When Funny Shows Turn Poignant (Warning: Some Spoilers Possible)

All broadcasters and MPs wear them.

Thank you for that. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

That Simpsons episode gets me as well. The end scene of Homer sitting on his car and watching the stars after his mom has to leave again is just beautiful.

There’s another that brings me to tears…I haven’t seen it in awhile so the details are a bit fuzzy, but Bart and Lisa end up on opposing hockey teams and both are determined to beat the other. Then, while playing a game, they both recall sweet moments from their childhood together…the only one I can remember is a younger Lisa dropping her ice cream cone, and starts crying, so Bart gives her his. Always gets to me.

I had to check it:

Even though it was spoiled in the last posts and it is decades old, still that WKRP clip does crack you up.

Aaaand I missed **lawoot’s ** post…

Not to mention Darling’s “I thought I’d see it through. Go back to blighty. Keep wicket for the Croydon Gentlemen. Marry Doris…”

Even Baldrick has his poignant moment: “I’m scared, sir”

Viewed a second time, there are a lot fewer laughs in that episode.

The All Blacks were playing France yesterday, 11th November, they had poppies embroidered on the arm of their rugby shirts.

No politician would ever be seen in public without one. That would be just begging for a hundred nasty editorials.

In most contexts, TV announcers and such wear them too.

I dunno - I had one, my parents had theirs… I was trying to buy a couch and all the salepeople I spoke with had them. I’d say everyone in the service industry would have had a poppy.

I just wanted to say that the end of the fourth Black Adder series (and only that) was what I immediately though of last week when this thread popped up. I’m sure other shows have managed to yank me around, but that’s the only one where it didn’t feel hackneyed or tacked-on or manipulative. IIRC there’s a last nervous laugh to be had when George declares the war to be over prematurely, but you know that they’re all going to die, and there isn’t going to be an amusing plot twist to save them; they’re doomed.

True, I’m thinking of all the moments you’d not laugh at again, like Captain Darling’s diary entry of “Bugger”.

I remember watching the All in the Family where Edith almost gets raped. The rest of the family had gone next door to set up Louise Jefferson’s birthday party. Edith stayed behind to finish baking the cake. Before the rape could commence, the cake started burning. She and the rapist ran into the kitchen, she took the burning cake out of the oven and shoved it in his face. Great moment.

It was also a poignent moment when Edith & Louise had to say good-bye

Edith: Have I ever told you that I love you?
Louise: Every minute I’ve ever spent with you.

Two other Simpsons get me weepy, besides the ones mentioned- when Homer is putting Maggie to bed and says “the sooner kids talk, the sooner they talk back- I hope you never say a word”, and she says “daddy” and then goes to sleep. Also, when Homer has cheered up both Bart and Lisa and says to Marge something along the lines “no talking Marge, lets go to sleep, I’m on the biggest roll of my life”.

I heard someone talk about Roseanne up above. The last episode was kind of a downer…after a while. Like, the first half was kinda normal, and she’s cracking jokes about everyone…then you see Dan sitting there smiling, and it goes and focuses on someone else, and then goes back, and the chair is empty.

Sorry, I lose it every time. Dan was my favorite. :frowning: He shoulda had his own show. Screw Roseanne.

~Tasha

Video of the transcript:

Ovar har.

Two from Fresh Prince of Bel Air:

Wil’s father Lou Smith shows up, played by Ben Vereen. He starts making plans about spending the summer driving his truck with Wil by his side. Uncle Phil tells Wil not to go with him, and Wil shouts “I can do anything I want. You’re not my father.” Wil later talks to Vivian about it, saying “For the past four years, I’ve given him everything he has needed, from a pat on the back to a kick in the pants.” Later, when Lou cancels his plans, Wil screams “I learned to ride a bike without him, I learned to shave without him, and I can learn to be a man without him.” He starts crying, Phil hugs him, and Wil says “Why don’t he want me, man?”

There was an episode where Wil was having trouble coping with his job, his schoolwork, his girlfriend, and bought some uppers. He told Carlton they were vitamins, and so Carlton takes a few the night of the Big Dance. Carleton does the dance of his life, collapses, and Wil rushes him to the hospital where his stomach is pumped. When Phil thanks Wil for acting so fast, a guilt striken Wil tells him they were his pills. When he explains how he was having so much trouble coping with everything, Phil says “Welcome to the real world.” Then he makes Wil tell everyone that he gave the pills to Carlton.

I really worry about John Goodman. He truly is a Big Ol’ Boy and I am just dreading the day he drops dead of a heart attack. That will be a very sad day.

I was just saying that last while watching him on Studio 60. He could drop a third of his current weight and still be a big guy.

I had never really watched the show Moonlighting when it was on and happened to catch some episodes in syndication and really got off on the smart-ass interactions and tearing down of the fourth wall.
The one TV episode that hit me really hard was when Maddy was pregnant and they showed the “baby”, played by Bruce Willis in footsy pajamas and bouncing around in a giant bubble. He was visited by a guardian angel who showed Bruce about the world, both the good and bad. Then the baby is being shown his parents and becomes excited about being born.
Suddenly the lights change and things go wrong. It turns out Maddy is losing the pregnancy. The guardian angel has no answers to give.
I saw this episode right after we lost our first baby. I started sobbing and when my wife walked into the room I couldn’t even get the words out. When I finally explained about the episode, she made me promise that if I ever saw the episode come on again that I would immediately turn the channel and not tell her why.

I’ve never seen that episode all the way through, just the crucial scene, but from what I’ve read about it, it was actually Edith’s party. Some of the remarks made by Archie, Gloria and Mike while they were waiting for her were purposely ironic, and many viewers thought that, not the attempted rape itself, was going too far. Also, David Dukes, who played the rapist, says that he and Jean Stapleton were so caught up in it that when they were discussing how she would use the cake on him, and how she would do it without breaking his nose or burning him, they had to have it pointed out that the cake wouldn’t be hot. There would just be smoke in the oven! Everything else was so intense, they hadn’t thought of that.

I don’t know if L.A. Law counts as a funny show; it was technically a drama, but did have its funny moments. At any rate, though, there was an episode where Michael (Harry Hamlin) was representing an attorney from another firm who had been dismissed because of her near-obesity*. Towards the end of the episode, she said to him,

“When I was in high school, when all the other girls were going to cheerleading practice, I would go to the library. And I’d study. And I’d study, and I’d study. Because I was going to be a lawyer and make something of myself. And where did it get me? Fired. For not looking like a cheerleader…I don’t want to be fat, dammit! Why does it have to matter? Why does it always have to matter?”

Hamlin’s reaction shots are poignant, too. I’d like to think that perhaps he was remembering times when, as a popular jock in high school, he had been dismissive of, or even mean to, people who didn’t fit the mold.

*Actually, there were several cases with this theme: the guy who was dismissed from whatever he did because of his Tourette’s, and the surgeon who was dismissed because patients were put off by his burned hands. And the obese guy who was scammed by a fad dietician and pulverized him. Conchetta Ferrel, who is also overweight, represented the dietician, on the grounds that “I’ve been there too, but it’s not an excuse to act badly, because thin people already think we’re unstable.”

Thought what was going too far? What was it about their ironic comments that was offensive?

-FrL-