Things We've Noticed In Later CATM Episodes

[Cheryl Harrell]

My hubby Mike & I were watching some later CATM epsiodes & I noticed some things that were interesting...

Mabel (Mable?) wasn't in the later episodes. Mando wasn't in them as much either...

Chico dates Liz on 2 epsiodes & then you never see her again. Nothing telling about their breakup. He is just dating other girls after her. They should've had an epsiode where he broke up with her.

He cussed & he'd never cussed before. In the episode where Ed doesn't like him staying out so late & he moves out, he says the D word.

I noticed in the 2 episodes before Della comes on the program, where Freddie is starting to get very thin. But he doesn't look too thin yet. When the Della episodes start that's when he starts to get unhealthily thin & has dark circles under his eyes. Poor baby. Even my hubby Mike noticed in those episodes how thin he was & commented. & He is legally blind so when a blind guy sees it you know he was pretty bad off. Poor baby!

I also noticed that no matter how bad off he was, he always gave a great performance & never let it show on the show. Back in the 70's I had no idea anything was wrong when I watched it back then. I just thought he was naturally thin. Even tho I now know how thin he was & why, I still see him as hanging in there & giving a good performance & not letting his problems show other than him being too thin & having dark circles under his eyes.

I noticed he always seem to keep his hair cut every few or couple of weeks or so. it was like he didn't let it get too long. In a couple of early Della episodes he let it get longer & funkier looking. Even Mike noticed that & commented it looked like he didn't even care about fiding his hair like he used to. Finally in later episodes, it looked like he'd gotten it cut again. In one episode it was short enough you could see his neck. I noticed in the last coupla episodes it looked like he'd freshly gotten his hair cut. It made me wonder if he knew in advance he was gonna commit suicide & had maybe cut his hair cuz he wanted it to look nice & cut for his funeral etc?


Also in the PADRE episode where Chicos father comes back & finds him, I noticed that Freddie cried several times in that episode. I can't bear to see him cry like that. It has me joining in with him & breaking out the hankies...

When he is talking to Ed Brown about his father having skipped out on him etc he cries. I noticed he's in tears. He's choked up & sniffles & wipes his eyes with his hands.

When he is talking to his father & he tells his father about how hurt & upset he was over him skipping out on him & his mom & he talks about his mom crying every nite & he goes to sit down. He is in tears again & wipes his eyes with his hands.

When his father is going to leave & Chico hugs him good bye, Freddie cries & I think he sniffles a little. When he walks across the room to look at the picture of his mom, I noticed it looked like he was holding a folded up hankerchief bawled up in his hand. I noticed he didn't really seem to use it except I think he might've swiped at his eyes with it once. When he picks up the picture of his mom, he puts his hankie down on the table.

When he picks up the picture of his mom & looks at it, he's in tears & he wipes his eyes with his hand. I could sense that his crying probably wasn't in the script but was his own real emotions. I bet after he did that scene he probably went back to his dressing room & had a good cry. Poor baby! It made me wonder if perhaps he knew then he was gonna commit suicide & was thinking about saying goodbye to his parents & it made him sad? I wondered if maybe he was thinking about how he'd be leaving Jr the way Chicos father left Chico only much worse?

Poor baby, it was so sad what happened to him & to see him so sad near the end. Bless his sweet & dear heart... Anyway this was just some stuff I'd noticed during the later episodes & wondered about...

[Pitooey]

Ooooo Cheryl That Padre episode always gets me mad. I know I've said this before but, they had put that episode after Freddie died. I got so mad when I saw it in 1977 and I still get mad today.

[Prince]

Hi Cheryl,
I love all your observations about the last shows. I agree with you when you say he never let his personal life interfere with his work. If it wasn't for the weight loss no one would have ever had a clue. I think now when we watch the show we are busy looking for clues because we know how it all turned out. I still say he never meant to kill himself...that it was an accident despite the note. I guess it doesn't really matter at this point. At least we have all the wonderful shows to look back on and enjoy his enormous talent, handsome looks and wonderful sense of humor. And of course enjoy the relationship he shared with Jack. He was one of a kind.

[Prince]

Cheryl,
By the way....I love your new avatar...it is wonderful.

[Cheryl Harrell]

Thanks! I am trying on these pics. I love the 2 pics you posted. He looks so sad in them tho. I did 2 new versions of them.

Here is the first one...

[Cheryl Harrell]

Here is pic number 2. This one was really sad to make. I kept having to reach for a hankie when I was making it . In this pic he looked so sad like he was about to cry so I had it depicting him crying & a little butterfly is on his face trying to brush away his tears... Hope it's not too sad but I got inspired to do this one after seeing it here...

I just looked at it on here & oh boy did I have to reach for the hankies... I get so sentimental & emotional anymore...

[Cheryl Harrell]

Here is another version I did up of this pic. In this version I used a pretty hankie as the background...

[Prince]

Hi Cheryl,
Great job on the pics. Because I am such a positive person and bury my head in the sand alot...LOL...I think of those pics as not
him being sad, but instead...serious and sexy. He is so handsome and I love his hair and eyes. Glad you liked them.

[Cheryl Harrell]

You're right he is serious & sexy in those pics. In the 2nd one tho he somehow looked to me like he was about to cry. The one you just posted is absolutely sexy!

[Karen64]

Freddie did obviously lost weight and lost some of his energetic spark towards the end. I especially noticed it in the episode (I can't remember the title of it) where Della renew's Ed's lease on the garage; at the end of the episode, Chico does a Howard Cosell impersonation. You can really tell Freddie is not having a good time at all and just going through the motions. In some scenes, he looks like a zombie!
That's why I mainly watch the first and second season episodes, rarely watch the 3rd season episodes and I never watch the episodes without Freddie in them.
I would rather see Freddie happy, energetic and having fun!

[Cheryl Harrell]

I watch all the episodes for completness for storyline. But my favorites are obviously the Freddie ones. The Raul ones were nice but not the same without Freddie. You just miss him too much watching them. So I watch the Freddie ones mainly. If a Raul episode were to come on I'd watch it but the ones I watch over & over are the Freddie ones...

I took some pics of him from the Padre episode off of the tv with a digital camera. Sorry the quality isn't the greatest. Here they are:

[Cheryl Harrell]

Some of these were from when he saw his father & he was crying. Poor baby! You just want to reach out & hug him...

[Cheryl Harrell]

I noticed in one of the Della episodes, he is standing there next to her not doing anything until his lines come up. He looks as if he's really out of it. When it is time for his lines, he suddenly snaps to & puts in a great performance...

Another one of our baby...

[Cheryl Harrell]

In this one he was wiping his tears...

[Cheryl Harrell]

Here is another one...

I noticed in the PADRE episode that he was wearing a shirt with numbers on the back of it like a criminal would wear in jail. It's so sad to think he spent his last days wearing prison clothes...