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Who's The Boss? - General Discussion


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Today had an episode I don't remember seeing before. Angela brought a house as a rental investment. Instead of renting to the retired man who wanted to pay six months rent in advance and provided references, Tony rented to a pretty girl whose check bounced.

I don't think Angela was livid enough. I wanted to smack Tony. This is business. Was Angela suppose to let her live there rent free while she pays the mortgage?

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I get that the whole point is the lines were blurred, because he's an employee who also became part of the family, but Angela was asked to shrug off quite a few things that wouldn't have been appropriate for an actual husband to do, let alone Tony.  It matters that it's her house, her business, and her money, and she certainly wasn't going around acting like some imperious lady of the manor treating Tony and Samantha as beneath her and Jonathan, so it pissed me off when she got labeled as uptight (and more gendered terms) when she wanted to be professional about something that requires professionalism.

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21 hours ago, Bastet said:

I get that the whole point is the lines were blurred, because he's an employee who also became part of the family, but Angela was asked to shrug off quite a few things that wouldn't have been appropriate for an actual husband to do, let alone Tony.  It matters that it's her house, her business, and her money, and she certainly wasn't going around acting like some imperious lady of the manor treating Tony and Samantha as beneath her and Jonathan, so it pissed me off when she got labeled as uptight (and more gendered terms) when she wanted to be professional about something that requires professionalism.

I LOATHE this episode so much. Though Mona being the "parent" scolding Angela and Tony as the "children" was amusing. Especially her slipping in telling them to give each other a full kiss on the mouth!

And that leads to my next problem with this episode. The viewers are aware, from the premiere, that Angela and Tony pretty much told each other that they loved each other without actually saying it, because (plot!) reasons. Yet, we get Tony acting like he has no feelings for Angela; no thought to how his sniffing after this deadbeat wannabe theatre star will make her feel. Never mind the fact that he had NO RIGHT to reduce the rent, or give her the lease after she had agreed to rent it out to that retired guy who was willing to pay six months rent in advance.

I don't care that Angela doesn't think of Tony as her employee any longer; or that she considers him her best friend. She was the landlord and Tony should have done what Angela wanted. And then Tony gets all pissy when she told him that he should check with her if he wants to make any changes.

And then the deadbeat's check BOUNCED. UGH.

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2 hours ago, Snow Apple said:

Why do older sitcoms keep updating their theme songs?

Right?  Like that's why the show has gone stale.  It's not the fact the cute little kid can't act now that he's grown, the writers have chosen two or three traits for each character and exaggerated the hell out of them while ignoring the rest so they're now more like caricatures, the plots are increasingly unrealistic because most typical situations have already been covered, and you've drawn out "will they or won't they?" so long the primary relationship no longer makes sense.  Nope, it's the theme song - update that, and those ratings will bounce right back up.

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21 hours ago, Snow Apple said:

Why do older sitcoms keep updating their theme songs? The later seasons sound so weird and not pleasant to the ear.

Yes!! Some of these shows had truly great theme songs that they randomly decided to butcher later on in the series run.

Growing Pains is my top offender in this, but Silver Spoons and Who’s the Boss are way up there too. 

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And now we're coming toward the end, where Tony and Angela..."break up" because he went and had sex with a classmate. 

Which leads us to Season 7, with the addition of Billy, so unnecessary, but it's the Cousin Oliver plot. Blech.

I see a lot of fast forwarding coming ahead.

And I remember appreciating in the season premiere of the final season, "Tony" throwing in that line about having the "worst haircut" in history--that godawful buzz, which he had done, because he'd played some mob/cop killer that aired during the summer hiatus.

 

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On man. I forgot about Billy. I don't remember anything about him except the scene where he can't sleep until they got a tape of city traffic noises. I only remembered that because I went through the same experience after moving to a quiet suburb.

