Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know a production of I
Speaker 1: heart radio. Stuff you should know is recorded in front
Speaker 1: of a live studio audience. Hey, and welcome to the PODCAST.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh and there's Chuck and this is part two
Speaker 1: of our very special two part episode on Sitcoms. SITCOMS, everybody.
Speaker 1: That's right, and we'RE gonna shoot for thirty minutes here.
Speaker 1: If you remember an episode one, we explained all about
Speaker 1: how sitcoms are made, in the history of Sitcoms, and
Speaker 1: today we begin with part two of whether or not
Speaker 1: these things were successful. And boy were they. Yeah, Um, apparently,
Speaker 1: between nineteen fifty and two thousand nineteen, the top rated
Speaker 1: show for the entire year in America at least, was
Speaker 1: a Sitcom for twenty six different seasons. So that's a
Speaker 1: pretty significant number, considering there's all sorts of different kinds
Speaker 1: of shows. Sitcoms are not the only kind of show
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, that's Um, I guarantee you that between
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty and two thousand that number is more like eighty,
Speaker 1: I would yeah, I would also say, especially if you
Speaker 1: were going from nineteen seventy to two thousand, it's probably
Speaker 1: you're probably right, a hundred and four percent as a
Speaker 1: nomage to our menstruation episode, which we I bift pretty bad. UH, well,
Speaker 1: we both bift that. Um. Here's a remarkable statistic, though,
Speaker 1: if you refer back to our Nielsen Ratings episode. Uh,
Speaker 1: I love Lucy, in nineteen fifty three had a sixty
Speaker 1: seven point three Nielsen Rating, which meant that close to
Speaker 1: seventy of every household in the United States was watching
Speaker 1: that TV show. Okay, and that's crazy and it's the
Speaker 1: highest season rating for any TV show ever. But Chuck
Speaker 1: Um and ED uses. For comparison, the highest rated show
Speaker 1: in two thousand one was friends, and they had a fifteen.
Speaker 1: Lucy had a seventy, right, and friends huge. Friends was huge.
Speaker 1: Consider this, though, Lucy had it way easier. There were
Speaker 1: fewer TVs and fewer shows to choose from. Friends came around. Yeah, because,
Speaker 1: let's say ten people had a TV, Lucy had seven
Speaker 1: of them watching friends. But you know five, five million
Speaker 1: TVs were out there and of them were tuned to it.
Speaker 1: So if you really think about it, friends was more
Speaker 1: dominant than Lucy. Yeah, we should call this section in
Speaker 1: defensive friends or why I learned to hate I love Lucy.
Speaker 1: I it's not that, and I'm also not defending friends,
Speaker 1: believe me. So these shows back then were shot on, uh, film,
Speaker 1: Thirty five millimeter film, but it's still different. These cameras
Speaker 1: weren't like movie cameras at the same time either. Um, but,
Speaker 1: and that's a bunch of technical stuff we won't get into,
Speaker 1: but starting in nine teen, I guess, Seventy one, when
Speaker 1: all in the family debuted, we started shooting things on
Speaker 1: videotape and if you've ever seen those sitcoms of the
Speaker 1: seventies in front of a studio audience, they had a
Speaker 1: very specific video tape look. Um, it was kind of
Speaker 1: great a lot instalgia for people in our our demographic
Speaker 1: for Gen x and, I guess, some younger boomers. But uh,
Speaker 1: this to us was sort of the heyday and I
Speaker 1: think generally the heyday of of sitcoms. Yeah, because in
Speaker 1: the fifties there were still tons of variety shows and
Speaker 1: quiz shows that kind of edge sitcoms out. The sixties
Speaker 1: there were like lots of Westerns, but part of the
Speaker 1: problem with it too is sitcoms were corny and phony
Speaker 1: and didn't really speak to anybody's actual life. They were
Speaker 1: escapist right. And in the seventies, the very early seventies,
Speaker 1: starting with all in the family, uh, sitcoms started to
Speaker 1: take on actual issues like out there in the real world,
Speaker 1: but they were doing it in a funny way, so
Speaker 1: it was more digestible and easy to kind of think
Speaker 1: about and talk about with your friends then it would otherwise,
Speaker 1: if you know, sixty minutes was just shoving it down
Speaker 1: your throat. Yeah, and you know, in a funny way,
Speaker 1: in that episodes still had to have some laughs. But
Speaker 1: there were some episodes of some very famous sitcoms that
Speaker 1: went very serious and dark on what was later to
Speaker 1: be called like a special episode. Um, there are a
Speaker 1: few real notable ones. One was all and I remember
Speaker 1: seeing this episode as a kid and I was like
Speaker 1: shaken because I didn't I didn't know any of this stuff.
Speaker 1: I think it's where I learned about that sexual assault
Speaker 1: was a thing, and it was when edith bunker was
Speaker 1: was almost or attempted, uh, sexual, sexually assaulted on the show.
