Hot in Cleveland

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Hot in Cleveland is an American sitcom on TV Land starring Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves, Wendie Malick and Betty White. The series, which is TV Land's first original scripted series, premiered on June 16, 2010, and was TV Land's highest rated telecast in the cable network's 14-year history. The series premiered June 16, 2010.

The show was created by Suzanne Martin (Frasier, Ellen) and is executive produced by Martin, Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner, through their production companies SamJen Productions and Hazy Mills Productions, and is produced in association with TV Land. The concept behind the show is based on an original idea by Lynda Obst, who serves as Executive Producer. The series is recorded in front of a live studio audience at CBS's Studio City in Los Angeles using a multi-camera format.

Synopsis

The series centers around three past-their-prime entertainment industry veterans from Los Angeles whose lives are changed when their Paris-bound plane lands in Cleveland, Ohio. There they find a welcoming community that is less shallow, youth-obsessed and weight-conscious than L.A. One of them leases a home with a sassy caretaker.

Cast

* Valerie Bertinelli as Melanie Hope Moretti, a writer and mother of college-age kids who, depressed by her divorce, is on a plane to Paris in the pilot to find love. However, when the plane makes an emergency landing in Cleveland, Melanie loves the city and its people so much that she decides to stay and live there.

* Jane Leeves as Rejoyla "Joy" Scroggs, an unmarried beautician, known as the "Eyebrow Queen of Beverly Hills", who counts among her clients stars such as Oprah Winfrey and Ryan Seacrest. Joy's mother, who lives in England, is highly critical of her.[She had a son when she was 15, but put him up for adoption. In the first season finale, Joy receives a message from her son, but a tornado prevents her from contacting him.

* Wendie Malick as Victoria Chase, a five-time-divorced, Emmy Award-winning soap opera star whose 27-year running show, Edge of Tomorrow, was recently canceled, leaving her to lament that her only career opportunities are playing Megan Fox's grandmother and promoting adult underpants in Japan. In "The Play's The Thing", after helping out in a high school play, Victoria accepts a job as the school's drama teacher.

* Betty White as Elka Ostrovsky, an elderly Polish caretaker whose judgmental retorts to the other women in the pilot reveal an astringent demeanor and allude to a storied life, including escaping from the Nazis, an active sex life, being an alcoholic and the use of marijuana. It is revealed in the first season finale that her late husband had mob connections. White was only expected to have a guest role in the pilot episode, but her performance was so well-received that the producers decided to make her a regular.

Guest stars during the first season have included Shirley Knight as Melanie's overprotective mother, Loretta; Hal Linden as Victoria's womanizing actor father, Alex; singer Joe Jonas as Melanie's son, Will; Carl Reiner as Max, Elka's boyfriend; Bil Dwyer as Melanie's ex-husband Anders; and Juliet Mills as Joy's critical mother, Philippa. Other first season guest stars include John Schneider, Wayne Knight, Robert Gant, Huey Lewis, Amy Yasbeck, Tim Conway, Mark Indelicato, Gary Anthony Williams, Dave Foley, and Susan Lucci.

For the second season, Mary Tyler Moore guest starred in the season premiere, in which her character is somewhat connected with Elka in the wake of the latter's arrest in the first season finale. This marked the first time since 1977, when The Mary Tyler Moore Show ended, that White and Moore worked together. Sherri Shepherd appeared in two episodes as the judge in Elka's competency case.Bonnie Franklin also guest starred as Melanie's ex-boyfriend's mother, Franklin reuniting with One Day at a Time co-star Valerie Bertinelli. Jimmy Kimmel and Melanie Griffith made guest appearances as themselves. It has also been confirmed that Illeana Douglas, Jack Wagner, Michael E. Knight, Peri Gilpin and Darnell Williams will appear on the show as guest stars.