If you can whistle the theme song to “Three’s Company,” you know this exact visual: Jack Tripper rides a bicycle down the boardwalk, catches a glimpse of a faceless brunette walking ahead of him, and promptly wipes out. That mysterious beach beauty wasn’t just a random extra, either.
One of the best ABC TV shows of all time, “Three’s Company” was a ’70s and ’80s sitcom starring the late John Ritter as Jack, a culinary student who pretends to be gay so his landlord will allow him to room with two women: The quick-witted Janet Wood, played by Joyce DeWitt, and bubbly, blonde Chrissy Snow, played by the late Suzanne Somers. During the opening credits, Chrissy is first seen sunbathing out on the patio, as she’s accidentally splashed with water when Janet tends to her plants. But, technically, that isn’t the first glimpse of Somers. She also played the faceless brunette — and there’s a fun reason why the “Step By Step” alum had to pull double duty.
According to Chris Mann’s 1998 behind-the-scenes retrospective book, “Come and Knock on Our Door: A Hers and Hers and His Guide to Three’s Company,” the iconic moment in opening sequence was totally improvised. One February afternoon, the cast and director, Bill Hobin, rushed to Santa Monica’s Ocean Front Walk with zero scripts, no storyboards, little budget, and a tight schedule.
Producers had Suzanne Somers sport a brunette wig for the intro’s bicycle gag
After it was decided that Jack should crash a bicycle, script supervisor, Carol Summers, raced back to her Santa Monica apartment to fetch her own orange men’s 10-speed bike. Little did she know, that bicycle would be cemented in TV history. “I was so excited. I would have paid them to use it,” Summers recalled in the book.
Next came the task of finding the curvy pedestrian who distracts Jack. Rather than hiring a new actress, the crew realized they had the perfect bombshell at their disposal. “That brunette is Suzanne with a wig,” Ritter later revealed, dropping what he thought was the dead giveaway: “You can tell by her little Suzanne buns.”
Associate producer, Mimi Seawell, agreed that Somers’ famous shapeliness made her the ideal candidate for the gag. “I told the costume designer to run and find a wig — anything that looks unlike Suzanne,” Seawell said. Even though the theme song was already written at the time, they had to shoot the scene without it, so Seawell simply crossed her fingers that the comedic timing would work out. “I was hoping it was going to match up,” she noted, “and luckily it did.”
