Warring siblings/roommates/etc divide their living space with tape or paint, then argue at each other over the line until the Authority Figure comes in to mend things up.
And invariably, the TV is on one side and the bathroom is on the other.
which show?
For the VSE, Family Ties is a good example. In one episode, Alex’s best friend in the whole world dies, and Alex has to cope with it. This is a friend so close, that he has never once been to the house, and Alex had not even once mentioned him.
Not only that, the episode was presented in a Beckett-ish existential format with Alex wandering around a darkened stage, interacting with isolated scenes as the spotlight hit them and keeping up a running commentary to the audience.
Seriously, dude… what the fuck?
“Tippy toe” and “Your father wears sneakers…” are from an episode of Seinfeld in which George enlists Jerry to help switch the tape in a girlfriend’s answering machine.
Family Ties might be the most notorious example of a never before seen "best friend’ being dropped out of thin air for the purposes of a VSE.
There used to be a similar device for VSE’s involving teen pregnancies. The pregnant teen could never be from the main sit-com family, of course (because that would make her a whore), so a never before seen best fiend would materialize just so she could be pregnant and confide in the main family and be encouraged to tell her own parents the truth (because all sit-com parents will be understanding and loving and never abusive).
I can remember the pregnant friend episode from Family Ties and Different Strokes, to name two examples off the top of my head.
I think Archie Bunker’s Place had one as well.
Something else I just remembered about the pregnant friend plot – just so we don’t think the pregnant girl is too much of a whore, she always informed us that it was only “…that one stupid time.”
I don’t know if this is much of a cliche, but I think Gilligan’s Island used it a lot with the Skipper and Gilligan: Character says something using a word. Dumber character comments using a shorter word that means the same thing.
Hypothetical example (not from an actual show):
“We’d better head back. That bear looks pretty irate.”
“Yeah- and he’s angry, too!”
On Good Times, the Evanses believed that JJ had knocked up the girl and were Very Disappointed until the truth came out.
Similarly, during the Very Special Episode era, anybody who got AIDS got it from heterosexual sex, and from making “one stupid mistake”.
Ok, off-topic, but related to this. Leave out the 3rd step and I’ve done this. (Twice!)
The first time was a complete accident (I’d never used an industrial-sized dryer before) but the second time, I loaded it and pushed start, it got to the point where it was ready for detergent, beeped, and I had forgotten I’d put any in, so I put more in. I will say, in real life, this gag is pretty comical. I spent an hour cleaning up the floors at work each time.
Luckily, it doesn’t happen on television as often anymore…
Brendon Small
Designing Women’s Aids VSE did involve a gay man. And Golden Girls did a VSE where Rose had to deal with the possibility that she got HIV from a blood transfusion.
Of course there’s always the episode where 2 cast members are rehearsing a scene for a school play, or amateur play of some sort, and naturally the rehearsal is overheard and misinterpreted by some other cast member. Hilarity and canned laughter ensue.
The old high school chum who’s gone on to bigger and better things returns to town and it’s discovered that he’s actually destitute.
Some person has to be in two places at the same time, in two different outfits, and ends up going to place b) waring the outfit of place a). Fucking hilarious. :smack:
I’d forgotten that the Designing Women one actually was about a gay man. I had no idea about the *Golden Girls * one. That a show that was usually so cheerfully stupid had a VSE shows how depressingly ubiquitous the trend was.
How about role-reversals, usually between spouses? Example:
Husband: “You’ve got it soooooo easy not having to get up and go to work every day like I do!”
Wife: “Oh yeah? You don’t know the first thing about keeping up with the housework! I’d gladly trade places with you for just one day!”
Husband: “Fine! We’ll see whose job is really the toughest around here!” (husband is thinking while looking forward to what he thinks will be a day of lounging around doing nothing).
And so they switch places. Husband is overwhelmed by all the cleaning, vacuuming, taking care of the kids, etc. and can’t keep up with it while the wife shows up in place of her husband and totally bungles things up. Both spouses come to realize at the end how fortunate they are to do have their current jobs and apperciate what the other has to go through each day.
First example I can think of is from The Flintstones, which used many of the cliches mentioned in this thread and on the Wikipedia link.
Which is all quite absurd; after all, if detergent had already been added, then the foamy bubbles would be quite obvious.
Sigh.
Very similar is when Character B goes on and on about how he would never ever go to this place no matter what, yada yada yada, and then Character A says “they have beer” or “they have hookers” or “that girl you really like will be there”, so Character B immediately says “let’s go!”.
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Eh, why bother building a new set? “It’s only the most romantic day of your life. You don’t want a church wedding. We’ll have it right here at Cheers!”
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Sitcom families sure love generic products. I remember the Keaton family being especially fond of Cola brand cola.
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Lazy retcons of behavior characters had never exhibited before. One episode of Alice concerns all the waitresses giving up a bad habit. So what does Vera give up? Smoking. Um, fuck you.
Everybody is living at a standard considerably higher than their apparent income could possibly support.
This applies especially if the characters are NYC apartment dwellers.