History Series / MrBelvedere

* RecycledSoundtrack: The show's theme song, "According to Our New Arrival." According to {{Wiki/Wikipedia}}, it was originally composed in 1984 for a rejected NBC pilot named ''Help'', which was later resurrected as ''Marblehead Manor'' in syndication from 1987-1988. The show starred Paxton Whitehead as Albert Dudley, the third generation butler for the titular mansion, who was always having the wool pulled over his eyes. The other regulars were chauffeur Jerry Stockton (Phil Morris), handyman Dwayne Stockton (Rodney Scott Hudson), the cook, Lupe (Dyana Ortelli), Lupe's son, Elvis (Humberto Ortiz), the gardener, Rick ([[{{Series/Seinfeld}} Michael Richards]]), and the mansion's owners, Randolf Stonehill (Bob Fraser, who also co-created the series with writing partner Rob Dames), and his wife, Hillary (Creator/LindaThorson).

** Mr. Belvedere gets one in the above-mentioned "Reunion", which has him fending off the advances of persistent high school classmate of George's named Penny Nichols.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Frighteningly so in "The Counselor," the episode where a camp counselor, Perry, inappropriately touches Wesley. Throughout the rest of the episode, Wesley keeps his experience to himself, traumatized by what had happened, but it isn't until near the episode's end, when Perry has talked one of Wesley's cabin-mates, a younger boy named Kyle, into letting him take him home (in his convertible). Nobody seems to realize what's amiss until Wesley tells Kyle not to go with him and reveals that Perry had tried to molest him. While it is never outright suggested by George or Marsha what might have happened had Kyle gone with Perry – some longtime fans have speculated that Kyle may have never made it home – George does tell Wesley that he spoke up when it counted and that he helped Kyle out before Perry was able to get to him.

A DomCom developed and executive produced by Frank Dungan and Jeff Stein, produced by their production company, Lazy B/F.O.B. Productions and Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox, and airing on Creator/{{ABC}} in TheEighties, about a posh British butler being employed by an otherwise typical American NuclearFamily. The Belvedere character had been created by novelist Gwen Davenport in her 1947 book, ''Belvedere'', and portrayed by Clifton Webb in a trio of late-'40s and early-'50s films.

* CoveredInGunge: Happens to Wesley multiple times. Usually courtesy of Heather or Mr. Belvedere

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** In "Almost Heaven," an angel resembling Angela appears to Belvedere while he's in a coma following an accident[[note]]He crashed Marsha's car while trying to pick up Wesley after he sneaks out of the house to go on a date, while he's supposed to be grounded after taking pictures of Grandma Hufnagle next door, naked in a therapy pool.[[/note]] to show him what life would be like for the Owens if he wasn't around. He expects her to blunder his name, though the lookalike angel insists that she is not Angela (she not only gets his name right, but even calls Belvedere by his first name "Lynn", something Angela never did).

* AlliterativeFamily: The Bilinkis in "Moonlighting". They thought it was hilarious that the Owens' all had names with different letters.

* {{Bookends}}: The series begins with Mr. Belvedere arriving at the Owens' house with a suitcase, hat, suit, and tie. The series ends with him leaving the house permanently, with virtually the same clothes and suitcase.

* DisproportionateRetribution: In "Deportation," Wesley calls immigration on Mr. Belvedere, after he informs George and Marsha that Wesley had cheated on a test... this after Wesley fails to take any openings to tell his parents the truth in order to get a puppy they promised him as a reward if he passed, which they took away upon learning the truth. It ends up backfiring, as Belvedere was working at the Owens' house without an active work visa[[note]]As noted in the episode, Belvedere originally planned on being in the U.S. to make observations about life in the country, so obtaining a visa wasn't something he planned on doing.[[/note]], and he ends up being detained, stands trial and deported... although StatusQuoIsGod, so the latter doesn't last long.

* {{Hypocrite}}: In one episode, Kevin is challenged by his fraternity to bring the ugliest date he can find to a frat party. He decides to take his nerdy, HollywoodHomely lab partner. But then he ends up actually liking her, and decides not to take her, but she finds out (not knowing that it's a contest to see who can find the ugliest date) and has her feelings hurt, so Kevin relents and takes her. At the party, when she finds out that it was just a contest to find the ugliest date, she mercilessly chews out a very remorseful and embarrassed Kevin, and refuses to see him again. However, with her parting words, she reveals that [[spoiler: She had won a contest with her science club to see who could find the dumbest lab partner]].

