A couple of us were discussing tributes last night, and I thought it would hold up as its own thread:

Some random scenes are actually a subtle tribute, such as:

In Cheers, Sam Malone adjusts the picture of Geronimo, which was a tribute to Nicholas Colansanto, who played Coach. This picture used to hang in his dressing room.

Some are not subtle:

In The Cosby Show, there is always a mention of Martin Luther King on the episode that aired the week of his birthday.

Anybody else have a good one?

This is one of my favorites--on Sesame Street, Big Bird has a sketch of beloved Mr. Hooper hanging near his nest. I see it in the background quite frequently and it's a lovely reminder of one of the original cast members.

Didn't Cosby also wear a button in tribute of Sammy Davis, Jr.?

I'm always puzzled when the episode of some TV show ends with a line "in memory of" or "in memoriam" of someone, and I don't recognize the name. I suppose it's some member of the TV show's crew.

Oh, I almost forgot: After 9/11, Friends had subtle tributes in the form of the Magnadoodle, and Joey wearing a NY firefighter shirt.

Cosby also had grandkids named Nelson and Winnie, after the Mandelas.

Star Trek:TNG was rife with tributes. Just about every piece of equipment, procedure, strategy, technical data, or star system was named after someone either in the production crew, a scientist from our time or an homage to one of the creative peoples interests (tonnes of anime). Whenever a character looks at a console, you can bet that the small print is all about someone in the production credits.

I don't know if this counts, but ST:TNG even had a tribute to weight loss. There's a scene where Gene Roddenberry's production assistant walks down the hall in a skimpy uniform with the camera focused on her waist.

At the end of the Drew Carey show there's always a sonogram of a baby with a giggle voiced over. I assume it's a tribute, but does anyone know the background story?

'In loving memory of Glenn Quinn' ::bawl::
I lost it right there.

Newsradio - kept a photo of Phil Hartman displayed in the office.

At the end of the season premiere of JAG last year, the last few minutes was a scene from season 5 where Trevor Goddard walked out of a bar with the JAG staff singing to or rather serenading him. He had died in June that year.

Those are all wonderful. I don't watch JAG - at all - but caught the tribute to Trevor Goddard while waiting for another show, and even I was moved.

General Hospital spent three days in tribute to beloved actress Anna Lee and her equally beloved character, Lila Quartermaine. They did a good job - highlighting neglected veterans and even bringing back some people who weren't on the show anymore - but I did find myself thinking, "If you'd shown her this much respect while she was alive [they'd fired her rather cavalierly only a short time earlier, and her son said it would kill her], she might not be dead!"

But still, I cried a lot.

Word to News Radio. I loved the episode right after Hartman's death. It ended with everyone in the office coming to take an item from Bill's desk as a memento, until Jimmy James took the desk itself. The final shot was of Bill's empty chair. It was a classy tribute to a great talent. Every time I see it, I get a little misty again.

That ep is so hard for me to watch, because you can tell that Vicki Lewis is crying through most of it. I can't imagine how the cast held it together as well as they did.

I loved Phil Hartman dating back to SNL, and especially his Bill Clinton impression, but I never watched "Newsradio" much. Still, I had to watch the tribute episode. I agree that it was a classy tribute to a man of huge talent who was also clearly loved by his co-workers. I thought it was particularly lovely that Khandi Alexander came back just to pay her respects, as it were.

Cheers: "Coach" kept a picture of a Native American in his office. After the actor who portrayed him passed away, they put it out in the bar. In the final episode, right before the lights go down for the last time, Sam straightens the picture. A nice and subtle nod to an original cast member.

And if Vicki Lewis couldn't make it through the episode without crying? I was right there with her. Even thinking about it brings a tear to my eye.

Eris Rising, the Cheers photo was mentioned at the top of this page, in the first post. A really nice tribute, though.

Add to me to this list of people who hates herself for saying, "Whoooo?" at the end of most of those memoriam credits. I wish they'd include a picture or title or something, but then I realize it's not really my business if I don't know who they are in the first place.

And I will write one hundred times on the bar napkins "Do not post before the first cup of coffee in the morning". Accidentally missed that line while reviewing.

Eris Rising, now that you mentioned this again, I wonder if you had the same experience as my family and I did.

Remember that this was before the internet, chat groups, and TWoP. . .

We saw Sam stop and adjust the picture, and we all said, "What was that? It must mean something, but what is it?" It was several weeks before we discovered the meaning behind it.

That is exactly why I started this thread, was to see what else I have been missing, so thank you to all who are posting.

Two of my favorite ones were from SNL, marking the passing of two of the original cast members. When Belushi died, they played a short film that had aired while he was still in the cast, a mock tribute to the original Not Ready For Prime Time Players, hosted by an "old" Belushi. He's made up like a geezer and he ends the bit by announcing that he'd outlived them all (because he was "a dancer!") and dancing on a grave. It was a dark little piece, ironic in retrospect (since he was actually the first to go), and very in keeping with his comic sensibilities.

The second one happened when Gilda Radner died. They re-aired a wonderfully silly little film from the original cast's run, featuring Gilda and Steve Martin meeting in a bar, then being swept up in a silly, over-the-top dance number. It was at turns romantic (in an over-dramatic way) and full of bizarre little Snoopy-dance-like shuffles and crazy dancing, and it made me cry to see how much Gilda and Steve were enjoying themselves doing it. If I'm remembering correctly, Steve himself came on the show to introduce it.

*sniff*

I remember both those tributes, and yes, Steve Martin came on to introduce the one to Gilda. Each encapsulated the appeal and talent of the performer being saluted.

I may be wrong about this, but I think that after Phil Hartman's murder, SNL aired, as tribute, a sketch he'd done with Jan Hooks. It was a black and white parody of the Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald films, showing an old woman [Hooks] entering a bank vault and retrieving from a safety deposit box a tiara. She then flashes back to a younger self, singing and dancing about love with a handsome prince in full Sigmund Romberg regalia [Hartman]. The flashback fades, she puts back the tiara and leaves the bank. The guard acknowledges her with a respectful smile and we see that it is Hartman. No explanation as to whether they once knew each other and are now in reduced circumstances, or if the whole flashback is a fantasy, or what. A lovely, subtle sketch.

My favorite one is from Band of Brothers. Richard Speight, Jr. played Warren "Skip" Muck, who died in the Battle of the Bulge. Speight took his own initiative in tracking down Skip's family, which was revealed when Skip's niece, Eileen, posted to the HBO boards. Skip's sister (Eileen's mother) told Richard a story about how she and her mother were so mad when Skip once swum the Niagra River in a strong current. Richard told the writers' this, and so there's a scene in "The Breaking Point."



It's so bittersweet, as that's the episode where Skip dies, and knowing the story behind that dialogue...

Maybe this should go in a "Gone But Forgotten" thread: the actor who played Mrs. RevCam's father on 7th Heaven (I can't find his name on the WB's website). His death was ignored, then, when Brenda Hampton actually got around to killing off his character, like, months later, it was treated as a cause for celebration by the other characters. It never was properly acknowledged, and the whole subject was poorly dealt with all around. Bleh.

I thought the episode dealing with John Ritter's death on "Eight Simple Rules..." was beautifully done, from the different ways the children dealt with it [especially the one daughter's guilt over having told her father she hated him just before he died] to the ways the community and family supported each other, to the minor irritations and moments of understanding, it was a realistic reflection of how unexpected death has impact on a family. And the final pan to the two photos of John Ritter with Katey Sagal brought a smile to my face as I dabbed at the last of my tears.

Subsequent episodes were uneven, and the arrival of David Spade pretty much killed my interest in the show, but that night I thought the production team and cast really rose to the occasion.

TudorQueen, I agree. I also like the way that they still refer to John Ritter on occasion, instead of never mentioning him again, like some shows do with a character who died.

I taped the last three episodes with John Ritter and then the farewell episode. I thought "8 Simple Rules" handled that situation very well. From the montages at the end of the new episodes to Katey Sagal introducing the episodes and saying goodbye to her friend in a very classy way - it was perfect.

