Cybill (TV series)

[ClassyCo]

CYBILL is an American television sitcom that aired on CBS from January 2, 1995, to July 13, 1998, totaling four seasons and 87 half-hour episodes.

The series stars Cybill Shepherd as Cybill Sheridan, an aging actress who has had a varied, but fairly mediocre career. Maryann Thorpe (played by Christine Baranski) is Cybill's closest friend, who once worked as a receptionist, but is now extremely wealthy because of the divorce settlement she received from her ex-husband, plastic surgeon Richard Thorpe. Cybill has two children: Zoey Woodbine (played by Alicia Witt), a rebellious, but intelligent high school student with a more sarcastic tongue than her mother, and Rachel Robbins Manning (played by Dedee Pfeiffer), Cybill's eldest daughter, who is uptight and married to Kevin Manning (played by Peter Krause), an assistant professor. Cybill's two ex-husbands are often frequenters of the story lines: Jeff Robbins (Tom Wopat), Rachel's father, who is a successful stunt man with a roaming eye, and Ira Woodbine (played by Alan Rosenberg), Zoey's father, a brilliant writer prone to writer's block.

CYBILL was a rather successful TV show of its time, and I've caught it occasionally on some no-name networks in reruns. I believe it was Tubi or Crackle that once had the series available to stream for free, but I've only watched the first couple of episodes.

Any fans?​

 

[Grant Jennings]

I think Christine Baranski's character, Maryann (along with Karen on Will & Grace) owes a debt to Joanna Lumley's character, Patsy, on Absolutely Fabulous. Cybill Shepherd is her own worst enemy: she had a hit series which could have had a longer run but she let her ego get in the way which, I believe, led to the show's cancellation. Shepherd was said to have been jealous that Baranski was getting most of the laughs. Shepherd would have done well to emulate Mary Tyler Moore who didn't care who was getting the laughs as long as the audience was laughing.

Chuck Lorre produced Cybill for its first two seasons; I don't know what it is about Lorre that draws him to difficult stars, he has also worked with (and had run-ins with) Roseanne Barr and Charlie Sheen.

Cybill reminds me of High Society which debuted on CBS several months later, High Society starred Jean Smart and Mary McDonnell. Smart's character also appeared to be inspired by Patsy Stone. The character of McDonnell's college student son, who disapproves of the behavior of his mother and her friend, is similar to Ab Fab's Saffron.

 

[Crimson]

I recall CYBILL being a very run-of-the-mill sitcom. I watched it, to some extent at least, but barely remember a thing about it. I think Morgan Fairchild showed up a few times as a rival to Cybill's character.

Cybill reminds me of High Society which debuted on CBS several months later, High Society starred Jean Smart and Mary McDonnell. Smart's character also appeared to be inspired by Patsy Stone. The character of McDonnell's college student son, who disapproves of the behavior of his mother and her friend, is similar to Ab Fab's Saffron.

There were a couple shows in the mid-90s that were clearly inspired by ABFAB, but only in a watered-down for American network TV kind of way. Roseanne even talked about doing an American remake; it's been my suspicion that her failure to get that made resulted in her own show's weird, last season swerve away from blue collar comedy.

 

[Daniel Avery]

High Society was indeed the most obvious of the AbFab clones, and though it was funny enough I don't think it "had legs".

I adored Cybill (the show and the actress). I still put on an occasional episode (on Tubi) to re-live the good old days. It's been off the air long enough for me to forget most of the plots, so it's like watching something new.

Most recently I watched an episode where Cybill was considering reconciling with Ira, but ended up getting romantically "entangled" with a younger man she was performing a play with (played by Kevin Sorbo at the height of his Hercules body and hairstyle). He's crushing on her but Cybill's all torn up about hurting the guy's feelings; Mary Ann advises Cybill to "ride that young buck! Ride him off into the sunset!" In the end she lets the guy down easy, saying they ought not get involved since they're working together and she's "a little" too old for him. In the final scene we see he's "moved on" from his crush on Cybill, waking up in bed next to a very pleased Zsa Zsa Gabor.

The producers did a great job drawing the characters and making all of them (not just the star) seem like three-dimensional beings. I liked how Zoe hid how mature and talented she really was from her parents and pretended to be this rude, sarcastic teen with no life. I could see how Cybill would have married both Jeff and Ira, and though they were polar opposites the two exes could actually co-miserate as continuous parts of Cybill's life. And who can forget the endless, epic campaign of pranks and practical jokes Mary Ann waged against Dr. DICK? My favorite gag? I'm torn between where she called the FBI and told them Dr. Dick was the Unabomber, and when she had his swimming pool filled with liquid sewage.

