Hi. See, you got a little hat. Promise great she got a little chat while. There would have loved it wow we're on the mothers i better warn you upfront i'm not going to be like to their mothers but i promise i'll never make you wait until to open your birthday presence we were all together making this show, which was the birth of this child? we made it funny. We made an emotional and we all felt like, gosh, we did a good job with that. A lot of people in america were watching this and moved to tears. You know and then literally the next day our world change. It doesn't help matters when prime time tv has murphy brown mocking the importance of father's day vice president reacted to it as if it was a threat. The existence of america, the reaction to the birth oneonone episode was beyond anything we ever known. It was overwhelming. It was everywhere. The brouhaha over murphy brown continues. Murphy round fires back and dan quayle brown has the vice president hopping mad again. And never thought something that i wrote with lead to a culture war that's really what sparked a huge public debate about what the meaning of family values was. Why do you say your family values that we care about? it is a political issue? think that when the water only question is who's values are you talking about? and that is the frame of the culture wars that we're fighting today well, you're sitting in traffic on the oneonone freeway and aretha franklin came on respect know this whole thing just sort of took shape in my head. I hadn't really seen a character like murphy on television before. I hadn't seen a character like myself or my friends you know, women who were at that time really making our way in a man's world murphy brown reflected a very powerful zeitgeist and the 70s and 80s in which women had gained increasing tenants economic power, and respect for their choices i have a new colleague to welcome barbara. Thank you to be paid $1 million a year. That was a big deal. These anchors were breaking through in a way that they hadn't before. Connie chung in the channel 2 newsroom. I'm diane sawyer, sitting in for dan rather. I'm oprah winfrey. See you monday. Up to that point, the industry had been controlled by men. Once they started seeing what we could do as women, as journalists live in downtown los angeles, i'm cristina gonzalez. Back to the studio. Things began to change. We had more women choosing not to have children or choosing to have children later. Single parent families are twice as common in america today as they were 20 years ago. And then at the same time, people said, well, i mean, what happened to the role of the traditional family unit? [music playing] all women, all famous, all dead. I think i'm on to something. I'll get back to you. That's one of the things she went up. That'll be fine. When we were casting murphy, we had kind of a huge net that we threw out. And at the last minute, candice bergen, her agent, submitted her headshot, and it stopped me. I went, wow. I mean, candice bergen was just a perfect choice to be murphy brown. She was well respected, well loved, daughter of a very famous actor. Candice bergen, daughter of edgar bergen. She was a legend before she was 10 years old. She was a huge star. She was a household name. She was a name that everybody in my generation knew since we were kids. Every man in the world had a huge crush on her. She was seen as a model photojournalist, a movie star. Or you're in love with kay. Her choosing to do this was a huge change for her career. Ok. And stand by. Getting candice was huge. We immediately got the press. There was something about that actress and that character that merged together on that show. [aretha franklin, respect] murphy brown premiered november 14, 1988, on cbs. [dinging sound] hi, everybody. Murphy brown was about a woman who was kind of at the top of her game in a news organization. She was unmarried, no children and 40 years old. Interesting and smart but also had a lot of flaws. Be there tomorrow morning ready to paint, or i'll sue your overalls off. She was a loud mouth and could chew people out. Not always likable, not always kind. We weren't always getting women that were so threedimensional in that way. (singing) you make me feel [laughter] you make me feel like a natural woman even though it's called murphy brown, it is truly an ensemble show. I love corky's innocence. Jim was a traditionalist. Frank has his insecurities. And then miles trying to be the boss. As with any good workplace sitcom, the coworkers become a family. Oh, jim, nice of you to drop by. Please make yourself at home. Thanks, murphy. In the '80s and '90s, comedy was king. This is that time where we still have that phenomenon where at 8:00 pm, you buckle down, and you watch tv for the next three hours. You see just these ordinary sitcoms drawing 20 to 30 million viewers in a regular weekly episode. And it's just a different landscape. Now if 2 million people are watching a television show on broadcast, it's like almost a hit. Get ready for murphy brown mondays on cbs. People found the show and eventually, the ratings sort of ticked up until it was in the top 10 in season 3. And then by season 4, it was the number one