Bridget Loves Bernie

Bridget Loves Bernie
The wedding photo.
Created by	Bernard Slade
Starring	Meredith Baxter David Birney Audra Lindley David Doyle Harold J. Stone Ned Glass William Elliott Bibi Osterwald Robert Sampson
Theme music composer	Jerry Fielding
Opening theme	"Love Is Crazy"
Country of origin	USA
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	24
Production
Executive producer(s)	Douglas S. Cramer
Producer(s)	Don Nelson Arthur Alsberg
Running time	26 minutes
Production company(s)	The Douglas S. Cramer Company Thornhill Productions Screen Gems
Distributor	Sony Pictures Television
Release
Original network	CBS
Original release	September 16, 1972 – March 3, 1973

Bridget Loves Bernie is an American television comedy program created by Bernard Slade. Depicting an interfaith marriage between a Catholic woman and a Jewish man, Bridget Loves Bernie was based loosely on the premise of the 1920s Broadway play and 1940s radio show Abie's Irish Rose. It stars Meredith Baxter and David Birney as the title characters. It was canceled by CBS after only one season, despite high ratings.

Baxter and Birney married in real life after the program went off the air.

The series depicted an interfaith marriage between a wealthy Irish Catholic teacher (Bridget) and a Jewish cab driver (Bernie), whom she had met at a bus stop. With a primetime slot between All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show on Saturday nights, the situation comedy was #5 in the ratings among all shows for that television season and obtained a 24.2 rating, tying with The NBC Sunday Mystery Movie. However CBS executives canceled the show in response to negative reactions to the characters' marriage, making it the highest-rated television program to be canceled after only one season.

Supporting cast members included Audra Lindley, David Doyle, Harold J. Stone, Ned Glass, and Bibi Osterwald. Lindley and Doyle played Bridget's wealthy parents, Walter and Amy Fitzgerald, and Stone and Osterwald played Bernie's more down-to-earth parents, Sam and Sophie Steinberg. The Steinbergs owned a delicatessen above which Bridget and Bernie lived. Glass played Bernie's uncle, Moe Plotnik. Actor Robert Sampson played Father Michael Fitzgerald, a Catholic priest, who was Bridget's brother, and was more sympathetic to his sister's marriage. Bill Elliott played Otis, Bernie's best friend and fellow cab driver. Nora Marlowe was cast as Aunt Agnes in the 1972 episode "The Little White Lie That Grew and Grew".