The farewell episode made me cry. I kept having to tell myself that John Ritter just wanted to leave the show, he wasn't really dead. After all of the coverage of his death and how he died on his 5 year old daughter's birthday....SOB!!!

What affected me the most about Steve's introduction of the tribute was the fact that he was visibly shaken, clearly struggling not to burst into tears.

At the end of the 2001 season premiere of "Frasier":
"In loving memory of our friends Lynn and David Angell"

The excutive producer and his wife, killed on the first plane to hit the World Trade Center.

And in the final episode of Frasier, they named Daphne & Nile's new son "David" as a tribute to David Angell. Very classy.

I remember the episode of Barney Miller that aired soon after Jack Soo died as being very touching, a retrospective of the funniest moments of the show. Soo himself did a PSA for the American Cancer Society just before he died, warning people not to smoke (he died of lung cancer) and he looked just terrible.

At the end of the Brazilian episode of A Cook's Tour, there was a little memorial to the charming carioca who had showed Tony Bourdain around Rio. I'm not certain how he passed, though.

Have to agree that Gilda's tribute on SNL was one of the loveliest ever. Steve Martin was actually the host that night, and Gilda passed away that Saturday morning, so I'm guessing that Steve's opening was the first that many had heard about Gilda's death.

I sobbed through the film and through Steve's emotional tribute, but what really made me lose it was the cut to commercial break, when the camera panned over to a one-shot of G.E. Smith, the musical director, playing into the break. G.E. was Gilda's first husband, and he was wearing a black armband.

If your ex-husband pays you the honor of publicly mourning your death in such a touching, classy way, I think you've lived a good life.

IIRC, he was shot and killed when the people in the car next to his objected to the volume of the music he was playing. Totally meaningless.

Barbara Olsen, a frequent guest on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect, was on the plane that flew into the Pentagon. The first week after regular programming resumed, PI kept one of the guest chairs empty in her memory. It was so exactly the right thing to do.

When I was younger, it always used to scare me when I'd watch a show right after an actor died and they'd show a photo at the end. Looking back, it was a classy tribute, like on Gimme a Break, when the first episode after the chief's death aired and the last shot closed in on a Dolph Sweet/Chief photo. Or on Night Court when Selma Diamond and then Florence Halop died, and they showed photos of them at the end. I think it scared me because it was explained to me ahead of time that they died, and so I was not expecting to see them again, so their faces being the last I remember of the episodes was kind of freaky. Also the fact that I knew the shows were fake, so these character/actor deaths kind of blurred the reality line.

Of course, as it was previously mentioned, Seventh Heaven took care of that by giving the viewers several months to get over the passing of Graham Jarvis before any mention of it. Didn't Days of Our Lives do the same thing with MacDonald Carey's death? I actually liked the tribute--in both cases. I thought the video clips were very touching, if not timely.

These things always freak me out, despite the fact that I don't know any of these people from Adam. One of the most disturbing tributes I've seen was at the end of one of those "Showbiz Kidz" type documentaries, all about pageant girls and their scary mommies. Late in the film, it's revealed that one of the girls has a terminal case of cystic fibrosis. The film stops at the end of the pageant, but after the credits there's a tribute to the girl, who apparently died in between taping and release. She was only fourteen, if I remember correctly.

I was disproportionately freaked out when Jenna's mom died, too. Probably because I was scared of Jenna's psychic powers, but still.

Yes, and if you remember, at the end of that show, in the slot where the last skit would have aired, they showed the short film clip, "La Dolce Gilda", which was shot in black and white, in the style of a French art film. I'm not good at describing it, but the transcript is here...

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/77/77qladolce.phtml

The ending is a heartbreaker...

The Dixie Chicks video "Without You" features an actress who's 9 months pregnant and caressing her tummy while the song plays. The woman had the baby shortly after filming and even though everyone believed the baby to be healthy, he died at 5 days old from a heart condition. At the end of the video they have a dedication to the little boy with his birth & death dates. It changes the whole meaning of the song and I still can't hear it on the radio without crying.

