The Bonnie Hunt Show

Cast

Bonnie Hunt - Bonnie Kelly
Janet Caroll - Diane Fulton
Mark Derwin - Bill Kirkland
Richard Gant - Joe Briggs
Brian Howe - Sammy Sinatra
Don Lake - Keith Jedzek
Eamonn Roche -Andrew Wiggins
Tom Virtue - Tom Vandoozer
Holly Wortell - Holly Jankofsky


Bonnie served as the creator, executive producer and co-writer on the show.
Bonnie plays Bonnie Kelly a features reporter for channel 12 WBDR news. The first show has Bonnie moving from Wisconsin to Chicago for the job. She makes friends with the people at work right away and develops a crush on Bill Kirkland her boss, even though he is often too busy to give her the time of day. Tom the camera man, has a secret crush on Bonnie, and she later admits to Holly that she thinks he’s cute (she’s torn between both guys). But we never got to find out who Bonnie ended up with because the show was cancelled after 11 episodes. Bonnie’s character is much the same as The Building. Very wholesome and kind. Often to a fault. Most of the same people from The Building, Holly Wortell, Don Lake, and Tom Virtue (who she met at Second City) are in this show also. Holly plays her best friend who does makeup at the news station. And Don plays her next door neighbor Keith, who is constantly talking to her through the window and coming over. A really cute part of the show is Bonine’s constant conversations over the phone to her Mother.
The best part about this show however is the remote segments. They’re improvised and they are hilarious.
The show was an experimental use of improv techniques in a sitcom. With improv you accept a certain amount of failure in exchange for edgy, original, unpredictable approaches to comic situations.

Bonnie made the cast watch His Girl Friday to get a feel of how she wanted the show to be like.

At the taping, the audience was given a hot dog, a pop, and a Bonnie Hunt Show hat. A person who was there says that Bonnie Hunt seems like an incredibly nice and down-to-earth person. When they had to continuously do a scene over (adding some different lines each time to see the audience's reaction), she apologized to the audience for the delay.

Bonnie on the show being different:
I really made their heads explode, so..and you know, I didn’t last because they just..they couldn’t…I mean the audience was great, we had good ratings and we had critical acclaim, it was the politics that was exhausting because I think the executives of the network just couldn’t tolerate that I was doing it in such a different way. Although I thought it reflected in the show how unique and nicely it was done, and we worked really hard on that. I think if they would have given it a chance you know..
Yahoo: What was the main thing that was different about the show than "normal" television?
Bonnie: Well it was really the process that was different. We’d do shows straight through as if they were live without any retakes. If there was a mistake we’d just let it in. We didn’t do any sweetening to the show, and by sweetening I mean we didn’t add any laugh track or any applause or..it was just really natural, so, most of the time when you shoot a sitcom in Los Angeles you start at 7:00 and you’d finish shooting it by 11:00, but it’s only 22 minutes of material once it’s on the air. But we would start at 7:00 and we were done at 7:30. (laughs) You know? So, because I hired all improvisational actors from Second City. Although I wrote the scripts, if something went wrong or..we just kept going. And it gave the show a certain kind of energy. I thought it was really great, and critics really responded to it and so did the audience. But the..
Yahoo: The network?
Bonnie: Yeah, they just couldn’t..I don’t know, they were afraid of it.
Yahoo.com realplayer interview April 2000

Bonnie on the show:
Bonnie wanted to call the show "Human Interest," but the executives refused. "they said, ‘people are going to think it’s a science show.’ I said ‘if they watch 5 minutes of it and I don’t have a lab coat on they’ll figure it out.’"
"The hiatus is painful to a point. Your heart hurts a little bit, but I used to be a nurse and this is certainly nothing compared with what people go through with real things."
Jan 2 1996 San Francisco

"Oh, I would love to do it again. I mean, I've met with both of the "other" networks, you know, since I've left CBS. And, uh, they are all very nice and very kind; and I really enjoy the process of putting on a story each week, and letting an audience enjoy it the way that we did it: straight through, no retakes, no canned laughter. But the politics really wear you out, and I think I just need a little time to rejuvenate before I venture into that again."

The politics of that process is so exhausting, you would never believe it. I mean, you spend so much time with the politics, the actual work is like your time off. But those were my calling cards. I kind of failed by my own standards, which led to my success.

Bonnie on the Conan O' Brien show January 1996
Conan: The CBS show, congratulations, it's coming back on.
Bonnie: Yes it is. They said it's coming back in March. I actually read it in the paper. I was thrilled.
Conan: Do you know when it's coming back on, really?
Bonnie: No, they just said March. I don't even know the year.
Entertainment today interview. 7th April 2000

Episode 1:
Title: First Day
Aired: September 22, 1995
Written by: Rob Burnett and Bonnie Hunt
Directed by: John Bowab
Remote: Children in their first week of school

Episode 2:
Title: Another Day at the Office
Aired: September 29, 1995
Written by: Bonnie Hunt
Directed by: John Bowab
Remote: Giordano's Pizza

Episode 3:
Title: The Phone Call
Aired: October 6, 1995
Written by: Steve Faber and Bob Fisher
Directed by: John Bowab
Remote: Chicago Bears tailgate party

