History Series / TooCloseForComfort

* {{Blackmail}}: The episode "Miss Marin Bugler" (from the final season, when the series was known as ''The Ted Knight Show'') involved a man named Ed Hugo, who threatened to release nude pictures of the winner of a beauty pageant (taken when she was only 17) that was organized by Henry to drum up publicity in the ''Marin Bugler'' newspaper. Henry is blackmailed by Hugo – who calls it a [[BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord "business proposition"]] – to paying money ([[spoiler: ultimately doing so, acing him out of the opportunity to purchase a sailboat]]) in exchange for preventing the photos from being released.[[note]]Interestingly, the episode fails to acknowledge that taking and distributing 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).[[/note]]

* {{Blackmail}}: The episode "Miss Marin Bugler" (from the final season, when the series was known as ''The Ted Knight Show'') involved a man named Ed Hugo, who threatened to release nude pictures of the winner of a beauty pageant (taken when she was only 17) that was organized by Henry to drum up publicity in the ''Marin Bugler'' newspaper. Henry is blackmailed by Hugo – who calls it a [[BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord "business proposition"]] – to paying money ([[spoiler: ultimately doing so, acing him out of the opportunity to purchase a sailboat]]) in exchange for preventing the photos from being released.[[note]]Interestingly, 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).[[/note]]

* {{Blackmail}}: The episode "Miss Marin Bugler" (from the final season, when the series was known as ''The Ted Knight Show'') involved a man named Ed Hugo, who threatened to released nude pictures of the winner of a beauty pageant (taken when she was only 17) that was organized by Henry to drum up publicity in the ''Marin Bugler'' newspaper. Henry is blackmailed by Hugo – who calls it a [[BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord "business proposition"]] – to paying money ([[spoiler: ultimately doing so, acing him out of the opportunity to purchase a sailboat]]) in exchange for preventing the photos from being released.[[note]]Interestingly, 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).[[/note]]

Creator/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 [[MsFanservice 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.

Jim J. Bullock (whose first name for unknown reasons was always abbreviated as "Jm." in all episodes he appeared in) was brought in three episodes into the series as [[CloudCuckooLander Monroe]] [[DropInCharacter Ficus]], a nutty classmate of Sara's who seems to constantly annoy Henry every time they meet. Season two also introduces April (played by Deena Freeman), Henry's hippie niece who stays with the Rushes during that season. At the start of season three, Muriel gave birth to a third child, a son named Andrew (who oddly though, was seen less often after Joshua Goodwin assumed the role of the youngest Rush in season five).

In 1983, after ABC cancelled the series following its third season because of a ratings dive it suffered that year, Metromedia (a predecessor to Creator/{{Fox}} and successor to Creator/{{DuMont}}) began producing the series for FirstRunSyndication starting in 1984. The show was then [[ReTool retooled]] for the sixth season in 1986 into ''[[TheEponymousShow The Ted Knight Show]]'', with only Knight, Dussault and Bullock returning, two new cast members added (Pat Carroll as Hope Stinson, majority owner of a newspaper Henry purchased a 49%/51% stake in, of which he was the minority owner and editor; and Lisa Antille as Lisa, Henry and Muriel's new maid) and its setting moved to Marin County, located north of San Francisco. The show continued to be successful under its new format, but did not go on for another season due to Knight's death from cancer that year with its final episode airing on September 27, 1986; all episodes of ''The Ted Knight Show'' were then [[RetCon retroactively retitled]] under the show's original ''Too Close for Comfort'' name.

!!This show provides examples of:
* AbusiveParents: Monroe's parents are this normally [[PlayedForLaughs for laughs]]. Examples include Monroe's parents excessive baking because of the stress he causes them, his father leaving Monroe nothing in his will, should he pass away and Monroe's parents not letting him visit them in Miami, where they moved just to get away from him. In the episode "Up Your Easter Bonnet", Monroe even states that his bizarre and irritating behavior even caused his dad health issues and baldness, that ended when he moved to Miami.

* CassandraTruth: In the season four episode "The Missing Fink," Muriel has her camera absconded by two men in suits, who she later finds out were FBI agents looking for Gilberto Cordova, a witness in a mob trial who faked his death five years earlier, whom Muriel once photographed inadvertently during a photoshoot. Against orders that she not say anything to anyone about it, Henry starts getting suspicious when she talks about Gilberto in her sleep, leading him to the wrong conclusion that she's cheating on him. Muriel tries to tell him otherwise, but he doesn't believe her story, considering how convoluted it sounds to him. The FBI agent, who visits Muriel at the house later on to inform her about the investigation, doesn't help matters by pretending to be a carpet salesman when Henry walks into the room and keeps the fake identity on when Muriel pushes him to tell Henry what's really going on. Muriel gives up and tells Henry that the agent was Gilberto when he asks. Henry finds out the truth the next day, when Muriel shows him a picture of the ''real'' Gilbero Cordova in the newspaper, after they find him; Henry then gets in one subtle jab ("Oh, Muriel, what did you ever see in him?").

