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Episodes That You Didn't "Get" as a Child

posted 4 years ago by [email protected] (5497)
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This show worked on a lot of levels for both kids and adults. Some of the dialogue and its implications really went over my head when I was a child.

I just rewatched "It's So Nice to Have a Spouse Around the House". Any episode with Serena is fun, but as a child I never got how much this episode is about sex! (good thing though!)

Darrin is feeling so guilty for being mean to Sam for wanting to leave for the day and appear before the Witches Council. Larry gives him advice on how to get his "marriage back on track." I never got what he meant by "the honeymoon special"! LOL I thought he just meant that Darrin should be nice to his wife and bring her some flowers and candy.

Later, a panicked Serena (subbing for Samantha) has a worrried exchange with Endora.

Serena: He wants to take me for a ride!

Endora: I don't know what that means.

Serena: He wants to make up.

Endora: Ooh, I know what THAT means!

It's amazing how this show could tackle adult topics and still make it totally acceptable for kids to watch.

There were several other shows were Larry gives his tacit approval to Darrin when he mistakenly thinks the latter is stepping out on Samantha. Usually it's a smirk and, "You son of a gun."

There is one detail in this episode that I have seen cited as a continuity error. In the series premier, Sam and Darrin spend their wedding night in a what appears to be a fancy, big city hotel. In Spouse Around the House, they refer to spending their honeymoon at The Moon Thatch Inn.

Well, both could be correct. They obviously married quickly without informing their families, sort of an elopement. It's likely that they married in New York and spent their wedding night in a big hotel. The next day they drove out to the countryside to have a romantic honeymoon at The Moon Thatch Inn.

Any other episodes where you just didn't get what they were talking about?

[–] [email protected] (1732) 4 years ago

I can't think of any I didn't understand. What I DO recall is increasing my vocabulary. Here are the words I learned
the meaning of from this show as a kid:

Meager
knell (as in "bells knell")
inconsistent
irascible

Many more, and again, I was very young when I first heard these words.

Some of the spells are still so bizarre to me. For instance, when Endora reverses the spell in "Cheap, Cheap", she
says, "apple pan soak!" Too weird.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 4 years ago

Well, I mostly understood them. But when it came to sex (like in the episode I mentioned), I didn't get the full meaning!

I remember that you brought up the topic of learning new words in another thread. I learned some words too like when they went to Salem and Darrin was "persona non grata."

There were those episodes when Darrin was having a drink at the bar and commiserating with other husbands. Once he said, "I'm probably the only man who can say without malice that my mother-in-law is a witch."

I had to find out what 'malice' meant.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 4 years ago

Yes!!! I, too, learned the word 'malice' from BW. But it's when Darrin comes home in "Nobody's Perfect", and he sees
Endora with Tabitha, and thinks it's ENDORA who's making the toys fly. He says, "I'm the only guy in the world
who can say without malice, that his mother-in-law is a 'w-i-t-c-h!!.'

[–] [email protected] (5497) 4 years ago

Gee, gb, you are always a step ahead of me. I just watched that episode a few nights ago. I've been going back and forth with season three and seasons five and six.

When I heard Darrin say that line, my first thought was, "I bet gb mentions it to me." LOL

I could be wrong, but i do think there was a scene in a bar when he says it because that time he didn't have to spell w-i-t-c-h.
Or it could've just been the scene when he says that his mother-in-law is a witch and the guy replies, "When my mother-in-law visits, I put a pumpkin in the window."
The actor was that great character actor whose name I forget at the moment. He always played the drunk in the bar. He also played the guy who thought a miniaturized Darrin was a leprechaun.

[–] NorthernLad (472) 4 years ago

Not sure the title of the episode, but Maurice at one point hires that younger witch to be his "secretary". In this episode someone asks her if she is a thespian. And she is completely shocked and offended by this and then I believe Maurice clarifies that it means an actress. I've watched that episode many times growing up but as an adult man, when I watched it I thought it funny that she took the word thespian to be something lude. It makes me wonder if they were implying that she thought she was asked if she were a lesbian...which of course rhymes with thespian.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 4 years ago

Of course that's what they meant. I got that one when I was a kid.

The episode in question is, "Samantha's Good News", one of my very least favorites. I just
don't like this period of the series. Such a drag to see Sam telling Darrin she's pregnant
OVER THE PHONE.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 4 years ago

Yes, Dick York was gone by then. I don't think the audience knew it yet since there was no internet. But watching those last few season five episodes is kind of sad for me.

Regarding thespian, I sure did NOT get that it sounded like lesbian. And even if i did, I would've had no idea what that meant. It was around that time that i read a letter in Ann Landers column at my grandmother's house. A woman asked for advice on telling er family she was a lesbian. I asked my grandmother "What's that?" and she wouldn't tell me.

[–] [email protected] (1732) 4 years ago

I can top that!!! Many, many decades ago (early '70's), my mom worked with a woman who was distraught
because she didn't know how to tell her mother she was a lesbian. My mom suggested writing her a letter.
Well, the woman did, actually declaring that she "is a lesbian. I hope you'll accept me."

Well, the mother phoned her daughter after receiving that letter, and said, "Oh, honey, I don't care WHAT
religion you are!"

True story.

[–] [email protected] (5497) 4 years ago

HA! Reminds me of the Golden Girls episode when Blanche's old friend visited. She was a lesbian and was attracted to Rose.

Rose asked, "Isn't Danny Thomas one?"

Dorothy: That's LEBANESE, Rose!

[–] [email protected] (1732) 4 years ago

That was the very first "Golden Girls" episode I attended the taping of, way back in August of 1986. The
audience genuinely roared at all the great lines.

I attended about seven more tapings over the next several years. Only once was I turned away (due to
an already filled audience).