It's a Living - Episode Guide

At an exclusive restaurant called Above The Top, which is located at the roof of a luxurious hotel in downtown Los Angeles, California, a group of five women work there as waitresses: Lois Adams, a married mother of two children(a boy and a girl), Jan Hoffmeyer, a divorced mother of one child(a daughter named Ellen) who goes to college during the day, Dorothy "Dot" Higgins, an aspiring actress who waitresses at the restaurant to supplement her income while pursuing her acting career, Vicky Allen, a farm girl from Idaho who is new to Los Angeles and is learning the ways of a major city, and finally Cassie Cranston, the attractive, sassy member of the quintet who is the wisecracker of the bunch.  In this, the very first episode of the series, Vicky is dating a pilot who invites her to spend the weekend at Palm Springs, but this causes a problem for her because she is a virgin. 

Lois and Jan decide to spend the evening together at Lois' house while her husband and children are away, but the gathering instantly becomes a slumber party when Dot and Vicky invite themselves over (Cassie shows up later after a bad date).  The slumber party, however, turns into a nightmare when a burglar shows up to rob the house.

The girls of Above The Top convince Cassie to let Vicky move in with her while Vicky's situation with her new apartment gets solved, but when Vicky finds out that the current tenants of her new apartment have yet to move out, Vicky's stay at Cassie's place stretches to a week, causing friction between the two coworkers over Vicky's tidiness and cooking.  

Vicky's father Emmett Allen arrives in Los Angeles for a visit, causing great joy for Vicky, in spite of Emmett not liking his daughter's current chosen profession and the revealing uniform she wears at the restaurant at the time of the father/daughter reunion, but when Vicky shows up at her father's camper to give him a going away present, she finds Nancy and her father in a semi-clad state, causing both father and daughter not to speak to each other. 

An old high school flame of Lois' shows up at Above The Top, which causes problems for Lois because 1.) Lois and her husband Bill are having a fight and are not speaking to each other at the moment and 2.) the old boyfriend wants to rekindle their romance.  When he wants to have a drink with her after work, she reluctantly accepts the offer and goes to his hotel room in order to tell him that the old romance is long over and that she's married with children.  Meanwhile, Dot and Vicky, overhearing Lois' predicament, follow her to the hotel room in question in order to prevent her from having an affair with her former beau. 

In order to supplement her income so that she can afford ballet lessons for her daughter Ellen, Jan takes a second job as an engraver of invitations, but holding down this job while waitressing at Above The Top and going to college by day causes Jan to fall behind on her work making invitations and her job at Above The Top to suffer, causing Nancy to fire Jan after a heated argument between both ladies one night during dinner service.  Meanwhile, Dot loses Nancy's brooch that she borrows from her in order to cover a stain on the lapel of a 1940s-style dress suit that Dot bought at a thrift shop so she can attend a party held by an important theatrical producer. 

After dumping her latest suitor who threatens to jump from a tall building for rejecting his love, Cassie starts dating a rich Venezuelan playboy named Ricardo.  In order to impress him, Cassie has Chef Mario prepare a romantic dinner for two at Cassie's apartment (the girls arrive early at Cassie's place to help set up the dining table and the meal, which happens to be "Chicken Mario").  Days later, Ricardo takes Cassie to work at Above The Top where she introduces him to the girls.  After he leaves, Cassie tells her coworkers that despite having a great time with him, she's going to dump him, which stuns the girls completely.  At the waitress lounge behind the kitchen, she explains to Lois, Jan, Vicky, and Dot that she has a personal rule never to date any man she happens to fall in love with, yet, she has been thinking a lot about Ricardo lately, especially when they are apart.  Seeing how deeply in love she has become, Lois and Jan tell her to pursue the relationship anyway and that what she and Ricardo have is quite special.  Cassie agrees to follow Lois and Jan's advice and things go well for her until Ricardo arrives at Above The Top one night during dinner service to tell Cassie that their romance is over because he is going back to Venezuela, which breaks Cassie's heart.

