Every season of Gimme a Break! ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best seasons of Gimme a Break!!

In the series premiere, Samantha comes home with a black eye, and Nell teaches her a few skills on how to fight. Julie an her friend are studying on where babies come from, and as the cheif comes home, he walks into the kitchen to find them kissing. Simpson then arrives at the house with Katie, who was picked up for shoplifting, but wasn't arrested. Katie has been actin like this because of the recnt death of Margaret, her mother, and the cheif and her make amends in the end.

Katie the Crook

Nell and Angie go to a bar to meet guys. However, Nell gets sad that she isn't admired by any of the men. She then goes home and the Chief decides to fix her up with one of his officers. What he doesn't know is that the officer is just doing the Cheif a favor so he can get a better job position. The Cheif throws the man out and tells Nell what happened when she comes out ready for her date. Nell realizes he wasn't interested in her because she is overweight. Angie then shows up and invites Nell out and she accepts, even after being rejected by the officer.

A Good Man is Hard to Find

A woman accidently hits the cheifs police car, because her contact lense came out as a moth sat on her face. When she meets the cheif to tell him how sorry she was for smashing into his car, she realizes the two went to Franklin High together, and she was a cheerleader, while the cheif was a professional football player. The two hit it off, and begin dating, and Samantha is sad because she doesnt want a step-mom. In the end, when Marion wants to sleep with the cheif, he hastily rushes out of her apartment and knew he could not go trough with it because of his love for his dead wife Margaret. However, Nell tells him thathe does not have to worry and that Margaret would have wanted him to move on.

The Second Time Around

A woman with a perfume gift for Margaret on her birthday shows up, learning that Margaret is deceased. When the Cheif comes home, he is upset because it is Margaret's birthday and she died 6 months earlier. He decides to take the family out to dinner at a Mexican restaraunt, but when the mariacci singers sing ""Happy Birthday"" to a woman named Margart, the family begins to feel sad again. Nell decides to get out the family home movies to which the Cheif objects to, but in the end is happy seeing Margaret the way he remembered her.

Mom's Birthday

Nell decides to hold her PORKO'S meeting at the house, and when she gets on the scale she gets mad because she gained two pounds. WHen the Cheif comes home he is disgraced by the group and has a bad case of indigestion, forcing him to stay on vebetables for the next three weeks. However once Nell and the CHeif begin their diet, the Cheif insists on sampling her lasanga, and then they go on an eating bindge. The next moring when they wake up, they cant believe how crazy they were to eat so much in one sitting.

Do or Diet

When the Cheif finds a man in Nell's room, he tells her he doesn't want her fooling around with guys in the same house as his teenage daughters. Nell decides to quit, and moves in with Angie for one night. The Cheif tries to adjust to Nell not being around and everything goes awry with the turkey being thrown through the front window, and the clothes shrinking in the wash. In the end, Nell gets fed up with staying with Angie and decides to come home, to which the family is overjoyed having her back.

A Man in Nell's Room

As he is on an erand at the drug store, the chief witnesses a robber hold up the place. When the robber turns his gun on him, the chief shoots him in self-defense. However, when he finds out that his prisoner has died, he thinks seriously of retiring from the police force since he has never shot a person before. In the end, Nell convinces him to go back to work, when she makes him realize that he really is a pretty good cop.

Your Prisoner is Dead

Julie wants to join Katie's club, and gets help from Nell and Katie on how to be cool, sitting, and dancing. When she shows up to Katie's group of friends, she totally messes up, as they ask her several questions about personal experieces such as kissing and virginity, and she is rejected into the club. In the end, she says she only wanted to be in the club because of the jacket they get, but cries hystericolly, because she knows she cannot be like Katie and her friends. Katie decides in the end to quit the clique that she is in, and decides that she and her sister need to stick together.

Julie's Rejection

Julie goes off to the arcade after having no luck at finding a date to the Junior prom. At the arcade, she meets a worker there who is into computers named Arnold and she asks him to the prom and he accepts. However, the Cheif is mad that Julie returns home late and grounds her, not wanting to hear her side of the story. In the end, Katie realizes that Julie is at the arcade because she mentioned being short on quarters and the Cheif decides to go down there, letting her know that he cares a lot for her and that he allows her to go to the prom with Arnold.

Julie's First Love

Nell's finds out that her ex-husband Tony is in town and wants to meet with her. At the house, he tells her that he is going to be on the Merv Griffith show and needs $1,000. Nell agrees to give him the money and lies to the Cheif, telling him she needs $500 for her Aunt to have an operation. The Cheif gives her the money, even if he knows that Tony is going to blow it and not get his big break on the Merv Griffith show. Sure enough, when he auditions on the show, he is told to get off, since they already have enough singers like him.

Nell's Ex

The chief is counting on Katie to do real good on her final exam, but she gets Julie to take it instead. The family is shocked to hear what has happened, when she declines the money they give her for her college life, and she tells them she cheated on the test The cheif is very upset, and then finds out it was Julie who took the test for her. However, Katie appologizes and decides to re-take the test on her own.

Katie the Cheat

Katie comes home with pain in her stomache and Nell rushes her to the emergency room. Once there, she meets a pushy receptionist and seeks a doctor on her own time to help Katie. The doctor tells Nell that Katie was using an IUD (Inter-Uterinary Device) as a form of birth control and will be okay. She is shocked to hear the news and so is the chief. The Chief leaves the hospital disgusted, but returns and goes to see Katie. He tells her what would her mother think about her doing that sort of thing if she was still alive? Katie tells him that she and her mother talked a lot about it before she died and she knew Katie had been using IUD'S. The Chief understands that he cannot protect Katie from IUD's and other sorts of sexual related issues, but tells her he will always love her.

