Threes Company

"lifestyle" against which, ironically, neither discrimi- nated by refusing housing. Though Jack was a hetero-

sexual with many girlfriends, he masqueraded as an rí

effeminate "man's man" around the near-sighted 1 Roper. who called him "one of the girls," and Furley.

who often tried to "convert" him; this comic device ,4444. played heavily at first hut was toned down consider- r ably by the show's fourth season. When out of Roper's t° and Furley's reach. Jack and his upstairs buddy. Larry .N ' Dallas (Richard Kline). leered at and lusted after every female in sight, including, in early episodes, Janet and Chrissy. Chrissy. especially, was prone to bouncing around the apartment, braless, in tight sweaters, when she was not clad in a towel, nightie. short -shorts, or bathing suit. The irony here was that even though sex Three's Company. Joyce DeWitt, John Ritter, Suzanne Somers. was so ingrained in the Three's Company conscious- 1977-S4; first season. Courtesy of the Everett Collection ness, nobody on the show ever seemed to he actually engaging in intercourse, not even the show's only mar- ried characters, the sex -starved Helen Roper (Audra Lindley) and her impotent handyman husband. Stan- same way that CBS's All in the Family was in bigotry. ley. the butt of numerous faulty plumbing jokes. Therefore, show owners Ted Bergman and Don Three's Company's sexiness and libidinal preoccu- Taffner commissioned All in the Family Emmy- pation helped gain the show tremendous ratings and winning head writers and ./efercons producers Don media exposure. A February 1978 Newsweek cover Nicholl, Michael Ross, and Bernie West to rewrite the story on "Sex and TV" featured the trio in a sexy. pilot. The roommates. in Gelhart's script an aspiring staged shot. Sirte Minutes presented an interview with filmmaker and two actresses, took on more bourgeois Somers. who, in the tradition of Charlie's Angels' Far- jobs in the new pilot-Jack became a gourmet cooking rah Fawcett, became a sex symbol and magazine student, Janet a florist. and Chrissy an office secretary. cover -girl with top -selling posters, dolls, and other The female leads were recast (DeWitt was added for merchandise. TV critics and other intellectuals rallied the second pilot, and Somers for the third), the chem- against the show, calling its humor sophomoric, if not istry clicked, and ABC bought the series. insulting. Feminists objected to what they called ex- N ost critics called Three's Company an illegitimate ploitative portrayals of women (primarily' in the attempt to use the TV sitcom's new openness for its Chrissy character) as bubble -brained "sexpots." And own cheap laughs. However, Gerard Jones. author of while Three's Company was not as harshly condemned Honey, I'm Home! Sitcoms, Selling the American among conservative educators and religious organiza- Dream, notes that the minds behind Three's Company tions as its ABC counterpart Soap (a more satirical intelligently responded to the times. He suggests that comedy with a shock value so high that ABC almost producer Nicholl. Ross. and West recognized that delayed its premiere in the fall of 1977). it received even the highly praised work of producer Norman Lear low marks from the Parent-Teacher Association and "had always been simple titillation." The producers was targeted in a list of shows whose sponsors were to simply went a step further. They "took advantage of he boycotted. produced by Reverend Donald Wild- TV's new hipness" to present even more titillation "in mon's National Federation for Decency. completely undemanding form," thus creating "an in- Although Three's Company would become notori- genious trivialization that the public was waiting for." ous as titillation television. its origins are that of Although Three's Company jiggled beneath the thin British bedroom farce and "socially relevant" Ameri- clothing of titillation. the show was basically innocent can sitcoms. In 1976. M*A*S*H writer and producer and harmless, a contradiction that annoyed some crit- Larry Gelbart penned an initial Three's Company pilot ics. Its comedy. framed in the contemporary trapping script, borrowing scenario and characterizations from of sexual innuendo, was basically broad farce in the Thames Television's Man about the House. However, tradition of / Love Lucy, eery physical and filled with that pilot, with Ritter. Fell. Lindley. and two other ac- misunderstandings. (Lucille Ball loved Three's Com- tresses, did not sell. Fred Silverman, programming pany and Ritter's pratfalls so much she hosted the chief at ABC, requested a revamped pilot for a show show's 1982 retrospective special.) As fast -paced. pie - he believed would he a breakthrough in sexiness the in -your-face farce, Three's Company spent little time

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