
sympathetic and
philosophical
masculine lead
civilizing a wild and
lawless frontier;
geographic and
emotional isolation;
populism;
conservative values
Small towns and
farms; isolation;
boredom; the
transition from
Midwest to West;
―hicks, rubes and
yokels‖; loving
families; traditional
values; loneliness and
terror
Smallville Intelligent, complex,
yet earthy and honest
small-town folks;
agriculture
Minnesota The Mary Tyler
Moore Show
The prototypical show
about a modern,
independent woman;
Minneapolis as a big,
intimidating, thriving,
modern metropolis;
lack of ethnic
diversity; small-town
squareness; excessive
politeness;
―Presbyterian
militancy‖; likable
characters
Polite, likable, self-
deprecating
characters; almost
total lack of crime,
poverty, degradation,
and violence
Little House on the
Prairie
―An oasis of gentle
homilies, solid family
values, and sweet
social harmony‖
Coach Friendly, escapist
atmosphere; earthy,
likable characters
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Missouri Ozark Jubilee A warm, folksy,
sincere, cheerful aura;
hillbillies ―moaning
and wailing‖
Modern urban
sophistication meets
old-fashioned, small-
town virtues; a
mixture of seedy
urban centers,
pleasant suburbs,
small towns, and rural
backwaters. Mixture
of syrupy optimism
and bitter realism;
mainstream America;
stubbornness, earthy
wit, and rejection of
all things effete and
snobbish; young,
urban African
Americans
Grace Under Fire The professional and
family life of a
sarcastic, blue-collar,
single mom; small-
town life that was not
nostalgic or
sentimental; wit and
sophistication;
industriousness
The Beverly Hillbillies
(The Clampetts)
Simple, uneducated,
unsophisticated
hillbillies; charming,
unpretentious,
egalitarian people
Nebraska Heartland The story of an ―an
old and crusty but
lovable small-town
bigot‖
Modern and urban
meets old-fashioned
and rural; Middle
American values
North Dakota and
South Dakota
Father Murphy A righteous man
standing up to a tide
of corruption and evil
A wild and lawless
frontier; a quirky
contemporary town
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CHAPTER 5 - THE MIDWEST, PART 2: THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI MIDWEST
The Trans-Mississippi Midwest, which here will include the whole of Minnesota, has
accounted for about 2.6% of the American television landscape. Programs set in Iowa, Nebraska,
and the Dakotas have not fared particularly well, with these states‘ fifteen shows collectively
accounting for 0.32% of the country‘s television images. Minnesota‘s eight programs have
included a number of hit shows, and that state alone has represented 0.51% of America‘s
television landscape. Missouri, the most populous of these seven states, has also landed the most
programs—eighteen—and those shows have accounted for 0.83% of the country‘s television
images. Kansas has served as the setting for fewer shows than Missouri—fourteen—but its
overall share of the American television landscape has been slightly larger, at 0.95%. That is
due, in large part, to the fact that it was the home of television‘s longest-running drama.
MISSOURI
Speaking for the residents of his home state, author and self-styled geographer William
Least Heat-Moon wrote that ―A Missourian gets used to Southerners thinking him a Yankee, a
Northerner considering him a cracker, a Westerner sneering at his effete Easternness, and the
Easterner taking him for a cowhand‖ (Heat-Moon 1982: 28). While it is unlikely that Heat-Moon
was thinking specifically of TV shows when he made that statement, it is wholly appropriate to
Missouri‘s television landscape. To the east of Missouri is Illinois, where the television
landscape was shaped by the urbanity of The Bob Newhart Show, the rust-belt aesthetic of Good
Times, Married with Children, and Roseanne, the middle-class suburbs of sunny family sitcoms
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like Webster and According to Jim, and the gritty urban realism of The Untouchables and ER. To
the north is thoroughly midwestern Iowa, birthplace of Radar O‘Reilly and James T. Kirk.
Kansas, to the west is a collection of lonesome small towns, while, to the south, Arkansas and
Tennessee feature the sleepy southern town of Evening Shade and the mighty engine of country
music and cornpone comedy in Nashville. Missouri‘s television programs have dabbled in all of
these themes and genres, but the state‘s television landscape has not been dominated by any of
them. Missouri is home to both modern urban sophistication and old-fashioned, small-town
virtues. It has also showcased America‘s seedy urban underbelly and its rural, redneck
backwaters. Of the states eighteen entries, ten have been set in St. Louis or Kansas City, while
eight have either been set in fictional small towns, or originated from the smaller cities of Joplin
and Springfield.
Missouri‘s early television landscape was, in fact, dominated by Springfield. In the
1950s, it was one of the few serious challengers to Nashville‘s status as a country music capital,
and Springfield took an early lead when it came to television. Premiering on network television
nine months before the Grand Ole Opry was Springfield‘s Ozark Jubilee. This country variety
showcase aired on ABC from January of 1955 through the fall of 1960, also using the titles
Country Music Jubilee and Jubilee U.S.A. Hosted by Opry veteran Red Foley, regulars on the
show included top names in country music, such as Webb Pierce and Porter Waggoner. The
program also showcased amateur talent, including a portion called the ―Junior Jubilee.‖ One such
person was a ―sweet-as-peaches little 11-year-old girl with a booming voice‖ named Brenda Lee,
who became a Jubilee favorite and later a force on the country and pop charts (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 1,042).
Springfield produced two similar network programs around the same time, including
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ABC‘s Talent Varieties, which aired for three months in 1955, and NBC‘s Five Star Jubilee,
which aired for five months in 1961. While none of those entries were a smash in the ratings,
their numbers were steady, leading Ozark Jubilee coproducer Si Siman to claim—accurately, in
terms of audience draw—that:
Springfield, Missouri, was the third highest origination point for
national television—third only to New York and Hollywood. More
than Chicago. More than Washington, D. C . . . . We were able to
convince ABC that ―country‖ was a lot more popular than people
realized (Johnson 2008: 68).
All three Springfield entries were a mixed blessing for Missouri‘s television image.
Certainly they gave the state a warm, folksy aura, characteristics exemplified by the cheerful and
sincere persona of Red Foley. Each week, the viewer was greeted by barbershop quartets, square
dancers, and even 4-H Club award winners. A few hymns were sprinkled in, often performed
before a backdrop of an old country church, and Red Foley concluded each episode with a brief
sermon. According to critic Victoria E. Johnson, this conclusion presented the show‘s sharpest
geographic message:
These gospel segments explicitly reinforce the Heartland
community‘s . . . steadfast adherence to pre-modern values of
family, church, and hometown in the face of rapid postwar change
. . . . Each week‘s closing credits explicitly positioned the ―heart of
the Ozarks‖ at the geographic center of America and, conceptually,
as the bed-rock of postwar society from which all good things
radiate outward—as a residually place-bound corrective to the
anxiety, materialism, self-involvement, and distance from ―real
folk‖ perceived to be ever-more prevalent in modern life (Johnson
2008: 70).
At the same time, programs like Ozark Jubilee almost certainly inspired symptoms of
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what essayist and Missouri native Calvin Trillin has identified as ―rubophobia,‖ which is ―not
fear of rubes, but fear of being taken for a rube‖ (Kendall 1986: 14). Missourians of this ilk
likely bristled at Springfield‘s early television offerings, for their tone was far from
cosmopolitan. Such rustic elements as The Oklahoma Wranglers, The Country Rhythm Boys,
and the Tall Timber Trio certainly did not generate much respect from the television
establishment. Although NBC‘s Five Star Jubilee was a national offering, the network decided
not to broadcast it in the New York market, citing the show‘s ―primarily rural appeal‖ (Brooks
and Marsh 2007: 479). In their summary of the lavishly produced crossover program The Johnny
Cash Show, Brooks and Marsh contrasted it with Ozark Jubilee, which they describe as being
―strictly for the sticks‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 713). Critics of the 1950s agreed, appearing to
be almost baffled by Jubilee‘s success. One critic bemoaned the program‘s ―supreme lack of
show-business knowledge,‖ while Time magazine, which characterized the program as
―hillbillies . . . moaning and wailing,‖ asked, in befuddlement, ―Why is it so successful?‖ TV
Guide‘s report on the Ozark Jubilee, even when chronicling the show‘s success, came across as a
smug insult:
Ever wonder which show attracts the widest family circle to the
TV set each week? Wal, now, it‘s that li‘l ole Ozark Jubilee that
you don‘t hear so much about but that sure does pack in the
country-music fans on Saturday night . . . . According to the
American Research Bureau, Jubilee has 28 percent more people
per set watching than the average of all evening shows. In other
words, it appeals to Grampaw and all the tads, too (Johnson 2008:
68).
Despite its success, ABC suddenly pulled Ozark Jubilee off the air in 1960, ostensibly
because the network had purchased rights to broadcast a series of prize fights that would air in
Jubilee‘s place on Saturday nights. In reality, the show ended because Red Foley had been
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indicted on charges of tax evasion, something ―hardly consonant with the down-home sincerity
he projected on the show‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1,042). Foley was acquitted in 1961, and
would go on to be featured on the ABC sitcom Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but Springfield‘s
days as a center for national television production were over.
Missouri‘s only other entry from the 1950s set a far different tone from Jubilee. Down-
home atmosphere and country music were traded in for hot jazz and the mean streets of
Prohibition-era Kansas City on Pete Kelly‟s Blues. The title character was a trumpeter and band
leader at a Cherry Street speakeasy in the 1920s. The show followed Pete, his piano-playing pal
Fred, and a blues singer named Savannah Brown as they stumbled into various scrapes, including
murders and kidnappings. Based on a 1951 radio show and 1955 film, both starring Jack Webb,
the television version featured William Reynolds as Pete Kelly, and lasted for five months in
1959.
With the exception of the short-lived Five Star Jubilee, Missouri was off the air during
the tumultuous 1960s. The state returned with three programs in the 1970s, each possessing
standard themes for midwestern programs. The first was the 1974 drama Lucas Tanner, which
featured future Good Morning America host David Hartman as the title character, a former major
league pitcher and sportswriter who had just lost his wife and young son in a car accident. As it
often does on television, the Midwest offered a fresh start to Tanner, who took a job as an
English teacher at Harry S. Truman High School in the St. Louis suburb of Webster Groves. As
is also frequently the case, the native Midwesterners proved to be stubbornly tradition-bound,
and most of the teachers at Truman High were resistant to Tanner‘s unorthodox teaching style.
Tanner‘s students were grateful, however, and it was that gratitude that kept Lucas from giving
up. NBC, hoping to tap into antiestablishment zeitgeist among younger viewers, touted the show
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in a 1974 TV Guide advertisement with the line, ―Once he pitched in the majors, now he throws
curves at the establishment—and his students love him for it!‖ The show never caught on,
however, and Lucas Tanner was sent to the showers after one season.
Kansas City‘s lone 1970s entry played on the familiar regional theme of nostalgia. The
sitcom Apple Pie was, as its name suggested, a sugary slice of Americana. Set in 1933, it was the
story of Ginger-Nell Hollyhock, a middle-aged hairdresser who cured her loneliness by
recruiting a family via a classified ad in the newspaper. A husband, daughter, son, and even a
doddering old grandpa all came to live with her in this way, just ―for the laughs‖ (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 73). Apple Pie was off the air after two weeks in 1978.
Missouri‘s third entry of the decade was 1979‘s The Baxters. This title clan lived in
suburban St. Louis, and was about as middle-class and Middle American as a family could get.
Fred Baxter sold insurance, and had a wife Mary, a housekeeper, and three children—Naomi,
Jonah, and Rachel. Many of the region‘s shows have examined contemporary American social
issues, but none quite so literally as The Baxters. The first half of each episode was played out as
a standard sitcom, with the family facing some sort of moral quandary such as whether or not
Grandmother Baxter should go to a nursing home or what to think about the fact that Jonah‘s
teacher was gay. The issue was never resolved, however. Instead, during the second half of the
show, cameras would go to a studio audience, who would discuss what they thought the Baxters
should do. A separate audience and moderator existed in each television market, and, in some
cities, viewers could call in and offer their thoughts.
The Baxters began as a local program in Boston in 1977, the project of a divinity student
for his Sunday morning public affairs show. It attracted a cult following and was produced for
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nationwide syndication during the 1979-1980 season. The show was not especially successful,
but was given another shot during the 1980-1981 season. Although produced in Hollywood and
then Toronto, the St. Louis setting certainly suggests that this city was perceived to be a
representative sample of mainstream America.
Three more Missouri-based programs made their debuts in the 1980s, none of them with
much success. The sitcom Making the Grade, which aired for six weeks in 1982, featured the
dedicated and idealistic teachers of Franklin High, an overcrowded, gang-infested, inner city St.
Louis school. Kansas City was the setting for The Popcorn Kid for a month in 1987. This was a
contemporary sitcom about a group of high school kids who worked at a revival movie house
called The Majestic.
Another Missouri sitcom of the 1980s arrived on the coattails of M*A*S*H, one of
television‘s most iconic programs. For a decade, viewers had been entranced by life at a mobile
army hospital during the Korean War. The program introduced Americans to a large cast of
memorable characters, many of whom represented a broad spectrum of midwestern archetypes.
There was Henry Blake, a gentle goofball from Illinois; Radar O‘Reilly, a naïve Iowa farm boy;
Maxwell Klinger, a flamboyant Steel Belt ethnic type from Toledo, Ohio; and Ft. Wayne,
Indiana‘s Frank Burns, an avaricious and ultimately spineless automaton who appeared to have
stepped right out a Sinclair Lewis novel. When Blake, the 4077th‘s commanding officer, was
killed at the end of the show‘s third season, viewers were introduced to his replacement, Colonel
Sherman T. Potter of Missouri. Potter was regular army, having served since World War I, and
was, when compared to the flighty Blake, a strict disciplinarian. He was also genuine, honest,
and loyal, serving as a sort of father figure to the doctors and nurses of the 4077th. Despite
having spent most of his television life in Korea, Potter was certainly one of television‘s most
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famous fictional Missourians. With his stubbornness, earthy wit, and rejection of all things effete
and snobbish, most residents likely considered him a positive reflection of their state, and he
probably also reminded many viewers of a pair of famous non-fictional Missourians: Harry S
Truman and Mark Twain. In fact, the Potter character was given connections to both of them.
