List of Gimme A Break! Episodes - Season 1: 1981–82

Season 1: 1981–82

Episode #	Season #	Title	Original air date
1	1	"Katie the Crook"	October 29, 1981 (1981-10-29)
In the series première, Samantha comes home with a black eye, and Nell teaches her a few skills on how to fight. Julie and her friend are studying "where babies come from", and as the Chief comes home, he walks into the kitchen to find them kissing. Later, Officer Simpson arrives at the house with Katie, who was picked up for shoplifting. This leads to a huge argument resulting in the Chief ordering Katie to move out.
2	2	"A Good Man is Hard to Find"	November 5, 1981 (1981-11-05)
Nell and her friend Angie go out to a singles bar. After a terrible evening having to deal with a variety of weirdos, Nell becomes depressed. This is when the Chief comes up with a plan to make her feel better. He fixes her up with one of his co-workers. However, the Chief quickly learns this may not have been the best idea.
3	3	"The Second Time Around"	November 12, 1981 (1981-11-12)
An old high school classmate accidentally hits the Chief's squad car. Soon after, the two of them hit it off and begin dating. As their relationship becomes more serious, Samantha becomes worried that she will soon have a stepmother, however the Chief is in no way ready to consider re-marriage.
4	4	"Mom's Birthday"	November 19, 1981 (1981-11-19)
The Chief comes home from work in a foul mood; mostly due to the fact that today is his deceased wife Margaret's birthday. The Chief takes everyone out to a Mexican restaurant where it seems everything reminds the family of Margaret. Afterwards, Nell suggests a way to remember Margaret on her special day.
5	5	"Do or Diet"	November 26, 1981 (1981-11-26)
Nell has been dieting and to help her in her conquest, she has joined a weight loss group known as PORKO. One evening she holds one of the meetings in the Kanisky living room and the Chief is accidentally mistaken for a new member. This leads him to trying losing some weight himself. However, both Nell and the Chief soon find themselves battling temptation.
6	6	"A Man in Nell's Room"	December 3, 1981 (1981-12-03)
When the Chief finds a man in Nell's room, he tells her he doesn't want her fooling around with guys in the same house as his teenage daughters. Nell decides to quit, and moves in with Angie for one night. The Chief tries to adjust to Nell not being around and everything goes awry. In the end, Nell gets fed up with staying with Angie and decides to come home.
7	7	"Your Prisoner is Dead"	December 10, 1981 (1981-12-10)
While on an errand at the drug store, the Chief witnesses a robber hold up the place. When the robber turns his gun on him, the Chief shoots him in self-defense. However, when he finds out that the robber has died, he thinks seriously of retiring from the police force since he has never shot a person before. In the end, Nell convinces him to go back to work, when she makes him realize that he really is a pretty good cop.
8	8	"Julie's Rejection"	December 17, 1981 (1981-12-17)
Julie wants to join Katie's club, and gets help from Nell and Katie on how to be cool, sitting, and dancing. When she shows up to Katie's group of friends, she totally messes up, as they ask her several questions about personal experiences such as kissing and virginity, and she is rejected by the club. In the end, she says she only wanted to be in the club because of the jacket they get, but cries hysterically, because she knows she cannot be like Katie and her friends. Katie decides in the end to quit the clique that she is in, and decides that she and her sister need to stick together.
9	9	"Julie's First Love"	January 7, 1982 (1982-01-07)
Julie goes out to get some air after having no luck finding a date to the Junior Prom. She ends up at the arcade, where she meets a worker there who is into electronics named Arnold and she asks him to the prom and he accepts. However, the Chief is mad that Julie returns home late and grounds her, not wanting to hear her side of the story. In the end, Katie realizes that Julie is at the arcade because she mentioned being out of quarters and the Chief decides to go down there, letting her know that he cares a lot for her and that he allows her to go to the prom with Arnold.
10	10	"Nell's Ex"	January 14, 1982 (1982-01-14)
Nell gets a call from her ex-husband Tony, who is in town, and wants to meet with her. At the house, he tells her that he is going to be on the Merv Griffith show and needs $1,000. Nell agrees to give him the money and lies to the Chief, telling him she needs $500 for her aunt to have an operation. The Chief gives her the money, even though he knows it's for Tony. When Tony auditions for the show, he gets cut short, and is told they already have enough male singers like him.
11	11	"Katie the Cheat"	January 21, 1982 (1982-01-21)
The Chief is counting on Katie to do very well on her college entrance exam, but she gets Julie to take it instead. The family is shocked to hear what has happened, after she declines the money they give her for her college life and confesses that she cheated on the test. The Chief is very upset, and then finds out it was Julie who took the test for her. However, Katie apologizes and decides to re-take the test on her own.
12	12	"The Emergency"	February 4, 1982 (1982-02-04)
Katie comes home with pain in her stomach and Nell rushes her to the emergency room. Once there, she meets a pushy receptionist and seeks a doctor on her own time to help Katie. The doctor tells Nell that Katie was using an IUD (intra-uterine device) as a form of birth control and will be okay. She is shocked to hear the news and so is the Chief. The Chief leaves the hospital disgusted, but returns and goes to see Katie. He tells her what would her mother think about her doing that sort of thing if she was still alive? Katie tells him that she and her mother talked a lot about it before she died and she knew Katie had been using IUDs. The Chief understands that he cannot protect Katie from IUDs and other sorts of sexual-related issues, but tells her he will always love her.
