Should people worry really about Hollywood retrofitting on TV Shows

[roadman65]

They did a great job with Henry Winkler, who had long hair in real life, when they did the first few seasons.  They put a ton of grease in his hair and combed the excess behind his head which still made him look fashionable for the era he was playing in.

With Anson Williams, though his hair changed with the personality as after Season 3, they made Potsie to be more dimwitted than in the first two seasons.  Then after both Howard and Most left the show, they made him a complete moron then.  His hair too got more out of date and nothing remotely nostalgic with him or even Ted McGinnley, the knock off Richie after ole Ron left the series, with his hair the same as it was in Married With Children that took place almost three decades later.

[jwolfer]

And Laverne and Shirley did skip some years when moving to Hollywood.  As it was early 60s in their last season in Milwaukee, but they made it very clear what years they were representing in the 3 Hollywood seasons (1965-67).  Though it seemed mostly to show Laverne's affinity toward the Beatles.

Though it escaped reality too.  As why did the layoffs of Laverne and Shirley cause the whole cast to suddenly pull roots and move to Hollywood along with them?  Then it its last year, how can they have a show called "Laverne and Shirley" if Shirley wasn't in it and referred to in the show's title only?

That bugged me. Who goes on trips or moves with their wacky neighbor

[roadman65]

And Laverne and Shirley did skip some years when moving to Hollywood.  As it was early 60s in their last season in Milwaukee, but they made it very clear what years they were representing in the 3 Hollywood seasons (1965-67).  Though it seemed mostly to show Laverne's affinity toward the Beatles.

Though it escaped reality too.  As why did the layoffs of Laverne and Shirley cause the whole cast to suddenly pull roots and move to Hollywood along with them?  Then it its last year, how can they have a show called "Laverne and Shirley" if Shirley wasn't in it and referred to in the show's title only?

To answer your question, about the move of all cast members.  Well the first Hollywood Season of theirs had Frank and Edna both already in Hollywood begging the two to move out there with them.  So when Laverne and Shirley got laid off, they had no job and decided to join Frank and Edna in California.

As to Carmine and Lenny & Squiggy, they all decided to join them as the rest were like family to them, and did not want to be left alone.  Even to Lenny and Squiggy, Laverne and Shirley were the only friends that they had even though both girls just tolerated them.  Carmine and Shirley had an open relationship, but cared deeply about each other enough to not want to stay apart.

[GCrites]

I can't decide which replacement girl on Three's Company was hotter.

[jwolfer]

I can't decide which replacement girl on Three's Company was hotter.

Cindy would have annoyed me. Terri gets my vote

[kkt]

BJ's mustache is not allowed in the Army.  Then the fact that Hawkeye and Trapper, later BJ, if in real life would be held in insubordination for not following protocol.

As far as regulations, you're correct.  However, regulations get interpreted by COs.  The Army in the Korean War was desperately short of surgeons.  They were drafting a lot of surgeons straight out of medical school.  Any surgeon was precious, and ones who were actually good like Hawkeye, Trapper, BJ, and Charles were worth their weight in gold.  COs cut them quite a bit of slack as a result -- putting them in the stockade would be killing wounded.  This is covered in Richard Hooker's book.  There was exaggeration, but some truth to it as well.

Klinger would not be allowed to be in drag if it were in real life.

You're right about this one.  The Army would tolerate some oddball behavior by surgeons, but orderlies or clerks were easy enough to find.  He was pure showbiz.  (Not that that's bad.)

[PHLBOS]

Another off-period faux pax with Happy Days was the premiere 3-parter episode (of Season 4) involving the demolition derby (Roz Kelly played Pinky Tuscadero in these episodes).  Most of the cars in the derby were, for the time period (either 1958 or 1959), relatively new... including a '59 Chevy (a brand new car for the fall of '58).  Even back then, new cars were not used in demolition derbys.

One line in the part 3 episode, this one was obviously an intentional joke, made by Rocco Malachi mentions that he and his brother's next demolition gig is smashing up Edsels.  Edsels were only around for one model year (& still in production) for the episode's setting.

In the show Maude (a spinoff of All In The Family)you could also say the same for the opening sequence of the show as old 1950's era automobiles were used when showing one particular roadway and the fact that you crossed the George Washington Bridge to get from Manhattan to Tuckahoe, NY which are both on the same side of the Hudson River.  The show took place in the early to late 70's, so cars have changed very much in the time the film clips were taken to production.