The Emergency

As the Cheif is getting ready to leave for an assignment in New York, Samantha is mad that she can't go fishing with a male friend of her's due to the fact that he will not be around to watch them. After he leaves, Nell gets a call from her mother telling her that her father had a heart attack. Nell takes Samantha back home to Alabama to visit her family. At her house, Nell is told by her mother that her father doesn't want to see her. However, Samantha is sad for the way she treated the Cheif because he wouldn't let her go fishing. Nell realizes she will see her father even though he doesn't want her to. In his room, he acts the way he did to Nell when she was younger, and doesn't mind that he is dying. He still doesn't forgive Nell for running away when she was 16. In the end, Nells Father dies, and at his funeral, Nell is told to read the Eulogy that her father wrote. He actually was happy that she came home to him after all those years. Nell sings ""Amazing Grace"" as the Cheif walks

Nell Goes Home

As the chief is preparing a speech for an awards banquet, Nell accidently sits on his cap, which ticks him off. As the two fight, Samantha comes home, complaining that a girl called her a dumb Pollak, but Nell and the cheif are too busy arguing. To get their attention, she tells Nell ""how would you like it if somebody caled you a niggar?"" The chief gets her attention, goes on a rampage, and she locks herself in the bathroom, only to escape through the bathroom window, steal her fathers squad car, and take off to the police station, where she meets a drunkard named Bill, who is out of his cell, drunk in the cheif's office. In the end, the chief and Nell show up at the police station, and all is forgiven, as Nell tells Samantha that they should have listened to her in the first place, instead of fighting over a stupid squashed police cap.

Samantha Steals a Squad Car

The family gets ready for Grandma and Grandpa's 55th anniversary at the house. Meanwhile, back at their house, Grandma and Grandpa are reminiscing over old photos and love letters that Grandpa sent her during World War 2. When Grandpa reads one of them, he finds out it wasn't his, and he threatens to leave Grandma and wants a divorce. Grandma goes to see the family and cries over waht has been happening. Carl is upset at his mother, yet goes to see Grandpa and brings him to the house. At the house Grandpa and Grandma do not speak, and Nell gets fed up and tells them that she is divorced, Ed is a single bachelor, the Chief recently lost his wife, and they all wish they had someone to love. Grandma and Grandpa finally get back together after this talk Nell gives.

Grandma Fools Around

Katie's band is a big success in Glenlawn as they perform at amateur night at a restaraunt. A big producer spots them, and tells them he loved the act, and offers them a job far away. Katie decides at first she wants to go, because she started her group, and without her, they would be nothing. However, Nell lets her see deep inside that all she wants to be is a star, and she finally decides to stay behind with her family, as her group goes off to see if they can make a success with their career.

Hot Muffins

Samantha and her friend Scottie from her baseball team decide to sit on the couch and watch some television. As they are intimidated by a love story, they talk about kissing, and they decide to try it. As Julie and Katie walk in on them, they suspect that they have been fooling around, and when the cheif finds out, he tells Samantha that after she kisses a boy she will end up pregnant. Due to this remark, Samantha mistakes that she can get pregnant from kissing, and seeks help from Julie, Nell, and Grandpa, but they aren't very good at it. Finally, when Nell sees Samantha crying in her room, she tells her that she thinks she is pregnant, and Nell tells her never to beleive what her father says because he is full of it, and she decides to teach her the facts of life.

Sam's Affair

The Kaniskis come home to find burglars at work, when they return home from thei cheif's law enforcement officer of the year award ceremony. However, Nell is at a stip club, seeing male exotic dancers, returns home, tricks the robbers by saying there are jewles in the closet in a locked box, gets the chief's gun, and saves the family from danger. When the reporter shows up, Nell and the girls try to make the chief look good, even though he was tied up by the robbers, and make it look like he was the hero, but finally, the chief admits to the reporter that Nell is the real hero, and she did a very important deed for the family, which they will always be grateful of.

The Robbery

Katie's friend Valerie shows up at the Kanisky house, pregnant and due any day. She tells Katie that her boyfriend Jonathan had a fight with her and the two broke up and she has nowhere to go. Valerie is welcome to stay with the family, however, once the Cheif finds out she is pregnant and split with her boyfriend, he does not tolerate this. When Jonathan shows up to see Valerie, the Cheif insists that he and Valerie marry before the baby is born and he agrees. Valerie and Jonathan quarrel about marriage until he tells her he loves her and asks her and the baby to marry him. In the end, Valerie goes into labor and decides she isn't having the baby until she and Jonathan are married. Julie rushes outside to find the neighborhood priest and the ceremony is performed. Shortly after the ceremony, as the ambulance arrives, Valerie gives birth in the front of the Kanisky house.

An Unmarried Couple

While Nell is on the phone with Angie, her phone dies out and a second later a man from the phone company takes the phone away. She gets fed up and goes to the phone company to get it back, claiming that she did pay her bill, but the man there (Mr. Swackhammer) says that the computer called her ""Ms. Fong"", and that she is behind 3 months on it. She gets really aggrevated and pulls the phone out and ends up in Jail, where Simpson acts as a person with no typingt skills at all, jotting down Nell's info. Nell calls Hamilton Storm, Glenlawn's news reporter, and he flies to the scene, reporting that Nell had been wrongfully accused of not paying her phone bill. Mr. Swackhammer then gets a call from his boss, telling him to drop the charges on Nell, and Nell is let free. Nell is then rewarded with a bunch of new phones for the house, and installing them is Mr. Swackhammer, the new ""Telephone Installer"".

Nell Goes to Jail

At the bowling alley, the Cheif meets up with Maxine, a prostitute who is used to nail bad cops. When Ed meets Carl at the bowling alley, he introduces him to Maxine and the two hit it off. When the Cheif finds out that Ed and Maxine moved in together, he tells Ed that he will not have his brother living with an ex-prostitute since she has decided to retire from the business. In the end, Ed stands up for himself and Carl accepts his brother and Maxine living together.

Brother Ed and the Hooker

Katie and Julie go out on a double date as Samantha tells everyone to make room for Debbie Jo, an imaginary friend of hers. The Cheif thinks she is crazy and talks to Nell about sending her to a shrink. When the thought of Debbie Jo gets too far, the Chief grounds Samantha and goes up to her room and pretends to beat Debbie Jo up and tell Samantha that he doesn't want to send her to a shrink. Samantha runs to Nell and says she hates her father and then tells Nell that Debbie Jo is her only true friend and that no one plays with her anymore since Julie is now dating and has no time for her anymore. Nell tells Samantha to tell Debbie Jo she has to leave and she agrees. She puts her inside of her Jewelery box as she says a tearful goodbye to her and tells her that her mom's picture will watch over her that she keeps inside of it. Nell comforts Samantha who is finally over Debbie Jo.

