That’s not necessarily an inconsistency. It is just an indication of a dark conspiracy of the tinnily nostalgic “happy” days presented in the show. Notice also that no one is worrying about Commies, chain-smoking Lucky Strikes, building bomb shelters, or obsessing about “reefer madness” in this rock & roll influenced kids. Nor do we ever see any outdoor scenes in the show, or indications that styles and cultural trends are significantly progressing during the show’s ten year run. In other words, the world presented in the show is a highly idealized and completely unrealistic simulation of 'Fifties soda shop culture that never existed.
I think it is pretty clear that Happy Days actually takes place in a post-apocalyptic future in which a massive subterranean bunker bored in deep salt mines under Lake Erie is maintained for the survival of the human race after a nuclear exchange that sterilized the surface of the planet. Chuck Cunningham was the first to uncover the secret, and was expelled from Vault 117 to roam the wastelands of the Detroit Autotropolis, but he was not the last, as characters regularly disappeared, often with little warning and laughably transparent explanations. Those that later “returned” for “visits” were clearly replicants programed to behave like former dwellers in order to assuage any concerns about inconsistencies and disappearances. There was also the use of computer or direct neural simulation to replicate a vacation visit to “Hollywood”, in which the characters behaved in bizarre and radically different ways. Such simulations clearly proved to be computationally expensive and produced unstable psychosocial responses in the subjects, and were eventually discontinued as documented in the classified Vault-Tec directive 2173-34J-2-L16.
The unseen final episode, (provisionally titled “End of Days”) had the maverick but somewhat clueless pseudo-gang member “Fonzie” discover the truth behind the conspiracy, and escape the vault via a series of forgotten service tunnels, killing Overseer Tom Bosley in the process. He then emerges into the Corvega Autoplex showroom and has to battle Protecterons, feral gouls, and the unique strain of Flint Super Mutants (which have a chrome-enhanced integument and unitized skeletal structure making them especially hard to kill).
Happy Days, indeed.
As for inconsistency, I think that Arrested Development takes it for a win, although this was largely if not entirely intentional. The almost instantly respawning banana stand and the model home suffering structural damage and then returning to pristine state despite the fact that no one in the family appeared to have any mechanical aptitude or motivation for home improvement are just a few of the many week-to-week inconsistencies in the show.
I also seem to recall an episode (the one where Homer joins the Stonecutters, I believe) where they showed the house as being right next to the power plant, separated only by a chain link fence.
There was an episode of The Brady Bunch where Peter showed some talent in something or other and Carol said “I think he gets that from my side of the family”, writers apparently having forgotten the premise of the show. And of course that house was one of the first fully realized cases of spacial folding (2,000 square feet on the outside with 12,000 square feet on the inside), but there have been several threads on TV houses and apartments that don’t work.
The Jeffersons couldn’t agree on George’s backstory. Sometimes he was born in Alabama, sometimes he was a lifelong NYC resident, and the brother who was on All in the Family was never mentioned save that once George’s nephew (Gary Coleman) came to visit. In most episodes George had basic literacy at best and never read for pleasure, then there was a two parter in which he was revealed to be a voracious reader of mystery novels and has to solve a real life mystery. They were more consistent on Louise’s backstory (daughter of a divorced mother with a sister who abandoned the family [later revealed to have been pregnant when she ran off]).
G1 Transformers is pretty bad. The robot’s colors and weapons change and change back often, dead robots are shown running around, and distinctive sound effects and voices are often different from episode to episode. The season following the movie was especially bad.
I’ve always wondered how real-life chronological references in that show (The Moon is Blue is released, the 52 Olympics, McArthur’s visits) held up over the life of the show…
There was one single episode that spanned an entire year (1952 I think). Apparently the Henry Blake episodes only covered about 3 months with Frank Burns an additional month.
MAS*H really only works if you assume they were on in an alternate reality where the war lasted 15 years and there’s no such thing as a term of enlistment. Sort of like West Wing where FDR and Vietnam were mentioned (I don’t know if any president after FDR was mentioned by name) but evidently Reagan and Bush and Clinton never happened and for some reasons elections were off by two years.
The Simpsons, as mentioned earlier, and Family Guy go out of their way to flaunt consistency and continuity. Don’t look for it, 'cause you won’t find it.
