Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Jennifer Slept Here, which aired on NBC in 1983 and 1984.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, Debbie Reynolds drops by!

Episode 1.4 “Boo”

(Dir by John Bowab, originally aired on November 11th, 1983)

This week’s episode of Jennifer Slept Here opens with Jennifer tormenting Joey while he tries to make a snack.  Whenever Joey tries to grab a bowl and a box of cereal, Jennifer materializes and says, “Boo!”  I guess when you’re a ghost, you have to find a way to pass the time.  Seriously, though, Joey acts like he’s about to have a heart attack every time that he sees Jennifer.  He should be used to her by now.

In other words — STOP BEING SUCH A WIMP, JOEY!

Joey is upset because he’s stuck at home while his parents take his little sister to a costume party but then Marc shows up with two twins (played by Jacqueline and Samantha Forrest).  The twins seem to like Joey and Marc but again, Joey can’t leave the house.  Jennifer suggests to Joey that he suggest that they just have a party at the house.  Joey follows Jennifer’s advice and it turns out that the twins really want to have a …. séance!

Joey is totally excited because he has his own ghost!  However, Jennifer informs him that she doesn’t want to perform like a trained seal so he’s going to have to figure out his own way to party with the twins.  Suddenly, the studio audience goes wild as Debbie Reynolds materializes in Joey’s bedroom.  It turns out that Debbie Reynolds is playing Jennifer’s mother, who is also a ghost.  Jennifer’s mom has spent 24 years searching for Jennifer.  Why?  Because she’s still upset over the fact that Jennifer didn’t thank her when she won a Golden Globe.  Jennifer’s mother has tracked down her daughter so that she can demand to be given credit for her daughter’s career!

(Really?  It’s just a Golden Globe.)

Jennifer and her mother argue over whether or not Jennifer has ever given her mother enough credit.  Jennifer’s mother eventually announces that she’s leaving and proceeds to walk through a wall.  Desperate for her mother to return, Jennifer asks Joey to perform a …. wait for it …. a séance!  Joey gets Jennifer to agree to help him to impress the twins in return for him trying to contact her mother.

At the séance, Marc says they should contact Jennifer’s mother but Joey is like, “Let’s contact her mother!”  As it storms outside, Jennifer does things like forcing everyone to keep their hands on table and causing candles to float around the living room.  It scares and impresses the twins and they suggest a trip to their place where they have a hot tub.  But Jennifer tells Joey that he can’t leave because the séance isn’t over.  Realizing that Jennifer is right, Joey says he can’t go to the hot tub because he has to clean up the house.

“Joey,” Marc announces, “I don’t know what’s wrong with but someday, it’s going to keep you out of the army.”

Okay, 80s TV show, way to be cringey there.

Anyway, Jennifer’s Mother does eventually appear and Joey gets to go hot tubbing with the twins while Jennifer and her mom work on their relationship in the living room.  And I have to say that, after a really silly 19-minute build-up, the final scene between Ann Jillian and Debbie Reynolds was actually very sweet and touching, perhaps more so than you would expect from a sitcom about a ghost and her dorky teenage roommate.

This episode did not get off to a great start but that final scene between Ann Jillian and Debbie Reynolds saved it.  The show definitely worked best when it focused more on Jennifer and less on the people who lived with her.