Who's the Boss?: Thanksgiving at Mrs. Rossini's

Who's the Boss?: Thanksgiving at Mrs. Rossini's
ABC
November 26, 1985
Sitcom
DVD
B

Aldredge & Bustany wrote this story that is significant for Tony & Angela's relationship, because of rather than despite it being mostly about his romance with someone else.  As the title suggests, the Bowers and Micellis go to the Rossinis' for Turkey Day.  (Mona is in the Macy's Parade as an elf.)  Mrs. Rossini has invited Gina, whom Tony hasn't seen since she was a little girl.  (Either she's much younger than Tony or she's been away awhile.)  Gina waits on Tony, and it's suggested that this is typical behavior for the old neighborhood.  Angela is disgusted, and then shocked when she walks in on Tony and Gina kissing in the kitchen.  (They don't see her.)

Angela has trouble sorting out her feelings about the old-fashioned "Neanderthal" Brooklyn Italian culture, and how Tony reverts to it, and about what is clearly her jealousy over Gina.  Tony doesn't get why she didn't hit it off with Gina or why she's reluctant to give him time off to spend in Brooklyn.  It's Mona that Tony tells he thinks of Gina as "not the type the girl you fool around with but the type of girl you marry."

With the Rossinis conveniently in Atlantic City, Gina has Tony over for dinner the next night.  But he realizes that not only doesn't she think he belongs in "her" kitchen (hey, Lady, you're a visitor, too), but he can't joke around with her like he does with Angela in the opening scene.  He returns to Connecticut early and he and Angela talk about how even though Gina is sweet, beautiful, and a great cook, he wants someone he can talk with and whose life wouldn't center around him.  Danza, Light, and the writers walk a tightrope here, but Tony can't completely admit, perhaps not even to himself, that Angela is the type of woman he wants now, and the closest it gets when he says he wants somebody like, and then pauses, so she suggests Meryl Streep.  He says, "Yeah, like Meryl Streep."

This time Betty White provides the voice of the Macy's Parade Hostess.  Bill Erwin, who was Jason's father the previous season, has his middle WtB role as Santa Claus from the parade.

We meet Mrs. Rossini's nuclear family, I think for the only time, and her father-in-law is named Joseph, her husband Joe (played by Ric Mancini, who was Sergeant Hodkey on M*A*S*H, two different characters on The Bob Newhart Show, and Mr. Lawrence on What's Happening!!), and her son Joey (boxer Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, I'm not sure what relation to Ric, but he'd be back once more in this role), while Joey's pregnant wife is Theresa (not the one who works at Marty's Melody Room, and in fact this actress, Donna Ponterotto, had played Danza's sister in the 1981 movie Going Ape!).