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- Other Thoughts:
Ellen is gay? What a shocker.
when one of the supporting original cast, adam, left the show.
When Ellen became "just" a lesbian.
While Ellen might like to think that her show was a victim of intolerance, the real problem was that it was never very good to begin with. Straight or gay, her character just wasn't funny.
Thank God its over.
When Ellen decided to admit that she is gay and she felt compelled to remind us week in and week out And she needed to tell us about all the gay things she did. The shark she jumped was gay too!!! "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
ellen never jumped even when she "suddenly" announced she was gay. The show was witty and humorous in a sarcastic way. I am glad its in syndication on Lifetime.
The episode where Ellen totally offends her Indian neighbors, and ends up dressed as a chicken and falls through their roof. Man, that was way too far. And every other punchline was directed toward people who hate/don't understand homosexuals. She was hysterical because she didn't take anything (including herself seriously.) As soon as she became a "serious" advocate, the show went to hell.
I was really happy when Ellen came out, but then it turned into a one-joke show.
Who ever decided that ellen was funny? she makes me nervous, watching her banter in her monotone. and you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to realize that she was gay--so what?! but, since she came out on the show, she seems to be leading a one woman recruiting crusade. to each their own, but i'm not interested. she should crawl back into her closet and shut the hell up. ellen hosting the fashion awards on vh1, puh-leeze spare us!!! she is the biggest fashion DON'T i have ever seen. lesbianism may be chic, but ellen's wardrobe is not!
Uhm.. It just was never really all that funny.: "Hey if Seinfeld can make a hit TV show about nothing, ANY comedian can!" Those of us who tuned in to see Ellen before the notorious 'coming out' episode know the truth. It was never funny. The episode where they're having to move the refrigerator from apartment to apartment, that had its moments, but her coming out was really a cry for more ratings. And when she came out she didn't DO anything. She didn't get funnier. I like Ellen Degeneres. She's a funny comedienne, but her tv show just didn't entertain me. The humor was too forced and the characters too stale and flat.
I liked the show in it's first couple of years just because of Ellen herself. The show was a bit of a Seinfeld rip off and jumped around way to much trying to "find itself" no doubt. We always liked the fat Canadian, you have know idea how proud it made Newfoundladers to have "newfie jokes" mentioned on American tv. for Canadians this is even more groundbreaking than that whole boring lesbian thing!
The show was really good it never jumped. Unlike the finale of Sienfield Ellen had a great finale. ellens humor was great, like a modern lucille ball, and who cares if she is gay?
When ellens preference was a 'secret' she was being dishonest with the audience. she could never look us in the eye, she talked too fast. When she came out she was preachy and shrill about abc's supposed nonsupport. Couldn't anne help her interpret the nielsens? This just in ...Fran Drescher has lost the Rosie Perez award for irritating voice to clea lewis. There's always next year fran.
When Ellen "came out". Apparently, they were under the impression that incessant discussion of gay issues is a substitute for comedy.
I really enjoyed the coming out episode although it did have plenty of shark sightings (why did she need all of those guest stars to help her out?) After that the show just became tiresome...every single show had to make some political statement about her sexuality. Her character changed overnight and I was glad they finally took the show off the air.
When she announced that she was gay, the whole show turned to her complaining about how bad everyone treated gays. I didn't like this show to begin with, but at least before I could stand watching it...
Ellen jumped the shark when they stopped making jokes and turned the show in some 30 minutes statement about the homosexual persons rights. Besides, she was so uncomfortable about the fact of being gay, that made me uncomfortable too, being a woman about her age. Besides, the poor girl is so ugly...
When Ellen (the actress) came out, or about one season before Ellen (the character) did. The show began (even as These Friends of Mine) with funny stories about Ellen and her wacky friends. After Ellen came out it focused on gay themes way too much.
It started out jumping every once and a while, but when she came out, it stopped. Like the show or not, Ellen broke new ground for TV comedy. The last season was great, but it dealt with nothing but lesbian issues and relationships. That's what killed the show. I loved it, but most of the audience didn't.
"Ellen" jumped when Ellen came out of the closet.
It jumped not when the funny arye gross left, not when she came out, but it jumped when every joke was about lesbians. I felt very left out and I had to stop watching even though all of Ellen's female friends were very beautiful. I wonder if Ellen ever thought of having sex with them, I sure did.
The instant Ellen decided this was a medium to promote her real life lesbian lifestyle, she forgot to be funny. The shows goal changed from comedic entertainment to sexual preaching. What an idiot! Grow up Ellen, nobody really gives a hoot if you are straight, gay, into animals, or whatever. You get paid to entertain, not preach.
after the coming out episode, everything was a lesbian joke. jesus, stretch a little.
This show was hilarious before the "coming out" episode. After that, it just stopped being funny. It was just about all of her gay issues.
I would say this show jumped from Day One, because it wasn't funny. Ellen DeGeneres does great standup, but this show sucked. It got even worse after she came out. I remember reading about her shredding the network for canceling her show, saying they were just afraid to do a show about a lesbian. NO!! IT WASN'T FUNNY!! Stupid characters, annoying situations, bad writing and acting... Ellen, get a clue! Go back to being as hilarious as we know you can be and get off your lesbian high horse.
I watched that groundbreaking 'very special episode,' in which Ellen's character came out of the closet, which was a week before she did,...and I'm a straight man. In the first few weeks after that, I still laughed at all her jokes, many of which stuck it to our heterosexual stereotypes about gays and lesbians. But afterwards, the show overdid it. ABC's "parental discretion" labels, which I were unjustified, and unnecessary, since the show was going downhill. The final episode was a lame attempt to spoof various elements in TV history, and it was just plain intolerable at times. Sad, Sad, Sad.
When she came out of the closet-too contrived and tried too hard.
OK, let's establish from the get-go that Ellen Degenerate raises self-indulgency to new highs. Or, in this case lows. Actually I think she likes the MIDDLE GROUND if you know what I mean, Bwaaaa-hahhh! Anyhow, Ellen's lust for women was clear to anyone who ever watched her early standup. She would come out on stage wearing a MANLY suit that just screamed, "I want SNATCH, NOW!" Ellen, SHADDUP....not even the horniest male OR most raging BULLDYKE alive would want to see you clothed, never mind buck naked.....yet you persist in screaming in everyone's face, "I AM A PERSECUTED LESBIAN!" *Yawn*.....this show jumped the moment Ellen announced over the loudspeaker at an airport that she was gay....Marcia Brady getting her first period would have been more interesting.
Originally Ellen was called These Friends of Mine, so Mrs. Ellen threw a tantrum claiming that she wants the show named after her ala Seinfeld or Roseanne. The second the brass cowtowed to her demands the show was over, soon the original cast members disappeared, the storylines became droll and eventually they forgot they were a comedy and became a self-righteous panel for Ellen's issues.
The "coming out" was a desperate attempt to increase ratings and in the end failed miserably. With Ellen being gay the show lost viewers, produced less laughter, and was centered around awkward themes. Hey, Ellen may have looked as an inspiration to those battling with their own sexuality, but the final episode was on vaudeville.
