Embarrassing Mistakes Everyone Missed In Their Favorite Retro TV Shows
How many times have you rewatched I Love Lucy? Or Gilligan’s Island? Or Bewitched? Too many to count, right? These retro TV shows are our favorites for a reason! And you’ve probably been so wrapped up in these cozy classics that you won’t have noticed the frankly embarrassing mistakes that crop up in almost every series. But when you discover, say, the cringe-worthy slip-up about Mary Ann in Gilligan’s Island, you’ll never be able to watch old episodes in the same way again. Buckle up: it’s going to be a bumpy ride!
The Lone Ranger breaking wind
All together now: “Hi-ho, Silver! Away!” Yup, The Lone Ranger was great. The Western ran from 1949 to 1957 and was a very big deal for ABC. But in the syndicated opening sequence, you’ll spot trees being used as windbreaks. Yet people didn’t start doing this until the 1930s – a long time after The Lone Ranger is set.
Gunsmoke’s ‘marshal’ law
It’s pretty incredible that Gunsmoke ran for 20 seasons – the longest stretch of any primetime Western show – between 1955 and 1975. But do you know what’s not incredible? The fact that the main character is a marshal… in a town that never would have had a marshal in the 1870s. Bit of an oversight, eh?
Petticoat Junction’s Cannonball catastrophe
Everybody in Hooterville knows you’ve gotta take the Cannonball to get to The Shady Rest Hotel. The place is miles out of town! But that didn’t seem to bother the writers of Petticoat Junction… Yep, in the 1963-70 comedy’s later years, Rest guests apparently turn up independently of the train’s arrival times. What’s up with that?
Cheyenne’s trooper trouble
In the very first episode of Cheyenne’s 1955-63 run, there’s a bit of confusion about how many troopers got killed by bandits. Three of the four die on-screen – but then two of them show up in a later scene. And then they disappear again for the rest of the show. Weird, right? Or do people in Westerns always have two lives?
