# Sitcoms: Creative ways of hiding actor's pregnancy?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sitcoms-creative-ways-of-hiding-actors-pregnancy/546421
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 12, 2010, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sitcoms-creative-ways-of-hiding-actors-pregnancy/546421 "2010-07-12T17:11:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2010, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sitcoms-creative-ways-of-hiding-actors-pregnancy/546421/41 "2010-07-15T04:03:09Z")
> [@](#):
>
> On the flip side I wonder how many shows had a baby written into the show when the actress became pregnant. “I Love Lucy,” and “Family Ties.” come to mind. I think “Too Close For Comfort” may also have done that but I’m not sure.
On the show “Eight is Enough”, actress Susan Richardson (playing Susan Bradford) became pregnant shortly after her character became married. They had to shoot her only above the waist until scripts were hurredly written about her getting pregnant. Oddly enough the producer apparently had strongly suggested the character get pregnant soon after the marriage.
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### Author:  [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2010, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sitcoms-creative-ways-of-hiding-actors-pregnancy/546421/42 "2010-07-15T11:01:11Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#):
>
> IIRC that baby was stillborn too. Miscarriages & stillbirths were a recuring theme on **Upstairs, Downsairs**.
Yes, in their spin-off series, “Thomas and Sarah.” The whole first episode of that is a fake-out: we see Sarah with a baby, which we assume to be hers. Since she left Thomas before their baby was born, he also assumes the one she’s taking care of now is theirs and carries it off out of the perambulator to try and get Sarah to come back to him–only, as Sarah explains once she catches up with him, it isn’t. Their baby died, and she’s working as a nanny. He’s just kidnapped someone else’s child. Oops!
Sarah miscarries again later on in another episode. The poor woman never has a child that lives.
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### Author:  [@Lo-Slung\_Denim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lo-Slung_Denim)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2010, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sitcoms-creative-ways-of-hiding-actors-pregnancy/546421/43 "2010-07-15T11:17:34Z")
> [@Enderw24](#):
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> Hey, do you know the difference between peanut butter and jam?
>
> And with that…we didn’t see Lily again for four weeks.
This was my favourite pregnancy write-out, partly because if it’s the same as the British version of that joke (What’s the difference between marmalade and jam?) it’s not even \*that \*offensive… 😃
But also I thought it was just quite brazen yet effective.
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2010, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sitcoms-creative-ways-of-hiding-actors-pregnancy/546421/44 "2010-07-15T13:41:44Z")
When Days of our Live’s Allison Sweeney got pregnant, a storyline was written whereupon her character Sami Brady had to disguise herself as a man named “Stan” A male actor who looked like Sweeney was hired to take her place.
I am not making this up.
It was weird they didn’t write the pregnancy into the story line, as Sami goes back and forth between Noble Wimp Lucas and the Evil EJ, having had a son by Lucas, then boy-and-girl twins (son by EJ, daughter by Lucas), and lastly a daughter by EJ.
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [July 15, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sitcoms-creative-ways-of-hiding-actors-pregnancy/546421/45 "2010-07-15T15:10:44Z")
> [@Lo-Slung\_Denim](#):
>
> This was my favourite pregnancy write-out, partly because if it’s the same as the British version of that joke (What’s the difference between marmalade and jam?) it’s not even \*that \*offensive… 😃
Is it I can’t marmalade my dick up your ass? Because that’s the punchline to the peanut butter version
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