The Los Angeles fire department informs the staff of Above The Top that a fire has broken out several floors below the hotel where the restaurant is situated at and that they are to keep the customers there until the fire is put out, but the situation gets chaotic when a hysterical woman wearing a blue bathrobe races into Above The Top and yells that the building is on fire and that the emergency exits are covered in smoke, causing panic amongst the customers.  The waitresses take charge of the situation and keep the customers calm until Nancy informs them that the fire department is sending helicopters to the building to rescue the patrons of Above The Top at four customers at a time.  Hours later, with the restaurant closed and the customers safely rescued, Nancy, the girls, Chef Mario, and Sonny sit out the fire until the fire captain shows up and informs them that fire has been completely put out and that everyone can the leave premises. 

After turning in a term paper for her Economics class at college which she hopes will improve her grade, Jan decides to date her professor, since it's already the end of the semester, but this causes concern for Lois and the girls when they fear that something wrong will happen.  After the first date, Jan decides to not to date the professor anymore, since she found him to be boring.  She reluctantly accepts a second date with him against the advice of both Lois and Cassie (Lois tells Jan that she must be truthful about breaking up with him, while Cassie insists that Jan should "lie to him").  When that date goes wrong and the professor places some pressure on Jan to make their already rocky relationship more intimate, Jan goes to the college dean for help (with Lois in tow for moral support), but the dean can't do anything about Jan's predicament since, as she puts it, her "hands are tied."  Frustrated at the situation that she's in, Jan decides to handle the problem herself and confronts the professor by telling him that if he doesn't stop trying to get her to sleep with him or flunk her from class if she doesn't, she will go to the authorities and charge him with sexual harassment.  Days later, Jan receives the news that her term paper got a passing grade.

After attending a Hollywood party in which both ladies had a good time, Dot and Vicky discover that they are dating the same man that they met at the party.  When Vicky starts dating the man in question whom Dot went out with previously, Dot gets jealous at Vicky, which creates some heated friction between the two coworkers which almost ends their friendship.  Meanwhile, both Cassie and Jan are forced to lose weight by Nancy when both waitresses are found to have gained a few pounds over the weight requirement for work at Above The Top.  

Lois is flushed with pride after receiving a letter from her daughter's school, telling her that she has been invited to speak at Amy's class on Career Day, but the next morning during breakfast at home, Lois finds out the real reason for the invitation: Amy told a fib in her class essay in which she stated that Lois was a vice president of a local bank!  Upset about the news, Lois thinks that Amy is ashamed of her because she works as a waitress, which Amy admits to.  However, when Career Day arrives, Lois gives a wonderful speech at Amy's class, with Jan, Cassie, Vicky and Dot in tow for moral support, which causes Amy to realize how wrong she was for telling that fib so that she wouldn't be embarrassed at having a mother who serves food to people for a living.

Tension arises at work between Lois and Jan, as a pornographic magazine is found in Ellen's (Jan's daughter) overnight bag after she stayed over at Lois' house the night before.  Meanwhile, a lady at a table next to Sonny finds him attractive and begins a relationship with him, but Sonny gets jealous when his new girlfriend shows up one night at Above The Top with another man, despite the fact that Sonny and the girl agreed to have an open relationship.  

Following a management evaluation of the staff at Above The Top after dinner serve one night, Nancy informs the girls and Sonny that she is being let go by management for undisclosed reasons, which shocks everyone of the staff.  She also tells the waitresses and Sonny that Lois is to be the new hostess at Above The Top from now on.  The next evening, Lois is having a hard time as hostess, as reservations get mixed up and frustrated customers leave the restaurant after waiting more than an hour.  The next day, Lois informs the girls that she found out that Nancy got fired because of her age and that she wants Jan, Dot, Vicky and Cassie to join her as a united front to see Nancy and tell her that she must fight Mr. Steadman, the head of management, to get her hostess job back at Above The Top.  After leaving the restaurant, the girls arrive at a greasy diner called Marz, where they find Nancy working there as a waitress.  Lois and the girls try to convince Nancy to come back to Above The Top and get her old job back, but to no avail.  Later that evening, during dinner serve, Nancy arrives at Above The Top, disheveled and dirty in her waitress uniform, where she confronts Steadman (who just had a talk with Lois over the hostessing situation) and tells him that if he doesn't get her job back, she will sue management for age discrimination.  Seeing that he has no other alternative, Steadman immediately rehires Nancy as hostess of the restaurant. 

