Madman of the People | |
---|---|
Genre | Sitcom |
Created by | Chris Cluess Stu Kreisman |
Directed by |
James Burrows Jim Drake Philip Charles MacKenzie John Ratzenberger |
Starring |
Dabney Coleman Concetta Tomei Amy Aquino Craig Bierko Cynthia Gibb John Ales |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 16 |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Chris Cluess Stu Kreisman E. Duke Vincent Aaron Spelling |
Producer(s) | Penny Adams Stephen C. Grossman |
Camera setup | Multi-camera |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Production company(s) | Kreiscluesco Industries Spelling Television |
Distributor | CBS Television Distribution |
Release | |
Original network | NBC |
Original release | September 22, 1994 | – June 17, 1995
Madman of the People is an American sitcom that aired on NBC from 1994 to 1995. It was scheduled in the Thursday 9:30 timeslot, part of Must See TV.
Madman of the People was produced by Spelling Television.
The series stars character actor Dabney Coleman as Jack "Madman" Buckner, an outspoken newspaper columnist who had written a popular column, Madman of the People, in Your Times magazine for 30 years. The premise of the show involves Buckner's daughter, Meg (Cynthia Gibb), being brought in by the publisher to bring Buckner's column into the 1990s.
Though the series initially won favorable opinions from critics, and was popular with audiences, ranking 12th for the season with a 14.9 average household share, it was still cancelled after only one season, making it one of the highest rated shows ever to get cancelled, according to classictvhits.com. However, while the show did well in the ratings, it lost a considerable portion of its lead-in audience from Seinfeld and was also hindering the then-freshman hit drama ER. NBC noticed the early success of Friends and decided to re-shuffle its lineup to put that show in the 9:30 PM EST spot, leading to one of the most dominant programming blocs in TV history.