Vintage ’90s

19 Jan, 2009

TGIF!: Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper

Posted by: The 90s Guy In: Television

1992 marked the year that Friday night’s TGIF block was finally complete. Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper started its legendary five-year run as, what I felt, was the 4th show in the best TGIF lineup in history.

From L-R: Nell Carter, the mom chick, That’s So Raven, Coop, Vanessa, Tyler, and that guy from Wild ‘n Crazy Kids

Ah, Coop. No other show could better bring me down from the hilarity of Boy Meets World or Step By Step like this one. It also prepared me for the gripping stories and scandals of 20/20, the only news show I watched in the ’90s. Besides, how else am I going to find out about octuplet families?

Anyway, Mark Curry played an NBA player-turned-substitute teach and gym coach. And boy, does that happen a lot in the real world or what? To describe Mr. Cooper, Wikipedia expresses it thusly: “Mark is a ’somewhat suave’ single guy with a wacky personality; he always gets a few laughs from his friends.” And so do you, Wikipedia. So do you.

Originally, Mark moved into a rented house with childhood friend Robin and her friend Vanessa. A man living with two women?!? WACKY! They then decided to phase out Robin, keep the hotter one, and introduced Geneva and Nicole. You might remember Nicole as that one Cheetah Girl.

Note to self: stop watching Disney Channel.

So now, Mark lived with THREE women! WACKY! Nell Carter began working as the principal at the school, and she used to be Mark’s childhood babysitter. This was also determined to be WACKY enough. In season 4, Geneva took over as principal.

Of course, when there’s a hot chick on the show, and the show is named after a dude, said dude will wind up hooking up with the hot chick. So Vanessa and Mark wound up engaged, but did not make it to the altar before the series was cancelled.

Fun side note: seasons 3 and 4 were directed by Larry from Perfect Strangers.

He’s the one on the right. You may recognize the guy on the left as the French guy during that one season of Step By Step. Oh, who am I kidding? You don’t recognize him from that.

As I said, I consider Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper to be part of the best TGIF lineup they ever had, joining the ranks of Family Matters, Boy Meets World, and Step By Step. In their honor, here’s their two different opening credits. You will notice the switch from hip single guy to guy that lives with Raven-Symone: