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| Just Shoot Me! | |
|---|---|
| Format | Sitcom |
| Created by | Steven Levitan |
| Starring | Laura San Giacomo Chris Hogan (1996) George Segal Wendie Malick Enrico Colantoni David Spade |
| Ending theme | Life Keeps Bringin' Me Back To You (Vocals by Lauren Wood) |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 7 |
| No. of episodes | 148 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
Steven Levitan |
| Producer(s) | Brillstein-Grey Communications (1997-2000) Brad Grey Television (2000-2002) Universal Television Steven Levitan Productions Columbia Pictures Television (1997-1999) Columbia TriStar Television (1999-2002) Sony Pictures Television (2002-2003) |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
| Original run | March 4, 1997 – August 16, 2003 |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
Just Shoot Me! is an American television sitcom that aired for seven seasons on NBC from March 4, 1997 to August 16, 2003, with 148 episodes produced. The show was created by Steven Levitan, the show's executive producer.
Contents |
Description
The show followed the staff at the fictional fashion magazine Blush. The show originally centered around Maya Gallo played by Laura San Giacomo, a neo-feminist writer, who reluctantly takes a job at the glamour magazine, owned by her father, the Donald Trump-like Jack Gallo played by George Segal (who in the story has a rivalry with Donald Trump). The cast included womanizing (and usually over-sensitive) photographer Elliot DiMauro (Enrico Colantoni), and the heavy drinking and sexually promiscuous ex-model Nina Van Horn (Wendie Malick).
After the show's original pilot for NBC, David Spade was added to the cast as smart-mouthed assistant Dennis Finch. While the show had been designed as something of a vehicle for San Giacomo, it developed into more of an ensemble format. The show has also been credited as bringing a surge of renewed popularity for George Segal and Wendie Malick, who had been out of the public eye for some time up until Just Shoot Me. Every single episode of the 148-episode, seven season run features all five regular cast members.
The first season also included Chris Hogan as Maya's roommate, Wally, who was dropped when the show quickly solidified as a workplace sitcom, making the Mary-Rhoda dynamic obsolete. Brian Posehn appeared as mail clerk Kevin Liotta (Ray Liotta's cousin) through much of the last four seasons. Rena Sofer, the only regular added during the run of the show, played young fashion savant Vicki Costa during the final season. Also in the final season, Simon Templeman played the recurring role of British rock star Simon Leeds, who had a relationship with Nina.
Notable actors appearing in a recurring or guest star capacity included Rebecca Romijn (as supermodel Adrienne Barker, Spade's TV wife), Brian Dennehy (as Dennis' father who gets engaged to Nina in an episode), David Cross (as Elliot's younger brother who pretends to be mentally disabled), Rhoda Gemignani, Cybill Shepherd, Stephen Root, Steve Carell, Tom Kenny, Dana Carvey, Jim Wise, Tiffani Thiessen, Dave Foley, Ali Larter, Mark Hamill, George Lucas, Amy Sedaris, French Stewart, Carmen Electra, Ray Liotta, Snoop Dogg and Paul Parducci as Deke "The Dekester" Williams. Models who made guest appearances on the show included Tyra Banks, Brooke Shields as Nina's younger sister, Stephanie Romanov, Amber Smith, Paige Brooks, Daphne Duplaix, Cassidy Rae, Cheryl Tiegs, and Rebecca Chaney.
The show was rooted in Levitan's earlier career as a writer for The Larry Sanders Show. He had once conceived of a story about Janeane Garofalo's character having to sit and talk with a vapid model with whom she had nothing in common. The idea went unproduced, but Levitan liked the dynamic and later used the idea to develop a pitch for NBC. Garofalo's persona would become a template for Maya Gallo.
