Gimme a Break!: Season 02 (1982)

The second season of Gimme a Break finds versatile character actor John Hoyt becoming a full-fledged regular in the role of Grandpa Kanisky, the peppery father of grouchy suburban California police chief Carl Kanisky (Dolph Sweet). Jane Dulo is also seen on a recurring basis as Grandpa's wife, a role previously essayed in season one by Elvia Allman and Elizabeth Kerr. The season opens with Chief Kanisky's sassy housekeeper Nell (Nell Carter) being sent to jail for nonpayment of her phone bill -- a false charge, true, but one that causes no end of embarrassment for all concerned, especially The Chief. Kanisky will also experience troubles with his mortician brother Ed, who has fallen in love with an ex-hooker named Maxine (Arlene Golonka), and who later is in dire need of a kidney transplant (both Ed and Maxine disappear at the end of season two, never to be seen or heard from again) Elsewhere in the Kanisky household, youngest daughter Sam (Lara Jill Miller) causes a ruckus with the first of her several "imaginary friends"; middle daughter Julie (Lauri Hendler) experiments with cigarettes, oblivious to the fact that her mother died of lung cancer; and eldest daughter Katie (Kari Michaelsen) comes to the aid of her unwed-mother friend Valerie, in an episode famous for the fact that it was largely ad-libbed due to the unpredictable behavior of a baby "actor." Also, The Chief learns to tolerate homosexuals when a gay police officer saves his life; racist Aunt Blanche (Gretchen Wyler) sues The Chief for custody of his daughters; Nell and her bird-brained friend Angie (Alvernette Jimenez) try to get rich quick by peddling the "amazo-vac" door-to-door; and, of course, Nell once again gets to show off her musical skills, in an episode featuring the Pointer Sisters as a harmony group called the Doo-Wops. In other episodes worth noting, the two-part "The Centerfold" finds The Chief wrestling with a sexual-discrimination charge and a mad bomber simultaneously; and "Nell and the Kid" features Don Rickles in what was supposed to have been the pilot for a proposed Rickles series titled "Max." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi