Kate & Allie is an Americansitcom television series that aired onCBS from March 19, 1984, to May 22, 1989, starringSusan Saint James andJane Curtin as two divorced mothers who decide to live together and raise their children in the same home.^[1] The series was created bySherry Coben.^[2]

Kate & Allie
Main title screen
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Sherry Coben
Directed by	Bill Persky (Seasons 1–5) Linda Day (Season 6)
Starring	Susan Saint James Jane Curtin Ari Meyers Frederick Koehler Allison Smith
Theme music composer	Ralph Schuckett
Opening theme	"Along Comes a Friend" performed byJohn Loeffler
Composers	John Loeffler Ralph Schuckett
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	122(list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Merrill Grant Mort Lachman Bernie Orenstein
Producers	Anne Flett Bill Persky Chuck Ranberg Bob Randall Saul Turteltaub
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	24 minutes
Production companies	Alan Landsburg Productions (1984-1985) (seasons 1-2) Reeves Entertainment Group (1985-1989) (seasons 3-6) Universal Television
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	March 19, 1984 (1984-03-19) – May 22, 1989 (1989-05-22)
Related
Roxie

The show starsSusan Saint James as the free-spirited Kate McArdle andJane Curtin as her more conservative childhood friend, Allie Lowell. After both women divorce, they decide to share abrownstone in New York City'sGreenwich Village and raise their families together.

The show also starredAri Meyers as Kate's daughter Emma, andFrederick Koehler andAllison Smith as Allie's children Chip and Jennie.

Both Kate and Allie were portrayed as independent, smart women. Kate and Allie dated men regularly and were shown as wise to romantic games, but not averse to remarrying if the opportunity presented itself.

Kate & Allie first aired onCBS as a mid-season replacement series and only six episodes were initially commissioned, but the favorable response from critics and viewers alike (its first episode ranked number 4 out of all the television shows airing that week) easily persuaded CBS to commit to a full season in the fall of 1984. The show was one of the most popular and critically acclaimed sitcoms of the 1980s, consistently ranking in the Top 20 shows until its final season. Curtin won two consecutiveEmmy Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy Series,^[3] while Saint James was nominated in the same category three times.^[4]

Curtin and Saint James had previously worked together in the 1980 movieHow to Beat the High Cost of Living.^[5]

At the beginning of the series, Kate was atravel agent and Allie worked to care for household's domestic needs and returned to college to complete the degree she had abandoned during her marriage. In the show's fifth season, Kate quit her job and teamed up with Allie to start acatering service.

In the show's next to last season, Allie dated Bob Barsky (Sam Freed), a television sportscaster who proposed to Allie in the season finale. In the final season, now-married Allie and Bob moved into a new apartment. Bob, however, took a job that involved regular travel and his frequent absences provided a reason for Kate to move into the new apartment too. This plot development, frequently cited as one of the canonical examples of a television showjumping the shark, led viewers to lose interest^[6] and CBS chose not to renewKate & Allie for a seventh season.

• Susan Saint James as Katherine "Kate" Elizabeth Ann (née Hanlan) McArdle.
• Jane Curtin as Allison "Allie" Julia Charlotte (née Adams) Lowell.
• Ari Meyers as Emma McArdle, Kate's daughter. Meyers left the show a few episodes into the fifth season to attendYale University (although her name remained in the opening credits to the end of the season); she returned for the season-ending 100th episode retrospective, but did not appear in the sixth season.
• Allison Smith as Jennie Lowell, Allie's daughter of similar age to Emma.
• Frederick Koehler as Charles "Chip" Lowell, Allie's son.
• Sam Freed as Bob Barsky, Allie's boyfriend who became her husband in Season 6. He was asportscaster after retiring as a professional football player. Freed also played different characters in two separate episodes. In the second season he played a married candidate for office named Johnathan Conti who flirts with Allie. At the end of season three he played Keith in the episode "Late Bloomers", which was abackdoor pilot for a proposed spinoff which would have starredLindsay Wagner.
• Peter Onorati as Lou Carello, the superintendent in Kate and Allie's new apartment building in Season 6. He tries unsuccessfully to win Kate's affections.^[7]

• Greg Salata as Ted Bartelo, a plumber whom Kate gets involved with during the second season. The two break up in the season two finale. Ted returns for the fifth season, with he and Kate attempting to rekindle their relationship; by the end of this season, he is gone again.^[6]
• Paul Hecht as Dr. Charles Lowell, Allie's sometimes pompous ex-husband.^[8]
• Harley Venton (previouslyJohn Heard) as Max McArdle, Kate's ex-husband.
• Jack Gilpin as Roger, Kate & Allie's next-door neighbor during the series' first two seasons.
• Michael Countryman as Louis, Chip's adult friend who has anintellectual disability.
• Wendie Malick as Claire Lowell, Charles' new wife.^[9]
• Alan North as Mr. Sloan, Kate's boss at the travel agency.

