Episodes you just can't stand to watch

[Stanislav]

And BTW, since we seem to have gone a more "generic" route than what I originally intended for this thread...

Any Season One episode of The Odd Couple. (The single camera shows just don't do it for me -- they lack the "spark" of the live audience, three-camera shows).

And, conversely, any episode of Mork & Mindy AFTER Season One. ("Hey, guys, I have this wacky thought....let's take this enormous hit show with the breakout star, and totally screw with the format and cast for next season! Great idea, huh?")

 

[Kurt Toy]

A third-season "Full House" in which Jesse catches D.J. with a can of beer and accuses her of drinking, even though she never put her lips on the can. I thought he overreacted to what he saw.

 

[nightfly61]

Whenever the Olson Twins opened their mouths (except to eat something ) and the audience went "aaawwwww". Way too sickening.

Same with the "woo-hoos" from the audience on "Saved By the Bell", "Married With Children" & "Unhappily Ever After" :

Any Family Ties with Nick.
Any Jonanie Loves Chachi with either Joni or Chachi.
Any One day At A Time with screaming & arguing and/or Ann Romano's annoying smile.
Any Tom & Jerry after they became friends.
Fantasy Island after Tattoo got the monkey.
The Doogie Howser episode where he was treated like a kid on his birthday.
Any Doogie Howser where they re-enacted old movie skits in dream sequences.
Any Taxi with Latka. Never an A.K fan.
Any Scooby Doo with Scrappy Doo in it. :
Any Three's Company after Furley left & the annoying family & little kid moved in.
Any Friday Night Videos after they started having guest hosts :

 

[Prais]

The Odd Couple on WGN. (no longer on there is it?) The prints look like you are watching throug a piece of gauze.

 

[Braves2005]

Any Three's Company after Furley left & the annoying family & little kid moved in.

Didn't know that Mr. Furley left the show, must have missed that one. Do you mean when Stanley and Helen left? And are you referring to The Brookes and their son who appeared on The Ropers? I thought that Jeffery Tambor was funny on that show.

 

[Braves2005]

The last season of Laverne and Shirley when Cindy Williams left the show. The show became a trainwreck afterwards. No Lenny, Frank and Edna divorced, Squiggolyn (not funny at all), etc.

The last season of Mork and Mindy with Jonathan Winters as Mearth. :

 

[Stanislav]

The last season of Laverne and Shirley when Cindy Williams left the show. The show became a trainwreck afterwards. No Lenny, Frank and Edna divorced, Squiggolyn (not funny at all), etc.

That show had already jumped the shark when they moved to California. (The final trainwreck season was just the shark's revenge...) Moving the show into the 60's (practically overnight) destroyed the whole atmosphere. (The new opening had a poster of the circa 1964 moptop-era Beatles, and didn't the final season mention the musical "Hair," which would put it up to, what '67? '68?)

 

[LKellerIII]

Any Three's Company after Furley left & the annoying family & little kid moved in.

Didn't know that Mr. Furley left the show, must have missed that one. Do you mean when Stanley and Helen left? And are you referring to The Brookes and their son who appeared on The Ropers? I thought that Jeffery Tambor was funny on that show.

While I was never a fan of Three's Company, I thought The Ropers was more than decent. Jeffrey Tambor is usually spot-on, and his wife was played by the prolific Patty McCormack, who is still very much around. Patty made her debut as a child actor playing the scary little brat title character in The Bad Seed in 1953. More recently, she played Pat Nixon in Frost/Nixon.


http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0566478/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048977/

 

[firepoint525]

The Archie-less, Mike-and-Gloria themed episodes of "All in the Family" were some of their worst, especially the New Year's Eve show and the baby-shower show. Gloria acted shrill and Mike acted like a buffoon. The bathroom fire one was pretty stupid too.
Mike and Carol Brady as their own grandparents.
The fantasy/dream episodes of "The Jeffersons".

Didn't Sally Struthers have her own All in the Family spinoff (Gloria) in the early '80s? I believe she was divorced from the meathead by then! Archie had to have been happy about that! ;D I'm guessing that this show must have been very short-lived.

 

[firepoint525]

Well, subset is characters on shows you can't stand.

