I don't know the "tv-term" (if there is one) for it, but was this show consistent? One thing could happen in one episode and then in the next episode it was like it never happened.
I remember following this show when it aired and one thing happened in one episode and then in the next episode it was like it never happened. Was it the show or because of the TV-channel pulled some episodes or mixed them up?
99.5% of the time, the networks air episodes in a different order than they were filmed, and "Stark Raving Mad" was absolutely no exception (and to add insult to injury, several episodes never aired at all in the USA). However, there wasn't enough of a running plotline on this series that it should have affected the story.
The one and only inconsistency I can think of wasn't in the order they aired but in the writing -- in the episode "The Dance," they say Ian can't dance (when he was seen moments earlier, in the opening credits, dancing on a ledge). In a later episode, "Secrets and Lies," they say Ian was once a professional dancer.
Ian was also a prankster... so who knows what's the truth behind his interests/talents/background...
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Chipping away at a mountain of pop culture trivia,
Darren Dirt.
True, Ian was a prankster, but they really screwed up the dancing thing. The plot of "The Dance" was that Ian wasn't going to go to his niece's wedding because he'd have to dance with her, so Maddie agreed to teach him how to dance. That was all played straight. On its own, it was a great, heartfelt episode (hilariously narrated by Tess, who was trying to fix up Ian & Maddie), but it wasn't consistent with Ian dancing on the ledge in the "Pilot" (the clip from the opening credits) or the reveal in the subsequent episode.
Should have denoted a spoiler, but later in "Secrets and Lies," Ian ultimately shows Henry a video from the early '80s that he referred to as his deepest, darkest secret... On the tape, a mustache-less Ian, as part of the dance troupe 'The Grinning Americans,' is doing a tacky dance routine to the song "I'm So Excited." Different kind of dancing, but if he'd worked with a choreographer, it's illogical to think that he couldn't slow-dance with his niece.