So It's Come to This: A Clip Show Thread

D'Snowth

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I personally actually like clip shows myself, but like mr3urious siad, they tend to work better if they have some kind of framing device, like M*A*S*H's "Our Finest Hour," for example, where Clete Roberts returned to interview the 4077th once again, and the characters' anecdotes were accompanied by clips from previous episodes.

And if there's no framing device to speak of, it's nice to be able to kind of group the clips together by a pattern or themes, like SEINFELD's clip shows, where clips would be grouped based on unusual problems, or relationship problems, or the classic, "Nobody really gets us," theme.

Then, there's the kind of cliched plot of the clip show using a photo album or a scrapbook as the framing device, which is actually what I did when I did Steve D'Monster flashback/clip show last year... and as minor muppets pointed out, there's almost really no point in doing clip shows of webseries when previous entries can be viewed whenever (but then again, with DVD and such, that almost precludes the need for clip shows of regular TV shows too).

And similar to what Oscarfan said, a lot of series writers hate doing clip shows, but I remember Ken Levine once said that writers tend to do clip shows when they feel a network's request for episodes tend to border on ridiculous - for example, he said when he and his writing partner once pitched a brand new show to a network, one of the execs asked them, "What will the first episode of the seventh season be about?" to which they said, "A clip show of the previous six seasons."

But for me, clip shows almost kind of serve as reminders as why we became so infatuated with the shows to begin with. At least that's what the mentality was for everybody back when we did that T*K*O clip show. :stick_out_tongue:
 

mr3urious

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Then, there's the kind of cliched plot of the clip show using a photo album or a scrapbook as the framing device, which is actually what I did when I did Steve D'Monster flashback/clip show last year... and as minor muppets pointed out, there's almost really no point in doing clip shows of webseries when previous entries can be viewed whenever (but then again, with DVD and such, that almost precludes the need for clip shows of regular TV shows too).
They did play with that cliché in the season 2 finale of The Amazing World of Gumball. It gets set up like a boring old clip show with the Wattersons looking through their photo album of past events, only for the citizens of Elmore to interrupt them and call them out on all the mayhem they caused.
 

minor muppetz

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and as minor muppets pointed out, there's almost really no point in doing clip shows of webseries when previous entries can be viewed whenever (but then again, with DVD and such, that almost precludes the need for clip shows of regular TV shows too).
You misunderstood what I meant. I meant that shows like The Nostalgia Critic seem like they'd be hard to do clip shows because they rely so much on footage from existing productions (in fact I guess it'd be harder to do a clip show for Mystery Science Theater 3000).
 

mimitchi33

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They did play with that cliché in the season 2 finale of The Amazing World of Gumball. It gets set up like a boring old clip show with the Wattersons looking through their photo album of past events, only for the citizens of Elmore to interrupt them and call them out on all the mayhem they caused.
The photo album cliche in the Mumfie one I posted was actually funny. "You gave him back his teeth, and you don't want me to tell the scary snowman story again?"
Here's a clip show episode from another adult show, Drawn Together:
 

Drtooth

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I didn't catch the title, but I managed to catch one of the weird Chuck Jones Era Tom and Jerry clip cartoons (even though he didn't actually direct this one). And I have to admit, I felt it was strange and pointless until the ending.

Backtracking, it begins with oddly used and interspersed clips of old cartoons that blended in with the current animation (and yes, the look is painfully different), until they run into a movie theater playing their own cartoons... which I don't see why they couldn't have done that in the first place, since there was hardly a story to speak of anyway, It ends with them fighting in the theater but with an actual twist that almost made the cartoon worthwhile. The Tom, Jerry, and Spike on the screen start watching them.

With a NOTICEABLE dip in quality, as they tried to ape the look of the original cartoon and failed at it.

Oh, and all the original music and sound effects were redubbed with the music they were using at the time of these shorts.

Just... weird.
 

mr3urious

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Phineas & Ferb had a pretty entertaining clip show counting down the top 10 musical numbers as chosen by viewers. I found the hosting segments with Major Monogram and Dr. Doofenshmirtz highly enjoyable.
 
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