Featured Episode
I thought it might be fun to showcase episodes. I'd write a longer description of it than what can be found in the episode guide and (when I have the software) include screen captures.
The Summer of '77
Late meeting in the bullpen. They need one more segment for next week’s show, then they can all go home. They’re eating Chinese food. Murphy is complaining that she thinks they put MSG in hers, even though she asked them -- repeatedly -- not to. Frank doesn’t understand his fortune from his fortune cookie. Eldin enters. It’s pay day and he wants his money -- he’s going to the flea market with Felicia. He thinks he’ll buy a hood ornament from an old car... Or a set of juice glasses.
Corky enters, refreshed from a walk, she tells them that she has an idea for the segment. Miles assumes it’s going to be a stupid puff-piece idea and rejects it without even hearing it. Corky insists it’s good. Eldin and Corky meet for the first time:Corky Sherwood: May I help you?
Eldin Bernecky: Hi, I’m Eldin.
CS: Yes?
EB: I love you.
CS: Aww, how sweet... Does security know you’re here?
Corky finally gets to pitch her story idea -- next week is Phil’s 70th anniversary, they should do a story on the history of the bar. Everyone loves it, the can finally all go home.
At Phil’s for the story: Corky is reading the intro to the piece from cue cards: “It’s not just an ordinary bar, it’s Phil’s flip card.” After another take she gets this right and then asks Phil his most memorable moment.
Phil: Well I’ll tell you, could be the time Dwight Eisenhower reinacted the Normandy invasion using beer nuts and cheese-its. Or maybe it was the time Bob Woodward locked himself in the men’s room with no paper. I wouldn’t give him any till he told me who Deep Throat was. But if you’re looking for favorite, I guess my own personal choice would be.... The first time I met Murphy Brown.
FLASHBACK #1... Murphy enters the bar. It is the summer of 1977, Elvis has just died. She is dressed like its the 70s, everything from a big frizzy perm to the clothes. She’s chatting with Phil, and smoking and drinking like she would have before her time at Betty Ford. She says she’s in D.C. to try to get a job on a new news show -- FYI. Phil tells her what he knows about it.Murphy Brown: How do you know all that?
Phil: I’m Phil!
Murphy quizzes Phil on baseball, he quizzes her on politics. Phil thinks she looks familiar, he thinks he’s seen her on the evening news. Murphy says that she is a foreign correspondent. ("Which means I now how to chant Jimmy Carter is the devil in 27 languages.")
Frank Fontana enters, permed hair, mustache, dressed like it’s the 70s. He greets Phil and tries to pick up Murphy. She briefly lectures him saying that she doesn’t want to be picked up, that its her nature to talk to people because she’s a reporter. (Frank: Whoa! Break out the Midol!) They try again -- they formally introduce themselves and shake hands. Murphy remembers Frank’s name from the paper (he is a reporter for the New York Times) and insults his work. (Frank: I have known you five minutes, already I don’t like you.) But nevertheless, he tries to pick her up a second time, claiming its a primal urge like how man invented fire. They move onto the subject of music. Murphy tells Frank that she doesn’t own a record made after 1968. Frank quizzes her:
Frank Fontana: Johnny’s in the basement, mixing up the medicine. I’m on the pavement thinking ‘bout the government.
Murphy: Man in a trench coat, bad job, laid off, says he’s got a bad cough, wants to get it paid off.
Both: Look out kid, it’s something you did. God knows when, but you’re doing it again.
FF: Okay, you pass.
Murphy’s audition is in ten minutes. They get their bills and leave, Frank trying to pick Murphy up a third time, they walk out of Phil’s, bickering.
PRESENT DAY AGAIN.... In Phils The bar is swarming with people. Phil is on a microphone trying to keep it under control. The FYI gang enters, but there is no table for them. Their usual table is taken by a man who is slowly eating his sandwich and reading a newspaper. Murphy gives him a hard time. Linda Ellerbee enters and greets Muphy. Murphy gives the man a hard time again and he gets up and leaves. Murphy and Linda take their table. They sit and talk about the FYI auditions.
FLASHBACK #2.... They’re on the FYI set, Jim and the executive producer (at the time) are reviewing Linda’s audition tape. Murphy and Frank walk onto the set, Murphy telling Frank about her new signature... It’s memorable like Cronkite’s “And that’s the way it is.” Linda’s audition tape is ending and her signature is “And so it goes.” Murphy is angry. She says this was her signature, Linda Ellerbee stole it from her!
It’s time for Murphy’s audition. They want her to change her clothes beforehand. Murphy refuses to, saying that this is her, it’s the image she wants to project, she’ll take her chances.
Meanwhile, a studio tour is going on. Included on this tour is a kid, bearing a very strong resemblance to Miles Silverberg, that is obviously loving this tour.
Miles Silverberg: This is what I want to do when I grow up.
Mom: How many times do I have to tell you, sweetheart? You’re going to be a cardiologist like your uncle Stuart.
MS: (In a very Miles-esque tantrum, repeatedly hitting his leg) Oh geez! (Storms off)
Frank sees all this and just shakes his head no.
Murphy’s audition begins. She begins reading the piece she prepare. A few sentences into it she stops. She says interviewing is what she does best. She grabs Frank, who is very confused by all this, brings him behind the anchor desk, and does an impromptu interview with him.
Murphy: As an investigative reporter, you must have had moments when you asked yourself ‘Is it worth it?’
Frank: Oh yeah, there have been plenty of those.
MB: Tell me about one of them.
FF: Besides now?
Frank begins telling a story of one of these moments. Meanwhile Jim and the executive producer are discussing who they should hire -- Linda or Murphy. Jim wants Murphy for the job, the executive producer tells him that if he wants to go for it, she’s his responsibility. (Jim: This is the year I grew sideburns. This is the year I bought colored sheets. You’ve got to take some risks now and then!)
PRESENT DAY AGAIN... Murphy and Linda talking. Linda tells Murphy that she stole “And so it goes” from Lloyd Dobbins, not from her. Murphy apologizes for putting Linda’s name in the personal section of Solders of Fortune magazine as payback. Linda says that’s okay because she was the one that told Irving R. Levine that Murphy had a crush on him.
Later... Murphy and Frank are in the bar. It’s completely empty, a total contrast to the days before. Phil says that they’re all over at Chad’s -- there was a Dan Quayle sighting there a yesterday. Frank buys Murphy a drink, announcing that he’s not afraid to buy a woman a drink anymore.
Frank: Johnny’s in the basement, mixing up the medicine.
Murphy: I’m on the pavement thinking ‘bout the government.
Both: Man in a trench coat, something something paid off... Look out kid, its something you did. God knows when but you’re doing it again.
They smile at each other...
The
End.
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If there is any episode you'd particularly want to see posted here, please e-mail me. I have just one request: No Season Nine episodes. I do not have them on tape and do not remember them that well. And if I do get a lot of suggestions, it will be done by availability (if I have it on tape) and also first come first serve....