When Ellen came out the closet it just wasn't as funny anymore. The humor was targeted toward gays and I wasn't part of the inner circle.
Sure enough, Ellen has never been funny. To people who claim that she was a good comedienne -- have you SEEN her standup act? It's just one joke after another about how awkward she feels in her day to day life! Ten minutes talking about the awkwardness of tripping in public! NOT FUNNY!
I am a lesbian and I HATED this show! It was obvious from day one that Ellen is gay--she embodies all the NEGATIVE stereotypes: Refuses to wear a dress or makeup and therefore goes out of her way to look plain, walks like she's wearing a strap-on, cut her hair to an unflattering length. How she ever managed to land Anne Heche is beyond me! Anyway, back to the show. She has absolutely no talent at as comedienne. Her ill-at-ease antics and faux pas are pathetic at best. And those polyester pants suits...Yech! She set ALL lesbians back 30 years. A terrible show.
Clearly when Ellen came out and the show became about how hard it is to be gay in this bigoted world, blah, blah, blah. The show wasn't that bad when it was just trying to be funny -- someone needed to remind Ellen that sitcom stands for situation COMEDY -- if I want to be indoctrinated I'll just turn on CNN or a Clinton press conference. Also notice how the liberal mindset, when devoid of an intellectual leg to stand on, resorts to good old tried and true name calling: if you don't like my show, it's because YOU are a homophobe. It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that it sucks!
This show was pretty terrible when it first started out. Ellen is not a very funny comedian, and it almost looked like a "Friends" clone at first, with Ellen always looking for love and hanging out with her friends. The show only got good when Ellen came out of the closet and announced she was gay. Suddenly, the show took on an added dimension and became interesting. Finally, there was a sitcom on tv with a lead character who was a lesbian! This was monumental! However, even though this element made the show much more interesting (and Ellen finally got involved in a love relationship with a single mother that seemed original and authentic for once - for this show), Ellen remained mostly unfunny. Maybe it would have worked a lot better if it had been a drama or a comedy/drama. But as a sitcom, the lack of laughs eventually doomed it. I really wish ABC had stuck behind it, though, because it was getting better when they cancelled it. The supporting cast was really good, too.
Why couldn't she stay IN the closet? I loved the show, then she had to open the closet door... All of a sudden, it's like Will & Grace (Which I love, I just don't like how much Ellen changed after she "came out". Put her back in!) without Grace.
I used to rag on Ellen like everyone else, but after her stand-up and a couple of interviews, I have a ton of respect for her inside or outside the closet. Next thing you know, she'll be on the GOP ticket!
I think my category says it all. Ellen jumped the shark when she came out!
I could never figure out who was more uncomfortable, me trying to watch this gay show, or ellen, trying to act in this gay show. "Ellen" was 1) never funny, and 2) Preachier than Oral Roberts on crack.
I thought this was a great show and was supportive of Ellen's desire to "come out". But then the show changed and it was all about being gay and all the rest was lost. It would have been better if Ellen had shown her critiques how gay people live ordinary lives like the rest of us instead of intimating that their sexuality is an obsession. I did enjoy the episode where Ellen dreams that homosexuality is the norm and the straight people are the oddballs. Very funny. I have tried to catch that one again on reruns but so far no luck.
The episode when she came out was hilarious! I loved this show. The only problem was, after she came out the show turned from being a comedy to a "homosexual awareness" program. All of a sudden we were watching her "deal" with being gay instead of watching her be funny, which she did very well in the seasons before her soapbox season.
Damn, this was a FUNNY show, but SO MUCH went wrong. The "Very Special" was only one thing. Even the coming out was funny, and so were, like, the next two episodes. But yeah, it became a one-joke show, and it was so NOT funny after that. But the problems started even before then: A) Ellen SELLS the bookstore! B) Ellen moves into some GIANT SUBURBAN HOUSE, and finally C) Ellen comes out and apparently leaves all her wit and humor in the closet. Bad, bad, and bad.
I thought this show was very entertaining. I used to like when Ellen would come on and sing the opening for the show with a live band behind her and costumes. She's the Lucille Ball of the New millennium.
Although this series will be memorialized in TV history books for its baby step exploration of lesbianism, it was never very good. It represents the purest form of the Standup Vehicle of the 1990s. Ellen Degeneres was a Triple-A distaff version of the top stand-up observationists of the day, and her standing is appropriately low. While Jerry Seinfeld was arguably outclassed by his supporting cast, and Helen Hunt spent years making Paul Reiser look good, so did "Ellen" represent the last rung of the ladder; DeGeneres, a lame, unintelligent, and unattractive bandwagon jumper, was made a star, while her fabulous supporting cast (the magnetic Jeremy Piven, the brilliant Clea Lewis, the astoundingly dry David Anthony Higgins, the swashbuckling Bruce Campbell, the luscious Joely Fisher) were forced to stand around and feed her straight lines. It was like Kenny G fronting the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, and it was disgusting.
I didn't really start watching the show until it went into syndication on Lifetime. I used to feel bad that 'Ellen' was cancelled because Ms. DeGeneres' sexual orientation. However, after watching both before and after the coming out episodes, I see why it got cancelled. If I were the head of ABC or whichever network it was on and I was getting all the pressure from sponsors and I saw how badly the show slipped I would've cancelled it too. It just became too much about Ellen and her being gay instead of the ensemble comedy that it was before. Ellen just isn't that funny on her own...straight or gay.
Even Elton John said that once she came out she should have just gotten on with the show and stopped harping on the subject! Ellen turned what used to be a fairly entertaining show into a nonstop PC pity party so that by the time it was finally cancelled only the most PC gay activists were still watching. And I thought it was unbelievably pathetic how on 'Prime Time Live' she solely claimed ABC's being 'unsupportive' as the cause of the show's demise. Gee whiz, they changed the show's title to her first name, trimmed the cast at her apparent behests, allowed and then endlessly promoted her character's coming out and even after it got cancelled due to basement ratings, ABC let the top reporter from one of their shows interview her (ABC News is a division of ABC Entertainment BTW which was responsible for both shows) and then aired the tape- complete with her scathing commentary towards them. .. and she says they were 'unsupportive'?! It would seem more likely that someone was extremely ungrateful and I don't think it was ABC!
This show never jumped! I enjoyed it from beginning to end. The Martha Stewart episode is a classic. I have such respect and fondness for Ellen. I am so glad it is on Lifetime now.
The coming out episode was funny, but after that all the shows were about her being gay. I just read all the comments about Ellen. You don't have to show all of them, especially when they repeat the same thing over and over. If you think she's ugly, fine. But that has nothing to do with whether she's talented, or if the show was good. If you just don't think she's funny at all, you have a right to that opinion, but comedians and actors are human beings. I'm saying this as an aspiring comedian. It makes me sad to read all the personally attacking remarks about her, as if she's not allowed to make a mistake. The show was good (with the exception of after she came out of the closet). If you didn't like it, it just wasn't your brand of humor. Don't attack someone just because you didn't find them entertaining.
