Late To The Party: Obvious Things About Shows You Realized Embarrasingly Late

[WinnieWinkle]

1 hour ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

Also I mentioned before a few years ago but worth mentioning again.....mr roper was a closeted gay guy on three's company.  That I didn't get as a kid. 

Really?  I saw this show a few times back in the day but didn't really like it enough to watch often.  The Britcom it was based on was way better!  Anyway I never realised that about his character.  Learn something new everyday.

[DrSpaceman73]

2 minutes ago, WinnieWinkle said:

Really?  I saw this show a few times back in the day but didn't really like it enough to watch often.  The Britcom it was based on was way better!  Anyway I never realised that about his character.  Learn something new everyday.

I mean they never say it, but I think it's heavily implied and it's just not something you could explicitly do on tv at the time. He never wanted to have sex with his wife and was way oversensitive and defensive about jack being 'gay'.  

[MissAlmond]

40 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

All I knew from the Love Boat was that Charo was a whore. 

Charo was a whore on The Love Boat! 😳

40 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Wasn't Fantasy Island rebooted for a short stint?

I think I read still another rebooted Fantasy Island was in the works but COVID delayed it.

Update:  This is the 2021 Fantasy Island reboot I remember reading about.

https://deadline.com/2021/04/roselyn-sanchez-fantasy-island-elena-roarke-fox-reboot-premiere-date-1234745139/

Edited May 13, 2021 by MissAlmond

[VCRTracking]

31 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Wasn't Fantasy Island rebooted for a short stint?

In the late 90s with Malcolm McDowell as Mr. Rourke. I think there's also a recent one.

The twitter thread also brought up "Fight Back!" the consumer advocate show hosted by David Horowitz. I had no idea why I watched it as a kid. Was it the catchy theme song? 

[DrSpaceman73]

They did a bad fantasy island movie a few years back but not a series.  

[DoctorAtomic]

9 minutes ago, VCRTracking said:

In the late 90s with Malcolm McDowell as Mr. Rourke.

That's the one. 

9 minutes ago, MissAlmond said:

Charo was a whore on The Love Boat! 😳

You have to read it like Lucille Bluth a la - He's out with Kitty, the whore. 

[Mabinogia]

6 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

I was watching shows at a young age I had no business watching because they aired at 5 o'clock after cartoons on weekdays. I just kept on watching, took a break for dinner, went back to watching it until I had to go to bed!

ETA: (Six year old me) "What does 'gay' mean and why does Jack have to pretend to be it when Mr. Roper is around?"

I grew up on soap operas. While my peers where using their Barbie's to live out their dream wedding, followed by getting a dream house and having babies, my Barbie's were pushing each other off "cliffs" (the bed) and screwing each other's Ken's. I also watched Match Game and thankfully missed about 90% of the innuendo. 

[DrSpaceman73]

10 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

I grew up on soap operas. While my peers where using their Barbie's to live out their dream wedding, followed by getting a dream house and having babies, my Barbie's were pushing each other off "cliffs" (the bed) and screwing each other's Ken's. I also watched Match Game and thankfully missed about 90% of the innuendo. 

Match game and the newlywood game.  Not at all subtle innuendo. 

[Mabinogia]

15 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

Match game and the newlywood game.  Not at all subtle innuendo. 

They're subtle when you're ten. lol

I honestly don't know if I understood it or not. Oh, also watched Laugh In. Hmmm, I'm starting to see why I had no friends my age. I watched all of these on the wonderful, glorious, Nick at Nite. When Nickelodeon stopped with the kids shows and showed very old sit comes all night long. Soap was probably my all time favorite. I wanted to be Jessica Tate more than anything.  

[DoctorAtomic]

2 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

I also watched Match Game and thankfully missed about 90% of the innuendo. 

I caught those later on with the Game Show network. Wow. I mean, we so need the 70s to come back right now. Could you imagine if twitter tried to cancel Richard Dawson?

 

[Kel Varnsen]

4 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

Also I mentioned before a few years ago but worth mentioning again.....mr roper was a closeted gay guy on three's company.  That I didn't get as a kid. 

I totally would not have caught that. It almost makes me want to rewatch some Three's Company episodes to look out for that. Because other than generic plot points the only things I remember from the show were that Lucille Ball hosted a clip show once (I hated I Love Lucy so that was the main thing I knew her from), that Jeffery Tambor was bald even in the 70's (making flash backs on Transparent and AD where he had hair kind of stupid), and how that hand gesture thing that Roper used to do meant someone was gay.

