I was watching the Cosby Show rerun this week: Theo is talking about leaving home and, to demonstrate how hard it is to make it on the outside world, the family empties his bedroom, impersonates loan officers and building supers and waitresses, etc., and generally teaches him a lesson about life. Heartwarming episode buuuuuuuuuuuut… get real.
An obstetrician and a lawyer who have five children somehow find the time to completely empty to the bare walls their teenage son’s bedroom (which is not a five minute or even five hour job in and of itself, not to mention “where do you put the stuff” and “do you mention the porn or pretend you didn’t notice it” issue), don costumes, convince the entire family to participate in the odd charade and all to teach a son that “Manhattan is expensive”… puh-leez.
Robert Reed absolutely refused to appear in the last episode of The Brady Bunch because he thought the plotline was so ridiculous: Peter was trying to earn money selling “hair tonic” (a product that wasn’t exactly hugely popular with teenage boys in the early 1970s- the script was written by a 60 year old writer) that turns Greg’s hair orange.
What are some of the most ridiculous and “as if” episodes of TV shows you have seen? (I’m not talking about shows such as Bewitched where the whole premise of the show is impossible but shows that are supposed to be relatively true to life.)
I actually felt that way about the entire “Cosby Show,” as it was so disconnected from reality that it may as well be considered science fiction.
But the real episode that jumps up in my mind is the final episode of Roseanne, in which she apparently turns into Jacques Derrida (or is that Foucault, McLuhan, Baudrillard, etc.) and “breaks the reality of the show,” explaining that reality is something that exists in Roseanne’s mind and that she created her world; in “reality”, Dan died, her mom wasn’t a lesbian (but Jackie was), her daughter’s husbands were actually switched, and a million other implausible, ridiculous “gotchas.” It ends with a near Brechtian scene of Roseanne sitting on a chair bathed in white light, while the original “cackle” that opens the show plays.
It’s fucking Roseanne, not “No Exit!” Give me a break! What a way to torpedo an entire series with the final episode.
Not a sitcom, but how about “It was all a dream! A horrible, horrible dream” from Dallas ?
Leave It to Beaver was actually a not-over-the-top show about an average kid trying to grow up. But of course, they had to write an episode where Beaver gets stuck in a giant coffee cup on a billboard.
But let’s say something good about a straight-ahead sitcom that goes into an alternative universe – the final episode of Newhart was brilliant, even before the last scene.
“My grandmother is coming to visit”
“That’s great. You haven’t seen her in years.”
“No it’s terrible. I wanted her to think I was a big success. So I didn’t tell her I was a janitor here at the Acme Company. I told her I was the President.”
“Well you’ll just have to tell her the truth. She’ll understand.”
“I can’t tell her the truth. It would break her heart. She sacrificed so much for me and all she ever wanted was for me to be a success.”
(aaaaahhhhh)
“I guess there’s only one thing to do. We’ll all pretend you’re really the President of Acme.”
“What’ll we do about Mr Johnson?”
“Leave that to me.”
“There’s just one other little thing. I also told my Grandmother I was married … to Tiffani.”
“That’s going to take a little more work.”
(ha ha ha ha ha ha)
However, in the plus column (maybe the only one ever in the history of television) of “It was all a dream” category, you have the final episode of The Newhart Show. Now that was brilliant.
As for my submission for the OP - how about the every single episode of Three’s Company?
For sheer-out ludicrous WTF-style strangeness, I’d nominate the “Friends” episode about “the nap.” Ross & Joey both fall asleep while watching a movie, and end up in a “cuddling” position. Of course, they wake up and act out some “hilarious” homophobic awkwardness. Then, later on, they both secretly admit that they liked it, and “want the nap” again. It was the strangest, most half-a**ed, and just the most ‘not-funny’ idea for an episode of any sitcom I’ve ever seen.
The Jeffersons- George, a character whose near illiteracy is the butt of many jokes throughout the cities, is revealed in one two part episode to be a voracious murder mystery reader (one of those “funny, they never mentioned that before” syndromes of so many sit-coms). Louise treats him to a murder mystery cruise in which the other guests are all of his favorite murder authors (how exactly does a dry cleaner get on a cruise where everybody else is a mystery writer?). There is a real murder and George ends up- of course- being the person who solves the case (thanks to his encyclopedic memory of the thousands of mystery novels he’s read but never once mentioned in any of the hundred episodes before this one).
Who’s the Boss?- final episode- Tony graduates college with a degree (presumably a B.A.) in philosophy. He’s offered a job at a college in the midwest teaching history and coaching baseball (even in rural settings colleges don’t tend to waive the whole "advanced degrees in the field you’ll be teaching requirement for their faculty) and his office is the size of a gym with a beautiful view of the baseball field (most first year professors receive cubby-holes).
Facts of Life- a sixty year old woman loses her successful catering business when the building burns down. She decides to rebuild a novely store instead(?!) and gives shares of it to the four girls who live with her (all of whom will presumably be leaving in a few years, leaving said 60 year old to manage the kitsch store herself and presumably sending them their share of the profits [the store is of course a success, like most TV businesses with the exception of Dan Conner’s bike shop*).