Speaker 1: And that episode was uh, very, very, very serious and
Speaker 1: in a marked departure from what sitcoms we're all about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Um Maw. It is also Um, frequently pointed to as
Speaker 1: having like an early effect on tackling like hard stuff
Speaker 1: when the the main character maud in a two part
Speaker 1: very special episode, chooses to get an abortion, um, to
Speaker 1: terminate her pregnancy when she gets pregnant at age forty seven.
Speaker 1: And that was like, I mean if you did that
Speaker 1: today it would be controversial. And this is like the
Speaker 1: early mid seventies that they did that. So people are like,
Speaker 1: like TV show producers are starting to like really take
Speaker 1: on more and more stuff Um, and that very special
Speaker 1: episode did become a thing beyond the seventies. Like another
Speaker 1: really good example is Um different strokes, very special two
Speaker 1: part episode about child exploitation with Um. Uh, Mr What
Speaker 1: was the guy's name from W K RP, the station owner? Oh,
Speaker 1: Mr Carlson, he was the guy. Yes, and you don't.
Speaker 1: If you've not seen it, then good don't, because you'll
Speaker 1: never look at Mr Carlson the same way again, because
Speaker 1: he played this creepy child molester like perfectly. He owned
Speaker 1: a bicycle shop. He lured Arnold and Dudley over there,
Speaker 1: took pictures of them in their underwear. Remember. It was
Speaker 1: like really jarring episode and one of the hallmarks which
Speaker 1: I know we've made fun of before in previous episodes
Speaker 1: of a very special episode is the audience doesn't clap
Speaker 1: at the end and it makes it even more weird
Speaker 1: and jarring and creepy to end an episode like that.
Speaker 1: But that's definitely a hallmark of it. Yeah, and Um
Speaker 1: also that you mentioned that was a two part or
Speaker 1: the all in the family episode with Edith was, I believe,
Speaker 1: just a one hour. I don't even think they aired
Speaker 1: it in two parts. I think they just broke format
Speaker 1: entirely and it really shows that. I mean the MoD
Speaker 1: when MoD got an abortion. That was pre Roe v
Speaker 1: Wade even. It really shows that. The despite it being
Speaker 1: kind of a Corny, silly format generally, these writers and
Speaker 1: producers like I think they knew they had an audience
Speaker 1: to to really sort of get a message across at times,
Speaker 1: as long as they didn't like hammer it too hard.
Speaker 1: I think shows like mash dabbled much more in that
Speaker 1: realm than other ones. Yeah, for sure, but as far
Speaker 1: as doing this kind of stuff on all in the
Speaker 1: family in different strokes, it was. It was groundbreaking stuff,
Speaker 1: it was, but it got picked up by just about everybody.
Speaker 1: Remember our I think our last Christmas episode, we talked
Speaker 1: about that Alf Christmas special with the dying girl. Oh
Speaker 1: my God, everybody did that. I think everybody, with the
Speaker 1: one exception of small wonder, did a very special episode. Say,
Speaker 1: by the bell did that episode where Jesse was addicted
Speaker 1: to speed. Remember, I didn't really watch that show. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: that's that one alone is worth watching, at least for
Speaker 1: the Jesse. Which one was at? Uh, the Jesse Spano?
Speaker 1: She was slater's girlfriend. Suld Um, oh, she'd be so
Speaker 1: mad that I just referred to his slater's girlfriend. Um,
Speaker 1: slater was her boyfriend. was that tippany and Ber season? No, no, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't remember her name. She went on to starring
Speaker 1: show girls. Oh, Elizabeth Berkeley. Yes, I forgot. I was
Speaker 1: started on. So she was Um really trying to prepare
Speaker 1: for studying finals and then like there was this show
Speaker 1: um coming up where she was going to sing the
Speaker 1: pointer sisters. I'm so excited, and so she was taking
Speaker 1: all the speed and Zach found out about it and
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, throwing the speed out the
Speaker 1: window and Jesse was like, I'm so excited, I'm so excited.
Speaker 1: Really funny. It's really worth watching, man, and watch the
Speaker 1: whole episode because it's a masterpiece of like unintentional hilarity
Speaker 1: from start to finish. Uh. Yeah, I guess I think
Speaker 1: I was a little too old for that show when
Speaker 1: it hit its prime, but I definitely taught it here
Speaker 1: and there because I know all those characters. Basically, it's
Speaker 1: still on Sunday mornings on metvs. Really. UH, Sitcom's obviously
Speaker 1: hit their sort of zenith in the seventies and eighties, uh,
Speaker 1: into the nineties even, of course, with shows like uh,
Speaker 1: Seinfeld and friends were huge, but in the two thousands
Speaker 1: is when they really kind of started to dip. Of
Speaker 1: course thanks to not thanks too but unfortunately because of
Speaker 1: things like reality TV. Um, the gold standard, like we
Speaker 1: talked about, was hitting syndication, and that's you know, that's
Speaker 1: the reason Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld and every member
Speaker 1: of friends, I mean they all went on generally went
Speaker 1: on to do other stuff, but you know, it's why
Speaker 1: if Matthew Perry never worked another day in his life,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have to, because they are still all making
Speaker 1: money hand over fist, because these shows will live forever.