Edited by Snow Apple
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1 minute ago, Snow Apple said:

On man. I forgot about Billy. I don't remember anything about him except the scene where he can't sleep until they got a tape of city traffic noises. I only remembered that because I went through the same experience after moving to a quiet suburb.

Yeah season seven starts tomorrow.

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5 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

On man. I forgot about Billy.

Me too.  Actually, I probably repressed the memory of him, because that was painfully desperate plotting (as any show's decision to add a Cousin Oliver always is).

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On 1/19/2021 at 10:07 PM, Bastet said:

Me too.  Actually, I probably repressed the memory of him, because that was painfully desperate plotting (as any show's decision to add a Cousin Oliver always is).

I always wonder what the show runners think is going to be enhanced by the addition of a new baby/kid. When has it ever worked? 

Seasons 7 & 8 are really bad. The relationship between Tony and Angela is so stilted when they actually get together. Their chemistry in the earlier seasons was very natural and they seem like the types who admired the qualities in the other that they themselves didn't have, but it doesn't naturally translate into a romantic relationship.

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Ugh. So they aired episode 9 from Season 6--the one about Angela joining a health spa, and the INSULTING retcon that Tony was a nerdy ass loser when he was in high school as the "last" season 6 episode before starting with season 7.

And I think this is where I like Tony the least. He had that one night stand with Kathleen, played by an actress I really don't like, and when Angela asked him if it was just a one-time thing, he hesitates, so they, like I mentioned up thread "break up" to see if where it leads. 

But in the season premiere, he's all jealous, insecure, and doesn't want Angela dating Peter, or the never shown Christopher, and skulks around trying to get a look at him. Seriously, if he's that jealous, then dump Kathleen and commit to Angela. But then that would end the show, so let's just draaaaaaag it out for another two seasons. I hate that the show then made it that Christopher was a crook and con man, just to sooth Tony's ego.

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5 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

And I think this is where I like Tony the least. He had that one night stand with Kathleen, played by an actress I really don't like,

Kate Vernon, and I don't like her, either; this is ridiculous, but something about her face annoys me.  Anyway, add in being part of this lame storyline, and I disliked her so much that I was thoroughly annoyed when she turned up on Battlestar Galactica.  Nearly 30 years later (by the time I watched), and I was seriously sitting here thinking, "Ugh, Kathleen."

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39 minutes ago, Bastet said:

Kate Vernon, and I don't like her, either; this is ridiculous, but something about her face annoys me.  Anyway, add in being part of this lame storyline, and I disliked her so much that I was thoroughly annoyed when she turned up on Battlestar Galactica.  Nearly 30 years later (by the time I watched), and I was seriously sitting here thinking, "Ugh, Kathleen."

She was also the bitch in Pretty in Pink who looked down on Molly Ringwald's Andie.

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I don't remember Kathleen and she was in multiple episodes. 

At least I remember Billy after his name was mentioned, but Kathleen? Nothing. I guess I disliked her enough to block her.

Angela's hair was nice in season seven. No more 80's big hair.

Edited by Snow Apple
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On 1/21/2021 at 3:35 PM, Bastet said:

Kate Vernon, and I don't like her, either; this is ridiculous, but something about her face annoys me.  Anyway, add in being part of this lame storyline, and I disliked her so much that I was thoroughly annoyed when she turned up on Battlestar Galactica.  Nearly 30 years later (by the time I watched), and I was seriously sitting here thinking, "Ugh, Kathleen."

Same here. There's something very hard about her looks, even though she is certainly attractive. 

She also played a manipulative bitch in a Murder She Wrote and the character entirely suited her face. 

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 I thought it was funny that Tony and Angela's dates in the season premiere were guest stars on star Trek Voyager.  Kate Vernon played an alien that Chakotay fell for and the guy played Janeway's drippy fiance.  

Edited by Maverick
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On 1/22/2021 at 4:46 PM, ljenkins782 said:

Same here. There's something very hard about her looks, even though she is certainly attractive. 