* IWishedYouWereDead: In Season 2's "Requiem", Wesley silently wishes death on his Accordion teacher, Peter Zabriskie, after being constantly scolded by him during Accordion lessons. [[spoiler: Mr. Zebriskie ''does'' die, and Wesley blames himself for it]].

* PrimalScene: In "Love Fest," while trying to evade Kevin and get some alone time, Heather and Carl (who have started dating) convince Wesley to make Kevin think that they have gone to his apartment. Awaiting him in the bedroom was not his sister and best friend, but George and Marsha. Though the audience only hears the two of them scream and see Kevin's priceless reaction afterward to seeing his parents making love in his bedroom ("I was not supposed to see that!").
* RashomonStyle: "Fall Guy". One day, after returning home, Marsha becomes furious when she finds her beloved "Home Sweet Home" pillow ruined. She automatically blames Wesley, who was the only kid in the house last night. Soon, evidence begins to emerge of what really happened, and as it turns out, Wesley took the fall for something he didn't do.[[note]]Kevin had brought his date, who was drunk to the house; the girl ended up vomiting on the pillow when she came into George and Marsha's room, leading Kevin to try and get the stain out with bleach. Kevin asked Wesley to lie and take the fall, fearing that George and Marsha would take away the new car they just had bought him, which they do when they find out.[[/note]] However, the episode ends with all three kids being grounded anyways.[[note]]Heather is grounded after crashing Kevin's car just minutes after George and Marsha leave it to her until Kevin proves he's responsible. Meanwhile, Wesley is also grounded for not being honest with George and Marsha in the first place.[[/note]] The episode is actually a twist on the typical Rashomon, as the wild stories are actually assumptions made by Marsha, George and Mr. Belvedere of what happened (though Wesley came up with a fake story out of corroboration).

** In season 5's "Hooky", Heather is seen listening to a station called "The Light Touch of Lanzarone". A reference to Ben Lanzarone, Ilene Graff's husband, who wrote incedental music for the show from season 3 on as well as had uncredited cameos as a pianist in season 3's "Debut" and season 4's "Heather's Monk".

** The Season 5[[note]]Really season 4[[/note]] episode "The Book" was similar to the plot of the first film in Fox's Clifton Webb trilogy, where Belvedere writes a tell-all book on the Owens, compiling from three years worth of material from his journals.
** In season 3's "Grandma", Heather tells a disgruntled Mr. Sparks, who doesn't wanna go to the movies that ''Cocoon'', which is about old people, is playing there.

-->'''Kevin''': Uh, the-- they're hunting for-- for a place to shop for fish.

* ThoseTwoGuys: The Happy Guys of Pittsburgh, a couple recurring characters [[spoiler: who turned out to be devil-worshipping shoe thieves]]
* UglyGuyHotWife: George Owens, played by Bob Uecker, who frequently jokes about his homely appearance in real life, paired with gorgeous Marsha. She is beautiful and appears to be a generation his junior.
* VerySpecialEpisode: This show – particularly the 1988 episode "The Counselor," where Wesley is touched inappropriately by a summer camp counselor; and the 1989 episode "Homecoming," where Heather is nearly raped by her date, a popular jock – is one of the {{Trope Codifier}}s.

* YetAnotherChristmasCarol: Mr. Belvedere dreams he is visited by the three ghosts, each one in the form of one of the Owens children. It was probably not the first show to ever represent the Ghost of Christmas Present [[VisualPun the way they did]], but you don't see it that often.
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* WeddingDay: The GrandFinale has Mr. Belvedere getting married and preparing to accompany his new bride to Africa.

In the series, butler Lynn Belvedere (Christoper Hewett), struggles to adapt to the Owens household. The breadwinner, George (Bob Uecker), is a sportswriter. His wife Marsha (Ilene Graff) is attending law school. At the show's start, oldest son Kevin (Rob Stone) is a senior in high school, daughter Heather (Tracy Wells) is a freshman, and Wesley (Brice Beckham) is in elementary school. Over the course of the series, George becomes a sportscaster, Marsha graduates from law school and starts a career as a lawyer, Kevin leaves for college and gets his own apartment, Heather moves up in high school and is a senior by the show's final season, and Wesley is in junior high. In the two-part series finale, Mr. Belvedere marries and moves to Africa.

* AlliterativeFamily: The Bilinkis in "Moonlighting." They thought it was hilarious that the Owens' all had names with different letters.

