Benson

Love this show. It's such a time travel back to the 80s! Love the legendary Christmas episode the best with Benson Dubois belting out some serious Xmas tunes along with the whole cast. Wow that man can sing lol..Love the entire cast...Missy Gold is cute and such a great actress like her sister Tracy...Didi Conn episodes are awesome and that guy from Star Trek is cool. I love Inga too. Love the political humor as well. Try to catch it as much as I can on TV. Great theme song!

I watched Benson before I saw any episodes of Soap so I never knew the connection. I remember watching an episode with the lovely Katherine Helmond guest starring reprising her soap role. Her character's date ends up dead and it could be scandalous. Her character turns to Benson for help. Of course, he helps out rather than let his beloved friend in trouble. His character's rise from governor's head housekeeper to Lieutenant Governor is a bit unrealistic but he makes it believable for the audience. I remember him winning an Emmy. I think it's a first for an African American actor to win for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. I remember cast of characters including an understated actress named Inga Swenson who played Olga. Peter Noble who played the widowed Governor very well. Rene Aubernois who played Benson's nemesis. I won't write enemies because they weren't. I remember them being at odds with each other. I loved Didi Conn who played secretary and the man who played her on screen husband. They left before the show ended after 7 seasons. I also remember Missy Gold, Tracey's Gold's older sister, who played the Governor's daughter. I'm kind of sad that it's been twenty years since it left our airways. Friday nights were never the same on the ABC network. Good shows like Benson are hard to come by nowadays.

This was a show of all shows that was one of ABC-TV's brilliant Friday night lineup schedule back in the late 1970's and throughout the mid-1980's.The producers of this show(Paul Junger Witt and Terry Thomas) went on to create other successful series to follow like "It's A Living" and "The Golden Girls",and "Empty Nest",but "Benson" is one of their best works ever. This was actually a spin-off on a earlier show called "Soap" in which Robert Guillaume's character was changed from a household servant to Lt. Governor of a huge party of characters and so forth. The reason I watch this show was that of Robert Guillaume's character...He was witty,humorous and hilariously funny. The result made Robert Guillaume a household name not to mention putting this show at the top of the Nielsen ratings during it's run. His constant squabbles with Rene Auberjonois(Clayton Endicott) and Inga Swenson(one of Guillaume's fellow alumni from "Soap")not to mention Governor Gatling(James Noble) made that show was it was and it was the most funniest show on the air during its day. Over the course of the show's run,it was nominated for a total of 17 Emmys. It won two including Best Actor in a Comedy Series for Guillaume's second-to-last season portraying the title character,marking him second to The Jeffersons' Sherman Hemsley as the only African-American actor to win the award. The show lasted seven seasons on ABC-TV producing 158 episodes that aired from the debut episode on September 13,1979 and ending with the two-part series finale on April 19,1986. Most recently,the Antenna TV Channel has brought "Benson" back on the air after missing in action on television for merely a decade since it's original broadcast.

This was one of my favorite shows growing up. It was a rare example of a spinoff series being more successful than the original, as it spun off from Soap. Robert Guillaume was perfect as the wisecracking butler who assisted the meek governor for whom he worked in various aspects of his life, especially family and business. Benson is later appointed state budget director and then elected Lt. Governor. All in all, I sometimes miss this show due to its humor and characters.

Excellent series. Without a doubt, my favorite episode was when Robert Guillaume sang "O Holy Night" during one of the Christmas-time episodes. This was one of the best of this series, of which there were many fine episodes. Actually, the series finale was just weird in that we never found out who actually won the election. Perhaps though it is just as well. Another excellent episode was when Benson saved Krause's life by using the Heimlich Manuver. Years later a young child (maybe pre-teen, I forget) saved the life of a friend using this technique because this child saw this particular Benson episode. Amazing show by some very talented actors.