Madman of the People - Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries

Madman of the People aired from September 1994 until June 1995 on NBC.

Dabney Coleman brought his patented comic curmudgeon act back to television with little more success than he had in prior attempts ( Buffalo Bill, The Slap Maxwell Story, for instance). Here he played Jack Buckner, an irreverent New York columnist who hated authority and used his " Madman of the People" column in Your Times magazine as his principal soapbox. The magazine was struggling , and who should take over as its new editor, determined to revive it, but his own daughter, Meg ( Cynthia Gibb). That of course made her his boss ( authority!), and the sparks flew. Also around the office were B.J. (Craig Bierko), an ambitious investigative reporter with eyes for Meg, and Sasha ( Amy Aquino), whose constant optimism irritated Jack. At home, irresponsible , 24-year-old son Dylan ( John Ales) provided further irritation ( " he has a sofa attached to his butt!" fumed dad), while wife Deliah ( Concetta Tomei) mediated as neccessary.

An Article from The New York Times

What? Mean-Spirited? Dabney Coleman Defends His

By ANDY MEISLER,
Published: September 5, 1994

The blessing and the bane of Dabney Coleman's durable career as a comic actor is The Dabney Coleman Character. In films like "Tootsie" and "9 to 5," and in the handful of television series that have featured him, Mr. Coleman has played variations of The Character: vain, irascible and unabashedly self-involved.

It is a sort of role that has brought him critical acclaim and steady work for 20 years. But none of the series in which Mr. Coleman has starred have been hits, and many television analysts and number crunchers have concluded that The Dabney Coleman Character is simply too mean-spirited and unlikable to be invited into America's living rooms each week.

So "Madman of the People," Mr. Coleman's new sitcom, which is to begin on NBC later this month, has already been put on the critical list by many of the prognosticators, despite protests from the show's creators and Mr. Coleman himself that this time, The Character is just different enough. Discovering Another Side

"We think we've avoided that polarization thing, by surrounding him with a wife and family, with people who love and care for him," said Stuart Kreisman, an executive producer of the new show. "He didn't have these in the other series. This way, we can bring out his other side."

Indeed, the central gimmick of "Madman of the People" is that Jack (Madman) Bruckner, played by Mr. Coleman, is a columnist for a magazine whose publisher is his daughter.

In NBC's news release about the show, Mr. Coleman describes Jack as "a loyal friend and a family guy without being unctuous about it." Others might describe him somewhat differently. In the pilot episode of "Madman," he tries to win an important concession from his daughter by coolly holding her childhood teddy bear hostage. At knifepoint.

"You know, I objected to that," Mr. Coleman said recently in an interview. "I said, 'They're not going to laugh at this.' But I was wrong. They laughed their heads off."

Mr. Coleman has played The Character so convincingly and for so long that many people think he is simply being himself. Mr. Coleman denies it.

"It isn't me," said Mr. Coleman, who was seated comfortably but alert and chain-smoking in the living room of his Brentwood home. He is a lean and impossibly fit-looking 62 years old.

"Well, it is me socially, in a way," he went on. "It's me kidding around. I mean, I kid around with that humor. And with that kind of character. And so in the course of a social evening, you'll see a lot of that, but that isn't who I am. That's just a guy that I'm playing, just to fool around, you know." Remember Buffalo Bill?

The Dabney Coleman Character in perhaps its purest form was Bill Bittinger, the conniving, duplicitous talk-show host who was the titular protagonist of the television series "Buffalo Bill." That NBC series, which ran just one year, from May 1983 to April 1984, became a cult favorite whose reruns lived on for years on cable. But it also helped plant in network executives' minds the notion that Mr. Coleman's persona was too abrasive, too mean-spirited to attract a mass audience.

That is the image Mr. Kreisman and his partner, Christopher Cluess, are trying to soften, without turning The Character into Mister Rogers. Mr. Cluess explained it this way: "This is the first show where the others don't give him license to abuse them. He has to face the music, be accountable for his acts. And Buffalo Bill was a real coward. Jack Bruckner is not like that. We think the audience will wind up loving him."