Speaker 1: They'll be showing Seinfeld in a hundred years probably. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you make a show and it's a hit show
Speaker 1: and you can take those episodes and sell them to
Speaker 1: one person, sell them to another person and sell them
Speaker 1: again and again and again. So this one body of
Speaker 1: work just turns into a cash register. I saw that
Speaker 1: for Seinfeld and Larry David or the show in general,
Speaker 1: since I entered syndication has generated three billion dollars in
Speaker 1: Syndication Chie. That's amazing and Ed points out, you know,
Speaker 1: very aptly, one of the reasons, and there are many
Speaker 1: fact there's why those kind of sitcoms aren't around as much.
Speaker 1: I'm certainly prestige TV and sort of that's the thing now,
Speaker 1: but when you watch a show like that these days
Speaker 1: you're competing not just against what's on right then, but
Speaker 1: you're still competing against Seinfeld in the office and friends
Speaker 1: in Fraser like people still watch this comfort food time
Speaker 1: and time again. I do it, we all do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean it was, you know, popular enough in syndication,
Speaker 1: but now it's on streaming. You can watch every episode
Speaker 1: back to back if you've got a long weekend, you know,
Speaker 1: or ten years. One of the two. All Right, uh,
Speaker 1: let's take our first commercial break, because the fine folks
Speaker 1: have been gay have been waiting. I want to learn
Speaker 1: about a terrosortic college act, how to take a perfect movement,
Speaker 1: all about fractals, kiscon's hunt, the lizzie border murders. That
Speaker 1: a kind of all runs on the plane. Everything we
Speaker 1: should know. Word up, Jerry Geh. I hope Ben Gay
Speaker 1: is actually going to give us some money for this.
Speaker 1: We should maybe alert AD sales. They'd be like who,
Speaker 1: they're making fun of us, so chuck. Like we said,
Speaker 1: twenty six out of you know about of seasons from
Speaker 1: ninety to two thousand were sitcoms, the highest highest rated show.
Speaker 1: The reason there's a right, there's a reason that they're
Speaker 1: so popular. One they're like really easy to digest. They're funny.
Speaker 1: That's the point of them. But there's another thing too,
Speaker 1: that when you zoom in on a set of like
Speaker 1: four or six characters and you spend, you know, half
Speaker 1: hour nuggets in their lives, in just very small worlds
Speaker 1: of their sets Um paying attention to their foibles and
Speaker 1: their weirdness and who they are and, like what they
Speaker 1: believe in, the audience really gets to know those people
Speaker 1: and you can really play with that as a writer
Speaker 1: and actor and a producer and it's some really great,
Speaker 1: like all time great characters have kind of come out
Speaker 1: of that and one of the cool things you can
Speaker 1: do is make a character one way and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, out of left field, you can have
Speaker 1: them do something else and it suddenly makes them, you know, human,
Speaker 1: whereas they used to be like a one dimensional, hilarious person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that can really shake up an audience who was
Speaker 1: invested in a character, because I think there's so many
Speaker 1: shows where, uh, friends is an obvious example, or sex
Speaker 1: in the city, where most women, I think who watched
Speaker 1: sex in the city, and I watched it too, but
Speaker 1: I think it was largely like a show that appealed
Speaker 1: to women. I would all say like just a shock,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a Samantha or or I'm you know,
Speaker 1: or I'm a joey or I'm a Ross. Like. I
Speaker 1: think people kind of looked for themselves in these characters
Speaker 1: and everyone had their favorites. People would watch these shows
Speaker 1: and maybe hate one of the characters out of the
Speaker 1: six every time they came on the screen, but still
Speaker 1: get into it. Uh, it's pretty interesting. They're super voyeuristic. Um,
Speaker 1: they hold a prism up about sort of our society
Speaker 1: and you know, they're aimed at the largest demographics. So
Speaker 1: a lot of these shows would be about like working
Speaker 1: class families who struggle to pay their mortgage or who
Speaker 1: get into the sort of Um sort of site. You know,
Speaker 1: there was any situations, but a lot of times they
Speaker 1: were situations based in reality such that people could really identify.
Speaker 1: Like I've been in that same situation with my boss before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like Al Bundy has to like, you know, sell a
Speaker 1: bunch of blood to like get his car fixed or
Speaker 1: something like that. Like that's a great situation for an
Speaker 1: episode that you can resolve in a half hour. That yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe the viewer hasn't ever sold blood to get his
Speaker 1: car fixed, but it's maybe been in that position where
Speaker 1: they had to consider doing that. You know, yeah, absolutely. Uh.