show. The first thing we see is off the elevator. So first it's like usually we stay with. Don't forget. That's true. There's gonna be a complete cut. The fourth season was murphy's pregnancy. To make her become a single mom, and we all talked about it, and we were all on board. Would something happen to me if i became a mother? i mean, would i lose my edge? and if i don't, what kind of mother am? it created the logical story challenge for an independent woman to face. Don't you worry. I'll be there for you even if i have to drive you to some back alley so some shady doctor who might not even wash his hands can take care of things. Corky, there is no back alley. Women in this country legally have a choice. At least i think they still do. I haven't checked the paper today. [laughter] when i wrote that line, i thought, ok, it's a little bit of a stretch that you have to check the morning papers to see if you still have roe v wade rights. I mean, are they really going to go away? here we are. You had to make a choice back then. You either stayed at home and had kids, or you went out to work. Having children and working in my field wasn't heard of. How would you even be able to do your job if you had a child to raise? it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. Not that i'm disagreeing with you, but how did mike wallace do it, morley safer, howard k smith? they had wives. I think one of the most emotional scenes we'd ever written was the decision that murphy made to not get an abortion. I care about you. And i'll care about this baby. The scene between murphy and her exhusband, who was the dad, it felt very real, very true. But this is your decision. I can't be here for you. I understand. I think for those of us who down deep inside had to make decisions that were difficult. It was a rare softening of the heart for me. What's the matter with you people? my water broke. [clamor] at the end of the fourth season in an episode called birth 101, murphy finally gives birth to that baby. Up until then, you would see sort of a fantasized version of a woman giving birth. Ricky, this is it. You get the suitcase. The suitcase! you'd see the comical run to the hospital. Out of the way. Wait. Wait for me. You never really spent much time in the delivery room. I think murphy brown as a show went to great pains, so to speak, to make sure that every single labor pain was chronicled. Jim, cut me open. Cut me open and get this kid out of me. Use a scalpel. Use a pocket knife. Use a rotten, stinking melon baller if you have to. Just do it! here's some ice chips, murphy. Murphy brown didn't just go through labor. She went through aggressive labor. And candice bergen played it to the hilt. Common mark. Oh. Here she comes. Hi, corby. Oh, man. Been many years. Many years. I don't think i've seen you since the end of the 10th season. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Is that right? yeah. Wow. I don't think there was ever a better set to work on than the murphy set. Just almost always, there was an element of fun. And i think we got such an amazing fourth season that we're actually here now all these years later talking about it. And i don't think we had any idea that it would cause the sort of cultural conversation that it did when we made this decision. , she also gave birth to a new subplot in the ongoing drama of the presidential campaign. I have the original script of birth 101. The final copy. Murphy is in the hospital. She's holding the baby, and she is for the first time addressing the baby. I'm not going to be like other mothers. I don't cook or sow or make stuffed animals or talk in funny voices. I'm going to make a lot of mistakes. I'll try to keep it under 750. So are we bonding yet? i can't tell. I probably shouldn't have said that. Damn, mistake number one. And now i just swore. So that's two. Oh, god. Who are you? bravo. Bravo. Really bravo. Well, it certainly throws me back to the set holding that little baby. And we were enthralled with this baby. (singing) you make me feel you make me feel like a natural woman i cannot watch the thing to this day without crying. Me either. I cannot. Same. Yeah. Same. Yeah. Well, what's more powerful than having a child? it's just a crux of feelings. Never heard a quieter stage. It was just one of those magical episodes. So you can imagine after this experience that the next morning, i get a phone call from my assistant saying the phones are blowing up. Dan rather wants you on the news. The bushquayle reelection campaign appeared to be in disarray today over the fray created by vice president quayle's carefully orchestrated attack on the murphy brown tv show. And i said, what's happening? what's happening? i had no idea what was happening. It doesn't help matters when prime time tv has murphy brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice. You have to put that dan quayle. Murphy brown moment in context. . It's may 1992. You had george h. W bush, the incumbent president, and dan quayle, the incumbent vice president, running for reelection. I guess someone was trying to find a way to make dan quayle useful, and they sent him out to make that speech. Dan quayle making a speech before the commonwealth club