Mr. Coleman is quick to note he has frequently and vehemently argued with writers and producers when, in his opinion, they have pushed his character too far in the direction of venality. (That he can be argumentative is well established. It was a series of battles with the writer and producer Jay Tarses that led to the cancellation of the 1987 series "The Slap Maxwell Story.")

And Mr. Coleman is proud of his serious roles, including the husband of Jane Fonda's character in the film "On Golden Pond" and a burned-out lawyer in the television movie "Sworn to Silence," a performance for which he won an Emmy. Twice Divorced

Mr. Coleman is twice divorced, with three grown children. He said he had recently broken up with a female companion of many years. "I miss her and I miss it," he added.

Mr. Coleman was born in Austin, Tex. He graduated from Virginia Military Institute, served in the Army and studied law before moving to New York and taking acting classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse. After having moved to Los Angeles, he spent years playing assorted businessmen and guest villains on television series like "The Fugitive" and "The F.B.I." For one season, he was Dr. Leon Bessemer, Marlo Thomas's neighbor on "That Girl."

Then, in 1976, he was signed for what was supposed to be a temporary job playing Merle Jeeter, the stage father of a child evangelist, on the bizarre comic soap opera "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman." He was so good in that part that he survived the tragically unsolved murder of young Jeeter -- Merle Jeeter was the culprit, of course -- and became a regular, eventually running for Mayor of Fernwood, the show's locale, and having an affair with Mary Hartman herself.

"It was wonderful," said Mr. Coleman's good friend Dennis Klein, who was the head writer for "Mary Hartman" and later a driving force behind "Buffalo Bill."

"One of the fun things in those days was watching him," said Mr. Klein. "He was really shy about playing such an evil character. He was so scared of his character that he would try to not appear on camera. What I mean by this is that he would be constantly turning his back.

"We used a lot of improvisational writing and a lot of improvisational blocking. So he'd be constantly turning upstage, to avoid being seen. And wandering off so that you couldn't pull your camera back far enough to show him and any other person. And I would say to him, 'Dabney, why won't you appear on camera?' But anyway, eventually he did come a long way from that, and he got more and more comfortable."

So comfortable, in fact, that Mr. Coleman feels ready to lead "Madman," scheduled in the plum Thursday night time slot of 9:30, after "Seinfeld," to a ratings victory. 'It's Acting Funny'

And if it doesn't work out? Well then, he's certain, there will be another sitcom starring The Dabney Coleman Character. And another. And another.

And Mr. Coleman will be present, trying, he says, to make sure they get it right.

"Writers write wrong for me sometimes," he said. "They're trying to be funny, usually. Trying to make a joke. And that's not what I do, you know. It's not jokes; it's not words. It's acting. It's acting funny.

"So I've gotten to where I'm now saying: 'Guys, start trusting me. This is Wednesday. If it's not good on Wednesday, it's not going to be good on Friday. Even if you're convinced it's good, change it. Because for me it isn't.' "

A Review from Variety

Posted: Wed., Sep. 21, 1994, 11:00pm PT
Madman of the People
((Thurs. (22), 9:30-10 p.m., NBC))
By Todd Everett

Videotaped in Los Angeles by Kreiscluesco Industries in association with Spelling Television. Executive producers, Stuart Kreisman, Christopher Cluess, Aaron Spelling, E. Duke Vincent; producer, Stephen C. Grossman; director, James Burrows; script, Cluess, Kreisman.

Cast: Dabney Coleman, Cynthia Gibb, Todd Susman, John Ales, Concetta Tomei, Ashley Gardner, Robert Pierce, Nancy Giles, Vince Grant, Mark Tymcnyshyn.

Dabney Coleman, playing a toned-down version of the curmudgeonly character familiar from series including ahead-of-its-time "Buffalo Bill" and "'Slap' Maxwell Story," gets strong placement in NBC's post-"Seinfeld" slot.

Coleman plays Jack Buckner, acerbic columnist (for nearly 30 years) for N.Y.-based newsweekly Your Times. In the pilot, his daughter, Meg (Cynthia Gibb) , is appointed publisher of Your Times, charged with recasting the stodgy magazine for the '90s.