Speaker 1: They also, Um, I think, to their credit, have been
Speaker 1: able to hold up Um, not a mirror. What's it
Speaker 1: called when you're looking at someone else? I guess a
Speaker 1: lens on people that aren't like you. UH, yeah, telescope
Speaker 1: for people who you don't identify with and you can
Speaker 1: learn something about uh. There was a period in the
Speaker 1: seventies where you had these three great shows, uh, the
Speaker 1: Jefferson's good times in Sanford and son at a time
Speaker 1: where it gave White America a real view into three
Speaker 1: very sort of UH set demographics of black America. Um,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about spinoffs, but the Jefferson's was a
Speaker 1: spin off. There originally the bunker's neighbors and UH, George
Speaker 1: Jefferson opened up a dry cleaner that hit it big,
Speaker 1: so they got to move it on up to the
Speaker 1: deluxe apartment in the sky. Uh. You had good times
Speaker 1: to sort of that middle ground family that kind of
Speaker 1: struggled a bit, and then you had Sanford and son
Speaker 1: as the Junkyard Uh guys. And you know, it gives
Speaker 1: and and with other ethnic ethnicities as well. It really gave,
Speaker 1: I think, largely wide America chance to sort of even
Speaker 1: though it may not be the most realistic, sort of
Speaker 1: take a peek at what other how other people lived. Yeah, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is Great. I mean that's a great part of sitcoms.
Speaker 1: Like it can make you identify with people you might
Speaker 1: not interact with normally. Right, absolutely, Um, and it can
Speaker 1: go the other way to like it can make us
Speaker 1: very sympathetic to the rich, like, you know, people like
Speaker 1: watching effluent families as well, Um as, just as much
Speaker 1: as they like watching families that are struggling financially too.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean fresh prince, the cosby show. He
Speaker 1: was a doctor again, the Jefferson. So it's interesting how
Speaker 1: sometimes people love watching the sort of working class families,
Speaker 1: sometimes they like the escapist of watching the rich families.
Speaker 1: There's something for everyone, yea, and sometimes it's not even
Speaker 1: a thing. Like in cheers there was not really a
Speaker 1: lot of class stuff. It was basically everything but that
Speaker 1: like no one seemed to have any real money trouble,
Speaker 1: but also nobody was particularly rich. It was just not
Speaker 1: a thing. So it can also just be totally absent.
Speaker 1: I've got a little tidbet for you want to throw in?
Speaker 1: Let's hear it. I read that George Jefferson was mentioned
Speaker 1: on all in the family three years before he physically
Speaker 1: appeared on it. Really because, yeah, because Norman Lear knew
Speaker 1: exactly who he wanted for George Jefferson, Sherman Helmsley, but
Speaker 1: Helmsley was involved in like a really lengthy Broadway contract
Speaker 1: that he couldn't get out of. So Norman Lear just
Speaker 1: set it up and waited for him to come and
Speaker 1: he finally arrived and made TV history. That's pretty cool
Speaker 1: to like hold out that long for an actor that
Speaker 1: you fall in love with. Yeah, it was a good
Speaker 1: move too. I mean norman lear was a genius. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, sure, we can't talk about sitcoms without
Speaker 1: bowing at the feet of Norman Lear, and now we've
Speaker 1: done that, so the box is checked. So, Chuck, one
Speaker 1: of the best things you could possibly do is sit
Speaker 1: around and talk about great moments in Sitcom History, and
Speaker 1: I propose we do just that right now. I'm sure
Speaker 1: they're entire podcasts that do this, and we should also
Speaker 1: start each one with remember the time. Uh Well, we
Speaker 1: went over some of the more serious ones, but I
Speaker 1: think we should stick to sort of the more fun
Speaker 1: ones now. Obviously just sort of tops of the list
Speaker 1: if we're going historically. where, chronologically, is the UH well,
Speaker 1: there's a couple. The grape stomping and I love lucy,
Speaker 1: but especially the conveyor belt episode from September two, with
Speaker 1: Lucy and Ethel working in in the factory with a
Speaker 1: conveyor belt. I think it was chocolates. Yeah, it was chocolates,
Speaker 1: and the conveyor belt speeds up and like Lucy and
Speaker 1: ethel are just doing this physical comedy that like it's astounding,
Speaker 1: especially when you stop and realize like this was live
Speaker 1: to tape, basically. You know. Yeah, there was another thing
Speaker 1: that Lucy really broke ground on Um with the birth
Speaker 1: of little ricky. Um. The film or the show was
Speaker 1: either aired or shot about twelve hours after her her
Speaker 1: real life. So yeah, then they they aired the birth
Speaker 1: of little ricky, which is huge. But Mary Kaye and
Speaker 1: Johnny did it first. You're in love with that show.
Speaker 1: I just I think they're an unsung show. They're another
Speaker 1: one that was not preserved in any way. It was
Speaker 1: filmed the kinescope, but the Dumont Network, which was really cheap,
Speaker 1: um threw all of their reels into the East River, apparently.
