Luz de luna

"Moonlighting" had the same basic template as "Remington Steele" (which "Moonlighting" creator Glenn Gordon Caron also wrote for), but the two shows were ultimately so different that it never really felt like a ripoff. (In any case, "Remington Steele" itself felt a bit like "Hart To Hart," about which the less said the better.)

The show's troubled backstage production is the stuff of legend (if Sky 1 viewers think the arrival of new episodes of "The Simpsons" is an event, they don't remember this show's travails - a new episode on ABC was practically a headline story); so self-reverential was "Moonlighting" that the episode "The Straight Poop" was actually about the show's backstage drama, with Rona Barrett (real-life gossip maven) hosting and interviews with Cybill Shepherd's ex Peter Bogdanovich and, amusingly, Pierce "Steele" Brosnan. But though the problems really affected the show to the extent that some episodes had to focus on David and Maddie's secretary Agnes and the agency's new recruit Herbert, it never really became unwatchable.

And at its best, "Moonlighting" was a gem; with dazzling wordplay, real sparks between Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd (although Shepherd never getting recognised by the Emmys was justified), and some occasionally good mysteries to boot. Listing all the highlights the show produced would take too long, but the show deserves its place in history for, among others:

1. "It's A Wonderful Maddie": Maddie finding that in an alternate timeline the Blue Moon Detective Agency has been taken over by Jonathan and Jennifer Hart (Maddie and Max together: "Don't I know you from somewhere?") and that David has wound up marrying Cheryl Tiegs - a much better choice than Cybill Shepherd methinks.

2. "The Murder's In The Mail": For the "man with a mole on his nose" scene with the doorman.

3. What the narrator at the start of one of the episodes called "those silly chases they like to do on 'Moonlighting'."

4. "Atomic Shakespeare": In which a boy who has to miss "Moonlighting" to study "The Taming of the Shrew" leads us into a very amusing reshaping of the yarn ("10 Things I Hate About You" was good, but can that give you a medieval wedding ceremony with "Good Loving"?).

5. The movie-length pilot, complete with the full version of the wonderful Lee Holdridge-Al Jarreau theme song over the credits.

6. "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice." Orson Welles and Bruce Willis. A match made in heaven.

7. "Camille": Especially the climax.

Bruce Willis can look back on this with pride; Cybill Shepherd had nowhere to go but down. And the show's writers (Caron, Jeff Reno and Ron Osborn, Roger Director, Chris Ruppenthal, Debra Frank and Carl Sautter...), I salute you. A true classic.

Too bad the Anselmo case was never solved, though.

Moonlighting was one of those shows that I didn't watch at first but once I caught an episode I was hooked. The constant sparring of Maddie and David was excellent with a lot of acknowledgement to the camera. I even enjoyed the episodes where Agnes Dipesto and Herbert Viola were given more screen-time.

My favourite episodes include the feature length first episode, "The Lady in the Iron Mask", "Atomic Shakespeare", "The Straight Poop", "It's a Wonderful Job" and "Poltergeist III Dipesto Nothing".

It's currently airing on a cable channel in the U.K. and although not all episodes were good the majority were very well written with many memorable scenes.

Model Maddie Hayes is left almost penniless after being fleeced by investment adviser. All she has left is a two-bit detective agency. The manager of the agency, David Addison, convinces her to keep and run the agency. Together they form a dynamic partnership.

A great detective show from my youth. More a comedy than a drama, the humour was great, the relationship and banter between Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) and David Addison (Bruce Willis) was very engaging and it was simply great fun.

It also launched the career of Bruce Willis, to the show's detriment. Die Hard was released around seasons 3 and 4 and from then on sadly the writing was on the wall for the show as he was clearly destined for bigger things.

Only 21 comments proceed this one on this particular thread. That is incredible to me. For in the middle and late 1980s MOONLIGHTING was one of the biggest (if not the biggest) phenomenons to hit television.

It dared to take a normal type of show - the detective show - and turn it into a mind blowing experience as it's battling heroine and hero confronted cases, each other, and the universe weekly. Mattie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) and David Addison (Bruce Willis) ran a detective agency together, only because it was Mattie's last asset after her accountant ran off with her fortune (a later episode allowed them to confront the scoundrel). Addison was running the small agency, but since Mattie now depends on it for her income she takes over running it and collides head on with Addison. He is a self-satisfied male chauvinist, and she is a determined feminist. But despite their rigid points of view they are attracted to each other. So the result (normally) is that they get a client, and in analyzing the client's problem it raises some issues that actually confront Mattie and David in their lives, but the audience in it's lives too. The only other regulars were Allyce Beasley as Agnes DiPresto, their receptionist who always had a poetic effusion to greet the customers on the phone, and Curtis Armstrong as Herbert Viola, a late arrival who is the firm's bookkeeper and David's back-up man (and eventually Agnes' boyfriend).

