[1] The series focused on couple Stanley (Norman Fell) and Helen Roper (Audra Lindley), who were landlords to Jack, Janet and Chrissy on Three's Company.
In early 1977, Silverman approached Fell and Lindley with the subject of doing a spin-off from the show after its first full season wrapped in the spring of 1978.
With the show's continued success in its second season, however, the idea was brought up again in 1978, this time by Three's Company's own producers as well as new ABC head Tony Thomopolous (Silverman had gone to NBC).
The idea intrigued Lindley, but Fell was extremely reluctant, as he was satisfied with his role on a show that was already a proven hit.
To alleviate his fears, Three's Company producers contractually promised Fell that they would give the new series a year to prove itself.
ABC reran the episodes over the summer of 1979 (in August on Sundays) where they continued to achieve high ratings leading many to believe that the series would enjoy a long run.
At the beginning of the 1979–80 season, ABC moved the show to Saturdays at 8 pm, resulting in an audience drop that put it near the bottom of the ratings.
Audra Lindley stated in Chris Mann's 1997 book about Three's Company that she was surprised that The Ropers had been cancelled after a late-season surge in the series ratings had allowed it to finish the 1979–80 season at number 25;[2] the Nielsen ratings for that year, however, list the series Soap at number 25.
However, during the time The Ropers was on the air, the landlord characters had been replaced on Three's Company by Ralph Furley (Don Knotts).
The idea of returning Fell and Lindley to their original Three's Company roles was undesirable to producers and ABC, mainly because they had one character playing the landlord role now as opposed to two, which would require more money to be paid out per episode; the cancellation of The Ropers came just as Suzanne Somers began to renegotiate her contract, which would lead to her very public contract dispute during the 1980–81 television season and her departure from the series.
Fell would later state that he always believed the decision to pull the plug on the show had been made much earlier, but that the network deliberately postponed making the cancellation official until after the one-year mark specifically to be relieved of the obligation to allow Fell and Lindley to return to Three's Company.
Despite the hard feelings, in March 1981 both Fell and Lindley made one final guest appearance on Three's Company (in Season 5, Episode #18 "Night of The Ropers") nearly a year after the end of their own series before the characters were retired for good.
For audiences, it was a chance to see all of the three landlord characters – played by Fell, Lindley, and Knotts – on the same stage.
Guest stars would include John Ritter, Joyce DeWitt, Richard Kline and Don Knotts from Three's Company; Robert Mandan from Three's a Crowd; and Jim J. Bullock and Nancy Dussault from Too Close for Comfort/The Ted Knight Show.
[5] The spin-off was withdrawn in January 1987 because of a glut of syndicated sitcom offerings, a lack of time slots, and a difficult advertising market.
To keep her quiet, Stanley prepares a secret disco birthday party with the aid of his former tenants Jack Tripper, Janet Wood, and Chrissy Snow.
When Stanley accidentally sets his kitchen on fire, Brookes thinks it's from faulty wiring and lets the Ropers stay with his family.
Helen asks the gardener to pose as her "Latin lover" Ramon, in order to make Stanley jealous.
On December 22, 2023, VEI released a special 40th anniversary box set of Three's Company that also includes all episodes of The Ropers and Three's a Crowd.