Speaker 1: And there's one episode left of Um Mary Kaye and
Speaker 1: Johnny and it's at like a like a media Um
Speaker 1: Museum in Los Angeles. You know now that you mentioned
Speaker 1: that our colleague Alex's show ephemeral Um, he has an
Speaker 1: episode about the kinescope. Okay, like an entire episode. I
Speaker 1: remember now. I think that was in season one. Yeah, great,
Speaker 1: great show. Uh. So maybe we should talk about the
Speaker 1: Mary Tyler Moore Show, one of the great shows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean like if you gotta, if you bow at
Speaker 1: Norman Lear's feet, you have to bow at Mary Tyler
Speaker 1: Moore's feet too. Yeah, there was an episode in nine
Speaker 1: called chuckles bites the dust, historic TV episode where a
Speaker 1: clown is killed in a parade accident and, uh, it
Speaker 1: tackles death in a really funny way. Like they definitely
Speaker 1: sort of talk about mortality and stuff like that, but
Speaker 1: the whole time they're laughing and they can't contain their
Speaker 1: laughter about this clown and how the clown died, and
Speaker 1: it's a very funny episode. It is because poor Mary
Speaker 1: Tyler Moore has to play it straight for everybody else
Speaker 1: and like is scolding them for laughing and she they're
Speaker 1: all trying not to laugh and she's having to keep
Speaker 1: it really serious. And then, in addition to that, Um,
Speaker 1: there were some really great jokes in there, like one
Speaker 1: offs where Um Ted baxters asked if Mary can have
Speaker 1: a ride to the funeral with him and he goes sure,
Speaker 1: the more the merrier. The Great Ted Knight. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was Ted Baxter, right, I think that was a character's name. Right, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the actor was Ted Knight. Yeah, yeah, from caddyshack
Speaker 1: and from too close for comfort. Yep, another Sitcom. I
Speaker 1: actually quite enjoyed that show because it was I thought,
Speaker 1: who was the guy? Jim J bullock, was very funny.
Speaker 1: I thought Ted night was hysterical and, of course, as
Speaker 1: like a young boy, I just thought that the beautiful
Speaker 1: blonde and Brunette daughters. I was like, give me that
Speaker 1: show all day long. Right. I think that is how they,
Speaker 1: a lot of Um shows, got Um popular. Like Three's company.
Speaker 1: It's just DREC man like. The writing is terrible, like
Speaker 1: the plots are terrible. The physical comedy is good, like
Speaker 1: is great. But if you think about it, he's really
Speaker 1: the only good actor character, at least in the whole show,
Speaker 1: because he was the only one that had good stuff
Speaker 1: written for him. But you had like Chrissie and Janet
Speaker 1: and Cindy, I think, came after Chrissie. I'm sure they
Speaker 1: definitely contributed to it. Come on, Mr Roper. Okay, Mr
Speaker 1: Roper is pretty, pretty funny. We talked about that in
Speaker 1: the UH, the fern bar episode of our bars podcast.
Speaker 1: Happy days. Of course we have to mention Fonzi jumps.
Speaker 1: The Shark, which was and of course that became in
Speaker 1: the episode Fonzi literally Um Water Skis and jumps the
Speaker 1: ring of sharks. I think it was sharks, maybe just
Speaker 1: one shark, because jumps, jumps the sharks the same, same
Speaker 1: ring to it. I can't remember how many sharks it was,
Speaker 1: but that became it sort of looked back as the
Speaker 1: moment where happy days went bad and now is used
Speaker 1: as an expression of when any show goes bad. But
Speaker 1: Ed points out like there were some a lot of
Speaker 1: good happy days, episodes and seasons that happened after that, true,
Speaker 1: but that season, season five, they also had mork from
Speaker 1: ORC arrived at Arnold's drive in class and it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it is classic and it turned out for the best,
Speaker 1: but the point is it was like a huge departure from,
Speaker 1: you know, the norm that that show had set up
Speaker 1: for itself in the previous five seasons. So I think
Speaker 1: it's not even necessarily just a show turns horrible, it's
Speaker 1: just it takes like, Um, much more bizarre turns, you know,
Speaker 1: to maybe boost ratings. I think that's really what jumping
Speaker 1: the shark is for me. Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 1: The other thing that stuck out to me too, is
Speaker 1: apparently that that phrase is from. It's that old. Oh Really? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was some particular dude who came up with it
Speaker 1: and wrote a book about it and started a website
Speaker 1: later on, and it was really like a single person,
Speaker 1: or maybe two people, introduced that slag into the Zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: That person right now, if they're listening, he says some
Speaker 1: particular dude thank you right, thanks a lot, other dude.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, master researcher. Alright, fine, I take that challenge.