* EveryEpisodeEnding: Mr. Belvedere writing in his diary.

* GenderBlenderName: Belvedere's first name is "Lynn". In the original movie with Clifton Webb, this leads to the family hiring him as housekeeper from a newspaper ad on the mistaken assumption that he's a woman.
** Lampshaded at the end of "Triangle," when he comments that he's perfectly happy with his name, when noting in his journal about Heather deciding not to change her name to Bianca after all. Then...:

* GrandFinale: Despite this show never getting the proper respect it deserved from ABC, at least they let them do a proper series finale for its 6th season.
** Originally, the series was supposed to end at season 5, which is why it ended with a clip show. Season 6 was merely an afterthought.[[note]]In the June 8, 1987 issue of ''Broadcasting Magazine'', it was announced that the series would produce 22 episodes each for the next two seasons, with the first 13 from season 4 being picked up for the Fall as a back-up; one of the first 13, "The Counselor", eventually ended up airing as the finale of that season in May 1988. The Syndicated reruns began with 95 episodes in September 1989.[[/note]]

** George gets it twice, once in season 3's "Reunion", when he goes to a high school reunion with Mr. Belvedere while Marsha goes to a law convention in Atlantic City and he meets up with Donna Flanigan, an old flame he once had a crush on and who's eagerly fanning it around him, and the other time in season 5's "Black Widow", when Barbara Collins, a local morning talk show host at the station where he works, has him as a guest on her show when the scheduled guest (Music/MichaelJackson) cancels and then has him be a co-host with the intent of luring him to bed, as she as has done with other male co-hosts on her show in the past.

** Marsha gets it twice, once in season 2's "Rivals", when a boyfriend of Heather's named Sean tries to come on to her all while Heather and George are blissfully unaware, with only Mr. Belvedere knowing what is going on, and the other time in season 4's "Marsha's Job", in which she finally becomes a lawyer and her new boss, Doug Metcalf, has anything but the law on his mind.

* BlackGalOnWhiteGuyDrama: In the season 6 episode, "Runaways"[[note]]Which only aired in syndication and not on ABC[[/note]], Wesley gets a part-time job at a doughnut shop owned by an African American woman named Lou-Anne and gets a crush on her daughter, Sheila.

* CordonBleughChef: Marsha is occasionally inferred to be this. It's confirmed though in the season 5 episode "The Dinner," given her kids' reactions her cooking, causing her to get Belvedere to teach her how to cook. This doesn't work out well, as she doesn't follow Belvedere's recipes to the letter. This leads Wesley and Belvedere to try to convince her guests at a business dinner she's hosting to stop eating her cooking, when Wesley believes Marsha's salmon spread poisoned his frog.

* ThematicThemeTune: The [[EarWorm ridiculously catchy]] "According to Our New Arrival", written by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo and performed by ragtime singer Leon Redbone.

* CriticalResearchFailure: One episode opens with the entire family fighting over the hallway bathroom because the one in George and Marsha's room is out of order. This would have worked in any other major city in America, but Pittsburgh is famous for almost all houses having a bathroom in the basement (theories differ on whether this is for averting sewer backups elsewhere in the house or for steelworkers to clean up when they first got home from work, but it's almost always there - and the Owens did have a finished basement).

The series spanned six seasons from 1985 to 1990.[[note]]The first season only had seven episodes, due to premiering as a MidseasonReplacement for ''Series/{{Webster}}'', which was moved up half an hour earlier.[[/note]] It returned to the air in reruns on [=FamilyNet=] in October 2011, and can currently also be seen on Creator/AntennaTV.

* AsHimself: Robert Goulet, legendary singer and actor. Occasionally sings duets with Marsha. George finds him to be irritating.

* RashomonStyle: "Fall Guy". One day, after returning home, Marsha becomes furious when she finds her beloved "Home Sweet Home" pillow ruined. She automatically blames Wesley, who was the only kid in the house last night. Soon, evidence begins to emerge of what really happened, and as it turns out, Wesley took the fall for something he didn't do.[[note]]Kevin had brought his date, who was drunk to the house; the girl ended up vomiting on the pillow when she came into George and Marsha's room, leading Kevin to try and get the stain out with bleach. Kevin asked Wesley to lie and take the fall, fearing that George and Marsha would take away the new car they just had bought him, which they do when they find out.[[/note]] However, the episode ends with all three kids being grounded anyways.[[note]]Heather is grounded after crashing Kevin's car just minutes after George and Marsha leave it to her until Kevin proves he's responsible.[[/note]] The episode is actually a twist on the typical Rashomon, as the wild stories are actually assumptions made by Marsha, George and Mr. Belvedere of what happened (though Wesley came up with a fake story out of corroboration).

