The Straight Poop

Air Dates: 6 Jan 1987, 12 Jan 1988

Synopsis:

"No new episode – again!"

Rona Barrett was a popular entertainment reporter at the time, although she retired from show business shortly thereafter. In this episode, she guest stars as herself and interviews Maddie and David. The national press, she says, has reported that Maddie and David have been feuding (when in fact, the reported rumors were that Shepherd and Willis had been clashing on the set), and this, combined with the fact that there has been no new episode of Moonlighting for several weeks, leads Rona to the Blue Moon offices to find out what's going on.

Rona interviews David, asking him how he feels about Maddie, then interviews Agnes and Bert briefly, then interviews Maddie, asking her how she feels about David. As they answer her questions, we see flashbacks in the form of favorite scenes from prior episodes. From these, we are reminded that Maddie and David have fought with each other, but that they also care deeply about each other.

We see the trademark Maddie-and-David simultaneous arguments, the familiar slammed doors, the quick-witted one-liners, but we also see tender moments, such as the famous kiss in the parking garage and Maddie's head on David's shoulder as they return from his brother-in-law's funeral in New York. We see David and Maddie throwing things at each other in a rage, debating, hugging, and making up. And we are reminded about what great episodes there have been in this series up to this point.

Rona gets each of them to promise to talk to each other, and when they do, they tell each other that they are sorry, and they promise their audience a new episode next week. And with that, Rona Barrett signs off.

Directed by Jay Daniel

Written by Glenn Gordon Caron

Guest Stars:

Memorable Dialog and Additional Links:

• See Christine Graves's Moonlighting Madness page for this episode.

Music:

Music which was used in this episode because it was included in clips from previous episodes is not listed in this section. However, two bits of music are original to this episode, and they are:

• Natural Woman by Aretha Franklin during the Richard-and-Maddie slow dance scene from Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde? In that episode, If Only You Knew by Patti LaBelle was used during this scene
• David sings a bit of the Popeye theme during the closing credits

Notes:

• Pierce Brosnan appears in a cameo, in which he mentions that he and Maddie considered working together, but instead decided to go their separate ways. At the time, Brosnan was starring in the television series Remington Steele, a television series with some similarities to Moonlighting.
• Peter Bogdanovich appears in a cameo, in which he mentions that he and Maddie had been romantically involved. In fact, Bogdanovich and Cybill Shepherd had been romantically involved during much of the 1970's.
• At the conclusion of this episode, Maddie and David promise "a new episode next week!" In fact there was a new episode a week later, but Maddie and David appeared in it only briefly.
• Interspersed among the closing credits, we see bloopers, outtakes and flubbed dialog from previous episodes, including especially the famous "man with a mole on his nose" exchange from The Murder's in the Mail. This is one of two Moonlighting episodes which included bloopers in the closing credits like this; the other is Shirts and Skins.

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Date of last change: 16 December 2000

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