Maude is having an abortion!

Republicans didn't like Maude or Murphy Brown who had a kid out of wedlock and upset Dan Quayle to the point of making a speech about it

The most shocking thing is the notion that Maude could fall pregnant at 87.

^

"In the show's first season, Maude, at the age of 47, learned she was pregnant; her distress was evident. “Mother, what's wrong?"

Yeah, a bit of a stretch there 🙄

I still think Florida shoulda done the abortion for Maude.

47 year olds sure did present OLD back then. She looks like my grandmother and I'm over 50.

R1 A few years later, Candice Bergen said she thought Dan Quayle was correct in what he said. The character was to have a baby on her own and in Quayle's speech, he thought the producers were "mocking the importance of fathers"

That's it! That is the totally of his "controversial" remarks, yet the OUTRAGE from the left went on for weeks. FFS!

Top be fair, someone as unintelligent as Dan Quayle shouldn't be giving anyone advice. It just grates to be lectured by a stupid person.

And people really thought the character, a tall, masculine voiced, pantsuit wearing feminist was having sex....straight sex with her "husband". Sure!

@r6, I'd like to read that. Link please

She was the man in that relationship. The weaselly husband should have had the abortion.

R9 I don't have a link. It's all from memory. The media kept playing that one sound bite from his speech "...mocking the importance of fathers." All the groveling media outlets were spewing the dislike, (Fox News wasn't really a thing) A few years, or maybe more, into the Clinton Administration, Bergen was asked in an interview about the controversy and she said she thought the Vice President was correct. I remember watching an episode of Hardball with Chris Mathews, and this being brought up, and he sarcastically said, paraphrasing { Oh thanks for that! A little late for that] Bergen was mum during the firestorm. Come to think of it, it was probably in the early 2000s when she made the remark.

^ I'd just like some context, because her having a baby that she could well afford was not really a bad thing, a lot of women were doing it at the time

It's not Conservative to say that children should ideally have fathers.

From memory that wasn't an option in the show, the father wasn't around. So really it was an abortion or have it alone. In other words the whole controversy was bullshit.

^ Exactly, the "controversy" was her having a baby out of wedlock... Per Dan Quayle, an expert on women's rights 🤣

R12 It was the usual conservative, Christian, family values speech Republicans gave to their base in the '80s and '90s. Quayle was at some dinner and was the keynote speaker and he was criticizing the left's positions and went at the show Murphy Brown, which was a top 5 show at the time. It was much ado about nothing. It should have never had legs like it did, but it went on for weeks. Bergen was not the focal point, it was the producers of the show and Hollywood in general. The ensuing episode had Bergen's character utter the line, when another character asked her about Quayle's comment "IT'S DAN QUAYLE!" The producer's actually played the video of his remark during the episode. Really. 🙄

^ The rest of that was "IT'S DAN QUAYLE!" he'll get his head caught in a golf bag and everyone will forget about it" 😂

It pretty much sealed the deal on any future political aspirations Quayle may have had

Quayle deserved to be mocked for that speech, which wasn't even really about Murphy Brown.

----

"On May 19, 1992, the campaign for President George H.W. Bush’s reelection was heating up, while the fires of the Los Angeles riots were cooling down. Vice president Dan Quayle was in San Francisco to deliver a speech at the nonpartisan Commonwealth Club of California.

Quayle began by acknowledging the riots that had raged downstate only a few weeks earlier, after the acquittal of police officers caught on video beating Rodney King.

“What happened? Why? And most importantly, how can we prevent it in the future?” he asked.

First, he made clear that only rioters are to blame for riots. But, he added, there was an “underlying situation”: the breakdown of the “traditional” family structure and the “narcotic of welfare.” For the vast majority of the 3,000-word speech, he explained his view that a poverty mind-set is what held back mostly black, urban residents.

And then, toward the end, Quayle added: “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.”

