Three's Company - General Discussion

[KWalkerInc]

I was surprised to look at the cable guide tonight and see that IFC is showing episodes of The Ropers (and not the pilot episode that is included with the TC syndication package).  It looks like it's late at night and kind of random.  It's on the 14th at 2 & 2:30 AM Pacific, and then the next week is on the 22nd starting at 1:55 AM. 

[VCRTracking]

 

 

[TheLastKidPicked]

Thank you for posting that, @VCRTracking

Richard Kline seems exactly like Larry.  A person you would want to hang out with.

 

[Fool to cry]

Agreed.

 

[januaryman]

RIP to Barrie Youngfellow, of It's a Living and one of my favorite TC episodes - Triangle Troubles, in which she tries to hide from Jack that she has two male roommates. 

[Fool to cry]

Just realized Filipe is essentially Starscream.

[TheLastKidPicked]

Our cable company runs Three's Company each evening, and it's a perfect background when cleaning the kitchen so we have it on.

Last night's episode was The Match Breakers.  A gold digger begins to flirt with Mr. Furley, believing that he owns the entire apartment building.  The kids decided to protect Mr. Furley by breaking them up before the gold digger could hurt his feelings.

They decide the best way is to invent an ex-wife of Mr. Furley and have her meet with this gold digger to head her off at the pass.

Larry dressed up in drag, pretending to be Mrs. Furley.  It was hilarious! 

One thing we noticed is that the actors all seemed to be having fun.  It was nice to see everybody just having fun and enjoying working on the show. 

 

 

[TheLastKidPicked]

A sad episode of Three's Company?

We watched "Look What I Found" last night and noticed considerable downbeat tone to the episode.

The kids find a kitten and know they can't keep it.  So they put it on Mr. Furley's doorstep, hoping he will find it and adopt it.

Mr. Furley is talking to the kitten and says,  "You'll be happier here in my apartment.  It's not like those others where it's loud, with people talking and laughing and friends dropping by all the time."

Mr. Furley followed this up by explaining he had a kitten named Patches when he was a kid, and Patches get run over by a car.

The episode showed that Don Knotts can pull off serious scenes as well as he can handle great comedy.  It was nice to see the producers trying different ideas, but it was jolting to see a sad episode instead of the usual funny hijinks. 

 

 

[RealHousewife]

On 3/13/2023 at 12:25 PM, TheLastKidPicked said:

A sad episode of Three's Company?

We watched "Look What I Found" last night and noticed considerable downbeat tone to the episode.

The kids find a kitten and know they can't keep it.  So they put it on Mr. Furley's doorstep, hoping he will find it and adopt it.

Mr. Furley is talking to the kitten and says,  "You'll be happier here in my apartment.  It's not like those others where it's loud, with people talking and laughing and friends dropping by all the time."

Mr. Furley followed this up by explaining he had a kitten named Patches when he was a kid, and Patches get run over by a car.

The episode showed that Don Knotts can pull off serious scenes as well as he can handle great comedy.  It was nice to see the producers trying different ideas, but it was jolting to see a sad episode instead of the usual funny hijinks. 

 

 

So true. I adore Three's Company because it is so feel-good, but those lines were so sad. Don did a great job as always. 

I'm a millennial, and Three's Company is one of my favorite shows of all time. Does anyone recommend a similar modern show? It's pretty hard to compare to John Ritter's acting. His physical comedy alone was incredible. The writing of the show was brilliant. I liked that the characters had flirtatious lines, but nothing too crazy that you couldn't watch the show with your parents. 

[TheLastKidPicked]

13 hours ago, RealHousewife said:

I'm a millennial, and Three's Company is one of my favorite shows of all time. Does anyone recommend a similar modern show?

 

Three's Company was able to capture a feeling of being young, with a real sense of optimism.  It was a feeling of being broke, but that was okay because you were having fun and knew that things would get better and better. 

 

13 hours ago, RealHousewife said:

I liked that the characters had flirtatious lines, but nothing too crazy that you couldn't watch the show with your parents. 

It was fun because there were no "dirty jokes".   The humor came from the double entendres and humorous misunderstandings.  We all knew the three main characters would never really hook up and that made it safe. Richard Kline, who played Larry, said that the fun was watching Jack and Larry try to score with women, knowing something would go wrong each time they tried.

