years old when the series begins. First season Needing a place to live while attending school, Charles applies for a job working for Stan and Jill Pembroke, an affluent couple in search of a live-in housekeeper. An arrangement is reached where Charles would take the job with the Pembrokes while he attended Copeland, and in lieu of a salary, he would receive room and board for his duties as caretaker for their children Jason, Douglas, and Lila, all three of whom are not much younger than he is. In addition to this, as well as his escapades with his best friend Buddy, Charles has a crush on fellow Copeland student Gwendolyn Pierce and spends quite a bit of his free time trying to court her, which never seems to work. Syndication changes When the show returned in 1987, only Scott Baio and Willie Aames returned from the original cast, as the producers reworked the story to accommodate the changes in cast. The second season's first episode featured Charles returning to New Brunswick from his summer vacation, only to discover an unfamiliar family living in the Pembrokes' home. He learns that the Pembrokes left New Jersey while he was away and have moved across the country to Seattle. The new family, the Powells, agreed to sublet the house from the Pembrokes, which included retaining Charles' services as live-in babysitter. The Powell clan consisted of mother Ellen and grandfather Walter, who was Ellen's husband's widowed father and who was living with them to fulfill his son's role as he served overseas in the U.S. Navy. Like the Pembrokes, the Powells also had three children, daughters Jamie and Sarah and younger brother Adam. Charles' previously unseen widowed mother Lillian became a central character in the revival series. She was played by Ellen Travolta, which marked the second time that she had played mother to a character portrayed by Baio; she had done the same thing on Joanie Loves Chachi several years earlier (although she first played cousin Jimmy Baio’s mother on a 1978 episode of “The Love Boat.”) Cast Michael Pearlman and Jennifer Runyon are the only other actors, besides Baio and Aames, to reprise their roles on the show after the first season. Pearlman appeared in the second-season premiere, "Amityville". (Lisa Donovan played Jill Pembroke in that episode.) Runyon appeared in "Twice Upon a Time (Part 1)" and "Twice Upon a Time