Bette, the sitcom

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 9/16/11 at 10:49pm

I love Bette Midler, and was just wondering about her sitcom - how come it wasn't a hit? I read that there were backstage tensions and all that - but was the show any good? I see on WikiPedia that Ms.M was nominated for a Golden Globe, so it can't have been all that bad...

Pity it hasn't gotten a DVD release yet.

[Eris0303]

Posted: 9/16/11 at 10:58pm

I remember the show vaguely. Joanna Gleason was her assistant I believe. I can only clearly recall one episode. She had to get Kobe Bryant's autograph for her son and ended up getting caught on the floor when the Laker Girls were doing their routine.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/16/11 at 11:23pm

It was really really bad. And I saw every episode. There were occasional funny moments, but it was mostly stuff like Bette Midler getting stuck in a Mr. Peanut costume and rolling around on her bed.

Lindsay Lohan and Robert Hayes were her original daughter and husband, but I think they may have only lasted one episode.

It was really really REALLY bad.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/16/11 at 11:28pm

I watched them all again last year and they were better than I remembered them. I laughed pretty hard quite frequently in each episode.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/16/11 at 11:32pm

I've wondered if I might soften on my opinion now that all this time has passed, but thinking about it just makes feel gross.

I did like the one with the award, though. "Thanks, Roy!"

But there was still all that peanut business.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/16/11 at 11:33pm

The episode with all the flashbacks had me almost peeing my pants. Her and Joanna Gleason in the 70's and 80's was amazing, with Bette's costumes making her look EXACTLY like she did in those years. Also, an ep with Olivia Newton John was very funny, with the two of them hating each other.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 9/16/11 at 11:45pm

Hm, I guess I'm going to have to track it down and make up my own mind! Joanna Gleason makes me want to see it even more. The list of guest stars listed here and on WikiPedia is impressive...how did Oprah fit in?

Even if it is as bad as you say Phyllis, I'm guessing the comic genius of Bette Midler makes it worth at least one viewing.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/16/11 at 11:48pm

Damn, you all. I need to stop watching my bootleg of (insert current Broadway show name here but not directly say what it is so I don't get 200 PM's asking for links) and watch this again now.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/16/11 at 11:51pm

Bette famously talked about how she didn't watch television and didn't let her daughter watch television and I really believed it after watching her show.

[Eris0303]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 12:12am

Wasn't there an episode where she went on the View and made up a story about saving a kid or something. Then they had to get a kid to play the part and he blackmailed her into appearing as Anna in his elementary school production of King & I?

Posted: 9/17/11 at 1:00am

God awful.
There was a funny scene where a fan explained that he was going away for the weekend and couldn't go see the opening of Bette's new film, but luckily for him, it bombed so bad that on his way home the film was the in-flight movie already. It's funny because not even Bette's big fans would go to see her movie in the theater.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 1:35am

I'm with you, Jordan, the flashback episode was sublime, with Joanna in coach and Bette shouting back from first class: "This flight is longer than 'Ghandi' [pronounced so that it rhymed with "candy"]. CONNIE, wasn't 'Ghandi' long?" Whenever I am stuck in a traffic jam or some tedious line, I hear "Connie, wasn't 'Ghandi' long?" in my head and it takes the stress away.

I actually kinda liked the show. Kevin Dunn was the original Roy, then there were a few Roy-less episodes, and they shot two with Robert Hays and it was all over the entertainment shows that Kevin Dunn had been replaced but as far as I know, neither of the Hays episodes aired.

Somewhere around the third episode airing I saw Sandra Bernhard in concert on her fantastic and barely-remembered "Giving til it Hurts" tour and she did a mean-but-it-made-me-laugh impersonation of Bette's doing some physical comedy in the pilot episode that generally suggested the material was far beneath Miss M's capabilities. Still, I will always love the flashback episode and would be interested in taking a look at the DVD. If only Marc Shaiman had passed the audition for the role of himself.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 11:26am

"The list of guest stars listed here and on WikiPedia is impressive...how did Oprah fit in?"

Bette was supposed to read a book and then appear on Oprah's show to discuss the book. She kept running into problems where she couldn't read the book. One situation had her buying a book on tape to listen to it while she was driving. The book on tape narrator gives the title of the book and then says "Read by Sally Field".

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 12:16pm

Anyone know where we can watch these?

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 12:34pm

My apartment.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 12:37pm

http://www.youtube.com/user/BetteSeries

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 1:47pm

Thanks, Phyllis! I searched on youtube but all I saw was clips and "minisodes" - guess I didn't look hard enough.

I've watched just a few minutes so far, and like it - though I guess I expected it to be a bit more like Cybil, and not so over the top...but I'll be back!

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 1:55pm

I just found that today by stumbling upon it. I'm going to going to a revisit at some point since it's been so long since I've seen it.

I can't find the peanut costume episode, though! Maybe I imagined it?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 2:12pm

Peanut costume appears to be the "A New Roy" episode.

I just watched part one of "True Story" and I laughed all the way through it, until the wooden original ladies of The View were on. But everything else made me laugh. Quite a bit. I think it's time to reevaluate the conventional wisdom about how "horrible" the show is. It's a sitcom. It continues with the Bette can be a harsh and thoughtless diva narrative she established on her Seinfeld guest stint.

When Bette is stuck without a story to tell on The View, Joanna says, "Why don't you talk about the time you had dinner with Julia Roberts and she ate mashed potatoes with her hands?"

Bette: "You know, I told that story in strictest confidence to Nathan Lane but it turns out his mouth has a wider circulation than Newsweek."

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 6:16pm

I think it was mentioned at the time that Bette hadn't realized what a grind a weekly sitcom could be, ie new script, new actors, new writers.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 6:21pm

By the way, under Kevin Dunn's profile on imdb, it says that he replaced James Naughton who had filmed the pilot. So I guess they reshot the pilot.
Link

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 9/18/11 at 4:10pm

I was on the premiere episode as well as playing a photographer on the episode where she decided she's going to get crazy to get more publicity.

Fun times.