Country of origin United States No. of seasons 1 Running time 30 minutes | Original language(s) English No. of episodes 13 | |
Starring Lila Kaye
Randee Heller
Evan Richards
Don Amendolia | ||
Mama Malone is an American sitcom that briefly aired on CBS from March 7, 1984 to July 21, 1984. The star was Lila Kaye, an English actress with credits in everything from Shakespearean stage productions to ethnic TV and film roles.
Contents
Premise
The series' main character was Renate Malone (surname rhymed with "baloney"), an Italian-American woman married to an Irish-American man (never seen in the series), thus the unusual pronunciation of her married name. She was the hostess of a home cooking show called Cooking with Mama Malone that was telecast live from her fourth-floor apartment in a Brooklyn tenement. Each episode began with her instructing her viewers to chop onions no matter what the recipe might be, and the recipes never were completed because a parade of characters kept popping in to interrupt her and eat up the show's time.
Initially, the show was scheduled to premiere in the fall of 1982, but was pushed back a season and a half. The series was reminiscent of another ethnically-based series, The Goldbergs, the iconic radio and TV show written by and starring Gertrude Goldberg as a New York City resident of European Jewish descent that played on ethno-religious neighborhoods populated by immigrant groups. Among the good-natured stereotypes on Mama Malaone was Padre Guradiano, an Italian-American Catholic priest who wound up gasping for breath each time he climbed the steep stairs to her apartment.
Cast
Episodes
- Pilot (March 7, 1984)
- The Commitment (March 14, 1984)
- Connie's Old Flame (March 21, 1984)
- Father Romeo (April 4, 1984)
- The Education of Frankie (April 18, 1984)
- Karamakopoulos and Son (April 25, 1984)
- A New Neighbor (June 9, 1984)
- Shall We Dance? (June 16, 1984)
- Even Dino Gets the Blues (June 23, 1984)
- Connie's Move (June 30, 1984)
- Dino's Fan (July 7, 1984)
- A Call from the Vatican (July 14, 1984)
- Back to Basics (July 21, 1984)