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100 Terrible Hours, very funny episode! "We're with ya pussycat!"
True that there would've been more writers. There would also have been more than one producer. If you read the credits for any show you'll see executive producer, associate producer, assistant producer, etc. Mel Cooley would likely have been Senior Producer but he would've had a staff under him.
Something else seemed even more unlikely. There was a time when Buddy took a job as head writer on another show and later Sally took a leave of absence to be on The Stevie Parsons Show. The two remaining writers had to practically beg to get a third writer. After Buddy left, I think the show would've been immediately interviewing for a new staff writer. Luckily they didn't since Buddy wanted to come back.
The whole staff would've been larger but in a thirty minute sitcom there was not enough screen time to portray and explore all those characters. Mrs. Cooley was never shown. She was never at any of the Petrie house parties. Mel came alone. We never saw Alan Brady's wife and after a few season, Pickles Sorrell was no longer seen.
Love Carlito's Way. I just saw it for the first time about a year ago on TV. Excellent. Devil's Advocate is another favorite. Al Pacino underplayed the role of John Milton so well, very subtle.
Scarface would have been a favorite of mine, but TOO much swearing and violence, too over the top. Al Pacino is too talented to have to indulge in such scenery chewing antics.
I watch it with joy, nostalgia, and a bit of reverence! Seriously! The nostalgia part comes from recalling watching it in syndication as a kid. We always had it on in the afternoon when mom was making dinner. My mom's family didn't have a TV, so they'd go to my grandmother's friend's house to watch ILL on Monday night.
With some episodes my mom would say, "I remember watching this one. Your gram and I walked home that night and it was so cold."
As for how I watch it now, well gbennett, I've been a fan my whole life too. After I started buying the dvds, they spoiled me for the regular TV broadcasts. The dvds are so clear that the TV prints are like watching the show filmed under water! And with the dvds, you can see the WHOLE episode, not one that has been slashed to ribbons for commercials.
I first bought season three. It has many of my favorite episodes. Then I bought season four and then five because I love the Hollywood episodes. Then I went back and bought season two with all the "Lucy is Enceinte" episodes. Then I bought six. And lastly, I bought season one.
It's interesting that you do "theme" marathons like all the Caroline episodes or Charles Lane. I never do that. Too lazy to change discs I guess, lol. What I will do is get in the mood for a certain theme, like the Hollywood episodes and I watch them all in a row for a few days. Or I'll watch the pre-Hollywood episodes, Ricky's screen test, buying the car, Lucy learning to drive, etc.
Sometimes I go way back to the beginning and watch the first season episodes. But there are a few that I don't care for, so I skip them. The first season had some great episodes, but the ones without the Mertzes are the weakest, imho. I never cared for the episode where Lucy plays matchmaker for a neighbor played by Bea Benadaret. I also don't usually rewatch the episode where the two youngsters have crushes on the Ricardos, Richard Crenna, the 25 year old "teenager." Oh, I like the actor, just an episode that I don't care for! And I NEVER can get through the episode with Pepito the Clown. Clowns have creeped me out since childhood. I do like 'The Black Eye' though, even if it wouldn't be politically correct today.
Sometimes I take a break from my Lucy viewing. I don't want to get bored (like that would ever happen,lol). But I get in the mood to watch an episode or two when I am having dinner. I often pop in a Hollywood dvd. I love the Don Loper episode. Maybe it's a girl thing, but I love to see the stars' wives and those dresses. Then I go to Lucy taking a tour of the Movie Star Homes. And I have to see Bill Holden taking a pie in the face! ha ha
Season three , disc three has some of my ALL TIME favorite episodes. I'll put that in the dvd player and watch it for two days. It includes: 'Ricky Minds the Baby', 'The Charm School' (yeah like the gorgeous Lucy "needed" a makeover) , and 'Sentimental Anniversary'. It also has 'Ricky Loses His Temper',
not a fan fave from what I have read, but I love it! Lucy at her scheming best, lol. 'Oil Wells' is super with a pre-Mrs Kravitz Sandra Gould as the tycoon's wife. So funny! And my all time favorite- 'Fan Magazine Interview'. Don't know why, but I love that episode. Lucy, Ricky, the apartment and the Mertzes , a total mess! But the reporter shows up the next day with a camera and everyone is picture perfect.
