Editorial Mistakes in Television Shows (1 Viewer)

[Neil Brock]

Although technically not a continuity error, my favorite bit of stupidity in series is when a main character's best friend in the world shows up for a guest shot and it is someone that they have never mentioned before and after the episode never mention again.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

There are several of these errors on I LOVE LUCY. To name just one of many, at different times, Ethel was given three different middle names: Lucy called her Ethel Roberta (which was Vivian Vance's real middle name), Fred called her Ethel Louise (which was his ex-wife's name) and when she went back to her hometown, they all called her Ethel Mae.

 

[Theodore J. Mooney]

In the 60s classic, THE LUCY SHOW, it was established early in the series that Lucy Carmichael's maiden name was Taylor but later in the series it was McGillacuddy. Also, in the draft episode, Lucy refers to her son as "Jimmy" despite all of those of years of calling him Jerry.

 

[MatthewA]

Others that occurred to me:

—On "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", Mary's mother has been named both Marge and (when she actually appeared) Dottie.

—On "All in the Family", Henry Jefferson is never seen again after 1973. When "The Jeffersons" get their own series (on which Henry never appeared), his son Raymond (played by then 10-year-old Gary Coleman) visits in 1978. Much later (in 1983 IIRC), Weezie is excited to meet Sammy Davis, Jr., even though they met once before when she lived in Queens next door to the Bunkers.

—On "Soap", during Jessica's murder trial, Benson is referred to as "Mr. Benson" by one of the attorneys. When he gets his own show, "Benson", his full name is revealed as Benson DuBois.

—"Gimme A Break!" establishes early on that Mrs. Kanisky died about six months before the series began; the fourth episode of season one is about her first birthday since her death. However, in season 3 the entire writing staff and most of the backstage crew was replaced, and they wrote a flashback episode set circa 1974, when Mrs. Kanisky says she's dying, and Nell agrees to take care of the family when she dies.

"The Golden Girls" has some doozies:

—It is implied that Dorothy was born in 1930, that Kate is the oldest of her two children, and that she and Stan had been divorced for two years when the show began in 1985. If they divorced in 1983 after 38 unhappy years of marriage, they would have been married in 1945 (a shotgun wedding, of course, because Stan knocked up Dorothy), making Dorothy 15 at the time, and the baby would have been born in either 1945 or 1946. The second episode of season 1 is about Kate's wedding, and Dorothy says that Kate had a crush on Paul McCartney…in the second grade!

—In a second season episode, Rose said she went to an agricultural college. Then in the 4th season opener, the "B" plot has Rose getting her high school diploma (with a class taught by Dorothy). Then in a later episode also in the fourth season, she is once again a college graduate.

But nothing compares to the scores of well-documented "Simpsons" continuity errors, the latest one being Abe Simpson having been in the Navy in WWII. All well and good, if you've never seen or heard of the episode depicting his Army service as one of The Flying Hellfish! I'm not even bothering to list all of them.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

Originally Posted by Theodore J. Mooney

In the 60s classic, THE LUCY SHOW, it was established early in the series that Lucy Carmichael's maiden name was Taylor but later in the series it was McGillacuddy. Also, in the draft episode, Lucy refers to her son as "Jimmy" despite all of those of years of calling him Jerry.

Also, that episode where she was referred to as Taylor involved her going to her college reunion -- but a few seasons later, a show dealt with the "fact" that she never completed high school, so she went back to high school to get her diploma (and ridiculously, instead of getting a G.E.D., she actually went to school with the teenagers.)

About calling her son by the wrong name:

The book "The Lucy Book" says everyone told Lucille Ball that her son in the series was named Jerry, but she insisted it was Jimmy (confusing the real first name of the actor who played him.)

Determined that she was right, on the show she went ahead and called him "Jimmy."

I'm a huge fan of Lucille Ball, but by all indications I think she really wasn't very bright.

 

[Jack P]

In the pilot movie for "Emergency!" , Officers Reed and Malloy from "Adam-12" cameod (a typical Jack Webb touch of establishing continuity between his shows as they had also appeared on a "Dragnet" episode) and were seemingly well-acquainted with Rampart Hospital, talking with Nurse Dixie McCall on a first-name basis.

But then in a S1 "Emergency" episode, an episode centers around a plot point of Johnny Gage watching "Adam-12" the TV show at the station and not getting to see the finish so suddenly "Adam-12" is a TV show in the universe of the show where in the pilot movie the characters of "Adam-12" were a real part of it!

Confusing? Well in the Fall of '72, during Adam-12's fifth season (and corresponding to "Emergency1"s second season) there was an episode where Reed and Malloy must rush a child to Rampart Hospital and this time it's as if this was the first time they were ever there, since there's no familiarity with Nurse McCall like in the pilot film! (But at least this time, they were no longer just TV show characters in the world of "Emergency!")

