Blossom

1 9 9 1 – 1 9 9 5 (USA)
114 x 30 minute episodes

Blossom related the growing-up misadventures of the eponymous teenage girl (played by Mayim Bialik who would later go on to international fame as Amy Farrah Fowler on Big Bang Theory).

Blossom lived in a totally dysfunctional all-male household in Southern California with her divorced father, Nick (Ted Wass), a studio musician, and her two brothers, Joey and Anthony.

Though the youngest of the Russo children, Blossom was mature beyond her years. She dealt with life and the fracturing of her family partly through spunk and partly through fantasies in which she got hilarious advice from celebrities including Phil Donahue, Little Richard, Sonny Bono and ALF.

Blossom’s best friend from Tyler High School, a kooky and quirky fast-talking girl named Six (so named because her father had six beers on the night she was conceived), was played by Jenna Von Oy. Her hip, streetwise boyfriend was Vinnie (David Lascher).

For the show’s second season, a new regular character, Grandpa Buzz (Barnard Hughes), joined the series – a freewheeling oldster undergoing a delayed midlife crisis.

The most popular character on the show was, without question, Blossom’s not-too-bright (“if the dorks had a navy he’d be their admiral”) and girl-crazy (and breast-obsessed) brother Joey, and actor Joey Lawrence became a teen idol to millions of adoring young female fans, undoubtedly keeping the series on the air for longer than had he not been in it.

The series tackled issues – sex, drugs and first periods – with alacrity, even simultaneously. One classic episode found Blossom’s ambulance-driving, substance-abusing older brother Anthony (Michael Stoyanov) waking up after a drinking spree in Las Vegas to find himself married to a black girl called Shelly (Samaria Graham), who he had no recollection of ever having met. They had a child in 1994, who they named Nash Metropolitan.

Nick began seeing a worldly British woman named Carol (Finola Hughes) and they were married in the 1994 season, whereupon the household gained a new youngster in Carol’s six-year-old daughter, Kennedy (Courtney Chase).

In the 1995 finale, Joey abruptly proposed to his girlfriend Melanie, who said yes. Carol announced that she was pregnant, and Nick arranged to sell the house at 465 Hampton Drive so that he and Carol could move into a place of their own.

Blossom, seeing the family as she knew it coming to an end, at first tried to sabotage the deal but finally realised it was all about “moving on”.

Show directors included Bill Bixby, better known for his on-camera appearances as The Incredible Hulk and The Magician.

A two-hour TV movie, Blossom In Paris, screened in 1993.

Blossom Russo
Mayim Bialik
Nicholas ‘Nick’ Russo
Ted Wass
Joseph ‘Joey’ Russo
Joey Lawrence
Anthony ‘Tony’ Russo
Michael Stoyanov
Vinnie
David Lascher
Six Dorothy LeMeure
Jenna Van Oy
Buzz Richman
Barnard Hughes
Carol
Finola Hughes
Kennedy
Courtney Chase
Shelly Lewis/Russo
Samaria Graham