| A Family for Joe | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Sitcom |
| Created by | Arnold Margolin |
| Written by | |
| Starring | |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 9 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
|
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production companies |
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| Original release | |
| Network | NBC |
| Release | March 24 – August 19, 1990 |
A Family for Joe is an American sitcom that starred Robert Mitchum in the title role. It started out as a television movie that aired NBC on February 25, 1990, before turning it into a series that lasted from March 24 until August 19, 1990.[2] Nine episodes of the series were filmed.[3]
A Family for Joe is about the Bankston children, 15-year-old Holly (Juliette Lewis), 16-year-old Nick (David Lascher), 9-year-old Chris (Ben Savage), and 7-year-old Mary (Jessica Player) who have been recently orphaned. Rather than have themselves split up into foster care, they find a homeless man, Joe (Robert Mitchum), to live with them and act as their grandfather.
| Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date |
|---|---|---|---|
| "A Family for Joe" | Jeff Melman | Arnold Margolin | February 25, 1990 |
| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "A Little Romance" | Unknown | Unknown | March 24, 1990 |
| 2 | "The Medium" | Unknown | Unknown | March 31, 1990 |
| 3 | "Nick's Heart" | Unknown | Unknown | April 7, 1990 |
| 4 | "An Earful" | Alan Rafkin | Oliver Goldstick & Phil Rosenthal | April 14, 1990 |
| 5 | "Life of the Party" | Unknown | Unknown | April 28, 1990 |
| 6 | "Law and Order" | Unknown | Unknown | May 5, 1990 |
| 7 | "Once a Bum" | Unknown | Unknown | August 5, 1990 |
| 8 | "Night School" | Unknown | Unknown | August 12, 1990 |
| 9 | "Having a Baby" | Alan Rafkin | Renee Phillips & Carrie Honigblum | August 19, 1990 |
Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly rated the series a D, stating that "the kids are leering little creeps, the jokes are moronic, and Joe's homelessness is already absent from the show's current scripts".[4]
In the documentary series The Write Environment, writer Philip Rosenthal (who would go on to create Everybody Loves Raymond) talks about being a staff writer on the series.
