Monday, June 2, 2014

Reviewing Bridget Loves Bernie:

This is an old article pending revision.

This is a wonderful show that appeared much earlier than Who's The Boss?, and The Nanny. It also co-stars people that would later appear in Three's Company/The Ropers, Charlie's Angels, and Family Ties.

Try to put a show like Who's The Boss? and The Nanny in the early 1970s. People would want to cancel it. I am also surprised that I Dream Of Jeannie and That Girl weren't cancelled after one season because the shows began with unmarried couples. They were later engaged or married at the end of the show, and some shows even had a few more episodes after the characters got married. or what about Mary Richards, who was engaged but is now living independantly? (and dating numerous men one after the other)

Additionally, the two characters in Bridget Loves Bernie have different religious backgrounds. I think they were trying to make a situation comedy loosely based out of "Romeo and Juliet". I know... the two stories are nowhere near the same but you get the point.

Bernie is a cab driver and Jewish. Bridget is a schoolteacher and Catholic. (and I might have gotten the two mixed up) The two actors get married in real life.

There is a high quality production with this show. I am pretty sure it is filmed instead of videotaped, the lighting is not extremely bright, and there is music... which is the usual jazz/disco music heard during that era. (Now all we hear today is the clapping ukulele landfill genre, Disney "stars", and people that think they can sing well on that American Idol show) and yes I like the plot of Bridget Loves Bernie.

But they cancelled it and that is WRONG. Norman Lear became well known for those "getting the point across" TV shows. Many people were offended with All In The Family but the show and all shows related to it were never cancelled so quickly.

People have to complain, the worst part about it is that they are almost always complaining about the WRONG thing to complain about. There is NOTHING wrong with this show (and yet there is loads wrong with Disney and it disguises their programs as "Family Shows") and yet there is so much more garbage on today that is considered acceptable. Today? Bridget and Bernie could be siblings, have an incest child(ren), and not even get married! And this today would be acceptable on televison... oh, and they don't need to be wearing clothes, and even better let's all make them smoke pot and have them cheat on each other with married persons, unmarried persons, the LGBT citizens, and that fictional character that was on Law and Order SVU when a male child encountered "an accident" shortly after birth, and ended up a female child... etc.

This is an example of a modernized Bridget Loves Bernie. It would probably get a TV-G Rating. And it could last forever. (And they can throw in the Landfil "Music" for the theme songs and background music)

You probably don't know what show I am talking about at all, do you?! I myself have not seen the almost two dozen episodes, only one episode seen on a "TV Land Box Set" a few years ago. I doubt TV Land or anybody else will air this show ever again, and I don't think it will be released for the home audience. (or did it?) It simply did not last long enough to make enough episodes for a traditional second-run syndication. It is a show that is forgotten, due to people complaining about NOTHING.

Also, I am going to get this out of the way: All religions are silly.

and the same people complaining about this show, have tainted the SuperHero Kids Show genre. This made Anime almost impossible to dub without modifying it. It took 33 years to officially dub Gatchaman I. (and no I still have not gotten over that!)

For those of you that still don't know what Bridget Loves Bernie is, ... it is that show that had an opening with a drawing of a taxi cab carving out the letters "Bridget Loves Bernie" in caps, and in a black background. The color of the letters is actually video footage of the city of where they live in, etc. (In other words it looks like a black painted interior wall with letter-shaped windows) and then it shows the cast members on an orange background with video footage of each character. The music playing is instrumental and consists of fully orchestrated jazz music. The production credits are very similar to Gidget, The Flying Nun, I Dream Of Jeannie, and other shows where the slides of the credits morph into each other. (There are several ways credits in general are presented: 1. Scrolling..usually vertically. 2. credits on slides that change immediately, 3. credits on slides that change after a small gap, 4. credits on slides that fade in and out one after the other with a small gap, and the last example... 5. production credits on slides that directly fade INTO each other. Common examples are the credits of I Dream Of Jeannie, etc.) I thought I would point this out for two different reasons. Because this will help you recognize the show better (the credits are in a Gold-ish Font, perhaps Burnt Orange) and because I am surprised an early 1970s show has credit change styles that were commonly used in the 1960s.

Just picture what it would be like if Norman Lear had a large budget (or at least mimmicked one and provided better production quality) ... Imagine what Norman Lear shows would be like with different lighting, music, and Film instead of Videotape.

and if you would like to see some look alikes to Mr. Bosley, Mrs. Roper, Mrs. Keeton, all in the same show, then you will certainly find "Bridget Loves Bernie" interesting.

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