Sam's Imaginary Friend

When Grandma leaves to go see her sick sister who is about to have an operation, Grandpa is sent to live with the family for a few days. When he shows up he is nothing but trouble, as he wakes up in the middle of the night, bangs a bag of ice cubes on the counter to crush them, causes the garbage disposal to go insane, spies in on a neighbor's backside, and makes Nells puzzle fall the floor, only to vaccuum it up and wake everyone up. Nell gets mad and tells Grandpa that he is causing nothing but noise. When the Cheif tells him to stop doing the things he is doing, Grandpa leaves and goes to the mortuary. In the end, Nell shows up and tells Grandpa to come home and that she was sorry for acting the way she did to him.

Grandpa's Visit

Katie's friend, Valerie shows up at the Kanisky house with her new baby David. She tells the family that she and her husband Jonathan broke up since he left her for a bleached blonde lady at ""Kentucky Friend Chicken"". Valerie is serious about putting Dvid up for adoption, since she doesn't have a job to afford his upkeep. Nell and the girls take Valerie shopping for baby supplies and leave David with the Cheif, who grows attached to him. When the girls return home the Cheif tells Vallerie that they would have to kill him first before he lets her put David up for adoption and that the family will help her find a job. Nell then takes Valerie to a job interview to become a receptionist and uses her keen sense to drive off fellow competators for the job. In the end, everyone is glad to hear that Valerie got the job and can afford to keep David.

Take My Baby, Please

Nell hosts another one of her PORKO meetings at the house, where the head of the weight loss group shows up. When he arrives, the members of the group mock him for gaining all the weight he lose back. He tells them he is sorry and leaves. Shortly after Nell gets a phone call from him and realizes he is about to jump from the 13th floor of his hotel. Nell and the other members go to the hotel and get in the elevator but it stalls due to everyone insdie of it together. The elevator then safetly makes it's way back to the bottom floor as Nell takes the stairs and the PORKO members take the elevator. In the end, Nell talks the Dr. out of jumping off the balcony and everyone agrees to lose 2 pounds a week and stay on their diets.

Porko's

The Chief goes on a stakeout with two officers where they are on lookout for an old-lady targeter. One of the officers dresses up as a woman and stays out in the streets, while the Chief and the other officer wait inside listening to the sounds on the recorder. The Chief cracks a few jokes with the officer about gay people and the officer is offended by this. He then tells the Chief that he himself is gay. The Chief says that he knows it's not going to be easy for the officer to be known as a man who has ""come out"". In the end, the Chief is stuck in the bathroom when the other officer hears that the targeter has struck. He runs to stop the targeter and is wounded. The Chief finally is able to see that he is not a bad man after all.

The Chief's Gay Evening

Julie invites a handsome boy at school to come over to stud with her, but he falls for Katie, and the two go out. When Katie comes home, Julie and her have it out in a hilarious catfight of sister versus sister. In the end, Katie finds out that the boy knew Julie was Katies sister and wanted to go over the house so he would get a date with her. Katie and Julie final make up when Katie tells Julie what the boy told her.

Katie Steals Julie's Jock

Nell is out of town at her cousin's funeral as Simpson storms into the house and says that the Cheif was shot but is alright. The Cheif is mad at Simpson because he accidently shot him in his office when he showed a fellow officer his secret moves with his gun. As he shows the family how he performs the moves, he accidently shoots the gun again and the bullet smashes into the fish tank, killing Gertrude the goldfish. Soon everyoen learns that the Cheif has an assasin against him as Simpson is interviewed on the news, telling everyone he saved him from being shot dead by his gun. Samantha becomes obsessed that God is taking too many people around her and begins to talk to him about why he takes people away. In the end, Sam talks to Grandpa and he tells her that she should enjoy life and take it slowly and not have to worry about death anymore. When Nell returns from her cousins funeral, Samantha fills her in on what happened while she was away and she cannot beleive it, as Simpson shoot

Sam Faces Death

Angie tells Nell that she is going on a trip to Mexico with the money she made by selling vaccums. She urges Nell to attend a gathering where the operator of the sales talks about how rich everyone is getting off of the product. Nell then has a party at the house and invites people to it and demonstrates the amazo vac. However, it does not work the way she intended it to, and goes back to another meeting and tells everyone that the salesman is a fake after doing research on him.

Nell Goes Door to Door

Nell is woken up in the early hours of the morning by a neighbors barking dog. When the Cheif wakes up he sees that she is asleep at the kitchen table and she tells him why she didn't get enough sleep. He phones their neighbor to come over and have coffee and Nell tells her about her dog. She then leaves and Nell goes outside to throw his dog doo inside a bag and light it on fire as he bites her and she takes the neighbor and her dog to court. At court, the neighbor says that the dog never bit anyone before, and the case is dropped, until Simpson shows up and says the dig had bitten two people before and the case is open again, the lady is sued, and the dog will be put to sleep. However, Nell changes her mind and drops the case when she hears about the dog being put to sleep for what he did. The neighbor tells Nell that she will keep her dog inside at night from now on.

Love Thy Neighbor

While playing the accordian at dinner, Uncle Ed falls I'll and feints into the fishtank while cooling off. He ends up in the hospital and when he wakes up he realizes that he needs to have a kidney transplant for not living a healthy life and a sibiling would be the best bet for a transplant. The Cheif talks with Ed and is worried about him and tells him he will do anything to help him get through this. Ed asks him if he'll donate his kidney to him and he agrees. Once the family hears this, Julie is against it, and slowly the rest of the family begins to get scared and they have thoughts on the Cheif dying. The CHeif tells Nell that if he does die in the operation that she can raise the girls and she will get the house. Before the operation, the girls and Nell join the Cheif in bed and have hot cocoa and are afraid that he may die. However, the operation is a success and everyone dances as Ed's doctor plays the accordian for the family.

Love, Kidney

The Chief finds a cigarrette in his sock and questions each of the girls about it. When he finds out that Samantha and Katie don't smoke, he tears through Julie's room and then appologizes when she tells him she would never smoke. However, she smokes when he leaves the room but he catches her. She then moves to Grandma and Grandpa's after he hits her and it's up to him to get her to come home. He tells her that years before he and Margaret were smokers and he quit and so did she, but went on and off until it was too late and she got lung canger and died. In the end, Julie realizes that is the reason why he slapped her and she agrees to come home and stop smoking.