Those opening & closing clips were shot in 1969.  One does see a few late 60s era cars in the background (including a '67 Chevy Impala coupe and a Toyota (Corona?) station wagon).

[roadman]

Klinger would not be allowed to be in drag if it were in real life.

You're right about this one.  The Army would tolerate some oddball behavior by surgeons, but orderlies or clerks were easy enough to find.  He was pure showbiz.  (Not that that's bad.)

Shortly after his character was introduced, Klinger was given a chance (thanks to Frank and Margaret prodding Henry) to get his desired Section 8 - he turned it down when Freedman's final report labeled him as a homosexual and a transvestite.

[US71]

And now I'm thinking of Lt. Saavik going from Kirstie Alley to Robin Curtis.

Didn't one of the supporting actors in Dynasty change?

[kkt]

Klinger would not be allowed to be in drag if it were in real life.

You're right about this one.  The Army would tolerate some oddball behavior by surgeons, but orderlies or clerks were easy enough to find.  He was pure showbiz.  (Not that that's bad.)

Shortly after his character was introduced, Klinger was given a chance (thanks to Frank and Margaret prodding Henry) to get his desired Section 8 - he turned it down when Freedman's final report labeled him as a homosexual and a transvestite.

Yes, I remember that.  Makes one wonder what kind of discharge he was hoping to get, when he turned that down.

"I'm not any of those!"  "You ain't Errol Flynn either." 

[PHLBOS]

Klinger would not be allowed to be in drag if it were in real life.

You're right about this one.  The Army would tolerate some oddball behavior by surgeons, but orderlies or clerks were easy enough to find.  He was pure showbiz.  (Not that that's bad.)

Shortly after his character was introduced, Klinger was given a chance (thanks to Frank and Margaret prodding Henry) to get his desired Section 8 - he turned it down when Freedman's final report labeled him as a homosexual and a transvestite.

Yes, I remember that.  Makes one wonder what kind of discharge he was hoping to get, when he turned that down.

"I'm not any of those!"  "You ain't Errol Flynn either." 

In that episode (Radar's Report from Season 2); Klinger does mention to Maj. Freedman (then Milton Freedman, the writers changed his first name to Sidney after that episode); that he just wanted to be discharged as just crazy.

Bold emphasis added:

One TV show-movie retrofit was Star Trek's Space Seed episode vs. Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan; that latter was a sequel (of sorts) to the former.  When Khan first appears to Chekov, they both recognize each other; however, the TV episode predated (by roughly a half-season) Chekov (Walter Koenig) joining the cast.

Not really.  The Enterprise had a crew of 400.  Just because Chekov didn't appear until season 2 doesn't mean he wasn't on the ship in season 1 in a different, less prominent position (one of the novels had him as one of the security officers who took Kahn and his people to Ceti Alpha V).

I'm going to take a wild guess that the novel that you speak of was written well after 1982 (the year Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan first came out). 

If the answer to my question is "Yes"; such proves my earlier point moreso that the off-screen Khan-Chekov meeting was indeed a retrofit (some would say correcting an Oops.).

[vdeane]

I'm going to take a wild guess that the novel that you speak of was written well after 1982 (the year Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan first came out). 

If the answer to my question is "Yes"; such proves my earlier point moreso that the off-screen Khan-Chekov meeting was indeed a retrofit (some would say correcting an Oops.).

2005.  The other two books in the trilogy dealt with trying to explain the Eugenics Wars with respect to what actually happened in the 90s.  Still, is it really a retrofit if it doesn't require a continuity rewrite?  I don't recall any scene in TOS where Chekov stated he wasn't on the Enterprise in season 1.  The idea that Chekov was not on the ship before season 2 is pure fanon (though Star Trek fans are well known for treating fanon as canon).

[ARMOURERERIC]

And nobody has mentioned the reboot of Hart to Hart yet?

[roadman65]

Threes Company was retrofitted many times Jack got into trouble with a bully at the local bar.  It was mentioned in one episode that Jack was a boxer in the US Navy and was quite good, yet Jack was a coward when it came to being challenged to a fight in many episodes.  In one of the many episodes that Terry Keiser guest starred in, he pretended to be dead to avoid a confrontation with the character Keiser played in that episode of a man punching out men who he thought were hitting on his girl, who really were not doing so. Just that the bully was over reacting and in Jack's case the girlfriend was using Jack to get back at him, despite Jack running away and even pleading with the girl that he was a coward.