Back home, there's Jack's other daughter, Caroline (Ashley Gardner), married to Big Kenny (Robert Pierce), and 23-year-old layabout son Dylan (John Ales), as well as Jack's long-suffering but loving wife, Delia (Concetta Tomei).

Big conflict of pilot finds music critic Jonathan Gold (Todd Susman) clearly not the man for the job anymore. But he's "like an uncle" to Meg and is Jack's best friend.

In real life, a publisher would be having lunch with advertisers and negotiating with the printers, but the producers of "Madman" portray Meg as an editor, forced to do something about Gold.

She hires a new music critic (boo!), but moves Gold over to technology editor (hooray!) shortly after he's bragged about his new computer (though, in truth, anybody who's impressed by a 230 MB hard drive is hardly on the cutting edge of computer technology).

While it has its moments, even veteran comedy director James Burrows can't save pilot from attempt to force so much exposition into 22 minutes.

Most amusing aspect in retrospect is that several changes were made between the pilot and second episode. The Buckners' daughter and son-in-law have been demoted to recurring status, and Gold and Meg's boyfriend (Vince Grant) were written out; ironically, by eliminating Gold, the producers demonstrated an unemotional power that Meg was unable to exhibit.

Second episode, which introduces two new characters in the newsroom (Craig Bierko as investigative reporter B.J. Cooper, hunk who tends to laugh at his own jokes; and Amy Aquino as wacky but good-hearted Sasha Danziger), is much more amusing.

Camera, Thom Marshall; editor, Michael Wilcox; production designer, Bill Brzeski; sound, Michael Ballin; music, Bob Burke.

A Review from The New York Times

TELEVISION REVIEW; Yes, More Friends Sitting Around
By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: September 29, 1994

Oh, no, you might well moan, not another group of pals sitting around whining and nursing their anxieties, getting up once in a while to test the passing Zeitgeist. Oh, yes. But click into NBC's "Friends" anyway. The creators and executive producers are Marta Kauffman and David Crane, whose "Dream On" has been exploring new boundaries of zaniness (and permissiveness) on HBO. "Friends," more conventional on the surface, promises to be equally offbeat and seductive.

These particular friends, six of them, live in New York City and can usually be found at a favorite coffeehouse or the somewhat cramped apartment of Monica (Courteney Cox), the one with the strongest ties to reality. Monica's brother, Ross (David Schwimmer), discovers this evening, in an episode entitled "The One With the Sonogram at the End," that his former wife, Carol (Anita Barone), who is now in a lesbian relationship, is pregnant with his child. That's where the sonogram comes in, prompting at one point a reference to "Star Trek."

Elsewhere on the episode, a tense Monica has to prepare dinner for her parents, stuffy Dad (Elliot Gould) and stiletto Mom (Christina Pickles), who purrs sweetly, "Oh spaghetti, that's . . . easy." Monica realizes: "These people are pros. They know what they're doing." Meanwhile, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), Monica's best friend, somehow loses in a lasagna casserole the wedding ring she wants to return to the fiance she left at the altar.

Plot lines are devices on which to build riffs, things like the conversation in which the chums wonder if kissing is as important as any other part of sex or if it is just the opening act, akin to getting past the comedian to Pink Floyd. Or there's the scene in the doctor's office where Ross, his former wife and her current lover get into a competition about a name for the pending baby. The women prefer Minnie for a girl; to Ross, Minnie says "Minnie Mouse." Also look for a deftly comic guest turn by Merrill Markoe as a museum worker.

Future episodes: next week, in "The One With George Stephanopoulos," a wayward pizza ends up being delivered across the street to a familiar White House face. A week later, "The One With the Thumb" finds the entire gang -- and that includes the spacy Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), the obsessive Chandler (Matthew Perry) and the dumb hunk Joey (Matt LeBlanc) -- swooning over Monica's new boyfriend (says one: "I'd marry him for his David Hasselhoff impression alone"). The only naysayer turns out to be Monica.

The cast is appealing, the dialogue is pitch-perfect 1994, the time-slot is between the solidly established "Mad About You" at 8 P.M. and "Seinfeld" at 9 P.M. "Friends" comes as close as a new series can get to having everything.

