Maddening inconsistencies/discontinuities in old TV shows: forgot how to watch with "old eyes"?

Back in the days of radio, comedy entertainment series focused on the antics of a few popular characters (Ma and Pa Kettle, Fibber McGee and Molly, etc.) and any peripheral characters such as relatives, friends and co-workers came and went as that week's plot demanded. With the exception of recordings provided to West Coast affiliates due to the time difference, these were mostly broadcast once and largely forgotten by the time the next episode aired. That formula continued in television.

Except the serials, quickly dubbed "soap operas" due to their sponsors. The audience for those included many rabid fans who knew these "people" as well or better than their own friends and families. When there was an error, even a minor one, these incensed fans would call and write letters to the stations, the producers, and worst of all, the sponsors. Early on, the producers of serials developed "bibles" (an actual industry term that persists to this day) recapping characters' story arcs and containing vital information as revealed over time about hometown, occupation, siblings living and dead, etc.

For some reason, producers of more lighthearted fare either don't think their audience will notice the occasional gaffe, or don't think we'll care. For example, despite much interplay between characters of the original series and its spin-off, "Fraser"'s family and childhood bear no resemblance at all to the references he made to them on "Cheers," and neither we the audience nor the critics who piled on the accolades seemed to care.

 

Yeah, when you put it like that it was a crazy way to look at things.

I suppose the thinking was nobody would imagine that two men in a bed together would be doing anything other than sleeping...

 

To be fair, Bob's sister Ellen on BNS, had announced in one episode she was moving to another city for a job, when Howard and his brother Gordon were fighting over her, so they did write her out of the series temporarily (although she never returned for the rest of the series).

 

They had gay people back then, too.

 

I know that, but I don’t think the ‘powers that be’ considered people generally thought about it . But then trying to make sense of a censorship that would not allow showing a man and woman in the same bed is difficult when looking back from now to then.

 

Actually, lots of platonic same-sex couples of either gender shared beds out of financial necessity - it was cheaper to rent one room with a bed than two. Societal changes after World War II gave everyone a bit more elbow room, and by the time I saw the Three Stooges sharing a bed on afternoon TV in the 1970's, the situation was so archaic that it rang even less true than receiving numerous blows to the head with a lead pipe without significant injury.

But we still refer to unrelated persons sharing an abode, no matter how large, as "roommates."

 

Very good point. In the last 20 years, producers maintain at least one person on staff full-time to keep track of all the little details, particularly names of relatives, street addresses, pets, graduation dates, and any other factoids that have already been mentioned in past shows. They are acutely aware that if in episode #3, they say that the lead character has an "Uncle Joe," it better not turn into "Uncle John" by episode #97.

 

Don't forget, though, that these discrepancies were explained on the early episode where Sam visited Frasier and asked him about them.

 

When the Beverly hillbillies first moved granny didn't know how to use a phone but in a later episode she wanted a party-line like the one they had back in the hills.

 

I can't name specific shows off the top of my head, but it bugs when when someone has a baby or adopts a pet and then you never see them again or they're just mentioned in passing. Or someone has a stalker or life-threatening illness and then the storyline just disappears or gets forgotten about because they were too many competing storylines and sub plots. When I used to watch daytime TV, there was something called SORAS where kids magically aged 10 or 15 years in less than 5 years. Then you would see actors in their early-30s with teenagers!! People who were supposed to be grandparents looked too young to have grandkids.

In didn't watch every single episode of the Frasier series, it just bothered me that Niles had an ex-wife name Maris whom he obsessed about and constantly made fun of, but we never actually got to see the woman. We never heard her voice. The closest we got to seeing her was a shadow behind a shower curtain. That part was never cast probably because of the negative way the other characters used to describe her. (One of my exes in real life actually looked like David Hyde Pierce.)

