Drink & Watch: Three's Company

Ever since I discovered the Classic Kron station on Bay Area Comcast (a channel not available in HD, hence why I never knew it was there), I've been obsessed with watching Three's Company. This is a show I did not watch as a child, although it was on TV every single day after I got home from school. While my parents were incredibly lenient with what they allowed me to view (i.e. the original Robocop at age seven), my mother was not a fan of Jack Tripper and his wild, inappropriate antics, so I never saw the show. Ironically, despite having never watched him perform during my formative years, she ended up with a son just like him. I LOVE JACK TRIPPER. I laugh out loud at just about everything he does and says. I've been watching nothing but Three's Company on Classic Kron since the holidays began and just recently my wife bought me the complete series collection on DVD, so we've started back at the beginning and are now working our way through in order. I think I can honestly say: there is nothing better to watch while drinking than Jack, Janet, and Crissy evade the Ropers and head over to the Regal Beagle for a few beers, or a glass of white wine. They're drinking non-stop on this program and it leads to all sorts of wacky adventures.

The best part of watching Three's Company today is that it completely holds up over time. Like I said before, this isn't a nostalgia act for me. I don't have any emotional attachment to memories of Three's Company as a kid, so none of my current fandom is based on former glory. Today, however, it's my absolute favorite TV program in the world, more than thirty years after it went off the air. Not only is the show still remarkably fresh, but the physical comedy of someone like John Ritter is a completely lost art in today's day and age. Everything now is about dialogue and punch line jokes, but watching Janet and Jack interact is almost like watching Lucy and Desi. I read recently that Don Knotts (who took over as landlord when Norman Fell left) once called John Ritter "the greatest physical comedian on the planet." That's high praise coming from Barney Fife. 

Do yourself a favor and revisit these absolute treasures. Pop a bottle and let the hilarity begin. Old episodes of Three's Company are easily better than any network sitcom airing today.

-David Driscoll