Perfect Strangers

Fandom
Name:	Perfect Strangers
Abbreviation(s):
Creator:	Dale McRaven
Date(s):	1986 to 1993
Medium:	tv series
Country of Origin:	US
External Links:	at IMDb
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Perfect Strangers was a long-running American sitcom, which aired on ABC from 1986 to 1993. The series involved the lives and adventures of Larry Appleton (Mark-Linn Baker) and Balki Bartokomous (Bronson Pinchot).

Larry, who is originally from Wisconsin had just moved to Chicago and was living on his own for the first time, when his distant cousin Balki, an immigrant from a country called Mypos, shows up and moves in with him. Toward the end of the series both of them would eventually get married and have children.

The series would gain a cult following in the early days of the internet consisting of fanfiction stories and art.

Fan Comments

1994

I'd love to be able to write Larry and Balky in bed together, and I KNOW I'm not the only one. After the episode where Balky claimed to have experience male bondage during a poker game ("no, no" Larry said, "that wasn't male bondage, that was male bonding.") I can see Balky wanting to know what male bondage is, and Larry, candidly, and without a shred of experience, trying to demonstrate. [...] But I'm not able to do that, so I keep hoping someone else will.

Maybe the identification process with a pure comedy character is different, because they have to be made real first. You don't identify the same way with them, otherwise the cruelty and embarrassment of the "comic" situations would make you cringe. (Trying to overcome that could explain the heartfelt "AWWWWW's that have found their way into the laugh tracks, (they tell us when to feel emotion, humour, but they never provide the "Yechhhh..." sound that calls for the barf bag. Just a matter of time, I'm sure.)