Tony Danza: The Best 80s Sitcom Dad

If you watched much television at all during the latter half of the eighties, you probably remember the name Tony Danza. The show that made him famous, Who's the Boss?, ran for eight seasons from 1984 to 1992. Prior to that he was largely known for his role on Taxi and for his brief boxing career.

Who's the Boss was the story of Tony Micelli, who moved from the city to the world of upper-class suburbia in search of a better life for his daughter Samantha. He found himself in the employ of the divorced advertising executive Angela Bower as a housekeeper, and became a part of a household full of memorable characters that included Angela's shy son Jonathan and her adventurous, free-spirited mother Mona.

As a father, Tony was highly protective of his daughter, sometimes excessively so. This provided a large portion of dramatic tension in the household. I one episode he forbade Samantha from seeing her boyfriend after he catches her with a telltale hickey, and in another he balks at her desire to attend a far-away private school. But the show made it perfectly clear that Tony always acted out of a deep love for her, even when he had trouble coming to grips with her independence and femininity.

It was Tony's relationship with Angela, however, that was the focal point of the show. Tony an Angela's relationship was at first fraught with bickering and power struggles. (In one episode he had her car painted red instead of the color she wanted.) But eventually the two came to find each other indispensable. Tony bolstered Angela's confidence and provided her with moral support on many occasions, and Angela supported him in turned whenever he experienced situations where he was out of his league, such as buying Samantha her first bra.

Sexual tension between Tony and Angela was frequently played for laughs, but eventually they acknowledged genuine feelings for each other. As par for the course in a long-running television series, their courtship was a long and sheepish one that tantalized the fans. Even the series finale did not show them definitively getting married. But throughout it all the two of them developed a deep and respectful friendship

Some might say that the show really didn't break new ground, but I must respectfully disagree. No one in the sitcom performed a traditional gender role. It gave us a main cast that included an ambitious single businesswoman, a romantically active grandmother who reveled in the freedom that retirement brought her, a timid and insecure son, a tomboy daughter, and a male housekeeper from a rough working-class background. Every character had the potential to be nothing but a gross stereotype, but each were respectfully drawn and characterized. Who's the Boss gave us amazing characters who transgressed expectations of class and gender and formed a family.

Angela was a significant female character for the time. Now it seems like ages ago since women poured into nontraditional jobs in the sixties. But the eighties was the era that gave us the woman CEO. It was an age of optimism, and women were attaining positions of authority in the corporate world that no one might have imagine d only twenty years prior. Angela's struggles to manage a successful career, her parental responsibilities, and her romantic love life were reflective of the concerns of a new generation of women.

Tony's significance was not just as a lovable male lead, either. The eighties also saw a trend in entertainment of portraying working-class fathers as silly or downright buffoonish. It was the age of Homer Simpson. Tony, however, broke the stereotype. He ran the day-to-day business of the household. But furthermore, he was the emotional heart of the household, doling out his counsel and earthy Brooklyn wisdom to his daughter and the rest of the cast. He was also a much-needed male role model for Angela's son. He also never lost his drive to offer his daughter the best life possible, and enrolled in college late in the series.

Tony Danza played his role with phenomenal authenticity, and gave us one of the most outstanding sitcom fathers in television history. The show most likely never would have had the success that it did if not for the verve he brought to his character.