Since I've been watching Wings on Nick at Nite, where it has started again from the beginning, I thought I would bump this topic.

Watching the early episodes, Brian really gets on my nerves. I guess I relate better to Joe. Brian wasn't as annoying later, but Joe is for me.

I saw Megan Mullally guesting and she had a different voice than when she plays Karen on Will and Grace, but it was still odd.

I like the episode where they recover the time capsule and read what they thought their futures would be. It was so sweet when we found out Helen's true dream.


I agree. I always hate when a character isn't believed. I guess because that's frustrating in real life. I thought they should have had an episode where everyone finally found out that Sandy was a loon.

edited for no good reason

I love Brian's first appearance, when he's "complimenting" Roy on the way he runs Aeromass. Okay, I'm going to be a dork and find the scene so I can quote the whole thing.



A life? What's that?

Loved the ep where Faye, Antonio and Roy are trying to win this trivia contest on the radio... Faye was the "brains" but she had gone out to get her knitting equipment.
Of course, Antonio gets on the air:

"Who was the father of impressionism?"
Roy (smug, of course) "Rich Little"
"Rich Little?!? What an idiot!"


Love Antonio's line, "Theres 6 hours of my life I'll never get back"

Add me to the Tony Shaloub love.

Tim Daly is going to be on the Sopranos on Sunday... he is still as hot as ever

Phantom, Shantom
I don't believe in phantoms
I never have, I never will
Not I...

I believe in me
And that's the thing you see
That gets me by...
That gets me by...

I miss Wings. It needs respect, a new TV home. 3-4 Am is way too late, and neither of our VCRS goes to channel 51, which is Nick on our TV.

Ooh, Phantom of the Oprah!

"Why do I like gals
Who were previously my pals?"

I don't get HBO and have never seen the Sopranos, but now I'm a little bit glad I'll be visiting my parents this weekend, because they do. And, yes, I'm still upset that The Fugitive didn't make it to a second season.

Wings doesn't get a lot of respect. It wasn't innovative, and it didn't push the boundaries of social mores. It was just straightforward, simple, and funny. It's "comfort food" TV. And sometimes, at the end of a long work day, that's more than enough.

Do I think that Wings compares to Sports Night or Seinfeld? Nope. But Wings rates higher than a lot of other shows that have been on over the years.

Could some of the Wings devotees answer a question for me? I saw a couple of episodes about a friend of Helen's who is in love with Joe, she pretends they are married and having a baby and she re-creates prom night in the basement. Those episodes are some of the funniest things on TV. Anyway my question is since no one believes Joe when it tells them that she is insane does she ever get caught in the act by anyone?
I hope this question makes sense.

texplant--Those were the Sandy Cooper episodes mentioned above. No, nobody ever found out that Joe was telling the truth. As I said, that bothered me.

Wow, I wish I'd found this site earlier—it looks like the traffic is considerably leaner than it was last April, but it's a place to gush about Wings, and that's always good.

I have a question that I've been wondering about since the last N@N rotation of this ep a few weeks (months?) ago:

In "The Gift: Part I" (the one where Joe and Brian spend fifteen thousand dollars for Helen's new cello), as Joe and Brian are getting ready to give the cello to Helen, Brian brings in a fake cello that he "accidentally" falls on and crushes in order to play a prank on Joe. My question is this: did Steven Weber hit Tim Daly with the cello while he was doing this? It looks like as SW trips and starts to fall on the cello, SW tags TD either in the face or the chest. After Brian brings in the real cello, he asks Joe where he wants to put it, and Joe hesitates a bit, and then SW says, "Are you all right?" and TD says "Yeah," and then just moves on with the normal dialogue. The exchange seemed out of place, so I've always thought SW was just checking if TD was okay. I could be wrong about this, but I've found it kind of cute.

Am I the only one to have noticed this, or am I watching my Wings tapes a little too much? Actually, the latter question is rhetorical—I already know I am...

thosehands, I don't know the answer to that one but I'll be sure to watch for it.

I love that I found this thread! The airings of it on Nick at Nite from 3am to 4am are not helping my insomnia! I love this show so much. I know the critics never cared for it but screw'em. This show makes me laugh more than some of the critically favored stuff.

