Blast. Sorry for the double post.
Ranchoth
The episode of *The Good Times where the father died. That just totally threw me. I cried and cried and cried.
Liutenant Colonel Henry Blake’s plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in…There were no survivors.
I agree.
But that was not the first episode of Archie Bunker’s Place. In the first season, Edith was an “offscreen” character: referred to but never seen. Jean Stapleton had already left the show, but the writers wanted to establish the show before they did this. This was the first episode of the second season. But the fact that so many people remember it as the first is testimony to its power.
Another vote for the end of Blackadder Goes Forth. A courageous and brilliant tribute to the fallen of the First World War (after having mocked them for the whole series).
Shit, I wish I hadn’t brought the memory of that moment up - now I’m sitting in the office with my eyes full of tears.
After they freeze-frame the characters going ‘over the top’, and it fades to sepia to the sound of artillery fire, the screen then fades into a present-day field of poppies blowing gently in the wind. sniff
All in the Family is one of my all time favourite shows, it plays here daily and when I am home in the afternoon I always watch it. Even though a great deal of time has passed it stands up well and can still point out the human strengths and frailties we all posess.
Despite the fact that it was a sitcom it addressed complex issues and for a long time went places that other shows, including serious drama, feared to tread.
I am sure most people know someone like Archie and Edith Bunker and for me those people were my parents. I grew up watching All in the Family and got pretty attached to the Bunkers.
Besides making us laugh a great deal they could also make you cry, a lot. Despite his harsh treatment of Edith, we always knew that Archie loved his “Dingbat”. How could a person remain dry eyed when he is sitting on their bed cradling a slipper, telling her that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, that he was the one that was supposed to go first, and then then breaking down completely. We cried because we understood his pain, because we missed Edith, knowing that we would never again see her running to the door screaming “Archieeeeeee” before embracing and kissing her relucant husband.
Oh crap… the episode is replaying itself in my head.
Ally McBeal made me cry because it saddened me that TV got so bad that a piece of turd like that could become popular.
I cried for fifteen minutes after the episode of Roseanne in which Darlene has a baby, who is premature. David, the baby’s dad and a normally silly-assed character, breaks down in the hallway, which starts the waterworks, then back in the nursery all the women in the family gather around to say goodbye to the dying baby. I just bawled and bawled. Course I was newly pregnant and very hormonal and also cried at the razor commercial immediately following.
I also cried in the dream episode of MASH. Just thinking about Margaret in her wedding dress splattered with blood…
Oh god…I’m really splitting hairs here, but Roseanne is another show that I know inside and out.
The doctors had announced that the baby had a chance If Dot Dot Dot. The women were bonding with the baby and telling her that she had all their love and support and that they were sure she would make it. Soon after, she started to thrive.
:::wah:::
Here’s another Simpsons one: the Christmas episode where Bart is caught shoplifting from Try-N-Save. The thrust of the episode is that Bart has finally crossed too many lines, and he’s beyond ever being Marge’s “special little guy” ever again. He’s actually caught by the security guard when the family photo is taken, thereby ruining yet another annual picture.
At the end of the episode, Bart is caught by Marge sneaking something under his coat. Turns out it’s a photo of Bart from the Try-N-Save, with a receipt attached labelled “Paid in Full.” Marge starts smothering him with hugs and kisses. Doesn’t make my cry, but it does bring a HUGE lump to my throat.
(BTW, most episodes dealing with Bart’s redemption have this effect on me. Two coming to mind are the one where Bart sells his soul for $5, and the one where Bart shoots a mother bird–again pissing off Marge, very similar to the aforementioned Christmas episode.)
“Barney Miller,” when the cast saluted the recently departed Jack Soo (Det. Nick Yamana) by raising their coffee cups. (Nick made really bad coffee.)
Someone said Seinfeld.
I couldn’t think of an episode that would make a person cry. Then I thought about the special that played before the finale episode. I thought it was sweet, (though I didn’t cry), when they played Green Day’s ‘Good Riddance/Time Of Your Life’ at the end of the special showing clips and pictures. There was a shot of Julia Louis-Dreyfus where she looked genuinely depressed and distressed. I think it was in black and white and she was (I think) crouched down in a corner somewhere. It was just a wake up call that behind these silly TV shows, most of which I’m not a fan of, there are real people and real despair/hardships…