She also played a manipulative bitch in a Murder She Wrote and the character entirely suited her face. 

The problem is she's made for playing the witch...she's done it quite well.  

However, I don't recall if the show made her character nice, or a threat to Tony and Angela.

Lastly, I think Tony and Angela acted more like a couple before they became an actual couple.  And once that happened, they acted more like strangers.

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11 hours ago, JAYJAY1979 said:

However, I don't recall if the show made her character nice, or a threat to Tony and Angela.

She was a prissy, know it-all classmate, who was supposed to come off as nice, and compared to other "rivals", I suppose she was. But she was also a spanner between Tony and Angela, because is was his having sex with her that "broke" him and Angela up to "explore" and see other people to see if what they had was...worth waiting for, I guess?

11 hours ago, JAYJAY1979 said:

Lastly, I think Tony and Angela acted more like a couple before they became an actual couple.  And once that happened, they acted more like strangers.

Absolutely. Especially in Season 5. Season 7 was when they tip toed around each other--as if one couldn't go out on a date unless the other was also dating. It was just awful.

Well thank goodness, Kate is gone. But now we have to deal with Billy, and Andy (Doctor that Angela is dating-what happened to Peter? He seemed to disappear after the Christopher episode), and Andy's impatience. BLECH.

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I also disliked the last few seasons. I do think, though, that they managed to stick the landing with the finale. The breakup scene, and then the scene at the end where she tells him that she worries that he’ll resent her for giving up his dream job. And he tells her, “The only thing I resent is being without you.”

The original plan was that they’d marry in the final season, and the final episodes would focus on their married life together. But Columbia Picture TV, the producer, was worried that a wedding would hurt the syndication value of the show. So Tony got cold feet midseason. The British adaptation, “The Upper Hand,” not only married the leads off, but also had a final season where they had a child together. I’m glad WTB ended where it did.

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1 minute ago, Kyle said:

I do think, though, that they managed to stick the landing with the finale.

I agree; bringing it full circle with her opening the door in the same robe and hair towel and him saying he's here for the job was inspired.

So many TV women - reflecting their real-life counterparts - had blown - and continued to blow long after this show left the air - their careers to bits in order to accommodate a man's, and here we finally saw a woman trying that, it making no logistical sense from jump and indeed imploding, going back to the life she deserves, and ultimately the man being one to turn up, saying, at long logical last, I will figure out how my career can work here; yours needs to be here, and I need to be with you.

That "It's important for me to be in the area" and "You got the job" stuff is memorable all these years later (even though I might not be 100% accurately quoting it after many years since my last watch); the show went on too long, and the trajectory of Angela and Tony's relationship was certainly delayed beyond reason, but they created a final scene that can easily finish off a "best of" compilation of the final few years and result in a satisfying viewing experience.  (Which I have indeed compiled on VHS and really need to some day to transfer to DVD.)

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8 hours ago, Bastet said:

So many TV women - reflecting their real-life counterparts - had blown - and continued to blow long after this show left the air - their careers to bits in order to accommodate a man's, and here we finally saw a woman trying that, it making no logistical sense from jump and indeed imploding, going back to the life she deserves, and ultimately the man being one to turn up, saying, at long logical last, I will figure out how my career can work here; yours needs to be here, and I need to be with you.

My fellow posters and I were just having this discussion on the SATC board.  Career women are almost always expected to compromise for a man. It's annoying and downright insulting.  

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the last scene of the series coming full circle was a wonderful way to end the show.  Recreating that first meeting only this time both were on the same page was wonderful.

Compromise is a given, but sometimes each person in the relationship has to be the one to compromise.  She tried to compromise, but Angela and Iowa (or Idaho as she called it lol) were not a match.  Tony had a job that could work in different states/cities...while Angela's job worked closer to a major city.  So in this case, Tony had to compromise.