This show jumped way before Ellen "came out". I think it was the second season when they dumped most of the cast and re did the whole show. The reason for that was that the supporting cast was funnier and more interesting than the star. After that, the show, like the star wasn't funny.
After Ellen sold the bookstore, the show lost its focus.
Even Elton John said that once she came out she should have just gotten on with the show and stopped harping on the subject! Ellen turned what used to be a fairly entertaining show into a nonstop PC pity party so that by the time it was finally cancelled only the most PC gay activists were still watching. And I thought it was unbelievably pathetic how on 'Prime Time Live' she solely claimed ABC's being 'unsupportive' as the cause of the show's demise. Gee whiz, they changed the show's title to her first name, trimmed the cast at her apparent behests, allowed and then endlessly promoted her character's coming out and even after it got cancelled due to basement ratings, ABC let the top reporter from one of their shows interview her (ABC News is a division of ABC Entertainment BTW which was responsible for both shows) and then aired the tape- complete with her scathing commentary towards them. .. and she says they were 'unsupportive'?! It would seem more likely that someone was extremely ungrateful and I don't think it was ABC!
Adam, the roommate, was the only funny character on the show. When he left, they made all those other annoying characters hang out together all the time like they were best friends. The annoying best friend, the fat coffee guy, and that horrible bitch Joelly Fisher were too much to take in large doses, and the scripts weren't funny.
I actually watched this show when Adam was in it (I believe it was it's second season), and it was not that bad. But once Adam left, and casting changes were made too many times the show sucked big time!! And then her coming out of the closet episode was stupid!!! It was a bad show and they tried to get it popular by having her come out of the closet. Then when the ratings went down and it was finally cancelled Ellen tried to blame it on the network not liking her lesbian character!!! ELLEN YOUR SHOW ALWAYS SUCKED!!! Adam was the only good character on the show!
I admit, I got a good chuckle or two out of the show from time to time (although, being a proud Newfoundlander myself, I was personally offended by the "Those Newfies are so stupid" crack. I can take a good Newfie joke, and have even told a few from time to time, but that comment was just a flat-out insult). I actually liked the coming-out episode, and I could understand why the last few episodes of the season dealt with it, because she was still adjusting to her new lifestyle. I gotta tell you, though, she lost my at the "Gay Yellow Pages" episode. I mean, the fat, middle-aged plumber who she knew for years, just happened to be gay??? Get real!
I am myself gay and threw a party the night of the Coming Out episode! However, the show went into the toilet after that; EVERY show was gaygaygaygaygay, and it was preachy instead of funny. Open-minded straight people began to rethink their views on gays because it was the essence of "In Your Face" and not done well, to boot. I remember exactly ONE funny episode after that time: the one with Emma Thompson. The rest were horrible and I'm glad they pulled it before she embarrassed us further.
"These Friends of Mine" was funny. Then they thought they'd add a fat guy and make it hilarious. WRONG! Dave Higgins was a poor attempt to bring in some levity, but he failed. Shame on you, Mr. H!
These Friends of Mine was fantastic. The cast jelled and gave the show a "Seinfeld" feel. Then for some reason they brought Higgins in some time in the first season. This guy must have "friends" in the business (he might be the same persuasion as Ellen) because he brought the humor to a screeching halt. They tried to cover him up later by adding Jeremy Pivin, but even Jeremy's talent couldn't hide the whole that Higgins was making.
When the guy who played her cousin left the show. His name escapes me at the moment, but he is a really good ensemble cast member. Too bad Ellen wasn't.
The ratings fell when ABC stopped doing its usual promos for the show like it did for all its other sitcoms. Ellen is a modern-day Lucy! I love her physical humor - whether Ellen's character, Ellen, was gay or straight.
I just about tossed my cookies on the keyboard when I saw the latest post' a *modern-day Lucy*? UGH!! BLEAH!<COUGH> <COUGH> I don't care what Ellen does with consenting adults, but how DARE you attempt to defile Lucy's good name that way! Lucy will always be the standard that all other comedians will aspire to for the rest of humanity's time on this planet while Ellen will be lucky if she's even a Trivial Pursuit question in ten years time! Ellen wouldn't be fit to have peeled Lucy's grapes.
I'm not homophobic, but after Ellen came out, EVERY SINGLE JOKE AND COMMENT on the show was a lesbian reference. It was to the point where you couldn't watch for a few seconds without rolling your eyes. I mean, enough is enough!
When she came out of the closet and then every episode had to be a " Gay thing", Come on, was anyone surprised??? Too bad, I really liked the show better with out the preachy, I am proud to be gay themes.
The second that Ellen came out. The show had very strong, defined characters, but as soon as she came out, the show went from being a funny character-driven show, to a not-so-funny issue-driven show. Big mistake. Not even the ultra-adorable (not to mention good acting) of Jeremy Piven could save this show. The characters became secondary after the "coming out."
I hate having ANY KIND of agenda forced on me. Ellen could have healed many wounds by just being a HUMAN BEING who is gay, leading a regular (hopefully funny) life. I am not homophobic, but I did find myself thinking less than charitable things about gay people after the soapbox was brought out of the closet. I see she has a new show coming out in the fall. Wonder if she learned anything???
Don't get me wrong...I Loved Ellen..I really didn't care which way she swung, but would have liked a little warning. You think "Wow..I'm a lot like her"...single...a little on the kookie side,then WHAM she throws that at you. I don't care that she is gay..I would have watched the show even if she had been gay from the start. It kind of blew it for me though..jumped the shark. Was a great episode though! Just didn't seem as funny after that.
Its fine to think that this show wasnt funny, etc. But too all you people who just sit here and say it was too preachy and it forced homosexuality in your faces...well, try watching every other show on tv--you know, you will have heterosexuality thrown in your face. If what is written here about Ellen is true, then this must be true: On Friends when Monica and Chandler or Ross and Rachel got together--this threw heterosexuality in our faces and was preachy about being heterosexual. On the Sopranos when Tony goes to a strip club--god this just throws heterosex right in my face! Or on the Cosby Show--those black people just threw race in all our faces. The show got warning labels on it because of homophobia, that is the truth. Because there were mentions of being gay on a show--it got a TV14 rating.
The show didn't shark the episode Ellen came out. The show sharked when the premise was changed. I still liked the show, but I no longer made a point to tune in every Wednesday night. It wasn't BECAUSE Ellen came out or BECAUSE the jokes became same-sex oriented, but because Ellen was no longer Ellen. She was suddenly more confident and less reliant on her friends. And the show became more about her relationship than about her quest FOR a relationship. The new Ellen would have done better AS "The New Ellen" as in focusing on SOMETHING ELSE. It was simply no longer about Ellen and her friends. That was the major problem. It was about Ellen's real life and her advocacy toward GLTB issues. It became too serious.
