Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Ink:Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen

Ink aired October 1996 until May 1997 on CBS.

Journalist Mike and Kate ( Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen), had had a whirlwind courtship that resulted in marriage 3 months after their first meeting on the White House lawn. The marriage didn't last-their natural competitiveness and big egos got in the way-but it had produced a daughter, Abby ( Alana Austin), whom they both adored. When Kate became the first female managing editor of The New York Sun, where Mike was the star columnist, sparks flew. Wisecracking, womanizing Mike had problems coping with her as his new boss, and Kate found it difficult dealing with his macho attitude and regular snipping at her-with almost nonstop arguments the result. Abby who loved them both continued her persistant but futile efforts to get them back together. Others on the Sun's staff were Belinda ( Christine Ebersole), the over-the-hill society columnist with a drinking problem, who had outgrown her love affair with the city's rich and famous; Ernie ( Charlie Robinson), the unflappable police reporter who had seen it all; and Alan ( Saul Rubinek), the uptight, neurotic financial reporter. Donna ( Jenica Bergere), a free-spirited young editorial assistant who seemed out of place working at a mainstream newspaper, idolized Kate and barely tolerated Mike, whom she considered a chauvinist pig. Which he was.

CBS had high hopes for INK, Ted Danson's first tv series since he turned off the lights on NBC's long-running hit Cheers. With the charismatic Danson and his new wife Mary Steenburgen starring, CBS was sure they had a hit. Unfortunately it was not to be. Problems with the series pilot and the original producers prompted CBS to bring in Murphy Brown producer Diane English to take over the reins in late August, less then a month before the scheduled premiere. The premiere was delayed while Ms. English made cast changes, but the chemistry-and audience appeal-weren't there. Ink never caught on and was canceled at the end of it's first season.

An Article from Entertainment Weekly
Published on September 13, 1996

Fall TV Preview
Married...With Sitcom
The new sitcom stars Ted Danson and his wife, Mary Steenburgen
By Dan Snierson

Perhaps it's not the meatiest scoop of the season, but here is the unedited truth about Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, the married stars of CBS' much-revamped sitcom, Ink: They are a disgustingly happy couple. A charming, no-you-go-first team, bursting with collective and colliding energies, gushing with mushy sentiment and mutual appreciation.

Just don't expect to see much beyond the colliding energies when you tune in to CBS Mondays at 8:30, beginning Oct. 21. ''We had no desire to play us,'' Danson says of Jack and Carrie, the divorced journalists who are thrown back together at a New York paper. ''If you're lovey-dovey at home and have to be lovey-dovey at work — that's no fun.''

And that's about all Danson can tell you about Ink's characters. The show, as no doubt you've heard, has become one of the costliest, most discussed of the many troubled freshman sitcoms of the 1996 fall season. ''We don't totally know who these characters are yet,'' Steenburgen admitted in late July, and that was painfully obvious to everyone involved — the stars, DreamWorks (the studio behind the series), and CBS — when they viewed the pilot, a decidedly flat affair that failed to capture one jot of the couple's natural chemistry. On Aug. 29, DreamWorks and CBS announced they were scrapping the four episodes shot to date and starting from scratch with a new executive producer, Murphy Brown creator Diane English. The setback meant the original Sept. 16 premiere wasn't possible, so Rhea Perlman's new Pearl will occupy the Ink slot until the October debut. DreamWorks chief of TV Dan McDermott is betting English will add ''a sharp, contemporary point of view'' and deliver the kind of ''sophisticated, romantic, adult comedy'' the studio and network had originally hoped for. With production costs reportedly in the range of $1 million per episode, the financial loss is staggering, but, says McDermott, the bottom line is ''we'd rather make a great show than make an airdate.''

Starring on a show that hobbled out of the gate is nothing new for Danson; Cheers took a few years to become a hit, ranking 71 out of 80 shows its first season. He's prepared to grow into his Ink part, and hopes CBS will stick with its original 22-episode agreement, thus allowing the show to grow on viewers. A bigger challenge, says the actor, was performing before a live audience for the first time since 1993: ''It hit me subliminally, like Pavlov's dogs,'' Danson recalls. ''What am I doing? How do I be funny? Where are my lemons?''

Leslie Moonves believes Danson doth protest too much. The CBS Entertainment president says his star is too blissed out to worry. ''Ted has said three or four times, 'What a lucky guy I am. I get to work with the woman I love 14 hours a day!''' Steenburgen's secret: ''I'm passionate about everything, and I encourage him to listen to his instincts.... That, plus heavy petting between scenes.''

