Angie (TV series)

Premise

Philadelphia coffee shop waitress Angie Falco (Pescow) starts a romance with customer Bradley Benson (Hays), a pediatrician. While she assumes he is a struggling young doctor, he reveals that he is actually rebelling against his wealthy family, presumably residents in the Main Line region of the city's suburbs. (In response to Angie asking him just how wealthy, he replied, "You've heard of 'filthy rich?' We're disgusting.")

The other Falco family members are Angie's mother Theresa (Roberts) and her younger sister Marie (Scott). Angie and Marie's father had walked out on the family many years earlier, but Theresa continued to set a place for him at the dinner table. Brad's relatives consist of his stuffy father Randall (John Randolph), his divorced sister, the overbearing Joyce (Sharon Spelman), and Joyce's daughter Hillary (Tammy Lauren). Angie forms a close bond with Hilary.

Angie and Brad later marry, merging their two very different families: the blue-blooded Bensons and the urban Italian-American Falcos. The characters of Hilary Benson and Didi Malloy were not continued after the first season. Angie and Theresa later open a beauty parlor together, where they had to contend with a pleasure-seeking hairstylist, Gianni (Tim Thomerson).

The series drew many comparisons to the CBS hit sitcom Rhoda, in which the character of Angie Falco was seen as an Italian-Catholic version of Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper); both characters strove to break away from their ethnic, close-knit families to find their own voice in the world (however, Pescow, like the Rhoda character, is Jewish in real life). The constant presence of Angie's mother and sister was seen as similar to Rhoda's family setup of mother Ida (Nancy Walker) and sister Brenda (Julie Kavner). Angie's father being absent was also comparable to the later Rhoda plotline, in which Rhoda's father Martin (Harold Gould) separated from Ida.

Characters

Angelina "Angie" Falco, later Angie Benson, is the title character. At first a waitress at the Liberty Coffee Shop in Philadelphia, she meets her prince charming, Brad Benson, M.D., who worked at the medical center across the street. At first, Angie wasn't sure about dating him because of their economic differences, but he convinced her that he loved her. Angie then eloped with him, because of the families continual arguing about the wedding details, but she did concede to a small Catholic wedding set up by her mother. Brad eventually bought Angie the coffee shop to keep her busy, but she would later sell it to help Theresa buy a beauty salon.

Bradley Benson, M.D., is Angie's wealthy boyfriend and, later, her husband. A pediatrician at the medical center across from where Angie worked, the two fell in love immediately. They eloped due to arguments between the families about the wedding details, but he agreed to a small family Catholic wedding, that was set up by Theresa. At first, he and Angie lived in his large home which he inherited from his parents, but it intimidated Angie, so they moved to a smaller duplex home nearby, where they had their living space upstairs and Brad saw his young patients downstairs.

Theresa Falco is Angie's and Marie's mother. The owner of a news stand, which she ran for years after her husband deserted the family 19 years earlier. She remains in denial and still sets a place at the table for him. She loved Brad, and wanted to make sure that he loved Angie. It astonished, and indeed horrified, her that Angie had eloped with Brad, but she convinced her daughter to have a small Catholic family wedding which she had set up. In the second season, she sold the news stand, and, with Angie's help, bought a beauty salon called Rose's House of Beauty.

Marie Falco is Theresa's younger daughter, and Angie's younger sister. She works nights at a day care center, and doesn't like it. She is kind of a klutz, but she is well-meaning.

Diedre "DiDi" Malloy is Angie's loudmouthed best friend and co-worker at the Liberty Coffee Shop. She was not seen in the second season.

Joyce Benson is Brad's snobby thrice-married older sister. She was seeing a psychiatrist about her third divorce, made all the more difficult because her psychiatrist hated her. The mother of Hillary, she did not hate Angie, but she did not like her either, because she felt Brad could have married someone of their own station, and she felt Angie was not worthy enough to marry her brother. However, she did try to get along with her, as she was the woman her brother chose to be his wife.

Hillary Benson is Joyce's daughter, who was not seen in the second season. She was happy about her uncle's marriage and she instantly bonded her new aunt.

Randall Benson is Brad's and Joyce's father and Hillary's grandfather. He was, at first, stunned by Angie and her family, but he realized that she loved Brad and he loved her. He then began to like her and her family.

Phipps (Emory Bass) is the Benson family butler. He liked Angie.

Gianni is the hair stylist at Rose's House of Beauty, the beauty salon that Angie and Theresa bought after they sold the newsstand and coffee shop. He was always chasing after his female clients to the annoyance of Angie and Theresa.

Mary Mary; Mary Grace; and Mary Katherine are three former school mates of Angie's. They were also her close friends.

Production

Although Thomas L. Miller, Robert L. Boyett, and Edward K. Milkis were the show's supervising producers for the second season, the show was produced by Miller-Milkis Productions at Paramount Television. Angie was also one of the few Miller-Milkis productions that did not take place in Miller's hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Theme song

The show's theme song, "Different Worlds," was written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox and performed by Maureen McGovern. "Different Worlds" peaked at #18 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent two weeks at #1 on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, McGovern's only #1 on that chart.

Cancellation

The show was a ratings hit during its first half-season on air. It ranked fifth for the 1978-79 season with a 26.7 average household share, thanks in big part to Thursday night lead-in Mork & Mindy, which ranked No. 3. All of the top-five shows in 1978-79 were ABC comedies, with the others Laverne & Shirley (No. 1), Three's Company (No. 2) and Happy Days (tying Mork & Mindy at No. 3).

However, ratings for Angie dropped drastically after a move to Tuesday for the start of the 1979-80 season, even though the show was placed between Happy Days and Three's Company. (ABC moved Laverne & Shirley in an effort to bolster ratings on other nights.) Viewers lost interest in the interplay between Angie and Brad after they were married in the season premiere, and many critics noted that much of the previously feisty chemistry that Pescow and Hays demonstrated on screen was apparently compromised once their characters were wed.

The show was cancelled in its second season. Thirty-six episodes in total were produced.

DVD releases

Visual Entertainment plans to release the complete series on DVD in Region 1 at an unspecified future date.

Syndication

Reruns aired on ABC Daytime from June 17 to September 20, 1985.