Who's the Boss?: Sports Buddies

Who's the Boss?: Sports Buddies
ABC
December 11, 1984
Sitcom
DVD
B

Sternin & Fraser wrote the teleplay based on a story by Richard Baer, who wrote eleven for That Girl and one each for M*A*S*H and What's Happening!!  Tony is already starting to feel like an outsider when he pays an offscreen visit to Brooklyn.  Angela is dating a seemingly wonderful guy, Jeffrey Michaelson, Esq. (Kenneth Gilman, who was Leslie's ex, Charlie Walker, on Soap), who remembers Tony's baseball career.  Soon Angela is "sharing her man with her housekeeper."  But Jeffrey, although he tells Angela she's special, has a roving eye.  Some notable things here:

• We learn more about Tony's sports career, including that he played for the Cardinals for a couple months in the summer of '81, until he injured his shoulder.
• The Cammisa family is mentioned for the second episode in a row (last time it was Anthony Cammisa), and not coincidentally Danza's mother's maiden name was Cammisa.
• Mona tells Angela that Diane Wilmington shares her man with her housekeeper, Phoebe, which will not just be a throwaway joke.
• It's ironic that Angela is dating Jeffrey with a J, considering that much of Season Three will be about her relationship with Geoffrey (a very different type though).
• In the previous episode, she had been going through a dry spell, because men were intimidated by her success, but Geoffrey is a lawyer.  And Tony claims she dates a lot, especially doctors.
• Angela feels out of place in the sports bar, but Mona fits right in, getting the "crazy Jets fans" (whom the studio audience love) to chant her name and then beating a couple of them at pool.
• Tony again chooses Angela over someone, not wanting to lie for Jeff.
• He's still very much "Brooklyn Tony," but the drifting away from the old neighborhood has begun.
• Mona says that Tony has lost a friend and Angela has lost a "lover," although it's unclear if Angela has slept with Jeffrey yet.
• Jeff likes Angela with her hair down, but we'll much later learn that Tony prefers it up.
• In some ways, this episode mirrors "Sorority Sister," with Tony trying to warn Angela about Jeff, but the set-up is very different.
• When Angela says that Tony is jealous, he dismisses the idea of him and her as a couple, but she means he's jealous of the time Jeff spends with Angela.  It seems that Angela is more jealous in that way though.

Nanette, who inspires the line "No, no, Nanette!", is played by Lana Clarkson, who was Sharon Gordon on Three's Company.  This is the first of a very impressive 117 WtB episodes directed by Asaad Kelada.