Love, Sidney

1981

Seasons & Episodes

  • 2
  • 1

EP1 The Activist Sep 08, 1982

Laurie's bringing Patti to an anti-nuclear protest rally doesn't sit well with Sidney.

EP2 Father's Day Sep 15, 1982

Patti's biological father wants Patti to know the truth about him -- but Laurie doesn't.

EP3 Pros and Cons Oct 02, 1982

Plot of this episode is not specified yet.
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EP4 The Accident Oct 09, 1982

Sidney is racked with guilt when Patti lapses into a coma after falling from a swingset he built.

EP5 Sidney's Spree Oct 16, 1982

Plot of this episode is not specified yet.
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EP6 Sidney's Cousin Oct 23, 1982

Plot of this episode is not specified yet.
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EP7 The Anniversary Oct 30, 1982

It's the ninth anniversary of the day Sidney and Laurie first met.

EP8 Rhonda Rabbit Nov 06, 1982

Plot of this episode is not specified yet.
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EP9 Sitcom Nov 13, 1982

Plot of this episode is not specified yet.
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EP10 Jan (Part 1) Nov 27, 1982

Sidney tries to help a teenage prostitute get off the streets. (Part 1 of 2)

EP11 Jan (Part 2) Dec 04, 1982

Plot of this episode is not specified yet.
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EP12 Sidney's Hero Dec 11, 1982

Sidney's visiting uncle Mort is no longer the good man Sidney remembers.

EP13 Ballet Dec 18, 1982

Sidney worries about the stress Patti's undergoing because of her strict ballet teacher.

EP14 One is Enough Mar 28, 1983

Laurie's soap character undergoes a sex change and when Laurie begins using Sidney as inspiration for her work, he demands editorial rights.

EP15 Show Biz Mamas Apr 04, 1983

Patti auditions for a commercial.

EP16 Blinded Apr 11, 1983

Sidney and Patti are temporarily blinded by an accident during a repair of her dollhouse.

EP17 Sidney's Bar Mitzvah Apr 18, 1983

Sidney shocks a rabbi friend when he mentions he never had a bar mitzvah.

EP18 The Movie Apr 25, 1983

Laurie's birthday has her feeling old, so she goes on a date with a 21-year-old.

EP19 Sidney's Art Show May 02, 1983

Laurie enters Sidney's old paintings in an exhibition.

EP20 Alison (2) May 23, 1983

Plot of this episode is not specified yet.
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EP21 Alison (Part 2) May 16, 1983

Plot of this episode is not specified yet.
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EP22 Alison May 16, 1983

Sidney's fling with a female co-worker just doesn't work out. Guess Why?

EP23 The Shrink May 30, 1983

Sidney rescues a suicidal gay man, then is trapped into being his friend.

EP24 Surprise Party Jun 06, 1983

An opera star agrees to perform at Patti's birthday party, mercifully replacing Sidney's terrible clown act.
6.7| 0h30m| en| More Info
Released: 28 October 1981 Ended
Producted By: Warner Bros. Television
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

A middle-aged gay artist shares his New York apartment with a single mother and her little girl. Based on a short story written by Marilyn Cantor Baker, which was subsequently adapted into a TV movie entitled Sidney Shorr: A Girl's Best Friend. Love, Sidney was the first program on American television to feature a gay character as the central lead, although for the series, Sidney's homosexuality was almost entirely downplayed from its subtle yet unmistakable presence in the two-hour pilot.

