About this season
Short-lived sitcom based on the critically acclaimed movie. Hunt Stevenson is the laid-back American employee liaison of a Japanese car company in Hadleyville, Pennsylvania. Clashes abound as Hunt and Kaz looked for ways to bridge the gap between one another with funny results. Many of the Japanese actors from the movie reprised their roles for the series.
Episodes (9)
1. Pilot
Aired 5 December 1986 • 30 min
Hunt, acting as labor's liaison to management, tries to restore the job of a fellow worker who brashly expressed his opinion of a new employee rule book.
2. Line of Credit
Aired 12 December 1986 • 30 min
Hunt uses a new company credit card to entertain a date, an action that lands him back on the assembly line. The factory floor workers find themselves taken for a ride when they sneak spare parts out to help a supposedly struggling mobile snack vendor with engine trouble.
3. Talk of the Town
Aired 26 December 1986 • 30 min
Hunt invites Kaz to a civic meeting, where Kaz's straight talk is a hit with the crowd after Hunt's ramblings strike out. When his wife's car keeps breaking down, Kaz becomes convinced she's having an affair with the tow-truck mechanic who comes to her aid each time.
4. Sick and Tired
Aired 2 January 1987 • 30 min
The flu puts Kaz in bed, leaving Saito in charge, just as a reporter arrives to do a story on cooperation between the Americans and the Japanese. On the factory floor, the guys enter Randi, who lacks confidence in her looks, into a beauty contest without her knowledge.
5. Love Me Tender
Aired 9 January 1987 • 30 min
Hunt proclaims himself a one-woman man, but Kaz and Umeki have evidence that his girl friend isn't similarly inclined. Meanwhile, a friendly bet leads to Googie running a book on the factory floor - which soon gets out of hand, and attracts unwanted attentions.
6. Help Wanted
Aired 16 January 1987 • 30 min
Hunt encourages Umeki to get a job selling TVs and stereos, but Kaz is outraged by the idea of his wife working. After boasting about the company's high-tech new computerized system, an embarrassed Kaz secretly starts taking computer night-courses when he struggles to use it himself - and is discovered by Yukiko, who is moonlighting as a cleaner at the college.
7. Kaz Over Easy
Aired 23 January 1987 • 30 min
When Kaz's workaholic friend from Japan dies of a heart attack, Kaz drastically alters his own work habits. Buster calls in a favour to get a down-on-his-luck friend a job on the factory floor... but his friend repeatedly shows him up with poor conduct.
8. Where the Boys Are
Aired 30 January 1987 • 30 min
Umeki can't contact Kaz to tell him that the prototype he plans to introduce at the auto show was totaled in transit. Ito and Googie organize a social evening to try and bond the guys on the factor floor - and end up regretting it, when by chance Kenji and some senior executives visit the same bar amid tense business deal talks.
9. Brother, Can You Spare a Dollar?
Aired 6 February 1987 • 30 min
A visit from Hunt's brother Eddie, a Chicago commodities broker, sparks sibling rivalry; while Googie is too embarrassed to admit he's locked himself out of his car, and comes up with increasingly far-fetched cover stories to get his co-workers to help him.