in california suddenly became big news because of his misguided attempt to make murphy brown basically the poster woman for the ills of society. It's the cover of the new york times, top of the fold. . . Back when folds mattered. Murphy has a baby. Quayle has cow. Quayle has cow. That's the one that always comes back to me. Yeah. The daily news has always had, in its offices, these iconic headlines blown up into movie poster size even larger. And so what you have is pearl harbor attack, the end of world war ii, the moon landing. But nestled among those life changing historic events is quayle to murphy brown, you tramp. It was a momentous moment. President bush had a press conference the next day with canadian prime minister brian mulroney, and at a certain point, it got to questions for bush. And then you hear the entire press corps explode. Mr. President. President quayle. Do you agree with quayle that she's a tramp? i believe that children should have the benefit of being born into families with a mother and a father who will give them love and care and attention all their lives. It leads to people going on and on about this murphy brown fictional character versus dan quayle situation. I think the father figure's around that the kid will enjoy life better. People like dan quayle are so out of touch. Being a single parent, i guess that just kind of reflects what's going on in society these days. Even johnny carson just roasted him for the next week. I'm going to join the cast of murphy brown [laughter] and become a surrogate father to that kid. [laughter] it was just relentless. And i just hid behind my curtain. I mean, i was really afraid to go out because it was so there was such an energy coming that was so huge that i didn't know how to manage it. I had a great mentor, and he said, just make one statement, and then back off, and let everybody else jump into the fray. And i thought that was really good advice. And so that's what i did. Diane english responds, if the vice president thinks it's disgraceful for an unmarried woman to bear a child, and if he believes that a woman cannot adequately raise a child without a father, then he'd better make sure abortion remains safe and legal. It was actually quite frightening for me for a while, too, because we would get weird messages from people who sounded a bit deranged, and you just never knew. So i felt like i had to be walked to my car sometimes at night. And it was it's this whole world that just exploded that i never thought i would be a part of. I know it's not fashionable to talk about moral values, but we need to do it. I was the speechwriter who wrote the speech. I think if people read it, they'd be shocked at how they had misperceived what it was about. Laying] everyone loves murphy brown. What is your favorite television program? murphy brown on channel 5. Not. Not. What i loved about working for dan quayle in particular was that, that office was the locus of actual conservatism in the bush white house. That notion of dan quayle going after murphy brown , that's also the battle against hollywood. That, that hollywood elite culture doesn't speak to your values. The republican party seemed to be wanting to go back to the 1950s. The media historically had a very narrow definition of the family. The era of leave it to beaver, father knows best features a white suburban family. The husband's the breadwinner. The wife is domestic. There's nothing like hamburgers for thanksgiving. I'm starving. So am i. Whether that was ever the norm in society, i think is another question. A lot of the change in families on television in the early '90s burst down certain doors, whether it was married with children. We all appreciate what you do for this family. [laughter] which was absolutely not the conventional family. And then the simpsons also, which terrified people at the time. You little lisa, no! your hands are too weak. Dan quayle was willing to touch all of the cultural issues like what tv and hollywood were up to. (crowd chanting) four more years! four more years! half the country was gratified to hear the diminution of the family be addressed. To have murphy brown being glorified on television as a single mother is really questionable, if not an absolute injustice. We've got a battle on our hands that i think is equal to the battle on communism. Thank god dan quayle had the guts to come out and say something about it. [music playing] dan quayle was from indiana. He was very young when he won the seat in congress. Part of the reason for his success is that he was just willing to take on these incumbents when nobody else would. At age 33, dan quayle was the youngest person ever elected senator from the state of indiana. It's time to make this country work again. He was kind of a polished new face and that was, of course, part of his appeal to george h. W bush and the campaign. The next vice president of the united states, senator dan quayle of indiana. [cheering] dan quayle. I think they thought that dan quayle would be the poster boy for young republican straight laced future of the country. He's a handsome fella. May be president one day. And it backfired tremendously. The main liability for quayle when he was picked as vp is that he's inexperienced. In 1988, at the vice presidential debate, dan quayle uses a moment to compare himself to a young john f kennedy, and lloyd benson saw an opening. I served with jack kennedy. I knew jack kennedy. Jack kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no jack kennedy. [cheering] it may be the most epic debate moment in history. Microwave dan quayle on the spot into a puddle. That was really uncalled for, senator. Let's just say he started becoming prone to gaffes. There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense. His mangling of the united negro college fund's mantra. