Who's The Boss? - General Discussion

[ljenkins782]

No thread for this one? Antenna TV is now running this every day at 5 pm and was apparently supposed to get a reboot that now may not happen. It's also on Roku, but they only have a few seasons at a time and they're now up to the worst of the bunch, seasons 7 & 8.

I had forgotten how bad the show got by the end. I just turned off an episode about a tax audit that claimed that Tony and Angela were actually married because they registered as Mr & Mrs one time at a hotel in a certain state with the IRS claiming that registering that way in one state made them married in all states. Um, no. First of all, old sitcoms really overestimated the level of interest hoteliers and motel owners took in their guests (I hope, anyway). And second, it majorly strains credibility that the IRS would look so deeply into Tony and Angela's finances that they'd find one random hotel stay somewhere and use that as "proof" that they were secretly married. And also, I really don't think it's a crime to be married without filing jointly. It was just such a dumb premise.

I also watched an episode where we learn that Tony can't swim and is afraid of water, despite several earlier season episodes where he's happily splashing in the ocean. In more shallow news, Tony Danza's body was still incredible with a major 6-pack stomach amongst all the doughy dad bods.

[Bastet]

I have the first season on DVD (the only season that was released; sales didn't justify the release of subsequent seasons, I assume) and have most of my favorite episodes from other seasons on old tapes, but I haven't watched in quite a few years.  It was my favorite of the generic family sitcoms of the time; I loved Mona, really liked the chemistry between Tony and Angela (dragged out way too long of course), and liked the pace at which the Bowers and Micellis became a family. 

[Kromm]

Heh.  When this popped up in the New Forums list, for a moment I thought the long rumored reboot/sequel series got greenlit.  

 

Latest actual update I just found on that:  

https://deadline.com/2020/08/whos-the-boss-sequel-series-tony-danza-alyssa-milano-sony-pictures-television-1203004101/

[Snow Apple]

Sam's a single mother. I wonder if she's widowed or divorced? In the original, there's one of each situation.

I've been watching the original and forgotten how much I like this show. I was Sam's age when it was on so I loved her story back then. Now I identify more with the grownups and their exasperation with teenage antics.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Ooh! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this show! And it's on Antenna, so I caught "Requiem" which was season one, episode 9, Christmas episode. Tony working two jobs to continue the rent on his father's apartment. I got misty at the end and then tag that the episode was in memory of Tony Danza's father, who just passed away.

But this made me laugh too. Especially when Angela is asking if Tony is okay; he's not in trouble with "them" is he? And Tony's like "who?"

Angela, in a deep, lower, raspy octave: "People who tawk like dis."

Me: 😂

Judith Light is just amazing in everything she does.

And I loved the back and forth blaming between Mona and Angela when they realized they were wrong about what Tony was doing and why.

But shoot! I missed the Betty White episode where Mona let Betty's sleazy reporter know she better not air her "piece" about Tony and Angela "sleeping" together. So, so awesome! I miss Katherine Helmond.

[Snow Apple]

I love Mona too. She gets things done!

[Maverick]

 So why do they have to "try to work in" Angela and Johnathan?   I don't remember much of the later years.  Just Sam in some backdoor pilot for models and Tony and Angela together (I remember an episode where the drama was should Tony still get paid for keeping house).  

 Even in the first season Angela and Tony were basically surrogate parents for each other's children and Sam's living in Angela's old house so why is she not around / with Tony?   It sounds more like they don't want to include them. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

8 hours ago, Kromm said:

Heh.  When this popped up in the New Forums list, for a moment I thought the long rumored reboot/sequel series got greenlit.  

 

Latest actual update I just found on that:  

https://deadline.com/2020/08/whos-the-boss-sequel-series-tony-danza-alyssa-milano-sony-pictures-television-1203004101/

Is this shit still possible? 🤬🤬🤬

[Robert Lynch]

15 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Is this shit still possible? 🤬🤬🤬

Not without the talented Katherine Helmond. Even with her gone and I know they would do a memorial in her honor, I don't know how this show would go on without her. She was the glue of that show. Kind of like George Gaines in Punky Brewster. We know they would honor the actor since he/she passed away due to natural causes, but it is going to feel very empty once a reboot happens.

[GHScorpiosRule]

1 minute ago, Robert Lynch said:

Not without the talented Katherine Helmond. Even with her gone and I know they would do a memorial in her honor, I don't know how this show would go on without her. She was the glue of that show. Kind of like George Gaines in Punky Brewster. We know they would honor the actor since he/she passed away due to natural causes, but it is going to feel very empty once a reboot happens.

Agree, this show would be an empty shell without Katherine. I'm hoping it'll just languish and not happen. Sorry, I don't want a reboot of this. Just as I was happy the reboot of Remington Steele was quashed. I'd rather just know that Tony and Angela got married and that Sam and her Puppet maker Hubby also are still happily married, thankyouverymooch.

