''Madman of the People'' is an American

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

television series created by Chris Cluess and Stu Kreisman, that aired on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

from September 22,

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

, to June 17,

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

. It was scheduled in the Thursday 9:30 timeslot, part of

Must See TV Must See TV is an American advertising slogan that was used by NBC to brand its primetime blocks during the 1990s, and most often applied to the network's Thursday night lineup, which featured some of its most popular sitcoms and drama series of ...

. ''Madman of the People'' was produced by

Spelling Television Spelling Television Inc. was an American television production company that went through several name changes. It was originally called Aaron Spelling Productions, then Spelling Entertainment Inc. and eventually part of Spelling Entertainment Gro ...

Synopsis

The series stars character actor

Dabney Coleman Dabney Wharton Coleman (born January 3, 1932) is an American actor. Coleman's best known films include ''9 to 5'' (1980), '' On Golden Pond'' (1981), ''Tootsie'' (1982), '' WarGames'' (1983), '' Cloak & Dagger'' (1984), ''The Beverly Hillbillies ...

as Jack "Madman" Buckner, an outspoken newspaper columnist who had written a popular column, ''Madman of the People'', in ''Your Times'' magazine for 30 years. The premise of the show involves Buckner's daughter, Meg (

Cynthia Gibb Cynthia Gibb (born December 14, 1963) is an American actress and former model who has starred in film and on television. She began her career as a cast member on the musical television drama '' Fame'', based on the movie of the same name. She ...

), being brought in by the publisher to bring Buckner's column into the 1990s.

Cast

as Jack "Madman" Buckner *

Concetta Tomei Concetta Tomei (born December 30, 1945) is an American theatre, film and television character actress, best known for her roles as Major Lila Garreau on the ABC series ''China Beach'' (1988–1991) and as Lynda Hansen on the NBC series ''Provi ...

as Delia Buckner *

as Meg Buckner *

John Ales John Ales (born January 3, 1969) is an American actor best known for appearing in '' Spy Hard'', '' The Nutty Professor'', '' You Wish'', and other films and television series. Filmography Film *''Crime Killer'' (1985) ... Kids *'' Spy Hard'' ...

as Dylan Buckner *

Amy Aquino Amy Aquino McCoy (born March 20, 1957) is an American television, film, and stage actress. The graduate of Harvard and Yale universities has appeared in television series such as ''Brooklyn Bridge'', '' ER'', and ''Being Human'', and was nominate ...

as Sasha Danziger *

Craig Bierko Craig Philip Bierko (born August 18, 1964) is an American actor and singer. Early life Bierko was born in Rye Brook, New York where his mother Pat ran The Harrison Players, a local community theatre. After graduating Blind Brook High School, ...

as B.J. Cooper

Episodes

Reception

Though the series earned good ratings, ranking 12th for the season with a 14.9 average household share, it was pulled from NBC's schedule in January 1995 and cancelled before the 1994-95 season was officially over. It is one of the highest-rated 1st-year shows to ever get cancelled during its initial season, according to classictvhits.com. NBC soured on the show because it lost a considerable portion of its lead-in audience from '' Seinfeld'' and was also hindering the then-freshman hit drama '' ER''. NBC noticed the early success of '' Friends'' and decided to re-shuffle its lineup to put that show in the 9:30 PM EST spot, leading to one of the most dominant programming blocs in TV history. The last two episodes aired in June 1995, during the period that was formerly called "Burn-off Theatre", when in the pre-reality TV era networks would make more money airing new episodes of already-doomed shows than it would for repeats from most shows that would return the following fall. When it first aired, ''Madman of the People'' was considered by critics as one of "the fall season's least likable new comedies" and not deserving of its comedy label.

Inter-series continuity

Episode 7, "Birthday in the Big House", was promoted to directly tie in with the same night's episodes of both '' Friends'' and ''

Mad About You ''Mad About You'' is an American television sitcom starring Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt as a married couple in New York City. It initially aired on NBC from September 23, 1992, to May 24, 1999, winning numerous awards including four Golden Glob ...

''. All three series were set in New York City and all aired on NBC on Thursday evenings. Accordingly, a continuing plot thread ran through all three shows broadcast on November 3, 1994: a city-wide blackout caused by the character of Jamie in the ''

'' episode "Pandora's Box" continued through to the ''Madman of the People'' episode "Birthday in the Big House", and concluded in the ''Friends'' episode "The One With The Blackout". None of the characters crossed over from one series to another in these episodes; only the details of the blackout situation were used to create a crossover effect. (The series '' Seinfeld'', which also aired on Thursday evenings on NBC and was also set in New York, chose not to participate in this crossover event.)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Madman Of The People 1994 American television series debuts 1995 American television series endings 1990s American sitcoms 1990s American workplace comedy television series English-language television shows NBC original programming Television series about journalism Television series by CBS Studios Television shows set in New York City