# television shows that decided to add kids **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 27, 2018, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276 "2018-03-27T14:34:31Z")\ **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:** [April 4, 2018, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/41 "2018-04-04T02:48:47Z")
“Madam Secretary” has a new baby on the show, although it’s not interfering with the plot all that much so far. Daisy, one of the SoS’s aides, had a brief fling with a diplomat who died, and found out later that she was pregnant by him. The reason they did that was because the actress who plays Daisy had a baby last year and the pregnancy was written into the show. After the diplomat died, I did notice that Daisy seemed to be gaining weight and usually wore coats tied in the front, until Daisy announced her pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/42 "2018-04-06T02:57:47Z")
> [@Kimballkid](#): > > And Chuck Cunningham went to college. Chuck was always in college. IIRC there’s an episode where Richie goes to stay in his dorm room/apartment for a while. No Chuck got completely retconned out of existence (due to Fonzie being super popular and unofficially taking the “older brother” role) much like the original layout of the Cunninghams’ house with the front door on the opposite side of the room and a separate dining room instead of just having a table in the living room. Oddly they never adjusted the exterior shots to match the new layout, which never matched the house’s interior for season 3 on. ---
**Author:** ![tenacious\_j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/439d5e/32.png) [@tenacious\_j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tenacious_j)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/43 "2018-04-06T03:19:09Z")
There were too many to count back in the '80’s. Off the top of my head not mentioned yet, Joey pre-“whoah!” Lawrence on Gimme a Break season 3, Sam from Diff’rent Strokes when Gary Coleman got too old to be cute, and some totally forgettable kid on Who’s the Boss, who I had to look up to find out his name was Billy. All of them were terrible actors with terrible haircuts on pretty bad shows, but I was just a kid myself then. Does Monroe from Too Close for Comfort count? He was pretty special. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/44 "2018-04-06T11:11:22Z")
> [@tenacious\_j](#): > > There were too many to count back in the '80’s. Off the top of my head not mentioned yet, Joey pre-“whoah!” Lawrence on Gimme a Break season 3, Sam from Diff’rent Strokes when Gary Coleman got too old to be cute, and some totally forgettable kid on Who’s the Boss, who I had to look up to find out his name was Billy. [Another completely forgotten child actor](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/growing-pains-actor-bothered-when-leonardo-dicaprio-joined_us_56aa9cfde4b00b033aae79d6) on _Growing Pains_… ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/45 "2018-04-06T14:08:31Z")
Let’s not forget Growing Pains adding the homeless Luke Bower, played by a then unknown Leonardo DiCaprio. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/46 "2018-04-06T14:10:25Z")
> [@tenacious\_j](#): > > There were too many to count back in the '80’s. Off the top of my head not mentioned yet, Joey pre-“whoah!” Lawrence on Gimme a Break season 3 And then, when he started getting older as well, they brought in his character’s brother, played by Joey’s brother Matthew. There was a “reunion” of sorts on an episode of _Blossom_, where Joey, Matthew, and younger brother Andrew (who appears to be playing a recurring character on _Hawaii Five-O_ now) played different age versions of Joey’s character. > [@CaptMurdock](#): > > This reminds me of McMillan and Wife – at one time Susan St. James is visibly _very_ pregnant and there is dialogue about the upcoming baby – but the next episode (which was a couple of months later as M&W was part of the rotating NBC Sunday Mystery Movie) SSJ was no longer pregnant and there was no mention of a baby! :smack: IIRC, the same thing happened on _Petticoat Junction_. In the last episode of the next-to-last season, the new doctor (June Lockhart’s character, brought in as a replacement of sorts for Bea Benaderet) was about to leave for a job in New York, but changed her mind at the last minute when Betty Jo got pregnant for the second time, but there was no new baby or even a mention of the pregnancy in the show’s final season. And Susan St. James went through this again on _Kate & Allie_; at first, they had Kate trip over an expensive sewing machine Allie had bought in secret and left on a staircase, so she could be in bed most of the time, and, as they put it in a “behind the scenes” episode near the end of the show’s run, when it just got too hard to hide the pregnancy, they had a flashback to when Kate was pregnant with Emma (and had Jane Curtin “padded up” to look like she was pregnant with Jenny at the same time). > [@TBG](#): > > No Chuck got completely retconned out of existence (due to Fonzie being super popular and unofficially taking the “older brother” role) much like the original layout of the Cunninghams’ house with the front door on the opposite side of the room and a separate dining room instead of just having a table in the living room. Oddly they never adjusted the exterior shots to match the new layout, which never matched the house’s interior for season 3 on. I remember at least one later-season episode where Marion says that they have “two children” (i.e. Richie and Joanie, but not Chuck). Also, you would think Chuck would have shown up at Joanie’s wedding in the final episode; after all, they managed to bring Richie back for that one. Then again, Chuck wasn’t at Richie’s wedding either - but then again _again_, neither was Richie (he was stuck on his Army base in Greenland and they had an “over the phone” wedding with Fonzie standing in for him). ---
**Author:** ![Jennshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/47 "2018-04-06T14:27:19Z")
The Adding a Kid Move usually marks the end of my interest in a show, especially in a crime/police procedural show. I’ve bitched about this before because I don’t like focus pulled from the adult actions; and, all too often, a cop’s kid is kidnapped and cliches unleashed. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/48 "2018-04-06T16:52:20Z")
> [@Jennshark](#): > > The Adding a Kid Move usually marks the end of my interest in a show, especially in a crime/police procedural show. I’ve bitched about this before because I don’t like focus pulled from the adult actions; and, all too often, a cop’s kid is kidnapped and cliches unleashed. A-MEN! ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/49 "2018-04-06T17:01:21Z")