It was the 1994 film Pontiac Moon that brought the pair together. They began dating while shooting the offbeat comedy and married after finishing the NBC blockbuster Gulliver's Travels. Wanting to stick close to their L.A.-based family (four kids from previous marriages), the pair began shopping around for a TV series, finally settling on a deal with DreamWorks for the resulting show. The prospect of Danson's returning to the small screen provoked a high-stakes bidding war, with CBS ultimately beating out NBC. Not that Moonves saw Ink as a one-man show. ''As a matter of fact,'' he confides, ''I said, 'Mary's the sleeper in this equation.''' And Ink, hopes Moonves, will be the sleeper hit of his new Big Comedy Monday lineup — a night of boomer-friendly sitcoms that kicks off at 8 with Cosby. ''Ted and Mary represent exactly what we're going for: 25- to 54-year-olds,'' says Moonves.

If the new episodes can capture the bantering charisma of Steenburgen, 43, and Danson, 48, CBS could very well have that hit. For, lovey-dovey though they may be, 11 months of wedded bliss does not preclude some very appealing sparring. Take, for example, the couple's recent visit with their friends the Clintons. ''I started telling Bill about a dinner that Ted and I had been to where we did this little skit,'' begins Steenburgen, ''and I said, 'Okay, Bill, so it went like this — Ted, do what you said!' And Ted's looking at me with, like, total horror, that I'm going to act out this skit in the Oval Office for the President. I can embarrass him to death,'' she adds gleefully.

Danson — who earned two Emmys during his 11 years as cocksure Sam Malone on Cheers — has his revenge during Ink rehearsals, lavishing pointers upon his Oscar-winning-but-still-a-sitcom-rookie wife. (Steenburgen won Best Supporting Actress for 1980's Melvin and Howard.) ''I don't even give her a chance to ask me for advice,'' Danson chuckles. ''I'm shooting my mouth off every two seconds. 'Step over here and do that. It's funnier if you do this.'''

Friendly competition, claims the actor, makes for quality TV. ''Acting, if done in the right way, is a competitive sport. Obviously you're a team, so you don't want the other person to lose. But you also kind of do. Someone goes, 'Watch this,' and you go, 'Yeah? Well, watch this.' In that way you build on each other, in a good way.''

In the end, however, Steenburgen says she usually wins: ''I just hold up my Oscar.''

A Review From The New York Times

Meanwhile, Back in the Newsroom

By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: October 21, 1996
Someday someone may write a play (well, maybe just a folk song) called ''The Epic of Ink.'' The new CBS series ''Ink'' has gone through more development contortions than an episode of ''The X-Files.''

It all began with Ted Danson, rolling off phenomenal success on NBC's ''Cheers,'' announcing his availability for another series and commanding big bucks. Dreamworks, the Hollywood powerhouse, went into production action. Mary Steenburgen, a fine actress and Mr. Danson's new wife, would be his co-star. The vehicle would involve a newspaper called The New York Sun. That's where the title came in. Newspaper ink rubbing off on your fingers. Get it? With enormous fanfare, a pilot and three episodes were made. Nothing. No chemistry, no fun, no nada.

Scrapping the whole treatment, Dreamworks, at enormous expense, went back to the drawing board and brought in Diane English, an accomplished sitcom veteran whose top production credit, achieved with her husband under the banner of Shukovsky English Entertainment, happens to be CBS's ''Murphy Brown.'' So the premiere of ''Ink,'' originally scheduled for September, can be seen tonight. Broadway has long had its stage doctors, brought in to fix up an ailing show. Abe Burrows was a legend at the craft. Now backstage network television, increasingly competitive and frantic, threatens to become a parallel universe of ''E.R.''

And, at least in this case, the operation is a success. The original pilot was an embarrassment, right down to Mr. Danson's George Clooney-like brushed forward haircut that gave him a Frankenstein aura. His character, Mike Logan, was something of a whining sad sack. Ms. Steenburgen, playing Kate Montgomery, merely looked stranded. Now ''Ink'' bops onto the screen with a bouncy theme while Mr. Danson, sporting a far better haircut, raises the energy level to nuclear levels. Now he's a kind of Jimmy Breslin-Pete Hammill columnist with seductive brashness. Sound familiar? Think Sam Malone in ''Cheers.''

Mike and Kate were once married for three months. They met on the White House lawn during Richard M. Nixon's resignation. Still binding them together is their 15-year-old daughter, Abby (Alana Austin), who is constantly scheming to get them back together. That possibility seems to be even more remote when Kate, a top-flight international reporter, shows up at The New York Sun as the new managing editor and, of course, Sam's boss, the mere thought of which gives him a severe crick in the neck.

With Ms. English in charge, the scene switches to professional sitcom, smooth and easy and disarmingly clever. The office staff includes Alan (Saul Rubinek), the financial reporter who readily concedes that as far as his stock tips are concerned, ''you get better odds in Vegas''; and Belinda (Christine Ebersole), the ''On the Town'' columnist who staggers into the office after a charity ball the night before shouting for aspirin and swearing that ''I've got a hangover that would down Kitty Dukakis.''

The banter snaps and crackles and frequently pops up inspired. After one typical spat in a restaurant about their daughter, Kate says, ''I blame you for this.'' He retorts lamely, ''Well, I blame you.'' A passing waiter mutters darkly, ''I blame television.'' Mr. Danson is back at full-throttle charm, doing neat turns about his bald spot, which a toupee masked on ''Cheers.'' Ms. Steenburgen still seems a bit uneasy with the comic fluff of television sitcom, but she has loosened up and is clearly enjoying herself more.

It's impossible to say on the basis of one episode how ''Ink'' will evolve. But clearly this new version has a shot. And a good one.

INK
CBS, tonight at 8:30
(Channel 2 in New York)

Diane English, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, executive producers; Stephen Nathan, co-executive producer; Jack Burditt, supervising producer; Marc Flanagan and Shannon Gaughan, consulting producers; Keith Addis, executive consultant; Jeffrey Klarik, creative consultant; Thomas Schlamme, consultant and director; produced by John Amodeo and Bruce Chevillat; written by Diane English. A production of Shukovsky English Entertainment in association with Dreamworks SKG.

WITH: Ted Danson (Mike Logan), Mary Steenburgen (Kate Montgomery), Alana Austin (Abby), Jenica Bergere (Donna French), Christine Ebersole (Belinda Carhardt), Charlie Robinson (Ernie Trainor) and Saul Rubinek (Alan Mesnick).

An Article from Time Magazine

INK-A-DINK-A-REDO
Monday, Oct. 28, 1996
By RICHARD ZOGLIN

Whether it succeeds or fails, the CBS sitcom Ink (Monday, 8:30 p.m. ET) will be remembered for inspiring one of the most refreshing bursts of candor in television history. When the pilot episode for the Ted Danson-Mary Steenburgen comedy was finished, the people involved could scarcely contain their lack of enthusiasm. Danson, at a press conference, said he didn't want to "disclaim the baby" but promised the show would improve. Steenburgen likened the series to making a batch of pancakes: sometimes "you throw out the first." A few weeks later CBS tossed out all four episodes completed up to that point, fired the producer and delayed the premiere for a month so the show could be retooled. Said CBS Entertainment chief Leslie Moonves: "It is better to do it right than do it fast."

They still did it fast. Diane English, the creator of Murphy Brown, was brought in as executive producer, and she scrapped virtually everything but the two stars (who are married to each other) and the basic premise--a divorced couple working together at a New York City newspaper. The show was rebuilt from scratch in just five weeks, starting with a brainstorming session that English convened with a handful of writers on Martha's Vineyard. "I flew in the day after Hurricane Eduoard and flew out the day before Hurricane Hortense hit," she says. "We thought it was very symbolic."

And it turns out they did it right: Ink doesn't stink. The first version was a strained attempt at something resembling '30s screwball comedy: Danson and Steenburgen finalized their divorce in the opening scene and were back at adjoining desks the very same day; when Steenburgen offered to quit, she was made managing editor instead. Even if the setup had been more plausible, the show proved how unfriendly TV is to stylized screwball comedy. Viewers don't want to be distanced by brittle, rat-a-tat comedy patter; they want comfortable characters they can relate to.

Ink II provides them. Danson and Steenburgen are now a couple who have been divorced for 10 years (with a 15-year-old daughter) but are thrown back together when she is hired as the managing editor of the paper where he's a star columnist. "Have you seen the buses?" he boasts to his ex-wife. "I'm on the M4, the M10--and the 6. That's crosstown, baby." She's a high-strung but determined professional woman trying to give up smoking; he pesters their daughter to find out whom her mom is dating. Next headline: ROMANTIC TENSION BREWING.

Danson, with his mix of insouciance and egotism, is in peak form--trying, for example, to foment a rebellion among his co-workers against "Evita in there" after they've been thoroughly snowed by their new boss. Steenburgen needs to spend a few hours at the word processor before she'll convince us that she belongs inside a newsroom, but she plays off him well. The secondary characters are better than their pilot predecessors as well, largely because most of them (like the mousy business reporter played by Saul Rubinek) aren't pushed on us too hard. The one exception is Christine Ebersole as a brassy nightlife reporter who's been to one too many charity soirees; but since she also has the funniest entrance of the show (maybe of the season), she's excused. Ink is now a workplace comedy that really works.

