Three's Company: The Case of the Missing Blonde

Three's Company: The Case of the Missing Blonde
ABC
May 12, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
C+

This Baser & Weiskopf story doesn't necessarily offer the earliest example of hysterical!Janet but it certainly is a good early case.  By hysterical, I don't mean funny.  I mean, well, see the picture.  Cindy isn't home when Jack and Janet get home from the movies after midnight.  Janet has only to see a heel broken off a shoe to start imagining that Cindy has been kidnapped.  Every clue after that supports her theory, but she starts panicking early on.  And in the tag, she has a sign-out sheet so the roommates will be able to keep track of each other.  Janet has always been the motherly one, but here we can see that she is definitely not always the sensible one.  It's hard to picture the Janet of the first season or two freaking out like this.  Worrying sure, but not edging into madness.  And of course, as Janet herself says later, it's just a big misunderstanding, since Cindy was with her visiting father (Alan Manson, who had previously played Mike the Cop) and had left a note on the back of the phone bill that ended up in Jack's pocket.

Robert Reisel, who was Mr. Miller on The Bob Newhart Show, plays the Motel Clerk.  Brad Blaisdell returns as Mike the Bartender and again impacts the plot somewhat, by seeing Cindy crying as she gets into a car with an older man wearing a hearing aid.