Michael G. Moye | |
---|---|
Born | Michael George Moye August 11, 1954 New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. |
Occupation(s) | Television writer, producer, photographer |
Spouse | |
Children | 2 |
Michael George Moye (born August 11, 1954) is an American photographer and a former television writer and producer.[1] In his television career he has written for shows such as The Jeffersons, Diff'rent Strokes, Good Times, and 227, and produced It's Your Move and The Jeffersons. His best-known work is likely the 1987 series Married... with Children, created with Ron Leavitt for the then-fledgling Fox network.
Moye began his career in 1977 with a staff writing position on Good Times. Between 1979 and 1984, he wrote for The Jeffersons, and in 1982 he co-developed Silver Spoons, which ran for five seasons. He also co-developed both It's Your Move and 227 (with Bill Boulware), the latter under alias C.J. Banks.[1][2]
Married... with Children, created by Moye and Leavitt in 1987 for the Fox network, was called an "anti-family" series [3] or "the anti-Cosby", Moye and Leavitt being fed up with the idealized family of the sitcoms of the 1980s.[4][5] They created the couple Al-Peggy by imagining a fictional union between Roseanne Barr and Sam Kinison.[6]
Moye was a producer and a writer on the show for most of its run, and had a hand in writing a series-leading 25 episodes[7] as well as having a few cameo appearances on screen.[8] The show ran for 11 seasons and was credited with keeping the fledgling Fox network "in the black for five or six years."[9] The show has been the target of conservative political campaigns several times.[10] In 1993, he refused to modify a two-episode show (the one where Al Bundy lobbies in Congress after his favorite show Psycho Dad was cancelled), accusing instead Fox to be too soft with censorship regulators.[11]
Moye retired from television in 1995 and is now a photographer and an avid coral reef aquarium hobbyist.[1][12] He has two children from two marriages.[1]
In 1992, Michael G. Moye acquired a 13,749-square-feet estate in Conyers Farm in Greenwich Connecticut, for $1.5 million. It was put up for sale for $8.595 million in November 2017. He also owned a house in Encino that he sold for $1.65 million in 2017, and bought a 2000-square-feet residence on sugar sand beaches in North Carolina in 2006.[13]