All American Girl
Encyclopedia
All-American Girl is a 1994
ABC
situation comedy
starring Margaret Cho
and featuring Jodi Long
, Clyde Kusatsu
, Amy Hill
, B.D. Wong
, and J.B. Quon as her Korean-American family.
It was the second American sitcom centered on a person of Asian descent (Korean), namely Cho. (Pat Morita
's short-lived 1976
sitcom Mr. T and Tina
was the first.)
Notable guest stars during the run of the show included Oprah Winfrey
, Jack Black
, David Cross
, Ming-Na
, Vicki Lawrence
, Quentin Tarantino
, Tsai Chin
, Mariska Hargitay
, Billy Burke
, Robert Clohessy
and Garrett Wang
.
Diedrich Bader
was a one time regular in the last episode of All American Girl, which was a pseudo
pilot for an unrealized version of All American Girl before achieving fame on The Drew Carey Show
. On the DVD commentary for the series, Margaret Cho revealed that most of All American Girls set furniture was reused by The Drew Carey Show.
Themes often revolved around Margaret's desire to live a wild lifestyle and her parents' disapproval. Also in the family was a zany (but wise) grandmother (Hill) and Margaret's over-achieving medical student brother Stuart (Wong).
Margaret worked as the clerk at the beauty counter of a department store, and her friends Gloria (Judy Gold
) and Ruthie (Maddie Corman
) were often seen interacting with her. Various episodes found Margaret trying to reconcile her own desires - dating whomever she wanted, finding a career in music or stand-up comedy, and living on her own - with her parents' more traditional expectations of her.
Midway through the season, the premise changed and Margaret moved into the basement of her parents' house. In an effort to boost the ratings
, producers and writers kept tweaking the premise.
By the final episode, the entire cast, except for Cho and Hill, was fired. With very little explanation, Margaret suddenly was living with three men (Phil, Jimmy, and Spencer). One of the roommates was played by Diedrich Bader
, who went on to success in The Drew Carey Show
; also, actress Mariska Hargitay
appeared as a sassy bartender. Hill made a guest appearance, briefly mentioning the support of Margaret's parents for her decision to move out on her own. In this new scenario, Margaret worked for a music magazine but struggled with typical issues for a young adult, such as paying the phone bill. This episode was shot on film
rather than tape and was a pilot
for a proposed but unrealized follow-up series, The Young Americans.
During the run of the show Amy Hill's character Grandma became the most popular character on the show and was arguably considered the breakout character
of the show. This was even noted in the interview by Margaret Cho and Amy Hill that they gave in the show's 2006 DVD realese.
; however, in the commentary track of the DVD set release, Cho pointedly states, "This is not based on my stand-up" every time the tag "Based on the stand-up of Margaret Cho" appears at the end of an episode. The show's format was continually being changed by producers and the network in an attempt to boost poor ratings, and the result was criticized as a poorly written show. It was canceled in 1995
, after one season (19 episodes).
Cho has gone on to comment on the challenges of making the show. The details of these challenges have been outlined in her one-woman show and book, I'm The One That I Want.
When the show was canceled, she spiraled into drug and alcohol
addiction, on which she has since based much material in her live stage shows.
/Sony BMG Music Entertainment
on January 31, 2006, featuring commentary by Cho, joined twice by Hill, on one episode per disc and a new retrospective featurette featuring new interviews with Cho and Hill.
1994 in television
The year 1994 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1994.For the American TV schedule, see: 1994-95 United States network television schedule.-Events:-Debuts:-Miniseries:...
ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
situation comedy
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
starring Margaret Cho
Margaret Cho
Margaret Cho is an American comedian, fashion designer, actress, author, and recording artist. Cho is best known for her stand-up routines, through which she critiques social and political problems, especially those pertaining to race and sexuality. She has also directed and appeared in music...
and featuring Jodi Long
Jodi Long
Jodi Long is an American actress.She was raised in Queens, New York. Her parents are Kimiye , a showgirl performer of Japanese American descent, and Lawrence K...