[Zella]

4 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

I grew up on soap operas. While my peers where using their Barbie's to live out their dream wedding, followed by getting a dream house and having babies, my Barbie's were pushing each other off "cliffs" (the bed) and screwing each other's Ken's. I also watched Match Game and thankfully missed about 90% of the innuendo. 

I remember being 5 or 6 and watching Young and the Restless with my mom in the 90s. LOL I have posted this on a thread on here before--not sure which one--but I was both embarrassed and proud of myself for how many characters I still remembered 20-ish years later when I caught Y & R on TV as an adult. 

[LexieLily]

Do movies count on this thread? If so the standard answer has to be Grease. (The original, not the crappy sequel.) I loved that movie when I was a kid and still do to this day but looking back on it I was mortified that my mom had no problem with letting me have the CD and sing all the songs as a seven year old. Her response: "You didn't know what any of it meant! You just thought they were fun songs!"

Which, yes, she was right. When Sandy said she wouldn't go to bed 'til she was legally wed I just thought she was going to be really tired by the time she got married.

Edited May 14, 2021 by LexieLily

[KWalkerInc]

10 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

Soap was probably my all time favorite. I wanted to be Jessica Tate more than anything.  

I watched Soap in its original run on ABC, and would talk about it on the playground or when our class had time at the beginning of the day to discuss what we did at home.  I was in Kindergarten!  My parents were aware of this because it was my favorite show, but they probably thought I didn't understand.  Maybe some went over my head, but not as much as they thought.  And Jessica was the best.

However, I remember once that I was playing in the kitchen when I was 3 or 4, and my mom got very upset because a soap opera was playing on the TV (after game shows had ended for the afternoon).  She was like, "What are you watching?!" and all outraged and I wasn't paying the least bit of attention to the show because it just seemed like some boring people talking.

[merylinkid]

15 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

Watch fast times at ridgemont high as an adult.....where on earth were the parents?  

The same place our parents were?   ELSEWHERE.   We were latchkey kids which is why we watched so much inappropriate stuff, no one was home to stop us.  

I literally didn't get the joke in Same Time Next Year about the song until I read it here.   I think I win the Slow on the Uptake Olympics.

[GHScorpiosRule]

8 hours ago, LexieLily said:

When Sandy said she wouldn't go to bed 'til she was legally wed

That wasn't Sandy who sang that. It was Rizzo, mocking Sandy.

[DoctorAtomic]

10 hours ago, LexieLily said:

Which, yes, she was right. When Sandy said she wouldn't go to bed 'til she was legally wed I just thought she was going to be really tired by the time she got married.

What did you think a pussy wagon was?

 

[Blergh]

16 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

What did you think a pussy wagon was?

 

I'd have said it was a 'cat cart'! LOL

[Bort]

Yeah, that’s why I have no problem with kids watching shows that have sexual innuendo. They won’t get it, don’t worry about it. I remember watching Three’s Company as a kid and the draw for me was all the Jack Tripper pratfalls and physical comedy. But the innuendo? Never noticed it. It was when I watched the reruns at about middle school age that I got it and it and it was like a whole new show!

I recently watched the entire Three’s Company series and I honestly don’t get the closeted gay vibe off Mr. Roper. He still just strikes me as a grumpy, near-retirement age guy who just wants to be left to loaf on his recliner.

[DoctorAtomic]

I thought Don Knotts was funnier. 

But no one could smack their face on the kitchen door like Ritter. 

[Crs97]

Was Roper really supposed to be a closeted gay man?  If so, I was today's age when I found that out.

[Bort]

33 minutes ago, Crs97 said:

Was Roper really supposed to be a closeted gay man?  If so, I was today's age when I found that out.

I think people can interpret it that way, but I don’t think that was what they were going for. I personally don’t see it.

[GreekGeek]

14 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

I think people can interpret it that way, but I don’t think that was what they were going for. I personally don’t see it.

I never saw it either. Husbands who don’t want to have sex with their wives are one of the oldest comedy tropes.

[Irlandesa]

I don't see it either but I actually appreciate the theory.  It's interesting food for thought.

[Kromm]

2 hours ago, kariyaki said:

I recently watched the entire Three’s Company series and I honestly don’t get the closeted gay vibe off Mr. Roper. He still just strikes me as a grumpy, near-retirement age guy who just wants to be left to loaf on his recliner.

It sounds like there's some confusion with Mr. Furley. Who definitely had those vibes.  Mr. Roper?  Honestly, if they aren't confusing the two landlords, ask whoever is telling you that for specifics, because other than some small quirks of 1970s fashion (on most men, not just him), it doesn't fit at all. 

