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Who's the Boss?

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  • Allegedly Optimistic Ending: Tony gives up what was practically his dream job (as a college baseball coach) because Angela was unhappy in the small college town Tony coached in, practically hitting the Reset Button.
  • Broken Aesop: In "Road Scholar," Sam has her heart set on attending Tate University, a super-selective California school - a fictional Stanford, perhaps. But when she meets with an alum for her admission interview, he almost immediately shoots down any hope she has of getting in by explaining that he met with a boy earlier that day who'd been off saving the world over the summer, and what has she done lately besides being a kid? Then he reminds her that there's an excellent university just down the street from her and maybe she should consider that instead. The intended Aesop seems to be that you shouldn't overlook great opportunities by focusing only on the very best, which isn't a bad lesson; but the real Aesop is that if you're not an absolute rock star in everything you do, you shouldn't even bother aiming high. And that's not even touching on the kind of financial backing that other boy must have had and which Sam, through no fault of her own, does not.
  • Genius Bonus: "Men Are People, Too," Mona seduces a guy using the Toreador Song from Carmen. Said guy, Ralph, was hired to install a skylight in the kitchen and didn't believe in mixing business with pleasure, so he had previously ignored Mona until she found out all of his likes (hard-working, family-oriented, opera lover) and pretended to be interested in the exact same things. They had one date and she dumped him for someone else, having only been interested in the challenge of a man who didn't immediately go running after her. This lead Ralph to temporarily leave the job half-finished as he was unable to be in the same house as Mona. The Toreador Song is the introduction of Escamillo, romantic rival of formerly honest, overly-dedicated soldier Don Jose. Don Jose was previously uninterested in Carmen, which made him extremely interesting to her. When he's tasked with arresting her for attacking another woman with a knife, she seduces him mainly in order to gain her freedom, convinces him to go AWOL and ultimately leaves him for someone more fun when he wants more of a commitment from her.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In the episode where Jonathan's first girlfriend gets a crush on Tony, he utters the line "I never want anything to do with girls again". Cute then, but it becomes utterly hilarious since Danny Pintauro came out.
    • Just like Tony Miceli, the real life Tony Danza also dabbled in teaching.
    • Similarly, the episode where Jonathan is a ballboy and is distracted enough by two girls for him to pick up a fair ball is quite funny due to that fact.
    • One time, Tony invited Sam's English professor over under the pretense of authenticating an autographed copy of Jane Eyre. The autograph is a forgery performed by Tony himself and not done very well. ("Bronte does not spell her name with a 'y'.") Given that Tony Danza would later teach an English class in real life, it's unlikely he'd make this mistake himself.
    • In the "Boozin' Buddies" episode, Tony had already punished Samantha for coming home drunk. But the next day when he entertains his friends by watching a boxing match on TV, he risks becoming a hypocrite around her when he drinks with them. So they drink (for awhile) something non-alcoholic such as lemonade. This was before hard lemonade was invented.
    • Foreshadowing Alyssa Milano's other noteworthy TV role, there's an episode from Season 2 called "Charmed Lives" that also takes place in San Francisco. Ironically, Alyssa herself, doesn't appear in the episode.
  • One-Scene Wonder: The "crazy Jets fans" in the Season 1 episode "Sports Buddies" clearly won the audience over with their chanting.
  • Retroactive Recognition: Jeri Ryan made her TV debut as the swimming instructor Pam in the 1991 episode "The Unsinkable Tony Micelli".
  • Shipping Bed Death: Though by the time Tony and Angela got together, this was more a symptom of the show's demise than a contributing factor.
  • Testosterone Brigade: Coaelesced firmly around Alyssa Milano.
  • Values Dissonance: These days the show's very title comes off as absurd; Tony is Angela's employee and their genders have nothing to do with it. This was mocked in Community when a professor in media studies devotes his career to analyzing the titular question, approaching it as some sort of philosophical conundrum, only for Abed to deflate him with a lengthy lecture about why Angela was, in every possible meaning of the word, unquestionably "the boss".
  • Values Resonance: The show features a stay-at-home Parental Substitute, a non-sterotypical intellectual Italian man and a middle-aged woman with a healthy social and sex life. Not bad for something from The '80s.

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