Like Twain, he hailed from Hannibal, and in one episode Potter claimed to have served in the
army with President Truman.
Sherman Potter returned to civilian life, and to Missouri, in the 1983 M*A*S*H sequel
AfterMASH. Joined by fellow 4077th colleagues Max Klinger and Father Francis Mulcahy, Potter
assumed command of the Pershing Veterans Hospital in the fictional town of River Bend. Like
its predecessor, AfterMASH blended comedy with earnest appraisals of the ―human wreckage
created by war,‖ and for a time it was nearly as successful (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 24).
AfterMASH was ranked fifteenth in the Nielsen ratings during its premiere season, making it the
first Missouri-based show to rank in the Nielsen top thirty. The next season, however, the show
was moved from Tuesday nights where it ran up against NBC‘s action series, The A-Team.
Ratings plummeted, and AfterMASH was cancelled a few weeks into its second year.
Before 1993, no Missouri-based show had lasted as long as two seasons. This changed
with the arrival of a pair of popular sitcoms. The first, St. Louis-based The John Larroquette
Show, was one of the bleakest portrayals of urban life ever to be seen on a midwestern sitcom.
The protagonist, John Hemingway, seemed respectable at first—a cultured and well-educated
man who collected Thomas Pynchon first editions. Unfortunately, John had battled alcohol for
years, losing his wife and career in the process. Supporting characters included the kind and
sophisticated Carly Watkins, who also was a prostitute, and an intelligent, socially-conscious
young black man named Dexter Wilson who seethed with anger. Unable to find employment
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anywhere else, John had taken a job as the graveyard shift manager of the Crossroads, the
―world‘s seediest bus terminal,‖ located in an incredibly dangerous part of St. Louis (Brooks and
Marsh 2007: 762). Dexter ran the diner at the Crossroads while Carly ―worked‖ the lounge. Also
seen were Mahalia, John‘s brash assistant; Gene, a big, gruff custodian; lackluster police officers
Adam Hampton and Eve Eggers; and Oscar, the station‘s resident bum.
When compared to other 1993 sitcoms like Coach, Full House, Home Improvement,
Family Matters, and even Seinfeld and Murphy Brown, The John Larroquette Show was
exceptionally grim. In addition to John‘s on-going battle with the bottle, the Crossroads was
witness to numerous robberies, a hostage crisis, a runaway teen, a baby abandoned in the
station‘s dumpster, and even the appearance of a neo-Nazi named Steve Hitler. In the first
episode, John hung a sign, stolen from an amusement park, that said it all: ―This is a Dark Ride‖
(Tucker 2005: 84).
John Larroquette developed a devout following, but the show described by TV Guide as
―sitcom noir‖ struggled to find a large audience. In the third season NBC launched a television
version of gentrification to broaden the show‘s appeal. The crew of the Crossroads was moved to
the day shift, Carly gave up her career and married a millionaire, and Oscar the bum got a job at
the station‘s newsstand. These changes not only failed to attract new viewers, but also alienated
old ones, and The John Larroquette Show was cancelled midway through its fourth season. That
was, nevertheless, a fairly long run by Missouri standards, and for those who tuned in it certainly
marked a dramatic shift away from the folksy atmosphere of Colonel Sherman Potter and Red
Foley.
The shift in tone seen in John Larroquette‘s St. Louis was but also present in that show‘s
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more successful contemporary, 1993‘s Grace Under Fire. Grace was also part of a broader
movement that was reshaping sitcoms in the early 1990s. Like Jerry Seinfeld, Ellen DeGeneres,
Tim Allen, and Roseanne Barr, comedian Brett Butler brought material from her stand-up act to
the small screen. She is often compared to Barr—both were cynical, uncompromising, and
independent—and the spirit of Grace Under Fire very much resembled that of Roseanne. Both
were set in small towns in the hinterland of a large city, and both focused on the home and work
lives of a blue-collar antiheroine. Butler played Grace Kelly, a divorced single mother who
worked at an oil refinery in fictional Victory, Missouri, near St. Louis. At the job, where she was
an affirmative-action hire—or, as she put it, ―quota babe‖—Grace was adept at taking grief from
her gruff, mostly male coworkers, and even better at dishing it out. At home, Grace was a
recovering alcoholic, and struggled to make ends meet while raising her three kids—Quentin,
Libby, and Patrick. Also seen were Grace‘s friends, Nadine, Wade, and Russell, all of whom had
similarly troubled lives.
Grace Under Fire was unique in its geographic outlook, and that uniqueness was rooted
in Brett Butler‘s personal geography. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Butler and her five sisters
were raised by their ―bohemian and extremely literate‖ mother in Atlanta. Butler credited her
mother, who named Brett for the heroine of Hemingway‘s The Sun Also Rises, for instilling in
her both a love of literature and an appreciation for dark comedy. Butler‘s life was also quite
troubled. Her alcoholic father abandoned the family when she was four, and at age nineteen,
Butler herself married a physically abusive alcoholic. She left the marriage after three years,
moved to Houston, and started doing stand-up comedy that mirrored her upbringing. ―I come
from a family where the humor was really dark,‖ said Butler, ―a house headed by interesting,
intelligent, bohemian, minimally agnostic parents in the middle of the Bible Belt, where girls
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were either good or bad, where when I got married at age 20, everyone said ‗Sugar, you‘re
finally settling down‘‖ (De Vries 1994: 2). Butler drew comparison to the likes of Richard Pryor
and Lenny Bruce for her fresh, intelligent jokes about ―trailer parks, gun racks, pickup trucks,
and the SOB-type men who love them‖ (Schwarzbaum 1994b: 1). ―Here I was, this Southern
white chick, but I realized that my humor was like urban minority comics,‖ said Butler, ―the
humor of the oppressed‖ (De Vries 1994: 2).
Butler‘s comic formula was carried intact to her television program. Her Missouri
community both sustained and shattered the worst stereotypes about working-class, small-town
life. The entrenched flaws were represented by Jimmy Kelly, whom Grace described as her
―knuckle-dragging, cousin-loving, beer-sucking redneck‖ of an exhusband (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 555). On the other hand, Victory was also home to witty, sophisticated people like Grace
and her friends. And although Grace‘s life was not easy by any means, she was not a fatalist.
Like Ann Romano of One Day at a Time, she was a model of midwestern industriousness. Grace
attended night school and, toward the end of the show‘s run, had moved into the ranks of white-
collar professionals, working at an advertising agency in St. Louis.
Critics lauded the show, with one calling it ―hip, smart, funny and oddly populist all at
once‖ (De Vries 1994: 2). For a time, Grace Under Fire was actually more popular than
Roseanne, and was Missouri‘s first genuine hit. Grace ranked fifth in the Nielsen ratings during
its first season, easily the highest-rated new show that year, and climbed to the fourth spot the
following year. Ratings remained good during the 1995-1996 season, when the show was ranked
thirteenth, but began to sink rapidly the following year. Attributed by some, fairly or unfairly, to
behind-the-scenes turmoil created by its demanding star, Grace Under Fire quickly
disintegrated, and was cancelled midway through its fifth season in 1998.
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The two Missouri shows that followed John Larroquette and Grace Under Fire in 1994
swung the landscape of the state back to the sunny side of the street. The premise of the sitcom
On Our Own certainly sounded bleak. It was the story of the Jerrico family—seven middle class
kids in St. Louis, aged eighteen months to twenty years—who had been orphaned by a car
accident. The oldest, Josh, did his best to hold the family together, but when agents from Family
Services came around, they announced that the younger kids faced foster care if a more mature
adult could not be found. Josh, and the show‘s producers, were apparently familiar with the
recent Robin Williams theatrical hit Mrs. Doubtfire, so he donned a dress and wig and became
Aunt Jelcinda, the Jerricos‘ new guardian. This ―slapstick warmth-com‖ lasted just one season,
and is most notable for being the first Missouri-based program to feature a predominantly black
cast (Brooks 2007: 1,015). Appearing the same year was Someone Like Me, which told the story
of Gaby Stepjak, a precocious eleven-year-old St. Louis girl, her calculating teenage sister, her
―doting all-American‖ mom, her sincere stepdad, and her best friend, Jane (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 1,269). This cheery sitcom never caught on, and was cancelled after just seven weeks.
The modest wave of Missouri-based sitcoms of the 1990s concluded with Malcolm &
Eddie, which debuted in 1996. This was the story of two young black men in contemporary
Kansas City. Serious, driven Malcolm was an aspiring sports journalist, while happy-go-lucky
Eddie operated an auto repair shop and towing service. The show mixed several familiar sitcom
concepts. In the spirit of The Odd Couple, Malcolm and Eddie shared little in common beyond
a run-down apartment above Kelly‘s Sports Bar. They were often seen hanging out at the bar
with its crew of zany characters, a la Cheers, and they were almost constantly ensnared in a
series of Eddie‘s hair-brained schemes, a la I Love Lucy.
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Perhaps the most notable thing about Malcolm & Eddie, from a geographic perspective,
is that it featured a predominantly black cast. Black sitcoms set in the Midwest are not an
absolute rarity, but most have been set in either Detroit or Chicago. The presence of Kansas
City‘s Malcolm & Eddie and St. Louis‘s On Our Own and The John Larroquette Show (which
had a number of African-American supporting characters) makes the television landscape of
Missouri something of an ethnic anomaly, particularly when compared to other states in the
trans-Mississippi Midwest. Malcolm & Eddie also reflected another, more general, trend in
television. Like a number of black sitcoms, the show appeared on the viewer-starved UPN
network. As noted earlier, the UPN and WB networks often relied on African-American
audiences to sustain viewership in the late 1990s just as FOX had done in the early 1990s. As
much as any other show, Malcolm & Eddie exposed the large racial divide in American
audiences. In 1997, Jet magazine reported that Malcolm & Eddie ranked sixth among black
television households. The next year, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that of the 175
programs to appear on the six major networks, Malcolm & Eddie ranked dead last.
Racial issues were exposed not just in terms of the show‘s audience, but also in its
reviews. It can be argued that Malcolm and Eddie were positive role models. As the series
progressed, they eventually bought the building in which they lived, expanding Eddie‘s towing
business and converting the sports bar into a jazz club called the Fifty/Fifty. The series stars,
Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Eddie Griffin were both, in fact, nominated for NAACP Image
Awards in 2001, a good indicator that African-Americans found role models in the show. To
some critics, however, Malcolm & Eddie was little more than a 1990s update of Amos & Andy,
pitting, in the words of Robin R. Means Coleman, ―the more normal character against the
popular, focal buffoon character,‖ with Malcolm being the ―responsible, tempered
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businessperson,‖ and Eddie representing ―dancing, shucking and jiving‖ stereotype. Malcolm &
Eddie, said Means Coleman, ―ensured that the coon stereotype would have a secure place in the
1990s.‖ Critic Robert Bianco concurred, writing that ―any behavior that borders on the
intellectual is mocked; any sign of ‗uppity‘ aspiration is mocked. On Malcolm, a man is ridiculed
for reading poetry—and he‘s a fat man, which is supposed to make it twice as funny‖ (Means
Coleman 1998: 128). Whatever the show‘s cultural merits, it was popular enough among its
primarily African-American audience to remain on the air for four years, making it the last
Missouri-based sitcom to enjoy a measure of success.
Three more Missouri entries appeared in the mid-2000s, and all marked a shift away from
the state‘s metropolitan areas. Among them was the formulaic sitcom Free Ride, which was the
story of Nate Stahlings. Having graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara,
Nate moved into his parent‘s garage in fictional Johnson City, Missouri, while he tried to figure
out what to do next. Viewers didn‘t much care what Nate did, and the show was cancelled after
six weeks. Premiering the same year was Missouri‘s lone documentary/reality entry, Trick My
Truck, which was shot on location at 4-State Trucks in Joplin. Described by Brooks and Marsh
as a ―down-home version of MTV‘s Pimp My Ride,‖ this program featured a team of tractor-
trailer mechanics who took a run-of-the-mill rig and, with the help of the trucker‘s family,
surprised him or her with a customized dream ride (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 1425).
Trick My Truck was not quite as rustic as Brooks and Marsh suggest, but it did appear on
Country Music Television, a clear indication that the intended viewers were the children and
grandchildren of the audience that had made shows like Ozark Jubilee popular. And despite its
gruff persona, the ultimate message of the show was every bit as wholesome as anything offered
up on The Waltons. The majority of the ambushed truckers were decent, humble people who had
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fallen on hard times—a former Marine who was taking on extra miles to raise money after his
daughter was diagnosed with cancer; a woman who had gotten into trucking when it was still
considered a man‘s world, but whose rig was on the ropes; and countless families who simply
wanted to reward their truckers for years of selfless hard work. All of this made Trick My Truck
a sort of homily about the meek inheriting the earth, or, at the very least, a pretty nice truck.
The 2004 drama Jack and Bobby had a similarly moralistic message. Set in a small,
contemporary Missouri town, it told the story of a gregarious sixteen-year-old named Jack
McCallister, his ―bookish, asthmatic‖ little brother, Bobby, and their single mom, Grace, a
history professor at nearby Plains State University whose frank attitude and strident liberalism
often rubbed some of her colleagues, friends, and family the wrong way (Brooks 2007: 682). The
show was a coming-of-age drama with a catch—Bobby was the future President of the United
States. Jack and Bobby cast small-town Missouri as a state awash in persistently positive
Heartland virtues, as indicated by the not-too-subtle name of the fictional town in which the
show was set—Hart. The significance of show‘s setting was not lost on critic Lee Siegel:
Though the boys have famous Kennedy names, there really isn‘t
anything Kennedy-like about them. They‘re of modest means . . . .
