MRS. CHECCHINI
I assume she was supposed to be "cute", but IMHO, she was more annoying than Sophia Petrillo on THE GOLDEN GIRLS.
Thank goodness she was only in a few episodes and didn't become a regular on the series.
I love her...she's one of my absolute favorite recurring characters, after Wendy and Angela. Her voice is great, and you can tell the cast is in love with her. I bet she charmed the pants off the whole crew when she was on the set.
I get the feeling the producers were trying to launch a spinoff for Kevin-- and if ABC had taken the bait, Mrs. Checchini might have been a regular on a new series with Kevin.
I don't think a spinoff was ever attempted on Kevin, though "Kevin Nightengale" feels like another series. As far as Mrs. Checchini she was very cute, but I think they took her character as far as they could go with her with "Home". It's a funny episode, but within it are pretty much all the jokes she had done before taken to a bigger level. I think Season 6 was smart to keep the Kevin apartment scenes to a minimum. When they do show it another cast member is usually with Kevin i.e. Belvedere or Heather.
shareI believe you misread my earlier post in the thread. I did not say they attempted a spinoff or even did a backdoor pilot. But I do think they were establishing him in a new environment with other supporting characters with an eye towards spinning him off eventually. They still needed him on the main show in the meantime. Probably if Belvedere's ratings had been much stronger, Kevin would have had a spinoff, to function as a companion series airing right after the original show. I do think that is why they kept having Mr. Belvedere cross over into a lot of those apartment episodes, instead of George and Marsha. So if there was a spinoff, Mr. Belvedere could keep crossing over, maybe with two-part episodes between the two separate shows, so it would all seem connected and keep viewers tuned into ABC for the full hour. Of course, it never happened-- but if it had, undoubtedly Mrs. Checchini would have been a regular on the spinoff (that's why she doesn't remain stuck in the nursing home). And it's also why the girl who loves Kevin as a macho man with an ex-boyfriend supposedly coming back (with no resolution) was all put in place. They were continuing to set Kevin up with an expanding group of oddball characters at the apartment building.
shareI didn't misread your post, but I should have clarified what I was getting at better. What I should have said was I don't think a series for Kevin was ever, in actuality, considered. I know you didn't say that either, I was only trying to point out that a spinoff was never actually tried or written.
What again seemed to happen is that season 5 had the show being handed over to new writers and directors. It hurt the show initially as they didn't seem to know how to write for a maturing Wesley giving Mr. Belvedere all his prankishness in "The Debate", giving Marsha a very odd left turn career wise, and giving Kevin stories away from the family in his apartment.
Season 6 fixed all these problems, Keven was home a lot more and when he was at the apartment a cast mate was there with him. Marsha was again a lawyer, and while Wesley could never again be the imp of the first 4 seasons, at least they gave him some episodes where he was the slightly insane troublemaker he used to be.
What episode had the girl thinking Kevin to be macho? For some reason I can't recall it except very vaguely.
The one with the girl wanting Kevin to be her macho man was the one where he was wearing the tool belt and fixing things in her apartment. It's from the end of season 6-- the B plot for 'Mumsy.' Mr. Belvedere does not show up at the apartment. Heather has a brief scene at the beginning where she gives Kevin the idea to wear a tool belt, but then she is quickly back at the Owens home for the rest of the episode. From this point on, it is Kevin with the young woman, either in her apartment, or else she is visiting him in his place. He has one short scene later where he gets advice from Mr. Belvedere on the back porch of the Owens home, but then he quickly leaves and goes back to the apartment building. Episodes like that do make it seem like they were establishing Kevin separately for his own show.
One thing that is a bit of a continuity problem is that his roommate Carl is not ever mentioned again. After Carl dates Heather and they break up a few episodes earlier, it is like he doesn't exist anymore. Kevin seems to be a bachelor again, without a roommate in 'Mumsy.'
Funny I put on Mumsy on just after I asked you the question and saw it. I had been only glancing at the episodes the last few days and caught up with my transfers tonight. Skip had been fired so it was odd seeing him the last episode instead of Carl. Carl is easily my favorite of Kevin's friends.
shareI agree, Carl should have been brought to the bachelor party by Kevin, as that would have made sense. I guess they wanted George to bring a friend and maybe bring the actor who played Skip back one last time-- but it does create a continuity error as you pointed out. In an episode from season 5, when we had last seen him, the one where he had surgery on camera (another tasteless episode in my opinion) we were told at the end he had taken a job at a station in another city. