Bridget Loves Bernie

I remember watching Bridget Loves Bernie when we moved from New Jersey to Minnesota in 1972. It was an outstanding comedy that CBS put in its Saturday night lineup between two classics All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It had the potential to be a hit.

Unfortunately, viewer protests.over interfaith marriage and complaints from religious groups contributed to the network axing the show after one season.

The show had an outstanding cast anchored by David Birney as Bernie and Meredith Baxter as Bridget. Portraying Bernie's parents were Harold J. Stone and Bibi Osterwald. Bridget's parents were played by David Doyle and Audra Lindley. There was Robert Sampson as Bridget's brother Michael, a priest and William Elliott as Bernie's friend Otis.

Even the show lasted only one season, Birney and Baxter fell in love in real life and got married. Unfortunately, they got divorced. Baxter Birney would go on to play Elyse Keaton in Family Ties.

If you have never seen Bridget Loves Bernie, you can find it on Crackle. Though interfaith marriage was controversial in the 1970s, it's much more accepted today and you'll enjoy seeing a sitcom that got cancelled too soon.

I haven't seen this show since it was first shown on CBS in the '70's. I'm sure we'll never see this show on DVD. How about airing it on TV LAND??

"Bridget loves Bernie" didn't last too long, only one season. It lasted long enough to make stars of David Birney and Meredith Baxter(Family Ties). The chemistry between the two made it worth watching. I guess falling in love while making the show help too. They were married shortly after the show was cancelled.

I guess the subject of a Jew marrying a Catholic girl was too hot a subject back then for TV to handle. Hey, it's still a hot topic today in some circles. Love is love people.

While this is a cute little newlywed sitcom and I realize TV programs can be just light, fluffy entertainment rather than intended as anything serious, I have my misgivings with the message that all is rosy as long as the couple is in love.

The series amusingly depicts the daily struggles of a wealthy Irish Catholic girl, Bridget Fitzgerald, who, despite parental misgivings, marries a Jewish cab driver, Bernie Steinberg. The role of Bridget is played by the lovely Meredith Baxter, who went on to the much more successful TV series, Family Ties. David Birney portrays Bernie, and the couple married in real life (though later divorced).

The show features a touching love story between this pair from such different backgrounds and assorted laughs at their newlywed problems & family obstacles. However, the reality is that interfaith marriage is rife with difficulty. It's lovely & heartwarming to think of respecting each other's different faith traditions and simply celebrating every holiday...Christmas, Easter, Hanukkah, Passover, and so forth. The real problem emerges with children, what exactly are you going to teach them to believe? Exposure to both would prove very conflicting for this particular mix.

Even without children, it's not like the couple disagreeing about which type of movie or food they prefer. Maybe Bridget and Bernie aren't really that committed to their respective religions, but if your faith is important to you and you want genuine emotional intimacy, best to choose a partner who shares your basic beliefs. So, it's a fun sitcom and of course Bridget and Bernie are portrayed as the typical doting newlyweds. However, I wouldn't take its message to heart as it simply isn't true that 'all you need is love'. Viewers should take this sitcom for the light little bit of fluff that it is.

I remember watching Bridget Loves Bernie. It was controversial at the time and received lots of hate mail. That was the reason CBS canceled the show. It wouldn't happen today. There have been interfaith marriages on TV since then. Soap Operas have been doing it for years. This is was a show about a teacher who happened to be from a wealthy Irish Catholic Family and cab driver who was Jewish. His parents owned a deli. Both families were upset about it at first but as each Bridget's family got to know Bernie and Bernie's family got to know Bridget, they accepted the marriage. David Birney, who played Bernie Steinberg, is as Irish as The Kennedys.

I saw this show forty years ago. Sandwiched between two of the most successful series of the 70s, All In The Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, this couldn't help but get good ratings. A lot of people on another board have expressed interest in seeing this series go to DVD, so I watched the pilot on YouTube to see if I could change my negative opinion of it after all these years. Nope. The comedy is forced and unfunny, the Jewish jokes groan-inducing and offensive, and there is a line cribbed from the far-superior Love on a Rooftop:"You're rich". "You make it sound like some sort of disease". As to chemistry, that between Pete Duel and Judy Carne in the similarly plotted Love on a Rooftop is much better than that of David Birney and Meredith Baxter. The worst moment comes when Audra Lindley (never one of my favorites) has this shocked reaction to her daughter's new boyfriend possibly being black. This was created by Bernard Slade, who also created Love on a Rooftop. After seeing this again, the only positive thing I can say about it is that the theme music, by Jerry Fielding is nice. As far as reviving this on DVD or a nostalgia TV channel, to quote Leonard Maltin describing an old, recently rediscovered film he did not like: "This is one 'treasure' that should have stayed buried."