Egg McMuffin

We did see Hester a few times. She was on “Cheers,” played by the late, great Nancy Marchand. Hester hated that Frasier was dating a “pseudo-intellectual barmaid” and threatened to kill Diane. It was actually a pretty funny episode. Later on, Rita Wilson played Hester on “Frasier” in a flashback or fantasy sequence, and she was doing an impression of Marchand’s portrayal.

I don’t particularly care for Freddy. I like the college angle, but too bad they felt the need to use Harvard - I just don’t buy that they’d ever hire someone like Frasier. I did like the flashbacks to the Dr. Crane show era (“I’m Glistening” - lol). And I liked when David mentioned being “twinsies.” I think this has potential. The woman with the baby who lives across the hall (can’t remember her name) adds nothing to the show.

Clark Tyson is a moron. I’m watching “The Not-So-Ugly Duckling” episode (aka the George Glass episode), and Clark is mansplaining to Jan that her drawing of a map of the United States looks weird because she forgot Baja California. LOL - Baja California isn’t part of the US. Clark also thinks that Jan doesn’t look much like a girl. He also needs glasses.

Shelley Long was pregnant during the third season of Cheers. They hid the pregnancy onscreen. She wasn’t really in the last few episodes of the season beyond a couple of spliced-in scenes (she quit Cheers to go to Europe with Frasier). There was one memorable episode that season where Diane spent most of the episode trapped in a heating vent in the floor of Cheers. And she was participating in the B-story by calling her lines out from the floor. It was pretty funny.

Joyce and Suzanne did an appearance together on some internet talk show about 7 or 8 years ago, where they buried the hatchet.

I also first discovered the Isley Brothers through Moonlighting. Super disappointed that the song is gone. The pilot is wonderful. It’s feature film quality in many ways. I don’t think this is a show you can binge watch. It’s better to savor that wonderful dialogue one episode at a time. It’s just amazing to me watching an inexperienced Bruce Willis coming in and just owning that role from the first episode.

Kelsey Grammer has slipped back into the role like no time passed. Nicholas Lyndhurst is the best thing about the new cast. I also agree about Freddy - I just can’t reconcile him with Trevor Einhorn’s portrayal. But I never bought Martin Crane as the father of Frasier and Niles either - I went with it because it was funny. So I’ll give this new Freddy a chance too. The dean and Eve aren’t all that interesting. I did like David. It’s kind of depressing that Frasier is single, like he was in the series. They missed an opportunity to have him married again, with his new wife a main character. It’s not awful, and I’m willing to give it more time to gel. But it’s a B- for me at this point, due to Grammer and Lyndhurst. Without them, it would be a C. Oh, and I hated the stilted exposition at the beginning. “How was your father’s funeral?” Ugh - that’s a pet peeve of mine. It reminds me of the last episode of the Brady Bunch. “That was a great graduation ceremony, Greg. Too bad your father was out of town and had to miss it!”

Count me among those who thought Lilith was the best match for Frasier. I hated what they did to their relationship at the end of Cheers. But at that point, Kelsey Grammer’s new proposed show wasn’t going to be a spinoff for Frasier. The Cheers writers broke up Frasier and Lilith because Bebe Neuwirth was no longer interested in being a series regular and wanted to go back to the stage. She did agree to do I believe six episodes in that final season. Why they couldn’t have Lilith show up occasionally at the bar - as she did in her early seasons - rather than do the whole break up story is beyond me. My guess is that the writers were running out of story ideas. Lilith and Frasier reunited late in the final Cheers season so they could have a happy ending (again, Paramount and NBC hadn’t yet decided that Kelsey’s new show would be a spinoff). When they finally decided on a Frasier spinoff, Kelsey didn’t want Frasier to be wed to Lilith because he felt they had already done that relationship on Cheers. I doubt that Bebe would have agreed to be a regular in the spinoff, but she wasn’t asked. Too bad, because I would have loved to have seen a Frasier and Lilith show.

Re: the men in town for not helping Charles. Who are we to judge the mores of the 19th century, while we sit in our BarcaLoungers eating spicy curly fries?

All great points. As silly as that sequence is, it’s upsetting to see our beloved TV family shot dead, fake bullets and all. The writers were driving home the point that violence is scary, and that sequence is oddly effective in making their argument.

Lindsay Workman was on a couple of times as the principal, too. As was the girl who played Kathy Lawrence. But all of these were relatively minor characters, as opposed to people who were the focal point of episodes, like Jennifer Nichols and Molly Webber and Aunt Jenny. Those types of characters never returned. The only real recurring guest stars who played significant roles were Sam and Mr. Phillips. And I guess Cousin Oliver would count.

I was watching the episode where Marcia gives Molly Webber the makeover so she can host Banquet NIGHT (Marcia always emphasizes the second word for whatever weird reason). Molly going from mouseburger to popular girl to total B in about three days is a little silly. Even electric shock therapy doesn’t work that fast. I wish Marcia had taken her revenge on Molly though. That would have made a good follow-up episode, if the Bradys had ever had repeat guest stars.

