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Moonlighting S 3 E 07 - TV Tropes

  • ️Sun Dec 15 2024

Episode: Season 3, Episode 7
Title: Atomic Shakespeare
Directed by: Will Mackenzie
Written by: Ron Osborn & Jeff Reno
Air Date: November 18, 1986
Previous: Big Man on Mulberry Street
Next: It's a Wonderful Job
Guest Starring: Curtis Armstrong, Kenneth McMillan, Colm Meaney, Sterling Holloway

"Atomic Shakespeare" is the seventh episode of the third season of Moonlighting. It is one of the show's most famous episodes.

It does not feature the usual adventures of David Addison and Madelyn Hayes. Instead, the opening has a young boy who really wants to watch that night's episode of Moonlighting, his favorite show. But he has to read Shakespeare for homework, so his mom makes him go upstairs. He opens his copy of The Taming of the Shrew—and the episode plays out from there, as a parody of The Taming of the Shrew.

The plot synopsis is, in fact, pretty much The Taming of the Shrew. A Padua businessman, Baptista, has a pretty daughter, Bianca (Allyce Beasley, who usually played Agnes) who is sought after by all the single young men of the town. But he won't let Bianca get married before he finds a suitor for his older daughter, notorious shrew Katherina (Cybill Shepherd). A young man newly arrived to town, Lucentio (Curtis Armstrong, who usually played Herbert),note  is enchanted with lovely Bianca and wants her for his bride, but he realizes that he must first find a husband for Katherina.

Cue the entrance of Petruchio (Bruce Willis), astride a splendid white horse. Petruchio accepts the challenge, gets Baptista's blessing, and is married to Katherina—with her being Bound and Gagged so she can't protest. But per his deal with Baptista, Petruchio can't collect the dowry unless he can show that he has tamed Katherina, that she is no longer a shrew. Can Petruchio get her to submit? Can he get her to say that the sun at midday is actually the moon?

All of this of course is played out with the usual Moonlighting rapid-fire dialogue, Medium Awareness, and nonstop gags.

Tropes:

