Bring 'Em Back!

In this sitcom based on Christine Houston's play about the lives of black women residing in an apartment building in 1950s Chicago, Illinois. Marla Gibbs, who first shot to stardom for playing Florence Johnston, the sarcastic housekeeper to Louise and George Jefferson on The Jeffersons (1975), got her own series. Gibbs starred as tart-tongued Mary Jenkins. Her husband Lester (Hal Williams) was a construction worker and they had a teenage daughter, Brenda (Regina King). Pearl Shay (Helen Martin) was an annoying but open-minded neighbor who gossiped with Mary, and Rose Lee Holloway (Alaina Reed-Hall) was Mary's best friend, who lived in the building with her daughter Tiffany (Kia Goodwin) and was sympathetic to the neighbors. The landlord died in the pilot episode and Rose took his place until season four. Attractive, sassy vamp Sandra Clark (Jackée Harry) showed up later in the show's run.

A teenage genius deals with the usual problems of growing up: hanging out with his best friend, going to parties, finding his style, and finding and having a girlfriend--all on top of being a licensed physician in a difficult residency program.

Coach Graham Lubbock, his wife Elizabeth, and their eight kids move to Eureka, California so he can take a coaching job...at an all-boys' school. The boys are thrilled that his four beautiful daughters will be their new classmates; he is not so thrilled. Zany plots range from raffling off a date to taking a job at a slaughterhouse.

Phil Fish is a detective with the New York Police Department who moves into a house with his gravelly-voiced wife Bernice, and adopts five foster children: street-smart Victor, black hipster Loomis, shy Jilly, charmer Mike and youthful Diane. Charlie was the social worker shrink who dropped in from time to time to make sure everything was OK.

Herman Brooks is an aspiring writer working as a fact-checker at a publisher. While dealing with life in the big city, his inner thoughts are played out by four characters representing his intellect, fear, compassion, and lust. His "outer world" consists of a trivia-trove boss, two female co-workers, one mouse-ish and the other a social-climbing bombshell, and a best friend whose both a successful writer and a sexist pig.

Bill Davis is a highly paid and successful engineer living in a large apartment in New York with his valet, Mr. Giles French . His life is suddenly changed when his niece, Buffy shows up. In the midst of deciding what to do, Buffy's twin brother, Jody shows up, and Bill has to leave for Peru. Once he leaves, Buffy and Jody's older sister, Cissy shows up. Bill and French's life is suddenly changed as they become surrogate parents for the 3 children.

A group of girls attending a boarding school experience the joys and the trials of adolescence under the guiding hand of housemother Edna Garrett, the Drummonds' maid on Diff'rent Strokes. Later in the series, she is promoted to school dietitian, and four of the girls move into new quarters above the cafeteria. She eventually leaves the school and opens her own business, with help from the girls.

It's hard enough to raise a kid nowadays but when you have to cope with THESE kids, things tend to get out of hand! Dr Seaver, a psychologist and his wife Maggie Seaver, a journalist, try to do their best raising their family and although their kids, Mike, Ben, Carol and Crissie, cause them endless problems, they manage to keep the family close together. As long as they got each other, nothing else matters...

Roger, Rerun and Dwayne are three buddies growing up in Los Angeles. The three of them always have a penchant for getting into mischief and trying to find ways of getting rich quick. Almost always the trio's schemes wind up getting them into trouble and it is up to Roger's mother to get them out of it. Also, half of the time, the boys get into trouble because of Roger's bratty sister Dee.

This half-hour situation comedy centered on a small group of waitresses working at a first class restaurant. A stern female supervisor and a young male piano player are also added into the mix.

Thelma Harper and her spinster sister Fran open their home to Thelma's recently-divorced son Vinton and his teenage daughter and son, Sonja and Buzz. It's quite an adjustment for everyone, especially the cranky, argumentative Thelma, especially when Vinton becomes interested in pretty, sexy neighbor Naomi and marries her and moves her into Thelma's house.

Frank Lambert is a construction worker and a single father of 3 kids: J.T., Alicia "Al", and Brendan. Carol Foster, a beautician, also has 3 children: Dana, Karen, and Mark. After Frank and Carol run into each other on vacation and spontaneously get married, they and their children (who appeared to have known and hated each other) have to learn to live together and love each other. It's not easy, but they are trying to do this step by step.

Carl Kanisky is chief of police in Glenlawn, California. After the death of his wife, Margaret, he asks her friend, Nell Harper, to come in to keep house and take care of his children, Katie, Julie, and Samantha, in short, be like a mother to them. Later, Carl's father, Stanley, moves in. Around the same time, Nell takes in young Joey Donovan as her foster son.

When Marcy Bradford dies, she leaves her teenage daughter, Nicole, in the custody of a father she never met; or rather, two fathers - Michael, a straight-laced and formal man, and Joey, a wild artist. Both were Marcy's ex-boyfriends, and together, they provide a unique balance of parenting skills for Nicole.

Steven and Elyse Keaton, once 1960s radicals, now find themselves in Reagan-era America trying to raise a traditional suburban family. Their three first kids are Alex (a very ambitious Young Republican), Mallory (a ditzy and boy-crazy fashionista), and Jennifer (whom we first get to know as a precocious nine-year-old tomboy). Later on, a fourth child (Andrew) was added to the family. Most of the comedy arose from the conflict between the ex-hippie parents vs. the conservative Alex and the brainless beauty Mallory.

Widower Steven Douglas is left to bring up three boys with the aid of his father-in-law, Michael "Bub" O'Casey, and later Bub's brother, "Uncle Charley." The series revolves around the trials and tribulations of life's experiences as a single parent family.

Janet and Chrissy get Jack as a roommate for their Santa Monica apartment. Jack can cook (he's studying to be a chef) and, when called to do so, pretends he's gay to legitimize the arrangement. Landlady Roper wishes husband Stanley showed more interest in her.

One of television's all-time classic sitcoms, the Norman Lear-produced "Sanford and Son" debuted just three days after the one-year anniversary of Lear's fabulously successful, "All in the Family." Fred Sanford is a cantankerous 65-year-old, black, widowed junk dealer living in Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood. Helping him is his restless son, 34-year-old Lamont; Fred's beloved wife and Lamont's mother, Elizabeth, had died more than 20 years earlier. Fred's schemes and bigotry especially toward Julio, a Puerto Rican who was Lamont's friend, whites and other minorities often frustrated Lamont. Fred also showed overt disdain for his sister-in-law, Aunt Esther (the feeling was mutual). Many times, Lamont threatened to leave for meaningful work, but Fred faked a heart attack each time ("Oh, this time its real, I'm a-comin' 'Lizabeth!") as a sympathy ploy to get his son to stay. By 1977, Fred and Lamont had sold their business (stars Foxx and Wilson wanted to leave the series); it became the Sanford Arms, a rooming house. The show continued as the short-lived "Sanford Arms" (without Foxx or Wilson); it was revived in 1980 on CBS as "Sanford" (starring Foxx and without Wilson).