Kate and Allie was a
sitcom which ran on
CBS from
1984 to
1989. It was created by
Sherry Coben, who was inspired by a
high school reunion where she witnessed
divorcees comforting and supporting one another. Then then fresh issues of
single parenthood and divorce were tackled in the hackneyed format of the situation comedy.
Kate McArdle (
Susan Saint James) and Allie Lowell (
Jane Curtin) were two recent divorcees and old friends who decided to move in together to share the costs of single parenthood. Kate had a 14 year old daughter, Emma (
Ari Meyers), and Allie also had a 14 year old daughter, Jennie (
Allison Smith), as well as a 7 year old son, Chip (
Frederick Koehler). Riffing off
The Odd Couple, Kate was the gregarious, flashy, and irresponsible one while Allie was the old-fashioned, responsible, industrious stick in the mud.
By the final season, the show had drifted from its original premise. The daughters were off at college, Allie was married again, to Bob Barsky (
Sam Freed), and the writers had to contrive scenarios to feature Kate and Allie together on a weekly basis.