Larry Appleton (person)

Larry was the scheming, neurotic, hyperventalating, insecure half of the Appleton/Bartokomous team. Having moved away from his large family (Larry was one of nine children) to Chicago to escape their high expectations, Larry took up residence in an apartment building owned by Mr. Twinkacetti. Larry also took a job at Twinkacetti's Ritz Discount store, a street-corner consignment-type shop that sold radios, exercise equipment, and other junk.

One evening in 1986 Balki Bartokomous, a sheep farmer from the island of Mypos, came a'knocking at Larry's door. Claiming to be his long lost cousin, Balki moved into Larry's apartment and also took a job at the Ritz Discount alongside Larry.

Larry frequently and bumblingly flirted with apartment neighbor Jennifer Lyons, although his insecurity and low self esteem prevented him from formally asking her out until 1989. The two were eventually married in 1991 and Jennifer gave birth to the couple's first child on the series finale in 1993.

Larry (and Balki) left the Ritz Discount in 1989 and took a job at the Chicago Chronicle newspaper as a journalist (albeit a journalist working in the basement of the newspaper next to Balki's mail table). He dreamed of becoming a top investigative reporter, but eventually wound up working in the comics department with Balki on the Dmitri's World comic strip.

In 1991 Larry and Jennifer moved out of their apartments and bought a house after they were married. The house turned out to be too large and too expensive for them to handle alone, so Balki and girlfriend Mary-Anne Spencer moved in with them, thus keeping the sitcom premise somewhat alive for another few years until the series was cancelled in 1993.