If anything, they‘re more like Harry Truman. The show, in fact, is
set in Missouri, where the boys attend ―Truman High‖—the
names ―Jack‖ and ―Bobby‖ just add a little allure (Siegel 2007:
299).
Like Truman, Bobby McCallister‘s character was inexorably tied to his Missouri
upbringing. Although he was not flawless, the show cast him in undeniably favorable light.
Using an unusual format, viewers each week were shown interviews from the year 2049, during
the final days of Bobby‘s presidency, in which his future friends and colleagues spoke of various
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aspects of his character. Each episode focused on a particular character trait, such as honesty or
leadership, and then showed how events in Bobby‘s youth helped shape that particular trait.
Jack and Bobby was never able to build a large audience, even by the standards of the
fledgling WB network. In part, this was because of the WB‘s inexplicable decision to run the
show on Wednesday nights opposite The West Wing, a program that almost certainly drew the
same audience at which Jack and Bobby was aimed. The show held on for one season, but was
not renewed the following year.
An odd element of the television geography of Missouri is that some of the most popular
characters associated with the state have been, in one way or another, disconnected from its
physical landscape. That disconnection likely came as a tremendous relief to Missouri‘s
rubophobes, because each these characters and settings implied that the state was absolutely
chock-full of hillbillies and hayseeds. One of television‘s most famous backwaters was
Hooterville, the backdrop for the wildly popular 1960s sitcoms Petticoat Junction and Green
Acres. According to the producer of these two series, Paul Henning, Hooterville was inspired by
Eldon, Missouri, the hometown of his wife‘s grandparents. The exact location of Hooterville,
however, was never actually identified on the show. A similar situation occurred in the long-
running 1980s sitcom Mama‟s Family. This was the story of a family of rubes and their sharp-
tongued, beer-swilling matriarch, and the setting was Raytown, which is also the name of a
Kansas City suburb. Although a few sharp-eyed fans have cited subtle references from the
program that place it in Missouri, the precise location of Raytown was never made explicit on
the show itself.
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Of less consolation to Missouri‘s rubophobes was the sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies. As
its title suggests, the setting here was California, but the title hillbillies, the Clampett family,
were obviously from out of town. And unlike the ambiguous geography of Hooterville and
Raytown, context made it clear that the Clampetts were Missourians. To make matters worse for
Missouri rubophobes, the hillbilly stereotypes were poured on thick.
The premise for the show was simple enough that it could be summarized in a theme
song—one that is permanently etched into the memory of millions of Americans. Jed Clampett
was a poor Ozarks mountaineer who, through a stroke of sheer luck, discovered vast oil deposits
on his land. After a company made Jed a generous offer, his cousin Pearl convinced the family to
move to California so that they could enoy a better life. So they loaded up his old rattletrap,
Grapes of Wrath-vintage truck (a converted 1921 Oldsmobile roadster), and moved to Beverly
Hills. Along for the ride were Jed‘s handsome, exuberant, but profoundly stupid nephew, Jethro
Bodine; Jed‘s beautiful, sweet-natured, animal-loving, tomboy daughter, Elly May; and Jed‘s
wiry firecracker of a mother-in-law, Daisy ―Granny‖ Moses. Once moved into an opulent
Beverly Hills mansion, the Clampetts entrusted their wealth to Milburn Drysdale, the avaricious
banker who lived next door. Drysdale ran himself ragged trying to keep the Clampetts‘ business.
Looking out for the Clampetts was Drysdale‘s secretary and moral compass, the stuffy but
friendly Jane Hathaway.
From the start, The Beverly Hillbillies was a smashing success. Its debut episode, which
aired in September of 1962, was watched by half of all American television households. It was
television‘s top-rated show by the end of its first month on the air, and remained there for it first
two seasons. The show was in the Nielsen top thirty during all but the last of its nine seasons,
and was in the top ten for five of those years. To this day, The Beverly Hillbillies holds the
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record for the highest-rated individual half-hour episode of any television series, and eight of its
episodes rank in the top fifty. It was also an enormous success internationally, leading one
British critic to comment, ―More people in the world know The Beverly Hillbillies, it is safe to
assert, than know President Johnson or even the Pope‖ (Harkins 1990: 190). The show‘s theme
song, performed by bluegrass legends Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, was a number-one hit on the
country charts, and the show had a long and successful life in syndicated reruns after it left the
air in 1971.
The Beverly Hillbillies was laden with tired Ozarks stereotypes, particularly in the
characters of Jethro, Elly May, and Granny, who were carbon copies of L‟il Abner characters
Abner, Daisy May, and Mammy. Each week, the show highlighted another element of the
Clampetts backwardness. When an IRS agent showed up, Granny greeted him with a shotgun. It
was revealed that it had been years since Jed listened to the radio, read a newspaper, or saw a
movie. Jehtro tried to join the military, and so he went off to an amusement park called
Marineland, mistaking it for a base. Granny mistook an ostrich for a giant chicken and a
kangaroo for a giant rabbit. Granny watched television and, thinking that the soap opera was real,
set off to rescue the actor who was in trouble. When Granny saw actors in Union uniforms she
thought the Civil War had resumed and so donned her Confederate duds.
Television critics, according to historian Tim Hollis, ―simply could not think of enough
derogatory things to say about The Beverly Hillbillies‖ (Hollis 2008: 183). Variety magazine
wrote that ―at no time . . . does it give the viewer credit for even a smattering of intelligence . . .
even the hillbillies should take umbrage‖ (Harkins 2004: 190). Historian Paul Cullum wrote that
―the show became in certain quarters something of a public embarrassment . . . emblematic of
the nation‘s having slipped another notch into pandering anti-intellectualism—a pervasive
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‗bubbling crude‘ which stained all in its wake‖ (Cullum 2010: 1). Writing nearly three decades
after The Beverly Hillbillies left the air, critic Sam Frank lamented the show‘s enduring
popularity, saying that ―we will never be rid of these moronic bumpkins‖ (Frank 1999: 204).
Despite all of these unkind words, the show‘s immense popularity suggests that it had at
least some redeeming qualities. It was lowbrow humor, to be sure, but it was also, in the words
of Anthony Harkins, ―well crafted and genuinely funny.‖ Harkins cited critic Gilbert Seldes who,
although dismayed by the show‘s ―encouragement to ignorance,‖ wrote that ―the single simple,
and to some people outrageous, fact is that The Beverly Hillbillies is funny‖ (Harkins 2004: 191).
The lead characters were also appealing. The Beverly Hillbillies was obviously not out to
shatter hillbilly stereotypes, but it did dispense with some of the more unpleasant ones. ―The
word ‗hillbillies,‘‖ said Filmways Television president Al Simon, ―brought to mind the picture of
dirty, unkempt people wearing long beards, inhabiting dilapidated shacks with outhouses out
back.‖ In the wake of the show, asserted Simon, ―the word has a new meaning all over America.
Now, it denotes charming, delightful, wonderful, clean, wholesome people.‖ Anthony Harkins
outlined some of the ways that The Beverly Hillbillies rewrote the stereotype:
Long flowing beards and outhouses never appeared on the show
nor did family feuds or shootouts with law enforcement agents.
And although moonshining remained a common trope,
drunkenness of the hillbilly characters did not. The Clampett clan
dressed in jeans, linen blouses, and plaid shirts, but except for
Jed‘s signature tattered slouch hat, their attire was clean and
untorn. The alluring physiques of Elly May and Jethro played on
the standard conceptions of the innate sexuality of mountaineers
and lines about Elly May‘s voluptuous body peppered the early
episodes, but both characters were consistently portrayed as either
impossibly sexually incompetent or naïve. Likewise, potential
threat and violence remained latent in all the characters (Harkins
2004: 191-192).
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It is also noteworthy that, while The Beverly Hillbillies avoided some of the negative
hillbilly stereotypes, it always embraced the positive ones. The Clampetts, particularly Jed, came
off as friendly, independent, and sensible. They were also proud of their culture, refusing to shed
regional language, diet, and dress, or even to get rid of that rattling old truck. The one character
who occasionally tried to assimilate with modern California culture was Jethro, and he was
always made to look like a buffoon when he did. Perhaps the most endearing trait of the
Clampetts was their egalitarian view of the world. While nearly everyone else looked down on
them, they refused to return the favor. ―The way I look at it,‖ said Jed in one episode, ―ain‘t
nobody got a right to be ashamed of nobody else. Good Lord made us all‖ he said, ―and if we‘s
good enough for Him we sure ought to be good enough for each other‖ (Harkins 2004: 195).
Something often lost in the critical response to The Beverly Hillbillies was the matter of
who the show was ridiculing. Despite constant cracks at the Clampett‘s backwardness, in the
end, the characters who wound up in the show‘s satirical crosshairs were Milburn Drysdale and
his fellow Californians. Tim Hollis argued that this may have been, at least subconsciously, the
real reason for the harsh critical backlash against the show. ―Although the critics might not have
consciously realized it,‖ wrote Hollis, ―what they truly found irritating about the show may have
been the fact that for the first time the hillbilly characters were portrayed as imminently
likable—much more so than their pseudosophisticated southern California neighbors‖ (Hollis
2008: 183). The character of Granny was the most pointed in her assessment of California,
calling Beverly Hills ―the laziest, greasiest, unfriendliest mess o‘ people I ever laid my eyes on!‖
Like Holls, Harkins argues that the real message behind The Beverly Hillbillies was not about the
Ozarks at all, but about modern urban America:
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Whereas her Ozark neighbors prized her skills as a cook,
housekeeper, distiller, herbalist, and meteorologist, in Beverly
Hills, Granny is considered at best eccentric, and at worst, a
menace. And well she should be, for she is the character who most
often exposes the vapidness and uselessness of the lifestyles in
Beverly Hills, and by extension, of much of comfortably affluent
American society . . . . In stark contrast to Jed‘s loyalty, honesty,
and integrity and Granny‘s tenaciousness, the world beyond the
Clampett household is peopled almost exclusively by money-
grubbers, snobs, con artists, and sycophants. The show‘s main
antagonist, Jed‘s banker Milburn Drysdale . . . is a man so miserly
and so desperate to keep the Clampetts as his main depositors that
he is willing to go to any lengths to keep them happy, no matter
how much he must humiliate and degrade himself to do so . . . .
His wife Margaret . . . a vain and petty snob, is a hypochondriac
who dotes on her poodle and considers the Clampetts uncouth
barbarians who humiliate her in the eyes of high society. . . .The
program therefore presents modern America, at least superficially,
as venal, boorish, materialistic, and, ultimately, ethically and
spiritually hollow (Harkins 2004: 194-196).
The man to thank (or blame) for The Beverly Hillbillies was Paul Henning, a native of
Independence, Missouri. Henning had been a singer and actor at radio station KMBC in Kansas
City before moving on to a writing career in Hollywood. There, he had a hand in nearly every
important rural comedy to appear on American television for three decades. He was a writer for
The Real McCoys and The Andy Griffith Show, and created the successful 1950s sitcom The Bob
Cummings Show. Cummings was also a native Missourian, and his character, Bob Collins, a cool
bachelor photographer, would occasionally fly back to his hometown of Joplin to visit his
cracker-barrel grandpa, Josh. Henning‘s most memorable creations, however, were entirely
homespun, including Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and, of course, The Beverly Hillbillies.
Initially, the precise location of the Clampett spread was vague—somewhere in the
Ozarks—but it was later defined as being near Silver Dollar City, a hillbilly-themed amusement
park in Branson, Missouri. That area still bears the imprint of Henning and the Clampetts.
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Visitors driving into Branson pass through the Ruth and Paul Henning State Conservation Area,
and the beat-up Clampett truck is on permanent display at the College of the Ozarks in nearby
Point Lookout. According to Henning, his affection for the Ozarks began in childhood, when he
attended a Boy Scout camp in Noel, Missouri, which is located in the southwest corner of the
state. ―I just sort of fell in love with the whole picture down there,‖ said Henning, ―and the
people were so kind and gracious. It was a wonderful experience.‖ Henning began pondering a
sitcom about Ozarkers in the 1950s, but had a problem in finding a way to both feature Ozark
characters and ―to escape the week-to-week depressive setting of the backwoods thing‖ (Harkins
2004: 188). Eventually, the idea of hillbillies in Beverly Hills came to Henning, and the rest, of
course, is history.
That Henning found the Ozarks to be both ―wonderful‖ and ―depressive‖ says much
about the geographic message of The Beverly Hillbillies. The Ozarks of the show was poor and
backward, but also alluring in its simplicity. In the pilot episode, for example, when Jed was
contemplating whether or not he should move to California, he asked his cousin Pearl for advice.
Their exchange made the show‘s message about the Ozarks clear:
PEARL: Jed, how can you even ask? Look around you! You‘re
eight miles from the nearest neighbor! You‘re overrun with
skunks, possums, coons and bobcats! You got kerosense lamps for
light, a wood stove to cook on winter and summer, you‘re drinking
homemade moonshine, washin‘ with homemade lye soap, and your
bathroom is fifty feet from the house! And you ask should you
move!
JED: Yeah, I guess you‘re right. A man‘d be a dang fool to leave all
this! (Harkins 2004: 195).
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IOWA
Iowa has served as the setting for seven programs—three dramas and four comedies—
and none stuck around for a full year. The state‘s first dramatic entry, Apple‟s Way, made its
debut in February of 1974 and lasted for eleven months. It told the story of George Apple, an
architect who, having grown weary of the rat race of Los Angeles, relocated his wife and four
children to his hometown in Iowa, which had been founded by his ancestors. A devoutly
religious man, George was idealistic, compassionate, and involved in community causes, even
though most local people thought he was a nut. His city-bred children had some difficulty
adjusting, but they eventually came to appreciate the town. Created by Earl Hamner, Jr., Apple‟s
Way featured the same sorts of homilies about family and community that had made Hamner‘s
The Waltons such a success.
