The moment on Garry Shandling’s show when Gilda Radner–horribly thin and emaciated and pale from her cancer treatment–walks out to wild applause with her hands raised in a victory gesture… comes in second.
The first is on The Daily Show, the first night after the 9/11 attacks–Jon’s speech. It never ever fails to break me down.
At least the first three seasons are.
Also look for it.
**Next US TV Airings: **
Tue. Nov. 7 9:00 AM OXYGEN The New Friend #6.8
Tue. Nov. 7 9:30 AM OXYGEN Le Sex Show #6.7
Only the first two seasons. I’m not sure when or if they’ll put out the rest.
I think the bit that plays over the credits for this episdoe is funny as Paul explains exactly why doing something in one shot is hard work.
Hmm, I missed that I guess. I wonder if it’s on youtube. I’ll check.
-FrL-
That last episode of Blackadder Goes Forth hit pretty hard in the USA, as well. (Although I known that Britain lost far more in The Great War.)
The first two Blackadder series ended with the death of all the characters, brought about by absurd plot twists. No plot device was needed in the last series, since the Finest Military Minds of that generation supplied the absurdity.
Don’t bother–as far as I can tell, it’s gone. I had it bookmarked right up until the point Comedy Central decided to enforce copyright. :mad: 
I had it bookmarked too. It’s gone.
Another All in the Family moment - when Archie learns that Gloria cheated on Mike and says to Mike something like, “I never thought I’d say this but you’re too good for her!”, and Gloria lets loose with the tears. I was so glad I was alone watching that.
Comedy Central clips have largely gone back up after the parent company decided on a new approach. Cite .
Obviously your old bookmark is no longer there, but a search may well find the clip again.
Holy cow. :eek:
Never even heard of this (unless this is a whoosh).
Rosanne did a few with either child illness and they delt with poverty in many episodes. IIRC they even had their lights turned off at one point. Dan also beat up Jackie’s boyfriend after he hit her.
I seem to recall this from The Jeffersons but I was fairly young: George was locking horns with a white supremacist through the first part of the episode (organizing Klan rallies in the building? don’t remember). The racist guy has a heart attack. George gives him CPR and revives him. When the racist learns his life was saved by a black guy, he says he would rather have died.
Pretty strong stuff for, what, the late 70s-early 80s, whenever it was.
There was a Jeffersons episode that I never saw in its first run. It was a flashback to 1968, when Louise was a maid and George was trying to get a loan to open his first dry-cleaning store. Halfway through the episode, they’re in the property that will become the dry cleaners, and hear a commotion outside. George opens the door and asks what’s going on, and a distraught man says, “Brother Martin was killed!”
After the break, Louise’s employer calls, not understanding why she hasn’t shown up when the employer is hosting a dinner party that night. George bellows, “Why don’t you get a new maid?” and hangs up. Meanwhile, then-teenage Lionel wants to join the looters, and George talks him out of it, on the grounds that that’s not what Rev. King wanted for his people. So all three of them sit and watch the news, still shell-shocked, and fade out.
Pretty powerful, and in a way more so, because I saw it on Nick at Nite, which tends to skip over the really hard-hitting episodes.
Transcript of the speech:
http://anitasdailyshowpage.tripod.com/transcripts/2001okay.htm
Thanks, Ghanima - I missed that episode, too.
Roseanne did quite a few, but the best was when a poignant show turned funny! When Roseanne and Jackie’s father died and Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) volunteered to call an elderly relative and relay the bad news, it was one of the funniest moments I have ever seen on television. Laurie should have gotten an Emmy just for that scene alone and I have rarely laughed so loudly during a sitcom…(wannabe actors should study that scene and use it for auditions).
Basically, the elderly relative must have been hard of hearing as the scene started off quite sadly with Jackie telling the news on the phone, “Dad died.”, then repeating it, then repeating it louder in snippets, and then getting frustrated and repeating it again until finally she is resorting to screaming on the phone and eventually gives up and yells, “Dad’s fine.” and hangs up.
Maybe you have to see the episode, but in less than a minute, she takes you from really sad to bust-your-gut laughing; it was such a real, off-the-wall moment that actually does happen in moments of tragedy that it worked perfectly.
Although “Jurassic Bark” from Futurama is good for bringing on the waterworks, I’m even more sucker-punched by “Luck of the Fryish.” All through the episode, Fry is angry at his brother Yancy, whom he thinks stole his lucky seven-leaf clover, and then stole his name to go on to fame and fortune that should have been Fry’s.
Then at the end they’re digging up what he thinks is Yancy’s body… and Fry learns that it’s actually his nephew, named after him because Yancy missed him so much. Then “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” starts playing (from the Breakfast Club soundtrack) and I start sniveling.
No, she wasn’t actually raped. Archie, Gloria, and Mike were next door planning a surprise party for Edith’s 50th birthday, and Edith was left home alone when a man claiming to be a police detective searching for a rapist assaulted her. As WhyNot correctly pointed out, she hit the man with a hot pan from the oven and managed to flee.
As best as I can recall, Jamie says something like, “She’s learned that we won’t always be there for her.”
They look at each other a moment and then she says sadly, “Turn back the clock.”
Captured my constant feelings of motherguilt perfectly!
That’s one of the most finely played scenes in any comedy ever, IMHO. It’s the escalating frustration in Jackie’s voice that does it–“He’s dead. Dad’s dead…no, DEAD. DEAD! HE’S DEAD! DEAD!”
Although I prefer to pretend the final season of Roseanne never even took place, the episode in which Dan has his near-fatal heart attack at Darlene’s wedding gets to me every time. And then in the final episode we learn Dan died. Gah.
On a less award-winning level, there’s the episode of Growing Pains in which Carol’s friend (Matthew Perry, pre-Friends) dies in a car accident. The worst part about it was that Carol had just visited him in the hospital and he was fine. Then he threw a blood clot or something and died suddenly. Played with my teenage emotions, that episode did.