# Little Things You Didn't Notice About TV Shows Till You Watched In Reruns **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 7, 2011, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082 "2011-05-07T18:26:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/21 "2011-05-10T21:45:34Z")
I’ve been catching up on some _Larry Sanders Show_ episodes on IFC lately. In one episode from 1993 they had as guest stars John Ritter, Gene Siskel and Warren Zevon. All would be dead in 10 years. Ouch. Of course, this just set me to Full Deathwatch Alert and it’s kind of frightening the percentage of _LSS_ guest stars that have died since then. From on camera guests like Chris Farley to “guests” only mentioned in Hank’s intro like Cark Sagan. I expect to see a high ratio of dead folk in shows from the 60s and such, but this is just from the early 90s. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/22 "2011-05-10T22:55:55Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > I expect to see a high ratio of dead folk in shows from the 60s and such, but this is just from the early 90s. The early 90’s was 20 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/23 "2011-05-10T23:18:31Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > I’ve been catching up on some _Larry Sanders Show_ episodes on IFC lately. In one episode from 1993 they had as guest stars John Ritter, Gene Siskel and Warren Zevon. All would be dead in 10 years. Ouch. My wife and I noticed that too. I was in my 30’s (1980’s) before I realized that Ricky was domineering and emotionally abusive to Lucy. (Ricardo.) . ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/24 "2011-05-10T23:28:30Z")
I was a kid when I first watched The Addams Family on television, and the passion between Morticia and Gomez went right over my head. Then I saw the movies and thought that passion was something added to the storyline. THEN I watched the television series as an adult and thought “OMG, they were really into each other!” ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/25 "2011-05-11T00:07:51Z")
I recently watched the whole first season of Bewitched on Hulu and, except for one episode that was obviously aired out of order, they were consistent on the household furnishings for a young married couple just moving into a new home (like not having any dishes yet) but the thing I really noticed was Samanatha’s necklace and her clothes. She wore the same necklace all the time, and many of her clothes would repeat from episode to episode, just like a real person! ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/26 "2011-05-11T00:10:54Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > I have noticed after watching re-runs of “Seinfeld”, “Will & Grace”, “Friends” and probably other NYC based sitcoms that all their city street scenes are shot on the same set. There’s one street with a bunch of “New York-y” store-fronts, and the set designers just redress them. At one end of the set, the street makes a sharp curve (that’s utterly unlike any street anywhere in Manhattan, where all these shows take place.) > [@GuanoLad](#): > > That’s the Paramount or Universal backlot sets. _How I Met Your Mother_ uses them a lot. Universal’s [New York Street](http://www.thestudiotour.com/ush/backlot/newyorkstreet.shtml). [Paramount’s](http://www.paramountstudios.com/stages-backlots/backlots/ny-streets.html). ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/27 "2011-05-11T00:17:27Z")
I am embarrassed to admit that I have watched probably hundreds and hundreds of hours of Seinfeld but only realized recently that the Cousin Jeffry Uncle Leo always talks about was Leo’s son. I understood one was an Uncle and the other was a Cousin but I always just took it as a crazy relative always talking about someone else in the family that wasn’t Jerry. I am not even sure what made me have the epiphany, just suddenly I realized they are father and son. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/28 "2011-05-11T00:45:02Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > A&E used to show episodes of ‘Nero Wolfe’, and after you watch enough of them, you notice the same group of actors show up in every show, sometimes playing two characters in one show. I found out there was indeed a group of about 20 actors the producers felt “got” the look and feel of the show and were used over and over. Yes, including George Plimpton, which is awesome. (I’m assuming of course you are referring to the real Nero on A&E, not the fake one which ran on ABC a few years before, and which sucked. Archie walking past a marina, in Manhattan? :eek: ) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/29 "2011-05-11T00:48:03Z")
We watched Secret Agent/Danger Man all the way through, and were amused to note that every hotel lobby, no matter which continent Drake was on, was the same redressed set. That’s true of other shows also, where the same locations are used for very different places. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/30 "2011-05-11T00:50:47Z")
There’s an early episode of _The Simpsons_ (might be the one where Homer is accused of sexually harassing the baby sitter) where Homer says that all their problems will be gone once they move into a house under the sea. He even sings a little song about it. Marge says that’s his answer to everything, but it’s not gonna happen. Years later, there’s a episode set in the future. Marge and Homer are divorced, and Homer is living in a house under the sea. ---
