The ages of the characters seem to change a lot during the series.

I notice the same thing about the ages. I remember in one episode (that aired late in the 84-85 season, in 1985), the one where Alex uses a computer to hook Mallory up on dates, she exclaims, "Alex, I'm almost 17!" Shouldn't she have been going on 18! Another strange thing...I don't remember the year it aired (either 86 or 87), Alex says how he's 19 years old. Huh?

ETA: What year did Mallory start college? It seemed that she was just floating around during the first Andy season!

It's been so long since I've watched the show... what did Alex do that year he hadn't yet started college. That is very odd he spent a year away from school! I never even noticed.

It always bugs me when shows play around with the characters ages. Certainly, when they age a baby drastically (Andy was one of many) that is the worst.

Alex also mention he was 17 when he lost his virginity and that was one of the first few episodes.

How long had the Keatons been married?

in the first season opening sequence, there is a picture of how Steven and Elyse met in 1966, but in another episode from 1984, "The Anniversery Waltz (actually shown in 1987), it sates that they were married for 20 years, which would make it 1964 when they met.

How long have they lived in the house?
In the "Tale of Two Cities" episode, they are putting up wallpaper and they state that the wallpaper that had been on the wall at first before Steven covered it (and came down momentarily) for Mallory when she was born. But in the "Heartstrings" 3-parter, they are moving in the house and Alex and Mallory are shown as little kids! That's a serious inconsistency.

Oh yes, It seem like Alex has been at Leland for FIVE YEARS instead of four. he started there in the 3rd season (1984-1985) and stayed there until the final season (1988-1989), which would make it five years instead of four. In that final season, he was graduating.
The high school years seem t be right
(1982-1983)- Alex (Junior); mallory (freshman); jennifer(4th Grade)
(1983-1984)- Alex (Senior); Mallory (Sophomore); Jennifer (5th Grade)
(1984-1985)- Alex (Freshman at Leland); Mallory (Junior); jennifer (6th Grade)
(1985-1986)- Alex (Sophomore at Leland); Mallory (Senior, whcih was a miracle); Jennifer (7th Grade)
(1986-1987)- Alex (Junior at Leland); Mallory (Grant College, not a real school) Jennifer (8th grade)
(1987-1988)- Alex (should ahve graduated this year); Mallory (Sophomore at Grant); Jennifer starts Harding High)
(1988-1989)- Alex Graduates Leland; Mallory (what she is doing, I do not know)

Thoses are about teh only inconsistencies I see so far.

Plus I know of a blooper. you know the monkey in "The Last of the red-Hot Psychiatrists". When we walks out, he has a string attached to him pulling him towards the door.

What other bloopers or inconsistencies do you see.

Sorry to bring up an old post, but I noticed another inconsistency in the show yesterday that I thought I'd share. In the episode where Elyse gives birth to Andy, which aired in the shows third season, we are introduced to Steven's co-worker (Gus's) family. In the episode he introduces his wife, his son, and his daughter to the WKS audience. The problem with that is, in The All In The Neighborhood episode, which aired in the final season, the whole episode revolves around Gus's family, and in neither of the two part stories is the daughter seen, or even mentioned. The daughter was younger then the son, so wouldn't she have been with the family? I think that's another minor detail the writers overlooked.

Originally posted by Jen1982
Good observation. I hadn't noticed that.

Thanks! You had some very good observations that I never noticed as well.

I just thought of a couple more little interesting things about this show. This isn't really an inconsistency, but it is pretty interesting nonetheless, and instead of starting a new thread about it, I thought I'd just share it here. In the first season of the show, their was an episode that revolved around Ron, and Nancy, (Elyse, and Steven's friends). In the episode Ron takes Nancy for granted, and the two wind up breaking up in the end. I believe that they got back together though because in the episode where Steven, and Elyse are celebrating their 20th anniversary, Elyse gets off the phone, and says to Steven: good news, it looks like Ron and Nancy are coming to the party, in which Steven replies: good, atleast some of my friends will be their. That statement leads me to believe that Ron and Nancy ended up getting back together.

Another thing I noticed, and this really isn't an inconsistency either, but I think it fit pretty good in this topic. Anyway if you watch the first 10 or so episodes of Family Ties, watch when the Keaton's open the front door. If you notice There is some kind of wood fence there, with flowers, and plants, and other things. But after the first season, there is no longer a wood fence, and all you can see is a house across the street. Now of course this could be explained as the Keaton's remodeling or something, but it's just another little interesting thing I noticed. Anyway if I can think of anymore inconsistencies, or interesting observations, I'll be sure to post them.

Hmm that's some good observations. I'll try to think of some as well. Oh but what mdntrider7 was saying about Ron and Nancy- Steven and Elyse's friends, well they have the same name as President Ronald Reagen and his wife Nancy. I wonder if they ddi that on purpose?

Originally posted by ~Tropical Punch 19~
Hmm that's some good observations. I'll try to think of some as well. Oh but what mdntrider7 was saying about Ron and Nancy- Steven and Elyse's friends, well they have the same name as President Ronald Reagen and his wife Nancy. I wonder if they ddi that on purpose?

You know what? That was a great observation, except I accidently mispoke. It was actually Ron, and Suzanne, not Ron and Nancy. I guess Alexe's obesession with the Reagan's got me a little confused their. Anyway I hope you can come up with some observations. I love reading about all these funny little blunders, and bloopers.

LOL oh okay. Here is one:

In the episode "Cry Baby" Jennifer begs her dad to take her to take ejr to Chrissy's house because Andy ahd ruined her homework and he promised to take her. Well, why would she want to go to a friends hosue so early in the morning? Plus another time in the episode "It's my Party" Chrissy came over Jen's house and I am pretty sure she walked over there. So, why couldn't Jne have just wlaked to Chrissy's house? There were a lot of bloopers in that particular episode (Cry Baby) but I would havbe to re watch it to list the other slip ups.

Originally posted by ~Tropical Punch 19~
LOL oh okay. Here is one:

In the episode "Cry Baby" Jennifer begs her dad to take her to take ejr to Chrissy's house because Andy ahd ruined her homework and he promised to take her. Well, why would she want to go to a friends hosue so early in the morning? Plus another time in the episode "It's my Party" Chrissy came over Jen's house and I am pretty sure she walked over there. So, why couldn't Jne have just wlaked to Chrissy's house? There were a lot of bloopers in that particular episode (Cry Baby) but I would havbe to re watch it to list the other slip ups.
It's possible that Chrissy got a ride to the Keaton's house.

Originally posted by Winnie
It's possible that Chrissy got a ride to the Keaton's house. But I think in another episode Jennifer was like "I am going over to Chrissy's house" and she walked.

Originally posted by Jen1982
Here's another inconsistency:

In one episode Andy begs Elyse and Steven to get him a dog for a pet, but Elyse tells him that they can't get a dog because Mallory is allergic to dogs, but in another episode, called Nick's Best Friend, Mallory "seems" to be just fine when around Nick's dog Scrapper. I think the writers forgot about that little fact. Also, Alex mentions that the dog is like the dog that he had when he was little. Now how can that be if Mallory was allergic to dogs?

Good one! I never noticed that before.

Here's another one: In the first episode of the second season, there is a scene with Alex, and Steven in the kitchen. Alex asks his dad what he's doing up, and Steven responds by saying: I'm waiting up for Mallory. I always get a little nervous whenever she goes out with a new boy. What I don't understand about that is that two episodes later, Mallory's boyfriend from season one (Jeff) comes back from Princeton, and he and Mallory are still boyfriend/girlfriend. If he and Mallory were still boyfriend, and girlfriend, what was Mallory doing out on a date with a new boy? It wasn't until Jeff came back where the two of them agreed to see other people.

Another thing I noticed that I find kind of odd is why was Skippy's sister only seen in one episode? Skippy probably appeared in close to half of the episodes, so why was his sister Arlene only seen once? Afterall, her and Jennifer apparently became friends, so wouldn't she have been over more often?

Another thing that I find interesting is that the fact that Alex was born in Africa was never really mentionned in another episode. It's pretty ironic for a patriotic republican I think... :lol:

Originally posted by Jen1982
I think it's interesting how not only is time played around with, but the intelligence of the characters.

Mallory goes from being able to do Algebra and Geometry to not knowing how to do long division. In the ep. where she runs for student body president, she mentions to Alex how she still doesn't understand long division and how he used to bang his head up against the wall and once got a concusion from doing so. It doesn't make sense that someone would be able to do Algebra and Geometry (in the early seasons) and not know how to do long division (in the later seasons).

I was actually just thinking about that myself the other day as I was watching the episode where Mallory and Alex took an iq test, and Mallory scored higher then Alex with a 140 iq. Just a few episodes later, there was a scene where Mallory didn't even know the definition to a simple word. How can she go from scoring almost perfect on an iq test, to not knowing the definition of a very common word? I thought that was pretty funny.

Another few things I noticed is in regards to Nick, and how in the first episode he mentions having a little brother at home, and in the next episode he mentions living with his aunt. Not only is his brother never seen in an episode, but he isn't even mentioned after that first Nick episode. As for his aunt, Mallory goes to Nick's house various times, and we never see her, and I believe she is only mentioned one other time in the rest of the shows run.

Also, why was Elyse's sister never mentioned in any episode? Her brother Ned was seen, and mentioned various times, but her sister was only seen once in the episode where her, and her family came to visit in the fifth, or sixth season. You would think that she would have been mentioned at some point before, or after that episode, but she wasn't.

Originally posted by Jen1982
This is interesting...
Just another example of how they seemed to play the "time" game.

Alex in the first season (1982) was in 12th grade, & was going off to college in the fall of 1983. In one of the eps. in the first season when he plays chess with Steven he mentions to him, "Just remember Dad, I leave for college in September". But, Sept. rolls around & he's still in high school. Suddenly he becomes the class of 1984. Mallory in the first season was in 10th grade, it was mentioned in the quiz off ep. in season one that she was a 10th grader, but in the third season it's mentioned that she's the class of 1986, which doesn't make sense. She would have been the class of 1985, if she were in 10th grade as they said in the first season. Alex graduated from high school in 1984, but didn't start college until 1985. He waited a year after graduating to start college, which seems weird (for his character). Mallory graduated high school in 1986, & started junior college that year. In the last season, in one of the last eps. it's mentioned that the next year(1990) Mallory would graduate from Grant college. That would have meant that she would have spent four years in junior college, since the 1988-1989 season was her third year at Grant. Why would she be at Grant four years if a junior college is for two years? Alex gradated from Lealand in 1989 four years after he started there in 1985. Jennifer was in 4th grade in the first season(1982) which would mean that she would be in 11th grade in the last season, but as mentioned in the last season she was in 10th grade, so once again, that doesn't make sense. Does anyone find it strange that all three of the (older) Keaton children seemed to take longer then normal to get through school?

Thanks for posting I didn't notice I haven't seen many episodes from the 1st season.