Shark Bytes

Arguably the worst sitcom of all time. Norman Fell and Audra Lindley were good actors who could have pulled off a mature, well-written show about an older couple, but this was just puerile garbage. Stanley and Helen didn't really care about each other, so why should we care about them, especially for a half hour a week? And who thought it was a good idea to show them in a hot tub? The kid couldn't act, the wife was attractive but unfunny, and Jeffrey Tambor overacted.

This should NEVER have been allowed to happen.

Norman Fell didn't want to leave three's company because he didn't think the show would last more than 10 shows. When ABC guaranteed 20 he agreed.
Personally I think this show wasn't given a chance. Most shows need time and this didn't get a chance to jump the shark.

The Ropers were one-joke characters on Three's Company (Helen's horny; Stanley's impotent). Despite this, they still could garner some laughs when they appeared for 3 or 4 minutes on each episode of TC.

So who in GOD'S name decided they needed to anchor their own sitcom? 30 minutes every week of "Stanley, I want us to do it." "Shut up, Helen, and go to sleep." did not exactly have America racing home to turn on their televisions.

A measure of how bad this show was...the usually reliably hilarious Jeffrey "Larry Sanders Show" Tambor even sucked. And who decided to pair him up with The Bad Seed?

Someone must have offered Norman Fell a boatload of cash to do this stinker. Totally not funny. Mrs. Roper was an annoying character, Jeffrey Tambor's character was the biggest sissy I'd seen in years, and they were trying to pass his wife off as hot (ha!). Having Don Knotts replace Fell on 3s Company was genius, and Normy was no longer needed.

WHAT ARE YOU

The show sucked. Plain and simple. Every character as bad, especially their neighbors. Then, when the show got cancelled, they wouldn't let them go back to 3's Company, because Knotts was already there. Awwww.

They were great in Three's Company. They should have stayed there, or let it go completely.

This just didn't work.

I remember the much ballyhooed debut of this "Three's Company" spinoff. I also remember how disappointing it was. On "TC", the Ropers had an amusing little run, but this show had no real premise besides Stanley's disagreeable personality & it was not nearly enough to build a show around.

I never thought the Ropers were all that funny when they were characters on Three's Company. Imagine my surprise when I heard they were going to have their own show. I knew, as a kid, that those characters were not strong enough to carry their own show. I recall that when I heard the show had been cancelled, I just laughed.

Jumped DAY ONE! Actually, before day one when someone had the idea to give these two their own show. It turned into a sad mess. I felt so bad for Norman Fell and Audra Lindley. I am a HUGE "Three's Company" fan and loved these characters. Their relationship was basically about Helen being horny for Stanley and he didn't wanna do it! That is fine for supporting characters in an ensemble comedy, but this would stop being funny really fast on their own show...and it did. I thought the Ropers got totally screwed out of their "Three's Company" jobs. They couldn't go back because they had already been replaced. And they weren't replaced by just anyone. It was Don Knotts...a much beloved tv personality. (I waaaay preferred the Ropers to Furley but there may have been a riot if someone dared to fire Barney Fife!) So because of this "great" idea, these two fine actors missed out on spending more time with the kids at the apartment building and left TV comedy on a sour note...so sad. P.S. Jeffrey Tambor as the neighbor was sometimes pretty funny. I have always liked his work.

Oh dear God. After many-a-bar-room discussion, I have concluded that this show was actually the absolute worst show ever. I mean, it was abyssmal! I am so ashamed at our species that it ever manifested as a production of our creative process. If any alien race ever got word that "The Roper's" ever existed...they would have all moral right to enslave us all or obliterate our planet. This show had absolutely nothing going for it. I don't want to disparage Norman Fell and Audra Lindsey, God rest their souls, but was there ever a more unattractive couple that Stanley and Helen Roper? I say thee nay! Mr. Roper was a bitter weirdo who never did a damn thing! Him dancing around with a plunger for the credits just makes me shake my head and want to blow by brains out. And I wanted to slap that dipshit so bad every time he did a camera shot. And the image of Mrs. Roper hovering around in that criminal 70's-print MuMu, whining and crying out "Stannnnleeeyyy!!!"....Argh! Grating. That's the word for these two characters. I was so glad to see them leave Three's Company, although it should have been in a violent, grotesque act of carnage making a spin-off impossible. And I'm sorry, I have to agree with the all-caps person (but really, don't use all-caps), Geoffrey Tabor was like a Roper, mark II. Very annoying in this show (most of his bit-parts tended to be for me) and just hastened this show's slide down Sharksville Lane. The show had no chemistry, no pleasantness, nothing redeemable at all. Constantly insulting your spouse is not funny, ever. The "I want sex" gag is funny on occasion but as a constant overtone degraded into ugly bitchiness. Into Hell's deepest pit, I condemn thee, Roper's.

The Ropers jumped on Day One. 3's Company sucked, so why would a lame spin-off be any better? Before his role as Stanley Roper, Norman Fell played tough guys and cops and was fair-to-middling at it. But he's not a comic actor by a country mile! Every time he'd crack one of his stupid jokes and look at the camera, I wanted to throw a shoe at the TV. I don't blame Stanley for not wanting to throw a hump into that nagging harpie of a wife of this though - what a witch!

The Ropers was funny. Given a decent chance it could've gone on. One thing wrong with it was that the neighbors were cast wrong. Oddly enough, Helen and Stanley had great chemistry together. They even had good chemistry with Jeffrey, the wife (i forget her name) and little David BUT there was no chemistry between Jeffery and his wife, the wife and David or David and Jeffrey. The writers made this work somewhat by placing it into the series that Jeffery didn't understand or even really like his kid David. You just didn't believe Jeffrey would have a hot wife. Also the writers made it clear Stanley couldn't live on the money he made selling his apt building. So where was his job? A co-worker at a new job would've been funny, Jenny the strange girl in the apartment wasn't.

The Ropers jumped when they found Jenny living in their storage room. Apparently, the show's producers felt they needed to add a young adult to fill the void left by Jack, Janet, Chrissy, Cindy, Terri, Larry, and whoever else was left behind when the Ropers spun off from "Three's Company". Jenny Ballinger was yet another one of those "young, uninhibited, zesty, free-spirited, neo-hippie" characters who seemed to turn up on a lot of 70s/early 80s sitcoms (similar to "April" on "Too Close for Comfort"). You know what I'm talking about - the kind of "I love life and the world and everybody in it" type who makes you want to puke your guts up every time they appear on screen.