Forget the coming out episode; Mr. Jaws already had witnessed the orbit of this one long before that happened. Like many posters above, it's when Arye Gross was forced off by the egomaniacal Ellen who felt he was too strong of a character on the show. With Gross, the show was witty funny and well acted; without him, it was Ellen and her cast of wack packers, reacting to her every absurd situation. Note tho: wouldnt it have been cool to see Arye Gross and Ellen's characters try and woo the same chick? hot hot hot...
Most of the others above me seem to think that the entire show was about lesbiansism from that point. I'd like to set the record straight that the show started sucking not because she was a lesbian, but it just was not funny any longer. When she couldn't keep a relationship (which was interesting), they got desperate for new material which was consistently the theme of "Ellen tries a new job and ****s it up", and finally the job they got her was as a radio talk show host--the only funny radio talk show host in a sitcom is (and will ever be) FRASIER!
They changed the name from "These friends of mine" to "Ellen", and changed the supporting cast.
A lot of you are saying it jumped when every show was about being gay. That's not actually true. Half the shows were about being gay. The other half, it was as if there was no such thing as homosexuality, and those shows were the ones that gave us Ellen in a chicken suit on a roof, and Ellen re-enacting a civil war battle with her father in a vacant city lot. A lot of people seem to WANT to think the gay shows weren't funny, but I think it was the non-gay ones that were the most awkward, and the rest were so well done, so touching with just the right amount of humor. Maybe you had to be gay to get that, or at least you had to have not decided that using issues in a TV show makes it unfunny automatically. I'm sad the show was cancelled and even sadder that people are remembering it this way.
When Ellen decided to announce that she was a lesbian. . .and couldn't stop announcing it. Every SINGLE topic on the show then began to revolve around her homosexuality, and people got bored. That's ANOTHER reason why I think her show was canceled, not just homophobia.
NEVER! Ellen was and IS the funniest lady on television. It's a load of crap that people think the show jumped because she and her character announced being gay. I mean, come on. People complained BEFORE that happened that they just KNEW she was gay so she should just come on out with it instead of hiding in the closet. Just a fickle audience. Ellen's great
This show was finished for me when it got serious.I watch a sitcom to be entertained and to laugh not to be informed or educated on someone elses ideas of what a single person has to face in the dating world. Once she came out, the text became too heavy for any humour, which in my opinion is the whole point of the sitcom industry or at least should be .Sorry, it jumped the shark when she came out of the closet.
let us now cram the gay issue down the throat of the TV audience so they stop watching the show is eaten whole by the shark and Ellen whines about the show getting canned .It was never funny gay or what ever. Now they give her another show wow maybe Tom Arnold still has hope.
This show didn't jump at the coming out of ellen,by then she already had teethmarks on her ugly butt.While it had some potential to be funny at first Ellen never was very funny the coming out was just a lame attempt to get some ratings for a show that was in the toilet,when that didn't provide any real help then she went on her hetero bashing network bashing spree that was just sad,like the little kid trying to place blame when the're in trouble.
I always thought that "Ellen" was a funny show until Ellen came out. We all knew she was gay anyway but that wasn't the problem. The problem was every show after that the whole focus of the show was about being gay! I mean "gay this" and "gay that"! The show got too serious on this "gay" thing and was no longer funny. I do like Ellen's new show though! She plays a gay woman but the show isn't about being gay! That's how the original Ellen show should have been when she came out of the closet. Rock on!
Who decided that Ellen was funny? I have seen occasional flashes of humour (the episode where she got tangled in the Bowflex was HYSTERICAL), but overall, the show sucked. I felt like the only gay man on the planet who didn't watch the Very Special coming out episode. Ho hum. Every time I watched it (usually when there was NOTHING ELSE on), I got disgusted. TV off. Ellen needs to go get a day job and get the hell off my TV.
The 'very special' episode was well written; touching. Then she seemed to lose her other characteristics - mannerisms, interests - after coming out, and the show became, 'all things lesbian'. It used to kinda throw me; that everyone was, 'is she or isn't she gay?' when, well, DUH. Were her on-screen friends, family, employees really shocked? Had some funny moments and entertaining characters and bad visual gags.
When the letters fell off "Buy the Book" and the news reporters called the place "Uy the Boo". At that point, the show degenerated into a fantasy sitcom in which Ellen was the only normal one among a cast of wacky co-conspirators.
It jumped the shark when they changed the opening theme song and let Ellen start performing and/or singing with musicians. Let's face it, her brother, Mr. hand, had all the talent in the family.
Adam leaves the show. Very touching, but he show couldn't replace him. By the time Ellen 'came out', the shark had struck.
My wife and I really enjoyed the show from the start ("Not that there's anything wrong with [watching a show starring a gay comedian with your wife]!" ). It jumped the pirhana when Ellen came out, but jumped back when Emma Thompson was on the show as herself and "came out" as both a lesbian and (more shockingly) a redneck from Mobile, Alabama who had been putting on the Brit accent all these years for her career's sake. So to all the other entries on this page saying Ellen was "never funny", I have to tell you she was funny and not just to lesbians. The episode where she was trying so hard to emulate Martha Stewart when she came to visit and everything went wrong (a pre-coming-out episode) had me chuckling my butt off! I agree with an earlier post that Ellen Degeneres is a Lucille Ball caliber comedian. If gayness had not turned into the hinge pin of the rest of the plots, the show would have run longer.
When did it Jump? Isn't it obvious? Whenever I watch the post coming out episodes, I think of the lost chances for making a Real statement about being gay in America. Instead, we get the usual lamebrained and stale situations with punch lines we can see coming a mile away. An example: when Ellen decides she wants to be part of her father's Civil War Re-enactment group. What the hell did it prove? They even dropped the ball with guest star Louis Gossett, Jr as the Union Sgt. (Think about it. They could have all been lined up in formation. LG could have been walking down the line: "Only two things come out of Oklahoma! (Stops at Ellen) Steers and... Uh, never mind...") Also, when Arye Gross's character left the show, he told Ellen how much in love with her he was. Why didn't they have an episode where he comes back (with a marriage proposal, maybe) and has deal with an out of the closet Ellen, and his feelings for her. Oh well... Anyway, I do have to mention one of the funniest scenes ever on this show, and that's in the episode where all of the male characters end up playing Mystery Date. ("You're playing Mystery Date? I used to play that with my sister!") The end credits show them still playing the game into late night with extreme close ups of their sweaty and nervous faces (the scene was shot as a parody of a spaghetti western): at the end of the credits, Jeremy Piven reaches over, opens the door, looks at his cards, lays them down and announces: (in a Clint Eastwood voice)"Well boys, looks like I'm going to the Prom!") Thank you!
"Ellen" was sort of funny for awhile, until it was re-titled "Gay Ellen" and revolved exclusively around Ellen's homosexuality. A couple gay jokes here and there are no problem, but the whole show became a forum for activism. If the show had made subtle evolutionary progress into the world of Ellen's homosexuality, it would have seemed like a natural part of the show. Instead, it was like the show grew a third arm and ran away to join the circus. It's not as though anyone didn't know Ellen was gay to begin with. She could have eased it into the plot, but she opted for the 21-gun salute. Then, after she alienated everyone by tucking her humor into the closet from whence she came and threw her audience into an unfamiliar world of (unrealistically feminine) lesbian lovers and social commentary, she drove her fanbase away. No one watched the show because Ellen was gay. She could have approached the topic and eased her fans into it, omitting some of the self-serving "discovery" crap. It wasn't Ellen's homosexuality, it was that she distinguished herself severely from heterosexuality. She distanced herself from straight people and lost touch with them, portraying herself as a gay woman who happens to be human as opposed to a human who happens to be a gay woman.
