Clip show

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In television, a clip show is an episode of a series, usually sitcoms, which consists primarily of excerpts from previous episodes, generally depicted as a sequence of flashbacks given plausibility by a frame tale.

Most clip shows feature the common format of a frame story in which cast members recall past events from previous episodes followed by a clip of the event. Another format that has been used is to have a host who describes various characters and characteristics of the show to introduce various clips from past episodes. For example, a a special 1 hour clip show episode of All in the Family featured actor Henry Fonda discussing the main characters on the show followed by relevant clips from previous episodes. A similar two-part clip show appeared on Three's Company, hosted by Lucille Ball. A third variation, used in a two-part clip show episode of Cheers featured the entire cast of Cheers, including former cast members, sitting on a stage while being interviewed by talk host John McLaughlin about former their characters on the show, with clips of previous episodes mixed in.

While clip shows do reduce production costs, they were originally employed in an era when there were far fewer program outlets and it was less likely that episodes from previous seasons would be aired again. Clip shows typically received strong ratings, and it was expected for any successful comedy series to feature clip shows regularly in its later years. However, the episodes were subject to some ridicule due to their forced or "corny" framing devices (such as a family sitting peacefully around a fireplace) and the frequently awkward transitions between the frame story and the clips (such as characters staring into space while the screen blurs to represent "remembering." )

More recently, fans and critics tend to view such episodes as an act of creative laziness, possibly even a sign that the show has jumped the shark, and the increasing ability of such scorn to reverberate around the viewing community in the Internet Age has tended to deter producers.

Daytime soap operas frequently present clip shows as a way to commemorate a show's milestone anniversary or the death of a long-running character. Many fans take advantage of the shows in order to see vintage clips of a particular soap opera. One of the most recent soap opera clip shows was an episode of As the World Turns in which seven of the longest running characters were stranded in a forest and remembered some of their best moments, all in honor of ATWT's 50th anniversary.

Clip shows today tend to offset such criticism by trying to make the frame tale surrounding the clips compelling, or by presenting clip shows without any framing device. A show might also diffuse the awkwardness by lampooning it, either by explicitly acknowledging or intentionally over-playing the device. Many series have included parody clip shows using "clips" from episodes which never happened (see below).

Recently, the clip show has been employed more seriously as a means to bring viewers up to date on highly serialized dramas, such as on Lost and Battlestar Galactica. Despite being a newer concept with American dramas, many animé dramas used similar techniques, particularly when a series ran for more episodes in one season than could be reasonably rerun (such as Gundam Wing running for 49 episodes, which were originally aired weekly).

Sometimes clip shows air before a series finale as a way for audiences to reminisce about their favorite moments. Some examples of shows that have used clip shows in this sense are: Frasier, Seinfeld, Sex and the City, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, Cheers and Ranma ½.

[edit] Examples

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Super Sentai anniversary specials involve clipshows of the red ranger roll calls. But in the 2006 season, GouGou Sentai Boukenger, every episode from 3 to 32 involved clipshows of their predescesors until Mahou Sentai MagiRanger.
The Dick Van Dyke Show. In the series' penultimate episode, Rob Petrie writes his autobiography and shows it to everyone. The clips illustrate events from the book. At the end of the episode Alan decides to buy the rights to the manuscript and turn it into a TV series with him as the star after he finishes the variety series.

Family Ties have done several clip shows – usually when Alex (Michael J. Fox) gets a new girlfriend or a classmate is doing a project.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Shades of Gray," aired week of July 17, 1989. Riker falls into a coma after being attacked by an organism that targets his central nervous system. Dr. Pulaski is able to stabilize him but only after the organism has completely integrated itself into his nervous system, including the brain. Counselor Troi realizes that Riker's romantic dreams and happy memories (i.e., the clips) promote the organism's growth. She begins to stimulate the unhappy ones, and after some serious convulsions, the organism dies and Riker is restored to normal (This season was affected by that year's writers' strike and had only 22 episodes. For the finale, one more episode was needed and this show was written quickly and shot in three days).

Trigun did a clip show about halfway through the series, after Vash the Stampede defeats the first of the Gung-Ho Guns.

Lost had a special called Lost: The Journey which showed events from previous episodes right up to the one where Jack goes off to find Locke. Another clip show, entitled "Destination Lost", aired during the hour before the premiere of Season 2, showing events from the entire first season. Also during Season 2, a third clip show, entitled "Revelation", aired during the hour before the episode entitled "23rd Psalm" which aired after a 6 week break. The fourth clip show, "Lost: Reckoning", aired after a one week break and a week prior to the airing of "Two for the Road."

Grey's Anatomy has done 2 clip shows in its second season, probably at least partially to fill out their 27 episode commitment (which stemmed from their unusual first-season scheduling). Like almost all of the episodes of the show, both were named after songs ("Straight to the Heart", and "Under Pressure"), but the episodes were distinguished by their titles appearing in the main and bumper title cards. An additional difference was that the voiceovers for the episodes were provided not by title character Meredith Grey, but by "Joe the bartender", a recurring character on the series.

