The Ropers

Just finished a month-long nostalgia kick: all eight seasons of Three's Company, two seasons of The Ropers, and the sole season of Three's a Crowd.

The Ropers is too often maligned, often making Internet lists for "Worst Spin-Off" or "Top Ten Terrible Spin-Offs." Make no mistake. The Ropers is no disaster like Joanie Loves Chachi or AfterMASH. In fact, The Ropers is quite palatable; often, it is hilarious. Norman Fell and Audra Lindley are terrific as always, and Jeffrey Tambor shines (thanks to his bald crown, of course) as the Ropers' uptight, upward-obsessed neighbor.

As others have stated, The Ropers may not be great. The couple are stronger in small doses. Still, the fact that this show lasted only a season plus six (season one is only six episodes) is a shame. The Ropers was a ratings smash for that first mini-season but tanked once it was switched to Saturday nights opposite CHiPS (why do television programmers do this?). It's a shame.

Concerns? As stated, Stanley/Fell and Helen/Lindley struggle to carry the weight of entire show, but what's really missing is a stronger supporting cast. Tambor is fantastic--don't get me wrong--but there's little else. Patricia McCormack is perfectly acceptable as Tambor's wife, and Evan Cohen is likable as the little boy, but Three's Company always boasted at least five strong characters, while The Ropers at times can feel claustrophobic: the two neighboring couples and not much else.

I don't know much about the history of The Ropers' ratings, but my guess is the addition of Stephanie Vallance as Jenny in the last ten episodes or so was a desperate attempt to inject a new storyline. This gambit is understandable, but Jenny, a young adult runaway with a heart of gold who moves in with the Ropers as their surrogate child of sorts, makes for an odd addition. Jenny is perfectly anodyne, and that's the problem. The show desperately needs another character or three, but only if that character is A) interesting and B) funny.

The Ropers deserved a better fate. It's certainly a good enough show to last four or five seasons. It's equally as good as, and often better than, other sitcoms that enjoyed healthy runs. And who knows? Given a chance to grow, The Ropers might have blossomed into something beyond its surface pleasures. Oh well.

Gaining widespread popularity from the hit sitcom "Three's Company", producers looked to give the Ropers (Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, respectively) their own series. The result is this short-lived spin-off (itself based on "George and Mildred", the British spin-off of "Man About the House", on which "Three's Company" was based). True to their characters, Lindley was excited for the opportunity while Fell was reluctant to leave a good role on a proven hit show. He was finally won over by a promise from the producers to give the show a year, and if canceled before that, they would return to their roles on "Three's Company". However, the legendary Don Knotts had come on board to replace the Ropers, and became a highly popular character in his own right. "The Ropers" ran for 28 episodes over two short seasons in 1979-80. The sitcom finds Stanley and Helen having sold their apartment building to move into a more luxurious locale in the affluent neighborhood of Cheviot Hills. Unlike her husband, Helen tries hard to fit in. Stanley is often at odds with their realtor, next-door neighbor Jeffrey P. Brooks III (Jeffrey Tambor), while Helen befriends his wife Anne (Patty McCormack) and their seven-year-old son David (Evan Cohen).

Make no mistake, the Ropers are beloved characters of television. But, they thrive in short bursts or working off top talent, as the case with John Ritter and "Three's Company". A show revolving around them was a struggle to ever find a way to takeoff. The kept their character traits, but the writing was prone to weak plots. The comedy was there, however, and at times hilarious. In some episodes there are two plots- a storyline with the Ropers and a completely unrelated one with the Brookes. Unlike a show such as "Seinfeld" where the different storylines ingeniously connect, the ones presented here sometimes exist well apart from one another. In these instances, the Brooke's plot is vague, limited and weak. In the second season they "jumped the shark" by adding a young homeless girl who had unknowingly been living in their attic to stay on in a recurring role.

A few personal favorite episodes are "The Party" (the only one with Jack, Janet, and Chrissy from "Three's Company"), "The Other Woman", and a tender script for "Baby Talk".

Back in the good old days, when "Three's Company" had just come on the air, there were plenty of laughs around for Jack, Janet and Chrissy. But it was the crotchety, nosy landlords Stanley and Helen Roper (Fell and Lindley) who got the big guffaws for their live-action version of "the Lockhorns". They were a riot.

So, naturally, they got their own series titled, logically, "The Ropers". Having moved out of the apartment complex, they move into a duplex owned by the EXTREMELY stuffy Jeffrey P. Brooks III (Tambor, who was terrific) and his not-as-stuffy wife (McCormack). Eventually, it was the Ropers' turn to be spied on by a suspicious neighbor.

The first few episodes of this series were great, as Fell and Lindley expanded on their corrosive repartee from the original series. Then, adding Tambor as a humorless foil to their slobbery and the double-entendres that occurred when guests would drop by (usually, Jack, Janet or Crissy) every so often, made things even more hilarious.

But it was too good to last; the writing kind of slacked off as they attempted to make the ever-bickering Ropers more understanding and sensitive to each other. This, of course, entirely missed to point to their appeal; the constant bickering was their only form of communication and, by and large, the only way they could possibly stay together. Take that away, and what do you have left? Not too much else.

A conversation I'll always remember is when Stanley (Fell) is complaining that something Helen (Lindley) was doing was effeminate. Her comeback - "I AM effeminate - just like you're emasculate." Cue laugh track.

Well, I'll always remember the good parts of "The Ropers", anyway.

Six stars for "The Ropers" - the best neighbors you could ever have - move away, that is.

This is a pretty good spin-off from Three's Company, where the kids' landlords, Stanley and Helen Roper, sold their apartment building and moved into a new house.

The Ropers have the same dynamic as they had in Three's Company, and it was fun seeing them deal with their neighbors and visiting relatives. Not too keen on Jeffrey Tambor's character though - seems only a one dimensional character with no redeeming qualities.

I do enjoy the guest appearances of the Three's Company characters - makes you feel like you're watching that show again. Quite an entertaining show - too bad it didn't last longer.

Grade B

An ambitious effort from Norman Fell and Audra Lindley as they portrayed the hilarious landlord couple Stanley and Helen Roper from the hit series Three's Company. In the spin off show, Stanley and Helen moved from their Santa Monica apartment to the upscale neighbourhood called Cheviott Hills and their new neighbour was not fond of having them as part of the community. The show just didn't seem to be as good as Three's Company. Stanley and Helen were better as supporting cast members rather than as series leads. The cast was small including Jeffrey Tambor as the neighbour Jeffrey P. Brooks III. He's not a likable character, but his dislike towards Stanley and his quirks behind closed doors made the show funny. Recurring cast included Helen's troublemaker sister Ethel, and her mother; these two characters did not appear on Three's Company.