Did anyone ever like Ann Romano?

I think Schneider loved her

I agree with you, OP. I liked the show, but she was very over-dramatic at times.

And she needed a bra for those rosie nipped titties of hers.

I liked her until she left that floater in the crapper.

Do you mean Em Es Romano?

It's pretty unbelievable that one Tony winning performance in a big musical could launch someone into a lead role on a major sitcom on TV.%0D %0D She had a great agent.

Loved the series as a kid and eagerly bought the first season DVD set a few years back. Execrable. Unwatchable. Hammy acting, preachy writing and horrific lighting and production values. I do recall that whatever sense of humor Ann Romano possessed in the early years seemed to have entirely evaporated by the end. She never smiled. It appeared that Bonnie Franklin was the unhappiest woman on earth.

If you watch the premiere episode note that she plays to the cheap seats in every scene.

Well she did in every episode but it was most notable after not having seen any ODAAT episodes for many years.

I was happy in Season 1.

No one could rock a green polyester cowlneck with no bra underneath quite like Bonnie Franklin.

I found Schneider oddly hot.

Gawd Bonnie franklin was ugly

This show aired around the time my mother and many other women found themselves divorced and single custodial parents. I don't know if it was the first to do so but it was seen as groundbreaking at the time, for that alone.

That's the only explanation I have. My mother didn't bother with TV much, except for that show, Maude, All in the Family. We had to be quiet, no - silent, while it was on. She even lightened up her hair color and had that mushroom cut for a about a year

I guess the Norman Lear pedigree helped. He practically owned CBS primetime in the 70's.

My mom was a single parent, too, r13, and she and I practically bonded over One Day at a Time and Alice.%0D %0D ODAAT doesn't hold up very well, but Alice still has charm.

I think in the 70s people really found it relaxing to watch people on television yell at each other. That's the only explanation I can find for the success of both One Day at a Time and The Jeffersons.

No I hated the character. She seemed like a lesbian. Her acting was over the top a too.

[quote]No I hated the character. She seemed like a lesbian. Wow. Just, wow.

"Hammy" was definitely the word for her. She was like the star of an elementary school play. That slow-motion "run" into every scene drove me crazy.

I think she was kind of cute, but there's no way she is the mother of Valerie Bertinelli and Mac Phillips.

Knowing what I know now after all the admissions and disclosures, I'm a bit queasy to realize Ann was having sex with Julie all that time, even though it was consensual and drug-fueled.

Remember the episode where Ann locks herself in her bedroom and has a nervous breakdown because she's turning *gasp* thirty-six? Thirty-fucking-six!

As a kid Bonnie and that Schneider annoyed the f out of me. Bonnie was fug and so was the one who played her daughter.BF looked like a buck toothed, canefaced, diesel diyke. Couldn't stand the show and never watched it.

R15, good observation.%0D %0D I think in the jaded 21st century sitcoms try to be more subtle, with the characters using bland and generic insults on each other, rather than histrionic yelling. I wonder why.

People in the 70s were more social and yelling was considered part of the range of normal human interaction. Now the division of the public into helpless individuals is so advanced that yelling grates on the ears.%0D

I just looked at BF's imdb page. Her career really, uh, cooled off a tad after ODAAT, didn't it?

I give her credit. She helped me deal with turning 36. That episode was the blueprint for my coping.

I remember thinking to myself that she looked like she smelled from bad BO.

LOL, R27. A poster on the old Jump the Shark site wrote that he guessed she smelled like dirty pantyhose.

[quote]It's pretty unbelievable that one Tony winning performance in a big musical could launch someone into a lead role on a major sitcom on TV.

Tony nominated. She didn't even win.

No R24. It was just all the Norman Lear shows. He must have come from a family of yellers. His narrow world view doesn't reflect the whole of America in the 70's. Every damn show had disturbed, angry characters that would spew and spit and foam at the mouth while yelling. Maude, Archie, Ann....I'm sure I'm missing a few.

I loved this show when I was kid in the 70s; actually I loved Val Bertinelli she was one of my first crushes. As for the character Ann, well, I don't really have an opinion about her I just wanted them to get to Barbra's scenes. Ann probably just seemed like the mom to me then.

I remember not liking Schneider or Julie's hairy husband or Julie when she was around guys. She was ok when she and Barbara had scenes together I found Julie too whiny when she and Ann were in scenes together.