Series history
Early on, the series was a very competitive hit, consistently winning its time slot.1 The show was so popular that its first season of six episodes were all aired by NBC in a single month in March 1997. It was renewed for a 13-episode second season, fitted at 9:30 after Frasier, and then was moved in the spring to Thursdays between Seinfeld and Friends.2 After just two of these airings, the order was bumped up to a full season. When Seinfeld left the airwaves in 1998, Just Shoot Me was one of the contenders to take the coveted 9 p.m. Thursday slot.3 Frasier instead won the slot, and Just Shoot Me was instead given Frasier's 9 p.m. Tuesday slot.
Just Shoot Me! was never given a definitive timeslot during its series run. When Frasier tanked in the coveted Thursday slot, NBC returned that show to Tuesdays at 9, moving Just Shoot Me! (in its third season) to another time that night. It still retained good ratings, though: in its fourth season, it was the top-rated show for NBC Tuesday nights and had an average rating of 6.1/16 share.4
For its fifth season, Just Shoot Me! was put on to Thursdays at 9:30, between Will & Grace and ER, where ratings saw an immediate (though expected) spike and where the show would remain for two years.
The show's seventh season saw several drastic changes that inevitably led to its cancellation. Series showrunners Moses Port and David Guarascio left the show at the end of the sixth season to pursue a development deal with NBC, and were replaced with Jon Pollack and Judd Pillot (Coach, Anything But Love) and John Peaslee (Spin City). Also noted as a big factor was the addition of Rena Sofer to the cast. Her addition was mandated by NBC, who had sought a successful vehicle for her for years. (She later starred in the ill-fated U.S. version of Coupling for the network). Many of the series' fans felt betrayed by the addition of Sofer to the show,citation needed which hadn't added a new regular cast member in its entire run.
At the same time, NBC also gave the show one of its most difficult timeslots, Tuesdays at 8 pm. Ratings fell sharply in the first few weeks, and the show was put on hiatus by November, showing only one new episode until the following April. During this time, production resumed, but Sofer's character was written out immediately. By this point, NBC had canceled the show, and promised Levitan to run the remaining episodes twice a week until the series finale. When the first of such installments was not as successful as NBC had hoped with its "Return of Just Shoot Me!" campaign, the show was again pulled, and new episodes were burned off in the summer, the final pair of episodes airing on a Saturday in August 2003. Three more episodes, including Sofer's speedy good-bye, were not aired in America until their respective slots in syndicated airings. Levitan publicly denounced NBC's treatment of a former Must-See TV show and refused production deals for several years.
Cast
- Laura San Giacomo – Maya Gallo
- George Segal– Jack Gallo
- Chris Hogan - Wally (1996-1997)
- Enrico Colantoni – Elliot DiMauro
- Wendie Malick – Nina Van Horn
- David Spade – Dennis Finch
- Rena Sofer – Vicki Costa (2002–2003)
Characters
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Dennis Finch
Born in Albany, New York, Dennis attended Hudson River Junior College where he joined the cheerleading team. In general, Finch has been described as “a self-centered horny pig who’d stop at nothing to get laid.” Surreptitiously, Dennis writes articles for the “Dear Miss Pretty” advice column. Dennis also likes to collect action figures and ceramic kittens. He lives in an apartment, number 803, in New York City, NY (Manhattan). He is also known to have a fear of owls from his mother's side. He works as the executive assistant of Jack Gallo, the owner of the magazine Blush. Dennis also loves to go on nights out with the girls!
Maya Gallo
Maya was largely portrayed as a hot-tempered, sassy journalist who took a job at the fictional glamour fashion magazine Blush, which happened to be owned by her father Jack Gallo, in the pilot after she was fired for tampering with an anchorwoman's teleprompter and making her cry. She was a dichotomy on several levels, with her headstrong smarts coupled against a naïveté about life and sometimes even love. Keeping with her neo-feminist views, Maya frowned upon men looking at women as objects of sexual desire, instead encouraging people to admire females for their intelligence. Unfortunately for her, this was not a popular view for a fashion magazine and it therefore put her at odds with much of the magazine's staff.
