Nit-picking

Murph

New member
Here's the thread to point out the little things you have noticed in MITM that have bothered you!

Anybody wanna go first-okay, fair enough, I'll go first :D

In "Day Care", when the boys are going to a Catholic church, and Dewey asks Hal "what's the deal with the T on the wall?" (referring to the Cross), the Cross doesn't have Jesus on it. Catholic's (I would know) have Jesus on the Cross. It's non-Catholic Christian's who don't.

I'm sure we could all share some examples...come on, don't leave me hangin'!
 
I don't remember a mention of the church being Catholic. The only possible hint I got was in the name ("The Brethren of Calvary"), but that really means nothing. Or perhaps you could be talking about the "precepts of the covenant," but I think other churches have those too, not just Catholic ones (although certainly not Fundamentalists). Do you remember a place in the episode where they specifically said it was Catholic? I ask because I think the writers wouldn't have missed something like that if they really intended it to be a Catholic church.

Edit: Or, maybe there's an issue because they intended for the type of church to be unknown. That way, they wouldn't be picking on any denomination with the drug song and other issues up-tight people might have with the episode.
 

Malcoholic

New member
I've always assumed that church in Day Care is Protestant, because the minister is called "Reverend so-and-so" or maybe it's "Pastor so-and-so," but definitely not "Father so-and-so," which is what the script would call him if he were supposed to be a Catholic priest.

One of my favorite nits to pick is in the Alaska episode where Piama gets arrested for striking a police officer (can't remember the title--it's the one where Francis and Piama get evicted from their house.) Her police mug photo says "Mamu County," but--here's the nit!--there are no counties in Alaska; the state is too thinly populated to be subdivided into counties.
 

AlexTheMartian

New member
Murph said:
Here's the thread to point out the little things you have noticed in MITM that have bothered you!

Anybody wanna go first-okay, fair enough, I'll go first :D

In "Day Care", when the boys are going to a Catholic church, and Dewey asks Hal "what's the deal with the T on the wall?" (referring to the Cross), the Cross doesn't have Jesus on it. Catholic's (I would know) have Jesus on the Cross. It's non-Catholic Christian's who don't.

I'm sure we could all share some examples...come on, don't leave me hangin'!
yeah I think that was Protestant not Catholic, It did not seem Catholic and I know I went to a Catholic school until my Junior year of High School.
 

Nico21

New member
Maybe the authors simply wanted to let the audience have a doubt on it !

As for the name of the family (which is actually "Nolastname"), or the city where they live, these elements are not shown so the spectators are not prejudiced against the familly or their beliefs !



For the "T on the wall", I just thought it was a funny gag, I didn't search further !
 

rzombie1988

New member
Smunday - The boys are grounded from going outside, but yet get on the roof and throw the stuff off of it.

Smunday - Dewey has a candy problem that isn't revealed until the company picnic, but eats the candy without any problem.
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
Dewey's had a candy problem before and I don't think it's been completely ignored--it's just not quite as serious as it becomes in Company Picnic. And they can go outside because no one is keeping them inside--I mean, Lois is sick in bed and Hal's at work.
 

rzombie1988

New member
yardgames said:
Dewey's had a candy problem before and I don't think it's been completely ignored--it's just not quite as serious as it becomes in Company Picnic. And they can go outside because no one is keeping them inside--I mean, Lois is sick in bed and Hal's at work.
But earlier, they were afraid to go outside out of fear of getting caught. The only way that could be explained is that when they did go outside, Lois knew it wasn't sunday, but theres no proof to that.
 

tony_montana

Semper Fidelis
@The Daycare nitpick- Im pretty sure it wasn't a Catholic church. If it were, then the pastor would have been father instead, and like Murph said, a Catholic cross would have a image of Christ on it. Plus, the women who worked at the church would have been nuns if it were Catholic.

