Billy or Hank

[TMC]

Which late in the series cast addition was worse? Billy, that little boy that Tony and Angela had to look after in Season 7 or Hank, the guy that Sam wound up marrying in the eighth and final season. Both at least in my mind, appeared to be network imposed additions as a means of revitalizing the show.

Billy is the prototypical "Cousin Oliver" type. That being a super precocious child who is shoe-horned into an aging TV show when the other kids (in this case, Sam and in particular, Jonathan) had reached puberty and thus, were no longer "cute".

I read the theory that Sam was abruptly married off as a compromise because the producers and Tony Danza himself, didn't want Tony and Angela to marry out of fear of hurting the syndication value. But the audience hardly knew Hank before he and Sam married, so it was right then and there, hard to really get invested in his character.

Plus, Hank on his own, had little to no personality or charm. He was just the guy that Sam married, so he became something of a third wheeler (or in this case, sixth wheeler to Sam, Tony, Angela, Mona, and Jonathan).

['80sSitcoms]

I like Billy. I think he's cute and funny.

Originally Posted by TMC

Tony Danza himself, didn't want Tony and Angela to marry out of fear of hurting the syndication value.

Which is kind of ironic, because most people misremember Tony and Angela getting married at the end of the series.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by '80sSitcoms

I like Billy. I think he's cute and funny.




Which is kind of ironic, because most people misremember Tony and Angela getting married at the end of the series.

I think viewers didn't warm up to Billy because like Hank, he never really gelled with the rest of the cast. Billy was one of those characters where it felt like the producers and writers were really trying to manipulate the audience into liking.

Plus, viewers I believe, were keen on what the plan was with Billy. He was going to take over Jonathan's spot as the "cute little boy" in the house since Danny Pinataro was a teenager at that point. It just felt like a cynical and contrived network ploy to keep an aging show from going completely stale.

Plus, it was obnoxious at how Billy had to act like a mini-version of Tony with the raspy and heavy New York accent and the macho-posturing. He just didn't seem like a "normal" or authentic kid like Sam and Jonathan did in the early years. Billy seemed more like a caricature of what TV producers think a cute and precocious little kid on a sitcom should be like.

['80sSitcoms]

He still makes me laugh though, and I find him cute and endearing. For me this is an exception to the "Cousin Oliver" rule.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by '80sSitcoms

He still makes me laugh though, and I find him cute and endearing. For me this is an exception to the "Cousin Oliver" rule.

I think that I said elsewhere that maybe Billy's character and his presence wouldn't have been such an annoyance had they not written things to look like Tony and Angela suddenly had little to no experience at dealing with and raising kids.

In fairness, at least Billy had a distinctive personality unlike Hank and the producers had enough common sense to write him out when it became apparent that his character wasn't working. With Hank, since he was married to Sam, his own character was much harder to ignore. Granted, all of this came around right near the tail end of the series, so we didn't have to deal with him too long.

But that doesn't change the fact that Hank has the charisma and charm of a dead fish. And it's asinine that the writers expected us to care about some dork that we hardly know just because he suddenly became Sam's husband.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by '80sSitcoms

I like Billy. I think he's cute and funny.




Which is kind of ironic, because most people misremember Tony and Angela getting married at the end of the series.

I don't have all of the information in front of me right now, but basically, Tony Danza argued that having his character and Angela marry would've essentially turned Who's the Boss? into another run of the mill family sitcom.

I'm guessing that the whole "it will hurt the syndication value" argument stems from the worry that viewers will have little incentive to rewatch the show, if the ending is a foregone conclusion. That's probably why the actual ending (in what was meant to be a "full-circle moment"), where Tony comes back to Angela's house after spurning his dream job in Iowa, was meant to be open-ended.

The British version of Who's the Boss? called The Upper Hand did I believe, have that show's versions of Tony and Angela ultimately marry each other.

[TMC]

I was watching the last few episodes of Who's the Boss? today, and it all but reaffirmed by opinion that Hank after he marries Sam, is just "there". He really doesn't have much of a presence or impact on the storylines post-marriage.

I mean, maybe I'm misremembering a bit, but all that Hank does is help Jonathan move Tony's belongings for his trip to Iowa and accompany Sam to Iowa to she her dad and Angela. He almost becomes something of a hanger on to the Bower-Micellis instead of his own character.

There's of course some stuff in-between "Better Off Wed" and "Savor the Veal", but again, Hank towards the end of the series, just seems to be "there" because he's such a bland and almost nondescript character.

If it seemed like they wanted Hank to be some type of foil for Tony with his puppets and what not, his arrival came along so late in the series' run. And Hank like I said, was such a boring character otherwise, that it was hard to really get invested. And I don't care about Hank and Sam's marriage because the writers and producers didn't give us enough of a reason to care. He seems more like Sam's sidekick than her spouse if that makes sense.