Brother's Keeper (1998-1999, TGIF)

About

Imagine taking care of someone who's really immature, and your 8-year-old son as well.

After one too many bar-fights, wisecracking pro-football player Bobby Wade (Sean O'Bryan) is forced to live with someone responsible for his million dollar contract to be paid off. He chooses his widowed, stuffy college professor brother, Porter, (William Ragsdale) and his son, Oscar (Justin Cooper). Dena Draeger (Bess Meyer) is Bobby's sarcastic sports agent, who's forced to chauffeur him as she secretly pines away for Porter. Rose (Natasha Slayton) is Oscar's playmate and Marilyn (Kate Hodge) is her mother.

Includes guest appearances by Piper Laurie (The Hustler, Carrie) as Porter's and Bobby's cantankerous mom (Everybody Says I Love You); John Michael Higgins as Porter's colleague (Trick or Treat, Note, Politically Impolite), Elizabeth Berkley as Porter's girlfriend (You Are Me), Illeana Douglas as Oscar's Teacher (Dating the Teacher), Holmes Osborne as the owner of Bobby's Team (The Duel), Pat Finn as a Construction Worker (With Friends Like Porter), plus Bill Maher and Dr. Henry Kissinger (Politically Impolite), Karl Malone (You're in Trouble), and TV's original Odd Couple (Tony Randall & Jack Klugman) playing variations of their old TV personas (An Odd Couple of Days).

The show first aired on ABC's TGIF following Boy Meets World, which was maturing in the middle of its run, and Brother's Keeper pushed the moral envelope a little further than standard TGIF fare. At the time, it was perceived as a ripoff of The Odd Couple with a kid. Now, it's perceived as a precursor to Two and a Half Men, which was also a ripoff of The Odd Couple with a kid.

The show was available to stream in the earliest days of Hulu, but it's been unavailable anywhere for many years. Most of these were capped from Hulu, which didn't include the episode "You Are Me," so I've ripped that from my own VHS of the ABC broadcast. Also included is about 17 minutes of TGIF footage that I pulled from tapes of the original broadcasts, including appearances by the cast, The Olsen Twins, Michelle Kwan, Karl Malone, Salem the Cat from "Sabrina the Teenage Witch,' and others.

EPISODES

101 Pilot - Bobby arrives and turns Porter's life upside-down.

102 Who's Your Daddy? - When Oscar skips a grade and starts a new school year, Bobby encourages him to be a class clown.

103 Since You Came Here - Porter feels as if there's a hole in his life now that Oscar is spending time with Bobby.

104 Sneaking Into the Movies - Porter's plan to teach Oscar a lesson backfires.

105 Cleaning Lessons - Bobby hires a maid.

106 Trick or Treat - Bobby's Halloween costume causes Oscar to have nightmares.

Archive

Internet Archive, in Vintage commercials

Licence or status

The Internet Archive states none for this item.

Credit

ABC

Language

English

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Tweens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed