The series was created by Garry Marshall and Dale McRaven, and produced by Miller-Milkis Productions (Miller-Milkis-Boyett in Season 2) in association with Paramount Television.

[1][2][3] In Philadelphia, Italian-American coffee-shop waitress Angie Falco starts a romance with customer Bradley Benson, a pediatrician.

The other Falco family members are Angie's mother Theresa and her younger sister Marie.

Angie and Marie's father walked out on the family many years earlier, but Theresa continues to set a place for him at the dinner table.

In the second season, Angie and Theresa open a beauty salon where they must contend with pleasure-seeking hairstylist Gianni.

At first a waitress at the Liberty Coffee Shop in Philadelphia, she meets Dr. Brad Benson, who works at the medical center across the street.

Her husband deserted the family 19 years earlier, but she remains in denial, still setting a place at the dinner table for him.

Diedre "DiDi" Malloy (Diane Robin) is Angie's loudmouthed best friend and coworker at the Liberty Coffee Shop (the character only appears twice in the second season).

Joyce Benson (Sharon Spelman) is Brad's snobby three-times-married older sister.

Hillary Benson (Tammy Lauren) is Joyce's daughter (not seen in the second season, as the character was dropped without explanation).

The show's theme song, "Different Worlds," was written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox and performed by Maureen McGovern in a characteristic style of disco, a genre already in decline in the late 70s.

The song was released as a single from her self-titled fourth studio album Maureen McGoven in June 1979 via Curb Records.

The show was placed in a strong timeslot for 1979–80 fall season, airing between Happy Days and Three's Company on Tuesday nights.

Upon its cancellation, Donna Pescow, who had previously thought that the series had a 50-50 chance of renewal, said: "I don't try to understand it anymore.

Their car gets stolen and they turn to the sheriff for help, who then offers to help to get the two married and back home before Theresa finds out.