So I’m sitting here tonight, with TVLand playing in the background while I’m doing some work. I’m half-listening to “The Jeffersons,” and George is giving Lionel something (a watch, maybe). Well I tuned out briefly, only to be brought back in by Weezy exclaiming “N!gger, please!”
Wow! Wasn’t expecting that! Especially from Louise. Shocking moment #1.
Another sitcom moment (shocking moment #2) that always gets me is Carrol O’Connor’s raw emotion in the ‘All in the Family’ Christmas episode “The Draft Dodger,” when Archie starts yelling about the “rotten [goddamn] war” in Vietnam. Whenever I see that scene, I always feel really uncomfortable and I don’t know why.
Is there anything in mild ol’ sitcom land that’s gotten you to sit up and take notice over the years?
It’s been years since I’ve seen the episode but I thought abortion was legal in the state where Maude lived. (Incidentally, for those of you who’ve never seen the episode, it aired aired before the Roe v. Wade decision when the legality of abortion was still up to the individual states.)
I’m not sure what kind of ‘shocking’ you’re looking for, but I remember being fairly stunned when Radar came into the OR to announce that Henry Blake’s plane had been shot down and he was dead. I’m not sure if it was the first time that a major character in a sitcom was killed off like that, but Henry was a beloved character.
That was also the moment that, for me, MASH jumped the shark. It was the final episode of the season, and when the next one started Trapper John was also gone, and we started the BJ Hunnicutt/emotional Hawkeye era.
Look no further than that tempest known as the Brady Bunch:
When, despite their parents’ efforts to teach them not to play ball in the house, the Brady kids ignored that advice, and the ball hit Marcia flat on the nose, over and over and over and over…
And who can forget the shocking moment in Brady Bunch history when, while defending a law suit against a malingering claimant, Mike Brady dropped the briefcase, causing the “drop heard round the world”?
I was shocked a bit ('cause I was watching this when I was, like, 9) when JJ married some girl that was a junkie. They elope and (if my memory serves right) after JJ argues that she wasn’t a junkie, the episode ended with JJ discovering that she had left the hotel room that they’ve rented, via the window.
It was even more shocking because my nine year-old brain assumed that she had killed herself by jumping out the window. :eek:
Thats what I came in here to say…