* FromBadToWorse: 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 syndicate 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, didn't charge a sales tax and never applied for 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 to try and have him deported). With the fines they rack up and the money they owe Henry, the foursome are left with just $50.]]

* TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry: Jackie and Sara have occasionally had pretty serious fights with one another. The episode "The Prince and the Frog" even has a scene in which Jackie stains the dress Sara was going to wear on a date with a boy who had a crush on Jackie when they were younger (one she didn't even like when they were going out) with a pizza, Sara then proceeds to put said pizza slice into Jackie's purse, then Jackie throws out a record that Sara put on (that played through most of the sequence) out the door.

* HiddenDepths: As much as Monroe screws up, he is apparently a skilled redecorator. Henry is pleasantly surprised in the episode "A Matter of Degree", to find that Monroe actually wallpapered the nursery for Henry and Muriel's soon-to-be-born third child perfectly, with no creases on the walls or anything (though [[TakeOurWordForIt we don't actually get to see what it looks like]]); especially surprising considering Monroe accidentally slapped wallpaper on Monroe and Mr. Balaban (the owner of a local furniture store and friend to the family, who was visiting the house to give the elder Rushes furniture for the nursery) while he was taking the paste-covered wallpaper to the nursery.

* IdiotBall: Monroe grabs it, holds it, and doesn't let it go.

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: The show always credited Jim J. Bullock without the "i" in his first name, he was for some reason credited as "Jm M. Bullock" in his initial season one appearances; for the rest of the series, he was credited as "Jm J. Bullock".

* UnfortunateName: Actually unfortunate last name in the episode "Cosmic Cow vs. the Oval Office", as the woman in the unemployment office (where Henry goes to file for unemployment insurance after he is fired from his job) is named Mrs. Sexauer.

* TheEponymousShow: That is what the series became for its final season, when it was renamed ''The Ted Knight Show''; though in syndication, the ''Ted Knight Show'' episodes are changed to the ''Too Close For Comfort'' banner.

In 1983, after ABC cancelled the series following its third season because of a ratings dive it suffered that year, Metromedia (a predecessor to Creator/{{Fox}} and successor to Creator/{{DuMont}}) began producing the series for FirstRunSyndication starting in 1984. The show was then [[ReTool retooled]] for the sixth season in 1986 into ''[[TheEponymousShow The Ted Knight Show]]'', with only Knight, Dussault and Bullock returning, two new cast members added (Pat Carroll as Hope Stinson, majority owner of a newspaper Henry purchased a 49%/51% stake in, of which he was the minority owner and editor; and Lisa Antille as Lisa, Henry and Muriel's new maid) and its setting moved to Marin County, located south of San Francisco. The show continued to be successful under its new format, but did not go on for another season due to Knight's death from cancer that year with its final episode airing on September 27, 1986; all episodes of ''The Ted Knight Show'' were then [[RetCon retroactively retitled]] under the show's original ''Too Close for Comfort'' name.

* {{Adorkable}}: Monroe.

* MsFanservice: Lydia Cornell would often wear negligees during scenes set at night, cut high to show a whole lot of leg, and in a few episodes (and even in the season four opening credits), wear some pretty form-fitting shirts. The pilot episode even had one scene in which she was clad only in a towel.

* 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's 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, Nevel 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.

* NotWhatItLooksLike + MistakenForCheating: In the episode "A Friend in Need", Monroe is depressed with the fact that he's still a virgin, so Sara hires a sex surrogate for him. [[spoiler: After Monroe confuses Mrs. Rafkin for the surrogate and leaves before they do the deed, the ''real'' surrogate comes over and thinks Henry is Monroe; she then tries to have her way with him, only for Muriel to enter Jackie and Sara's apartment at the worst possible time, spots them and walks in the other direction. Henry then runs after his wife to explain the situation.]]

* PutOnABus: Jackie gets a job as an intern at a fashion design company in Milan in season five's "Arrivederci, Jackie", [[spoiler: though almost doesn't get the job because Henry misinterprets her potential new boss's offer to have her work for him to be a marriage proposal due to his imperfect English (besides the language barrier, the fact that Jackie didn't tell her dad that she was going to be working in Milan didn't help, either). After losing the job for his daughter, Henry eventually fixes things and Jackie gets the job, being sent off by her family with a going away party.]]

