Too Close for Comfort

1980 - 1987

When the downstairs tenant passes away, overprotective father, Henry Rush, lets his two young adult daughters move into the vacant apartment, but he still tries to run their lives. Inspired by the British sitcom, Keep It in the Family.

Stars: Ted Knight, Nancy Dussault, Jim J. Bullock, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Lydia Cornell, Audrey Meadows, Selma Diamond, Pat Carroll*, Lisa Antille*
Created by: Brian Cooke
Tags: family, remake
See: "When Too Close for Comfort Reached Peak Sitcom" on the Rerun Rewind Blog.

*Regular in the re-tooled version of the show (season 6).

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Episode Tropes

Season 1

Cooking Catastrophe: Episode 5, "Que Sara, Sara" (1980). When Muriel goes to stay with Jackie and Sara after a fight with Henry, Monroe feels responsible, so he tries to cook spaghetti and meatballs for Henry in a pressure cooker, and it explodes, getting the meatballs stuck to the ceiling.
Sexual Surrogate: Episode 10, "A Friend in Need" (1981). Monroe has been depressed lately, and he confesses to Henry that it's because he's still a virgin, so Sara decides to help him out by letting him use her and Jackie's apartment for his appointment with a sexual surrogate.
12 Angry Men: Episode 13, "Deadline for Henry" (1981). Henry has to same jury duty at the same time Mr. Wainwright wants him to get an urgent project completed yesterday, so he has to stay up all night working, and he finds it difficult to stay awake in the courtroom.
Séance: Episode 19, "The Return of Rafkin" (1981). Mildred Rafkin can't find her mother's cameo brooch in her late brother's apartment, so Sara organizes a séance with a medium so they can try to contact Mr. Rafkin and ask him where it is.

Season 2

Switched at Birth: Episode 3, "Who's Sara Now?" (1981). Henry reads a newspaper article about a nurse who admitted she switched babies at the hospital where she worked, which just happens to be the hospital where Sara was born, so he and Muriel start to think Sara might have been switched with another baby and is not really their child.
On Strike: Episode 5, "What's Our Rush?" (1981). Jackie leads a group of women tellers at the bank where she works in demanding equal pay. When the management doesn't comply, they go on strike and picket the bank.
To Kill a Turkey: Episode 6, "Rafkin's Bum" (1981). Jackie and Sara volunteer to cook Thanksgiving dinner, and they ask Monroe to bring the turkey, but to everyone's surprise, he brings a live turkey, and no one wants to kill it.
Where There's a Will: Episode 7, "Where There's a Will" (1981). Jackie's lawyer boyfriend tells the Rushes about a case he's working on where a man died without leaving a will, and his family was left struggling and fighting over his money, so Muriel pressures Henry to make out his will, but he doesn't want to face his own mortality until he has a nightmare about his family being destitute after he dies.
Video Will: Episode 7, "Where There's a Will" (1981). When he hears Muriel and Henry talk about Henry's will, Monroe offers to help Henry record a video will.
Assertiveness Training: Episode 8, "The Remaking of Monroe" (1981). Sara gets upset when Monroe doesn't stand up to some jerks who stole their seats at a concert, so April suggests he take an assertiveness course. After he takes the course, Monroe turns into an even bigger jerk than the ones from the concert.
Man-child Metamorphosis: Episode 8, "The Remaking of Monroe" (1981). Monroe takes an assertiveness course and starts acting like such a jerk that Henry bans him from their house.
The Old Pie in the Face Gag: Episode 14, "Charlie's Last Hurrah" (1982). Henry's old friend Charlie, who is notorious for playing practical jokes, is coming to visit, and Henry wants to play a practical joke on him, so he enlists Monroe to pretend to be a delivery man and throw a pie in Charlie's face.
Prank War: Episode 14, "Charlie's Last Hurrah" (1982). Henry's old friend Charlie comes to visit and tells Henry that he's dying (he isn't), and his last wish is to have a date with an attractive stewardess he met, and he wants Henry to come with him as her friend's date. Henry reluctantly complies, and Charlie arranges for Muriel, Jackie, and Sara to eat at the same restaurant and catch them. Henry is incensed, and he decides to teach Charlie a lesson by telling him that his little prank caused Muriel to leave him and ruined his whole life. Charlie is so shocked that he swears he'll never play another practical joke again.
Ski Trip from Hell: Episode 15, "The Last Weekend" (1982). Henry wants to spend more time with his daughters, so Muriel suggests he take them on a ski trip for the weekend. Unfortunately, the girls ditch him right away for the more advanced slopes, then run off with two attractive brothers they met. Then Henry realizes he took Muriel's Lamaze bag instead of his suitcase, and when he accidentally falls into the hot tub, he has nothing dry to wear except Muriel's lacy peignoir.
Lamaze Class: Episode 17, "Seventh Month Blues" (1982). To prepare for the birth of their baby, Henry and Muriel join a Lamaze class, and they hold the first class in their apartment.
Business Goes Bust: Episode 18, "As the Cookie Crumbles" (1982). Sara, Monroe, and April decide to start a business selling cookies based on Grandma Rush's family recipe, and they think they have it all figured out, but their lack of knowledge of business and the law leads to legal troubles and bankruptcy almost immediately.
Cooking Catastrophe: Episode 18, "As the Cookie Crumbles" (1982).While attempting to fulfill all their cookie orders on time, Sara, Monroe, and April make a huge mess of the Rush family kitchen.
Wallpaper Mishap: Episode 20, "A Matter of Degree" (1982). Henry apparently takes leave of his senses and hires Monroe to wallpaper the new nursery, and instead he wallpapers Henry. Then Mr. Balaban shows up, and Monroe wallpapers him too.
Labor Drill: Episode 22, "Don't Shoot the Piano Movers" (1982). In preparation for the birth of their third child, Henry puts the whole family through labor drills in the middle of the night (despite the fact that they've done it twice before already).

