Who's the Boss?: The Unnatural

Who's the Boss?: The Unnatural
ABC
April 8, 1986
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Ellen Guylas wrote this story where Tony's old teammate Josh is doing an ad for Angela's agency.  The two agree to compete in a pick-up game.  Angela wants to play on Tony's team but he criticizes her when he's trying to teach her to bat, so she ends up on Josh's team.  Some of the moments from this episode would end up in the credits for several years, like Tony's slide and his spit-shake with Angela.

Jim Jansen returns as Dr. Ferguson.  Sort of playing themselves are Billy Martin, Steve Sax (who had been on Square Pegs four years earlier), and Bob Uecker (who was by then was starring on another "male housekeeper" show, Mr. Belvedere).

Who's the Boss?: Paint Your Wagon

Who's the Boss?: Paint Your Wagon
ABC
January 15, 1985
Sitcom
DVD
C+

This is one of the weakest episodes of the first season, although not without interest.  Tony is holding a free aerobics class for the other housekeepers in the neighborhood, including Phoebe (Melanie Vincz, who was Kathy on Mork & Mindy and two different roles on Three's Company), the Wilmingtons' maid.  Diane Wilmington (a pre-Designing-Women Delta Burke) resents her husband's affair with Phoebe.

Meanwhile, Angela wants her Jaguar painted beige or perhaps sandalwood.  Tony decides to have it painted red, and she's furious.  She says he's just the housekeeper and he doesn't know his place.  So he goes coldly "Jeeves," even when she tries to apologize.  This bugs me even more than the "Jack in the Flower Shop" episode of Three's Company, where they're both in the wrong, but he's more in the wrong and yet she suffers for it more.  After all, it's a $1500 paint job!  When seductive Mrs. Wilmington wants to trade Tony for Phoebe, Angela says he's free to go, as soon as he pays off the $1500.  And she gives in on the red paint.  This is, by the way, an episode where catty!Mona is present, mostly against Mrs. Wilmington but sometimes against Angela, although she is the peacemaker between Tony and Angela as well.

Linda Hoy, who was Nurse Brown on Three's Company, is Vivian.

Who's the Boss?: Truth in Dating

Angela's secretary Rosie (Diane Robin)

Who's the Boss?: Truth in Dating
ABC
December 4, 1984
Sitcom
DVD
B

Bud Wiser wrote the teleplay based on a story by a woman who didn't contribute to any of my other shows.  Tony hits on socialite Wanda in the supermarket but is hesitant to tell her he's a housekeeper.  Then Angela gets mistaken by a flirtatious man for her own secretary, Rosie.  Things come to a head at Angela's cocktail party, where Wanda brings Tony as her date.  Angela calls Tony a hero for leaving Brooklyn to raise his daughter in a safer neighborhood, but it turns out that Wanda knew all along.  And Mona shows up looking like something out of Auntie Mame, to enjoy the intrigue but also to defend her daughter.  Note that Sam leaves a sleepover because Marci won't let her try on her training bra, foreshadowing an episode a few weeks later.

Earl Boen makes his first of five appearances as Angela's office rival, the despicable Jim Peterson, playing the role so vividly that we can imagine him even when he's just referred to.  (He's less awful here than later, but he does seem rather handsy with Rosie.)

Who's the Boss?: Mona Gets Pinned

Who's the Boss?: Mona Gets Pinned
ABC
October 30, 1984
Sitcom
DVD
B

This is the first of twelve WtB stories written by Ellen Guylas, who did eleven for Three's Company.  As with 3'sC, there's a misunderstanding, in this case about who Mona's "new beau" is.  Angela thinks it's the sixty-something man in her study group, but it's actually 20ish Jason Franklin (Dean Butler who was 28 at the time and in between his gigs as husbands to Laura Ingalls and the new Gidget).  Angela, whom Mona describes as "a young fogy," disapproves because of the age difference.*  Tony, who knows how important Angela's opinion is to Mona, is in his mediator role here, although definitely more on Mona's side.  This is, by the way, the first episode where I noticed him using the nickname of "Mone."

It is also definitely the episode with the most audience reaction so far.  From Mona's outfits to characters making strong declarations, there's a lot to respond to.  And of course there's the "curfew" scene when the not-yet-family waits for Mona to come home.  (She's "burned down her apartment" and is temporarily staying with Angela, so the stakes are higher than if they were living apart.)  Mona calls them "the Moral Majority," and the characters (and probably actors) have fun with the role-reversal.  The scene is capped by Jonathan finding Mona's pin on the back of her sweater, implying at least second base with Jason.  However, we are not yet in the slutty!Mona days, when she'd think nothing of dating a college guy.  This is a milder Mona and it's notable that, here in the first season, she and Angela have an easier time talking about their feelings and bonding than they will later.

Bill Erwin was the Reverend in The Brady Girls Get Married and his role as Jason's elderly father Ted is his first of three on WtB.


*We never find out Mona's age, but here we learn that she dropped out of college to get married.  I think she's 19 or 20 years older than Angela, making her in her mid 50s here.

Who's the Boss?: Angela's First Fight

Marty's Melody Room, version #1

Who's the Boss?: Angela's First Fight
ABC
October 23, 1984
Sitcom
DVD
C+

This is the first of I think eleven WtB stories by Prudence Fraser and Robert Sternin, who co-wrote one episode of Three's Company.  While I do like the glimpses of Brooklyn, including more for Mrs. Rossini (Rhoda Gemignani) to do, I do have some issues with the basic premise here, including the handling of violence.  Sam gets in a fight, with Jonathan helping, and Angela strongly disapproves.  Tony, in his role as mediator, tries to see both her perspective and his daughter's.  Sam, who says, "She's not my mother.  You are," runs away, back to the old neighborhood.  Tony and Angela go to Brooklyn and he takes her to his old hang-out, Marty's Melody Room, where his old girlfriend, Teresa, baits them.  Angela loses her temper and a cat-fight soon breaks out.  Although Angela does have a tendency to really let go when she loses her inhibitions, it's a bit much here.  Furthermore, I'm bugged by the tag scene.  At first, it's another adults-bonding moment (like on the previous episode, where Mona implausibly says that the three of them are the only ones who know about Angela's mole), but then Tony says that Angela should use her black eye in her perfume campaign and claim she had to literally fight off a bunch of guys.  She thinks this is brilliant, rather than offensive.

Greg Lewis, who played a nameless Man on The Bob Newhart Show, is the Bartender here.  Tony calls out to his friend Philly Fingers, but we won't actually meet him just yet.  This is the first of five WtB episodes Jim Drake would direct.

Note that WtB had been taken off the schedule for almost a month and then when it came back it was on Tuesdays at 8:30, after Three's a Crowd.  I would've moved them to 9 and 9:30, away from the A-Team and into less of a "family hour."  (CBS's 8:00 block was The Jeffersons and Alice, both of which I had watched in past years but I was still mostly an ABC loyalist and I was curious about both Crowd and Boss.)