Lana on Three's Company, terrible.
Carmine The Big Ragu on Lavern and Shirley, makes my skin crawl
Cousin Oliver and Rickey Segal, last ditch efforts to get viewers
Warren on Andy Griffith (though I love Jack Burns, huh? yeah!)
Whoever replaced Barbarino on Kotter
Whoever replaced Foreman on That Seventies Show
The entire cast of "That Girl"
Kurt, the guy with the inn from the first season of Newhart
The maid from the first season of Newhart
Whoever replaced Flo
Linda Lavin when she sang
The kid who played Tommy
The brat they brought into Different Strokes
The brat they brought into Family Ties
The brat they brought into My Three Sons
Chip's hippie wife on My Three Sons
Fred MacMurray on the last season of My Three Sons, literally "phoned in"
Fonzie's wife and her little brat
The handicapped girl on Facts of Life
Buffy's little sister that just "appeared"
Vickie on the Love Boat
Carrie on Little House
Everything Ted McGinley has ever been in.

To that I would also add any Gimme a Break episode in which Nell Carter sang!  It's fairly obvious that Alice and Gimme a Break were both little more than excuses for the star of the show to break out in song at a moment's notice!  :

And I would add to this, any show in which the title or lead character has the same first name as the actor's (or most likely actress's) real name, such as Nell Carter as Nell Harper, etc.  It gives the impression that the actor cannot answer to any name other than his/her own!  :

Also the latter years of Happy Days got especially stupid, because in addition to those reasons already mentioned, the audience would break out into applause whenever any major character of that show appeared onscreen for the first time in that episode.  It all started with Fonzie, of course, but by the time the show ended, they were applauding like that for Mr. C!  :

 

[Stanislav]

The Archie-less, Mike-and-Gloria themed episodes of "All in the Family" were some of their worst, especially the New Year's Eve show and the baby-shower show. Gloria acted shrill and Mike acted like a buffoon. The bathroom fire one was pretty stupid too.
Mike and Carol Brady as their own grandparents.
The fantasy/dream episodes of "The Jeffersons".

Didn't Sally Struthers have her own All in the Family spinoff (Gloria) in the early '80s? I believe she was divorced from the meathead by then! Archie had to have been happy about that! ;D I'm guessing that this show must have been very short-lived.

It lasted one full season (22 episodes).

 

[mleach]

In Ms. Jewell's case, she actually made what would be considered by some to be "tasteless" jokes at her own expense in her comedy act, and encouraged others to see the lighter side of a disability. She felt that by embracing all those remarks that others would make anyway, she would take some of the stigma of her disability away and humanize it. Not sure it was the right approach, or that it had much effect, but I do recall from interviews with her at the time that this was her opinion.

And the ironic thing is that as I remember it was the OLDER folks who felt Jewell's jokes were tasteless. Ironic because today most of those who still tell HIV/AIDS jokes are those same people. The over 50 crowd. Stars like Eddie Murphy who once told such jokes in stand-up not only no longer do but even regret telling such jokes today.

I kinda blame the taboilds like the National Enquier for that. They tend to reach the older folks and as recently as last year whenever they do a story about AIDS/HIV they try to connect that to "gay". Example: "Oprah Winfrey's AIDS scare" ( the story was about one of Oprah's male friends coming out of the closet telling her that he is gay ) Nowhere in the story did it mention that the guy in question had HIV much less AIDS. And I am not going to begin what the tabolids did to Magic Johnson when he told the press he had HIV.

 

[LKellerIII]

To that I would also add any Gimme a Break episode in which Nell Carter sang! It's fairly obvious that Alice and Gimme a Break were both little more than excuses for the star of the show to break out in song at a moment's notice! :

Which is a bit ironic considering Nell Carter was a singer. Years before Gimme a Break (lousy show, I agree), I saw Ain't Misbehavin' on stage with the original Broadway cast, including Nell Carter. She was a fine singer, and had great comedic timing, which no doubt helped open doors in TV for her.

By contrast, I never thought Linda Lavin was a good singer, but maybe that's because I only heard her sing that irritating Alice theme song. Ugh!

 

[onairb]

Which version of the 'Alice' theme was more irritating: The original, bluesy arrangement(with that horrific 'FA-FA-FAAAA-FA-FAAA' closing); or the nauseatingly perky, hyper, cheerful one from later seasons?

 

[onairb]

And I would add to this, any show in which the title or lead character has the same first name as the actor's (or most likely actress's) real name, such as Nell Carter as Nell Harper, etc. It gives the impression that the actor cannot answer to any name other than his/her own! :

Also the latter years of Happy Days got especially stupid, because in addition to those reasons already mentioned, the audience would break out into applause whenever any major character of that show appeared onscreen for the first time in that episode. It all started with Fonzie, of course, but by the time the show ended, they were applauding like that for Mr. C! :

I agree the audience applause on may 80s and some '90s sitcoms could gt out of hand, especially on 'Married...With Children.' I might give the 'Happy Days' audiences a pass, though, because that show was insanely popular when it added the studio audiences. By the last season, everybody knew the show was ending, so I guess the audiences knew it was their chance to 'say goodbye' to the actors/characters.

