It’s the show that took Bruce Willis from NYC’s most popular bartender to major star. It’s the show that gave Cybil Shepherd a well-deserved comeback. It was called Moonlighting, and it was funny and sexy and weird and had some of the most inventive bottle episodes of the ‘80s. And for years it’s been completely unavailable to stream (legally). But that, finally, thank god, is about to change.
As per Vulture, on October 10 Hulu will welcome all five seasons of Moonlighting to its streaming coffers. That’s 67 episodes of detective dramedy bliss, centered on an agency run by Shepherd’s Maddie Hayes and Willis’ David Addison Jr. — right up there with Cheers’ Sam and Diane as the decade’s great will-they-or-won’t-they? pair.
The news comes just under a year since show creator Glenn Gordon Caron swore he was working to get his baby online, as he did months after news of Willis’ tragic condition went public. Among the hold-ups was clearing the rights to all the pop songs they used, including the late Al Jarreau’s Billboard-charting theme song. That took some doing, but when Moonlighting hits Hulu, viewers will be able to watch it as it was watched from 1985 through 1989, with all the songs in-tact. (Whether it will be able to be streamed that way outside the U.S. remains to be seen.)
For its first four seasons, Moonlighting was a Nielsen’s juggernaut, making full use of the chemistry between its two leads, as well as the kooky supporting characters played by Allyce Beasley and Curtis Armstrong. It wasn’t afraid to think outside the box. In one episode they journey back to the Elizabethan era to do Taming of the Strew, completely with songs and double entendres. By the fifth season, internal clashes — as well as a time slot switcheroo that foolishly put it up against Murder, She Wrote — brought it to an untimely end. But now, belatedly, it will live on for a generation who weren’t even born when it ruled the airwaves.
(Via Vulture)