Episode 4:
Title: True Lies
Aired: October 13, 1995
Written by: Michael Short
Directed by: John Bowab
Remote: Headline Hats

Episode 5:
Title: Better Offer
Aired: October 20, 1995
Written by: Alice Jatczak
Directed by: John Bowab
Remote: Various pick-up lines

Episode 6:
Title: Here's a Little Halloween Twist
Aired: October 27, 1995
Written by: Elaine Arata
Directed by: John Bowab
Remote: Doctor of Horror

Came back from hiatus titled "Bonnie"

Episode 7:
Title: Up All Night
Aired: March 10, 1996
Written by: Bonnie Hunt, Elaine Arata, Steve Faber, and Bob Fisher
Directed by: John Bowab
Remote: Taste of Pologna

Episode 8:
Title: On the Streets Where You Live
Aired: March 17, 1996
Written by: Bonnie Hunt
Produced by: John Bowab
Remote: Scottie Pippen wackiness

Episode 9:

Title: Hair Today, Gone to Merlot
Aired: March 24, 1996
Written by: Bonnie Hunt
Directed by: John Bowab
Remote: Motorcycle mania

Episode 10:
To See or Not to See
Aired: March 31, 1996
Written by: Elaine Arata
Directed by: John Bowab
Remote: Scat lessons

Episode 11:
Title: Queen of Hearts
Not aired
Directed by: John Bowab
Remote: The Dog Beach

Episode 12:
Title: The Bermuda Triangle
Not aired
Directed by: John Bowab

Episode 13:
Title: Beginning of the Beginning
Aired: April 7, 1996
Written by: Bonnie Hunt and Elaine Arata
Directed by: John Bowab
Remote: Karate kids


This letter was sent to newsgroups etc to help save the Bonnie Hunt Show.

"TUNE IN TO QUALITY"
VQT urges viewers to watch The Bonnie Hunt Show March 10 on CBS
"Bonnie needs us. And we certainly need her." (Frazier Moore, Associated Press)
"She's a Mary Tyler Moore waiting to happen." (Matt Roush, USA Today)
"She can make you laugh out loud or silence the room with subtle observations about how frightened we all are of each other, of ourselves, of imperfection ... one of Hunt's specialties is hitting the hollow notes showing us the hurt ... a bittersweet little show worth sampling." (Joanne Ostrow, Denver Post)
"What's encouraging and endearing about the series is that it seems to deal with real people and their emotions and fallibilities, rather than just trafficking in plastic the way other sitcoms do." (Tom Shales, Washington Post)
"The Bonnie Hunt Show offers a spontaneity not found on weekly comedy ..." (Dusty Saunders, Rocky Mountain News)
"CBS ... put on hiatus the only original, worthwhile piece of programming it introduced this season." (Curt Schleier, Detroit News)
"This brave sitcom is so funny yet so different in its rhythms (slower) and attitude (unironic, idealistic, romantic) ... is the year's most underrated show ..." (Ken Tucker, Entertainment Weekly)
"The Bonnie Hunt Show isn't afraid to vary its tone, from slapstick to bittersweet ... if you think all TV comedies are alike, you owe it to yourself to check this one out." (Gail Pennington, St. Louis Post- Dispatch)
" How long can Hunt remain TV's best-kept secret?" (Joyce Millman, San Francisco Examiner)
February 23, 1996-- Fairfax, VA--Critics have acknowledged and many viewers agree that The Bonnie Hunt Show is special. VQT asks you to join with us in the effort to raise the awareness of this quality program by notifying your friends and co-workers that Sunday, Mary 10 is "Tune in to Quality" for the return of The Bonnie Hunt Show on March 10. VQT rarely calls a "Tune in to Quality," reserving it for special, low-rated but high quality series in danger of cancellation. Previous "Tune in to Quality" efforts have included Homicide: Life on the Street, I'll Fly Away and Brooklyn Bridge. "I feel that The Bonnie Hunt Show is worthy of this extra special effort and deserving of another look because it was buried in a time slot where its natural viewership would not find it, and removed after just six episodes. This is its last shot at being noticed," said Dorothy Swanson, President and Founder of Viewers for Quality Television.
VQT is a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization whose purpose is to educate viewers on how to advocate for quality on network television.

These two posts are about the lack of laughtrack on the show:
I noticed something this past week: The laughtrack/audience laughter is different than what we are used to. I found myself laughing and then questioning my humor for a second when I noticed I was the only one laughing. It's a bit uncomfortable at times.

I posted regarding the Bonnie Hunt show earlier this week, and remarked on its subtletly, which in turn received several comments from people who found the show "unfunny". Bonnie Hunt gives me the most satisfactory half hour of TV of my viewing week - I find it _very_ funny, very sophisticated, and one of the few shows on American TV that lets its viewers think for themselves. The above comment shows that we as viewers have for too long been underestimated by network shows; when a laugh track is suppressed the viewers have to think for themselves - when the viewers have to think for themselves they quite often don't know if what they think is a joke is actually meant to be a joke - when this happens THEY DON'T FIND IT FUNNY.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1