Clair de lune

When I was 12 this was my favorite show on TV, but I've come to appreciate it more in my old age. Bruce and Cybill are great, but above all, the writing is among the best I've seen in a television series. The nonstop sledge hammer wit for a full hour makes me laugh out loud every episode. The scenes are always brilliantly constructed, the jokes always intelligent. The writers never got all the credit they deserved, I'm sure. No matter how funny one joke is, there is always a come back line. I think you have to get past the early episodes that were a little more serious. I didn't start watching until around the beginning of '86.

So much on TV nowadays is either over-the-top dramatic, or toilet humor. No one knows how to just have fun anymore. Moonlighting never forgot that it was just a television show, and it didn't mind poking fun at itself. Some lines that demonstrated this were, "Two teams [...] with the same story. Either someone's lying or the writers just Xeroxed the other scene", and, "What do we do now?" "Wrap this up in about 12 minutes so another show can come on the air."

After David and Maddie got together, then weren't together, then were, how did it end anyway? The show became a bit of a soap opera. But it was always a treat to watch. Everyone mentions Moonlighting's version of "The Taming of the Shrew." Some of my other favorite episodes are "The Bride of Tupperman", which ends with a hospital scene chase to 'Dem Bones, "Symphony in Knocked Flat" (guest appearance by Don King), "Yours Very Deadly" (Burt Viola's first appearance), and both Christmas episodes. And the show wouldn't be complete without the rhymes of Agnes Dipesto. If you aren't that familiar with the show, don't miss your next opportunity to see Moonlighting!

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.

"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.

Presently, "Moonlighting" is being shown on cable (Bravo)here in the U.S. I must say watching these episodes after fifteen years brings back a lot of joy for me. It was one of my favorite shows of the '80's. I remember enjoying the verbal sparring between Maddie and David. It was also fun to watch what antics David would pull. True, some episodes weren't all that great, but what T.V. show has been truly perfect? Anyway, for the most part "Moonlighting" was a wonderful show that was well-written. As I watch these episodes again, I'm struck by how beautiful Cybill Sheperd was photographed and how young looking Bruce Willis was. (I think they've aged pretty well.)Last night I saw "Twas the Episode Before Xmas" and loved how they (writers and actors) frequently broke through the "fourth wall". That's another thing I loved about the show. It frequently broke through the "fourth wall". In all, "Moonlighting" was a witty romantic comedic show that put a whole new spin on the detective show genre.

Moonlighting was one of those amazing shows that spawned a plethora of clones, many of which didn't make it. Though it came after Remington Steele, which I believe was the far more excellent show consistently, Moonlighting got all the buzz and the excitement. Most of this was due to the breakout performance of Bruce Willis, who, of course, became a megastar thanks to Moonlighting. I can still see him facing a criminal while singing "My Girl" and then indicating with his hands when the goon should come in with the high part. It was touches like this that made Moonlighting special.

Willis and co-star Cybill Shepherd were fabulous and had excellent chemistry. They were ably supported by Allyce Beasley, Curtis Armstrong, Charles Rocket (a brilliant choice for David's brother, who appeared in some episodes), and for several episodes, Eva Marie Saint and the late Robert Webber as Maddie's parents.

The series boasts some phenomenal episodes but when it fell, it fell hard. Ego problems, budget problems, and story direction problems began to weigh it down, and it finally crawled to an end after tons of reruns being shown in prime time when scripts were unable to be delivered. However, the heights hit in the first two seasons or so are unmatched probably by any other series for their creativity and brilliance. Moonlighting remains a wonderful and joyous part of TV history.