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CarolTheDabbler's Replies
Like Clarence in <i>It's a Wonderful Life</i>, you mean?
Well, that would be a plausible alternative interpretation of the series title. In order to either substantiate or disprove it, we need to pay careful attention each time a character (e.g., Lowell) leaves, and see whether or not a bell rings.
As for fan theories not being a "thing" until the internet -- well they were probably less prevalent, but fandoms and fan theories most certainly did exist. There were in fact fan theories even before television caught on, for stories appearing in print -- with one example of many being the theory proposed in 1943 by Dorothy Sayers to explain why John H. Watson's wife addresses him as "James" in one of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales, namely that his middle initial stands for "Hamish," which is the Scottish equivalent of "James." Not a bad theory, really, since Doyle himself was Scottish by birth.
I agree! I haven't laughed out loud so often in a long while!
Even though I just started watching the DVDs, I saw pretty much the whole show during its network run, and kinda remember how it goes in general. (Fortunately, though, I seem to have forgotten all the jokes, so I'm enjoying them all over again.)
Yup. Hadn't seen it since the network run, but it's even funnier on DVD.
<blockquote>Helen wasn't running the airline. She was just the waitress of the lunch counter in the airport and nothing more than that.</blockquote>
Minor quibble: Helen wasn't "just the waitress," she <b>owned and ran</b> the lunch-counter business. But your main point is quite correct -- she wasn't directly involved in running the airline. And congratulations on getting the description changed!
Thanks for that info! He's my favorite character on the show (though probably best taken in small doses). We've just started watching the DVDs, and it's helpful to know when to expect him
@IcingOnTheCake -- I love Tony Shalhoub as Monk myself. But I also love him as Antonio.
There are (or used to be) lots of little airlines, so there would clearly be some typical arrangement for ticket sales from, say, Boston to Nantucket. As xfilesbell says, they may have had an arrangement with one or more other airlines at other airports -- for example, a small one based in Boston that didn't offer flights to Nantucket could sell Sandpiper tickets instead, and in return, Sandpiper might sell tickets for their connecting flights. Unless they could make it funny, they'd have had no reason to show us how that worked, but there's no reason to think that it couldn't have worked.
So there's no reason to feel stupid for not thinking of it!
I've never seen Chasing Life, but assuming that they didn't dwell on the Sandpiper joke, it provided a laugh for Wings fans while not hurting the episode. Sort of an Easter egg.
I knew a fellow from the Netherlands who had lived in the Boston area since he was 15. Twenty years later, his accent was a combination of general American and Dutch. Although his English usage was good, he hadn't learned to pronounce certain consonant combinations, so he would say "hellup" instead of "help." And he had never learned the "oo" in "book" so he would say it like "boo" with a "k" on the end. Past a certain age, people have trouble learning new languages or new dialects/pronunciations.
I wouldn't say that Helen has a <i>strong</i> Texas accent -- I seriously never noticed it till I read this thread (but then I'm from Indiana, parts of which have a somewhat similar accent). People from Texas have a variety of accents, so it's possible that she talks the same as she always did. I would expect, though, that she's adapted to some extent, having moved at a somewhat younger age than my aforementioned friend.
Well, I'm kinda torn. She sounded serious, but I don't "know" her well enough to judge whether it might have been her sense of humor. Mary had told her the design was no good, and she acted all disappointed and said something like the guy who bought the design must have made a mistake, followed by the wedding-dress comment. Maybe that was all meant to make a point. Or maybe it was just supposed to make us laugh, without really "meaning" anything. I really have no idea.
There are apparently some people who would actually wear that sort of dress, though, wedding or no wedding.
<blockquote>It's a fifth season episode. Sherry, the "lady of the evening" ... asks Mary if she has something to say about her four fur coats. Mary says that she feels funny about wearing dead animals.</blockquote>
Thanks -- I had forgotten about that bit. I'm guessing that was one time when MTM insisted on having Mary make such a point (albeit gently), even though it took something like four years to get it into an episode.
<blockquote>That episode has my absolute "favorite" gown that Mary wore. It was the green gown with cut-outs that Sherry designed for her.</blockquote>
You mean the assortment of cut-outs held together by bits of gown? Good heavens, that was utterly embarrassing! I think about all that could be said for it is that a) it demonstrated a plot point, and b) it was legal for television. (I generally liked most of Mary's actual gowns.)
As for Ted's reaction, when was he ever a good judge of what other people might think?
<blockquote>... my clothes hardly ever wear out. [....] Mostly I get rid of things because I am sick of them. For instance, I have a light reversable jacket....</blockquote>
The clothes that wear out are my favorites, of course (so if there's a way to repurpose them -- e.g., shorten the sleeves of a shirt that's got threadbare elbows -- I'll generally do that). It's not a common occurrence, but when I was a kid it *never* happened, because I always outgrew my clothes first.
Would you be interested in trading that jacket for a denim one?
I remember how startled I was (a few years after I reached my full adult size) when my clothing started wearing out! In the first few seasons, considering that she does have a lot of clothes, Mary may still be gradually replacing garments from college and even high school -- especially those mini-skirts and knee-high boots.
Mary definitely owns a lot more evening gowns than I've ever had! But my circle of friends don't frequent elegant restaurants or fancy night clubs, so it's hard for me to judge how many should be "enough" for her.
