Spin City

Spin City
The original Spin City intertitle, as seen during season one (1996–1997)
Created by	Gary Goldberg Bill Lawrence
Written by	Bill Lawrence (1996–2002) Gary Goldberg (1996–2002) Tim Hobert (1996–2001) and many more...
Starring	Michael J. Fox (1996–2000) Charlie Sheen (2000–2002) Heather Locklear (1999–2002) Barry Bostwick Richard Kind Michael Boatman Alan Ruck Connie Britton (1996–2000) Alexander Chaplin (1996–2000) Jennifer Esposito (1997–1999) Carla Gugino (1996) Victoria Dillard (1996–2000) Lana Parrilla (2000–2001)
Country of origin	USA
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	145 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Gary David Goldberg Michael J. Fox (1996–2000) Bill Lawrence (1998–2000) Andy Cadiff (1998–2000) Tom Hertz (2001–2002)
Producers	DreamWorks SKG Lottery Hill Entertainment Ubu Productions
Camera setup	Multiple camera
Running time	approx. 22 minutes
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	September 17, 1996 – April 30, 2002

Spin City is an American sitcom television series that ran from 1996 to 2002 on ABC. Created by Gary David Goldberg and Bill Lawrence, the show was based on a fictional local government running New York City, and originally starred Michael J. Fox as Mike Flaherty, the Deputy Mayor of New York. The show was cancelled in 2002 due to low ratings from the 2001–2002 season and a change in target demographics.

In 2000, Paramount Television (which produced Michael J. Fox's earlier sitcom, Family Ties) began syndicating the series to local stations (Paramount parent Viacom would later buy the show's producer DreamWorks). It and successor companies owned distribution rights until 2009, when DreamWorks became independent again. The syndication rights are currently held by ABC's syndication arm, Disney-ABC Domestic Television, as Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures will begin distributing DreamWorks live-action films in 2009.

Premise

The series focuses on the Mayor of New York City, Randall Winston (Barry Bostwick), and his staff as they run the city—although the main person in charge is Deputy Mayor Mike Flaherty (Michael J. Fox). Mike is excellent at his job, dealing with spin and lies, but not so good with his personal life, which he often neglects. Other members of staff at City Hall include press secretary Paul Lassiter (Richard Kind), the office cheapskate, suck-up, and noted coward, who has a habit of being a loudmouth and is often kept in the dark about things; chief of staff Stuart Bondek (Alan Ruck), who loves the ladies and is often very sexist; head of minority affairs Carter Heywood (Michael Boatman), a gay black man who owns a suicidal dog named Rags. Despite their overwhelming personal differences, Stuart and Carter actually become roommates and the best of friends. Also part of the staff are speech writer James Hobert (Alexander Chaplin), who is easily led and quite naive; Mike's secretary Janelle Cooper (Victoria Dillard); and her assistant Nikki Faber (Connie Britton). Janelle later became the mayor's secretary and Stacy Paterno (Jennifer Esposito) joined the show as Mike's secretary. Each of them has to help run City Hall, improving the Mayor's image and cover for his frequent gaffes, while sorting out their personal lives.

At the start of the series, Mike is dating reporter Ashley Schaffer (Carla Gugino). In early promos for the series, this relationship is shown to be the main premise of the show. However, just a few episodes into the series, Gugino decided to leave. The nature of Carter and Stuart's relationship became a running gag during the series. The two ended up becoming so close that their friendship was mocked by others, and their arguments sounded so much like husband and wife that a whole episode was dedicated to the notion that the two argued like a married couple. The two ended up meeting an older duo of best friends (one black and one white) that were virtual twins of Carter and Stuart in terms of personality; when it was discovered that the two older versions had become a couple, it ended up scaring Stuart quite a bit. For his part, Stuart tends to be very possessive of his time with Carter, going so far as to be genuinely jealous when Carter spends more and more time with new campaign manager Caitlin (Heather Locklear) [see below]. In spite of all the jokes and innuendo, they prove to be best friends willing to do anything for both their friends and each other.

During the fourth season, Stacy was replaced by James. Her absence was never explained, nor was she mentioned again after James took over her duties.

The later years

In 1998, Michael J. Fox announced that he had Parkinson's disease. As a result, a new character, Caitlin Moore (Heather Locklear) was introduced at the start of the 1999–2000 season to help share Mike's workload. Caitlin was Mayor Winston's campaign manager as he decided to run for Senator, and there was much friction between Mike and Caitlin about who was in charge of the Mayor. Their relationship, however, was more complex than a simple rivalry and there were hints that it would become more than platonic.

In 2000, as his symptoms worsened, Fox announced that he was leaving the show at the end of the season to spend more time with his family and to raise money for awareness of and research into Parkinson's. His character left City Hall at the end of the show's 4th season, taking the blame for an alleged Mafia link that the Mayor unknowingly had. He later moved to Washington, D.C. as an environmental lobbyist, there meeting a senator named Alex P. Keaton (the name of the character Fox played on Family Ties). Executive Producer/co-creator Bill Lawrence also left the show, along with a few cast members and writers/producers.

The remaining producers decided to carry on the series with a new lead. For the show's 5th season, production moved from New York to Los Angeles, and Charlie Sheen as new Deputy Mayor Charlie Crawford, joining Caitlin, Paul, Stuart, Carter, and the Mayor. The characters of Nikki, Janelle and James were not carried over (like Stacy, their absences were never explained), replaced by assistant Angie Ordonez (Lana Parrilla), who likewise left after one season without explanation (Parrilla feeling the character was underused).

Ratings

Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of Spin City.

Note: Each U.S. network television season starts in late September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.

Season	Season premiere	Season finale	TV season	Ranking	Viewers (in millions)
1st	September 17, 1996	May 13, 1997	1996–1997	#17	11.73
2nd	September 24, 1997	May 20, 1998	1997–1998	TBA	TBA
3rd	September 22, 1998	May 25, 1999	1998–1999	#25	9.13
4th	September 21, 1999	May 24, 2000	1999–2000	TBA	TBA
5th	October 18, 2000	May 23, 2001	2000–2001	TBA	TBA
6th	September 25, 2001	April 30, 2002	2001–2002	TBA	TBA

Awards

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Spin City

The show won four Golden Globes (three for Michael J. Fox and one for Charlie Sheen), out of its nine nominations

Episodes

Main article: List of Spin City episodes

DVD releases

Shout! Factory has released the first 3 seasons of Spin City on DVD in Region 1.[1]

Dreamworks has also published two DVD boxes titled "Michael J. Fox – His All Time Favorites" Vols. 1 and 2 in 2003, both containing eleven episodes. All 22 episodes are taken from the four seasons containing Fox, each starting with a brief interview in which he describes what he likes about the episode. In the 2003 interviews, Fox shows symptoms of his ongoing illness. Both DVD boxes contain bonus material with fund-raising TV commercials for Parkinson's Disease research, starring the Spin City cast.

DVD Name	Ep #	Release Date	Bonus Features
The Complete First Season	24	November 4, 2008	All-New Interviews with Michael J. Fox, the Series Creators and the Ensemble cast 7 Episode Commentaries Highlights of The Paley Center for Media Seminar featuring Gary David Goldberg and Michael J. Fox in 1996 Special Message from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research: an inspiring video showcasing Team Fox, the Foundation's community fundraising program
The Complete Second Season	24	April 28, 2009
The Complete Third Season	26	November 3, 2009
The Complete Fourth Season		May 18, 2010

External links

• Spin City at IMDb
• Spin City at AllMovie
• Spin City at Yahoo! TV
• Template:Tv.com show