U.S.A. 3 March 1985 - 14 May 1989
U.K. 29 May 1986 - ? November 1989
1 x 120 Minutes, 65 x 60 Minutes
Produced by: Picturemaker Productions
Shown on: ABC (US) / BBC2 (UK)
| Regular cast | |
| Madeline 'Maddie' Hayes | Cybill Shepherd |
| David Addison | Bruce Willis |
| Agnes Dipesto | Allyce Beasley |
| Herbert Viola | Curtis Armstrong ('86 - '89) |
| Occasional cast | |
| MacGilicuddy | Jack Blessing ('88 - '89) |
| Virginia Hayes | Eva Marie Saint ('87 - '88) |
| Alex Hayes | Robert Webber ('87 - '88) |
| Richard Addison | Charles Rocket ('86 - '89) |
| David Addison Sr | Paul Sorvino ('86 - '89) |
| Lorraine Anne Charnock | Virginia Madsen ('88 - '89) |
| Crew | |
| Creator / Executive Producer | Glenn Gordon Caron |
| Producer | Jay Daniel |
| Theme written by | Lee Holdridge and Al Jarreau |
| Theme sung by | Al Jarreau |
When ABC announced auditions for a new comedy-drama-detective show in the mid eighties, three thousand young men showed up to read for the part of Private Investigator David Addison. 
Last to read was a twenty-nine year-old actor with a punk haircut, army trousers, and three earrings. His only acting experience up to that point had been as a crook in an episode of Miami Vice. Nonetheless, the actor, Bruce Willis, won the part, and a career was born.
The story went something like this: Maddie Hayes, former fashion model, was cheated out of her riches by a crooked accountant, left with only a small private detective agency, which she had once bought as a tax write-off. David Addison, the wise-cracking sleuth who ran the 'City of Angels Detective Agency' convinced her not to sell, so that he could keep his job. She renamed it 'Blue Moon Investigations', after the shampoo she had become famous for promoting, and went into partnership with David.
The show was an instant hit, and by its second season, it was ABC's second highest rated series. The show was inspired by the 1940 Cary Grant Movie His Girl Friday. However, the love-hate relationship of the central characters Maddie and David seems to owe more to Beatrice and Benedick of Much Ado About Nothing. Speaking of Shakespeare, a celebrated season two episode, cast them in the roles of Petruchio and Katharina, from Taming of the Shrew and was told in iambic pentameter.
The sparks flew off-screen as well, and the three way battles between Willis, Shepherd, and creator Glenn Gordon Caron were heavily publicised. Cybill Shepherd blames Willis' inability to deal with his new-found fame.
She told 'TV Guide' magazine in 1990: "At the start, Maddie Hayes was a kind of cold but basically okay person. And David Addison was a complete jerk but very attractive. After a while, Bruce Willis didn't want to be a jerk any more...on the show. He insisted that they make him nicer. So what could they do? Turn Maddie into a more negative, unsympathetic character, which is what they tried to do, and I tried to fight that as much as I could."
Whether it was the tension between the stars, or the snappy dialogue, the fans loved it. The show was fun. But the 'creative differences' led to problems and delays in production. In the US, this meant repeats instead of new episodes. In fact in an episode of that other crime comedy, Sledgehammer, Sledge explained that someone fainted because "She heard tonight's episode of Moonlighting wasn't a repeat."
Nevertheless, the first three seasons of watching the bickering twosome fight their feelings for each other were magical. They had their first kiss in a parking garage at the end of season two, and it took them another full season before they made it into bed together. After that, it all went downhill. Moonlighting stopped being fun, and started trying to be serious with funny bits crammed in. David stopped smirking and wisecracking and started asking where his relationship with Maddie was going. Maddie became pregnant by David, and, later in the fourth season, married a man she met on a train.
In order to lighten proceedings, Herbert Viola, until this point a simple office worker, was made into a main character, and love interest for the office's rhyming receptionist, Agnes
Dipesto. However, Herbert was little more than a Shakespearean mechanical, designed purely to get laughs, while the more important characters tried to sort out their lives. Unfortunately, it wasn't the old show, and that was what people wanted. Consequently, ratings fell dramatically, and the show never recovered.
The problem was neatly summed up by
'Sy', a producer who explained to Maddie and David in the last episode why the show had been cancelled. He said "People fell in love with you two kids falling in love. But you couldn't keep falling forever, sooner or later, you had to land someplace."
The final episode ended with the caption "Blue Moon Investigations ceased operations on May 14th 1989. The Anselmo Case was never solved, and remains a mystery to this day."
1. The show's theme reached number 23 in the U.S. Pop singles chart in 1987.
2. Bruce Willis' middle name is Walter.
3. While Maddie was pregnant with David's child, Cybill Shepherd was pregnant with twins.
4. Bruce's future wife, Demi Moore, had a brief cameo role in the season five episode 'When Girls Collide'.
5. Both stars of the show have released albums.
Season 1
The Pilot
Gunfight at the So-So Corral
Read the Mind ... See the Movie
The Next Murder You Hear
Next Stop Murder
The Murder's in the Mail
Season 2
Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?
The Lady in the Iron Mask
Money Talks -- Maddie Walks
The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice
My Fair David
Knowing Her
Somewhere Under the Rainbow
Portrait of Maddie
Atlas Belched
T'was the Episode Before Christmas
The Bride of Tupperman
North by North DiPesto
In God We Strongly Suspect
Every Daughter's Father is a Virgin
Witness for the Execution
Sleep Talkin' Guy
Funeral for a Door Nail
Camille
Season 3
The Son Also Rises
The Man Who Cried Wife
Symphony in Knocked Flat
Yours, Very Deadly
All Creatures Great ... And Not So Great
Big Man on Mulberry Street
Atomic Shakespeare
It's a Wonderful Job
The Straight Poop
Poltergeist III -- DiPesto Nothing
Blonde on Blonde
Sam & Dave
Maddie's Turn to Cry
I Am Curious ... Maddie
To Heiress Human
Season 4
A Trip to the Moon
Come Back Little Shiksa
Take a Left at the Altar
Tale of Two Cities
Cool Hand Dave (Part I)
Cool Hand Dave (Part II)
Father Knows Last
Los Dos DiPestos
Fetal Attraction
Tracks of my Tears
Eek! A Spouse!
Maddie Hayes Got Married
Here's Living With You, Kid
And the Flesh Was Made Word
Season 5
A Womb with a View
Between a Yuk and a Hard Place
The Color of Maddie
Plastic Fantastic Lovers
Shirts and Skins
Take My Wife, For Example
I See England, I See France, I See Maddie's Netherworld
Those Lips, Those Lies
Perfetc
When Girls Collide
In 'n Outlaws
Eine Kleine Nacht Murder
Lunar Eclipse
Video clips
Season 4 opening (RealVideo, 1.05Mb)
Season 5 opening (RealVideo, 1.05Mb)
Final episode montage (RealVideo, 1.57Mb)
Audio clips
Theme music (RealAudio, 327kb)
DVD:
Buy Moonlighting on DVD (3 episodes)
CD:
Buy the Moonlighting soundtrack on CD