A visiting pro baseball team is staying at the hotel where Above The Top is situated at and since they are playing in a championship series, the team is dining at Above The Top every night, which causes problems for the waitresses as a few of the ballplayers start hitting on Jan and Cassie.  Meanwhile, Dot befriends the Costa Rican pitcher on the team who's afraid that his village will hate him if he loses the big game the following night. 

Note: Cast changes occur on this, the second and, ultimately, final season of It's A Living on the ABC television network, as Susan Sullivan("Lois Adams"), Wendy Schaal("Vicky Allen"), and Bert Remsem("Chef Mario") were let go from the program in order to revamp the series and help it increase its ratings.  Louise Lasser, of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman(1976-78) fame, joins the cast as Maggie McBurney, the newest waitress at Above The Top, along with long time character actor Earl Boen, who plays Dennis Hubner, the new chef at the restaurant.  Also, the show's name is changed to "Making A Living" in another effort to attract audiences, and, the show is placed on the Saturday night schedule instead of Tuesday nights as it had been since episode No. 12, "Kids," the next-to-last episode of Season 1.  Later on, ABC places the show on their Friday night lineup, beginning with episode No. 10, "The Garden Of Countess Natasha"(February 12, 1982), where it will remain for the rest of the 1981-82 television season. 

A woman who had a brief one-night encounter with Sonny at a New Year's Eve party in 1972 shows up at Above The Top in order to tell Sonny that he could be the father of this woman's child, which later turns out to be a rouse by the woman in question so she can get some money from him due to her not being able to find an adequate job for herself and her son Arthur.  Meanwhile, Dot brings a brown mouse to work which later escapes from the shoebox that it was in, causing panic amongst the waitresses.  Later on, Nancy accidentally kills the rodent in question while she questions Dot about it. 

The hotel where Above The Top is situated at has recently experienced a series of muggings against women and Maggie McBurney, the newest waitress at the restaurant, has now become the latest victim.  After the entire staff of Above The Top receive some instruction on the use of mace from an LAPD detective, Dot confronts the mugger at the hotel parking lot one night after dinner service and sprays some mace at her would-be attacker, who then bumps hard on a support beam that is next to Dot's car and falls to the concrete floor unconscious.  A few days later, the mugger and his lawyer meet Dot at the restaurant where he demands that Dot apologize for the incident, or else, she'll get sued for damages. 

A wedding is about to be held at Above The Top, which causes a problem for Cassie, when she finds out that her old boyfriend from Kansas, Tom Morton, is the groom in question.  During the wedding ceremony the next day, Tom tells his bride-to-be that he can't marry her and then goes up to Cassie and tells her that he's still in love her, despite the fact that their relationship ended 10 years ago when she left Kansas to start a new life in California.  Meanwhile, the sister of the bride is hit upon by Sonny, who rejects his advances, but then, when the ceremony is interrupted by Tom's decision not to marry his fiancée, she starts hitting on Sonny after she's had a few too many glasses of champagne.

Note: In this episode of It's A Living, the viewer finds out that Cassie Cranston's actual name is Katie-Lou Cranston, a name she stopped using upon arriving in California years ago. 

Jan's ex-husband Lloyd shows up at Above The Top one night during dinner service, which causes some mixed feelings for her, especially when the both of them start going out together and have a great time on their dates.  Meanwhile, Dot takes care of an elderly dog that she is to appear with for a dog food commercial that she auditioned for, only to replace it with another dog after the original dog died in the bathroom of the waitress lounge at age 15 years (105 in human years). 

The staff of Above The Top have been informed by the new management company that runs the restaurant that they are all to be fired within two weeks time and that Above The Top is to be converted into a high-class private gym.  Worried about their future job prospects, the girls(Cassie, Jan, Dot, and Maggie) go to an employment agency where they fill out application forms and get interviewed by the individual agents, where they tell each one of them their work history, skills, and their ambitions in life.  But good fortune reigns upon the girls, as an irate customer named Mr. Mackinaw, who happens to be a millionaire, buys Above The Top within days of the restaurant's closure, saving the girls' jobs. 

