I’m working on a bit about “Silver Spoons” but I’m pretty much going by memory since it’s not available on VHS or DVD and I don’t know of any stations playing reruns.
So, just list any memories you have of the show, anything at all. There’s no telling what I might find useful.
Gimme plots of favorite episodes (like when Ricky and Derek opened up their own ice cream parlor, Derek wanted to combine their names and call it “Der-Rick’s”!).
Gimme favorite characters.
How did the theme song go?
Also, help me with few details that I don’t remember so well, like:
I know Ricky’s dad was born wealthy but wasn’t there a family business or something that he had to give his attention to?
And what was the deal with Ricky’s mom? Dead? Divorced? I seem to remember the early episodes had a lot to do with Ricky and his Dad trying to get to know each other, like maybe Ricky’s dad never knew he had a son???
Kate Summers was employed by Ricky’s dad, but what was her actual position/job?
Did she ever end up marrying Ricky’s dad?
Wasn’t Derek always hitting on Kate? I vaguely remember that but I don’t know if it was a running gag, or just a specific “crush” episode.
I’m especially interested in cool rich kid stuff that Ricky had. Like didn’t they have a train that connected each room in the house??? Or am I thinking of some other show?
I’m also interested in any Erin Gray memories because, well, hell! she’s Erin Gray- like we need a reason to discuss Erin Gray???
One thing I remember is John Houseman as the granddad. Once, he was calling the Auto Club, and was required to give his membership # over the phone. His delivery of the # was something like this (imagine JH’s voice):
I remember the theme song, but it’s online here along with an episode guide.
I’ve read that Rick Schroder’s parents were responsible for Jason Bateman being kicked off the show (they wrote an episode around him leaving with his mother due to a messy break up) because he was getting more fan mail. Later Alfonso Ribeiro (later of Fresh Prince fame) had a similar problem so they stopped having him sing and dance [though he later became famous for “the Carlton Dance”]). In one episode they formed a rock group and Rick was the lead vocalist (the song was called “Talk to me” or some such and Alfonso sat in the background and smiled).
I remember the Joey Lawrence as a waif who lives in a cave episode (which was damned near murderous in the diabetic way). And Pearl Bailey was brought on board in an unfunny cameo as a former Stratton maid who was now very rich and detested the grandfather (who had a French girlfriend his own age in one episod). The Stratton fortune was begun when Edward Stratton invented the innertube for his vacations to Coney Island, then the automobile was invented and it became tires, and Edward III had a toy company.
There was a crossover episode with Gary Coleman from Diffrent Strokes in which Arnold and Rick hacked into a defense design site.
The character Edward III’s accountant Dexter Stuffins (played by actor Franklin Seales, later of Amen and now dead) was the brother of a Nobel laureate whom Edward III called “Stovetop”. Rick had a redneck friend named JT whose overworked (three jobs) father Edward III filled in for one night so he could have some quality time and hilarity ensued. (I want to say the father was played by veteran character actor Gary Grubbs but it’s not on his official site).
When Rick was being bullied at school his father hired a bodyguard played by Mr. T, who in addition to intimidating the teacher and other students answered all of the questions correctly.
John Houseman’s brother was played by Ray Walston in a few episodes. He was funloving like his nephews.
One funny site-gage was a bag of one of the Stratton companies least successful products, STRATTON FLOUR. It was a flour bag with an image of a scowling John Houseman on it. On one of Houseman’s early appearances his son reaches out to him to hug or shake his hand and Houseman uses his outreached arms as a coat and hat rack (an improv on Houseman’s part).
Joel Higgins wrote many successful commercial jingles before and after the series and now does a lot of Summerstock.
Another glurge episode was one in which Rick babysat the little girl of his father’s business associate, who told him (through her doll) that she had been kidnapped from her custodial mother [she didn’t use the word custodial]). Edward confronted the man about it, it ended happily and there was a PSA about kidnapped children at the end.