Then, on shakier ground, there is NBC's new series at 9:30 P.M., "Madman of the People," starring Dabney Coleman. Mr. Coleman created two of television's most memorable misanthropes in the brilliant but short-lived series "Buffalo Bill" and "The 'Slap' Maxwell Story." The problem, television doctors have concluded, is that those characters were too unlikable, definitely a mortal sin in uplift land. Now "Madman of the People" seeks to give the basic Coleman persona softer edges, a heart-of-gold patina.

Mr. Coleman's character, Jack Buckner, writes a magazine column called Madman of the People. He is, as his wife, Delia (Concetta Tomei), puts it, a professional eccentric who especially hates bosses, which becomes particularly sensitive when his daughter Meg (Cynthia Gibb) is appointed the new publisher of his magazine. Jack already has enough family problems with his 23-year-old shiftless son, Dylan (John Ales), whose idea of an anniversary gift for his parents is a Ren and Stimpy video.

The show can zap its targets with admirable relish. Tonight, when Jack writes nastily about a chirping robin disturbing his sleep and the bird then dies mysteriously, a public uproar gives Jack an opportunity to tweak the passions of animal lovers, even as he becomes known in one headline as the "Bird Butcher of Brooklyn." And a subplot has Jack's ambitious young colleague B. J. (Craig Bierko) doing a piece, called "Maidenhead Revisited," on a "new virgins" group, women convinced that they will find "the second 'first time' more meaningful." Brags one, "Yesterday I passed a Calvin Klein ad and only noticed the underwear."

The problem is that Mr. Coleman's Jack has to pause regularly to be contrite about his obviously irrepressible meanness. He is, you see, a really loving husband and doting father. Some viewers may end up agreeing with the German neighbor, played for stereotypical laughs, who says: "Ve understandt him. Ve just don't like him." The marketing of Dabney Coleman continues uneasily. FRIENDS NBC, tonight at 8:30 (Channel 4 in New York) Created and written by David Crane and Marta Kauffman. Todd Stevens, producer; Jeff Greenstein and Jeff Strauss, supervising producers. A Bright-Kauffman-Crane Production in association with Warner Brothers Television. Kevin S. Bright, Ms. Kauffman and Mr. Crane, executive producers. WITH: Jennifer Aniston (Rachel), Courteney Cox (Monica), Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe), Matt LeBlanc (Joey), Matthew Perry (Chandler) and David Schwimmer (Ross). MADMAN OF THE PEOPLE NBC, tonight at 9:30 (Channel 4 in New York) Created by Christopher Cluess and Stuart Kreisman. Penny Adams. producer; Steve Paymer; co-producer; George La Fountaine, director of photography; Bill Brzeski, production designer; Dava Savel and Norm Gunzenhauser, supervising producers; Pamela Eells and Sally Lapiduss, co-executive producers. A Kreiscluesco Production in association with Spelling Television; Mr. Cluess, Mr. Kreisman, Aaron Spelling and E. Duke Vincent, executive producers. WITH: Dabney Coleman (Jack Buckner), Cynthia Gibb (Meg Buckner), Concetta Tomei (Delia Buckner), John Ales (Dylan Buckner), Amy Aquino (Sasha Danziger) and Craig Bierko (B. J. Cooper).

A Review from USA TODAY

TV PREVIEW/BY MATT ROUSH

MADDENING

Feel free to despise Madman of the People ( *, NBC, tonight at 9:30 ET/PT) for displacing Frasier in the post-Seinfeld time slot with a lesser life-form of sitcom humor. There are other reasons to hate it too.

It's not exactly a coup to cast Dabney Coleman as a cranky columnist who chafes when his daughter ( Gypsey's Cynthia Gibb) is made publisher of the magazine. In fact, it's tired. The jokes are of the beer vs herb tea variety. To get his way, Coleman pouts in the bathroom or threatens to slice up a teddy bear.

He's not exactly evil, not exactly lovable. He's dull.

So's the show. Why did NBC have to fix what wasn't broken? Madman is beyond fixing. It needs replacing. Fast.

For More on Madman of the People go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_of_the_People

For a Website dedicated to Cynthia Gibb go to http://members.tripod.com/~milma/