Best comedy TV factual errors of all time

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The Bob Newhart Show picture

Show generally

Factual error: The apartment makes no sense.There are 3 steps down to the living room which you might have in a house but not in a high rise apartment building.The hallway shows a door for another apartment which would put most of its apartment out past the edge of the building.

hifijohn

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Chelmsford 123 picture

Peeled Grapes and Pedicures - S1-E6

Factual error: Gracientus threatens to assault Aulus Paulinus by shoving a porcupine up his toga. A Roman in AD 123 (or any European, including the Britons for that matter), would not have had the slightest idea of what a porcupine was. He might threaten him with a hedgehog, but a porcupine? Never.

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Haunted Hathaways picture

Haunted Babysitter - S1-E6

Factual error: The conversation between Taylor and Michelle tells us that school is over for the day and that Taylor talked to her crush at lunch. When the boy shows up at the bakery later, he and Taylor plan to meet at 3 that afternoon; if its before 3, they should still be in school.

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The Invisible Man picture

Bad Chi - S2-E9

Factual error: Darien sets up a tripod and videotapes himself leaving a message for the Agency. When the tape is played back later, the camera can be seen to have both zoomed in and panned to follow his movements, even though no one was there to make those adjustments. (00:30:30)

Jean G

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It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia picture

Bums: Making a Mess All Over the City - S3-E14

Factual error: Charlie drops the moltov cocktail into the police car in the end, light enough so that it doesn't break, but the car explodes about ten seconds later, as Charlie explains he had soaked the entire inside with gasoline. However, there realistically wouldn't be such a long pause as shown in the show for the gasoline fumes to ignite. Also, the explosion is much more powerful than it realistically would have been, revealing pyrotechnics were used. Obviously done for comedic value, but still a mistake.

TedStixon

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Father Ted picture

Flight into Terror - S2-E10

Factual error: When Dougal and Ted enter the cockpit, the pilot points out the gauges for 'engines 1, 2 and 3'. They are in a Boeing 737 (the internal layout is that of a 737, not a BAE 146), which only has two engines.

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Full House picture

Just One of the Guys - S1-E18

Factual error: After Steve practised changing a baby on the stuffed toy monkey he and Danny leave Michelle's bedroom and walk into the hallway. But the bedroom you see them leaving from when in the hallway would historically be Jesse's bedroom at the time. When they are in Michelle's bedroom in the shot previous to the hallway, the hallway from the bedroom also looks as if they are in Jesse's room based on the view.

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Hart of Dixie picture

Islands in the Stream - S2-E12

Factual error: At the beginning of the scene with George and his parents going out in Mobile, the city scene pictured is identifiable as the Georgetown neighbourhood in Washington, DC. There's even a DC city bus in the shot. (00:07:17)

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Lost in Space picture

Show generally

Factual error: The Robinsons exceeded the speed of light due to impurities in chemical rocket fuel. No chemical rocket fuel comes remotely close to the energy content needed to even approach the speed of light. That would require exotic fuels like antimatter. By Einstein's theory of Special Relativity it is impossible to exceed the speed of light with any form of rocket propulsion. Faster than light travel and time travel might be possible with the warped spacetime of Einstein's general theory of relativity and phenomena such as wormholes. For plausibility the opening scene should have been an encounter with a wormhole.

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This Is Us picture

Katie Girls - S3-E3

Factual error: Randall flies out last minute across the country to Los Angeles to be at his sister's side for her surgery. The scene where he arrives at the hospital and meets up with her husband Toby in The Waiting Room is prefaced by an exterior shot of the supposed hospital building. The sign outside the hospital indicates the name as "Sutter Health Alta Bates Summit Medical Center," which is a hospital in Berkeley - the San Francisco Bay Area - about 400 miles north of Los Angeles. (00:19:30)

Paco386

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Spin City picture

Yeah Baby! - S6-E6

Factual error: When Paul demonstrates his Portuguese, the subtitles read "My monkey needs a haircut," when the translation is actually "I feel very sick."

Knever

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All Creatures Great and Small picture

A Cure for All Ills - S1-E6

Factual error: At the end of the episode, as the veterinarians are leaving the pub, the camera pans up to the sky and you can see the full moon right next to the north star and the big dipper. In the northern hemisphere the moon is always to the south.

hgwalters

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Victorious picture

Tori Gets Stuck - S2-E4

Factual error: Tori donates three pints of her blood. There is no way that the hospital would have done this in real life seeing as it takes about eight weeks before a person can actually donate blood again.

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Resident Alien picture

Family Day - S2-E5

Factual error: The phone number Harry is given has an exchange that starts with "0" (the first 3 digits after the area code). Phone numbers (in the US) can't start with "0" since that's the "operator."

Bishop73

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Sanford and Son picture

Sergeant Gork - S5-E23

Factual error: During the meeting with American prisoners the lone woman says she's fought in both the European and Pacific theaters. Unless I'm mistaken, nobody got shipped from one to another during the war unless one theater was done.

Rob245

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Mary Tyler Moore picture

Feeb - S2-E16

Factual error: In this episode, when the show opens, it shows the outside of a restaurant where the news team meets for lunch. If you look closely, there are palm trees on the left side of the screen next to the restaurant, almost hard to see because the tops blend into the roof of the restaurant. Everyone knows that because of its climate, Minneapolis does not have palm trees. Perhaps even more noticeable is the huge hotel looming above the restaurant that says "Sheraton Universal", a well known hotel attached to Universal Studios in Los Angeles.

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3rd Rock from the Sun picture

Y2dicK - S4-E17

Factual error: Mary gives Dick directions to press Command-Q to close something. As Dick is using a Compaq computer which would be running Windows, he would not have a Command key and would instead have a Control key (which he actually is pressing) as the Command key exists only on Apple Macintosh computers. Ctrl+Q on a Windows machine doesn't do anything. (00:09:10)

Douglasac

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Enlisted picture

Pilot - S1-E1

Factual error: While the brothers were fighting with each other, they were interrupted by the flag being raised and stopped fighting to salute the flag. The wrong song was playing when the flag was being hoisted. On real Army bases, Reveille is supposed to play during the raising of the flag, but the show had the end of "To the Colors" (what is played when the flag is being lowered in the evening) playing instead. (00:14:00)

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