Moonlighting

"Moonlighting" premiered on ABC on Sunday, March 3, 1985 with the pilot, a full-length movie. It then began airing that week on Tuesday nights at 10/9 EST/CST. The initial season featured 6 episodes, counting the pilot. Then picked up for a regular series in the fall of 1985, "Moonlighting" entered its second season airing on Tuesday evenings at 9/8 EST/CST which was actually its first full season. The show ran for five seasons, with the final show airing May 14, 1989, and counting the short first season, there are a total of 66 episodes of the series. After its intial run on ABC, the show was replayed on several cable channels such as Lifetime and more recently from Jan 2000 - Sept 2002 on Bravo. Currently the show airs in reruns in several channels outside the US, but it is not currently being shown in the US.

The series was created by Glenn Gordon Caron and starred Cybill Shepherd as Madolyn (Maddie) Hayes and Bruce Willis as David Addison. Allyce Beasley co-starred as Agnes DiPesto, the detective agency's receptionist/administrative assistant, and during the last three years of the show's run, Curtis Armstrong was added as a regular to the cast playing Herbert Viola, a fledgling detective for the agency and the love interest of Miss DiPesto.

Moonlighting is a detective show; well at least on first glance it appears to be a detective show. But the real story to follow week after week here is the volatile battle of the sexes between the icy, glamourous former model, Maddie Hayes and the cocky, wise-cracking, flirtatious, free-wheeling David Addison. Their snappy, intense, banter-laden battles make for great television, but an even more compelling aspect to watch is their red-hot sexual chemistry as it infuses every scene between the two. They are so obviously very attracted to each other, but neither will risk being the first to act on this desire. Newsweek magazine so aptly describes Maddie and David as suffering from the "mutually sublimated hotsies." And so they yell and fight and slam doors when we all know that is just a counter-reaction to what they are really feeling.

This photo and caption appeared in a popular magazine in early 1987--a typical press ploy that misrepresented the facts by blurring the line between tv and reality and kept tongues wagging for months and months.

This couple became a favorite of tv viewers back in the mid 1980's, and their names and faces graced the cover of many a magazine, news article, entertainment column, etc. The nation was obsessed with Maddie and David (and by association the two actors who played them, Shepherd & Willis), and EVERYONE was dying to know when the two characters were going to consummate their relationship because EVERYONE felt they should and EVERYONE wanted to be there for the big event. Although the erroneous idea remains to this day that having Maddie and David "do it" was ultimately what brought about the demise of the show, nothing could in actuality be further from the truth. As fans who watched this entire phenomenon unfold and experienced the highs and the lows of the show, we can attest that it most certainly was not the fact that David and Maddie's relationship progressed to the point where they slept together that lead to the end of the show. The fact of the matter is that the episodes that lead up to and immediately follow the couple's long anticipated bedroom romp were some of the very best episodes of the show. Watching the two deal with this new aspect of their relationship and trying to come to some mutual understanding of the direction their relationship might be going in made for just as much excitement as the actual build up and that ever-so-intense consummation. All of the fans wanted Maddie and David together; we wanted to see them bantering, fighting, making up and making love. The real truth to what brought about "Moonlighting's" cancellation at the end of the fifth season is much more complex than just blaming one event or one storyline progression. There were many factors both inside and outside of the production that caused the show to begin to slip from its once lofty perch high above the ratings pile. It wasn't the consummation of the relationship at all that caused the ratings slip--in fact that was the highest rated episode of "Moonlighting" ever--it was the opposite of that, not having the couple together that began the slide from excellence. The actual reality of what happened during the last two years of the show is well-documented at other places on the web, so there will be no beating of dead horses here. (Ok, so maybe it isn't so well-documented or maybe its just plain hard to find. Since so many have written to ask me where to find this, here is a short and dirty list I put together of what I perceived as all the situations that went into wrecking this wonderful show.) Yet we just had to comment, since it continues to be one of the lingering false myths of the "Moonlighting" legacy that what happened to the show is proof that two characters with sexual chemistry should never be allowed to get together and that having them in bed will ruin the show. This is such bunk and is easily refuted by anyone who actually watched "Moonlighting" and understood the appeal of the show and the evolution of Maddie and David's relationship.

Furthermore, "Moonlighting" is really a modern retelling of the classic battle of the sexes story, exemplified in Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew," and those who have studied Shakespeare know that the couple in "Taming of the Shrew" for all their bluster and fight, do love each other and end up married, in love and in bed. There is no way that a story themed as a taming (and the question of who actually gets tamed--he or she) could possibly be told without the audience seeing the couple's attraction, physical intimacy and struggles of commitment.

In its heyday, "Moonlighting" was not only a popular show but a critical success as well. Its second season received an amazing 16 Emmy nominations. The following year at its absolute peak of popularity, Shepherd and Willis both received Golden Globes for the show. Cybill had also won the Globe the year previously. They were also selected 1987 Man and Woman of the Year in Broadcasting by the Hollywood Radio and Television Society. During the run of "Moonlighting," Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis won several People's Choice Awards as well. And in September of 1987, Bruce Willis won an Emmy for his work on the show.

"Moonlighting" has remained in the public consensus as that of a great show with great writing and two phenomenal lead actors that had extreme sexual chemistry which has seen no equal in tv land couples since. As recently as 1999, the editors of TV Guide and the Executives from the Romance Channel, selected Maddie and David as one of the ten most romantic couples in tv history, as reported at this site. Countless articles have been written about Maddie and David, nearly all focusing on the extreme heat generated by the couple and the very potent sexual chemistry between Willis and Shepherd.