Too Close for Comfort is an American television sitcom which ran on the ABC network from November
11, 1980, until May 5, 1983, and in first-run syndication from April 7, 1984, until September
27, 1986.
It was modeled after the British series Keep It in the Family, which premiered nine months
before Too Close for Comfort debuted in the U.S. Its name was changed to The Ted Knight
Show when the show was retooled for its final season.
Synopsis Ted Knight and Nancy Dussault star as Henry
and Muriel Rush, owners of a two-family house in San Francisco.
The two story red house, seen at the opening and closing of each episode, was shot at 171–173
Buena Vista Avenue in the city.
Henry is a conservative cartoonist who authors a comic strip called Cosmic Cow.
During scenes in which Henry draws in his bedroom, Knight used his earlier acquired
ventriloquism talents for comical conversations with a hand-puppet version of "Cosmic Cow."
Muriel is a laid back freelance photographer, having been a band singer in her earlier days.
They have two grown children, older daughter, brunette Jackie who works for a bank; and
younger daughter Sara, a blonde bombshell and a college student at San Francisco State
University.
At the start of the premiere episode, Jackie and Sara are living with their parents in
a cramped, awkward arrangement.
Their longtime downstairs tenant, Myron Rafkin, recently died.
The family discovers Rafkin was a transvestite, and the many strange women Henry had been
opening the door for all those years were actually Rafkin himself.
Jackie and Sara convince their parents to allow them to move into the now-vacant downstairs
apartment.
In a running gag, Henry falls off the girls' ultra-modern chairs or couch every time he
attempts to sit down.
Despite the daughters' push for independence and moving into the downstairs apartment,
Henry proves to be a very protective father and constantly meddles in their affairs.
Due to an actors' strike led by the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of
Television and Radio Artists, new programming for the fall 1980 season was pushed back several
months.
As a result, Too Close for Comfort did not debut until November 11, 1980, and its initial
season consisted of 19 episodes.
The show garnered high ratings, benefiting from its placement in ABC's powerhouse Tuesday
night lineup following hits like Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley and Three's Company.
A few episodes into the series, Sara's addle-headed friend Monroe Ficus, played by actor Jim J.
Bullock, made an appearance.
Although Monroe was originally intended to be used for only a single episode, producers
added the character to the series and he became just a "friend" of Sara's, and Henry's principal
foil.
During the first two seasons, Selma Diamond made guest appearances as Mildred Rafkin,
sister of the late Myron.
Sardonic, deadpan Mildred initially showed up to collect belongings left by Myron in
the downstairs apartment, but continued to hang around thereafter.
Seemingly, there were sentimental reasons, but occasionally she would attempt to make
time with the much younger Monroe, whom she had an eye for.
Also added in early 1981 was Arthur Wainwright, Henry's boss and head of Wainwright Publishing,
who nearly decided to force the veteran cartoonist, and Cosmic Cow, into retirement in order to
maintain a youth-oriented staff.
The short-statured Mr. Wainwright, who spoke with Shakespearean diction and fancied himself
an amateur detective, eventually let Henry stay with the firm, after the latter proved
adept in helping him solve the mystery of Sara's stolen purse.
Wainwright no longer appeared in person after the first season, but was referred to.
Later, at the start of the fifth season, Graham Jarvis began appearing as Wainwright in a
few guest appearances.
Developments in seasons two and three
During its second season, the series' principal stories are focused around Muriel's pregnancy.
Additionally, Henry's niece April comes from Delaware to live with the Rush family.
The season concludes with Muriel giving birth to a son, Andrew.
For the third season, April departs and the character of Muriel's mother, Iris Martin
is added in order to help take care of Andrew.
Also that fall, Jackie becomes engaged to her steady boyfriend, police officer Brad
Turner, but they broke it off after a short time.
Jackie eventually moved into the field of fashion design, taking courses and producing
her own clothing templates, which she later had produced as "The Jacqueline Rush Collection".
Sara, meanwhile, decided to major in communications and, while continuing her studies, became
a weather girl for a time at a major San Francisco TV station.
Monroe seemed to be detached from Sara's circle of friends, but was taking the same major
as her and became a security guard around campus.
The character of Henry Rush became famous for wearing sweatshirts from various American
colleges and universities.
It was revealed in one episode that he wore the different sweatshirts because he himself
had never gone to college.
Eventually fans would send in sweatshirts from universities around the country hoping
they would be used during filming.
In the fall of 1982, ABC moved the series to Thursday nights, which proved to be a disaster
for the show.
Paired with failures such as Joanie Loves Chachi, Star of the Family and It Takes Two,
the ratings for Too Close For Comfort plummeted.
At the conclusion of the season, the series was cancelled by ABC.
The last first-run episode broadcast by ABC on May 5, 1983 was a pilot for a proposed
spin-off series called Family Business.
The series was to have focused on the misadventures of Lucille Garabaldi and her two sons as they
tried to run a construction business.
ABC aired reruns of the show at 11:00 a.m. from June 27 to September 16, 1983.
