Too Close for Comfort was a television series which ran on the ABC network and in syndication from 1980 to 1986. It was modeled after the British series Keep it in the Family. Image File history File links Too_Close_for_Comfort. ... The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) operates television and radio networks in the United States and is also shown on basic cable in Canada. ... In the television industry (as in radio), syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast programs to multiple stations, without going through a broadcast network. ... See also: 1979 in television, other events of 1980, 1981 in television and the list of years in television. For the American network television schedule, please see 1980-81 American network television schedule. ... See also: 1985 in television, other events of 1986, 1987 in television and the list of years in television For the American network television schedule, please see 1986-87 American network television schedule. ... Keep it in the Family is a British comedy television series. ...

Background

The show starred Ted Knight and Nancy Dussault as Henry and Muriel Rush, owners of a duplex in San Francisco. Knight played a cartoonist, who was the author of a comic strip called Cosmic Cow. Their grown daughters, Jackie (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) and Sara (Lydia Cornell), had lived with them in their old residence but moved downstairs when the transvestite named Rafkin died suddenly in the first episode. Despite the daughters' minor push for independence, Henry proved to be a very protective father and meddled in their affairs constantly. Also seen was Sara's friend Monroe Ficus, played by homosexual actorJM J. Bullock. It was the dynamics between Henry and Monroe that would eventually become the core of the show. Ted Knight (December 7, 1923–August 26, 1986) was an American actor. ... Nancy Dussault (b. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Deborah Van Valkenburgh is an American actress. ... Lydia Cornell is an American actress. ... For a discussion of the history and current usage of the term transvestite, see transvestism. ... JM J. Bullock AKA Jim J. Bullock (born James Jackson Bullock on February 9, 1955 in Casper, Wyoming) is an American actor. ...

Second and Third Seasons

In the show's second year, Henry's wife Muriel (who on the show as in her 40s) announced she was pregnant. At the beginning of the third year, Muriel would give birth to Andrew - the son that Henry always wanted.

It was also in the second year that Henry's niece, April (Deena Freeman) came to live with the Rush family. April was written out of the show for the third year.

There were many references to Henry's mother-in-law on the show. That role of Iris Martin would eventually be played by Audrey Meadows, who would move in with the Rushes after Andrew's birth. Audrey Meadows (February 8, 1926 - February 3, 1996), born Audrey Cotter, was an American actress best known for playing the deadpan housewife, Alice Kramden in the 1950s American television comedy, The Honeymooners. ...

The Ted Knight Show

In 1986, a major change happened to the show. Henry quit his job as a cartoonist and became co-owner and editor of a newspaper in Marin County north of San Francisco. Muriel took a job as a photographer for the paper and Monroe went to work there, too. Jackie and Sara were written out of the show. Additionally, the other owner of the paper, Hope Stinson (Pat Carroll) and the Rush's maid, Lisa (Lisa Antille) were added. The show was retitled The Ted Knight Show. This show would be syndicated for one year, until Ted Knight announced that he had cancer. He died August 26, 1986, aged 62. See also: 1985 in television, other events of 1986, 1987 in television and the list of years in television For the American network television schedule, please see 1986-87 American network television schedule. ... Marin County (pronounced mah-RIN) is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. ... Pat Carroll (born May 5, 1927, in Shreveport, Louisiana) is an Emmy award winning actress. ... Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these cells to invade other tissues, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis. ... August 26 is the 238th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (239th in leap years). ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Trivia

• Ted Knight's character of Henry became famous for wearing sweatshirts of colleges and universities. Eventually fans would send in sweatshirts from universities around the country hoping to get Henry to wear them.

• The first two seasons of Too Close for Comfort have been released on Region 1 DVD.

• ABC aired reruns of the show in daytime at 11:00 a.m. (EST) from June to September 1983.

• In the first episode that featured "Monroe Ficus", it was actually Lydia Cornell (Sara Rush) who first suggested the famous "meatball" catch, where Ted Knight knocks one of Monroe's meatballs loose from the ceiling that had been stuck to it when the spagetti sauce he had been making exploded.

DVD (sometimes called Digital Versatile Disc, or Digital Video Disc) is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ...

External links

• Too Close for Comfort at the Internet Movie Database
• Buy the first season at amazon.com
• Jump The Shark - Too Close for Comfort
• Interview with Lydia Cornell on the podcast The Future And You (anecdotes about Ted Knight and Too Close For Comfort)

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about actors, films, television shows, television stars, video games and production crew personnel. ... The Future And You is a talk-show style podcast in which its host (the science fiction author Stephen Euin Cobb) interviews an assortment of authors, scientists, celebrities and pioneers of the future as to what they believe both the near future and distant future will be like for individuals...