Well that's how I watch it. I pick a season and a theme. Sometimes I want to watch the European episodes. So I watch all of them in a row. Or I have to watch all of the "Lucy wants to buy a house in Connecticut" episodes. I often go by theme.
From my understanding of classical liberalism, that makes total sense!
Well that figures! I should have known that I'd mention an episode that you disliked! ha ha
Yes it was rip-off of Lucy, but writers have always "borrowed" great stuff. Remember the film 'Twelve Angry Men'? Many sitcoms did a version of that movie. Aunt Bee was the holdout juror on The Andy Griffith Show, That Girl did a version of it and so did All in the Family.
Paul Lynde could always rise above any material and make it funny.
A real ripoff episode that I like is 'Samantha's Super Maid'. That was also a direct steal from I Love Lucy. Some of the dialogue was almost word for word. But the difference was the sweet woman Amelia who became Samantha's maid. She made (no pun intended) the episode watchable.
I like the episode for that character, but I can't STAND Mrs. Stephens and her meddling, buttinsky ways. In fact, for me she ruins any episode which she appears in. I could never stand Mabel Albertson. She always played a pushy, obnoxious, castrating, b####. She was the mom in many shows. She was Don Hollinger's mother on That Girl, Howard Sprague's mom on The Andy Griffith Show, among others. I guess the actress was just playing a role but I couldn't stand her little pinched mouth and annoying,pushy behavior.
She did a good job of playing the "mother-in-law from hell" on Bewitched. Maybe too good. She annoys the heck out of me! How Samantha was able to be nice to her I'll never understand!
Thanks! I love talking about the show, especially wth people who love it too, even if we don't agree on favorites!
Well I don't dislike the Frog episode THAT much, just said it was silly. You convinced me of its merits, okay? ha ha
The guest stars are great and the dialogue is witty. My problem was the opening where it was clearly shown that Fergus had no power over Sam. So how could he blackmail her?
I have a favorite which I have never seen on anyone's list of favorites. Not sure if it is really bad, but I've never read anything flattering about it either. It's a late fifth season episode, Samantha's Power Failure.
It's an episode which seems to start in the middle. I mean, there's an ominous voice off-screen that the Witches Council is giving Samantha a "last chance" to dissolve her mortal marriage. Where did that come from? There's no indication that Sam did anything wrong to bring that on. She's been married for five years and has a child. She hasn't broken any witch rules, at least none that we know of, except for marrying a mortal.
It just seems to be an excuse for Sam to lose her powers again. And the assembly line scene with the chocolate dipped bananas was lifted right out of Lucy's candy factory episode. Some of the dialogue is a direct steal, like Serena saying she's a "dipper" and Arthur adding she was known as "the big dipper."
But I still love this episode because Uncle Arthur and Serena are both in it. I love both characters and this one makes it double the fun. I get a kick out of Buck, the store manager flirting with Serena and her rebuffing him. And his tortured explanation of how to dip a banana in chocolate and roll it in nuts is capped with Arthur's , "How unskilled tdo you think we are?" and "You're not explaining the theory of relativity, ya know!"
When this episode was filmed, Elizabeth Montgomery was expecting her daughter although Sam's pregnancy wasn't yet revealed. I read somewhere (and I can't remember where) that filming that banana and cholcolate scene made her so queasy. I think the same happened to Lucille Ball in the Candy Factory scene. Why do writers give women struggling with morning sickness scenes filled with food? lol
Too bad Dick York couldn't appear in this one. I would have loved to see his reaction to Sam, Arthur and Serena being stripped of their powers. It was a lost opportunity to see him taunt and tease Arthur knowing he couldn't give him a "hotfoot."
When I finally realized that Elizabeth Montgomery was expecting a baby in this episode, Serena's costume made more sense too. She shows up from a karate lesson, still in a (figure disguising) gi. When she loses her powers, Endora zaps her into a dress to wear. But she is only seen in a close up and sitting down with a newspaper in front of her. She wears a baggy smock at the ice cream store. And the roomy pants and tunic in the final scene are uncharacterisitc of the mini skirts and slightly suggestive clothes that Serena normally wears.
Again, not sure if fans have deemed this episode "bad", but I never came across anyone who likes it as much as I do.