Worst tribute ever was for the woman on "Two Fat Ladies" who died. The cooking channel ran a whole show of interviews of people who knew her - and no one had anything nice to say! They talked about her bad habits, that she could never hold down a job, if she didn't like what you were saying she would throw things at you and even went into great detail about how unclean her house was with each interviewee telling a different story about something disgusting in her house (thawing a dozen turkeys in the bathtub - ick). I think someone even started a story with "she's dead now so I can say this".

Tim McGraw's newest video "Live Like you Were Dying" has clips of his Dad pitching. His dad a few months ago of a brain tumor, right around the time that Tim was cutting this song. I get totally choked up at the subtle tribute everytime I see it.

I think SNL has had its finest moments during their times of loss. After 9/11, SNL was pre-empted for quite some time, the first week by news, the next couple by previously aired shows. There was great speculation as to how the show would, or could, go back on live. How does a comedy handle that level of loss? As with the loss of Gilda, they handled it with class and understood the need for an Irish wake – smiling and crying at the same time.

Lorne Michael opened the show with Rudy Giuliani, introducing members of the FDNY, NYPD and the Port Authority Police. Then Paul Simon sang “The Boxer” – a perfect choice for the show and the City. During the song’s break, the camera moved from face to face of the men standing in the background. I can’t image how there could have been a dry eye in the house.

After Paul finished, Giuliani basically said that NY was going back to business as usual. The next few moments were priceless. Lorne asked, “Can we be funny?”

Rudy responded, “Why start now?” and finished, “Live – from New York – it’s Saturday Night!”

Just about the only September 11 tribute that wasn't too glurgish.

And yet, it still brought tears to my eyes.
What an odd, and yet, perfect rallying moment for the city. Call me crazy, but that's one of the things that made me realize that we (as a city and as a nation) were going to be okay.

After Phil Hartman's death:
At the conclusion of the "fake news" segment of his show, Dennis Miller bids the audience goodnight, then pauses.
"Phil, I miss you already."

And a few years earlier, after the Oklahoma City bombing, rather than his pre-introduction joke, he very quietly and solemnly offered his condolences to the residents.

Something else from SNL:
A few weeks after Kurt Cobain's suicide, Pearl Jam appeared on the show. During the Goodnights and Goodbyes sequence, Eddie Vedder, opened his jacket to reveal a "K" stitched onto his shirt.

Word on the SNL tributes. Haven't seen a bad one yet. Always appropriately funny and sad at the same time.

I remember the SNL 25th anniversary show, when they reunited every former castmember possible, and invited all sorts of guests. I think every cast that lost someone paid special tribute to them. The first cast played the Belushi and Gilda tributes mentioed above, and I remember David Spade doing an intro to something for Chris Farley. I forget the sketch, but I know I saw how emotional it was for Spade. You could really tell how much he loved Farley in that moment.

Interesting. I just bought the anniversary DVD the other day, so I can answer that.

The sketch was perfect. They ran an episode of "The Chris Farley Show" in which he's interviewing Paul McCartney, who was the musical guest that week. They did the typical "nervous fanboy meets celebrity" routine, then had this exchange:

CHRIS: "And you know at the end of Abbey Road, when you sing "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make"?

PAUL: Yeah.

Short pause.

CHRIS: Is that true?

PAUL: I think so, Chris. In my experience, I've found that the more you give, the more you get.

Chris nods, then turns to the camera, excitedly mouthing "Awesome!"

So fitting.

Indeed it is, Eris. And since you have that DVD, could you check a couple things for me please?

1: Did the first cast have both the tributes, or was it something different? I remember Larraine Newman did the tribute intro, like Spade did.

2: After my last post, I suddenly remembered Lovitz also getting emotional. But was I imagining it, or am I juxtaposing 2 occasions?

Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller and others were part of the Phil Hartman tribute.

SNL has actually lost 5 cast members: John,Chris, Phil, Gilda and Danitra Vance who was part of the unfortunate season that had Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr and Anthony Michael Hall.

Gosh, just looking at the previous posts about Phil Hartman makes me want to cry all over again.

Then I probably was juxtaposing Lovitz emotional over Hartman and Spade emotional over Farley.


Now that you mention her, I vaguely remember the tribute(s) for her. Didn't she have AIDS or some other major disease? Of course, since she was part of that totally forgettable cast, most people watching the SNL 25 were probably all "Who?"