Plus, it's open ended where they will end up.  Will they get married? Or will they opt to just be a long term partnership..one that has worked for them for so many years.  Up to the viewer and that's why I liked this final scene because the viewer got to decide for themselves 

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“The Unsinkable Tony Micelli” is SO STOOPID. Suddenly Tony doesn’t know how to swim and is afraid of the water? When he swam and surfed in season two when they were in California, season three,  and then last season in Jamaica?🙄🙄🙄🙄😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒

Edited by GHScorpiosRule
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On 2/1/2021 at 6:55 PM, GHScorpiosRule said:

“The Unsinkable Tony Micelli” is SO STOOPID. Suddenly Tony doesn’t know how to swim and is afraid of the water? When he swam and surfed in season two when they were in California, season three,  and then last season in Jamaica?🙄🙄🙄🙄😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒

Totally stupid and retconned to suddenly have him unable to swim. He has a sick body though, so the swimsuit scenes weren't a total waste.

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59 minutes ago, ljenkins782 said:

Totally stupid and retconned to suddenly have him unable to swim. He has a sick body though, so the swimsuit scenes weren't a total waste.

Eh? Sick body???😄

And as for the discussion about the series finale, I'm of the mind that Tony and Angela did get married. Hell, they've been thinking about it since Season Three when they stood for Marcy's dad's wedding to Angela's friend, the doctor, Isabel, played by Fran Fitzgerald, who will always be Marilee Stone from Dallas for me. It was so odd seeing her as a nice person! They've mooned and talked about marrying each other; even got engaged in the final season, then again in the 7th Season's "Tony and Angela Get Divorced" where they had to get an annulment in South Carolina, Tony told the judge that "When I marry..." then caught himself, before going on to say that he wanted it to be his choice, blah, blah, blah. But he clearly was going to say Angela.

But I will always hate the show for ruining Tony and Mona's friendship. They were best buds for the first three seasons, and then for whatever reason, they stopped being each other's confidants and it devolved into an antagonistic relationship. 

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15 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

I forgot how much Billy content there was after he showed up. Even Cousin Oliver didn't have as much screen time or shoved in our faces as much. Can't wait until his episodes are over.

Which will be until the end of the season!😤

Another reason I hated this insertion of Billy was, suddenly Tony didn't know how to be a parent. Or Angela. It was insulting and offensive.

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Yahoo! Season Eight started tonight! While it’s clear the show isn’t as good as it was in the early seasons, and there are some clunkers in the final season, we’re headed for the home stretch until season one rolls around again for the airings during the week. Sundays are airing season two.

I’m bummed that Antenna edited out those scenes of Tony and Sam tap dancing from last season though. They show it in the credits, and I kept an eye out for it, but it never happened and I can’t remember which episode it was from.

But I really like how everyone was so supportive and rooting for Tony and Angela as a couple. No unnecessary or forced angst or drama shoehorned in as A Very Special Episode. Only Angela’s self esteem issues when she refused his proposal because she’d failed at marriage once and didn’t want to fail again. Though of course that begs the question why she said yes when he proposed at the ski lodge with Mona’s ring. And returned it because he’d proposed following his friend’s funeral and Mona’s urging. But, plot! and all that, I guess.

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Just caught the Christmas episode where Tony sells his baseball card to get Angela an expensive gift and she ends up buying the card he just sold, thinking he didn't have one.

It's a cute storyline, but the scene of exchanging the gifts seems like a very personal and intimate  exchange to be doing right in front of Angela's boyfriend. If I were Geoff, I'd be very suspicious of that relationship after watching that. 

Also, if I were Angela, I'd feel pretty badly that my housekeeper spent so much of his hard-earned money on a gift that I myself could easily afford. I always believe that extravagance should flow downward in the gift-giving hierarchy, the bosses should be spending more on the employee gifts that an employee should spend on a boss.

