The Ropers

The Ropers was an American sitcom that ran from March 1979 to April 1980. It was a spinoff of Three's Company and based on the popular British sitcom George and Mildred. The series focused on middle-aged couple Stanley and Helen Roper (played by Norman Fell and Audra Lindley) who had been the landlords to Jack, Janet, and Chrissy on Three's Company.

Related Topics:
Sitcom - 1979 - 1980 - Spinoff - Three's Company - George and Mildred - Norman Fell - Audra Lindley

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In this spinoff the Ropers moved from their apartment in Three's Company to live in the upmarket community of Cheviot Hills where the social-climbing Helen struggled to fit in with her neighbours. Stanley made little attempt to fit in with the standards of the community thereby causing Helen much embarrassment.

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The show premiered directly after Three's Company in March 1979. At the beginning of the next season, it was moved to the weekends where it experienced a major ratings drop, and ABC cancelled the show.

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Despite the fact that moving from Three's Company to The Ropers meant that Fell and Lindley moved from supporting roles to becoming primary stars of their own series, Fell claimed that he had never wanted to assume the risk of leaving an established, successful series for one that was unproven and obviously might fail. He said that he would only agree to it after securing a guarantee that if The Ropers was cancelled after less than a year, he and Lindley would be allowed to return to Three's Company.

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During the time that The Ropers was on the air, the characters had been replaced on Three's Company by Don Knotts. The addition had worked well and Three's Company had retained its popularity, thus making the idea of rocking the boat further by swapping Knotts back out to return Fell and Lindley an undesirable one to producers. The cancellation of The Ropers came just one month after the one-year contractual deadline passed, and Fell stated he always believed that the decision to pull the plug on the show had been made much earlier, but that the network deliberately postponed making the cancellation official until after the one-year mark specifically to be relieved of the obligation to allow Fell and Lindley to return Three's Company.

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