Alice was a sitcom television series that ran from August 31, 1976 to March 19, 1985 on CBS, lasting 9 consequtive seasons. Alice Hyatt is an unemployed widow after
   her husband, Donald, is killed in a trucking accident, and with her young son Tommy she heads from their New Jersey home to Los Angeles so that she can pursue a
   singing career. Her car breaks down on the way in Phoenix, and we meet her soon after she has taken a job as a waitress at Mel's Diner, on the outskirts of Phoenix.
   Alice works alongside Mel Sharples, the grouchy, stingy owner and cook of the greasy spoon, and fellow waitresses and friends, sassy, man-hungry Florence Jean 'Flo' 
   Castleberry, and neurotic, scatterbrained Vera Louise Gorman. Each episode invariably started inside the diner, and most if not all subsequent scenes took place there
   as well. A frequent set for non-diner scenes was Alice's one-bedroom apartment in the Desert Sun apartments, where Tommy used the bedroom and Alice slept on a
sleeper sofa in the living room. Vera and Mel's studio apartments and Flo's trailer were also occasionally seen. One of the diner's biggest competitors, Barney's Burger Barn, was sometimes mentioned. The diner had its share of regular customers through the years, such as Tommy's basketball coach, Earl Hicks, and Henry Beesmeyer, a telephone repairman who always made
jokes about Mel's cooking. Henry's oft-mentioned wife Chloe was seen in one episode. Celebrities playing either themselves or other characters, such as Martha Raye, George Burns, Robert Goulet, and Desi Arnaz, were a hallmark of the show.