tv shows with poor continuity

[mleach]

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.

I heard the exact same thing about Griffith, not wanting be "outshined". I read on another site that Roseanne Barr was another one of those "its my show..not theirs".

According to what I read both Roseanne and John Goodman already wanted to end the show by the time Martin Mull and the late Glenn Quinn joined the cast. But Roseanne was a huge hit for ABC and they (ABC) more/less forced those two to continue with the show. Considering that some of the later episodes were bizarre ( Roseanne kissing another woman on the mouth in one show for example ) and the turn-over rate of writers, I do wonder if she meant to "ruin" the show on purpose so people would go elsewhere.

I have heard there was bad blood amont the actors on that show. Laurie Metcalf ( Jackie ) and Roseanne reportedly did not get along. Same thing with Glenn Quinn. I even heard Roseanne didn't even like the kids on the show. A few years back Roseanne appeared on some talk show and the question was asked about the death of Glenn Quinn and whatever happened to Metcalf. Roseanne didn't want to talk about it.

I do believe that in recent years after her talk show failed, Roseanne has mellowed a bit. On of the the DVDs of Roseanne, she does speak about the other actors on the show with respect.

 

[Braves2005]

The two Beckys (Lecy Goransen and Sarah Chalke) on Roseanne come to mind vividly. In one episode where they go to Disney World, at the beginning of the episode Becky Number 1 (Goransen) was there in the kitchen with the family but when they go on the plane it is Becky Number 2 (Chalke) that is there.

At the end of another episode they play on this even further where they portrayed both Beckys like the look alike cousins Patty and Cathy on The Patty Duke Show and then they redo the theme song from that show. William Schallert even makes a cameo with John Goodman while they compete for which Becky is which.

 

[hubcity]

The absence of Richie Cunningham's big brother Chuck always went unexplained on later episodes of Happy Days....he just disappeared...They could have had him killed in Vietnam.

'Twas fodder for a good line from Tom Bosley on a Happy Days reunion show...

The final shot, with all the actors saying goodbye and thanks, was flubbed in a number of funny ways, and they showed a number of the flubs at the end of the show. In one of them, you hear the sound of something metallic being dropped off-camera; in response, Bosley cracked everyone else up by saying "Chuck? Chuck? Is that you?!"

 

[jwk1979]

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.
[/quote]I recently read an interview with Betty Lynn, who played Thelma Lou, and she addressed that in the article. Andy Griffith wanted her to stay on the show after Don Knotts left, but she chose to leave because she didn't see much of a future for the Thelma Lou character since she was Barney's girl and felt it would have been ackward to have her stay in Mayberry with Barney no longer in town.

 

[Those RRRRs]

Didn't Marcia Brady only have braces on one episode?

 

[bpatrick]

Caught this one on "I Love Lucy": in an episode
from around 1952 Lucy mentions to Ethel that she
met Ricky when her friend Marion Strong asked her
to go on a blind date with a Cuban drummer. Yet
on the first "Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" special in 1957,
she meets him while in Havana on a cruise with Ann
Sothern's character Susie McNamara. In that '57
episode, which flashes back to 1940, Fred and Ethel
are also aboard ship...and Fred has hair!

 

[Don62]

That seems to be a common affliction with sitcom writers... poor memory.

As I mentioned earlier,
There's the two different versions of how HENRY BLAKE met his wife.

In the episode where Henry is watching a color home movie with Trapper, Hawkeye and Radar, he 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.

Then there's Chas. Emerson Winchester's sister Honoria having married an Italian, then not being married, etc. That was the ep. where he went bonkers over her being engaged to someone of a different ethnicity.
That's all forgotten later, of course.

Or the one where Potter says he doesn't believe in superstitions etc. But in a later Halloween ep., he tells a story about his wife's sister dreaming her brother dies. Then, the next a.m., they get a phone call confirming it. In that ep., Chas. is the "doubting Thomas."

I don't know why the writers could have stayed consistent. Would it have turned off the viewers to keep Potter from Mo. instead of Neb.?

 

[trusty]

"Everybody Loves Raymond"
For just one episode, didn't Ray's window on his front wall get moved over to allow his parents' car to come crashing through?

 

[Tim-In-Houston]

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.

