House Rules

Here is how NBC described the show:

"A buddy comedy about three Gen Xers who share a house in Denver: Friends meets Three's Company. The series chronicles the adventures of three lifelong, ski-loving friends: Casey, a deputy district attorney; McCusky, a medical student; and Riley, a reporter. We were meant to find them charmingly irresponsible and free-spirited. We did not. In contrast to the similarly themed triangle comedy Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, this made delayed adolescence seem, well, childish.

"The unique friendship shared by a trio of childhood chums and roommates from Denver is the focus of this half-hour comedy. Through romances, job problems and the trials and tribulations of daily life, a woman and her two male roommates give modern romance a decidedly comic spin.

"'House Rules is about two men and a woman in their mid-twenties who, after 20 years of growing up together, going to school together, living together and sharing nearly every experience of their lives, are so completely suited to each other that any outside romantic involvement is probably doomed to failure,' says executive producer Christopher Thompson. 'Each episode threatens the status quo and comically tests this romantically confusing relationship.'

"Jobs and romances may come and go for attorney Casey Farrell, medical student William McCusky and reporter Thomas Riley III, who are all trying to find their niche in adulthood. But while their unusually tight friendship may keep them from establishing any meaningful relationships outside their own circle, it keeps the pals laughing to know they have each other to fall back on." (NBC)

In one of those strange coincidences that dog television seasons, two filely identical two-guys-and-a-girl sitcoms appeared simultaneously: House Rules and ABC's Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place. In the latter the emotional entanglement of the trio makes a sort of sense because they are college age and do not actually live together; here the supposedly adult trio's sharing a house seems vaguely unsavory and their arrested adolescence simply childish.

Production credits:
Christopher Thompson Productions/NBC in association with Columbia TriStar Television
Created by Roberto Benabib & Karl Fink
Executive Producer: Chris Thompson
Co-Executive Producer: Wendy Goldman
Producer: Annette Sakahkian
Co-Producer: Ned Goldreyer
Story Editors: Mark LaVine & Eddie Ring
Staff Writers: Adam Hamburger, Charlie Richards

1st Season Spring 1998

1. "Pilot"
   gs: Jeff Yagher [ Patrick ], Lisa Rinna [ Cassie Devine ]

   In the opener, Casey decides to move to Paris with her boorish boyfriend. In an effort to make her stay in Denver, the guys flip a coin to determine which one of them will propose to her. Guest star Rinna (Melrose Place) plays a prospective replacement roommate.

   b: 9 Mar 98 pc: _________ w: Roberto Benabib & Karl Fink and Chris Thompson d: Michael Lembeck

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2. "Sex and Violence"
   gs: Patrick Warburton [ Dan ], Bob Koherr [ Clint ], Dennis Cockrum [ Bartender ], E.E. Bell [ Drink Guy ], Jeff Evans [ Burglar ]

   Riley and McCusky feel like wimps when Casey chases a burglar from their home - and then starts dating a macho cop.

   b: 16 Mar 98 pc: _________ w: Adam Hamburger d: Michael Lembeck

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3. "Large Flightless Birds"
   gs: Heidi Schanz [ Fiona ], Fred Stoller [ Mr. Parker ], Kyle Colerider-Krugh [ Inventor #1 ], Derick Alexander [ Bartender ]

   Casey is upset when her housemates decline to accompany her on their annual vacation. McCusky has met the woman of his dreams in a bar, but spilled his drink on the name and number she gave him and knows only that "her name has an F in it." Riley has been fired from his newspaper job - because all the well researched and written obituaries he printed were for people not actually dead yet - and invests his severance pay in an ostrich pair for breeding purposes, which proceed to terrorize the household.

   b: 23 Mar 98 pc: _________ w: Chris Thompson d: Michael Lembeck

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4. "Twisted Sister"
   gs: Jennifer Aspen [ Terry ], Debra Mooney [ Mother Superior ], Chris Thompson [ Father ]

   When McCusky encourages his sister to become a nun, his roommates tempt her.

   b: 30 Mar 98 pc: _________ w: Charlie Richards d: Jim Drake

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5. "Riley's New Job"
   gs: Bobbie Phillips [ Dr. Chris Cavanaugh ], Lenny Wolpe [ Randy Hicks ], Mitch Fatel [ Guy ], Gabriel Dell [ Brad ], Jon Simmons [ Fellow Doctor ]

   Casey has her work cut out for her when she's promoted to district attorney - and hires Riley as her new secretary. Meanwhile, McCusky is dating an uninhibited female doctor.

   b: 13 Apr 98 pc: _________ w: Charlie Richards d: Michael Lembeck

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6. "Dude Act Like a Lady"
   gs: Ivana Milicevic [ Cinnamon ], Neil Giuntoli [ Paramedic ], Maddie Corman [ Connie ]

   Casey and McCusky worry that Riley may want a sex change after he buys a girl's bike and, having been wheeled unconscious into McCusky's emergency room is spotted wearing red ladies' panties (which he borrowed from Casey because he had no clean underwear).

   b: 1 Jun 98 pc: _________ w: Chris Thompson d: Rick Berens
   NOTE: Originally scheduled for 20 Apr 98.

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7. "Who Knew?"
   gs: John Fleck [ Stewart ], Niesha Trout [ Amanda ]

   A truly terrible smell takes the trio into the basement, where they discover a dead turtle in a shoebox - and become trapped when the door blows shut. After they discover and consume a cache of cheap wine, Riley drunkenly blurts out a terrible secret: that he and Casey once slept together, violating their pact that the trio would remain just friends forever. An explanatory flashback takes them to the day of their senior prom, when Riley was dumped by his girlfriend hours before the event and Casey found out that her gentlemanly boyfriend became a beast after hours.

   b: 8 Jun 98 pc: _________ w: Wendy Goldman d: Robby Benson