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Betty Johnson
No one lives in a vacuum, even in a sitcom. Every sitcom family has its neighbours, friend or foe, usually comic relief to some degree. Okay, maybe the neighbours of the 80s weren't always that great (hello, Brindles... let's see who actually remembes Small Wonder), but the yings to the yangs of the Warnimont household were by far one of the best examples of a friendly foil next door. There's no question that Cherie and Punky were friendly, but Betty Johnson... well, her friendship with Henry is a little more nuanced.Okay, most of what there is to know about Betty is her relations, but she does have some of her onw evolving history in the series. We never do learn her age, but she's probably around as old as Henry is, seeing as how Cherie is her granddaughter. She had several children, two of which we know about. One of those was Cherie's father, who died in a traffic accident in 1981 (three years before the beginning of the series). The other is Larnese, who would go on to move to France and then visit Betty occasionally, usually sending her into a frenzy of preparation. She also works as a nurse, something that actually comes up quite a bit. The way we see her most in the series, though, is as Henry's friend and foil. Even in earlier episodes, we can see a deep friendship develop, but you'll never see Betty turn down an opportunity to get Henry's goat. Never one to be subtle or timid, Betty is generally the one to take the wind out of Henry's sails when he gets a little too wound up over the wrong things, or when he's getting a little too smug for his own good. And given how well she takes Henry's forceful sarcasm, she's also proven to be quite thick-skinned. In just about every way, she's a very good counterpart to him, and their scenes together tend to be pretty funny. That's not to say that we never see her in a motherly mode, though. She may be quick to get Henry's goat, but two generations of child raising combined with a nurse's experience generally make her more than a match for any scheme the kids come up with. However, if she's good at raising discipline when necessary, she's also quite capable of reciprocating a child's good intentions as well. She'll go as far as wearing clown dresses out to restaurants and eating the most godawful things to reward a child's (usually Punky and Cherie's) initiative. That's Betty Johnson for you; friend, mother, grandmother, professional, and not afraid to have you catch a right hook with your jaw if you need it. 
Susie Garrett (I had to check like five times to spell that correctly...) was the sister of The Jeffersons' Marla Gibbs. Most of Susie's work was off-screen, with Punky Brewster proving to be her longest-running part by a fair margin. She died on May 24, 2002, a victim of cancer.
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