Season 3

Limp Willy: Episode 4, "A Snip in Time" (1982). After Muriel has the baby, Henry can't seem to get it up anymore because he's afraid Muriel might get pregnant again, and they don't want anymore kids.
Snip Snip: Episode 4, "A Snip in Time" (1982). Henry's friend, Herb, who is the father of eight kids, suggests Henry get a vasectomy to help assuage his fears of getting Muriel pregnant again. Henry gets the procedure done, and it does the trick.
Will You Marry Me Again?: Episode 6, "Do You Take This Woman Again?" (1982). For Muriel and Henry's 26th wedding anniversary, Muriel wants to renew their vows because they eloped when they got married the first time. They plan a small wedding with a few close friends, but when Muriel's mother gets involved, it blows up into a huge affair, so they decide to elope again.
Baby Swap: Episode 7, "Who Was That Baby I Saw You With?" (1982). Muriel holds a baby photoshoot in the apartment, and a grandmother accidentally leaves with Andrew instead of her grandchild, who was in an identical baby seat. Monroe is the only witness, but he can't remember the name of the woman who took Andrew.
Between Floors: Episode 10, "Pressure's Rising" (1982). When Monroe drives Henry to a physical for a new life insurance policy, they fight over the elevator buttons, and the elevator stalls, trapping them inside.
Pathetic Christmas Tree: Episode 11, "Mr. Christmas" (1982). When Andrew suddenly develops a fever, the Rushes have to cancel their ski trip plans and stay home for Christmas. Henry goes out to buy a tree and comes home with a tiny, scrawny thing that cost him $35 (~$114 in today's money).
We Were Robbed: Episode 14, "To Buy or Not to Buy" (1983). While Muriel and Henry are at the pediatrician with Andrew, Sara accidentally lets in burglars posing as furnisher refinishers, and they rob the upstairs apartment.
Accidental Accomplice: Episode 14, "To Buy or Not to Buy" (1983). Sara holds the door for two people who claim to be furnisher refinishers but are really burglars coming to rob her parents' apartment.
Giving Up the Gun: Episode 14, "To Buy or Not to Buy" (1983). After their apartment gets robbed, Henry decides to buy a gun, but when he hears a sound in the night and nearly takes a swing at Jackie with a golf club, he realizes that if he had a gun, he could have shot her, so he changes his mind.
Two Sides of the Story: Episode 15, "The Separation" (1983). Jackie has an argument with Brad because he doesn't want her to work when they're married, so Henry tells her a story about a time before he and Muriel were married when they had a similar argument, then Muriel and Iris each tell her completely different versions of the same story.
Centerfold: Episode 16, "Girls of the Media" (1983). Sara announces that she's being interviewed for a national magazine for an article about women in the media. Then she adds that the magazine is called "Flesh Pot," and she's going to pose in a bikini.
Barenakedlady: Episode 16, "Girls of the Media" (1983). Sara poses in a bikini for a magazine called "Flesh Pot," but when Monroe gets an advanced copy of the magazine, everyone's shocked to find a photo of Sara's head on someone else's nude body.
Surprise, You're Adopted!: Episode 18, "The Adoption Story" (1983). Iris wants to take Muriel on a trip to Paris, and Henry points out that Muriel will need her birth certificate to get a passport, which means she's going to find out she was adopted and Iris never told her, so Iris has to finally confess.
Backdoor Pilot: Episode 22, "Family Business" (1983). Backdoor pilot for a show about the Garibaldi family contracting company with a loose connection to a story about Iris moving in with the Rushes.

Season 4

Plastic Fantastic: Episode 2, "Making Mountains Out of Molehills" (1984). Jackie's jealous of all the attention Sara gets because of her obvious physical assets, so she decides to get breast implants, but when she talks to the other women in the waiting room at surgeon's office, she changes her mind.
Historical Whorehouse: Episode 4, "Home is Where the BART Is" (1984). The Rushes find out the city is planning to demolish their whole street to build a BART station, but Monroe discovers that it may be a historical landmark because it was once a popular brothel.
Weird Wedding Venue: Episode 6, "Son of the Groom" (1984). Henry's dad gets married in Henry and Muriel's living room for some reason.
Reluctant Witness: Episode 7, "Witness for the Persecution" (1984). Henry witnesses and armed robbery and is reluctant to go to the police for fear that the gunman would come after him, but Muriel, Jackie, and Sara convince him to come forward. He draws a sketch of the robber, who happens to already be at the police station, and when Henry identifies him, the robber tells him that if he testifies, he'll "cancel Christmas."
Playing the Market: Episode 14, "Goodbye, Mr. Chip" (1984). Monroe borrows a friend's computer and uses it to pick stocks to buy, and his predictions seem to be correct, so Henry buys the stock too. Then Monroe tells Muriel that she spent "$2 million" on household expenses this month, so Henry changes his mind and sells.
Wanna Bet: Episode 14, "Goodbye, Mr. Chip" (1984). Monroe uses his borrowed computer to predict the outcome of a horse race, and he, Jackie, and Sara all bet and rake it in. Henry is reluctant to bet at first, but he finally relents and bets on the computer's second pick, but the horse collapses and has to be shot, and everyone loses their money.
Dog from Hell: Episode 15, "No Patsy, This Kelly" (1984). Monroe aks if his friend "Kelly" can stay with him, and the Rushes agree, thinking Kelly is a person, but when Henry goes into the kitchen in the middle of the night, he discovers that Kelly is actually a vicious dog that corners him and keeps him trapped all night.
Long Lost Parent: Episode 19, "The Sound of Mother" (1984). Muriel's biological mother writes to her and wants to meet her. Muriel refuses to see her because she resents having been given up for adoption, but the rest of the Rushes want to meet her, so they invite her over behind Muriel's back.
Poor Baby: Episode 21, "Divorce Chicago Style" (1984). Henry has a cold and takes to the couch, where he whines for Muriel whenever he wants something.
Job Swap: Episode 21, "Divorce Chicago Style" (1984). Muriel is considering quitting her photography career because taking care of Andrew is a full time job, but Henry won't hear of it. He volunteers to take care of Andrew all day so Muriel can go back to work. He quickly gets overwhelmed with taking care of Andrew while still getting his work done, but he won't let Muriel find out because he doesn't want her to quit.

Season 5

Dead Wrong: Episode 2, "Nearly Departed" (1985). After his father's funeral, Henry starts to think about his own future passing and who might show up to pay their final respects. He invites his friend Herb over to ask him to give his eulogy, and Herb mistakenly thinks Henry is dying.
Wunderkind: Episode 3, "My Son, the PhD" (1985). After two-year-old Andrew's preschool teacher tells Muriel he has "advanced capacities," and Andrew appears to read a book out loud, Muriel and Henry become convinced Andrew is a genius. Later, they discover that he just memorized the book after hearing Monroe read it to him every time he babysat.
Get a Raise: Episode 4, "All in a Day's Unemployment" (1985). Monroe tells Henry he can't pay his rent because after his job takes out all the deductions from his paychecks, he's left with nothing, so Herny encourages him to demand a raise from his boss, which gets him fired.
Lie for Me: Episode 5, "Devereaux & Son" (1985). Paul Devereaux appears at the Rush home while Iris is visiting and announces that he has a son he never knew about, and when he meets him, he wants the Rushes to pretend to be his family so his son doesn't think he's a loser drifter.
And Baby Makes Two: Episode 6, "And Baby Makes Two" (1985). Jackie decides she wants to have a baby with her boyfriend, Bill St. George, but she doesn't want to get married.
Plastic Fantastic: Episode 8, "The Two Faces of Muriel" (1985). After seeing Henry gush over an old friend who had a facelift, Muriel starts thinking about getting one too, but instead, she plays a practical joke on Henry.
Green Card: Episode 9, "No Mas, Monroe" (1985). Monroe is smitten with the Rushes' new housekeeper, Evon, but her Visa expired, and she's afraid she'll be deported back to her home country (somewhere in Central America), so when Monroe asks her to marry him, she says yes, even though she's not in love with him.
Murphy Bed: Episode 10, "For Every Man, There's Two Women" (1985). After two women abduct and assault Monroe, he and Henry track down their apartment so they can turn them into the police, but as soon Monroe recognizes one of them, he takes off, and the women force Henry into their apartment, where he hides from them by folding himself up in a Murphy bed.
Found Money: Episode 11, "Finders Keepers" (1985). Henry and Monroe find a bag of cash and plan to keep it, but Muriel talks them into turning it into the police station, where the man who lost it is already waiting to claim it.
Clip Show: Episode 12, "These Stupid Things Remind Me of You" (1985). While Monroe is away visiting his father, the Rushes reminisce about all the stupid stuff he has said and done in clips from previous episodes.
Mounting the Hustings: Episode 16, "Off and Running" (1985). Muriel and Sara volunteer for Margaret Sinclair, a candidate running for the state legislature, and they hold a fundraising party at the Rush home, where Henry makes the mistake of posing for a photo with Sinclair while holding his Cosmic Cow puppet.
Joe Hollywood: Episode 21, "Off and Running" (1985). Henry gets swept up in show biz when he's offered a chance to turn Cosmic Cow into a TV show.

