We say goodbye to North Carolina-set TV shows ‘The Unicorn’ and ‘Bless the Harts’
It was nice while it lasted, that tiny bit of spotlight shining on Raleigh all the way from Hollywood.
But with CBS’ cancellation of “The Unicorn” last week goes the Oak City’s most prominent national pop culture moment since Barney booked the corner room at the Y.
“The Unicorn” was a sweet comedy about a recently widowed dad of two young daughters, living in Raleigh and trying to reenter the dating world with the support of a handful of close friends.
The show was based on the real-life experiences of Grady Cooper, a Raleigh native, whose wife Jane died of brain cancer in 2015. Cooper has two teenage daughters and lives in Los Angeles.
Cooper shared his story with The News & Observer in 2019, just before the series premiered.
He said he got he idea that his circumstances could be the premise of a show after he started to date again, and he would share funny stories about dating with his friends: television writer Bill Martin, a friend since their college days in Chapel Hill; Martin’s writing partner, Mike Schiff; and Peyton Reed, a fellow Raleigh native and lifelong friend who is a producer and director best known for his “Ant-Man” films.
The show’s title came from the idea that Cooper’s character, Wade, was such a genuinely decent guy: a family man who wasn’t chasing women half his age, or trying to date a different woman every night. In other words, Wade was a “unicorn” in the dating world.
The show did well in its first season, but ratings dropped by more than a third for Season 2, and CBS raised the ax.
But the show’s producers aren’t giving up: they’re hoping to find a second home for “The Unicorn” elsewhere, and should have updates soon.
Raleigh’s role in ‘The Unicorn’
“The Unicorn” had an outstanding cast: Walton Goggins (“The Shield,” “Justified,” “Righteous Gemstones”) played Wade, the widowed dad, and his circle of close friends were played by Michaela Watkins, Rob Corddry, Omar Benson Miller and Maya Lynne Robinson. Ruby Jay and Makenzie Moss played the daughters.
Playing a supporting role, quietly in the background, was the city of Raleigh.
Local viewers’ ears pricked up with the occasional name-dropping of local spots — like Glenwood, Boylan Heights, Humble Pie and Clyde Cooper’s Barbecue.
Wade flirted with a bartender with a Duke degree. Wade went on a date at The Ackland art museum in Chapel Hill. Wade’s friend Forrest “drove all the way to Garner” to buy condoms where no one would know him.
And there were “Raleigh” signs everywhere: at the local tennis courts, on the sides of buildings, even on refrigerator magnets.
But more than that, the set designers and prop masters working on the show went the extra miles for more subtle local touches, trying to give the show an authentic Raleigh feel. They made sure the architecture was correct, that the plants were native to the state, and that the friends drank local beer.
That attention to detail — especially in a world where other NC-set shows have characters taking ferries from the Outer Banks to Chapel Hill — made the series unbelievably rare.
You might even call it a unicorn.
We also bid farewell to ‘The Harts’
The magical 2019 television season brought us another North Carolina-based show, which we’ll also lose due to a second season drop in ratings.
“Bless the Harts,” an animated Fox comedy about three generations of strong, independent Hart women, was created by North Carolina native Emily Spivey. The main characters, voiced by Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Jillian Bell, made up a family described in promotional materials as “broke, but not broken.”
Spivey told The News & Observer in 2019 that it was important to her to portray Southern characters in a funny but respectful way.
Set in the fictional town of Greenpoint (in the Triad area), the series often referenced places and customs near and dear to North Carolina hearts: a vacation to Myrtle Beach, a barbecue contest held at a Beach Music festival, the small-town drama over the removal of a controversial statue, the Jamestown “hitchhiking ghost.”
But more than anything, we owe our gratitude to “Bless the Harts” for delivering the singular television moment in which North Carolinians were most thoroughly seen by the world.
It happens in Episode 9 of Season 1, titled “Miracle on Culpepper Slims Boulevard,” when frozen terror grips Greenpoint. That’s right: it snows.
The local TV news team delivers the good/bad news: the area could see anywhere from 0 to 26 inches, any time in the next 12 to 78 hours (or minutes) — with the chance of that happening ranging from “not very to very likely.”
The local weatherman, called “Big Weathers,” warns viewers to always assume they are on black ice, which the anchor, MayKay Bueller, calls “the silent killer.”
The action then shifts to a ransacked Harris Teeter, where all the milk is gone and the only bread left is “the diabetes bread.”
Then we see one single, delicate snowflake land on the highway, and all of the cars immediately skid out of control. Flames light the sky from a multi-car pileup. The mayor shivers roadside, wrapped in a blanket, struggling to explain the lack of salt on the roads.
North Carolina, this is us.
How to watch ‘The Unicorn’ and ‘Bless the Harts’
▪ “The Unicorn” aired its CBS finale on March 18, but the show is available to stream. Season 1 is available on Netflix, and both seasons are on the streaming service Paramount+.
▪ “Bless the Harts” has a couple more episodes to go, with the series finale slated for Sunday, June 2, on Fox (air time 7:30 p.m.). Past episodes are available to stream on Hulu.
This story was originally published May 21, 2021 at 8:00 AM with the headline "We say goodbye to North Carolina-set TV shows ‘The Unicorn’ and ‘Bless the Harts’."
