Charles in Charge
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Michael Jacobs Barbara Weisberg
Starring	Scott Baio Willie Aames Julie Cobb James Widdoes April Lerman Jonathan Ward Michael Pearlman Jennifer Runyon Sandra Kerns Nicole Eggert Josie Davis Alexander Polinsky Ellen Travolta James T. Callahan Justin Whalin
Theme music composer	Michael Jacobs Al Burton David Kurtz
Opening theme	"Charles in Charge" performed byShandi Sinnamon
Composers	David Kurtz (1987–88) Timothy Thompson (1988–89) Todd Hayen (1989–90)
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	5
No. of episodes	126(list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer	Al Burton
Producers	Michael Jacobs (season 1) Roseanne Leto(pilot) Mitchell Bank Todd E. Kessler(seasons 2–4)
Running time	22 minutes
Production companies	Al Burton Productions Scholastic Productions Universal Television
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	October 3, 1984 (1984-10-03) – April 3, 1985 (1985-04-03)
Network	Syndication
Release	January 3, 1987 (1987-01-03) – November 10, 1990 (1990-11-10)

Charles in Charge is an Americansitcom television series that premiered on October 3, 1984, onCBS. The series was a production of Al Burton Productions andScholastic Productions in association withUniversal Television and starredScott Baio, who had previously starred inHappy Days, in the title role.Willie Aames, who had previously been a cast member onEight Is Enough, also starred as Charles' best friend Buddy Lembeck.

Charles in Charge joined the CBS Wednesday night lineup at 8:00 pm, placing it against ABC’s hit action seriesThe Fall Guy and the newMichael Landon-ledHighway to Heaven on NBC. At the time, with the exception of their Monday-night comedies (Kate & Allie andNewhart), CBS's sitcom lineup was not performing well in the ratings andCharles in Charge did not do much to change that. Still, the network allowed the show to remain in production to complete the 22 episodes it had ordered for the season.

After the February 27, 1985, episode, CBS placedCharles in Charge on hiatus. Two episodes had yet to air, and CBS aired them on March 13 and April 3, 1985. The network then droppedCharles in Charge from its Wednesday lineup in favor of the mystery drama seriesDouble Dare; the show was moved to Saturday, where it aired in reruns for several weeks until it was replaced by the dramaCover Up. None of these series were renewed for a second season, nor were either of the two comedies that shared the hour withCharles in Charge (Dreams andE/R).

One year later, after seeing the success of some canceled network series after they were revived forfirst-run syndication (which was a significant trend at the time), Universal decided to rework and relaunchCharles in Charge in syndication. The show premiered on local stations at the midway point of the 1986-87 season, with the first episode of the new series premiering on January 3, 1987. Four seasons were produced for syndication, with the last episode airing on November 10, 1990. In total, 126 episodes were produced, 22 in the abbreviated first season and 26 in each of the syndicated seasons.

The series takes place inNew Brunswick, New Jersey. Charles, who has no given surname, is a student at Copeland College (fictional, perhaps meant to representRutgers University, whose main campus is in New Brunswick) and is 19 years old when the series begins.

Needing a place to live while attending school, Charles applies for a job working for Stan and Jill Pembroke, an affluent couple in search of a live-in housekeeper. An arrangement is reached where Charles would take the job with the Pembrokes while he attended Copeland, and in lieu of a salary, he would receiveroom and board for his duties as caretaker for their children Jason, Douglas, and Lila. In addition to this, as well as his escapades with his best friend Buddy, Charles has a crush on fellow Copeland student Gwendolyn Pierce and spends quite a bit of his free time trying to court her, which never seems to work.

When the show returned in 1987, only Scott Baio and Willie Aames returned from the original cast, as the producers reworked the story to accommodate the changes in cast.

The second season's first episode featured Charles returning to New Brunswick from his summer vacation, only to discover an unfamiliar family living in the Pembrokes' home. He learns that the Pembrokes left New Jersey while he was away and have moved across the country toSeattle. The new family, the Powells, agreed to sublet the house from the Pembrokes, which included retaining Charles' services as live-in babysitter.

The Powell clan consisted of mother Ellen and grandfather Walter, who was Ellen's husband's widowed father and who was living with them to fulfill his son's role as he served overseas in the U.S. Navy. Like the Pembrokes, the Powells also had three children, daughters Jamie and Sarah and younger brother Adam.

Charles' previously unseen widowed mother Lillian became a central character in the revival series. She was played byEllen Travolta, which marked the second time that she had played mother to a character portrayed by Baio; she had done the same thing onJoanie Loves Chachi several years earlier (although she first played cousin Jimmy Baio’s mother on a 1978 episode ofThe Love Boat^[1]).

Besides Baio and Aames, Michael Pearlman and Jennifer Runyon are the only other main cast members to reprise their roles on the show after the first season. Pearlman appeared in the second-season premiere, "Amityville". (Lisa Donovan played Jill Pembroke in that episode.) Runyon appeared in "Twice Upon a Time (Part 1)" and "Twice Upon a Time (Part 2)". (GymnastJulianne McNamara appeared in both seasons 1 and 2 as cheerleader Paula Thackery.) British singerSamantha Fox appeared in one episode as famous singer Samantha Steel, who Charles becomes involved with before ending the relationship due to her being married.Mindy Cohn appeared once as Buddy's sister named Bunny who had problems with alcoholism.

In the final two seasons, Sandra Kerns only made three more appearances (once in season 4 and twice in season 5). Baio and Aames are the only two cast members who appear in every single episode.

Thetheme song was composed byDavid Kurtz,Michael Jacobs, and Al Burton, and performed byShandi Sinnamon. The theme music was mellower in the first season, and was remixed for the syndication run.

Universal Pictures released a three-disc set of the first season ofCharles in Charge onDVD inNorth America on February 14, 2006. Due to poor sales, no further seasons were released.

In September 2007, Arts Alliance America (which subsequently changed its name to Virgil Films & Entertainment during the summer of 2007) announced it had acquired the rights to the series.^[2] They subsequently released seasons 2–5 on DVD. Seasons 4 and 5 were Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) releases, available exclusively through Amazon.com.^[3][4]

All five seasons of the series were made available for streaming throughAmazon Video and season one only onHulu Plus.^[5] In addition, the entire series can be streamed on the NBC.com app.

WhenCharles in Charge returned to television, an arrangement had been made with stations owned byTribune Broadcasting to carry the program in first run. Through this arrangement, the show was also able to gain nationwide carriage as its Chicago affiliate,WGN-TV, was anational cable superstation.

In 1988, with the series nearing the100-episode mark, distributor MCA Television began advertising in trade publications that it would begin selling reruns ofCharles in Charge to local stations for a fall 1989 launch. The show reached the mark when the 1988-89 season ended, and the show began airing daily in syndication shortly thereafter. After the final episode aired in 1990, the syndication package added them, as well; the package included the first 22 episodes that had aired on CBS and the 78 that had aired over the first three seasons in syndication.^[6]

• Charles in Charge atIMDb
• Charles in Charge Online

• 1980s American sitcoms
• 1984 American television series debuts
• 1990 American television series endings
• 1990s American sitcoms
• American television series revived after cancellation
• American English-language television shows
• CBS sitcoms
• Fictional nannies
• First-run syndicated sitcoms
• American television series about families
• Television series by Universal Television
• Television series created by Michael Jacobs (producer)
• Television shows about child care occupations
• Television shows set in New Jersey

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