So I have watched every ep. so many times something just caught my eye.

The kitchen telephone has some comings and goings in season 3. They first have kitchen phone in "Mama and Doctor Brothers" the kitchen phone then comes and goes depending on what show, but makes a show on "Santa Mama" and remains in tact the rest of the series.

I do not know if anyone else caught anything that minor before, but I wonder how the directors and producers introduced something to the set then oops here and there to stick with it.

I do know there was no phone in the kitchen in the NBC episodes, and I thought it wasn't there until about midway through season 3.

I don't think the episodes are shown totally in order of production, so that COULD account for it sometimes being there and sometimes not.

Yup, I too FINALLY noticed there was no phone in the NBC shows, and the first syndicated shows.

The phone reappears in the living room in “Mama’s Girls”.

They never took much pains with making the flashbacks look REAL...in Sins of a Mother, which is when Eunice is a teenager, there IS a phone in the kitchen..a black one... I guess it's possible that Mama could have had a phone there years ago, and it got removed and then she finally had one put in again, but still....lol

There is indeed a telephone in the Harper kitchen and it's a yellow wall rotary phone and I saw it today in today's Mama's Family rerun on Logo and it's possible that the set designers chose Mama's kitchen telephone to match her kitchen. There is also a black rotary phone in the living room of the Harper house
Bestie

Where there is smoke was the first time I remember seeing the phone in the kitchen. But you are right, the Joyce Brother's episode precedes it.

"nothing like listening the Barry Manilow while waiting for you to get your throat slit"