Gimme a Break!

1981 - 1987

Katie the Crook

29th October 1981

Episode 1

In the series premiere, Samantha comes home with a black eye, and Nell teaches her a few skills on how to fight. Julie an her friend are studying on where babies come from, and as the cheif comes home, he walks into the kitchen to find them kissing. Simpson then arrives at the house with Katie, who was picked up for shoplifting, but wasn't arrested. Katie has been actin like this because of the recnt death of Margaret, her mother, and the cheif and her make amends in the end.

A Good Man is Hard to Find

5th November 1981

Episode 2

Nell and Angie go to a bar to meet guys. However, Nell gets sad that she isn't admired by any of the men. She then goes home and the Chief decides to fix her up with one of his officers. What he doesn't know is that the officer is just doing the Cheif a favor so he can get a better job position. The Cheif throws the man out and tells Nell what happened when she comes out ready for her date. Nell realizes he wasn't interested in her because she is overweight. Angie then shows up and invites Nell out and she accepts, even after being rejected by the officer.

The Second Time Around

12th November 1981

Episode 3

A woman accidently hits the cheifs police car, because her contact lense came out as a moth sat on her face. When she meets the cheif to tell him how sorry she was for smashing into his car, she realizes the two went to Franklin High together, and she was a cheerleader, while the cheif was a professional football player. The two hit it off, and begin dating, and Samantha is sad because she doesnt want a step-mom. In the end, when Marion wants to sleep with the cheif, he hastily rushes out of her apartment and knew he could not go trough with it because of his love for his dead wife Margaret. However, Nell tells him thathe does not have to worry and that Margaret would have wanted him to move on.

Mom's Birthday

19th November 1981

Episode 4

A woman with a perfume gift for Margaret on her birthday shows up, learning that Margaret is deceased. When the Cheif comes home, he is upset because it is Margaret's birthday and she died 6 months earlier. He decides to take the family out to dinner at a Mexican restaraunt, but when the mariacci singers sing ""Happy Birthday"" to a woman named Margart, the family begins to feel sad again. Nell decides to get out the family home movies to which the Cheif objects to, but in the end is happy seeing Margaret the way he remembered her.

Do or Diet

26th November 1981

Episode 5

Nell decides to hold her PORKO'S meeting at the house, and when she gets on the scale she gets mad because she gained two pounds. WHen the Cheif comes home he is disgraced by the group and has a bad case of indigestion, forcing him to stay on vebetables for the next three weeks. However once Nell and the CHeif begin their diet, the Cheif insists on sampling her lasanga, and then they go on an eating bindge. The next moring when they wake up, they cant believe how crazy they were to eat so much in one sitting.

A Man in Nell's Room

3rd December 1981

Episode 6

When the Cheif finds a man in Nell's room, he tells her he doesn't want her fooling around with guys in the same house as his teenage daughters. Nell decides to quit, and moves in with Angie for one night. The Cheif tries to adjust to Nell not being around and everything goes awry with the turkey being thrown through the front window, and the clothes shrinking in the wash. In the end, Nell gets fed up with staying with Angie and decides to come home, to which the family is overjoyed having her back.

Your Prisoner is Dead

10th December 1981

Episode 7

As he is on an erand at the drug store, the chief witnesses a robber hold up the place. When the robber turns his gun on him, the chief shoots him in self-defense. However, when he finds out that his prisoner has died, he thinks seriously of retiring from the police force since he has never shot a person before. In the end, Nell convinces him to go back to work, when she makes him realize that he really is a pretty good cop.

Julie's Rejection

17th December 1981

Episode 8

Julie wants to join Katie's club, and gets help from Nell and Katie on how to be cool, sitting, and dancing. When she shows up to Katie's group of friends, she totally messes up, as they ask her several questions about personal experieces such as kissing and virginity, and she is rejected into the club. In the end, she says she only wanted to be in the club because of the jacket they get, but cries hystericolly, because she knows she cannot be like Katie and her friends. Katie decides in the end to quit the clique that she is in, and decides that she and her sister need to stick together.

