De kotmadam

- Season 1

(1992)

City greens laborer Jef Liefooghe and his bossy wife, Jeanne Piens, are moving into a large home in Leuven (Louvain in English), a Flemish city dominated by its medieval Catholic university. They are helped by his best friend Odilon Bonheur, a jailer in the city's national prison, Leuven Centraal, who is stupid but very helpful and handy. Jeanne is a former cash register clerk who is starting a sweets shop. To make the move worthwhile, they need to rent rooms to students, but Jeanne is determine to take only boys, no mixing of the genders; Jef claims that means ...

Jef just said to Odilon all he needed after 'their' work on the rooms to get back in Jeanne's good books is another male boarding student, and there comes Billy, a dentistry student from a wealthy family, who loves the sweets shop and has a room too far from his faculty; seeing how easily Odilon is (ab)used makes him decide to move in. Jeanne is even more delighted to find economics student Charles-Victor is back, having found nothing better near his campus, but before she can tell him, Jef rents the same room to Peter, lawyer Deprez's son. Jef is furious, but Jeanne ...

Jeanne was looking forward to meeting the rich-born med student Jef signed up, but when Billy makes his entry she panics, he's not posh but a party-loving slob. Despite Jeanne and Odilon's best efforts, mother Maertens isn't quite impressed with the cleaning of Koen's room, and Charles-Victor Blomme, who got no help from Jef carrying his luggage, is furious to be send to the attic, which still looks like a construction site without a contractor. Sam is early and impresses Jef pleasantly with her back massage technique, Betty even comes with her first lover, who is as ...

The students appreciate Jeanne's welcoming reception with wine, except C-V who has better taste and Koenje who dozes off after two glasses and must be put in bed, and first undressed, a job craved by every female in the house. They all are moody in the morning and frankly fight who gets to use the bathroom, in the girls' case far too long, which leads to door-slamming and even Koen gets a black eye when he sees Betty showering in the bare. Despite Jef and -in reality- Odilon working hard on the luxury attic apartment destined for Charles-Victor, he still sees just a ...

Jef invites Jeanne's ex-cashier colleagues to her anger, as they are preying and jealous. This turns to panic when a mouse is found in the kitchen, hiding the corps for the students fails and they even spot others; Koen is near tears at so much cruelty to animals, but a premium per dead rodent makes the others eager to place mouse-traps and poison. When Billy buys a trap which catches them alive, Koen eagerly grabs his chance and hides the rescued rodent to pet it in his room, while the others hunt determinedly, in C-V's case because of a phobia the senior can't admit...

Betty changes boyfriends like most people change shirts. Presently she's with the poetry-writing student Herman, hunky and too slick for Jeanne's taste, but suddenly Giovanni, an Italian holiday-lover, turns up and drags Betty into her room while Herman is in Koen's, waiting for her to get ready for dancing. Betty pretends she must visit a relative (a different one and a different medical problem in every version told) in hospital and dumps Giovanni on Charles-Victor by pretending it's an ambassador's son, but a naked Italian in Betty's bed just doesn't fit his ...

Sam complains a professor even demands his students practice massage an hour a day; Billy, who wants her to take a hostess job at a medical convention, tries to get her out of it by a fake doctor's note, but after Jeanne confiscates that and tears it up gets an even more devious idea: a fake, removable plaster, for an imaginary injury which Odilon baptizes 'strain-fracture' as it supposedly may come off after the three days the convention lasts. Jef has fungus-affected plants he must isolate from the healthy ones in the veranda, but when he puts them in the kitchen, ...

Freshman Koen has crammed too hard, he's trough in tears. Billy thought to take him out drinking, but when he discovers last drunk night made him the owner of a mangy mini-car in tatters, Koen begs 'permission' to try and repair it, he has one at home too. Meanwhile an even less assertive girl-student in Koen's economics class drops a love letter returning his borrowed notes; Jeanne thinks when he talks about the car it's the girl, as both are in Heverlee, a small town near Leuven. Jeff's roses have lice. Betty wants to choose her lovers and tests a home-made love ...

Odilon is excited about a letter announcing his former flame Astrid is finally coming all the way from Congo (Africa). Charles-Victor is entering a photographic portrait-contest, the winner of which will be published in Vogue- Betty accepts to model at his terms, Billy is convinced it's all just a pick-up ploy. Odilon asks C-V to photograph him, to send his picture to Astrid before she flies to Belgium; C-V makes the grave error to recruit clumsy Odilon as assistant in charge of the steam machine, so everything goes wrong. Once he has his photo, it gets lost...

Jeanne is terrible at keeping her shop's accounts, and the tax official Mr. (no other form of address allowed) De Stipperaere is as good at spotting every error as he's bad at tolerating any, nor even formal amateurism- she gets one week to present to him fully updated accounts. That calls for a computer; Charles-Victor has the only PC, but says Koen must do the coaching, who alas barely manages to teach Jeanne the easiest computer game. Then Betty's lover of the day offers to help out so he can get in freely. Jeanne was finally making serious progress, but one wrong ...

When spoiled Betty rants against an article in the paper that students nowadays are self-centered without a social conscience, Billy sees his chance to enlist the bunch for a demonstration against pollution in the Dijle, the city's river. Only Charles-Victor declines, explaining the downsides of demonstrations for authorities and participants. Jef and Odilon (who doesn't get is, as usual) only pretend to participate, but eagerly accept to take effective charge of distributing posters over each café, after all not having a drink in each would be rude. The preparations ...

Jef and Jeanne have a wedding to attend next Saturday, so Odilon must fit her potential new dresses. Billy is used to waking up with a hangover, but this time it's a live sheep. Jeanne, who always opposed pets, starts mothering it despite everyone else's practical objections and alternatives, but it keeps breaking loose and causing expensive damage, and a notice 'free sheep' in the shop's window finds no takers, at least none to Jeanne's taste- till it eats Jeanne's new party dress. When old organ grinder Piere's tame monkey runs away, he is persuaded to try it with a...

Comparison is the name of the game. When spoiled Betty flaunts another load of ridiculously expensive new cloths, even poor jill Sam and parents-generation Jeanne can't resist trying them on for size and dreaming; Odilon soon makes clear Jeanne thus looks Rubensian, so now she feels too fat and starts dieting. Charles-Victor has an ordinary portion of French fries (in Belgium considered a national dish, the 'French' is nonsense) but Jeff 'patriotically' insists to test them, and bickers with equal 'expert' Billy why they aren't perfect; by the time Koen and Odilon ...

It's a hot week, partial exam time; mother-hen Jeanne burns candles for freshman Koen and feeds him cod-liver-oil and some local potion. Odilon is also preparing for a promotion exam in the federal prison service; as he has neither brains nor memory capacity, none of the students sees any point in teaching him a study technique, but even after an initial failure, Jef is convinced to give it another go when Jeanne tells him he makes a highly attractive school-teacher. Billy and the others blow off steam playing with water-guns.