Until the 70s I notice that when a character was pregnant on a show but the actress wasn't the pregnancy would only last for a handful of shows. Like it was typical for the character to announce that she was expecting in the season premiere and then go into labor during the November sweeps. Examples of this can be seen in Get Smart, My Three Sons, The Flintstones (I don't think Pebbles was born in a sweeps month, but Wilma was only pregnant for a few shows).

Even in I Love Lucy where Lucille Ball was really pregnant they only had the character pregnant for a handful of episodes. I guess the belief was that pregnancy plots could only go on for but so long before audiences got bored or uncomfortable.

Now it's typical for a character to be pregnant for an entire season like on Mad About You or Too Close for Comfort. Or for roughly the real amount of time that a woman would be pregnant in real life

On Roseanne Roseanne was pregnant for a season plus about 8 additional episodes. She was pregnant for so long that I'd forgotten that she was supposed to be pregnant!

Question:
Aside from Roseanne is there a character that was pregnant for longer than one whole season? Also what character had a pregnancy that was shorter than 4 or 5 consecutive episodes?

Carla on Cheers has been pregnant so many times, I'm sure she fits one of those categories.

Also, Phoebe on Friends was pregnant for most of the fourth season and the first few episodes of the fifth.

Originally posted by slackermonkey
Carla on Cheers has been pregnant so many times, I'm sure she fits one of those categories.

Also, Phoebe on Friends was pregnant for most of the fourth season and the first few episodes of the fifth.

Carla was pregnant 3 different times which must be a record in a sitcom. All 3x Rhea Pealman was really pregnant too. Elizabeth Montgomery was pregnant 3x during Bewitched as well: during the production of the pilot, in year 2 (she was pregnant for 1/2 the season- so she is an exception to the only being pregnant for 7 or so episodes rule) and then again at the end of year 5 and the beginning of year 6 during the so-called Dick switch period.

Technically Rachel on Friends was pregnant for a season plus, since even though the audience didn't find out about Rachel's pregnancy until the season finale of season 7, she was pregnant during the end of season 7. She didn't give birth until the season finale of season 8.

Originally posted by slackermonkey
Carla on Cheers has been pregnant so many times, I'm sure she fits one of those categories.

Thinking about it, I just realized they covered their bases well with Carla-- the first time she was pregnant she was pregnant for a while before she told anyone, so no one really knew when she became pregnant. The second time we saw when became pregnant, but we never saw her have the baby--she was pregnant at the end of season 3 and the first episode of season 4, but after Sam returned from Italy, months passed by, and she was no longer pregnant in the rest of the first season 4 episode. We never saw her become pregnant during season 6, either, because she became pregnant in the months that passed by while Sam was off sailing and Rebecca was taking over the bar. So we either never saw the beginning or the end of a pregnancy, so we could never judge how long it actually was. Good way to keep continuty lol.

Roseanne wasn't the only one on the show who was pregnant a really long time.

Darlene announced she was preg in March/April 96 and gave birth around Feb or Mar 97, making the pregnancy a little more than 10 or 11 months

Naomi on Mama's Family seemed to have been pregnant for an eternity! :lol:

On Charmed- when Piper was pregnant with Wyatt, she was pregnant from the end of season 4 to halfway in season 5. When Piper was pregnant with Chris, (Holly Marie Combs was pregnant in real life then) she was pregnant for about 10 episodes but they claim there was a 6 month gap between 2 episodes

Originally posted by Dr. Jazz
Naomi on Mama's Family seemed to have been pregnant for an eternity! :lol:

:lol: It didn't seem to me that she was pregnant for very long.

Fittingly, Naomi gave birth to her baby in the season finale of the last season. :D

in the New Leave it to Beaver, Wally's wife seemed to be pregnant for a long time.

Originally posted by Dr. Jazz
Naomi on Mama's Family seemed to have been pregnant for an eternity! :lol:

She was only pregnant for one season basically. The last episode of season five to the last episode of season 6.

in the other way, Cordelia on Angel had the shortest pregnancy. She announced she was expecting in one episode, and less than 5 episodes later, she was giving birth to a 30 year old lady, LOL.