It was created by Leonora Thuna, and produced by Thomas L. Miller, Edward K. Milkis and Robert L. Boyett, in association with Garry Marshall's Henderson Productions and Paramount Television.
In the beginning, three of the girls—Edith Bedelmeyer (Annie Potts), Sioux City native Betty Crandall (Lorna Patterson), and Loretta Smoot (Georgia Engel)--had agreed to share space together in the attic at Coolidge.
This didn't immediately sit well with the other women, not only because of the tight quarters barely accommodating four, but since Camille's holier-than-thou personality clashed with the others, especially with Edith, who became the unofficial leader of the group.
Then there were two resident single men in the building, macho hustler cabbie Frankie Millardo (Adrian Zmed), who lived downstairs with his buddy Benny Loman (Peter Scolari), a street performer whose pantomime, juggling and unicycle acts were part of the regular physical comedy and pratfalls seen in every episode.
The boarding house was run by its namesakes, George and Irma Coolidge (Merwin Goldsmith and Marcia Lewis), a married couple who controlled their units very strictly.
Goodtime Girls premiered in January 1980 on Tuesday nights, immediately following Happy Days, of which this series, unlike others produced by Garry Marshall and Miller/Milkis/Boyett, was not spun off from or in any ways connected to, storyline-wise.
Francine Tacker originally was Elizabeth Logan in the TV adaptation of the novel and movie, The Paper Chase, and would later be the second of three actresses (Morgan Fairchild and Priscilla Beaulieu Presley would be the others) who played Jenna Wade on the series, Dallas.