How old was Scrappy-Doo? I don’t think it was clear if he was a great dane puppy, or an adult little yappy chihuahua mix. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/50 "2018-04-06T17:42:14Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > How old was Scrappy-Doo? I don’t think it was clear if he was a great dane puppy, or an adult little yappy chihuahua mix. Not sure how old he was, but Scrappy did make an appearance alongside Scooby and the gang on the Scoobynatural episode of Supernatural running through doors and such. Blink and you miss it. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/51 "2018-04-06T17:44:12Z")
> [@Jennshark](#): > > The Adding a Kid Move usually marks the end of my interest in a show, especially in a crime/police procedural show. I’ve bitched about this before because I don’t like focus pulled from the adult actions; and, all too often, a cop’s kid is kidnapped and cliches unleashed. In 2007 there was a reboot of ‘The Bionic Woman’ and I don’t know if she was there from the start or just was dumped on BW’s doorstep - meet the ‘younger sister’. It is an annoying fact of life that younger sisters are continually orphaned by their parents dying in car crashes and thus shipped off to the nearest relative. Where they make the tv character’s life a massive pain in the ass, as that younger sister buddies up to the villain, stays out all night with questionable acquaintances, ‘acts out’, and needs constant overseeing, discipline, and attention. (not to mention being a major cockblocker of the older sibling’s romantic life.) I am an old curmudgeon anyway, but I HATE those kids who show up, or are shoehorned into a series. Wasn’t Julia Louise Dreyfuss pregnant in real life during ‘Seinfeld’ at one point and it was just ignored completely on the show? As was Leah Remini on ‘King of Queens’? (years ago a druggy Barbara Hershey spluttered in a diatribe how she was turned down for acting roles because she was pregnant, and how pregnancy was a natural part of life, and why should it matter if the character was pregnant or not, and on and on in her Mother Nature Hippie way.) ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/52 "2018-04-06T17:46:57Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > This reminds me of McMillan and Wife – at one time Susan St. James is visibly _very_ pregnant and there is dialogue about the upcoming baby – but the next episode (which was a couple of months later as M&W was part of the rotating NBC Sunday Mystery Movie) SSJ was no longer pregnant and there was no mention of a baby! :smack: Sounds like Maggie on the Walking Dead. ---
**Author:** ![Princess\_Perfume](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/princess_perfume/32/16518_2.png) [@Princess\_Perfume](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princess_Perfume)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2018, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/53 "2018-04-09T15:27:02Z")
I’m really surprised they didn’t retake some scenes in _ **My Three Sons** _ where Dawn Lyn (“Dodie”) obviously had problems. _ **Nanny and the Professor** _ fans might be happy that Dawn Lyn didn’t end up their Prudence Everett. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2018, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/54 "2018-04-09T16:11:45Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > Wasn’t Julia Louise Dreyfuss pregnant in real life during ‘Seinfeld’ at one point and it was just ignored completely on the show? Louis-Dreyfus has such a slight build it would hardly have been noticeable under the loose clothing she habitually wore on the show. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2018, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/55 "2018-04-09T16:37:00Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > Wasn’t Julia Louise Dreyfuss pregnant in real life during ‘Seinfeld’ at one point and it was just ignored completely on the show? Ignored on _Seinfeld_, but hilariously harpooned on _The Nanny_, where C.C. (played by the very pregnant Lauren Lane) enters talking about a Seinfeld episode she saw where the producers were obviously trying to hide JLD’s pregnancy. C.C. wears an overcoat, carries a giant shoulder bag which she switches to the other shoulder when she turns around, picks up a large potted plant and leaves, then returns holding a large poster that says “Baby.” ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2018, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/56 "2018-04-09T23:41:56Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > Sounds like Maggie on the Walking Dead. Except not. They constantly mention her pregnancy, and trying to get a doctor back to town for her and stuff. Yeah, she’s been preggo a long time, but that’s more like Lilith on Cheers than anything else. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2018, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/57 "2018-04-09T23:46:18Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > How old was Scrappy-Doo? I don’t think it was clear if he was a great dane puppy, or an adult little yappy chihuahua mix. He was Scooby’s nephew so he was at least partly great dane. ---
**Author:** ![Princess\_Perfume](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/princess_perfume/32/16518_2.png) [@Princess\_Perfume](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princess_Perfume)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/58 "2018-05-02T13:45:01Z")
Dodie in M3S where she runs away to Rob and Katie’s apartment… she’s lucky she wasn’t pulled into some strange man’s car and never seen again! WTF, scriptwriters? ---
**Author:** ![Tread](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Tread](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tread)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/59 "2018-05-03T18:42:47Z")
Since this is a plot device that has been around for years, and brought us many annoying kids, and many shark jumps, here is my question… Is there any instances of the new kid on a show, actually working? ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276/60 "2018-05-03T18:58:50Z")
> [@Tread](#): > > Since this is a plot device that has been around for years, and brought us many annoying kids, and many shark jumps, here is my question… > Is there any instances of the new kid on a show, actually working? That depends on what you mean by “working.” If somebody having a baby which then time jumps to a preschooler counts as a “new kid,” the ones on, say, _Growing Pains_ or _The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air_ didn’t doom the show. The closest I can come up with at the moment to an older kid being added that “worked” is Ernie on _My Three Sons_. (There’s also Kimmi on _Rugrats_, but that gets an asterisk as none of the characters got older.) Also, does the “new kid” have to be in the main family? Replacing Larry with Beaver’s later friends on _Leave It to Beaver_ only made the show better, IMO. One thing you have to keep in mind is, usually when a “new kid” is added, the show has already been on for a number of years and is starting to tire. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-shows-that-decided-to-add-kids/811276.md?page=4)