Category:Mr. T and Tina

Mr. T and Tina was an American sitcom and a spin-off of Welcome Back, Kotter starring Pat Morita and Susan Blanchard that aired for five episodes on ABC from September 25 to October 30, 1976. It is one of the first television shows to feature a predominantly Asian-American cast. The series was a ratings flop and was cancelled after only five aired episodes.

Morita starred as Taro Takahashi, a widowed Japanese inventor who is sent with his family (an uncle and sister-in-law) from Tokyo to set up the Chicago branch of his employer, Moyati Industries. He hires scatterbrained and free-spirited American Tina Kelly (Susan Blanchard) as the live-in governess for his children, Sachi (June Angela) and Aki (Gene Profanato).

Mr. T.'s inventions included underpants with a built-in transistor radio and the "flash in the can," a coin-operated sunlamp in a restroom.

Season 1[edit]

Trivia[edit]

Series creator James Komack has previously created The Courtship of Eddie's Father (with a Japanese American nanny), Chico and the Man, and Welcome Back, Kotter. Komack has said that Chico and the Man was conceived to have Chicano and Japanese American leads. When that proved difficult, he saved the nisei character for another time.

The first pilot episode was filmed with George Takei in the lead role, but when ABC decided to target a less sophisticated audience at an earlier timeslot, a new pilot was ordered with Pat Morita in the lead.

June Angela and Gene Profanato, the actors portraying the children, were real-life siblings from an Italian father and Japanese mother. After the show was cancelled, they were hired for the successful 1977 Broadway revival of The King & I starring Yul Brynner and Constance Towers. Angela played Tuptim and Profanato played the King's son, Prince Chulalongkorn.

Morita went on to portray the father of a character played by June Angela again (with Cloris Leachman as her mother) in the televised presentation of the play Blind Alleys, which aired in 1985.