I think the episode most people recall from this show is the experiment with Shakespeare's TAMING OF THE SHREW, wherein Willis was Petruchio and Shepherd was Katherine. Certainly it was a nice spoof, especially as Shakespeare's play is out of step with present day views about sexual equality. But the Shakespearean dialog was also spoofed - leading to the concluding line (which suggested my "summary line" above). But it was not the only good episode. The one where Agnes and Herb solve a case by themselves was interesting - and the conclusion where Mattie and David burst into the room to congratulate them, and then turn around with Mattie saying, "And hopefully next week we'll have more to do in the episode." was a good one too. So was one with Joseph Maher as an angel talking to Willis as Mattie and David's child in embryonic state. The birth of the child was expected by the audience, but at the last moment the writers have poor Mattie miscarry. Maher cheers up Willis by saying he shouldn't fear - he may end up the new baby on one of two other current shows then on television that had expectant parents!

The writing, at it's best, shoved this show to the heights. In the middle of an argument, Mattie tells David she does not give "a flying frig" for his opinion. David looks at her quizzically, and says he doesn't know what she means by "a flying frig". She looks at him casually and says, "That doesn't matter...(they turn towards the viewing audience)...THEY KNOW WHAT I MEAN!" In a moment of pure genius the dialog would suddenly pick up a life of it's own and become pure Dr. Seuss, with everyone in the scene joining in. There were in-jokes about other shows. In an episode based on IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, Mattie discovers what would have happened if she had sold the detective agency (as she originally planned). It is bought by a husband and wife pair of detectives who we never see: the Harts, from HART TO HART. But we see their factotum assistant Max (Lionel Stander) still working for them. In another episode, David (in a fit of emotion) begs Mattie to run off with him and forget the agency. "If anyone has any problems, let that old lady from the movies on the other channel solve them for them.", he says. He's referring to Angela Lansbury in MURDER SHE WROTE on CBS.

With all the delays in production, all the unfortunate ego clashes, and even the dip in the series quality in the last year, MOONLIGHTING was a terrific show. It rarely is revived today, which given it's quality is a terrible shame and waste.

In the finest tradition of Gable&Lombard and Tracey&Hepburn, Cybil Sheppard and Bruce Willis bring drama, comedy, and wit to TV together with a sexual tension that underscores their partnership in the Blue Moon Detective Agency.

Shepard, who plays Maddie Hayes, wakes up one morning to find out her accountant has absconded with the fortune she made as a high fashion model. Obviously it was not a stretch for Cybil to adapt to this role! In the course of finding out that she needs to sell everything, she happens in on this little detective agency(Blue Moon), she owns only because it was a great tax writeoff. The staff is morabund, and the head sleuth is a wise cracking obnoxious male chauvenist named David Addison, played by an unknown(at the time) Bruce Willis. The immediate rapport between the two brought viewers back for more. The endless stream of double entendre's, malaprops, and overall office antics made the show lovable and audiences craved for more.

Glenn Gordon Caron's writing and vision had the writers, actors, and directors take license with certain rules in primetime that were never questioned. E.G. In one particular episode Maddie asks David to get more explicit with an explanation and David responds by telling her if they get any more explicit they'll have to move the show to cable. It is precisely these departures from the norm, along with the genius idea to have the two main characters talk to each other AT THE SAME TIME, that made critics and fans follow their every move.

It's probably best to say that this show's run was cut short due to the emergence of Willis as a bonafide star. Once he made his mark on the big screen, in Die Hard, Bruce was looking for ways to exit TV. In interviews he talked of the brutal schedules for TV primetime and the difficulty in exploring the boundaries of his talents and appetite for acting. As the show fragmented the practice of in season repeat episodes was probably accepted more , if not born out of necessity. Expanded roles were given in onscreen time and plots to Allyce Beasley(who played a great Agnes DiPesto) and her Blue Moon boyfriend Herbert Viola, played by Curtis Armstrong. These shows were often almost difficult to watch, through no fault of Beasley and Armstrong, but rather the desire to see Maddie and David cavort as usual.

Reruns have been syndicated and you can find them sometimes, most recently on cable channel BRAVO. If you do see the shows, and they are regularly scheduled, it would be well worth it to look for four of my favorites...the first episode of Moonlighting's second season entitled "Brother Can You Spare A Blond", a later episode when Maddie and David have had one of their innumerable fights and they are both interviewed by Rona Barrett in an attempt to reconcile their differences, the episode that co-stars Dana Delaney as the ex-fiance that jilted David, and a classic show guest hosted by Orson Welles shot just before Welles' death. The show signifies the great love/hate relationship between the two main characters and is brilliantly shot in both color and black and white. I think you'll get the spirit and essence of this show if you see any of these.