Flo

Flo is an American sitcom television series and a spin-off of Alice that aired on CBS from March 24, 1980, to June 30, 1981. The series starred Polly Holliday reprising her role as sassy and street-smart waitress Florence Jean "Flo" Castleberry who returns to her hometown of Fort Worth, Texas—referred to as "Cowtown"—and becomes the proprietor of a rundown old roadhouse that she renames "Flo's Yellow Rose". Although the series started strong-in the Top 10 during its short first season run [1]-repeated timeslot changes resulted in it falling out of the Top 40 shows by mid-March 1981. [2] It was subsequently not renewed when CBS announced its 1981 fall lineup at the May upfronts. [3]

After four seasons as a waitress at Mel's Diner on Alice, Flo is on her way to a new restaurant hostess job in Houston, Texas as described in her final appearance, "Flo's Farewell" (season 4, episode 18). She stops to visit her family in her hometown of Cowtown, Texas (Cowtown is the popular nickname of Fort Worth) and in a fit of nostalgia, Flo buys a rundown old roadhouse she had enjoyed in her formative years and renames it "Flo's Yellow Rose". Coping with the business (such as chauvinistic bartender Earl (Geoffrey Lewis) and the greedy and obnoxious banker Farley (Jim B. Baker), who holds the mortgage), as well as her mother Velma (Sudie Bond) and straight-laced sister Fran (Lucy Lee Flippin, cause most of the conflict in the series.

The rest of Flo's staff at the Yellow Rose includes her childhood best friend Miriam (Joyce Bulifant) as waitress/bookkeeper, and chain-smoking piano player Les (Stephen Keep). Randy, the mechanic (Leo Burmester) who worked at the garage next door, and Chester (Mickey Jones), were regular customers. Vic Tayback made one guest appearance as Mel Sharples from Alice. Once Flo began, Polly Holliday never appeared again on Alice, except in flashback clips in the last episode.

The theme song, "Flo's Yellow Rose", written by Fred Werner and Susie Glickman, was sung by Hoyt Axton who would co-star with Holliday in the 1984 film Gremlins.

Flo was broadcast in these following timeslots during its two-season run on CBS:

The short first season (spring 1980) was a ratings success ranking at No. 7 and had 24.4 million viewer average.[4] The following season brought a sharp decline in numbers (due to repeated timeslot changes), and CBS opted to not renew the series for a third season. [5]

On November 5, 2013, Flo: The Complete Series was released on DVD in Region 1 by Warner Home Video via their Warner Archive Collection. This is a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release available via WBShop.com & Amazon.com.[6]

A book chronicling the development of the TV series Alice and Flo entitled Alice: Life Behind the Counter in Mel's Greasy Spoon (A Guide to the Feature Film, the TV Series, and More) was published by BearManor Media in September 2019. Flo was also considered in the book Single Season Sitcoms of the 1980s by Bob Leszczak, published by McFarland in 2016.