Season 6

Contempt: Episode 2, "Front Page Monroe" (1986). On Monroe's first day working at the Marin County Bugle, a man bursts in and tells him about a corporation that's dumping toxic waste into the ocean. Monroe writes the story and prints it on the front page, and when the district attorney's office questions him about it, he refuses to reveal the name of his source and gets sent to jail.
Fish and Visitors Stink in Three Days: Episode 3, "Four is a Crowd" (1986). Henry and Muriel's friends, Herb and Marsha Kennedy, buy a house in Marin County, but they can't move in yet, so they basically invite themselves to stay with the Rushes, and right away the Kennedys start disrupting the Rushes' daily routine, eating all the food in the house, and either snoring fighting loudly all night.
Dead Wrong: Episode 7, "Bedtime for Henry" (1986). Henry takes a day off and decides to stay in bed all day, and despite his reassurances, Mrs. Stinson, Monroe, and Lisa all start to think he's dying of some mysterious illness, and Lisa even goes so far as to call 9-1-1, which leads to paramedics storming his room.
Hot for Student: Episode 8, "Educating Lisa" (1986). Lisa starts going to night school so she can become an American citizen, but after her first night, she tells Henry and Muriel that she wants to quit. After some prodding, she tells them it's because the teacher put his hands on her and he "wants to fool around."
Cyrano de Bergerac: Episode 11, "Cyrano Henry" (1986). Mr. Forester is looking for a woman, so he asks Henry to write a personals ad for him. When a woman writes back, Henry continues corresponding with her as Mr. Forester, writing poetry and quoting Shakespeare to her. She becomes so enamored with him that she wants to meet him in public so Henry arranges for the two of them to meet at his house, so he can tell Mr. Forester what to say.
I Saw You: Episode 18, "Herb Kisses, Henry Tells" (1986). Muriel and Henry see their married friend, Herb, in a restaurant with an attractive blonde woman who is not his wife.
Under the Knife: Episode 19, "Believing is Seeing" (1986). Mrs. Stinson finds out she has cataracts and needs immediate surgery or she'll go blind, but she refuses to get the surgery and instead travels the world so she can see everything before she loses her sight.
My Big Fat Greek Episode: Episode 20, "Acropolis Now" (1986). Iris announces that she's marrying a Greek man named Alex, whom she met only two weeks ago, and Henry thinks he's just after her money. Meanwhile, Alex's son, Peter, thinks Iris is just after his father's money.
Pre-nup: Episode 20, "Acropolis Now" (1986). Iris is planning to marry a Greek man named Alex, and Henry, who thinks Alex is after Iris's money, thinks she should have him sign a pre-nup. Meanwhile, Alex's son thinks Iris is after his money and thinks he should have Iris sign a pre-nup.
No Joke: Episode 21, "Presenting Buddy Ficus" (1987). Monroe reviews stand-up comedians at a new nightclub in Marin County, and he thinks he can do better than them, so he writes a stand-up routine and performs at the club, and no one laughs.
When Keepin' It Real Goes: Episode 21, "Presenting Buddy Ficus" (1987). Monroe decides to become a comedian, but the gang thinks he's not funny, and Henry feels the need to tell him, which only leads to Monroe getting upset and storming out.

Character Tropes

Mild Mannered Man-child: Monroe Ficus - Played by Jim J. Bullock.
Mommie Dearest: Iris Martin - Played by Audrey Meadows.
Perennial Prankster: Charlie Davis - Played by Cliff Norton in season 2, episode 14, "Charlie's Last Hurrah" (1982).