This made-for-cable family-oriented sitcom revolved around the contrast between 33-year-old ex-football star turned sportscaster Dan Ford (Michael J Cutts) and his naive 15-year-old sister, Caroline (Martha Nix), a music student who leaves her small Midwestern hometown to live with her brother at his Lake Shore Terrace apartment in Chicago while studying the cello at the conservatory.
Ford, a former all-pro quarterback for the Chicago Bears, now worked for a satellite news network where he was having a sporadic affair with his news anchor colleague Tatum McCoy (Jeanna Michaels).
Other regular characters included Roger Kyle (Gary Hudson), another former Bears player and still Dan’s womanising buddy, and Amy (Brenda Lynn Klemme), Caroline’s new man-hungry city friend.
The character of Dokie Peterson – the Fords’ independently wealthy neighbour (played by comedian Vic Dunlop) – was introduced in the 1986 season. Katherine Britton took over the role of Caroline Ford from Martha Nix after the first season.
The whole affair was banal and wholly unoriginal, and the annoying laugh track on the show was so forcefully imposed that it should have been listed in the credits!
Safe at Home was commissioned by Ted Turner’s ‘Superstation WTBS’ and produced by The Arthur Co., who delivered three sitcoms to WTBS at budget rates (around 25% of what the major networks paid for sitcoms). The series was filmed at the Hollywood Center Studios.
Dan Ford Michael J Cutt Caroline Ford
Martha Nix (1)
Katherine Britton (2) Tatum McCoy
Jeanna Michaels Roger Kyle
Gary Hudson Gary Van Sickle
Richard Horvitz Amy
Brenda Lynn Klemme Avivie
Edwin Avedissian Dokie Peterson
Vic Dunlop Jane
Brenda Isaacs Booth
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Other regular characters included Roger Kyle (Gary Hudson), another former Bears player and still Dan’s womanising buddy, and Amy (Brenda Lynn Klemme), Caroline’s new man-hungry city friend.
