Who's the Boss?: I Dream of Genealogy

Who's the Boss?: I Dream of Genealogy
ABC
February 20, 1990
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Clay Graham should've done a couple more drafts on this script.  While the story of Sam finding Tony's still alive grandfather, Anthony Romano (George O. Petrie, who has TV credits going back to The Honeymooners, but who last showed up on this blog as Mr. Williams in a final-season Three's Company episode), is touching, for some reason Graham decided to cut right to the chase and have the opening scene at the airport.*  And then when it turns out that this is the wrong Anthony Romano (with a daughter named Gina rather than Lina), Angela convinces Tony not to tell him and spoil their bonding, or Mr. Romano's with his "great-granddaughter."  Why couldn't Tony just explain and say that while they're not connected by blood, he's very fond of the old man and thinks of him as family anyway?  Instead, we have to wait for the final scene for that.

Mary Betten, who was Woman in Church on Mork & Mindy, plays Tony's mother's friend Mrs. Anna Camisa, presumably not the Anna Camisa who was pregnant a few seasons ago.  His mother's other friend, Mrs. Rose Laudicina, is played by Naomi Serotoff, who would return in the role.


*And this is one of those episodes that remind us of what innocent pre-9/11 times we were still in, with virtually no airport security.  But then wait till we get to the Ellen coming-out episode.