‘Three’s Company’ Knocks on TBS’ Door

“Three’s Company,” the long-running ABC sitcom recently added to TBS’ weekday schedule, was never a darling of the critics. Religious groups protested its ribald humor and sexual innuendoes.

Though it endured more cast changes than Menudo, “Three’s Company” remained among the Top 25 series for nearly its entire seven-season run on ABC and has been going strong in syndication since it left the airwaves in 1984.

Like two other successful ‘70s series, “All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son,” “Three’s Company” was based on a popular British show, “Man About the House.”

John Ritter, the son of country-Western star Tex Ritter, starred as Jack Tripper, a young man with a healthy libido who shares a cute little Santa Monica apartment with two beautiful women: the dumb but sweet blonde, Chrissy (Suzanne Somers), who worked as a typist, and Janet (Joyce DeWitt), the more down-to-earth of the two, who toiled in a florist shop.

So that parents, friends and apartment managers wouldn’t be upset a man was sharing an apartment with two single women, Jack, a chef, would tell everybody he was gay. Veteran character actors Audra Lindley and Norman Fell played the trio’s long-suffering landlords, the Ropers.

“Three’s Company” premiered as a mid-season replacement on March 15, 1977. It proved so successful it came back in the fall for a full season. In 1978, Richard Kline joined the show as a new neighbor, the womanizing Larry Dallas. The following season, Fell and Lindley got their own series, “The Ropers,” and Don Knotts came on board as the new manager, the nervous Ralph Furley.

The series made Ritter a star and was a perfect vehicle for his phyical comedic talents. Somers also became a sensation and in 1980 she asked for a salary increase. The producers refused to give in to her demands and Chrissy was sent to Fresno to take care of her sick mother and was occasionally seen calling her old friends on the phone.

Jenilee Harrison joined the cast as Chrissy’s clumsy cousin Cindy, who was studying at UCLA to be a vet. By the end of the 1980-81 season, though, both Somers and Harrison were history. Priscilla Barnes became the new roommate, a smart, beautiful nurse named Teri.

The series ended with Jack, now a restaurateur, moving in with his girlfriend and getting his own series, “Three’s a Crowd.” Janet got married and Teri moved to Hawaii.

Ritter is now starring on the new CBS comedy “Hearts Afire,” and Somers is in her second season on the ABC hit comedy “Step by Step.” DeWitt is fielding television and movie offers after taking a hiatus from show business to pursue non-professional and personal endeavors.

“Three’s Company” airs weekdays at 3 p.m. on TBS .

“Hearts Afire” airs Monday at 8:30 p.m. on CBS; “Step by Step” airs Fridays at 8:30 p.m. on ABC.