Speaker 1: I can talk before we break about a couple of
Speaker 1: more landmark events in TV Sitcom history. One, of course,
Speaker 1: it's the final episode of Mash Uh. Notable because, a,
Speaker 1: it was one of the biggest shows ever and it
Speaker 1: be because it was one of the biggest final finales,
Speaker 1: final finales of all time and all the way up
Speaker 1: and this was and it was the number one audience,
Speaker 1: top audience, of any broadcast in TV history until the
Speaker 1: super bowl in that was what a run like one
Speaker 1: of the best like television episodes of all time, like
Speaker 1: it just got in the bread basket. Over and over
Speaker 1: agames called goodbye, farewell and Amen. Ellen coming out was
Speaker 1: a big deal. There was a gay character in Billy
Speaker 1: Crystal on the Sitcom Soap Um. But Ellen actually coming
Speaker 1: out on the show after she came out in real
Speaker 1: life was a very big deal and conservatives hated it.
Speaker 1: You get this Jerry folwell called her ellen degenerate for
Speaker 1: coming out of gay. He called her a degenerate for
Speaker 1: for saying, guess I'm actually gay, rather than staying in
Speaker 1: the closet, and that disgusting. What a good dude. And
Speaker 1: that episode they code named it the puppy so no
Speaker 1: one would have any idea what was coming. It's pretty funny.
Speaker 1: Uh A, right, should take our final break. Yeah, let's,
Speaker 1: and then we'll come back and talk about more Sitcom stuff.
Speaker 1: I want to learn about a terrosortic college act, how
Speaker 1: to take a perfect but with all about fractal Kiscun.
Speaker 1: That's another hunt. The lizzie border murders that they kind
Speaker 1: of all runs on the plane everything this time we
Speaker 1: should know. Word up, Jerry George. All right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: finish up with what Ed calls odds and ends, which
Speaker 1: I think is perfect, because some of these are significant moments,
Speaker 1: some of these are just little other random BITs, um tropes,
Speaker 1: what have you. One is a trope for sure, which
Speaker 1: is the couch in the center of the room. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's obviously done this way because it just makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense to have sort of the central action
Speaker 1: being framed around the center part of a living room.
Speaker 1: But it's funny if you go back and look at
Speaker 1: all in the family, the cosby show and at least
Speaker 1: married with children, those three sets are almost identical and
Speaker 1: that you have your entry door on the right, the
Speaker 1: couch in the middle and a set of stairs behind you. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then of course shows like friends in Seinfeld and
Speaker 1: it's it's not like landmark to say, Hey, let's center
Speaker 1: the action on the center of the room. But the
Speaker 1: couch in the center of the room definitely became a trope. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it allows it allows actors to interact with the person
Speaker 1: on the couch without standing in between them and the
Speaker 1: camera to stand behind them. Right. So it makes total
Speaker 1: sense in Sitcom world, but it is bizarre if you
Speaker 1: step back and think about it. That actually ties in
Speaker 1: chuck with another little tidbit about sitcoms called the fourth wall.
Speaker 1: And it's not just sitcoms but any TV show, but
Speaker 1: for sure, but it particularly applies the sitcoms because if
Speaker 1: you look at a Sitcom set, there's usually three walls.
Speaker 1: There's the back wall and two side walls, but the
Speaker 1: front wall is imaginary and it allows you, the viewer,
Speaker 1: to look in on the action. But the people in
Speaker 1: the action, the actual characters, don't recognize that you're looking
Speaker 1: back at them, or they're not supposed to. But you
Speaker 1: can really toy with this whole thing because every once
Speaker 1: in a a while the character can turn and address the you,
Speaker 1: the viewer, and that's called breaking the fourth wall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which can be fun. It can be funny if, if
Speaker 1: Burt Reynolds does it, it gives this little signature laugh
Speaker 1: in a movie, that's funny. If Ferris Bueller does it,
Speaker 1: it's funny. It can be a little weird and disconcerting.
Speaker 1: So breaking the fourth wall is something that, whenever it's
Speaker 1: entertained by a director or production or writer or whatever,
Speaker 1: it's always very much like, let's put a lot of
Speaker 1: thought into this, because it can really go bad. That's right, right. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't wanna, you don't want to do it wrong,
Speaker 1: because I would guess you could sink like a whole
Speaker 1: show doing it wrong. Yeah, it's not a willing anything
Speaker 1: how about spinoffs? I love spinoffs. There's been a lot
Speaker 1: of very bad ones, but in some cases spinoffs have
Speaker 1: been at least as popular as the original show. Um,
Speaker 1: you have great shows like Mash which had trapper John
Speaker 1: M D, which was pretty popular, and then the very
Speaker 1: not great aftermash. Yeah, that was weird, terrible title. And then, Um,
Speaker 1: that's pretty good too. Two is not bad. Um. What
Speaker 1: about happy days, though? Happy days had Morkan Mindy, of course,
Speaker 1: very popular show. UH, joanie loves CHOCY, not so great lavernon.