Back to the original show...

I know this is unpopular, but I hated what they did to Tony when he decided to go to college. The edges he had, that wonderful Brooklyn character, was massacred. No longer did I we get the rough around the edges Tony with his "Ay Oh! Oh Ay!" but instead someone who talked and acted like he'd never grown up in Brooklyn, let alone New Yawk.

And also the multiple retcons of his character. We knew in the early seasons that Tony was one of the cool kids. But in later seasons, like that season 6? 7? episode at that new health club, Show actually expected me to believe Tony had been a NERD? PUHLEAZE.

I'm looking forward to the first guest appearance of James Coco. Antenna apparently is airing Season 4 during the week and Season 1 on Sundays.

[ifionlyknew]

20 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Judith Light is just amazing in everything she does.

I was a little too young to have watched her Emmy winning role Karen Wolek on One Life to Live but I had seen the clips of her in the courtroom and she so deserved those awards.

She left the soap and went to Hollywood and ended up on a sitcom.  Who knew she could do comedy?

She is one of those actresses who just elevates whatever material is given to her.  I even enjoyed her on the Dallas reboot a few years back.  

Back to Who's the Boss. I haven't seen an episode in years and I'm not sure I ever saw the final two seasons.  I know it streams on the IMDB channel I think.  Maybe it's time to do a complete rewatch.

[GHScorpiosRule]

5 minutes ago, ifionlyknew said:

She left the soap and went to Hollywood and ended up on a sitcom.  Who knew she could do comedy?

When this show premiered, Entertainment Tonight interviewed her and she revealed that the two things she would never do was "soaps and sitcoms" yet, she did One Life to Live and was now on Who's the Boss?! I think her passion was theatre.  She was really self-deprecating about it. It was a wonderful interview. I think it was done after it turned out that this show was a hit.

[Robert Lynch]

3 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

When this show premiered, Entertainment Tonight interviewed her and she revealed that the two things she would never do was "soaps and sitcoms" yet, she did One Life to Live and was now on Who's the Boss?! I think her passion was theatre.  She was really self-deprecating about it. It was a wonderful interview. I think it was done after it turned out that this show was a hit.

Judith Light could play anything which shows how good she is in roles. She could play a loving mother, a sympathetic woman near death, a deceptive hateful woman from Hell, etc. Anything! She's that good. I wish she did another Ryan Murphy project. 

Edited November 24, 2020 by Robert Lynch

[luckyroll3]

I just started rewatching this show on Crackle, but they only have episodes starting at Season 4.  I remembered loving this as a kid (and of course I still can't help singing loudly and harmonizing to the theme song every single time).  And it's still so funny!  Mona is the best! But the entire cast, even the kids, are phenomenal in their roles.  

On 11/24/2020 at 10:33 AM, GHScorpiosRule said:

I know this is unpopular, but I hated what they did to Tony when he decided to go to college. The edges he had, that wonderful Brooklyn character, was massacred. No longer did I we get the rough around the edges Tony with his "Ay Oh! Oh Ay!" but instead someone who talked and acted like he'd never grown up in Brooklyn, let alone New Yawk.

I hear ya. I just watched the episode where Tony is in the speech class and the way the professor speaks to him and embarrasses him about his accent and Brooklyn-speak is so cringeworthy (and triggering - I'm Caribbean and when I moved to the US as a kid, people assumed that because I had an accent, I was dumb), especially since Tony was already such a great communicator with his "gift for gab".

[ljenkins782]

On 11/24/2020 at 10:33 AM, GHScorpiosRule said:

Agree, this show would be an empty shell without Katherine. I'm hoping it'll just languish and not happen. Sorry, I don't want a reboot of this. Just as I was happy the reboot of Remington Steele was quashed. I'd rather just know that Tony and Angela got married and that Sam and her Puppet maker Hubby also are still happily married, thankyouverymooch.

Back to the original show...

I know this is unpopular, but I hated what they did to Tony when he decided to go to college. The edges he had, that wonderful Brooklyn character, was massacred. No longer did I we get the rough around the edges Tony with his "Ay Oh! Oh Ay!" but instead someone who talked and acted like he'd never grown up in Brooklyn, let alone New Yawk.

And also the multiple retcons of his character. We knew in the early seasons that Tony was one of the cool kids. But in later seasons, like that season 6? 7? episode at that new health club, Show actually expected me to believe Tony had been a NERD? PUHLEAZE.

I'm looking forward to the first guest appearance of James Coco. Antenna apparently is airing Season 4 during the week and Season 1 on Sundays.

Yes, once they sanded off the edges of his character, he kinda became annoying. He was originally a great counterbalance to Angela's rigidity and had such a natural chemistry with Mona, but once they suburbanized him, those same dynamics weren't there.

And Mona's character suffered later in the series as well. Early Mona definitely teased Angela a lot, but she was always there for her when it counted (like blackmailing Betty White's character into killing the story on Angela), but later Mona was just nasty to her 24/7. 

