Today, in the newest Pop Culture Theme Time, I’m asking you who was the best retconned-in-relative TV cast member addition.
Pop Culture Theme Time is a feature where I put a question to you to see what you think about a particular theme. I might later revisit the theme for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns or Top Five.
Something I’ve noted before is when TV shows pull out consolidation moves, where established characters are put together to make the stories easier. You know, like suddenly two characters will had separate jobs suddenly start working together, so you only need one job set. One of the most famous examples would be Fonzie moving in with the Cunninghams on Happy Days, so that Fonzie could be worked into both the non-Cunningham plots, as well as the Cunningham family plots.
Sometimes, these consolidation moves are quite bizarre, and require huge leaps of logic. One of the most famous ridiculous examples is when everyone from high school ends up at the same college together. That’s SO common, though, that I don’t think any one of them stands out too much as THE weirdest consolidation move (although, Shawn Hunter getting into the same fictional college as Topanga on Boy Meets World was up there). So I want to know what do you all think is the weirdest consolidation move on a sitcom?
Note that it has to be an established character. So, for instance, was it a bit weird for Katie to move in with the rather crowded Douglas household on My Three Sons? Sure, but that’s not a consolidation move, since she was a new addition to the cast.
My pick is Rebecca moving into the Tanner attic with Jesse when they got married on Full House. It was obviously an absurd idea for a TV morning show host (granted, for a local station, but a BIG local station in San Francisco) to move into the attic of a row house that already had two grown men and three girls living in it.
We all get WHY it happened, but it made no sense.
Okay, so that’s my pick. What’s yours?
Also, feel free to suggest future Pop Culture Theme Time topics to me at my new, much shorter e-mail, brian@poprefs.com!
Pretty much any time existing characters suddenly start dating despite having shown no interest in each other for years.
David E. Kelley shows are famous for this. Ling on Ally McBeal was a corporate client and then suddenly became a lawyer at Cage/Fish.
Not sure if this counts because there’s a lot going on – the Australian series Hey Dad!
Martin Kelly is an archetect who works from home. A home he shares with his three kids: Simon, Debbie and Jenny. He also has a secretary (Betty) who works with him and Simon’s annoying friend Nudge who is constantly there.
[Simon is recast for season 2, but that’s not important].
Debbie moves away at the beginning of Season 5. Sam(antha) Kelly, Martin’s nieces of about the same age moves in. (Notably, Martin’s mother called Martin her favourite child. “I’m your only child” so I’m not sure where Sam cam from.)
[Jenny is recast]
Nudge stops visiting at the end of season 5 and come season 6 an annoying young neighbour begins dropping by constantly, also Simon gets a less interesting friend Ben.
The end of season 6, Simon moves out [leaves the show] and Ben moves in.
Season 12, Martin gets a job in Saudi Arabia and gives the house and business to his friend Greg Russell. Soon after Greg’s daughter Tracy moves in and Sam moves out.
So the residents of the house are now: Greg and his daughter. Jenny, the daughter of the previous owner and Ben the friend of the son of the previous owner.
The secretary remained as the only actor who lasted the whole series (despite having her own short-lived spin-off), although, the character of Jenny also lasted the entire time, but with 2 different actors.
I would say making Chang a security guard at the same college where he was fired from being a professor on Community has to be up there.
The entire cast of Laverne and Shirley moving to California.
Good one!
Most work place comedies have some kind of weird consolidation because the characters need to hang out with each other outside of work. Also, the Friends-type shows do as well since those characters need to do everything together.
But the worst examples are the shows where the landlords get involved in the personal lives of the other characters – Three’s Company and One Day at a Time come to mind. I have been renting apartments for over 25 years and I have never once socialized with a landlord or superintendent outside of the friendly how are you doing.
The weirdest thing about the Boy Meets World cast going to college wasn’t that Shawn and Topanga went to the same school, it was that their teacher Mr. Feeny also decided to become a student along with them only to then get offered a job teaching there. It was within the realm of plausibility when he followed Cory from Elementary School to High School, but here it was funny how contrived it was.
yes Mr Feeny following Corey through school was just weird!