Trivia / Murphy Brown

• Actor Allusion: Four allusions in one. In one episode, Jim laments that television journalists are more interested in selling cold medicine, long distance telephone plans, television sets and satellite dishes than they are in reporting the news. At that time, those products were being endorsed in real life television commercials by Charles Kimbrough, Candace Bergen, Faith Ford and Joe Regabulto respectively.
  • Brilliantly played with when Murphy actually lands a hypercompetent secretary, named Carol, played by Marcia Wallace. For the entire episode, viewers assume this is a take on Wallace's character of Carol from The Bob Newhart Show...and then at the end of the episode, in walks Bob Hartley (Newhart) begging Carol to return as "the office is a mess without you!"
• Actor-Shared Background: Candice Bergen once went on a date with Donald Trump when both were teenagers, which was added to Murphy's history in the relaunch.
• Adored by the Network: Throughout the show's long run, CBS kept it at the exact same time slot from the very beginning to the very end: Mondays at 9:00 pm. Referenced in the O. J. Simpson chase expy:
  Miles: ...and ABC wouldn't break into Home Improvement for the Second Coming!
• Baby Name Trend Starter: Murphy's mom Avery was the first time any person had ever heard of a female character having the name Avery, and this started fans to name their daughters after her.
• The Character Died with Him:
  • When Colleen Dewhurst (Avery Brown, Murphy's mother) died, Avery Brown died in the series. Murphy would then name her newborn son Avery in honor of her mother.
  • Pat Corley (Phil) died in 2006, so the relaunch has Tyne Daly as Phil's sister running the bar.
  • The same was done with Robert Pastorelli's character, Eldin Bernecky, Murphy's perpetual house painter; the revival's opening episode states he died on vacation, participating in the Running of the Bulls.
• Directed by Cast Member: Joe Regalbuto, who played Frank, directed 20 episodes over the course of the series. He went on to direct a number of episodes for George Lopez.
• Executive Meddling: They tried. According to Candice Bergen at the TV Land Awards, executives were a little concerned that a 40-something woman recently back from rehab might not be sympathetic, and asked if she could be a 20- or 30-something woman recently back from a spa vacation. Diane English protested, and it was eventually averted.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Will seasons 2 through 10 ever see the light of day on DVD? Highly unlikely, given the poor sales for the season 1 set and the high cost of licensing the vintage Motown music used on the show.
• The Other Darrin: Up until and including the episode where Jim and Doris separated, Doris was played by Janet Carroll. In the final season, she was played by Concetta Tomei. The difference was notable, to say the least.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • When Murphy Brown became a single mother, Dan Quayle used her as a condemnation of single parents. An entire episode addressed Quayle's attack (including the actual headline from the New York Daily News, "QUAYLE TO MURPHY BROWN: YOU TRAMP!◊"), taking the angle that in the show's universe, Quayle was talking about the "real" television journalist Murphy Brown, as opposed to Murphy Brown the fictional character, followed by a Take That! of Murphy dumping a truckload of potatoes on the White House lawn.
  • When the Colleen Dewhurst, the actor who played Murphy's mother, died in early Season 4, her character also died on the show in the episode "Full Circle", which was dedicated to her.
  • Murphy has five Emmys, and Candice Bergen won five Emmys for playing Murphy.
• Referenced by...: Animaniacs (2020) mentioned the show during their reboot song.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: The main reason why the show was never released on DVD past Season 1 and never resurfaced on any streaming service or digital storefront is because it would cost Warner Bros. a lot of money to re-pay all of the licensed Motown songs featured in the show.
• Screwed by the Network: The BBC, not CBS. The series wasn't bought for showing on British terrestrial television until after the Dan Quayle affair, several years after it had started. BBC2 then dumped it in the same early evening slot that played host to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Degrassi Junior High, and pulled it after the first eight episodes had been shown. (Reviewers making unflattering comparisons to British Work Com Drop the Dead Donkey, which is set in a newsroom, didn't help... interestingly, that series flopped when it was shown in America.)

---