The shark jumped when Ayre Gross left the cast, and the name (and focus) of the show was changed from "These Friends of Mine" to "Ellen". Yeah, I know the show went on for several more seasons after that, but for me, interest was lost. Jeremy Piven was a mighty poor substitute for Ayre.
Actually, I think the show jumped the episode after Ellen came out. (I thought the moment that she spoke "I'm gay" into the microphone was priceless.) My favorite episode was her Martha Stewart Thanksgiving episode. I laughed so hard throughout the whole thing I thought I would wet my pants. Marth was quite a chuckle, too. I'm surprised she can see how totally silly she (Martha) and her centerpieces and fine dining can be. What I don't understand is why did this show take a 180 degree turn in direction just because Ellen accepted the fact she is gay? Ok, you're gay. That is not particularly funny. Why make every episode based on that? Ellen Degeneres is an intelligent person who up until that point marketed herself well. Why didn't she know that the majority of her audience is straight, and they just liked her form of comedy? Why mess with success? I hope it wasn't to teach us straight folks a thing or two about the life of a lesbian. We just wanted to laugh, that's all. No life lessons, just laughter. I just think that her cancellation should not have been a surprise to her and that she should have seen it coming. I still like to see her on Letterman, etc. We still love you Ellen, just not that way.
Psst. Wanna know a secret? Ellen Degeneres was never funny, gay or straight. Monotone, mannish, and moronic, her stand-up routines elicited only polite laughter when she went on Carson or Letterman. Why the fame fairy (no pun intended) touched Ellen with her magic wand (no pun intended) we'll never know
The exact moment this show jumped the shark is when Ellen announced that she was gay. After that, she became physically unable to go more than a couple of minutes without reminding us that she was a lesbian.
This show was funnier when it was called "these friends of mine". The main problem with "ellen" was ellen herself. She tried too hard to be funny with lame jokes and situations. The whole coming out show was terrible and it brought attention to her for a great subject, its just sad that people tuned in to see a complete waste of airtime.
I don't think this show was great to begin with but it really jumped when every joke was a lesbian joke. An UNFUNNY lesbian joke. I am not a homophobic; I don't care if she's gay but could she at least be funny? I mean, since the show was a COMEDY and all. I remember an episode when Ellen and friends go shopping and there was a whole scene about how you can look gay by the way you turn your shopping cart. "Hey Ellen, if you turn your shopping cart this way, it means you're gay. If you turn it the other way, it means you're gay and taken. If you turn it backwards, it means you're gay and single." Eventually, EVERY episode was like this! AARGH!
This was one of my favorite shows when I was in college. My roommate and I got our first television and watched the first two seasons religiously, the best break during stressful semesters. Then Adam left the show and it became Ellen does Lucille Ball over and over and over. So I stopped watching. I had no clue that Ellen was gay, and I still didn't believe it when a co-worker told me about the big coming-out episode that was premiering the following day. So I watched the show, after having only watched it occasionally after Adam left, and I thought the coming-out episode was hilarious. After that I tried to start watching it again, but it was more hacked-up Everybody Love's Lesbian Lucy. After she moved into the house, and we didn't get the antics at the book store with the other characters (I didn't get the New Foundland jokes but I thought dude was hilarious), it was just too much rehashed Lucy, and it wasn't remotely funny anymore. I started to wonder if I was homophobic at one point during the episode where Ellen and her girlfriend go away for the weekend. I just couldn't buy the gay stuff. I thought it seemed self-consciously over done, but maybe I was frustrated because I couldn't identify with Ellen's character anymore. Her behavior seemed more like a man's than a woman's. So it was like I no longer had that leading female character that attracted me to the show in the beginning. Anyway, that was the last episode that I even bothered to watch.
I watched it a few times - the guest performers of the theme song was a cute idea, but the show wasn't that great. Finally I came aboard with the very excellent PUPPY EPISODE (a reverse jump if ever..), and stayed with the series until the end, but frankly, it still wasn't all that great. Why am I even bothering to post on something I have such lukewarm feelings over? Well, I hope this doesn't constitute "flaming" to respond to a previous post, but someone asked "who told Ellen Degeneres she was funny?" and, as it happens, there is a specific answer to that. I forget which year, though it would have been in the early '80s, but one of the cable movie channels, Showtime I think, held a "Funniest Person In America" contest for stand-ups. I do not know who judged, voted or selected, but being chosen the funniest person in America probably gave Ellen a clue that she was funny. (Odd though that her movie, Mr. Wrong, didn't convince her otherwise.)
My friends would come to work and talk about "Ellen last night." I had never seen Ellen, so I watched. It was awful. I'm still waiting to laugh--there was nothing funny. My friends told me that I'd have to see it from the beginning and know the whole story line to get all the jokes. So I watched all the reruns--and I'm still waiting to laugh. By the time they had gotten to the gay stuff, I had already sworn off Ellen--because I'm still waiting to laugh. Was this show ever funny?
She did the right thing by taking a stand and coming out. But, she needn't have sacrificed the show. The coming out could have been downplayed instead of everything in the show revolving around her lesbianism. Ellen still better as stand up than comedic actress.
The show jumped a few times in its course. First when Adam left at the end of series one, and then they change the opening credits and tune.I like the new tune but i found it unneccesary that there was a new person singing it each week. Then they kept changing the apartment, the doorway near the kitchen, the entry and and book case in the wall, and the lounge was different every episode! Then after the earthquake, and the store was rebuilt, it was not the same atmosphere, and it lost the feel of it. Set change again, (book store [and office in the store constantly changed size and shape]) i hate when shows do that with out even mentioning it!!. Then the shop got taken over buy new owners, and another set change when ellen moved house, and left the store. Then another set change when she had a new job each week, then the show became the same thing each week with the same jokes. And another set change with 'Cuppa Joe's' coffee shop. The show did have its really good episodes, especially episode one with the driver's license photos!! But then it became all preachy, and about being gay. We know shes gay, we arent bothered by it, but you dont have to remind us each week with some sad joke...
DAY ONE -- What an annoying person (Ellen). I despised this show from day one, long before she ever came out. After that, it simply went downhill even faster. I have gay friends who said it was "too gay". Just a horrible, horrible show; one of the worst to ever win an Emmy.
From the start "Ellen" was a loser. The characters were wooden, especially Ellen herself. She never developed a personality, she just walked around spouting one-liners like, well, a comedian stuck in a sit-com. Changing the format and title did not help it in the ratings. When Ellen came out the ratings jumped, and sensing that the show finally had the hook it needed, it quickly became "The Lesbian Show." Of course, that got old, and when the show was finally cancelled Ellen sank her career entirely (set the gay rights movement back a decade) by attributing the cancellation to prejudice. Apparently, she never saw the ratings.