Sonny's obnoxious brother Buddy arrives in L.A. for a visit, which doesn't please Sonny one bit, but when Buddy introduces his fiancée Suzy to his kid brother, she makes it quite plain that she rather prefers Sonny's company to Buddy's by making erotic overtures to him.  Meanwhile, Nancy and the girls search for a missing raffle ticket in which they have won a new car. 

Chef Dennis has been quite depressed lately as his wife Mildred has just left him for being "dull."  After dinner service that night, he and the waitresses, along with Nancy, discuss his situation in which the girls come up with the idea of having Dennis date a woman in front of Mildred at the restaurant that she frequents often for lunch so that she'll get jealous and return to Dennis.  Dennis agrees with the idea and chooses Cassie as his date over Nancy.  The next day, Cassie and Dennis have their date at the restaurant in question and he spots Mildred at another table with her date, who turns out to be Mildred's hairdresser (not the young man that Dennis saw her with days earlier).  After applying her wiles at Dennis at their table, Cassie sees that Mildred's interest has been peaked and tells Dennis to go over to Mildred's table and have it out with her.  He does, but he returns to his and Cassie's table with a plate full of linguini and clam sauce spilled all over his person (Dennis then tells Cassie that Mildred just told him that she is filing for divorce). 

After not showing up for work at Above The Top for three straight days, Nancy calls Dennis at his apartment and threatens to fire him if he doesn't show up for that night's dinner service.  While discussing Dennis' plight amongst each other while setting up the tables, Cassie, Jan, Dot and Maggie agree to go to Mildred's mother's apartment after work (Mildred is staying there temporarily while she's preparing to file her divorce against Dennis) so they can talk to Mildred and save her and Dennis' marriage.  All four ladies try to reason with Mildred, but to no avail (Cassie and Jan have objects thrown at them by Mildred, which hit the inside of the apartment's front door).  Dennis then shows up at the apartment and tries talking to Mildred; he, too, fails.  Later at Dennis' apartment, Nancy show up and apologizes to Dennis for her behavior over the phone while using her wiles to seduce him (Dennis is oblivious to this while looking at his old high school photos).  Just then, Mildred shows up at the apartment and catches Dennis and Nancy sitting together on the couch and leaves.  The following day, Dennis comes back to work at Above The Top and explains to Nancy, the girls, and Sonny that he and Mildred have talked things out and are both back together again, which slightly embarrasses Nancy, causing the restaurant to return to normal. 

Maggie invites the girls, Nancy, Sonny, and Dennis to a party at her house (Maggie calls it "a thing") as a gesture of thanks to all concerned for being nice to her as the new waitress at Above The Top, but the party (or "thing") is actually a rouse to get Dot to date Maggie's young college student brother Bobby, who is 22 years of age.  At the party, everyone there is bored silly (Cassie, in particular, who tells Jan that she's "bored out of my mind") and Maggie's plan to fix Dot up with Bobby back fires as he becomes attracted to Jan, who is in her early thirties.  Both Bobby and Jan have three dates with each other before Jan breaks up with Bobby because of her being concerned with the age difference between them. 

  After being rejected at an audition for a TV commercial for floor wax, Dot is extremely excited that another audition she went to has become successful: she gets the female lead to a play called The Garden Of Countess Natasha, which tells the story of a Hungarian countess who comes to America and falls in love with a union organizer.  Dot invites the gang(sans Nancy) at Above The Top to see a preview of the play and when they do, they are shocked at how awful Dot was as Countess Natasha.  When Dot shows up at the theater lobby to see if the gang liked the play or not, the girls lie through their teeth by telling her how terrific she was.  As the play continues to be presented, Dot develops a bit of an uppity attitude as she tells Nancy upon arriving to work late, as usual, one day that she's giving a two-week notice of severence from Above The Top, as she tells Nancy and the girls that the play is going to Broadway soon.  At the kitchen, Jan, Cassie, and Maggie tell Dot the truth about her acting in the play, but Dot perceives their comments as nothing more than a fit of jealousy.  