I just saw the episodes where Helen has run her Jeep into Joe's office twice. When she has the epiphany about not having him as her best friend to cry to, I teared up. I knew the scene and it still got to me.

My favorite characters are Brian and Antonio. SW and TS are so damn good with their comic timing. And the writers wrote them some great lines.
I really need to start taping these instead of staying up and watching them in the middle of the night. I need help.

Wings is, hands down, one of my favorite sitcoms of all time. I just saw my favorite episode the other night. When Brian thinks Fay is a serial killer. The ending has me rolling. Great stuff.

Wings has always been one of those shows that I love solely for the characters and not for writing, directing, blah, blah blah.

One of my favorite things about it is that they explained why Joe was so uptight and Brian was so irresponsible. So often we get the "brothers with contrasting personalities" schtick and it makes no sense that they are so extreme. With these two, the facts that their mother abandoned them at a young age and their father went crazy makes both of their personalities understandable. I found these two much easier to sympathize with than most sitcom characters of their kind.

Besides, I will always love this show for no other reason than it gave us this line: "One minute we were slapping each other with meat and the next minute it got weird."

I agree with you about the believability of Joe and Brian's characters, Headcase. I also think that Wings did better than most sitcoms with the "skinny woman who used to be fat" cliche. I doubt that Crystal Bernard has ever been more than a size 4 in her life, but some of her character's habits rang true, like stress-induced overeating, still feeling fat when she was around people who had teased her, feeling timid about dressing "sexy," and feeling insecure about men finding her attractive. As someone with a lifelong weight struggle, I could pretty easily identify with Helen (much more than I can with Monica on Friends).

Wings is like an amalgam of well-written cliches. Definitely TV comfort food.

I'm glad N@N is back to showing the older episodes. I hated Casey, and the show was just utter ass once Lowell left and Helen and Joe got married.

See I liked it when Lowell left. Granted some of his lines were funny ("Joe, I'm writing down a figure") but I got a bit tired of this Woody-like character.

I loved Wings: one of the first shows I was really into. You know, when I was ten. (My love for TV started young)

I got all sad remembering that whole "Lowell's Hat - Do Not Remove" thing.

Random memories:

• Faye misunderstanding Antonio's simple request as a 'come-on'. "We've both thought about it, but it just isn't meant to be"
• Oliver North appearing in the teaser, making some terrible joke about being trustworty
• Joe spontaneously asking Helen to go to the Islands with him
• Roy teaching Antonio to dance
• Alex kissing Brian, then admitting there was no "chemistry"

...But I can't remember how the series ended...

Also?

I thought Helen/Joe's love story was done so sweetly. WORD to everyone who said that Wings was underrated, but very very well done.

Finally, before 'Monk,' I was so put off by Anto..er, Tony Shalhoub, without the Italian accent. And I loved THC even into "Ned & Stacy."

BTW - any Angel fans on this board? In the S3 episode "Waiting in the Wings" is the evil Count also the man who played Helen's fiancee, Robin (?).

ETA - Thanks for the speedy responses amusingthesis and headcase!

Ah, Wings. Those were the days.

My favorite Wings memory has to be when Helen drove her jeep into Joe's office - twice. Behind that are a whole slew of good moments, including when Roy played all of them, and then the gang tricked him into thinking Jack Nicholson wanted to buy a property of his.

Like I said, good stuff. The end of the series was very sweet. Joe and Brian recieved a $250,000 inheritance from their dead father, and of course argued about how to spend it. Joe wanted to expland Sandpiper while Brian wanted to move to the Caribbean. Unrelated to the money stuff, Helen is invited to study in...Vienna? I think? Anyway, she's invited to study cello in some far off old world city. Joe decides to go with her, and Brian decides to stay and take care of Sandpiper.

I loved the ending because it's one of the few examples ever on television of a husband giving up his career in order to support his wife in pursuing hers.



I liked Casey. Although I was disappointed that they went with the obvious choice of pairing her with Brian. I always hoped to see her finally succumb to Antonio.

