But Caron found what he was looking for in Willis. And Cybill Shepherd was lobbying for an actor named Harley Venton to land it. Robert Blake, who was known for his role as Detective Tony Baretta on 1970s crime drama Baretta, and radio personality Rick Dees, were in contention for the role. The role of Maddie was written specifically for Cybill Shepherd, but then unknown Bruce Willis was actually the very last actor to audition for the part of David. Only two ABC series ( Dynasty, which topped the charts that season, and lead-out Hotel) finished the season ranked in the Top 20. And the network was in dire need of something different. But ABC owned the series, which meant it could recoup some of the high cost. Part of that high cost was the 12 to 14 days it took to shoot each episode (as opposed to the usual one week) due to the extensive dialogue (two or more characters often talked at length simultaneously) and constant shooting delays. According to Caron, the inspiration for Moonlighting was a production of The Taming of the Shrew he saw in New York’s Central Park with Meryl Streep and Raul Julia.Īt the time, Moonlighting was the most expensive TV series on the air, at an average cost of $1.6 million per episode. Glenn Gordon Caron, who was working on NBC’s similar Remington Steele, exited to create and produce the show. But even in this pre-social media world, the word spread quickly about Moonlighting. However, the audience did not initially know what to make of the mix of mystery and the sharp and rapid-fire dialogue between the two leads, not to mention Allyce Beasley as the kooky rhyming receptionist Agnes DiPesto. That gave Moonlighting an immediate advantage. This expanded debut was billed as a movie (which it was not, and served as an early example of the type of humor on the series), and the bar for comparison was very low. The network competition was the CBS Tuesday Movie and mystery-themed Remington Steele on NBC. Earlier that season, that Tuesday time period housed three dramas that all failed to make an impact - Lindsay Wagner crime-themed Jessie, serialized Paper Dolls, and 1960s-set Craig T. Moonlighting launched on Sunday, March 3, 1985, with a two-hour episode on ABC, and then moved into the Tuesday 10 p.m. But as we celebrate 35 years since the premiere of what could also be described as primetime’s first “screwball comedy” (and the first to adeptly blend comedy and drama), let’s take a look at what made this series truly unique. Then, of course, Bruce Willis headlined blockbuster theatrical Die Hard, Cybill Shepherd gave birth to twins, and both actors, as did the audience, lost interest in Moonlighting. And, yes, we all know those two did not exactly like each other in real life. We all remember what happened after Cybill Shepherd as Madeline (“Maddie”) Hayes and Bruce Willis as David Addison, who worked together at Maddie’s Blue Moon Detective Agency, took their relationship one step further. A combination of comedy, drama, mystery and romance, it is the R word in this descriptor that actually helped put ABC’s Moonlighting out of commission.
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