Twelve years after ABC failed with a comedy set in a men’s prison (On the Rocks), Fox Broadcasting gave women equal time.
The setting for this bizarre comedy was Bass Women’s Prison in Wisconsin, where the inmates in Cell Block J never seemed to be locked in their cells.
Among the incarcerated skirts were naive Vicki Springer (Julia Campbell), a pampered naive and rich housewife who had been framed for shoplifting by her philandering husband (Thomas Callaway); Dawn (C. C. H. Pounder), a tough black woman who had murdered her husband; Bonnie (Antoinette Byron), a sexy, lesbian English hooker; and Eve (Peggy Cass), an ageing, forgetful bank robber who had lived there for decades.
In the adjoining cell, with a computer terminal but no roommates, was Pam Norwell (Wendie Jo Sperber), a brilliant but sarcastic woman who was serving time for computer embezzlement.
Meg Bando (Denny Dillon, pictured) was cellblock J’s short, frumpy, sadistic guard (her favourite pastime was going down to Death Row and fiddling with the dimmer switch) and Warden Rafferty (Blake Clark) was the grumpy Warden, for whom Vicki worked as a secretary – she couldn’t type or file but she could cross her legs and show a bit of thigh.
Vicki Springer
Julia Campbell Asst. Warden Clint Rafferty
Blake Clark Dawn Murphy
C. C. H. Pounder Eve Shipley
Peggy Cass Bonnie Harper
Antoinette Byron Pam Norwell
Wendie Jo Sperber Meg Bando
Denny Dillon
Among the incarcerated skirts were naive Vicki Springer (Julia Campbell), a pampered naive and rich housewife who had been framed for shoplifting by her philandering husband (Thomas Callaway); Dawn (C. C. H. Pounder), a tough black woman who had murdered her husband; Bonnie (Antoinette Byron), a sexy, lesbian English hooker; and Eve (Peggy Cass), an ageing, forgetful bank robber who had lived there for decades.