 

[darkshadows38]

i don't remember much about it other than i loved the show and this was the show that really got me to be a fan of Hers and Christine Baranski i had never even heard of before this show.i mean i had Heard of Cybil but i didn't really become a fan of hers until she did this show. what's really f... up is the behind the scenes and that's why it was cancelled i believe. i never saw the entire run cause i lost track what the hell was going on bu if i recall though i haven't seen it i believe it did end on a cliff-hanger.

the girl that played her Daughter Alicia Witt was the little girl in Twin Peaks she also was one of my favorite movies "Four Rooms ( 1995) for those who love Twin Peaks she was the little girl who played the piano

 

[Daniel Avery]

Peter Krause played Cybill's son-in-law, and later went on to play the lead in Six Feet Under.

 

[darkshadows38]

i love Peter Krause i forget he was in Cybil to be honest

 

[ClassyCo]

Cybill Shepherd is her own worst enemy: she had a hit series which could have had a longer run but she let her ego get in the way which, I believe, led to the show's cancellation. Shepherd was said to have been jealous that Baranski was getting most of the laughs. Shepherd would have done well to emulate Mary Tyler Moore who didn't care who was getting the laughs as long as the audience was laughing.

That seems to be a semi-recurring theme among actors starring in their own titular television series. I think Mary Tyler Moore and Andy Griffith are two stars that were just fine with the audience making a breakout character out of their sidekick: Rhoda and Barney emerged as fan favorites. That didn't seem to bother neither Moore or Griffith in the slightest.

I know Linda Lavin apparently loathed that Polly Holliday and her Florence Jean Castleberry character became some popular on ALICE in the late-'70s. So irked was Lavin that she practically pushed Holliday to do her own spin-off FLO (which lasted a season-and-a-half before getting chopped). Even with Holliday off doing her own show, Lavin still managed to feud with Holliday's on-screen replacement Diane Ladd. She didn't make it to 25 episodes before she exited the show to be replaced by Celia Weston.

When ALICE aired its finale in 1985, neither Polly Holliday or Diane Ladd were shown in flashbacks. They were ignored altogether.​

 

[Daniel Avery]

Harry Anderson was another actor who did not mind being overshadowed on "his" show (in this case, Night Court). John Larroquette's Dan Fielding character really took off (and JL won multiple, consecutive Emmys) but to Anderson's credit, he just sat back and let Larroquette do his thing. It helped the ratings and longevity of the show they were all benefitting from, keeping them all employed and in the public eye.

 

[Daniel Avery]

I loved how Cybill would open the episodes with a snip/bit of one of her character's latest acting jobs, usually some humiliating bit from a commercial or a low-budget horror movie. Sometimes the scene would set up the plot of the episode, but mostly they were just sight gags (like Cybill in alien make-up or her getting "killed" with a rubber knife). It was a great hook to get people to keep watching.

In one episode, she was the perky star of a grocery-store ad, where she kept saying "Can DO!" with a psychotic grin on her face. Later in the episode, when she met a young girl who turned out to be her long-lost niece, the niece recognizes her from TV and exclaims "Oh, my God! You're the 'Can-Do lady'!" with admiration.

 

[ClassyCo]

Cybill Shepherd played April Sinclaire -- the creator of Victoria Chase's soap opera EDGE OF TOMORROW -- on a Season 3 episode of HOT IN CLEVELAND.

 

[AndyB2008]

i don't remember much about it other than i loved the show and this was the show that really got me to be a fan of Hers and Christine Baranski i had never even heard of before this show.i mean i had Heard of Cybil but i didn't really become a fan of hers until she did this show. what's really f... up is the behind the scenes and that's why it was cancelled i believe. i never saw the entire run cause i lost track what the hell was going on bu if i recall though i haven't seen it i believe it did end on a cliff-hanger.

the girl that played her Daughter Alicia Witt was the little girl in Twin Peaks she also was one of my favorite movies "Four Rooms ( 1995) for those who love Twin Peaks she was the little girl who played the piano

Alicia was also in the film Urban Legend with Jared Leto, Tara Reid and Rebecca Gayheart.

 

[Seaviewer]

who can forget the endless, epic campaign of pranks and practical jokes Mary Ann waged against Dr. DICK?

Yes, it all started here for Christine Baranski. "Dr. Dick!" remains one of my all-time favourite TV quotes, but of course it's meaningless out of context.

There were a couple shows in the mid-90s that were clearly inspired by ABFAB, but only in a watered-down for American network TV kind of way. Roseanne even talked about doing an American remake;

I remember when they were talking about doing an American version of AbFab, someone said, "but Cybill is already the American version of AbFab".

