‘Hacks’ Team Explains Jean Smart Inspiration for Deborah Vance TV Guide Magazine

When you suddenly spot a friend on TV, you point at the screen and cheer. That’s what happened when I saw TV Guide Magazine (TV Insider’s sister publication) of which I’m the West Coast Editor, front and center in the April 30 episode of Hacks. At a splashy event honoring the 50^th anniversary of Who’s Making Dinner?, the fictional hit 1970s sitcom where Hacks’ diva comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) got her start, a poster-sized blow-up of the classic American publication’s cover was prominently displayed. On it were a beaming young Deborah circa 1976 and her then-hubs, the late Frank Vance (or as she calls him in this episode, “my nasty bastard-ass cheating ex-husband”).

Series creator Jen Statsky explains the choice to feature the faux cover: “We’re always looking to achieve realism. For us, it made so much sense that they would be on the cover of TV Guide. It was such a huge thing of that era to be featured on that. I remember Buffy being on the cover; I was in middle school, and Buffy was huge. If you were on the cover of TV Guide, it was the center of TV cultural conversation.”