Speaker 1: Surely that was from happy to right, a great, great show.
Speaker 1: And then there were two more which I didn't even
Speaker 1: know about. One called BLANKSI's beauties, the one called out
Speaker 1: of the blue, and the reason you don't know about
Speaker 1: was because they were terrible shows. But also, like they
Speaker 1: introduced Morkin season five and gave him a spinoff. These
Speaker 1: guys were introduced. They would introduce the character out of
Speaker 1: the blue for the first time and then the next
Speaker 1: night they would premier their spinoff show and it just
Speaker 1: was a format they were trying and it just quite
Speaker 1: worked out. Yeah, it didn't work very well. Uh, the
Speaker 1: Jeffersons I mentioned spun from all in the family. Um,
Speaker 1: another really popular show was a different world that spun
Speaker 1: out from the Cosby show. Benson was a spinoff from what. Okay,
Speaker 1: and I love Benson as a kid. I love that show. Uh,
Speaker 1: facts of life was a great spinoff from different strokes.
Speaker 1: Of course, Frasier, one of the all time great shows. UH,
Speaker 1: spun off from one of the all time great shows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: from cheers. You remember. Frasier was, I think he dated
Speaker 1: Diane for a little while, didn't he? He that? He
Speaker 1: was introduced dating Diane and then later dated that Lilith,
Speaker 1: of course, one of the great characters, right. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: she actually made it over to the spinoff two. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she appeared on Frasier for sure. So all in the
Speaker 1: family is apparently the the all time spinoff champ with
Speaker 1: seven shows that it produced. The reason it was able
Speaker 1: to do this is because it was so popular. Some
Speaker 1: of its spinoffs had spinoffs, like, I think Rhoda was
Speaker 1: a spinoff from all in the family and it ended
Speaker 1: up spinning off Gloria, I think, or something. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: all told, all in the family generated eight hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty episodes of television. Wow, yeah, that's it's almost like
Speaker 1: the the Tommy, what's his name, verse from Tommy Westfall Universe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is very much like that. I was trying to
Speaker 1: explain that to emily and some people the other day
Speaker 1: and just totally botched it. I need to retake that
Speaker 1: one too. Just get me on the phone, put me
Speaker 1: on speaker phone. Uh, and then when you know, recently
Speaker 1: we could. We don't get a lot of spinoffs anymore,
Speaker 1: but we should definitely shout out grownish, which is a
Speaker 1: newer spinoff of blackish. Right, so it still happens. Another
Speaker 1: thing that happened that was kind of like a landmark
Speaker 1: bomb in the Sitcom world, and not bomb in the
Speaker 1: bad way, but like meaning it was consequential. The flintstones
Speaker 1: came out in and not. To that point no one
Speaker 1: had even conceived of an animated Sitcom, but that's absolutely
Speaker 1: what it was, so much so it was essentially an
Speaker 1: animated rip off of the Honeymooners, based in prehistoric times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, animated sitcoms became a staple of TV at
Speaker 1: primetime television, with the jetsons, of course, Our Beloved Simpsons
Speaker 1: and Future Rama, and now Bob's Burger's is one of
Speaker 1: the family guy of course, and then Bob's Burgers, one
Speaker 1: of the longest running current sitcoms. Animated Sitcoms? Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: also rick and Morty, South Park. There's tons of animated
Speaker 1: sitcoms and they can all thank the flint stones for
Speaker 1: that and and, to a lesser extent, the JETSON's. It's
Speaker 1: funny to think of South Park it's a Sitcom, but
Speaker 1: I guess it is totally. It's just so offbeat it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to, you know, fit that mold, but it
Speaker 1: is Sitcom Um. And then chuck. There's one other like
Speaker 1: a significant moment in TV I want to like definitely
Speaker 1: shout out. Was the last episode of New Heart that
Speaker 1: aired in did you see it? I did. I was
Speaker 1: a big fan of both the original Bob Newhart show
Speaker 1: and reruns and then loved, loved the new heart show
Speaker 1: where he was the in the first one he was
Speaker 1: a psychologist married to Susanne Plashette, and in the second
Speaker 1: new heart he was a B and b operator in Vermont,
Speaker 1: right yeah, named Dick Loudon. And the second show new heart,
Speaker 1: was much more weird and wacky and just kind of
Speaker 1: went out there, whereas the BOB new heart show from
Speaker 1: the seventies was a little more like down to Earth and,
Speaker 1: you know, stayed uh, it had like new heart stead Pan,
Speaker 1: you know, humor. I just accidentally did a new heart period. Um.
Speaker 1: And so in the last episode of New Heart, Um,
Speaker 1: the second show, uh, it starts at the last couple
Speaker 1: of minutes. Started out in a darkened room and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden Bob Wakes up, or Dick loud and
Speaker 1: wakes up, you think. And it turns out he wakes
Speaker 1: up his wife next to him and it's Susanne Plashette,
Speaker 1: his wife from the BOB new heart show from the seventies.
