Inspired by the recent Beverly Hillbillies thread.
How many TV shows, not involving characters in uniform, are there where the main character(s) wear the exact same thing in every episode?
The ones I can think of right away are:
Gilligan’s Island
The Beverly Hillbillies
Kolchak: The Night Stalker
Gilligan’s people wore the same thing for obvious reasons, but they did have episodes where they found costumes, as well as fantasy episodes. Otherwise, they wore the same thing.
Carl Kolchak wore the same powder blue suit and straw boater hat in every episode because…I don’t know why. Were they trying to make him a “super hero”, with a modern “costume”? Maybe the suit protected him!
And TBH wore the same thing because they were stereotypes. There was no reason they couldn’t have gotten new clothes in the 9 years the show was on. The humor would still be the same. (One could argue it would be better - with Jed’s homespun “hillbilly-ness” coming from a more normally dressed guy).
ISTR that, in the first season of Gilligan’s Island, this was pretty much true for all of the characters; there was even a point at which someone made Ginger a second dress, using the Minnow’s tarpaulin, so she had a second outfit. But, as time went on (and this being a comedy in which strict canon wasn’t exactly followed), the Howells, Ginger, and (IIRC) Mary Ann all got additional outfits, while Gilligan, the Skipper, and the Professor remained with their singular outfits.
Both Deadwood and Hell On Wheels did this, for most characters, reflecting the fact that out on the wild frontier, new/different clothes were often a luxury few could afford.
Early in the series, ABC put him in a windbreaker, rather than the leather jacket, because they didn’t want him to look like a hoodlum. Garry Marshall fought to keep the leather jacket, and, for a while, he was only “allowed” to wear the leather jacket when near his motorcycle.
Also, he’d wear coveralls while working at the garage.
The Adventures of Superman. The actors all wore the same clothes so that all scenes from multiple episodes could be filmed on one set (Perry White’s office, for example) before moving to another set. That way all the scenes looked consistent and could be spiced into the particular episodes they were intended to appear in.
I can remember Ralph Kramden changing out of his uniform once in awhile on The Honeymooners, but I can’t remember Norton, Alice, or Trixie ever wearing anything different.
In The West Wing, much was made of the fact that Vice President Bob Russell always wore cowboy boots.
Each of the Doctors in Doctor Who had their own personalized outfit, which they wore in every episode (Tom Baker changed his slightly partly through his run). Some of the companions did, too: Adric, Jamie McCrimmon (his kilt, at least), Nyssa, and Ace, for a start.
And as recently as last season , host Alyson Hannigan wore the same dress in every episode of Penn and Teller’s “Fool Us”. This was done to accommodate splicing of acts from different tapings in order to create complete episodes.