Danitra died of breast cancer. She was a bright spot in that season - I remember she did a character of a "ghetto" teenager with two kids, and she sang a song called "I Don't Want A Baby", and the same character, I think, also once explained the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet; something like:

"Wherefore art thou Romeo?" don't mean 'where are you?', it means "How come you gots to be Romeo?"

She really deserved better than that season.

Topic: I didn't realize the Coach tribute on Cheers until I read it here. Thanks!

One of my favorites was the episode of Murphy Brown that paid tribute to Colleen Dewhurst who played Murphy's mother. When Dewhurst died, so did the character and the whole episode was deovted to Murphy coming to terms with her mother's death, their rocky relationship, and talking to her father (played by Darren McGavin). It was just perfect and what I remember most is that I cried and laughed at the same time, just like I did during the Barney Miller tribute to Jack Soo.

Later in the series, Murphy named her son Avery after her mother.

The first episode of WWF Raw Is War after the shocking death of Owen Hart falling from the rafters and hitting his head on the turnbuckle was a carefully constructed tribute to him. Occasionally different wrestlers would be interviewed about their memories of him, and even the villains like Shane McMahon let themselves go completely out of character to pay their respects. The most touching was Mark Henry, who was in tears the entire night and read a poem during him interview.

ITA with the WWF Tribute. It made angry when other people thought they were insincere.

I keep thinking of Glen Quinn from Angel. It was just a simple message at the end of a season 4 (I think) show, when the beast came. It kinda creeped me out. But the sad thing is up until now, every time I saw it, I kept wondering, "Who is Glen Quinn." Then my mom answers, "You know the actor who played Mark on Roseanne." Sad.

Crap, now I am all teary eyed here at work from reading about all the great SNL tributes! I remember them all. They did such a great job.

Someone asked a few pages back if Days of Our Lives waited a bit before they had the character of Tom Horton die (MacDonald Carey had passed away a few months earlier) and yes, they did. It was done beautifully and they still keep his voice on the opening credits, which is nice. That show never fails to make me cry when they do their Chirstmas ornament hanging episode. They also still keep photos of "Tom" around the Horton house too. (OT, but isn't it amazing that Alice Horton, mother and grandmother to many never had children in real life? She sure plays a good grandma! I just find that fascinating, for some odd reason).

Speaking of SNL tributes, lastyear, when Mr Rogers died (is there anyone here who wasn't blessed to have him around when they were growing up?), Horatio Sanz came out onto the stage, dressed in one of his trademark cardigans and sang one of his songs. I forget which, either "It's You I Like", or, "You're Special", but it was an absolutely lovely moment.

Also, after the death of Charles Schulz, the musical break featured themes from the Peanuts Show and Christmas specials.

Someone upthread mentioned the empty chair on "Politically Incorrect" for Barbara Olsen. IIRC, she was going to LA specifically to be on that show (she was a regular guest and she had a new book coming out). She was scheduled for an earlier flight, but chose the later one so she could have breakfast with her husband since it was his birthday. She had left him a love note on his pillow, which he found when he got home at the end of that long, long day.

Thanks for confirming that for me. I've wondered about that since the show first aired.

On The Waltons, Grandpa died over the summer hiatus. The first episode of the next season dealt with his death. They bury him on the mountain and each character spends a moment by his grave for their own personal farewell. Grandma (Ellen Corby), who had suffered a stroke the previous season and whose first episode back with the show was Will Geer's last, struggles to simply say, "You live in us, Old Man." Simple, tender, classy.

To add to the Sept. 11 tributes, on one of Conan's first shows back, maybe his first, Fountains of Wayne were the musical guest. They did a cover of the lyrics-appropriate Kinks song, "Better Things" and one of the guitarists had, IIRC, "We love NYC" and "Thanks Rudy" written on his guitar. Small gestures, but very much appreciated.

I'll never forget the episode of Passions, when Josh Ryan Evans died. All they did was at the end of the episode have a picture of him as Timmy and his birthdate and deathdate. Still brings me to tears when I think about it. I miss the little guy. Damn it. Now I need tissues.