Name A 60's TV Story Cliche (1 Viewer)

[Rob_Ray]

Of course there are entire wings of the Screen Actors Guild devoted to the town gossips and Dithering Old Ladies:

Gossips include:
Mary Wickes
Alice Ghostley
Alice Backus
Hope Summers
Elvia Allman

DOLs:
Ruth McDevitt
Madge Blake
Kathryn Card
Spring Byington
Jesslyn Fax
Florence Lake

 

[Professor Echo]

Casting cliches: James Best as the borderline-psychotic hothead! John Fiedler as the meek, mousy guy who still has an opinion! Harry Townes as the devious, uptight sophisticate! Jeanne Cooper as the fading beauty who's been around the block a few times! Ed Begley, Sr. as the overbearing bigwig! Billy Mumy as the creepily precocious kid who's a little too smart for his own good! John McGiver as the stuffy, sardonic blowhard! J. Pat O'Malley as the befuddled codger! Jack Weston as the pudgy, small-time schemer! Kim Darby is the freshly-scrubbed young thing with relationship problems! Suzanne Pleshette as the earthy love interest who ultimately can't be had! Ken Lynch as the abrasive associate authority figure! Vera Miles as the persecuted lady who's out of your league! Joe Flynn as the world-weary fussbudget! Cyril Delevanti as the fragile geezer! Lee Marvin as big trouble!

Hahahaha. Perfect. And don't forget Fernando Lamas as...Fernando Lamas.

 

[JohnMor]

Of course there are entire wings of the Screen Actors Guild devoted to the town gossips and Dithering Old Ladies:

Gossips include:
Mary Wickes
Alice Ghostley
Alice Backus
Hope Summers
Elvia Allman

DOLs:
Ruth McDevitt
Madge Blake
Kathryn Card
Spring Byington
Jesslyn Fax
Florence Lake

Love 'em all, but I always had a special place in my heart for Ruth McDevitt. And her voice.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Susan Oliver as the intelligent, experienced looker, consigned to the inevitably bittersweet conclusion!

Ha. I was trying to figure out how to pinpoint Oliver's casting type and gave up, but that's about perfect. I gather she was quite eccentric in real life as well.

 

[Steve...O]

I don't have anything to add because so much great stuff has been posted - just wanted to say this thread has been a fun and enjoyable read - thanks, Professor Echo! It's amazing how prevalent these plot devices were - I immedidately thought of the "evil twin". Even Perry Mason went down that route once in its last season.

 

[John Karras]

Of course there are entire wings of the Screen Actors Guild devoted to the town gossips and Dithering Old Ladies:

Gossips include:
Mary Wickes
Alice Ghostley
Alice Backus
Hope Summers
Elvia Allman

Don't forget the ever-present Maudie Prickett.

 

[Frank Soyke]

Don't forget the ever-present Maudie Prickett.

And the 2 ultimate maternal/occupational/relational nightmares Jane Dulo and Rita Shaw. I still have nightmares are those two....oh, what would Freud say about that?

 

[Professor Echo]

James Whitmore as the once-respected honcho who hasn't yet grasped that his time has passed!

Olan Soule as the sober lab technician and erstwhile hotel desk manager!

Madeleine Sherwood as the vindictive, sharp-tongued harpy!

J.D. Cannon as the relentlessly hardass jerk!

Rita Shaw as the huffy, hefty battleaxe!

John Larch as the slightly-pugnacious everyman who didn't realize things would go this far out of his control!

Theodore Marcuse as the serene, calculating, vaguely-androgynous thug!

Susan Oliver as the intelligent, experienced looker, consigned to the inevitably bittersweet conclusion!

Ellen Corby as the sharp granny!

Bruce Dern as the passive-aggressive psycho!

You've really been nailing it in this thread, Peter! Thank you for all the great examples and the laughs and memories they yield. Nice job!

 

[Doug Wallen]

Wonderful thread.

Amnesia, blindness and the evil twin immediately jumped to my mind.

So many uses and overuse of these devices.

Great memories.

Doug

 

[BobO'Link]

Liberace as... Liberace!

 

[Professor Echo]

Lest we forget John Marley as the perpetually crabby guy with great hair. And don't know if this has been mentioned, but whenever a good guy is wounded he shows up in the last scene with his arm in a sling.

 

[John Karras]

The main characters help a newly-arrived immigrant (frequently Greek) get settled/deal with prejudice (Little House, The Virginian, Bonanza, Gunsmoke etc.)

Character actors: Don't forget Bob Newhart's late father-in-law Bill Quinn (as the shopkeeper, townsperson, telegraph operator etc.)

 

[Dan McW]

Bad guys get shot in the heart and die. Good guys/series regulars get shot in the arm or shoulder and survive.

 

[John Karras]

The only day of the year that there is a miraculous snowfall is on Christmas Day.

 

[Peter M Fitzgerald]

Lest we not forget:

Seeking refuge from a major calamity with strangers who represent a microcosm of society, and... --Oh no! One of them is due! She's about to have her baby!

And the ever-popular Big Accident, resulting in:

"Augh... I'm pinned under heavy rubble/wreckage... I.. I think my leg is broken... No! Don't try to move the fallen beam/rock/axle, that'll just bring everything down on us... anyway, it's too heavy to lift, and we're running out of time... quick, go and get help!"

 

[Jack P]

Some insane or dorky computer whiz will show off the wonders of a big wall-sized computer to the disgruntlement of the lead and the story will be about the computer going round and human ingenuity proving its worth, and how we must not let computers run our lives.

A minister goes through a crisis of faith because his wife dies in the first act.

 

[LeoA]

Has the one where the husband suddenly shows his vain side and starts obsessing over it been mentioned yet such as Ricky (I Love Lucy) and Rob (Dick Van Dyke Show) worrying about going bald or Danny (Make Room for Daddy) starting to become self conscious about his nose and considering a nose job been mentioned yet?

 

[John Karras]

This reminds me of the comedian who was asking a friend if he remembered a particular episode of "Friends", and said: "You know, it was the one about the misunderstanding...."

 

[Vic Pardo]

I distinctly remember being home from school because of sickness when I was a child and watching an episode of "I Married Joan" in which Joan has to pretend she's having a meeting in the kitchen with two ladies from the neighborhood because that's what she told her husband she'd be doing and she imitates the voices of the two women and even stands on a chair when replicating the taller of the two ladies (who we'd met earlier in the episode) and the camera keeps cutting to the husband's incredulous looks in the living room. My mother was ironing clothes at the time and commented that these shows (sitcoms, although she didn't use the term) were all based on their women characters lying to the men and then having to deal with the consequences of those lies. My mother was no feminist in that pre-feminist era, but she clearly objected to the portrayal of women as liars.

 

[MishaLauenstein]

This reminds me of the comedian who was asking a friend if he remembered a particular episode of "Friends", and said: "You know, it was the one about the misunderstanding...."

I think that was Three's Company.