Question: Why did they fire Jenilee Harrison?
raywest
21st Mar 2025
Three's Company (1977)
Answer: The official reason was producers felt Harrison was "too inexperienced and unseasoned" an actress (translated Harrison was probably too immature). After Harrison's first season as Cindy Snow, actress Priscilla Barnes joined the cast as Terri Alden, Jack and Janet's new roommate. Terri was a stronger, more complex character than ditzy, naive Cindy. Harrison's role diminished and Cindy was now living on her college campus. After a handful of episodes, Cindy was written out without explanation.
28th Oct 2020
Three's Company (1977)
Question: Lana Shields became a regular cast member then she disappeared from show without any explanation, why?
Answer: No official explanation was given for why the Lana Shields character was abruptly written out after a handful of episodes. Ann Wedgeworth, the actress who played Lana, said she was never given a reason, but according to Wedgeworth's daughter, her late mother was unhappy playing a one-dimensional character that had little development potential. The daughter said Wedgeworth and the Three's Company producers came to a mutual agreement for her to leave the show.
Answer: John Ritter also said in interviews that there was no way that Jack would continue to resist Lana's advances since she was attractive and Jack was notoriously sex-crazed, so that could have been a factor as well.
6th Jul 2020
Three's Company (1977)
15th Mar 2020
Three's Company (1977)
Question: Who decided to make Chrissy stupid? Watch an early episode like "Roper's Niece" then a later one like "Jack's Pie", So who decided to make her stupid? Some network executive?
Answer: It's also likely a case of "Flanderization", where as the show progresses, the writers zero in on a single aspect of a character that they get the most material out of, and think is the funniest, and expand it at the expense of realism or development, to the point where it is the character's entire personality.
22nd Oct 2019
Three's Company (1977)
Question: Given they come from the Love Generation, why would Janet care about Jack having what she thinks is a vasectomy?
Answer: She was worried that Jack would come to regret his decision. She thought at some point in the future he would marry and want to have children.
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Answer: The producers felt that she was too "inexperienced and unseasoned" for her role on the show. Harrison admitted that she "had a lot of naivety."
Well, how else do you get experience in acting? By being on a show, in a movie, or in a play. She was fun and seemed rather sweet.
Rob245
True, but the producers apparently felt an older, more experienced actress would better play off the other characters. Shows also monitor how well viewers react to characters. Of course, there are serious reasons why actors are let go. Other series have fired actors with all sorts of personal problems, like drug/alcohol abuse, mental health issues, legal issues, public controversies, etc, that are a liability to the show, though it's often downplayed or covered up. Charlie Sheen and Roseanne Barr are high-profile examples. If there was some other issue with Harrison, a cover story could have been issued to protect her reputation. That doesn't mean there were any, just a possibility.
raywest ★
In addition to what Ray West wrote, I want to add that many actors start out as children and young teenagers. So she could have been inexperienced compared to someone else of the same age. IMDb only lists three TV episodes that she acted in before "Three's Company."