I liked Lowell, probably because he usually remained a supporting character—I think he tended to become annoying when the show tried to feature him too much (the wax museum ep comes to mind). But he had some gems:

Brian: "Hey, do you remember that winter we got our sleds?"
Helen: "Oh yeah, we spent all day going up and down Suicide Hill."
Lowell: "Yeah, I'll never forget that day. You know, they just can't take childhood memories like those away from you."
Helen: "Lowell, you weren't there, we didn't even know you then."
Lowell: "Guess they can take childhood memories like those away from you."

I always thought Lowell had the lines with more abstract, funky humor. My only complaint is that I thought THC tended to oversell the punchlines a bit. But this is in comparison to SW, who I thought had impeccable timing and delivery.

Actually, the person I started to get annoyed with later on was Fay. Rebecca Shull was great, but for some reason, when she would get excited and start speaking in her higher registers (did that happen more frequently later in the series run, or was it just my imagination?), it kind of got on my nerves.

Oh, me too. I hated Alex. Annoyed the crap out of me and she had no spark with Brian at ALL. Dullsville.

I didn't even mind the obviousness of pairing Casey with Brian because they had such great chemistry and it's not like they were ever a serious couple--just fuckbuddies. I loved how she ended that relationship, by observing Brian chortling at the Three Stooges and was all, "I'm not sleeping with you anymore."

What saved Casey for me in later episodes were AY's physical comedy moments. I like the scene where Brian has given Casey his cold before her big date, but she's in denial and gets ready to go out anyway. The way she adjusts her dress (with the thermals underneath) is great. It looked like SW had trouble keeping a straight face.

Casey was great. She was so pretty but basically insecure and a bit of a loser.
Tonight's first episode was Lowell finding out Bunny has been cheating on him. To paraphrase:
Lowell: I even called her the "U" word
Brian: You called her unfaithfull?
Lowell: No, unsatiable
Brian: That's insatiable. You called her the "I" word.
Lowell: No, that would be indescreet.
Joe: Can we move on now?

Hee!

I liked the exchange later on in the episode too...

Bunny: "What good are these gifts that God—and Dr. Parks—have given me if I don't use them?...You know, I've always had this fantasy..."
Brian: "What—pilots?"
Bunny: "No, but that's a good one."
Joe: "Brothers?"
Bunny: "Well, sure, brothers. But that's not it either. Coworkers."
Joe: "Coworkers?"
Bunny: "Yeah, I've always wanted to make it with a couple of coworkers."
Brian: "Well, uh, Bunny, I'm sorry, that's just not going to happen...is it, Joe?"

I'm not a big fan of the second ep with Roy running for town council, but tomorrow night's ep with Tyne Daly is one of the best. Talk about great writing:

Antonio: "Driving an automobile like this is like making love to a ravishingly beautiful woman."
Brian: "Hm, why is that?"
Antonio: "I've never done either."

David Lloyd is a genius.

Oh God! I love that Tyne Daly ep! I might have to tape that one for posterity.

I forgot to mention how funny it was when Laura Innes ended up being on er a few years after playing Bunny. Talk about different characters.

Laura Innes was hilarious as Bunny. It took me a good couple years to get used to her as Dr. Weaver, Bunny's polar opposite, on ER.

I think Lowell did a great job with the requisite "office weird guy" (TM NewsRadio). I liked his more surreal moments, like when he ate mushrooms in Roy's backyard. So many funny lines:

"You think you're confused? Check out the look on that giant frog."

"I don't think people with antlers have the right to criticize."

"Could somebody help me out over here? I just dropped all my fingers."

Hee! I also loved when he was talking about cosmic potholes in the universe, started to walk away, then took a huge step around an imaginary hole. Hilarious.

Hooray for Wings love! I was always a big fan of the episodes with Carlton appearances. The way Antonio and he interacted was hilarious - particularly when Carlton comes back and tells everyone he is dying. I hate myself for not being able to remember any of the annoying questions he asked everyone. The only ones I can recall had something to do with getting bit by a monkey(?) and carpeting the Earth? Someone tell me I didn't make that up!

