How Did a Trip to Elgin Lead Chuck Lorre to Brett Butler?

Chuck Lorre said the next assignment was a show about a single mom. On Frannie's Turn he had wanted the lead to leave her husband and live with her daughter. The network said she had to stay married, because Cosby was married and Roseanne was married, and they wanted another married show. ABC then went looking for a single-mom show. He asked what sensibility he had to bring to it. They sent him to Elgin, Illinois. The chamber of commerce took him to a women's shelter, the YWCA, and hospitals, where women were on welfare or working two jobs and raising children with no safety net.

The single mom on television then was Murphy Brown, who had endless nannies and went about her life with a child in the picture. Chuck Lorre came back calling the women in Elgin heroes in a Greek tragedy. He wanted to write the sitcom, four cameras in front of a live audience, as a hero's journey: a woman after a horrible divorce, working to feed her children. He said it went a little south when they cast Brett Butler. She was unhappy from day one. The show followed Home Improvement with Tim Allen, became an instant hit, and put her on magazine covers and talk shows. He said she was a truly funny woman with a great stand-up act, and she took to acting immediately. It did not go well for him.