11/17/87: ONE HIT SHOW, BUT WHERE ARE THE STARS?

While there is the question about certain shows continuing in 2018 without their stars, here's a quick look at 30 years ago:

Production chaos on MOONLIGHTING sent detectives David Addison to jail and Maddie Hayes to Chicago.  (Cybill Shepherd was on pregnancy leave for part of the season.  The series also stopped shooting for eleven weeks allowing Bruce Willis to become a movie star filming DIE HARD.)

This was hardly the first time the show had delays.  But it was unusual that a two-parter would be concluded two weeks later and not the following week.  (Also, not the first time for a MOONLIGHTING multi-parter to be stagnated.)  This was such a mega-hit show that reruns often did almost as well as new episodes.  And most Tuesdays at 9pm, you didn't know if the new episode had been delivered on time.

When part two aired, check out how the "network execs" handled the absence of their star about one minute into this episode:

By the way, the pre-emption on 11/24/87 was for a ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE 20TH ANNIVERSARY special.   HBO is currently airing the 50th.