Kate And Allie 16-20

 Piano Lesson

This episode premiered on December 10th 1984. It ran between Scarecrow and Mrs. King and Newhart. It ran opposite Monday Night Football on ABC (Raiders 24-Lions 3) and a movie on NBC (The Sun Also Rises part 2)

Max, Kate's ex husband, is heading to L.A. to peruse his acting career, his birthday present to Emma is his old piano. Emma and Jen have a crush on the piano teacher, Waldo. He invites Emma to his concert until Kate finds out it starts at 11 PM, on a school night, he invites Kate instead and Emma gets mad at her. Walter brings a demo tape to Kate, Emma gets angry again and attacks Kate for stealing her "boyfriend" and sending her father away. Allie tells Kate that she has to start acting her age. Kate and Emma have a mother daughter talk. 

Dated References

Walter, the piano teacher, says his band is cuttitng an album, New Wave, a less harsh version of Punk. Allie asks if he's like Talking Heads, Culture Club and The Clash. She also mentions Jackson Brown, Joe Jackson, Michale Jackson. 

Walter drops off his demo, on cassette.

Allie is looking at Polaroid photos. 

Harley Venton plays Max in this episode. 

John Loeffler plays Walter the piano teacher. He is best known for composing the theme to the Pokemon series and the theme song for Kate And Allie. 

New Years Eve

This episode premiered on  December 31st, 1984 (New Years Eve). It ran between Scarecrow and Mrs. King and Newhart. It ran opposite movies (Samuel Fuller And The Big Red One) on ABC and (Hard Knox) on NBC.

The girls want to hold a New Years Eve party. Allie says it will give her something to do that night but they don't want her around. Allie starts making suggestions for NYE resolutions, Jen needs to stop biting her nails, Chip needs to stop picking on his sister, Emma needs to practice the piano more (remember that last story from a few sentences up?) and Kate needs to quit smoking (this was the first episode where we see her smoking). Kate tells Allie she needs to give up chocolate. The family puts on a play about the dangers of smoking. Allie smokes a cigarette for Kate and Kate eats chocolate for Allie, Kate is getting second hand smoke which is the same as actually smoking. The women decide to go to Time's Square to watch the ball drop. After going to a slasher movie and a dive pizza place they wind up in the laundry room eating.

Dated References

Allie calls a cloud "X-Rated". The X rating was applied to movies that featured "adult content", strictly audiences over 18 years of age. However the MPAA didn't copyright the rating so porn movies began to advertise themselves as "X Rated" even adding extra X's to sound even dirtier. In the 90's the MPAA changed the rating to NC-17. Today you can watch porn on the internet regardless of the rating system.

When Kate and Allie quiz the girls about their party Emma says "It's like Cagney and Lacey around here" Cagney and Lacey was a show about two female detectives. It ran from 1982 to 1988

Kate and Allie plan to go to a movie, dinner and then to Time's Square to watch the NYE ball drop. In the real world you have to show up by 10 AM for a good spot and to get through security.

The pizza place has a photo of Telly Savalas on the wall. Best known for the police drama Kojak, He passed away in 1994

Ted the plumber is going to Switzerland on NYE instead of on a date with Kate.

This was the last episode of 1984.

Back To School

This episode premiered on January 7th 1985. It ran between Scarecrow and Mrs. King and Newhart. It ran opposite movies on ABC (The Thorn Birds) and NBC (A Reason To Live)

Allie is on her way back to college but she's worried about fitting in. She has to take a hard biology class. She wants to skip school when Chip gets sick but Kate hires a sitter instead. Kate finds out that the professor has been insulting Allie and decides to help her out. Allie gets caught cheating and the professor threatens to get her expelled. She tells the family that she is going to quit school and instead get a part time job. Kate forces her to confess and enjoys the irony, and then convinces Allie to talk to the professor. Allie makes up a story about her ex abandoning her and the children however the professor points out that her nice clothes give away that she's not poor. He tries to dismiss her and she gets mad. The Dean decides to not expel Allie but transfer her to another class, it turns out the Dean is a divorced woman who went through all the stuff Allie had claimed she had been through. 