Julie's First Love

7th January 1982

Episode 9

Julie goes off to the arcade after having no luck at finding a date to the Junior prom. At the arcade, she meets a worker there who is into computers named Arnold and she asks him to the prom and he accepts. However, the Cheif is mad that Julie returns home late and grounds her, not wanting to hear her side of the story. In the end, Katie realizes that Julie is at the arcade because she mentioned being short on quarters and the Cheif decides to go down there, letting her know that he cares a lot for her and that he allows her to go to the prom with Arnold.

Nell's Ex

14th January 1982

Episode 10

Nell's finds out that her ex-husband Tony is in town and wants to meet with her. At the house, he tells her that he is going to be on the Merv Griffith show and needs $1,000. Nell agrees to give him the money and lies to the Cheif, telling him she needs $500 for her Aunt to have an operation. The Cheif gives her the money, even if he knows that Tony is going to blow it and not get his big break on the Merv Griffith show. Sure enough, when he auditions on the show, he is told to get off, since they already have enough singers like him.

Katie the Cheat

21st January 1982

Episode 11

The chief is counting on Katie to do real good on her final exam, but she gets Julie to take it instead. The family is shocked to hear what has happened, when she declines the money they give her for her college life, and she tells them she cheated on the test The cheif is very upset, and then finds out it was Julie who took the test for her. However, Katie appologizes and decides to re-take the test on her own.

The Emergency

4th February 1982

Episode 12

Katie comes home with pain in her stomache and Nell rushes her to the emergency room. Once there, she meets a pushy receptionist and seeks a doctor on her own time to help Katie. The doctor tells Nell that Katie was using an IUD (Inter-Uterinary Device) as a form of birth control and will be okay. She is shocked to hear the news and so is the chief. The Chief leaves the hospital disgusted, but returns and goes to see Katie. He tells her what would her mother think about her doing that sort of thing if she was still alive? Katie tells him that she and her mother talked a lot about it before she died and she knew Katie had been using IUD'S. The Chief understands that he cannot protect Katie from IUD's and other sorts of sexual related issues, but tells her he will always love her.

Nell Goes Home

11th February 1982

Episode 13

As the Cheif is getting ready to leave for an assignment in New York, Samantha is mad that she can't go fishing with a male friend of her's due to the fact that he will not be around to watch them. After he leaves, Nell gets a call from her mother telling her that her father had a heart attack. Nell takes Samantha back home to Alabama to visit her family. At her house, Nell is told by her mother that her father doesn't want to see her. However, Samantha is sad for the way she treated the Cheif because he wouldn't let her go fishing. Nell realizes she will see her father even though he doesn't want her to. In his room, he acts the way he did to Nell when she was younger, and doesn't mind that he is dying. He still doesn't forgive Nell for running away when she was 16. In the end, Nells Father dies, and at his funeral, Nell is told to read the Eulogy that her father wrote. He actually was happy that she came home to him after all those years. Nell sings ""Amazing Grace"" as the Cheif walks

Samantha Steals a Squad Car

18th February 1982

Episode 14

As the chief is preparing a speech for an awards banquet, Nell accidently sits on his cap, which ticks him off. As the two fight, Samantha comes home, complaining that a girl called her a dumb Pollak, but Nell and the cheif are too busy arguing. To get their attention, she tells Nell ""how would you like it if somebody caled you a niggar?"" The chief gets her attention, goes on a rampage, and she locks herself in the bathroom, only to escape through the bathroom window, steal her fathers squad car, and take off to the police station, where she meets a drunkard named Bill, who is out of his cell, drunk in the cheif's office. In the end, the chief and Nell show up at the police station, and all is forgiven, as Nell tells Samantha that they should have listened to her in the first place, instead of fighting over a stupid squashed police cap.

