Most guys know MaryAnn is hotter than Ginger; Bailey Quarters at least ran close to Jennifer Marlowe, so why has Joyce/Janet never quite gathered a decent following?
She wasn’t bad-looking, but just doesn’t hold a candle to Bailey or MaryAnn.
Or how about Sally Field as the Flying Nun? Mmmmmm…sacrelicious.
I thought she was hot. But none of the women on that show could hold a candle to Mary Cadorette, who played Jack’s live in girlfriend on the short lived spinoff, Three’s A Crowd. She was a Goddess.
I always thought Joyce/Janet was the hot one!! Of course, I’m partial to brunettes, but still…Janet could always get my motor revving like Chrissy never could.
Why did Janet never gain icon status? Probably because they kept changing the blonde she was competing with…at least MaryAnn always had Ginger! If you’re the brainy brunette on a sitcom, yourworst enemy is a NEW ditzy blonde…a new body for everyone to look at (and compare you to), not to mention how she is written into the show.
I remember Chrissy, her sister (or whoever - she finished up one season for her) and then another blonde who was a nurse. That’s three ditzy blondes vs one “brainy” brunette. This doesn’t even include Jack’s girlfriends or the abomination that was Three’s A Crowd .
I think Janet/Joyce held her own considering what she was up against.
She’s not unjustly overlooked. She was a bland actress playing a bland role. Compared with the blondes on the show, bland ain’t grand.
I was a Janet fan too, but I’m guessing the lack of a fan base has two main factors.
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Character wasn’t played as shy and vulnerable vs. flashy & manipulative co-star – Part of the attraction of Bailey and Mary Ann was that they seemed much warmer and more accessible than their respective bombshell foils. This played to the “rescue” fantasies of the male viewers, as well as fostering a recognition that while Jennifer/Ginger was the one that caught the eye first, she’d likely only make them miserable, while Bailey/Mary Ann was the one to take home to Mom. In contrast, Chrissy was played as fairly innocent, wholesome, and oblivious to her own charms. Janet was tangibly, if not usually openly, resentful of living in her roommate’s shadow in a way that Bailey and Mary Ann never were.
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Build – Mary Ann filled out her proto-Daisy Dukes at least as well as Ginger did. Living in Cincinatti rather than the South Pacific, Bailey seldom wore anything very revealing, but was fairly tall and leggy. Janet was small and didn’t have much of a bustline, making her physicallly appeal to a narrower segment of the male audience.
All three of 'em aren’t so much sex symbols, as horrible shambling things, the likes of which would have probably given H.P. Lovecraft night terrors. Or maybe it’s just me.
They all paled in comparison to Don Knotts, that’s why.
They all look pretty stoned in that picture. Yeah, the 70’s.
I cast my vote for Janet. Damn, Umbriel! What are you? A shrink? That was some fine posting, there!
Deconstruct “Carter Country” next! 
Never kiss an animal that can lick its own butt.
You are reading way too much into this.
Janet wore some skintight designer jeans quite a lot
She doesn’t hold a candle to Paula Wilcox.
Yeah–Kene Holliday was way hotter than Guich Koock!
And don’t get me started on the gay subtext between Richard Paul and Victor French…
Huh? What?
I always though Joyce DeWitt was a surprisingly good physical comedian. While most of the pratfalls on the show were done by Ritter, DeWitt was as good as he was when given the chance to walk into the kitchen door or flip over the back of the sofa. She cracked me up.
I saw Janet as the prototype for Marcy Rhodes/D’Arcy from Married With Children.
Similar expression styles when mad or shocked, similar pecking styles when feed was thrown their way, and when pissed off they could shed a mean pillows worth of feathers.
I think she was called upon in most episodes to be the straight lady to the comedians Jack and Chrissy (& Knotts & Ropers). Abbott to their Costello’s & as a result was not as exciting a character.
I think also she played the sensible older sister/mom role to the “kids” Jack & Chrissy et al. & so, again, was a less exciting character.
Brush with greatness: One of my cousins was a troubled teen in the 1970s who went to Richard Paul for psychological counselling. (Paul was a psychologist before becoming an actor.) He said he was a good counsellor and hysterically funny.
Trivia: Guich Kook owns the town of Luckenbach, Texas, and he co-starred on SHE’S THE SHERIFF with Suzanne Somers, which gets us back to THREE’S COMPANY and ends the hijack. (Man, that movie made her husband look like the biggest ass since Francis the Talking Mule, didn’t it?)
Thanks for the kudo. 
Alas, my memories of Carter Country are pretty vague – Not much beyond a dim echo of “Handle It, Roy… HandleIt! HandleIt!”
Jimmmy – I’d compare Jack to Moe, Chrissy to Curly, and Janet, therefore, to Larry. The fulcrum of the comic trio, but without the opportunity to develop a distinctive comic identity of her own.
The persistent Three’s Company enigma for me is why Jack’s friend Larry was so averse to the attentions of Lana (Ann Wedgeworth), the horny neighbor. She was older than him, perhaps, but certainly attractive, and it’s not like Larry ever seemed to have much else going on… Perhaps the ultimate ironic subtext of the series was that Larry was actually homosexual, and hoping that his boyhood friend Jack actually was too, with the act he was putting on not just a scam to stay in the apartment, but kind of a “trial run” for the lifestyle.
Lana was always chasing after Jack not Larry.
Marc