David Addison

Moonlighting

In high school, I used to stand in front of the mirror, practicing the tightlipped, cockeyed smirk that David Addison (Bruce Willis) dealt out at the end of almost every episode of Moonlighting. I don't think I ever got it right, but it didn't keep me from trying.

The episode "My Fair David" (from the second season) was the one that sealed it for me: "Limbo Rock" in the office, Addison following Maddie, swinging his clasped arms like an elephant's trunk while she lectured him on office decorum. Or maybe it was his smirking his way through the line "Doth bears beareth? Doth bees beeth?" in a parody of The Taming of the Shrew. Either way, if all of Addison's brilliant dialogue from the show's four-year run were collected in one place, the narrative to my adolescence would be complete.

Maddie Hayes did nothing for me. The teased, then consummated, then failed romance didn't even register. The cases taken on by Blue Moon were irrelevant. All that mattered was David Addison, wisecracking his way through yet another hour of television.

To this day, I still use that smirk.

-- Thor Iverson