And that was taken from a show that debuted in the 1950s, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. In the first season we see in a couple of episodes Dobie’s college student older brother, played by Dwayne Hickman’s real-life brother Darryl. He disappears after a few episodes. America’s favorite beatnik, Maynard G. Krebs, was played by Bob Denver. Denver was drafted a few episodes into the first season, so Maynard was written out of the show by being drafted and turned into a model soldier. He was replaced by his cousin, played by Michael J. Pollard. But Denver didn’t go into the Army (I think he had a medical condition but I can’t remember and I don’t have access to my books right now) so they returned him to the show with some flimsy explanation. But in season 2, after he and Dobie graduate high school, they both enlist in the Army. This time Maynard is exactly as awful a soldier as the audience expected.
There’s worse. In the first season the handsome rich kid was played by Warren Beatty. Yes, that Warren Beatty. His name was Milton Armitage and his mother was played by Doris Packer. Beatty left the show and was replaced by Steve Franken as the wonderful caricature of a rich kid, Chatsworth Osborne Jr. His mother was played by… Doris Packer. As Mrs. Osborne. No mention of the Armitages ever spoiled their lips.
The only person of high school age ever on the show was the jailbait’s jailbait, 16-year-old Tuesday Weld. She was too wild in real life so she got disappeared.
William Schallert played a teacher, maybe two, before settling down as Mr. Leander Pomfritt. Jean Bryon played a totally different teacher before coming back as Dr. Imogene Burkhart, her real name. (They later got together as Patty Duke’s parents on her tv show.) Sheila James was introduced as a one-shot character before returning as the love-of-my-life, Zelda Gilroy.
Just a side note: in addition to the ones already given, characters had the best names of any show. A sampling:
Fast Freight McCurdy
Jessica Zeffelhorse
Posthumus Simpson
Gloria Mundy
Giselle Hurlbut
Anastasia Dimitrov
Fifi and Lola LaVerne
Cynthia Vandefeller
Dr. von Schwering
Col. Stonehenge
Henry Cabot Loot, Jr.
Ethel Bronkowski
Thalia Menninger
Aphrodite Millican
Trembley, the Butler
Having grown up in the 70s, I just can’t watch that show. It’s so full of erroneous stereotypes and clear anachronisms it makes me want to beat my head against the wall. (On the few times I have seen it, it rarely takes more than five minutes for me to notice one item, or one catchphrase, that didn’t show up until the 80s.)
The layout of the house changes from episode to episode (the “Handy-Quacks” episode has the kitchen where the stairs normally are). Quagmire’s shown living on one side of the Griffin house in one episode, and in the next lives on the other side. In the early episodes, Lois understands Stewie enough to say “no dessert for you” after he swears, and then, in the same episode, guesses at what he wants by his gestures (she says something like, “oh, you just want your toy back.”).
Homer’s intelligence varies depending on the episode of The Simpsons. At the onset, he’s a dim-witted guy who loves his kids, and tries. Later, he’s an idiot.
That might have been intended as a joke on Carol’s part, but imagine what it would have implied if Mike had referred to a talent of Jan’s as coming from “his side of the family”!
It’s been many years since I’ve seen Dobie Gillis (although not that many - I’m 32 but I grew up on Nick at Nite in the 80s/90s)…but, wasn’t it established at some point that Chatsworth was Milton’s cousin? So one could assume that their mothers were sisters (or even twins) which could explain the resemblance.
The pilot took place in 1992, as did the second episode, possibly. The third and beyond pick up over a year later, and no mention of the missing time is ever made.
Mulder’s missing sister, Samantha, got renamed, for her middle name
and re-aged…and despite this neither birthdate given would have made her the proper age they said she was when she died
then Luke Doggett’s birth and death dates are given as two even farther set apart pairs of dates late in the show.
Several characters told Mulder that his sister wasn’t dead, including some ghosts. Either it’s the lyingest bunch of dead people ever put to the small screen or the writers forgot by season seven.
There are two contradictory explanations for how Scully got her signature necklace
Abducted, Scully was missing 4 weeks, or 3 months, depending on what episode you go by.
The fact that her biological daughter was born just 3 months after she was abducted to steal her ova goes unremarked upon, even by Mulder.
Gibson Price is introduced as a 12-year-old boy in the final episode of season 5. And the first episode of season 8. Everyone else aged two years during this timeframe.
Doggett empathetically claims to have read all the casefiles…even the older ones that got burnt up during the last episode of season 5?
It’s revealed in season 8 that Mulder was suffering a brain disease for the previous year and had a “clear record of decline.” A brain disease that was devastating and external symptom-free.
It’s impossible to figure out Scully’s pregnancy with the dates offered in season 8. Either the last episode took place in a sultry March week, or she was pregnant a full year…
Huh. I didn’t remember that, but Wikipedia backs you up.
Although…
One thing I do remember, now that I’m thinking about it, is that Dobie and Maynard are the same age and in all the same classes but Maynard had to repeat two years of elementary school.