, Clyde Kusatsu
Clyde Kusatsu
Clyde Kusatsu is a U.S. actor.Kusatsu was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he attended ʻIolani School. Kusatsu began acting in Honolulu summer stock, and after studying theatre at Northwestern University, started to make his mark on the small screen in the mid-1970s...
, Amy Hill
Amy Hill
Amy Marie Hill is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles as Mrs. DePaulo in That's So Raven, Mrs. Kwan in The Cat in the Hat, the Kylie Minogue-inspired singer, Penny Candy from The Puzzle Place, and the voice of Jasmine Lee Amy Marie Hill (born May 9, 1953) is an American...
, B.D. Wong
B.D. Wong
Bradley Darryl "BD" Wong is an American actor, best-known for his roles as Dr. George Huang on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as Father Ray Mukada on HBO's Oz, Henry Wu in the movie Jurassic Park, and for his starring role as Song Liling in the Broadway production of M...
, and J.B. Quon as her Korean-American family.
It was the second American sitcom centered on a person of Asian descent (Korean), namely Cho. (Pat Morita
Pat Morita
Noriyuki "Pat" Morita was an American actor of Japanese descent who was well-known for playing the roles of Matsuo "Arnold" Takahashi on Happy Days and Mr. Miyagi in the The Karate Kid movie series, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1984.-Early life:Pat...
's short-lived 1976
1976 in television
The year 1976 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1976.-Global television events:*The Olympics, broadcast from Montreal, Canada, draw an estimated one billion viewers worldwide....
sitcom Mr. T and Tina
Mr. T and Tina
Mr. T and Tina is an American sitcom that aired for five episodes on ABC in the fall of 1976. Starring Pat Morita, the series was a spin-off of the then-hit series Welcome Back, Kotter...
was the first.)
Notable guest stars during the run of the show included Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
, Jack Black
Jack Black
Jack Black , is an American actor and musician, notably of Tenacious D.Jack Black may also refer to:* Jack Black , late 19th - early 20th Century author and hobo* Jack Black , drummer for 1970s UK punk band The Boys...
, David Cross
David Cross
David Cross is an American actor, writer and stand-up comedian perhaps best known for his work on HBO's sketch comedy series Mr...
, Ming-Na
Ming-Na
Ming-Na is a Macanese-born American actress. She has been credited with and without her family name, but most credits since the late 1990s have been without it...
, Vicki Lawrence
Vicki Lawrence
Vicki Lawrence is an American actress, comedienne, and Billboard Hot 100 #1 singer, who was frequently a game show panelist in the 1970s and 1980s...
, Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
, Tsai Chin
Tsai Chin (actress)
Tsai Chin , also known as Irene Chow, is a Chinese-born actress living in England.-Early life, family & education:Chin was born to Peking Opera actor Zhou Xinfang in 1936. She spent her early life in Shanghai. She had two short marriages which both ended in divorce. Her brother is Michael...
, Mariska Hargitay
Mariska Hargitay
Mariska Hargitay is an American actress, best known for her role as New York City sex crimes Detective Olivia Benson on the NBC television drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a role that has earned her multiple awards and nominations, including an Emmy and Golden Globe.The daughter of actress...
, Billy Burke
Billy Burke (actor)
William Albert "Billy" Burke is an American actor. He is known for his role as Charlie Swan in Twilight, The Twilight Saga: New Moon and the 2010 film The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. He is also known for his role as Gary Matheson in the second season of 24.-Life and career:Burke was born in...
, Robert Clohessy
Robert Clohessy
Robert Clohessy is an American actor, known for playing Correctional Officer Sean Murphy on the HBO drama Oz. He was also a cast member in the final season of Hill Street Blues....
and Garrett Wang
Garrett Wang
Garrett Richard Wang is an American actor. Wang is best known for his role in Star Trek: Voyager as Ensign Harry Kim.-Early life:...
.
