PASADENA, Calif. — Candice Bergen, whose Emmy-winning sitcom "Murphy Brown" was attacked by then-Vice President Dan Quayle for being anti-family, doesn't know what to make of the ex-politician lauding MTV's "The Osbournes" for being pro-family
"Yeah, talk about quirky," Bergen said. "That Dan, you just can't predict him."
(In May, Quayle said of Ozzy, "You have to get beyond the sort of dysfunctional aspect. I think there are some very good lessons there that are being transmitted.")
The actress, whose new cable show "Candice Checks It Out" premieres Sunday at 10:30 p.m. on the Oxygen channel, says she was never angry at Quayle for his comments about the fictional Murphy Brown's fictional out-of-wedlock baby, but she obviously hasn't forgotten them.
"To tell you the truth, I've never met Dan Quayle, and I was always fine with that," Bergen said. "I never really said much about that whole sort-of episode, which was endless."
And she doesn't disagree with what Quayle had to say way-back-when about families, just his dragging "Murphy" (a show he admitted he'd never seen) into a huge and unwarranted controversy.
"His speech was a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable and nobody agreed with that more than I did. It's just he kind of wrapped it up specifically with 'Murphy Brown,' " she said. "But I think that all of us feel that family values have to sort of come back front-and-center. And I don't know if he watched 'The Osbournes,' because he certainly never watched 'Murphy Brown,' which didn't stop him from talking about it."
Bergen did say that she never considered inviting the former vice president to appear on her Oxygen talk show "Exhale."
"Others thought of it, but I disabused them of that idea," she said. "I thought it would be better to take the high road."
NEW SHOW: Bergen is transitioning from her interview show "Exhale" to "Candice Checks It Out," a more non-traditional show that gets her out of the studio and into subjects that range from the arts scene, women in comedy, people obsessed with their pets and sex workers.
Bergen said her new show is "much quirkier" than her old one. "I think . . . the people at Oxygen felt — and I did, too — that it would be fun to go out in the field and do shows on location," Bergen said. "I just feel a little out of touch sometimes. So we did a show on youth culture. I mean, I don't understand a lot about piercings and tattooing."
Despite starring in one of the hottest sitcoms of the '80s and '90s, Bergen said she is far from an expert on pop culture.
"When I was doing 'Murphy Brown,' I was kind of in a hamster Habitrail where I would go from home to the studio and back to the house. I barely had time to read a newspaper," she said. "So once I finished the show, I wanted to kind of creep out and see what was doing. And now that my daughter's older (Chloe Malle is 16), she keeps me in touch."
Despite the fact that she hasn't been seen much since "Murphy" went off the air, Bergen has worked steadily. It's just that few people watch the Oxygen channel. And Bergen's personal life has also been busy.
"Well, let's see. I got married in a blue dress," she said with a laugh. (Bergen, whose first husband, Louis Malle, died in 1995, married Marshall Rose in June 2000.) "I moved back to New York where I hadn't lived for about 12 or 13 years. . . . I wanted to do something different, and that's why 'Exhale' and then now this version, 'Candice Checks It Out,' appealed to me."
Not that she wants to work any harder than she is.
"I basically try to schedule my work around my daughter, so I wouldn't want an interview show that was five days a week, for example," Bergen said. "I've been offered things like that. I don't really want to do an hour television show, because the hours are just too extreme.
"I only have my daughter home for two more years, so I don't want to squander it."
E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com