Today, we look at how Three’s Company even took its gay panic to the opening credits of the show.
In Remember to Forget, we spotlight pop culture stories that I wish I could forget, but I can’t, so I instead share them with you all, so you’re stuck in the same boat as me!
One of the central plot points on Three’s Company was that John Ritter’s Jack Tripper was only allowed to share an apartment with Suzanne Somers and Joyce DeWitt’s characters, Chrissy Snow and Janet Wood, because the landlord of the building, Mr. Roper (Norman Fell) believed that Jack was gay. When Mr. Furley (Don Knotts) took over as the building manager in Season 4 (his brother bought the building from the Ropers), he continued to only allow Jack to keep up his living arrangements because he thought Jack was gay.
Roper and Furley would continually make gay jokes about Jack. In the case of Roper, this was less of a problem because he was generally shown to be a negative character to begin with, but it was a bigger deal with Furley, who was meant to be a more sympathetic character. Eventually, the gay jokes would subside a bit as the series went on and Furley became a more loveable character.
In any event, one of the recurring bits on the series would be gay panic, like when Jack is trying to get rid of Furley in the Season 5 premiere, he acts like he is coming on to him so that Furley freaks out and lets Jack leave.
It’s all super hacky stuff, but what was ESPECIALLY bad was that the opening credits in Seasons 4 and 5 specifically included a gay panic gag as the way to introduce one of the characters on the show. Richard Kline’s Larry, Jack’s slimy best friend, is introduced trying to pick up a woman at the amusement park (where the opening credits are set, all except for Joyce DeWitt’s intro, which is on a boat for some reason) by getting into her bumper car and is shocked to discover that it is actually a guy with long hair…
It’s SUCH a bad bit, especially when you consider how dumb it was to begin with that Larry was climbing into the bumper car of a woman he doesn’t know. 1970s and 1980s slimy best friends would do the creepiest stuff and the show would always just laugh it off. “Oh, that’s just (fill in the name of the slimy character).”
It’s especially bad since they obviously filmed an alternate introduction bit for Kline that went with the syndicated version of the theme…
Dumb stuff.
If anyone else has an idea for a future Remember to Forget, feel free to suggest other topics for future Pop Culture Theme Times to me at brian@popculturereferences.com.
Such an awful show. I couldn’t stand it new and it has not aged well at all.
the ending was bad.. why couldn’t they all just go there own ways like girls get married so jack move out I hated ending
Sadly, it ended the same way as the British show it was based on.
You do realize that Three’s Company is a comedy, right? Not sure what’s so “bad” about this? Since you don’t actually explain what’s so “bad” one might just assume that you don’t really know. It’s actually a pretty funny scene: Larry seemingly getting into a car with the wrong person in a case of mistaken identity. Again, you do realize it’s a comedy, right? Not only is this brief scene not “bad” it’s actually fairly amusing.
By the way, how do you know that “Larry was climbing into the bumper car of a woman he doesn’t know”? How do you know that he wasn’t at the amusement park with a dark haired woman in a blue shirt and accidentally got into the wrong bumper car with a man who also happened to be dark haired and wearing a blue shirt?
Sorry, pretty lousy article that doesn’t really say much.
I was very clear – gay panic jokes are hacky, which is bad for TV comedies. That they are also obviously offensive (which I didn’t think I needed to point out, since it’s plainly obvious) is a terrible combination. Here‘s an interesting article you can read to learn more about how hacky and offensive gay panic jokes are.
For people like you Brian , TV comedies arent funny anymore.
Three’s Company is timeless, long live to TC
I remember the show fondly from when I was like 6 and a young queer because, as I grew up, I thought any publicity is good publicity; but I haven’t revisited it as an adult because f*ck gay panic and f*ck using gay as the butt of a joke. Doesn’t matter the time period. Bad show. Good article.