13	13	"Nell Goes Home"	February 11, 1982 (1982-02-11)
As the Chief is getting ready to leave for an assignment in New York, Samantha is mad that she can't go fishing with a male friend of hers because he will not be around to watch them. After he leaves, Nell gets a call from her mother telling her that her father had a heart attack. Nell takes Samantha back home to Alabama to visit her family. At her house, Nell is told by her mother that her father doesn't want to see her. However, Samantha is sad for the way she treated the Chief because he wouldn't let her go fishing. Nell decides she'll see her father even though he doesn't want to see her. In his room, he acts the way he did to Nell when she was younger, and doesn't mind that he is dying. He still doesn't forgive Nell for running away when she was 16. In the end, Nell's father dies, and at his funeral, Nell is told to read the eulogy that her father wrote. He actually was happy that she came home to him after all those years. Nell sings "Amazing Grace" as the Chief walks in and Samantha hugs him and tells him she loves him.
14	14	"Samantha Steals a Squad Car"	February 18, 1982 (1982-02-18)
As the Chief is preparing a speech for an awards banquet, Nell accidentally sits on his cap, which ticks him off. As the two fight, Samantha comes home, complaining that a girl insulted her, but Nell and the Chief are too busy arguing. To get their attention, she tells Nell "how would you like it if somebody called you a nigger?" The Chief gets her attention, goes on a rampage, and she locks herself in the bathroom, only to escape through the bathroom window, steal her father's squad car, and take off to the police station, where she meets a drunkard named Bill, who is out of his cell, drunk in the Chief's office. In the end, the Chief and Nell show up at the police station, and all is forgiven, as Nell tells Samantha that they should have listened to her in the first place, instead of fighting over a stupid squashed police cap.
15	15	"Grandma Fools Around"	February 25, 1982 (1982-02-25)
The family gets ready for Grandma and Grandpa's 55th anniversary at the house. Meanwhile, back at their house, Grandma and Grandpa are reminiscing over old photos and love letters that Grandpa sent her during World War II. When Grandpa reads one of them, he finds out it wasn't his, and he threatens to leave Grandma and wants a divorce. Grandma goes to see the family and cries over what has been happening. Carl is upset at his mother, yet goes to see Grandpa and brings him to the house. At the house Grandpa and Grandma do not speak, and Nell gets fed up and tells them that she is divorced, Ed is a single bachelor, the Chief recently lost his wife, and they all wish they had someone to love, Grandma and Grandpa get back together.
16	16	"Hot Muffins"	March 11, 1982 (1982-03-11)
Katie's band is a big success in Glenlawn as they perform at amateur night at a restaurant. A big producer spots them, and tells them he loved the act, and offers them a job far away. Katie decides at first she wants to go, because she started her group, and without her, they would be nothing. However, Nell lets her see deep inside that all she wants to be is a star, and she finally decides to stay behind with her family, as her group goes off to see if they can make a success with their career.
17	17	"Sam's Affair"	March 18, 1982 (1982-03-18)
Samantha and her friend Scotty from her baseball team decide to sit on the couch and watch some television. As they are intimidated by a love story, they talk about kissing, and they decide to try it. As Julie and Katie walk in on them, they suspect that they have been fooling around, and when the Chief finds out, he tells Samantha that after she kisses a boy she will end up pregnant. Due to this remark, Samantha mistakes that she can get pregnant from kissing, and seeks help from Julie, Katie, and Grandpa, but they aren't very good at it. Finally, when Nell sees Samantha crying in her room, she tells her that she thinks she is pregnant, and Nell tells her never to believe what her father says because he is full of it, and she decides to teach her the facts of life.
18	18	"The Robbery"	March 25, 1982 (1982-03-25)
The Kaniskys come home to find burglars at work, when they return home from the Chief's "Law Enforcement Officer of the Year" award ceremony. However, Nell who was at a strip club, seeing male exotic dancers, returns home, tricks the robbers by saying there are jewels in the closet in a locked box, gets the Chief's gun, and saves the family from danger. When the reporter shows up, Nell tries to make the Chief look good, even though he was tied up by the robbers, and make it look like he was the hero, but finally, the Chief admits to the reporter that Nell is the real hero, and she did a very important deed for the family, for which they will always be grateful.
19	19	"An Unmarried Couple"	April 1, 1982 (1982-04-01)
Katie's friend Valerie shows up at the Kanisky house, pregnant and due any day. She tells Katie that her boyfriend Jonathan had a fight with her and the two broke up and she has nowhere to go. Valerie is welcome to stay with the family, however, once the Chief finds out she is pregnant and split with her boyfriend, he does not tolerate this. When Jonathan shows up to see Valerie, the Chief insists that he and Valerie marry before the baby is born and he agrees. Valerie and Jonathan quarrel about marriage until he tells her he loves her and asks her and the baby to marry him. In the end, Valerie goes into labor and decides she isn't having the baby until she and Jonathan are married. Julie rushes outside to find the neighborhood priest and the ceremony is performed. Shortly after the ceremony, as the ambulance arrives, Valerie gives birth in the front of the Kanisky house.