The cult Australian series Double the Fist featured as its eighth and final episode "Special Edition" (aired July 16, 2004), a clip show with a difference - all the clips were supposedly from episodes "yet to air." This was a prank and all the clips were fakes, as the punchline to the show revolved around the network cancelling the series, and the cast even pretended to be taken off the air with two minutes left to go. The network reportedly received many complaints.

The anime series Miami Guns featured as its second episode a fake clip show, where excerpts from previous stories were shown (sometimes with story titles) depicting significant events that affected the characters and even an older version of the same show, none of which really existed as episodes.

Tom and Jerry has done several clip shows in which they recall moments from previous episodes that somewhat tie in with the events occurring in the episode. Tom and Jerry was not a TV-series, but a series of theatrical short animated films, designed to be shown in the cinema.

Popeye The Sailor, another theatrical cartoon series, has also done several clip shows (also called "cheaters" in the animation community) in the characters recall clips from earlier cartoons. Max Fleischer's studio proudced four Popeye clip shows: The Adventures of Popeye (1935), I'm in the Army Now (1936), Customers Wanted (1938), and Doing Impossikible Stunts (1940), while Fleischer's sucessor, Famous Studios, produced another ten: Spinach Packin' Popeye (1944, reuses footage from earlier Fleischer cartoons), Spinach vs. Hamburgers (1948), Popeye's Premiere" (1949, reuses footage from earlier Fleischer cartoons), Popeye Makes a Movie (1950, reuses footage from earlier Fleischer cartoons), Friend or Phony (1952), Big Bad Sinbad (1952, reuses footage from earlier Fleischer cartoons), Popeye's Twentieth Anniversary (1954), Penny Antics (1955), Assult and Flattery (1956), and The Crystal Brawl (1957). It should also be noted that Fleischer Studios produced what is possibly the very first animation clip show, a 1925 Ko-Ko the Clown short entitled Ko-Ko's Thanksigivng.

Chobits, an anime series, does a 'recap' episode every now and then. This is cut out of the English series almost entirely, and is usually titled under a slight plot premise that brings two side characters to talking and reminiscing.

The anime series Naruto and Dragon Ball Z uses clip sequences heavily to refer to events which may have only occurred a few episodes ago. This is notable because the sequences often occur for large portions of an episode, leaving only a few minutes of "real time" with which to advance the storyline.

Stargate SG-1 uses a clip show every few seasons, including "Politics", "Disclosure", "Inauguration", and "Citizen Joe".

The animé Gundam Wing featured two consecutive clip shows as a result of bad production scheduling. This forced the staff to cancel its plans to animate important events from the major characters' pasts; these events would eventually be collected in the manga Gundam Wing: Episode Zero.

Another Gundam animé, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, featured five clip shows due to poor time management in which the scriptwriters were unable to meet airing deadlines. At first, this forced the producers to reuse old clips for battle scenes; as the series progressed, this got worse as more and more clip shows were shown near the end. There were two between episodes 40 and 50, which were supposed to be seen as the setup of the climatic finale. Before the last two clip shows, fans still had hoped that the series would at least salvage something, but once these last two clip shows were shown, the series was doomed to failure. The much-criticized last episode even reused old clips from the first Mobile Suit Gundam SEED series (reuse of scenes of the destroyed ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam instead of the ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam, for example).

Home Improvement had a clip show in which Tim has difficulty sleeping due to stomach pains. He stays up and watches clips of Tool Time to keep him company.

Heathcliff had a clip show released as a theatrical film in 1986, erroneously titled Heathcliff: The Movie.

Sister, Sister did a clip show in the episode "You Had To Be There," in which Roger Evans, twins Tia Landry and Tamera Cambell's (Tia Mowry and Tamera Mowry) neighbor, goes with the girls on a date with their boyfriends, and reveals many of the girls' most embarrassing moments - shown to the viewers in flashback clips.

The Golden Girls did several clips shows. The main characters were prone to lengthy reminisciences in regular episodes, so it wasn't much of a stretch to get them to talk about things that had already happened on the show, and segue into clips.

Boy Meets World did a clip show in each part of its two-part series finale, when the characters look back upon their experiences as they prepare to leave Philadelphia and enter the "real world".

Power Rangers did a clip show for its 500th episode in which it showed clips of the previous eleven seasons before it during Dino Thunder. It was also used as a prequel to the reintroduction of Tommy as a Power Ranger.

Pee-wee's Playhouse did clip shows for episode 35 ("I Remember Curtis") and episode 45 ("Playhouse for Sale").

Saved by the Bell: The New Class had 1 or 2 clip shows every season, usually containing clips from that season.

