Angie

From the moment Maureen MxGovern begins singing "Different Worlds" the Angie theme song I was hooked. The show which originally aired after "Happy Days" had spunk and a great ensemble case including Including Doris Roberts, Donna Pescow, Robert Hays and Debralee Scott.

It was a wonderful sitcom that hit the right spots with the audience and the cast chemistry was delightful. I especially loved Doris Roberts whose character was similar to her "Everybody Lives Raymond" character. Sadly CBS the network kept moving the series around the 2nd year which often kills a show. And it did just that. I suppose it is on some streaming channel today.

The sitcom was initially the highest-rated new series of 1978-1979 TV series, appearing on schedule in January 1979 (tying with "Mork and Mindy" for that honor). However, unlike the Orsonian goofball, "Angie" was the victim of a massive revamp during its second season and a victim of constant schedule shuffling--moved from night to night, time slot to time slot, repeatedly for months, by ABC until viewers lost interest in searching for it, then abandoned the ship. The only rats here, however, were the ABC executives who, like all network suits, failed to realize the damage that instability does to a potential hit series with immediate high ratings, a lovable heroine, a cast of crazies and the audience. I truly miss this show one-quarter of a century later. Robin Fletcher

What went wrong? Debralee Scott, Donna Pescow, Robert Hays, awesome theme song. Too bad I was too young to truly appreciate the writing and character development. How about a reunion?

Many people don't know the reason why this excellent and popular sitcom was cancelled. It got top ten ratings when it was scheduled after "Happy Days" on Tuesday nights, when Laverne and Shirley was moved from that same time slot to Thursdays. By the end of the season, "Laverne and Shirley" was doing horribly in it's new Thursday night slot and was almost cancelled. So, ABC returned "Laverne and Shirley " to it's Tuesday night slot with great success. Only ABC moved "Angie" around to different nights where it lost it's ratings lead in and dropped to the bottom of the ratings and was cancelled. In 1985, 5 years after it's cancellation, ABC aired the show's re-runs at 10AM weekdays, and had great success. It later appeared in syndication. Proof this show deserved a chance. If you wanna help get this under-rated classic show released onto DVD, we gotta convince paramount to do it!! If you really wanna help get "Angie released on DVD, please go to the following URL and quickly register and cast your vote..This website is responsible for getting tons of TV shows released, as it submits all results to the studios! PLEASE VOTE FOR "ANGIE" at http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/showinfo.cfm?showID=709

I had a bit of a crush on Donna Pescow when I first saw her in Saturday Night Fever, so when Angie premiered in the spring of 1979, I was ecstatic. She was even more gorgeous on this show, and this was a pretty decent sitcom. It also was in the Top 5 for its first few weeks, but unfortunately it only ran about a season and a half. The basic premise was Angie Falco, a waitress at a Philadelphia coffee shop, falls in love with Brad, a pediatrician and one of her regular customers. It's basically a "working-class Cinderella meets her knight in shining armor" story, and they elope when the two families cannot agree on the upcoming wedding details. The show actually changed quite a bit during its short run. After the wedding, Angie still works as a waitress and moves into Brad's lavish mansion, complete with butler. Shortly thereafter, Brad surprises Angie by purchasing the coffee shop and Angie becomes the manager. Not long after that, Angie puts the mansion on the market and they move to a smaller, cozier, but still opulent home (with Brad's office located downstairs). No sooner are they settled in, then Angie sells the coffee shop and purchases a beauty salon, which she manages and where her mother (Doris Roberts, in a role where she truly shines) works after giving up her newsstand job. There was plenty of good acting and well-written comedy here, but the constant changes in a relatively short series life apparently made the regular viewer dizzy (and the "every once in a while" viewer wonder what the hell happened if they missed a couple episodes!). Despite all that I still enjoyed this show and would love to see it make a comeback on TV Land someday, or perhaps be issued as a DVD set.