MovieChat Forums > Gimme a Break! (1981) Discussion > Dolph Sweet + his belt...

Dolph Sweet + his belt...


Does anyone remember the episode where the dad in the family (Dolph Sweet) chases one of the older daughters (or maybe it was the oldest) around the house, threatening her with a spanking & holding his belt in his hand? She keeps complaining that she's too old to spank but that doesn't placate him. He roars something like "I'm the king of this castle" & Nell retorts with something like "Well, your majesty, your pants are falling down!" (since he'd taken off his belt to spank the daughter with). That sort of helps things calm down. He begins to calme down a bit & claims he wants to just sit & talk, but the daughter says something like "hand me the belt first". She's still not trusing him at that point. No one gets spanked in the end, Nell using her usual resources to "smooth everything over". If anyone out there has seen that episode, do you recall what mischief the daugter had been up to make her dad so angry with her?

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Yes, he is upset with her because she cheated on her college entrance exam. She had her sister Julie take the test instead of her and then felt guilty and told everyone. So he was upset that she was a cheat...

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It's episodes like that one that really illuminate how times have changed. Can you imagine seeing Tim Allen or Ray Romano on television threatening to spank the kids with a belt? Ha!

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I agree. Television dads are very different today.

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men with husbands on TV now, and getting worse by the day. Men were still men 15 years ago, but that ship has sailed with Hollyweird.

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We need more dads like Dolph.

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[deleted]

I don't remember the episode, but I noticed that at first Carl was pretty gruff with his daughters, grounding them all the time. He softened up later on, though. It is too bad he passed away just as Jonathan moved in.

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Do you remember that episode where Sam has locked herself in the bathroom and the Chief's tall sidekick (I can't remember his name) is trying to coax her out? The Chief says "Sam, I'm taking my belt off!" and the sidekick says "Chief, I don't think we're on the same level!"

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