Law & Order (the original) is particularly bad about this. Though they will usually wait a year or more before re-using an actor in a different role, the repeats (on TNT) don't run in any particular order and there may be two episodes back to back with the same actor playing a different role.

I know of two instances where a series regular played a different role before being cast in their well-known roles: S. Epatha Merkerson played the mother of a victim in, I think, the very first episode of the series "Mushrooms" (back when each ep was individually titled) before being cast as Lt. Anita Van Buren later in series. Also, Jerry Orbach played a defense attorney a season or two before he was cast in his long-running role as Det. Lenny Briscoe.

One major continuity was between the original and the SVU spin-off round-about the third season when Alex Cabot (Stephanie March) is reporting to the male ADA of her division (before they cast Judith Light and in the re-curring role). Unfortunately, in an original series episode that aired on A&E a couple days earlier, the same male actor had played a corrupt attorney whom Jack McCoy had convicted for colluding with his client.

 

[glc]

Can't believe this thread has gone 11 pages and nobody's mentioned "Magnum, PI". One of the basic premises of the show was that Magnum had befriended author Robin Masters, who subsequently invited him to live at his estate (much to the chagrin of Higgins). It was very clear in the early episodes that Magnum had definitely met the man, yet much of the later seasons were devoted to Magnum trying to prove Higgins was Robin - whom he had now never met (just over the phone or something like that).

 

[firepoint525]

Didn't Marcia Brady only have braces on one episode?

Wasn't that episode near the end of the first season? Maybe she had a few months to get her braces off before the start of the second season.

But what is harder to explain is this exchange from the second season:
Carol: "Mike, couldn't Greg live in the attic?"
Mike: "That would be great if Greg were two feet tall!"

Yet we know that in the fifth, and final, season, Greg does, indeed, have a bedroom in the attic of the Brady household. (I seem to recall that was actually a compromise because Greg wanted to move in with a friend of his.) There is no mention made of expansions or additions to the house, or the inconsistency between the house shown in the outside (street) shots, and the interior of the home.

But the worst show for inconsistencies was actually "Beverly Hills, 90210." The kids on the show had completely different characters playing their parents (the parents even had completely different first names!) from one season to the next! And David took a year and a half of high school courses (in just ONE semester!) in order to graduate "on time" with the rest of the "gang." Meanwhile, despite how smart they were, the others were juniors for two years!

On "Freaks and Geeks," Ken describes Sam's girlfriend as "hot." The show was set in 1980-81, when the "hot" girls were still called "foxes."

 

[WMC2006]

Meanwhile, despite how smart they were, the others were juniors for two years!

Everything is a little slower in California. Those Advanced Placement Surfing and Valley Girl courses take a little longer. ;D

 

[Jimme]

re: LIFE WITH LUCY
After the first one or two episodes, Lucy Barker and Curtis McGibbon got out of the business of renting vacuum / steam cleaners, as the small white sign appearing on the hardware store counter disappears.  Also, the little boy put his toys away as his R2D2 toy is gone from the side of the house opposite the kitchen.  Curtis was consistent in his dress however.  When he wore a suit, it was one of two, gray and tan.  Both of the same cut, material (or so it looked) and with a vest.

re: THE HONEYMOONERS
1.) The Fensterblau family must have been huge.  There are Joe (Ralph's friend), Evelyn (one of Alice's) and another Fensterblau they try to get a date. 
2.) The job of Traffic Manager at the Gotham Bus Company is a revolving door:  Mr. Marshall isn't always the name used in association with that job. 
3a.) In the original 50's "lost" episode where Ralph runs for Assemblyman, he captures Bullets Durgam.  In the remake of the same story on the 1960's "The Jackie Gleason Show" (aka The Color Honeymooners) he captures Knuckles Grogan.
3b.) Norton's middle name is Lillywhite in the "lost" episodes, but is Ethelbert in The Color episodes.
4.) The woman who played Mrs. Manicotti (Zama Cunningham) in the classic 39 was clearly Italian and had a thick Italian accent.  In the "lost" episodes, she has an Irish accent and different name.  Ralph finds her cake and tears into it while on a diet. 
SUMMARY COMMENT: One of the writers of the 50's Honeymooners readily admitted there were inconsistencies.  He said (paraphrasing), "We were writing for our lives and didn't have time to check what we said last time somebody's address was."

