Just over 40 years ago, on Sep. 20, 1984, Who’s the Boss debuted on television and introduced audiences to Tony Danza, Alyssa Milano, and Judith Light’s lovable characters, who would stick around for eight seasons. While it was certainly goofy in a specifically ’80s-coded way, the series was surprisingly progressive in how it handled class and gender issues, kind of like a post-’70s Mary Tyler Moore show. This is partly why Alyssa Milano has been trying to develop and find a home for a reboot of Who’s the Boss for several years. She told Entertainment Tonight:
Who’s the Boss? was the first thing where really there was a swapping of gender roles, right? Tony was doing all the housekeeping and Judith was divorced, owned her own business, single mother, all those things that we didn’t really see at that time… And a daughter who is very much a tomboy.
Judith Light is currently starring opposite Billy Crystal in the spooky thriller Before, which premieres Oct. 25 on Apple TV+, and MovieWeb asked her if she had any response to Milano’s musings and if she’d be interested in joining a potential reboot. “You know what? I don’t know how to answer that question, because I don’t know where they are in their own journey and their process of putting it together, so when it’s farther along, then we could talk about it again. But I certainly loved my time, and I love my Tony Danza.” She continued:
“And I know exactly what Alyssa is talking about when she says that the show was cutting edge. And I, to this day, have young women come up to me and say, ‘I watched that show when I was a little girl, and I knew that I could be in business today because I saw a role model.’ And we didn’t really know at the time what we had, the gender swapping of the roles, also the role model of a woman in the workplace. Nobody really had talked about that before, but, you know, kudos to ABC for doing that. It was a great time.”
Related
The 11 Best Performances in 1980s TV Sitcoms
Some sitcoms from the 1980s featured characters that remain dear to our hearts, even today.
Alyssa Milano Has a Plan for the Who’s the Boss Reboot
Milano had actually told Entertainment Tonight in 2022 that a script was finished and had been sent to Prime Video’s free streaming platform, Freevee. Unfortunately, it’s been two years since then, and it doesn’t appear that anything has worked out. Milano is still discussing it in 2024 though. She said:
“I think it could be really funny because, in my head, Tony is gonna be the exact same character but everything around him is just changing and growing. So I’m excited about the prospect. I think it could be really, really fun… We’re working really hard, ’cause we feel like we have some more of a story to tell.”
“It would be Tony coming to take care of my children because I get a job that makes me travel a lot, so it’s that whole dynamic,” Milano teased back in 2022. “But also, the generational difference between raising a child now versus then, which is always the conflict that I have with my parents in real life about gentle parenting. So I’m really looking forward to that aspect of it.”
When Tony Micelli takes a job as housekeeper for Angela Bower, a successful businesswoman, he and his daughter, Samantha, move into Angela’s home. Now Tony and Sam must adjust to their new lives with the Bowers- Angela, her son Jonathan, and her mother, Mona.
- Release Date
- September 20, 1984
- Seasons
- 8