[cite news]
url=http://www.peteduelclub.com/LOART/BernardSlade.htm
title=The Pete Duel Site: Bernard Slade
date=August, 2003] During the summer of 1971 (when Duel was starring in another ABC series, "Alias Smith and Jones"), ABC re-broadcasted the episodes. However, the series was never sold into syndication and has not been seen on television since.
Characters
Dave Willis (Pete Duel) is an apprentice architect who strongly believes in the importance of being practical. His wife, Julie Willis (Judy Carne), an art student, is the opposite, placing more emphasis on attending to the needs of the heart and soul than on keeping the budget.
Fred Hammond (Herb Voland) is Julie’s father. He owns nine used car lots and is quite wealthy because of it, a fact that he often points out to Dave. Fred is reluctant to let go of his daughter and spends much of his time trying to protect her from what he sees as the life of abject poverty to which Dave has doomed her. Phyllis Hammond (Edith Atwater) is much more understanding than her husband and does her best to welcome Dave into the family, even though Fred would prefer he get out.
Stan (Rich Little) and Carol Parker (Barbara Bostock) live in the same apartment building as the Willises. Stan is an eccentric who never holds a steady job because he spends most of his time coming up with inventions and oddball moneymaking schemes. Carol is his devoted wife who has full faith in all of his ideas. Both are Dave and Julie's best friends.
Plot
Apprentice architect Dave Willis meets art student Julie Hammond when his liverwurst on pumpernickel sandwich falls into her bag while she is passing by a building on which he is working. In pursuit of his lunch, he chases after her until she stops in a local park. Upon getting his first good look at Julie, Dave loses interest in the sandwich and the two start to talk. So begins a whirlwind courtship that quickly leads to marriage, despite Dave’s misgivings about getting married while he only makes $85.37 a week.
In need of a new place to start their lives together, Julie finds an unfurnished converted store room with no windows that has one major perk: direct access to the roof of the apartment building which offers a beautiful view of San Francisco. Julie feels that the place has charm and atmosphere, plus the rent is cheap.
The newlywed couple becomes friends with fellow tenants, Stan and Carol Parker. Stan quickly develops the habit of coming into their apartment unannounced in order to share his ideas with them. Also in the habit of showing up unannounced, although much less welcome than Stan, is Julie’s father, Fred Hammond, who is always finding a way to meddle in Dave and Julie’s lives, while his ever-patient wife, Phyllis, watches in amusement. Dave, however, is adamant that he and Julie will not accept Fred’s help, especially if it is monetary, a stance that causes much contention between the two men.
The humor in the series is formed, not simply out of the situations in which the characters find themselves, but out of the ways in which the differing personalities that regularly pass through the Willis’ apartment react to the situations and, in the process, to each other.
Episode List
Production notes
In an interview conducted while the series was still in production, Judy Carne stated that she and co-star Pete Duel had "a love-hate relationship" and that many of the problems that they had on set were caused by Carne’s insistence on punctuality and Duel’s tendency to show up late. [Melvin Durslag, "TV Guide", "Judy Carne—Brash, Confident, Scared!", cited at [http://www.asjcollection.com/current/tvguide1.html Alias Smith & Jones Collection] .] However, Carne would also later remember Duel as a kind and caring man who was very protective of her. [Judy Carne, "Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside", cited at [http://www.asjcollection.com/current/judy1.html Alias Smith & Jones Collection] .]
References
