Hangin' with Mr. Cooper
=== Season 1 ===
In the first season, the characters were Mark Cooper, Vanessa Russell, and Robin Dumars. They all lived as roommates in a house that was rented by Mark, Vanessa and Robin. In the pilot episode, Mark got a job as a substitute teacher for a high school science class. Later in the season, he got a job teaching physical education which was what he wanted to teach. Mark was also a basketball coach for the school's team. Robin was a music teacher at the same high school. In the middle of the season, the original landlord died and the house was purchased by the parents of Tyler Foster (who were Mark's neighbors). After purchasing the house, Tyler's father told Mark, Vanessa, and Robin that they were allowed to stay in the house for 1 month. After Tyler told his parents that he liked the trio, they decided to let them stay permanently.
Mark had briefly played basketball with the Golden State Warriors, but was soon cut from the team. His jersey number with the Warriors is # 7.
The pilot episode was filmed on the same set used by the Seavers in the sitcom Growing Pains.
=== Seasons 2 through 4 ===
The show moved to Friday nights in the second season as part of the TGIF block. It also was remodeled into more of a family-oriented show, instead of an adult oriented show, as in the first season. In the second season premiere, Tyler mentioned that Mark had purchased the house from his parents. Also in the second season premiere, Mark's cousin, Geneva Lee, and her daughter, Nicole Lee, moved in with Mark and Vanessa. Robin was no longer living with Mark and Vanessa (and the character had been dropped from the show). Geneva took over teaching music at Mark's school. Around the time Geneva and Nicole joined the show, Mark's school welcomed a new principal, P.J. Moore (played by Nell Carter), who was Mark's babysitter when he was a child. She was replaced in Season 4 by Geneva.
In 1996, Mark proposed to Vanessa in the episode "Will She or Won't She". This episode was a cliffhanger season finale that was aired on May 10, 1996. The following season premiere episode ("The Ring") was not aired until June 21, 1997, more than a year later. Vanessa accepted Mark's proposal in this episode. "The Ring" is the first episode of the fifth and last season of the series.
The entire third season and most of the fourth season's episodes were directed by Mark Linn-Baker, who portrayed Larry Appleton on the hit ABC series Perfect Strangers. Linn-Baker also appeared in a few episodes.
=== Season 5 ===
The last season was 13 episodes long, half the length of most television seasons, and was aired in the summer, when most television shows are in reruns. In addition, this season was aired on Saturday nights—a move away from its traditional Friday night slot on TGIF.
The series finale ("Getting Personal") was aired August 30, 1997. In this episode, Vanessa wrote a personal ad in the newspaper, and wanted Mark to figure out which ad was hers, and to answer it. Mark decided to answer all ads in the paper, tell everyone to look for the man with the rose, and then not wear a rose. Mark figured that Vanessa would be happy enough that Mark answered her ad, and would not worry about the rose, and that the other women would not get mad at him because, without a rose, they would not know that Mark is the one who answered their ads. Earvin knew about Mark's plan, and decided to go to the restaurant with the rose, so that he could get a date with one of the women whose ad Mark had answered. Vanessa and the other women figured out that the same man had answered all their ads. They decided that the man with the rose would be the dead man with the rose. When Earvin showed up, they all got mad at him, thinking he was the one who answered their ads. The finale ended with a goodbye from the cast.
While the series finale was viewed in its entirety on ABC affiliates in the Eastern, Central, and Mountain time zones, ABC pre-empted the episode on the West Coast, 5 minutes in, to break the news of the death of Princess Diana, and the finale was never re-run on ABC. Other than several complaints from viewers on the West Coast, there was little, if any, controversy, as this episode generally had low ratings, and aired on a Saturday. However, the episode eventually aired on syndication.
ABC actually intended to bring back Hangin' with Mr. Cooper and Step By Step to TGIF for the 1996–97 season as midseason replacements if freshmen series Sabrina the Teenage Witch and/or Clueless were cancelled (Clueless was cancelled by February and was replaced by Step by Step by March, Clueless was picked up by UPN the next season; while Sabrina lasted four seasons on ABC, before being picked up by The WB in 2000, where it spent its last three seasons, both show are now owned by CBS Television Distribution).
The wedding of Mark and Vanessa would have most likely been the sixth season premiere episode had the show been renewed after season five, as Mark Curry reportedly wanted the wedding to begin a new season, not be a series finale. Hangin' with Mr. Cooper was the only TGIF show cancelled after the 1996–97 season as CBS picked up Step by Step and Family Matters when that network attempted a TGIF-style comedy lineup on Fridays called the "CBS Block Party".
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