Despite this, there have been several instances in which Maya was alluded to be nude or engaging in sexual intercourse and there was one instance in which she purposely stuck her chest out and partially unbuttoned her blouse in an effort to distract Dennis Finch, an admitted admirer of her bosom. In spite of her attempts to deemphasize her large breasts, Maya was occasionally on the receiving end of "boob jokes" on the show, especially from Finch and Nina Van Horn. Whenever a joke in regards to her bustline was made, Maya usually wouldn't dignify the remark with a verbal response, although she would often appear visibly flustered.
She is sometimes mistaken for a Puerto Rican. Her birthday is January 1st.
Maya was often shown dating on the show. There have been implications that she and Elliot as a possible couple, she was also briefly engaged to him. Among her other dates were Michael Tenzer (David Rasche), Chris (Dean Cain), Ray Liotta and another man named Chris (Joe Rogan). Although she was involved in several relationships, she was never depicted getting (legally) married in the series.
Nina Van Horn
The comical character of Nina Van Horn (born Clare Noodleman in Kansas) was a cover girl in the 1970s and 1980s, and found that when she retired, people forgot her as quickly as they knew her. Due to her former status as a supermodel, she has been plagued by an obsession to party all night long and to return to work the following morning with a hangover. Her partying even caused her to die in 1986 (to which she responded, "it was only for 12 minutes, I'm obviously fine!"). Nina is an alcoholic partially due to her casual nip of alcohol during the day at work. Her slow witted and even foolish demeanor create a lot of embarrassing situations for her character. She is also known to sleep with many men. In one episode she had sex with Finch's father. Also it was said she had been with five women.
Nina Van Horn is obsessed with her age and looks. In one episode, she mentioned that she had the telephone number of a plastic surgeon on speed dial, and when her age is nearly revealed over the P.A, she runs into Jack's office to destroy the P.A so nobody will know her age. Throughout the run of the show she was vaguely in her late forties to early fifties, once blurting out that life's no fun at fifty (EP: "Sid and Nina").
Also in most season Nina always talks about her friend Binny this is usually lead to a groan by other members of BLUSH who have to listen. At some point, she mentioned that she was the one who broke up music bands such as The Eagles and the "Jackson 5"
Episodes
DVD releases
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the complete 1st and 2nd seasons of Just Shoot Me! on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time on June 8, 2004. Season 3 will be released on February 24, 2009, over 4 years since the release of the first two seasons. 5
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date | Additional Info |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Complete 1st & 2nd Seasons | 31 | June 8, 2004 |
|
| The Complete 3rd Season | 25 | February 24, 2009 |
Awards and nominations
References
- ^ SUSAN KING (1997, November 25). Sophomore 'Just Shoot Me' Proves Timing Is Everything; Television: When the series moved from Wednesdays to Tuesdays behind 'Frasier', its ratings took off :[Home Edition]. Los Angeles Times, p. 2. Retrieved September 13, 2007, from Los Angeles Times database. (Document ID: 23603986).
- ^ STEVE WEINSTEIN (1998, April 16). Lightweight With a Punch; With his TV, film and stand-up careers all booming, David Spade is the first to acknowledge he's not a 'studly guy.' Thank heavens :[Home Edition]. Los Angeles Times, p. 50. Retrieved September 13, 2007, from Los Angeles Times database. (Document ID: 28683320).
- ^ Bill Carter (1998, January 28). Show Could Be A Contender. New York Times (Late Edition (east Coast)), p. 9. Retrieved September 13, 2007, from National Newspapers (5) database. (Document ID: 25669289).
- ^ Joe Schlosser (2000, April). 'Just Shoot Me'--for the fifth time. Broadcasting & Cable magazine, 130(17), 34. Retrieved September 13, 2007, from Research Library database. (Document ID: 52852274).
- ^ http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Just-Shoot-Season-3/10949
External links
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 7 January 2009, at 10:00.
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