Creepy, offensive, or just plain unsettling subtexts in lighthearted sitcoms.

It wasn’t just the marriage…his witchiphobia spilled over to the kids, too. IIRC, Tabitha had abilities but it wasn’t until Samantha’s father came over and encourage the son (Aaron?) that it was discovered he had magical abilities too. Samantha gave Darren a lecture likening to finding out if a child had a musical ability, and why would you want to crush that.

Yeah, why Darren? It’s like he was ashamed of his wife, the way he kept trying to hide her abilities.

Only if you have consent from both of them. Otherwise it’s assault.
:wink:

It was Adam, not Aaron. (slightly embarassed that I know this).

Dunno if they said as much on the show, but is it possible that he wanted to keep her witchiness hidden because he thought the Government™ might take her away and do testing and experiments to figure out what gives her her witchyness?

Fraiser was a great show, until the last season. Then Niles (who had married an on-air person to replace the unseen Maris) left his new bride for Daphne (who cancelled her scheduled marriage to some British fellow) and ran off together.

So two broken lives, but Niles and Daphne live happy ever after. That is all that matters.

Well, look at it the other way: They stay with their spouses and continue to pine for each other, and we instead have two poisoned marriages.

Did anyone mention the constant insults and jokes at Maris’s expense Niles and Fraser tossed back and forth on the show? We never even see the woman, so it’s entirely possible that they could be exaggerating or just making it up out of mean spiritedness, but we’d never be able to know.

Nope, i cannot get passed the idea that they lied and hurt people so they could get a little nookie, then ran off together. It is really upsetting (to me at least).

Did anybody complaining about “The Honeymooners” ever actually WATCH it?

For crying out loud, Alice is the absolute ruler of the Kramden household! She gets all the good insult lines! Once she puts her foot down, Ralph can’t do anything but stammer incoherently.

Ralph’s threats are empty and feeble. As often as not, he says “Bang zoom” or “To the moon” after Alice has left the room, long after he’s lost the argument (which he ALWAYS did).

So… you’re saying it is about Jews?

Also, astorian, get out of here with your pesky facts! What do you think this is, General Questions?

No one has corrected this? Lenny and Squiggy.

As a previous poster mentioned, they were costumes, but the head portions were completely animatronic, and still look amazing imo.

In one episode of That Girl she gets her fingers tuck in a bowling ball. Hilarity ensues as she takes muscle relaxants to remove said bowling ball. (It remains stuck but somehow she ends up at a formal dinner while whacked out.)

Even as a kid I thought that one was creepy.

The entire premise of the short-lived “Occasional Wife.” The downstairs (male) neighbor needs the upstairs (female) neighbor to pretend to be his wife from time to time to deceive people. If remade today, we could call it “Occasional Beard.”

I do remember one episode, where Ralph delivered a “Right in the kisser” line to Alice’s face. The look she gave Ralph showed what an empty threat that was.

If anyone in the Kramden household was in danger of life and limb, it was Ralph. Alice could have taken him without breaking a sweat.

The way I remember it. The characters usually weren’t making jokes. Especially Niles. Usually what they said was supposed to be literally true in the Frasier world. That’s why we could never see Maris because no actress could play that part without a heft dose of CGI.

Hey, c’mon! That’s one of the hoariest devices in romance stories! I don’t recall anyone who saw The Graduate crying for Elaine’s jilted-at-the-altar groom! (Nor for Mrs. Robinson, either.)

Hey! I did. Well ok not literally. But I felt more for her than Ben. Most interestesting character in the movie. And her groom had been established as a jerk.

And as far as Fraiser (er, I don’t think the groom was British) yeah they screwed over there intendeds, in a pretty horrible way but this was aknowleged. And I wouldn’t want to be married to someone who wanted to be married to someone else. Now that would be creepy. Better to pull the band-aid off all at once.

Since some mention was made of the Smurfs and other cartoons, I must direct your attention to comments recently made by Geena Davis

Darrin: Larry, why would there be restraints on an autopsy table?

As a white, balding oppressor, I am hereby issuing a recall on all raven-haired beauties. Email me for the address. They must be in original condition.

Daphne was british, Donny “The Shark” was a Jewish Lawyer (Saul Reubenstein). Niles’s wife at the time was Mel, a plastic surgeon played by the kinda scary Jane Adams.

Yes, I knew those from memory. How cool am I?

-Joe