Julie Smokes

When Mr. Swackhammer shows up to inform the Cheif about the female officer who posed nude, he rushes into work and tells her she is fired. Once the town and the country get a hold of what happened, they are against what the Cheif did. Even the girls and Nell don't like how he fired the officer. The police station begins to be mobbed by angry women who picket and are forced to leave, and Simpsons mother shows up and hits the Cheif with her pocket book. If that wasn't enough, Hamilton Storm shows up to do a cover story on how unfair the Cheif is, just as a mad bomber shows up and is about to blow up the whole place.

The Centerfold (1)

The man who has a bomb strapped to him tells Simpson he knows him from some place. He realizes that he's seen him before at the singles bar. They both talk about how they can never pick up women, and how Simpson likes a woman officer but he can't have the courage to tell her. The man decides at the last second to stop the bomb and tells Simpson he will look him up when he is done his time in jail. Simpson then confesses to the Cheif that he sent a picture of the officer from the Christmas party to the magazine and that is why they chose her to model in it. The Cheif decides to take back his compliment of telling Simpson he is a hero. The Mayor of Glenlawn who is about to be re-elected tells the Cheif to re-hire the officer or else he will fire him. The Cheif decides to go to a live telecast taping with the Mayor and decides to hire the officer back. Simpson finally has the courage to tell the officer he likes her and she decides to go out with him.

The Centerfold (2)

Aunt Blanche pays a visit to the Chief on his birthday and threatens to take custody of the girls after seeing what looks like Nell and the Chief doing an indecent act in the kitchen, when she really was doing the heimlick maneauver on him as he was choking on a piece of his sandwich. In court, Aunt Blanche breaks down, after Nell tells her that Blanche really doesn't want her to raise the girls because she is black. Blanche then decides to drop the suit in the end.

The Custody Suit

Nell tells about her singing past with a doo-wop girl group. Nell and her two friends years before she met the Kanisky's decide to audition to get called back by a famous celebrity. However, the man likes the other two girls, and refuse Nell to be part of the group. Nell knows that the girls are going to visit her and havent seen her in years, and in the end she finds out they are fat like her, and lost their singing careers after they gained weight.

The Return of the Doo-Wop Girls

At the dinner table, Grandpa insists that Eddie should marry Maxine, since they have been going together for six months, and she says that if he ever asked her she would agree. Due to this soft-fit proposal, he agrees to propose to her, and the two plan to marry. However, on their wedding day, Eddie locks himself in the bathroom, after he decides he needed time to think about all of this he is getting into. He tells Maxine that when he was thinking, he knew that he would rather be too old with her, then too old without her. She decides to take him back, and the two are finally married.

Eddie Gets Married

Grandpa hides a letter from Grandma and she beleives he is cheating on him. When she secretly takes the letter and reads it, she realizes that the apartment they live in is being converted into a condo and they need to come up with $60,000 or else they have to leave. Grandpa and Nell go to the bank and Grandpa is hard of hearing, as the man at the bank decides to decline him of the loan. Everyone mistakes him as a robber as he decides to turn off his hearing aid because he doesn't like the way the bank treats him. In the end, the police are called, and the Cheif tells the bank that his father and Nell would never do such a thing. Grandpa tells the man at the bank that he gave him the money when he was mistaken for a robber, but he wouldn't give it to an honest guy like him. The man gives him a waffle iron and appologizes for the way he treated him. In the end, the Cheif tells Grandpa and Grandma that they don't have to move since he made Simpson pose as a building inspector and found a

Grandpa Robs a Bank

When Samantha reads Nell part of her essay she is doing on the Cheif for school, Nell tells her it would be a good idea to go to the police station and observe her father in his daily routine. When she gets there she observes several different scenarios. One scenario involves Mr. Swackhammer having a plumber arrested for stealing his toilet, which he claims flushes up and not down, since the plumber says he didn't pay for it after it was installed. Another Scenario involves a teenage girl that claims her dentist impregnanted her while she was under anesthesia, but the Cheif realizes it's a fraud story and knows that she is only trying to cover up for her boyfriend getting her pregnant and he volunteers to tell the girl's parents which she agrees to. The final scenario involves a mother and father worried about their missing baby in the supermarket. The father of the baby snaps and doesn't like the way the Cheif handles the job. However, in the end, the child is brought to the police st

Greenlawn Street Blues

While at ""Max's Delacatesan"", Nell and Max see a girl shoplifting. Nell saves her from being arrested, telling Max she is taking her home. Nell finds out she has nowhere to go since her parents left her and her grandmother had recently died.  When the Chief finds this out he is ready to arrest her, but she agrees to live with Max and help him out at the store. At first, the two don't get along so well, but they accept that each other has to get by even though there are people in their life that are no longer around.

Nell and the Kid

When Nell is sick at home and the Chief going off to Los Angeles for a meeting, he calls his mother to help out around the house. She shuns away Katies new boyfriend since he has pink hair, puts garlic on everyone because she doesn't want them to catch Nells sickness, and feeds the family lamb with goats intestines. Fed up by this, everyone forces Samantha to go to Grandpa and tell him to beg Grandma to return home and she falls head over heels for him.

Nell Gets Sick

Julie wants to meet Andy Gibb and goes to see him after Nell lets her go, despite the fact that the chief grounded her, only to be found asleep outside his hotel room. When Nell brings Julie home, the cheif sees that she has been out, knows that she disobeyed her, and plans to arrest Andy Gibb and his group. However, Julie tells him that she fell asleep waiting for him, and the chief forgives her.

The Groupie

Nell falls for James Roland, a former member of her weight group , who continues to go to the classes on weight loss. He is impressed by Nell's determination to lose weight, yet Nell seems to think he is in love with the aerobics instructor Vanessa. When Nell decides to binge and pig out on food, Vanessa calls James for assistance. When he shows up at the house she tells James that Nell is in love with him. He asks Nell out and she accepts. However, in the end the Cheif wants a break on his taxes and since James is in that business, he helps the Cheif out. All goes well until Nell sees his tax return form that accideentlly ends up misplaced in the Kanisky livingroom and finds out that James is married with three children yet still loves Nell. Nell throws him out and shuts the door, telling him she is still going to go to the weight group each week.

The Way to a Man's Heart

Katie becomes involved with a college professor at Glenlawn Junior College who is much older than her. Nell begins to get upset at the man, when Katie intruduces him to the family, and she gets mad at Katie as well, knowing that he is too old for her. When the Chief finds out that Katie is seeing him, he objects to it, and grounds Samantha for sticking up for Katie. In the end, Katie decides not to see the college professor anymore, to save her relationship with her family.