* RunningGag: Used intermittenly during the first season, Henry would fall off of the girls' ultra-modern chairs or couch that they inherited from former tenant Mr. Rafkin every time he attempts to sit down on them; this is even shown at the end of the opening credits for the first four seasons.

** ''Family Business'' was also a BackDoorPilot for a proposed spin-off that was to have revolved around two Italian brothers (one, an aspiring violinist; the other, an aspiring professional athlete), who end up taking over their late father's remodeling business at the request of their mother. ABC did not pick up the series for the 1983-84 television season, especially given it cancelled ''Too Close for Comfort'' after the episode aired (only for the latter to be picked up for first-run syndication the following year).

* 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 episodes from 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.

* [[TwoFirstNames Two Last Names]]: Monroe Ficus.
* TwoTimerDate: In "What's Wrong with Mr. Right?", A woman arrives and falsely accuses Sara for dating her husband. Turns out Jackie is the one dating the man (whom we never see), though she doesn't see anything wrong with it since he is separated from his wife. The man later calls his wife when she visits Jackie, to ask her to work things out, effectively ending his relationship with Jackie.

* WrittenInAbsence: Lydia Cornell (Sara Rush) is absent from the episode "Brotherly Hate", with her [[HandWave abscence explained]] as going on a ski trip with friends to Lake Tahoe.

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 [[MsFanservice 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.

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

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: "The Separation" has flashbacks to when Henry and Muriel were dating. They are listening to the Kennedy/Nixon debate on the radio. Henry thinks RichardNixon will win the election. "People want someone in the White House they can trust," he says.

* UnCancelled: Metromedia Producers Corporation, a television syndication division of Metromedia (which was bought by UsefulNotes/RupertMurdoch's NewsCorporation in 1986 to use its stations to form the original O&O group for the {{Fox}} network), decided to pick up the series for a fourth season and began producing first-run episodes for broadcast syndication in 1984 (Don Taffner's DLT Entertainment continues to hold the syndication rights); the show lasted three additional seasons as a syndie series.

* ObnoxiousInLaws: Henry's mother-in-law Iris (played by [[TheHoneymooners Audrey Meadows]]) is constantly ribbing on her son-in-law, she has never really warmed up to him.

* SyndicationTitle: After Ted Knight's death from colon cancer in 1986, DLT Entertainment syndicated the final season of the show, retitled as ''[[TheEponymousShow The Ted Knight Show]]'', as ''Too Close for Comfort'' (in line with the first five seasons, which feature three of the same characters/actors); reruns aired on Creator/AntennaTV starting in 2011, kept the ''Too Close for Comfort'' title for the ''Ted Knight Show'' episodes (odd considering the network aired fellow DLT series ''Three's a Crowd'' and ''Series/TheRopers'', both of which had their titles altered in their original syndication runs to fall in line with parent series ''ThreesCompany'', with the original program titles and opening themes restored).

* AsHimself: ''{{Garfield}}'' creator Jim Davis appears in an episode in which Henry gets the rights to publish the comic in the ''Marin Bugler''.

* TheCastShowoff: Nancy Dussault (Muriel Rush) is featured singing in at least one episode.

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

* TheDanza: Lisa in the final season.
* DawsonCasting: Deborah Van Valkenburgh started playing Jackie Rush (a 21-year-old at the start of the series) when she was 27 (she was 28 when the series first premiered).
** Surprisingly averted with Lydia Cornell, who started playing Sara Rush (who was 18 years old at the start of the series) when she was 17 (she was 18 when the series first premiered).

* OutOfOrder: "For Every Man, There's Two Women", "Finders Keepers" and "These Stupid Things Remind Me of You" were all aired during the fifth season, but were produced for the fourth season.

* 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. Elyse Knight also appears in the episode "Freddy Loves It, We Love It, You're Cancelled", as another character.

* ScrewedByTheNetwork: Perhaps an unintentional screwing by ABC. For the 1982-83 season, the Alphabet Network moved the series to Thursday nights, paired alongside sitcom bombs like ''JoanieLovesChachi'', ''Star of the Family'' and ''It Takes Two''; ratings for the show plummeted as a result of the move and the show got canceled by ABC at the end of the season.

* [[TheCharacterDiedWithHim The Show Died With Him]]: Ted Knight died from colon cancer in August 1986, effectively ending the show's run without a proper series finale.

