We Got It Made

The year this one debuted was a bad one for NBC. By the end of the season, as I recall, all the shows that had debuted that season had been cancelled. "We Got It Made" hung around for a fairly long time but just couldn't survive.

Two bachelors with a disgusting hovel for an apartment decide they need a housekeeper. Enter Mickey Mackenzie--blond, beautiful and with absolutely no housekeeping experience. Of course, she's hired on the spot. Not a great show but made somewhat easier to take by the presence of the fetching Teri Copley.

This sit-com was a vehicle for one thing only: Teri Copley. Besides the blatant copy-off of "Three's Company," the show just had the worst jokes and situations. Copley was sexy but that was about it.

It's a wonder Stephanie Kramer was able to go on to "Hunter" after starring in a series as horrendous as this.

David Tucker (Matt McCoy) and Jay Bostwick (Tom Villard) are NYC roommates. Tucker is a buttoned-up conservative neat lawyer with girlfriend Claudia (Stepfanie Kramer). Bostwick is flaky selling outlandish products and dating kindergarten teacher Beth Sorenson (Bonnie Urseth). Tucker wants to hire a live-in maid. Bostwick resists until Mickey McKenzie (Teri Copley) shows up for the interview. It's basically a 5-person sitcom which barely lasted the full season. It returned years later with Villard and Copley. They got a new Tucker and added some neighbors. The second season does even worst.

The biggest selling point for the show is Teri Copley. She's hot. She's a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Chrissy Snow except not quite as dumb. She has a sweet innocence and is easy on the eyes. I actually like the pilot. That episode is a fun screwball comedy that sets up the five characters. The situation is ridiculous but that's 80s TV. The show never gets better beyond that. It takes a long decline until the network gave up on the show. I do remember it returned years later for a second season. Honestly, I don't remember any of those episodes, at least nothing good. I'm not going to downgrade the show any further for a season I literally forgot.

The problem is that the show stayed static. It rarely got funny after the pilot and sometimes it's awkwardly campy. Mickey is the center of almost every episode but neither guy could ever approach her sexually. The relationships between these characters are stuck. They have nowhere to go. The show needs to move off Mickey and add a neighbor for Mickey to flirt with. She becomes an object of desire for non of the regulars. Villard is a fun presence and he played those goofy characters well. I have no complaints about McCoy and Urseth is fun. On the other hand, Stepfanie Kramer does one note. I'm glad she eventually found her role in something less comedic.

This show was supposed to be a take-off of Three's Company with two guys living with a girl. The spin was that the guys were opposites, a homage to the Odd Couple with actor Matt McCoy as the uptight handsome lawyer and Tom Villard as the goofy looking space cadet with his head in the clouds. They both had girlfriends played by Stepfanie Kramer (later of Hunter fame) and Bonnie Urseth. Then in walked Teri Copley, a beautiful, vacuous blonde whose personality was even amounts of Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball, who they hired to be their live-in maid. The series was to prove how the guys could be loyal to their girls without obsessing about their drop-dead gorgeous maid. This nearly successful show was then ruined by what kills so many first time shows: tampering. Out went McCoy, Kramer and Urseth, leaving Copley and Villard with another idiot roommate to suffer through first-run syndication. This show was supposed to be a break-out success for Teri Copley, but instead it became another example of another really bad example of how not to ruin a series!

It's odd to see a show like this from the 80s. It's incredibly stupid, yet there is a marvelous actor named Tom Villard who created a sexy, engaging, funny leading character that deserves to be seen again now. He's the reason to watch this show...Terri Copley is just another blonde bimbo, and who is the other guy?...But Tom has a gift. He makes people laugh.