Good thing they had costumes stashed away on the Minnow.
Ray Charles on Who’s The Boss, 1987:
Harry Nilsson on The Ghost and Ms Muir, 1969:
I have always, even when I was young enough to actually like Gilligan’s Island, wondered about that. That and why the Howells brought along enough cash to buy Manhattan to go on a 3 hour tour. I might also mention how many people found this uncharted island but I can’t say I was surprised that no one ever sent anyone to rescue them from the island.
Not at all related to the topic since it doesn’t involve unrelated musical interludes but talking about Gilligan’s Island reminded me. Sy Fy has been playing Twilight Zone episodes during the wee hours of the morning. I have seen Russell Johnson* (the Professor) and at least two episodes.
*In addition to random renditions of the musical Hamlet, my brain insists on retaining the real names of the entire cast. It’s things like this that explain why I have no room in my head for multiplication tables.
In a message dated 2/27/2026 9:36:45 PM Central Standard Time, notifications@straightdope.discoursemail.com writes:
Scully busting out his opera training on Brooklyn 99 is always fun.
And not exactly singing, but CJ miming The Jackal on The West Wing …
If you didn’t already know this, there was a musical act on eleven of the twelve Young Ones episodes; the twelfth had a lion tamer. The budget for Light Entertainment was slightly higher than whatever TYO would have been without these interludes. And worth it! Besides Motorhead, there was Madness (twice), and a group called Rip Rig and Panic, featuring a very young Neneh Cherry, and Dexy’s Midnight Runners.
@ P-Man and SpinyNorma: The handwave for a lot of unlikely items is that they came out of crates that washed up on shore. That’s shown to happen a few times, such as the episode where they found cases of moviemaking equipment, which included costumes. So shipping crates fall off ships, drift for a while, then inertia takes them to the lagoon. like the FedEx boxes in Cast Away.
The Simpsons had some memorable songs, e.g., “Can I Borrow a Feeling” by Kirk Van Houten.
That bit I didn’t know.
As I said it is a bit of a stretch calling it “non musical” the music was a pretty integral part of the show.
I thought the best musical moment was the end tag of an episode involving time travel, where three different Teds and Barneys, from different points in time, perform an a capella version of Billy Joel’s “The Longest Time.” It was a rather mediocre episode, but I love the musical tag:
I remember an episode of NewsRadio where Dave’s old barbershop/acapella group shows up at the station and want him to rejoin the group. IIRC the group was Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, and Brian Posehn. But I don’t remember if they did a musical number. I’ll have to dig out my DVDs.
Been watching reruns of M.A.S.H. recently and music plays a variety of roles there, from traveling USO performers to Charles Winchester’s classical records to the group breaking out into an impromptu “I Don’t Want No More of Army Life”
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjMqraVAlG8
And of course the theme song, but that gets into a whole different topic, so I will forbear.
It looks like that is Chock. It’s three episodes after the one I mentioned. The DVD is still in my player. I will check it out.
And Lucifer might not be considered a “non-nusical” show. Tom Ellis has a lot of musical numbers. They did have a musical episode. My favorite song from that episode is Just the Two of Us, by D.B Woodside and Rachael Harris.
A famous (in the UK) example would be the Morecambe and Wise Show:
For one Christmas special, they got the usually quite solemn newsreader Angela Rippon (of whom one critic said she read the news as though it was All Your Fault) to do this:
And there was what they did to Andre Previn and Shirley Bassey
Fred, Bubba, and Lamont appeared on the Gong Show; seems like the song they performed was Fats Waller’s “Lulu’s Back in Town”.
My favorite musical number from the Simpsons is Monty Burns breaking into “See My Vest”.
You gotta admit it’s catchy
With MASH my mind goes directly to Loudan Wainwright III who only lasted a few episodes in the first season. It didn’t fit and somehow did at the same time.
This one I never saw myself but discovered while in a rabbit hole. On the UK show Soldier Soldier there was a musical interlude with a young Robson Green long before he solved hundreds of murders on various shows and a young Jerome Flynn before he murdered dozens on Game of Thrones. There was such a demand from the audience that they released it as a single and it went to number 1 on the UK charts. Robson & Jerome as they were billed put out 2 full albums that were very successful. Never heard about it in the U.S. Simon Cowell was responsible for the albums.
Are You Being Served did a handful of musical episodes. It was never more than 1 in a season.
It was always very surprising. The comedy on that show was very English and dry. The effeminate character measuring clients in seams. Or the stuffy old lady with purple hair saying her pussy (cat) was upset that morning.
3 mins, muamsical act starts at 40 secs
YES! ‘Come On Get Happy’ Thank you. It was driving me crazy being able to recall and visualize the coreography but not being able to remember the song.
Damn….I forgot all about the ‘As Tears Go By’ scene.
Lucifer wasn’t a musical show but they showcased the talents of Tom Ellis several times.
To bring up musical episodes, I think the producers sometimes look at who is in the show and say “We have to find a way to get them to sing. Flash and Supergirl had multiple crossovers. The leads were in Glee. The cast included musical theater greats Jesse L. Martin, John Barrowman, Victor Garber and Jeremy Jordan. They had to do a musical episode.
When you have Sara Ramirez in the cast you have to have a musical episode.