I can always tell when the episodes are going to cross into the zone of Tony and Mona's character's going south when I see their hair. Tony's longish, to the collar cut and Mona's darker red, hairsprayed look always signifies the newer versions of their characters. 

I like the show right up to season 6, but it goes off the rails sharply after that.

As for the reboot, last I saw, it got shelved (one article said it was due to Alyssa Milano's public persona w/regard to the MeToo movement, but not sure if that was just an opinion piece or not). 

If they were to do a reboot, they should work in a reference to the silliness of the show's title and how it's a product of a bygone era (and frankly, it was outdated even in the 80s). Angela owned the home, she ran an ad for a housekeeper who she was going to pay to run her household. Just because the person answering the ad is a man, he's suddenly in the running to be head of household in a complete stranger's house? In what universe is there even a question of who the boss is??

[Bastet]

They were originally thinking of She's the Boss for the title, which was bad enough, but by the time they got the green light to shoot a pilot, it was You're the Boss, which was less sexist.  But they ultimately turned it into a question, and, yeah, Who's the Boss? is really gross for a show that claimed to be predicated on dismantling gender roles.

[Kromm]

On 11/28/2020 at 7:40 PM, Bastet said:

They were originally thinking of She's the Boss for the title, which was bad enough, but by the time they got the green light to shoot a pilot, it was You're the Boss, which was less sexist.  But they ultimately turned it into a question, and, yeah, Who's the Boss? is really gross for a show that claimed to be predicated on dismantling gender roles.

Would a show in 1984 really have a valid claim of trying to dismantle gender roles anyway?  I mean the basic notion of a man being the housekeeper was cribbed from Mr. Mom (from just the year before, and a big hit, so rest assured it was the influence), but both were presented as comedies.  It's more like they were joking about and around the idea of dismantling gender roles than actually doing so. I mean even the title of "Mr. Mom" seems barbaric in retrospect, probably even more than "Who's The Boss".  They're practically saying "Dad is funny because he's trying to be Mom".

[GHScorpiosRule]

This is the problem with marathon watching--as an adult, I pick up on the continuity screw ups, and get riled.

First, we know that Angela isn't a natural blonde, right? Her hair in the pilot hadn't had the platinum blonde treatment. It was more goldenish. But in the premiere of season two, during the flashback at "Kissing Rock", we see a 13 year old Angela, who is a...blonde. Fast forward to season 6 or was it 7, with that insult of an episode where Tony "reveals" he was also a super nerd in high school, which I don't buy for a second. Angela had dark brown hair.

Then there's Tony. In "Sam's Growing Up" where Sam gets her first bra, Tony has a line that says he's 30. So that means he and Marie (his wife) got married when he was 18, as Sam was turning 12. This is halfway through the first season, and not the pilot, so I'm going to be nitpicky over this.

When Nick, Tony's father-in-law makes his first appearance, or was it his second, there was a line about how Tony and Marie were childhood sweethearts; yet we have Tony always talking about such and such twins, or such and such sisters, or falling out of so and so's window, when he was a teenager. Kinda sorta contradicts the whole Tony and Marie being together since...well, as long as they were.

And as for that tart in the bar in "Angela's First Fight", I'm gonna hand wave that Tony boinked her after he was widowed. Sam didn't like her, either.

Sadly imdbtv only has the first two seasons, so those are the only ones I can see unedited. Antenna is airing both seasons one and four; the former on Sundays, the latter during the week. Watched "A Farewell to Nick" and I was bawling. 

Then there was the episode where "Tony saw Angela Naked! Tony Saw Angela Naked!" What has always bugged me about that episode was how Mona's professor came to be at Angela's house. Was she trolling or stalking for men? Or Tony specifically? Because she sure as hell didn't know whose house it was, and was surprised to find Mona there.

And it struck me, she also appeared on Remington Steele in "Beg, Borrow, or Steele" @Bastet! She played one of Steele's con artist friends-turned-murderer, and killed their friends who were staying in his condo. Except she was blonde in that episode.

But until season sixish, Mona was the best. I think it was around then, or maybe it was season 7, that the character just got meaner.

Edited December 2, 2020 by GHScorpiosRule

[ljenkins782]

On 12/1/2020 at 4:54 PM, GHScorpiosRule said:

Then there was the episode where "Tony saw Angela Naked! Tony Saw Angela Naked!" What has always bugged me about that episode was how Mona's professor came to be at Angela's house. Was she trolling or stalking for men? Or Tony specifically? Because she sure as hell didn't know whose house it was, and was surprised to find Mona there.

But until season sixish, Mona was the best. I think it was around then, or maybe it was season 7, that the character just got meaner.

I believe Tony was mowing the lawn or doing some chore outdoors where she could see him. So she invented some car trouble as a reason to knock on his door and ask to use the phone/chat him up.

