A Look at “Rapid Aging Syndrome” in Sitcoms

One thing that soap opera’s own is that habit of taking a baby or young child and rapidly aging them, sometimes over an episode! I guess it is easier to deal with a child who can read and understand how to act rather than trying to work with babies (and the strict limitations around them). Soap Opera Digest is the first to give the the name Rapid Aging Syndrome, as it’s also known on Tv Tropes. But the truth is this isn’t limited to soap opera’s. Sitcoms also do this, with mixed results.





So let’s run down ten examples of a baby cast member being aged over a season, and see if the decision was for the best… or the worst. Of course, all opinion here.






Family Ties

This is one I remember because it was the first time I had ever heard of this happening on any show. When Brian Bonsall first appeared as Andy, I was very confused. Did the toddler really age that fast? Or did the whole series jump five years between seasons? But I guess I was just overthinking it. And while Bonsall was not the greatest actor, the character did add something to the show which helped it as the series went into its final years. He never took over as others did.

Memorable TV Line-Up's:ABC Friday Night (Fall 1971)

Was our trip back to 1973 not back far enough? Well why don't we take a look at one of the grooviest TV line ups ever, from ABC in 1971.

Several years ago Nick@Nite did a stunt which I wish they had dome more of. They recreated a popular line-up, and aired the shows as they would have back in the day. Even included some retromercials. My wife and I had a lot of fun revisiting this line up from before we were born. So what was on ABC Friday's in 1971? Glad you asked!

8:00
The Brady Bunch

Considering all  the articles I've done about this show there really isn't much point in me saying much about it. I grew up watching the re-run's and still love to turn it on to this day.

Top 10 Obnoxious Sitcom Neighbors

So last time I went over nice neighbors. Let's do the opposite of that. These are the neighbors that barge over, interrupt everything, and always overstay their welcome. And we just love them for it!!










#10.The Ochmonek's (Alf)

Trevor and Raquel were typical sitcom neighbors except for one thing. Sure they would barge over and make nuisances of themselves. But they never got suspicious that anything off was happening next door. When they came over Alf had to hide and that was about it. Except that one time Raquel almost saw Alf anyway. They were just, obnoxious, and therefore not very memorable.

Top 10 Nicest Sitcom Neighbors

I’m really amazed I haven’t done this yet. Neighbors always play a special role in sitcoms, they are often the one’s who the main characters will go to for advice. And very often these characters are so memorable they get show’s of there own!  Sitcom neighbors fit into two very clear categories. They are either nice, even part of the family. Or they are obnoxious, annoying and rude..and yet still become part of the family. Sitcoms are weird.


















So today I am counting down the top 10 nicest neighbors, we’ll do the annoying one’s next time. One rule, these neighbors have to be seen not just mentioned. And no I won’t put Friends on here, that just seems like cheating. As always, just opinion and for fun.

#10.Penny (The Big Bang Theory)

This is kind of cheating since she was a main character. But Penny was Sheldon and Leonard’s neighbor and this played into a lot of episodes especially in the early years. And give her credit for being a good neighbor.

Five Batman Characters I Never Liked

So I talked about how the “Superman Family” was pretty large, but to be honest that’s nothing compared to the “Batman family”. It’s funny to think that there was a period when DC wanted Batman to be a loner, which is why Batgirl was retired. That really changed over the years as so many Bat characters have been introduced, including like three Robin’s. I don’t even know half of them! So are there any characters that I don’t care for like with Superman? Believe it or not this was a harder list to put together because the Batman characters tend to be a lot better. But I found a few anyway.

 

 

 

 

Here are five Batman characters I never liked. And like last time , all opinion.





Bat-Mite

Some things work that work for Superman just wont work fro Batman. In an attempt to give Batman a “Mr Mxyzptlk” type, we had this annoying imp in the solver age. Who was stupid. I don’t what he did or what his powers were and I don’t care enough to look it up. And yet, he’s made a comeback? Well sort of, usually he appears in the form of bizarre hallucinations. God the Silver Age was lame.

Five Superman Characters I Never Liked

Superman has been around a very long time, and in that time has developed a pretty strong cast of supporting characters. From Captain Maggie Sawyer to the Citizens of Kandor, there are a lot of characters out there. Some of them are as famous, or more famous, than Superman himself. But others ,well, just never really clicked. For me anyway. Not every characters is going to work for examples Chloe Sullivan is a complete bore in the comic books. Yeah on Smallville she was great but in the comics, there is just no place for her.

 

Here are five more characters I just never cared about. Of course, this is just opinion and for fun.





Bizarro

Yeah I guess there are fans for this character, including Jerry Seinfeld, but I never got why he was so popular. Isn’t it basically the same joke over and over? Of course I am going by his silver age appearances, maybe his more modern version is a little more developed. But in the old days, it was simple. Superman’s exact opposite who even lived on a square planet called Bizarro World. Whatever. I did like the John Byrne story he did as part of his “Man of Steel” mini series, because it was done with heart and the character  vanished at the end. For a little while. He would return and I never did read those stories.

