If you strip Housewives down to its very essence...

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From left, Housewives Vanessa Williams, Cross, Huffman, Hatcher and Longoria.

PASADENA -- "Naked in the bushes."

That's all Teri Hatcher has to say, and everyone in the room knows what she means when she describes her most vivid memory of the eight years she has spent portraying Desperate Housewives' Susan Mayer.

It happened in Housewives' third episode, and it is, without question, a scene that helped make the ABC series one of the past decade's most popular and talked-about TV shows.

Deeply embroiled in an argument with ex-husband Carl, Susan ranted her way out of the house and right to the curb as he climbed into his car. Her towel got caught in the door, and as Carl drove off, Susan was left standing naked on the sidewalk; a few panicked steps later, she discovered that she'd also locked herself out of the house, and was forced to employ a potted plant as a modesty shield while she tried to figure out a way back into her home.

Hilarious. And beautifully executed. (See the scene below or click here).

"I'll never forget it," Hatcher said this week when she and castmates Eva Longoria, Marcia Cross and Felicity Huffman, as well as series creator Marc Cherry and the show's other key cast members, made their last-ever appearance at the U.S. networks' semi-annual press tour in Los Angeles. "I mean, in terms of scenes, it's hard to beat the 'naked in the bushes' scene, which was so long ago now but was one of the most fun, vulnerable, exciting, well-written moments ever."

Hatcher recalled the filming of the scene, which took place outdoors on the Universal Studios backlot, on the suburban streetscape that has become familiar to viewers as Wisteria Lane.

"We were still a very new family, and we always started at 6 a.m. up there on Wisteria Lane on top of Universal, which is the most beautiful place to work in Los Angeles," she explained. "There was a new wardrobe girl, and her name was Susan. It was six in the morning -- 'Hi, Susan. Nice to meet you. I'm Teri.' 'Can we please take some gaffer's tape and cover your nipples and crotch?'

"And I walked to the set, in a robe, and it was going to be six hours of shooting this, from every angle. So I just took off my robe in front of the 60 crew people and was like, 'OK, everyone get a good look, and we're done, and we can move on.' It was a real bonding moment. It really was a dance, and it was an amazing, amazing experience."

Executive producer Cherry credits the show's writers and the episode's director with creating the delicate choreography that made the scene -- which helped define Desperate Housewives as a unique comedy-drama hybrid -- so memorable. And he said he later discovered that it wasn't the first time a Hollywood star had a mortifying on-screen moment on that particular patch of movie-studio real estate.

"About a month or so later, one of our writers was watching some Turner Classic Movies thing, and Doris Day, in the (1964) movie Send Me No Flowers, was caught in her pyjamas outside that exact same house. The same house. It was a Universal movie. And I thought, 'Oh, God, are they going to think I'm pillaging old Doris Day movies for this (series)?

"Ours was funnier."

There was a lot of nostalgia in the air as the Housewives crew went through their final meet-the-press session, but it was Cherry who became the most emotional in describing what the series has meant to him and his career.

"People keep asking me if it's bittersweet, and I say, 'No, it's completely sweet,'" he explained. "This is my 23rd year as a professional writer, and I'm smart enough to know that there's no such thing as a job that goes on forever. All good things come to an end. And before this, I was SO (screwed).

"I was, like, $100,000 in debt to my mother. I went through years without an interview for a job. Nobody thought I was anything. I had friends that didn't even call for a while. And then I wrote this script, which was my attempt to show people that I'm a better writer than they thought I was, and all hell broke loose.... So I'm just so thankful -- all of us are so grateful for this ride we've had because not many people in this business get to experience what we have collectively experienced. That's how I feel -- just grateful and looking forward to the next chapter."

And that, one might say, is the naked truth about Desperate Housewives' final season.

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 12, 2012 D6