Synopsis
Season 1
In the first season, Mark Cooper, Vanessa Russell, and Robin Dumars live as roommates in a house that they rent together. Mark, whose room is in the den, had initially moved in with Robin and Vanessa to help them with their rent. Robin is Mark's long time childhood friend and Vanessa is Robin's best friend (and sorority sister) from college. In the pilot episode, Mark gets a job as a substitute science teacher for a high school where Robin also teaches music. Later in the season, he becomes a physical education teacher as well as the high school's basketball coach. In the middle of the season, the original landlord dies and the house is then purchased by the parents of their annoying but well-meaning neighbor, Tyler Foster. After purchasing the house, Tyler's father gives Mark, Robin, and Vanessa one month to vacate. Tyler intervenes and tells his father that he likes the trio and they are then invited to continue living in their home.
After failing to make the NBA in his youth, Mark is invited to try out and briefly play with the
Golden State Warriors, but is soon cut from the team after an embarrassing take down from Charles Barkley. His jersey number with the Warriors was # 7.
The pilot episode was filmed on the same set used by the Seavers in the sitcom
Growing Pains.[
citation needed]
Seasons 2 through 4
The show moved to Friday nights in the second season as part of the
TGIF block. It also was remodeled into more of a family-oriented show instead of an adult oriented show as in the first season. In the second-season premiere, Tyler mentioned that Robin had moved and Mark had purchased the house from his parents. The second-season premiere introduces Mark's cousin, Geneva Lee, and her daughter, Nicole, who move in with Mark and Vanessa. Geneva took over teaching music at Mark's school. Around the time Geneva and Nicole joined the show, Mark's school welcomed a new principal, P.J. Moore (played by
Nell Carter), who was Mark's babysitter when he was a child. She was replaced in Season 4 by Geneva.
In 1996, Mark proposed to Vanessa in the episode "Will She or Won't She". This episode was a
cliffhanger season finale that was aired on May 10, 1996. The following
season premiere episode ("The Ring") was not aired until June 21, 1997, more than a year later. Vanessa accepted Mark's proposal in this episode. "The Ring" is the first episode of the fifth and last season of the series.
The entire third season and most of the fourth season's episodes were directed by
Mark Linn-Baker, who portrayed
Larry Appleton on the hit
ABC series
Perfect Strangers. Linn-Baker also appeared in a few episodes.
Season 5
The last season was 13 episodes long, half the length of most television seasons, and was aired in the summer when most television shows are in reruns. In addition, this season was aired on Saturday nights—a move away from its traditional Friday-night slot on
TGIF.
The
series finale ("Getting Personal"), was aired August 30, 1997. In this episode, Vanessa wrote a personal ad in the newspaper and wanted Mark to figure out which ad was hers and to answer it. Mark decided to answer all ads in the paper, tell everyone to look for the man with the rose, and then not wear a rose. Mark figured that Vanessa would be happy enough that Mark answered her ad, would not worry about the rose, and that the other women would not get mad at him because, without a rose, they would not know that Mark is the one who answered their ads. Earvin knew about Mark's plan and decided to go to the restaurant with the rose so that he could get a date with one of the women whose ad Mark had answered. Vanessa and the other women figured out that the same man had answered all their ads. They decided that the man with the rose would be the dead man with the rose. When Earvin showed up, they all got mad at him, thinking he was the one who'd answered their ads. The finale ended with a goodbye from the cast.
While the series finale was viewed in its entirety on ABC affiliates in the Eastern, Central, and Mountain time zones, ABC pre empted the episode on the West Coast five minutes in to break the news of the death of
Princess Diana, and the finale was never re-run on ABC. Other than several complaints from viewers on the West Coast, there was little, if any, controversy, as this episode generally had low ratings and aired on a Saturday. However, the episode eventually aired in syndication.
ABC actually intended to bring back
Hangin' with Mr. Cooper and
Step By Step to
TGIF for the 1996–97 season as mid-season replacements if freshmen series
Sabrina the Teenage Witch and/or
Clueless were cancelled (
Clueless was cancelled by February and was replaced by
Step by Step by March,
Clueless was picked up by
UPN the next season.
Sabrina lasted four seasons on ABC before being picked up by The WB in 2000 where it spent its last three seasons. Both shows are now owned by
CBS Television Distribution).
The wedding of Mark and Vanessa would have most likely been the sixth-season premiere episode had the show been renewed after season five, as Mark Curry reportedly had wanted the wedding to begin a new season, not a series finale.
Hangin' with Mr. Cooper was the only TGIF show cancelled after the 1996–97 season as CBS picked up
Step by Step and
Family Matters when that network attempted a TGIF-style comedy lineup on Fridays called the "
CBS Block Party".