Created by Marco Pennette, ABC's Crumbs was an off-kilter sitcom dealing with such warm-and-fuzzy issues as mental illness, attempted homicide, divorce, closeted homosexuality, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and bitter sibling rivalry. In one of the most spectacular examples of non-typecasting in TV history, Fred Savage starred as Mitch Crumb, a gay screenwriter who was unable to follow up the success of his first film, which he based upon the death of his older brother. While starving in Hollywood, Mitch was summoned to his New England home to help his mother Suzanne Crumb (Jane Curtin), recently released from the Cedar Hill nursing home after suffering a mental breakdown, readjust to life on the outside. Suzanne had been institutionalized primarily because she had tried to kill her philandering ex-husband Billy (William Devane), the owner of a local restaurant called the Stone House Grille. Mitch's surviving brother Jody (Eddie McClintock), a near-sociopathic womanizer and the current manager of the family restaurant, deeply resented the return of his "famous" brother and made no secret of his feelings. As for Mitch himself, he hadn't yet informed his family that he'd come out of the closet -- the only person who knew his secret was his old friend Andrea (Maggie Lawson), a waitress at the Stone House. Also in the cast was Reginald Ballard as Elvis, a young orderly at Cedar Hill with whom Suzanne was having an affair. Crumbs made its first network appearance on January 12, 2006.
by Hal Erickson
synopsis