Grandma Fools Around

25th February 1982

Episode 15

The family gets ready for Grandma and Grandpa's 55th anniversary at the house. Meanwhile, back at their house, Grandma and Grandpa are reminiscing over old photos and love letters that Grandpa sent her during World War 2. When Grandpa reads one of them, he finds out it wasn't his, and he threatens to leave Grandma and wants a divorce. Grandma goes to see the family and cries over waht has been happening. Carl is upset at his mother, yet goes to see Grandpa and brings him to the house. At the house Grandpa and Grandma do not speak, and Nell gets fed up and tells them that she is divorced, Ed is a single bachelor, the Chief recently lost his wife, and they all wish they had someone to love. Grandma and Grandpa finally get back together after this talk Nell gives.

Hot Muffins

11th March 1982

Episode 16

Katie's band is a big success in Glenlawn as they perform at amateur night at a restaraunt. A big producer spots them, and tells them he loved the act, and offers them a job far away. Katie decides at first she wants to go, because she started her group, and without her, they would be nothing. However, Nell lets her see deep inside that all she wants to be is a star, and she finally decides to stay behind with her family, as her group goes off to see if they can make a success with their career.

Sam's Affair

18th March 1982

Episode 17

Samantha and her friend Scottie from her baseball team decide to sit on the couch and watch some television. As they are intimidated by a love story, they talk about kissing, and they decide to try it. As Julie and Katie walk in on them, they suspect that they have been fooling around, and when the cheif finds out, he tells Samantha that after she kisses a boy she will end up pregnant. Due to this remark, Samantha mistakes that she can get pregnant from kissing, and seeks help from Julie, Nell, and Grandpa, but they aren't very good at it. Finally, when Nell sees Samantha crying in her room, she tells her that she thinks she is pregnant, and Nell tells her never to beleive what her father says because he is full of it, and she decides to teach her the facts of life.

The Robbery

25th March 1982

Episode 18

The Kaniskis come home to find burglars at work, when they return home from thei cheif's law enforcement officer of the year award ceremony. However, Nell is at a stip club, seeing male exotic dancers, returns home, tricks the robbers by saying there are jewles in the closet in a locked box, gets the chief's gun, and saves the family from danger. When the reporter shows up, Nell and the girls try to make the chief look good, even though he was tied up by the robbers, and make it look like he was the hero, but finally, the chief admits to the reporter that Nell is the real hero, and she did a very important deed for the family, which they will always be grateful of.

An Unmarried Couple

Episode 19

Katie's friend Valerie shows up at the Kanisky house, pregnant and due any day. She tells Katie that her boyfriend Jonathan had a fight with her and the two broke up and she has nowhere to go. Valerie is welcome to stay with the family, however, once the Cheif finds out she is pregnant and split with her boyfriend, he does not tolerate this. When Jonathan shows up to see Valerie, the Cheif insists that he and Valerie marry before the baby is born and he agrees. Valerie and Jonathan quarrel about marriage until he tells her he loves her and asks her and the baby to marry him. In the end, Valerie goes into labor and decides she isn't having the baby until she and Jonathan are married. Julie rushes outside to find the neighborhood priest and the ceremony is performed. Shortly after the ceremony, as the ambulance arrives, Valerie gives birth in the front of the Kanisky house.

Top Cast

Nell Carter•Lara Jill Miller•John Hoyt

Gimme a Break! is an American sitcom which aired on NBC for six seasons, October 29, 1981, until May 12, 1987. The series stars Nell Carter as the housekeeper for a widowed police chief and his three daughters.

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Full Cast

Nell Carter Image

Nell Carter

Nell Harper

Lara Jill Miller Image

Lara Jill Miller

Sam Kinisky

John Hoyt Image

John Hoyt

Stanley Kanisky

Joey Lawrence Image

Joey Lawrence

Joey Donovan

Telma Hopkins Image

Telma Hopkins

Addy Wilson

Matthew Lawrence Image

Matthew Lawrence

Matthew Donovan

Paul Sand Image

Paul Sand

Marty

Rosie O'Donnell Image

Rosie O'Donnell

Maggie O'Brien

Rosetta LeNoire Image

Rosetta LeNoire

Maybelle Harper

Full Crew

Rod Parker

Producer

Morton Lachman

Producer

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