Welcome, fans of the 1980's sitcom It's a Living. I created this site in appreciation
of one of the most underrated TV series of the entire '80s decade. Although The Cosby
Show, Family Ties and Cheers received most of the accolades during this period in
television history, not to mention
ratings, I preferred a quiet little sitcom from the Witt-Junger-Thomas studios
about a group of extremely likeable waitresses, a self-absorbed lounge lizard, a no-nonsense maitress'd,
and a succession of harried and sometimes sardonic chefs, all toiling night after night in a
swanky Los Angeles high-rise restaurant called Above the Top.
It's a Living premiered on ABC in the fall of 1980, Thursdays at 9:30 following the long-running hit Barney Miller. I fell in
love with it immediately. It was fresh and funny, the characterizations were broad, but likeable. There were
"real" moments, things one could relate to. I wanted it to succeed. Then they started shifting and pre-empting it, and its future was uncertain. But it returned for a second
season with a new name--Making a Living--and a new, but familiar face. Louise (Mary Hartman,
Mary Hartman) Lasser--one of my favorite comedic actresses--joined the cast, replacing the departed Susan
Sullivan and Wendy Schaal. Earl Boen came aboard as a new chef replacing Bert Remsen. And still, they
kept moving it, and pre-empting it, until they finally gave everyone at Above the Top
the pink slip in the spring of 1982. But that still wasn't the end. A few years later, someone
in the industry must have realized what I knew all along: that the show never got a fair shake, and had lots of potential. In the fall of 1985, it reappeared,
with its original title intact, with new episodes for first-run syndication. This meant is was
not being shown on any major network, but on different local channels across North America, where it was shown
(usually early on Saturday evenings) in a regular weekly timeslot. Most of the cast returned, minus Louise
Lasser and Earl Boen, who were replaced by Crystal Bernard and Richard Stahl, respectively. The show
was a success in first-run syndication, and was renewed. The next season, Ann Jillian, considered by
many fans and critics alike to be the show's "anchor", departed. Newcomer Sheryl Lee Ralph took her place in the fall of 1986.
From this point on, the cast remained constant until they hung up their uniforms for good in the spring of 1989.
After that, reruns were shown on various FOX affiliates and on WWOR Superstation in the early 1990's.
 Because It's a Living originally aired in the days before I had a VCR, I had to wait many years to get a glimpse of the
show again once it went off the air. In 1995, I did manage to locate a handful of second-season episodes through a California-based video trading
service called The TV Connection. Although the quality was not crystal-clear, it was wonderfully nostalgic to revisit
Above the Top for a few hours after all those years.
In January 2001,
TV Land began airing the show and I eagerly anticipated taping all 120 episodes in digital satellite quality so I could enjoy them
over and over again at my leisure, but apparently they encountered some sort of legal problems with
Warner Bros. and the airings only lasted a week. I was only able to capture the first 10 episodes on
VHS, and was disappointed that I wasn't able to see any from (my favorite) second season. Two of the later episodes were aired as part
of special programming events, but the show never returned after that. I did, however, begin collecting press photos, magazines and
articles on It's a Living way back in 1992. I soon discovered that aside from these, there isn't much else out there
in the memorabilia department. I can only hope that someday soon, some enterprising network will decide
to bring back It's a Living so that those who may have missed it or dismissed it the first time around can appreciate what a truly
talented group of people were assembled to make this show!
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