MovieChat Forums > Who's the Boss? (1984) Discussion > Which late character addition to the ser...

Which late character addition to the series was worse, Billy or Hank?


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).

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