"Come and knock on our door. We've been waiting for you!" - "Three's Company" theme song
Three's Company: Season One DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
In the spring of 1977, ABC premiered Three's Company in an abbreviated, six episode trial run. Based on the British series Man About the House, the show featured risqué humor and bawdy double-entendres. The series was something of a gamble, but it became a hit with audiences.
Plant shop worker Janet Wood (Joyce DeWitt) and typist Chrissy Snow (Suzanne Somers) wonder how they will be able to afford their apartment after their roommate Eleanor moves out, gets married, and has a baby all in the same night. When cleaning up the morning after Eleanor's raucous wedding reception, they are alarmed to discover a stranger - cooking school student Jack Tripper (the late John Ritter) - sleeping in their bathtub. Jack was a guest of one of their party crashers. Charmed by Jack's personality and his cooking, they ask if he would like to move into the extra bedroom that has been vacated by Eleanor. Jack happily accepts - the thought of living with beautiful but dim-witted Chrissy is too good to pass up - but the girls quickly realize that there is one big hitch: how to convince crabapple landlord Stanley Roper (Norman Fell), his wife Helen (Audra Lindley) and Chrissy's preacher father that it is okay for a guy to live with two girls. In a moment of inspiration, Janet seizes on the answer: they will simply tell everyone that Jack is gay.
Through the years, Three's Company has often been denigrated as "Jiggle TV" since it joined ABC's schedule during the same period that spawned Charlie's Angels. These shows, along with future Three's Company timeslot mate Soap, took advantage of changing cultural mores and sexual permissiveness to exploit sex in a way that had never been done before. Critics felt that shows like Three's Company and Charlie's Angels relied too heavily on their heroines' lack of bras and too little on matters of social relevance. Because of this, many critics and TV snobs treat Three's Company as if it is one of the worst sitcoms ever. This is a shame, because this DVD is a reminder that the series is actually quite funny. Twenty five years later, Three's Company is still amazingly entertaining, and much more fun than many currently popular shows.
In the first season, the initial episode is the strongest. Pilot episodes of series can often be an awkward affair, with the characters and the premise not quite fully developed. (Have you seen the first episode of Seinfeld lately?) The first episode of Three's Company, however, is well honed. Titled "A Man About the House," this episode is practically a carbon copy of the first episode of the British series. It perfectly introduces us to the characters and their newfound friendship. Again, episodes from the middle years of some more respected shows are not as well crafted as Three's Company's first.
This isn't to say that the show is sophisticated in any way. The series is knowingly - almost calculatedly - dumb. While this kind of lowbrow humor is often no less funny than the witty repartee in shows like Cheers, it is much easier for snobs to dismiss.
"No Children, No Dogs" is the first episode to show hints of what would become the quintessential Three's Company formula. The plot is negligible - Jack accepts a dog from his car salesman friend Larry (Richard Kline, before he became a series regular) not realizing that Mr. Roper does not allow pets in the building. The roommates have to find a home for the critter before Roper discovers it. Hilarity ensues. More important than the plot are the comedic bits and machinations that propel the story. For example, one character overhearing a conversation between other characters and totally misunderstanding what is being communicated. When Janet hears Jack and Chrissy talking about hugging, stroking, and kissing the dog, she naturally assumes that they are instead talking about each other. Another variation is when a character correctly interprets what he or she has heard, and the other characters are forced to lie in order to keep a secret. Here, Mr. Roper hears the dog whimpering, but Jack pretends that it is actually him doing the whimpering. Toss in a generous helping of boob and dick jokes, plus a dollop of slapstick comedy courtesy of Ritter, and voila - you have the makings of a perfect comedy soufflé. Over the next few seasons, the show's writers would come up with an endless number of ways to recycle these exact same elements over and over again in fresh new ways.
Part of the reason the show is so successful is because of its talented cast. Ritter is a fearlessly physical performer, his rubber band body providing many slapstick laughs. DeWitt's perky, earthy Janet and Somers' dizzy Chrissy are immensely likable, well-delineated characters. Lindley and Fell are also a source of much laughter as sexually frustrated Mrs. Roper and her bitter husband, slinging put-downs at each other with gleeful abandon.
From a cultural standpoint, Three's Company does present one of the most confusing portraits of 1970s sexual attitudes. The first two episodes deal with how outsiders will view two women living with a man. In "A Man About the House," the girls fear that puritanical Mr. Roper will kick them out when he discovers that Jack is their new roommate. In "And Mother Makes Four," Chrissy worries about how her visiting mother (and, by extension, her preacher father) will react to the living situation. In both instances, the tension is resolved by Jack's supposed homosexuality. It seems a tad odd that everyone would be upset about the moral implications of a single man living with two women, yet would totally be accepting of homosexuality.
Three's Company: Season One collects all six episodes from the series' first season: "A Man About the House," "And Mother Makes Four," "Roper's Niece," "No Children, No Dogs," "Jack the Giant Killer," and "It's Only Money." They are presented on a single disc housed in a keepcase. The menus are simple, yet colorful and effective. The main menu features scrolling pictures of the individual cast members accompanied by the theme song. Choosing the "Episodes" option leads to a listing of the disc's six episodes. Clicking on an individual title leads to a screen that includes a synopsis of the episode as well as a still image from the episode. Viewers can then play the episode or return to the episodes menu. There is no "play all" feature and the episodes do not include chapter stops.
