Original Airdate: November 2, 1992
You can watch this episode on CBS All Access (maybe?) or bootlegged (sorry).
I want to start this recap by asking you for a favor. Please watch the reboot. I normally hate reboots in principle and in practice, but the new Murphy Brown is a notable exception. Like the super bowl, Pete believes we gotta support this thing or else it might not make it, It isn't perfect, but it's fine and it's nice and it would be really frustrating if we all had to put up with Last Man Standing without an answer. It's exhausting living in a world where everything matters, isn't it? I'm so tired.
Pete brought Murphy Brown into my life. I wasn't a fan when it was on. It was a grown-ups' show! After forcing me to watch the original series with him, I understood that he's right. It's a classic. It's a political show back when you could be political without the country's descent into fascism being at stake. It's clear that they had an agenda, but they joked about politics in general. Murphy was banned from Bush AND Clinton's inaugural balls. I think in actuality, this makes for a generally funnier show.
Another thing that's great about the original Murphy Brown is that it take place in DC. That rarely comes into play, but occasionally they'll talk about "that Italian place on Connecticut" and we'll be like "that's OUR street!" I've done a lot of work in trying to figure out what bar Phil's was based on and by the time I figured it out, it had closed. I tried just now to dig up that info and failed because the internet is so jammed with lukewarm reviews of the reboot.
Oh and ALSO, haha guess what? You can't watch this episode. Save for the first season, which is available on Amazon, CBS All Access, and DVD, the rest of the series is not available by any conventional means. You may still be able to download it, which is why we have it. Murphy is so unavailable that even the download is a transfer from Nick at Nite reruns from the quick run it had from 2005-07. This seems curious to me in light of the reboot. Why not take the opportunity to re-release? Sorry for everything.
"A Year to Remember" is Pete's favorite episode of Murphy Brown. It is indeed a solid one. It opens election day morning (1992, Bush-Clinton-Perot), as the gang is arriving in the FYI bullpen. Some are helping themselves to coffee and DONUTS DONUTS. Everyone except Corky is feeling cynical about the presidential prospects. One thing we noticed about both this and the Different World episode we included in this party is that people were feeling really bad about the 1992 presidential election. It seems these sweet, innocent morons felt that there was too much mud-slinging and personal attacks. I want to go back and time and kick all of their asses.
As if to demonstrate how one should never take their civic duty for granted, Corky tells the gang about her very first presidential election. Hers was 1984, Reagan/Bush vs. Mondale/McGovern. This is the first in a series of vignettes in which each of the FYI gang recalls their first presidential election. So I'll share that mine was Bush-Gore in 2000. I voted for Ralph Nader. I will not apologize for that. See, I lived in Hawaii where your vote doesn't count. They have a few charity electoral votes, yes, but it's a democratic juggernaut and was going to be automatic for Gore. My mom, for whatever reason, was really into Ralph Nader that year. That fall, she, my brother and I spent time we had left on earth standing on the side of the highway with a homemade sign that said "Be a Guerrilla: Vote for Nader" and my mom literally wore a gorilla mask. I haven't talked about this since it happened and it hardly seems real.
Anyway, Corky. She hustles into her voting precinct where she meets her boyfriend, David Puddy. Their ensuing discussion about Corky's job as a bank spokesmodel and the election itself suggests that David Puddy is a textbook misogynist. He rebuffs Corky's stated intention to vote for Mondale on the basis that he's running with a woman. He suggests that her potential to become irrational while menstruating disqualifies the ticket
from receiving his vote. When we were watching this as a group with guest TV Partier Johnny Fantastic, I without thinking mentioned that I thought that was a little over the top, but my companions laughed out loud at my having forgotten that this is exactly something Trump would say. I hate this reality so much. Corky yes-dears him and takes his sample ballot suggesting she'd take his recommendations. She gets her ballot and tosses his sample in the trash. A peek into the budding Corky Sherwood Feminism we all came to know and accept.
Jim's flashback had him covering the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon race as a young reporter for a local midwestern news channel. I assume it's Chicago, since that's where all news anchors are from, though I should probably look this up. As with everything, it's impossible to find because of all of the reboot stories. He's thrown into what is as close to a Jim Dial panic as we will ever see when he's told that they'll go national. He gives a stirring and emotional speech about how this election is all about hope and it's actually pretty nice, even knowing that hope will turn into brain pudding three years hence (Brain Pudding is TM Pete for the record).
Next we're treated to Frank's first election which of course was Nixon-McGovern and of course mostly has him flirting with the single most adorable 60s chickie I've ever seen, ably played by Slater's love interest Carla from the Saved by the Bell Wedding in Las Vegas movie. This proves definitively that the late 90s is the nadir of 20th Century fashion. Frank is very disheartened about how far behind Nixon McGovern is in the polls, wondering aloud why people couldn't see what he sees. When I was younger I was always dumbfounded by Nixon having gotten a second term. You know because when you look at history, you are most keenly aware of the more romantic undercurrents and trends probably because their followers are the people who they make movies and TV shows about.
Miles' first election was 1980. He can't decide how to vote on Reagan-Carter. He grew up a democrat but agrees that the country is in a malaise and wants to give Reagan a shot. Interesting here is that he cites trickle-down economics and Star Wars as "good programs." In 1992, this was a funny joke. In 2018, it's confusing. If you don't remember news before 2000, it was common knowledge that trickle-down economics didn't work because George HW Bush was famously forced to raise taxes to combat soaring deficits that resulted from lowering taxes on the rich. Then his kid decided he didn't give a fuck and everyone forgot everything and pretended it was a great idea and totally plausible that raising taxes results in long-term economic prosperity. I digress. Miles spends so much time trying to decide how to vote, polls close before he is able to.
Murphy, despite being the same age as Frank, went to vote in 1968. She's unable to convince one of the adorable old women at the retirement community (where people vote? That seems nuts) that she's on the registration lists and fesses up that she's too young. Then she handcuffs herself to a voting booth, casts herself as a radical and declares it's immoral that her peers are old enough to fight an immoral war but not old enough to vote. This is confusing unless you remember (which I did not until I looked it up) that the voting age was 21 in most states until 1971. That's really something, isn't it?
Back in 1992, we find out that Murphy almost doesn't get to vote. She hadn't voted in the afternoon or during lunch like everyone else did and had an interview with someone really important live in the evening. I didn't catch who this was while we were watching because I was distracted. As it turns out, despite feeling cynical and uninterested in the result, she gets Frank to do the interview for her and takes infant Avery to vote. I remember going with my mom to vote at McKinley High School in 1984. I don't think Avery will remember this, though.
Hey if you live in a state, please go vote! They did it in 1992 despite having to pick between Bush Sr, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot! What are you complaining about??
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