I really wanted this series to make it. I like Ellen's sense of humor and I think she has a lot to offer, but "The Ellen Show" did need work. I think the producers hired a great bunch of actors to interact with Ellen and for me it wasn't Ellen's Gayness that killed her show, the poor writing did. I want to add that I think "The Ellen Show" had a lot of potential, but alas; it's too late! And CBS did not stand behind Ellen as promised. They guaranteed Ellen would have a full season, but they canceled "TES" after only 18 eps. A full season is at minimum 22 eps! For shame CBS. For shame!
Let me preface my comments with this: I was never an enthusiastic watcher of this show. If my family or friends were watching this show and I was in the room, I'd watch it with them. It was a mildly amusing show. Ellen's character was amusing in an awkward way. She had an assortment of wacky friends, customers and co-workers coming into her bookstore. The personalities bounced, collided, and ricachade around with some amusing results, causing a snicker here and a laugh there. This show was never a gut-busting, side-splitting laugh-fest of a comedy, but amusing enough to hold my attention once in a while. Ellen D. seemed, for a time, to say, "Hi! I'm Ellen. Do you think my show's funny?" But then came the moment...the moment that, for me, that could only be described as the Fonz jumping the shark, filmed through the eyes of Steven Spielberg with a HUGE production budget, ending with the resounding twenty mega-ton BOOM of a comedic career vaporizing into near-nothingness. With this one episode, Ellen D. went from saying, "Hi! I'm Ellen. Do you think my show's funny?" to saying, "I'M A LESBIAN! LAUGH!!! I DEMAND THAT YOU THINK MY SHOW IS THE FUNNIEST, MOST ENTERTAINING THING YOU EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE!!!" Needless to say, the show stopped being amusing. It became arrogant, pushy, and demanding of laughter with jokes and situations that fell like a lead feather. This episode will go down in TV history as a cautionary tale of how not to shoot your own career in the foot then blame others for the injury.
Sure this show never really found its footing in terms of a scenario or supporting cast, and yes, Ellen coming out made the show more about lesbianism and less about the jokes, but there were times when this show was very funny, and that happened when Ellen kept things simple. Episodes that come to mind: When Ellen gave blood then went to a wine tasting party and got drunk, ending up on a piano singing "Making Whoopee". Or when she went to the Rock and Roll fantasy camp. The episode where she actually "came out" was great. It was a defining moment. It was funny and had a lot of relevant jokes. Of course, the show went nowhere after that.
Ellen's 'Coming Out' episode was classic. Probably in the top 100 moments of American TV. The reason it was great was that it was genuinely ground-breaking while retaining the sweet, doofy comedy that had always defined the show, and Ellen Degeneres in general. Had Ellen continued in this vein, it could have gone from the likeable but unremarkable comedy it was before to something truly great. Unfortunately, this peak moment was also the signal of Ellen's decline. Everything that had made the show so enjoyable to watch disappeared. The bookstore was gone (and along with it the severely under-used talents of Bruce Cambell), the supporting characters, who had been the best part of the show, were shunted into the background, and the Seinfeldish plots were discarded in favor of Ellen's 'lesbian issues.' To add insult to injury, Degeneres hid behind the cloak of intolerance when the show was cancelled. I guarantee, had everything that followed been on par with the coming out episode we'd still be watching this show today, and no amount of gay-bashing would have touched it.
The show stopped being about Ellen and started being about Ellen's lesbianism. I heard she was bitter and felt like the show got canned because of the gay thing. Turns out, it just wasn't funny anymore.
Actually "the very special" Ellen comes out wasn't the killer. It was every episode after that. The show was reasonably funny before that. (not gonna make anyone forget The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but still watchable) When it became a weekly series devoted to Ellen delving further into her sexual identity, instead of the original story of a book store owner and her wacky friends/co-workers. I mean, c'mon, how many of us are screaming for more comedy series about heterosexual men and women learning how to find some action?
Ellen DeGeneres is a funny stand-up comedian and a decent comic actress, but this show just wasn't that funny. Her stand-up material didn't translate well to the sitcom format. It's tempting to say that her A Very Special Ellen coming out episode jumped the shark, but really, it was more of an attempt to jump back... an attempt to redefine the show and give it some cohesion. Didn't work, because then the show became all about Ellen being gay, and that's not particularly funny either.
These Friends of Mine was hilarious. I could bear Ellen, but when she came out of the closet, I could bear it no more.
This show was funny. I think Ellen coming out of the closet was what made it jump. I mean, it's good to see gay people on TV, but then the whole show became about that. I really like Ellen DeGeneres though and I would like to see her in another comedy soon. I hope she is nominated in her role as Dory for Finding Nemo.
When Ellen came out of the closet. I thought it would make the show funnier with more of an edge. Instead she got on her soapbox and her character disappeared. I always loved her sense of humour - what a shame she lost it!! To give credit where it is due, she paved the way for other great comedies like Will and Grace.
Ellen was a mediocre sitcom until she came out of the closet. Then it had a run of about 10 episodes where it was among the best series on tv, then it when downhill. Why? Ellen's girlfriend Laurie. I don't know why, but she sucked the life out of the show. The best episodes of the season where the ones without her, like the series finale, which was one of the most witty pieces of tv in the past decade.
The very special episode when Ellen came "out". I knew she was gay when she was just doing stand up, so this was no shocker, and though I am hetero, I'm all for people being who they are. So much could have been done with this in character revelation, but what ended up happening was that it was overdone, and went nowhere interesting. It became the one trick pony of primetime.
I chose Ellen Coming Out, because it became pretty much unwatchable after that, although I think it lost its sparkle long before. The first two seasons, "These Friends of Mine"/"Ellen" was one of my favorite shows. There were some seriously funny moments. The early episode where Ellen gets the bad driver's license photo and finds ways to keep getting it redone, until finally she goes in ridiculously made-up and winds up getting the worst license photo ever - that was hilarious. One of my favorite TV moments. It's too bad the character wasn't gay from the get-go - episodes like that one would have been funny regardless, the early storylines with male dates/boyfriends could have worked with women (and been much funnier than her post-coming out relationship) - in fact, they may have worked better, since it never really seemed believable when she was dating guys, and they wouldn't have had to change to a more serious direction with the coming out episode.
Some people liked Ellen's nervous chatter and some didn't. I, for one, did. But any sane person can agree that the show went over the fin when she came out. The irony is, she's absolutely right about the Gay Thing being the reason she was cancelled. Not because she WAS gay, but because "Ellen" used the engaging humor of its early seasons to get audiences to Open Wide, then jammed Gay Pride down their throats. Sorry Ellen, but I'm not holding my viewing tastes hostage so I can be politically correct. I DID like you when you were neurotic, and I DIDN'T like you when you were chasing women in "very special" episodes. Get over it.