Admittedly, it's a fairly dumb premise to meet a man since it seems more likely than not, you'd be knocking on the door of a married couple, but that was how it was explained.

Quote

Would a show in 1984 really have a valid claim of trying to dismantle gender roles anyway?  I mean the basic notion of a man being the housekeeper was cribbed from Mr. Mom (from just the year before, and a big hit, so rest assured it was the influence), but both were presented as comedies.  It's more like they were joking about and around the idea of dismantling gender roles than actually doing so. I mean even the title of "Mr. Mom" seems barbaric in retrospect, probably even more than "Who's The Boss".  They're practically saying "Dad is funny because he's trying to be Mom".

I can see the general similarities in the idea behind Mr Mom and WTB, but it still doesn't track that there'd be a question of who the boss is. Mr. Mom was about a set of married parents who had a role reversal, WTB had a divorced female homeowner executive who was hiring a complete stranger to be her housekeeper. He doesn't take charge of her just by being hired by her. The title just doesn't make sense on any level. 

[Snow Apple]

2 hours ago, ljenkins782 said:

 

I can see the general similarities in the idea behind Mr Mom and WTB, but it still doesn't track that there'd be a question of who the boss is. Mr. Mom was about a set of married parents who had a role reversal, WTB had a divorced female homeowner executive who was hiring a complete stranger to be her housekeeper. He doesn't take charge of her just by being hired by her. The title just doesn't make sense on any level. 

I saw a "behind the scenes" special about the show and I think they said the title (with it's question mark) means any one of the characters can be the boss in any given episode. In one episode, Tony may take care of a problem. In another, Angela is the problem solver. Mona takes charge sometime. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

I know I shouldn't nit pick, as it seems that's all I'm doing, but watching again, daily, has me scratching my head and just wondering if the writers remembered Tony's history. Or rather, what we were told: That he and Maria were childhood sweethearts; that they married young. That he was married when he played for the Cardinals, and then was injured and was let go.

Yet, from almost the middle of the first season, and now the latest in season five, we've been told of the many, many girls Tony dated. But "Cardinal Sin" from season five, which aired last night, really had me thinking the writers totally forgot what they wrote. Because when Tony showed up for the reunion to play ball that weekend, he met up with Betty, the...groupie? Was Tony messin' around with her back in the day when he was supposed to me married? And when he lied about Angela being his wife, the reaction wasn't "you got married again?" It was "MARRIED?!!"

These little things are starting to pile up and are bugging me!

But we have the second backdoor pilot coming up this week--"Living Dolls" where Trish (Michael Lerned of The Waltons and Nurse fame), shows up as a client/friend of Angela's to do a commercial, and Caroline (Leah Remini) from the "old neighborhood" shows up and gets a job. It's hilarious that when this pilot got the green light (even if it didn't even last a season; I can't remember), that in the official pilot, Sam goes to do an article, sees Caroline, and is surprised/shocked to see her, when I'm pretty sure Sam knew Trish (Lerned) had hired Caroline in the backdoor pilot on this show!

GAH!!!

[readster]

10 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I know I shouldn't nit pick, as it seems that's all I'm doing, but watching again, daily, has me scratching my head and just wondering if the writers remembered Tony's history. Or rather, what we were told: That he and Maria were childhood sweethearts; that they married young. That he was married when he played for the Cardinals, and then was injured and was let go.

Yet, from almost the middle of the first season, and now the latest in season five, we've been told of the many, many girls Tony dated. But "Cardinal Sin" from season five, which aired last night, really had me thinking the writers totally forgot what they wrote. Because when Tony showed up for the reunion to play ball that weekend, he met up with Betty, the...groupie? Was Tony messin' around with her back in the day when he was supposed to me married? And when he lied about Angela being his wife, the reaction wasn't "you got married again?" It was "MARRIED?!!"

These little things are starting to pile up and are bugging me!

But we have the second backdoor pilot coming up this week--"Living Dolls" where Trish (Michael Lerned of The Waltons and Nurse fame), shows up as a client/friend of Angela's to do a commercial, and Caroline (Leah Remini) from the "old neighborhood" shows up and gets a job. It's hilarious that when this pilot got the green light (even if it didn't even last a season; I can't remember), that in the official pilot, Sam goes to do an article, sees Caroline, and is surprised/shocked to see her, when I'm pretty sure Sam knew Trish (Lerned) had hired Caroline in the backdoor pilot on this show!

GAH!!!

Yeah, sadly the show wasn't immune to history changing out of nowhere from either the writers part or from new writers who were: "Oh, umm... I didn't watch that episode." Same with how Tony's boxing background showed up in the first two season and how it played into a part getting him into professional sports. Then it was just forgotten. Same with Angela's past and "unknown" marriage when her old boyfriend showed up and even Mona was: "When did this happen?"