** References abound to ''Series/SesameStreet'' and ''Franchise/TheMuppets'' throughout the run. In real life, Ilene Graff's brother, Todd Graff, was one of the original children who sang the theme song to ''Sesame Street'', in addition to playing Short Circus member Jesse on ''Series/TheElectricCompany1971''.

* TakeThat: Against fellow ABC program ''Series/SledgeHammer''. Amusingly, both programs are now sister properties due to 20th Century Fox's former owner, UsefulNotes/RupertMurdoch, buying out ''Series/SledgeHammer'''s production company, Creator/NewWorldPictures. Even more amusingly, Ilene Graff previously co-starred in ''Series/{{Supertrain}}'' alongside Harrison Page, who co-starred in ''Series/SledgeHammer'' as Captain Trunk, the title character's superior.

* TakeThat: Against fellow ABC program ''Series/SledgeHammer''. Amusingly, both programs are now sister properties due to 20th Century Fox's former owner, UsefulNotes/RupertMurdoch, buying out ''Series/SledgeHammer'''s production company, New World Television. Even more amusingly, Ilene Graff previously co-starred in ''Series/{{Supertrain}}'' alongside Harrison Page, who co-starred in ''Series/SledgeHammer'' as Captain Trunk, the title character's superior.

** In season 4's "Commentary", when George is reassigned away from the news desk as a result of a commentary attacking the national anthem, one of the jobs he's given instead is hosting a horror show in a vampire costume quite akin to the character of Count Floyd on ''Series/SCTV''. In real life, writer and executive story consultant Doug Steckler actually was a writer for SCTV, and also acted on the series in various uncredited background roles.

* ShoutOut: Many below, including references to other shows and movies produced by 20th Century Fox.

** In season 3's "Grandma", in which Wesley joins an Adopt-a-Grandparent program with Heather and Angela and befriends an older woman names Eunice Townsend who has Alzheimer's disease, while Heather and Angela befriend a grumpy old man named Mr. Sparks who does nothing but complain, Mr. Sparks is pretty much a clone of Inspector Frank Luger from ''Series/BarneyMiller''. Again, both roles were played by the same actor, James Gregory. Amusingly, as mentioned below in ShoutOut, Frank Dungan, Jeff Stein, Tony Sheehan, and Noam Pitlik had all previously worked on ''Barney Miller'' before working on ''Mr. Belvedere''.

** In the season 3 episode, "The Spelling Bee", in which Wesley has a crush on a girl he's competing with in a spelling bee, Kevin gives him romantic advice. The advice he gives out is that Wesley should put on his ''Sesame Street'' album. In real life, Ilene Graff's brother, Todd Graff, was one of the original children who sang the theme song to ''Sesame Street'' when it first premiered in 1969, in addition to playing Short Circus member Jesse on ''Series/TheElectricCompany1971''.

** In season 5's "Hooky", Heather is seen listening to a station called "The Light Touch of Lanzarone". A reference to Ben Lanzarone, Ilene Graff's husband, who wrote incidental music for the show from season 3 on as well as had uncredited cameos as a pianist in season 3's "Debut" and season 4's "Heather's Monk".

** Season 5's '"Duel" features David Rappaport and Fran Ryan, from Fox's short-lived CBS Fantasy series ''The Wizard''.

* YetAnotherChristmasCarol: Mr. Belvedere dreams he is visited by the three ghosts, each one in the form of one of the Owens children. It was probably not the first show to ever represent the Ghost of Christmas Present [[VisualPun they way they did]], but you don't see it that often.

** In "Almost Heaven," an angel resembling Angela appears to Belvedere while he's in a coma following an accident[[note]]He crashed his car while trying to pick up Wesley after he sneaks out of the house to go on a date, while he's supposed to be grounded after taking pictures of Grandma Hufnagle next door, naked in a therapy pool.[[/note]] to show him what life would be like for the Owens if he wasn't around. He expects her to blunder his name, though the lookalike angel insists that she is not Angela (she not only gets his name right, but even calls Belvedere by his first name "Lynn", something Angela never did).