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. What a waste it is to lose one's mind, or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is. We went a season and a half of making a dan quayle joke every episode. Yes. I was so amazed because we had never had a vice president this unqualified who was a literally heartbeat away from the presidency. The hey, here's dan quayle on the driving range. And they said he wouldn't have anything to do. If you gave him truth serum, i'm pretty sure george h. W bush would have said it was a mistake to have ever picked quayle in the first place. He was constantly mocked. Dan, my little vice president. [laughter] come on come on up here, skipper. I think the poor guy got pretty much ridiculed unfairly at times. He couldn't have been as dumb as everyone thought he was. He wasn't dumb. If he were dumb, george h. W bush wouldn't have picked him as vice president. Everything he said was taken out of context and blown up, and he was made to look like an idiot. Do you think the national media have been fair to dan quayle? no! well, then let's annoy the media and reelect our great president. What i think is great about making fun of him for the murphy brown speech is that that's not a gaffe. It's not a misstatement. It's a full on articulated piece of weird ideology. You have to remember, this was a speech that at some point started off talking about the la riots, which had happened weeks earlier. And if you're thinking to yourself, what on earth did murphy brown have to do with the la riots? you're thinking exactly what everyone was also thinking at the time. [music playing] welcome to larry king live. Were you shocked when quayle said that? oh. It was the most shocking and prolonged episode of my life. I mean, it was to be in the center of it. Why don't we place ourselves in the set from the top and rehearse it once with camera? [chatter] my expression should be really different than everybody murphy brown was never meant to be the center of anything. There had been these riots in los angeles, which was the genesis of the speech. The la riots had to do with decades of tension between the africanamerican community and law enforcement in los angeles, which had been systemically racist for decades. During the '80s and '90s, there's this crackdown on the gangs of los angeles, on drugs. In south central los angeles, another gang shooting. And it basically gave police the cover to use aggressive militarist style policing. Sit down. You will be subject to arrest if you refuse to comply. And so for black residents of la, having an unfortunate encounter with the police was real. But things came to a head at that time. Certain things happened in a row. In 1991, rodney king's beating had echoes of say, slave beatings. And i think for a lot of people, this was shocking. This videotape touched off a firestorm of outrage. It shows what appears to be a group of los angeles police officers beating a suspect with nightsticks and kicking him as other officers look on. We had rodney king, and then we had latasha harlins. A young black woman is shot to death by the korean owner of a grocery store for allegedly stealing a bottle of orange juice. You could honestly feel it bubbling, the anger of people. [indistinct shouting] when we were covering the rodney king trial in simi valley, we knew that if this went down the not guilty way, something was going to happen. The four lapd officers in the rodney king beating case found not guilty on all counts except one. And in response to that, the black community in la exploded. [indistinct shouting] we started following the fires. Ok, you're looking at main street and what protesters are doing is they're going down the street trying to light cars. You're looking at what's on television. The city's out of control, and people are looting. (chanting) guilty! guilty! guilty! guilty! but you know what's really going on and what has been going on. Don't touch me. People were fed up, and so they resorted to street justice. By the time peace was restored, more than 50 people had died. Almost 12,000 arrests had been made and more than 600 structures were set on fire, adding up to close to $1 billion in damage. One reason dan quayle wanted to talk about the la riots was because it was a very big deal. It had riveted the whole country. Yes, i can understand how people were shocked and outraged by the verdict in the rodney king trial. The republican party response to the riots was that they shouldn't be excused. But my friends, there is simply no excuse for the mayhem that followed. The speech