Derek actually tried to set up some action with some older women while he and Rick were on a science fair trip and actually said the line “You wanna us to leave the room or to get nekkid?” Derek told Mr. Stratton in Eddie Haskell style “I just have a slow weekend planned, sir… I hope to read some of my favorite book tonight… if I’m lucky I can get through the Gospels of St. John and St. Mark tonight.”
God I’m pathetic… I think I remember every episode I ever saw of this show. (Of course I’ve had a crush on Jason Bateman for 25 years now.)
OK, you asked for it. The only episode I ever remember watching, I saw in Israel. It was dubbed in French and subtitled in Hebrew. We laughed at the incongruity of seeing a moderately old show in reruns in assorted foreign languages while in a foreign country. The episode in question was easy for my companions who had seen the episode before to identify, but I don’t recall any specifics.
Ricky’s parents were divorced and his mother’s name was Evelyn (I think). The premiere episode had Ricky showing up unannounced on a break from military school. He walked up behind Edward III and said “I’m your son!” whereupon Edward III’s Pac-Man got eaten by a ghost and you heard the “dying Pac-Man” sound effect. It was an arcade game, not a console, too.
And there was one episode where John Houseman had a young perky girlfriend who called him “Eddie 2”.
I loved that show (I was in my Preppy Handbook phase when it was on), and now I can only think of one specific scene that for some reason has stayed with me all these years:
It was a party, or just a bunch of the kids hanging out, and one of them says something about ‘a mess of tadpoles.’
Ricky gets this big goofy grin and asks, ‘How many tadpoles are in a mess?’
I remember when Rick and his friend took two girls out to dinner and work punk type outfits.
One of the girls orders a huge meal for everyone and Rick asks his friend if he has enogh money to cover it. His friend says something like “I got $32.74”. But when the bill comes, it turns out the money is in the bank.
Didn’t Ricky’s mom die, so that he had to go live with his dad? And then the dad was embarrasingly kid-like–the train was his, not Ricky’s. I don’t really remember very well, which is funny considering the crush I had on Ricky Schroeder back then.
I do remember when he engineered a makeover for himself and went from preppy argyle sweaters to being “the Ricker” with a slashed-up neon green shirt and two layers of socks, like a good 80’s trend-setter.
Is that the one where they do the “Dine & Dash” (which, the bad-girl tells them, is known as a “Lick and Leave” at Baskin Robbins)? And Freddy (God, what do I remember his name?), the nerdy kid, gets caught and Rick has to bail him out. (Freddy in another episode was revealed to be a tap dancing prodigy.)
When the show started, didn’t Rick go to a private school? I thought his mother was still alive, but kept sending him off so his father decided to take him in.
Yep, according to TV Tome, his mother got remarried and sent him off to military school. His father didn’t know anything about him, having only been married to his mother for a week.
Then there was the episode where Kate Summers inducted Ricky into adulthood, using only…
wait… that may have just been a dream of MINE. And I think I had it during Buck Rogers, so it’s not part of this thread anyway.
Man, I had such a crush on Jason Bateman … which is why I’m thankful for Arrested Development. But that’s not important right now.
I recall the “Dine & Dash” episode, certainly, and one with Houseman where his car somehow ended up in the middle of the living room. I can’t remember if it was Ricky or Grandpa that actually drove it through the wall, though. Ricky’s on the phone to the police or emergency services, and they ask him about the car’s license plate, which reads “GONE.”
“What’s the license plate number, son?”
“It’s GONE.”
“Well, do you see it around anywhere?”
Yeah, the premise of the show was that the father, having grown up as a trust-fund baby, acted like a kid (train, videogames in the living room, etc.), which Ricky, who had spent the last few years in a military boarding school, was very responsible and adult. IIRC, at the end of the first episode, Edward promised to try to be a dad if Ricky loosened up and had fun like a kid.