 

The closest modern version may have been Friends.  They also managed to capture that feeling of youthful optimism displayed in Three's Company.

[RealHousewife]

21 minutes ago, TheLastKidPicked said:

 

Three's Company was able to capture a feeling of being young, with a real sense of optimism.  It was a feeling of being broke, but that was okay because you were having fun and knew that things would get better and better. 

 

It was fun because there were no "dirty jokes".   The humor came from the double entendres and humorous misunderstandings.  We all knew the three main characters would never really hook up and that made it safe. Richard Kline, who played Larry, said that the fun was watching Jack and Larry try to score with women, knowing something would go wrong each time they tried.

 

The closest modern version may have been Friends.  They also managed to capture that feeling of youthful optimism displayed in Three's Company.

I think Three’s Company is a lot more charming than Friends to be honest. I should prefer Friends due to my age, but Three’s Company is just so good. 

[TheLastKidPicked]

59 minutes ago, RealHousewife said:

I think Three’s Company is a lot more charming than Friends to be honest.

 

Charming is a very good word.  If you'll allow me to get my geek on, here is how it all came together:

In the 1970's, Americans were struggling with a lot of problems.  The Vietnam war, the gas crisis, an economic meltdown.  A lot of TV shows reflected this feeling of malaise.  "Dramadies" were popular on tv as they could spotlight some of the problems we were having in society.  Think of All in the Family, the Jeffersons, Maude, Sanford and Son.

Oh boy did we need a distraction!

Along comes Three's Company, where the biggest problem is Jack accidentally sets up dates with two different girls on the same night.  You can escape for 30 minutes and enjoy all the characters just living life and having fun.  Good harmless fun.

Let's also look at the supporting characters.  The Ropers, who's fuddy duddy lifestyle magnifies the great lives the younger cast is leading.  And when the ropers left for their own spinoff, the producers outdid themselves with Don Knotts as Ralph Furley.  Who wouldn't want to live in a building with good old RF as your landlord?

 

 

 

 

[WendyCR72]

Speaking of Three's Company, someone posted a video some time back showing all opening sequence filming locations/apartment buildings, and such.

Sadly, much of the amusement park area where one of the later openings happened seems mostly changed/gone, but it is still a cool video!

This person even visits the apartment building site used in the first unaired pilot (with no Janet/Chrissy; instead, they were Jenny/Samantha).

 

[Snow Apple]

I recently saw the episode where Jack was teaching a cooking class and the Dean's niece tried to get Jack in trouble. When the truth came out, Jack told Larry and Janet something like "Come students, we have class" then looked at the niece and said "At least some of us do." I took it literally as a kid thinking she was expelled. Of course I now know what he meant by "class."

That's one example of why I still love watching as an adult. I keep catching things that flew over my head as a kid.

[TheLastKidPicked]

On 5/4/2023 at 2:24 AM, WendyCR72 said:

Speaking of Three's Company, someone posted a video some time back showing all opening sequence filming locations/apartment buildings, and such.

 

That is great!  Thank you for posting it.

 

On 5/6/2023 at 8:46 AM, Snow Apple said:

That's one example of why I still love watching as an adult. I keep catching things that flew over my head as a kid.

 

This is EXACTLY what made the show great.  You could watch it as a family because the adults would catch the joke, but the kids in the room had no idea.

And as Snow Apple says, it makes it fun to re-watch the series as an adult.

[ljenkins782]

On 3/13/2023 at 1:25 PM, TheLastKidPicked said:

A sad episode of Three's Company?

We watched "Look What I Found" last night and noticed considerable downbeat tone to the episode.

The kids find a kitten and know they can't keep it.  So they put it on Mr. Furley's doorstep, hoping he will find it and adopt it.

Mr. Furley is talking to the kitten and says,  "You'll be happier here in my apartment.  It's not like those others where it's loud, with people talking and laughing and friends dropping by all the time."

Mr. Furley followed this up by explaining he had a kitten named Patches when he was a kid, and Patches get run over by a car.

The episode showed that Don Knotts can pull off serious scenes as well as he can handle great comedy.  It was nice to see the producers trying different ideas, but it was jolting to see a sad episode instead of the usual funny hijinks. 

