The 1950s sitcom I Married Joan had a plot where Joan couldn’t resist opening her husband’s mail. Eventually she opened a package addressed to him, which contained a self-inflating life raft.
Which led to the 1960s sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show where Laura couldn’t resist opening her husbands mail – leading to a package which contained a self-inflating life raft.
By the time WKRP in Cincinnatti came along in the 1970s, the writers had dispensed with the setup, leaving Mr. Carlson alone to open his own self-inflating life raft.
Life is stranger than fiction! This actually happened here in my county a couple of years ago; I took the 911 call after the crooks left the bank manager’s house.
And we caught the baddies by the end of the day.
Back on topic, didn’t “The Munsters” frequently re-use “Leave it to Beaver” scripts?
Again not a sitcom duo, but I mentioned on another thread about the rehash of Bonanza plots on Little House on the Prairie- same side characters and everything. One was about some orphans being split up, another was about a dying prize fighter, another about yet another ill prize fighter- even the episode in which Laura is helped by an angelic Ernest Borgnine was derived partially from a Bonanza episode.
Saved by the Bell LOVED having its male stars dress in drag and suddenly NO ONE, noit even their best friends who see them day in day out for years, can recognize them. I can think of at least one episode where Zach did it, and at least one where Screch did it, though I’m certain there must be at least another where Screech did, and maybe other episodes where someone else did, too.
Oh, and the teenage whiz kid who can build amazing technological wonders that our best scientists and engineers can’t. Screech, from the aforementioned Saved by the Bell had a robot with AI that governemnts would kill for, that nerdy kid from Ste by Step built several things, most notable a perfect lie detector, and Urkel from Family Matters had some kind of machine or potion that eliminated his nerdiness and turned him into ‘Stephan.’
That may be why they did the episode, but the message within the episode itself was as I said.
Designing Women did a “Julia gets audited” episode in the 80s but put a twist on it by having the auditor be a man Julia had publicly humiliated in an earlier episode, and later bringing back the same auditor when Suzanne had tax problems of her own.