Five “Futuristic” Tech From TNG We Need Today

The other day I talked about tech on The Next Generation that has actually seen the light of day today. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things on the show which are still a little beyond our science. So here are five pieces of tech from TNG which I’d love to see in real life.

Phaser

There was just something about the phasers on TNG that made them so much cooler tahn their classc TOS versions. I guess it was all the uses it had. Oh sure it could still stun and kill but the settings were varied and you could do with a hand phaser what you needed a full phaser rifle to do in the old days.

Five “Futuristic” Tech From TNG We Use Today!

About a year ago I talked about how silly some of the “tech” on the old Star Trek series seems today. But the funny things is how accurate the show was about predicting other technology.

I think we all know what a forerunner the classic series was for things such as cell phones and computer disks, and those ear pieces they wore do bare a startling resemblance to current bluetooth earbuds, but The Next Generation also has it’s share of devices which were “futuristic” when the show aired, but today we all enjoy. I wanted to focus on five things we literally use today. Not items which are theory or “being developed”, not that those aren’t valid examples.






GPS

Yeah this one may not be the first to come to people’s minds but it’s valid. With the sensors the crew could track crew members on a mission, and could figure out how far a planet or other vessel was with pinpoint accuracy. Thanks to the Global Positioning System we use today we can also keep track of people in real time, and finding out how long it will take to get from here to there is no problem at all.

Ten Star Wars Plot Holes/Inconsistencies Explained

I tried something like this last year with Back to the Future, so I thought I’d give this franchise a try. Of course, this is a much larger franchise. And as you can imagine, there are more plot holes in these movies. Especially since the pre-quels contradict so much of what was established in the classic movies. Which I never understood, it’s not as if they had all new writers who never heard of Star Wars. Couldn’t Lucas have had things tied together better? To make matters worst Lucas loves to tinker with the existing movies, usually just to add effects but once in awhile he will make a change which creates a new plot hole that was never there before!!

 

Star Wars is amazingly bad at not keeping its own continuity. You just know that what Kylo Ren said to Rey in “Last Jedi” about her parents will be retconned in the next movie, and we’ll find out her parents do have a backstory. They’ll just say that Ren lied to get her on his side. That’s an easy one to excise. If they do that it wont be the first time they went back on something in these movies. Obi Wan clears up some confusion in Jedi about what he told Luke ("What I told you was true, from a certain point of view"). Or how about the line of dialogue at the end of “Sith” about memory wiping C3PO. Ohhh that’s why he didn’t remember Anakin created him or the Skywalker name later! For a minute there I thought that stuff in Phantom Menace was a contrivance to get him into that first movie.

So here are things that don’t add up between films and my explanation for why they happened, which of course I have no way to prove these are just theories. And in this article I am going by what has been established in the main movies. If something I mentioned was “explained” in a non-canon material that’s all well and good but I am not aware of it. And I am not a “Star Wars” aficionado by an means, so if I missed something that does explain these inconsistencies in universe feel free to let me know. As always, all opinion and just in good fun.

 

Han Shot First?

Let’s start with one which doesn’t exactly count really but I had to mention it. This is a famous one, and I mean famous! In most of these inconsistencies it is from one movie to another. But here. Lucas went back and adjusted something in the same movie. We all know this scene, Han is confronted by Greedo about the debt he owes Jabba. This scene exists just to show us Solo is bad ass. Originally, Solo just shoots. But later additions add a shot from Greedo to make it seem like Han was shooting in self defense. Which is stupid, and makes no sense. Yes Han shot first.

Memorable TV Line-Up’s:The Fall of Must See TV

So this one is going to be a little different format wise, but I figure it was only right to conclude my look at Must See TV that reigned for twenty years on NBC. I discussed the beginnings and when it exploded in 1994. But when did it end? And what were these other shows that were on there over ten years? Let’s run them down.

Now of course Friends was the anchor from 1994-2003. So for this article, kind of forget that 8:00pm was a thing. And of course Seinfeld was on at 9:00 until 1998. And yes there was a time when NBC used Must See TV for every night not just Thursday. But let’s limit this to just the Thursday night line-up’s. I will go over the more legit shows, the especially awful one’s I already did a run down of in another article.

After Friends premiered in 1994 on NBC Thursday, it seemed NBC had it in their respective heads that Thursday was a guarantee of success for any new show. Well, that isn’t quite how that worked. Maybe Friends was just a good show? Well that didn’t stop NBC from trying every year for awhile. Here a few of the shows that came, and went.





Suddenly Susan was the Brooke Shields vehicle that never really found its way. It had a strong cast including Kathy Griffin. David Strickland, and Judd Nelson. I think it really could have done better. Oh and of course there was a “will they wont they” relationship. The second season saw a new cast member and the third season they retooled the whole show…before it was gone. This show didn’t last on Thursday long at all, making way for The Naked Truth which was also bad.