Katie's Commitment

Katie practices her jazz routine to ""Maniac"" for a show that will be taking pace soon in Glenawn. As the family is getting ready, rehearsing for the show, a boy named Joey comes by collecting for Jerry's kids. The family falls for his act, and as he leaves, Simpson says he is a con artist. Joey Donova is his name, and his Uncle Jerry dropped him off and left him in Glenlawn, because his dad Tim is at sea. The scial worker tells the cheif that Joey will stay with the family over the weekend and will be placed in a foster home shortly. Nell then looses control of Joey, and he escapes, taking her money, and goes to the bus station. However, Nell finds him, drags him home, and doesnt know what she is going to do with him.

Joey (1)

Joey goes on a hunger strike and says he is not going to an orphanage. Nell then lies to Joey and tells him that she made a friend of a man whose window she broke years ago when she was a child. Joey beleives her, and knows Nell is not a lier, like many adults he knows are. Nell then tells the Cheif he owes her, and she deserves to take Joey in as her foster child. The Chief objects, but Joey tells him he is right, and even himself wouldnt want him as a foster child. The Cheif's feelings change, and Joey is accepted into the family as their foster child

Joey (2)

The Mayor of Glenlawn falls for Nell, who wants nothing to do with him. He tells her that the cheif will get his  new patrol car if he gets her. At his condo, she seduces him, and he tells her she is coming onto him. She tells him that he treated her wrong, and he appologizes, and tells her he will see her at the ceremony when he donates the patrol car to the cheif.

The Mayor

The cheif is awarded man of the year, and Nell tries to fix him up with a woman named Melissa. What he doesn't know is that she is a man, who was once Officer Simpsons karate instructor in St. Luis. When she knows it has gone too far, Melissa confesses to Nell, who has to tell the cheif she set him up with a man, which ends in havoc.

Melissa

While Nell is out getting the Chief's clothes cleaned, Addy Wilson, Nell's childhood friend arrives at the house. She meets the girls, and says Nell's real name is ""Nellie Ruth"". When Nell comes home, she is intrigued by Addy, and begins to think Addy considers her as a women who is illiterate and one who had a chance at a singing career but failed and is now a housekeeper. Nell then goes to night school to get her diploma, but Addy is the teacher there and Nell decides to drop out. In the end, Nell flips out when Addy comes over and then the two reconcile, when she tells her she would never call Nell illigitimate, and is happy for her that she is who she is, and Nell decides to go back to night school to get her diploma.

Nell's Friend

Nell, the girls and the Cheif fix up the spare room at the house and await Grandpa's arrival home from his trip to Poland. When he returns home, he is in happy spirits about the trip, yet sad because he knows how much Mildred would have loved to go, but passed away not too long ago. When Grandpa finds out that he is to live with the family he won't stand for it one bit, yet when Joey comes into the room and watches him pack, they talk about things they share intest in, and Grandpa decides to stay and live with the family and room with Joey. In the end, the Cheif says he loves his father and the two hug.

Grandpa's Rebellion

Joey's first Christmas might be a disaster if Nell doesn't get the whole family together. Samantha is going to babysit for a couple, Julie is going out with a boy, and Katie is going skiiing in the mountains. As Christmas night continues, the family surprises Nell, and tells her it was all a scam to have time to bring her Christmas present home for her. Nell is overjoyed to see her mother at the Kanisky house.

A Kanisky Christmas

Herbie, Samantha's unseen new friend, puts ideas of judgment day into Samantha's head. An earthquake causes Samantha to freak out, and she says she is going to live everyday as if it her last. However, during a storm, their neighbor Wendy rushes over and gives birth, giving Samantha a new meaning to life.

Herbie

James wants to start over again with Nell after she meets him at a fancy restaraunt during a girls night out with Addy and Angie. She is upset though that her ex- husnband, Tony, has ran off and married an 18 year old girl, and tells James she needs more time to think about getting back together with him. In the end, she decides to get back together with him.

James Returns

Samantha protests against demolition of an historic Spanish site after Nell tells her she did the same thing in Alabama when whites would not serve blacks. When the cheif and Officer Simpson arrive at the scene, the mob doesn't move, and they are all arrested, including the entire Kanisky family, who decides to step in and help Samantha protest. In the end, the site is saved from demolition, everyone is still mad at the cheif for arresting them, and they  finally realize that he was only doing his job.

Samantha's Protest

When the Chief tells Samantha that she cannot go out on a date with a boy, Nell decides to tell the girls the story of how she met their mother and how she became a second mother to them. Nell goes to perform in California in 1974, and Margaret remembered Nell from when she saw her sing before and caught her performance. Nell then quits her job when her boss gets kinky with her, and Margaret takes her home to stay with her. She meets the family and she sleeps in Carl's room. When Carl comes home he is shocked to find another woman in his bed, and then grows sick of Nell, since she doesn't have a job. After a few days, a job offer in Bakersfield is thrown upon Nell, and when she gets the aceptance, Margaret tells her she is dying and wants her to raise the girls. She madly regrets it, but deep inside Margaret knows she loves the girls. Nell then refuses the job in Bakersfield and decides she will promise to be there for the girls from then on.

Flashback

Nell gets hypnotized to remember where she put Katie's ring for graduation, but she ends up remembering a whole lot of the girls' dirty laundry, since the doctor forgot to remove the hypnotic transe, and whenever she heard three knocks, she'd tell the absolute truth. In the end, she tells everyone that she is going to marry James, but tells him the truth that she can't marry him yet, that is until the kids are all grown up.

Knock Three Times

Nell gives advice on Valentine's day to the entire family as she waits for James to come home from his visit to Sanfransico. However, in the end the advice goes awry, since everyones dates turned on them. Each date goes back to the house to appologize for ruining the evening, and Nell storms off to pick James up from the airport. When she gets home, the family tells her that after she left everyone made up with their Valentines and she promises not to be matchmaker again until Joey tells her he is having a problem with his girlfriend.

Valentine

Nell & Addy appear & compete on Wheel of Fortune during Best Friends week. Nell has $7,600 & wants to win a car.  But after commercial, she accidentally says ""GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME A CAR!"". However, in the end, Addy gets $2,700 & solves it correctly ""GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!""  She buys a trip for 2 to New York. However, they are scared after the Chief says New York is not a safe place, and Nell thinks someone stole her suitcase as they take another man's who she thinks took hers. When they get to the hotel, they find out that it wasn't her suitcase at all, and that it was actually the man's. They find drugs and a gun in it and are worried sick that the guy will come back and kill them for taking it.

The Big Apple (1)

Nell calls the Chief for help and he says he will tell a policeman friend of his about it and he will come up to New York as well, but his flights are delayed three times. Nell then learns that the man they took the suitcase from is a few doors down from them, and  gets scared and escapes to get rid of it with Addy. The man is actually a policeman, and thought Nell and Addy took the suitcase for the drugs. However, the policeman who the Chief is friends with arrives and says that they are innocent and friends with a police Chief in California. The two policemen know they must protect them. Out in the street, Nell and Addy leave the suitcase and run to a taxi, but into Tony Randall instead, who lets him take his. Thinking they got rid of the suitcase, they go back to the hotel, learning that Tony saw their suitcase on the street and rushed it back to them. In the end, the policeman runs into their room as Nell decides to fire the gun so the police can hear it outside in the streets and

The Big Apple (2)

After the chief & Nell couldn't take Joey to the rodeo in town, Grandpa decides to take him.  But that day, it was raining & Grandpa came down with bad pneumonia. At the hospital, the whole family wants to see him, but the nurse instructs Nell that Joey is underaged.  Nell then sneaks Joey in the hospital room.  Joey gets out a tape recorder & sings ""Swanee"". Just when Nell and Joey have given up hope, Nell tells Grandpa that he's lost his will power and if he dies she will have to tell Poland that he ""bit the sausage""! Grandpa wakes up and tells Nell that she will never be able to do that and that Joey mispelled Dixie. The two are overjoyed that Grandpa hasn't given up when they see he is up to his old tricks when a nurse comes into the room and he  teases her.

Rodeo

Katie decides to ditch college and open her own busines with  friend, which the Cheif agrees to. However, Nell doesnt like the idea, because she promised Margaret that she would see all three of the girls go off to College. In the end, Nell tell Katie it is her decision only,and Katie decides to open up her own boutique with her friend, and decides she doesnt need college after all.

Katie's College

Nell decides to take Grandpa to the senior citizen Center to have some time to spend with people his own age. While there, the seniors find out that they have to share their space with the youth center since it had just burned down. The director has an arguement with her new love interest, and it is up to one of the teens to help her and her new crush get back together to make his own crush see that he is a man who is full of love. At the dance that the two groups put together, the director and her crush reunite after being locked and handcuffed in a closet.

The Center

Nell helps write a book report for a straight-A student who has several children to take care of, and is aways exhausted in class. At her graduation, the man she wrote the report for says he owes it all to Nell, and he cheated, ad the two loose their diplomas. As this is going on, Addy has chanel 3 do an interview on Nell, and she admits she cheated anddidnt graduate. However, Nell is givenher diploma, since she successfully passed all of her classes, and the man gets his as well, who passes an oral exam, and gets a surprise from his wife that she is pregnant again.

Class of '84

Nell and Joey go to New Orleans where Nells sees a man she hant seen in 15 years. The two take Joey to the World's Fair, and when they go to visit a jazz club, he proposes to her. She is baffled by his proposal and doesn't know what to say. As this is happening, a man is watching Joey in the jazz club. When Joey finally sees him looking at him, he goes to Nell and tells him he thinks that the man is his father. The man happily says ""Joey"" as Joey says ""Dad"", and the two embrace, as Nell stares in shock.

New Orleans (1)

Joey and his father reunite, and he takes Joey on a day at the World's fair. He then asks Nell if he can have Joey sleep on his boat, which she agrees to. In the morning, there is no sign of Joey, and Nell finds out the boat went back to Gnome Alaska. She and the man that asked her to marry him quarrel, and she madly accepts his proposal, but then ditches him in the end. As she walks along the boardwalks in New Orleans, desperatly thinking of Joey, he returns to her, and says he went to the hotel but she was gone and he looked all over for her, and the two reunite in a hug.

New Orleans (2)

Nell gets the bitrhday blues at turning 33. Addy is mocking her as the two are going on a cruise for singles 18-32 years old and she can lie about her age. When the two return home from dinner, the family surprises Nell with a cake and tell her that her birth certificate says she was a year younger than expected. Nell is overjoyed, but Addy is mad, since Nell is now doing what Addy did to her by mocking her about her age. In the end, the kids tell Addy they lied just to make Nell happy, and Nell is accepting of the news, although still wishes she was younger.

Nell's Birthday

An old Polish man finds Grandpa and forces him to marry his daughter. He finds out that Grandpa was the man that came over on the steamship Krakaur in the early 1900's, and that he and his daughter did the hanky panky together. When Nell meets the man's daughter, she tells her that she doesn't care about Stanely, and that she is afraid of her father. When Nell brings her to the house, she finally faces up to her father, tells him she doesn't want to marry Stanely, and says she is in love with an Italian man.

Grandpa's Secret Life

Sam is in love with a boy who just happens to be a big heel. He borrows money from the whole family, and when Nell tells him to leave the house, he and Sam decide to run off. Nell is shocked to find out that Sam's love Jeffrey had left her on the beach and had taken all of her money. Sam sears to never love again, but Nell tells her it will only be her first love and there will be many more.

Sam's First Love

Nell and Ray Parker, Jr. have a difference of opinion over giving CPR to a fallen man. When the man dies, Nell and Ray decide to give a show for his wife. What they didn't know was that he was a gangster.

Who Dunnit?

When Katie needs money for her business, Joey helps her out by breakdancing at the beach. Nell finds out Joey's grades are slipping in school, and when Addy finds sand in his shoes, she realizes he is going to the beach afterschool. When Nell gets there, Joey tells her Katies buisness is in trouble, and she decides to help her by pawning the couch and tv set, which make the chief devastated to lose. Nell then says she will call the pawn shop back and get them back.

Breakdance

While at Skipper Dwayne's for dinner, Addy finds out her car is being towed away as Nell is approached by a sleezeball who wants to go out with her. A man at a neaby table tells him to leave her alone and she is swept away by him. When he drops by the house while Addy is there, she is shocked to see that he is her long-lost father who left her mother when she was younger. Addy doesn't want Nell to date him after what he did to her mother and her when she was 8 years old. In the end, Nell takes Addy to dinner and her father is there as Nell sings ""People"" as Addy decides to give her father another chance.

