"Related How Again? the 2nd"
Rhoda Morgenstern's siblings. A "retcon" is when an established fact in a continuing work of fiction is changed…it stands for RETroactive CONtinuity….yes, essentially changing the past. Sometimes, a suitable explanation for the change is given or can be inferred. Other times, the change is completely inconsistent with the original circumstances, and you are just expected to accept it. Such was the case when the Rhoda Morgenstern character on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" was spun off into her own series in 1974. She now had but one sibling, her younger sister Brenda, and no others, complete with old photos and home movies to prove it.
But things were different on the original show. In one episode, her mother Ida comes to visit, and mentions Rhoda’s brother and sister, Arnold and Brenda. A “younger brother” is referred to in several other episodes, maybe Arnold, maybe not. Then later in that episode, Ida says she is next going to visit "your sister in Chicago"…is this Brenda or a different one? We don't really know, so that's either 1 or 2 sisters so far, and at least one brother.
The only sibling we ever see in person is Debbie, played by Liberty Williams, whose claim to fame, apart from sharing her first name with a fictitious outlaw of the Old West, was her role as Elizabeth Montgomery's grown-up daughter in the short-lived sitcom "Tabitha." Mary and Rhoda went to New York City for her wedding…remember Brett Somers as “Aunt Rose”? Did Debbie at one point live in Chicago? Now we're up to either 2 or 3 sisters.
And once, in keeping with the story-line of Rhoda's bad luck with men, she told of how she was once so depressed, she slept thru her sister's wedding…which was just as well, since her sister was marrying her ex-fiance. This sister can't be either Brenda or Debbie, so that's 3 definite sisters…and if none of these 3 lived in Chicago, that's 4 all together. Along with Rhoda and Arnold, a total of either 5 or 6 siblings…a far cry from just 2, wouldn't you say?
At least that's how the Fan Logic game works. The truth is, the writers weren't keeping track, and figured they could get away with just an unmarried Brenda, since viewers would have forgotten the married Debbie…except of course some of us didn't, not then, and not now either. But that's the TV Universe…love it or leave it.
On "The Addams Family," whose Uncle was Fester? The simple answer, based on the TV series which ran 2 seasons from 1964-1966, is he is Morticia's uncle…his full name is Fester Frump and her maiden name is Morticia Frump…case closed. Granted, he sometimes talks as if he were a biological Addams, sharing the distinct peculiarities of the Addams lineage…altho oddly enough Morticia sometimes does that too! But in a 2-part flashback episode to Morticia and Gomez' courtship, he is clearly established as the brother of Morticia's mother Hester Frump, portrayed by Margaret Hamilton…the Wizard of Oz witch, naturally.
The problem is, there were also 2 animated Addams Family series, a made-for-TV movie, 2 theatrical movies, an additional direct-to-DVD movie, and a revival TV series "The New Addams Family" which ran on the Fox Family Channel for 2 seasons in the early 1990s. And if you were puzzled when the 1993 film came out and Fester was now Gomez' brother…hence uncle to Pugsley and Wednesday, and no longer to Morticia…you had apparently forgotten that that's how it was in the 1973 cartoon series…and has been in every other production since the original.
Grandmama's relationship to the clan is similarly confused. The TV series was based on Charles Addams' cartoons in the New Yorker Magazine, published beginning in 1938. The characters never had names, so for the series, he came up with some…in fact, one of his original names for Pugsley was "Pubert," re-used for the mustachioed new baby brother in the 1993 film. In his original notes, she was Granny Frump, Morticia's mother…but for the series she was Gomez' mother. Then in the subsequent productions she alternated between the two…with names like Eudora Addams and Esmerelda Frump. This confusion was slyly referred to in the 2010 broadway Addams Family production, with a "My mother? I thought she was your mother!" gag.
And there was another inside joke by the writers, acknowledging the inconsistencies…in "The New Addams Family," where there was no longer a Pubert, Wednesday remarks that there was a third sibling, but they ate it. Hardy-har-har.
Why wasn't Marlo Thomas one of her father's daughters on "The Danny Thomas Show"? It seems like it would have made perfect sense. After all, the inspiration for the show was Danny's own family and home-life. The initial premise was that his character, being a nightclub singer and comedian, was away from home much of the time, which was true in real life. In fact the series original title, "Make Room For Daddy," was what his wife Rose Marie Thomas would say when the children were little and they had to stop sleeping in her bedroom because their father was coming home. The first episode, aired Sept. 29, 1953, was titled "Uncle Daddy." But there were 2 reasons why Marlo was not a daughter on the show.
The first was that she was simply too old. When the show debuted, she was a month shy of her 16th birthday. Danny's 2 TV children, Sherry Jackson as Terry and Rusty Hamer as Russell, were in real life aged 11 and 6, just about the ages of Marlo's 2 younger siblings. The character of Terry was named after Theresa Thomas, nick-named Terry, and as an adult spelled "Terre." Rusty was patterned after Charles Anthony Thomas, or Tony. So as not to be left out, Danny's on-screen wife was named Margaret, which was Marlo's real name…Marlo was how as a child she mispronounced Margo, the family's nickname for her.
The other reason was, Marlo wasn't yet committed to being an actress. She went on to college at USC and earned a teaching degree. Then she was a teacher for a brief time before finally succumbing to the acting bug. Interestingly, in her first 2 TV roles in 1960, on "Dobie Gillis" and "77 Sunset Strip," she was billed as "Margaret Thomas." And indeed she did appear just once on her father's show…on March 27, 1961, an episode that served as the pilot for the sitcom "The Joey Bishop Show," which debuted that Fall. It lasted for 4 seasons, and for the first season, she played Joey's starstruck younger sister Stella. Other regulars included Abby Dalton as his wife, Corbett Monica, Madge Blake, Guy Marks, Warren Berlinger, Joe Besser, Joe Flynn, and for one season, Bill Bixby.
Marlo Thomas' breakthrough came on the stage, in the London production of "Barefoot in the Park" in in 1965, which lead directly to her starring role in "That Girl" in the Fall of 1966. For the record, Danny acted with his daughter 4 other times...early on in "Zane Grey Theatre"...once on Danny's series "The Practice" in the 1970s...and twice on "That Girl"...the first time in a cameo as a priest..."father," get it?...then several years later when Danny appeared as himself, the actor. Till next time, good luck twice removing those 3rd cousins…and rock on!
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