Post by Admin on May 23, 2017 15:59:43 GMT -4
Premise
The series chronicles the relationship of Larry Appleton (Mark Linn-Baker) and his distant cousin Balki Bartokomous (Bronson Pinchot). Larry, a Wisconsin native from a large family, has just moved into his first apartment in Chicago, Illinois, and is savoring his first taste of privacy when Balki, a hitherto-unknown cousin from a Mediterranean island, Mypos, arrives intending to move in with him.
Balki, who was a shepherd on Mypos, interprets what little he knows about the United States by relying on his own (often out-of-context) recollections of American pop culture ("America: Land of my dreams and home of the Whopper"). Balki's signature is his "Dance of Joy", a cross between the dosado and the hokey pokey that he performs (with Larry) to celebrate good fortune. He debuts it in the third episode, "First Date", at a singles bar when he realizes that the song the band is playing sounds like the "Dance of Joy".
After initially gently rebuffing his cousin's request to stay at his apartment, aspiring-photographer Larry decides to take Balki under his wing and teach him about American life. However, the neurotic Larry frequently proves to be as inept as Balki, if not more so, and often gets the pair into situations that only Balki can set right. Major influences on the show include "buddy sitcoms" such as Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy, both of which were produced by the Perfect Strangers team.