Daddy's Little Girl

It's a case of sexual harassment when a female officer wants a raise and the Chief will not give it to her. SHe takes the case to Addy's Congress of Determined Women, and the chief fears she will take him to court. The cheif worries for nothing when the female officer tells him she had a dream of him seducing her, and knows he is not the type of man who would do a thinkg like that and drops the case. The chief finally gives her the promotion she had long waited for.

Carl's Delicate Moment

Nell and Addy go up to a ski lodge to find Julie with her boyfriend, Jonathan after they win their big debate. When Jonathan hurts his foot in an accident, Nell goes to his room to help him, with her date, who is a doctor, and is shocked to see it is Jonathan, and finds Julie in the bathroom. Julie and Nell argue over what has happened, and Nell finally realizes that Julie needs to be Julie and needs to accept her for who she is. Julie and Jonathan share an intimate moment together, as he tells her she's gonnas be his first woman ever.

Julie's Lie

Samantha gets upset at Nell, who disapproves of her going on a camping trip with teenage boys which will not be chapperoned. She gets increasingly angry at her when she favors Joey rather than her, and dresses Joey in blackface when he is to perform ""Toot-Toot-Tootsie"" in front of Nell's Congregation, as a way to get back at him.

Baby of the Family

After being lifted by a class at night school on how TV tears families apart from one another, Nell decides to make the family stop watching TV for a night. However, once they make the promise, Simpson comes by and tells the Chief that the football game is on, since it's a special wednesday night game, and Addy comes by to tell Nell that they will watch Dynasty, and to find out who Alexi's lover is. However, the Chief and Nell reject their offers and the family sits down just to chat about what is going on in their lives. In the mean time, Grandpa pretends to have a hearing-aid on as he and Carl listen to the football game on the radio, and Nell pretends to heat up a pie in the microwave as she sneaks the portable television set inside it and sneaks a peak at it as she goes in the kitchen to check on the pie. In the end, Nell finds out what the Chief and Grandpa did, as everyone finds out what she has done, and everyone goes back to watching tv.

TV or Not TV

Nell and Addy decide to spend Christmas in her apartment a few days earlier, since she is going to Alabama for Christmas, and wont be home to celebrate it then. As the night progresses, A neighbor of Addy's, comes knocking on the door for cooking oil to make french fries, but when Addy and Nell find out he's not married, the two invite him to Christmas dinner, compete with each other to win his affection, and in the end, he decides to ask his wife to take him back.

The Spirit of Christmas

When the family tells Grandpa to go see a lawyer to make up his will, he refuses in doing so. In the end, Nell finds out he doesn't want to make out a will because he has nothing left to give his family.

Grandpa's Will

Nell is mad that her current flame is going on a buisness trip with another woman, so she leaves him a message on his answering machine, and then gets second thoughts about it, and forces Samantha and Joey to help her go to his apartment and erase the message.

The Answering Machine

Nell disapproves of Katie accepting a diamond necklace from her new boyfriend and tells her to give it back to him. However, when she is awarded the title of ""Glenlawn's Woman of the Year"", she is given a mink coat, and decides to wear it, as well as the necklace that Katie is to give back, to her gala ceremony, so that everyone will admire her, instead of her best friend Addy. However, when they reach the restaraunt, a robber approaches Nell, and steals the coat and the necklace. Nell then goes hystericol to try and tell Katie that she took her necklace without asking her permission first.

The Gift

Nell, Addy, and Joey go off to Alabama to arrive for Nell's sister's Wedding. Nell is angered because her mother has not changed, and she is still ridiculing her. Nell is happy that son after the wedding, she will be going back to Glenlawn, and will be away from her mother for good. However, Nell learns that after the wedding Mama Maybelle will soon be moving in with her in Glenlawn.

Alabamy Bound (1)

After hearing the news that her sister Loretta insists that Mama Maybelle move to California to live with Nell in Glenlawn after the wedding, Nell is not keen to the idea. Even when Mama Maybelle finds out that Loretta is planning on sending her to live with Nell in Glenlawn since she and her soon to be husband Howard will be living in Colorado in privacy, she is not keen either. However the Cheif tells Nell that Mama can move in because she talked Grandpa into moving in. Nell cant beleive his response. In the end, Mama says she loves Nell, and was always looking out ofr her, but now all she needs to do is get a small 1 bedroom apartment and she will be all set and wont have to get in the way of her daughters lives.

Alabamy Bound (2)

Nell is having a very bad day, due to the fact that Sal Bonaducci charged her more money for her car being fixed, and the library overcharging Joey for a late book. When Nell goes to the library to return it, there is an earthquake, which repeats several times. Nell is trapped in the basement office in the library with a woman  who is deaf. She finds out that she and the woman have something in common, since they both wear crosses and worship God. In the end, the Chief shows up and says he will be cutting through the cieling and the two will be free.

The Earthquake

Nell books Sammy Davis Jr. to appear to the town of Glenlawn, and sing for them. However, when she calls Sammy to ask him if he is arriving on time, he tells her that she had scheduled him for the following month instead. When Nell goes to the gas station to get her car washed, Albert, the man at the gas station is a dead-ringer for Sammy Davis, and she tells him if he appears on stage as Sammy to fool the town, she will give him what he has always wanted, Angie. However, in the end, Sammy does show up, and he and Nell sing a number to the town of Glenlawn.

The Lookalike

Officer Simpson ane the chief go out during a stormy night in Glenlawn, to check upon a bridge that had washed out. When the chief returns home, he shows the family Simpsons clothes, and tells them that an officer reported he saw a cat fall into a river, and an officer jump in to save the cat. The family begins to believe that Simpson was the man who tried to save the cat, since he would do anything for his cat ""Sherlock"", who he hasn't seen in several days. Nell receives an envelope from Simpson which contains $5,000, and she is happy she can go on her vacation with Addy to Hawaai afterall. However, in the end, Joey rushes into the house, telling the family that he found Simpson and Sherlock.

Cat Story

When the whole staff at the police station gets food poisoning, it's up to Addy and Nell to help them out. Simpson makes the two official police deputies, and there is a call that there are burglars at the Kanisky house. Nell and Addy, like scaredy cats, go to the house and check it out in the dark with flashlights, to find Grandpa and Joey home at the same time. In the end, two robbers leave Nell's room with a television.

