While it’s not quite as bizarre as Happy Days flipping the set between seasons, there is the oddity of the change in the hotel’s layout between Fawlty Towers and Payne, the US remake of it. From left to right, the familiar BBC set ran bar, office, reception desk, lobby with front door at back, stairs, dining room. The US version retained this order, but reversed it - so that, for instance, the front desk is on the righthand side of the lobby. Now, of course, the remake is notoriously screwed-up; Cleese tells the story about the network executive whose early input was “We love the idea, but can we just drop the unlikeable Basil guy.” But the set is otherwise relatively faithful and someone evidently felt they had a reason for the switch.
(I was surprised when I stumbled across Payne being screened by one of the ITV stations here in the UK a few years back. Granted they were using it as late night filler, but it’s still a wonder they had the cheek.)
All in the Family (1971) is a “very early” sitcom? What does that make I Love Lucy (1951), Leave It to Beaver (1957), The Donna Reed Show (1958), The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Bewitched (1964), I Dream of Jeannie (1965) or The Brady Bunch (1969)?
This architectural floor plan of the Brady home shows a toilet bowl in the children’s bathroom. I suppose we seldom (never?) saw it because it was in an alcove of that L-shaped room. Most (photographical) bathroom activity involved standing at the double sink area, which makes up the other part of the L.
The only way the toilet bowl would be photographed would be if the camera were in the doorway to the girls’ room, and it panned back from the sink area to the toilet/bathtub area opposite it.
A show I always wondered about was LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. Charles Ingalls was supposed to be a great carpenter, but he lived in the ugliest house in Walnut Grove. This had to really be bad after growing up at one of the most homes in TV Land, The Ponderosa.
What I always wondered about with the Ponderosa was just who decorated it. There are “groupings” of porcelain figurines, Navaho wall hangings (in a non-Navaho region of the west), beautiful oxblood leather chairs, etc., all of which calls for strong judgements in taste and an intrinsic aesthete. This was a house of five men, all of whom were usually out rangling cattle and shooting bad guys or telling the story of another one of Ben’s dead wives, and I don’t think there were that many decorators in 1860 Virginia City, so who had the decorating talent?
My guess: Hoss. It’s always the big burly bear types. “Hop Sing, just how the hell you come all the way from the Imperial City and have no more understanding of Feng Shuih? Pa’s desk needs to face northwest in order to encourage the flow of productive energy, and do you really think the bluebird pattern on this china is going to go unnoticed next to the pineleaf wall hanging? Think! Now go get me another mocha while I decide where to display the pre Columbian textile arrangements, and if those beans are scorched again this time you’ll be lucky to get a walk on as the waiter at the Chinese place in Mt. Pilot on Andy Griffith, capece?”
I hate houses that completely disagree with themselves from outside and inside. The Brady’s is a prime example- there is no way that house had the 14,000 square feet necessary for that interior, and the Golden Girls had 4 master bedrooms (all with brand new and highly polished furnishings) and a large lanai in a house that looked MAYBE 2,000 sq. feet from the outside.
I don’t think the MR. BELVEDERE house was ever shown from the outside, but what was up with that multi-landing staircase? FULL HOUSE had a full basement, a full attic (large enough for Jesse to build a 2 BR apartment), and numerous bedrooms in the historic district yet was economical enough for a single father to buy.
On THE JEFFERSONS, there were supposed to be four bedrooms. Where were they? The hallway exited to stage right- the bedrooms couldn’t be to the left because the balcony was there, and they couldn’t be to the right because that’s where Bentley’s apartment was.
On HAPPY DAYS, the front and back door were both on the same side of the house, and the front wall was at an angle. And where did the stairs lead? because the celings were at least 2 stories high in the living room.
Houses that agreed with themselves inside and outside: Bewitched, Dallas, Falcon Crest, and, ugly as it was, Little House on the Prairie.
You know what just occurred to me? The Simpsons has almost the same layout at Buffy’s house on BtVS.
He wasn’t a single father when he bought it. There was a flashback when his wife was bringing baby Michelle home. Plus, he oculd probably afford it. He was a sportscaster, then had his own morning show…
i am always amazed that all of the people who are on the edge of poverty always have huge houses with 2700 ft living rooms. iirc, the clampetts had the smallest living room of all of the sitcoms. (courtin parlor not included, natch)
What I wondered about with the Clampetts is this: they live in a 30 room mansion. Presumably one of those rooms is a formal dining room- most middle class homes built in that era had a formal dining room, so surely a rambling mansion would. However, when they had company they ate on the billiard table in the “fancy eatin’ room”. You’d think that even a hillbilly who’d never seen a pool table before would, when seeing one room with billiards and another with tables, chairs, china cabinets, etc., be able to tell which one was for “fancy eatin’” (but then you’d also think they’d know even before leaving the hills that brand new trucks were available, plus you’d think they’d know that they could buy a large spread of land in the Ozarks and live in a log mansion easier than moving to California, so you “remind yourself that it’s just a show/sit back and just relax”.
Kudos to your wife’s grandmother, Grace Gregory, btw: I always thought the Ponderosa was one of the most comfortable looking houses on TV. I’ve heard that Lorne Greene copied a lot of it when he built his own house, but I don’t know if it’s true.
You can actually tour the Ponderosa ranch and farmhouse if you go to Lake Tahoe. You can also have a hayride and pancake breakfast, yeeee-haw! And get hitched!!
