# Television episodes that wouldn’t fly today **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 20, 2017, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312 "2017-02-20T12:21:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/41 "2017-02-20T23:37:47Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > A couple of mentions of WKRP made me think of a particular episode that would at least draw ire nowadays: > > The ep. has Andy, Mr. Carlson, and Herb going out of town to make a presentation to a prospective client (someone who they want to buy ad time on the station). While at the hotel, Herb encounters a woman who clearly recognizes him – even though he can’t seem to place her. > > Later in the ep., Herb is making out with the woman - who reveals that (in her words): “I used to be a man!” and then it dawns on Herb that this was an old classmate of his whom he knew as a ‘boy.’ > > I am fairly certain that a lot of transgender activists would take exception to the depiction, because 1) the character’s line about “used to be a man” (transgender people assert that they’ve always known they were the ‘opposite’ sex and don’t see it as “used to be a man”) and, more importantly, 2) it perpetuates the nasty stereotype that transgenders are always out to ‘fool’ people – that they hide their “true nature” until after they’ve had sex in order to get one over on the ‘normal’ people. You do have to keep in mind that the Herb character was a huge womanizer and not exactly discriminating; however, a m-to-f person was a little too strange for him, especially because he had grown up with this person. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/42 "2017-02-20T23:42:33Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Boys Beware! > > One of the things it’s going to be hard for future generations to really wrap their minds around was the degree to which male homosexuality and pedophilia were conflated in the popular imagination. Not that one lead to the other, but that there was no admitted distinction between them. > > Where are the bears when you need them? > > (Uh, that’s _not_ a gay joke.) I got it. :o > **[Why did the Prophet Elisha curse the “youths” for making fun of his baldness...](https://www.gotquestions.org/Elisha-baldhead.html)** > > Why did the Prophet Elisha curse the “youths” for making fun of his baldness (2 Kings 2:23-24)? Is making fun of a man’s baldness a good enough reason to be mauled by a bear? While we’re on the subject, many modern Biblical scholars believe that the admonition about men laying together in Leviticus is actually about pedophilia, not adult homosexuality. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. (No pun intended here, either.) ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/43 "2017-02-20T23:51:38Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Wait-- engineering school makes you mean and ugly? Does it do that to men too, or just women? Speaking as an engineer. Yes. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/44 "2017-02-21T00:02:52Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > A childless married woman without a job was probably more common than it is now, but definitely not unusual. What was odd (for the 70s, as opposed to maybe the 1950s) was that neither Mike nor Gloria had a job. A childless married women in the 1970s wasn’t unusual _as long as her husband was working_; however, in the 1970s, and this was especially true when men who were college students could get a draft deferral during the Vietnam War, a young married couple where the man was in college and the wife supported them (with maybe a little help from the parents, in the form of a small monthly check) was a heck of a lot more common than her not working at all, and essentially sponging off her parents and showing no gratitude. Honestly, that really stands out in the reruns: Mike’s ingratitude. He sometimes says he’s going to pay Archie back in the future, but he never says “Thank you” for anything. Albeit, IIRC, Gloria does get a job at some point in the series, but it’s a good three years or so in. I understand that the set-up was just to pit liberal Mike against conservative Archie week after week for the humor and topicality, and people were willing to suspend their disbelief for a good laugh. It’s harder to do now. Speaking of _All in the Family_, one episode that wouldn’t fly now is the one where Gloria is attacked by what we are left to assume is a would-be rapist. She gets away with only emotional trauma, and the episode is her struggle with whether or not she should make a police report. The last shot is her sitting in a chair looking defeated, after discussing it with the police, and being told that if it goes to trial, she will be personally attacked by the defense attorney. We don’t know what she actually decides, but the suggestion is that she doesn’t make a report. Now, that would get a flurry of angry letters-- BUT, the circumstances don’t exist anymore. You can’t slander the victim around the courtroom like you once could (“you” being the defense attorney). So it’s not that the episode wouldn’t fly-- it just couldn’t happen. Speaking of episodes that couldn’t happen: there’s a L&O: TOS that simply couldn’t happen anymore. It’s a very interesting episode, so it’s easy to miss the fact that it is actually politically motivated. It was made before COBRA and the insurance transfer laws, when people with a health condition were stuck at whatever job they had with insurance, because if they changed jobs, their condition became a “pre-existing” condition, and they might have to wait two years to be covered again for their condition. So, in the ep, a woman with cancer, who doesn’t know she has it, changes jobs, and is then diagnosed. It’s a pre-existing condition, and not covered at her new job. Now what would happen is that if you changed jobs with less than a three month gap, and you pay for COBRA, or with no gap, your pre-existing condition must be covered. That’s the law. So that episode is as dated as though it had taken place in a phone booth. