Updated March 24, 2021
Established Sep. 23, 1997
Hello, and welcome to the Original JUST SHOOT ME Website. This was the first fan website exclusively devoted to this well-written, hilarious TV show which aired on NBC for seven seasons (1997-2003).
It was created by Steve Levitan (THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW, FRASIER and now MODERN FAMILY). It starred a talented cast consisting of Laura San Giacomo, George Segal, Wendie Malick, Enrico Colantoni and David Spade.
JUST SHOOT ME (or JSM for short) was about Maya Gallo (San Giacomo, from Stuart Saves His Family, sex, lies, and videotape and other films), who begins a new job writing for her father Jack's (Segal, from countless films and TV shows) magazine, "Blush." It's basically one of those magazines like "Glamour," "Cosmopolitan," etc. Maya takes it upon herself to make the magazine smarter, but she has some tough competition from 3 employees who have been there for years: Nina Van Horn (Malick, from DREAM ON), a washed-up former model; Elliott DiMauro (Colantoni), a fashion photographer and ladies' man; and of course Dennis Finch (David Spade), Jack's brown-nosing secretary. Chris Hogan played Maya's roommate Wally during the first season only. Rena Sofer joined the cast in the seventh season as new BLUSH employee Vicki Costa.
I saw George Segal in "Art" on Broadway with Wayne Knight and Buck Henry. Met him as he walked out of the main entrance after the show. Of course I knew him being a huge fan of Just Shoot Me (met him on that set too). And of course later, The Goldbergs. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. He starred in dozens of movies, from action to romantic comedies in the '70s after his Oscar nomination for Virginia Woolf. One of the best banjo players ever too. RIP
A wide-ranging interview with Levitan here, on Modern Family and his previous work:
We knew we wanted to do something about family, and we started to realize we wanted to do something in the documentary form. We wanted to do multiple families, because we both liked the adult relationships. We didn’t want to be constantly doing kid stories, we wanted to be able to do both. Frasier was based on an adult brother relationship, and an adult father-son relationship. Just Shoot Me was a complicated adult father-daughter relationship. So then it was a matter of populating it with multiple families, and the idea was, how has family changed recently? So let’s start in the middle with a very conventional, right down the middle family -- a working husband, a stay-at-home mom, and three kids. And the kids were kind of loosely based on my family in terms of the sexes and ages of the kids. And then we wanted to do a gay couple. And we wanted to do something cross-cultural as well. And what was nice there was the older man/younger woman thing. We could have done three siblings, and one of them was married [to someone from another culture]. But we liked the idea of the father being with the younger woman because you’ve got multiple things going on. There was nice conflict and tension.A message to the fans:
To all the fans of Just Shoot Me,I saw "Art" back in July '99 on Broadway and met George Segal as well as the rest of the cast! In 2000, yours truly met the rest of the cast at a JSM filming (fifth season premiere)... I returned in 2002 to see the filming of the episode with Elliott's grandma.Thank you so much for all your support over the years. It really has meant so much to me, the cast and crew. While NBC has really disappointed us this time, we had a blast making this series and I feel lucky to have worked with such talented people and I am incredibly grateful for fans like you.
I wish you all the best.
Sincerely,
Steve Levitan Creator, Executive Producer, "Just Shoot Me"
JSM cast on the cover of PARADE
TV Guide from May '99: cover
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