By Gordon Joseloff
“American Housewife,” the ABC-TV sitcom set in Westport starring Katy Mixon, debuted tonight with 12 mentions of Westport, no scenes shot in Westport, and a Connecticut map that misspelled the town’s name as “Wesport.”
A map on the premiere episode of “American Housewife” misspelled Westport as “Wesport,” among other errors. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) WestportNow.com photo from ABC-TV
The 30-minute episode –- originally named “The Second Fattest Housewife in Westport”—was actually 21 minutes and 12 seconds of program with the rest devoted to commercials and network promotions of other series.
“It’s the kind of town where people have big houses and tiny butts,” says Mixon’s character, Katie Otto. “Where every idiot has a boat and a labra doodle.”
To give viewers an idea where Westport is located, it showed a map with a ribbon across part of it that said “Greetings From Connecticut.”
However, the map was replete with spelling and geographical errors.
Instead of “Westport,” it said “Wesport.” It showed a dot representing Norwalk a considerable distance from “Wesport.”
It placed New Haven west of the Housatonic River above Milford (it is east of the Housatonic well away from Milford), misspelled Branford as “Brandford,” and located Mystic well east of the Mystic River (it is on the river.)
As part of the description of Westport, there was a fake sign saying “Welcome to Westport (spelled correctly) – Established in 1732.” The real Westport was founded in 1835.
But Hollywood is Hollywood and advance reviews were generally favorable; some later ones were not. (See WestportNow Oct. 6, 2016)
Still because of the show’s direct connections to Westport, you might think there would be a little more accuracy.
Kenny Schwartz, a 1985 Staples High School graduate, is an executive producer. Also, Mixon’s co-star, Diedrich Bader, who plays her husband, is married to actress Dulcy Rogers, a 1982 Staples High School graduate.
If you really can’t wait for upcoming episodes, ABC says episode 2 is called “The Nap” with this synopsis: “Greg comes down with the flu and Katie battles exhaustion trying to take care of him and the kids. Later: her exhaustion leads to a confrontation with the school’s overbearing school crossing guard.”
And episode 3 is “Westport Zombies,” described as: “Katie, jealous of Taylor’s friendship with neighbor Viv (Leslie Bibb), reluctantly competes in the Westport Halloween ‘Zombie Run’ after she finds out they’ll both be running. Meanwhile, Greg and Anna-Kat get a little too much in character for the ‘zombie’ part of the run’s obstacle course.”
Future episodes may actually include real scenes of Westport. The producers are sending a crew to town to tape actual exteriors. No word, though, when they might show up.