 

[kemcha]

While I noticed things like that, as well, I just never bothered with worrying about it because I never considered the chronological aspect of the series. Now, if the series were fully integrated with the overall show, I could see continuity would be an issue. The thing of it is that shows like A-Team, Magnum P.I., Charlie's Angels, Emergency, Adam 12 and many other, don't rely too much on detail when referencing previous episodes, unless it's a two parter. There's really no integrated "bible" for the show. Not like it is with shows like Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Sliders and the like.

 

[LeoA]

Another good one for Emergency! happens in the 4th of the 6 tv movies made after season 6, titled "Great Rescues of Emergency".

It shows a paramedic by the name of Craig Brice at the ceremony being sworn in as a captain. He's the only LA fire department personnel among those present at the ceremony that we actually get to see promoted, besides Johnny and Roy. So he's obviously supposed to be the same Craig Brice we saw throughout the series, who was a know it all that strictly follows the book and is often an annoyance for those around him.

But somewhere down the line, he turned from a short white guy to a tall black guy...

The actor, James Richardson, was unavailable to do his role from the regular run of the series. So instead of doing the logical thing and just not even mentioning that he's getting a promotion and cutting those couple of seconds from the script or changing the individual's name, they just substituted someone else into the role with the same name. I'm not too crazy about this one, it seems like a poor decision or a lack of care to me.

I don't mind the discontinuities with Adam-12 because the artistic license they took made for a funny episode (Hang-Up, where Johnny is watching a episode of Adam-12 before being pulled away by a run and then obsesses over how it ended).

Going off topic a bit, do any of the Emergency! fans here know if the following episode was actually filmed? It sounds like it was never filmed and the script itself was just adapted elsewhere, but the description that states "Never Aired" possibly implies that it was done and just wasn't broadcast. I would think a description such as "Not Produced" would be more descriptive if it never went beyond a script.

http://www.emergencyfans.com/episodes/ritchtersix.htm

 

[kemcha]

For many of us, we haven't seen those movies yet.

 

[Ethan Riley]

I remembered something from Bewitched. In season two, Tabatha was born (note the spelling of her name; it changed to Tabitha later on). In the episode she was born, there was a big to-do about her being a brunette like her father. Later in that same episode, Darrin mistook brunette Serena for a grown-up version of his daughter. The whole episode centered about the baby being a brunette, and she stayed a brunette throughout season two. Flash forward to the Season 3 opener and...like magic, Tabitha is a blond and remained so for the rest of the series.

 

[kemcha]

Ethan, I doubt that Darrin would have noticed detail like that. Since Tabitha was a witch, she would have been able to change the color of her hair ...

 

[Joe Lugoff]

But they didn't allow her to do witchy things.

 

[bretmaverick2]

ALL IN THE FAMILY feautured two episodes, a season apart, about Archie seeing his brother (David, I believe) for the first time in several years. Same very basic plot but you think someone would have realized that they had just done it the season before.

From SANFORD AND SON to the spinoff SANFORD, the name of the child adopted by Esther and Woody changed, although I can't remember what it was on S& S on SANFORD it was Cliff.

And I think there is an MTM episode in which Rhoda wants to set Mary up with her brother but then on RHODA - no brother!!!

LIFE WITH BONNIE, the Bonnie Hunt ABC sitcom a few years ago, she had a son and daughter in the first season. In season 2, the daughter is completely gone and never mentioned. It's not like she was a little kid, either. The girl was probably 11-12 and the brother, who remained in the show, was about 8-9.

 

[Greg_S_H]

There was an episode of Dukes of Hazzard where Boss Hogg lost his reelection bid to a friend of the Dukes'. She was never seen again, and Boss was back to being the county commissioner the next episode. Hmm. Maybe that wasn't a mistake; maybe Boss was just more sinister than we knew!

There were many, many episodes of Little House where a kid in the Ingalls' classroom had a problem and was the focus of the episodes. More often than not, these kids were being picked on by everyone in class but the Ingalls. Because of the show's desire to contrast bad behavior with good in the form of the Ingalls, Walnut Grove became the cruelest place on earth--at least, for school children. Anyway, these kids would never be seen again.

I know these aren't really errors. Both examples came about because the writers wanted to tell a particular story and were not concerned with future ramifications. In the case of Little House, I always wished they would have just had a stable of background extras in the school scenes and would bring one of them forward when they needed to focus on a particular kid in the school. This is unrealistic, I suppose, because an actor strong enough to carry an episode would probably not be willing to serve as a regular extra.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

Originally Posted by kemcha

Anyone notice any errors in the DVD releases of television shows that the show editors forgot to fix?

I happened to notice a big one in the M*A*S*H television series. Margaret Houlihan mentions in an episode in one of the earlier seasons of the television series that her father had passed away. Yet, later on in the series, her father is very much alive and shows up in "Father's Day," an episode of Season 9.

How do you propose to "fix" this considering the episodes were made decades ago? Should they bring in someone to overdub a line?

If they change anything, more people will be upset that the episode was changed for DVD.

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood

How do you propose to "fix" this considering the episodes were made decades ago? Should they bring in someone to overdub a line?

Not to speak for anyone but I think he means contiuinty errors that weren't fixed when the episodes were originally made rather than fixed for a DVD release.