History Series / TooCloseForComfort

* TearJerker: At the end of "For Every Man, There's Two Women" in one of the most unintentionally sad moments in sitcom history, Monroe thanks Henry, and tells him that it's nice to know that if this ever happens again, he will be there to help guide and protect him. Henry immediately tells him that next time this happens (read: Monroe gets raped), he's completely own his own.

* TearJerker: At the end of "for every man there's two women" in one of the most unintentionally sad moments in sitcom history, Monroe thanks Henry, and tells him that it's nice to know that if this ever happens again, he will be there to help guide and protect him. Henry immediately tells him that next time this happens (read: Monroe gets raped), he's completely own his own.

* LotteryTicket: The season six/''Ted Knight Show'' episode "Lisa Goes Lottery Loco", centers on Muriel, Lisa and Monroe trying to strike it rich by playing scratch-off lottery tickets, Lisa ends up getting addicted and secretly spends entire paychecks on multiple lottery scratch tickets.

** At the end of the episode "As the Cookie Crumbles", Henry turns Monroe over to an immigration agent who was looking for a busboy/student from Sara and Monroe's college, because of issues regarding his student visa (see ItGotWorse below). Apparently, Henry is annoyed by Monroe so much that he actually is willing to have him wrongfully deported (of course, Monroe appears again the next episode because StatusQuoIsGod).

* ItGotWorse: In season two's "As the Cookie Crumbles", Sara starts her own business selling cookies using her grandmother's recipe with the help of [[NewAgeRetroHippie cousin April]] and [[CloudCuckooLander Monroe]]. [[spoiler: In order to make a huge order, Monroe comes up with the idea to make the cookies in Henry and Muriel's kitchen upstairs, with the help of an immigrant student named Juan, whose only English is the word "you finished?" (he works as a busboy, incidentally) and makes a mess of the kitchen. Henry and Muriel come home from a convention after talks to syndicated Cosmic Cow fall through, and Henry is shocked to discover the kitchen in disarray, then gives Sara, Monroe, April and Juan a military-style dressing down. Henry finds out that they failed to pay taxes for their $700 in sales, failed to charge a sales tax, and failed to get a business license. The Board of Health comes to the house to shut them down and fine them for failing to file a permit, a zoning officer fines them for operating a business without a license, a lawyer for the company that publishes Henry's Cosmic Cow comic calls asking to cease and desist the sale of Cosmic Cow cookies (which were made using cookie cutters Monroe made) with Henry being threatened with a copyright infringement lawsuit; and an immigration agent comes over to take Juan because of issues regarding his student visa (only Henry turns Monroe over to the agent try and have him deported). With the fines they rack up and the money they owe Henry, the foursome are left with just $50.]]

* TheNamesTheSame: After ''TheMaryTylerMooreShow'' ended, Knight starred in an unrelated short lived ''The Ted Knight Show'' in which he starred as the owner/operater of an escort service.

* DidNotDoTheResearch: The episode "Miss Marin Bugler" (from the final season, when the series was known as ''The Ted Knight Show'') involved the winner of a beauty pageant organized by Henry to drum up publicity in the ''Marin Bugler'' newspaper, having nude pictures taken of her when she was only 17 being potentially released and Henry blackmailed to pay money in exchange for the photos not to be released. The episode fails to acknowledge that taking nude photographs of anyone under 18 constitutes as felony child pornography in the United States. The fact the photos were in the possession of Henry and his boss Hope (who both own and are editor/publisher of a newspaper, respectively) makes it very problematic (they do find the photos scandalous though, and dislike the fact that the young woman was exploited like that at such a young age). The photographer who took the photos and the person who blackmailed Henry into paying him off to prevent the photos from being released could have also faced charges as well (the photographer for taking the photos, and the blackmailer for extortion and possession of child pornography).