When Ellen came out is was ok. It didn't jump the shark then. In fact it was a highly rated episode but the problem came afterwards when too much focus was given to her being a lesbian. It was like "All right already! We know! Move on to another topic." It was almost like they saw the lesbian spin to be a factor of success for the show so they just kept making references to homosexuality all the time to the point that it alienated her mainstream audience therefore making "Ellen" sail high and far above the big carnivorous fish of the Cancellation Sea.
This show jumped after the coming out episode, based on the fact that that was the only funny episode in the entire series. Ellen is okay doing standup, but I never thought the show was funny at all, and Ellen's romantic interests in men were so unbelievable it was embarrassing. Then, the coming out episode. It was hilarious. I thought, this show is going to get good now. But then it just sucked again. She was too heavy-handed and preachy about the lesbian thing, and it wasn't funny or interesting. Still, as painful and embarrassing as the whole series was, that one episode almost made it worth it.
"Ellen" was hilarious right up until the point when Ellen's out-of-control ego managed to harangue all the execs into letting her make her character gay too. Wouldn't have been a problem if she'd remained funny, but from then on, it shoulda been called That Lesbian Show, because every week it was like "Hi, audience, are you sitting comfortably? Great, now for the next thirty minutes instead of being funny, I'm going to beat you over the head with my lesbianism!" Joely Fisher was always good though...
Ellen JTS when, to my total shock and amazement, she came out and admitted that she was, gasp, A LESBIAN! Who'd of thunk it?
This show went through three phases - the initial show, the show before the coming out, and the coming out and afterward. The original show was funny. The shows before she came out were very funny - Ellen wasn't saying whether she or the character was a lesbian, and they'd slip in little jokes concerning the controversy in a very funny, subtle way - something few shows do incidentally (including even the Simpsons). Then she came out and it just went downhill. They were doing well incorporating it just prior to the allusions, but then she came out, and unfortunately the show went downhill. Her coming out episode was not funny either. It's not her fault that she was more-or-less outed though. It's too bad the second phase didn't smooth onto the third easily.
Ellen came out. Although in "real life" Ellen's coming out was a very positive thing, unfortunately it changed the show too much. Ellen was formerly kind of androngynous, sexuality never had anything to do with who TV-Ellen was. Once the TV-Ellen came out, it changed the fundamental makeup of the character, and ultimately it couldn't survive such a radical change once it had an established audience.
The show was funny until Ellen sold the bookstore. Then it lost a unique setting for comedy and became just another sitcom about a gang of goofy friends. It was a slippery slope after that. She bought a house, came out of the closet, and turned her show into a one-joke wonder. No wonder it was cancelled when it was.
The show got bad after Ellen came out. Not because she was gay, but because the show then became "wacky things that happen to a lesbian." It just became not funny anymore.
Like most stand up comics, Ellen Degeneres can not act. The one liners and the dry humor are funny for awhile, then it gets really tiring. Stand up comedy and sitcom comedy are very different. Jerry Seinfeld (who also can not act) understood this, which is why he had good writers and a top notch supporting cast and the concept that the show wasn't really about anything anyway. A stand up comic and his friends/neighbors. Perfection. It works. Sitcom with actor/actress who can not act, bad writing, and weak supporting cast you have shark hurdles. With regard to her coming out on the show and the afermath, it kind of reminded me of when your cousin announces that she is gay after years of family speculation. Everytime you see her at the mall, at a family gathering, for Thanksgiving, she is once again announcing she is gay and talking about anecdotes from her new gay lifestyle (which isn't really that different from her old non-gay lifestyle). "Oh by the way..." Yes, you did tell me A THOUSAND TIMES! Can you please talk about something else? Not that it's offensive, it's boring.
Ellen must hold some sort of record for shark jumping; the show basically jumped a new shark every few months. It was brilliant as These Friends of Mine, then they retooled and it wasn't as good but was okay, then they made some more changes and brought on that painfully obnoxious guy and it was worse, then Ellen came out and it was (and this was very hard to do) even worse. Some people say the show was ruined when Ellen came out, but it was already abysmal by that point, and coming out was just one more of the needless changes the show made over its inglorious run.
The show jumped when Ellen came out of the closet; it then became too preachy about gay issues. (However, the "coming out" episode itself was excellent.) Dishonorable mention: When Ellen sold her bookstore, "Buy the Book."
The last episode that Ed Billik (Bruce Campbell) appeared in was horrible and ruined a perfectly good story line. When Ed joined the group he and Ellen were enemies of sorts but their head-butting was always presented in a good-natured way, and eventually you could see a sincere frienship between the two that could have been expanded upon when Ellen came out of the closet. Instead, Ed suddenly became a huge homophobe who was paranoid that Ellen was going to molest his daughters or convert them to lesbianism. Of course, the friendship went to hell and Ellen left him to manage the bookstore on his own. I'm assuming Campbell wanted to leave the show for some reason and they used this as a bail-out method; but couldn't they have come up with something less insensitive? The episode made the effort the writers put into making Ed a likeable guy completely pointless, and sent Ellen floating over the shark.
Hoo, Boy...where to start? I'm wondering if it's possible to jump the shark if your shows sucks from the very beginning. Day One, I guess, is the category that most fits here. However...if there was a defining moment, it's when Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet. At that point, the show stopped even trying to be funny and contracted "Brett Butler Syndrome". Terminal, I'm afraid. Never recovered. Helpful hint to all comic actors, comedians and other prima donnas...your show, if it's a comedy...has to be FUNNY! You can't make me laugh if you're beating me over the head with your alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual orientation or whatever other weirdness floats your boat. I don't care. I want to laugh. These Hollywood B.S. artists that take themselves soooo seriously do indeed make me laugh. If Ellen is so miserable and unfulfilled with her life choices that she feels compelled to inflict them on me one night week, I'll pass. If lesbianism (or drug abuse or alcoholism or gayness...)is so great, why do you need to be so shrill about it? I read a quote once. I can't remember who said it, but it went something like, "One religious fanatic can do more harm than 1000 atheists". If you want sympathy for your cause, don't alienate the people you want to reach. I was impressed by the poster above that said that she hated the show and WAS a lesbian. That says it all better than I ever could.
First off, this is one of the funniest sitcoms ever made (the funniest, being "NewsRadio"). The first season wasn't that great. But with the cast changes, the show got better. It wasn't just the change in cast, but as Ellen became more comfortable with the role, naturally the laughs came. Season three was the high point for the series (once Jeremy Piven joined the cast). After Ellen came out, it was a different show. It wasn't as funny, but it definitely didn't "Jump the Shark". I can see how people would feel it did, but I don't think it did. Also, the series may have started off, Seinfeld-ish. However, it quickly grew into a show of it's own. We need some great, funny shows like "Ellen" on TV these days.