Another family drama, 1983‘s Two Marriages, was set in a tidy, tranquil suburb of an
unnamed Iowa city, and chronicled two middle-class families. Like its comic contemporary,
Family Ties, the show used the Midwest as a backdrop for examining changing social
conventions. Ann Daley was a construction engineer, while her husband Jim worked on a dairy
farm. They had one young child of their own, and two from previous marriages: Jim‘s eleven-
year-old Vietnamese-American daughter and Ann‘s rebellious teenage son. Living across the
well-kept lawn were the Armstrongs. Art was a surgeon, and he and his wife, Nancy, a
homemaker, had two kids—one a wise and sensitive teenager, the other carefree. The show
centered on the contrasts between the modern Daley family and the more conventional
Armstrongs, and particularly on Nancy‘s envy of Ann‘s liberated lifestyle, but not for long. Two
Marriages was cancelled after eight months.
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In the 2006 thriller Runaway, Iowa once again provided sanctuary for a coastal resident,
but in a much more urgent sense. Paul Rader was a Maryland attorney who had been falsely
accused of murder. Pursued by the law and the real killer, he fled with his wife and children to
Bridgewater, Iowa, where they took assumed names. Paul worked as a waiter at a local diner
while he continued to search for the truth. Whether or not the Rader family learned the same kind
of life-affirming midwestern lessons as did the Apples must remain a matter of speculation, since
Runaway was cancelled after just three episodes.
The first of Iowa‘s four sitcoms was Nancy, which debuted in 1970. It was the story of
the daughter of the President of the United States, who fell in love with an Iowa veterinarian
named Adam. Their prying relatives, the press, and the secret service made romance a little
difficult, but they eventually married and settled in his small hometown. The only people who
left them alone were television viewers, and Nancy was cancelled after about four months.
Similarly, the short-lived sitcom Julie, which premiered in 1993, featured Julie Andrews as a
New York television star who fell in love with an Iowan named Sam who was, of course, also a
veterinarian. Julie settled down in the serenity of Sioux City to help him raise his two kids, but
also moved production of her hit variety show to Iowa. Whether the fictional Julie‘s show
succeeded is anyone‘s guess, for the real Julie‘s show was cancelled after six weeks.
Double Trouble, which debuted in 1984, was the story of two teenage twin girls who
were (what else?) a study in contrasts. Allison was the responsible one, Kate the troublemaker.
Art, their widowed father, owned a gym and dance studio in their hometown of Des Moines.
Apparently Iowa could not contain these two, and the show relocated to New York City after its
first season. The sitcom Drexell‟s Class, which debuted in 1991, concerned a fifth grade teacher
in fictional Cedar Bluffs. Otis Drexell was not an especially likable fellow, particularly by Iowa
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standards, being angry and manipulative. Ratings were dismal, and the show was overhauled
quickly, with the focus shifted to Drexell‘s home life. These changes were not enough to attract
new viewers, and Drexell‟s Class was cancelled after ten months.
Given the dismal track record of Iowa‘s seven entries, it is likely that all of them have
been forgotten by all but the most avid fans. This is not to suggest, however, that television has
not shaped the perception that the general audience has of Iowans. Although neither was ever
seen in his native environment, two of television‘s best-known characters, Corporal Walter
Eugene ―Radar‖ O‘Reilly and Captain James Tiberius Kirk, hailed from the Hawkeye State. In
terms of personality, the two could not have been more different from one another, but they both
possessed character traits that are squarely in tune with the midwestern archetype. Radar
O‘Reilly, the company clerk for the 4077th M*A*S*H, appeared on the Korean War comedy for
seven years—a longer run than all Iowa-based programs combined. Radar grew up on a farm
outside Ottumwa, and made frequent references to the loved ones he left behind, including his
mother Edna, his Uncle Ed, his dog Ranger, and his cow Betsy. Radar, in the words of James
Kelly, ―reflected the image that many people have of Midwesterners:‖
―Radar‖ O‘Reilly . . . was timid, quiet, and unassuming, but also
honest and dependable with a strong work ethic. He was shy . . . .
His favorite drink was Grape Nehi, implying he was unfamiliar
with the sophisticated alcoholic drinks of cities. Although he was
liked by almost everyone, he often complained to other characters
on the show about their lack of respect for him and his occupation
. . . . His affection for his mother and the family farm were links to
a traditional rural society and family life. Although the TV show
ostensibly takes place during the Korean War, the attitudes and
behavior of the other characters . . . were more typical of the recent
Vietnam War era. The character of Radar, in contrast, seemed truly
associated with an earlier time, in the 1950s and the Korean War
era (Kelly 2007: 119).
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Before the timid Iowa corporal, there was the dashing Iowa captain, James T. Kirk of the
starship U. S. S. Enterprise. Kirk, it almost goes without saying, was the protagonist of Star Trek,
a mildly successful 1960s science fiction series that would go on to become the stuff of
television legend. During the 1966-1967 season, Star Trek‘s first and highest-rated year, the
show was ranked fifty-second on the Nielsen charts. It was ultimately cancelled by NBC after
three viewer-starved years. Then came an unprecedented afterlife. The show became a cult
classic in syndication, and eventually spawned five television spin-offs, eleven feature films, and
countless fan conventions.
Buried somewhere in the original series was a mention that Captain Kirk was from Iowa,
a device, according to Michael Martone, that allowed the viewer to ―fill in the attendant
mythology of values that this shorthand would lend to a character, to the character‘s character—
hardworking, honest, independent, loyal. All of it‖ (Martone 2000: 9). That Kirk‘s Iowa heritage
would have some currency on a show set in deep space in the twenty-third century says much
about the impact place image can have on television, and what has happened in real-life
Riverside, Iowa, says much about the impact that television can have on a place‘s image.
Riverside, a town of just under a thousand people on the north bank of the English River
in southeastern Iowa claims to be the future birthplace of James T. Kirk. The original series
never actually mentioned the name of Kirk‘s hometown, but in 1983, enterprising Riverside city
councilman Steve Miller wrote a letter to the franchise‘s producers claiming to be one of Kirk‘s
ancestors and requesting that Riverside be officially designated as Kirk‘s birthplace. His request
was granted, and Riverside became part of the official Star Trek canon when it was mentioned in
a subsequent film. An official site for the birth was selected, and a marker was placed there to
commemorate the future event. Each June, busloads of Trekkies, many dressed as their favorite
404
characters, descend upon the town for Trek Fest, which includes a parade, street dance, beer
garden, carnival rides, trivia contest and, of course, screenings of Star Trek episodes. Attendees
can swap Trek memorabilia and buy local souvenirs, including ―Kirk Dirt‖—a vial of soil
scooped from the birthplace. Plans were made to erect a statue of Kirk in a town park, but the
town could not raise enough money to buy permission to use actor William Shatner‘s likeness, so
they settled for a twenty-foot replica of the Enterprise. Signs that welcome visitors to Riverside,
which used to say ―Riverside—where the best begins,‖ now read ―Riverside—where the Trek
begins‖—much ado about an event that is not scheduled to occur until March 22, 2228 (Martone
2000: 9).
MINNESOTA
Minnesota has served as the backdrop for just eight televisions series, but three of them
proved to be popular and durable, particularly the state‘s first entry. The Mary Tyler Moore
Show, which debuted in 1970, was not only Minnesota‘s signature program, but also a show that
redefined the American television landscape, particularly in its portrayal of modern women, the
modern workplace, and life in the urban Midwest. It was the story of Mary Richards, who had
just been dumped by the long-time fiancé she had helped support while he was in medical
school. Determined to start life anew, Mary left her small hometown of Roseburg, Minnesota,
and headed for Minneapolis, where she got a job working in the newsroom of WJM-TV, the
lowest-rated television station in the Twin Cities. She moved into an apartment in a quaint old
Victorian home, where her neighbor was a loud, aggressive, man-hungry New Yorker named
Rhoda Morgenstern. Her new boss was Lou Grant, the ill-tempered, hard-drinking news director
whose crusty exterior masked a soft heart. Sex-crazed Sue Ann Nivens did the station‘s ―Happy
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Homemaker‖ segments, and Murray Slaughter was the station‘s head writer. Murray was Mary‘s
chief ally, and generally cheerful and friendly, but he could also be incredibly caustic,
particularly when dealing with WJM‘s anchorman, Ted Baxter. Ted, whose dressing room was
filled with celebrity photos—all of himself—was one of the most pompous, self-aggrandizing
characters in television history, once explaining to a reporter that he went into television because
―God told him he was too handsome for radio‖ (Alley and Brown 1989: 122). Ted was also a
moron, whose idiocy was a constant source of frustration and amusement to his co-workers. In
the words of Murray, ―You‘re Ted. Does it ever bother you that you‘re Ted?‖ (Javna 1988: 80).
Mary Tyler Moore was groundbreaking television, both in content and style. It looked
very different from most of the sitcoms that had preceded it. Plot was always secondary to
character, with the show relying on verbal sparring rather than whacky situations to get its
laughs, and the characters themselves were layered, dynamic people who changed as the
relationships among them developed. Most important, the show was smart, described by Brooks
and Marsh as ―one of the most literate, realistic, and enduring situation comedies of the 1970s‖
(Brooks and Marsh 2007: 863).
The most noteworthy aspect of Mary Tyler Moore was the simple fact that it focused on
an independent, single, career woman. Single women had been featured on television before, of
course, but they had generally fallen into one of two categories—young women looking for Mr.
Right, or more mature women who were single either by widowhood or, in some rare cases, by
divorce. Mary was in her early thirties, but neither widowed nor divorced. She was single
because she chose to be. It wasn‘t that Mary was opposed to marriage, but she was not desperate
or solely dedicated to the search for the ideal mate. In fact, although Mary did date throughout
the series, she never had a steady boyfriend. Even more remarkable for its time, the show
406
implied that Mary occasionally spent the night with a man. ―We never made a point of it,‖ said
series cocreator Jim Brooks, ―but in our eyes Mary was not a virgin. She wasn‘t a man-hungry
animal like Rhoda, but very definitely she had an active, fully rounded sex life‖ (Alley and
Brown 1989: 7-8). The show was sly about this point, but it did lead to a few memorable
moments, as when Mary was visiting her parents, and her mother said to her father ―don‘t forget
to take your pill,‖ to which Mary, absently, replied, ―I won‘t‖ (Javna 1988: 80).
While Mary was certainly no radical, she represented to many the very model of a
progressive 1970s woman. She possessed the kind of political and social values that, in the
words of one critic, made her ―recoil at anti-Semitism, stand firm for a free press, believe in
racial equality, respect gay rights, believe in equal pay for women, favor gun control, and
endorse the new freedom in sexual mores (Alley and Brown 1989: 92). While Mary Tyler Moore
was rarely an overtly political program, it contained a message that had never been delivered in
primetime television—that a woman‘s success was not defined by her ability to land a husband.
When Mary‘s ne‘er-do-well fiancé eventually showed in Minneapolis, asking her to return to
him, Mary told him goodbye. When he told her to take care of herself, she quietly replied, ―I
think I just did‖ (Mitz 1988: 215).
In terms of America‘s television geography, the most groundbreaking thing about The
Mary Tyler Moore Show was its setting in the Midwest. In the more than two decades of
primetime network programming that preceded Mary Tyler Moore, only a few sitcoms had been
located there, and most of them, such as My Three Sons, had only vaguely midwestern settings.
In fact, prior to 1970, just two midwestern sitcoms actually mentioned the states in which they
were located—Kansas‘s The Phil Silvers Show and Illinois‘s Those Endearing Young Charms.
The latter was the only show to be set in an urban area—Chicago—and it lasted less than two
407
months. That Mary Tyler Moore and its modernist message was set in Minneapolis, rather than
New York, Boston, Los Angeles, or San Francisco, was nothing short of astounding. Recalling
his initial pitch of the show to CBS, Grant Tinker, Moore‘s husband and coproducer, stated that
―all I had to start them off . . . was the premise of Mary being single and thirty and living in
Minneapolis—which on the face of it is a pretty dull thought!‖ (Johnson 2008: 128). The
selection of such a seemingly dowdy backdrop was cause for some concern, as noted by Victoria
E. Johnson:
Although broadcast history lore states that the creators of The
Mary Tyler Moore Show were greeted with consternation upon
proposing that their series would feature a single woman over the
age of thirty, less often mentioned is another relatively
controversial element of their pitch—that the program would be set
in the middle of America, specifically, in Minneapolis.
Minneapolis was a location that, in 1970, did not immediately call
to mind the image central to the show and to its hoped-for new
audience demographic of hip, young, urban professionals—much
less the glamour of a celebrity such as Mary Tyler Moore (Johnson
2008: 112).
According to Mary Tyler Moore herself, Minneapolis was chosen because it was a setting
―that hadn‘t been seen to death on television already . . . full of life and young people and old
people; fat, skinny, tall, thin‖ (Johnson 2008: 134). James L. Brooks, however, suggested that he
and co-creator Allan Burns had a different, and far simpler, motivation. They wanted a program
that used, almost exclusively, just two settings—Mary‘s apartment and the WJM newsroom—
and they needed an excuse to keep the characters indoors. ―Early on we thought of Seattle
because of the constant rain there,‖ said Brooks, but they eventually decided on Minneapolis,
because it was a place where ―the major industry is snow removal‖ (Alley and Brown 1989: 6).
408
A quiet reference to that fact may have been contained in the address of Mary‘s apartment—119
North Weatherly.
If residents of the Twin Cities were hoping for a program to portray their city as a
thriving, modern metropolis, they could scarcely have done better than Mary Tyler Moore. It was
not that everything said was laudatory, for the show certainly took a few digs at the city,
particularly at its apparent lack of cultural variety, as noted by Victoria E. Johnson:
Notably not ―worldly‖ in its portrayal, Minneapolis is frequently
the butt of the show‘s gentle joking about its lack of diversity.
