The Torkelsons
An American sitcom that aired on NBC from 1991 to 1993, about a family, (named The Torkelsons,) living in Pyramid Corners, Oklahoma. Deeply in debt after divorcing her husband, Millicent takes on a boarder to help make ends meet. The show was given a Retool for the second season, having the family move to Seattle so Millicent could work as a live-in nanny, with the show's name being changed to Almost Home.
The Torkelsons and Almost Home contain examples of the following tropes
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: When the family moved to Seattle and the show's name changed to Almost Home, Steven Floyd and Ruth Ann evidely got left behind in Oklahoma and were never spoken of again.
- As well as their boarder, Wesley Hodges. Justified in that he wasn't a family member, but rather just a tenant renting out the basement.
- Crack Defeat: Dorothy Jane Torkelson is in the finals of a contest whose winner will get to be a foreign exchange student in Paris. Her family situation gets high marks, and the judges do seem to like her... but still loses anyway because the family in France wanted a boy. Thus making the finals completely meaningless since there was only one boy out of the three finalists.
- Mind you, when Dorothy first meets said finalist, she pretty much says, "There's no way I'll lose to you" before getting concerned at the other finalist.
- Global Ignorance: In the first episode of Almost Home, Molly mistakenly states that the Torkelsons are from Arkansas, only to be corrected by Gregory, leading to a Shout-Out.
- The Man in the Moon: Dorothy Jane often sits outside her window talking about her various concerns with "The Man In The Moon" as a means of thinking out loud (the fact that it also served to keep the audience updated on what she was thinking was a nice bonus).
- New Season, New Name: As a result of the Retool that also had the family (sans two of the kids) moving to Seattle, Washington.
- Shout-Out: What's the difference between Arkansas and Oklahoma? One's a musical.