Speaker 1: And it turns out the entirety of new heart took
Speaker 1: place in a dream of Bob Hartley's in the show,
Speaker 1: the BOB new heart show. It's one of the greatest
Speaker 1: aries finales of all time of any show, not just sitcoms.
Speaker 1: Absolutely uh, it's. It's, for my money, maybe the only
Speaker 1: time the it was all a dream thing worked to perfection,
Speaker 1: because it's kind of become a trope, like a bad trope,
Speaker 1: where it just is a sort of a lazy way
Speaker 1: to do something. The reset button. Yeah, but boy, it
Speaker 1: just they pulled their card at the right time. The
Speaker 1: original new heart show was so beloved, I think in
Speaker 1: Susan Plachette, so recognizable and beloved. Uh, it was just perfection.
Speaker 1: It worked great, totally. Something that didn't work great and
Speaker 1: I say this is the thing we go out on.
Speaker 1: How about that? All right, it's called the Darren switch
Speaker 1: or the other Darren, and it happened on the more
Speaker 1: the two dicks, right, that's true. Um, it happened on
Speaker 1: the sixth season of bewitched, right, and this was uh,
Speaker 1: Darren was the husband, Samantha's husband. I'm bewitched, a great,
Speaker 1: great show, originally played by Dick Yorke, and then another
Speaker 1: Dick came in, Dick Sargent came in, and they just
Speaker 1: swapped it out. They never explained it. Uh. This has
Speaker 1: happened quite a few other times in TV history too,
Speaker 1: write so much so that, like I said, it's a
Speaker 1: trope called the other Darren, where they just bring in
Speaker 1: a new actor without any explanation whatsoever, to start playing
Speaker 1: an established role. Happens most often on soap operas, I've heard,
Speaker 1: for sure, some of the other notable sitcoms, though. The
Speaker 1: MOM on the fresh prince was swapped out Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: on that seventies show. This one is very sad. Eric's
Speaker 1: older sister was played by Lisa Robin Kelly at first
Speaker 1: and she had drug and alcohol problems and she was
Speaker 1: booted from the show and replaced and ended up dying
Speaker 1: of a drug overdose. MORTY Seinfeld was different in one episode,
Speaker 1: like in the middle of the run. Well, it was
Speaker 1: the first time he was ever in an episode. It
Speaker 1: was played by a different actor just for the one
Speaker 1: episode and then we got uh, the Great Barney Martin
Speaker 1: just owned you know. He played Lizam Nelly's Dad and
Speaker 1: Arthur two, one of my favorite comedies. But if you
Speaker 1: look back to that first Morty, uh Larry David didn't
Speaker 1: like it and he's like he's too soft and he
Speaker 1: swapped him after Barney Martin. That's awesome. Sometimes your father
Speaker 1: forgets and I have to steal uh Ross's ex wife
Speaker 1: Carol changed. Oh yeah, that's right. Okay, I knew that. UH, Angie,
Speaker 1: I'm thirty rock, was another one episode run before they
Speaker 1: switched to a different actor. Which one was Angie? Angie was?
Speaker 1: Who Was Angie? I haven't seen thirty rock in so long.
Speaker 1: I think she was just on the crew. Maybe I
Speaker 1: can't remember that exactly. Um, or was she? I can't remember. Bewitched.
Speaker 1: Um also had a switch, and that the gladys, the
Speaker 1: nosy neighbor. Uh. The actor who played her died of
Speaker 1: ovarian cancer and so they did a double switch twice.
Speaker 1: And then finally, in True Mitch Her which Uh Fashion,
Speaker 1: Mitch Hurwitz. He was the show runner for the rest
Speaker 1: of development. And you remember and the boyfriend, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: the girlfriend of of what's his face? Michael Sarah was
Speaker 1: like completely forgettable and the dad never no one ever
Speaker 1: remembered who she was. So his idea was to have
Speaker 1: a different actor play and in every episode, is that right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: to kind of, you know, just make fun of the
Speaker 1: trope a little bit. And he did that twice and
Speaker 1: he ended up really, really liking the second actor so
Speaker 1: much I think he was like, I can't like fire you.
Speaker 1: So he did it once and then I had the
Speaker 1: same actor player, which is pretty funny. That guy is brilliant. Um.
Speaker 1: So I guess that's it for sitcoms. Huh. Like we
Speaker 1: could just keep talking about significant Sitcom moments all day,
Speaker 1: but I think we should probably stop. I think so
Speaker 1: we ran a couple of minutes long, but, uh, do
Speaker 1: you have anything you want to retake this week? No,
Speaker 1: it's all good this time. All right, great. Well, thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us, everybody. If you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us and let us know what you thought
Speaker 1: about the two part very special Sitcom episode, you can
Speaker 1: send us an email to stuff podcast in IHEART RADIO
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