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CarolTheDabbler's Replies
Yeah, kinda desperate while trying to maintain the facade of a sophisticated man about town. But even though I feel kinda sorry for him, I sure wouldn't care to date him!
Thanks, I had forgotten that bit from "Racy Tracy Rattigan." OK, just found it on YouTube. Tracy (Dawson) says, "What's the name of that little blonde darling who works at reception?" And Mel replies, "Uhh, Marge." So yes, it has been firmly established that Marge is a blonde, and perhaps a bit short. As for her age and attractiveness, Tracy had just tried (unsuccessfully) to make a date with Sally, who's about ten years older than him and nice looking but no great beauty, so he seems to be somewhat flexible.
As for "Miss Thomas's" hair color in "Three Letters" -- even if they do want to be vague, you'd think they could at least be consistent! Or maybe Marge changes her hair color as the mood strikes her. (Or maybe she was on vacation, or had the flu that day?)
It does appear that Marge works just outside Alan's office, yes. So the woman who surprises Rob in Alan's office in "Three Letters From One Wife" clearly could be Marge.
But I'm undecided. There may be more than one woman who works in that area. Also, when Marge goes on vacation, someone else would cover for her. But mainly, if the woman we see is supposed to be Marge, it seems a bit odd to me that a) Rob does not address her by name, as he typically does when speaking to Marge, and b) she's credited as Miss Thomas rather than as Marge.
From a real-world perspective, I'm wondering why they didn't call her Marge! That would have been the obvious thing to do. Maybe they preferred to keep Marge mysterious? Or the actress they used didn't fit their mental image of Marge? She didn't fit mine, actually -- "my" Marge is a bit older, a bit stockier, maybe a bit shorter, and almost always has a smile on her face.
<blockquote>Maybe the "gorilla suit" scene is from another sitcom?</blockquote>
Yes, I suspect it was -- one of the many other shows with a never-seen character.
I must have read right over your "Mrs. George Wendt", so didn't realize what you meant by "the real Vera" till I found this on IMDb:
<blockquote>Bernadette Birkett ... has been married to George Wendt since 8 July 1978. They have three children.</blockquote>
So it was type-casting!
Hmm, maybe I dreamed the gorilla-suit scene?
Here's a write-up (from <url>https://cheers.fandom.com/wiki/Vera_Peterson</url>) that apparently covers all of Vera's near-appearances:
<blockquote>Even though Vera is never directly seen throughout the series, there have been a handful of times she's been heard: Thanksgiving Orphans, It's a Wonderful Wife, No Rest for the Woody, Look Before You Sleep and Love Thy Neighbor. In all instances, Bernadette Birkett provided the voice of Vera Peterson. She is briefly onscreen at the end of Thanksgiving Orphans, with her face obscured by a pie thrown by Diane.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Since the show was ending, I really wished they had done a last minute casting of Vera for the finale.</blockquote>
I think they did "show" her once, but she was wearing a gorilla costume.
It's generally even worse when the writers/producers decide to show the previously never-seen character. They tend to be much funnier in our minds than on the screen.
For example, there was a late-1950s sitcom called <i>December Bride</i> where the neighbor, Pete Porter (played by Harry Morgan) was very popular with the audience, and was forever telling funny stories about his wife Gladys. So they decided to do a spin-off called <i>Pete and Gladys</i>, but it was kind of a bust and didn't last long. Same thing twenty years later with <i>M*A*S*H</i> and the sequel <i>AfterMASH</i>, where we finally meet Colonel Potter's wife Mildred. (Oddly, the Colonel was also played by Harry Morgan.)
I think "they" finally learned that lesson, and started developing spin-offs as series in their own right, rather than as subsets of the original series. They actually killed off Lars rather than show him on <i>Phyllis</i>! For all I know, though, that lesson has been forgotten by now.
OK, she could be Marge Thomas.
No matter how I look at this question, it doesn't make complete sense to me. Probably best that I don't try too hard!
Now that you mention it, I agree that line could be used sarcastically. Her tone of voice seemed quite sincere, though, so I prefer to think she was telling the truth, and it just didn't occur to her that she should give a bit more of the background.
I didn't think she was an airhead, anyhow. I just thought that line (delivered in that tone) was intended to make her sound like one, and it seemed to me like Buddy thought it did. So I pointed out an alternative interpretation of her line.
I remember that episode well, but had forgotten about the secretary walking in on Rob.
OK, I just watched it online. It's called "Three Letters From One Wife" (a take on the movie title "A Letter to Three Wives"). If the secretary had been credited as "secretary," I'd agree that she could have been Marge. But even though, as you say, she is not addressed by any name during the episode, she's credited as Miss Thomas. Even though Marge's last name could theoretically be Thomas, we know her only as Marge. So if the secretary was supposed to be Marge, surely they would have credited her as Marge.
I'm thinking that the situation could be like on Perry Mason, where he had a personal secretary, Della Street, and also a receptionist, Gertie. So Alan's equivalents could be Marge and Miss Thomas, either respectively or vice versa.
I'll buy that!
I like most of the CGI. As others have said, the ships and planets look more believable..
But they got carried away sometimes, I think. For example, they invented a whole new mini-scene in "Amok Time," showing the wedding party approaching Kunat-Kalifi through a landscape that wasn't even hinted at in the rest of the episode. They were supposed to be tweaking the "look" of the original, not making stuff up!