Tiger ate Fluffy in between the pilot and the first episode. Also, note that Kitty Carryall was recast after the pilot.

Marcia was way out of Wally’s league. Agree about Jan, too, The second-act squares from the three-parters are missing from all the current prints (MeTV and DVD included). Not sure why - they were there in syndication in the 80s. I do know that both three-parters were available to air as 90 minute specials in syndication at one time. Perhaps the squares were edited out of those versions, and Paramount used those prints when they remastered the series. I know that the show has a terrible history when it comes to preserving it and they’ve had to piece it together for DVD releases. It’s one of the reasons they’ve been unable to strike HD versions - in some episodes, they’ve had to use 16 mm backup prints for some scenes.

Have you watched on Pluto TV? It’s edited pretty noticeably there, too.

I like That 70s Show, but I can’t say you’re wrong about the mean spirited aspect. I always hated Danny Masterson’s character. He had this big attitude that was way out of whack considering he wasn’t particularly smart or talented or good looking.

I saw “Goodbye Alice, Hello” this morning. I do NOT like how Carol pointed her finger right in Alice’s face when she was demanding that Alice finger the kid who broke the lamp. Disrespectful. I also thought it was funny that Alice quit her waitress job to go back to the Bradys without even asking Mike or Carol first (yeah, I know Mike was AWOL that episode). What if they thought Kay was a better cook or more efficient or whatever?

Grace moped around a lot during season 6, and they didn’t even use her that much (IIRC, there were a number of episodes where she didn’t appear). Not worth bringing her back, if you ask me.

I think the Quarantine episode has a scene where Tom is on the phone with Dr. Maxwell. Originally that was Tom on the phone with Joan, but it was redubbed. Our local station actually showed the original edits when EIE went into syndication in the early 80s, with Hyland credited in all season 1 episodes. But since the late 90s, I’ve just seen the edited versions, with the season 2 intro pasted on for the non-Joan episodes. They even redid the closing credits for those episodes, using the still photograph of the pyramid rather than the scene on the front porch.

Yep. In general, the actors contracts call for (diminishing) residuals but no permission when the show is rerun in its original form. But if the show is reassembled in a different way after the actor is no longer employed by the production company, they have to give permission for their image to be used. And most of them do it free of charge because it’s a good way to get exposure and stay on good terms with the studios that may employ them in the future. But not always. A few examples I remember: They did a 90210 clip show a few years after the series ended, and they blurred Shannen Doherty’s face in one clip because she didn’t give her permission. Dallas had a storyline in the later years where they were doing a movie based on the Ewings and showed clips from earlier episodes, but nothing with Pam, because Victoria Principal presumably didn’t give permission (she was annoyed with the producers because they tried to claim they fired her, and she got her lawyers to force a retraction). And I remember Entertainment Tonight in its early days doing a story on Bonanza and explicitly saying that Pernell Roberts wouldn’t give permissions for his clips to be used. That was actually pretty funny.

I think I mentioned this above, but as originally aired, some of the first season episodes in which Diana Hyland didn’t appear on camera had phone calls from Joan calling from whatever relative she was staying with. ABC edited out those phone calls for summer 1977 reruns and only showed the 5 episodes where she didn’t appear, so the audience could get used to the show without her, in preparation for the new season. For whatever reason, Warner only uses those slightly edited episodes in reruns, so it now seems that Joan disappears in the middle of the season with no mention. But that’s not how it originally aired.

The Day By Day episode was done not long after the Very Brady Christmas movie in which Susan Olsen did not appear. And contrary to the reason given at the time (“Susan was on her honeymoon!”), the real reason was money. Susan later said she would have delayed her honeymoon, but they offered her a pittance to appear in comparison to Maureen McCormick and Eve Plumb. My guess is she was still annoyed with Paramount and didn’t give them permission to use her image for the Day by Day episode.

I remember reading that Jill Eikenberry was a cancer survivor but didn’t realize she was ill during the first season. How great that Steven Bochco made it possible for her to do the show anyway. Michele Greene did leave unexpectedly between season 5 and 6. And Susan Dey unexpected returned. That’s why they hurriedly wrote Abby out in the first episode of season 6, and undid Grace’s departure. At the time, I liked the “office mutiny” story at the end of season 5 that had Michael, Victor, and Grace leave the firm. I suspect when I rewatch, I’ll find it over the top (not surprising given that David E Kelley was the showrunner at the time). Dave Meyer as the receiver is funny but absurd. The resolution is too pat; In reality, those partners would have been in litigation for years. I did like scene at the end between Michael and Leland where Leland asks him if he’d stay after all.

I think Tommy hurt his leg in a football game at the beginning of that episode. I could be misremembering though. We never found out how Joan died. We know it was sudden, because in a later episode, Tom mentioned to Abby that he didn’t have the chance to say goodbye to Joan.

How about Charlie on That 70s Show? He was meant to be a replacement for Eric when Topher Grace was leaving. But Bret Harrison wasn’t locked in and wound up doing another series. So they actually killed off Charlie and brought in the awful Randy.