Murphy Brown crew recalls "frightening" backlash to Dan Quayle episode—exclusive clip

You know that old chestnut, how history doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme? Well, living through another round of politically-motivated culture wars can make a person feel like they’re in Groundhog Day. Candice Bergen demonstrated as much at Sunday’s Emmy Awards, when she reminded us all how then-Vice President Dan Quayle “attacked” Murphy Brown for a storyline in which Murphy became a single mother. “Oh, how far we’ve come. Today, a Republican candidate would never attack a woman for having kids,” Bergen said, referencing Donald Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance, on the Emmys stage, joking, “So, as they say, my work here is done.”

Well, the work ain’t over so long as history keeps rhyming, huh? As it happens, CNN’s TV On The Edge: Moments That Shape Our Culture will kick off this weekend with a retrospective on Murphy Brown vs. Dan Quayle. The program, which explores impactful moments on television, reunites Bergen with Murphy Brown creator and executive producer Diane English, director Barnet Kellman, and writer Korby Siamis to discuss the pregnancy plot line and the firestorm it unintentionally created. 

“It was just relentless, and I just hid behind my curtain. I mean, I was really afraid to go out,” Bergen says in an exclusive clip shared with The A.V. Club. “Because it was so… there was such an energy coming that was so huge, that I didn’t know how to manage it.”

English recalls her mentor advising her to “just make one statement and then back off, and then let everyone else jump into the fray.” And so she did: “If the Vice President thinks it’s disgraceful for an unmarried woman to bear a child, and if he believes a woman cannot adequately raise a child without a father, then he’d better make sure abortion remains safe and legal,” her statement read. 

But of course, getting involved in the culture wars has a cost. “It actually got frightening for me for a while too,” English says. “Because we would get weird messages from people who sounded a bit deranged, and you just never knew, so I felt like I needed to be walked to my car sometimes at night, and it was this whole world that just exploded that I never thought I would be a part of.”

You can check out the Murphy Brown team’s reflection on the Dan Quayle incident on TV On The Edge, premiering on CNN on Sunday, September 22 at 9 PM EST.