Realizing it was unlikely that TV audiences would catch every episode of this nightly series, the writers began every episode with at least one line of dialogue that encapsulated what had occurred the night before.
Every episode of the series featured a spot of the fictional talk show "Madame's Place." Creator Wayland Flowers used this format as an opportunity to give air time to undiscovered stand-up comedians he believed in, many of whom made their one-and-only television appearances on this show. However, two of these unknown comics went on to host their own successful talk shows: Arsenio Hall and Jay Leno.
In 1964, Wayland Flowers landed a job as a puppeteer for Bill Baird's Marionettes show at The World's Fair. One day, coworker Bob Payne gifted him with a puppet that he created as the The Wicked Witch of the West for a production of "The Wizard of Oz." Flowers played around with her bit, then hung her in his closet, noting that she had such soulful eyes that she seemed to be alive. Later, he struck up a conversation in a bar with an aged, foul-mouthed former Ziegfeld Follies dancer, and suddenly, he got the notion to transform the witch into Madame.
They shot five episodes per week, and then after the show wrapped on Friday afternoon, Wayland Flowers and Madame would have to hustle for the Friday night tapings of Solid Gold (1980). It's been alleged by several sources that Flowers developed a cocaine habit in an effort to keep up the pace, and in an on-set interview with Armistead Maupin for Interview magazine, Maupin remarked that Flowers had lost a great deal of weight.
Madame's look was based on movie stars such as Gloria Swanson. Many believe that Madame was based on a Washington, DC gay icon, waitress and restaurant hostess Margo MacGregor.