Three's Company: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Three's Company: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
ABC
April 5, 1983
Sitcom
DVD
B

"This isn't a mustache; it's a time machine"  --Box in Going the Distance (2010)

This episode, written by Shelley Zellman, might be my favorite Terri episode, although this is partly for reasons that did not exist back in '83, or only subliminally.  At the Beagle, Jack hits on a woman, Ginger (Jenny Sherman, who previously played Larry's date Diane), and she rejects him.  Then Larry comes in with a fake mustache, tries the exact same line, and succeeds.  (In fact, he's still dating Ginger in the tag.)

So Jack goes to a mustache salon (or whatever it would've been called) and gets both snubbed by and hit on by mustache salesman Layne (Anthony Holland, who was Capt. Hildebrand on M*A*S*H).  He also does one of his "yep, we know this is Tex Ritter's son" Western shticks that are sprinkled throughout the series.  He buys a mustache that Janet is utterly amused by, but Terri is smitten.  Janet thinks that the solution is that Jack be bossy, since Terri is so independent and confident.

Terri's mother (Mina Kolb for the third and last time) drops by and reveals that, with the 'stache, Jack is a dead-ringer for Terri's first love, David.  Just when you're ready for some bizarre Three's Company/ Three's Company crossover where David Bell, roommate of Sam and Jenny, grew a mustache and dated student nurse Terri, it turns out that her David was a bossy intern.

At the Beagle, Jack bosses Terri around and she finds him masterful.  Janet arrives as soon as she can and rips the mustache off Jack's face.  The spell is broken.

So besides the David thing, here's some of the fascinating stuff going on this episode that strikes me a lot more than it did back then:

• We get a glimpse into Terri's past and she seems to have been a much more submissive and insecure young lady, which tells us something about her present and why she is sometimes a bit cruel in her humor (it's not Margaret Houlihan complexity, but it is more than we usually get for Terri);
• After all these years of no actual, verified gay character (except, the unseen guy who asked David Bell to move in), we get Layne, who's willing to go to the Casbah with Jack, and, yes, he's stereotypical, but Holland does what he can to individualize the character;
• Jack doesn't seem to mind Terri being in love with him, until Janet points out that he might end up married;
• Janet is, of course, horrified by the prospect of Terri being in love with Jack, even before she finds out the reason for the infatuation, but whether this is due to jealousy or protectiveness or just a resistance to the cozy platonic living arrangement is subject to interpretation;
• Mr. Furley sees Jack's mustache as an attempt to pass as straight, which is bizarre to a modern middle-aged viewer, because mustaches (especially of the type and vintage Jack is wearing) mean either a) as gay as the Construction Worker in the Village People; b) pornstaches; or c) a time-machine for the demographic Box is trying to tap, women born 1950 to '65 who want to remember their youth.

Brad Blaisdell is back as Mike the Bartender and actually gets a couple punch-lines while talking to Jack.  (It seems like he has more to do than Jim ever did.)