TV show sometime in '78-'85 (I was living with my ex) about a single mother advertising for domestic help. A very proper butler applies, having misinterpreted “English major” (the woman’s college degree) in the ad as meaning he would be working for a British army officer. He takes the job anyway, and hilarity ensues.
The only episode I remember clearly had the mother being required to be at a business meeting (or something similar), leaving the butler to supervise the daughter’s pyjama party. Mother comes home to find all the girls peacefully asleep – because he had loaded the kids’ treats with amaretto.
The original Britcom was or is available on Prime I believe. Starred Elaine Stritch. It started strong and then got pretty repetitive. I watched 4 eps earlier this year.
The American version I don’t really remember, just Peter Cook playing a butler. The guy that was Dudley Moore’s partner.
I vaguely remember watching that show, and enjoying it, although I don’t remember many details about it. It was the first time I had encountered Peter Cook.
The other one of “Us,” the single mother, was played by Mimi Kennedy, who’s had a very long career in TV and movies, including as Dharma’s mother on Dharma and Greg, and a current role on Mom. To this day I still think of her, to some degree, as “the woman from that show about the English butler.”
Rather, Dudley Moore was Peter Cook’s partner. Cook is considered a genius of sketch comedy, though his talent never translated well to movies or TV (with the exception of his role in Bedazzled). Moore was good, but Cook was at another level. But Moore was more likeable, so he had a better movie career.
And of course, if you like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, their work as half of Beyond The Fringe is both classy and hilarious (and the first British comedy I ever heard… played to us by an older camp counselor, on a huge reel-to-reel tape deck that he’d lugged to our church camp in the north woods).
Oh, do check out the videos linked on this page… it even has The Great Train Robbery! (“this of course, involves no loss of train.”)
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