@The Smunday nitpick- Dewey actually did have a sugar problem even then because he drank tons of those sugary orange sodas and he started jiggling on the couch and his eyes got big(sugar rush!).:D

@Cheerleader(this is a small nitpick)- After Reese thinks about leaving the cheer squad, he tries cutting up his uniform until Malcolm is able to persuade him not to. Later, near the end of the episode when the squad is in the triangle, if you look at Reese's uniform, it has stitches all in it.:D I wonder why they didn't give him a new uniform?
Oh, also about "Cheerleader"(and the rest of the show)- What became of Reese and Wendy's relationship? It was never explained for the rest of the show and that was the only episode Wendy was ever in.
 

Wildcat

Retired Moderator
tony_montana said:
@Cheerleader(this is a small nitpick)- After Reese thinks about leaving the cheer squad, he tries cutting up his uniform until Malcolm is able to persuade him not to. Later, near the end of the episode when the squad is in the triangle, if you look at Reese's uniform, it has stitches all in it.:D I wonder why they didn't give him a new uniform?
Oh, also about "Cheerleader"(and the rest of the show)- What became of Reese and Wendy's relationship? It was never explained for the rest of the show and that was the only episode Wendy was ever in.

Actually, I think it would have been more of a nitpick if his uniform didn't have stitches in it. It was more believable for him to try to cut it up, then have to get it sewed, than show up a few days later with a brand new uniform. I think uniforms are exepensive and they would probably make him pay for it himself since he damaged it on purpose (and we know the Wilkerson's have no money.) It would also probably take a couple weeks to order a new one.

As for what happened to he and Wendy, that's just one of the many MITM plots that are left up to the viewer to decide. They don't tell us how long Reese continued to be a cheerleader after that episode either. It's annoying at times, but it's one of the things that makes the show unique. :)
 
I don't have both episodes' credits to check, but does anyone else think the Wendy in Cheerleader and the Wendy in Butterflies look alike (with aging, of course)? It'd be funny if they were actually the same actress.

Edit: Well, I checked and they're not the same. Too bad...that would have been a nice catch.
 

tony_montana

Semper Fidelis
That's a good question. I have no idea what happened to the Krelboynes. I wish they would have been around for the last two seasons, and it would have rocked if they could have been in the finale.
Now that I think about it, I don't think we saw the krelboynes anymore because by season 5, both Malcolm and Stevie seemed to be back into the normal school population. They had classes with all the regular students, etc.
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
And we know from Humilithon that Malcolm was trying to break away from them. Still, it would have been nice to see them in an episode like Morp.
 
I have a nit-pick from Season 6...

In Malcolm's Car, when Lois found out about Craig's affair with the boss's wife, she said that she once let Craig sleep on her floor when he thought his cat's ghost was trying to kill him. Then, in Living Will, Craig said that he wasn't going to go with his dad because he loved his cat. Now, as far as we know, Craig's only cat is/was Jellybean, which makes for an interesting explanation of these statements. I guess he could have gotten another cat in the meantime (or have been creepily referring to a dead cat), but I think that it's odd to have those statements only three episodes apart from each other.
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
That's a good one. In defense of the writers, I would argue that Craig is very easily creeped out and he could have thought his cat turned into a ghost for some strange reason, then realized when he discovered it wasn't actually a ghost that he still loved it.
 

tony_montana

Semper Fidelis
....
I can't believe we are sitting here talking about the ghost of a dead cat.:D
But then again, that's Craig for ya. Thinking a cat's ghost is trying to kill him.:D
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
Being scared of ghosts seems to be quite common in wherever it is the Wilkersons live. Hal was too scared to go to work one day because there was a ghost in his car too. (Reese Joins the Army) Are there any other references to ghosts?
 

rzombie1988

New member
yardgames said:
Being scared of ghosts seems to be quite common in wherever it is the Wilkersons live. Hal was too scared to go to work one day because there was a ghost in his car too. (Reese Joins the Army) Are there any other references to ghosts?

Craig thought he saw one in the Lucky Aide and pushed the button for burgulars. They mention that as a reason they disabled the button.
 
Top