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Reviews

Joseph Brando I remember watching this show when I was a kid. Me and my sister would make fun of it the whole way through. From the corny opening song to the cheesy stories to Swoozie Kurt's awful hair and outfits. It was just really lame and pathetic. Truly one of the worst theme songs from a television show ever! I never "got" that Tony Randall's character was supposed to be gay, so I guess that part was REALLY toned down. All the stories were disgustingly sickeningly sugary sweet and idiotic. Regardless, I still "blame" this show for being the inspiration for "Punky Brewster" which had a very similar premise, but with a sassier child and a crankier stepdad. Although both were probably the result of "Diff'rent Strokes" which was a runaway adopted child hit. It beats those other two shows by a longshot.
jf_moran49 Actually, the first television series (in 1975) with two, recurring homosexual male characters ("George" & "Gordon") was the Norman Lear-produced "Hot L Baltimore." The gay men resided at the titled locale. This series was based on an off-Broadway play by Lanford Wilson which starred Conchata Ferrell (best known as "Berta" on the CBS-TV sitcom "Two & A Half Men") as the scene-stealing prostitute "April." Norman Lear caught Ferrell in the play and then came up with a TV version of the production, in which Ferrell re-created her off-Broadway role."Hot L Baltimore" also starred James Cromwell, who was better known as "Jerome 'Stretch' Cunningham," best workplace (the loading dock, before "Archie" bought "Kelsey's Bar") friend of "Archie Bunker" on the sitcom "All in the Family," and best known as that guy in the "Babe" pig movies.Coincidentally (or not), Ferrell would also play "Rita Valdez" in the episode of Lear's "Maude" that said goodbye to housekeeper "Florida Evans," when the character and its star (Esther Rolle) were spun-off into "Good Times." Ferrell's "Valdez" was a funny and flippant Spanish-speaking job applicant for the position in which "Maude" ultimately chose the feisty, booze-swilling "Mrs. Nell Naugatuck" (played by the terrific Hermione Baddeley).And the first TV series to feature a "gay" male as a regular, starring character was, indeed, NBC-TV's "Love, Sidney," which starred Tony Randall and Swoosie Kurtz. The pilot of the series was the film "Sidney Shorr: A Girl's Best Friend," which clearly mentioned the sexual orientation of the title character, while in the series that fact was assumed but never mentioned.Kurtz didn't portray "Laurie Morgan" in the pilot film. That role in the film was played by Lorna Patterson, whose best-known role was as the title character (originated in the film by Goldie Hawn) in the TV version of "Private Benjamin." And the spelling of the surname of the lead character in "Love, Sidney" was changed from "Shorr" to "Shore," perhaps to further create a differentiation between film pilot and series, thus providing a claim to advertisers the two were different characters.But, come on, we all know Paul Lynde was having himself a fabulous time, whether sitting in the center square trading barbs with Peter Marshall on "The Hollywood Squares," or playing "Uncle Arthur" in the long-running ABC-TV sitcom "Bewitched." As "Uncle Arthur" really was a semi-recurring character, I suppose he may be considered TV's first continuing gay male character. Does it always have to be stated to be so? Aren't some characters' natures implicit? And if one raises the issue of subtext, "Bewitched" and homosexuality were inextricably linked; the witch keeping her supernatural powers a secret from all but one mortal (the Down-Low or gay-friendly "Darrin"), symbolic of many homosexuals (then) remaining in the closet with most heterosexuals.So, Norman Lear ("Hot L Baltimore"), Witt-Thomas-Harris ("SOAP"), and George Eckstein ("Love, Sidney,"), you may all defer to Sol Saks and William Asher (and Elizabeth Montgomery), as "Bewitched," thanks to "Uncle Arthur," may be considered the first TV series with a regular gay character.This is also not forgetting Dick Sargent (the second "Darrin Stephens"), Maurice Evans (who played the dad of "Samantha Stephens," and was also a renowned Shakespearean stage actor--a lot of 'em are "light-in-the-loafers," must be those tights), and Lynde, were all homosexual males in real life, and the possibility Agnes Moorhead ("Endora," the mother of "Samantha") was a closeted lesbian (she was coy when specifically asked her orientation). But even in her role on "Bewitched," you just know "Endora" had to be a great fag hag.The first made-for-TV film with gay characters, at least that I recall watching, was "That Certain Summer," which starred Hal Holbrook and Martin Sheen as the gay couple, Scott Jacoby as the Holbrook character's son, and Hope Lang as Holbrook's character's estranged wife. This film debuted on November 1. 1972 as an "ABC Movie of the Week." Do you remember when the broadcast television networks aired originally-produced films on a regular basis? In conclusion, "official" first television series with regular "gay" characters--"Hot L Baltimore" (debuted January 24, 1975); figurative first TV series with a regular "gay" character--"Bewitched" (1964), with Paul Lynde making his debut as "Uncle Arthur" in the October 14, 1965 episode "The Joker Is a Card." As country-western singer Collin Raye once sang, and stand-up comic Colin Quinn used to say, on the "Weekend Update" segment of "Saturday Night Live": "That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."
Sebastian (sts-26) This series popped into my head this evening, and I checked out IMDb. I have read the other comments, and would like to add my two-cents worth.One fact that I have not seen mentioned is this: Sidney is miserable and friendless because he is bitter over the loss of his lover, which he seems incapable of getting over. If I remember correctly, his boyfriend had died, and - with the great reluctance to explore that relationship on the show - it is easy to assume in retrospect that the boyfriend was a victim of one of the big issues - gay bashing? AIDS? ...Anyway....The whole message of the show, as sugary sweet as it was, is that everyone needs someone to share his life with, and, while the ideal is to have a lover (whatever your sexual persuasion), good platonic friends can be a pretty good substitute. Families are made, not born.The great achievement of the show was that it shattered stereotypes - that was the whole point of Sidney being neither a disco-dwelling, toy-boy hunting sugar daddy, nor a camp, shrieking queen. The show also captured an ennui that was soon to swamp the gay community, and those who saw it as a pop-culture touchstone, as AIDS took a greater and greater toll.Love, Sidney was soulful and complex, and is owed much by all involved with, and fans of, such shows as Will and Grace.
OutOfTheAshes One of the earlier comments about this film is a rant about how it marred the life of a young gay. It wasn't intended to. In the day in which this show was made, you couldn't be as open about being queer as you can now and the producers were always trying to find a way to place Sidney's humanity ahead of his sexuality so that viewer's would see him first as a person and second as a gay person.His loneliness was not the result of his being gay, it was the result of his not having made lasting relationships. Remember, Sidney wasn't all gay men, he was just A gay man. He was living outside of the stereotype the way we all do.It wasn't a great show, but it surely was a well-intentioned one and it was very well acted by the two leads.It's hard to appreciate now, but Tony Randall was taking a huge chance when he took this role. Playing gay used to cost actors work in other projects and if you look closely at Randall's resume, you will see that his career did take a few hits from having taken on this role.Kudos to Randall and Swurtz and the producers and writers who were trying to tell a story about some humans and the ways that humans create connections and family. Big kudos to all of them for having the guts to make one of those characters a gay man.