For King of the Hill the episode where Hank fishes with Crack. It made me like the show.
For books, one of my favourite series is Wheel of Time but not sure which one you would want to start with, they are all complete books by themselves, but the series is at #11 (which I haven’t read yet) and I doubt its ending any time soon. If you don’t feel like reading that many books in the series don’t bother starting the marathon.
The “Three Stories” episode of House, from season one.
This may be too bluntly obvious, given the series I’m discussing, but for The Simpsons I’d recommend "Simpsoncalifragilistickexpiala"D’oh!“cious”, their Mary Poppins parody. Maybe the greatest half hour of television ever devised. (And I know, I probably spelled it wrong. I’m too lazy to look it up this morning. Sorry.)
No one has stood up for it yet, so I’ll give it my vote: for Xena: Warrior Princess I’d recommend “Been There, Done That.” It’s a “Groundhog Day” knockoff, to be sure, but it has so much of what made people love that show, especially when it didn’t take itself too seriously, all packed into one episode: the great character relationships, the goofy humor, the stunts, a ton of heart. Xena has kind of fallen off the radar lately, and that’s a shame because there really was something great there, and too many people missed out.
I agree with those who’ve nominated “Hush” for Buffy. I’d grown to like the show before that ep, but that one blew my mind, and is not really that "backstory dependent’ except for the ending (a few mere seconds of screen time at the very tail end–no big deal for the uninitiated).
For “My Name is Earl”, I’d recommend the episode “Ruined Joy’s Wedding”. All the usual great gags, plus Joy is less annoying than usual, and Darnell actually gets to do something.
This thread would seem to be the place to mention a phenomena I’ve noticed…might as well call it the Stephe96 Rule, which states that whenever you’ve hyped a TV series to a friend and finally get him or her to sit down and watch an episode…said episode is guaranteed to be the worst one ever, one which you’d have never chosen as the one to get someone to watch the series. It never fails.
Carry on.
I fully agree with this rule. I tried to turn someone on to The Venture Brothers, and the episode was “Careers in Science” (the ep. on the space station.) Not a very good one. Similarly, I tried to show another friend “My Name is Earl,” and I forget which ep it was, but the thread we had on it here pretty much had everyone agreeing it was the weakest episode.
Legion of Superheroes:
Pre-Zero Hour: Adventure Comics 352-353 (2 issues, but one story, and almost as easily findable in a single digest as singles). Very good story, first appearance of some of the best Legion villains, and the death of Ferro Lad, which, even without the character’s history, is damned effective. (It wasn’t the first Legion book I read, but it was the first featuring that character.)
Post-ZH: Much tougher question…a single issue…Legion Worlds, #2 (Winath). There’s not a lot of superheroics (although there is some), but LSH is always at its best when it deals with the characters and their relationships, as well as giving a look into the 30th/31st century DCU - and this issues does all of that well. A great look into Winath, and the characters of and relationships between Spark, Live Wire, and Lightning Lord. The art’s not too great, but that’s pretty much a constant for the Legion books.
Waidboot: Issue 3, the Triplicate Girl focused issue. For much the same reason. It gives an interesting look into Trip’s character, a nice look at the new version of Cargg, and it moves the overall plot of the series along nicely.
Oh, and I almost forgot (OK, I DID, until I flipped through the issue again), it also has some great Cham moments, which are always a highlight of this series.
I got the DVD of Sports Night for Christmas; “Intellectual Property” is my favorite episode so far, though I haven’t watched the whole thing yet (and I only caught about half of them when it was on TV).
Isaac: Someone holds the copyright to ‘Happy Birthday?’
Dan: The representatives of Patty and Mildred Hill.
Isaac: It took two people to write that song?
Terry Pratchett: I’d definitely start people on Guards! Guards! as it’s light and fairly short (only about 300 pp). And very entertaining. I got my SO into TP by this method.
Monty Python: The Holy Grail movie.
I can’t think of any other examples, although at this point I’d have to be dragged kicking and screaming to watch *any * episodes of *anything * by Joss Whedon, I am so sick of hearing about him. 
I’d recommend “Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Magic!”.
