It seems the Ropers were victims of their own (initial) success.

The show was a smash hit, and by its third season, which premiered in 1978, it was at the top of its game -- the second most popular show on TV, ranking just barely behind "Laverne and Shirley." ABC of course wanted to capitalize on this, so they proposed a spinoff for Stanley and Helen Roper (played by Norman Fell and Audra Lindley).

"The Ropers" premiered in the spring of 1979. The Ropers have sold the apartment building and moved to the swankier Cheviot Hills neighborhood (a real community in the west of Los Angeles). Helen wants desperately to fit in with her upper-class neighbors and is constantly embarrassed by Stanley's less-classy antics.

Unfortunately, it only lasted a season and a half, by which point Mr. Furley (played by longstanding comedy star Don Knotts) was established as the new landlord.

Interestingly, this all mirrors what happened with the original British series on which "Three's Company" was based.

"Three's Company" was based quite directly on the ITV series "Man About the House" in Britain, about a single man sharing an apartment with two attractive single girls. After its third season, the landlords of that show got one of their own, "George and Mildred," in which they move to an upmarket neighborhood and horrify their snobby new neighbors.

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