Life is full of little hypocrisies. Isn't it hypocritical that the left's darling, aka, 'Female Dog' in a pantsuit, tried to destroy her horndog husband's girlfriends? Yet she criticized Trump for treating women "badly". Can't get more hypocritical than that. LOL
Poor libs, still losing their minds!
That was a sharp looking coat. It seemed to symbolize Hogan's total faith in himself and his ability to always get one over on the Nazis no matter conspicuous he was. Also the "good guys" always wore white in those old westerns. ha ha
Ex-boyfriend, EX! ha ha But you are right! Yeah, I forgot 'Young Man's Fancy', talk about never cutting those apron strings. There's a real creepiness about that episode that gives me a chill!
With the ex-boyfriend, it started to seem like I was in my own TZ epiosde myself. I cooked dinner for us sometimes but he started to expect it all the time. He usually wanted to take the leftovers. As soon as he came in my house he looked through the fridge and helped himself. Sometimes he'd say in a rather accusatory tone, "Oh I see you made chili" (or something else) "and you didn't tell me." His washer broke and he expected me to do his laundry. And there was a laundromat a few blocks from his house! He went from asking me a few times to just bringing over a huge laundry bag and saying, 'Mind doing this?"
I made a comment in frustration after he lost his wallet for the tenth time, "You've lost your wallet, keys, ran out of gas,etc" more times in the last few months than most people do in their whole lives!" His response was that we should get married and I could take care of him. YIKES! Marrying Peter Pan would be a dark, disturbing episode in my life. lol
telegonus- It definitely is a downer for the divorcing couple in The Bewitchin' Pool! Even though they seemed to be uncaring at the time, they probably loved their kids. And now they have to explain to the authorities how both children have disappeared. Not a good situation. When children go missing, the first people the police look at are the parents. Even if they didn't go to prison, both parents were probably looking at a future like John and Patsy Ramsey, hounded and trying to prove their innocence for the rest of their lives.
Interesting that you see a forever childhood, even a happy one, as a living hell. I think a lot of people would like it though! This episode reminds me a bit of the Peter Pan Syndrome, the forever boy, the boy who refused to grow up.
That's a fairly common syndrome these days with some young adults not leaving home, even nto their thirties. I had a boyfriend who was a bit of a Peter Pan type. He lived with his grandparents into his thirties even though his job was almost fifty miles away. When they died he stayed in their house (it was old and falling apart) with all their old decrepit furniture. I used to ask him why he didn't get his own place and furniture. He used to say "Home is where the heart is". He spoke of his grandparents constantly and they'd passed away long before I met him. He reminisced about grandma's cooking all the time. It was as though he couldn't give up his childhood.
While we were dating (he was forty), his mother brought food and homemade desserts over for him every week because he refused to learn to cook. She used to do his laundry. He stopped by her house every Sunday after church with his insulated food bags to pick up Sunday dinner.
Just saying that what would be a hellish existence for you might be heaven for someone else. No cares, no chores, Aunt T doing all the cooking. lol
There are so many dark and disturbing episodes. It's hard to pick just a few. For me 'The Masks' is very disturbing. Jason Foster's greedy family had it coming. They only showed up for a "death watch", hoping to inherit his wealth. I wouldn't have blamed him if he took them to task for their terrible behavior.
A normal drama might have ended with them finding out that he gave away most of his fortune and they were only going to receive a pittance. But in this case, they got all his money and property, but now they had to wear the faces of those ugly masks. They HAD the wealth but how could they enjoy it condemned to live in the shadows for the rest of their lives? They were doomed to a sort of living hell.
Darth-oh of course, it wasn't a colony ship. But Taylor said that their lone female crewmmeber was to be "our new Eve". You even said he "wanted to start over". So did he consider himself "the new Adam?" Just wondering because there was so little backstory except for Taylor's anger at the human race. I took "starting over" literally. It's just natural for men to seek out women. The Spanish Conquisdadores didn't exactly come to colonize either. They were mostly looking for gold and silver for Spain. But the men did pair off with all the native women.
Just wouldn't have wanted to be the new Eve having to deal with three Adams by myself!
Yeah MikeCable- they might have been planning to set up a base for other ships that followed. But as a practical matter, I wouldn't want to be the LONE woman setting up camp with three guys for goodness knows how long! Sure she'd always have a date for Saturday night. lol But what if the other ships encountered problems and didn't arrive as scheduled (or ever?)