Yeah, Don Knotts could break your heart in those moments where he wasn't being a buffoon. I'm not sure I could've handled it if they went to that well more often.

This is a show where I can appreciate some of the actors and the performances, but the overall show gets on my nerves. Maybe it's because it's before my time so I didn't live through the aforementioned difficulties of the time period and the escapism required, or maybe the campiness is just too much, but I find it hard to watch. 

Especially the shock and horror every time the girls think Jack might be about to sleep with someone. The reaction it elicits from them is like they think he's about to murder someone, it's just so over the top.

But John Ritter is undeniably charming and Suzanne Somers was quite good as Chrissy, Cindy and Terri were pale imitations for sure.

[JAYJAY1979]

I'll be honest...Suzanne Somers wasn't the main draw (John Ritter was)...but she was still very important to the show.

Cindy and Teri couldn't fill the void..no matter how likable both characters were.  Somers could be endearing, quirky, and deliver her lines in a way that made you laugh and love her.  And all 3 of the OG's had wonderful chemistry with one another.

[TheLastKidPicked]

On 7/7/2023 at 6:37 PM, JAYJAY1979 said:

Somers could be endearing, quirky, and deliver her lines in a way that made you laugh and love her.  And all 3 of the OG's had wonderful chemistry with one another.

 

Suzanne figured something out about Chrissie:  She is not dumb, she is overly naive.  There's a subtle difference and Suzanne Somers found the balance just right.

[RealHousewife]

I guess whether you saw Chrissie as naive or dumb blonde, I don't find those types of characters funny. My favorite blonde was Terri. 

[ljenkins782]

33 minutes ago, RealHousewife said:

I guess whether you saw Chrissie as naive or dumb blonde, I don't find those types of characters funny. My favorite blonde was Terri. 

I vastly preferred Chrissy to the others, but I bet we can all agree that Cindy was the worst, right? That actress brought zero to the character besides the blonde hair and the body. 

[Bort]

I did like Cindy’s klutzy MO, I thought she choreographed well with Jack. She was always accidentally whacking him with things and I always laughed. 

[Not4Me]

I thought the actress who played Cindy was terrible and had zero comedic and acting skills. All Cindy did was bump into things, and that got old fast. That season was pretty awful and worth skipping; I bet they had to scrap a lot of better scripts they had planned involving Suzanne.

Pricilla Barnes made it watchable again, and it helped that Terri was a smarter, mature blonde who had better chemistry with the roommates.

[andidante]

6 hours ago, Not4Me said:

I thought the actress who played Cindy was terrible and had zero comedic and acting skills. All Cindy did was bump into things, and that got old fast. That season was pretty awful and worth skipping; I bet they had to scrap a lot of better scripts they had planned involving Suzanne.

Pricilla Barnes made it watchable again, and it helped that Terri was a smarter, mature blonde who had better chemistry with the roommates.

I agree about Cindy. That actress ended up on Dallas of all things. I loved Terri!

[WendyCR72]

1 hour ago, andidante said:

I agree about Cindy. That actress ended up on Dallas of all things. I loved Terri!

Meh, Cindy was okay, but she seemed like an even flakier copy of Chrissy, and more klutzy.

Terri was fine, but also dull. Of the three, I preferred Chrissy.

And the Ropers over Furley, but that's another argument for another day!

BTW, Jenilee Harrison is married to the ex-husband of Cybill Shepard and stepmother to his and Cybill's twins [grown now, but you know!].

Small world, Hollywood style.

[Egg McMuffin]

9 hours ago, Not4Me said:

I thought the actress who played Cindy was terrible and had zero comedic and acting skills. All Cindy did was bump into things, and that got old fast. That season was pretty awful and worth skipping; I bet they had to scrap a lot of better scripts they had planned involving Suzanne.

Suzanne Somers began her salary holdout at the beginning of the season - instead of during hiatus - in order to put pressure on the producers. They brought in Cindy to “clean up” the scrips that were already written for Chrissy. In most episodes, they just crossed out Chrissy’s name and write in Cindy’s. If she had been better received, they likely would have kept her as the third lead. But when ratings dipped, they went ahead with plans to introduce an entirely new character the following season.

