tv shows with poor continuity

[Don62]

I agree that MASH is rife with errors.

I recall Hawkeye in one of the early eps saying something like "The war's been going two years now. You'd think it would make a profit."

Then in a later one with Beej and Chas. it's mentioned the war is only in its second year or something.

--
In BANANAS, CRACKERS AND NUTS, when Hawkeye is feigning insanity (from season 1), Trapper slaps him in the mess tent.
Hawkeye pauses and says, "I needed that."

That sounds like an early 70s- late 60s TV after-shave commercial where a sexy woman slaps a man or something and the man says, "Thanks, I needed that."
--

There's the two different versions of how HENRY met his wife.

I saw the episode where Henry, while watching a color home movie with Trapper, Hawkeye and Radar, tells how he met his wife at a university of Ill. mixer. He won her away from a BMOC type.

However, in the Adam's Rib episode, Hawkeye orders ribs from a restaurant near DEARBORN STATION, one of the passenger train stations in Chicago .

Henry, hearing that name, chimes in, saying that's where he met his wife- in Chicago, not in Champaign-Urbana, where U. of Ill. is located. What a blooper..

--
More MASH bloopers discussed here..
http://www.mashtalk.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=880&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

 

[Don62]

American Dreams was horrible with errors.

That crappy TV series - is it still on? I watched it once or twice before the inconsistencies and over emphasis on sex - and its 1990s Pro-Choice mentality - for a '50s and '60s show- drove me off.

In an episode that was supposed to be about when JFK was alive, You'd hear a hit tune that came out several years later, like 1965!


Like a movie I saw some time ago about legendary rock DJ ALAN FREED- MR. ROCK AND ROLL. Now that had no sense of continuity.

In one scene, it shows Freed introducing and offering to make DION & THE BELMONTS, that great doo-wop rock group, stars.

In a following scene, Freed's character is on the air giving a eulogy to the death of Buddy Holly one year after his plane crash.

Excuse me, but Buddy Holly took that unfortunate plane ride in Feb. 1959 (I wasn't alive at the time).

DION & THE BELMONTS were big in 1959. Something was a little screwed up there.

]

 

[Newshawk]

"Desparate Housewives" is having some continuity problems that came to light just this week. On this past Sunday's episode, Mike was talking to Orson about needing a prescription filled for pain medication because his shoulder was still hurting from being ran over by some "Idiot" last year and Orson asking " So, they haven't caught the guy yet?" Yet Mike confronted Orson last year about Mike knowing that it was Orson that ran him over and threw Orson off the parking garage at the hospital.

Musta been the drugs!

 

[LKellerIII]

Fascinating tidbits in this thread: RE: Andy Griffith - I had always assumed that the change in Floyd the Barber was merely a fine-tuning of the character, and didn't know it had anything to do with the actor having a stroke. His later character was much funnier, in my opinion.

I also agree that Elinor Donahue had much better "chemistry" with Griffith than the actress who played Helen, although it's possible I may think that because she was a much more attractive woman.

RE: use of language, as in the 70s-80s slang used in M*A*S*H...it's fun to talk about, but I think we're being a little too picky. Remember that films and TV shows reflect the sensibilities of the time in which they are made, not the time period in which they take place. Hawkeye and BJ always wore long shaggy hair - as people did in the 70s. Military grooming standards aside, it's not likely that even non-conformist military MDs with an easy going commanding officer would have worn their hair that way in the early 50s. If M*A*S*H were being filmed today, they would probably wear their hair shorter. as most people do now.

Another one to think about - TV shows and movies set in the middle ages or ancient times where literally EVERYBODY has a full set of bright shiny straight teeth. Considering modern dentistry and orthodontics were developed in the 20th century, how likely is that?

 

[Newname]

Married, With Children was possibly the worst offender when it came to continuity and consistency. There are just too many examples to pick from...
One detail MWC never covered: What was the name Al short for? Allan? Alfred? Alex? And was Bud his son's formal first name? I've known guys named Bud, but it was always a nickname.

He was sometimes referred to sarcastically as 'Budrick', usually by Kelly.

 

[anotherguyTN]

RE: use of language, as in the 70s-80s slang used in M*A*S*H...it's fun to talk about, but I think we're being a little too picky. Remember that films and TV shows reflect the sensibilities of the time in which they are made, not the time period in which they take place. Hawkeye and BJ always wore long shaggy hair - as people did in the 70s. Military grooming standards aside, it's not likely that even non-conformist military MDs with an easy going commanding officer would have worn their hair that way in the early 50s. If M*A*S*H were being filmed today, they would probably wear their hair shorter. as most people do now.

That would also apply to Happy Days, The Waltons, and other shows that were produced in the 70's but were set in the past.

