Vicini troppo vicini

This was a break out hit for its time. Fans of the old Mary Tyler Moore Show knew that Ted Knight was a valuable talent, and changing him from an unbearable idiot newsman to an overprotective likeable father of two gorgeous daughters was a great stretch for him. One made even more likeable by making him a cartoonist for the fictional Cosmic Cow cartoon. Making the series even more enjoyable was the casting of sexy Lydia Cornell and adorable Deborah Van Valkenburgh as his daughters who tried to prove that they could live on their own in the bottom half of their duplex. The jokes ran rampant over Cornell's incredible figure: "Don't overload the washing machine again." "It was Jackie's blue jeans that did it." "It wasn't my jeans; it was your bra !" The series probably would have worked equally as well as a vehicle more for the daughters than Knight as Jackie contemplated cosmetic surgery for herself and Copley turned out to be smarter than her character, but then in walked one annoyingly grating actor named Jm J. Bullock. Hired for a one-shot performance as an idiot who followed Cornell home, he stayed and stayed and stayed and stayed..... The jokes got worse instead of better, and the show was given the final nail in the coffin by having the mom, played by Nancy Dussault, get pregnant. Reworking the show for syndication didn't help. The girls vanished, the baby became five years old and Bullock stayed to get in the way and ruin the show. What a lousy end to a once good show.

Ted Knight played cartoonist, Henry Rush, who lives with his photographer wife, Muriel, in a two family home in San Francisco, California. The series opens up with the loss of their downstairs tenant, Mr. Rafkin, who was a transvestite. Selma Diamond played his sister. Henry and Muriel's adult daughters, Jackie and Sara, lived with them in their two bedroom apartment upstairs. It would be sensible for the girls as they were called to move downstairs. The actresses who played the daughters were fine. Nancy Dussault is ideal as Muriel. Jim J. Bullock played the annoying Monroe Ficus. While there were plenty of memorable moments between Monroe and Henry, there were tender moments between him and Muriel and his daughters. Audrey Meadows joined the show as Muriel's adopted mother. There were lots of friendly, light moments mixed with heavy issues as well. But there was a general tenderness there that isn't in today's sitcoms.

I first saw "Too Close for Comfort" last fall as reruns on a local WLVI-TV in Boston.Ted Knight, in his last TV role, was excellent in the role of Henry Rush, cartoonist of "Cosmic Cow". Oh sure.....I also thought Henry's wife Muriel and and two grown up daughters Sara and Jackie added comic relief but my all time favorite character has to be Monroe Ficus (JM J. Bullock) who was a very geeky and stupid person. He became a very big part of Henry's family in later episodes originally passed as Sara's student friend from college.

"Too Close For Comfort" is one of the best hilarious TV comedy series I have ever seen. When I first saw the show on a TV station in the northeast, it made me laugh a lot. That Monroe Ficus (Jim J. Bullock) is so funny, and the fact of the matter is the show could have stayed on the air a few years more, but due to the fact the main actor of the show, Ted Knight, who played Henry Rush on this show, and as anchorman Ted Baxter, on the "Mary Tyler Moore Show", had passed away in August of 1986 of Cancer, and that was a blow to both the TV series and also its favorite viewers. This show should be on syndication all the time, because this show is the best comedy show of the 1980's.

I used to watch this show back in the 80's, then watched all the re-runs, and still to this day watch it on video. The acting was great as Henry (Knight) was the over protective father with the ego who always clashed with clumsy Monroe Ficus (Jim J Bullock). This show dealt with lots of subjects and was very entertaining.

My favorite on the show was the daughters, both Sara (Lydia Cornell) and Jackie (Deborah Van Valkenburg). Both are beautiful and would steal any mans heart. Sara the blonde ditz is the one that most men would want, but I was intrigued by Jackie as a kid. She is smarter, more confident, more mature, and honestly prettier. Her black hair, pretty smile, and voice were very alluring. Her character as Jackie Rush was the prototype of the type of woman I dreamed about be married to when I got older. The blonde bimbo act can get dry after a while, but it was only an act as Lydia Cornell is a very bright woman in real life. Both these daughters were alway rebelling with their parent to be independent of them, yet always lived in the basement.

I truly miss this show as it was an all time 80's great in the ranks of Threes Company, Silver Spoons, Diff'rt Strokes, and others. How I miss the good old happy 80's. The show may be outdated, but the story lines are still good even in this day and age. Scary how we haven't really progressed by that much. Cell Phones and Internet don't really make the world go round and round.