  At a party that the theater company holds at Above The Top a few nights later, the girls read Dot some reviews about The Garden Of Countess Natasha, which says the same thing that the girls have been saying all along: that Dot was no good in the play.  She goes to the director of the play who is seated at another table at the restaurant and tells her that both he and Dot have been fired from The Garden Of Countess Natasha company.  Saddened and dejected by what just transpired, Dot excuses herself to the girls and goes to the waitress lounge to be alone, but Nancy shows up and tells Dot that she is actually a good actress, despite the fact that the lead role in the play was all wrong for her(Nancy saw the play the week before).  After telling Dot a personal story about her wanting to be a dancer years earlier, Nancy tells Dot that she should continue to pursue her dream of becoming a successful actress and that she should keep her job at Above The Top while doing so.  Nancy ends the conversation by saying that if Dot tells the girls about their little talk, she will slap her so hard that her future kids will come out dizzy like her.

Note: beginning with this episode, as mentioned in the 1st episode synopsis of Season 2, It's A Living(known during this season as "Making A Living") is moved to the Friday night lineup, where it will stay until the network cancels the program for good at the end of the 1981-82 television season. 

Unable to make friends at her jogging club which causes her to have a sore foot, Maggie accepts Dot's invitation to join her theater group, where she quickly becomes the new assistant to the theater director, but the director falls in love with Maggie, which creates a lot of mixed emotions for her as she still has feelings for her late husband Joseph.  Meanwhile, an undercover detective from the LAPD(Los Angeles Police Department) acts as a busboy at Above The Top in order to capture a male & female criminal duo, who pose as restaurant customers and rob the eating establishments in question of their money. 

During dinner service one night at Above The Top, Jan overhears a jockey and a gambler fix a horse race by making horse No. 2 as the "winner" of the race in question.  So Jan and Maggie decide to each make a bet on horse No. 2 at the racetrack the next day and the both of them win their respective bets of $100 and $10 each(Jan wins a cool $1,000 while Maggie wins $100).  After telling the other girls and Sonny about their recent fortune, Jan and Maggie make another bet on another horse after they overhear the same jockey and gambler make another fix.  At the racetrack the next day, Maggie overhears the gambler make a bet on another horse and tells the gang, including Nancy, who invites herself over after Sonny tried to borrow some money from her for the race, that they made a mistake, but the horse that they betted on wins the race by pure dumb luck. 

Depressed over her acting career and the recent break-up with her now ex-boyfriend, Dot gets more upset when her doctor calls her at work, telling her that she needs to get her nose operated on because of a diviated septum, but when she's at the hospital, Dot has to put up with an overly friendly roommate who has a penchant for singing "Kumbaya, My Lord," which annoys Dot greatly.  But after insulting her roommate for her constant "entertaining," Dot starts feeling guilty when the nurse informs her that the girl in question is about to have a serious heart operation which may not be successful.  When her roommate returns, Dot tells her that they should hold hands together so that they can get over their fear of their respective operations.  Meanwhile, a group of World War I veterans host a dinner at Above The Top where two brothers refuse to accept an award in their honor because of a grudge over a girl that one brother stole from the other 63 years earlier. 

Maggie invites Jan, Cassie, and Dot once again to her home, but this time she wants the girls to help her clean out her basement so that Maggie can host a yard sale to sell off most of her junk that she and her late husband had accumulated for years.  In the process, Jan, who has a hot date later that evening, gets her arm stuck in one of the basement walls while trying to retrieve a charm bracelet that Maggie accidentally dropped into a hole(the charm bracelet in question was a present to Maggie by her late husband and was thought to be lost for years).  When the girls try unsuccessfully to pry Jan's arm from the hole, they contact Sonny to call the fire department and act as both a lookout for the firemen and a host of sorts for Jan's date when he arrives at Maggie's house while they get her ready for the evening. 