[luckyroll3]

I don't mind the nitpicking at all (cause I do it ALL the time myself! :-D), but I think it was pretty standard back then for shows to have an extreme lack of continuity and basically no institutional memory. It's been pretty frustrating doing rewatches of my beloved 80s and early 90s TV shows where I've been yelling at the TV screen, "2 episodes ago you did/said x, y, z!" I only rewatched season 4 and 5 of Who's the Boss and there were so many moments when I was like these writers are contradicting themselves. 

[ifionlyknew]

1 hour ago, luckyroll3 said:

I don't mind the nitpicking at all (cause I do it ALL the time myself! :-D), but I think it was pretty standard back then for shows to have an extreme lack of continuity and basically no institutional memory. It's been pretty frustrating doing rewatches of my beloved 80s and early 90s TV shows where I've been yelling at the TV screen, "2 episodes ago you did/said x, y, z!" I only rewatched season 4 and 5 of Who's the Boss and there were so many moments when I was like these writers are contradicting themselves. 

Or more likely writers contradicting writers who wrote previous episodes.  I think back in the 80s a lot of shows had multiple writers who didn't stay with a particular show for an entire season.  I've looked up writers on IMDB and a lot of them have credits for an episode or two of a series and then another couple credits for a different series.  Some shows like Cheers had writers that stayed with the show for years.

I think one thing that 80s comedy series suffered from they were mostly stand alone episodes.  They didn't have continuing storylines.  For some shows this wasn't a problem. Golden Girls sometimes had continuity problems but the show was so funny it didn't really distract from the humor.  But for a show like Who's the Boss I think the flubs are more noticeable.   It shouldn't have been that hard to keep track of Tony's backstory.  

 

[JAYJAY1979]

I enjoy watching shows like this because it was a time when people could laugh and have fun.  Yeah, there were Special Episodes..or PSA's...but it wasn't so militant like shows are nowdays.

Also, maybe writers weren't aware of how popular reruns would become in the 90s and thereafter.

What this show had was chemistry amongst the cast...and no matter hj ow many years go by...you can see the chemistry.

[Snow Apple]

I usually don't mind continuity issues (I even enjoy them sometimes), but claiming Tony had past girlfriends bothered me because Samantha is right there and even new writers should know to add up the ages. In the bra episode, we know Sam was 12 and Tony was 30. That means Tony was 18 when Sam was born.

I also watched Living Dolls back in the day, but having two pilots with two completely back stories was weird. I like the one where Charlie ran away from home more than the other one. Halle Berry was one of the characters on the show but of course she wasn't famous back then.

Edited December 23, 2020 by Snow Apple

[GHScorpiosRule]

On 12/22/2020 at 8:06 PM, Snow Apple said:

 

I usually don't mind continuity issues (I even enjoy them sometimes), but claiming Tony had past girlfriends bothered me because Samantha is right there and even new writers should know to add up the ages. In the bra episode, we know Sam was 12 and Tony was 30. That means Tony was 18 when Sam was born.

 

 

I posted the same thing up thread, when trying to figure out when Tony had all those girlfriends or lusted after so many girls, while at the same time Show had told us he and Marie were childhood sweethearts who married really young.

Then there was that season three episode where that artist was painting Sam’s portrait as Angela’s gift to Tony. Artist told him that Marie had been his student and Tony was all in denial that she couldn’t have been because she’d tell him if she was taking lessons, and went as far as having him think she cheated on him. Turns out he was a louse of a husband because he never listened to her and didn’t think what she had to say or wanted, outside of him and raising Sam, as important. It pissed me off as a tween because Tony was such a good dad and the little snippets we were told about him and Marie let us “know” they were happy and a loving couple, and all this was so unnecessary.

I’m  glad at least that they didn’t recast Nick-as they recast at least two side characters and got rid of Marcy so that Bonnie became Sam’s best friend.

We had Delta Burke as Diane Wilmington before they recast her with Taxi alumni Marilu Henner; they also recast Mona’s brother, who was originally played by Gordon Jump, with Alan B. Sikking in the second  back door pilot of a possible spin off with Mona running a hotel. Glad that didn’t pan out and Katherine stayed.

I wonder if Nicole Eggert’s Marci was replaced with Bonnie as Sam’s best friend due to Charles in Charge? 

And who was that new person in the episode where Sam got drunk?

But I admit I love Mona’s shade at the Joanne’s character as the neighborhood slut.

Edited December 26, 2020 by GHScorpiosRule

[Bastet]

33 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Then there was that season three episode where that artist was painting Sam’s portrait as Angela’s gift to Tony. Artist told him that Marie had been his student and Tony was all in denial that she couldn’t have been because she’d tell him if she was taking lessons, and went as far as having him think she cheated on him. Turns out he was a louse of a husband because he never listened to her and didn’t think what she had to say or wanted, outside of him and raising Sam, as important. It pissed me off as a tween because Tony was such a good dad and the little snippets we were told about him and Marie let us “know” they were happy and a loving couple, and all this was so unnecessary.

