Kate & Allie - Production

Production

The test name for the script was entitled Two Mommies and was seized upon by Saint James who was able to use the show as a way to work without relocating her family from Litchfield, Connecticut. Kate & Allie was taped on soundstages constructed at the Ed Sullivan Theater (CBS Studio 50) and also at the Teletape Studios at West 81st Street and Broadway in New York City, which at the time was the original studio of the long running children's show, Sesame Street.

Cold opening dialog sequences between Saint James and Curtin documenting city life were featured, shot on location in Manhattan with no laugh track. The theme song Friends by John Lefler and Ralph Schuckett played instrumentally over the title shot of the Empire State Building. Closing credits also included vocals with indicative lyrics, "just when you think/you're all by yourself/you're not."

Under pressure from higher-ups at CBS to quash the suggestion that Kate and Allie were lesbians, the producers were instructed to show Kate and Allie entering separate bedrooms to sleep at the end of each episode. That pressure may have been the impetus for an episode showing Kate and Allie pretending to be lesbians when they were faced with a large increase in rent.

Saint James was pregnant during the taping of the fourth season. Her pregnancy was hidden by filming her behind a desk, under a sheet in a hospital bed, or in a bubble bath. The exception was a flashback which showed both Kate and Allie pregnant.

An episode broadcast in 1987, produced in cooperation with the Coalition for the Homeless, was filmed entirely outdoors, on the streets of Manhattan. The episode was prompted by the likely absence of Saint James, who had been hospitalized due to kidney stones, and featured Allie struggling to find a way home after accidentally leaving her keys and money in a taxi.

The show's final season was affected by the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike.