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This sitcom aired from March 1984 until July 1984 on CBS.
Graham Kerr and Julia Child would never have conducted a cooking show the way Mama Malone ( Lila Kaye), did. Not only was it aired live from her fourth-floor walk-up apartment in Brooklyn, but most of her family wandered in regularly while she was on the air and the show would degenerate into a discussion of moral values, social problems, and family happenings-a far cry from the recipes for lasagna, veal scallopini and fish stew. "Cooking with Mama Malone" was carried by a local tv station in New York and the unplanned visits by family and friends drove her director, Austin ( Raymond Singer ), up the wall. Mama, the very Italian widow of an Irish policeman, fussed constantly over her daughter Connie( Randee Heller ), who was divorced from a greek, her beloved grandson Frankie ( Evan Richards), and her younger brother Dino (Don Amendolia), a lounge singer who fancied himself as something of a swinger. Padre Guardiano ( Ralph Manza ), was the elderly parish priest, and Father Silva ( Richard Yniguez ), his handsome young assistant. Stanley ( Sam Anderson), was the announcer on the cooking show, and Ken, Harry, and Jackie ( Pendleton Brown, Mitchell Group, Joey Jupiter), the production crew.
A Review From The New York Times
'MAMA MALONE,' CBS SERIES, BEGINS
By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: March 7, 1984
THE stereotype of the Jewish mother, who is not very much different from the Irish mother, gets a rest this evening as a new CBS series, beginning at 8:30, ransacks the image of the Italian mother. ''Mama Malone,'' pronounced Malo-nay by everybody in her heavily Italianate Brooklyn neighborhood, is the Italian widow of an Irish policeman. Her only memory of him seems to be his capacity for drinking. If you use one stereotype, it seems, why not use them all?
Mama is a hefty, energetic woman whose emotions are never more than a centimeter below the surface. For sit-com purposes, she has her own cooking show, which is broadcast from the kitchen of her fourth-floor, walk-up apartment. As Mama prepares lasagna con amore for her viewers, her family and friends wander in and out of the apartment with their assorted crises and anxieties, giving the cooking lesson a twist that is offbeat, to say the least.
Tonight's premiere, produced about two years ago, is largely preoccupied with introducing the key characters and establishing their basic personalities. As the cameras begin recording Mama's lasagna act, the others start filing through the kitchen. Connie (Randee Heller) is her divorced ''swinging'' daughter with an 11-year-old son, Frankie (Evan Richards), who is adored by his grandmother. Dino (Don Amendolia) is Mama's aging kid brother, a small- time singer who is always belting out something like ''Strangers in the Night.''
Outside the immediate family, the regular faces include Padre Guardiano (Ralph Manza), the elderly parish priest who can just barely make the climb to Mama's apartment; Father Jose Silva (Richard Yniquez), his young Latin assistant who spends much of his time in skimpy shorts playing basketball; and Austin (Raymond Singer), the television show's director who keeps trying to bring everything back to the subject of cooking.
Obviously, it is impossible at this stage to predict where all of these characters are going. The device of the cooking show will wear thin quickly if used on a weekly basis. But ''Mama Malone'' does have some considerable talents connected with its production. The series was ''created'' by Terence McNally, the playwright (''The Ritz''), who is also serving as chief writer and producer. The executive producers are Richard Lewis and Paul Bogart. Mr. Bogart, an award-winning television veteran whose directorial credits include everything from the best of ''All in the Family'' to John Gielgud's ''Ages of Man,'' also serves as the director of this series.
And then, as the delightfully dominating centerpiece of the series, there is Lila Kaye as Mama. Brandishing an impeccably accurate New Yorkese Italo-American accent, the formidable Miss Kaye has been recruited from, of all places, England's Royal Shakespeare Company. Audiences here will undoubtedly remember her from the stage and television productions of ''Nicholas Nickelby'' in which, with imposing verve, she played the nasty Mrs. Squeers and the superbly theatrical Mrs. Cummles. Her Mama Malone is still another splendid turn, a veritable mountain of shrewd toughness and indulgent sentimentality. Mama can't mention her departed parents without rolling her tear-filled eyes to heaven and pausing to make sure everyone has taken measure of her grief. Miss Kaye is a marvel. One hopes the series can do her justice.
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