Taste is questionable

So naturally, 'Three's Company is near the top

By Bill Kaufman

Newsday

"Three's Company" has drawn criticism for its questionable taste, not to mention its mindless plots, so it's only natural that the series is among the top five shows on TV. ·

Millions tune in their ABC station each Tuesday night to watch a show that is based on a far-fetched storyline: For financial reasons, an unmarried man can defy conventional social mores by sharing an apartment with two single young women, if he makes believe he's gay.

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"Three's Company" probably has more double entendres per foot of videotape than any other sitcom. The trio's machinations are geared for the contemporary, more liberal-minded generation -the viewers for whom TV-titillation is increasingly appealing.

The format is especially prevalent at ABC, where. "Three's Company" and one of its sister shows (if that's the word for it), "Charlie's Angels," are high on the list of sexually provocative programing.

Both shows were among a batch of eight that recently lost the advertising of Sears Roebuck. Wiley Brooks, a Sears spokesman, said both were "potentially

shows which could offend people." As far as "Three's Company" goes, Brooks said, "It's basically a one-joke show."

That one joke has consistently kept "Three's Company" ratings high. Last February, for example, it drew a bigger audience than the boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks on CBS, according to Nielsen ratings.

The show also has firmly established the careers of its three title actors: John Ritter playing Jack Tripper, who shares his digs with Chrissy Snow (played by Suzanne Somers) and Janet Wood (played by Joyce DeWitt.)

Ritter is the son of the late countrymusic idol and cowboy star, Tex Ritter. The show also features Norman Fell as the landlord who has more or less accept ed the idea that it's OK for the fellow to live with the two women, because he is a homosexual.

Like a handful of other popular shows, "Three's Company" is an adaptation of a British program Thames Television's "Man About the House." That show used the same plot and was one of the hottest shows on the telly.

The American version has catapulted Suzanne Somers into celebrity of almost

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Farrah-Fawcett-Majors proportions, more than likely because her proportions are similar to Miss Fawcett-Majors'.

Her character in the show has drawn ject to her stereotyped projection as fire from women's-rights groups, who obyou guessed it a beautiful dumb blonde.

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To offset Somers' naive sexuality, the show's other starlet, Joyce DeWitt, portrays the somewhat brighter, wittier roommate.

The trio has made it clear that there will be no hanky-panky between them in often dropping lecherous lines. On occathe arrangement, but the show has Ritter sion Ritter is seen to make a half-hearted pass at one of the girls, but the audience is conditioned to the fact that nothing will ever come of it.

"John's nose is absolutely flat from all the doors we've closed on it in the show," Miss Somers said.

Miss DeWitt recently explained that she didn't feel that the series was all that salacious. "It's mild, far milder than 'Soap," she said. "I think that there's been too much of a thing made of what we're attempting to do."