227

Episodes usually begin with the daily gossip on the front stairs of 227. There was one episode featuring Sherman Hemsley; the character thought Mary was a maid and the two spar is if they were still on The Jeffersons together. Jackee Harry is wonderful as Sandra. The episode that caught my attention is on disc 2: "We The People." This story is about Lester's supposedly wealthy friend who becomes the building's maintenance man. He doesn't complete all jobs and wears the same shirt for many days. Pearl senses something fishy when the maintenance man's friends enter but don't leave the building. Pearl and Mary visit the man to figure out what is happening and the door is opened for Mary.

I love 227, being a teenager, I was introduced to it in syndication a few years back and fell in love with it and watched it weeknights alongside Different Strokes and Amen. It's one of the best 80s sitcoms and highly underrated. A wonderful cast especially Jackee, she 100% deserved that emmy. It jumped the shark, however around season 4 when Counters Vaughn's character was introduced (while I liked her you could tell that the show was declining). After the departure of Jackee it took a huge dive then left the airways a year later, but it still was good enough to watch.

This show was EXCELLENT for about the first two seasons....then they started messing with it. It became too socially conscious and in the process became almost unwatchable. It was hilarious when Mary and Sandra were enemies. When they became too friendly it just wasn't funny any more. I can name the episode when the slide began....When they introduced Countess Vaughn. It was straight downhill from there. Too bad. It had an excellent cast and much potential, but it wasted it trying to be too relevant. Then they had to go and add Stoney Jackson, Paul Winfield, Barry Sobel, and Toukie Smith. No offense to them, but the whole show was unraveling by that time. In the first two seasons, almost all the episodes were hilarious, but by the third season, there were only a handful that were good. The fourth and fifth season were abominable. I LOVE Marla Gibbs, but season 3-5 were substandard.

After Marla Gibbs left "The Jeffersons" she walked right into her own show: "227." 227 was the apartment number she lived in and it's where everything happened. It's where Pearl Shay (Helen Martin) sat at the window and clowned folks. It's where Sandra Clark (Jackee Harry) sassed it up. And it's where we got our first look at Regina King (she played the daughter, Brenda Jenkins) whose career is only getting stronger the older she gets.

"227" was another family favorite in our house. My mother tuned into it weekly and I enjoyed it as well. Not a whole lot happened on their stoop, but enough to make us laugh.

This show and Amen both aired on NBC. Both show featured the comic genius of two Jeffersons' alums, Sherman Hemsley, and Marla Gibbs. We all watched her play the wisecracking maid, Florence Johnston, on the Jeffersons. Now she shines in her own show but not without a great supporting cast. There is Emmy winning Jackee Harry as Sandra, her upstairs neighbor, or veteran actress Helen Martin as the nosy neighbor on the stoop. The show was named 227 after it's address. No it was set in Washington D.C. of all place, a nice change in location. Hal Williams played the ideal spouse to Marla Gibbs' husband. If you look, you will see Regina King who is on her way to becoming a star with credits like Jerry Maguire and Ray. It was a good show with wholesome family entertainment.