Dated References

Allie has a choice between three notebooks, Snoopy, Michael Jackson or plain. Most college kids take notes on their laptops in the modern world.

The kids get Allie an Everly Brothers pencil box. After breaking up in 1973 the brothers had gotten back together in 1983 to do a classic tour.

Allies says her hard professor wanted to be John Houseman. The actor was best known for playing the tough law professor in the movie The Paper Chase.

Chip is wearing Battle Of The Planets pajamas. It is a Japanese Anime series that began broadcasting in America in 1979. 

Kate points out that it's 2 o'clock in the morning and even Johnny Carson is asleep. For those who don't know who that is he was the second host of The Tonight Show. He retired in 1992.

Charles Marries Claire

This episode premiered on January 14th, 1985. It ran between Scarecrow and Mrs. King and Newhart. It ran opposite movies (The Hearst And Davies Affair) on ABC and (The Execution) on NBC

Clair and Charles have broken up. He compliments Allie on getting her life together and brings her a skeleton to help her study biology. She invites him to dinner at the apartment and then he invites her to go to dinner with him and the kids. Tom the Plumber comes by to build a puzzle with Kate and Emma. Allie goes out for a drink with Charles after dinner, Chip hopes they are getting back together. Allie and Charles get a room at a hotel. Kate isn't happy that Allie flunked her anatomy test, she's falling back into her old habits of being a housewife while Charles enjoys the attention, but he hasn't made a decision about Clair yet. Charles tells Kate that he had a long discussion with Clair, they decide to get married, Kate gets mad at Charles and tells him that Allie has to dump him so she won't be upset. Kate tells Allie that Charles has to be away from him in order to get his life in order. Later Charles calls Allie and tells her he's getting married. 

Dated References

The sandwiches at the deli: Bob Newhart, Rodney Dangerfield, Joey Bishop, no Mr T.

Charles is watching reruns on TV. Today we call that streaming. Like what I'm doing right now.

Allie says her mental state is like someone lifted a "bell jar" off her. This is a reference to the Sylvia Plath novel The Bell Jar.

If She Goes, I Go

This episode premiered on February 4th, 1985. It ran between Scarecrow and Mrs. King and Newhart. It ran opposite a movie on ABC (Consenting Adults) and Dirty Dozen: The Series on NBC

Kate's boss jokingly offers Emma a job, however Kate is trying to hide it from Allie so they aren't together at work all day and then at home every night. Emma tells Jen about the job who then tells Allie, who goes in and applies. Allie screws up several reservations by mixing up the airline codes with the airport codes. The boss wants to fire Allie and Kate threatens to quits in protest. Allie says it was all her fault and will leave voluntarily and Kate should keep her job. Allie gets upset since Kate keeps telling everyone how she said the boss shouldn't get mad at a trainee who didn't know how to do the job, the two have a fight and they stop talking to each other. The girls come up with a plot, Chip has been playing with handcuffs all week, they get him to handcuff the two women together. Chip handcuffs them through the kitchen cart, Allie tries to crawl through but gets stuck. Allie says she's sick of always getting saved by Kate.The show ends without showing how the got out of the cuffs or the cart.  

Dated References

Kate has a Rolodex on her desk. This was a carrousel of cards that would contain the names and numbers of people you routinely dealt with and needed to look up quickly. Today you just scroll through your phone. 

The computer had a dot matrix printer with the sprocket feed.

Ted the Plumber comes by to watch Casablanca on TV. In the modern world you can watch it whenever you want. Although VCRs were available the were between $400 to $600 each and to buy a movie would cost $60 per tape. 

Five more down. I probably should have looked up how many episodes there were before I started this.