[andidante]

I loved the Ropers! Not sure why they thought getting rid of them was a good idea. 

[WendyCR72]

On 7/22/2023 at 12:33 AM, andidante said:

I loved the Ropers! Not sure why they thought getting rid of them was a good idea. 

It was in no way Don Knotts' fault, but I did read that Norman Fell only did the spinoff very reluctantly. But before he did, he had it put into his contract that if the spinoff failed, that the Ropers would be allowed to return within the year.

Apparently, ABC got around that by giving the spinoff another half year, so when it did fail, neither Norman Fell nor Audra Lindley could return. (Guessing fences were mended enough for them to return in S5 for the episode, "The Night of The Ropers" - or maybe there was some contractual holdover?); either way, both returned for that final episode, interacting with Mr. Furley and, of course, Jack and Janet. (They met Cindy then.)

All in all, ABC and/or the show's producers did Fell and Lindley dirty. I do like that the latter was later involved in another iconic series with young adults finding their way in Friends as Phoebe's grandmother, though! (Sort of ironic and meta since the characters on that show would occasionally reference Three's Company. Wonder if Mrs. Roper looked different in their universe? LOL!)

[Bort]

I imagine that Don Knotts by himself was a cheaper alternative than Norman Fell and Audra Lindley together, which is why they didn’t want the bring the Ropers back permanently.

This show had an awful lot of salary disputes. The Ropers, the famous Suzanne Somers one, there was also one with Joyce Dewitt, which is why there’s that one episode with Linda temping as a roommate: Joyce was without a contract and disputing with the producers over her raise and they had to replace her for an episode — Joyce won that one, by the way, the network made them fork over the raise.

Which brings me back to the Linda temporary roommate nonsense. That was such an obvious scramble because who goes away for a week’s vacation and the roommates feel the need to have a temporary roommate? What’s the point, are they pro-rating the rent that way or something?

[Egg McMuffin]

Same reason they got a “temporary” roommate in Cindy when Chrissy went away. The scripts were already written. They did a have a few episodes they had to rewrite when Suzanne started missing episodes and before they brought in Cindy. But then ABC refused to accept another episode with just the two roommates - they did not want Jack and Janet living together without someone else there. So in came Cindy. Funny that just a few years later, times had changed enough that they were OK with Jack and Vicky living together.

[Bort]

Well, Cindy makes sense because the way they wrote it, Chrissie was gone for months and there’s no expectation for her to pay rent if she’s not living there. But Janet gone for a week was just silly. Unless they expected Joyce to be gone longer and were setting it up that way but then the salary dispute resolved quickly.

[ljenkins782]

5 hours ago, kariyaki said:

I imagine that Don Knotts by himself was a cheaper alternative than Norman Fell and Audra Lindley together, which is why they didn’t want the bring the Ropers back permanently.

This show had an awful lot of salary disputes. The Ropers, the famous Suzanne Somers one, there was also one with Joyce Dewitt, which is why there’s that one episode with Linda temping as a roommate: Joyce was without a contract and disputing with the producers over her raise and they had to replace her for an episode — Joyce won that one, by the way, the network made them fork over the raise.

Which brings me back to the Linda temporary roommate nonsense. That was such an obvious scramble because who goes away for a week’s vacation and the roommates feel the need to have a temporary roommate? What’s the point, are they pro-rating the rent that way or something?

LOL, I did have a roommate in college (house with 4 of us sharing costs) who thought her part of the electric bill should be prorated so she didn't have to pay for it on those occasional weekends when she went home to visit. So I guess they could possibly explain that silliness away.

Interesting that Joyce won her salary dispute, I wonder if she benefited from the revolving door of female roommates and change up in landlords too. At some point, it just looks like an entirely different show when too many of the originals are gone. 

[Bort]

4 minutes ago, ljenkins782 said:

Interesting that Joyce won her salary dispute,

Joyce’s dispute was before Suzanne’s. I don’t think she had any after the revolving door started up, they probably knew better than to lose another original cast member.

[januaryman]

According to Chrissy in that episode, "It really wouldn't be right if you and I were staying alone". 

Cindy was mostly useless but she had one great moment in the episode with the flower store holdup.

