Three years after Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet, both in real life and on her ABC sitcom, Fox decided to try an original idea about a gay man returning to his hometown.
Unfortunately, Normal, Ohio ran into a roadblock that Fox should've considered, that being the runaway train known as Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, which was airing multiple nights on ABC.
John Goodman reunited with producers Marcy Carsey & Tom Werner for this ensemble comedy, and had spent his time after Roseanne ended its first run in movies (i.e. "Blues Brothers 2000", "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"), and doing commercials for Save The Children. Goodman is joined by Joely Fisher (ex-Ellen), Orson Bean (ex-To Tell The Truth), Charles Rocket (ex-Saturday Night Live), and Anita Gillette (ex-The Baxters, Quincy, M. E.). A fairly good ensemble, it's just a case of the show being on the wrong night, and its premiere was held back to November due to Fox's commitment to the World Series. Sadly, it didn't make it to Christmas.
Bean would later move on to Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and Fisher resurfaced on another Fox series, 'Til Death, with Brad Garrett.
Here's the Thanksgiving episode:
No rating.
2 comments:
The series was originally going to be titled "Don't Ask". IIRC, the show was originally going to take place in New York City, but then someone decided to have John Goodman's character return to his hometown, hence the title change.
So I'd read. What night should this have aired, though?
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