Production
The idea for the series was conceived as Marc Cherry and his mother were watching a news report on Andrea Yates. Prior to Desperate Housewives, Cherry was best known for producing and writing episodes of Touchstone Television’s hit comedy series The Golden Girls and its successor, The Golden Palace. In addition, he had created or co-created three sitcoms: The 5 Mrs. Buchanans, The Crew and Some of My Best Friends, none of which lasted longer than a year. Initially, Cherry had a hard time getting any television network interested in his new series – HBO, CBS, NBC, Fox, Showtime, and Lifetime all turned his offer down. Finally, two new executives at ABC, Lloyd Braun and Susan Lyne, chose to greenlight it. Shortly thereafter, Disney had both Braun and Lyne fired, following their approval of another new drama series: Lost.
The ABC executives were not initially satisfied with the name of the new show, suggesting Wisteria Lane and The Secret Lives of Housewives instead,. However, on October 23, 2003, Desperate Housewives was announced by ABC, presented as a prime time soap opera created by Charles Pratt, Jr. of Melrose Place fame, and Marc Cherry, who declared the new show to be a mix of Knots Landing and American Beauty. While Cherry continued his work on the show, Pratt was credited as executive producer for the pilot episode only, remaining linked to the show as a consulting producer during the first two seasons.
On May 18, 2004, ABC announced the 2004–2005 lineup, with Desperate Housewives in the Sunday at 9:00–10:00 p.m. ET slot, which it held all through the run of the show. After only three episodes were broadcast, on October 20, ABC announced that Desperate Housewives, along with Lost, had been picked up for a full season. On May 18, 2010, ABC picked up Desperate Housewives for a seventh season for the 2010–2011 television season.
Desperate Housewives is produced by creator Marc Cherry (Cherry Productions), Austin Bagley and, since 2007, ABC Studios. From 2004 to 2007, Desperate Housewives was produced in association with Touchstone Television.
Read more about this topic: Desperate Housewives
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Constant revolutionizing of production ... distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)