The best Carlton line ever though...(and STILL quoted all the time at my house).
"EMPTY! EMPTY!...oh...(to Antonio) You must be new here. When I say 'empty', that means that my glass....is empty."

It's great to see the Wings thread heating up....


Great line, even greater delivery by Tim Daly. I totally agree with people who have praised the casting for this show. Tim Daly and Steven Weber played off each other beautifully, Crystal Bernard was excellent, and the others in the cast were superb. One thing that the writers generally did do well was keep the show in balance, giving supporting characters brief moments to shine but not having them take over the show.


One of those episodes set up one of my favorite exchanges, when Gilbert Gottfried as Carlton's nephew Louis is chatting up Helen and Alex at the bar.

Louis (lasciviously): When I look at you two lovely ladies, two words come to mind....Louis...sandwich....
Alex: (with utter disdain): I've been to boot camp...I can hurt you.
Louis: I'm a salesman! No you can't!

I agree that Alex could be annoying at times, although she did have a few good moments. Another came when she's over at Helen's having pizza, wine, and ice cream (in the episode where it's later revealed that she'd been in Playboy). She and Helen are talking about serving sizes listed on the size of the ice cream. It's something like this:

Alex (disappointed that the ice cream is gone): Can you believe this? Serving size: 2 ounces.
Helen: There's more than that stuck to the lid!
Alex (scrambling to find the lid): Oh, right! The LID!

Does anyone know if there are any good Wings websites out there, if any at all? Also, they never released any DVD's yet did they?

I think that Playboy episode was the only time I liked Alex. Her, Helen and Antonio having a "girl's night" was hysterical, especially Antonio wearing that avocato face mask.

As for Wings websites, just google "Wings", maybe add the letters "TV" after it. You'll find tons.

I agree. She was shaky early on, but she picked up some decent comedic momentum. Although I agree with kariyaki that the Brian/Alex relationship was totally uninspired, and pretty hastily killed off. Didn't FF have health problems during the show?

One more thing about the Tyne Daly ep: the "opener" scene—does anyone know the proper sitcom vernacular for those?—is one of my favorites ("Hey, who says you need a pilot's license? Hell, they took my driver's license away from me and I still drive!").

Anybody else have favorite openers?

Farrah Forke had to have her breast implants removed. It does seem to coincide with her stint on Wings.

From her IMDb trivia:

It's called a "teaser."

Huh, I had no idea about Farrah having health problems.

To change the subject to something fun. I loved the storyline that kicked up after Helen and Joe's wedding with the houses burning down. That shit STILL makes me laugh.

I love you kariyaki, but you already knew that. I hated Alex so much. I have Wings Season Passed on my TiVo and would fast forward through her at times. I'm delighted that they are showing the earilier episodes now. And whenever I see the episode where Helen realizes she isn't divorced from Antonio, I think of you.

My favorite part is the fact that Helen and Joe's house burned down because Brian and Casey were having sex and didn't notice. If anyone has the lines from the episode where that happened, I'd love to see them again.

You mean lines like?:

CASEY: Brian! Fire!
BRIAN: Don't rush me!

The house-burning storyline just escalated from there in sheer hilarity. Joe and Helen get a new house and burn down Brian and Casey's while having one-last-time-in-that-house sex. Then the insurance investigator shows up not buying the coincidence, only to believe it when she and Antonio burn down a hotel while having sex. Some funny shit.


Yeah, I thought I'd mentioned to you about that being my favorite episode. Crazy, panicking Helen is the funniest thing. And I'm sitting here with the giggles just thinking about Helen and Antonio's divorce papers sitting for two years under her cash register.

Here's the complete dialogue from the end part, including the line kariyaki already posted—

Casey: "I'm so hot!"
Brian: "You're hot? Baby, I'm on fire!"
Casey: [noticing the smoke] "Smoke?"
Brian: "Maybe later."
Casey: [trying to get his attention] " Brian! Brian!"
Brian: [still not noticing] "Casey! Casey!"
Casey: "Fire!"
Brian: "Don't rush me!"
Casey: "No, you idiot! Fire!"
[as firemen burst in]
Brian: "Fire! Fire!"