I'll never forget her (in)famous "soliloquy in the mirror" episode. She treated it like an Obie award winning performance instead of just the cringing prime-time sitcom it was.

By the way, the only watchable year was when the waitress Ginny Wrobliki (Mary Louise Wilson) was on. According to Wiki, BF had her fired for "upstaging" her.

Schneider skeeved me out as a kid.

.

Many's the time I watched my mama taking a shower, wishing she was my papa so she could fuck me.

So, yeah, OP, sort of.

I watched a One Day At A Time reunion on YouTube this morning. In the clips, boy was Valerie stiff, she's lucky so was so pretty because she/is a lousy actress.

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I was a little kid, but I remember I quit watching when that damn gay kid moved in. Hated him.

Valerie Bertinelli was a goddess to teens of all genders in those days. She was like one of those glossy magazine shampoo ad girls come to life.

I am embarrassed to admit how dearly I loved that show, Ann Romano and all. I was nine when it came out and I lived in a gorgeous house in a picture-perfect college town in New England. But One Day At a Time made me yearn to live in a crummy apartment in a lousy city like Indianapolis. I was star-struck by all the apartment dwellers I saw on TV in the 70s. Even the Kotters' and the Kramdens' dumps seemed exotic because at least they were in Brooklyn. It took young adult independence to open my eyes the miseries of low-income housing.

[quote[]By the way, the only watchable year was when the waitress Ginny Wrobliki (Mary Louise Wilson) was on. According to Wiki, BF had her fired for "upstaging" her.

Bonnie could make you disappear if she didn't like you. She got rid of Mary Louise that way and Mackenzie that way (for a long time) and Richard Masur that way too.

She used to threaten Nanette Fabray with it too--whenever Bonnie was feeling particularly mean because she was hungover or on the rag and Nanette was laughing too loud with the stagehands, Bonnie would smile coolly and say in that chilling voice of hers, "Nanette... POOF!" which would set Nanette off in floods of tears.

The two part episode where Julie comes home from a ski trip announcing she's getting married was surreal. MacKenzie Phillips was deep in the throes of her drug addiction and looked like a rotting corpse; pasty, acne splattered across her cheeks and skinny as a concentration camp victim. But the premise of the episode was that TWO hot guys were in love with her and she had to choose between them. She's engaged to Fred but Max tells her Fred is "too nice" for her and as he storms out after an argument he shouts "I love you! And I think you love me, too!" God, it was so stupid.

Julie ends up marrying Max, who is every bit as much of a pain in the ass as Julie. A match made in heaven, right? Well, no. Later, Phillips was kicked off the show again due to her drug use and Julie ended up running out on Max (and their baby) in the episode "Dear Max." I would have loved to have seen that episde. As Barbara is reading Julie's goodbye letter, Ann, her eyes glazed over with tears, says simply "DAMN her."

I never watched the show. Ann R was so repulsive to me. Ugly, annoying. Sorry Ann.

Eva Braun liked her. God knows why.

[quote]I just looked at BF's imdb page. Her career really, uh, cooled off a tad after ODAAT, didn't it?

The most interesting thing on her page was an uncredited part in "A Summer Place" back in 1959.

Awful, awful show.

But watch the first 15 seconds of this and admire the loveliness of a shirtless and handsome Howard Hessman. DADDY!!!

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Schneider was a slut, who thinks he's God's gift to women in the first season. But, afterwards, he must've grown up, for he was kind enough to help Anne with her troubled kids until they were turned to the right path when they grew up. Later, Schneider became a likeable character with a family of his own, but, I tell you...that first season...ugh.

Schneider was married in the first couple of episodes, then like Chuck he she left.

I hated Ann, but only for her overacting. I never thought she got any hot guys? They were not attractive which is her level.

Mac was a good actress which overcame her ugliness, caused by drugs and Val was beautiful and clearly got better each year.

Schneider was funny because he was a joke and knew he was a joke.

It was brilliant casting to make Shelley Fabares a bitch. I remember watching the first episode of it and my mother laughing so hard. I was like "Why is that funny," and my mother had to explain that Shelley always played goody-two-shoes type characters.

(I had never seen Shelley in anything else before).

Alex was a waste. Bad actor, clearly gay and ugly. Too many hot 70s teen to waste him on a role.

