Overview
The series follows babes a trio of plump siblings who had other things on their mind besides their weight: like work, relationships, popularity, and starting a family. The ladies also shared a small one-bedroom apartment in New York City, which added to the comic friction.
The Gilbert sisters include Darlene (Susan Peretz), the eldest, who was a dog groomer and recently divorced (her husband had an affair with their weight-loss counselor); Charlene (Wendie Jo Sperber), the middle sister, who was a makeup artist for a commercial photographer and was the most active one out of the three; and Marlene (Lesley Boone), the youngest sister, a former toll collector (and later an actress in a pantyhose commercial and a soap opera), who was seen as a dreamer with a naive, yet trusting, personality. Also in the cast was Charlene's boyfriend, Ronnie Underwood (Rick Overton), a restaurant owner. He disappeared at mid-season, as a result putting all three sisters on the dating market. At that time, the girls' landlady, Florence Newman (Nedra Volz), became a regular.
All three also had physical elements in their resume and it was evidenced in most of the episodes whenever something would tick off the sisters. Among the notable examples: Charlene getting blown up in a helium dress, Darlene breaking a hockey stick while attending a New York Rangers game that got her on probation and head-butting Ronnie over who was going to spend the night at the apartment, Marlene waking the sisters up with potato chips after they didn't hear her come in, and the sisters ganging up on a mime after he mocked them.
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