Later in the series, cast changes occur. Chrissy Snow leaves to care for her sick mother and is replaced by her younger, country-bumpkin cousin Cindy Snow, and a year later Cindy is replaced by Terri Alden, a blonde nurse. The Ropers sell the apartment building and move out, and Ralph Furley, a middle-aged, wannabe-macho-man bachelor, moves in as the sole landlord. For a brief time in Season 4 another neighbor moves in, Lana Shields, who is hot-to-trot for young Jack, but she disappears as quickly as she came. Throughout all of these cast changes Larry Dallas, a car salesman and Jack’s ne’er-do-well pal, lives upstairs and often gets the roommates into trouble in his perpetual quest for money and women.

The series begins as a bedroom farce that later transitions into more physical humor. Most plots revolve around misunderstandings due to a lack of information or unfortunate coincidences. Most episodes, in sitcom tradition, end with a moment of clarity, a coming-together of the characters, and a resetting of the universe. Though very broad story lines are sometimes resolved over a season (such as Jack eventually completing his college degree and becoming a chef), all episodes are stand-alone plots, and the series can be entered into at any point without much background.

Each person who applied for employment received a paper with this spiel written on it. Some had seen the show, but others had been unaware of its existence, and still others had seen the show and hated it, and some had only heard of it but never watched it, and there were people from every group listed above who had concluded that it had been a mess comedically, or backward according to today’s politics, or they loved it because it was “anti-PC,” or they loathed it for being so vapid, or they enjoyed it for its kitsch value. Only a few people were true fans like me. I was familiar with every attitude. At first, I did not require the workers to enjoy the series, only to fully dedicate themselves to whatever aspect of the series they had been assigned to. But it soon became clear that when it came to pop culture, one speck of sincere hostility could taint everything. I started holding screening sessions where candidates would watch an episode while I monitored their reactions.

Anyone who seemed particularly empathetic toward Mr. Roper being a harangued man beset by an increasingly progressive world was dismissed immediately. I didn’t have time for stupidity. My judgment had no root in political correctness, though I was accused of this by one man who was angry I was running “a liberal shitshow” when he was shown the door. No, it was a matter of love. I needed people who could keep an open mind. I took in only those who appreciated the spirit of the show in the context of the era in which it was created, minus the sandbag of political beliefs. I turned away people who only liked the show because they thought it was on their side. Three’s Company was a farce, after all. Farce punishes everyone eventually.