Episode 15: Out of This World
TROPE #27: Single Moms
1980s and 1990s sitcoms featured many single moms! We’ve seen them so far in a few of the failed or forgotten sitcoms we’ve covered in previous episodes. Some single moms are sweet like Judy Beauchamp in Teen Angel, and some are sassy like Elaine from Hi Honey, I’m Home! In Out of This World, Donna Garland is technically not single… her husband Troy is fighting some space war in his home planet called Antares Prime. Nevertheless, she is very much raising Evie on her own and juggling multiple careers while she does it. The only help from Troy is his sage advice to Evie transmitted through a giant crystal cube. In our episode we wonder whether this element of the show was the writers exploring their childhoods with fathers away fighting World War 2 or Vietnam.
TROPE #28: Aliens
Aliens also featured prominently throughout 80s and 90s sitcoms. It really does seem like North American TV makers were obsessed with Aliens. They were in shows you’ve seen like Mork & Mindy, ALF and Third Rock From the Sun. Extra Terrestrials were also the basis for more forgotten shows like Aliens in the Family and Out of This World. The alien characters are often from a fictional planet. In the case of Out of This World, Evie Garland, the teenage lead, was half human and half alien from the planet “Antares Prime.”
TROPE #29: Fat Shaming
Unfortunately all kinds of body shaming and outright fat shaming is sprinkled throughout 80s and 90s sitcoms. The most notable examples are the flashback scenes in Friends with “Fat Monica” and Will’s constant ribs to his uncle Phil’s size in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In Out of This World, Evie’s sweet uncle Beano is relentlessly the butt of eating or fat jokes.
TROPE #30: Blind Dating
While we didn’t see any blind dating in Out of This World, we made a point to call out this trope in the podcast episode. We probably just wished that Donna Garland would leave absent Troy and “get some.” Blind dating is featured in pretty much all of the iconic 80s and 90s sitcoms. According to TV, this was how singles got around before Tinder!
Listen to the episode on Anchor: Out of This World