Who's the Boss?: Pilot

Who's the Boss?: Pilot
ABC
September 20, 1984
Sitcom
DVD
B-

The same week that Three's Company, with its occasional Jack/Janet (and Jack/Chrissy and Jack/Terri) bowed out, a show that would move its shipping front and center premiered on ABC.  Martin Cohan, who among other things wrote six Bob Newhart Show episodes, and Blake Hunter created the show and wrote this pilot that sets up the next eight years.  Here's some of what is already present in a script written about a year before it aired:

• Sexual tension between Tony and Angela, including his remark that he would never sleep with his employer;
• Angela's poor choices in men, in this case her boss, Grant Paxton (Dennis Holahan, who had played Per Johannsen on M*A*S*H);
• Mona's easy-going lust for "hunk "Tony";
• Mona's interference and assumption that she knows what's best for her daughter;
• Angela answering the door in a pink robe and towel, which would be echoed on at least two more episodes;
• Jonathan's love of reptiles and general geekiness;
• Samantha's tomboyishness and snark;
• The kids' prickly almost-sibling-like relationship;
• Tony's love of Sinatra;
• His use of the catchphrase "Ay-oh, oh-ay!"
• His sunny optimism, although this would be tempered by time and experience;
• Angela's wariness;
• Her commitment to her career;
• Her willingness to let a near stranger make decisions about her son;
• Her reluctance to take Tony's advice about herself;
• The kids' awareness that the adults are talking about "sex" through symbolism (here Crunchy Crawlers cereal);
• The kids' interrupting a hug between Tony and Angela;
• The Micellis' love of sports, particularly basketball;
• A mention of Tony's loss of his wife and Major League career;
• A mention of Angela's rival Jim Peterson;
• A mention of her secretary Rosie;
• And a cameo of Mrs. Rossini in Brooklyn.

In some ways, it's a very self-assured pilot, but I don't think things have gelled right out of the gate.  For one thing, the kids, so young and little here, aren't as good performers as they'd become and it seems like they could've enunciated better.  Also, this is actually a freer, more relaxed Angela than we'd see for much of the first three seasons, as if the Angela vs. Tony and Angela vs. Mona contrasts hadn't yet been fully worked out.  I can see why the pilot sold though, and why it got a fall debut rather than ending up as a mid-season replacement.  There's a lot of potential here, and the "male housekeeper" thing hadn't yet been done to death.  (Charles in Charge would debut a couple weeks later, Mr. Belvedere in March.)

This is the only WtB episode directed by Bill Persky of That Girl.