Three's Company

[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.