Who's the Boss?: Samantha's Growing Up

Who's the Boss?: Samantha's Growing Up
ABC
January 8, 1985
Sitcom
DVD
B

Paul Robinson Hunter wrote this story where Angela "helps Tony get through puberty."  Samantha is old enough to want a training bra, preferably one like her friend Marci's, but Tony has a hard time accepting that his little girl is growing up.  He also objects when Angela buys her more feminine clothes.  This is an early episode in a thread that runs throughout the series: Angela helping Tony raise Samantha, even when they have different ideas about how to do so.  It also begins the running joke that Angela is flat-chested in comparison to her mother.  (As on Soap, Helmond's large breasts are often the subject of both admiration and amusement.)  Note that in the tag, Sam comes home from playing baseball, with the new mitt that Tony got her for her 12th birthday, and she gets a call from a boy she has a crush on, Bobby, who's a klutz but cute.  We'd meet Bobby a few weeks later.  This is also notable for being the episode where Sam stops saying "Mrs. Bower" and starts saying "Angela."