Uploaded January 2011 | Updated September 2026, 21 hours ago
Candice Bergen tells us how if we sign up for Sprint's already cheap long distance service, we'll get a lot of free minutes on Mondays nights. The other people in the commercial seem to be misinterpreting "speak freely" though, by opening up a little too truthfully to their companions.
Long distance was big business when this commercial aired. 3 big long distance services (AT&T, Sprint, MCI) plus another dozen lesser players were fighting it out with Baby Bells, dial-around (10-10-) and 1-800 calling options for your long distance dollar. As this commercial seems to imply, long distance service was becoming very cheap to offer and very profitable to sell. Free minutes on Mondays eventually turned into free minutes all evening and then lots of free minutes all the time and eventually it became difficult to charge for long distance at all.
Candice Bergen was riding high (deservedly) on her titular Murphy Brown role and her stature as a figure of common sense was bolstered by Dan Quayle's ill-advised attack against her fictional Murphy Brown character during a political speech. Instead of Quayle making political points pointing out how bad an influence Murphy Brown was, most of the country decided Quayle was a bit daft for attacking a figure that didn't exist in the real world. Bergen handled the situation with a lot better aplomb and the savvy writers of her show opened the next season by showing Quayle's speech criticizing Brown and played off that as if it took place in the fictional world on the show.
The sum total of the experience lent a lot of credibility to Brown's character and Bergen too making her a natural as a pitchman.
This promo aired during an October 26th, 1997 showing of King of the Hill.
Candice Bergen tells us how if we sign up for Sprint's already cheap long distance service, we'll get a lot of free minutes on Mondays nights. The other people in the commercial seem to be misinterpreting "speak freely" though, by opening up a little too truthfully to their companions.
Long distance was big business when this commercial aired. 3 big long distance services (AT&T, Sprint, MCI) plus another dozen lesser players were fighting it out with Baby Bells, dial-around (10-10-) and 1-800 calling options for your long distance dollar. As this commercial seems to imply, long distance service was becoming very cheap to offer and very profitable to sell. Free minutes on Mondays eventually turned into free minutes all evening and then lots of free minutes all the time and eventually it became difficult to charge for long distance at all.
Candice Bergen was riding high (deservedly) on her titular Murphy Brown role and her stature as a figure of common sense was bolstered by Dan Quayle's ill-advised attack against her fictional Murphy Brown character during a political speech. Instead of Quayle making political points pointing out how bad an influence Murphy Brown was, most of the country decided Quayle was a bit daft for attacking a figure that didn't exist in the real world. Bergen handled the situation with a lot better aplomb and the savvy writers of her show opened the next season by showing Quayle's speech criticizing Brown and played off that as if it took place in the fictional world on the show.
The sum total of the experience lent a lot of credibility to Brown's character and Bergen too making her a natural as a pitchman.
This promo aired during an October 26th, 1997 showing of King of the Hill.
