Obscure sitcom facts Page 6

In "Only Fools and Horses", Trigger's real name (in the show) is Colin Ball.

I'm not sure this is ever revealed in the show but people who have seen the original scripts and character notes will confirm it's true.

Had Jim Broadbent accepted the role of Del Boy, he would have only signed up to one series as he doesn't do long-term projects.

Thank God he turned it down.

The BBC threatened Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft to cancel Are You Being Served after 1 series, if they didn't get rid of John Inman's character. Of course they rightly refused to do so.

Top Cat was clearly inspired by (I hesitate to say "blatantly ripped off from") The Phil Silvers Show. The lead character, Top Cat himself, was Bilko to a 't' and Benny the Ball not only looked and acted like Private Doberman but was actually voiced by the actor who had played Doberman in The Phil Silvers Show.

In Friends, Ross is 29 in three consecutive series.

Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons) had younger sisters called Lisa and Maggie. His father's name was Homer. His grandfather's name was Abraham, and his mother's name was Marge Wiggum.

Watched recently "Disenchantment" by Matt Groening about some princess, cat-like demon and unadapted elf. Not a bad animation at all. Little known fact is that this is a third part of his time related works: Simpsons - present, Futurama - future, Disenchantment - past.

Quote: Rood Eye @ 27th September 2018, 3:50 PM

In Friends, Ross celebrates his 29th birthday in three consecutive series.

Interesting. Was that a continuity error or were two of them shown as a flashback?

Quote: Definitely Tarby @ 28th September 2018, 6:30 PM

Interesting. Was that a continuity error or were two of them shown as a flashback?

I think my source should have worded it better as "celebrates" does suggest that we see him cutting into in cake whereas I think it was intended to mean simply that his birthday occurred.

I have edited the post to remove the ambiguity.

In any event, in series 3, 4 and 5, it is revealed in dialogue that he's 29.

I'm guessing in series 4 and 5 it's done as a flashback and not a mistake in the writing because they had about a billion people on the writing team.

Quote: Definitely Tarby @ 28th September 2018, 9:18 PM

I'm guessing in series 4 and 5 it's done as a flashback and not a mistake in the writing because they had about a billion people on the writing team.

A little more research has revealed the following:

In series 3, episode 13 (The One Where Monica and Richard Are Just Friends ) Chandler offers Ross a drink of chocolate milk, and Ross replies "Thanks. I'm 29."

In series 4, episode 9 (The One Where They're Going to Party! ) Ross says he's 29.

In series 5, episode 4 (The One Where Phoebe Hates PBS), Ross is trying to reconcile with Emily. He says that if they don't stay together he will be divorced for the second time before age 30. Logically, if he was not yet 30 at that point in series 5 yet was 29 in season four, he must've still been 29 when he made that remark in season 5.

So it's not multiple birthdays, it's just that at least those three seasons take place within 363 days.

Quote: Aaron @ 28th September 2018, 10:26 PM

So it's not multiple birthdays, it's just that at least those three seasons take place within 363 days.

That could explain it but I'm mindful of the fact that every series has a Thanksgiving episode and every series (except the final series) has a Christmas episode at around the same point in every series. It would appear, therefore, that each series represents approximately one year in the lives of the friends.

Ah. Fair enough!

In 2003, 24-year-old Juan Catalan was arrested by Los Angeles police and charged with murdering 16-year-old Martha Puebla by shooting her through the head. He denied the charge, saying that at the time of the murder he had been watching a baseball game at the local Dodgers Stadium.

Unfortunately, he had no independent witnesses to support his alibi and none of the game's TV footage was clear enough to identify him as being present at the game.

Astonishingly, however, his presence at the game was proved by an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm". The episode (entitled "The Car Pool Lane") is the one where Larry picks up a prostitute and takes her to the baseball game. In the episode, Juan and Larry are clearly seen passing each other on the stadium stairs and they actually brush shoulders. I mean, what are the chances of that happening?

Juan, who was facing the death penalty if convicted, had spent nearly five months in jail but was released and awarded $320,000 in a police misconduct lawsuit.

Wow!

A great many celebrities have provided voices for characters in The Simpsons but, as far as I know, only two have been credited under pseudonyms.

In the episode "Lisa's Substitute", a kindly substitute teacher (Mr Bergstrom) turns up at Lisa's school. The voice is credited to Sam Etic which, I assume, is a thinly disguised play on "semitic". The voice was, in fact, that of Dustin Hoffman who, after recording, decided that voicing a cartoon character might not be a great move, career-wise. That was in 1991 but he reluctantly gave the idea another go in 2008 when he voiced a character in "Kung Fu Panda" and won the Annie Award for Best Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production.

In the episode "Stark Raving Dad", Homer is carted off to a mental hospital and the voice of one of his fellow patients is credited to "John Jay Smith". The voice is actually that of Michael Jackson. I don't know why Michael decided not to be credited but I do know that, after that decision, the producers decided that all future guest voice-artistes must agree to be credited under their usual names.