The night before, 38 million viewers had watched the season finale of the hit show, as acerbic, unmarried journalist Murphy Brown, played by actress Candice Bergen, gave birth and tenderly sang “Natural Woman” to her newborn son.

So with Quayle’s single sentence, a speech primarily about black poverty was forever dubbed the “Murphy Brown Speech.”

Ten years later Bergen did say she agreed with him on the point about fathers being indispensible, giving him too much credit for a speech that was really just a racist screed.

"speaking to TV reporters this week, Bergen, now 56 (and a lifelong liberal, despite having a staunchly conservative father, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen), declared: “I never have really said much about the whole episode, which was endless. But his speech was a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable and nobody agreed with that more than I did.” "

^ Ok, in context it was a nice thing for Candice Bergen to say about the importance of fathers, but she didn't say anything against unwed mothers

R18 "racist screed" Sure, whatever. 🙄

^ Yep, because welfare is a black thing even though way more whites are on welfare then blacks

How does a grown woman deciding to have a baby on her own mock the importance of fathers? If she had married a woman, does that mock the importance of men? If she studied a new language on her own, does it mock the importance of teachers? If she topped her waffle with Nutella, does that mock the importance of maple syrup?

Deviation from the norm does not wound those that follow it in any way. Those who believe the opposite are everything that's wrong with the world.

Apatow?

R22 All I can say is....this was 30 years ago! Mindsets were...a bit different from today's.

^ In many ways they're worse now

Dan Quayle spelled potato with an E, and that's all I need to know about him.

^ And he tried to shame a little kid over it. Luckily the kid thought he was a complete moron

R26 Glad to know you judge someone on the most important of characteristics. 🙄

R27 THAT is what you call shaming? 😂

^ Hi, MAGAt how are things at the trailer park today? Is Saturday cousin-fucking day?

R29 you're R25 and I agree with you. You are your own example. 🙄

^ If there's a point there no one got it

R31 Knowing is half the battle as they say. I'm glad you're not ashamed to admitted you don't understand a simple point, FFS!

Didn't Maude's problem turn out to be gas? It was a very special three-parter.

@r32, *sigh*... Are you always this exhausting?

R34 - The answer is yes.

R33 😂 She was bloated.

Is it, uncharitable, for me to say she was the most unattractive female in the history of Hollywood? At least for the length of her career? How in god's name did she ever get past the first test screening?...or even the first read?

R34 R35 😒😞

I think Bea Arthur has talked about her physical insecurities. I remember a story she told in an interview where Bea went to go see a big star on Broadway while she was still a struggling, aspiring actress. I think the star was Tallulah Bankhead. Anyway, Bea waited for her at the stage door and when Tallulah emerged she gushed saying how stunning and captivating she was on stage. Tallulah looked her over and said something to the effect that she was too ugly to ever be a star. I always found it odd in the old Maude series just how many times her character would "mention" how gorgeous she was and how many men wanted her and how she was a popular cheerleader with lots of boyfriends in high school and college. Maybe Norman Lear was worried Bea would read lesbian back in 1972 so they over-emphasized her heterosexuality?

R7 Didn't Dan Quayle say he wished he had studied Latin to speak with officials n Latin America?

I don't think anyone who voted for Biden should be making jokes about Quayle... glass houses and all.

^ Ooh, I bet you thought that was going to be a great "gotcha", but instead it landed like a rotten egg 😂

Why don't MAGAts have a sense of humor?

Because it takes an IQ over 50 to understand humor 😏

R41 - Seriously, are you 12 years old?

Maude really was pregnant in the show and actually went through with the abortion which seems unthinkable on a network sitcom in 2022.

@r42, Seriously, is that your best shade? See, you have to have an IQ over 50 to understand humor and here you are to prove it, Jackass 😏

I'm having an abortion and I can't wait!

[quote]Maybe Norman Lear was worried Bea would read lesbian back in 1972

Bea read lesbian back in 72 A.D.

It seems amazing that this was possible in the 70s, without the network being inundated with protests or executives preemptively shutting it down. I think the far right are more organized and active in culture wars now than then?