For MST3K - Whew. You want something not terribly hard to endure, and riffloaded. Deathstalker, Space Mutiny, Final Sacrifice, Cave Dwellers - all good choices.
Mission: Impossible (TV) The Mind of Stefan Miklos
Homicide (TV) Subway
Yeah, hindsight. Cept it worked for me. It was the first episode I saw, and it was so overwhelmingly brilliant that I had to rearrange the next few months of my life to catch up. So, logically the best starting point? No way. Surefire way to hook somebody in so they’re willing to start at the beginning? Definitely.
The pilots actually work well for hooking people on Arrested Development, The Shield, and Veronica Mars.
For Homicide: Three Men and Adena or Crosetti.
For Sports Night: Eli’s Coming, Rebecca, or Shoe Money Tonight
For Family Guy: To Live and Die in Dixie
For The Simpsons: Boy Scoutz N The Hood
I agree that the pilot of The Shield is the way to go.
The X-Files episode Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’ hooked me.
During the first season of X-Files I caught one of the monster episodes and didn’t like it. My husband’s first X-Files experience was *Space *and he was similarly unimpressed. So we ignored the show for quite a while, until one night we were channel surfing and by chance happened on a great episode.
(I also ignored Buffy completely when it was on. I recently fell in love with Firefly and decided to investigate all things Whedon. I’m currently speeding through Buffy at the obsessive rate of 3 or 4 episodes a night, and I’m mid-way through season four now.)
StarGate SG-1 – Citizen Joe. Though it is kind of cheating, since it is a “clip” episode. That one or WormHole X-Treme!! One might have to have seen more SG-1 eps to really appreciate how much they are making fun of themselves in WormHole X-Treme!.
Either of those two episodes gives hints at the writing style and fun these folks seem to have in doing all the eps. A large part of my enjoyment of the series is that the writers have written what I think of as very normal people, in abnormal conditions.
I thought I might comment on a few earlier suggestions:
Man, I hate(d) the TV show. It was the backdrop to most of my childhood (my father was a big fan) but I couldn’t abide it, esp. Alan Alda’s smarmy self-importance. So imagine how surprised I was to find out (after literally being forced to watch it) that the movie is a bloody masterpiece. Of course, that just reinforced my opinion that the series was overrated tripe.
This is actually the very first episode of Buffy I watched all the way through. I’d seen bits and pieces before, but this ep. convinced me that there might be something more to Buffy than a tired re-hash of a dumb teen movie. It’s not a favourite episode, but it does contain tantalizing hints of better things to come.
If I got to choose, I’d show Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered as Ellis Dee recommended. It has the advantage of being early in the series so there’s not that much backstory, it’s a standalone ep. and is hysterically funny, to boot.
Yep, this one hooked me, and good. I really loved it. Unfortunately, I really think it’s his best and no matter how much I might enjoy other discworld novels I still find myself mildly dissapointed that it didn’t reach the heights of Small Gods.
I’m surprised any non-fan would even be able to make sense of such a self-referential ‘meta’ episode. Afterall, much of the humour comes from subverting the established characters and mythos of the show. Instead, I’d show people the episode that pulled me in, Beyond the Sea, or maybe the brilliant Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose
As for other shows, the pilots of The Shield (shocking ending), The Sopranos and Firefly all hooked me. I’m actually surprised that people are suggesting any other ep. for Firefly. The pilot was a perfect intro to the characters, the wild west aesthetic and quirky sense of humour and may Fox execs burn in hell with the fire of a thousand blue suns for fucking showing it last.
The Nanny–The episode with Elton John
Webster–Any episode with Ben Vereen as Uncle Philip
Fresh Prince–The episode where Carlton gets stoned, or the one with Ben Vereen as Lou Smith.
For george R.R. Martins’ Dance of Ice and Fire series, I’d actually recommend a short story called “The Hedge Knight” from Robert Silverberg’s first Legends anthology (incidentally, the followup from the second anthology’s just as good). Even though it’s set a century before the series and has no characters in common, it’s the perfect introduction - if you like it, you’ll like Ice and Fire.