[WinnieWinkle]

2 hours ago, kariyaki said:

I recently watched the entire Three’s Company series and I honestly don’t get the closeted gay vibe off Mr. Roper. He still just strikes me as a grumpy, near-retirement age guy who just wants to be left to loaf on his recliner.

I wasn't a fan so only saw a handful of episodes.  I did wonder though if a guy sharing an apartment with two women would have been such a shocking thing in the '70s -early '80s in California.  Maybe it's because I grew up in Montreal with a bunch of universities right in the city - so lots of students sharing digs -  but this wasn't all that unusual to me

[Bort]

12 minutes ago, Kromm said:

It sounds like there's some confusion with Mr. Furley. Who definitely had those vibes.  Mr. Roper?  Honestly, if they aren't confusing the two landlords, ask whoever is telling you that for specifics, because other than some small quirks of 1970s fashion (on most men, not just him), it doesn't fit at all. 

Oh, Furley? You know, that I can see. 

[Mabinogia]

Furley I could buy as gay. Roper nope, he was just a miserable old man who didn't like that his wife had aged. Furley OTOH, was a "confirmed bachelor" wasn't he? I don't remember every detail of the show, but I don't remember reference to a wife. For the late 70s his "flamboyant" dress and perpetual singleness could easily have been code for being gay. IDK that it was on purpose though, nor does it matter much to me. I did prefer Mr. Furley to the Ropers though. 

[Kromm]

34 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

Furley I could buy as gay. Roper nope, he was just a miserable old man who didn't like that his wife had aged. Furley OTOH, was a "confirmed bachelor" wasn't he? I don't remember every detail of the show, but I don't remember reference to a wife. For the late 70s his "flamboyant" dress and perpetual singleness could easily have been code for being gay. IDK that it was on purpose though, nor does it matter much to me. I did prefer Mr. Furley to the Ropers though. 

He wore an ascot. And often, pastels.

[Mabinogia]

1 hour ago, Kromm said:

He wore an ascot. And often, pastels.

If that isn't 70s code, I don't know what is. lol

[DoctorAtomic]

The Regal Beagle is arguably one of the best bar names. 

[SVNBob]

 

8 hours ago, kariyaki said:

9 hours ago, Crs97 said:

Was Roper really supposed to be a closeted gay man?  If so, I was today's age when I found that out.

I think people can interpret it that way, but I don’t think that was what they were going for. I personally don’t see it.

I do know of one interpretation that included it.

In the late '90s, Jenny McCarthy had a sketch comedy show on MTV.  One episode featured an opening skit that was something like "Three's Company: The Next Generation".  Jenny was playing Chrissy's daughter, living in the same apartment with one male and one female roommate.  Chrissy was about to visit for the first time, so Jenny frantically tried to get her roommates to use the same cover story.

• Jenny (to male roommate): "Pretend you're gay."
• Male Roomate: "I am gay."
• Jenny: "Good; just like that."

Suzanne makes her appearance, and the two blondes leave the set for some reason, leaving the other two roommates to talk.  The gay guy says that his new boyfriend is about to come over.  Cue a knock on the door, and in comes Norman Fell in full leather-daddy gear to massive applause.  As I recall, the two men do kiss on the sofa, leading to both Jenny and Suzanne sticking their heads back in the front door, and saying "Mr. Roper!" in unison in that exasperated/shocked tone Chrissy often used.  He may have had a line then, but I forget what it was.  And I can't find the clip online to check or show.

Props to Norman for playing that interpretation of Mr. Roper, even for just a couple minutes.

[DrSpaceman73]

On 5/14/2021 at 6:42 PM, Kromm said:

It sounds like there's some confusion with Mr. Furley. Who definitely had those vibes.  Mr. Roper?  Honestly, if they aren't confusing the two landlords, ask whoever is telling you that for specifics, because other than some small quirks of 1970s fashion (on most men, not just him), it doesn't fit at all. 

Mr roper was over sensitive and paranoid about jack's homosexuality and never wanted to have sex with his wife to the point they made jokes about it.  Even wakes up in bed with jack once.....of course like everything it's a misunderstanding. 

Closeted gay though in my opinion.  He's exactly the type that would complain about homosexuals and then be caught one day after his wife dies in a gay men's club. 

 

Or maybe I'm just watching too much it's always sunny with mac's transition from homophobic to gay and just seeing how that could transfer to mr roper.  

