Moonlighting
Moonlighting is an American television series that first aired on ABC from 1985 to 1989 with a total of 67 episodes. The show starred Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd as private detectives and was a mixture of drama, comedy and romance that is considered a classic spoof of television detective shows.
The show's theme song was performed by popular jazz singer Al Jarreau and became a minor hit. The show is also credited with making Willis a major star while reviving Shepherd's acting career.
Another famous fantasy episode was "Atomic Shakespeare", which featured the cast performing a variation of Taming of the Shrew, complete with Shakespearean costumes-including David riding in on a horse with BMW logos embroidered on its saddle blanket. The episode was wrapped by segments featuring a boy imagining the episode's proceedings because his mother forced him to do his homework instead of watching "Moonlighting"
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Of all sixty-five Moonlighting episodes, none is better remembered, more often asked about (you should read my email!), or more popular than this one. And there's a very good reason why this is true: this episode is, without question or contest, the most brilliant piece of comedy ever written for Moonlighting. It is consistently witty throughout - every line, every scene, every plot development, every visual image is a work of comic genius.
We begin with a scene of a mother and son. The son wants to watch television, but the mom reminds him that he has homework to do. "But it's Moonlighting!" he protests. "Sounds like trash to me," the mother responds. The son dejectedly returns to his room and opens a book of Shakespeare plays and begins reading The Taming of the Shrew.
In this version of Shakespeare's play, Maddie Hayes is Katharina, David Addison is Petruchio, Bert Viola is Lucentio, and Agnes DiPesto is Bianca. As in Shakespeare's play, we learn that all the men in the town of Padua want to marry "the fair Bianca", but they can't because her father, Baptista, has declared that Bianca can not be married until her older sister, Katharina, is wed. And, says Baptista, "he who weds Katharina wins a dowery you could cry for." But even so, none of the men of Padua are anxious to take that offer because, as we soon learn, Katharina is a shrew.
As in Shakespeare's play, Petruchio enters the scene and learns about the dowery and about Katharina, and is determined to woo her for his wife. She strenuously objects, but they are married against her will. Petruchio takes her back to his home and insists that now that she is his wife, that she is also his "property", that he is her "lord", and that she is bound to agree with whatever he says. She laughs at this and refuses to take part in it, and it's at this point that we begin to diverge from Shakespeare by putting a 1980's spin on his original story.
"Am I not the man and you the woman?" he asks. "Be this not the time that men are men and women are property? I shall be the master of what is mine own, and thou art my goods, my property, my stuff!"
She will have nothing to do with this, and she tells him so directly: "Stuff your stuff!" And he responds, "Well, we'll see about that, and starting this day!"
"Then already thou seest wrong," she counters, opening the windowshades and revealing the night sky, "for it is plain to any fool that it be night and not day!"
"Day it is if thy husband says it be so. I am thy liege and thy lord, that bringeth home the bacon and provideth thee with a roof over thy thick skull. And for that, by the gods, if I say the moon be the sun then to you, good wife, it shall be so."
"Good wife I am in name only, good husband," she insists, dripping that last with deliberate sarcasm , "and thus it is the moon and 'tis the moon no matter what thee says!"
The argument escalates from there, they slam their respective bedroom doors angrily at one another, and this issue remains unresolved for the time being. But with time, they soften toward one another. Petruchio showers her with kindness, and they move toward respecting and loving one another. In a tender moment she asks him, "Why me? What moved thee to woo me?" And he responds, "Thy life, thy spirit.... More to the point, I saw me in thee." "Husband," she says, "for all thy boorishness and bluster, thou art a good man." And he responds, "And for all thy shrillness and shrewishness, thou art quite a remarkable woman." This is a gently tender scene, in which we learn that they do love each other, and more interestingly, not just Kate but Petruchio as well have both been "tamed" by one another.
Despite this, however, there is still one "taming" yet to occur. Kate and Petruchio arrive as guests at Bianca's and Lucentio's wedding, and the people of Padua are amazed that the shrew does appear to have been tamed. But a rumor begins to circulate among the crowd, that "Kate merely pretendeth to be tamed - that she be talking of equality - of thy marriage being fifty-fifty!" Petruchio is embarrassed at this. After all, he has a reputation to protect. Baptista comes to him and demands that it is his right to know, "Who hath in fact been tamed - Kate . or thee?"
"If thou needest proof of the taming of Kate then proof it shall be!" he announces. "Fetch me my wife!" And with that, the townspeople are intensely interested.
Petruchio swaggers. Kate arrives. "You calleth, Husband?" she asks. "Yes," he replies arrogantly, "and with a purpose. There is a duty thou must perform.". "You have but to ask, dear husband," she responds, "and I'll do my best to please thee."
"That thou will," he proclaims, swaggering some more. "For thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper. And as thou art bound to serve and obey, thou art bound to agree whatever he saith be true above all else." Pointing to the sun in the sky, he announces, "Kate, I say 'tis the moon that shines so bright. And as my wife, wouldst thou not agree, 'tis indeed?"
The tension in the crowd mounts as Kate joins him to take a look. "Husband, I believest thou art mistaken. And if thou takest another look, I'm quite sure thy error will be clear. 'Tis the sun, and not the moon, which shines so bright." The crowd holds its collective breath.
"The sun you say?" he says to the crowd, as she gives him a look that says, "I dare you to contradict me in front of these people." And Petruchio continues, "If that be your final answer, I have but one choice - to look again." He does so, and announces, "Why as I live and breathe, 'twas indeed a mistake - my wife hath told it - it is the sun, and not the moon at all." The townspeople gasp, and Petruchio goes on to announce that he was wrong, and that he has had a "revelation - to myself too long in coming - and it concerns the beauty of holding thy mate at thy side." He goes on to say to the whole town that he had struck a deal with Baptista, that "I might receive thy dowery if, and only if, I tamed thee. I now renounce this deal - and wish for no other reward other than thy affection, and thy company for as long as thee shall live."
And with that, she approaches him, she sweeps him off his feet, and she kisses him passionately.
Our homework schoolboy shuts his book, runs downstairs to find that his mom has been watching Moonlighting. Breathlessly, he asks if it's still on. "Nope," she says, "it just ended." He's disappointed, and she says, with a delightful dose of ironic self-deprecation, "That's okay. It wasn't very good tonight anyway."
Why is this article included on the SM-201 site?
In this particular episode of "Moonlighting", Cybill Shepherd is dressed in Shakespearean era red dress, bound (and gagged with a hankerchief) "by her co-star" Bruce Willis.
Willis and Sheperd get married (with Willis singing "Good, Good Loving" and the guests dancing to the music)
A clip of this episode is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2XgZiLQ4A0
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