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(edited)

Nexstar, the owner of Antenna TV, is planning a new spinoff channel for later this year that focuses on 80s shows. There’s speculation that they are resting WTB in anticipation of using it to launch the new channel.

Edited by Kyle
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Now here's a weird thing. Antenna ran a marathon block of the show yesterday afternoon to 10:00 p.m. 

But the episodes skipped from season 1, 3, 4, and 5. New thing? Leading up to Father's Day, even though the latter isn't until June 20th.

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I've been watching this on GAC.

I loved this show when I was young, I wanted so much to be Angela Bower with a big house and a Jaguar.

The last couple of seasons are blurry for me because I was working and finishing university, I'm looking forward to rewatching them.

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52 minutes ago, iPad said:

I've been watching this on GAC.

I loved this show when I was young, I wanted so much to be Angela Bower with a big house and a Jaguar.

The last couple of seasons are blurry for me because I was working and finishing university, I'm looking forward to rewatching them.

The last 2-3 seasons are probably best left a blur, they were not great.

Angela and Tony as a couple just didn't work for me. The early days of both of them being single and having some minor jealousy episodes and certain types of feelings made sense and felt natural, Tony really respected her as a competent, successful person and she appreciated him for his outgoing personality and family-oriented ways and for being a genuinely good guy, but it really seemed more like mutual respect and not so much mutual attraction. So it struck me as awkward when they actually became a couple, it never felt organic like their friendship had.

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Agreed. As much as I was looking forward to them being a couple, I felt like they actually had less chemistry when they were actually together. And they were living together at the same time - weird.

In retrospect, it would have been better for them to finally get together in the last episode. They could have had Tony still move away to Iowa and then return because he wanted to be with Angela. And then they embrace and end of series.

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On 2/25/2022 at 2:34 PM, Egg McMuffin said:

Agreed. As much as I was looking forward to them being a couple, I felt like they actually had less chemistry when they were actually together. And they were living together at the same time - weird.

In retrospect, it would have been better for them to finally get together in the last episode. They could have had Tony still move away to Iowa and then return because he wanted to be with Angela. And then they embrace and end of series.

I’ve always thought that too. 

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No, not on screen (but given their sensibilities and prior engagegement, they probably did, for those to whom that matters).  He accepted her career needed to dictate their location, and his to adapt since it could be done almost anywhere; one final flipping of the sexist script, where women usually have to sacrifice for a romantic relationship against all logic of the individual situation.

Angela initially did just that, going back and forth to Iowa, before they acknowledged it wasn't feasible -- her career and whole life was in Connecticut, his fledgling but on the rise career was in Iowa.  They broke up and she moved back home.

The finale scenario is this:  Tony is getting some kind of teaching award in Iowa.  Later that night, Angela is fresh from the shower in Connecticut, like in the pilot - same robe and towel ("Do you always wear that outfit when you're interviewing housekeepers?") - to answer the door, but this time Tony, award plaque in hand, is in a tux, and says he quit; after the presentation, he went back to his apartment and realized he had no one to show his plaque to.

He jokes about taking the housekeeper job again, she says that's very sweet but they agreed, and he interrupts to say they were wrong: "I can apply for jobs in the area.  I just know now that it's very important I be in the area."

"Tony, I don't want you to ever resent-"
"Angela, the only thing I resented was being without you."
[beautiful sly grin] "So, what are your qualifications?"
"Uh, well," [kisses her]
"You got the job."
"No kiddin'." [another kiss]

The end.  A fantastic one.  For all the contrived gobbledygook it took to get there, logic prevailed, and they're going to make it work in the greater CT area because she needs ready access to the NYC market.  His career, exponentially less location-dependent than hers, will adapt, and for any interim where one is employed and the other isn't, he'll take care of the house, since he's better at it.  It's a subtle revolution presented in a tidy little family sitcom of clichéd '80s hijinks. 