Ellen is one of those shows that almost had it but didn't quite get there. Certain early episodes can debatably be thought of as some of the funniest episodes in TV history. Ellen and some of her earlier cast members (when it was called "These Friends of Mine") almost had a Lucy/Ethel thing going on. It was knocking on TV classics' door. But the producers kept winking and winking and winking. Finally, once the show was recast for the third time and renamed for the third time, "Ellen," you could sit back and enjoy the clever show without fear that it would be something completely different by next season. But then Ellen just had to come out of the closet. That in itself wasn't a bad thing. In fact, the months following the famous coming out episode still had classic episodes. Ellen would make fun of the gay community for being shallow. While looking at the gay yellow pages, Ellen remarks, "Why do I care what my plumber's pecs look like?" It was spot on, and funny as hell. But the season after her coming out, Ellen became a preachy rant that no one could enjoy. She was the poster child for the Human Rights Commission. Even her most die-hard gay viewers couldn't stomach it. DeGeneres blamed her failing ratings on the "intolerant American public." But the truth is, her largest audience were gay people and it was they who stopped watching her. Her show sucked! No one likes a preachy Hollywood rant. It's a shame. Ellen was poised to become a sitcom classic. Politics, as usual, ruined it. Apparently she's learned something because her talk show is devoid of the gay politics that ruined what should have been the "gay Seinfeld" of television.
When Ellen announced she was gay. Who else was not surprised by this news? Hey, there's nothing wrong with it, but Ellen didnt exactly strike me as a straight woman. Once she and her character came out amid all that ridiculous hype and the screaming from middle America, the entire show became about how Ellen is gay. Gay this, gay that. Then as some kind of shocker, the character kisses a guy. I forget how that turned out-was she experimenting? Confused? Who knows. I have no problem with Ellen Degeneres coming out but her character shouldnt have only because once the character revealed she was gay, the show changed completely and for the worse.
I need to start off by saying I did not watch THESE FRIENDS OF MINE. I started watching after the show was re-tooled and retitled ELLEN. I also need to say that I knew Ellen was gay long before she came to television. I thought ELLEN was a very amusing show. The character had a real Lucy Carmichael quality about her as well as the situations she got herself into and I found the show consistently, laugh-out-loud funny. She had a decent supporting cast including Bruce Campbell and Clea Duvall as Audrey, who cracked me up. Arye Gross was OK as Adam, but the smartest move Ellen ever made was hiring the very sexy Jeremy Piven to play cousin Spence. This guy is one of the unsung heroes of Hollywood and why he hasn't become a major star yet is beyond me. I thought "The Puppy Show" was very funny and Laura Dern was a credible choice as the object of Ellen's affections. I thought that was so amusing when she said "I'm gay" into the microphone. It was too bad Dern was only on for that show because it might have been interesting to see that relationship play out. I don't think the show jumped when Ellen came out or afterwards. I feel that after Ellen came out, the show ran out of steam. If they knew Dern was not going to be on the show as a regular, then the coming out episode should have been the last episode because the show ran out of gas trying to top that and they couldn't. I don't think the show jumped the shark, it just ran out of gas.
After months of hype, the rest of the show just became anticlimactic. Then it just got to be too "in your face". Don't get me wrong, I'm very pro gay, but it just got to be too much.
Ellen JTS when the character came out of the closet and announced that she was gay. Now don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with that, but suddenly the whole show is about her being gay. In fact, I can only think of two episodes during the final season that didn't evolve around her sexual preference, her parents reconciliation and the Civil War reenactment, other then that it was an Ellen gay fest. I get it she's gay, but does the whole show have to be gay as well. It got to the point where I lost interest and apparently I wasn't alone, even Chastity Bono, an open lesbian commented that the show was too gay. After all people are about more then their sexual preference and even their personal lives, too bad this sitcom lost track of that.
Sure, the show jumped when she came out, but really it actually jumped the year before when they alluded to her lesbianism. Still, there were some really funny episodes, especially the one when she buys a new car (a Rapture - a take-off of Saturn) and finds that the company is this weird cult where they hold baseball games with coupes versus sedans and stuff like that. She ends up taking one of the showroom cars hostage with an in-dash cigarette lighter!
"Ellen" aka "These Friends of Mine" started as the west coast female version of Seinfeld. It was actually very funny, and some of the scenes with her co-stars and guests were classics. Remember the girl who keeps reminding Ellen that she once gave her concert tickets? Or the desire for Ellen to be loved by everyone? Or the time Ellen dates a pizza delivery man whose dream is to delivery pizza in Italy? Ellen was a neurotic mess. And it was funny. Her famous coming out episode didn't JTS; Ellen had no choice but to make it a big production because the backward freaks at ABC were paranoid about the whole gay thing (funny to think about that now with all the gay characters on TV these days). Still, the coming out episode was in typical Ellen style. After that, there were a few good shows, but by the end of that season, the preachiness started in. WHAM! Ellen JTS at a record distance. Every week it was like being hit over the head with a billy club by the diversity police. Ellen went from neurotic everyday girl who happens to be lesbian to Ellen the gay preacher standing on her pulpit. When politics replaces entertainment, we all lose. I got really pissed when after the show totally flopped and was yanked off the air Ellen went to the "haut couture" of europe and started bashing Americans as being "intolerant" and "stupid" and "homophobes." But hey Ellen, newsflash, I'm a gay man and I stopped watching your show after your coming out episode, too. What does that make me? Ellen's show is a perfect example of what happens when you allow politics to take over humor and creativity. That's what ruined your show, Ellen, not an "intolerant" audience.
It first jumped the shark when Adam was replaced by the ever-annoying "Spence," played by Jeremy Piven. I would agree that after the Puppy Episode, the show got way too preachy and deserved to be cancelled. However, I must stand up for Ellen and say that she is funny on stage and not even close to unattractive! I've seen her live several times and up close once and she is very pretty with eyes that you *wouldn't believe.* She lands some pretty hot chicks, too.
The show jumped the shark for me when Adam "left". I watched the show for Adam, he was so sweet and mellow and goofy and had good dynamics with Ellen ( plus I think he was hot). It was such a mistake casting Arye Gross out of the show. Ive randomly caught later episodes of the series and there just not as good. Plus there's that Jeremy guy in the later episodes who is SO smarmy and annoying and ugly......what were the producers/ writers thinking?!
Like every other person in America who had ever seen Ellen, I knew she was gay before she announced it to the world. Her show was funny once, but after she came out of the closet every show turned into the big lesbian show. You're gay, I get it. She didn't have to tell me every episode.
One of the only shows in this whole listing that I could actually say had a jumping point: Ellen. Ellen coming out of the closet made this show jump...hear me out everyone: I'm not saying Ellen Degeneres coming out was bad for the show...it was the character that was ruined...why did Ellen the character have to be gay...it took the humor out of the entire premise: a heterosexual woman who happened to be quite boyish...before anyone disagrees may I point out that show ended quite suddenly after that fiasco...what was once a luxurious bath of sudsy humor had suddenly become a towering soap box....that crumbled into dust
When Ellen came out of the closet. She started dressing manly made out with her hot girlfriend. She made a mistake because the show suddenly shifted gears. Imagine if Jerry Seinfeld suddenly outed his character and he started making out with a hot guy. Too bad. "Ellen" was a good show.
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10-02-2013, 12:34 AM
Ellen Boned the Fish When...
