The Ropers

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The Ropers
The Ropers opening logo
Genre	Sitcom
Running time	30 Minutes
Starring	Norman Fell Audra Lindley Jeffrey Tambor Patricia McCormack Louise Vallance
Country of origin	United States
Original channel	ABC
Original run	March 13, 1979–May 22, 1980
No. of episodes	28
IMDb profile

The Ropers was an American sitcom that ran from March 13, 1979 to May 22, 1980. It was a spinoff of Three's Company and based on the popular British sitcom George and Mildred. The series focused on middle-aged couple Stanley and Helen Roper (played by Norman Fell and Audra Lindley) who had been the landlords to Jack, Janet, and Chrissy on Three's Company.

Contents 1 Setting 2 Success and Failure 3 Contract Controversy 4 Syndication 5 External links

[edit] Setting

In this spinoff, the Ropers moved from their apartment in Three's Company to live in the upmarket community of Cheviot Hills, where the social-climbing Helen struggled to fit in with her neighbors. Stanley made little attempt to fit in with the standards of the community, thereby causing Helen much embarrassment.

[edit] Success and Failure

The show premiered directly after Three's Company in the spring of 1979. In its first season, ratings were unbelievably high and Company and The Ropers broke records at the time as the most popular hour-block of programming in television history. ^{[citation needed]} At the beginning of the next season, it was moved to the weekends where it experienced a major ratings drop, and ABC cancelled the show.

[edit] Contract Controversy

Despite the fact that moving from Three's Company to The Ropers meant that Fell and Lindley moved from supporting roles to becoming primary stars of their own series, Fell claimed that he had never wanted to assume the risk of leaving an established, successful series for one that was unproven and obviously might fail. He said that he would only agree to it after securing a guarantee that if The Ropers was cancelled after less than a year, he and Lindley would be allowed to return to Three's Company.

During the time that The Ropers was on the air, the characters had been replaced on Three's Company by Don Knotts. The addition had worked well and Three's Company had retained its popularity. The idea of returning Fell and Lindley to their original Three's Company roles was undesirable to producers. The cancellation of The Ropers came just one month after the one-year contractual deadline passed. Fell would later state that he always believed the decision to pull the plug on the show had been made much earlier, but that the network deliberately postponed making the cancellation official until after the one-year mark specifically to be relieved of the obligation to allow Fell and Lindley to return to Three's Company.

Despite the hard feelings, both Fell and Lindley made one final guest appearance on Three's Company several months after the end of their own series. For audiences, it was a chance to see all three landlords — Fell, Lindley, and Knotts — on the same stage.

[edit] Syndication

The Ropers is rarely in syndication these days. It was seen on local channels in the '80s and early '90s, but has not been seen recently. Two episodes of the series, however, play in the syndication package of Three's Company, under the title Three's Company's Friends, The Ropers. In such a case, it uses an instrumental version of the original series' theme song. Six episodes of the series were aired on TV Land in September 2006.

[edit] External links

• The Ropers at the Internet Movie Database
• Sitcoms Online: The Ropers
• "Days of Beer and Rosie" on YouTube