History Series / WhosTheBoss

* VisitByDivorcedDad: Frequently.

Widower Anthony Morton "Tony" Micelli (Danza) is a former second baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals who was forced to retire due to a shoulder injury. He wanted to move out of Brooklyn to find a better environment for his daughter, Samantha (Alyssa Milano). He ended up taking a job in upscale Fairfield, Connecticut as a live-in Maid for divorced advertising executive Angela Bower (Judith Light), and Tony and his daughter move in to the Bower household (which included her son Jonathan (Danny Pintauro) and her mother Mona (Katherine Helmond)).

* ActorAllusion: In one episode people keep questioning Tony if he's the guy from ''{{Taxi}}''.

* TheDanza: TropeNamer.

* ArsonMurderandJayWalking: In the episode "Car and Driver" (where Samantha takes Tony's delivery van for a joyride), there's a scene in which Tony, Angela, and Mona are in the kitchen and they hear tire squeaking. Apparently there's a punk kid who likes to speed down the road of the Bower residence. Tony decides he wants to finally catch the guy who's doing it. As they run to the front door to catch him...

* ArsonMurderAndJayWalking: In the episode "Car and Driver" (where Samantha takes Tony's delivery van for a joyride), there's a scene in which Tony, Angela, and Mona are in the kitchen and they hear tire squeaking. Apparently there's a punk kid who likes to speed down the road of the Bower residence. Tony decides he wants to finally catch the guy who's doing it. As they run to the front door to catch him...

* TheMagicPokerEquation: In the episode "When Worlds Collide" Angela wins loads at poker early on, and her son Johnathan gets four aces in the epilogue.

* SecondHandStorytelling: In the episode "Johnathan the Gymnast", they show Danny Pintauro wearing a cast and telling Judith Light about how he got it from a nasty gymnastics fall rather than showing the fall itself.

* ShooOutTheNewGuy: During the series' seventh season, the producers attempted to inject new life into the episode by adding a [[CousinOliver cute kid]] named Billy to the household; the explanation was that the kid, who was from Tony's old neighborhood in the Bronx, had been recently orphaned. The character was [[TheScrappy immensely unpopular]] with audiences; that, and Jonathan Halyalkar's inability to keep up with the more experienced cast's timing and pace (this was the 6-year-old's first acting gig), he was written out of the show at the end of the season. In the fall of 1991, it was briefly explaned that Billy had gone to live with another foster family.

* ThemeTuneCameo: In the episode ''Sit Down and be Counted'', nearly at the end of the episode the census worker says that he'd like to write a story based on the Bower-Micelli household. Tony is upset after the last question, and leaves with Angela to the movies. Three months later, Angela and Tony are sitting in front of the TV, watching "Hank the Housekeeper", heavily based on their lives, with the main female character named Andrea. At the end of the ShowWithinAShow, cue the instrumental theme song. Although it only lasted for a few seconds before the real theme song plays.
* TranquilFury: In the two-parter episode where Hank and Sam runs off to marry (without telling Tony).
-->'''Sam''': "His eyes! Look at his eyes!"
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Downplayed with Angela and Tony, but sometimes played straight. One episode has Angela drinking beer while watching a sports show while Tony sits next to her, reading a magazine (and a magazine about dress, at that).
** Played straight slightly more often between Sam and Jonathan.

* ShooOutTheNewGuy: During the series' seventh season, the producers attempted to inject new life into the episode by adding a cute kid named Billy to the household; the explanation was that the kid, who was from Tony's old neighborhood in the Bronx, had been recently orphaned. The character was immensely unpopular with audiences; that, and Jonathan Halyalkar's inability to keep up with the more experienced cast's timing and pace (this was the 6-year-old's first acting gig), he was written out of the show at the end of the season. In the fall of 1991, it was briefly explaned that Billy had gone to live with another foster family.
* Shoulders of Doom : Most of Angela and Mona's outfits. And how.

This series contained a number of role reversals unusual for the time period, such as a domestic setting where the woman was the breadwinner while the man stayed home and maintained the household. Additionally, the role of Angela's mother Mona as a sexually active older woman was quite unusual then. Also well known for its use of {{UST}}; the very slow-building romantic relationship between Tony and Angela was quite a rarity at the time.

* {{UST}}: Perhaps the {{Trope Codifier}}, along with ''{{Moonlighting}}''.

* TheNotSecret: See EveryoneCanSeeIt.

* TransatlanticEquivalent: Compare ''TheUpperHand'' (UK).

Widower Anthony Morton "Tony" Micelli (Danza) is a former second baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals who was forced to retire due to a shoulder injury. He wanted to move out of Brooklyn to find a better environment for his daughter, Samantha (Alyssa Milano). He ended up taking a job in upscale Fairfield, Connecticut as a live-in Maid for divorced advertising executive Angela Bower (Judith Light), and Tony and his daughter move in to the Bower household.

* GrandmaWhatMassiveHotnessYouHave: Mona.

* LampShadeHanging: In one episode people keep questioning Tony if he's the guy from ''{{Taxi}}''.

* ThePoochie: During the series' seventh season, the producers attempted to inject new life into the episode by adding a cute kid named Billy to the household; the explanation was that the kid, who was from Tony's old neighborhood in the Bronx, had been recently orphaned. The character was immensely unpopular with audiences; that, and Jonathan Halyalkar's inability to keep up with the more experienced cast's timing and pace (this was the 6-year-old's first acting gig), he was written out of the show at the end of the season. In the fall of 1991, it was briefly explaned that Billy had gone to live with another foster family.

* LampShadeHanging: In one episode people keep questioning Tony if he's the guy from ''{{Taxi}}''.

* SpecialGuest: In the episode "Hit the Road Chad", Ray Charles comes to the Bauers' to play a few songs.