I also agree on your first point, but perhaps some of those 'actors/writers who couldn't remember another name' would say they were inspired by Lucille Ball, who never played a character who WASN'T a wacky, scheming redhead named...uh...what was her name again?

 

[radioman148]

Which version of the 'Alice' theme was more irritating: The original, bluesy arrangement(with that horrific 'FA-FA-FAAAA-FA-FAAA' closing); or the nauseatingly perky, hyper, cheerful one from later seasons?

The second one was the worst.

 

[nightfly61]

Which version of the 'Alice' theme was more irritating: The original, bluesy arrangement(with that horrific 'FA-FA-FAAAA-FA-FAAA' closing); or the nauseatingly perky, hyper, cheerful one from later seasons?

The later one definately was the worst.

..."but if things work out she's gonna stay...a while...aaaawww YEAHHH!!!"

aww NO!!! :

 

[radioman148]

Which version of the 'Alice' theme was more irritating: The original, bluesy arrangement(with that horrific 'FA-FA-FAAAA-FA-FAAA' closing); or the nauseatingly perky, hyper, cheerful one from later seasons?

The later one definately was the worst.

..."but if things work out she's gonna stay...a while...aaaawww YEAHHH!!!"

aww NO!!! :

YIKES!! ;D

 

[LKellerIII]

And I would add to this, any show in which the title or lead character has the same first name as the actor's (or most likely actress's) real name, such as Nell Carter as Nell Harper, etc. It gives the impression that the actor cannot answer to any name other than his/her own! :

I don't know - you're including some very good shows here - Bob Newhart was a "Bob" in that original great sitcom. I guess he was later a "Dick." ;D Mary Tyler Moore was "Mary"...didn't Ted call her "Mare?" Not to mention Jerry Seinfeld...he didn't even have a different last name. Same with Ozzie Nelson.

Fred Munster would have worked. Winkler could have been Henry Fonzarelli - it would have worked as well as Arthur, since he would have been Fonzie either way.

On the other hand, it's hard to imagine All in the Family's lead character being called Carroll Bunker. I Dream of Barbara wouldn't have worked at all....

 

[mleach]

To that I would also add any Gimme a Break episode in which Nell Carter sang! It's fairly obvious that Alice and Gimme a Break were both little more than excuses for the star of the show to break out in song at a moment's notice! :

Which is a bit ironic considering Nell Carter was a singer. Years before Gimme a Break (lousy show, I agree), I saw Ain't Misbehavin' on stage with the original Broadway cast, including Nell Carter. She was a fine singer, and had great comedic timing, which no doubt helped open doors in TV for her.

By contrast, I never thought Linda Lavin was a good singer, but maybe that's because I only heard her sing that irritating Alice theme song. Ugh!

I have to admit myself that Gimmie A Break was a stinker of a show but to me the bad ones were mainly after the death of Dolph Sweet. When Sweet died in 1985, I seem to remember Neil Carter and the girls on the show really wanted to end it as they all knew the show would not be the same. However either shortly before Sweet's death, maybe shortly after Gimmie picked up "cute little" Joey Lawrence and thinking Joey would be the next "big thing", Gimme A Break lasted a few more years even though one might as well called Gimmie A Break...."The Joey Lawrence Show".

Speaking about Joey Lawrence...some years back Yahoo flashed one of those "guess who this is" pics on their homepage. A shirtless bald headed guy with a goatee, sporting tattoos, wearing leather pants and workboots...At first I thought it was wrestler Bill Goldberg...but it wasn't...it was Joey Lawrence. Maybe at the time Joey Lawrence was trying to reach the S&M crowd

Now for Alice...during the last few years of Alice I have always heard that Linda Lavin more/less threw in the towel on her own show..she just didn't care. That explains why so many later Alice shows were bad. Reminds me of Roseanne. The first few years...funny as hell. The last few years....it did seem clear that neither Roseanne and John Goodman ( and pretty much everyone else on the show ) cared and they all had this "...lets just get it done" attitude. I have yet to meet anyone who enjoyed Roseanne's last 2-3 seasons..can we say lottery ;D