It's The '70s and a Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits inhabit the decaying Hotel Baltimore. When said building fails the safety inspection, the tenants now run the risk of getting evicted, which prompts them to try all sorts of hijinks among the (ab)normal fare of their lives.
The Hot l Baltimore is a Broadway play written by Lanford Wilson that first premiered in the Circle in the Square Downtown theater in 1973. It won the 1973 iterations of both the Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Playand the Obie Award for Best American Play.
In 1975, it got a Live-Action Adaptation as a controversial ABC Dramatic Half-Hour sitcom by Norman Lear. Although the play already has a Central Theme about the unwanted parts of the population, the series reinforces it in a way that was not up to the tastes of its time —the main cast contains two sex workers (of which one is an illegal immigrant) and an openly gay couple. Fortunately, the network still supported its airing and went all-out with the marketing. It sadly got canceled due to poor ratings after just one season.
Both the series and the play get their peculiar name because the E in the hotel's sign burnt out and was never replaced; a further symbol of the work's themes.
Tropes:
- Community-Threatening Construction: Initially, the hotel is targeted for demolition because it has decayed so much it's not safe to be inhabited; with no plans to build anything in particular. It's when a Japanese corporation decides to renovate it that this comes into play. Turning it into a hotel again means that it'll no longer be a rundown apartment complex where the poverty-stricken cast can live in.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Clifford gets the hotel declared a historical landmark to prevent its demolition. However, as it is now more valuable, a Japanese corporation wants to purchase it for renovations, which gets the tenants back to square one.
- I'll Be in My Bunk: A character who is implied to be gay by his "swish" demeanor and stereotypical gay mannerisms, mentions in one episode where he is "going into the toilet and meditate."
- Pull the Plug on the Title: Justified. The brief opening sequence of the TV show makes use of the fact that, canonically, the letter E of Hotel Baltimore's sign no longer lits due to disrepair. In a sense, the play's window card also qualifies because it also omits the E marquee.
- Signs of Disrepair: Both In-Universe, in the play's official posters, and during the series' title sequence, this is used as a way to show how run-down the building the characters inhabit is. The 'Hotel Baltimore' neon sign has the 'e' no longer functioning.
- The "The" Title Confusion: The TV adaptation is simply Hot l Baltimore, which makes many forget the play is called The Hot l Baltimore. In the end, both phrasings are used interchangeably.