First-run syndication During the early 1980s, TV station owner Metromedia
was expanding its portfolio of original syndicated programming through its production subsidiary,
Metromedia Producers Corporation.
Its efforts would eventually lead to the creation of the Fox Broadcasting Company.
When Too Close for Comfort was canceled by ABC, Metromedia Producers Corporation elected
to pick up the series and began producing all-new episodes to run on various stations
throughout the country.
Starting in April 1984, a total of 14 new episodes were broadcast for the show's fourth
season, featuring the same cast as seen on the ABC episodes.
Monroe and Iris were still around to bother Henry, and Jackie and Sara were still downstairs.
The girls continued to advance in the respective career paths; Sara auditioned for a news anchor
position at the TV station, but was passed over in favor of a female candidate who may
have not had Sara's looks, but had greater experience in hard news.
This caused Sara to learn the valuable lesson that her sex appeal alone would not get her
everywhere.
Monroe eventually moves in to a remodeled attic, with the entrance from the Rushes'
kitchen.
Henry agreed to have Monroe as a tenant in a fleeting moment of compassion, but Monroe
still proved to be a constant annoyance to him.
The show's ratings improved in syndication, and Metromedia ordered an additional 30 episodes,
airing through November 1985.
When the fifth season began, a single child actor, Joshua Goodwin, took over the role
of Andrew Rush.
Henry was now working out of his own fancy office at Wainwright Publishing, as a result
of toddler Andrew's "terrible twos" behavior interfering with his concentration at home.
Everyone else's worldly, or, in the case of Monroe, wacky affairs, were also proving to
be an intense distraction, considering they were all living under the same roof.
Near the end of the season, Jackie accepted a job offer in Italy that would help further
her clothing line, with her family and friends giving her a big send-off.
With a total of 107 episodes of Too Close for Comfort having been produced, the show
became a popular staple for syndicated reruns throughout the late 1980s.
The Ted Knight Show In late 1985, several changes were made before
further episodes were produced, including changing the show's title to The Ted Knight
Show.
Neither Jackie nor Sara appeared in this season.
Henry, Muriel and Andrew move to a house in Marin County, north of San Francisco.
Henry leaves the cartoonist profession and becomes editor and 49% owner of a newspaper,
The Marin Bugler, while Muriel takes a job with the paper as a photographer.
Monroe becomes a reporter-in-training at the paper, and under the Rushes' supervision,
proves to be more resourceful than in years past.
Hope Stinson, owns the other 51% of the Bugler, creating friction with Henry.
Lisa Flores was also added to the cast as the Rushes' maid and eventual romantic interest
for Monroe.
Along with the new title, a new opening was filmed in Marin County.
The theme song was re-recorded in a smoother style.
First-run episodes of The Ted Knight Show were broadcast starting in April 1986.
A total of 22 episodes were produced prior to the summer of 1986.
The revamped show continued to be successful and was scheduled to resume production for
another season, but Ted Knight, who had been battling colon cancer since 1985, died on
August 26, 1986 at age 62, and the series was not continued.
First-run episodes continued to air through February 7, 1987.
With only a single season complete, The Ted Knight Show was added to the Too Close for
Comfort re-run syndication package.
The Ted Knight Show title in the revamped opening was replaced with the original Too
Close for Comfort logo and name instead.
Cast Ted Knight as Henry Rush
Nancy Dussault as Muriel Rush Deborah Van Valkenburgh as Jackie Rush
Lydia Cornell as Sara Rush JM J. Bullock as Monroe Ficus
Hamilton Camp as Arthur Wainwright Deena Freeman as April Rush
Audrey Meadows as Iris Martin William and Michael Cannon as Andrew Rush
Joshua Goodwin as Andrew Rush Pat Carroll as Hope Stinson
Lisa Antille as Lisa Flores Notable guest stars
Selma Diamond as Mildred Rafkin Jordan Suffin as Officer Brad Turner
Elyse Knight as Samantha Bishop Graham Jarvis as Arthur Wainwright
Ernie Wise as Ernie Episodes
Syndication The show entered daily broadcast syndication
in the fall of 1986, which continued until 2003.
The syndication rights for Too Close for Comfort are held by DLT Entertainment, a production
and distribution company.
Reruns of the series aired on TBS.
The series also aired on Antenna TV from January 2011 to September 2012.
Too Close for Comfort re-joined Antenna TV's schedule beginning Monday, April 7, 2014,
airing back-to-back episodes weekdays 9-10 a.m.
ET and 1-2 a.m.
ET DVD releases
Rhino Entertainment released the first two seasons of Too Close for Comfort on DVD in
Region 1 in 2004/2005.
Rhino did not obtain the original versions of the episodes for the Season 1 release and
instead used the versions edited for syndication, which are missing several minutes of footage,
including the final scene of each episode before the closing credits.
There are no known plans for additional releases.
References
External links Too Close for Comfort at the Internet Movie
Database Too Close for Comfort at TV.com
Interview with Lydia Cornell by Michael Sutton Interview with Lydia Cornell on the podcast
The Future and You