Another one to think about - TV shows and movies set in the middle ages or ancient times where literally EVERYBODY has a full set of bright shiny straight teeth. Considering modern dentistry and orthodontics were developed in the 20th century, how likely is that?

Something else that seemed odd to me was westerns where cowboys had come back from a long time on the trail, but were clean and shaved. ???

 

[LKellerIII]

If M*A*S*H were being filmed today, they would probably wear their hair shorter. as most people do now.

"That would also apply to Happy Days, The Waltons, and other shows that were produced in the 70's but were set in the past."

Absolutely, and the reasons are obvious. Realism takes a back seat. Producers want the stars on their shows to look attractive to the viewers, and I'm sure the producers of M*A*S*H didn't want their heroes walking around in military haircuts that would have been considered unflattering and geeky in the 70s. And Alan Alda and Mike Farrell probably didn't want to walk around town after work in geeky haircuts either. Same thing with dentistry - aside from the make-up difficulties involved in giving the actors crooked dirty teeth, nobody would want to look at them. If you've ever traveled in third world countries where people don't have access to modern dentistry, I can tell you that it takes a couple of days to get used to seeing people with missing teeth, and open visible cavities.

"Something else that seemed odd to me was westerns where cowboys had come back from a long time on the trail, but were clean and shaved. Huh"

What? Didn't you ever notice those TraveLodges and dry cleaners along the trails? ;D

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Wonder Years

"The Wonder Years" (1988-93) also had many problems with continuity. A great fan website with episode summaries, remarks, and nitpicks of continuity/historical accuracy is "Peter's Wonder Years Guide" at:

http://www.peter-reynders.de/WY/wy-frame.htm

Some of them listed (in each episode summary) include:

Episode 4 (1st season) shows a color television in the Arnold home, whereas the following season's Christmas episode depicts Wayne begging Jack and Norma to purchase a color TV for the holidays. I don't remember if the Arnold family was ever shown as having a color television during the rest of the show's run (1968-73 in "reel" time).

Also some cases where the writers apparently forgot to look at calendars from 1968-73, or ignored the timing of historical events or dates of music releases for songs used in the series. For instance, in the episode about Paul Pfiffer's bar mitzvah (season 2), his birthday is mentioned as being on March 18th, and being a Saturday. In 1989, March 18 was a Saturday, but the episode was set in March 1969, and March 18th that year would have been on Tuesday--but Paul's bar mitzvah was to take place on "Saturday the 18th."

Also the Season 3 Valentine's Day episode (Kevin's valentine to Winnie, which he sent despite the fact they were arguing at the time, was accidentally sent to his old arch-nemisis Becky Slater) is depicted as a school day. That episode was supposed to be set in 1970, and that year Valentine's Day was on a Saturday. It was also mentioned when Kevin and Winnie got back together at the end of the episode that a history test was to occur the next day--how could that be as the next day would be Sunday?

The planetarium episode (Season 6) depicted March 21, 1973 as the date of an eclipse, but a contributor to the Wonder Years page's summary of that series stated that no eclipse of any kind occurred anywhere in the world on that date.

Also many cases of music continuity problems (i.e. music used in episodes that wasn't released until at least several years after the episode was supposed to take place). For instance, Bob Seger's "We Got Tonight" was used in the Season 4 episode where Winnie was in a car accident. The episode was sent in spring 1971, but the song wasn't released until '78. Two subsequent late-Season 5 episodes (which were both set in '72) included two songs from Canadian singer Karla Bonoff that were released 5-10 years after the episodes were set. Episode 92 (Back to the Lake--the second Cara episode) included Bonoff's 1977 song "Home," while the following episode (Broken Hearts and Burgers) used her 1982 "Wild Hearts of the Young" at its conclusion (with flashbacks of past episodes involving problems in Kevin and Winnie's relationship, followed by the couple kissing and making up in a restaurant parking lot after an earlier argument in the episode).

 

[therealjm12]

Got the day off today and watched the Beverly Hillbillies on WGN. They were the episodes about the beatnicks renting a cellar coffee shop in one of Mr. Drysdale's building. The actor that played the head daddy-o returned a few years later as a hippie living in Griffth Park. A completely different character.
They could have let just him evolve into a hippie and kept the character the same. Strictly squaresville!

 

[azumanga]

Though of course, there's "Dragnet" (especially the 1960s version), where some of the actors on that series guested on the show several times, each time as a different person. One episode, they're a witness; the next, a victim; in another, a criminal.

 

[Don62]

I also agree that Elinor Donahue had much better "chemistry" with Griffith than the actress who played Helen, although it's possible I may think that because she was a much more attractive woman.

I'm kind of surprised here. I didn't have any problem with the Miss Ellie character, but would have assumed people preferred Helen Crump.
I didn't mind Helen, but in hindsight, I think I too preferred Ms. Donahue. Her character was a woman ahead of her time, especially in that ep. where she ran for city council or something. Remember how all the men were all fired agin' it?