I don't remember details, but it rang quite true to me, given the era and culture tony and Marie lived in.  So typical that he'd love her, and like her, and, in his mind (and in many ways indeed), respect her, but do so all within a skewed, sexist vision of what a marriage and family is.  So while HE had plenty of interests outside of the family, which didn't make him any committed to it, anything SHE did for her own satisfaction was somehow seen as straying from it, even threatening it (by society at large, never mind her own husband, who, of course, was a product of the same society).

So of course she'd hide it, because the little glimpses of reaction she'd get to such things would do nothing to make her think he was going to react differently than the norm to her stating the "radical" truth she adored them, and loved being their wife and mother, but remained an individual and craved additional interaction and activities beyond the home and front stoop. 

Hell, we still see that dynamic/attitude today.  Then and there?  Oh, yeah - NO problems imagining that scenario.  Sure, Tony was on the good end of the typical husband and father spectrum (especially by the time we meet him, when he's been forced to step to the plate as sole parent).  So, not a louse, but given how bad "typical" was (and, to a disturbing extent, still is) for women, still quite myopic.

[Snow Apple]

I was glad Mrs. Rossini ripped him a new one for daring to accuse his wife of cheating.

At least Tony grew as the series went on. There was an episode where they went to his old neighborhood for dinner and the women waited on the men hand and foot. Tony enjoyed it, but then he later went on a date with one of the woman and realized he's now more interested in women who have interests outside the home....more like....Meryl Streep.

[GHScorpiosRule]

15 minutes ago, Bastet said:

I don't remember details, but it rang quite true to me, given the era and culture tony and Marie lived in

The one thing I remember is Tony’s conversation with Mrs. Rossini- she told him Marie tried to talk to him about painting, but to him “it was such a little thing” and she told him to Marie, it wasn’t.

3 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

I was glad Mrs. Rossini ripped him a new one for daring to accuse his wife of cheating.

At least Tony grew as the series went on. There was an episode where they went to his old neighborhood for dinner and the women waited on the men hand and foot. Tony enjoyed it, but then he later went on a date with one of the woman and realized he's now more interested in women who have interests outside the home....more like....Meryl Streep.

I think it was the Thanksgiving episode in the first season.

Edited December 26, 2020 by GHScorpiosRule

[Bastet]

4 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

At least Tony grew as the series went on. There was an episode where they went to his old neighborhood for dinner and the women waited on the men hand and foot. Tony enjoyed it, but then he later went on a date with one of the woman and realized he's now more interested in women who have interests outside the home....more like....Meryl Streep.

Yeah, between his neighborhood and his profession, Tony marinated in a culture of toxic masculinity, so for him to see the light (at least to a decent extent) was satisfying, especially that it wasn't just in terms of the future he wanted for his daughter, but the life he wanted for himself.

4 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

The one thing I remember is Tony’s conversation with Mrs. Rossini- she told him Marie tried to talk to him about painting, but to him “it was such a little thing” and she told him to Marie, it wasn’t.

It's nice they gave Mrs. Rossini - both a product and perpetrator of a sexist culture - that understanding of Marie.  Angela was foreign to her, but in Marie she could see an advanced version of herself.  (We don't have time to wait for Mrs. Rossini's trajectory, but she makes sense as a character when they throw in these tidbits that make her more than a caricature.)

[Snow Apple]

It's the "Living Dolls" pilot today. Vivica A Fox was in this and I guess her character was replaced with Halle Berry in the actual show. LOL. It's so fun watching older shows and seeing future famous people.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Snow Apple

[GHScorpiosRule]

30 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

It's the "Living Dolls" pilot today. Vivica A Fox was in this and I guess her character was replaced with Halle Berry in the actual show. LOL. It's so fun watching older shows and seeing future famous 

Whaaat??? Why aren’t they airing the episode where we first meet Charlie? And when she gets the job with Trish???

Edited December 28, 2020 by GHScorpiosRule

[Snow Apple]

59 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Whaaat??? Why aren’t they airing the episode where we first meet Charlie? And when she gets the job with Trish???

I got curious and looked it up. According to Wikipedia, the one from today was from season 5 episode 19. The episode where Charlie got kicked out by her mother and ran to Sam's house and met Trish was in season 6, episode 2.

I could have sworn it was the other way around when it originally aired. That the runaway episode was aired first.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Snow Apple

[GHScorpiosRule]

16 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

I got curious and looked it up. According to Wikipedia, the one from today was from season 5 episode 19. The episode where Charlie got kicked out by her mother and ran to Sam's house and met Trish was in season 6, episode 2.

I could have sworn it was the other way around when it originally aired. That the runaway episode was aired first.

I know! I checked it too! And I KNOW I saw “Life’s a Ditch” FIRST. It aired before “Living Dolls” and I remember thinking why is Sam acting like she’s just now seeing Charlie when a few weeks ago, Charlie showed up and she ditched school; that Charlie was offered a job by the end of the episode at Angela’s house and not wherever Charlie said to Sam, how Trish “discovered” her.