Examples across the series include throwaway lines from Ted
Baxter‘s WJM newscasts, such as ―And that‘s a look at the Filipino
community in the Twin Cities. And weren‘t they three of the nicest
people you‘d ever want to meet?‖ Or, noting that a ―field trip‖
would be required ―to see hippies,‖ that the Mexican population of
Minneapolis is ―one,‖ and that the only Japanese restaurant within
driving distance of the Twin Cities is ―Chef LeRoy‘s Teriyaki‖
(Johnson 2008: 137).
These few jabs aside, the show made it abundantly clear that Mary Richards did not go to
Minneapolis with a sense of resignation, but rather went filled with ambition. That fact, along
with a characterization of the city as stylish, big, and even intimidating, was reinforced for
viewers each week in an opening title sequence that ―truly reveled in the . . . dynamism of city
life‖ (Johnson 2008: 133). In that sequence, a somewhat anxious Mary was seen driving down
the interstate in her Ford Mustang, looking out upon spectacular urban views at dusk. She was
seen walking through neighborhoods, down snowy, tree-lined sidewalks, along the river, and
then through the bustling downtown, gazing up in awe. All the while the theme song implored,
―How will you make it on your own? This world is awfully big. Girl this time you‘re all alone,
but it‘s time you started living‖ (Johnson 2008: 132). The title sequence was punctuated with a
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shot of Mary walking through downtown Minneapolis‘s crowded Nicollet Mall. As the theme
song concluded with the line, ―You might just make it after all,‖ a smiling Mary cheerfully
tossed her hat into the air, a symbolic gesture traditionally associated with commencement
ceremonies. Mary had graduated to the big city.
The last line of the Mary Tyler Moore theme song—―you might just make it after all‖—
says much about an element of the show that made it so believable. Mary did not arrive in
Minneapolis tailor-made for her new role as a modern, independent woman. She did indeed
make it, but it took time. It is noteworthy that, after a few seasons the final line of the song was
changed to ―you‘re gonna make it after all,‖ but it did take some adjustments (Johnson 2003:
133). She was in the city now, but Mary was still very much a country mouse, and early on the
show highlighted Mary‘s small-town squareness, with Mary stating in one episode, ―I‘m an
experienced woman. I‘ve been around . . . . Well, all right, I might not have been around, but
I‘ve been . . . nearby‖ (West and Bergund 2005: 51).
In some ways, Mary was cast from the same mold as Radar O‘Reilly of M*A*S*H and
Woody Boyd of Cheers—symbols of small-town midwestern wholesomeness and naiveté,
forced to come to grips with the realities of modern life. ―She was partly,‖ said James L. Brooks,
―a quivering chick—as the term used to be employed—too open and trusting, a sort of Norman
Rockwell creation‖ (Alley and Brown 1989: 7). One of the clearest geographic messages of the
show was the contrast between Mary and her new neighbor. Rhoda Morgenstern, a Jewish New
Yorker, was a native of ―neighborhoods you‘re afraid to walk alone in‖ (Johnson 2008: 135).
She was aggressive, self-assured, brash, and quite comfortable discussing risqué matters. Mary,
on the other hand, was passive, quiet, and exceptionally polite, a former homecoming queen and
straight-A student who wore flannel pajamas to bed. It was Rhoda, as much as anyone, who
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pushed Mary to embrace her new freedom. On one episode, Mary was nervously contemplating
whether or not it was all right to date a friend‘s exhusband, to which Rhoda replied, ―Not only do
I think it‘s all right, the whole world thinks it‘s all right. Lawrence Welk thinks it‘s all right!‖
(Johnson 2008: 135-136).
At work, Mary‘s gentleness, humility, and sense of propriety were contrasted with
Murray‘s cynicism, Ted‘s vanity, and Sue Ann‘s bottomless appetite for sex. Her main
counterpoint, however, was her grumpy, boozing boss, a man everyone else called ―Lou,‖ but
who Mary always called ―Mr. Grant.‖ Although the two became close friends, hard-edged Lou
and soft-hearted Mary were often at odds, and their first meeting said much about both
characters. As Lou was interviewing Mary for the job at WJM, he pulled a whiskey bottle and
pair of highball glasses out of his desk drawer and offered Mary a drink. She politely, and
properly, declined, but Lou was insistent. A hesitant Mary requested a Brandy Alexander, to
which Lou responded by quietly returning the bottle to his desk and suggesting coffee. He then
asked Mary about her religion, prompting the following exchange:
MARY: Mr. Grant, I don‘t know quite how to say this, but you‘re
not allowed to ask that when someone is applying for a job. It‘s
against the law.
LOU: Wanna call a cop?
MARY: No.
LOU: Good. Would you think I was violating your civil rights if I
asked you if you‘re married?
MARY: Presbyterian.
The scene revealed to viewers the ―quivering chick‖ side of Mary‘s character. Her small-town
squareness was highlighted in her choice of beverage and in her pained politeness, and she
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revealed that she was not entirely comfortable discussing the fact that she was not married. Later
in the scene, however, Mary revealed her strength, telling Lou ―You‘ve been asking a lot of very
personal questions that don‘t have a thing to do with my qualifications‖ (Alley and Brown, 1989:
9).
In the same episode, Mary met Rhoda, whose first words to Mary were, ―Hello. Get out
of my apartment.‖ Rhoda, it seemed, had had her eye on this particular set of rooms for months,
but the landlady, Phyllis, gave it to Mary instead. Rhoda assailed both Phyllis and Mary, and
Mary remained polite and quiet through most of the scene. But when she had taken enough of
Rhoda‘s abuse, she stood up for herself, just as she had to Mr. Grant. She let Rhoda know that
she was no pushover, and that she was capable of pushing back. This was a character trait that
Mary Tyler Moore‘s writers referred to as Mary‘s ―Presbyterian militancy.‖ According to the
show‘s creators, such a militant was someone who ―could certainly ‗push back‘ when the
situation demanded it, even though she might be reluctant to do so‖ (Alley and Brown 1989: 7).
Mary‘s politeness may have been her most quintessentially midwestern trait. On one
episode, Lou asked Mary to fire someone at the station, to which she replied, ―I‘m very bad at
firing people Mr. Grant. Once I had to move rather than fire a housekeeper‖ (Javna 1985: 162).
Not only was Mary nice, but she insisted that everyone else be nice, too. On another episode,
WJM hired a resident critic, Professor Carl Heller, who prided himself on hating everything.
When Mary could stand it no more, she reminded him that ―we are supposed to appeal to the
public, you know, not just to the intellectual elite. Just being negative isn‘t really constructive‖
(Johnson 2008: 140).
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One of the show‘s recurring themes involved shattering a character‘s façade—revealing
the sensitive beings behind Lou‘s gruffness and Murray‘s cynicism or the frightened, approval-
craving child cowering beneath Ted‘s vast ego—and Mary was no exception. Her Presbyterian
militancy occasionally got the best of her, and she found herself unable to live up to her own
high ideals. Perhaps the best example of this technique was found on what many consider to be
Mary Tyler Moore‘s best episode, ―Chuckles Bites the Dust.‖ The show began with Ted
announcing the death of a beloved local clown. It seemed that he had been marching in a parade,
dressed as a peanut, and was trampled to death by a circus elephant. In the newsroom, Lou
solemnly entered his office:
LOU: Lucky more people weren‘t hurt. Lucky that elephant didn‘t
go after anybody else.
MURRAY: That‘s right. After all, you know how hard it is to stop
after just one peanut.
MARY: Why is everybody being so callous about this? The man is
dead. And it seems to me that Mr. Grant and I are the only ones in
this whole place who are showing any reverence.
As soon as she said this, Lou came out of his office, doubled over in hysterical laughter from
Murray‘s joke. Mary was horrified, and Lou tried to explain, saying ―It‘s a release, Mary. People
need that when dealing with tragedy. Everybody does it.‖ An indignant Mary replied, ―I don‘t.‖
The scene repeated itself the next day at Chuckles‘s funeral:
LOU: I wonder which ones are the other clowns.
MURRAY: You‘ll know soon. They‘re all going to jump out of a
little hearse.
MARY: Murray—enough is enough. This is a funeral. Somebody
has died. It‘s not something to make jokes about. We came here to
show respect—not to laugh.
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When the minister began to deliver the eulogy, everyone in the room, including Lou and Murray,
became very solemn and dignified. All went well until Reverend Burke mentioned Chuckles‘s
Aunt Yoo-Hoo, when Mary, unexpectedly, was forced to stifle a laugh. The Reverend continued:
REVEREND BURKE: Mr. Fee-Fi-Fo would always pick himself up,
dust himself off, and say: ―I hurt my foo-foo.‖
(Mary again stifles a laugh; the others in the row glare at her.)
REVEREND BURKE: From time to time we all fall down and hurt
our foo-foos.
(Mary tries to hide her hysteria. The other people in the chapel
turn to look at her.)
REVEREND BURKE: And what did Chuckles ask in return? Not
much—in his own words: ―A little song, a little dance, a little
seltzer down your pants.‖
(Mary bursts into embarrassing laughter. Everyone turns to look,
including the minister.)
REVEREND BURKE: Excuse me, young lady . . . yes, you . . . .
Would you stand up, please? (Mary reluctantly rises.) You feel
like laughing, don‘t you? (Mary gestures futilely.) Don‘t try to stop
yourself. Go ahead, laugh out loud. Don‘t you see? Nothing could
have made Chuckles happier. He lived to make people laugh. He
found tears offensive, deeply offensive. He hated to see people cry.
Go ahead, my dear—laugh.
(Mary bursts into tears.) (Mitz 1988: 218).
Years later, a few episodes of New York‘s Seinfeld offered up equally funny scenes set at
wakes or funerals, with the characters acting in a similarly inappropriate way. The joke there,
however, was that they were behaving exactly as the viewer expected them to behave. In the case
of Chuckles‘s funeral, the scene worked because Mary‘s behavior conflicted so profoundly with
her midwestern sense of decorum. It is, indeed, difficult to imagine such a scene working as well
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on any of Mary Tyler Moore‘s New York-based contemporaries. A similar lapse would not have
been quite as funny if it had happened to Archie Bunker, Maude Findlay, or George Jefferson.
If there was a central geographic theme to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, it was, quite
simply, that Minnesotans are nice people. Brooks and Marsh noted that, ―unlike the efforts
generated by producer Norman Lear, typified by All in the Family and Maude, there was never
an attempt to humiliate or ridicule‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 863). James L. Brooks put it
succinctly: ―Mary believed that people should be open and loving toward one another‖ (Alley
and Brown 1989: 8). Of course, a program with a theme song called ―Love is All Around‖ could
not be expected to have a mean-spirited protagonist, but it was not just Mary who was nice.
Brooks and Marsh also noted of Lou Grant that, ―underneath that harsh exterior beat the heart of
a pussycat.‖ They described Murray as a man who ―had a positive outlook no matter what
happened, and was a good friend to all‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 863).
Then again, there was Ted, whose arrogance and occasional cruelty hardly seemed
consistent with the show‘s warm and friendly Minnesota aura. Fans of the show would note,
however, that it was frequently suggested that Ted was actually from California. A running gag
was Ted‘s tendency to lapse into autobiography, and the story always began the same way: ―It all
started in a 5000 watt radio station in Fresno, California . . .‖ (Javna 1985: 162).
And even if Ted happened to hail from Minnesota originally, there was no denying that
the setting of The Mary Tyler Moor Show lent it an appealing atmosphere that helped propel its
success, as noted by critic John Javna:
We . . . responded to the Mary Tyler Moore Show‘s authentically
mid-western orientation. The characters lacked the pseudo-
sophisticated veneer that mars so many Hollywood products. They
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were real human beings, and real viewers were delighted to watch
them (Javna 1985: 160)
The Mary Tyler Moore Show never quite rivaled the ratings of other smash hit sitcoms on
CBS‘s legendary Saturday night schedule in the 1970s—shows like All in the Family, M*A*S*H,
and The Jeffersons—but it still did well during its seven-year run. It peaked in seventh place on
the Nielsen charts during the 1972-1973 season, was in the top twenty-five for all but its final
season, and received a record-smashing twenty-seven Emmy awards. Mary Tyler Moore, Ed
Asner (Lou), and Valerie Harper (Rhoda) each received three Emmys, Ted Knight (Ted) and
Betty White (Sue Ann) won two, and Cloris Leachman (Phyllis) one. The show received five
Emmys for writing, and took home the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1975, 1976,
and 1977. The Mary Tyler Moore Show also spawned three successful spin-offs (Lou Grant,
Phyllis, and Rhoda); launched MTM Enterprises (which would produce some of the most
critically-acclaimed programs of the 1970s and 1980s); and its writing alumni would go on to
create other iconic shows, including The Cosby Show, Cheers, and The Simpsons.
Residents of the Twin Cities all appear to have fully embraced The Mary Tyler Moore
Show; all, that is, except for a humanities professor at the University of Minnesota. She owned
the Victorian home on Kenwood Parkway that supplied the exterior shots of Mary Richards‘s
apartment during the show‘s first few seasons. Initially excited to have her home featured on the
show, the professor soon grew weary of the fans who gathered outside the home and, in some
cases, even came up to ring the doorbell. When an MTM camera crew returned to film a fresh
round of establishing shots, she refused to cooperate. When the crew decided to film anyway, the
professor draped banners from Mary‘s window that read ―Impeach Nixon‖ (Javna 1988: 80).
Soon after, Mary Richards moved to a new apartment in a downtown high rise. The camera
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crews had been effectively repelled, but not the fans. Nearly three decades after the show left the
air, one source reported that over thirty tour busses a day continued to cruise past Mary
Richards‘s old apartment (Johnson 2008).