 

[TaranofPrydain]

I think Christine Baranski's character, Maryann (along with Karen on Will & Grace) owes a debt to Joanna Lumley's character, Patsy, on Absolutely Fabulous. Cybill Shepherd is her own worst enemy: she had a hit series which could have had a longer run but she let her ego get in the way which, I believe, led to the show's cancellation. Shepherd was said to have been jealous that Baranski was getting most of the laughs. Shepherd would have done well to emulate Mary Tyler Moore who didn't care who was getting the laughs as long as the audience was laughing.

Chuck Lorre produced Cybill for its first two seasons; I don't know what it is about Lorre that draws him to difficult stars, he has also worked with (and had run-ins with) Roseanne Barr and Charlie Sheen.

Cybill reminds me of High Society which debuted on CBS several months later, High Society starred Jean Smart and Mary McDonnell. Smart's character also appeared to be inspired by Patsy Stone. The character of McDonnell's college student son, who disapproves of the behavior of his mother and her friend, is similar to Ab Fab's Saffron.

I think for Cybill it might have bordered on the pathological. I always think that she was desperate to be accepted by critics as an actress, and for one reason or another, she always got overshadowed by her co-stars. It did not help matters that the first season out, Baranski won an Emmy (mirroring Willis winning an Emmy for Moonlighting while Cybill didn't), while Cybill, who was the co-host of the ceremony that night and given tons of good reviews, was beaten by Candise Bergen's fifth and final win for Murphy Brown, which although it had three years left at that time, was already considered as being on the wane creatively.

 

[colbyco]

Cybill gave an interview some years ago saying the show was cancelled because she wouldn´t be kind to the boss of CBS...
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/life/...s-moonves-and-he-canceled-my-show/2303560002/

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

She is such an Aquarius.

I've been watching the romantic comedy CHANCES ARE (which I haven't seen since 1989 on home video), the title based on an old Johnny Mathis song -- a number of '80s movies were named after songs from the '50s & '60s.

Robert Downey Jr. is 23 and cute as a button, Ryan O'Neal has not yet received the face he deserves, and Cybill Shepherd -- in the throes of her MOONLIGHTING success -- is doing a movie during her spring hiatus between seasons.

What always strikes me, then and now, is how silkily gorgeous so many theatrical films looked in the late-'80s and early-'90s. I don't understand what the technical stuff is or how it works, but the TV series of the same era do not look this good (or even approach it). Yes, yes, I understand that movies have "a higher budget," but the lighting, the sheen, the resolution, are so different. They both were using 35mm stock in most cases, but the lab work was obviously so different.

Did they have color re-grading back then?

If only DYNASTY had ever looked this good (Season 5, Michel Hugo's first full season, tried to capture these kinds of polished visuals, but wasn't entirely successful). Then, of course, television went in that ghastly Telecine direction, a film-video hybrid process which looked like the titles were on cellophane. (Which took DALLAS' Season 10 another forty years to correct).

Anyway, while I always believe all the 'she-is-such-a-bitch!' stories about her (Bruce Willis once remarked, "I just don't have anything nice to say about her") I have no trouble watching her as an actress. She makes interesting choices.

But I have no doubt that, behind the scenes, she brought down both MOONLIGHTING and CYBILL over jealousy issues with her co-star, Willis and Baranski.

 

[Soaplover]

I always say it takes three to tango... and Willis and Glenn at Moonlighting were just as difficult as she was.. and Baranski can be icy/aloof and Chuck Lorre is juvenile/basic.... I almost think being difficult seems to be a requirement in modern day Hollywood.

With that said, I do agree that Cybill took the basic foundations that made Adfab so good/unique and did an American version of it that actually worked. Cybill had two ex husband's that were vastly different and her two children also were different and funny in their own ways.

High Society was too limited/niche to work long term while the attempted 2000s version that got to pilot stage also didn't work either... and it was probably because the shows were too focused on the elements that worked for British television/audiences instead of trying to rework them to work on a mainstream American audience.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I always say it takes three to tango..

So everybody is always equally guilty?

And who says it was a tango -- a three person tango??

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

With regard to her onscreen work only, I think CB is a good actress, maybe an underrated one
Not every actress can lead a Tv series, and she starred/costarred in "Moonlighting" and "Cybil"
"The Last Picture Show" "The Heartbreak Kid" "Taxi Driver" and "Chances Are" - a solid group of movies

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Cybill Shepherd is her own worst enemy: she had a hit series which could have had a longer run but she let her ego get in the way which, I believe, led to the show's cancellation.

That comes across strongly in this overview of the series, including the behind-the-scenes dramas that led to its demise: