Been watching the NBC episodes and notice the family is RARELY EVER shown outside in the yard... I believe Mama for Mayor is like the only time the exterior of the house is shown... however in the syndicated years the Harpers are outside quite a bit, front and back yard. I wonder why

Been watching the NBC episodes and notice the family is RARELY EVER shown outside in the yard... I believe Mama for Mayor is like the only time the exterior of the house is shown... however in the syndicated years the Harpers are outside quite a bit, front and back yard. I wonder why
We see the back yard in Alien Marriage but its part of the set. Mama for Mayor outside scenes were not on the set. In later years, they built a set to have outside scenes. It was needed since it expanded story lines and what a pain to go back to the house in Pasadena where the owners may not even allow them to film anymore

They created a front yard and later a backyard set to get around the fact that the syndicated episodes had a smaller budget than the NBC episodes. A number of episodes during the NBC run were shot on location (which is expensive), including Mama for Mayor, the episodes where Mama learned to drive and bought a car and the cemetery episode. The only episodes that were shot on location during the syndication run was the two part Hawaii special (and they could only afford to do that because Joe Hamilton owned the resort they stayed in.) So the outside studio sets were used to get around the smaller budget they had for the later episodes.

Mama buys a car and mama learns to drive also were filmed outside.
The thing that is so interesting IMHO, is the street in Pasadena where the Mama house is, is the same street the movie Halloween was filmed on.