Diedrich Bader
Diedrich Bader
Karl Diedrich Bader , better known as Diedrich Bader, is an American actor, voice artist and comedian. Many know him for his roles as Oswald Lee Harvey on The Drew Carey Show, Lawrence from the film Office Space, the Tae Kwon Do instructor Rex from Napoleon Dynamite, Tank "Shredder" Evans in Surf's...
was a one time regular in the last episode of All American Girl, which was a pseudo
Pseudo
The prefix pseudo- is used to mark something as false, fraudulent, or pretending to be something it is not.-See also:*Falsehood*Pseudorealism*Deception*Mimicry*Pseudo.com*Pseudo: Blood of Our Own...
pilot for an unrealized version of All American Girl before achieving fame on The Drew Carey Show
The Drew Carey Show
The Drew Carey Show is an American sitcom that aired on ABC from 1995 to 2004. The show was set in Cleveland, Ohio, and revolved around the retail office and home life of "everyman" Drew Carey, a fictionalized version of the actor....
. On the DVD commentary for the series, Margaret Cho revealed that most of All American Girls set furniture was reused by The Drew Carey Show.
Premise and production notes
At the time the show was launched, the premise centered around Cho, as Margaret Kim. The onscreen Margaret was a twenty-something, modern American young woman who lived with her more traditional Korean family. She had a contentious relationship with her mother (Long).Themes often revolved around Margaret's desire to live a wild lifestyle and her parents' disapproval. Also in the family was a zany (but wise) grandmother (Hill) and Margaret's over-achieving medical student brother Stuart (Wong).
Margaret worked as the clerk at the beauty counter of a department store, and her friends Gloria (Judy Gold
Judy Gold
Judy Gold is an American stand-up comic and actor. She won two Daytime Emmy Awards for her work as a writer and producer on The Rosie O'Donnell Show...
) and Ruthie (Maddie Corman
Maddie Corman
Maddie Corman is an American television and film actress.-Career:Born Madeleine Cornman in New York City, New York, she began her career as a child actress in the 1980s...
) were often seen interacting with her. Various episodes found Margaret trying to reconcile her own desires - dating whomever she wanted, finding a career in music or stand-up comedy, and living on her own - with her parents' more traditional expectations of her.
Midway through the season, the premise changed and Margaret moved into the basement of her parents' house. In an effort to boost the ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
, producers and writers kept tweaking the premise.
By the final episode, the entire cast, except for Cho and Hill, was fired. With very little explanation, Margaret suddenly was living with three men (Phil, Jimmy, and Spencer). One of the roommates was played by Diedrich Bader
Diedrich Bader
Karl Diedrich Bader , better known as Diedrich Bader, is an American actor, voice artist and comedian. Many know him for his roles as Oswald Lee Harvey on The Drew Carey Show, Lawrence from the film Office Space, the Tae Kwon Do instructor Rex from Napoleon Dynamite, Tank "Shredder" Evans in Surf's...
, who went on to success in The Drew Carey Show
The Drew Carey Show
The Drew Carey Show is an American sitcom that aired on ABC from 1995 to 2004. The show was set in Cleveland, Ohio, and revolved around the retail office and home life of "everyman" Drew Carey, a fictionalized version of the actor....
; also, actress Mariska Hargitay
Mariska Hargitay
Mariska Hargitay is an American actress, best known for her role as New York City sex crimes Detective Olivia Benson on the NBC television drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a role that has earned her multiple awards and nominations, including an Emmy and Golden Globe.The daughter of actress...
appeared as a sassy bartender. Hill made a guest appearance, briefly mentioning the support of Margaret's parents for her decision to move out on her own. In this new scenario, Margaret worked for a music magazine but struggled with typical issues for a young adult, such as paying the phone bill. This episode was shot on film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
rather than tape and was a pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
for a proposed but unrealized follow-up series, The Young Americans.