Notable guest stars includedBen Stiller,Kelsey Grammer,William H. Macy,Lindsay Wagner,Mercedes Ruehl,Ricki Lake,Dick Cavett,Patricia Richardson,Barbara Barrie,Paul Gleason,Rosemary Murphy,Andrea Martin,John Heard,Debra Jo Rupp,Marilyn Cooper,Susie Essman,Joe Namath,Christa Miller (star Susan St. James' real-life niece), andPeggy Pope.

Kate & Allie gave birth to thespin-offRoxie, a short-lived comedy that aired only twice on CBS's schedule, on April 1 and 8, 1987.Roxie starredAndrea Martin asNew York City TV programmer Roxie Brinkerhoff, who balanced her professional life at localUHF station WNYV with her married life. Martin had previously appeared as a similar version of the character, named Eddie Gordon, on two episodes ofKate & Allie ("Stage Mother", which aired December 1, 1986, and in "The Goodbye Girl", December 8, 1986), in which she was a friend of Allie's who worked as a producer on low-viewershippublic-access Channel G.^[10]

Another attempted spin-off wasLate Bloomer, which was scheduled to be a midseason replacement in January 1987.^[11][12] Based on the similarly named Season 3 episode thatguest starredLindsay Wagner, the series was scrapped the day before its January 19, 1987, debut, which was an encore presentation of itsbackdoor pilot.^[13]

The test name for the script was entitledTwo Mommies and was seized upon by Saint James who was able to use the show as a way to work without relocating her family from Litchfield, Connecticut. Curtin initially was not interested in doing the sitcom, but after speaking with director Bill Persky she decided to take the role.^[14]Kate & Allie was taped on soundstages constructed at theEd Sullivan Theater (CBS Studio 50) and also at theTeletape Studios at West 81st Street and Broadway in New York City, which at the time was the production facility forSesame Street.^[15]

Cold opening dialog sequences between Saint James and Curtin documenting city life were featured, shot on location inManhattan with nolaugh track. Thetheme song played instrumentally over the title shot of the Empire State Building (the first season's titles opened in a different outdoor location per episode). Closing credits also included vocals with indicative lyrics, "just when you think/you're all by yourself/you're not."^[16]

Under pressure from higher-ups at CBS to quash the suggestion that Kate and Allie were lesbians, the producers were instructed to show Kate and Allie entering separate bedrooms to sleep at the end of each episode. That pressure may have been the impetus for an episode showing Kate and Allie pretending to be lesbians when they were faced with a large increase in rent.^[17]

Saint James was pregnant during the taping of the fourth season. Her pregnancy was hidden by taping her behind a desk, under a sheet in a hospital bed, or in a bubble bath. The exception was a 1960s flashback which showed both Kate and Allie pregnant.

An episode broadcast in 1987, produced in cooperation with theCoalition for the Homeless, was taped almost entirely outdoors, on the streets of Manhattan. The episode was prompted by the likely absence of Saint James, who had been hospitalized due to kidney stones, and featured Allie struggling to find a way home after accidentally leaving her keys and money in a taxi.^[18]

The show's final season had been picked up with a number of other returning CBS shows for midseason premieres. The lack of inclusion on CBS' 1989–90 fall schedule announced on May 19, 1989, officially ended the series' run.^[19]

Following are theNielsen ratings for the show:^{[citation needed]}

• 1983–1984: #8
• 1984–1985: #17
• 1985–1986: #14
• 1986–1987: #19
• 1987–1988: #38
• 1988–1989: #48

According to an essay by Christine R. Catron from theMuseum of Broadcast Communications's Encyclopedia of Television,^[6] the decline in ratings for the show's last season is attributable to the fact that the show's premise had been fulfilled at the end of the previous season, when Allie accepted Bob Barsky's marriage proposal.

The American syndication rights are held byNBCUniversal Syndication Studios, the successor to the original distributor,MCA Television; the show aired onRTN.Kate & Allie previously aired onWE tv, from 2007 to 2008.Fremantle owns the international rights, as they ownThames Television and have access to theReeves Entertainment product.

In January 2021, it was announced thatNBC had given aput pilot commitment to a reboot of the series. It will be produced by Fierce Baby Production, Propagate, andUniversal Television with Erica Oyama writing and co-executive producing withNahnatchka Khan,Ben Silverman,Howard T. Owens, Rodney Ferrell, Gregory Lipstone, Peter Principato, Jen Carreras, and Brian Dobbins.^[20]

Universal Studios Home Entertainment (nowUniversal Pictures Home Entertainment, or UPHE) released the first season ofKate & Allie on DVD exclusively in the United States in May 2006. The extras include a blooper reel, a six minute interview with Bill Persky and Susan Saint James and a bonus episode from Season Two.

On 23 May 2023, UPHE released the complete series on DVD.^[21]

For the Canadian market,Visual Entertainment (under license fromFremantle), has released all six seasons on DVD. On May 4, 2010, VEI releasedKate & Allie: The Complete Series, a 16-disc boxset featuring all 122 episodes of the series. Neither release include any extras.^[22]

• Kate & Allie atIMDb
• Kate & Allie atepguides.com