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Post by elvira on Jul 12, 2005 12:51:30 GMT -5
I am sure this has been done elsewhere, but I don't see a spot for it on this board, so I thought I'd start a unique topic about it.
For those of you who were too young to remember some popular culture details from the '80s, or who were not in the USA at the time, I thought I might explain a few of the more obscure lines and references from the show. Obviously I won't remember them all (or catch them all) so I am counting on other fans on adding more. Here are a few I remember off the top of my head:
Remember in "The Lady in the Iron Mask," when David and Maddie are in the hotel lobby, pretending to look busy by reading newspapers, and David is reading a scandal sheet (tabloid) and he's repeatedly using the catchprhase, "I wanna know!"? Well, in the 1980s the tabloid National Enquirer had a TV ad campaign with this catch phrase. The ad would go something like, "Is Michael Jackson getting married?" and then they'd have someone say to the screen, "I wanna know!" "Is Princess Diana having an affair?" "I wanna know!" And so forth and so on.
In "Funeral for a Door Nail," when Maddie says she wants to return the money because they didn't earn it, and David exclaims, "Who died and made you John Houseman?" That is in reference to a TV ad for (I think) Smith Barney, some sort of investment firm (I think). Actor John Houseman (famous for his role in "The Paper Chase") was in this ad where the catch phrase was something like "Smith Barney makes money the old fashioned way—they earn it!" (No one can deliver this line like John Houseman!)
Okay, fellow Moonlighting fans, add your own obscure references here!
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Post by gypsygem81 on Jul 12, 2005 15:00:48 GMT -5
Thanks Elvira, being both too young to remember and from the UK, I didn't know either of those. This is a really interesting thread! Thanks for starting it!
Love Gem
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Post by elvira on Jul 12, 2005 22:47:59 GMT -5
Thanks, Gypsygem! I have to review the DVDs again to get more references (there are not a ton of them, but I think a few more, at least). Another one that many of you may already know: The buxom blonde picture that is in the title credits of season 1-3 is of Angelyne, who is famous for her billboards in Hollywood. She was very much a part of '80s L.A., and still is, to a point.
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Post by elvira on Jul 18, 2005 21:25:35 GMT -5
Okay, I got my "Moonlighting" DVDs today (I rented them and decided that I could not hold out any longer—had to own them). Found another dated reference in "Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?"
Near the start of the episode, (where David, Maddie and Miss Dipesto are simultaniously calling up the radio program in hope of winning money), David slams the receiver down after yelling, "Yeah? Well reach out and touch this, Mama!" That is in reference to an ad campaign from one of the phone companies, in which their slogan was "Reach out and touch someone" (i.e. call someone on the phone and interact with them—it was a somewhat sentimental ad campaign).
I'll be returning with more references as I find them! (Now that I have the DVDs! Woo hoo!)
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Post by elvira on Jul 19, 2005 22:52:24 GMT -5
Okay, a few tidbits that don't quite qualify as US-centric or '80s-centric, but are the nit-picky sorts of details I feel compelled to bore you with anyway. . .
From the pilot episode, when Maddie is ambushed by TV crews outside of the police station: There is no Channel 12 in Los Angeles.
From "Gunfight at the So-So Corral": When Michael Wry says, "Where did you talk to my father, at Forest Lawn?" Forest Lawn is a large funeral home/cemetary chain in Southern California. (I'm sure everyone assumed it was a funeral home, but I just wanted to point out that it was a real place, and is actually quite the tourist attraction.)
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Post by elvira on Jul 21, 2005 21:00:28 GMT -5
Some more updates: In "The Murder's in the Mail," in the final scene (at the banquet) when David tells the bad guy that they've replaced the coffee with "frozen crystals," that alludes to an ad campaign for Folgers, where they went to restaurants and secretly replaced the coffee with their instant coffee, and then got responses from unsuspecting patrons about how the coffee tasted. (Yeah, a lot of explanation for a simple line, but for the sake of completeness . . . ) I think this was also the episode where David makes the mention of "two scoops of raisins"? That's also from an ad campaign, where Kellogs boasted that it now had two scoops of raisin in the raisin bran. Woo hoo. In "The Bride of Tupperman," when David says he looked under every "Hill and dale, and Roy and Dale . . . " he was referring to Roy and Dale Rogers (an oldtime cowboy star and his wife. Not sure if non-Americans are familiar with them). Also from "Tupperman," when Maddie wants to find Molly a guy (for free) and David says "This isn't the way Iacocca would handle it." Maybe you've already heard of him, but his name hasn't been in the news lately—David was referring to businessman Lee Iacocca, who made a big splash in the '80s.
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