Note: This episode was the series finale on ABC, which broadcast the series for 27 total episodes.  Despite changing the name of the show from "It's A Living" to "Making A Living" for Season 2(1981-82), a radical change of cast members from the previous season, as well as a couple of schedule changes to boost the show's ratings(which were low to begin with from the show's debut in 1980), ABC canceled the series after the attempts to improve the program failed considerably, despite a loyal fan base.  In 1983, one year after It's A Living was canceled, all 27 ABC network episodes were sold to independent TV stations across the country for syndication, where the program did very well in local ratings(the 14 episodes of Season 2 were reedited to include the original title of "It's A Living").  As a result of this, the original creators of It's A Living decided to revive the show as a first-run syndicated program, which would not happen until 1985.  For many television viewers in 1983, both It's A Living and Ann Jillian were first time discoveries, while for original viewers of the show, they were very pleased that their favorite program was back on the air. 

The police won't take the fact that Amy has a stalker seriously; Nancy and Howard battle it out over their fish supplier.

A charming millionaire cowboy comes to the restaurant and shows romantic interest in Cassie; he easily sweeps her off her feet.

Above the Top hosts a weight loss group, and the ladies' tips suffer after the new bland dinners; Amy's father visits and pleads with her to come home.

Nancy is excited to receive the arrival of an ambassador of a third world country. However, the plans goes awry when the restaurant is taken hostage by terrorists from his home country.

Sonny abruptly quits the restaurant after being discovered by a record company executive who noticed his talent.

Jan falls for a fan repairman, but the romance accelerates to when he asks Jan to marry him. Meanwhile, Amy, taking advice from Dot, tries to lie to Nancy to get a day off so she can go to a rodeo.

A Russian track star who has been frequenting the restaurant ends up falling for Cassie and decides to defect to America.

When the entertainment for a prom fails to show up at the restaurant, Dot takes charge with help from Sonny and Amy. Meanwhile, Jan is not so sure about marrying Richie after learning that he wants to have a child with her.

A wedding day for Jan and Richie is about to hit a snag when the judge is a no-show and the honeymoon brings along a third wheel.

The President is expected to come to the restaurant, but lead chef Howard isn't cleared by Secret Service after they check his background.

Dot serves jury duty and ends up being the only holdout. Meanwhile, the waitresses hold out for Dot's return as they pick up her slack.

Nancy hires an obnoxious male waiter after the restaurant is hit with a discrimination suit for only hiring females.

Cassie's one-night stand becomes humiliating when the jealous wife of the man she slept with accuses her of stealing her husband.

After Nancy suffers a hernia during a date, her physician insists that she have an operation immediately. But when she begins to relive her phobia about being in a hospital, she refuses to seek treatment.

Terrorists target the restaurant when they learn that a visiting princess will be dining there and will be wearing a necklace that they want badly.

The girls share stories of their encounters with less than ideal men they've met over the years.

Cassie reluctantly moves in with Sonny while she attempts to find a place. But this pairing also has everyone at work guessing about this arrangement.

Dot replaces her dead cat with a noisy puppy. Meanwhile, Sonny decides to quit his job so he can date a roller derby skater.

Jan is feeling insecure when her high school rival visits the restaurant, so she exaggerates how her life has turned out.

Cassie is stunned as to why a customer constantly refuses to leave her tips. Dot's boyfriend decides to threaten suicide by jumping off the building if she doesn't continue to date him.

Jan sets Dot up with comic strip artist, a friend of Richie's, who creates a new character based on her; Dot is not pleased with her depiction in the comic.

Sonny is afraid he may have gone on a date with Big Joe's girl and begins writing his will; he remembers all the waitresses' best attributes.

The staff find themselves trapped on the roof, while Amy, Nancy and Howard must deal with an unruly crowd at the restaurant.

The girls, Sonny, Nancy, Howard and Howard's date all find themselves at the same singles bar after work. High jinks ensue.

Jan's high school reunion is at the restaurant, where she runs into her old boyfriend Jack.

Amy believes that Richie is having an affair with Ginger, and is not so sure whether to tell Jan just days before her birthday party.

Nancy's sister Gloria comes to visit, much to her dismay. With a history of stealing boyfriends, Nancy isn't happy when Gloria takes a shine to Howard.

A meeting of a mystery society results in murder.

A valentine from Amy's beau includes a hotel room key.