Also, assertively Jack was a coward to people like Mr. Angelino, who was not violent in nature, but with words as well as Dean Travers, his old cooking school director  who also bullied Jack with words which is also not the MO of a boxer either.

Even Chrissy too was re fitted as in Season's One, Two, and Three, she did not have her snorting laugh she had in the fourth and fifth seasons.  She was not even as dumb during the Roper years as she was with Furley in charge.   They did a Potsie on Happy Days where they transformed a person who was dumb, but had basic sense into a person with absolutely no common sense.  Chrissy went from dumb blonde to a total moron without explanation.

[Pete from Boston]

How about the absurd (even for a fantasy show) 30-year jump in season 2 of "Wonder Woman," during which it is explained that Wonder Woman had to go home or something, and Lionel Waggoner's character dies but his identical son with the same name gets the same job his father had 30 years earlier? 

[Big John]

Leave it to Beaver lasted 6 seasons.  Beaver started out in 2nd grade and was in 8th grade when the show ended, but Wally started out in 8th grade but was still in 12th grade when the show ended, but was portrayed as an above-average student.

[roadman65]

Even more bizarre is the ending of Quantum Leap which explained that the main character was leaping himself through time, when every episode of the series was showing that Sam Beckett, the leaper  who was leaping around in time trading places with others throughout his own lifetime putting right what once went wrong was doing so because of a botched experiment.  It was stated that in each episode's opening monologue that he was being driven by an unknown force to change history for the better, and throughout the show it was stated that no one in his own time knew how to bring him back to the future in his own time. 

From the first episode, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator after being told by US Congress that his funding would be cut namely because traveling in time is totally unbelievable for millions of dollars to fund.  His time machine was partially completed enough for him to move into the past, but not to come back successfully.  When he ended up in his first leap, he had amnesia and did not know who he was and why he was living another person's life.  The people in his own time tried to retrieve him, but failed at doing so.  It was then decided that if he put a major wrong right in his first leap then maybe the retrieval mechanism will bring him home, however it did not in which it only leaped him again to another point in history into another life.   It was then when God, Fate, Time, or whatever had control over the time machine as him leaping around was not caused by the machine directly, but unknown to Sam and his colleagues to what was doing it and making him move around through history.

Then in the finale of the series, it was revealed by a strange bartender in a small PA mining town, that no one was leaping Sam through time, but his own will.  Never was it even explained how it was so when for five whole seasons we saw him leap around through time by an unknown force and not himself as he had no control over the leaping machine/ accelerator as it was in the future many years away.  Just that everything that was happening in his leaps, was what he had hoped for and more, and that nothing that he did not want happened during his five years moving around from life to life.  More or less Sam Beckett just had to accept it just like a priest has to accept living his life from one parish to another.

[US71]

How about the absurd (even for a fantasy show) 30-year jump in season 2 of "Wonder Woman," during which it is explained that Wonder Woman had to go home or something, and Lyle Waggoner's character dies but his identical son with the same name gets the same job his father had 30 years earlier? 

Wasn't part of that because it switched networks?

[roadman65]

How about the absurd (even for a fantasy show) 30-year jump in season 2 of "Wonder Woman," during which it is explained that Wonder Woman had to go home or something, and Lyle Waggoner's character dies but his identical son with the same name gets the same job his father had 30 years earlier? 

Wasn't part of that because it switched networks?

Yes from CBS to ABC.

Incidentally another network NBC cancelled Quantum Leap, which made the abrupt ending at the end of Season Five.

[US71]

How about the absurd (even for a fantasy show) 30-year jump in season 2 of "Wonder Woman," during which it is explained that Wonder Woman had to go home or something, and Lyle Waggoner's character dies but his identical son with the same name gets the same job his father had 30 years earlier? 

Wasn't part of that because it switched networks?

Yes from CBS to ABC.

Incidentally another network NBC cancelled Quantum Leap, which made the abrupt ending at the end of Season Five.

Wasn't Star Trek Enterprise was cut short, too? I didn't receive UPN, so I never watched much of it.

