Bonnie (TV series)

Bonnie (originally titled The Bonnie Hunt Show) is an American sitcom television series that aired on CBS from September 22, 1995 to April 7, 1996. Bonnie Hunt plays Bonnie Kelly, a television reporter who moves from Wisconsin to take a job with a Chicago television station where she encounters an eclectic group of coworkers.

In addition to the stories concerning Bonnie's life inside and out of the station, each episode includes one of Bonnie's television news features, in which Hunt would improvise interviews with real people attending or involved in current real local events.

Cast

 * Bonnie Hunt as Bonnie Kelly
 * Mark Derwin as Bill Kirkland
 * Brian Howe as Sammy Sinatra
 * Don Lake as Keith Jedzik
 * Tom Virtue as Tom Vandoozer
 * Holly Wortell as Holly Janovsky
 * David Alan Grier as David Bellows

Production notes
The series premiered as The Bonnie Hunt Show in September 1995 and aired under that title for the first six episodes before being placed on hiatus in November. Upon returning to the air in March, the show was retitled Bonnie and ran for an additional five episodes in a new Sunday-night timeslot. Despite improved ratings, the show was canceled, and the last two episodes were never aired.

As with Bonnie Hunt's previous short-run 1993 sitcom The Building, The Bonnie exhibited a theatrical sensibility and minor mistakes, accidents and forgotten lines were often preserved in the aired episodes. Cast members Hunt, Don Lake, Tom Virtue and Holly Wortell had all starred in The Building, which was also set in Chicago, produced by David Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company and directed by John Bowab. Hunt created Bonnie with Rob Burnett and wrote most of the episodes.

Hunt's next sitcom Life With Bonnie, created by Hunt and Lake, also featured Hunt, Derwin and Wortell, and it also focused on a Chicago news personality. Virtue had a recurring role on the show and Bowab directed several episodes.

Reception
Kirk Nicewonger called the show "daring" in his review for United Feature Syndicate, he stated the show "has the nerve to shrug off the joke-every-seven-seconds sitcom straitjacket, and it recreates the way people really speak". He noted how the characters "interrupt each other, and step on one another's lines, creating a naturalistic, almost improvisational atmosphere that works brilliantly". Frazier Moore wrote for the Associated Press that the show is about "friends, faith and cutting the other guy a little slack", and as a result, the show is a "charming sitcom free of sarcasm, breast jokes, insults, gags, meanness and goofballs pretending to be people".