Another reason her clothing changed was that several of her early coats and hats had fur on them. MTM had decided to stop wearing fur, and Mary Richards apparently concurred in that decision.
I thought Mary looked best in outfits that were businesslike but feminine, somewhat dainty but not frilly. Near as I recall, the one that really made me cringe was made of extra-thick fabric and had some stripes that seemed far too bold for her "look." I probably didn't like the color combination either.
I didn't get the impression that she bought a whole new wardrobe every year (though I wasn't really keeping score), but I'd be perfectly willing to believe that she bought several new outfits every year. Goodness knows I did at her age, despite my limited budget. You can afford more clothes when you don't have a family to support and/or a house to maintain.
<blockquote>Another thing that differs from reality is Mary's huge wardrobe. Of course she was the star of the show and she wanted to look good. But it would've made more sense if she repeated some outfits. Besides her work clothes, she had a closet full of evening dresses and gowns that she only seemed to wear once.
They wanted Mary to dress well. To that end they shouldn't have included all the dialogue about Mary's money woes or her budget.</blockquote>
Maybe she had the money woes <i>because</i> she spent too much on clothing? Not that she necessarily paid full price -- maybe she kept an eye open for sales and/or frequented bargain basements. Heaven knows I did!
Besides, she <i>did</i> repeat her outfits. I never really noticed during the network run, because of course I saw only one episode per week over a span of seven years. But we recently watched the whole series (two episodes per evening) over a three-month period, and there were numerous repetitions. (I especially noticed when she repeated outfits that I did NOT like!) There was even an episode, the one where she and Lou attempt to have a date, where she explicitly re-wears an evening gown because he mentions having liked it when she wore it at one of her parties (in a prior episode).
But I definitely agree with you that Ted was far too inept to have gotten that job in the first place, let alone kept it for seven (or more!) years.
<blockquote>The Johnny Carson episode (Greatest Hits episode)</blockquote>
I've read through all the replies to this thread, assuming that a lot of people would mention that cobbled-together episode, but you were the only one.
The title was "Mary's Big Party" (S7.E22). I assume when you call it a "greatest hits episode," you mean what I call a "patchwork" episode -- a minimal amount of new filming that mostly serves as a framework for characters being "reminded" of things that happened in previous episodes, which we are then privileged to witness again. This one was pretty pathetic even by those standards. We've been watching a couple of MTM episodes every night off our DVDs, and unless one of the final two episodes "outdoes" this one, it's definitely our mutual choice for the series' WORST episode ever.
The set-up is that A) a congresswoman is responsible for entertaining Johnny Carson that evening, but doesn't dare take him to any public place, so she asks Mary to throw a party, and then B) right after most of the local guests have arrived, the lights go out in the whole apartment building, so that all we can see is the faint light outside the window.
So the guests start talking about Mary's previous parties, and we're shown bits of those. My guess is that the promise of an appearance by Carson was intended to keep people from changing the channel. And the power outage enables him to "appear" briefly without actually being on-set -- we never see him, we only hear him. I wasn't even sure it was actually Carson's voice, but he was credited (over a black screen), so apparently it was.
We had been thinking that season 7 was pretty blah, but then we really liked the two episodes we had watched the night before ("Murray Ghosts for Ted" and "Mary and the Sexagenarian"), which made this episode all the more disappointing.
Oh, OK, so their "zero" doesn't mean "no symptoms whatsoever," maybe more like "no significant symptoms." Thanks for clarifying that. Medical terminology (or any technical jargon) can be confusing to people who aren't in the field.
Really? If the experts claim that even someone with a score near zero has OCD symptoms, merely so mild that no treatment is warranted, they're saying that absolutely <i>everybody</i> has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder to one degree or another. Maybe they should stop calling it a "disorder" unless it interferes with the person's life so much that they want to do something about it.
<blockquote>All the kids in my grandmother's neighborhood were boys too. [....] One family alone had seven. Their mom really wanted a girl and kept trying!</blockquote>
One family in our neighborhood had five boys. Then they moved to the next county over and had a girl!
<blockquote>The boy closest to my age was one of my best friends. His nickname was Pickles.</blockquote>
Any relation to Buddy Sorrell's wife?
When I was a kid, mostly boys were born in our neighborhood. (Most of us girls were born before our families moved there, or after they moved away.) So yes, it's possible.
By the way, I just noticed that alanjobe started a very similar thread ("Having girls and adopting boys") six years ago. (And I posted in it!)
<blockquote>I always had a feeling that Murray was secretly in love with Mary way before this episode!</blockquote>
Yes, I kinda wondered about that. Eventually there was one episode (well before this one, sorry I don't recall which one) where Mary and Murray are talking about what good friends they are, and Mary ends by saying something about them being "just" really good friends. Then she looks back down at her desk, and we see Murray's face with such a look of sorrow and longing.
<blockquote>It seemed out of character for Murray to want to leave his wife and kids and run off with another woman.</blockquote>
I think they covered that, albeit a bit obliquely, when Murray says that he truly believes that it's possible "to love pure and chaste from afar," but he just wants to let Mary know how he feels. It does seem like Lou could have asked what he'd do if Mary said she loved him too. Maybe it's understood that he'd leave Marie -- or maybe they're both well aware that Mary doesn't love him.