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Alice was an American television sitcom series which ran from August 31, 1976 to July 2, 1985 on CBS. The series was based on the movie Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974). Finding herself an unemployed widow after her husband, Donald, was killed in a truck accident, Alice Hyatt and her young son, Tommy, moved out of their home in New Jersey and began traveling to Los Angeles in hopes that she would find a singing career. Her car broke down in Phoenix, Arizona and she took a job as a waitress at Mel's Diner where she worked alongside Mel (the grouchy, stingy owner/cook) and fellow waitresses (and friends) sassy, man-hungry Flo and neurotic, scatterbrained Vera. In the middle of the 1979-1980 season, Flo left (to go to her own spin-off series Flo) - in the storyline of Alice, she left to take a hostess job in Houston but then decided to run her own restaurant - and Diane Ladd (who played Flo in the film version) joined the cast as Belle, a hard-edged but kind-hearted woman who had a past with Mel and had a failed catchphrase in "my little voice." In spite of Ladd's talents, the character never gelled with most of the fans. In early 1981, Ladd left the series and was replaced by theater actress Celia Weston, who played the good-natured, boisterous truck driver Jolene Hunnicutt. In the storyline of the show, Belle left to take a job as a backup singer in Nashville. Jolene's character arrives as she and her male truck-driving partner are in the midst of a disagreement over her partner's unwelcome advances while on the job. Before the episode ended, Mel agreed to hire Jolene "temporarily" to pay for damages she had created, and the character lasted until the end of the series more than four years later. As the series progressed, it began to focus more on character development, such as the courtship and marriage of Vera and loveable cop Elliot. By the 1984-1985 season, many of the more plausible situations imaginable had been exhausted and Lavin seemed disinterested in continuing the character of Alice (Alice was absent several times in the last year due to Lavin directing a number of episodes or playing another role as Vera's wizened landlady). The series concluded on July 2, 1985. In the last episode of the series, Mel sold the diner and (surprisingly) gave each of his waitresses a $5000 farewell bonus; Jolene opened a beauty parlor; Vera had become pregnant and planned to be a full-time mother and Alice finally got a recording contract (after nine years of trying to get it) and moved to Nashville. Mel's mother was played by Martha Raye and she featured in many episodes as well as Mel's girlfriend Marie. A number of other characters appeared on a semi-regular basis. As an ongoing gag, the front of Mel's diner was often destroyed, notably by Flo crashing a truck through it, and the girls landing a hot hair balloon in the diner, among other gimmicks. Mel was always horrified to see his diner destroyed. Upon crashing through the roof at Mel's in a hot air baloon, Jolene cries, "We went to the bad place and it looks just like Mel's!" Vic Tayback (Mel Sharples) died in 1990, but most of the other cast members have continued to appear fairly regularly in theater, television and the occasional film. Flo's catch phrase, "Kiss my grits" was briefly popular at the time the show ran.
Cast DVD On June 27, 2006, 6 episodes of Alice were released on DVD as part of the Warner Brothers' Television Favorites Compilation. The episodes were hand picked by fans at SitcomsOnline.com and are as follows: Trivia • Despite being nominated for an Emmy award for her work on "Alice," Diane Ladd, as Belle, was unpopular both with the audience and her co-stars, in particular Linda Lavin, who felt Ladd was deliberately trying to upstage them. The Alice Sets The Mel's Diner set made changes over the years; in the pilot the diner contained a blue refrigerator, but in the series the refrigerator was a dirty stainless steel, then later was changed to clean and shiny stainless steel (which continued until the end of the series in 1985). However the rest of the sets remained the same. | ||||||||
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