As played by Candice Bergen, Murphy Brown was one of the most original, distinctive female characters on television. Smart, determined, and difficult, she did not suffer fools gladly. Her ambition and stubbornness frequently got her into trouble, and she often acted a little foolishly herself.

But what set Murphy apart from so many other female sitcom characters was that when she got into a ridiculous mess, it was not because she was a woman. It was because she was Murphy. She was a crack reporter yet managed to get herself banned from the White House during both the George H.W. Bush and the Bill Clinton administrations. When a corrupt judge fell silent during an interview, Murphy finished grilling him—even though he was dead.

Although Murphy acted tough, Bergen showed viewers the character’s vulnerable side as well. Wracked with guilt after the judge’s death, Murphy toned down her interviewing style (for a while). And she was genuinely hurt when she did not get an invitation to George H.W. Bush’s inaugural ball. All these character developments and revelations built on the fact that the show’s pilot introduced Murphy as she returned to the FYI set after drying out at the Betty Ford Clinic. The central character, the star of FYI, was presented from the very beginning as a recovering alcoholic, vulnerable and flawed. All her foibles and eccentricities were presented in this context, adding richness and depth to the portrayal.

Indeed, throughout the show’s run, all the characters and their relationships developed beyond what is typi-cal for a sitcom. The original ensemble included Corky Sherwood (Faith Ford), a Louisiana girl and former Miss America who took a few journalism classes in college but was hired mainly for her looks; Frank Fontana (Joe Regalbuto), ace investigative reporter and irrepressible skirt chaser with a mortal fear of commitment; Jim Dial (Charles Kimbrough), the rigid, serious, eminently competent anchorman; Miles Silverberg (Grant Shaud), a new Harvard graduate, producing FYI was his first “real” job; Eldin Bernecky (Robert Pastorelli), a house painter who worked continually on Murphy’s townhouse until her son, Avery, was born, at which time he became Avery’s nanny; and Phil (Pat Corley), the all-knowing owner of Phil’s Bar, hangout for the FYI team.

As a running gag, Murphy also had a parade of secretaries, most of whom were inept and lasted only one episode. A few examples: a young African-American man who spoke only in hip-hop slang, a crash-test dummy, a bickering married couple, and a mental patient. Naturally, whenever Murphy found a good secretary, he or she left by the end of the episode.

Initially, some characters were two-dimensional. Miles existed only to run around acting tense and to annoy Murphy, a 40-year-old woman with a 25-year-old boss. In the pilot, Murphy tells him, “I just can’t help thinking about the fact that while I was getting maced at the Democratic Convention in 1968, you were wondering if you’d ever meet Adam West.” Corky was a stereotypical southern beauty queen, more interested in appearances than in reporting.

However, as the series progressed, Miles became a competent producer and manager. He grew to be fully capable of holding his own against Murphy, who still tended to underestimate him. And Corky, too, became more a friend than an annoyance to Murphy. A failed marriage tarnished the southern belle’s fairy-tale life, making Corky more human and giving her more in common with Murphy. Murphy’s feminism and ambition also began to rub off on the younger woman.

Beneath the facade of the serious anchorman, Jim Dial was a warm, caring person, more liberal than he seemed. In a first-season flashback, we see Murphy’s 1977 FYI audition; she is dressed like “Annie Hall” and sports a wildly curly mane. Network executives want to hire a more “professional” woman, but Jim convinces them to hire Murphy. Frank, the skirt chaser, never chased Murphy or Corky. Frank and Murphy were a TV rarity: a man and a woman who are close friends, with no sexual tension.

Murphy Brown’s plots often parodied actual news events. In the second-season episode “The Memo That Got Away,” a high school journalist hacks into FYI’s computer system and finds an uncomplimentary memo Murphy has written about her co-workers. A similar, real-life incident occurred when a memo written by Today anchor Bryant Gumbel was leaked. In a seventh-season episode, Murphy Brown lampoons the O.J. Simpson trial circus with a story about an astronaut accused of murdering his brother.

Real-life events came head to head with Murphy Brown in the summer of 1992, when Vice President Dan Quayle criticized unwed mothers as violating “family values.” To support his argument, he pointed to the entertainment industry as site of flawed morals. As a specific example, he singled out the fictitious Murphy, who had given birth to son Avery, out of wedlock, in the 1991–92 season finale. Producer Diane English responded to Quayle with her own analysis of the social and cultural conditions, and the exchanges escalated into a national event, a topic for much discussion in the news and on the late-night television talk shows. In the fall 1992 season premier, the series presented an episode devoted to the controversy. In “I Say Potatoe, You Say Potato” (a reference to the vice president’s much-publicized misspelling), Murphy takes Quayle to task, introducing several hardworking, one-parent families on FYI.

In 1993 the character of Peter Hunt was added to the cast. Appearing in occasional episodes, Hunt was played by Scott Bakula and became Murphy’s new love interest. In the seventh season, two additional characters were added: Miller Redfield (Christopher Rich), an idiot anchorman on another network show, and McGovern (Paula Korologos), a former Music Television (MTV) personality hired to bring “youth appeal” to FYI. Miller was stereotypically handsome and stupid and was often played against Peter Hunt’s “real” journalistic style. McGovern had more potential; the writers resisted the “slacker” stereotype usually pinned on her generation and instead made her a miniature Murphy, with one exception—she was politically conservative. This fact never failed to annoy Murphy who, in one episode, cut McGovern’s report to less than a minute because she (Murphy) did not like its political slant. McGovern complained to Corky, who offered this advice:

Corky: When I want Murphy to leave me alone, I just let her think she’s getting her way.

McGovern: But she is getting her way!

Corky: Right. But I don’t care, as long as she leaves me alone!

In the 1994 season, veteran comedian Garry Marshall joined the cast as Stan Lansing, head of the network. The following year Paul Reubens (aka Pee-wee Herman) appeared as Lansing’s fawning (and scheming) nephew. Lily Tomlin became a regular on the series in the ninth season, playing FYI’s new executive producer. The presence of new cast members added a fresh energy to the other characters and the stories, helping to ensure that Murphy Brown would continue to have its way with comedy and social commentary. Other characters (Miles, Eldin, and Phil), however, departed the program before its tenth and final season in 1997–98. That season focused on Murphy’s struggle with breast cancer and concluded with her recovery and the FYI cast deciding to leave the air.