The second actress to play Pickles was Joan Shawlee (who I recently discovered had also played a barmaid on Zorro), and she was my favorite Pickles too. The first was Barbara Perry, who played the role well, but was written as more ditzy.
I agree with you, Pickles should have at least come to parties with Buddy. But maybe the actress(es) wanted either a significant role or nothing.
Hmm, I think you're right -- we never saw Mrs. Cooley or Mrs. Brady. Also I don't think we ever saw Marge the receptionist (who was apparently named after Dick Van Dykes then-wife). But then a lot of shows, especially sitcoms, seem to have never-seen characters. When you've got to wrap up a plot in only half an hour, I suppose it helps to have a minimal number of people actually on camera.
Right -- I wished (and still do) that they'd had Stacey on the show maybe once a season. But maybe they couldn't think of any more "Stacey" plots.
Thanks for the synopsis -- I do kinda recall that episode, just didn't remember it was Vic Damone.
Did they ever actually state in an episode that there were no brothers?
I can pretty easily come up with workarounds (the ones mentioned before) for everything except the home movies. For that one I'll have to assume that Ida holds grudges even better than I thought, and made Martin edit any scenes with their other kids out of the home movies -- OR -- how about this: Rhoda and Brenda are the oldest, then there's an age gap, and then Debbie and the nameless brother. So the home movies of Rhoda and Brenda as kids wouldn't show the other two, who hadn't been born yet.
As for why Brenda and the brother were neither seen nor mentioned in Debbie's wedding episode, I think Ida's definitely gonna have to hold grudges. And everybody else knows better than to mention the current black sheep of the family.
There's nothing wrong with your explanations, but they're real-world explanations, which can co-exist with in-universe explanations, but they're used for different purposes.
<blockquote>I often saw Lowell as a male version of Edith Bunker. They seem clueless and out of touch. But they possess their own internal logic and sometimes see right through to the heart of the situation. Also, like Edith, Lowell seemed to like almost everyone. He had a childlike naivety.</blockquote>
That's a very good analogy! Neither one of them is stupid, just different.
I remember one episode of All in the Family when Edith tells Archie that she's making beef-tongue sandwiches for his lunch because they're all out of lunch meat. He says he doesn't want anything that's been in a cow's mouth, just give him a couple of hard-boiled eggs. And she looks at him in the most <i>peculiar</i> way! Nope, she's not stupid.
There is a precedent of a fan-expert getting on a show's staff. Richard Arnold, who was the Research Consultant on Star Trek: Next Gen, was a Trek fan from childhood, having inherited it from his mother, Dency "Denny" Arnold of the Welcommittee. So hop in your time machine!
Regarding Gerald / Jerome -- because Rob is angry with Jerry, maybe he intentionally indulges in one of Jerry's pet peeves, people assuming that his full name is Gerald.
As for Rhoda's brother, he apparently had a bar mitzvah ceremony, which typically occurs around age 13, presumably well before we met Rhoda. Was it actually stated on the Rhoda show that Brenda was her only sibling? If not, maybe Debbie moved away after she got married, and the brother had moved away even earlier, so the only sibling we ever saw on that show was Brenda.
Seems to me that Lowell has changed since I wrote the above. We're into season 4 now, and as often as not they're writing him as just plain stupid, rather than the complex character that he was originally. (The episodes themselves have gotten stupider as well.)
If they didn't revert to the complex Lowell later on, it's no wonder that the actor wanted out!
True -- especially if you (or someone like you) had been willing to volunteer for free, they might have been able to work you into their script-revision crew. That raises another question, though: Back then, you would presumably have seen each prior episode only once or twice (and even if you'd also been on set and/or at the dailies, it'd still be only a few times). So would you have had the mental encyclopedia that you do now from repeatedly watching the show in syndication and on DVDs over the course of many decades? What you may need is a time machine, to go back to the 1960s with all your current knowledge.
At least one of the inconsistencies was intentional, though, as I've already mentioned on another thread: When the series began, they were using MTM's married name (Meeker) as Laura's maiden name. But then MTM got divorced, so they changed Laura's family name to Meehan. And there may well have been behind-the-scenes reasons for some other inconsistencies -- so that they were still inconsistencies within the fictional universe, but they were necessary for whatever real-world reason.
Most of the time, though, it was a simple matter of wanting some little specific details in order to make the episode sound more like real life, but not having enough time to check out everything. And even today with all the opportunities to rewatch, how many people actually catch the inconsistencies? Even if the studios/networks/sponsors had known back then which shows were going to be big perennial hits, they might not have considered consistency-checking to be much of a priority. I suspect they would've been more likely to "improve" other factors -- such as hiring better-known actors to play Rob and (especially) Laura!
I agree, Vic Damone was a big name back then, but sorry, I don't offhand recall his performance on the show, so can't offer you a review. Despite his fame, though, his being added to the opening credits was presumably his agent's idea -- that's the sort of thing that agents are famous for.
I've always been fascinated by Jerry van Dyke's hilarious performance as Stacey. There's an old saying that "you have to know the rules before you can break them," so he clearly knew the rules *very* well! For example, how in heaven's name could he tap his foot so out of time with what he was singing -- yet not on the off-beat either -- while simultaneously mangling the song? I wish he'd been on there a few more times.