''Bridget Loves Bernie'' is an American

sitcom A sitcom (short for situation comedy or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy produced for radio and television, that centers on a recurring cast of character (arts), characters as they navigate humorous situations within a consistent settin ...

that aired on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

from September 16, 1972, to March 3, 1973. The series, created by

Bernard Slade Bernard Slade Newbound (May 2, 1930 – October 30, 2019) was a Canadian playwright and screenwriter. As a screenwriter, he created the sitcoms ''The Flying Nun'' and ''The Partridge Family''. As a playwright, he wrote '' Same Time, Next Year'', ...

, depicted an

interfaith marriage Interfaith marriage, sometimes called interreligious marriage or mixed marriage, is marriage between spouses professing and being legally part of different religions. Although interfaith marriages are often established as civil marriages, in so ...

between a Catholic woman and a Jewish man. It stars Meredith Baxter and

David Birney David Edwin Birney (April 23, 1939 – April 27, 2022) was an American actor and director whose career included performances in both contemporary and classical roles in theatre, film, and television. He is noted for having played the title role ...

as the title characters. CBS canceled the show after only one season despite very high ratings. Baxter and Birney later married in real life in 1974 after the program had left the air and Baxter was known in her professional career for several years as Meredith Baxter Birney.

Overview

Robert Sampson Bridget Loves Bernie 1972

The series depicts an interfaith marriage between an

Irish Catholic Irish Catholics () are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland, defined by their adherence to Catholic Christianity and their shared Irish ethnic, linguistic, and cultural heritage.The term distinguishes Catholics of Irish descent, particul ...

teacher (Bridget Fitzgerald) from a wealthy family and a Jewish cab driver who aspires to be a

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

(Bernie Steinberg), whom she had met at a bus stop. With a primetime slot between ''

All in the Family ''All in the Family'' is an American sitcoms in the United States, sitcom television series that aired on CBS for nine seasons from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979, with a total of 205 episodes. It was later produced as ''Archie Bunker's Pla ...

'' and ''

The Mary Tyler Moore Show ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' (also known simply as ''Mary Tyler Moore'') is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns and starring actress Mary Tyler Moore. The show originally aired on CBS from September 19, 1970 ...

'' on Saturday nights, the situation comedy was No. 5 in the ratings among all shows for the 1972-73 television season and obtained a 24.2 rating, tying '' The NBC Sunday Mystery Movie.'' However, CBS executives canceled the show in response to negative reactions to the characters' marriage, the show thus being the highest-rated television program to be canceled after only one season."'Live From Baghdad': The Cameras of War"
by Tom Shales, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', December 7, 2002. Retrieved 2007-11-12. Supporting cast members included Audra Lindley, David Doyle, Harold J. Stone,

Ned Glass Nusyn "Ned" Glass (April 1, 1906 – June 15, 1984) was a Polish-born American character actor who appeared in more than eighty films and on television more than one hundred times, frequently playing nervous, cowardly, or deceitful characters. ...

and

Bibi Osterwald Margaret Virginia "Bibi" Osterwald (February 3, 1920 – January 2, 2002) was an American actress. Life and career Osterwald was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the daughter of Dagmar (Kvastad) and Rudolf August Osterwald, a hotel owne ...

. Lindley and Doyle played Bridget's wealthy parents, Walter and Amy Fitzgerald, and Stone and Osterwald played Bernie's lower-class parents, Sam and Sophie Steinberg. The Steinbergs owned a delicatessen above which Bridget and Bernie lived. Glass played Bernie's uncle, Moe Plotnik. Robert Sampson played Bridget's brother, Catholic priest Father Michael Fitzgerald; he was more sympathetic than others to his sister's marriage. Bill Elliott played Otis, Bernie's best friend and fellow cab driver. Nancy Walker was cast as Bernie's religious Jewish Aunt Ruthie and Nora Marlowe was cast as Bridget's nun Aunt Agnes in the 1972 episode "The Little White Lie That Grew and Grew".

Cast

as Bernie Steinberg * Meredith Baxter as Bridget Fitzgerald Steinberg *

as Sophie Steinberg * Harold J. Stone as Sam Steinberg * Audra Lindley as Amy Fitzgerald * David Doyle as Walter Fitzgerald *

as Moe Plotnik * Robert Sampson as Father Michael Fitzgerald *Bill Elliott as Otis Foster

Controversy

The series was controversial because of the differing faiths of the married characters. Some Jewish groups charged that the series "mocked the teachings of Judaism". Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, executive vice-president of the

Rabbinical Assembly The Rabbinical Assembly (RA) is the international association of Conservative rabbis. The RA was founded in 1901 to shape the ideology, programs, and practices of the Conservative movement. It publishes prayerbooks and books of Jewish interest, an ...

of America, called the show "an insult to some of the most sacred values of both the Jewish and Catholic religions". Rabbi Meir Kahane wrote an essay on the series. Orthodox rabbis met with CBS officials several times. A Conservative rabbi organized a boycott by advertisers, and Reform rabbis met with CBS staff in secret to have the show canceled. Rabbi Abraham Gross, president of the Rabbinical Alliance of Orthodox Rabbis and Educators, described the show as a "flagrant insult" to Jews, protesting that intermarriage was strictly forbidden under Jewish law. Threats followed; Meredith Baxter said, "We had bomb threats on the show. Some guys from the Jewish Defense League came to my house to say they wanted to talk with me about changing the show." Threatening phone calls made to the home of producer Ralph Riskin resulted in the arrest of Robert S. Manning, described as a member of the Jewish Defense League. Manning was later indicted on unrelated murder charges and fought extradition to the United States from Israel, where he fled.

Episodes

Home media

On December 4, 2012,

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Inc. (abbreviated as SPHE) is the home entertainment distribution division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony. Background SPHE is responsible for the distribution of the Sony Pictures libra ...

released the complete series as a manufacture-on-demand

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

set in Region 1, available in the U.S. exclusively through

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevu ...

and WBShop.com.

In popular culture

''Bridget Loves Bernie'' was referenced to in the '' MAD Magazine'' article "M*A*S*Huga" (its first

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

of the ''

M*A*S*H ''M*A*S*H'' (an acronym for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) is an American media franchise consisting of a series of novels, a film, several television series, plays, and other properties, and based on the semi-autobiographical fiction of Richa ...

'' TV series) which appeared in Issue # 166 (April 1974). The Surgeon General stated to "Cockeye Piercer" and "Crapper John" that they were put in-between ''

'' and ''

'' only because religious groups objected to ''Bridget Loves Bernie'', which was a reference to the fact that ''M*A*S*H'' was put in the time slot in between those two shows in the 1973-74 TV season after the cancellation of ''Bridget Loves Bernie''.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, id=0068053, title=Bridget Loves Bernie 1970s American single-camera sitcoms 1972 American television series debuts 1973 American television series endings American English-language television shows Religious comedy television series Jewish American television series Television series about marriage Television series by Screen Gems Television series by Sony Pictures Television Television shows set in New York City Christian and Jewish interfaith dialogue CBS sitcoms