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On 4/4/2022 at 1:27 AM, Bastet said:

No, not on screen (but given their sensibilities and prior engagegement, they probably did, for those to whom that matters).  He accepted her career needed to dictate their location, and his to adapt since it could be done almost anywhere; one final flipping of the sexist script, where women usually have to sacrifice for a romantic relationship against all logic of the individual situation.

Angela initially did just that, going back and forth to Iowa, before they acknowledged it wasn't feasible -- her career and whole life was in Connecticut, his fledgling but on the rise career was in Iowa.  They broke up and she moved back home.

The finale scenario is this:  Tony is getting some kind of teaching award in Iowa.  Later that night, Angela is fresh from the shower in Connecticut, like in the pilot - same robe and towel ("Do you always wear that outfit when you're interviewing housekeepers?") - to answer the door, but this time Tony, award plaque in hand, is in a tux, and says he quit; after the presentation, he went back to his apartment and realized he had no one to show his plaque to.

He jokes about taking the housekeeper job again, she says that's very sweet but they agreed, and he interrupts to say they were wrong: "I can apply for jobs in the area.  I just know now that it's very important I be in the area."

"Tony, I don't want you to ever resent-"
"Angela, the only thing I resented was being without you."
[beautiful sly grin] "So, what are your qualifications?"
"Uh, well," [kisses her]
"You got the job."
"No kiddin'." [another kiss]

The end.  A fantastic one.  For all the contrived gobbledygook it took to get there, logic prevailed, and they're going to make it work in the greater CT area because she needs ready access to the NYC market.  His career, exponentially less location-dependent than hers, will adapt, and for any interim where one is employed and the other isn't, he'll take care of the house, since he's better at it.  It's a subtle revolution presented in a tidy little family sitcom of clichéd '80s hijinks. 

If the show was done now, then she could have moved to Iowa and worked remotely from anywhere.

Technology has made sacrifices less impactful

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On 12/22/2020 at 11:36 AM, ifionlyknew said:

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.  

Very true and shows like Cheers after season 1 had story arcs planned out in advance. They ran into problems when they had actors die like with Coach at the end of season 3. Or when Bebe Neworth decided to leave to work on her Broadway shows that lead to a lot of things not making sense and trying to get the Fraiser Spin off to work. Even though they stepped on continuity problems. Same happened with shows like Who's the Boss. It's like when Tony went back to school, which was something he wanted for years and it turned into: "Tony finished high school" to: "Tony you don't need this class, you would have passed out of it!" 

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Freevee has the first 2 seasons, I just watched a bit of Season 1 again. 

Maybe I'm just a bad person, but the Machismo episode confuses me. They turned down a $10 million account for Angela, thousands of dollars a month in residuals and a free red convertible for Tony because some people could get a rash from the stuff? I mean, I could see raising such a moral objection if it was a product that was going to kill people or seriously harm them, but a potential rash in 5% of people? That's actually completely standard. For me, I can't use Zest or Irish Spring soaps or I get a terrible rash, but most people can use them without a problem. I just didn't think it was a sufficient reason to turn down so much money, especially for Tony. 

Although it was funny that Tony's biggest excitement about the car was that the clock worked, LOL.

Also, even though it was on the big and poufy side, I liked Angela's hair in a lot of these episodes. The half up with the big bangs looked nice on her. 

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Oddly Judith Light was of the few actresses, Mary Frann on Newhart is another, where the 80s hair worked on them.  Now some of her outfits...on the otherhand..and the huge glasses not so much.

Mona didn't seem to vibe with the 80s look..but by the early 90s, the show found a nice ensemble and hair style that worked great on her (at the expense of her warm moments sadly).

And I remember when Samantha had the jet black hair..done because the actress was getting bored playing Samantha and wanted to do something different 

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49 minutes ago, JAYJAY1979 said:

And I remember when Samantha had the jet black hair.

I love when Jonathan told her it looked like she'd used her hair to mop up an oil slick.

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