‘Three’s Company’: Zero Sex

“Three’s Company” lusts only in its heart. It’s obsessed with sex, yet nobody ever seems to actually have it.

Chrissy and Janet have to pretend their roommate Jack is gay so their prudish landlord, Mr. Roper, will let them live there. He doesn’t want any “hanky-panky” (though the sex-starved Mrs. Roper would welcome it).

1977’s “A Man About the House” (May 21 at 5:30 a.m. on TBS), the series’ first episode, shows how they got into that unlikely situation.

It paves the way for misunderstandings over who’s sleeping with whom and allows Jack Tripper (John Ritter) to go gaga over his roommates. At first, that means salivating over Chrissy Snow, played by pre-Thighmaster Suzanne Somers. She’s blond, which means she gets to be the ditsy-but-sexy one. There was a succession of Chrissy types--Jenilee Harrison and Priscilla Barnes when Somers was written out of the show after demanding more money.

Joyce DeWitt plays Janet Wood, who’s not a blond and not sexy, so they let her be smart.

Early on, the Ropers (Norman Fell and Audra Lindley) were spun off into their own dreadful sitcom and replaced by a new landlord, Ralph Furley (Don Knotts).

Ritter and DeWitt stuck around for the duration--until 1984. It doesn’t seem to have hurt Ritter’s career (he went on to do a “Three’s Company” spinoff, “Three’s a Crowd,” briefly and then “Hooperman” and continues to act in TV and movies, including “Sling Blade”) or helped DeWitt’s (can you remember her in much besides a pantyhose commercial?).

DETAILS, DETAILS: What was the name of the British TV show on which “Three’s Company” was based? Answer next week. The answer to last week’s quiz (Characters from which sitcom appeared in cartoon form on “The Flintstones” in 1965, the first time characters from a live-action show crossed over into an animated one?): Darrin and Samantha Stephens, from “Bewitched.”

Set Your VCR

The History Channel airs a nine-hour “Victory at Sea” marathon (Saturday at 8 a.m.). Some highlights: the Pearl Harbor attack, 8:30 a.m.; Midway, 9 a.m.; the liberation of the Philippines, 2 p.m.; Iwo Jima, 3 p.m.; and Okinawa, 4 p.m. There were 26 half-hour episodes of the documentary, which aired in 1952-53.

Elaine has a ridiculous hairdo thanks to a snooty hairdresser, Ted Danson, on “Taxi” (Tuesday at 11:30 p.m. on Nickelodeon). He’d get to play a more macho guy a few months later, in “Cheers.” In fact, he found out about the Sam Malone role from James Burrows, a “Taxi” director and “Cheers” creator.

Tim Conway, in what is considered one of the best of his Old Man sketches, conducts Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture on “Carol Burnett and Friends” (Wednesday at 6 p.m. on the Family Channel).

KDOC Channel 56 starts a fresh run of “Cannon” with the premiere episode (Friday at 4 p.m.), from 1971. Tom Skerritt, by then a fixture on TV but without his own series, heads the guest cast.

Raul Julia is dentist Greg Robinson, Jerry’s adoptive brother, on a “Bob Newhart Show” (Saturday at 1:30 a.m. on Nickelodeon) from 24 years ago.

Perry, usually the winner, begins “The Case of the Witless Witness” by losing an appeal on “Perry Mason” (Monday at 3 a.m. on KTTV Channel 11).

If Ralph treats Norton to a movie, and Norton wins a television with the ticket, just whose TV is it anyway? The answer can be found on “The Honeymooners” (Sunday at 4 a.m. on KTLA Channel 5).