Stuff They Got Away with Before DVDs

I've been binge watching a lot of episodes lately and so many of the things character reveal about themselves get changed in later episodes.

Just watched the episode when Ted's brother visited. Hal, played by the handsome Jack Cassidy, has a major competition going on with Ted. They explain it to Mary and Rhoda that it derived from their parents always setting the two boys up to compete with each other in their childhood. Hal is two years younger than Ted.

But in a later episode Ted's long lost dad returns and Ted hasn't seen him since he was two years old! TV shows really counted on the viewers having poor memories.

In a third season episode Mary is going to be interviewed by a magazine writer and she shows up at work in a jacket and tie. Murray says that she looks "cute" and that he bought a jacket like that for his son. A few seasons later he wants Marie and himself to have another baby in the hopes of having a son since they have three daughters.

Did the writers just not care about character details? Those discrepancies aren't that noticible when you watch a show once and then maybe again in a summer rerun. But maybe if they had known that DVDs would be invented they might have been more careful!