# Biggest TV husband-wife discrepancies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 12, 2005, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-tv-husband-wife-discrepancies/316700 "2005-08-12T06:54:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-tv-husband-wife-discrepancies/316700/41 "2005-08-12T18:13:04Z")
> [@An Arky](#): > > …just like you never see 50-something females boinking 20-something men, etc. in the movies, but you sure see a lot of the reverse. Besides the aforementioned _The Graduate_, there’s _The Last Picture Show_ (Timothy Bottoms and Cloris Leachman), _Cocktail_ (Tom Cruise + Sugar Momma), _Unfaithful_ (Diane Lane and Olivier Martinez), and presumably _American Pie_ (Eddie Kaye Thomas and Jennifer “MILF” Coolidge). Not that older-woman-younger-man situations are particularly common, but they aren’t unknown. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-tv-husband-wife-discrepancies/316700/42 "2005-08-12T18:34:41Z")
IMO, the most discordant marital relationship ever displayed on a sitcom had to be Niles & Daphne on **Frasier**. Sure, Daphne was supposed to be a bit dim, but couldn’t the rest of the characters on that show see that Niles was _gay?_ And not just gay, but ragingly, fabulously, queenily, femmy gay? This was even more obvious considering that the show even had running jokes about Gil, the food critic at the radio station, being the only person who didn’t realize he was gay. I kept expecting just once for someone to say “Who does that Gil guy think he’s kidding? Why he’s almost as flamboyant as your brother Frasier. Say, wouldn’t they make a cute couple?” ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-tv-husband-wife-discrepancies/316700/43 "2005-08-12T18:44:45Z")
> [@Push You Down](#): > > So Courtney Thorne Smith and Jim Belushi? Not so far off from reality. So… I have a chance with her, then? ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-tv-husband-wife-discrepancies/316700/44 "2005-08-12T18:48:09Z")
There was an episode of Frasier where a gay man mistakes Frasier and Niles for gay. I’ve always thought they played up the gay stereotype on purpose–then deliberately made both chartacters straight as a kind of satire on sterotypes. ---
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-tv-husband-wife-discrepancies/316700/45 "2005-08-12T19:01:01Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > Can anybody say “The Brady Bunch”? Oh, I don’t know. Carol and Mike Brady were both physically compatible airheads. It’s only of late that the standard sitcom combo is a hot wife with a dud husband. Besides Raymond and King of Queens, you have Bill and Judy Miller in “Still Standing” and Greg and Kim Warner in “Yes Dear”. That seems to be the “formula” in sitcoms right now. When something works, everyone copies it. ---
**Author:** ![marque\_elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71c47a/32.png) [@marque\_elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marque_elf)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-tv-husband-wife-discrepancies/316700/46 "2005-08-12T19:14:59Z")
I never could see what Wilma saw in Fred Flintstone. She was good looking, smart, relatively intelligent, polite. Fred was none of those things. In addition, he couldn’t have been that great a provider. She only had that one dress in all the years of the show. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Mad\_Hermit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5ac83/32.png) [@The\_Mad\_Hermit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Mad_Hermit)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-tv-husband-wife-discrepancies/316700/47 "2005-08-12T19:21:18Z")
Not a sitcom, but meant to be funny- Tom and his wife from **Tom Goes to the Mayor** might fit, but Tom as a hunk? Only when the actor is in drag as the “Married News Team.” ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-tv-husband-wife-discrepancies/316700/48 "2005-08-12T19:25:41Z")
Larry from _Perfect Strangers_ and his beautiful blonde stewardess girlfriend, Jennifer. He didn’t even have a personality to reccomend him-he was a cheap-ass, narrow-minded, bad-tempered little prick. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-tv-husband-wife-discrepancies/316700/49 "2005-08-12T19:36:34Z")
Now that we’re off marriages, howbout one _almost/_-marriage: Carol Vecsey and Dennis Martino from _Ed_. An utterly lovely, somewhat fickle and superficial at times, but basically sweet girl-next-door type dumps her lovable long-time sweetie for a hard-eyed, cynical, alcoholic career bureaucrat fifteen years her senior with the personality of a spitting cobra. Thank Og she left him waiting at the altar. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-tv-husband-wife-discrepancies/316700/50 "2005-08-12T19:44:16Z")
> [@Art Vandelay](#): > > This was even more obvious considering that the show even had running jokes about Gil, the food critic at the radio station, being the only person who didn’t realize he was gay. I kept expecting just once for someone to say “Who does that Gil guy think he’s kidding? Why he’s almost as flamboyant as your brother Frasier. Say, wouldn’t they make a cute couple?” But Gil _wasn’t_ gay; he was married to the never-seen “Deb” (who I believe worked as a mechanic). Actor Edward Hibbert, though, apparently _is_ gay, as is actor Dan Butler, who played the ultramacho Bob “Bulldog” Briscoe. My sense of irony would have been tickled if Hibbert turned out to be entirely straight, in stark contrast to the stereotypical characters he and Butler played. Oh, well… _Harold and Maude_ likely represents the largest age gap between a romantic film couple (not counting stories involving immortal or near-immortal characters), played by But Cort (then 23) and Ruth Gordon (then 75). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-tv-husband-wife-discrepancies/316700.md?page=2)