Poster: Stuck In The '70's
(see this users gallery) Blossom aired on NBC from January 1991 until June 1995.
Life as seen through the eyes of a sassy and adventuresome 13 year-old, '90's style. Though the youngest of the Russo children Blossom ( Mayim Bialik), was mature beyond her years. Her family was distressingly modern; her dad Nick(Ted Wass), was divorced, eldest brother Anthony ( Michael Stoyanov); a recovering substance-abuser, and Joey ( Joey Lawrence), a teenage lothario. In an early episode Nick, who was a studio musician, was served with divorce papers which the kids tried to keep from him-hardly the sort of comic situation viewers would have seen in the 1960's. Joining the family in the fall of 1991 was Grandpa Buzz ( Bernard Hughes), a free-wheeling oldster undergoing a delayed midlife crisis.Blossom herself was not the prettiest girl on the block. She delt with life and the fracturing of her family partly through spunk, and partly through fantasies in which she got hilarious advice from celebrities like Phil Donahue, Little Richard, Sonny Bono, and Alf. Her thoughts were related each day to her " video diary." Six ( Jenna Von Oy ), was her teenage best friend ( so named because she was the sixth child in her family), and Vinnie (David Lascher), her hip, streetwise boyfriend. Rhonda ( Portia Dawson), was Anthony's girlfriend for a season. Although not a regular Melissa Manchester appeared occasionally as Nick's ex-wife Maddie Russo. During the 1993-1994 season, Anthony, who worked as a paramedic, began dating a black girl named Shelly( Samaria Graham). They were eventually married and had a baby, Nash, during the November 1994 ratings period( of course). For a time they lived in a garage apartment, but in March 1995 they moved back east. Close on the heels of the marriage of his oldest son, Nick began seeing a worldly British woman named Carol ( Finola Hughes). They were married in the fall of 1994, whereupon the household gained a new youngster in Carol's 6 year old daughter Kennedy ( Courtney Chase). Joey, whose cheerfulness was exceeded by his incredible denseness, somehow graduated from high school and went on the road with a minor league baseball team, while becoming engaged to girlfriend Melanie( Marguerite Moreau). In the May 1995 series finale, dumb Joey abruptly proposed to Melanie who said yes. Carol announced that she was pregnant, and Nick arranged to sell the house so that he and Carol could move into a place of their own. Blossom, seeing the family as she knew it coming to an end, at first tried to sabotage the deal, but finally realized that it was all about " moving on." Blossom was first seen in a single pilot telecast on July 5, 1990. |