The Bonnie Hunt Show

The Eye
By Curt Schleier, The Detroit News
November 3, 1995

When I started writing this piece, my intention was to tell you about a charming, warm, wonderfully funny series Friday nights on CBS called The Bonnie Hunt Show. But as it turned out, I was too late.
Earlier this week, in its infinite wisdom, CBS decided to put on hiatus until midseason the only original, worthwhile piece of programing it introduced this season. But of course, you probably never heard of the show, let alone saw it, because the former Tiffany Network buried Bonnie Hunt in a time slot where its natural constituency would never find it.
And therein lies a cautionary tale that raises a couple of interesting questions about the way television executives think.
First, Bonnie Hunt, the actress: If you do not know her, your children certainly do. She was the mommy to Charles Grodin's daddy in the two Beethoven movies. She ran off to Italy with Marisa Tomei in Only You -- and also ran off with the picture.
Though she was a regular on the series Grand, Hunt first brought her distinctive comedic voice to television two years ago, when CBS used the summer doldrums to try her series The Building. The show reaped critical praise and a small but devoted following.
It wasn't a sitcom in the traditional sense, though there certainly were funny lines. It was a kind of warm and friendly Seinfeld with substance. But network programers didn't know what to make of it. So they came to Hunt, she recalled in an interview this week, and said: "Love you, hate the cast. We will renew the show if you drop the others." Hunt said no and the show was canceled.
But in a move that defies logic, the network immediately began to woo her. The programers sent flowers and recordings of Sinatra singing about love being better the second time around, she says. Eventually she gave in.
Hunt plays Bonnie Kelly, a young TV reporter who has come to Chicago from Milwaukee in much the way Mary Tyler Moore (whom Hunt idolizes) came to Minneapolis. There are similarities between the shows in the sense that both aren't afraid of silences. Both recognize that you don't need a joke every 40 seconds, that there are many viewers with the intelligence and patience to wait for the payoff.
Yet her new Bonnie Hunt Show was relegated to comedy hell this fall. There weren't a lot of places on the CBS schedule where this show was a natural fit. But one place it definitely didn't belong was Friday nights at 8:30, when younger people it would appeal to are out, and following Dweebs, a new CBS sitcom canceled this week.
Hunt's ratings have been a disaster. In contrast, The Single Guy, an undistinguished knock-off comedy on NBC on Thursdays after Friends, is a consistent top-10 show only because of its time period.
Hunt fought for her show (she's also executive producer and writer). She went to CBS' new programing honcho Les Moonves and begged for another time slot, and for promotion. Moonves promised support. But it turned out he wasn't that familiar with the show; Hunt says she had to send him tapes. And then came the hiatus news.
Les, listen to me. The Bonnie Hunt Show takes a while to build an audience, as Cheers and MASH and All in the Family and Seinfeld required time. Give this show a chance. It can help you turn things around. It will be noted by other creative people in the industry, who will come to CBS because you were prepared to take a chance, to be creative.
Put Bonnie Hunt in a better time slot. Promote it. Do not make "hiatus" a euphemism for canceled.

Copyright 1995, The Detroit News