R44 - Sorry, I don't waste my time with children.

^ Liar you stalk children all the time. Prev

Stop stalking me, I'm 12 years old... Security!

I think Bea's insecurities with her appearance formed her character; her bitterness, sarcasm and wit, which ultimately made her, too. I liked Bea Arthur. She also left money in her will to homeless gay kids. Good for her.

[quote]The most shocking thing is the notion that Maude could fall pregnant at 87.

I remember watching this show at the time & think the same thing: she has gray hair - how could a grandma possibly be PREGNANT?

Women in their early 50s do sometimes fall pregnant naturally.

Maude's aborted baby would now be pushing 50.

R53 - Worse yet, it would like like a hybrid of Arthur and Macy.

I wish she had the baby. Let Florida adopt it. Imagine the hilarity on Good Times!

So Maude wasn't man?

This is 2022 don't you know men can have babies.

If Maude were rebooted today, she would be trans.

Did Bea ever die her hair? Most women on TV do everything they can to disguise their grey hair, but Bea never suddenly appeared with dark hair even for a new show like The Golden Girls. We know that she lost a lot of weight to play Dorothy as she said she wanted to look different to Maude, looking back it’s surprising that she didn’t go for a darker hair colour to change her appearance further.

^ She had dark hair in Mame

^ Yes but she was younger then, I am talking about her TV work, I only ever saw her with grey hair from when I first heard or saw Bea, which was Maude era.

MAME came out in 1974, which would have been around the second or third season of MAUDE.

I'm not sure, but I think her hair was slightly darker and longer in her brief (lousy) sitcom AMANDA'S BY THE SEA. That flop came between her hits MAUDE and THE GOLDEN GIRLS.

Are you suggesting the rebooted Maude would be the first transwoman to have an abortion? That really would be groundbreaking television.

R63 - Yes, but she would have had to have been raped to not draw the ire of pro-lifers.

Reading this thread reminded me that Norman Lear brought us not only Bea Arthur, but also Jean Stapleton, Esther Rolle, Bonnie Franklin, Isabel Sanford, and other actors who were not typical Hollywood "beauties" and gave them starring roles playing strong women in what became major TV shows of that era. It's possible he was trying to show those characters not as "eye candy," but as strong individuals who not only held their families together but also stood up to men when necessary. It was revolutionary at the time, and yes there were protests, lost sponsorships, and stations not airing shows. The late 1960s and 1970s were exciting times of change in American culture until the counterreaction of the 1980s gained traction.

Just the one dear?

Maude was a nymphomaniac.

Maude was hung.

My grandmother had an abortion around that same time, and she was middle aged. Her child would have been nearly my age.

She had already had 4 before abortions were legal with an alcoholic, extremely abusive husband who regularly beat her up, took her paycheck and drank it all before she could use it to pay the rent.

By the time of the abortion, she was divorced and raising her kids through their teen years. She admitted to me that she had an affair around that time and knew it had no future, and dodged questions about whether she wanted another kid, but considering all that had gone on in her life to that point, my guess would be that she didn't want another and barely raised the 4, and may have even aborted them if she had had the choice back then.

^to clarify, she had 4 kids before abortions were legal and all reached adulthood.

[quote] Maude is having an abortion!

STILL? How long does that process take?!

And she enjoyed it.

If men could get preggers, abortion would be widely available and entirely worshiped as a sacred right.

Did the rabbit die laughing?

And then there's "Broad"

Tangentially related, but I just watched the documentary The Janes on HBOMax about a ring of women abortionist in Chicago pre Roe Vs Wade and it was fascinating and anyone trying to overturn it should be made to watch and see how hellish and dangerous it was for women when abortion wasn’t legal.

I'm having an abortion and I can't wait!

They could have done a very special Absent Fathers Day episode where Murphy Brown and Maude Findlay were sharing a hospital room, both scheduled for abortions.

Perhaps a butchered musical number as well…?