"Love Letter" where Iola and Mama get the wrong idea when they read a love letter meant for Naomi from Vint. And also the one where Bubba has a class project where he does a documentery on the family and his camera keeps cutting out. "The Cats Meow", thats pretty good too.

Yeah, I love "Cat's Meow, and Bubba's video one too. I also love the ones where Mama gets jobs, because she always manages to mess them up somehow, and all hysterically.

I also like The Keek!

I like the episode where Naomi's ex (forgot the character's name, but was played by Jerry Reed)--comes into town and tries to steal her back; he's going into some business venture and thinks he's going to make it big and wants Naomi to run off with him. At the end, Naomi essentially tells him to get lost.

Santa Mama
An Ill Wind(Thanksgiving episode)

I haven't seen many of the episodes in years, so I don't remember many of the plots. I DID enjoy the episode where Mama learned to drive - a lot. :rofl:

i loved (in no order):
*where the rest of the family is gone for the weekend and Mama is left by herself (along with Iola's goldfish) very :lol:.
*i liked ones where Mama gets jobs (Food Circus, she also booked people's flights for an air port) Mama and people DO NOT mix! :lol:
*Mama overdid the booze for some tonic and took it to a Church Ladies meeting.
*they opened Harper House.
*Mama recalls when she and Eunice were supposed to go to a Mother's Day thing at the Church. Eunice had plans with Duke Reeves but promised she'd be there. and she was- just late and drunk as a skunk.
*RashoMama" where they Mama gets hit in the head while making gooseberry jam and Naomi, Eunice and Ellen "recall" how it happened, while blaming each other.
"The wedding." Vint and Naomi get married... Jerry Springer style.
"Positive thinking." Eunice is in it. need i say more? :lol:
just to name a few. ;)

Alot of the ones already mentioned are my faves.

I also like:

No Room At The Inn(Just love it when Mama thinks she is watching a western with the Duke- LMAO)
Family Feud(Name something you wind up- A letter) too funny
Harper Veruse Harper(OMG what an episode)
Soup To Nuts(Just love how Naomi makes chili)
I do I don't
Very Ditry Dancing(Watching Mama dance like this is just hysterical)

Santa Mama
an ill Wind Thanksgiving

Oh yea "Dirty Dancing" is a great episode. :lol:

Dirty Dancing

I almost died laughing when I saw the episode of where Iola's cat Midnight died and Bubba, Vint, and Niomi thought they killed the cat.

When they found a stray dog and kept it in the garage out of Mama's site and named it Old Lady and Mama thought they were talking about her.

Where Mama thinks her mother has come back to haunt her.

Where Niomi calls in to Dr. Ruth about their sex life and everyu find out.

Any epsidoe where Aunt Effie is on. Like the one where Effie was sitting on the Couch and she stabs Iola with knitting thongs(or what ever they are called.) and in the end Effie goes to put the last peice in of the puzzle and everyone says no Aunt Effie and she puts it in and says all done boozo. Then Mama asks her what she would like for dinner and Aunt Effie says Oatmeal and Mama says she meant meatloaf.

Where Mama and Iola think Budda is having sex so they hide in his closet only to find out it is Vint and Niomi using the bedroom for sex.

Where a girlf from the reform school Bubba went to shows up at the Harper;s house.

I to also like the episode where Bubba filmed the family and the camera kept shorting out according to Bubba.

Where aan Uncle died and left them a Parriot named Petie thinking there was gold around the house only to find out the cage was of gold after they threw it out.

The Aprils fools joke Mama played on everyone.

The episode where Mama tried to fit Iola up on dates, but the dates kept going bad.

Where Iola was going to try and a crooked guy named Bert.

Where a crook pretended to like the pet lock idea, and Mama and Iola couldn't believe the Officer snead was an officer undercover when he look to be about 15 years old.

I to also like the Thanksving episode where Iola got drunk off Aunt Effie's rum balls.

The episode where Bubba, Vint, and Niomi change rooms. Bubba's friend in that episode where funny as hell.