I liked Thelma Lou and wish the show didn't suddenly stop including her after Don Knotts left.
Oh, they included her one year later, in the color episodes, when Barney returns to a class reunion to find that Thelma Lou had up and remarried. All within a year. Unbelievable.

 

[Vandelay]

As for the 1960s version of Dragnet, Friday and Gannon almost always wore the same clothing during the course of their normal duties.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Since it's on ALN now, I happened to think about The Time Tunnel. No matter where the time travelers go they're wearing the same clothes they started out with when they entered the Tunnel, even if they changed clothes some time during the episode.They either manage to find where they left their regular clothes, or they magically reappear before they start to go through time again. ???

 

[anotherguyTN]

I also thought about another mistake in Lost in Space on ALN this week: Through the show June Lockhart had short lighter colored hair, but on Tuesday when she was awakened by Dr. Smith she had long dark hair. ???

 

[Markxxx]

I also agree that Elinor Donahue had much better "chemistry" with Griffith than the actress who played Helen, although it's possible I may think that because she was a much more attractive woman.

I'm kind of surprised here. I didn't have any problem with the Miss Ellie character, but would have assumed people preferred Helen Crump.

That's odd cause Andy Griffith said that Donahue and he didn't have much chemistry and that is why her contract wasn't picked up. Griffith also alluded to the age difference as part of the problem

 

[Markxxx]

Well considering M*A*S*H ran for 11 years and the Korean War ran for 3 years it would hard not to repeat dates and such over the span of the show.

"Gilligan Island," was full of them to. Some like Lovey claiming to speak fluent French and Italian then she doesn't. My favourite story is when Bob Denver was on the old Pat Sajak show (his talk show) and Pat asked him where the castaways got all their clothes, Denver said that they were going to have an episode where they found a trunk of clothes that floated in, but then they said "Oh who cares it's just a TV show and it ain't real anyway."

 

[anotherguyTN]

Here's some information on Howard McNear's stroke and how they worked around it on the Andy Griffith Show:

http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0573830/bio

 

[The Voice of Reason]

I also agree that Elinor Donahue had much better "chemistry" with Griffith than the actress who played Helen, although it's possible I may think that because she was a much more attractive woman.

I'm kind of surprised here. I didn't have any problem with the Miss Ellie character, but would have assumed people preferred Helen Crump.
I didn't mind Helen, but in hindsight, I think I too preferred Ms. Donahue. Her character was a woman ahead of her time, especially in that ep. where she ran for city council or something. Remember how all the men were all fired agin' it?

Donahue was only 23 years old when she appeared on the Griffith show but she already made her mark on TV having played the daughter on the popular "Father Knows Best" series. What is also interesting that unlike the actress who portrayed Helen Crump, the late Aneta Corsaut, Elinor Donahue's name was mentioned in the opening credits of the show when the program first aired in 1960.
I think there is more to why Donahue was let go after just one season than what is being reported. There was, in my opinion, chemistry between “Ellie Walker” and “Sheriff Taylor” ....more chemistry than between Helen Crump and Andy.
I believe the reason Donahue was let go was because she was becoming more of a focal character than Griffith and even Don Knotts. Remember the one episode where "Ellie" wanted to give some perfume and make-up to a farm girl, but her father refused? Donahue outshined Griffith when it came to being a compassioned individual.
With Donahue gone Sheriff Taylor became the more compassioned one. Griffith reportedly did not like to be outshined on his own show, unless of course it was his close friends Don Knotts and Jim Nabors; then he had no qualms. But I don’t think that Griffith and Donahue developed that close of a friendship. Even if Aaron Ruben wanted Donahue gone all Griffith had to do is side with her, and Donahue would have stayed on for a second and perhaps even a third season.

 

[gr8oldies]

I'd read that sound effect footsteps were used in an episode where "Floyd" and "Howard Sprague" were briskly walking to face off in a courtroom.

 

[rickradio]

On "King of Queens," if you look closely at what's referred to as the "establishing shot" (external shot) of the front of Doug & Carrie's house (to let you know that the scene you're about to watch is set in the house), you'll see that the front door has 3 distinct windows near the top of the door, yet on the set itself, in the living room scenes where the camera angle shows the back of the door (and sometimes the front of it when someone opens it) that they actually open and walk through on the soundstage, the door has a single window all the way across the top.

This was glaringly obvious in the episode where Carrie is trying to sell her new line of cell phone cases to their friends. The establishing shot (as always) showed said front door with its 3 little windows, and in the very next shot, camera angle at the back of the living room, facing the front wall of the house (Carrie's vantage point), everybody's sitting and standing in their living room with the front door behind them all, with one big window across the top section of the door.