Ed



"This is a whole new brand of weird."

- Ed, to Phil

A seriocomic show about a hotshot lawyer who, following a painful divorce, moves back to his little home town of Stuckeyville, buys the local bowling alley, and opens a bowling alley/law firm. Basically Northern Exposure without the Fish Out of Water elements, this show went for a sense of eccentric whimsy, which was usually genuine and smile-inducing ("Hey! You like sex? Come to the Festival of Ducks!").

Had an odd first episode - the entirety of the Pilot was presented as a "Previously On..." intro and they started with episode 2.

Provides examples of:
 * Artistic Title
 * Berserk Button: "I am a Lawyer. I own a bowling alley. They are not the same thing." - Ed's standard response to being called 'The Bowling Alley Lawyer'.
 * Beta Couple: Michael and Nancy.
 * Big Eater: Ed is a proud member of the local restaurant's "Two Pie Club".
 * Bowling for Ratings
 * Bunny Ears Lawyer: Ed. Mike counts as a Bunny Ears Doctor.
 * Given the nature of most of the other characters, though, their quirkiness probably seems tame by comparison.
 * California Doubling: New Jersey for Ohio.
 * Catch Phrase
 * "Ten bucks if you..."
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Phil
 * Devoted to You: Ed to Carol.
 * Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: Daryll Mitchell, who played Eli Cartwright Goggins on the show, was actually paraplegic.
 * Dogged Nice Guy: Ed to Carol at times.
 * Eccentric Townsfolk
 * Hollywood Nerd: Warren (Justin Long), who would go on to date Drew Barrymore and be the Mac Guy in real life.
 * Joisey: Exterior Stuckeyville town scenes were filmed in Westfield NJ, some locals - including this troper - were hired as "Stuckeyville Extras".
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes: No DVDs have been officially released due to music-licensing issues.
 * Lottery Ticket: One of Ed's cases concerned co-workers being sued after they tricked a fellow worker into thinking he had won the lottery - who then told off the Boss and quit his job before he found out that he hadn't.
 * Nobody Over 50 Is Gay: Subverted with the elderly and cantankerous Charlie Hudson, who is somewhere in his seventies (and dying). His lover is about the same age.
 * Quirky Town: Come on, they named it Stuckeyville.
 * Real Life Writes the Plot: Phil's actor left briefly to do a candid camera style show, so did Phil himself.
 * Real Song Theme Tune: "Next Year" by the Foo Fighters
 * Running Gag: The ten dollar bets.
 * Phil and his zany schemes.
 * The name Godfrey.
 * Shout-Out: The name of Ed's old law firm (Farmer & Sheehan) is an in-joke reference to "Late Show with David Letterman" stagehands Pat Farmer and Kenny Sheehan. (The series was produced by Letterman's company, Worldwide Pants.)
 * Stage Magician: Stuckeyville Sam.
 * The Bet: Ed and Mike's classic $10 bets.
 * Unrequited Love Switcheroo
 * What Have We Ear?: Stuckeyville Sam does this to Ed at the end of the episode "The World of Possibility".
 * Will They or Won't They?: Ed and Carol. They.