Christian Themes in Classic Shows Part 2

Well I'm back with another entry for my blog. And I am going continue where I left off from last week talking about Christian Themes that were the focus of family sitcoms during the 80s and earlier 90s. This week I will talk about Amen, 227, and Who's the Boss. There are so many of these shows that this may take months to finish this series of entries so look for more of these to come out over the next few months. They won't be every week but by the end of the year I hoped to have discussed briefly every sitcom I believe falls into this category.

First up is Amen. This show was purposely set in a back room of a African-American Church. Sherman Hemsley played a character by the name of Deacon Fry. He's best known for playing George Jefferson on a show that shares his last name. But I'm not going to talk about that show. I'm going to talk about Amen. Deacon Fry was a lawyer turned judge but that was secondary because the show was either set in the church or his house. He has an adult daughter that falls in love with the Church's pastor and they eventually marry and in the last episode have a baby. The show didn't focus a lot of sermons although they were discussed on the occasion. The main focus was the issues facing this particular Church and how they went about to solving them. This includes welcoming in a gang of boys that threaten violence and showing them love. And I believe this came along the same time they were to be on TV for the first time. I don't really remember. My memory is all that great. Well this program was popular despite being completely (mostly anyways) on religious issues. It proved you can do that and still be funny.

227 is another show that starred a former "Jeffersons" cast member. I don't remember the actress' name at the time but she played a character named Mary who lived with her husband and teenage daughter in an apartment building with Mary's friends and neighbors who were all part of the cast. This includes her two best friends (one who was on Sesame Street at the time. I am unaware if she is still doing it however.) The other later was in a show called Sister, Sister which starred the Mowry twins (I will cover this show at a later time). Religion didn't really come up a lot on the show but I do recall them in Church one time and the dad dreaming that he and Mary went to Heaven and then later they went to Hell (something about some sin one of them had committed) The concept behind the plot of the show is what would the future be like if they went to one place compared to the other. Now I don't remember exactly what the preacher was preaching on other that he said the words "Heaven" and then later "Hell" and they prompt the dream the dad had. The thing is he could have been preaching according to scripture and the dreams just came about based on what the dad believed not the actual truth. But I don't really know. The show was funny in my opinion.

The last show I am going to talk about is Who's the Boss. It stars Tony Danza, Judith Light, Alyssa Mylano and others. It was about a young woman who needs a housekeeper and a strong male role model for her little boy. and it is about a man who needed to get away from the Bronx to keep his tomboyish daughter from getting into fights. Her mom got him the job and that is the premise of the show. The title is play on the old saying the man is the one in control of the house but in this case was he? She was his boss. The show lasted for 8 years I think and the two characters fell in love but they never married. And the show ends the same way it began. There weren't really any Christian themes in this program. It was emphasized a good bit about him being Catholic but that is about it.

Now please keep in mind that although I am listing Christian themes that I am remembering were in these shows; they are not Christian programming. They are sitcoms. They weren't always clean but they did in most cases have the family as the center point of the show and that is primary why they are being mention. This is all for this week. Part 3 will be up next week but there will probably be a break after that before I do a Part 4. I don't really know. And Please excuse the sudden font change in the text. It was not intentional. My computer suddenly decided my wireless router didn't exist and therefore I wasn't connected to the internet and I had to save everything over to Word and then bring it back to the blog once my computer had been restarted and the font for some of this was different. I think I fixed it but I am not sure yet. I will know when I check the blog myself after this is posted. Thank-you for reading this blog and please leave a commit.