Living Dolls

This article is about the television show. For the documentary, see Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen.

Living Dolls
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Ross Brown
Written by	Ross Brown Eric Gilliland
Directed by	John Sgueglia
Starring	Michael Learned Leah Remini Deborah Tucker Alison Elliott Halle Berry
Theme music composer	John Beasley John Vester
Opening theme	"Living Dolls"
Composer	Jonathan Wolff
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	12
Production
Executive producers	Ross Brown Martin Cohan Phyllis Glick Blake Hunter
Producers	R.J. Colleary Martha Williamson
Running time	22–24 minutes
Production companies	ELP Communications Columbia Pictures Television
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	September 26 (1989-09-26) – December 30, 1989 (1989-12-30)
Related
Who's the Boss?

Living Dolls is an American sitcom featured on the fall 1989 schedule of ABC. It was a spin-off created by a writer from Who's the Boss? and featuring characters introduced during an episode of that show. The show was the acting debut of Halle Berry. Both Who's the Boss? and Living Dolls were produced by ELP Communications through Columbia Pictures Television and ABC.

Synopsis

The show featured Charlie Briscoe (Leah Remini), a friend of Samantha Micelli (the Who's the Boss? character played by Alyssa Milano). Samantha is dabbling in a modeling career and Charlie, a friend from Samantha's old Brooklyn neighborhood comes to visit. While doing some test shots for a dog food commercial, it is discovered that Charlie is very photogenic. Charlie is then befriended by the owner of a modeling agency for teenage girls, Trish Carlin (Michael Learned). Trish is also a friend of Angela Bower.

Reception

Living Dolls was universally panned by critics and received mostly negative reviews. It was the only series to receive an "F" grade by People magazine in its 1989 fall preview issue. ABC canceled the series after 12 episodes in December 1989.

Production

The series had a back-door pilot on Who's the Boss? before turning into a series. In that episode, Vivica A. Fox played Emily instead of Halle Berry.

Two pilots were made for the series. The first, in which Berry, David Moscow, and Tucker did not appear, was produced to introduce Living Dolls as a spin-off. Their roles were portrayed by other actors. Executives disliked the original cast and held auditions for recasting. Another pilot was shown directly before the Living Dolls premiere, which illustrates the reasons why Charlie moved in with Trish in the first place.

Cast

• Michael Learned as Miss Patricia "Trish" Carlin
• Leah Remini as Charlene "Charlie" Briscoe
• Deborah Tucker as Caroline Weldon
• Alison Elliott as Martha Lambert
• Halle Berry as Emily Franklin
• David Moscow as Eric "Rick" Carlin

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date
1	"It's All Done with Mirrors"	Unknown	Unknown	September 26, 1989 (1989-09-26)
2	"It's My Party"	Unknown	Unknown	September 30, 1989 (1989-09-30)
3	"Martha Means Well"	Unknown	Unknown	October 7, 1989 (1989-10-07)
4	"Seeing Is Believing"	Unknown	Unknown	October 21, 1989 (1989-10-21)
5	"Guess Who's Not Coming to Dinner"	Unknown	Unknown	November 4, 1989 (1989-11-04)
6	"Rick's Model Girlfriend"	Unknown	Unknown	November 11, 1989 (1989-11-11)
7	"The Not So Sweet Smell of Success"	Unknown	Unknown	November 18, 1989 (1989-11-18)
8	"The Flash Is Always Greener"	Unknown	Unknown	November 25, 1989 (1989-11-25)
9	"He's Ba-aack!"	Unknown	Unknown	December 2, 1989 (1989-12-02)
10	"'C' Is for Model"	Unknown	Unknown	December 9, 1989 (1989-12-09)
11	"And I Thought Modeling Was Hard"	Unknown	Unknown	December 16, 1989 (1989-12-16)
12	"Beauty and the Beat"	Unknown	Unknown	December 30, 1989 (1989-12-30)

External links

• Living Dolls at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com show