* YouLookFamiliar: Lisa Antille played two different characters, both of whom had a heavy Latin accent and worked as the Rushes' maid: in the season five episode "No Mas, Monroe", Antille plays Evon, a woman from a war-torn Central American country whose work visa is about to expire that Monroe falls in love with, ends up dating, and decides to marry in order for her to stay in the U.S. (they don't get married, and Lisa only accepted his proposal to marry in order to stay in America, and wasn't ''in'' love with Monroe). When the series became ''The Ted Knight Show'', Antille played [[TheDanza Lisa]], who had a mutually flirty relationship with Monroe.

* AManIsNotAVirgin: Averted in the episode "A Friend in Need", centering on Monroe's struggles with still being a virgin, leading him to see a psychologist for help. The psychologist suggests Monroe hire a sex surrogate to solve the problem, [[spoiler: but HilarityEnsues when Monroe mistakes Mrs. Rafkin for the surrogate, though he does not go through with it in the end; the surrogate then arrives and mistakes Henry for Monroe.]]

'''''Too Close for Comfort''''' is a [[DomCom family sitcom]] that originally made its debut on the Creator/{{ABC}} network on November 11, 1980. The series was adapted from the Creator/ThamesTelevision sitcom ''Series/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 ''Series/ManAboutTheHouse'' into ''Series/ThreesCompany'', and also produced this series.

* HeyItsThatGuy!: Ted Knight is probably most recognizable as egocentric news anchor Ted Baxter on ''TheMaryTylerMooreShow''.

* UnCancelled: Metromedia Producers Corporation, a television syndication division of Metromedia (which was bought by RupertMurdoch's NewsCorporation in 1986 to use its stations to form the original O&O group for the {{Fox}} network), decided to pick up the series for a fourth season and began producing first-run episodes for broadcast syndication in 1984 (Don Taffner's DLT Entertainment continues to hold the syndication rights); the show lasted three additional seasons as a syndie series.

* GeorgeJetsonJobSecurity: Subverted in the episode "Cosmic Cow vs. the Oval Office", [[spoiler: when Henry is fired by Mr. Wainwright when he refuses to publish an apology for a recent Cosmic Cow comic strip that pokes fun at President RonaldReagan. He goes to file for unemployment compensation, but doesn't go through with it; he then decides to pursue his passion for painting (which doesn't go well when Monroe accidentally destroys the picture he painted of him as a Roman warrior). Wainwright sends his female limousine driver Regis (whom he sent earlier in the episode to inform him of his firing) to the house to tell him he is rehired after learning that President Reagan liked the piece for its satire.]]

'''''Too Close for Comfort''''' is a [[DomCom family sitcom]] that originally made its debut on the Creator/{{ABC}} network on November 11, 1980. The series was adapted from the Creator/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.

* SyndicationTitle: After Ted Knight's death from colon cancer in 1986, DLT Entertainment syndicated the final season of the show, retitled as ''[[TheEponymousShow The Ted Knight Show]]'', as ''Too Close for Comfort'' (in line with the first five seasons, which feature three of the same characters/actors); reruns aired on Antenna TV starting in 2011, kept the ''Too Close for Comfort'' title for the ''Ted Knight Show'' episodes (odd considering the network aired fellow DLT series ''Three's a Crowd'' and ''Series/TheRopers'', both of which had their titles altered in their original syndication runs to fall in line with parent series ''ThreesCompany'', with the original program titles and opening themes restored).

* HeyItsThatGuy!: Ted Knight is probably most recognizable as ego-centric news anchor TedBaxter on ''TheMaryTylerMooreShow''.

In 1983, after ABC cancelled the series following its third season because of a ratings dive it suffered that year, Metromedia (a predecessor to {{Fox}}) began producing the series for FirstRunSyndication starting in 1984. The show was then [[ReTool retooled]] for the sixth season in 1986 into ''[[TheEponymousShow The Ted Knight Show]]'', with only Knight, Dussault and Bullock returning, two new cast members added (Pat Carroll as Hope Stinson, majority owner of a newspaper Henry purchased a 49%/51% stake in, of which he was the minority owner and editor; and Lisa Antille as Lisa, Henry and Muriel's new maid) and its setting moved to Marin County, located south of San Francisco. The show continued to be successful under its new format, but did not go on for another season due to Knight's death from cancer that year with its final episode airing on September 27, 1986; all episodes of ''The Ted Knight Show'' were then [[RetCon retroactively retitled]] under the show's original ''Too Close for Comfort'' name.