Police Mamas

The chief gets angry Katie after her friend who got a part in a play offers her apartment to her. The Cheif also gets mad at Samantha for wearing a tactless outfit. The Cheif confesses that Julie was alwasy his favorite daughter because she thinks like him. This causes Nell, and the girls to move to Kaites new Apartment. When the Cheif tells Grandpa that now this will give them time to get to know one another better, he gives him a face, and he and Joey go to Katie's as well. After the apartment is over crowded, everyone comes home and makes amends.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Nell is angry that Addy has not called her in over a week, and is doing things with other members of the family and not her. When Julie tells her that Addy told her she is having lunch with Yvone Anderson, Nell calls Angie, and the two decide to go to lunch there as well. At the restaraunt, Nell tells Yvonne and Addy that Angie is her best friend, and in the end, Addy tells Nell that she was busy with the Junior Symphony Orchestra, and didn't have much time to call her, and they forgive one another.

Friendship

On Julies 18th birthday, Nell has a plan to get her and Jonathan back together after they broke up. She keeps orderig pizza, and when Jonathan keeps showing up, Julie hides in the closet, nly to have Nell tell him to deliver the pizza there. The Cheif however is happy that Julie and Jonathan broke up, because he thinks he is a ditz. In the end, Nell tells Jonathan to g for it and tell her how much he loves her. The two run out of the house, and in the morning, Nell asks Katie where Julie is. Katie tells her she never came home. Nell thinks Jonathan has kindapped her, goes into the kitchen, and Julie and Jonathan walk through the door and say they ere in Vegas all night. Nell is angry and thinks that they gambled, but Julie shows her a ring and says they got married. While they are in the kitchen, Nell hears the Cheif say ""Is that Julie in there Nell?"", as she screams no! Because she knows the two have some explaining to do to him.

Julie's Birthday

Nell is sad and doesnt want anyone to remind her of the Cheif since he pased away. Joey recives part of a toy train the Chief gave him, and puts it in the Cheifs room. Nell get mad when Jonathan insists that he and Julie move into the Cheifs old room, but gets extremely mad when Joey plays with his train in it. Grandpa says that Carl would have been happy that the family is still together, bringing him up in their daily discussions. He says that they all loved him, and that it's not right to not talk about him, because he was loved by them. Nell then changes her mind and lets Joey keep the train in the Cheifs old room, and lets Julie and Jonathan move into it.

Joey's Train

Nell decides to take her ex-husband's offer up on performing on his ship. While she is on the ship,she finds out that Tony has left his second wife, who is many years younger than Nell.

Ship of Fools (1)

While continuing to perform on Tony's ship, Nell discovers that he has fallen in love all over again with a woman that Joey befriends on the ship.

Ship of Fools (2)

Joey is saved by a man from being hit by a bus, and when the man tells his family that he is from another planet, everyone but Nell believes him. The man says he is from Zoron, and that he doesnt have a last name, and is known as ""cute"". In the end, the man leaves, and the family still beleives he is from another planet.

The Man From Zoron

Nell finds out Addy was given a teaching job as the a Dean at Columbia University by a professor she despises and thinks is tricky. Nell and Addy get into a fight at her goodbye party, and Nell does not want to say goodbye to her. However, in the end, she decides it's the best thing to do. She goes to Addy's apartment to say her goodbyes, but when she gets there she finds Addy unpacking, only to hear that the profssor is tricky and selfish, and was only pulling her legs about getting the job on New York.

Addy's Goodbye

Jonathan leaves on his archeological Mexican dig project. In the meantime, back at the Kanisky house, Julie finds out that she is pregnant with his baby after she decides to go to enlist in the Navy and fails the test.

So Long, Jonathan

Mama Maybelle arrives in Glenlawn to visit Nell, and tells her that she has to have an eye operation, and fears that she may never be able to see again. She tells Nell that she is going to miss seeing, but her sense of hearing may improve, which will help her hear Nell's singing better. Nell is happy that her mother admits she is a good singer. In the end, she is fine, and the family is there to greet her after the operation.

Mama

Sam is taking the role of a big sister to a girl named Pam, a kid from a single-parent home. When Pam arrives at the house, Sam has other ideas of her own, when the new neighbor Chip shows up and asks her to light his pilot light on the stove. Nell is then stuck taking care of Pam, and she is a nuissance to her. Nell then finds out from Sam that Pam's mother left her father for a computer repair man, and Nell finds a way to make Pam like her in the end.

Sam's Little Girl

Nell finds out that Addy is engaged to be married to her dentist, who has been previously married before, and has several children from each marriage. When Nell decides to accept Addy's engagement as a sign of happiness for her, she helps her select her wedding ring. However, when they begin to quarrel again over the engagement, they both go into seperate elevators, and they break down. Nell gets on her phone and Addy gets on hers and they talk to each other about past times in Alabama to get them throguh this horrific moment. When Nel tells Addy she should call her fiance, his new girlfriend answers, and Addy decides to shut him out of her life forever. Finally, the fire department arrives and gets them to safety.

The Elevator

Nell finds out Addy is selling her car, and wants to be the first one to take it off her hands. However, Angies sister has already purchased it, and Nell talks her out of it. When Nell takes it for a test drive, it breaks down, and she tells Addy that she wants her money back. Addy refuses, but in the end gives in, after she finds out that she is getting money back as well for it.

Nell's New Car

Nel finds out that Joey is a gifted child, and should take a test to see what grade he should be placed into. When Joey tells her that the 4th grade is fine, and that he just wants to play baseball, she insists that he take the test, and gives him several instruments to play to see which one suites him best, the piano being the top. In the end, Joey runs off to the park, and Nell knows he is there when she finds out he wasn't at the school to take the test. She decides to let Joey stay in the 4th grade because a nine year old is supposed to have fun, and not work their tail off.

Nell's Gifted Child

Nell finds out that Katie is dating a married author of a famous book. She tells Katie to stop seeing him, and she tells her she is old enough to do what she wants. Katie then tells Julie to come to her apartment and asks her for advice on what to do. In the end, Katie decides to not see him anymore.

The Best Seasons of Gimme a Break!

The Best Seasons of Gimme a Break!

Season 2

Season 6

Season 1

Season 5

Season 3

Season 4