nick at nite

Ralph Kramden is a New York bus driver who dreams of a better life. With his eccentric good friend, Ed Norton the sewer worker, he constantly tries crackpot schemes to strike it rich. All the while, his exasperated wife Alice is always there to bring him down to earth--or to pick him up if he beats her to it. For as much as they fight, even dunderhead Ralph knows that she is the greatest and vice versa, despite his constant threats of domestic violence.

Judge Harold T. Stone presides over "Night Court", a court which deals with petty crimes which can be dealt with in a dime-a-dozen manner. Invariably, the cases appearing before the court are bizarre, but that's ok because Judge Stone is not your regular judge. He's assisted by a motley crew of clerks and District Attorneys who often create as much chaos as the criminals they bring in for trial.

Danny Williams, a successful nightclub singer, encounters a variety of difficult or amusing situations in trying to balance his career with his family: his outspoken second wife Kathy, teenage daughter Terry and son Rusty from his first marriage and Kathy's young daughter Linda and Danny's old-fashioned Uncle Tonoose. Later episodes feature Annette Funicello as a foreign exchange student from Italy. Most episodes conclude with a song by Danny or one of the children. Affection expressed as hostility ("I love you, you little jerk") and ironic humor characterize this show.

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.

The Cleavers are the 1950's 'All-American Family' in this 'feel-good' family sitcom. Parents Ward and June, and older brother Wally, try to keep Theodore ('the Beaver') out of trouble. However, Beaver continues to end up in one kind of jam or another. Unlike real life, these situations are always easily resolved to the satisfaction of all involved and the Beaver gets off with a few stern moralistic words of parental advice. Instigator and troublemaker Eddie Haskell is an older kid who always manages to avoid being caught.

Barney Miller is the kind of cop we'd all like to run into. He is always sensible. He maintains order over a squad room of detectives who gamble for a hobby, get hit on by anything in skirts, go to renaissance philosophy conventions for fun, and would really prefer to be writing. Nearly all of the action takes place in the squad room where the citizens and criminals are brought in to complicate the mix.

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.

Rob Petrie is the head writer for the television sketch comedy, the Alan Brady Show, starring the egotistical Alan Brady. Rob's appointment started off as being a controversial one, especially to his two co-writers, the more experienced Buddy Sorrell and Sally Rogers, who end up becoming his friends regardless. Rob has to balance his New York City work life with his New Rochelle home life with wife Laura Petrie, who he met while he was in the army and she a dancer with a USO troupe, and their young son Ritchie. Although largely content in her roles as housewife and mother, Laura on occasion aspires to her former dancer life, which places added complications into the marriage.

Henry and Kip are two advertising designers who had a real problem with finding a place to live. At the beginning, the sole place they could afford was condemned, but they only found out when the wrecking ball was smashing up the place while they were sleeping. A female friend suggested they stay at her building, but the snag is that the place is for women only. In desperation, they assume the identities of the women Hildegard and Buffy in order to rent a room. Now as they pursue their dream of success in the ad business, they also struggle to keep their deception at the apartment building so they won't be evicted, but the beautiful neighbours they have are a constant temptation.

Dick Loudon (Bob Newhart) and his wife Joanna (Mary Frann) decide to leave life in New York City and buy a little inn in Vermont. Dick is a how-to book writer, who eventually becomes a local television celebrity as host of "Vermont Today". George Utley (Tom Poston) is the handyman at the inn, and Leslie Vanderkellen (Jennifer Holmes) is the maid, with ambitions of being an Olympic Ski champion; she is later replaced by her cousin Stephanie (Julia Duffy), an heiress who hates her job. Her boyfriend is Dick's yuppie television producer, Michael Harris (Peter Scolari). There are many other quirky characters in this fictional little town, including Dick's neighbors Larry (William Sanderson), Darryl (Tony Papenfuss), and Darryl (John Voldstad)...three brothers who buy the Minuteman Café from Kirk Devane (Steven Kampmann). Besides sharing a name, Darryl and Darryl never speak, until the final episode.

Ann Marie is a struggling actress living in New York City. In between trying to find jobs acting and modeling she has time for her boyfriend, Don Hollinger, and her dad, Lew Marie.

Lucy Carter's a widow with 2 teenage kids; -Kim and Craig, living in LA. She works as secretary to her brother-in-law Harrison Otis "Carter, owner of an employment agency. Lucy's manner often causes her to stumble into embarrassing slapstick situations, much to the chagrin of her best pal Mary Jane.

A greasy-spoon diner in Phoenix, Arizona is the setting for this long-running series. The title character, Alice Hyatt, is an aspiring singer who arrives in Phoenix with her teen-age son Tommy, after the death of her truck-driver husband. Alice is hired at a diner owned by Mel Sharples, a gravel-voiced, male-chauvinist fry cook. She waitresses at Mel's Diner while awaiting her big break. Her fellow waitresses are raucous redhead Flo and naïve Vera. Flo is later replaced by Southern blonde Belle, who is soon replaced by spunky curly-haired Jolene. Alice and her friends experience several interesting years together at Mel's Diner, which is frequented by quirky truckers, repairmen, and other blue-collar types, and by several Hollywood celebrities who appear as themselves.

After her husband's death, Lucy Carmichael and her recently-divorced best friend Vivian Bagley move into a house together with their children. The series follows the adventures of the widow Lucy as she grapples with the comic complications of life on her own, with her income being controlled by impatient, grumpy banker Mr. Mooney.

Popular 1980s sitcom based on the Gwen Davenport novel "Belvedere," which in turn was thrice adapted to the big screen. Like its earlier novel and big-screen brethren, "Mr. Belvedere" featured British butler Lynn Belvedere, who takes a job as a live-in nanny for a typical American family and records their everyday experiences in his diary for future use in writing a novel. In the 1985 small-screen version, the Owens family served as that "typical American family" and the source of fodder for Belvedere, who had previously worked as a gentry for Winston Churchill and had connections to British royalty. Family patriarch George (played by sportscaster Bob Uecker) was, in an example of art imitating life, a sportswriter; the matriarch was Marsha, a law student. The couple, who had settled in suburban Pittsburgh, had three children: awkward teenager Kevin; precocious, easily-embarrassed Heather; and mischievous prankster Wesley. George was initially uncomfortable hiring the worldly Belvedere but eventually came to appreciate the Englishman's friendship (as well as his expert culinary skills). Unlike his older siblings, Wesley never seemed to get along with Belvedere, but even he came to appreciate the British native's regularly-dispensed advice. Each episode ended with Belvedere writing in his journal, giving the show's moral while putting everything into perspective. In later years, Marsha graduated from law school and got her first job, and Kevin and Heather graduated from high school and entered college. The 1985 small-screen adaptation of "Mr. Belvedere" marked the end of a long succession of unsuccessful attempts to bring Davenport's novel to television; the three earlier pilots were made in the 1950s (soon after the final big-screen movie) and 1960s.

In this spinoff of "Soap," Benson DuBois is sent out West to serve as butler to widowed state governor Gene Gatling, an honest but bumbling servant of the people. Although he has his rivals in German maid Kraus and persnickety aides Clayton and Taylor, Benson, armed with an acerbic wit and plenty of smarts, becomes the Governor's close friend and helper, and eventually is elected Lieutenant Governor.

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.