Moonlighting Creator: Streaming Release Is Especially ‘Poignant’ in Wake of Bruce Willis’ Dementia Diagnosis

Moonlighting creator Glenn Gordon Caron says that the series’ long-awaited release to streaming is “even more poignant” given leading man Bruce Willis’ mental health struggles.

Willis’ family announced in March 2022 that he had been diagnosed with aphasia, and as such would step away from his acting career. Less than a year later, the family added that Willis had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.

The streaming release “became even more poignant when Bruce started to fall ill,” Caron told TheWrap. “I realized that most people think of him as a guy who carries a gun and mows down bad guys [as Willis did in the Die Hard franchise and other films], and he has this whole career as a romantic leading man with all this incredible verbal virtuosity that most people, or a lot of people anyway, have never experienced.”

And because of what Willis was going through in real life, “I very much wanted to get the show out there,” Caron said. “I’ve been talking to his wife, Emma. She very much wants the little girls to see it in its most pristine condition.”

As TVLine reported this week, all five seasons of ABC’s Moonlighting — which co-starred Willis and Cybill Shepherd as bickering private detectives David Addison and Maddie Hayes — will be available to stream on Hulu starting Tuesday, Oct. 10. All episodes have been remastered in high-definition from the original film source, and with regards to the music issues that long roadblocked the series’ streaming release, the Grammy-nominated title track recorded by Al Jarreau remains intact, as are all of the songs sung on-screen by Shepherd, Willis and the supporting cast. (Get details.)