The year was 1986. Comedian and actor Redd Foxx had a tremendous success with the Norman Lear series "Sanford and Son" and started getting offers to do other things, when that show wrapped. He tried a variety series which flopped. He returned to that earlier role in a continuation of his hit series, called "Sanford," but that didn't work and he even did some specials where he could do some of his "sanitized for television" stand up routines and some sketch comedy bits.
But this was a true return to a sitcom setting for Mr. Foxx. It was a departure from the Sanford character and from his stand up bits which was a different direction in his career, at that point.
Here, Redd Foxx played Al Hughes, the owner of a midtown diner with a newspaper kiosk attached to it. Helping run the joint was his counter waitress Diana, played by Rosanna DeSoto.
Al had a track record of helping underprivileged boys in the area by becoming an adoptive parent to those juvenile delinquents, and he had a lot of success for turning their lives around. So, when the local social worker insists that this next kid needs to find a home or would wind up in the lock up, Al agreed to meet.
It turns out that the new kid is a graffiti artist with some serious talent, played by Pamela Segall. But, based on the method of dress, the vocal intonations, the age and the look, Al believed that this was a boy, too.
Once Al found out that it wasn't Tony, it was Toni, of course a lot of the challenges (and the bulk of the humor) was based on the gender elements, as Al had never ministered to a girl before. But also, the laughs focused on the generational differences, the attitude and the energy between these two. There were a lot of different kinds of clashes going on at any given moment and they ranged from getting the newsstand set up for the day's customers and keeping the floors of the diner and the kitchen clean, to all the pop culture references dropped in, that someone of Al's advancing age likely never would have gotten.
Al was gruff, but he was a softee too, so he never really held the upper hand, but he did want things to go smoothly, so as long as they did (which they rarely did) he wasn't grousing or griping.
New York played a part because you had the yuppie businessmen off to their glass towers coming through, the rando tourists looking for a bite to eat on their way to various landmarks, college students with their mid-80s downtown style showing up and the threats of crime that Toni wanted to help resolve.
Ultimately, Toni left, without so much as a goodbye, off to subway tunnels unknown, presumably to paint some new murals? Or maybe she decided to use that unique voice of hers to give life to some animated characters? It's very unclear.
In place of Toni, Beverly Todd joined the cast as Al's ex wife, Felicia. She had Al's foster (and full grown) son Byron, played by an up and coming comic that went by the mononym, Sinbad.
The focus of the show changed drastically, the continual issues with Byron and Felicia involving themselves in Al's life may have been true to the situation, but they didn't add much comedy.
Ultimately the show didn't quite find the right chemistry to make it work and the abrupt changes in the cast didn't do it any favors.