'''''Too Close for Comfort''''' is a [[DomCom family sitcom]] that originally made its debut on the {{ABC}} network on November 11, 1980. The series was adapted from the ThamesTelevision sitcom ''KeepItInTheFamily'' (which debuted nine months before ''Too Close'' made its U.S. premiere) from Brian Cooke, who also created the American series with the help of Arne Sultan and Earl Barret, the latter two served as the series' showrunners for the first four seasons. Don L. Taffner (who died in 2011), had successfully helped adapt another Thames sitcom ''ManAboutTheHouse'' into ''ThreesCompany'', and also produced this series.

* ChannelHop: From {{ABC}} to first-run syndication.

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* RapeAsComedy: In the episode "For Every Man, There's Two Women" from season five (originally produced for season four), Monroe fails to come home the previous night, and the Rush family wonders where he is. When Monroe does return that morning, he tells the family that he was approached and abducted by two women (later shown to be a short overweight blonde, and a very husky, taller brunette), who take him to their apartment and have their way with him the entire night. Jackie, Sara and Muriel do not think the police will take his story seriously, [[RapeIsOkayWhenItsFemaleOnMale since the sexual assault happened to a man]] and not a woman. Henry though, believes that justice should be served, and when the Rush women's assumptions are proven true (an officer tries to convince Monroe not to press charges in order to avoid a potential spectacle such a case would make), he and Monroe proceed to find and capture the women themselves. [[spoiler: When they go to the scene of the crime and see the short, overweight blonde suspect, Monroe runs off to call the police, leaving Henry behind; she tries to have his way with him, but Henry escapes their advances [[spoiler: and the women are taken into police custody.]] [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming Monroe then tells Henry he can depend on him the next time if he needs him]], but [[SnapBack Henry then immediately tells Monroe the next time he gets himself into a jam, he's on his own]]. Why? Because StatusQuoIsGod.

* CloserToEarth: Henry, most of the time; Muriel and Jackie, as well. And Hope Stinson, after she is introduced during the ''Ted Knight Show'' run. All of them are down to earth, particularly by comparison with Monroe. {{YMMV}} on Sara.

* TheWoobie: Monroe, given how his parents and Henry treat him, {{YMMV}} though whether he actually just shrugs it off.

** When the show was rebranded as ''The Ted Knight Show'', the scenes featuring panoramic shots of San Francisco were replaced with scenes of Marin County (where the show was set during the sixth and final season). Incidentally in syndication, the portion of that title sequence replaces the ''Ted Knight Show'' logo with that of the title logo used when the show was named ''Too Close for Comfort'' (given the retroactive retitling of the ''Ted Knight Show'' episodes under the ''Too Close'' banner for syndicated reruns after Knight's death in 1986).

* LotteryTicket: The season six/''Ted Knight Show'' episode "Lisa Goes Lottery Loco", centers on Muriel, Lisa and Monroe trying to strike it rich by playing scratch-off lottery tickets, Lisa ends up getting addicted and secretly spendes entire paychecks on multiple lottery scratch tickets.

* RealLifeRelative: "The Runaway" guest stars Ted Knight's real life daughter Elyse Knight as Sam, a runaway girl from Florida who Monroe lets stay in his apartment to help with the rent.

** Henry's tendency during the ABC run to start stammering at a shocking sight or sentence (such as "Mu... Mu... Mu... Muriel!" in the episode "The Location", when he sees [[ItMakesSenseInContext a giraffe outside his window]]).

* TitleSequenceReplacement: Syndicated reruns of the ABC run of the series replace the opening titles with those from the season that ran chronologically after the season the episode actually aired. Several season one episodes used a truncated version of the season two credits (minus Jim J. Bullock) with the version of the theme used from seasons 2-4; and several season two use a truncated version of the season three opening titles. This can be confusing if one sees back-to-back syndicated episodes from the same season using two different versions of the opening titles.
** When the show was rebranded as ''The Ted Knight Show'', the scenes featuring panoramics shots of San Francisco were replaced with scenes of Marin County (where the show was set during the sixth and final season). Incidentally in syndication, the portion of that title sequence replaces the ''Ted Knight Show'' logo with that of the title logo used when the show was named ''Too Close for Comfort'' (given the retroactive retitling of the ''Ted Knight Show'' episodes under the ''Too Close'' banner for syndicated reruns after Knight's death in 1986).

