Tony Danza dishes on canceled Whos the Boss…
It would have been a boss transfer.
Tony Danza was champing at the bit to mud off his apron and reprise his iconic “Who’s the Boss” function reverse TV daughter Alyssa Milano in a spinoff about the pair dwelling in a woke world.
“We had a shot at it. I thought it might happen,” Danza, 74, told The Post.
Tony Danza told The Post that his TV daughter Alyssa Milano is “one of the people in the world who wants to leave it a little better than she found it.” Courtesy Everett Collection
“I thought we had a real opportunity because of the timing of it, to address what was happening in the culture. Because you have Alyssa, who knows what’s going on, and me, mixed up.”
The proposed sequence, which the on-screen daddy-daughter duo announced in 2020, would have featured Danza’s character, housekeeper Tony Micelli, as a retiree, and Milano’s Samantha as a single mother, dwelling in the unique home from the hit sitcom, which ended its eight-season run in 1992.
“We had a real good script,” Danza added of the show, which was in development at Amazon Freevee. No causes got when news that the project was dropped got here in 2024.
“I think it would have been funny,” Danza said.
The East New York, Brooklyn native, who now lives on the Upper West Side, also filmed a never-aired pilot for NBC with Sebastian Maniscalco, where he performed the comic’s dad.
“Let me tell you, It was funny,” Danza said of the pitched sequence, dubbed “Sebastian Says.”
The Brooklyn native filmed a pilot with comic Sebastian Maniscalco that never aired. Sebastian Maniscalco/Facebook
“After [Maniscalco] sold out four nights at Madison Square Garden. I thought there might be [potential]. But I think you get one shot at those things … It’s too bad. The vagaries of TV, I guess.”
Although he is probably not starring in any sitcoms, Danza is retaining busy with the nonprofit he co-founded, The Stars of Tomorrow Project, a free, year-round performing, voice and dance program for 14 to 25-year-olds from low-income communities in the 5 boroughs.
Danza, a former skilled boxer who was found by a TV producer at Gleason’s Gym on West thirtieth Street and Eighth Avenue, said the Murray Hill-based nonprofit, which he launched in 2012 with actor Brian D. Hills, is impressed by his past.
A former skilled boxer, Danza was found at a Manhattan gymnasium and made his TV debut in the show “Taxi.” ©Paramount Television/Courtesy Everett Collection
“So much of this comes from my background. I was a fighter in New York and I ended up in ‘Taxi.’ And I needed development,” said Danza, who starred alongside Danny DeVito, Marilu Henner, Christopher Lloyd, and Andy Kaufman in the Emmy-winning sitcom, which ended in 1983.
“It was one of the best acting schools you could go to because of who I was surrounded with.”
His program’s motto is: “When you teach a kid how to act, you teach a kid how to act.”
“So much you have to do as an actor has to do with life in general. You have to be part of something bigger than yourself. You have to look people in the eye. You have to speak clearly. You have to be disciplined. You have to be on time,” he said.
Danza co-founded The Stars of Tomorrow Project, a free, year-round performing, voice and dance program for 14 to 25-year-olds from low-income communities in the 5 boroughs. Courtesy of The Stars of Tomorrow Project
Danza recalled the story of one of the 1,105 college students who have gone through his program — who told him he had zero curiosity in truly performing.
“I said, ‘Well, what’d you come for?’ He says, ‘Because it’s free and I figured there might be girls … And I’m not interested in going to college because my father made a life for our family and me without going.”’
That teen, Daniel Bravo Hernandez, not only went on to graduate from SUNY Purchase, but starred on Broadway in “Romeo + Juliet.”
His college students might be performing in a selection show at the Triad Theater on Feb. 26. Courtesy of The Stars of Tomorrow Project
Many of Danza’s college students — who might be performing in a selection show at the Triad Theater on the Upper West Side on Feb. 26 — had never seen their mentor in “Taxi” or “Who’s the Boss.”
“They’re a little young for that,” he said.
“I have a recognition quotient … when I go to a restaurant, if a 40-year-old guy is seating people, I’m getting a table. If it’s a 22-year-old, I don’t know.”
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