You guys did an amazing job identifying a MAD magazine parody from a little bit of dialogue, maybe you can help me with this one that’s puzzled me for a while. I remember this sitcom scene which I thought was from Night Court, but since acquiring all of Night Court on DVD, it’s clearly not from there, so where? I remember the words pretty clearly, and Google is not finding me any matches.
The scene has the character receiving a singing telegram, and the singer delivers the line, “You Aunt Ophelia’s dead!”
The character then reacts, in shock, “Dead?”
The singer responds, in the same tune he had been using, “Yes, that is what I said.” Then catches himself and resumes his message, still singing, “Well as you know, she had some dough…”
I remember nothing past this point. Does this ring a bell to anyone else? It must have been a show that was contemporary with Night Court, maybe Family Ties or Perfect Strangers?
There was also a singing telegram episode of Good Times when Florida’s beloved rich gambler cousin (who was never mentioned before or after) dropped in, which made me wonder how much you had to pay a group of singing-dancing-telegram people to go into the projects when every episode had references to how violent it was.
At the start of Welcome Back, Kotter, Gabe Kaplan always told an ancient joke. One of those jokes featured a singing telegram that went “Your sister Rose is dead” (to the tune of Hurray for Hoillywood").
Reminds me of SNL “Honeymooners” parody. A character says, with reference to Fred Mertz (played by William Frawley) That he’s dead. Someone else says “Fred is DEAD?” First character replies, “That’s what I said.”
The whole thing is a reference to a Curtis Mayfield song from the “Superfly” album.
Now I don’t know if the “Aunt Ophelia” reference was specific or just a general statement of the “set-up”. If the former, then I’m way off base. If the later…