Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with sitcom

Sit Ubu, sit. (or: Help me be in a Live Studio Audience.)

AlisonM — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:21:18 -0800

What sitcoms still film in front of an audience? Bonus points for NYC. Are there any sitcoms that still film before a live audience? Or is the "filmed before a live studio audience" credits announcement a relic of the 80s? I grew up watching Growing Pains, Family Ties, Perfect Strangers, The Cosby Show, etc., and I've always wanted to see one in action.

I'm in NYC, so if there's anything here, I would be super excited to put myself on a waiting list for 2009 or something. I know all about the talk/game shows (some tape a couple short miles from me here in Queens!) Also, I totally gawked at some CSI filming in Riverside Park a couple weeks ago, and Ugly Betty regularly films on the blocks surrounding me. I'm want a "show up, sit in a studio and laugh when you're supposed to, and the cast will come out and wave at us after taping" experience.

I'm looking for sitcoms/non-reality shows, and I don't care how good or bad they are.

Unaired episodes of Out of Practice?

chudmonkey — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:45:21 -0800

Can you help me find the un-aired episodes of the short-lived sitcom Out of Practice? Hey gang... During the 2005-2006 season, CBS aired 14 episodes of Out of Practice, a sitcom I rather enjoyed. 7 episodes (#s 15 through 21) were never aired by CBS, but they did air on one network in Australia, and (according to wikipedia) recently aired on a network in Poland.

I have been able to download episode #19 via BitTorrent, but have had no luck finding the other unaired episodes. It looks like they were out there at one point, but the torrents have become disused.

I know it's a long shot, but can anyone point me towards a source of the episodes? I'd prefer to download them, but I'm open to anything. Thanks in advance! (e-mails and mefi mails welcome.)

Where'd Luanne's baby go?

hjo3 — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:19:00 -0800

What happened with Luanne's pregnancy on King of the Hill? I missed parts of seasons 10 and 11 of King of the Hill. I remember Luanne and Lucky being engaged and I think I remember them getting married. I definitely remember Luanne being very pregnant. But now she's not and there's been no mention of a baby in season 12. Can anyone tell me what happened? Did she give it up for adoption?

(I tried scanning the episode summaries on TV.com but they didn't illuminate. And the Wikipedia article seems to be out of date.)

Bonus points if you can name the specific episode that dealt with the birth/fate of the child.

Thanks!

Sitcom with an infected pierced ear?

incomple — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 19:36:01 -0800

My roommate and I are going insane trying to think of a sitcom (or possibly movie) we watched a few months ago where a male character gets a pierced ear, and it becomes grotesquely infected and swollen. The sitcom was likely single camera, and, if we remember correctly, fairly contemporary. It's equally likely to be British or American. Our first guess was Arrested Development, but it looks like that isn't the case. Your assistance will likely save us ours of frustration. Thanks!

Secret Apple Pie Recipe

jaimystery — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 10:11:28 -0800

TV Trivia question - what sitcom was this? Thanksgiving episode, frustrated wife & her mother-in-law's 'Secret Apple Pie Recipe'. The scene: Two women are in the kitchen during Thanksgiving, one woman expresses her frustration at her mother-in-law's refusal to share the 'secret apple pie recipe'. This same woman has been trying a different recipe every year, hoping to get it right but this year, she was so frustrated that she bought a pie crust, used canned filling & threw it in the oven.

Husband comes in and says 'Honey, you finally got it right! This is Mom's recipe!"

It sort of echoes Phoebe's chocolate chip recipe from Friends and I'm sure, countless other shows. Someone suggested "Everyone loves Raymond" but this show was earlier than that, maybe 15 years ago.

I've googled but I'm not hitting the right combination of words to come up with the answer. Does anyone else have a better memory?

90s sitcom about college faculty on NBC

fvw — Thu, 25 May 2006 16:13:23 -0800

Name that sitcom: I vaguely remember seeing a sitcom about a college or university faculty, where a new lecturer arrives (teaching english lit?) and tries to get to grips with the job. He had long curly dark hair. I think the theme tune was the Eels' Novocaine for the soul, but given how easily googleable that should make it (which it isn't), I might be wrong on that. It was aired somewhere in the middle of the nineties on NBC, though it was NBC in europe, parts of which differ from the US NBC broadcast, so it might not have been on in the US at that time. As my memories of this are rather fuzzy, any of the above claims may be mistaken, so near-misses are appreciated too.

Anyone remember a sitcom named Whoops?

jon_kill — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 11:52:52 -0800

Does anyone remember a sitcom named Whoops? It was from the eighties at some point. The opening credits involved a military parade in which a live nuclear weapon goes off accidentally. The pilot included the cast holing up in a cabin somewhere and fighting a huge mutated spider.

[Any of these facts might be inaccurate, including the name.]

Pitching a sitcom

jimmy — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 01:48:25 -0800

How would I go about pitching a sitcom to the BBC?

Best Simpsons episode?

killdevil — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 17:23:20 -0800

Please help me identify the apotheosis of Simpsons episodes. I seek the funniest, most zeitgeist-reflective episode of the Simpsons. Help me Metafilter!

This is the crap FOX would run in the afternoons

junkbox — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 09:20:29 -0800

Name that show: late 70's or early 80's sitcom set in a lounge at the top of a hotel. It may have been set in Las Vegas, I'm not sure. Main characters were 3 cocktail waitresses (very Charlie's Angels-esque), an old b*tchy hostess, and a skeevy piano player. It wasn't very good, but I have dim memories of this show and it's driving me nuts not knowing the name.

Home-based catering business sitcom is...

swift — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 17:54:35 -0800

I'm trying to remember a sitcom in which midway through its life, or perhaps towards the end, one of the main characters (a housewife) starts a home-based catering business. What sitcom was it?

Cheers!

geoff. — Fri, 07 May 2004 11:34:53 -0800

I was reading the CNN.com article on the last Friend's episode and the last part about the "Cheers" live showing on The Tonight Show caught my attention. After reading some usenet articles, I found out that for some reason the entire Cheers' cast was at a bar getting smashed on the air. Jay Leno apparently hated it, and so did most commenters on usenet; except for a few that thought it was hilarious. So my question is thus, what happened on that show? Can anyone recall the antics? Kelsey Grammer drunk? I also heard that everyone except Sen. John Kerry was trashed. I have no idea what the atmosphere was but it would be neat to see Kerry at a bar interacting without everything being finely combed. Which leads me to question two, has anything like this happened before? The idea of celebrities/politicians being real and candid (albeit through alcohol, in vino veritas) is interesting, though it appears from the usenet post, being sloshed and "real" is taboo.

What does a TV producer actually do?

stupidsexyFlanders — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 09:48:21 -0800

I understand that in movies, the title of Producer is mostly about providing or arranging the financing & talent for a project. How about for a sitcom? If you watch Friends, there's around a half-dozen producers of varying stripes listed in the credits. What's the role of a producer in the context of an episode of a TV series?

"Dinosaurs" show

Slimemonster — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 00:05:28 -0800

Does anyone remember the last episode of that old ABC show Dinosaurs (you know, with the puppets?) Something just triggered some strange memory of the last episode and I seem to remember all the characters kicking the bucket (even the baby). Is that what happened? Is there a detailed synopsis of this episode somewhere on the web? Tvtome doesnt have it to much detail. It was called "Changing Nature," i believe.