The Life and Times of Murphy Brown

Premiering in 1988, Murphy Brown used the setting of a television news program to propel comedy.  Candice Bergen starred in the title role of a famous network newswoman who loves Motown music, hates Barry Manilow, and struggles with a string of incompetent...

The Yellow Brick Road Goes Through Minneapolis

Take a sweet, innocent, and wide-eyed young woman from the Midwest and put her in an encounter with three men.  One is fairly wooden, showing emotions rarely.  One does not have much in the way of intelligence, common sense, or decorum.  One growls a lot, but is...

The Big Three

In the 1980s, America’s three television networks changed hands. ABC to Capital Cities.  NBC to General Electric.  CBS to Loews. Ken Auletta documented the decade in his 1991 book Three Blind Mice:  How the TV Networks Lost Their Way.  It is, indeed, a fantastic...

Bacon Popularity Sizzles

“Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” is a game that can be played anytime and anywhere by anybody.  It is, indeed, light enjoyment perfect for holiday conversation around the dinner table during dessert.  The game’s purpose is to connect an actor or an...

1960s Sitcom Music

If music be the food of 1960s television sitcoms, play on. In the 1960s, the Beatles captained a British invasion across the Atlantic Ocean.  John, Paul, George, and Ringo inspired sitcom versions of themselves after their first American television appearance on The...