My roommates and I were obsessed with this show when it was on in 1990. We were all living in the same condo, all of them in college and me...not. We'd spend our time playing tennis, eating subs and Chinese, and watching Star Trek: TNG, MacGyver, reruns of Spenser: For Hire, and this show.
Married People was a short-lived sitcom on ABC. It was about the lives of several married couples who all lived in the same building in New York City. The star of the show was Jay Thomas, who was married to Bess Armstrong (they were the "middle" couple). The "older" couple (also the landlords in the building) was played by Ray Aranha and Barbara Montgomery, and the "younger" couple was played by Chris Young (from Max Headroom) and Megan Gallivan. Several episodes were directed by veteran director Asaad Kelada.
On the surface this might seem like a typical sitcom, but the writing was a lot better than you'd expect. And by structuring the show are three different types of couples (the older black couple that was wise, the middle couple that was a bit sarcastic (Armstrong was a lawyer while Thomas played a work-at-home freelance writer - maybe that's one of the reasons I latched on to this show), and the younger couple who always had questions about their marriage, etc), it gave the show a definite personality you don't often see on network sitcoms. It's really a shame this show didn't last longer.
Below are the opening credits from the show. Believe me, it was better than the credits (which almost seem like a Saturday Night Live parody of what sitcom credits are like) might suggest.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-07-2008 @ 5:24PM
Mark said...
Olivia ws the characters name. Barbara Montgomery was the actress.
I remember this show favorably. It was really about marriage by contrasting the newlyweds, to the middle couple starting their family, and the older couple whose nest recently emptied.
The Thanksgiving episode where they take a about to deliver Bess Armstrong to the hospital in the middle of a blizzard on an American Flyer sled was good.
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5-07-2008 @ 9:43PM
pumpkinhead said...
I remember this show too. Really liked it. When the new show with David Spade came on last year, I was immediately reminded of this show.
And it I remember it made a reference to the "Only on TV" standard that, if you're five feet away from someone in the same room, they can't hear you. "Uh, I can hear you, I'm five feet away."
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5-08-2008 @ 12:34AM
Ross Gould said...
It sounded like Jennifer Hudson was laying down the track for the credits!
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5-08-2008 @ 7:11AM
Will said...
I alway's wonder, when I read about these short-lived shows, how the actors are making a living now. Because I can't say I've ever heard of any of these people, except for Jay Thomas. I just wonder how they make out, it's been 15 or 20 years & noone has done anything else that made them well-known. I suppose it shouldn't bother me, they probably make way more money than I do. But it always reminds me of Jeff Conaway, from Taxi, after that he went downhill and even if he made a lot of money during the show run, I suspect he has little left. So people I've never heard of & haven't since this show, they must really be hurting. I'll have to look them up on IMDB.
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