My sister is trying to ID a show from very little information she remembers from one episode:
This specific episode took place in France, the show wasn’t set there, the family was on vacation.
The scene she remembers is the family having their picture taken in front of the Eiffel Tower. They handed someone (a stranger) their camera, they all posed for the picture, the guy took the picture and then ran off with the camera.
Still posed, one of the family members said “Did he just take our camera?”
It’s a 90’s era Sitcom.
That’s all she has. She’s usually very good with this kind of stuff, but she just has the image in her head.
The Facts of Life had a tv movie (later shown as a 4 part episode in syndication) called “The Facts of Life Goes to Paris” and “Growing Pains” had a series of episodes in Europe, including Paris. Either one could have done the old “camera stolen by the guy you asked to take a picture” bit (that kind of thing also shows up in “European Vacation” as I recall).
Other examples include a 1992 Cheers episode in which Norm, Cliff and Cliff’s mom take a vacation in Los Angeles and end up attending a Tonight Show taping. During their montage of visiting various L.A. landmarks, someone runs off with their camera.
Similarly, a 1997 episode of Simpsons features Homer remembering a visit to New York City in his youth when someone ran off with his camera.
Keep’em coming, I’ll run all these ideas past her when I see her in the morning.
It’s for sure not Star Trek, I can tell you she doesn’t watch that.
When I mentioned the shows in the first post to her she said it might have been Family Ties, but I didn’t like the way she said it. It’ll ring a much louder bell for her when it’s the right show.
There was a Family Ties tv movie where they go to europe, but I don’t remember if they went to france or just england (the reason they were there was alex got in some exchange program with either oxford or a thinly veiled knockoff of oxford). In syndication it’s broken up into half hour episodes, just like the aforementioned Facts of Life one.
She thought it might have been Blossom, it was actually her first thought, but coincidentally she just marathoned the entire series so she knows it’s not that.
My suggestion was Friends, but I couldn’t remember it happening, specifically, and I know that show pretty well. For how well I know it, she knows it twice as well and said it wasn’t that show either.
I sorta kinda almost remember something like that from Married with Children, but I don’t think Al “It is wrong to be French” Bundy would go to Paris. Could the camera theft have happened in England, instead?
If it was Facts of Life, it most likely would have happened to Tootie and Natalie. They were the ones who really set out to explore Paris, and (IIRC) ended up befriending a starving artist.
Blair was hoping for a summer romance but never managed to hook up with anyone, so she learned to “enjoy [her] own company.” (The mind boggles… :rolleyes: )
Jo left Paris to go to LeMans (I think) and met her cool Frenchman-with-a-motorcycle while on the road.
I don’t remember what Mrs Garrett was doing while all this was going on. Something responsible, domestic, and didactic, no doubt.
The more I think about this, the more sense it makes. The starving artist steals their camera. Being feisty American teenagers, they track him down and make him give it back. He tells them his sob story, and they take pity on him and give him the encouragement he needs to carry on with his art. By the final commercial break, he’s become a success.
Either it’s all coming back to me, or I have a hyperactive imagination!