I like how South Park eventually realized that killing Kenny in every episode was no longer as interesting as it once was; first they toned down the characters’ reactions (to the point where they sometimes didn’t even notice), and eventually just stopped bringing him back to life for at least a year.
Did you catch the last show of this season? At the very end, Kenny just reappears and the other boys act as if nothing ever happened.
That was funny. And Carol was the only efficient secretary Murphy ever had. She was always one step ahead of Murphy, knew just what she wanted, got everything organized…and then Dr. Hartley showed up at the end and convinced her to come back and work for him.
One of my favorite gimmicks is the “future” bit – usually the last episode of the series – where we get a glimpse of the future life of the characters. Some good ones…
ST:TNG “All Good Things…” where we see not only the future but the past (revisited) of the Enterprise crew. Picard and Crusher have gotten married, then divorced. Data is the head of mathematics at Cambridge. Geordi is a writer. Troi is dead. Riker and Worf are pissed at each other and haven’t spoken in years… They’ve all drifted apart, which makes the last scene – back in the present, where Picard finally joins them at their weekly poker game – all the sweeter.
Babylon 5: They actually did two of these. the last episode shown on Channel 13 in L.A. was “Deconstruction of Falling Stars” where we see 100, 500 and 1,000 years in the future (actually, these are records being reviewed by a being one million years hence). We see the future of the Alliance that Sheridan & Co. built. It isn’t all good, but there is at least hope. Everytime I see it, it brings tears to my eyes. The other one is the last episode “Sleeping In Light.” Sheridan, near the end of his life, invites all his remaining living friends to his home on Minbar to reminisce - and to prepare for his coming death. At the end, he goes off by himself, briefly visits the deserted Babylon 5 station, and finally goes off into space where he re-meets the First One, Lorien, who takes him beyond the Rim.
I like the little bits at the end of Fraiser, during the credits.
There’s never any dialogue, just some simple, silly action, relating to the events of the show that was just on.
The final show of Newhart, where’s it’s all a dream and he’s back in the psychiatrist setting, was the funniest finale I’ve ever seen. Especially with Larry, Daryl and Daryl in the elevator…
MST3k always did a stinger at the end of the show after the credits, a very short clip of the most ridiculous part of the movie they just watched.
Homicide: Life on the Street–I don’t know if this qualifies as a gimmick, but I was always enjoyed their musical montages, which they did quite a lot. They’d play a song full volume over the action, muting everything else. They had a great mix of songs throughout the run of the show, from Live to Collective Soul to Soul Coughing to The Kinks.
The A-Team had several of these, whether you want to call them cliches or running jokes or what. Mr. T and his fear of planes, and the subsequent drugging of his milk or whatever to get him on the plane, cars flipping over, and massive gunfights where no one ever actually gets killed.
Oh and Mr. Blue Sky–that song came on my WinAmp when I was reading this thread.
I remember a Valentine’s Day episode of Frasier where Frasier’s entire week is drastically changed by the coat he chooses in the beginning scene. The episode cuts between both possible outcomes, but both end the same way.
I remember another where Frasier and Niles discuss Niles’ obsession with Daphne, and they have various flashbacks. The interesting thing is that they were actually placed in the flashbacks, so while they were talking with each other, the past was playing all around them, the strangeness of which is never acknowledged.
I just saw an episode of Friends where Rachel turns 30. The entire episode is padded by five subplots of the others’ 30th birthdays (actually, Joey’s and Chandler’s only get a scene or two, but it was still interesting).
Hush, on Buffy, was great: no talking really made the characters and the ep shine. Likewise, The Body was emotionally flooring without a musical score. And, of course, the musical episode. All of these really cemented Buffy’s place as being more than your ordinary teen-action show.
The best gimmick, though, was Law and Order breaking it’s “a case per show” format to simply follow it’s major players as they reacted to an execution that they had all contributed to. The final line was the most powerful statement about the death penalty ever made, without being biased for or against it.