25 of the best family feuds on TV

Angela Bower and Mona Robinson — Who’s the Boss?

I just love it when an uptight, stuffed shirt has a free-spirited parent. This is a pretty common TV trope, and the relationship between Angela and Mona set the stage for plenty of on-screen parent child-feuds. The difference in this particular dynamic is the magnanimity and charisma of Katherine Helmond, who played Mona. Of course, Judith Light is no slouch as the harried, single mom, trying to balance all the aspects of her life, but Mona is the real (smoke) show.

It may seem strange to talk about a show with Tony Danza, Judith Light, and Katherine Helmond as eye-candy, but in 1984 they were hot. The sexual tension between Light’s Angela and Danza’s Tony was palpable, and Mona often acted like a catalyst for their baser instincts. As restrained as Angela was, her mother was open and sexually realized.

This causes quite a bit of friction, as Mona goaded the conservative Angela into all sorts of bad decisions. She openly sexualized Tony, and encouraged Angela to do the same. Angela rebelled against her mother’s relaxed attitude toward life, and it seems like the more Mona pushed, the tighter Angela became.

It took eight seasons for Angela and Tony to finally acknowledge their feelings for each other, but if Mona had her way, it would have happened a lot sooner. As much as Mona and Angela clashed, together they formed the perfect female role model for Tony’s daughter Samantha.