  • Adaptational Alternate Ending: The Taming of the Shrew as originally written has Katherina fully submitting to her husband, finding Happiness in Slavery as Property of Love. Many straight presentations of the play struggle with how to frame this ending. The creators of Moonlighting frankly admit that "Obviously we weren’t going to do the ending that Shakespeare did. We wanted to make ours about equals.". So, when at the end of this episode Petruchio tries to get Kate to say the sun is really the moon, she flatly refuses, and says instead that actually it is the sun. Petruchio then admits that she's right. He rejects the bet and Baptista's dowry, and resolves to live with Kate as equals, saying that "a woman's gifts are best when freely given."
  • Answer Cut:
    • Lucentio wonders out loud, "How hard could it be to find Katherine a mate?" Cut to three suitors (one of whom is Colm Meaney) flying out of Katherine's door, she having bodily thrown them.
    • Lucentio, still wondering, says "But where, for such a man comes along but once in a blue moon?" Cut to David-as-Petruchio riding into the town square on a splendid white horse.
  • Anachronism Stew: This episode while set at a semi-Shakespearean, semi-European time & place, had Bruce Willis as David as Petruchio on a horse with the BMW logos on its saddle blanket. Wearing sunglasses, as was the horse. Oh, and it also had Ninjas. Rule of Funny.
  • Axe Before Entering: Petruchio grabs an axe from a glass-covered cabinet that says "In case of shrew, break glass." He then chops his way through the door and says "Heeeeeere's Petruchio!"
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: The through-line of the entire series, of course, but also why the producers of Moonlighting picked The Taming of the Shrew to adapt; it was obvious that Dave and Maddie have the same belligerent sexual tension that Kate and Petruchio do.
  • The Bet: Katherina's dowry rides on Petruchio proving that he didn't just marry Kate, he tamed her as well.
  • Big Entrance: Petruchio comes riding into town on a White Stallion, wearing a poofy costume and an enormous hat. He then gets off the horse and defeats some Renaissance swordsmen, and then a squad of Gratuitous Ninjas, because why not.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: As Moonlighting did constantly, this happened many times in this episode. Most famously, at the end Kate and Petruchio look at the camera together and say "We hate iambic pentameter!"
  • Buxom Beauty Standard: Petruchio sees a busty woman of the town wearing a low-cut dress, and says "Zounds, what mounds!" He then bends her over and kisses her.
  • Cobweb of Disuse: When Kate and Petruchio make it back to his place, it's festooned with dust and cobwebs. Petruchio says "This be the cleaning woman's century off."
  • Cock-a-Doodle Dawn: A rooster broadcasts the morning, before the camera shows Kate and Petruchio sleeping in bed after consummating their marriage.
  • Costumer: The cast of Moonlighting doing The Taming of the Shrew, everyone in elaborate costumes that strongly recall the 1967 film adaptation of this play with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. This episode was reportedly the most expensive regular TV episode ever made in the United States at the time. It won an Emmy for costume design.
  • Credits Gag:
    • The entire opening credits are presented as pages in the boy's book, and are done in an Old English font.
    • Then there's the writing credit "From an idea by William 'Budd' Shakespeare."
    • The main story starts with an establishing shot of the down square that says "Padua 1593—or just an incredible facsimile."
  • Diegetic Switch: The opening credits start normally, then with Allyce Beasley's credit they shift to being shown on an In-Universe television screen, as the show cuts to the Framing Device.
  • Directed by Cast Member: In-Universe, and parodied. Petruchio pulls out a list of demands for Kate's dowry. Lucentio reads out "Your own Winnebago, a chance to direct, a piece of the syndication" and then Petruchio says "oops, wrong list of demands". (Bruce Willis never directed an episode of Moonlighting, or anything else for that matter.)
  • Door Slam of Rage: Petruchio and Kate slam the doors of their bedrooms in rage, just like Dave and Maddie always do. Then Petruchio pokes his head out again and says "Methinks 'twas something familiar about that."
  • Formula-Breaking Episode: Instead of the usual episode of Moonlighting, we get the cast in period costume, performing a loose adaptation and parody of The Taming of the Shrew. (This episode and Moonlighting's other Formula-Breaking Episode, Season Two's "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice", are the two most famous episodes of the show.)
  • Framing Device: A mom tells her son that he's got to do his Shakespeare reading homework and so he can't watch Moonlighting. The boy opens his copy of The Taming of the Shrew and the episode plays out from there. At the end the show returns back to the framing device. The boy comes downstairs to find Moonlighting ending. His mom tells him "That's ok, it wasn't very good anyway."
  • Gratuitous Ninja: Petruchio is attacked by, first, Renaissance swordsmen, and second, four ninja (they were referred to as "kung fu assassins"), before he even spoke his first line.
  • Jabba Table Manners: Petruchio biting hunks of meat off the bone then throwing the bone away, then slurping wine which dribbles down his beard.
  • Medium Awareness: Many examples, this being a Moonlighting trademark.
    • When none of the villagers will listen to Lucentio's Expospeak in the opening scene of the main story, he complains "Is it my fault I get stuck with all the exposition?"
    • Then there's this exchange when David-as-Petruchio makes his entrance.
  • Narrator: Sterling Holloway provides narration a couple of times, including the end. It was Holloway's last gig before retiring from show business at the age of 81.
  • Rhyming Episode: There are snatches of Shakespeare's actual dialogue throughout the episode, and all the original dialogue (except for the Framing Device of course) is still done in rhymed iambic pentameter.
  • Sexy Discretion Shot: Kate admits to Petruchio that he's treated her kindly, then that if he treats her with respect as well, she'll have sex with him. Cut to the next morning and the two of them in bed together.
  • Spinning Paper: A spinning newspaper shows the headline, "KATE TO WED TODAY: MEN OF PADUA REJOICE."
  • Storybook Opening: The boy flips open his copy of The Taming of the Shrew. When he gets to the first illustration, the picture comes alive and the camera goes into the main story.
  • Who Writes This Crap!?: The Framing Device for this episode takes a massive swing at the show's own premise.

    Son: It's Moonlighting! You know, the show about the two detectives: a man and a woman.
    Mother: And they argue a lot and all they really wanna do is sleep together?
    Son: Yeah!
    Mother: Sounds like trash to me.

  • Time-Passes Montage: Petruchio's "kill her with kindness" strategy is shown by him repeatedly coming to her door, bringing various presents, first dressed normally, then wearing a catcher's mask, then wearing a suit of armor.
  • Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Played for Laughs, but there are also some genuine mistakes, like when a messenger says "Thee and thy wife are invited" when it should be "Thou and thy wife."