# Any good Clip Show episodes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 24, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462 "2015-04-24T18:42:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/1 "2015-04-24T18:42:38Z")
Once a staple of broadcast television, the ‘clip show,’ wherein the majority of the episode is made of pieces of other episodes, and the new scenes are usually the cast on one set with some reason to recall past episodes, thankfully (at least in the shows I know) has been relegated to the dust bin. Was there ever a good clip show ep? I know this is a tall order, gang, but we’ve been through tough scrapes before. We’ll just have to stick together. I remember the thread before where we discussed bad clip shows like it was yesterday… ---
**Author:** ![Trion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Trion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trion)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/2 "2015-04-24T19:13:07Z")
Well, “Community” had _Paradigms of Human Memory_. This was a clip show where all the clips came from episodes that never existed. Does that count? ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/3 "2015-04-24T19:14:12Z")
The Simpsons were always pretty tongue-in-cheek with theirs. Their setups were always pretty good, and usually involved some sort of “oh god it’s a clip show” kind of feel to them ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/4 "2015-04-24T19:17:01Z")
> [@Trion](#): > > Well, “Community” had _Paradigms of Human Memory_. This was a clip show where all the clips came from episodes that never existed. Does that count? I’d like to see that. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/5 "2015-04-24T19:21:35Z")
_Community_ was the first show I thought of as well. That was a great episode. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/6 "2015-04-24T19:24:23Z")
The short-lived Clerks animated series had a clip show for its second episode, consisting mostly of stuff that never happened, like the time Dante and Randall accidentally got married, or [the time they worked at a convenience store in England and had an English/English communications problem.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjaDG2G-_go) ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/7 "2015-04-24T19:28:38Z")
Clerks: The Animated Series had the clip show as the second episode (after the pilot), and in addition to showing clips from itself and the only other episode, showed flashbacks to events prior to the show’s start. e: ninja’d ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/8 "2015-04-24T19:32:21Z")
The memorial for Jack Soo on “Barney Miller”. The second interview episode on “M_A_S\*H”. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/9 "2015-04-24T19:43:45Z")
The episode of “Revenge” that aired two weeks ago was essentially a clip show, and I thought it worked very well. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/10 "2015-04-24T19:52:57Z")
The last episode of Seinfeld wasn’t bad. All the side characters from the show came on to testify against George, Elaine, Kramer and Jerry in court, initiating a flashback clip each time. It wasn’t as funny as the original episodes, but it was a pretty good sendoff. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/11 "2015-04-24T19:54:17Z")
> [@Trion](#): > > Well, “Community” had _Paradigms of Human Memory_. This was a clip show where all the clips came from episodes that never existed. Does that count? South Park did something similar; it took scenes from previous episodes and made slight changes to them. For example, they took the scene from the episode where they revealed who Cartman’s father was (the first time) and changed it so that it was John Elway. > [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > The Simpsons were always pretty tongue-in-cheek with theirs. Ever hear the story about how the second clip show came about? In April of 1994, Fox surprisingly outbid CBS for the NFC portion of the rights to air Sunday afternoon NFL games. 1994 was also when The Simpsons moved back to Sunday nights after four seasons on Thursday nights (its 13-episode first season was also on Sundays). Fox decided that it wanted new Simpsons episodes to air in each of the first four weeks of the NFL season; however, there were only two new episodes ready. The staff made a few changes to an earlier episode (where Lisa was an expert at picking football winners), but still needed one more episode with only five months (instead of the usual 8-9) to make it, so they took large parts of three previous episodes and cobbled together a clip show. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/12 "2015-04-24T20:15:51Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > The last episode of Seinfeld wasn’t bad. All the side characters from the show came on to testify against George, Elaine, Kramer and Jerry in court, initiating a flashback clip each time. It wasn’t as funny as the original episodes, but it was a pretty good sendoff. Oh, yeah, I hadn’t thought about that one. Not bad. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/13 "2015-04-24T20:32:56Z")
I wouldn’t call this good, but it is a ‘must see’ episode in the same way a train wreck is a must see event. It’s the Deep Space 9 episode wherein the crew goes back in time to help captain Kirk with some odd ball mission that involved Tribbles. I’m a BIG DS9 fan, but that episode left me thinking: “WTF did I just watch?” ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/14 "2015-04-24T20:38:49Z")
“Trials and Tribble-ations.” Without a doubt one of the best Star Trek episodes ever, from _any_ series. Not really a clip show, but wonderful anyway. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/15 "2015-04-24T21:48:18Z")
In the first season of _ **Gilligan’s Island** _, they had a Christmas episode in which they used not only clips from the first thirteen weeks but from the unaired pilot as well. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/16 "2015-04-24T22:02:10Z")
I think _ **Dick van Dyke** _, _ **Cheers!** _, and _ **Frasier** _ all had good clip episodes, especially toward or at the ends of their runs. _ **That Girl** _ did too, but I don’t recall it was anything special. The all-time worst clip episode was “Shades of Grey” at the end of _ **ST: TNG** _’s second season. My own name for that one is “Good-Bye, Dr. Pulaski!” ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/17 "2015-04-24T22:14:50Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > I wouldn’t call this good, but it is a ‘must see’ episode in the same way a train wreck is a must see event. > > It’s the Deep Space 9 episode wherein the crew goes back in time to help captain Kirk with some odd ball mission that involved Tribbles. > I’m a BIG DS9 fan, but that episode left me thinking: “WTF did I just watch?” I’m with **silenus**. I don’t think of it as a clip show, and I think it was excellent. ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/18 "2015-04-24T22:23:09Z")
> [@Trion](#): > > Well, “Community” had _Paradigms of Human Memory_. This was a clip show where all the clips came from episodes that never existed. Does that count? Community even took it one step further, as some of the clips in effect added new scenes to previously aired episodes. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/19 "2015-04-24T22:27:23Z")
Not only was “The Menagerie” (_ **ST: TOS** _) a two-part clip show, it won a freakin’ Hugo Award! ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462/20 "2015-04-24T22:49:18Z")
The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular may take the cake for more traditional clip shows that actually have clips. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-clip-show-episodes/718462.md?page=2)