Both versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have had at least one clip show. The 1987 cartoon has "Blast from the Past", and the 2003 cartoon has "Reflections".

The A-Team did a clip show in which Murdoch is shot by one of the bad guys and the rest of the characters spend time remembering what Murdoch has done for them.

[edit] Parodies of clip shows

When Justine Bateman guest hosted Saturday Night Live in the late 1980s, the cast performed a skit satirizing the unusual number of clip shows seen on Family Ties. While most clip shows feature a framing device around various reused footage, this skit showed the characters in each flashback reminiscing, which would then lead to a flashback within the flashback. In the middle of the skit, the characters reminisced about an episode of The Jeffersons that they particularly enjoyed. This led into an actual clip from The Jeffersons. The footage was from the episode "George & Louise in a Bind", which was itself a clip show.

The animated series based on the movie Clerks. featured a clip show as its second episode, where characters looked back fondly on memories of the first episode. The show reaches its climax by flashing back to events that happened a few minutes prior.

South Park, "City on the Edge of Forever (Flashbacks)," aired June 17, 1998. With the boys trapped on a bus in an episode that ultimately proves to be a dream, they pass the time by reminiscing about tough moments in previous episodes. However, every remembered scene is slightly different from what actually took place in the show, and each ends the same way ... with all the cast members getting ice cream and the person on the bus repeating the same lame punch line, "Now that's what I call a sticky situation." Eventually one early scene from the episode itself is recalled, with the same result. The characters begin to remember moments such as The Fonz jumping school buses, spoofing clip shows in general. Incidentally, the South Park episode "Probably", has The Fonz jumping a shark.

The Simpsons has done five clip shows as of its seventeenth season, each of which feature an apology from the writers for doing a clip show, and often inside jokes in the script (in the first one, for example, Grandpa Simpson says that being in a coma is "like being in one of those TV shows where they show clips of old episodes.")

Australian comedian Shaun Micallef has poked fun at clip shows in two of his TV series. In The Micallef Program, season two, Shawn announced the show was stopping to farewell a friend. It was revealed he was referring to an audience member, and a package of footage was shown of him arriving with his wife, finding his seat, and watching the filming of sketches. When asked why he had to leave, he said it was because he was sick of the show. Later on for Micallef Tonight, in the first episode before the opening monologue Shaun announced, "And now we look back on some of the fond memories that have made Micallef Tonight the show it is today." At this point the show had been on air for less than two minutes, and footage of Shaun walking onto the set was shown. Cut back to Shaun with an emotional, "Good times, good times."

In the Homestar Runner webtoon, in a Strong Bad Email [1] called "trevor the vampire", Strong Bad receives an email from a person named Trevor which cuts off suddenly after Trevor announces he is a vampire. Strong Bad concludes that Trevor's email ends abruptly because he was hunted down and killed, and spends the rest of the segment reliving some of his "favorite Trevor memories", which basically involve replaying clips of Strong Bad reading the email. [2] Clip shows are parodied again in the Strong Bad Email "personal favorites". [3] Someone asks Strong Bad what his favorite emails are that he has done. He begins by referencing two real ones, but then he begins to describe increasingly outlandish situations that never appeared in any previous email, involving such things as a knife fight on a bridge, a robot made out of a Grape Nuts box, and attempting to fly Bubs's concession stand after drinking a bottle of soy sauce.

Drawn Together - "The Drawn Together Clip Show" (aired March 15, 2006) mocks clip shows in general, as well as televised award shows. Unlike the South Park episode, the clips played are real, but have an obviously fake laugh track added onto them, often at deliberately inappropriate moments. Also, throughout the episode, DT Fun Facts are displayed on the screen (a parody of Pop-up Video), but the "facts" that appear are jokes rather than actual trivia tidbits.

Scrubs recently had an episode where the main character kept having déjà vu, believing that events in his life (and thus events in the show) were repeating themselves. This created an odd sort of clip show, where lines (and whole scenes) from past episodes were repeated. However, unlike the standard clip show, all the scenes were refilmed.

The Powerpuff Girls - "City of Clipsville" features Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup reminiscing about their previous adventures while cleaning their closet. The first three flashbacks were real ones — specifically, "Cover Up", "Monkey See, Doggy Do", and "Monkey See, Doggy Two" (the latter of which being a clip show of its own) — but then Blossom holds up a baby bottle and gets no immediate response, signifying that the following clips were never seen in an episode before. The remaining flashbacks shown were Professor Utonium accidentally turning the girls into babies, the Professor turning everyone else into babies as well, the girls trying to stop Mojo Jojo without their superpowers, the girls speeding up time and becoming teenagers, the Professor marrying Miss Bellum (actually Mojo Jojo), and the Professor creating a giant pickle (the last one is deliberately made up by the Mayor of Townsville). Other, mundane flashbacks are described but never actually shown, like the Professor renewing his driver's license. In the end, it is revealed that the entire episode itself was a flashback.