Shark Bytes

"If it wasn't for the sad alcohol/drug use of Brett Butler, the show would've been a success."

- The show, at least to me was a great success. And although Nadine (Julie White) was important as a cast member, no one else would have been able to play Grace Kelley besides Brett Butler. In other words, Nadine (Julie White) was a replaceable character. You can easily find another actress that can do the same quality of work for that role.

Whatever happened with Butler happened but that doesn't stop the show from being great. In my opinion, there are no longer good sitcoms on the air. I'd watch Grace Under Fire any day.

Grace under fire was a great show when she was working at the oil refinery and nadiene was on it. The whole cast was very funny. Russel and grace were a very funny comic pair. After she left the refinery it was ok but lost a lot.

i liked this show. i remember watching it every day after school. brett butler is funny, and i love her sarcasm.

Grace Under Fire began as a Roseanne clone which quickly found a niche of its own with the single abused parent angle. I don't think its downward spiral can be attributed to any one thing but rather a succession of events. The first and second seasons were, for the most part, quite funny and entertaining. Home life and work were balanced out by the comical kids and intruding neighbors, and there were some hysterical episodes (Nana Lil's funeral, from season one, is a genuine riot.) The scripts held just the right balance of written dialog and improvisation to make the show unique and fun.
I think the first sign of trouble was Brett Butler's knack for replacing writers/producers, as Chuck Lorre, who created the show, was put on notice almost immediately. Her notion of funny was many times at odds with the staff, which caused inevitable tension. Season 3 was rocky at best, but season 4, with the replacement of Jon Paul Steuer's character and set change from the old house to the new one, really put the show in futile shark-infested waters. Brett's subsequent shenanigans on the set, the loss of the oil refinery workplace, and Julie White's departure in season 5 really put the nails in the coffin. Add in Butler's painkiller addiction, and it's no wonder this show is a textbook example of good intentions gone bad.
The show did make it to the magic 100 episodes desired for successful syndication, but I can only imagine the patience it requires to sit through any of the show's final season episodes...Butler is a mere shell of her former self. Almost exactly ten years to the day the show was finally put out of its misery by the network, it's interesting to note that Butler has since cleaned up her act and enjoyed renewed television success as Earl's mother-in-law on "My Name Is Earl", among other projects. Still, one can only look back and wonder how great this show could have been if not for all the controversy surrounding the final seasons. Regardless of how promising the series was when it first began, how it all ended may sadly be Butler's enduring legacy.

I believe that GUF (Grace Under Fire) jumped the shark when Julie White (aka Nadine Swoboda) left the show. Julie was a true essence of the show. If it wasn't for the sad alcohol/drug use of Brett Butler, the show would've been a success.

Jumped in pre-production and just got worse as Brett's drug and alcohol problems worsened.
Ironically, as her problems increased, so did her control of the show - not a good thing, I think!
Basically the show was a blatant rip-off of "Roseanne" only not as funny and, remarkably enough, far more crude and vulgar.
I didn't like that big musclebound lunkhead from "In The Heat Of The Night" as her boyfriend either.
A study of the rise and fall of Brett Butler's career should be taught in every high school anti-drug program in the country!

Hard-drinkin', hard livin', pill poppin' white trash. That sums up Brett Butler.

You can almost smell the booze off of her breath when you watch her on TV.

I never thought she was funny.

I believe that aside from the personal luggage that Brett Butler was carrying late in the shows run,it really jumped the Shark for me when i heard of the extremely adult behaviour that Ms Butler seemed to think was o.k to exhibit in front of the young actor playing her son on the show.
I am not a strict moralist but there is never a time and place to bare your breasts to a twelve year old boy.
Even through the painkiller haze she must have known how wrong she was.

I won't say it was a jump the shark moment, but I stopped watching the show when one of Grace's friends was having marriage trouble. When she starts to talk about personal stuff, Grace suggests she talk to her husband instead of herself. Her friend scoffs "You're my best friend, Grace. Bill is just my husband." Cue laughtrack. Grace says nothing. Another sitcom joins the male bash train.
Bye bye!

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Alan's departure was more his decision than the show's, but they certainly had a hand in it, allowing the working atmosphere to become so poor. He left for many of the same reasons the rest of the cast did. They had a wonderful thing going with the relationship between Grace and Rick and they should have done whatever it took to keep Autry on board. He was more than just a romantic interest. He was an amazing character all to himself. Much like Grace, he was far more than he appeared to be. Losing other cast members was a shame, but the show could have been salvaged if Autry had remained, leaving Rick and Grace's relationship intact as an anchor.

GUF seemed promising at first with Dave Thomas of SCTV fame in the cast. But what we ended up with was a grasping at the popularity of "Roseanne" and trying to bottle that lightning twice (didn't happen) and Brett, tell us what you really think! Nasty, angry and depressing with a laugh track, that was "Grace Under Fire".

When Grace entered the final season Nadine was gone, and she was a great balance to Grace's harsh jokes. The way they explained her absence was really weak too. Nadine made the show cool cause she was more naive than Grace and would look at things positively where Grace always looked for doom.

Quentin was not replaced, exactly. The mother of the young actor who played the part pulled him from the show because she thought that the show was to "adult" for her young son to appear on. She didn't like that the character was allowed to say things that she did allow him to say in real life. This made the paper, one of those small blurbs on the bottom of the tv page, and the decision to recast with an older actor was logical from that standpoint. A better solution would have been to clean up what the characters were saying, rather than recasting with a much older actor. Or at least replacing Quentin 1 with Quentin 2 who was older, but looked younger. Michael J Fox is a good example, he played Alex as a high school sophomore despite being 19-20 years old. Lisa Cardilini (Freaks and Geeks) was 26 years old playing a high school junior. Another jump would be adding Jimmy the ex husband to the show. That character was best as often spoken of, but never seen. This always leads to imagining a person who could not be played, like Roy's mother on Wings or Al's mother on Home improvement, rather than confining that character to a physical appearance.

When I was younger, about 10 or so, l used to watch the show a lot. I stopped since I thought it was cancelled till I seen the next season where Quentin Kelly was replaced. I stopped again (this time permanently,) after realizing the son has been changed. I mean, how the heck did the class clown, vindictive kid became the nice, handsome old kid? It doesn't make sense since not only did they changed the actor, but his personality.