**Author:** ![No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_umlaut_for_U)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/31 "2011-05-11T03:59:02Z")
Les (WKRP) Nessman’s wandering Band-aid. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/32 "2011-05-11T04:26:33Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > We watched Secret Agent/Danger Man all the way through, and were amused to note that every hotel lobby, no matter which continent Drake was on, was the same redressed set. That’s true of other shows also, where the same locations are used for very different places. And at least one Danger Man episode takes place in… The Village. Which, far from the quaint prison that it’s later portrayed as in The Prisoner, is a picturesque Italian village full of cliches like peasant kids and foreign artists painting landscapes… ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/33 "2011-05-11T05:07:21Z")
> [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](#): > > Les (WKRP) Nessman’s wandering Band-aid. Speaking of which… as a child, I never noticed that Bailey Quarters was hot. Many years later, though… ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/34 "2011-05-11T12:07:55Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > but the thing I really noticed was Samanatha’s necklace and her clothes. She wore the same necklace all the time, and many of her clothes would repeat from episode to episode, just like a real person! That 70s Show and The Big Bang Theory are two recent shows that also do that. I like it. Especially in comparison to the “poor” family on Malcolm in the Middle. The kids always had new clothes and they were usually pretty high-end mall stuff too. ---
**Author:** ![Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harvey_The_Heavy)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/35 "2011-05-11T12:35:42Z")
In the Spanish Inquisition sketch from Monty Python, when they’re on the bus during the end credits and Ximenez says, “Two, er, three for the Old Bailey”, I always thought it was an actual blooper that they left in. Watching it recently, I realized that Ximenez had trouble counting throughout the whole episode. ---
**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:** [May 11, 2011, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/36 "2011-05-11T14:01:43Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > I’ve been catching up on some _Larry Sanders Show_ episodes on IFC lately. In one episode from 1993 they had as guest stars John Ritter, Gene Siskel and Warren Zevon. All would be dead in 10 years. Ouch. There’s a similar episode of SNL from the 80s that had Sam Kinison, Stevie Ray Vaughan and one of the first appearances of Phil Hartman (not a regular yet, just a featured player) in a skit. None of them made it to 2000. Something I noticed yesterday - on the modern “Doctor Who”, whenever episodes are set on present day Earth, there is typically a cutaway to somebody watching a news report about the latest alien invasion. It’s always the same anchorwoman reporting on the story. And another “Seinfeld” observation - I didn’t notice until I saw reruns just how radically different Elaine looked practically every year. Jerry, Kramer, George & Newman all look basically the same throughout the run of the show, but you can date the show from which hairstyle Julia Louis-Dreyfus had on then. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/37 "2011-05-11T14:07:19Z")
I watched Big Bang from the beginning, but I never noticed the theme of Sheldon’s tshirts until they were mentioned in a thread. They even have their own [website](http://www.sheldonshirts.com/sheldon.html), a lovely tribute to a show about computer geeks. ---
**Author:** ![stanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@stanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stanger)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/38 "2011-05-11T14:33:36Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > I watched Big Bang from the beginning, but I never noticed the theme of Sheldon’s tshirts until they were mentioned in a thread. They even have their own [website](http://www.sheldonshirts.com/sheldon.html), a lovely tribute to a show about computer geeks. After seeing it mentioned here on The Dope, I started paying more attention to Sheldon’s T-shirts, and notice he wears The Flash one quite a bit. I noticed in one of the latest episodes that the shirt is getting old and the outer edges of the design is starting to peel off. I wonder if it will be replaced or will continue to deteriorate. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/39 "2011-05-11T14:51:32Z")
Another \*Seinfeld \*rerun revelation: I was watching one of the episodes with Susan’s family, including her angry little brother. Although I’d seen this episode many times before, I suddenly shouted, “That’s Detective Lassiter from _Psych_!” ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082/40 "2011-05-11T15:22:03Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > I watched Big Bang from the beginning, but I never noticed the theme of Sheldon’s tshirts until they were mentioned in a thread. They even have their own [website](http://www.sheldonshirts.com/sheldon.html), a lovely tribute to a show about computer geeks. Sheldon’s shirts have a theme? I’m not sure “uber-geek” is a theme. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-you-didnt-notice-about-tv-shows-till-you-watched-in-reruns/581082.md?page=3)