The continuing affection that Minnesotans feel for The Mary Tyler Moore Show was
illustrated in 2002, when a statue recreating Mary Richards‘s iconic hat toss was unveiled in
downtown Minneapolis. The dedication drew live global coverage from CNN, thousands of well-
wishers, and Moore herself, who noted that she felt a connection to Minneapolis ―more than I do
to my real hometown of Brooklyn‖ (Johnson 2008: 144). The event was a strong indicator of the
importance of popular media in shaping a city‘s sense of itself, a sentiment indicated by
journalist and Minnesota native Jerry Haines:
To many people who grew up there, the state could be summarized
as taciturn Lutheran elders and Spam casserole. To the nation at
large we were known mostly for cold weather. We were
indistinguishable from Iowa and the Dakotas . . . . Then Sir Tyrone
Guthrie founded a world-renowned theater there, Mary Tyler
Moore set her TV program there, the Twins went to the World
Series, and Garrison Keillor built a national radio program around
us . . . . Formerly merely cold, now we were cool, sophisticated,
enviable (Johnson 2008: 145).
Some of the key elements of The Mary Tyler Moore Show could be found in nearly every
Minnesota-based program that followed it. Television‘s version of Minnesota is almost entirely
devoid of the crime, poverty, degradation, and violence. Its people for the most part, are
incredibly sincere and kind, none more so than Mary Richards herself. As the show‘s theme song
suggests, love was all around, and this remarkable atmosphere of kindness and understanding has
continued.
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Mary Tyler Moore was followed by another Minnesota-based hit, the historical family
drama Little House on the Prairie, which premiered in 1974. Based on the popular series of
novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder, it told the story the Ingalls family, homesteaders who had moved
from Kansas to a farm near the small, growing community of Walnut Grove in the late 1870s.
The family was headed by Charles Ingalls and his wife, Caroline, who had three daughters. Life
was hard, and the Ingalls battled the elements and struggled to wrestle a living out of the
untamed land. But, just as it would be for Mary Richards a century later, love was all around.
Instead of an American frontier filled with stories of greed, anger, and violence, Little House on
the Prairie featured no cowboys and Indians, no wild saloons, and practically no violence. A sort
of flatlander version of The Waltons, the family and community of Little House provided a
weekly dose of life lessons, washed down with gallons of sugary dialogue. In the first episode,
for example, little Laura said, warmly, that ―Home is the nicest word there is‖ (Robinson 2003:
138). The viewing audience gobbled it up. The show ran for nine heart-warming, tear-jerking
years and ranked in the Nielsen top thirty for all but its second season, peaking in the seventh
spot during year four.
Little House was certainly a departure from much of the rest of the television landscape at
the time. Marc Robinson noted that, ―amidst the screech of police car tires and howls of laughter
emanating from most other TV shows of the seventies, Little House on the Prairie was an oasis
of gentle homilies, solid family values, and sweet social harmony‖ (Robinson 2003: 138).
Historian James Stuart Olson has suggested that its success had as much to do with what was
happening in America during the 1970s as it did with its portrayal of America a century before:
During the 1970s, Little House on the Prairie possessed enduring
qualities that seemed to have disappeared in 1970s America. Such
problems as the energy crisis, inflation, unemployment, and
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foreign policy impotence afflicted the United States, and many
Americans found comfort and peace in the simple homilies and
rural, small-town familiarity of Little House. When television
critics of the 1990s called for more ―family viewing,‖ they had
Little House on the Prairie in mind (Olson 1999: 233).
Another historical family drama, the strikingly similar The New Land, premiered three
days after Little House on the Prairie. Here the family was the Larsens, young Scandinavian
immigrants who fought an equally tough battle to tame the land near fictional Solna, Minnesota,
in the 1850s. Ultimately, though, the Larsens could not overcome their head-to-head
competition, All in the Family, and the show was cancelled after just six weeks.
All of Minnesota‘s subsequent entries were comedies, and the first was by far the most
successful. Premiering in 1989, Coach was the story of Hayden Fox, head football coach for
Minnesota State University‘s Screaming Eagles. Most of the episodes split time between
Hayden‘s office, where, along with assistants Luther Van Dam and Dauber Dybinski, he
desperately searched for ways to improve the Screaming Eagle‘s dismal record, and his home, a
spectacularly masculine lodge built near a lake outside of town. Hayden had an on-again, off-
again romance with Christine Armstrong, whom he eventually married, and he was trying to
reconnect with Kelly, his daughter from a previous marriage who was now a freshman at
Minnesota State.
Unlike Mary Tyler Moore, which mainly got its laughs from the witty banter among the
principal characters, Coach‘s comic philosophy owed its inspiration to the broader sitcoms of the
1950s, such as The Honeymooners. Like Ralph Kramden, Hayden Fox was constantly seeing his
best-laid plans go awry and, like Alice Kramden, Christine Armstrong often found herself calmly
cleaning up the shattered pieces of her less sensible counterpart‘s schemes. Luther and Dauber
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shared the position of Ed Norton, the loony sidekick who could, without much effort, make a bad
situation for their pal much, much worse.
Philosophical approaches aside, Coach did share some things with Mary Tyler Moore,
including the presence of Jerry Van Dyke, who played Luther. Van Dyke had made a few guest
appearances on Mary Tyler Moore and, not coincidentally, had played the brother-in-law of
Moore‘s Laura Petry on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Another connection was Christine Armstrong
who, like Mary Richards, was a smart, independent woman who just happened to work for a
Minneapolis television station (no word on whether or not it was WJM).
The more distinct connection between the two shows, however, was the disposition of the
characters. As a football coach, it was not surprising that Hayden Fox was capable of some Ted
Baxter-like vanity, but he was much closer in spirit to Lou Grant. Like Lou, Hayden was
completely immersed in his work, short-tempered, full of bluster, and tough-shelled. Also like
Lou, deep down inside Hayden was a pussycat. He was a faithful friend to Luther and Dauber,
loyal and kind to Christine, and a doting father to Kelly. Luther and Dauber, in a sense,
combined Mary Richards‘s kindness and sincerity with Ted Baxter‘s stupidity, but in a broader
sense they were more closely connected to fellow midwestern characters Woody Boyd and
Radar O‘Reilly; a pair of lovable and cheerful, if somewhat slow-witted and naïve supporting
characters. In short, it was a likable cast. In the Minnesota of Coach, love was, once again, all
around. As critic Ken Tucker said of Coach, ―it‘s comfort television, the kind of thing people
watch simply to be with characters they like‖ (Tucker 1996a: 1).
Tucker also noted in the same review that he didn‘t much care for the show, and the
critical response to Coach was always lukewarm. In its seven seasons, Coach received just two
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Emmy Awards, compared to The Mary Tyler Moore Show‘s twenty-seven. In terms of the
ratings, however, Coach was actually the more successful show. Coach ranked eighteenth on the
Nielsen charts after its first full season, remained there during its second, and then climbed into
the top ten for three straight seasons, peaking in sixth place. In the show‘s sixth season, Coach‘s
ratings sagged and the show‘s producers shook things up by having Hayden land a job in pro
football. Most of the characters were shipped off to Florida in 1995, where Coach expired after
two more seasons.
Like Mary Tyler Moore, Coach was filmed in Hollywood, but it also used authentic
midwestern exterior shots. There was no real Minnesota State University when the show
premiered, although Mankato State University did adopt that name in 1999. Exteriors for the
show were actually shot at the University of Iowa, the alma mater of series creator Barry Kemp.
Kemp insisted that Hayden Fox was a wholly fictional creation, but college football fans
probably couldn‘t help but notice that the protagonist‘s name bore more than a passing
resemblance to that of long-time Hawkeyes head football coach Hayden Fry.
The departure of Coach Fox and his staff for Orlando in 1995 marked the beginning of
the end for successful sitcoms set in Minnesota. Mary Tyler Moore and Coach combined for
thirteen years in the state, but all four of Minnesota‘s subsequent comedies combined for less
than one. 1995‘s If Not For You, a workplace comedy set at Gopher Records, a Minneapolis
recording studio, lasted just four weeks. The Louie Show, about a psychotherapist in Duluth,
premiered the following January and lasted two months. Then came The Tom Show, a family and
workplace comedy set in Minneapolis, which premiered in 1997 and lasted just under seven
months. The state‘s final entry to date was Let‟s Bowl, a goofy parody of local bowling shows
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that began airing in 1997 on a local Minneapolis television station. It was eventually broadcast
for ten weeks on cable‘s Comedy Central in 2001.
Like Coach, these subsequent shows all bore the Mary Richards stamp, with If Not for
You recreating the workplace ―family‖ of WMJ and The Tom Show taking on the familiar
backdrop of a local Twin Cities television station. The most distinct connection, however, was
the continuing characterization of Minnesotans as genuinely nice people. Tom of The Tom Show
was a gregarious lug and loving father. On The Louie Show, comedian Louie Anderson played a
psychotherapist whose bluntness often got him into hot water. Nevertheless, Louie was, as
described by Brooks and Marsh, ―such an endearing guy with a wonderful, self-deprecating
sense of humor that almost nobody could remain upset with him for long‖ (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 814). Even Let‟s Bowl was an exercise in politeness. The two contestants, who were
brought on the show because they had had some minor disagreement, bowled against one
another for such dubious prizes as a quarter-ton of sausage, a used snowmobile, or a trip to
Duluth. The grand prize, however, was something Mary Richards would have thoroughly
approved—an apology.
KANSAS
Based on its settings alone, the contemporary television landscape of Kansas is
quintessentially midwestern. Of the state‘s six scripted programs with contemporary settings, just
one has taken place in a large city, while the rest have been set in or around fictional small towns
with names like Roseville, Smallville, and Jericho. Kansas is unique among its regional
counterparts in that its contemporary programs make frequent references to agriculture, and
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while none of these shows have been focused on the business of farming, three have taken the
novel approach of having the central character actually live on a farm. Moreover, these programs
have not, for the most part, belittled the residents of rural areas or small towns. In fact, the one
program that Kansans seemed to find the most objectionable—2003‘s Married to the Kellys—
was the one program set in Kansas City. This is not to suggest that all of the Kansas programs
depict modern life there as especially desirable. Some have projected a strong sense of
suffocating isolation or profound boredom, but they are rarely stinging indictments of Kansans
themselves.
Kansas also represents television‘s clearest transition from Midwest to West. The
Dakotas have been characterized primarily as western, with only one thematically midwestern
program based there. Minnesota, on the other hand, is seen on television as thoroughly
midwestern, with only one program, Little House on the Prairie, suggesting western themes. The
three other trans-Mississippi midwestern states—Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska—have not been
the setting for any westerns. Kansas, in contrast, contains a relatively large, and roughly equal,
number of programs that fit thematically into both regions. Younger viewers, particularly those
who kept the teen drama Smallville on television for a number of years, would probably consider
the state to be midwestern. Among older viewers, however, Kansas is much more likely to be
identified as being purely a western locale.
When Kansas entered the television landscape in 1955, it did so with a bang—a literal
one—from the Colt revolver of U. S. Marshal Matt Dillon. Brooks and Marsh described the
scene:
The opening of the show said it all. There was Matt in a fast-draw
showdown in the main street of Dodge City. The other man fired a
fraction of a second faster, but missed completely, while Matt‘s
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aim was true. Matt could be beaten up, shot, and ambushed, but
that indomitable will would never be defeated (Brooks and Marsh
2007: 571).
Matt Dillon was the protagonist of Gunsmoke, which was not only the definitive
television western, but also one of the most durable and popular television programs in any
genre. The show ran for an astounding twenty seasons, a mark for a primetime scripted program
only recently matched by Law & Order and The Simpsons. Gunsmoke spent eighteen seasons in
the Nielsen top thirty, including thirteen in the top ten. It was the most popular show on
television for four consecutive seasons, a feat that has not been equaled by any other television
drama. Gunsmoke was not only television‘s most popular western, but one of the vanguards of
the genre. During the 1956-1957 season, it was one of only two westerns to register in the
Nielsen top thirty (the other, incidentally, was another Kansas entry, The Life and Legend of
Wyatt Earp). Two years later, fourteen westerns were in the top thirty. Seven of those programs
reached the top ten, including the 1958-1959 season‘s four highest-rated shows.
Set in the 1870s, Gunsmoke‘s cast of characters included Galen Adams, the town‘s kindly
physician, and Kitty Russell, a tough-minded but soft-hearted saloon keeper. Chester Goode was
the loyal, straight-arrow deputy, later replaced by the considerably scruffier, but equally faithful
Festus Hagen. The heart and soul of the show, however, was the tall, heroic, and soft-spoken
Matt Dillon, and most of the episodes revolved around Matt‘s efforts to maintain law and order
in the bustling frontier town of Dodge City.
Gunsmoke ushered in the era of the adult western, in which cheaply produced, youth-
oriented oaters like Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger were replaced by shows with higher
production values and far more complex characters, plots, and themes. On Gunsmoke, the horses
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still galloped and the lead still flew, but there were also careful examinations of interpersonal
relationships, explorations of civil rights and civil disobedience, and depictions of rapes and
lynchings. Each episode was a sort of morality play, exploring fundamental questions about the
nature of a civilized society.
If Matt Dillon was the embodiment of Kansas values—and for millions of television of
viewers for two decades, he almost certainly was—then Kansans could not have asked for a
better representative. Like most western heroes, he was strong and fearless, but he was also
philosophical and sympathetic. ―If violence was called for,‖ wrote one critic, ―it was applied
reluctantly. If compassion was the answer, it was available‖ (Newcomb 2010: 1). He was a
powerful civilizing force, and a warrior against irresponsibility and lawlessness. In one episode
he took a crooked farmer to task for not providing for his needy family, and in another, he
protected a sick Indian woman from the angry citizens of Dodge City, who wanted to refuse her
medical care. In another instance, described by Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman, Matt argued that
order should not be achieved without the appropriate application of the law;
Matt Dillon runs into an old friend named Murdoch, whom the
governor has ordered to hunt down and execute a violent gang of
outlaws. When Matt and Murdoch capture some of the gang, two
of them turn out to be young boys. Matt urges Murdoch to spare
the boys, who are too young to have been part of the gang when
the execution order was issued. Murdoch refuses, saying they‘re
guilty of something. Matt argues that you can‘t hang a man on a
John Doe warrant without proof, and scolds Murdoch for ―talking
a lot about hanging and very little about justice or due process of
the law‖ (Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman 1991: 212-213).