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/45 "2017-02-21T00:10:58Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Which, of course, leads into your point:“M_A_S\*H” was set during the Korean War. The idea that there wasn’t anything wrong with being gay was then the province of radical secret gay rights organizations such as the [Mattachine Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattachine_Society); at that time, it would have been beyond belief for a pair of doctors to want to keep a gay man in the Army. In fact, homosexuality wasn’t removed from the DSM until right around the time the episode aired, over twenty years after the Korean War ended. Everything about M_A_S\*H was an anachronism. Hawkeye’s haircut alone would have gotten him thrown out of the Army. Or into the brig, or whatever they did back then. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/46 "2017-02-21T00:15:36Z")
I saw an episode of _Emergency!_ (the one from the 1970’s, not the current reality show) in which a woman was supposed to train as a paramedic at Station 51. Chet took one look at her and immediately faked a heart attack so she’d do mouth to mouth. Don’t think that would fly today. (Even though there are people who harass women in that way, it still wouldn’t be acceptable as part of an episode unless Chet was fired.) Oh, and Johnny asked her out right away. To be fair, this trainee saved Roy’s life at the end and earned respect. Oh, and basically the entire series of _I Dream of Jeannie_. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/47 "2017-02-21T00:22:04Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I got it. :o > > [Why did the Prophet Elisha curse the “youths” for making fun of his baldness (2 Kings 2:23-24)? | GotQuestions.org](https://www.gotquestions.org/Elisha-baldhead.html) > > While we’re on the subject, many modern Biblical scholars believe that the admonition about men laying together in Leviticus is actually about pedophilia, not adult homosexuality. Actually the majority opinion among serious scholars is that it is an admonition not to copy a particular ritual practiced by some neighbors. It literally says “You shall not lie the lying-of-woman.” (The Hebrew word means lying down, not telling falsehoods.) It sounds like it’s saying that a man should not play-act being a woman while having sex with a man. Honestly, that’s how some really benighted straight men imagine all gay male sex is, so it is possible, I guess, that the author of that passage did mean to say all gay sex is wrong, but whatever he meant, that’s not what he said. At any rate, there is good evidence that nearby worshipers of another god had male prostitutes in their temple who dressed like women and offered themselves to men while play-acting women (maybe because too many babies resulted from keeping real women as temple prostitutes? who knows); anyway, some people think that it was sex rituals that were being outlawed. The admonition not to “lie the lying of women,” comes right after one not to give one’s seed to a foreign god, and right before one about bestiality. OK. Back to your regularly scheduled thread. ---
**Author:** ![rsat3acr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@rsat3acr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsat3acr)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/48 "2017-02-21T01:03:56Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > Everything about M_A_S\*H was an anachronism. Hawkeye’s haircut alone would have gotten him thrown out of the Army. Or into the brig, or whatever they did back then. FWIIW(no snark intended) Brig is Navy, Stockade is Army. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/49 "2017-02-21T02:42:34Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > The social climate isn’t right for the Archie/Mike dichotomy. Besides, Mike was a sort of hippie-- a borderline one, but he tended that way. Not only would Archie not work, but Mike wouldn’t work either. > > And I think that the premise of a 20-something living in his father’s-in-law house rent free and being that disrespectful would trigger a lot of people, since a lot of 20-somethings are actually at their parents’ homes because of the economic climate. > > Plus, Gloria being in her 20s, married, and not working a full-time job OR going to school would seem very odd. She’s sort of a jr. Edith on the show, helping with the housework and cooking, and I think in later eps has a part-time job of sorts, but she should be pursuing something. Probably an education. If not that, working full-time to support Mike, with the intent that he will support her once he is graduated, and either they will start a family, or she will go to school. > [@RivkahChaya](#): > > What was odd (for the 70s, as opposed to maybe the 1950s) was that neither Mike nor Gloria had a job. A childless married women in the 1970s wasn’t unusual _as long as her husband was working_; however, in the 1970s, and this was especially true when men who were college students could get a draft deferral during the Vietnam War, a young married couple where the man was in college and the wife supported them (with maybe a little help from the parents, in the form of a small monthly check) was a heck of a lot more common than her not working at all, and essentially sponging off her parents and showing no gratitude. > > Honestly, that really stands out in the reruns: Mike’s ingratitude. He sometimes says he’s going to pay Archie back in the future, but he never says “Thank you” for anything. > > Albeit, IIRC, Gloria does get a job at some point in the series, but it’s a good three years or so in. > > I understand that the set-up was just to pit liberal Mike against conservative Archie week after week for the humor and topicality, and people were willing to suspend their disbelief for a good laugh. It’s harder to do now. > > Speaking of _All in the Family_, one episode that wouldn’t fly now is the one where Gloria is attacked by what we are left to assume is a would-be rapist. She gets away with only emotional trauma, and the episode is her struggle with whether or not she should make a police report. The last shot is her sitting in a chair looking defeated, after discussing