[Stephane Dumas]

The British show UFO had some cast changes during the episodes when it's not cast make-up. Michael Billington who portrayed Colonel Foster wear a wig in the later episodes.

Space 1999 also got a big cast change along with an opening credits change for season 2 when Barry Morse's character Victor Bergman, fall victim of the Chuck Cunningham syndrome (and also Fred Freiburger worked on season 2).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLAsBzOOhLQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6AeumXb2Zc

Too Close for Comfort (later briefly rechristined as "the Ted Knight Show"), was cancelled due to the death of Ted Knight. Also, it originally focused on the relationship between the father Henry Rush (Ted Knight) and his 2 daughters living in the appartment below but it quickly changed when the character of Monroe Ficus, originally planned to be a "one-episode wonder" got a recurrent role.

In season 3 of Get Smart, Don Adams driving a VW Karmann-Ghia instead of the Sunbean Tiger he continued to use during the episodes and in season 5, when the series moved from NBC to CBS, they re-worked the opening theme along with a new car. Here the opening credits including the "Get Smart Again" tv-movie broadcasted on ABC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csqhWHSrbdY

[US71]

In season 3 of Get Smart, Don Adams driving a VW Karmann-Ghia instead of the Sunbean Tiger he continued to use during the episodes and in season 5, when the series moved from NBC to CBS, they re-worked the opening theme along with a new car. Here the opening credits including the "Get Smart Again" tv-movie broadcasted on ABC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csqhWHSrbdY

It annoyed me how the doors slammed with the music, but the sound effects didn't seem to be in synch with the motion of the doors closing.

[english si]

Game of Thrones changed the actors for both non-Joffrey Lannister children.

Tommen they aged up by a couple of years (probably to make his marriage less horrific, though 33 and 17 is still one of the largest age gaps one sees on-screen, especially with the woman being the older partner), recycling an actor that had played a minor Lannister in a couple of scenes (which is jarring on re-watch).

Myrcella they aged down (not anything to do with the age, but the original actress seemingly wasn't stunning enough to play the 15 year old who'd bagged an exotic prince and wears lots of skimpy costumes for additional Dornish eye candy that wasn't needed and is rather eww given the character and actress' age), annoying the original actress who can act well, is a fan and was free. That said, I can imagine that the original actress was happy to avoid that trainwreck of a plot line, especially as a fan of the books.

[roadman65]

The British show UFO had some cast changes during the episodes when it's not cast make-up. Michael Billington who portrayed Colonel Foster wear a wig in the later episodes.

Space 1999 also got a big cast change along with an opening credits change for season 2 when Barry Morse's character Victor Bergman, fall victim of the Chuck Cunningham syndrome (and also Fred Freiburger worked on season 2).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLAsBzOOhLQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6AeumXb2Zc

Too Close for Comfort (later briefly rechristined as "the Ted Knight Show"), was cancelled due to the death of Ted Knight. Also, it originally focused on the relationship between the father Henry Rush (Ted Knight) and his 2 daughters living in the appartment below but it quickly changed when the character of Monroe Ficus, originally planned to be a "one-episode wonder" got a recurrent role.

In season 3 of Get Smart, Don Adams driving a VW Karmann-Ghia instead of the Sunbean Tiger he continued to use during the episodes and in season 5, when the series moved from NBC to CBS, they re-worked the opening theme along with a new car. Here the opening credits including the "Get Smart Again" tv-movie broadcasted on ABC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csqhWHSrbdY

Family Matters is just like Too Close For Comfort.  Steve Urkel, played by Jaeel White, was supposed to be on the show for one episode, but ended up steeling the show as the obnoxious nerd next door just showing up each moment becoming the show's focus character. 

Originally Family Matters was to be just about life of the Winslow Family, a middle class family of five with their grandma, and aunt with a small child also living with them.  Then it became about Urkel and his crazy antics with some of the family members all obtaining Chuck Cunningham Syndrome over time.

[US71]

Family Matters is just like Too Close For Comfort.  Steve Urkel, played by Jaeel White, was supposed to be on the show for one episode, but ended up steeling the show as the obnoxious nerd next door just showing up each moment becoming the show's focus character. 

Not unlike Jonathan Harris/Dr Smith stealing Lost in Space