I'm just thinking of human nature and how people would pair off in a situation like that. But not with those numbers. Of course it was the sixties and there were no female astronauts at NASA, so even one female on their spaceship was a novelty.
I liked a few of his movies but they weren't films I'd watchover and over. My favorite was Galaxy Quest. That one I DO have a copy to watch over and over. His portrayal of the hammy actor Jason Nesmith who plays the Kirk-like 'Commander Peter Quincy Taggert' was clever and hilarious.
The whole cast was great. But then I am a Trekker.
HAHA! I hadn't seen that one. Of all the women in the world, the one I'd least want to smell like is Hillary.
Sorry that this movie disappointed some people. The first time I saw it I laughed non-stop. I bought a copy of it on VHS years ago and I watched it and still laughed. A few years ago I bought a DVD and STILL laugh. Different scenes make me laugh with each viewing.
I know humor is subjective. But this is such a funny movie! Why don't some people like it?
Again, LOL! Good titles. But if you want to hear a funny song that really mentions Hillary Clinton, I recommend the Bryan Lewis song, "I Think my Dog's a Democrat".
I just found it on youtube the other day. Hilarious!! I laughed so hard I cried. The sad sack dog in the video looks like a stray my mom adopted (so even funnier for me). Hillary Clinton even gets a mention in the song, as the dog's possible mother.
I pay for all his health care,
I buy everything he eats,
I give him a place to live just to keep him off the streets.
Funny song!
Oh sad to hear that, he was a fine actor.
I will always remember what he did back in 1980. He was up for an Emmy (which he won) for portraying Jim Jones in 'The Guyana Tragedy'. The Screen Actors Guild was on strike and he was the only actor to show up at the event and pick up his award. I thought it was a cool thing to do. At the time he got a lot of publicity for it!
I don't care if Amy never comes back. Nothing against the actress, but the character's relationship with Sheldon has ruined his character, imho.
Sheldon was funny just the way he was. They didn't need to find him a "love interest". I think it was demonstrated in the first few seasons that he was his OWN love interest. I suppose audiences can't deal with the idea of someone beng totally uninterested in the opposite sex or being asexual. He clearly had no interest in women, but the writers just had to shoehorn the character into a relationship.
I think back to the film Rainman. The character of Raymond was way more dysfunctional than Sheldon, but he was not about to change. At the end of the film, he was just the same as he was in the beginning. He wasn't "cured" by having a relationship with his brother. That would have been so phony. It's the same with Sheldon. He does not relate to people on an intimate level. He is what he is. Don't try to fix him.
Sheldon is a germaphobe and has a lot of other phobias. His brilliant mind is, or at least it was, focused on his work. He was perfectly content and a heck of a lot funnier the way he was. But NO! Somehow the writers had to "cure" him by making him have sex. They ruined a great character.
Your friends and family thought the whole show was SILLY? What's wrong with them? LOL I was lucky to have younger sisters who loved the show as much as I did!!
While the show was still on the air a few of our local stations aired episodes in the morning. During summer vacation my sisters and I would watch an hour of Bewitched before we went out to play.We NEVER got enough. But unfortunately (for me) they got over their Bewitched obsession years ago. Me, not so much! I was so glad to find fellow fanatics on IMDB.
Speaking of Fergus though, I thought it was unfortunate that Samantha just put him and Phoebe outside her front door. She should have zapped them back to the park for their own safety. But this way they had to hop across a couple of streets to get to the park! Hope they didn't become roadkill.
Yeah, those titles! "Thanks for the Memories" could've been better. Maybe something sarcastic like, "Thanks a LOT Endora, for the Unwanted Memories!" Some were okay, a few were clever, but a bunch of them made no sense to me.
They even reworked some titles. In the first season when Louise Tate was expecting a baby, it was "And Something Makes Three". In season six when Adam was born, it was "And Something Makes Four." Don't know why they had to refer to a baby as SomeTHING.
They surely could have come up with a better title for the first episode. "Louise's Big Surprise for Larry" ? I don't know. The titles could be a whole new thread.
LOL, great list!
How about a few remakes of Broadway shows- Evita, Wicked, and Cats.