During the run of the show Amy Hill's character Grandma became the most popular character on the show and was arguably considered the breakout character
Breakout character
A breakout character is a fictional character in different episodes, books or other media that becomes the most popular, talked about, and imitated. Most often a breakout character in a television series captures the audience's imagination and helps to popularize the show, sometimes inadvertently...
of the show. This was even noted in the interview by Margaret Cho and Amy Hill that they gave in the show's 2006 DVD realese.
Behind the scenes
Producers initially described the show as being semi-autobiographical and based loosely on Cho's stand-up comedyStand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
; however, in the commentary track of the DVD set release, Cho pointedly states, "This is not based on my stand-up" every time the tag "Based on the stand-up of Margaret Cho" appears at the end of an episode. The show's format was continually being changed by producers and the network in an attempt to boost poor ratings, and the result was criticized as a poorly written show. It was canceled in 1995
1995 in television
The year 1995 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1995.For the American TV schedule, see: 1995-96 United States network television schedule.-Events:-Debuts:-1950s:...
, after one season (19 episodes).
Cho has gone on to comment on the challenges of making the show. The details of these challenges have been outlined in her one-woman show and book, I'm The One That I Want.
- Cho states she was asked to lose a large amount of weight in order to play a character based on herself. Producers and network officials were concerned about the roundness of her face.
- She was advised that she was not acting Asian enough; an Asian Consultant was hired to teach her to be more Asian. When this angle was not successful, the Asian members of the cast (except Cho herself and Amy Hill) were dropped and replaced with a group of white friends for the main character to interact with. Cho claims she was then told she was too Asian for this new format.
- Cho's desperation to make the show a success led to decisions that affected her health negatively. Her rapid weight lossWeight lossWeight loss, in the context of medicine, health or physical fitness, is a reduction of the total body mass, due to a mean loss of fluid, body fat or adipose tissue and/or lean mass, namely bone mineral deposits, muscle, tendon and other connective tissue...
(30 pounds in 2 weeks) in order to complete the pilot episode caused serious kidneyKidneyThe kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
failure.
When the show was canceled, she spiraled into drug and alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
addiction, on which she has since based much material in her live stage shows.
DVD release
The complete series was released on DVD in a four disc set from Shout! FactoryShout! Factory
Shout! Factory is an entertainment company founded in 2003 that was started by Richard Foos , Bob Emmer and Garson Foos initially as a specialty music label...
/Sony BMG Music Entertainment
Sony BMG Music Entertainment
Sony BMG Music Entertainment was a recorded music company, which was a 50–50 joint venture between the Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann AG...
on January 31, 2006, featuring commentary by Cho, joined twice by Hill, on one episode per disc and a new retrospective featurette featuring new interviews with Cho and Hill.
Episode list
- “Mom, Dad, This is Kyle” (originally aired on September 14, 1994) (Commentary by Cho included on DVD)
- “Submission: Impossible” (originally aired on September 21, 1994)
- “Who's the Boss?” (originally aired on September 28, 1994)
- “Yung At Heart” (originally aired on October 5, 1994)
- “Redesigning Women” (originally aired on October 12, 1994)
- “Booktopus” (originally aired on October 19, 1994)
- “Mommie Nearest” (originally aired on October 26, 1994)
- “Take My Family, Please” (originally aired on November 2, 1994) (Commentary by Cho and Hill included on DVD)
- “Exile On Market Street” (originally aired on November 16, 1994)
- “Ratting On Ruthie” (originally aired on November 23, 1994)
- “Educating Margaret” (originally aired on November 30, 1994)
- “Loveless in San Francisco” (originally aired on December 7, 1994)
- “Malpractice Makes Perfect” (originally aired on December 14, 1994)
- “The Apartment” (originally aired on January 11, 1995) (Commentary by Cho and Hill included on DVD)
- “Notes from the Underground” (originally aired on January 18, 1995)
- “Venus de Margaret” (originally aired on January 25, 1995)
- “A Night at the Oprah” (originally aired on February 14, 1995)
- “Pulp Sitcom” (originally aired on February 22, 1995) (Commentary by Cho included on DVD)
- “Young Americans” (originally aired on March 15, 1995)