Today, we look at how the second season of Bosom Buddies dropped the “two guys dressing as women to live in an all-women’s apartment” angle.
This is “Gonna Make a Change,” a feature where I spotlight shows that underwent major revamps during their runs to avoid cancellation. Note that I mean MAJOR revamps, not, like, M*A*S*H getting more serious as it went on or Cheers becoming more of an ensemble comedy once Shelley Long left.
April is a month of Gonna Make A Change!
Show: Bosom Buddies
I’ll probably do an article about this in the future (perhaps a TV Legends Revealed?) about its strange origins, but Bosom Buddies was one of those network-driven ideas that if you’re a producer that wants to get his show on to the air, you just go along with, even if you’re not a fan of the idea at all. However, when that’s the case, you’re more likely to try to change things, especially when the initial concept doesn’t work as well as hoped.
Original Concept: A buddy comedy about Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari as two men who have to dress up as women to be able to live in an women’s-only apartment building. The men, Kip and Henry, pretend to be women named Buffy and Hildegarde, while also showing up at the building as themselves (as Buffy and Hildy’s brothers) to try to woo the women in the building. Kip and Henry also work in advertising.
Revamped Concept: After the show didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but everyone loved the Hanks/Scolari combo, the show was able to revamp in the second season with Kip and Henry’s ruse discovered, but they’re allowed to continue to live at the building. Kip’s love interest, Sonny (Donna Dixon) forgive Kip pretty quickly and they just date like a normal couple (without the drama of the guys getting caught, there was no need for the head of the building, so Telma Hopkins’ character took over that role and the other actor, Lucille Benson, was written out of the show). Kip and Henry started their own commercial production company.
The guys still technically dressed up as Buffy and Hildy, but barely, and you can see how the second season theme song demonstrates how the show was just a normal buddy show now (with still a BIT of the dress-up element to it still, just to keep the name in play)…
Did it get the show more than one last season?: Nope, not even with a burgeoning superstar lead in Tom Hanks. Two seasons was all the show received
Okay, that’s it for this installment of “Gonna Make a Change,” please send in suggestions for other good revamps to my e-mail address of brian@poprefs.com!
I couldn’t never figure out how they saved any money if they had to maintain two wardrobes.
I guess the apartment was just THAT dirt cheap? But yeah, agreed, it doesn’t make any sense.
The unaired pilot showed them acquiring full female wardrobes at no cost from some defunct women’s store if I recall correctly so I assume the writers anticipated that question from viewers.
My friends and I were amused as just about every regular character learned the big secret over a number of episodes and the show focused on their struggling video production company.
Fascinating, Michael, thanks for sharing that info!
I love how so many sitcoms, or at least this and THREE’S COMPANY, produced absurd plots to justify tenants staying in affordable apartments, back in the 1970s and 1980s when rent was A LOT CHEAPER. To the point that I am amazed that no new sitcoms run with this now that a one bedroom apartment in any major city (or even many minor ones) can cost about two grand a month (which is the post-tax monthly salary for many workers)
Think of all the zany plot combinations! Some renters take over the apartment of a deceased person and assume their identity (maybe reuse this crossdressing angle) to keep the apartment at rent stabilized cost. Or a bunch of tenants trick a landlord into thinking a building is condemned. Tenants fake that a building is haunted so that their landlord will lower the rents in desperation! Tenants investigate their landlord for white collar crimes and blackmail him! Aliens try to visit Earth and disguise themselves as Earthlings, but not even they can afford the rent without 2-3 roommates! The sky’s the limit!
Alex, wasn’t this at least partially the plot of Two Broke Girls?
Huh. I associate the song “My Life” with this show so much, it’s hard to believe it was only the opening theme for one of its two seasons.
Also, only two seasons? I know I watched this in syndication, and at the time, shows that short usually didn’t get a syndication deal. Was it because Tom Hanks’ star rose so much that it ended up getting aired in perpetual reruns for much of the 80s?
“My Life” WAS the theme for both seasons. But “Shake Me Loose” was used in syndication, so it’s harder to get YouTube clips with the original theme on them.
Yep, that was it exactly. 37 episodes is obviously way too little for normal syndication, but that’s on par with The Honeymooners, as well, so certain exceptions are made.