Jackie et Sara

Finally Ted Knight got a hit show, the last Mary Tyler Moore alum to do so. While hardly top-notch, this sitcom was nonetheless a great 80s memory for me. Sure Jim J. Bullock was annoying as hell, but Ted Knight was good for a chuckle as Henry Rush, and watching his two on-screen daughters jiggle around didn't hurt either. The only drawback is that I now always refer to the memory of Ted's on-screen wife as "Murual" ...and only recently realized the actress had a real name: Nancy Dassault. And that theme song is just oh-so-80s.

"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.

To me, this show defies situation comedies. What "really" was the situation? The girls playing the daughters were so bland. Trying to pass Jim J Bullock off as a heterosexual has to be the greatest misfire in TV history, right ahead of the romantic comedy with Faye Dunaway and Robert Urich.

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.

This was probably Ted Knight's second most famous role behind that of Ted Baxter. This show allowed him to pretty much play a role that was totally the opposite of that character. While Baxter was an annoying and vain dim bulb, Henry was more or less a very intelligent man who had a hard time dealing with the changing world around him. Also, the running gag on the show was that he was still trying to get over the fact that his daughters were growing up and that even though they technically didn't live in "his" house, they still were under the same roof. Also, Nancy Dussault was great in the role of Muriel. She pretty much was the middle ground between Henry's conservatism and the girl's more liberal attitude. The only thing that keeps it from being more fondly remembered is Jm J. Bullock as Monroe. He and the character of Steve Urkel were two of the most annoying characters ever created for television.