 

There are so many discrepancies in M*A*S*H, and we've detailed them in other threads over the years, that it's obvious that no-one was keeping track of the little details early on. Hawkeye's backstory - his hometown, his family structure, are all in doubt early on as we hear about Mom and Vermont instead of just Dad and Crabapple Cove, ME. Henry's wife was called Mildred first and later Lorraine. Spearchucker was the fourth member of the "Swamp" who just disappeared without a trace. Same with Lt. Dish - there for two episodes with only her remnants in the opening credits for the remaining ten years.

 

I love Cheers, but the inconsistency with Cliff and his dating life was odd.

In Season 3, he met a woman at a halloween party at the bar when both were in disguise and then they met up at the end without their costumes and danced. And then she was never mentioned again.

In Season 6, he was hanging out with a woman who looked very plain, but then he introduced her to makeup and brought her to the bar. She was never mentioned again.

And then when he got involved with Maggie, another postal worker, in the episode where she returned from Canada and wanted to be his steady g/f, it was said that he had only had one date before, with a girl named Wendy (not the name of either lady he dated earlier in the series).

 

But in a way, isn't that somewhat consistent with the character? He seems like the type of guy who can't seal the deal with a potential mate, and because of that, those scenarios are kind of realistic.

 

Niles built-up his ex so well that no reality could be as good as the fantasy

 

Dick’s character was so neurotic I always assumed that he was gay and in the closet anyway.

 

I used to wonder the same thing whenever I saw those German palm trees in "Hogan's Heroes".

 

Speaking of "Frasier", every time I see the fake view of the Seattle skyline from his apartment I laugh.
Among several things wrong with it, the Space Needle is nearly 2 miles away from downtown.

 

One of several inconsistencies on "I Dream of Jeannie" that bothers me is although Jeannie was stuck in her bottle for 2000 years before Tony found her, she later mentions several historical figures she met in the past. People who were all born and died long after she was imprisoned in the bottle!
I think the only one mentioned that she could have possibly known was King Tut.

 

Plus when she got married she was invisible in the wedding photos and she'd been photographed hundreds of times previously.

 

In Hogan's Heroes one of the POWs goes to Paris and there's stock footage of a Paris street but there's a poster for Vince Taylor on the wall who wouldn't perform in Paris until the 60's

 

For sure, but it just seems odd to use the "he never had a date" narrative when we saw him have dates earlier in the series. And I get that those kinds of "errors" are made all of the time in sitcoms, but it's the first thing that came to mind when I saw this thread.

 

When they started to repeat shows daily instead if weekly the mistakes became more obvious. In My Three Sons the relationship between Chip and Ernie changed on a daily basis.

 

Yes Fluffy disappears under the wedding cake ( at 2:32) table, is never seen again and has presumably run away.
But Tiger escaping from the car is bogus.
At :20 we see Tiger's paw supposedly pressing down the button to open the window, except there's a window crank visible just above his paw.
And even if the window were electric, the ignition or accessory switch would have to be turned on to open the window in a Dodge Polaris of that time.

 

You gotta love how Tiger is barking, and Fluffy is meowing, but their mouths are not moving. I won't comment on the echo on Tiger's bark....

 

That was the point: we never saw her. That's what made it funny.

Lots of palm trees in Culver City, California, where 40 Acres (the former RKO backlot) was located, which served as "Stalag 13" for the series. (Down the road apiece from the old MGM studios.)



You can just barely see some palm fronds in the top middle of the photo. Eh, crap happens, especially in '60s/'70s shows. I forgive them just because a) NTSC resolution was so poor back then, they were very hard to see, b) they didn't have the budget to fix it very easily, and c) they never imagined in a million years that people would still be obsessing and wasting their time picking apart a silly show from five decades ago.

At least by the 1990s, we had the ability to make visual effects fixes to cover up and obscure these obvious mistakes. And yet still, water bottles get left in scenes, coffee cups, all kinds of things in period pieces that should not exist. Producers and directors and technicians are only human, and as hard as we try to fix obvious mistakes... people are still going to miss them sometimes. I think it's fun, and -- unless it's preposterously gigantic -- I don't have a problem just letting it go and enjoying the show as best I can.