I was young when this show aired. I don't remember the original theme song and after looking up old episodes on YouTube I hate it. Reminds me of Mama's Family or something. I like the theme song from the third season. But I actually like Mama's Family so go figure.
The show is cool. There is an episode where Katie gets a job as a buyer in San Francisco making $32,000 a year and a company car. The company car might be a big deal now but $32,000 a year isn't. To put that into perspective, the job would pay like $74,000 today. You could say that for California that still isn't a lot of money today but I think if you keep it in perspective cost of living may not have been as extreme in the eighties, in California, as it is today.
I don't think the show would work today, for obvious reasons I won't get too deep into here, out of respect for the show and some reader's sensibilities. I just don't know, in retrospect, how I feel about Black women playing these roles in these shows and movies, and it still goes on today to some extent. Like Queen Latifah has played this role often and continues to do so in Star. The only difference is that Star is very progressive in the way this is handled and Ms. Carlotta is no saint whatsoever.
Anyway it is a show worth revisiting if you grew up on it but I am not sure it is a show worth watching if you never saw it before. The show appears to be a product of Nell's successful career on Broadway and a transparent vehicle for her brand of entertainment more than anything resembling an original show that was made for that time. In other words, without her it is doubtful that the show would have worked. People who enjoyed her earlier work, and her career after the show ended love the show more than people unfamiliar with anything else she did. I knew the show but I did not know anything else; again I was 9 when it started and 15 when it went off of the air and that show had a lot of competition for my attention. I was into Cheers, Night Court, St. Elsewhere, Hill Street Blues whatever, not this show. Like the theme song, the problem this show has, as far as its legacy, is that the fans are divided up into people that watched it from the beginning, and people that watched it in it's 2.0 iteration, as I have, and opinions will vary, so it is difficult to review. You have to check out both versions of the show to come to your own conclusion.
The show is cool. There is an episode where Katie gets a job as a buyer in San Francisco making $32,000 a year and a company car. The company car might be a big deal now but $32,000 a year isn't. To put that into perspective, the job would pay like $74,000 today. You could say that for California that still isn't a lot of money today but I think if you keep it in perspective cost of living may not have been as extreme in the eighties, in California, as it is today.
I don't think the show would work today, for obvious reasons I won't get too deep into here, out of respect for the show and some reader's sensibilities. I just don't know, in retrospect, how I feel about Black women playing these roles in these shows and movies, and it still goes on today to some extent. Like Queen Latifah has played this role often and continues to do so in Star. The only difference is that Star is very progressive in the way this is handled and Ms. Carlotta is no saint whatsoever.
Anyway it is a show worth revisiting if you grew up on it but I am not sure it is a show worth watching if you never saw it before. The show appears to be a product of Nell's successful career on Broadway and a transparent vehicle for her brand of entertainment more than anything resembling an original show that was made for that time. In other words, without her it is doubtful that the show would have worked. People who enjoyed her earlier work, and her career after the show ended love the show more than people unfamiliar with anything else she did. I knew the show but I did not know anything else; again I was 9 when it started and 15 when it went off of the air and that show had a lot of competition for my attention. I was into Cheers, Night Court, St. Elsewhere, Hill Street Blues whatever, not this show. Like the theme song, the problem this show has, as far as its legacy, is that the fans are divided up into people that watched it from the beginning, and people that watched it in it's 2.0 iteration, as I have, and opinions will vary, so it is difficult to review. You have to check out both versions of the show to come to your own conclusion.