“Scrubs” wasn’t ruined when Cox became a daddy. Of course the baby was mostly off screen until he was a toddler.
Some of the best episodes of the short-lived Alien Nation involved the conception/pregnancy/birth of George and Susan Francisco’s little pod-baby.
Baby Vessna pretty much disappeared after birth, however.
On the one hand, Lost is an example where the baby IMPROVED the show, since it took away Claire’s extremely annoying “look at me, I’m PREGNANT” scenes, but it also added plenty of Charlie’s “I’m gonna be a surrogate daddy whether you like it or not” scenes, so they cancel each other out a bit.
I’ve never screamed at a TV louder in my entire life when we found out that Claire wasn’t actually dead. And not screams of joy.
The addition of triplet baby boys to My Three Sons was a cute idea, but it didn’t disguise the fact that their daddy had left the show.
I can’t remember if Mork & Mindy had run its course or not; I was a kid and still loved the show. But the entire concept of Jonathan Winters as a baby was gross in the extreme and left me gagging in distaste. Now I’m totally creeped out by it. What were they thinking??
Going way back, there was a little-remembered show called, IIRC, That’s Life starring Robert Morse (arguably most famous for starring in the musical How to Succeed in Business (Without Really Trying), both on stage and screen. It was a weekly musical, with original singing and dancing numbers every episode, and followed through the life of the main characters. the met, fell in love, got married, and, of course, had a baby (who, as in the unlamented Mork and Mindy cited above, was played by an adult, although in this case never in scenes with the other adults). The baby thing was planned from the start.
Whatever you might think of the show, good or bad, I don’t think the addition of the baby changed it significantly. Iwas only a kid when this aired, and I was pretty impressed with how ambitious it was, but I might think differently now.
I’ve never seen this show rerun, by the way. Never in syndication. Never on VHS or DVD. Never on TVland. I wonder if the tapes even still exist.
Having the baby twins on Full House didn’t ruin the show. In fact, there was nothing that could have been done to make the show worse – it was already at an infinite level of crappitude.
And no one’s even mentioned “Baby Bob.” =Shudder= That show gave new meaning to the term “craptacular.”
Of course, the baby already existed in the premiere, so it probably doesn’t count for purposes of the OP.
The only reason the baby never ruined “I Love Lucy” was because they immediately abandoned it! They were always dumping it with grandma or the old neighbor woman to run off to California or Europe.
I guess having to two kids on “Deep Space Nine” didn’t ruin it. But the show was mainly to learn the Ferengi Rules of Acqusition
That JW was RW’s comedy hero, and since they had an alien excuse for any plot point they wanted, they’d hire a brilliant comedian to fill what was becoming a real void.
It didn’t really work.
I think we should differentiate between shows that had kids either as a gimmick or a crutch (say… married with children), not shows where people just happen to have kids as part of the story. (say… lost)
Okay, I’m a nerd. I understand that you mean Voyager wasn’t ruined by the babies but it was already so bad, but what’s a hanging curve ball, and what does it mean in this context?
Lilith & Fraiser having Frederick didn’t ruin Cheers.
Hanging curve ball is a baseball term meaning a curve ball that doesn’t break quickly enough so that it’s easier to hit. Outside of baseball it’s another way of saying “easy target” or “sitting duck.”
As already mentioned, a hanging curve ball is a baseball pitch just begging to be hit.
In this context it means, he’s waiting for someone to do this:
No, they were too late for that!
Six Feet Under?
Petticoat Junction wasn’t ruined by introducing a baby. Unfortunately, that happened at the same time the star, Bea Benaderet died, which did ruin the show.
I find it interesting that The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet – the show which most thoroughly combined the real-life actors with their characters – added David and Rick’s real-life wives to the storyline, but not their real-life children.
One of those babies grew up (rather rapidly) to become Naiomi Wildman, who ended up being a catalyst to make the worst aspects of Neelix and Seven of Nine come bubbling forth.
Simpsons wasn’t hurt in the least by an episode in which eight new babies appeared.
Not to forget the cute bundle-'o-joy in the sci-fi miniseries V.