Another defining element of Matt Dillon‘s character was his lack of visible, emotional
connection to those around him. Such apparent detachment connected him to scores of
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midwestern and western television characters, from Chicago‘s Eliot Ness to Wyoming‘s
nameless Virginian. This ―loner‖ mentality is not uncommon among television lawmen, but the
fact that Gunsmoke ran for so long made the trait all the more noticeable in Matt Dillon. He was
an agreeable man and a loyal one, but he never developed an especially affectionate relationship
with anyone. Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman describe an episode in which Marshal Dillon, while
tracking down a gang of outlaws, ran across his exgirlfriend, Liola.
When Liola is wounded, Matt takes her into town for medical
treatment. While recuperating, she talks to Doc about the happier
times. In one scene she asks whether Matt is ―still married to the
badge.‖ Doc replies that he is, and Liola recalls wistfully that she
almost got Matt away from the badge. Doc admits that he was
sorry at the time that she failed. But now he believes the job has
been good for Matt, keeping him going despite the rigors involved.
It is clear that Matt wasn‘t cut out for domestic life; his life is his
work. No one, not even Miss Kitty, laments his lack of social life
or his total devotion to enforcing justice (Lichter, Lichter and
Rothman 1991: 128).
In addition to being an interesting study in regional psychology, Matt Dillon‘s character,
and Gunsmoke in general, displayed striking parallels to the political philosophy of Kansas.
Dillon‘s belief in racial amity mirrored that of many of Kansas‘s founders, and his dedication to
civic responsibility and tendency to fight for the little man echoed the state‘s traditionally
populist leanings. The central themes of Gunsmoke also reflect the values of modern Kansas,
which is to say those of the modern conservative. The show offered countless examples of the
importance of family, the power of religious devotion, the merits of traditional values, and the
virtues of limited government. The show‘s most explicit message concerned the importance of
rugged individualism, as manifested in Matt Dillon‘s fierce independent streak. According to
Steven D. Stark, on Gunsmoke, as it was on many other television westerns, ―the message was
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clear: It‘s not the law or big government which can make America a great place to live in, but the
basic decency of the good man‖ (Stark 1997: 88). In a way, the western genre was almost a
commercial for the modern conservative movement, as was evident in a 1953 speech by the
decade‘s most famous nonfictional Kansan, Dwight D. Eisenhower:
I was raised in a little town of which most of you have never heard.
But in the West it is a famous place. It is called Abilene, Kansas.
We had as our marshal for a long time a man named Wild Bill
Hickok. If you don‘t know anything about him, read your Westerns
more. Now that town had a code, and I was raised as a boy to prize
that code. It was: meet anyone face to face with whom you
disagree. You could not sneak up on him from behind, or do any
damage to him, without suffering the penalty of an outraged
citizenry. If you met him face to face and took the same risks he
did, you could get away with almost anything, as long as the bullet
was in the front (Eisenhower 1953: 1).
While Gunsmoke remains, without rival, Kansas‘s defining program, and by far its
longest-running entry, it was neither the only Kansas-based program to debut in the fall of 1955,
nor even the first. The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, which premiered four days before
Gunsmoke, was also a pioneer of the adult western genre. Wyatt Earp, like Gunsmoke, was as
much an examination of personal and societal relationships as it was an action showcase. The
series began with Earp taking a job as marshal of Ellsworth, Kansas. In the second season, he
took the same position in Dodge City (with no reference to Matt Dillon), joined by brothers
Virgil and Morgan, and the legendary Doc Holliday. Wyatt Earp was ranked eighteenth in the
Nielsen ratings during its second season, and moved into the top ten for the next two years. In the
fall of 1959, the setting shifted to Tombstone, Arizona.
Subsequent Kansas westerns followed the familiar theme of a noble man attempting to
tame a savage and lawless territory, but none managed to match the success of their
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predecessors. Wichita Town, The Road West, and Cimarron Strip each lasted for one season,
while Custer lasted just four months. Set in the years shortly after the Civil War, 1959‘s Wichita
Town featured Joel McCrea as cowboy Mike Dunbar, who took a job as U. S. Marshal and tried
to bring order to the lawless town. The Road West, which debuted in 1966, told the story of
Benjamin Pride, who moved his family from Ohio to Kansas shortly after the Civil War in an
attempt to carve a living out of the promising but often unforgiving land. Cimarron Strip ran the
following season, and was the story of U. S. Marshal Jim Crown, who patrolled the border
between Kansas and Indian Territory in the late 1800s. Kansas‘s last stand in the Western genre
was Custer, which had a short run in the fall of 1967. Set at Ft. Hays in 1868, the program
focused on Lt. Colonel George A. Custer‘s command of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, a motley crew
of outlaws, mavericks, ex-Confederates, and renegades, chronicling Custer‘s efforts to transform
the 7th into a force capable of protecting settlers from Crazy Horse‘s Sioux.
Custer‘s short run reflected the flagging popularity of television westerns in the late
1960s. As mentioned, fourteen westerns could be found in the Nielsen top thirty during the 1958-
1959 season. That number dropped to ten the following year, to six at the conclusion of the
1961-1962 season, and then to just three at the end of the 1967-1968 season. Two years later,
only two westerns—Gunsmoke and Bonanza—charted in the Nielsen top thirty, while in 1974,
not only was Gunsmoke the only western in the top thirty, it was the only western on television at
all.
The meteoric rise and slow erosion of the western genre‘s popularity is not anomalous in
the history of American television. Tastes change. The rise and fall of the variety show in the
1950s, the slapstick sitcom in the 1960s, the socially relevant comedy of the 1970s, the
primetime soap of the 1980s, and the reality show of the 2000s are all indicative of that fact. The
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collapse in the 1970s of once-mighty westerns like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and The Virginian
might simply be a matter of the shows having run their course. Another theory, however,
suggests that the demise of the television western might have indicated a major shift in American
cultural attitudes. In the 1970s, according to Steven D. Stark, the political values represented by
the western fell out of favor on a television landscape that was now dominated by the likes of All
in the Family and M*A*S*H.
In the wake of the Kennedy assassination in 1963, and the
turbulence of the civil-rights movement and the counterculture, the
whole premise of the traditional Western began to seem suspect.
American values were in doubt. Loners began to be viewed as
questionable. Tombstone seemed to resemble a police state.
Rugged masculinity was out of favor . . . . The psychological and
gender revolutions of the past 30 years have made the emotionless
Western virtually obsolete. The same fate has met heroes in the
Western mold—including a taciturn Kansan from near Dodge City
named Bob Dole, whose persona would have fit right into the
Westerns of the 1950s, but fell flat in 1996 (Stark 1997: 90-91).
Still another factor in the fall of the television western might have been shifting
demographics. The television western‘s audience, more likely to be older and rural, was
unappealing to television advertisers. Or perhaps the confines of Dodge City, Tombstone, and
the Ponderosa Ranch simply seemed out of step with an increasingly metropolitan United States.
Isolation was, indeed, a strong theme of Gunsmoke. Horace Newcomb wrote that ―Dodge City
stands as an outpost of civilization, the edge of America . . . surrounded by the dangers of the
frontier . . . [and] always under threat from untamed forces (Newcomb 2010: 1). That sense of
isolation was not the exclusive property of Kansas‘s westerns, but was also dominant on all four
Kansas-based sitcoms. The three that appeared after the 1970s were all flops, the longest lasting
ten months, but Kansas‘s first sitcom entry was a bona fide hit.
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September 1955 was a big month for Kansas television. The only three Kansas-based
programs that would break into the Nielsen top thirty premiered that month: The Life and Legend
of Wyatt Earp on September 6, Gunsmoke on September 10, and a sitcom called You‟ll Never
Get Rich on September 20. Set at Fort Baxter, near Roseville, Kansas (both fictional), You‟ll
Never Get Rich featured Phil Silvers as Master Sergeant Ernie Bilko. He was head of the
company‘s motor pool, and the brains behind nearly all the camp‘s shadier activities. Most of the
episodes involved Bilko outsmarting his superior officers, running the base‘s gambling
operations, and cooking up various get-rich-quick schemes that, as the show‘s title suggested,
never quite worked out.
CBS did not appear to have particularly high hopes for You‟ll Never Get Rich, placing it
on Tuesday nights opposite Mr. Television himself, Milton Berle, and, oddly enough, against
Kansas‘s own Wyatt Earp. The show, nevertheless, finished its first two seasons in thirtieth and
twenty-second place, respectively—no small accomplishment given the competition. And
although it never achieved Gunsmoke-type ratings, it was, in many ways, a landmark show.
Despite its relatively short run, the program was nominated for seventeen Emmy awards,
winning eight, including three straight for best comedy series. It was one of the first television
programs to inspire a published collection of scripts, and one of the first to attain a sort of cult
status by way of a long life in rerun syndication. It was also, notably, the first television program
to regularly use African-American actors in ―generic‖ roles, meaning roles that were not
designed specifically for black actors. They were simply there as a matter of course.
Credit for the show‘s popularity must be given, in part, to its charismatically frenetic star.
This fact was acknowledged two months into the show‘s run, when it was renamed The Phil
Silvers Show. The show‘s popularity probably also stemmed from its examinations of the
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banality and frustration of everyday army life, with Bilko‘s schemes representing a sort of
fantasy for scores of servicemen. Even though Bilko and his men were supposedly in charge of
the motor pool, they were never seen working, at least not on cars. Bilko never broke military
rules, but he was artful in bending them. Likewise, he was never directly insubordinate, but
nevertheless constantly proving himself superior to his superiors, mainly by separating them
from their money. All of this doubtlessly resonated in living rooms occupied by a large number
of military veterans, as noted by television historian Douglas Gomery:
The show was a send up of Army life . . . and loved by ex-GIs of
World War II and the Korean conflict, a generation still close to its
own military experiences, and willing to laugh at them . . . .
Possibly the funniest [episode] was ―The Case of Harry Speakup,‖
in which a Bilko scheme backfires and he is forced to help induct a
chimpanzee into the Army. Only Bilko could run such a recruit
past Army doctors and psychiatrists, have him pass an IQ test and
receive a uniform, be formally sworn in as a private, and then
moments later honorably discharged. No bureaucracy has ever
been spoofed better than was the Cold War U. S. Army in this 26-
minute comic masterpiece (Gomery 2010: 1).
Although it was almost universally praised by critics, the runaway popularity of The Phil
Silvers Show faded quickly. The program‘s ratings fell during its third season, and it was
cancelled after its fourth. The likely reason for this fall from grace was a move from Tuesday to
Friday nights, but it also is worth noting that the show‘s downturn coincided with a shift in
setting. In 1958, Bilko‘s company was transferred from Kansas to California.
In television reference literature, the setting for a show is usually mentioned in passing
or, in some cases, not at all. In entries describing the Phil Silvers Show, however, the Kansas
setting is usually referenced almost immediately, and is mentioned as an integral part of the
show‘s set-up. Douglas Gomery has suggested that Bilko had plenty of time to dream up his
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various schemes because he was ―stuck in the wide open spaces of rural Kansas‖ (2010: 1).
Likewise, Brooks and Marsh wrote that Sgt. Bilko perpetrated his cons and schemes because he
had ―little to do in the wilds of Middle America‖ (2007: 1079). Rick Mitz described Ft. Baxter as
―a nearly forgotten outpost of the U. S. Army‖ (1988: 113), and John Javna called it ―a
backwater military base with no defined mission‖ (1985: 170). The middle-of-nowhere
characterization of Fort Baxter and Roseville, it appears, made the nefarious exploits of Bilko
seem comically harmless, and also helped to underscore the tedium and monotony of military
life.
As mentioned, despite its relatively short original run, The Phil Silvers Show became a
cult classic during its long afterlife in syndicated reruns. That has not been the case for any other
of Kansas‘s sitcoms. In 1974, a different sort of con man descended on Kansas in the mellow
sitcom Paper Moon, which featured the father-daughter team of Moses and Addie Pray travelling
about the state during the Great Depression selling Bibles and attempting to pull off various
money-making schemes. Paper Moon was based on an acclaimed 1973 film that had starred a
real-life father and daughter team, Ryan and Tatum O‘Neal. The television version lasted only
thirteen weeks, and has largely passed into obscurity, but it does contain a few interesting
footnotes. On the TV version, Moses was played by Christopher Connelly, who had played Ryan
O‘Neal‘s brother on Peyton Place, while Addie was played by a then-obscure young actress
named Jodie Foster. It is also notable for being the only Kansas-based program to actually film
on location in the state. Beyond that, little has been written about television‘s Paper Moon, but if
it attempted to evoke the same spirit as the film, which featured a bleak, black-and-white
landscape that brought to mind the home of Dorothy Gale on The Wizard of Oz, then the Kansas
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of Moses and Addie would not have been altogether different from that of Matt Dillon and Ernie
Bilko—vast, wild, and isolated.
The middle-of-nowhere theme continued in the short-lived 1994 sitcom Tom. Tom
Graham, an amusement-park-ride welder, lived in Kansas with his wife, appropriately named
Dorothy. Tom and Dorothy had five kids, which made for cramped living when Tom borrowed a
construction trailer and moved the whole brood to his family‘s derelict farm, which was located
next to the dump for a small town. Tom set about building his dream house, which for most of
the show‘s three-month run consisted of a rather large hole. Tom and Dorothy made the best of
life in the overcrowded trailer, but the kids were not enthusiastic, because ―they all felt isolated
out at the dump‖ (Brooks and Marsh 2007: 290).
