Webster

- Season 1

(1983)

Newlyweds George and Katherine Papadopolis return from their honeymoon to find themselves the guardians of seven-year-old Webster Long, orphaned son of one of George's old football teammates.

Because his real birthday is July 15, Webster lies about the day of his birthday so that he can have a party at school. Katherine and George are unaware of this until Katherine finds his vaccination records which reveal the truth.

Webster tries out for a community league football team. After the coach finds out who his father and guardian are, he makes the team.

While Katherine struggles to find common interests with Webster, his friend Melanie Easton runs away from home-by staying under Webster's bed-because she is jealous of the attention her new baby sister gets from her mother.

When Katherine and George go to a banquet in fancy clothes, Webster believes they won't come back. He tells Jerry, his babysitter, that his parents were dressed that way the night they left and didn't come back. When Katherine and George do come back, they learn that no one on the football team told him his parents died, and he didn't go to their funeral. So they must explain to Webster that his parents are not just "away."

When Molly, who was once Webster's favorite babysitter, comes to Chicago to ask George to help her get into sportscasting, Katherine is jealous when she finds that Molly, whom George described as being overweight and unattractive, is now pretty and shapely.

When Webster sees Katherine and George fighting, he tries to arrange a "real" wedding for them to get them to stop fighting.

Katherine's former school friend Ellen, a sociologist who is black, says she doesn't think Webster should be raised by white parents. George refuses to believe this, and when they try to ask Webster how he feels, they have trouble being straightforward about it.

Webster auditions for the school talent show but doesn't get in. He only tells his friend Maxine that it's because he got stage fright right before he was about to begin and totally froze up. Meanwhile, George brings home Ben Vereen, who went to school with Webster's mother and is in town for a telethon benefiting homeless children. George arranges for Webster to appear in the telethon with Ben without knowing why he blew the talent show audition.

Because of budget cuts, Katherine volunteers as the art teacher at the school. When her rambling and erratic teaching style makes the other kids dislike her, Webster has to find a way to make her look good. He finds the answers to the test that Katherine has prepared in her desk drawer and copies them.

When Katherine can't find a sitter for Webster, he spends the night with George and his poker buddies at the Trocadero. When they arrives home, Webster realizes he has forgotten his teddy bear; he thinks it's at the diner, but George admits he left it in the cab on the way home. Katherine and George present Webster with a challenge: to see if he can sleep for one night without his teddy bear.

Webster's new friends are a group of nine year old boys who hate liver, spinach, and girls and love playing practical jokes on people. Unfortunately, their misbehavior doesn't stop there; at the Trocadero they take the money from Harry's table. Maurice tells George and Katherine what happened, but Webster refuses to tell who did it because he doesn't want to be labeled a tattletale.

In order to investigate a sexual harassment accusation against the host of the TV game show "Don't Jump," Katherine goes on the show as a contestant with George and Webster in tow. While the accusation proves to be false, Katherine is overcome by the excitement of the game play, while George feels bad about not getting to answer any questions.

George is called to Detroit to comment on "Monday Night Football" and plans to take Webster with him. In the meantime, George refuses to get surgery for his knee pain, and when Webster hears him say that "pain is my co-pilot," he doesn't want to miss the trip to Detroit for his illness, which turns out to be tonsillitis, because he believes dealing with injury is a sign of weakness. When he is taken to the hospital, he runs away.

Webster wants a baby brother or sister so he enlists the aid of a playmate to make a baby.

George comes home early from a trip and finds Katherine home; she moved the half-day she takes to be with Webster up a day and trades it with George. When Webster gets out of school, he is supposed to be picked up by Trudy, who was supposed to pick him up the day George got back; she wasn't told that he got back. Harry, from the Trocadero, passes by Webster's school, and when no one at home answers the phone, he takes him home.

With pressure building on Webster due to tests in math, spelling, and karate, he starts wetting the bed. When Katherine and George go into his room to find the missing sheets, he considers this a breach of trust.

George doesn't get to go to Sarajevo to cover the Winter Olympics, but when Webster learns that champion ice skater Jo Jo Starbuck is helping with the Special Olympics in Chicago, George agrees to cover that. Meanwhile, Webster is excited about getting to meet one of the athletes, a boy named Darryl. What he doesn't realize is that the Darryl is mentally handicapped until his friends tell him that. They also tell him that they won't continue to be his friends if he is friends with Darryl.

George mysteriously refuses to give his blessing to a reunion between Webster and his Uncle Phillip.

A worried Webster feels responsible for Jerry's decision to quit his job as Katherine's assistant and open his own gym.

Webster's fear that his classmates will laugh at his composition of his crush on his teacher.

Webster is delighted when George, Katherine and his Uncle Phillip all want to adopt him, but he's torn when he learns they can't all live together.