Murphy Brown- Garry Marshall made several hilarious appearances as the head of their network (presumably CBS), a tyrannical and befuddled egomaniac. He is the president of the entire network- he oversees sitcoms, dramas, etc., as well as news. His offices are in the same building as Murphy’s.
Why exactly would a network president be based in Washington DC when the TV shows are filmed in L.A.? (I honestly think that the writers forgot where the show was set a few times.)
Golden Girls- not so much an episode as much of the premise- four women live together presumably to save money. All (with the possible exception of Blanche) are supposed to be middle class professionals. All (with the exception of Sophia) wear designer outfits even when they’re just lounging around the house. There will be a money crisis in one episode and two episodes later the character who was just broke is taking a last-minute trip to New York or buying a car. (And if Sophia were my mother she’d sleep with the fishes.)
Happy Days- a stiff necked teacher allows Potsy to “sing” his essay about the circulation system, setting in play an incredibly annoying TV commercial more than 20 years later. (Never mind that the facts that this is set in Milwaukee where it never snows, there’s a huge Italian population [but seemingly no eastern European or German population] and Hank Aaron comes to do commercials for mom & pop hardware stores at what would have been the height of his success.)
I always bugged me that once on Kate and Alley Kate quit smoking even though she had only smoked that episode which means she was having a terrible time quitting after being a smoker for ten minutes.
Also there was one particular inconsistancy on Three’s Company that always seemed extra stupid to me: It was such a big deal that Janet was flat chested, and the first however many seasons nobody could shut up about Janet and her itty bitty titties. Then Suzanne Sommers leaves, and we realize that Janet’s chest was actually a normal size, and Terry is way flatter. But nobody ever bugs Terry, and they don’t suddenly appreciate Janet. Fuck that! That makes no sense!
I also remember this one Friends when Ross walks in on his sister in the bathroom and freaks out, and then later she comes out and he apologized and they’re embarassed and she says “I was just, uh, *checking * that showerhead” and it’s implied that he caught her masturbating. Just, to me, it’s not reasonable that an adult would catch his adult sister masturbating in the bathtub and they can both go on knowing each other. To me, that right there should be a whole episode, at least! But even then, I’d be saying the only realistic thing would be that it be an ongoing storyline where they have to go to therapy. It seems to me that Monica also caught her parents having sex and that Rachel walked in on Monica with her pants off and her ass in the air waiting for Chandler Bing to mount her. When you consider that I have seen friends probably about 40 times in all the years it’s been on, that’s a lot of weird sexual stuff happening to Monica.
I’m hope I’m remembering this correctly…from The Dick Van Dyke Show: the bizarre dream episode in which walnuts fall out of closets and Dick loses his thumbs. Just…weird. Spooked me a little back in the day too.
Actually, my brother-in-law did this when he was about eleven. The victim was a blind guy (aged about 15) who considered himself quite the junior Casanova among the in crowd at the Foundation for the Junior Blind. Jimmy was puttin’ the moves on Eddie in the back seat of a station wagon all the way from Inglewood to Huntington Beach. When they arrived at the party, Eddy removed his wig and told Jimmy who he’d been trying to cop a feel from for the past thirty miles.
And hilarity ensued.
I guess it would be churlish to begrudge a sitcom the same setup.
That’s part of it. As I remember, Dick had been watching an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-type movie on the Late, Late Show and it gave him a nightmare about aliens gradually assuming the identities of all the people he knew. The way he could tell they were aliens was that they had no thumbs and no sense of humor (which, for a comedy writer like Dick, would be especially terrifying). Also, Danny Thomas was in the dream as the alien leader. As for the walnuts, I think (and I’m not quite sure about this) they were what the aliens hatched out of (like the pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers).
Somebody who’s seen the episode recently or has a better memory than I do, please correct me if I’m wrong.
The “Roseanne” episode where Dan and Roseanne let David move into their house (depending on my mood with this show, I sometimes see this episode as the part where the show jumped the shark). I’m surprised at how little Dan and Roseanne talked about it. All Roseanne had to say was, “I grew up in a house like that” and it was okey-dokey, let’s support another kid! David doesn’t have any other relatives?
I also never got why they were always so hard on Darlene. From what we saw, Becky was far worse (i.e. getting into trouble) than Darlene. Yet they always expected the worse from Darlene. I guess blondes do have more fun.
One oft repeated sitcom episode that irritates me is the “Oops, I have two dates tonight at the same time so I’ll go to both” one. Oh yeah, one is casual and one is formal (or one is normal and one is a costume party.) It’ll be a breeze. I’ll just run back and forth between the two dates and change in the bathroom on the way. They won’t notice as I get increasingly exhausted and little by little screw up the way I’m dressed.
That horrible Robin Williams movie, Mrs. Doubtfire employed this too.
There was a MAS*H where a homosexual soldier came out to Hawkeye, and he was all understanding and talked about diversity, etc. Hawkeye was a doctor in the 1950’s, not the 1970’s .
IIRC the aliens breathed (meaning exhaled) walnuts.
IMHO the “it was all a dream” syndrome is not inconsistent with light never serious sitcoms like the Dick Van Dyke show was. It is more jarring on a sometimes serious sitcom like Roseanne, and damn annoying in a drama like Dallas.
That episode was worth it for the scene where Mary Tyler Moore slides out of the closet in an avalanche of walnuts.