When Bubba comes home drunk and then Iola tells a story about when he mother was drunk.

Melanie Bernhardt! I met her once. She attended my congregation for awhile (Riverside, CA )then moved.

The episode when Naomi moves out because Vint bought the fishing rod instead of the bed
Mama and Iola compete to be the church ladies league president
Mama works at food circus
Mama works at the burger joint with Bubba
Mama is home alone with Iola's goldfish
The lights get turned off when Mama doesn't pay the bill
Mama gets $800 from an atm machine
The chili cookoff
Mama and Iola argue over the dainty best (flower)
Bubba, vinton, and Naomi switch rooms
Iola moves in with the harpers

I like the episode where Naomi's ex (forgot the character's name, but was played by Jerry Reed)


Leonard Oates

The ones I think about most- Gooseberry jam, Thansgiving tornado, Mama planning her funeral, Mama and Effie taking dance class, both Christmas episodes. But I love them all.

There so many to list! The writers were top notch!

- Mama's new best friend in the whole world. Arlene Madison
-The prom with Vernette. That was such a sweet episode!:)
-The Love letter. Iola getting all duded up in her off the shoulder dress.:lol:
- Santa Mama. Little Dorrie was so dang adorable!!:)
- Ann Ill Wind Thanksgiving. Poor Iola! She was sure that Vint had "his way" with her:lol:
-The Cat's Meow.Iola accusing them of "some heathen ritual":lol:
- Dirty Dancing. Hilarious!:lol:
- Bubba's home movie. The dialogues got all twisted around because of the faulty camera.:lol:

So many more! The only episodes which I didn't like were Mama's Girls and Alien Marriage.Compared to the other episodes these two fell flat.

- Ann Ill Wind Thanksgiving. Poor Iola! She was sure that Vint had "his way" with her:lol.

LOL! "Sorry Sweetie, the only thing to get to you were the rumballs!"

LOL! "Sorry Sweetie, the only thing to get to you were the rumballs!"
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Definitely the episode where Bubba is shooting a video of the family for school and a short in the camera edits everyone's segments in a way that makes Mama look like:
a slut
a drunk
a neglectful parent
and not at all ashamed of any of it!

I think my favorite episode(s) is the 2 part "The Wedding", cause everyone was there, Frannie, Ellen, Eunice & Ed, Buzz & Sonya, Aunt Effie, the only ones missing were Iola and Bubba who weren't cast yet.

The Wedding is one of my favorite episodes of any series. Classic performances from almost everyone in the cast, especially Carol Burnett.
Other than that, off the top of my head my other favorites include "Cellmates," "Farewell, Frannie," "An Ill Wind," "Night at the Inn" and the episodes where Bubba did the family video as well as when Iola had her cat freeze-dried.

Mama get Goosed!!!!!

Here's my top 10 episodes of the series:
1."The Really Loud Family" (season 5)
2."Mama Gets a Job" (season 1)
3."Gift Horse" (season 4)
4."The Wedding Part 2" (season 1)
5."What a Dump" (season 5)
6."Mama on Jeopardy!" (season 4)
7."Mama Sees Red" (season 4)
8."Fran's Dress" (season 1)
9."Supermarket" (season 2)
10."Zirconia's Are a Girl's Best Friend" (season 4)

This has been my top 10 favorites for a long time and I'm seriously thinking about taking out "Supermarket" and adding "Mama Gets the Bird". Rearranging the episodes order is also not out of the question.

How about the Mama's Family episode where the telephone breaks and Vint attempts to fix it but at the end the telephone breaks again? That episode is another favorite Mama's Family episode of mine. And it always makes me laugh
Bestie

This has been my top 10 favorites for a long time and I'm seriously thinking about taking out "Supermarket" and adding "Mama Gets the Bird". Rearranging the episodes order is also not out of the question.

Mama is very unlikable in "Supermarket"; she has her moments, for sure, but overall because of her treatment of Naomi (especially if you are a big Naomi fan, like me) she is very unlikable. She is much more lovable in "Mama Gets the Bird".