And a good line from later on—

Brian: "We'll just tell them it was an act of God. It's our word against God's, who they gonna believe?"

I loved this show. My favorite episode was the one where Helen is going to marry the rich guy(can't remember his name now) and Joe pleads with her in the elevater about how that is their future and their kids. Loved it! Actually one of my favorite episodes from any show.

The rich guy was Davis Lynch. That was a good scene, played well by Crystal Bernard and Tim Daly.

Another goofy Wings quote, courtesy of Brian: "We are a simple people. We work our land. We fish our waters. We eat the Big Sandwich."

And last night's golf episode. The full on kiss between TD and SW always makes me giggle. And as a poster mentioned some time ago, the subplot with Antonio and the guitar is pretty funny ("My goat knows the bowling score, Hallelujah.")

Oh, I love when this thread moves!

Word to everyone who loves the "one minute we were slapping each other with raw meat, then it just got weird" line!

But that whole ep rocked. I actually liked Gail in that ep, which was weird. But she was refreshing because she wasn't a knockout. Next to tiny little CB, she looked so tall, and she was just...normal looking.

Wings did well with female bonding moments, and the meat-slapping ep was a great example. Gail and Helen bonding over Joe's obsessive neatness and "the clench". I loved the line about Helen waiting 'til Joe was asleep and touching his shoes together and him waking bolt upright!

I too disliked Alex, although she had moments. And damned if I didn't end up liking Casey, even though I was determined not to. Amy Yasbeck was just so funny. I caught the ep a while back where John Ritter came on to play her husband, and it was just so sad in retrospect.

This show had some great sight gags, anyone remember Lowell's wax museum? The ending sight gag of Roy as Hardy was priceless.

Other favorite eps are the one where they flash back to how Joe and Fay met. Drunk Fay cracks my shit up. And Joe's "Awww Kathryn!" And they sealed the deal with Fay puking on Joe's shoes. Hee. I also love the one where they reminisce about their off-season jobs. And when Joe cracks up and end up running off to the islands. I loved when Brian had to be the responsible one.

That's how it was for me too. I mean, the show was perfectly fine and then they brought Alex on. She was a dismal failure so they write her off but instead of leaving it the way it was before, decided to bring along Helen's sister, Casey (who I swear it had been said that her name was something else).

And I didn't like her at first, her snobbery rubbed the wrong way. But once she dropped that and found her niche with the rest of the island losers, she was hilarious. Like the afore mentioned episode where Helen was still married to Antonio. Helen taps Casey to mind the counter while she's in Mexico for the weekend and Joe's about to leave on a fly-fishing trip. Casey's all, "But I'm such a horrible liar, everybody always sees right through me." "If Joe asks, just say, 'Helen's at the store.'" Then later, after a lot of screaming and fake rats, Casey screams again. Joe's all, "What now?" "Helen's at the store." It was all in the delivery.

Hee! I love that episode!

I taped a bunch of episodes when Nick at Nite first started airing Wings. I was watching some today and picked up some classic lines.

Antonio: I spoke to the other cabbies. Joe's Jeep was placed outside Alex's building no earlier than midnight and no later than two-thirty. Footprints leading to the car indicate he must have left between two and four, because they were filled with rainwater. Which leads me to the inescapable conclusion that I have got to get a life

Roy: You know what I do when I have a problem with a woman?
Antonio: Deflate her?

Helen: He's been to Atlantic City, Myrtle Beach, Key West, and a couple of days ago, he was at Jack's Bar in Mustique.
Brian: Oh, my God... Do you know what that means?
Roy: Yeah. Somebody fun lifted Joe's wallet.

Fay: I heard from the man upstairs. (control tower)
Lowell: You just talked to the man upstairs?
Fay: Yeah, Frank.
Lowell: God's name is Frank?

Roy: The last time I cried I was seven years old. My mom took me to see Bambi.
Lowell: I remember the time I cried. My parents took me downtown to see Ordinary People.
Roy: Yeah, that was a sad movie.
Lowell: What movie?

Antonio: In Italy, we have a saying about the relationship between a man with not so much money and a woman who is very, very wealthy. . . . Way to go.