While the situation the characters on Tom found themselves in was not altogether
enticing, the portrayal of the characters themselves was reasonably positive. Ironically, the one
Kansas-based show that went to great lengths to portray Kansans as backward yokels was the
only one to have a contemporary, metropolitan setting. Originally titled Return to Kansas, the
2003 sitcom Married to the Kellys was a fish-out-of-water story about Tom Wagner, a novelist
from New York whose charming wife, Susan, persuaded him to move to suburban Kansas City
so that she could be closer to her nutty family, the title Kellys. The show was created by Tom
Hertz, and was inspired by his marriage to Overland Park native Susan Kelly. In an interview
with the Wichita Eagle, Hertz argued that, ―It‘s about family, not geography,‖ adding that ―about
twenty of the Kellys came to Los Angeles for the taping. They loved it‖ (Cutright 2003: 5C).
Whether or not the show was about geography, it wasn‘t lacking in geographic symbols,
and those symbols did not exactly portray modern, urban Kansas in flattering terms. Despite
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being in the affluent suburbs of a metropolitan area of more than two million people, an early
promotional photograph for Married to the Kellys showed the cast sitting in the bed of an ancient
Dodge pickup truck that was parked in a cornfield. The Kelly family enjoyed sitting out on their
porch, clad in flannel shirts, shucking corn. They consumed unholy amounts of pork and
paintings of cows adorned their walls.
―Almost everyone in the Kelly family,‖ wrote critic Linda Holmes, ―is strange and
unbalanced in that warm, funny, middle-America sort of way‖ (Holmes 2003: 1). Susan‘s
mother, Sandy, possessed a friendly exterior that masked a strong need for control. She had
collected dog figurines, one representing each member of the family, and a display on her wall
indicated which Kelly was currently in her dog house. Bill, Susan‘s big, earthy dad, did whatever
it took to keep his wife happy, while her brother Lewis was painfully shy, relating better to the
spiders he kept as pets than to the people around him. Susan‘s sister, Mary, was a shrill, know-it-
all graduate student who frequently reminded others that she was writing her dissertation, a fact
that made her ―almost a professor.‖ Chris was Mary‘s milquetoast husband, who viewed Tom as
a threat to his status as the favorite son-in-law. And then there was Uncle Dave, an obnoxious
right-wing banker who sported a mullet and a pinky ring, and who was not thrilled about a New
York Jew joining the family.
The possibility exists that the Kellys show was intended, like The Beverly Hillbillies, to
cut both ways—that is, to be as much a critique of New Yorker Tom as it was of the Kansas
Kellys. Indeed, the character of Tom was not especially likable. In the original pilot, when Susan
told him that, ―My parents think you are the coolest guy,‖ Tom snorted, ―In Kansas, I am‖
(Cutright 2003: 5C). Critic Scott D. Pierce, however, did not feel that the laughs on Married to
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the Kellys were directed at Tom, calling the show ―yet another Hollywood vision of middle
Americans as hicks, rubes and yokels:‖
There‘s that underlying message that people from New York City
are just so much smarter and sophisticated than the folks who
shuck corn and play parlor games . . . . And there‘s a scene in
Friday‘s pilot that‘s quite telling. As the Kellys sit down to dinner,
they begin to sing grace—a little song familiar to millions of
Americans who have attended summer camp of one sort or
another. And the audience laughs. Creator/executive producer Tom
Hertz, a New Yorker who based the show on his own wife‘s
Midwest family, insists that we‘re supposed to be laughing at the
character of Tom, who‘s visibly uncomfortable. But that‘s not the
way it plays out—the audience is laughing at this family that prays
before the meal (Pierce 2003: 1).
In her review of the show, Midwesterner Linda Holmes took the opportunity, albeit
facetiously, to clear up some of misconceptions about the region that Married to the Kellys might
have created:
We don‘t like our families any better than you do. Don‘t get me
wrong—we like them a lot of the time, but once we‘re adults, we
don‘t necessarily want to spend all our free time with them the way
Mrs. Kelly‘s kids do. If our moms did make one of those
―doghouse‖ displays in the kitchen, most of us also wouldn‘t think
it was really cool the way her kids do . . . . Sometimes, we don‘t
smile. We smile when it‘s called for, but there are times when we
don‘t. The entire cast of Married to the Kellys looks like it just
polished off a carton of Crest Whitestrips and a tanker of tequila
. . . . There‘s just not as much relentless whimsy as there is in the
Kellys‘ house (Holmes 2003: 1).
Critic Stephen Kelly suggested that the show‘s biggest problem was not geographic bias,
but the fact that it just wasn‘t that funny. ―The jokes are as flat as ten miles of Kansas highway,‖
wrote Kelly. ―Take this exchange between Tom and Mary, for instance:‖
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MARY: You did a good job of shucking that corn. If the writing
career falls through, you can always become a farmer.
TOM: Yeah, then you can come over and milk my cows (Kelly
2003d: 1).
Funny or not, many Kansans were not laughing when they began to see promotional
material from the show in 2003. The groundswell of discontent was so great that Kansas Travel
and Tourism Director Scott Allegrucci felt it necessary to urge calm in a message to the state‘s
various local convention and visitor bureaus and chambers of commerce:
We can be assured that Kansas will be the butt of some jokes . . . .
I suggest that any protest on the part of any entity in Kansas will
simply confirm the stereotypes that some fear the show will focus
on . . . . Even if the show is less than we might hope for, it is worth
more than we can ever pay [in publicity for the state]. This can
only be good for Kansas—even if the show is a dog . . . . All TV
shows are built upon stereotypes . . . and we should expect some
that do not reflect us or our values (Alm 2003: C3).
Allegrucci added that the mere fact a show was set in Kansas, ―confirms to me that there is
something attractive about the Midwest and small-town values, and that can only be good for
us.‖ Jeff Sheets, director of the Dickinson County Historical Society in Abilene, was not
convinced. ―It looked like The Beverly Hillbillies,‖ he said. ―I‘m hoping that‘s not the case.
We‘ve fought hard to get Kansas to be seen as a tourism destination, and this may be a slap in
the face.‖ David Flask, the former president of the South Central Kansas Tourism Region, was
not as alarmed. ―The show might be off the air in three months,‖ he said (Alm 2003: C3). In the
end, Flask was wrong. The show was off the air in ten months.
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While Married to the Kellys caused a firestorm of concern across the state, no one
seemed to notice Kansas‘s single reality entry. The Will appeared early in 2005, and featured ten
people, all relatives or acquaintances of seventy-three-year-old real estate developer Bill Long,
competing to see who would inherit his Kansas ranch. Viewers did not have much time to find
such a premise objectionable, as it was cancelled after just one episode.
While The Will was tying a record for the shortest run in television history, Kansas‘s first
contemporary drama was emerging as the state‘s longest-running program since Gunsmoke.
Smallville, which premiered in 2001, was the updated story of the early life of Clark Kent, the
alter ego of the legendary comic book, radio, film, and television superhero, Superman. In this
version, Kal-El arrived in a hail of kryptonite that fell on Smallville in 1989. He was adopted by
Jonathan and Martha Kent and, as the show began, was just entering high school. Smallville was,
in part, a teen soap opera. It dealt with Clark‘s alternating feelings of insecurity and optimism,
his friendships and romantic entanglements, and other coming-of-age themes. It was also a
supernatural action series, with many early episodes chronicling Clark‘s battles with
townspeople turned evil by the kryptonite that had coincided with his arrival.
Although Smallville was definitely a television version of Kansas that viewers had never
seen, it was thoroughly midwestern. To begin, the show made numerous references to
agriculture. Clark‘s adoptive parents were struggling to hang on to the family farm, while the
wealthy parents of Clark‘s best friend and future archenemy, Lex Luthor, owned the town‘s
fertilizer plant. And the character of Clark Kent was exactly what viewers expected from a
Kansas farm boy. For critic Mary Colgan, Clark as was an ―erstwhile boy scout,‖ and the
embodiment of ―corn-fed good boyness . . . wholesome, strapping, respectful to his parents, and
a gentleman with the ladies (Colgan 2003: 1). Clark‘s character was representative of the show‘s
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overall atmosphere. Smallville was milder than other youth-oriented action shows of its era, such
as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Dark Angel, and far tamer than most recent teen soaps. The warm
family life exuded by the Kents often made the show feel more like The Waltons or 7th Heaven
than Dawson‟s Creek or Beverly Hills 90210.
That is not to say that Smallville was stereotypically Kansas-clean, or that the little town
was populated by simple country bumpkins. The characters were intelligent, complex, and, this
being a soap opera, conflicted. Some of the story lines revolved around very real dilemmas faced
by teenagers, particularly those growing up in small towns. There was Clark‘s classmate
Brendan, a student of limited ability, who was petrified about what Smallville held for him once
high school was over. There was also Chloe, a super-smart, overachieving editor of the high
school newspaper who couldn‘t wait to move away to college and start her real life.
Perhaps the strongest geographic message of the show, though, was found in the show‘s
third season, after Clark donned a ring made of red kryptonite and thereby unleashed his evil
side. The scene was described by critic Mary Colgan:
Season three opens with Clark wreaking havoc all over Metropolis
in fabulous super-villain fashion: driving hot cars, robbing banks,
and doing it all with a smile. In Smallville, good is located in the
country (i.e., Smallville), in plain, honest farm folks, and in
helping people. Evil is flashy and ritzy; it‘s the city (Metropolis),
power, riches, and corruption. So it‘s no surprise that when Clark
hides from his pain within his alter ego, he does so in Metropolis
(Colgan 2003: 1).
Smallville did contain jabs at the title town‘s smallness—its name, for example—and the
fact that its claim to fame was being the ―Creamed Corn Capital of the World.‖ That said,
viewers did not find life in Smallville to be too monotonous. Because it appeared on the viewer-
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starved WB network (and its later incarnation, the CW), Smallville was never a ratings
blockbuster. It was popular enough, however, to remain on air for a decade, and was particularly
liked by younger audiences. The median age of a Smallville viewer in 2003 was twenty-nine,
somewhat surprising for a show whose main character, at least in the early years, lived on a farm
in Kansas.
Young viewers were probably not watching Smallville for the agriculture, of course, but
for the hair-raising forces of darkness that Clark Kent faced on a weekly basis. His show was not
alone in that regard. In fact, Kansas soon became a primary destination for viewers looking to
have their spines tingled. Supernatural, a drama that debuted in 2005, was one such example.
While the show cannot really be counted as a Kansas entry—the setting changed from week to
week—the two protagonists were Kansas natives. The Winchester brothers, Dean and Sam,
travelled around the country battling a host of supernatural creatures. The first scene took place
in 1983, when Dean and Sam were young boys. Critic Mary Colgan described the action:
Skeletal, Halloween-ish shadows encroach on a cozy suburban
home. Inside, wholesomely named Mary and John tuck their two
boys into bed. Later, Mary is awakened by her crying infant. When
she enters the kids‘ room, lights buzz and flicker as she slowly
realizes that the figure by the crib is not her husband . . . . John
finds her stuck to the ceiling, terrified and dripping blood into the
crib, before flames engulf her. Her unfathomable death determines
her sons‘ futures (Colgan 2005: 1).
The setting for this cheery scene was Lawrence, Kansas, a location chosen, according to
series creator Eric Kripke, because of its close proximity to the tiny town of Stull. The Stull
Cemetery has become a legend among aficionados of the supernatural, and the fifth season of
Supernatural ended with Dean and Sam doing battle there with no less than old Lucifer himself.
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The isolation theme of Kansas‘s earlier entries and the supernatural theme of its later
ones are nicely compatible. Viewers who remember films such as Night of the Living Dead, The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and In Cold Blood know that when the action shifts to a darkened,
isolated farmhouse, things usually do not turn out well. The eerie isolation of a small Kansas
town was used to such effect in the 2006 drama Jericho, which aired for two seasons. Here, the
threats were not supernatural, but they were no less unsettling. Fictional Jericho was a normal
little town, and the principal characters were the sort with which viewers would be familiar:
mayor, sheriff, doctor, barkeep, teacher, grocery store owner, and farmer. All hell broke loose
when Jericho‘s residents heard reports that nuclear bombs were being detonated all over the
United States, a fact confirmed when they saw a mushroom cloud rise on the horizon in the
direction of Denver. Strangers began to drift into town. Some were refugees simply seeking
shelter, while others had more mysterious motives. A few were scavengers, blatantly raiding the
town of its scarce resources. Expeditions were organized to nearby towns in search of
information and supplies, but, like horror film characters in an abandoned farmhouse, Jericho
residents were largely cut off from the outside world, left to their own devices on the lonely
plains of western Kansas.
While it seems unlikely that the Jericho sort of motif—residents of an isolated town
constantly threatened with destruction—would ever become the basis for a children‘s cartoon,
that was the case on Courage the Cowardly Dog, which debuted in 1999 on the Cartoon Network
and ran for four years. Set in Nowhere, Kansas, which was depicted as a vast, empty plain, this
animated series was the story of a fat, pink mutt and his eccentric elderly owners, Muriel and
Eustace. Courage had reason to be cowardly. Nowhere was in a perpetual state of siege, not only
from the usual Kansas culprits, such as blizzards, tornadoes, droughts, and travelling con men,
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but also from far more bizarre sources, including evil cats, mummies, zombies, killer rats and
goats, killer fungus and eggplants, alien chickens and squid, cannibal pigs, and weremoles.
As odd as it may sound, Courage carried with it a positive message and, stranger still, it
was one that was not profoundly different from that of Gunsmoke. Critic John G. Nettles wrote
that ―although Courage lives in a perpetual state of anxiety, his devotion to Muriel inevitably
wins out over his fears and Courage lives up to his name.‖ Nettles added that ―this may be the
best thing of many that the show has going for it, the persistent message that ‗courage‘ isn‘t
being fearless but rather doing the right thing despite one‘s fear.‖
In addition to its decidedly unique villains, the show also had its own visual style, in
which the animation was superimposed over real photographs. That technique may have
provided the show‘s most positive geographic message, at least for those who have, at one time
or another, been enchanted by the physical geography of the Great Plains. Nettles wrote that
―when the photo moon rises over the farmhouse and the surrounding plain of desolate
nothingness it is hyperreal and beautiful—a magnificent view from Nowhere‖ (Nettles 2010b:
1).
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