Boyd Gaines wasn't much but evidently went on to win every Tony category possible.

I like Pecorino Romano. Does that count?

I think the unspoken subplot was Ann being an alcoholic in recovery, hence the show title. I know it was never mentioned, but it makes sense. She didn't have a good grip on things, like most addicts.

Loved the show, loved the whole cast.

Even the talentless little homosexual?

The original title of the show was:

One Time at a Day.

But they changed it.

"t was brilliant casting to make Shelley Fabares a bitch." It was R48

Speaking of Bord Gaines, he played Abby's abusive husband on LA Law.

LOVED it as kid. Bought season 1. Made it through three episodes. Didn't laugh once. I think I mostly loved it for Scott Colomby.

So walk on your feet (walk on your feet)

From where there's muzak playing

Don't you worry none

You just take life as it comes

One day at a time.

If I recall, didn't the gorgeous Greg Evigan play one of the older daughter's love interests? Talk about mismatches!

R37 He played Doug.

and another one...

Mac sounds like Janis Joplin

sorry R57

yah i despized her too causei was shoreshewas lesbo, and thats why she had to raise her gals alone. i didntlikethe way the help packed his cigs in his tshirt sleave

One Bump At A Time.

R6. BF did NOT win a Tony....but Nanette Fabray.

Bonnie hated to exercise, but LOVED to tap!

I could smell Anne's pit sweat locked in her velour track jackets and orange cowl neck wool sweaters, the stink of deep fried hormones working womanstink, the fumes of loneliness mixed with a stirred-up, recently vacuumed mustiness, thickly coated in salt from triumphant yet yearning tears that made slick tracks over faded orange freckles that sat under moon-colored flesh...

ANN

She didn't protect me from that mouthy brat.

R65, you should enter that in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest. It's splendid.

Barbara's geeky friend Bob was played by Edith Bunker's son.

No

[quote]Did anyone ever like Ann Romano?

She even slept with a man knowing he was married.

When she did the talk show circuit, she always had to sing. I hated her voice. No ranges and somewhat off key. She was on Dinah. And IIRC the two of them sang together. By then Dinah's voice was shot and they sounded like two bagpipes getting sodomized.

When Alex left nobody cared.

What Broadway show did she do?

APPLAUSE!!!

Remember when Ann was dating that comic and her daughters hated him. He ended up making Bonnie the butt of his jokes in a comedy routine and that is when she left him On a related note, here is Bonnie in all her glory:

Ann was offended that her lover Artie used their relationship for comic material.

That is what comics do.

I remember watching this as a kid and my mother loathed Bonnie Franklin. Something about the droopy tits, the cowl necks and the mushroom hair really set her off and, as she said, she was always shrieking like a harpy.

[quote] It's pretty unbelievable that one Tony winning performance in a big musical could launch someone into a lead role on a major sitcom on TV.%0D %0D She had a great agent.

Yeah, like that would ever happen again.

Dick Van Dyke got that deal too.

R55, I recently read V. Bertinelli's memoir, and guess what?

Long love relationship with Scott Colomby.

R18, yes, thanks for reminding me of her stupid "run."

Also hated her for her incessant mugging.

Funny to thing this was a Norman Lear show; it really wasn't as well-written as All in the Family, Maude, or even The Jeffersons or the Good Times!

[quote] She used to threaten Nanette Fabray with it too--whenever Bonnie was feeling particularly mean because she was hungover or on the rag and Nanette was laughing too loud with the stagehands, Bonnie would smile coolly and say in that chilling voice of hers, "Nanette... POOF!" which would set Nanette off in floods of tears.

If only this were true. It would elevate Bonnie Franklin in my eyes. I could never stand Nanette no nose Fabray.

R83, Nanette Fabray is still alive! Who knew?

It was the 70s: flat-chested and braless was in.

Fashions change.

I loved her go to reaction for anything. Sadness, anger, a frown, happiness, to show she was really listening, whatever the moment called for. Hands on hips, head thrown way back, eyes half closed, lips in a slight frown, and a little bit of teeth showing. She looked like a hooked fish.

R40 Seems untrue. Nanette speaks quite highly of her here.

Damnit, Julie!!

Damnit, Barbara!!

Damnit, Schneider!!

No nose, Nanette!!!

lolol, R88. You have to remember that that language was strong for the late 1970s.

R65, you are the best!