Murphy to Give Birth Again on Labor Day Rerun : Television: ‘It’s obviously good when a show like this is on the national agenda,’ says CBS entertainment chief.

In the wake of the political hurricane involving Vice President Dan Quayle, the White House and single mother Murphy Brown’s bouncing baby boy, CBS said Thursday that it is planning to rebroadcast this week’s birth episode--on Labor Day.

“We’ll start the repeats from this season and conclude with the episode the week prior to the start of the next fall season, which would be Sept. 7,” Peter Tortorici, executive vice president of CBS Entertainment, said in New York as the network announced its fall lineup.

CBS initially had declined comment after Quayle on Tuesday attacked Brown’s unwed pregnancy as a sign of the erosion of family values in the country, linking the episode to the recent riots in Los Angeles.

On Thursday, however, CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky told a news conference, “All I’ll say is that it’s obviously good when a show like this is on the national agenda. . . . It means the series is doing its job.”

A spokeswoman for Warner Bros., which produces “Murphy Brown,” declined comment. Others in Hollywood were not so reticent.

Linda Bloodworth-Thomason--creator of CBS’ “Designing Women” and “Evening Shade,” along with next season’s political comedy “Hearts of Fire,” and a longtime friend of Hillary Clinton--said that she resents the “little wink-wink” Quayle seemed to be giving the Republican Party’s right wing and his remark in Los Angeles on Wednesday that “Hollywood just doesn’t get it.”

“I think what he’s trying to communicate is that all these people who are in charge of these television shows aren’t really American,” she said. “And here’s the big lie in all of that: Most of the people I know in TV are people who just moved here from the Midwest or the East Coast, and their families are still back there. . . .

“I have news for Dan Quayle. We’re the same people who work in dry cleaners, who start businesses, who own restaurants. We just happen to be making a different product.”

Comic Phyllis Diller, referring to the ex-husband character she uses in her act, said, “If a child has a father like Fang, it’s better he isn’t around.”

But Diller also indicated that she liked a lot of what Quayle had to say in the speech that touched off the controversy this week. The vice president called for a return to “moral values” and said that marriage was “probably the best anti-poverty program there is.” He told an audience at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club that “it doesn’t help matters when prime-time TV has Murphy Brown . . . mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another ‘lifestyle choice.’ ”

“Personally, of course, I think that every child should have a mother and father,” Diller said.

”. . . I know people who have eight children, all by different fathers, and still nobody in the house, no figurehead, not even a shadow, and I think that’s really a travesty of family life.”

And while she agreed that television does influence society--”I personally feel the reason there’s so much violence in the streets is because they learn it on TV. It has a responsibility which it is not living up to”--she questioned the merits of a politician tagging an entertainment program.

“It’s like (criticizing) Shakespeare and saying, ‘I don’t think Lady Macbeth should have blood on her hands. I think she ought to take a bar of soap and wash,’ ” Diller said with a laugh.

Dennis Miller, host of a syndicated late-night TV show, agreed that Quayle’s basic point had validity.

“He wants to say the American family is the backbone of the country, it’s disintegrating and that upsets him. I think we’d all agree with that,” Miller said in an interview. “But all of a sudden he’s trashing a prime-time sitcom and single mothers, many of whom are in that situation by no choice of their own. . . . Remember that TV show ‘Vegas’ and Dan Tanna’s inept receptionist Beatrice? Quayle is like Beatrice: You let him answer the phone but you don’t let him drive the T-bird.”

Bloodworth-Thomason, who is campaigning for Democrat Bill Clinton’s presidential bid, also blasted the Republican vice president.

“It’s sort of to be expected he’d comment on this fantasy character as a way of solving a real problem,” she said, “because he lives in a fantasyland. If I were doing a show about Dan Quayle, I’d call it ‘Leave It to Dan’ and it would be a world where everybody lives in a nice little house with a neat picket fence and has 2.4 children, and all the health care is paid for.”

She added: “Next they’ll (the Bush Administration) be blaming (ABC character) Doogie Howser (M.D.) for the lack of a health care program in this country.”

Meanwhile, more than 10,000 viewers called KCBS-TV Channel 2 Wednesday to express their opinion in a call-in poll about Quayle’s criticism of “Murphy Brown,” a station spokeswoman said. Results: 62% of those who paid 50 cents for each call agreed with the vice president that the show sets a bad example. Proceeds from the calls went to a charity to help rebuild the city.