Disclaimer: By “sitcom” I mean any primetime 30 minute comedy series.
How common is it that in a sitcom a scene will be more or less lifted directly from another show? Is this a nod to the brilliance of the other show? I’m not talking about various Fox cartoons which parody TV and movies, but rather live-action shows that seem to pay tribute.
There is only one I have noticed so far:
In an episode of Seinfeld, Jerry was to give a career-day talk to a bunch of 4th graders. He is interrupted by a fire alarm, and must walk out with the students. He later gets a chance to speak to them again, and his presentation is a flop.
In an episode of Bob Newhart, Bob was to give a career-day talk to a bunch of 3rd graders. He is interrupted by a fire alarm, and must walk out with the students. He later gets a chance to speak to them again, and his presentation is a flop.
Any others? One would think that if this were a common practice, we’d be seeing I Love Lucy tributes all over the place.
Fred Flintstone’s voice and many of his mannerisms were directly lifted from Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Kramden, and some of the plots were straight out of The Honeymooners. Wilma and Betty were pretty much Alice and Trixie, but Barney was a little wide of the mark if they were trying for Norton.
It has been said that half of all modern sitcom plots were done before, and better, on I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners.
I mentioned this on another thread that was about TV cliches; although I listed it as a cliche, I’ve only actually seen it twice, so it may be more accurately described as a tribute.
In one of the I Love Lucy episodes during their travels to Europe, there is a scene where for various complicated reasons person A is speaking in German to person B, who speaks in French to person C, who speaks in Spanish to Ricky, who speaks in English to Lucy – and the reverse, of course. They hold a conversation this way, and have a lot of fun with it.
There was an exactly similar scene in an episode of Frasier; they got to it differently, but the pay-off was the same.
South Park did an episode called “Simpsons Already Did It,” which I guess could be seen as a tribute to the Simpsons.
There was a FRIENDS episode where they were watching THREE’S COMPANY. Phoebe asks which episode it was. Someone said that Mr. Roper overheard something Jack said and got the wrong idea about him, and Phoebe said “Oh, I’ve already seen that one.”
THAT 70s SHOW regularly spoofs old TV shows, frequently with the actual stars of the old shows.
ROSEANNE had a coffe klatch with the aging stars of old 50s and 60s sitcoms. They also had a cute bit at the end of the episode that introduced the new Becky: They were watching an old BEWITCHED and commenting about how blatant and obvious it was that they’d changed Darrens. Becky said she actually preferred the new Darren.
On one episode of Seinfeld, they did a whole extended bit about Bizzarro World. In the last segment, Elaine’s Bizzarro Friends spoke in a Bizzarro way. This seems to be a direct nod to a SNL skit in which we see a Bizzarro World version of NBC programming execs.
“David Letterman do bad in morning show. We give him late night show.” “That terrible idea. We do it!”
I’m surprised they didn’t spoof the SNL ripoff show Fridays more, as that starred Larry David and Michael Richards. I suppose “that’s a lot of potatoes!” may have been some sort of left-handed reference, but I doubt it.
I would add The Life of Riley to your list of emulated sitcoms. I would also suggest that Fred Flintstone was at least partly taken from the Chester Riley character also. Of course, it should be remembered that Gleason originally had the role of Riley. The Jetsons definitely had Riley influences.
There was another episode of Roseanne where (most of) the cast was in a spoof of Gilligan’s Island. Dan played the Skipper, Jackie was Gilligan, Darlene was Mary Ann, Roseanne was the Movie Star, Leon (Martin Mull) was Mr. Howell, Bev (Roseanne’s mother) was Lovey, and (intentional irony) Mark was the Professor. DJ played a native on the island.
The cool part was, under the credits at the end, the actors from Gilligan’s Island played the corresponding characters in a small skit on the Roseanne set. Bob Denver dressed in drag as Jackie, Tina Louise, Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells, etc.
Mel Blanc said that he deliberately avoided doing a parody of Art Carney/Ed Norton. He had qualms about so completely copying The Honeymooners. I have no doubt he could do a great Norton (Someone did such a job for a Warner Brothers cartoon very precisely parodying The Homeymooners, only with mice. And Blanc was their top voice man).
But your comparison is for the entire series premise, and I think they’re looking for individual episodes.
On the TV show, yeah – but William Bendix was Riley for almost a decade on radio before the TV version. The studio cast Gleason because William Bendix was busy working on a Life of Riley movie, but the Gleason Riley didn’t really work and only lasted one season.
At any rate, there’s no question which Riley was emulated when Fox developed their Riley clone, Married: With Children. (And what a revoltin’ development that was.) William Bendix all the way. (Folks who don’t remember Life of Riley should know that Chester was a simple working guy who never seemed to catch a break, in spite of his various dubious schemes. His wife, Peg, and kids Babs and Junior likewise provided the templates for Peg, Kelly, and Bud.)