was about young men in gangs, most of whom came from this underclass. It has become clear that the riots were fueled by the vicious gangs that terrorize the inner cities. And it was about the policies that were necessary to fix some of this, to make it so that there were fewer young black men coming out of single parent homes in poverty. The anarchy and lack of structure in our inner cities are testament to how quickly civilization falls apart when the family foundation cracks. F*** dan quayle. The fact that four police officers were acquitted for beating rodney king apparently had nothing to do with it. It was the dysfunction and breakdown of the black family that led to social unrest. If he wanted to go after the rodney king riots, if he wanted to make a speech about institutional racism and the lack of opportunity, that's what he should have been talking about. Yeah. Yeah. And instead he talked about murphy brown. Bearing babies irresponsibly is simply wrong. Failing to support children one had fathered is wrong, and we must be unequivocal about this. It doesn't help matters when prime time tv has murphy brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent highly paid, professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice. Thank you very much. Thanks. [cheering] it was relevant to put murphy brown in the speech because we were talking about moving to a valuesbased discussion where the family would be strengthened. And she connects to this policy of outofwedlock childbearing, which in general causes heartache and poverty. People have forgotten that dan quayle was engaged in what was a very racist criticism of the causes of the la riots. Instead, they remembered a comment he threw in at the end of the speech. Dan quayle, he had one line in an eight page speech, and all you could talk about was that one line. I have dan quayle put that line in the speech specifically because he wanted to set off fireworks. You knew it and you fell for it. And you fell for it, michael. You'd react. I've always felt that the aftermath of the speech was hijacked. And it became a narrative that didn't really reflect what the speech was about. But i would say that's quayle's fault for serving it up. If you had to do it again, would you do it again? absolutely. That was not a mistake? i don't think it was a mistake. That's a very popular show. Look, just because it is a popular show, do you stay away from it when you're trying to use that show and hollywood to make a point and if we are losing our compass toward values, traditional values, family values, shouldn't we speak up? let's see what else happened in tv this year. Dan quayle criticized the nice irish girl named murphy brown and then, in a stunning display of karma, misspelled the word potato. [laughter] so in the summer of 1992, in the heat of this presidential election between bush and quayle and clintongore, vice president quayle goes to trenton, new jersey, and visits a school. And a child is spelling on the chalkboard, potato. And the vice president steps in to correct the spelling with the incorrect spelling. Do you write phonetically with what else there you go. All right. [clapping] so dan quayle kind of became the mr. Potato head of politics. The vice president of the united states spelled potato wrong yesterday. What do you think of that? what a idiot. The potato incident, that was just a selfinflicted wound. And everyone focuses on it and said this defines who vice president quayle is and how his mind works. And that's nonsense. Well, let me just say to all of my critics and to you and to all the american people, i stand before you unbowed, unbroken, and more determined than ever to stand up for our values. The big debate over murphy brown's baby and dan quayle was really about defining family values. Once the family starts breaking down, you get problems like that where the kids, they don't grow up, and they don't learn the right values. I think if a single woman wants to have a child, she'll probably be a better mother than a woman that's married and has an unwanted child. Dan quayle argument for traditional family values begs the question, who's family? who's traditions? and when i talk about family values, i am talking about a mother and a father. Marriage is the preferred option. Dan quayle's definition of family values is defined by his upbringing and his existence as if that is the default. But it's not. The fact that one night of the republican convention in 1992 was devoted to family values, tells a big part of the story that this was of evolution of the republican party. [music playing] from the astrodome in houston, the site of the republican national convention. Family values are the theme of the evening here at the astrodome. And the republicans will be showcasing the most prominent mothers. [cheering] that year, actually, at the republican national convention, pat buchanan actually used the term culture wars. There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as the cold war itself. For this war is for the soul of america. [cheering] the culture war was really coming into its own in 1992. That's when republicans started talking about something besides lower taxes, limited