 

Mr furley could be too hadn't thought about it because I only rewatched some episodes a few years back with mr roper.  

Edited June 12, 2021 by DrSpaceman73

[Danny Franks]

I've mentioned 'Allo, 'Allo before in this thread, but something else that's occurred to me is that Lt. Gruber must have been my first exposure to a gay character, or even a gay person, as a child.

Before I really knew what sex was, I was aware that Gruber wanted to have it with Rene (just like all the women in the show did) and it was hilariously funny because Rene was uncomfortably aware of that too. But even so, Gruber was a completely sympathetic and loveable character who the viewer always rooted for. Obviously, part of the joke I didn't get then was that, as a German officer, he'd have been arrested and locked up if he was known to be gay so he put on the least convincing act of being straight that anyone has ever seen and got away with it.

Edited June 13, 2021 by Danny Franks

[meep.meep]

On 5/14/2021 at 3:50 PM, WinnieWinkle said:

I wasn't a fan so only saw a handful of episodes.  I did wonder though if a guy sharing an apartment with two women would have been such a shocking thing in the '70s -early '80s in California.  Maybe it's because I grew up in Montreal with a bunch of universities right in the city - so lots of students sharing digs -  but this wasn't all that unusual to me

It wasn't shocking at all.  I refused to ever watch the show because I shared a home with three guys and another woman and thought the entire premise was insulting.

[Peace 47]

On 5/14/2021 at 3:59 PM, kariyaki said:

Yeah, that’s why I have no problem with kids watching shows that have sexual innuendo. They won’t get it, don’t worry about it. I remember watching Three’s Company as a kid and the draw for me was all the Jack Tripper pratfalls and physical comedy. But the innuendo? Never noticed it. It was when I watched the reruns at about middle school age that I got it and it and it was like a whole new show!

So true about kids not getting it.  Three’s Company seems to be the classic example in this thread, and count me in on that action.  I used to watch it in syndication in the 1980s when I was between 2 and 4-ish, absolutely loved it, and had no idea about the premise for years and years.  My favorite part was the theme song, specifically Priscilla Barnes balancing on one leg like the flamingos.  That’s apparently catnip to a preschooler.

On 5/13/2021 at 6:01 PM, Mabinogia said:

I grew up on soap operas. While my peers where using their Barbie's to live out their dream wedding, followed by getting a dream house and having babies, my Barbie's were pushing each other off "cliffs" (the bed) and screwing each other's Ken's.

We could have been good friends.  I was embarrassingly naive about anything sexual for a super long time, so there were no sexual shenanigans, but since I always played Barbies in the same room where my mom or grandma would watch “their stories”, my Barbies were getting put into comas by tragic car accidents; calling off weddings at the last minute and having babies in isolated mountain cabins!

Edited June 14, 2021 by Peace 47

[Quof]

51 minutes ago, Peace 47 said:

I always played Barbies in the same room where my mom or grandma would watch “their stories”,

My babysitter used to tell me to go outside and play or sit down and be quiet, Edge of Night was on. 

[Mabinogia]

2 hours ago, Peace 47 said:

my Barbies were getting put into comas by tragic car accidents; calling off weddings at the last minute and having babies in isolated mountain cabins!

My Barbie's will deny they had anything to do with those accidents! But if there's evidence, it wasn't them, it was their surprise identical twin Malibu Barbie who was just bitter and vengeful after that wedding got called off because she'd planned a big epic reveal that she was having the grooms baby!!!!!! 

I had no clue about all the sex stuff, I just loved all the crazy storylines and fabulous clothes and sets. Whenever I'd play something like Dynasty, I'd always be Alexis. In Soap I was Jessica. I always wanted to be the fabulous, over the top diva. While the other little girls wanted to be married and have babies. I wanted to have a bunch of weddings (wedding dresses are beautiful), several ex-husbands and a gorgeous post-divorce mansion. lol

[Haleth]

15 hours ago, Quof said:

My babysitter used to tell me to go outside and play or sit down and be quiet, Edge of Night was on. 

The Edge of Night was awesome.  It came on right before Dark Shadows.

[Quof]

I didn’t pay much attention while she watched EoN, but I did actually watch and “understand” Another World by age 5. 

[BlackberryJam]

With Three's Company when I watched it as a child, I always knew there was something there, something naughty, something adult, something about Chrissy that made men pay attention and act funny, and that attention was a good thing; I should do things that Chrissy said and did and I should wear clothes like that. I was a girl who needed to wear a bra by the time I was in third grade.