This was one of my MUST SEE shows and I never missed an episode. The only thing that makes sense is both were filmed at the same time and the backdoor pilot aired out of order during the first run, so it aired at the end of season five.

 

[GHScorpiosRule]

So “Working Girls” was on last night. I really like this one, but it also makes me sad because it’s the start of the destruction of Mona.

I really liked the end when Sam lists how Angela thinks Bonnie is perfect, but thinks she (Sam) is a failure. And when Angela says she does like Bonnie, but loves Sam—and how she always feels Sam thinks Angela is a drag? Sam admits to it, but says that that’s how everyone feels about their mothers. Sure, it’s corny and cheesy how Angela turns to Tony and says:

”She called me Mother!”

Tony: “I heard!”

Followed by group hug made me a little misty!

Back to Mona-with the way she she acted, if this is how she “worked”, it’s a miracle that the Bower Agency was a success!

Mona just got meaner after this season (5) ended. I missed Seasons 1-4 Mona, who underneath the snark, loved her daughter-something viewers could see.

[Maverick]

 Whoever was responsible for picking the stock footage of the house had an epic fail because the porch in the photo bears no resemblance to the porch as seen on the set. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

16 minutes ago, Maverick said:

 Whoever was responsible for picking the stock footage of the house had an epic fail because the porch in the photo bears no resemblance to the porch as seen on the set. 

I know! I wasn’t going to say anything, thinking I was being nitpicky!😆

[Bastet]

1 hour ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I really liked the end when Sam lists how Angela thinks Bonnie is perfect, but thinks she (Sam) is a failure. And when Angela says she does like Bonnie, but loves Sam—and how she always feels Sam thinks Angela is a drag? Sam admits to it, but says that that’s how everyone feels about their mothers. Sure, it’s corny and cheesy how Angela turns to Tony and says:

”She called me Mother!”

Tony: “I heard!”

Followed by group hug made me a little misty!

Nine times out of ten, I would groan and roll my eyes at a scene like that.  But Judith Light and Alyssa Milano sold it.  I don't how many years it has been since I saw it, but I can hear Angela's exact inflection on "I do like Bonnie.  But I love you." in my head right now.

[GHScorpiosRule]

2 hours ago, Bastet said:

Nine times out of ten, I would groan and roll my eyes at a scene like that.  But Judith Light and Alyssa Milano sold it.  I don't how many years it has been since I saw it, but I can hear Angela's exact inflection on "I do like Bonnie.  But I love you." in my head right now.

Same here, but you nailed it. The scene worked because of the performances of Judith and Alyssa.

And Judith really shines when she utilizes the lower/huskier octave of her voice, instead of the lighter/higher pitched voice.

But, as you know, I’m biased because I’m a huge Judith Light fan, going back to her days on One Life To Live. She’s why I lasted as long as I did, watching that clusterfuck of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

I would really like to know the reasoning behind why only the first two seasons are available on IMDb TV and only the first season on dvd. Especially since other crappy shows’ full series are available!

[Bastet]

21 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I would really like to know the reasoning behind why only the first two seasons are available on IMDb TV and only the first season on dvd. Especially since other crappy shows’ full series are available!

The DVD is because season one didn't sell well enough to justify the cost of releasing future seasons.  Maybe the same is true of streaming, although one would think that would be more in line with syndication (where this generally did okay) than with DVD sales.

21 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

But, as you know, I’m biased because I’m a huge Judith Light fan,

She's one of TV's most underrated actors.  I mean, she's well respected in the industry at large (especially for her stage performances) and has plenty of fans, but she - probably partly because she started on a soap and her most famous prime time role was on a family sitcom - is not rattled off as frequently and easily as she should be when talk of acting detail* and range and elevating small screen material occurs.

*With respect to her performance on this show, one of the little details I love is that when an episode is set in winter and an "exterior" door near her is opened, she'll react like there's a little chill.  Standing in a Los Angeles soundstage under blazing studio lights, she behaves as would someone in snowy Connecticut.

Edited December 31, 2020 by Bastet

[JAYJAY1979]

And the ironic thing is Judith in her youth said she didn't ever want to do a soap or sitcom...yet those were two genres she excelled at.

[ljenkins782]

On 12/30/2020 at 5:27 PM, GHScorpiosRule said:

So “Working Girls” was on last night. I really like this one, but it also makes me sad because it’s the start of the destruction of Mona.

I really liked the end when Sam lists how Angela thinks Bonnie is perfect, but thinks she (Sam) is a failure. And when Angela says she does like Bonnie, but loves Sam—and how she always feels Sam thinks Angela is a drag? Sam admits to it, but says that that’s how everyone feels about their mothers. Sure, it’s corny and cheesy how Angela turns to Tony and says:

”She called me Mother!”