I just love the simplicity of this. Cracks me up.

Brian: Well, Antonio, the fact is that whenever you're around women you act desperate and pathetic, and that's why they flee from you like a burning building.
Antonio: You're mean.

In one of the early seasons, Helen mentions her two sisters, and while I can't remember their names, Casey was definitely not one of them. Helen felt inferior to her sisters and felt it affected her relationship with her mother. She does however mention that one of her sisters had a "perfect" marriage to a rich guy, so while they changed the name, it kinda follows that it was Casey with a different name. But in the wider realm of retconning, it's a small sin. Chuck Cunningham who?

Great quotes Cal! I loved how Antonio was a loser, but at least got to be a Snarky Loser.

Anyone remember Antonio's relationship with the girl with the "big face"? I just loved the little head shake TS does when he talks about her big face. Tony Shalhoub rocks.

Yeah, I don't let it bother me. I'm sure in earlier seasons, they never dreamed they'd make a regular out of Helen's sister, not to mention the tedious difficulty of combing through old scripts (or marathon-watching old episodes) to try to find out what they'd previously said Helen's sister's name was. I forgive that.

But two sisters? I could have sworn that Helen only ever said she had the one. I really don't recall her ever mentioning two.

You could be right Kariyaki, I'm not sure it was two.

I do get annoyed that this show isn't on at a better time. Sometimes I hate N@N. Not that I couldn't tape or something, but I want it to get more respect.

I used to love the reruns on USA. I adored watching the whole line up of stuff they had, back when I was in college and had my mornings off. Working and The Naked Truth and Boston Common. All funny shows that didn't get much of a chance. Eh, maybe not great shows, but still, amusing, and boatloads better than some of the crap on now. It was funny though, because those shows had only 1 or 2 seasons, so every two weeks you saw the same ones again, but Wings would still be fun because it had so many more seasons.

I think she only mentioned one sister: Lorraine.

Ha! I almost forgot about Edna the Big Faced Girl. Poor Antonio.

Two lines and I have to edit...how sad

Lorraine! That was the name.

My favorite bit with Edna the Big Faced Girl was when she was sitting in the terminal and it was shot from her POV. It showed everyone coming in and reacting to her all horrified. That, and Antonio's description of her one time, "It's like making love to a jack-o-lantern."

I loved the continuity with the big-faced girl and Antonio, and that the writers went back to her from time to time. My favorite line regarding Edna was in the ep where Antonio meets his dream woman in the terminal and then can't find her—Casey draws a big-head caricature for Antonio to post around town and when the cop stops Joe and Antonio, the cop says, "Kind of a big head," and Antonio replies, "It's a theme in my life."

They did, however, kind of break the continuity since they changed her name from something (I can't remember now) to Edna. Anybody remember what the big-faced girl was originally named?

Gotta check the tapes...

Wow, I can't help with what the big-faced girl was originally named, but if anyone can, it's TWoP'ers. I mean Caltrask remembered that Casey was originally named Lorraine.

Oh god, the caricature. I'd forgotten that. Hee.

I loved when they had their class reunion, and Helen was so excited because she was with Joe and thin, and the mean girls still looked down on her, even though they were....well...not as attractive as they once were. Wasn't there a subplot where Brian's ex came back but she had a son she thought was Joe's? I remember a little kid who was all neat, he kept straightening things, which convinced Joe that he was the kid's father.

Also, I loved when Joe and Brian's mother came back. That was great. Brian was all accepting, but Joe was pissed because she'd walked out on them, but finally she and Joe got drunk together and she told Joe that she used to put whiskey in Brian's milk to get him to sleep. Then later Brian talked about his mom making him warm milk and sleeping like a baby.

Yea, that was same ep. Brian's old girlfriend came back and she had a son. It turned out she and Joe had a one night fling after she and Brian broke up. It was between Joe and another guy so they took a blood test. Meanwhile Brian was mad at Joe, Joe was worried as was Helen. At the end, it was not Joe's.
One of best parts was Brian saying he would not steal one of Joe's girlfriends, and Joe told him he had stolen his fiance.