English is still recovering from the mad dash to finish the show. "There was not an iota of room for a mistake, a misstep, for losing a day or even half a day," she says. After all the pressure, she had a "momentary freak-out" half an hour before the first taping. "I was pacing around in my office and expressing tremendous anxiety. It all just came out. I was exhausted." The stars, too, sound relieved that the ordeal is over. "From the beginning, we poured our heart and soul into this," says Steenburgen. "Diane's biographical work on who these people are feels much more right to us."

The question is whether it will feel right to the audience. "Shows are not hatched; they develop and evolve," says Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-founder of DreamWorks, the program's producer. "The fact that Ink wasn't there out of the box is not atypical." What is atypical is the spotlight the show is under--as one of CBS's most highly touted fall series and a high-profile vehicle for two very expensive stars. At least now the vehicle seems in shape for the long haul.

--Reported by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles

With reporting by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles

Another Article From The New York Times

A Sitcom Family Confronts Marijuana

By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: November 11, 1996
Marijuana! Reefer madness! Did you-know-who inhale or not inhale 25 years ago? The hypocrisy surrounding the subject of pot is astounding. Even the electorate seems to be fed up with it. A gesture toward perspective is attempted tonight in, of all places, a sitcom. CBS's ''Ink,'' starring Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, delicately tackles a subject that tends to leave so-called drug czars looking like fools.

The newspaper journalists Mike Logan (Mr. Danson) and his former wife, Kate Montgomery (Ms. Steenburgen), baby-boomers both, are stunned to find a bag of grass belonging to their 15-year-old daughter, Abby (Alana Austin). ''Oh my God,'' exclaims Mom, ''and she's a Republican,'' a status that Dad suspects is the leading cause of death among teen-age girls.

At a hastily arranged lunch, his daughter tells a semihysterical Mike, ''Like the man says, just don't do it.'' Comes the reply: ''You just quoted Bob Dole. Are you high now?'' The point, of course, is that both Mom and Dad smoked marijuana in the past. Abby asks quite reasonably, ''Why is it your generation is so bent on rewriting history?''

As someone whose cultural education began more or less seriously in 1960, in Greenwich Village haunts like the San Remo restaurant bar, I have long been puzzled by the subject of marijuana. I never took to the stuff, but over the years I've had friends whose association with the weed has ranged from casual toker to outright pothead. With one or two exceptions, none have fallen into the pits littered with the bodies of alcoholics and hard-drug addicts. The booze factor is duly noted in this episode. And Abby makes sure to note that ''cigarettes are legal and they kill people.''

In the end, this episode of ''Ink'' waffles. There are the easy one-liners. Belinda (Christine Ebersole), the office's society roustabout dismisses any possible problem with Abby: ''She's about as likely to smoke dope as I am to wake up in my own bed.'' And Abby's problem may not be as serious as initially perceived. Finally, the flabby message is that age 15 is too young to be experimenting with anything. Nice, but judging from the young people I meet nowadays, pointless. Still, this ''Ink'' levels a rare prime-time assault on the hypocrisy barricades.

Note: Tomorrow NBC's ''Mad About You'' reaches its 100th episode, the magic number for eternal life in syndication reruns. Something special is deserved, and delivered. Jamie (Helen Hunt) gets a visit from her parents, who turn out to be Carol Burnett and Carroll O'Connor. It's a dynamite combination, leaving even Paul (Paul Reiser) almost speechless. Both Ms. Burnett and Mr. O'Connor get rousing welcomes from the studio audience on their entrances. A star is a star is a star.

INK
CBS, tonight at 8:30
(Channel 2 in New York)

Diane English, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, executive producers; Stephen Nathan, co-executive producer; Jack Burditt, supervising producer; Marc Flanagan and Shannon Gaughan, consulting producers; Keith Addis, executive consultant; Jeffrey Klarik, creative consultant; Thomas Schlamme, consultant and director; produced by John Amodeo and Bruce Chevillat; written by Diane English. A production of Shukovsky English Entertainment in association with DreamWorks SKG.

WITH: Ted Danson (Mike Logan), Mary Steenburgen (Kate Montgomery), Alana Austin (Abby), Jenica Bergere (Donna French), Christine Ebersole (Belinda Carhardt), Charlie Robinson (Ernie Trainor), Saul Rubinek (Alan Mesnick), John Del Regno (Vince) and Peter Iacangelo (cop).

Correction: November 12, 1996, Tuesday

For a page devoted to the crossover character played by Jay Thomas on Love And War go to http://www.poobala.com/inkandlaw.html

For everything you need to know about Mary Steenburgen go to http://www.bttf.com/steenbur.htm