We’re watching WKRP in Cincinnati as our nightly retro sitcom and I was amazed that Season 1, Episode 9 “Mama’s Review” was a clip show! Thankfully, “Turkeys Away” was Episode 7 so they were at least able to have a clip and refer to that gem.
This has to be some sort of record, right? Is there another show out there that did a clip show sooner in its run?
And if it is a record, by how much? What is second?
(Apparently it happened due to being off the air for a couple months and some idjit decided a clip show would help new viewers. The network mishandling of this show is legendary.)
Someone will come in and correct me very quickly if this is incorrect, but Season 1, Episode 22 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Shades of Gray,” was a clip show. I’ve seen various reports that it was either due to a writer’s strike going on at the time or cost overruns during the season that forced them to do a clip show at the end of only the first season. Unlike Community or South Park, it wasn’t done ironically.
And almost invariably done to slash the episode budget down to an hour’s shooting of the connector material and preserve the overall season budget.
The in-show rationale can be utterly absurd, and in most comedies usually involves amnesia so that the other characters have to “explain” past history to the victim. Who recovers miraculously in the last scene.
In dramas, it’s often a “courtroom” setting where one character is being tried on their horrible past crimes of bad writing.
Nowadays, we get an opening scene of the hero in the midst of terrible danger, as his crew is slaughtered around him, then… cut to calm exterior shot and cutline 36 HOURS EARLIER. (Gahd, I hate that approach.)
I can’t remember the exact details but MST3K did a clip show type set up for their bumper segments (anyone out there still circulating the tapes may be able to remember more clearly). I read about that episode years later and evidently everything they did to save money and time ended up being spent researching the clips and shooting around them.
Shades of Grey was Season two. It had Pulaski. ugh.
I think WKRP will be the record holder. I’m not sure a clip show in episode 2 (Clerks) can really exist. I’d call it a rerun. I think WKRP’s clip show was to reacquaint viewers with the show, as it had been off for two months, and that was a long time back then. Also, it could help pick up new viewers who had been watching something else at the same time that had been cancelled.
Agreed. Clerks was all about “Ho ho! Look at us doing a clip show for our second episode! We’re wacky!”. WKRP was a legitimate clip show rather than just a silly stunt.
I remember that early clip show on WKRP. At the time I wondered if it was a sign the show wasn’t going to survive but I think your explanation makes a little more sense.
The two-part episode “Someday Your Prince Will be in Effect” (season 1, episodes 8 and 9) of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air are sometimes described as clip shows. If I ever saw those episodes, I don’t remember them.
For some reason I recall a sci-fi comedy series from about 25 years ago whose first episode was a fake clip show, to explain why one of the characters was a Fly and suchlike.
Indeed this was the first appearance of Carol Bruce* playing Mama Carlson. Sylvia Sidney had the role in the pilot.
But there weren’t any of the previous Sylvia Sidney scenes redone with Carol Bruce.
Almost the entire non-clip part of the show was set in Mr. Carlson’s office with him, Mama and Andy. A little bit was in the reception area and Jennifer appeared a few times.
According to IMDb this was her first role in almost a decade. Worked regularly before and after.
I think WKRP’s clip show was to reacquaint viewers with the show, as it had been off for two months, and that was a long time back then. Also, it could help pick up new viewers who had been watching something else at the same time that had been cancelled.