[Egg McMuffin]

3 hours ago, kariyaki said:

Well, Cindy makes sense because the way they wrote it, Chrissie was gone for months and there’s no expectation for her to pay rent if she’s not living there. But Janet gone for a week was just silly. Unless they expected Joyce to be gone longer and were setting it up that way but then the salary dispute resolved quickly.

The script was already written and the actors already knew their lines. It was easier to have Anne Schedeen, who played Linda and who was a known quantity, step in for Joyce rather than rip everything apart so close to taping and distribute Janet’s lines to everyone else and re-block and re-rehearse the whole thing. Chris Mann details this in his behind-the-scenes book. This was why the cast was furious at Suzanne later on - she was pulling no-shows, which meant that everyone had to relearn the script when they redistributed her lines before taping.

Joyce actually settled her dispute right before the episode taped and asked to appear in the episode. But the producers didn’t want to disrupt things - again - at the last minute.

[Bort]

1 hour ago, Egg McMuffin said:

The script was already written and the actors already knew their lines. It was easier to have Anne Schedeen, who played Linda and who was a known quantity, step in for Joyce rather than rip everything apart so close to taping and distribute Janet’s lines to everyone else and re-block and re-rehearse the whole thing. Chris Mann details this in his behind-the-scenes book. This was why the cast was furious at Suzanne later on - she was pulling no-shows, which meant that everyone had to relearn the script when they redistributed her lines before taping.

That’s not the point I’m disputing. Realistically, behind the scenes, that’s why. It’s just in the body of the show, it’s silly. “Ok, this month, Jack owes four weeks of rent, Chrissie owes four weeks of rent, Janet owes three weeks of rent and Linda owes one week of rent.”

[Egg McMuffin]

I get what you’re saying, but there are far sillier things if you want to pick at the realism of the show. Remember the episode where Jack passes himself off as Austin, his twin brother? And he plays both “roles” in a party with Ralph Furley, dressed completely the same except that he puts a cowboy hat on whenever he’s supposed to be Austin, and he somehow keeps Furley from looking over at Jack when he’s Austin, and vice versa.

Linda staying with them for a few days when Janet was “away” is one of the lesser of the show’s sins when it comes to realism.

[WendyCR72]

Rest in peace, Suzanne Somers. 😢

[LexieLily]

Did Joyce and Suzanne end up making peace? I don't remember. I remember reading that John/Suzanne did and I want to say John and Joyce did, too. (I think the John/Joyce thing was mostly because of TAC and how all of that went down.)

[WendyCR72]

4 minutes ago, LexieLily said:

Did Joyce and Suzanne end up making peace? I don't remember. I remember reading that John/Suzanne did and I want to say John and Joyce did, too. (I think the John/Joyce thing was mostly because of TAC and how all of that went down.)

I believe that Joyce and Suzanne did make peace, yes.

[Egg McMuffin]

Joyce and Suzanne did an appearance together on some internet talk show about 7 or 8 years ago, where they buried the hatchet.

[mmecorday]

Suzanne was so beautiful in the first few seasons of the show. Towards the beginning of the fifth season it looked like Tammy Faye was doing her makeup. 

[Fool to cry]

12 hours ago, mmecorday said:

Suzanne was so beautiful in the first few seasons of the show. Towards the beginning of the fifth season it looked like Tammy Faye was doing her makeup. 

Yeah I don't know why she decided to look like that.

Two favorite Chrissy eps is the handcuffed one and the one where she's nice to her nerdy co-worker(played by the voice of Donatello the Ninja Turtle).

I learned this an hour ago and I totally hear it now!

[RealHousewife]

Any show recommendations for Three's Company fans?

[LexieLily]

Joyce DeWitt speaks out about Three's Company.


As for where her character, Janet, would be today, DeWitt admitted that she sees a different future than what the producers and writers intended.

“I was a bit offended when it was time to retire the show that they chose to ‘marry her off’ as the path forward for that character,” DeWitt confessed. “I would have sent her to law school or medical school or to the Peace Corps.”

Instead, DeWitt thinks her character would be helping Phillip Dawson (David Ruprecht) in his art business during the day while attending law school at night. DeWitt added that she believes Janet “now works for the ACLU — her intention and passion being to help give voice to those who don’t have one, or at least to assist them in finding their own voice.”