I know Dick was the Supreme Leader,
Sally was the Security Officer,
Tommy was the Information Officer,
but what was Harry's job?
Also, anybody my age (Old) notice the "Dick and Jane" book relations here?
There was Dick, Jane, and Sally. ;)
He had the transmitter in his head to contact the big giant head but that's really his only addition to the group as he didn't have a set assignment
shareIt is explained in the opening sequence.....they had a fourth seat..... I guess they needed to come up with something, hence the transmitter.
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He didn't really have an assigned role in the team.
GoonGirl for Hire
Transmitter.
And Dick is the High Commander.
And who's Jane?
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They were just your average Tom, Dick, and Harry. ;-)
shareHey Stan,
Yep, I'm old too and I got the Dick, Jane & Sally reference. It's very subtle and pretty amazingly serendipitous (there's a word for you that wouldn't be in the Dick and Jane readers!!).
There's not a main character in the show named Jane, so it only works because Mary is played by Jane Curtin. How's that for subtle?
Did they ever bring in a dog named Spot?
Who the crap is Jane?!
It's Tom, Dick, and Harry. That's the gag. And Sally.
They even make a joke about it at one point.
Mary is Dick's girlfriend.
Hi bright!
Way back in the 40's, 50's and into the 60's there were books for kids in elementary school to help them learn how to read. They were pretty lame compared to today's stuff.
The basic characters were Dick, Jane, their little sister Sally, the dog Spot, the cat Puff, Mother, and Father.
The sentences went something like....
"See Jane run. See Dick run. See Sally run. Run, Sally, run." (I could throw up.)
For sure the big joke on the show is the Tom, Dick, and Harry reference. But because Sally is there too, it reminds us old folks of the Dick and Jane Readers.
And the bonus there is that Dick's girlfriend Mary is played by a woman named Jane.
Many of the jokes or 'nuances' in this show and many others is, extrapolative humor. Such as a subtle name reference or a twist of meaning of a word or phrase that can be taken more than one way(I'm suprised they didn't work Double Entendre into one of the titles). Many of the best are so intelligent you may not get all the meanings on the first view. Or you have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of trivia, social, and or entertainment history.
Such as the references in the physics party games where they play common games but with a physics twist. If you don't know or understand the terminology, you still can get the joke. But you get a bonus if you have any knowledge of the subjects.
For further evidence for the OP's point, just look at the eps. titles.
See Dick Run.
Fun with Dick and Janet,
which is a play on words, his (Roseanne) 'wife's' name being Janet not Jane. I mean it really is great because they could've just named her Jane, but that is the depth of the layers of their comedic genius.
I mean really look at ALL of the titles. Some kind of play on words, titles, concepts, old jokes, whatever.
So many of the jokes are machine-gun quick references made by numerous characters in the same scene, at the same time, yet have layers of meaning!
"Genius! Acting! Thank You!!" An older reference from SNL featuring Lithgow and Lovitz.
I think Harry's job was to be the "sponge", the guy who absorbed human culture through watching television. Needless to say it doesn't say much for us.
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