 

[gr8oldies]

OK..nother MASH one. Dr. Friedman is introduced as Milton initially, then bacame Sidney.

 

[LKellerIII]

"Meanwhile, despite how smart they were, the others were juniors for two years!"

WMC2006 Relied: "Everything is a little slower in California. Those Advanced Placement Surfing and Valley Girl courses take a little longer."

Very funny come-back line, WMC - I laughed out loud. Or...I guess I should say I "LOLed." But again, as earlier in this thread, people are assuming that one TV season equals a year in the life of the show's characters. Why?

I repeat my earlier example - M*A*S*H* - which was on the air for 11 years, despite the fact that American involvement in the Korean War lasted 4 years, and a drafted soldier's tour-of-duty would only be 2 years. Obviously, each season of MASH was equivalent to only a month or two in the lives of the characters. The only problem, of course, being that the actors aged 11 years during the span of the show.

Remember "24," where a whole season is just one day.

 

[cheapman]

Although it's not really a TV show, it certainly has been shown on TV plenty of times. There's an episode of the Three Stooges that opens with a sign for "Day and Night Plumbers." Moe Howard answers the phone "Night and Day Plumbers," transposing the positions of the words Day and Night.

 

[LKellerIII]

"SUMMARY COMMENT: One of the writers of the 50's Honeymooners readily admitted there were inconsistencies. He said (paraphrasing), 'We were writing for our lives and didn't have time to check what we said last time somebody's address was.' "

In years past - around the time of Gleason's death, I think, I read a couple of interviews with Audrey Meadows and Art Carney, who talked at some length about the original show. They were fond memories, but they remembered the chaos and panic on the set, and when on the air. Gleason did NOT like preparation, and didn't rehearse very much, so he often forgot his lines. It's a credit to Gleason that the viewers couldn't usually tell, and a credit to the co-stars that they were able to ad-lib and cover up when Gleason flubbed.

 

[firepoint525]

"Meanwhile, despite how smart they were, the others were juniors for two years!"
WMC2006 Relied: "Everything is a little slower in California. Those Advanced Placement Surfing and Valley Girl courses take a little longer."
Very funny come-back line, WMC - I laughed out loud. Or...I guess I should say I "LOLed." But again, as earlier in this thread, people are assuming that one TV season equals a year in the life of the show's characters. Why?
I repeat my earlier example - M*A*S*H* - which was on the air for 11 years, despite the fact that American involvement in the Korean War lasted 4 years, and a drafted soldier's tour-of-duty would only be 2 years. Obviously, each season of MASH was equivalent to only a month or two in the lives of the characters. The only problem, of course, being that the actors aged 11 years during the span of the show.
Remember "24," where a whole season is just one day.

Interesting explanation, but it still doesn't explain why one character could cover a year and a half in one semester, while the others were in the same grade for two seasons. Wouldn't they all move through school at the same pace, whatever that pace was? And they still managed to have a Christmas-themed show air in December, for what that's worth. And one character referenced something that had happened to him during the previous season, as "last year." That would indicate that they were moving along in real time.

In the case of Freaks and Geeks, the writers sped up the story line because they knew (or at least strongly feared) that they were only going to be on the air for one season. This strained the credibility of an otherwise fairly well-written show, because they had boyfriend-girlfriend relationships progressing much faster than the writers had originally intended. A cheerleader actually fell for a geek who was shorter than her, and he actually ended up breaking up with her after pursuing her for most of the year. This particular relationship would have been more believable had they been juniors instead of freshmen, and he had had time to grow a good deal taller (as he actually did in real life).

 

[rickradio]

There is no mention made of expansions or additions to the house, or the inconsistency between the house shown in the outside (street) shots, and the interior of the home.

You wouldn't happen to be talking about the Brady house being two-story, while the establishing shot always showed a single-story house, would you, firepoint?

 

[Stanislav]

There is no mention made of expansions or additions to the house, or the inconsistency between the house shown in the outside (street) shots, and the interior of the home.

You wouldn't happen to be talking about the Brady house being two-story, while the establishing shot always showed a single-story house, would you, firepoint?

Ah, but see, Mike Brady was a genius as an architect! He designed the second-story to be collapsable, so it could be retracted when not in use, thus saving energy. Truly a man way ahead of his time.....