Tony: “I heard!”

Followed by group hug made me a little misty!

Back to Mona-with the way she she acted, if this is how she “worked”, it’s a miracle that the Bower Agency was a success!

Mona just got meaner after this season (5) ended. I missed Seasons 1-4 Mona, who underneath the snark, loved her daughter-something viewers could see.

I love that episode except for the Mona bits too. She was just over the top obnoxious and Angela should have fired her ass.

I relate so much to Sam's character in this one, I always think what someone else is doing seems awesome until I get to do it myself. Perpetual "grass is always greener" mode, I'll do something that someone else raved about and hate it. I loved how Bonnie just rolled with everything and enjoyed whatever was going on, I wish I could be that way.

Quote

It's the "Living Dolls" pilot today. Vivica A Fox was in this and I guess her character was replaced with Halle Berry in the actual show. LOL. It's so fun watching older shows and seeing future famous people.

I can't say I'm all that surprised that the Living Dolls show didn't do that well, it was a pretty thin premise. Same with the other backdoor pilot with Fran Drescher and Donna Dixon, I'm not 100% sure what the show premise for that one was even supposed to be. And Donna Dixon has one of the most irritating speaking voices I've ever heard, which is pretty impressive when you consider that she was acting opposite Fran Drescher and still managed to have the more irritating voice. But FD was using a toned down version of her voice, not the outright screech she used on The Nanny.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Now I'm convinced the show filmed and aired episodes out of order.

Show is in season six now on Antenna, and first thing I found odd was that they skipped over "Sex, Lies, and Exercise Tapes" which is that horrid episode where Angela goes to this new health club and we get those "flashbacks" to when Angela was a brunette and overweight, and where the show insulted me, by trying to tell me that Tony was a nerd and outcast. Not sure why they skipped over that one, and so I don't recall what Sam's hair looked like.

In Episode 8, "Supermom Burnout" is where we see Alyssa had cut and darkened her hair--and the show actually addressed that by having Tony mention how she did it without asking him. Then skip to Episode 12, "Gamble Jag" and Sam's previous hairstyle is back--the long hair past her shoulders.

Then of course there are the differences in Tony's hair--longish, then short-that you knew he cut it, then next episode it's back to the longish style.

Drives me nuts.

[Bastet]

22 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

In Episode 8, "Supermom Burnout" is where we see Alyssa had cut and darkened her hair--and the show actually addressed that by having Tony mention how she did it without asking him.

And there's an episode where Jonathan says something about her having used her hair to mop up an oil slick.  This was after he'd hit a really awkward stage and wasn't used much, but that sibling interaction was perfect (and that gorgeous hair indeed looked like shit).

Oh, the silly things I remember.  I wish this aired on something I get; I'd be curious to watch it all the way through again.

25 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Now I'm convinced the show filmed and aired episodes out of order.

Virtually every show did, other than soaps; for a variety of reasons, air order often didn't follow production order.  (It still happens in sitcoms, procedurals, etc. where serialization isn't crucial, but less so now than then, as audiences have become more savvy and social media has allowed for greater criticism of such continuity errors.)  Sometimes it wasn't noticeable, but hair cuts were one of the biggest tip-offs, to the extent many actors became contractually prohibited from any significant cut/color change during production. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

4 minutes ago, Bastet said:

Oh, the silly things I remember.  I wish this aired on something I get; I'd be curious to watch it all the way through again.

I know! It's too bad we can't get this show on DVD due to poor sales when the first season was released.

[Trini]

There are some episodes up on Roku; some of the 80's fashions do not hold up well! Shoulder pads didn't need to be in everything.

[GHScorpiosRule]

6 minutes ago, Trini said:

There are some episodes up on Roku; some of the 80's fashions do not hold up well! Shoulder pads didn't need to be in everything.

I don’t have Roku. And as stated above, IMDb TV airs only the first two seasons.

[TheLastKidPicked]

A few people have commented on the chemistry between the actors and I agree this really holds the show together.  There was a nice example in one of the episodes:

Tony was teaching Jonathan how to wrestle.  It's the end of the scene and before the camera cuts out, you can see Tony Danza grab Danny Pintauro and pull him close, giving him a nice embrace.  

It wasn't in the script, of course.  But I'm glad they left it in because it really shows the affection the actors have for each other.

Edited January 12, 2021 by TheLastKidPicked

[Bastet]

4 hours ago, TheLastKidPicked said:

But I'm glad they left it in because it really shows the affection the actors have for each other.

Me too, and I like that they still all care about each other.  I don't know how much everyone is in touch, but Judith Light and Tony Danza consider each other family, JL was the one whose counsel Danny Pintauro sought when the Enquirer was about to out him, TD and Alyssa Milano were planning the revival, etc.

And I love that no one (TD, JL, his then-wife, or her husband) had any problem acknowledging, yeah, if TD and JL had met before they married other people, they absolutely would have dated.