Benson

By Wikipedia

Benson was a sitcom which aired from 1979 to 1986 on ABC. The character of butler Benson DuBois, played by Robert Guillaume, had originally appeared on the soap opera parody Soap.

In the show, Benson had been hired to be the butler for the scatterbrained Governor of a never-specified U.S. state, Eugene Gatling (James Noble), and his daughter Katie (Missy Gold). Governor Gatling was cousin to Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond), a character on Soap.

Benson's housekeeping dilemmas, his fights with the German cook Gretchen (Inga Swenson), and his interactions with Clayton Endicott III (Rene Auberjonois), who assisted Governor Gatling as Secretary of State, made up the bulk of the stories each week.

Benson worked his way up the ladder during the series, going from butler to head of the governor's household staff, to state budget director, and eventually was elevated to the position of lieutenant governor. During the final episodes of the 1985-1986 season, Benson ran for governor against Gatling. At the end of the season finale episode, it was election night, and with the race still too close to call, Benson and Gatling, who had strained relations due to the race, made their peace with one another and sat down together to watch election returns on television. As the broadcaster began to announce that a winner in the election was at last being projected, the episode ended with that "Who won?" cliffhanger as the season ender. However, rather than renew the show for another season, ABC canceled the series, and thus the audience never found out who won.

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I read somewhere that Jerry Seinfeld appeared as a regular on 'Benson' in the very early Awesome80s as a character called 'Frankie.' Is this true? [Editor's note: Yep, it's true. He appeared in 1980 and 1981 as Frankie.] --Ashok Barua

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