The last several days on TBS’ 6:30am showing of Family Ties, they’ve shown pieces of the Family Ties Vacation movie that came in the latter half of the show’s run. In this 4-episode movie (it really is a movie — no laugh track, obviously different production values), the crew (minus baby Andy) join Alex in London as he attends a two-week session at Oxford (or Oxnard, as Malory called it). In addition to the whole falling-in-love-on-vacation subplot with Malory and Alex’s roommate, there’s a bizarre spy plot running throughout. The whole movie is disconcerting and poorly put together with this random adventure thread carried by a crew of sitcom stars, but oddly, it’s hard to turn away.
This vacation movie got me to thinking about how a lot of 70’s and 80’s sitcoms pulled the same stunt when they were running short on ideas — Full House and Family Matters (both in Disneyworld or Disneyland, I believe) are the first to come to mind. Then there was the whole Brady Bunch deal with the unlucky Tiki in Hawaii (which may have been shown with the ghost town episodes). And Saved by the Bell is another obvious one. What others did the same thing? A few I thought may have, but I didn’t have the time to confirm, were:
- Perfect Strangers
- Growing Pains
- Facts of Life
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