** [[CrowningMomentOfFunny The piece de resistance of the trope]] for this show occurs in the episode "Rafkin's Bum", when Monroe buys a turkey for Thanksgiving, that is still alive:

* {{Thanksgiving}}: Two Thanksgiving episodes aired during the ABC run: Season two's "Rafkin's Bum" and season three's "A Thanksgiving Tale".

* Oddly, this was Henry trying to break the news to him gently.

TedKnight starred in the series as cartoonist Henry Rush, who illustrated a comic called Cosmic Cow. Henry is a married father with two young adult daughters [[OnlySaneMan Jackie]] (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) and [[BlondBombshell Sara]] (Lydia Cornell), Henry's wife Muriel (Nancy Dussault) is a former singer-turned-professional photographer. The family lives up in the top floor of a San Francisco duplex that the two elder Rushes own; Myron Rafkin, the man who rented the apartment on the bottom floor of the house suddenly dies, only for the family to discover [[DudeLooksLikeALady that he's been living a secret life as a transvestite]]. Jackie and Sara decide with the apartment now vacant that they should live in it, Henry is hesitant at first but since it is the only place the girls can afford, he eventually lets them move in at the end of the PilotEpisode.

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* ElmuhFuddSyndwome: In the episode "Rafkin's Bum", a man named Wendell Balaban (a former lover of Mr. Rafkin's, [[spoiler: who is unaware until the end of the episode that the now-deceased Rafkin was not a woman, but a transvestite]], and appears in bum's clothing, [[spoiler: but is later revealed to be a very wealthy man]]) is introduced to Henry, who pronounces his name "Vendell" like he does, Wendell corrects him but transposes the "V"s for "W"s while doing so and vice versa:

* ElmuhFuddSyndwome: In the episode "Rafkin's Bum", a man named Wendell Balaban (a former lover of Mr. Rafkin's, who is unaware until the end of the episode that the now-deceased Rafkin was not a woman, but a transvestite, and appears in bum's clothing, [[spoiler: but is later revealed to be a very wealthy man]]) is introduced to Henry, who pronounces his name "Vendell" like he does, Wendell corrects him but transposes the "V"s for "W"s and vice versa:
--->'''Henry:''' "It's, uh.. It's a pleasure [meeting you], Vendell."
--->'''Wendell:''' "Not 'Vendell', 'Wendell' (''still pronouncing it as "Vendell"''). With a 'wubble-u' ("W"), not a 'wee' ("V")."

* DisproportionateRetribution: Henry has done this to Monroe a time or two throughout the show. In the episode "Brotherly Hate", Henry does not tell Monroe that the cheesecake he baked had arsenic in it (turns out arsenic wasn't an ingredient in the "Cheesecake Mischak" Monroe made, as he couldn't find any to put it in the cake, though he doesn't realize the recipe from a cookbook of Mr. Rafkin is used to kill rats). Muriel walks into the door, and stops Monroe from taking a bite. Henry claims he just wanted to see how far Monroe would get to eating it.

* DudeLooksLikeALady: Though he's never seen, given he died just before the timeline of the show started, Myron Rafkin (the man who rented out the downstairs apartment that Jackie and Sara move into at the end of the PilotEpisode) was living a secret life as a transvestite.

* CourtroomEpisode: "Deadline for Henry" constitutes as this, though only one scene is set in a courtroom. Henry gets called in for jury duty, his boss Mr. Wainwright, wanting to avoid any problems associated with a possible newspaper strike, orders Henry to come up with next week's comic strip. [[spoiler: Henry stays up all night writing and draing, leading him to falling asleep in court the next day and accidentally misinterprets a note given to the jury containing a dirty phrase that the plaintiff claimed the defendant said to her (she couldn't say it out loud, so she wrote it down on paper instead) as a come-on by a female juror sitting next to him.]]
* ClipShow: Season five's "These Stupid Things Remind Me of You"

* StupidestThingIveEverHeard: Even if Henry doesn't say it to Monroe, we know he's thinking it whenever Mornoe says something absurd.

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