One Day at a Time–Julie joined a church called “Lambs of God” and Barbara made fun of them.
I’m stupid, but HOT! - The ability to obtain willing partners for sex increases geometrically as IQ decreases. See Friends, That 70’s Show, Married with Children (granted no one on that show was a genius), etc.
I was reminded of Hank Kingsley’s sudden, aggressive embrace of his Judaism on The Larry Sanders Show.
For the reasons cited above, Alex is withdrawn from the Special Date roster.
A close corollary to the Best Friend Who Never Existed Before is The Elderly Relative Who Never Existed Before who is introduced only to die and teach a young child about death. Two examples I can think of are Full House and The New Leave it to Beaver.
Take Your Flocks and Your Fan Mail and BE GONE! happens when a star has enough control over the show that s/he can jettison a supporting character who becomes way more popular with the viewers. Two examples are Silver Spoons, in which Jason Bateman was written out because he was drawing the spotlight from Rick Schroder (later Alfonso Ribeiro, a musical theater star a child, was stopped from singing and dancing on the show for the same reason) and Growing Pains, when Leonardo DiCaprio was driven into the desert by a very jealous Kirk Cameron. (DiCaprio still speaks bitterly about that show, though he said he appreciates the money.)
A variant of the above is the Take Your Flocks and Your Fan Mail and… OH OG-DAMMIT!, which occurs when the star DOESN’T have the power to drive off the competing co-star. This could also be called The Cybill Shepherd Syndrome because it happened on both Moonlighting (which was to have been a star vehicle for her and was immediately stolen by Bruce Willis) and on Cybill (where Christine Baranski’s character, Mary Anne, became the comedic star of the series).
But Let’s Get Serious for a Moment, Folks… is when a series has not just a “very special episode” but tries to incorporate a serious issue into the very fiber of the show. Examples include Grace Under Fire, which went from a light enjoyable sitcom about a single mother coming out of a dysfunctional marriage, to a sitcom in which alcoholism was a major plotline, and Good Times, which developed a “social problem of the week” theme during its later seasons.
Another application of the Best Friend Who Never Existed Before is the WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU, MAN? syndrome, in which a previously unheard-of friend from the past suddenly materializes to remind a character of all the youthful dreams he never pursued. These characters abounded on Roseanne (Dan and Roseanne’s motorcycle buddy Ziggy; Dan’s musician friend “Stingray”; and Joan Collins as Roseanne’s successful writer cousin).
Welcome Back, Kotter: Horshack joined a cult (“What is… is. What was… will be. What will be was, but will be again.”) to be near a girl he liked (“She sure can fill out a sheet!”).
Yeah, but Hank was already a jerk, and it was totally in character for him to do what he did. Some of the other characters showed how you could be religious without being a jerk.
The sudden visit from previously unknown friends or relatives is practically a family of syndromes unto itself. Aside from what’s already been mentioned, there’s the ones where a character has been lying to his parents/brother/college buddy about his job/marital status/sexual orientation. Now the lomg distance friend/relative is coming to visit and the regular character must suddenly enlist his friends and coworkers into pretending that he is a doctor/astronaut/millionaire/heterosexual for a couple of days so as not to blow the charade. Sometimes it is required that another character pretend to be his wife or girlfriend. The subterfuge is always exposed but the vistor either already knew or is lying about something himself.
wxamples are too numerous to mention.
And became a major plotline behind the scenes too.
RASHOMON EPISODE. Episodes that mimic the plot device from the movie Rashomon, in which every character telling his version of the story is made the hero, while the others come off as cowards. Ex: Magnum PI, ER, X-Files, Star Trek, etc. (My favorite one of these was from Wings, where when it was time for Antonio’s retelling, they turned it into a send-up of old Italian movies).
The Whirlwind Romance syndrome.
Characters meet, fall in love, decide to marry, have major conflict, and break up for good in the span of a 23-minute sitcom. These 23 minutes IRL seldom represent more than about a week in sitcom time. These episodes almost always involve some moral message, too.
Going steady is usually substituted for marriage when the characters are minors.
Too many examples to list.
Dudley had appeared for several seasons when he got molested.
He first appeared in Season 2 and the very special episode aired in Season 5.
M.A.S.H. Jumped the shark big time because of this.
That reminds me of the Fonzi Syndrome. When a show gives up all pretenses of ensemble work to become the spotlight of one character. Fonzi and Hawkeye Pierce provide the examples.
All in the family had a knife and Apple incident told from at least 3 perspectives.
Archie’s had a very large knife, Mike’s was w/o the knife and Archie being 100% jerk and I think Lionel’s which was in between and obviously close to the real story.
Heh. My personal favorite was on King of the Hill where Boomhaer is speaking clearly and everyone else is mumbling…
-Joe
I was going to suggest Why Bother to Leave Home since any major trip will somehow involve neighbors, business associates, the mailman, and anyone else who ever had a speaking part.
The Magical African-American Friend: Lots of nearly all-while shows have one black person. That black person’s job is to wisely guide, comfort and teach their white friends. See, black people have so much more soul and authenticity than white people that they often have a calling to spread that soul to the white man. Rather than helping out downtrodden black people, your typical wise black person spends his time helping wealthy neurotic white people out of trouble. The real function of the MAAF is to symbolicly absolve his white friends…and by extension the white audience…of their guilt over the sorry 500 year history of race relations in our country.
Examples include Anthony from Designing Women, Hawk from Spencer for Hire, and just about every black maid that ever existed.
The MAAF’s mirror image is that one unfunky, stuffed-shirt white guy who will appear on an all-black show, who exists to show that while white people may have money and power they don’t have SOUL.
Oh, we all love and root for the poor little sister/best friend who needs only to step out of the shadows and stop being so insecure, but they didn’t realize it.
And my argument is that Mallory knew she was dumber than everyone else in the family, and always felt like she was in last place.
Now that is what “fighting ignorance” is all about. Nice post.
The I’m young for my age syndrome. Where a 30ish year old cast plays high school students. Happy Days and Kotter are examples.