My absolute favorite episodes of Mama's Family are:
An Ill Wind
The Really Loud Family
The Cat's Meow
The Wedding Parts 1 & 2

The Wedding is one of my favorite episodes of any series. Classic performances from almost everyone in the cast, especially Carol Burnett.
Other than that, off the top of my head my other favorites include "Cellmates," "Farewell, Frannie," "An Ill Wind," "Night at the Inn" and the episodes where Bubba did the family video as well as when Iola had her cat freeze-dried.

Saw "Rashomama" last night and can't believe I forgot to include it. Hilarious episode, and something that goes unnoticed if you've only seen the syndicated version is that Vicki Lawrence herself, sans the Thelma Harper costume, can be seen at the very beginning walking across the stage as a nurse.
Also the last time that Carol Burnett ever played Eunice.

Saw "Rashomama" last night and can't believe I forgot to include it. Hilarious episode, and something that goes unnoticed if you've only seen the syndicated version is that Vicki Lawrence herself, sans the Thelma Harper costume, can be seen at the very beginning walking across the stage as a nurse.
Also the last time that Carol Burnett ever played Eunice.
Carol Burnett as Eunice was heard but not seen in "Mama's Birthday".

1. Rashomama
2. The Flaming Forties
3. The Wedding (both parts)
4. Black Belt Mama
5. The Cat's Meow

Carol Burnett as Eunice was heard but not seen in "Mama's Birthday".

Yes, my bad there. The phone call was the last time Carol played Eunice, although the character made one more appearance in "Pomp and Circumstance" with a different actress voicing Eunice.

Obscene Call from season 2 is still one of the funniest episodes of any show I've ever seen. Ken Berry/Vint's line "He wants to what with all of us" cracks me up every time. :lol:

Obscene Call from season 2 is still one of the funniest episodes of any show I've ever seen. Ken Berry/Vint's line "He wants to what with all of us" cracks me up every time. :lol:

I also love Willie Nelson being played by mistake on the tape recorder. Too bad that part was cut out on the DVDs.

Mama: “Would somebody tell me what he said?!”

Very much agree. I listed that episode as one of my own favorites earlier in this thread, and will build on that by saying the first three syndicated episodes did a very good job putting a bow on the NBC version of the show and steadily building into the syndicated world.
I am not the biggest fan of "Where There's a Will" (although it had funny moments) but "Best Medicine" is solid and somewhat sentimental for those of us who liked the NBC episodes because it's Betty White's farewell. For those of us who would have liked more of a mix between NBC and syndication, that beginning of season 3 is as close as the show came.

I also love Willie Nelson being played by mistake on the tape recorder. Too bad that part was cut out on the DVDs.


Thanks to our draconian music copyright standards. Licensing anything in perpetuity is about impossible. That's why Just the Ten of Us has been MIA in all media for 20+ years and will remain so. Unless Warner Bros. chokes up some $$$.

Here's my favorites--

1. Where they visit an exclusive country club or whatever and embarrass Ellen.

2. Love Letter or whatever the title is, with the mixup on the letter that Thelma thought the fridge repair man wrote, and Iola thought Vint wrote for her.

3. The ghost of Thelma's mother haunts her, with the hilarious scene about how much salt to put in the peas (depends how much you put in, in the first place.)

4. Mama goes ballistic when she works at the same fast food place as Bubba. Dorothy Lyman has trouble keeping a straight face. And another Mama meltdown, when she loses it during the interview for Vint and Naomi's adoption.

EDIT: Oh yeah somebody else mentioned the one where the church ladies get bombed on Thelma's tonic.

EDIT again: Reading the other comments, I'm like, oh yeah, that one too!

I agree with the comments about the music. I fixed the episodes with Willie Nelson, "Harper Days are Here Again", and the nursing home by editing the songs back in from TV showings. I don't know if there were music edits in seasons 3 thru 6 since my go-to copies of those came from TBS recordings I made years ago.