Grace Under Fire

Grace Under Fire premiered on ABC on September 29, 1993, created by Chuck Lorre and produced by Carsey-Werner, the company behind The Cosby Show and Roseanne. Like those shows it was built around a stand-up comic: Brett Butler, a Montgomery, Alabama native who had worked the clubs and The Tonight Show, and whose own Showtime special aired a month before the premiere. She played Grace Kelly, a divorced single mother of three and recovering alcoholic in the small fictional town of Victory, Missouri, who had finally left an abusive, alcoholic husband after eight years of marriage. Grace ran pipeline at the local oil refinery, drank coffee with her neighbors Nadine and Wade, and traded barbs with the town pharmacist, Russell Norton, played by Dave Thomas. Her baby, Patrick, was played by the infant twins Dylan and Cole Sprouse.

It was an immediate hit — the highest-rated new sitcom of the 1993–94 season, finishing fifth overall, and fourth the following year, when only Seinfeld, ER and Home Improvement drew more. The show was praised for putting alcoholism, domestic abuse and single parenthood on a half-hour comedy without losing the jokes, and Butler earned Golden Globe nominations in 1995 and 1997 and a People's Choice Award. The production itself was turbulent from the start: Lorre wrote six episodes of the first season and was pushed out, which Dave Thomas later described as a power struggle over control of the show. Thomas said he tried to leave and couldn't because of his contract. "We were all just trying to get through this, make the money, and get out with some shred of dignity and pride."

The ratings slid to 13th in season three and 45th in season four as the cast churned. The actor playing Grace's son left after season three; Julie White, who played Nadine, left after season four and cited Butler's behavior. Butler was fighting a painkiller addiction through the fourth and fifth seasons and eventually sought treatment, and ABC ended the series with the February 17, 1998 telecast, after 112 episodes. Butler, who published a memoir, Knee Deep in Paradise, in 1996, later said she had been sober since 1998, and returned to a recurring television role on Anger Management in the 2010s. The complete series finally reached DVD in 2015.