government, muscular foreign policy. A culture war issue speaks to you as a person, right? it, like, gets into the core of you, your identity, your ethics. And so they were able to use it to rile people up from the insides. Using it meant kind of highlighting the nature of the cultural disparity between hollywood and say, conservatives. And on behalf of family values, we've taken on hollywood and the media elite, and we will not back down. [cheering] just kept getting bigger and bigger. And then as the speculation of the beginning of season 5 and how that was going to be dealt with just became enormous. Monday's episode of murphy brown is perhaps the most anticipated season opener since dallas showed audiences who shot j. R. The big season premiere of murphy brown. What is she going to do? and the totally fictional character will respond to a very real attack by the vice president of the united states. We sat in the writers' room a long time. We debated don't ever mention it. Mmhmm. We decided it was so big that we really couldn't do that. It was an hour episode. Mmhmm. Was it? yeah. It was an hour. Watched by 70 million people. Oh, god. And then we actually play the clip of his speech. It doesn't help matters when prime time tv has murphy brown he is talking about you. And then the reply with real people on the stage. I'd like to introduce you to some people who might not fit into the vice president's vision of a family, but they consider themselves families nonetheless. They work. They struggle. They hope for the kind of life for their children that we all want for our children. And it was short, and sweet, and we moved on. But it's murphy. She needs her slight little bit of revenge. At the end of the episode, she dropped a load of potatoes in front of his house. Well, our vice president woke up to a surprise this morning. Do you think he knows how to spell the word reelected? [laughter] the curtain has dropped on the national drama to choose a president. Governor clinton is now presidentelect bill clinton. I think there are a lot of things that contributed to the loss of the bushquayle campaign in '92. But i put murphy brown right at the top of the list. The idea that this fictional character played any kind of role in presidential politics is bananas to me. But it really did. And it was because she symbolized the changing nature of women's role in society. We weren't really trying to change the course of an election. That certainly wasn't our intention. But then there we were. In fact, i got a telegram from bill clinton after he was elected president,. Thanking the murphy brown fans. . And i congratulated bill clinton. And we must all pull together now. He is going to be the president of the united states. Dan quayle lost the battle of the '92 reelection. But for a lot of cultural conservatives, he'll go down as a hero because he had the conversation that others weren't willing to have. Dan quayle, a lot of people laugh at him. A lot of people who live in glass houses throw stones. Ironically, he was one of the republican winners in this campaign. The murphy brown speech did, in fact, change the nature of the culture war. We're always going to be debating what family values are. I don't need any lectures from hollywood on family values. You think it's appropriate then, for a same sex marriage concepts to be taught in public schools as normative behavior, correct? no, i didn't say that at all. The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution. Life starts at the moment of conception. And ergo you don't believe in the morning after pill? i would like see fewer and fewer abortions. And now they want men who claim to be women to go in the bathroom with children. To support homophobia the right of the faithbased christian family. What do we want? trans rights! what do we want it? now! i will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content. And if you want to trace the archaeology of that back, it starts with dan quayle. Natural woman oh, baby. Little baby. There's birth 101. The early days with the baby are going to be interesting for murphy. That's an understatement. Yes. It was at the height of my murphy brown obsession. I had a scrapbook. I was taping every single episode. We got a poll. Does murphy brown set a bad example? 65% said no. Were you offended by murphy brown's decision to have a baby as a single parent? 76% said no. Yeah. This i'm sorry. This looks like you're threatening someone with your love of diane english. I was a fan. Yeah. That show taught me so much. Murphy brown taught me that i could be ballsy and sweet, that i could find a group of people that would support me no matter what. It gave me something to aspire to which is that i could be a strong woman one day, just like murphy brown. Getting to play murphy was a dream for me. She was just beloved. People would come up to me and say, my mom and i used to watch murphy every episode together. And it was an important show. I can't believe i'm [laughter] i can't believe it either. [laughter] it was an important show for young women. It was just such a privilege for me to do that show and to play that character. (singing) you make me feel like a natural woman that's very good.