So no, I didn't understand the sexual innuendo, but it still wasn't a good thing that my parents let me watch. I grew up with a really bad understanding of male attention. Not all of that can be laid at the feet of TV, but it certainly didn't help. 

[Bort]

I guess it depends on the person, it never once occurred to me to emulate Chrissy in any way. Even at a young age, I could see that she was a fucking moron (and got worse as the show went on), I had zero interest in being like her. Janet was my fave.

[Blergh]

Match Game and Three's Company mark my first exposures I can remember to technical adults on TV acting as though they were in junior high. Back then, I thought most if not all folks would get bored having a junior high mentality long before physical adulthood. How wrong (and naive) I would find out that I was! 

[Annber03]

1 hour ago, kariyaki said:

I guess it depends on the person, it never once occurred to me to emulate Chrissy in any way. Even at a young age, I could see that she was a fucking moron (and got worse as the show went on), I had zero interest in being like her. Janet was my fave.

The funny thing is, initially, Chrissy wasn't a total moron. She was a little on the naïve side, yes, but she also had some street smarts about her (I remember her being able to suss out pretty quickly whether guys were interested in her or Janet for anything other than their bodies/sex), and could give good advice to her friends when needed and whatnot.

But over time, she went from naive to the stereotypical blonde bimbo. 

[Blergh]

12 hours ago, Annber03 said:

The funny thing is, initially, Chrissy wasn't a total moron. She was a little on the naïve side, yes, but she also had some street smarts about her (I remember her being able to suss out pretty quickly whether guys were interested in her or Janet for anything other than their bodies/sex), and could give good advice to her friends when needed and whatnot.

But over time, she went from naive to the stereotypical blonde bimbo. 

Never mind

Edited June 16, 2021 by Blergh

[BlackberryJam]

19 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

The funny thing is, initially, Chrissy wasn't a total moron. She was a little on the naïve side, yes, but she also had some street smarts about her (I remember her being able to suss out pretty quickly whether guys were interested in her or Janet for anything other than their bodies/sex), and could give good advice to her friends when needed and whatnot.

But over time, she went from naive to the stereotypical blonde bimbo. 

Janet, who I liked a lot, was always jealous of the attention Chrissy got. This again was reinforcing to 6 year old me that male attention was good, even though now, in retrospect, that male attention was pretty skeevy.  

[WinnieWinkle]

1 hour ago, Annber03 said:

But over time, she went from naive to the stereotypical blonde bimbo. 

So many sitcoms seem to go this route.  Dumbing down a character I mean.  Even shows a lot more sophisticated (if that's the word I want) than Three's Company have done this.  I guess it's guaranteed way to bring the laughs but it always annoys me when the PTB do this.

[Bort]

1 hour ago, Annber03 said:

The funny thing is, initially, Chrissy wasn't a total moron. She was a little on the naïve side, yes, but she also had some street smarts about her (I remember her being able to suss out pretty quickly whether guys were interested in her or Janet for anything other than their bodies/sex), and could give good advice to her friends when needed and whatnot.

But over time, she went from naive to the stereotypical blonde bimbo. 

While Chrissy clearly got stupider as the show went on, her trying to get bread crumbs from her bed when Jack asked for some in the first episode didn’t exactly illustrate that she was the brightest bulb on the strand.

1 hour ago, Blergh said:

True. Chrissy was the one who concocted the idea of attempting to pass off Jack as being gay  to keep him from being thrown out by the Ropers in the pilot episode. Up to that point, I hadn't imagined that  Chrissy would have known what the term gay meant (besides the then-more mainstream usage of 'happy') but she showed she was smarter than I had given her credit for at that moment! 

No, that was Janet’s idea. 

[DrSpaceman73]

Janet and Chrissy aside the dating and sexuality messages in threes company are very out of date.  

One episode for example Chrissy is stuck with a first date in the small apartment, she repeatedly is telling him no and he is literally chasing her around to try and grab her and force her into  sex, not listening.  And it's played for laughs, with a laugh track and all. 

I am by no means a cancel culture woke vulture looking to swoop in on the things, but come on, that's just all kinds of wrong. 

[Mabinogia]

2 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

One episode for example Chrissy is stuck with a first date in the small apartment, she repeatedly is telling him no and he is literally chasing her around to try and grab her and force her into  sex, not listening.  And it's played for laughs, with a laugh track and all. 

Watching it back then, as a kid, I thought that stuff was hilarious. Watching it, and a lot of shows from that era, now is so cringy.