Matlock star Jason Ritter, a well-established actor in his own right, is happy to pay tribute to his late father, John Ritter. This week he did an impression of him in one of his most famous roles, that of Jack Tripper on classic sitcom Three’s Company.
After someone asked Jason to “do the creep face your dad used to do chasing the girls around the apartment,” Ritter went all out, breathing fast and loud while he goofily looked around.
Three’s Company originally aired for eight seasons, from 1977 to 1984, but it’s lived on in reruns. The plot is that Tripper shares an apartment and endless adventures with his two female roommates. One painfully outdated plot point is that the roomies all pretend Jack is gay in the presence of their landlord, so he will be OK with the arrangement.
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In addition to the elder Ritter, the comedy starred Joyce DeWitt as Janet, Suzanne Somers as Chrissy, and Priscilla Barnes as Terri, who moved into the trio’s Santa Monica, Calif., apartment after Chrissy moved out.
For his work as Jack, Ritter was nominated for best actor in a comedy three times at the Emmys; He won in 1984.
Jason has explained that his very first acting job was an animated movie, The Real Story of O Christmas Tree, that he did with his dad.
“I will say, without any hesitation, this was like a full-on nepotism hire. I will admit that,” he said in March 2023 on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show.
That job was in 1992. Jason Ritter has since worked steadily on shows such as Gravity Falls, Joan of Arcadia, Parenthood, and A Million Little Things. He’s been nominated for an Emmy twice.
John Ritter died suddenly in 2003, of a heart issue called an aortic dissection, while filming the sitcom 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter (later shortened to 8 Simple Rules), alongside Kaley Cuoco and Katey Sagal. He was 54.
