I was surfing YouTube when I caught this jem–the “punk rock” episode of “CHiPs”. Part One is here. This episode is great in so many ways:
–the “new wave” band wears long hair, plays studio pop, and uses words like “happening”.
–said band is fronted by the redheaded girl from “Eight is Enough”
–she’s worried about winning a battle of the bands, even though her brother owns the club
–has punks who cheer a shiny shirted off duty cop singing “Celebration”
What other TV episodes have you wondering if they were parodies, because they’re too ridiculous to be sincere?
Well, I guess you are talking about dramas or other tv shows that take themselves somewhat seriously, vs comedies that are always over the top.
Probably the most surreal one for me was the Wonder Woman episode featuring Wonder Woman’s newly arrived cousin, Wonder Girl, from Paradise Island, played by none other than Debra Winger.
Jump the Shark, dude, actually jumping the fucking damn shark.
That episode is awesome. Ponch’s version of “Celebration” is almost as good as the original.
Star Trek: Voyager’s episode Threshold. Even by the standards of Voyager, it is ridiculous and all-around terrible.
DRAGNET had several, but my favorite was the LSD-Blueboy episode. Clip.
I love the good girls who are saved from running with a wild crowd:
“Haven’t touched any more of that acid, that’s for sure!”
Peter McWilliams gave a great rundown of it as well- exerpts from that:
There was an episode of Little House on the Prairie where blind sister Mary’s (entirely fictitious) baby was being kept by a housesitter or something while Mary and her (equally fictitious) husband were gone. The house catches on fire and the housesitter grabs the baby and bashes it against a window to break the window and escape, IIRC.
I remember a Love Boat episode with Sonny Bono playing a punk rocker by the name of “Deacon Dark” complete with a song, Bash It, Take a Hammer and Smash It!
Roseanne winning the lottery. Not just one episode, an entire season.
I never saw that one. I have trouble imagining that it could be more ludicrous than the Spock’s Brain episode of TOS.
Wasn’t there an episode of Star Trek TOS where they encountered a planet of hippies.
IIRC, there was also an episode of Lost in Space where they encountered space hippies as well.
LiS was one of the most dichotomistic shows ever - from my memory, the early black and white episodes tended to be drama heavy, with “scientific” issues actually mattering (for example, they landed on a planet with a highly elliptical orbit, so that the ocean of ice that they crossed earlier in the episode melted by the end), but once they switched to color it was pure camp.
A topic so weird not even the Muppets would touch it.
I’ve mentioned “Brainchild” before, not by name but as the Disneyfication of “Walker, Texas Ranger”.
One of the worst series of all time.
Brothers who look nothing alike. One talks like a prissy Ivy Leaguer and the other like a macho southerner.
San Diego? I drove by them shooting an episode on Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica, way way north of San Diego.
So I nominate ALL episodes of this ridiculous embarrassing series.
Don’t forget Albert’s girlfriend getting raped and pregnant by the blacksmith dressed up like a clown! Or Albert addicted to morphine. Or any of the other weird episodes from this “wholesome family show”. <G>