it with the police, and being told that if it goes to trial, she will be personally attacked by the defense attorney. We don’t know what she actually decides, but the suggestion is that she doesn’t make a report. > > Now, that would get a flurry of angry letters-- BUT, the circumstances don’t exist anymore. You can’t slander the victim around the courtroom like you once could (“you” being the defense attorney). So it’s not that the episode wouldn’t fly-- it just couldn’t happen. > > Speaking of episodes that couldn’t happen: there’s a L&O: TOS that simply couldn’t happen anymore. It’s a very interesting episode, so it’s easy to miss the fact that it is actually politically motivated. It was made before COBRA and the insurance transfer laws, when people with a health condition were stuck at whatever job they had with insurance, because if they changed jobs, their condition became a “pre-existing” condition, and they might have to wait two years to be covered again for their condition. So, in the ep, a woman with cancer, who doesn’t know she has it, changes jobs, and is then diagnosed. It’s a pre-existing condition, and not covered at her new job. > > Now what would happen is that if you changed jobs with less than a three month gap, and you pay for COBRA, or with no gap, your pre-existing condition must be covered. That’s the law. So that episode is as dated as though it had taken place in a phone booth. Mike is not supposed to be the good or normal one pitted against the bad Archie. In many ways Mike was as wrong as Archie. Archie had many layers of bad thoughts and motivations but when you peeled it back he basically had a good heart. Mike had many layers of noble intentions but in the end he is basically a meathead. Edith is the good and noble person in the house. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/50 "2017-02-21T03:05:38Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Mike is not supposed to be the good or normal one pitted against the bad Archie. In many ways Mike was as wrong as Archie. Archie had many layers of bad thoughts and motivations but when you peeled it back he basically had a good heart. Mike had many layers of noble intentions but in the end he is basically a meathead. Edith is the good and noble person in the house. No, when the show originally came out, the audience was supposed to identify with Mike. I remember when it was new. I was just a little kid, but I watched it with my parents. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/51 "2017-02-21T03:19:36Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > …So Gloria’s situation was old-fashioned even by the standards of her generation. **Mad Men** even addressed this. Joan kept working to support her husband during his residency and in one episode they had his boss over for dinner. When Greg didn’t get the promotion the boss’s wife consoled Joan by telling that she spend years supporting her husband by teaching kindergarten during his medical school and residency. > [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > "Some people like men, some people like women. > > Some people like dogs and some people like cats, and frankly I’d rather have a lesbian in the house than a cat-person." > > Truer words were never spoken. “Unless the lesbian sheds, then I don’t know.” ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/52 "2017-02-21T03:22:53Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > I would say that almost any 1970s or 1980s mention of homosexuality in an episode would not fly today. Even when the producers were trying for a sympathetic viewpoint, they tended to treat the subject with the usual stereotyping that we reject today. Case in point: Jodie Dallas of _Soap_. He goes through wanting a sex-change operation, then has a woman try to make him go straight, then agrees to a weekend with another woman (by whom he has a baby), etc. And most of the 70s and 80s programs that dealt with the subject consistently approach it from the viewpoint of the time: something was “wrong” with being homosexual, especially for a man. I’m not sure you can use Soap as an example. The whole point of the show was to push the tropes of soap operas way past the point of absurdity. Despite all that you listed above Jody was still probably the most normal character on the show (other than Benson). > [@RivkahChaya](#): > > The audience roared with laughter, because no one saw it coming. Probably a lot of people would anticipate the joke now. That’s why it wouldn’t sell. There was a black couple in the hospital at the same time. \>YAWN\< But when it first aired, black people on TV for any reason were pretty unusual, so bringing on a black couple to be “The Peters,” people who have been omnipresent without being seen the whole episode, was daring, and that’s why it was so surprising. It was brilliantly done. Like so much of the show the writing and timing were perfect. The Peters (Greg Morris as Mr Peters) are portrayed as a nice middle class family like the Petries. Even more important to the scene is that the Peters are already aware of the outcome but show up just for the laugh. The reactions from Rob, The Peters and the audience all came together perfectly. They had to cut out several minutes of the audience reaction. What’s sometimes forgotten is at the end Rob reveals that the Peters boy goes to school with theirs and gets straight As while their son is struggling. “I still think we got the wrong boy.” It was an important moment in television and it happened a few years before a black man would be able to be a regular on a tv show. Now it would be passé. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/53 "2017-02-21T03:34:47Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > “Unless the lesbian sheds, then I don’t know.” Lesbian sheds? So Subaru’s finally making mobile homes. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/54 "2017-02-21T03:43:46Z")
There was an episode of Rugrats where Angelica is having the babies dig through a playground sandbox to find coins for her. She gives them a few coins but generally keeps all the found goods for herself. Eventually a rival kid the same age as Angelica recruits the babies to work for him, promising them equal pay under the motto “Fair is Fair”. Eventually Angelica has nobody working for her while the rival kid has very motivated babies searching for coins for him but eventually the babies become unmotivated and start to slack off. The rival kid now shows his true colors and begins to threaten them and push them around and confiscates the money he promised to them so now they’re under even worse working conditions than Angelica. Eventually Angelica saves them and gives them candy she bought with the money they found and they happily work under her again. It was pretty obvious this was a tongue-in-cheek Cold War parody (Angelica represented the Capitalist West while the Rival kid was the Soviet Union with it’s deceiving promises of equality under an actual harsh totalitarian regime) but I think people today would find it a defense of wage slavery as well as actual slavery since Angelica is the lesser of two evils and still withholds their hard earned coins from them only placating them with candy at the end. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/55 "2017-02-21T03:47:10Z")
This one’s not a TV show, but deserves mentioning anyway. Lately I’ve been binge-listening to the archives of Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 from the early 80’s, and there was one Long Distance Dedication which seemed so inappropriate, I’m surprised it got airplay even back then. It was from a high school girl who dedicated a song to her “secret admirer”, who for more than a year had been sending her flowers & love letters signed “Sergio”. Eventually, Sergio wrote her a letter saying that he wouldn’t be contacting her anymore, because he was in the military and was being shipped overseas. And he explained the reason why he never made direct contact with her was because it wouldn’t be appropriate, due to the age difference – you see, he was in his mid-twenties, whereas she was only 15. :eek: :eek: :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_John_Marcej)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/56 "2017-02-21T04:23:11Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Albeit, IIRC, Gloria does get a job at some point in the series, but it’s a good three years or so in. Gloria had a job as a cashier for Ferguson’s Department store starting in the first season. The set up was that she and Mike would live with the Bunkers until Mike graduated and started a teaching career and she would help the cost by working as a cashier.I’m not sure if she still worked after Joey was born. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/57 "2017-02-21T11:17:12Z")
> [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](#): > > Gloria had a job as a cashier for Ferguson’s Department store starting in the first season. The set up was that she and Mike would live with the Bunkers until Mike graduated and started a teaching career and she would help the cost by working as a cashier.I’m not sure if she still worked after Joey was born. I’m pretty sure Mike was graduated before Joey was born, because Mike and Gloria bought the house next door. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/58 "2017-02-21T12:39:30Z")
There are a fair few old sitcoms in the UK, very popular in their day, where the jokes revolved around all sorts of stereotypes, that are cited today as examples of exactly how not to do it. And that’s not to mention the Black and White Minstrel Show that ran until 1978. Another sort that wouldn’t work now would be any plot that revolved around not being able to find a payphone, or not having the right money, to get a message through to someone. ---
**Author:** ![HipGnosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/76d3ee/32.png) [@HipGnosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HipGnosis)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/59 "2017-02-21T18:59:08Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > A couple of mentions of WKRP made me think of a particular episode that would at least draw ire nowadays: > > The ep. has Andy, Mr. Carlson, and Herb going out of town to make a presentation to a prospective client (someone who they want to buy ad time on the station). While at the hotel, Herb encounters a woman who clearly recognizes him – even though he can’t seem to place her. > > Later in the ep., Herb is making out with the woman - who reveals that (in her words): “I used to be a man!” and then it dawns on Herb that this was an old classmate of his whom he knew as a ‘boy.’ > > I am fairly certain that a lot of transgender activists would take exception to the depiction, because 1) the character’s line about “used to be a man” (transgender people assert that they’ve always known they were the ‘opposite’ sex and don’t see it as “used to be a man”) and, more importantly, 2) it perpetuates the nasty stereotype that transgenders are always out to ‘fool’ people – that they hide their “true nature” until after they’ve had sex in order to get one over on the ‘normal’ people. It was sorta done again in 2004; Two and a Half Men; episode “An Old Flame With a New Wick” Charlie met ‘Bill’ at his bar, and it turns out that Bill use to be Jill, who Charlie dated. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312/60 "2017-02-21T22:43:10Z")
I remember seeing a Hollywood Squares repeat on the Game Show where the contestant pick George Gobel. Peter Marshall asked him whether you can cross a Pumpkin with a Watermelon. Gobel’s one liner: “Yes, but what you get is a Jack-o-Lantern with an Afro.” I don’t think I Dream of Jeannie would pass these days. A guy keeps a girl in a bottle and she calls him “Master”. Jeannie would be able to show her navel, without any problem these days. And practically every show prior to the internet would get flamed by the continuity gestapo. Rob and Laura had flashbacks to Richie’s delivery while they were living in one house, and in another episode, they brought Richie home from the hospital to the house on Bonnie Meadow Road. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-episodes-that-wouldn-t-fly-today/780312.md?page=4)