Author: Bill Ervolino / Source: North Jersey
The CBS sitcom is back, with its original cast, and you can thank new target Donald Trump. USA TODAY
Tired of all the sit-com “reboots” kicking around the small screen these days?
Blame the 2016 election.
When “Will & Grace” returned to NBC’s prime time schedule last September, cast members insisted they had something to say about the direction that the country was taking.
And they said it with Hillary Clinton supporters Will and Grace (Eric McCormack and Debra Messing) exchanging political barbs with their super wealthy pal Karen (Megan Mullally), who voted for Donald Trump.Months later, there were similar fireworks on the debut episode of ABC’s “Roseanne” reboot, as ardent Trumpster Roseanne (Roseanne Barr) and her sister Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) — who backed Clinton, but ultimately voted for Jill Stein — screamed out their views after not speaking for months.
On Thursday night, “Murphy Brown” entered the fray, with an interesting twist: Murphy, played once again by Candice Bergen, wasn’t arguing with any fellow cast members about the president. Instead, she took him on, tweet-a-tweet, in a wacky Twitter exchange over clean energy that was among this premiere’s highlights.
“If I had hair like yours,” Murphy told the Prez, “I wouldn’t like wind, either!”
Dan Quayle all over again?
The faux argument harked back to the show’s battle, during the 1991-1992 season, with then- vice-president Dan Quayle, who, in a speech on family values, attacked the show when Bergen’s character had a child out of wedlock.
(Quayle said the fictional Murphy was “mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice.”)The show responded to Quayle’s comments at the beginning of the next season with a special episode in which the cast of “FYI,” the sit-com’s show-within-a-show, celebrated diverse families.
On the reboot, Murphy’s son Avery (Jake McDorman) was very much in evidence. He’s now a 28-year-old TV journalist with a famous, retired TV journalist mom.
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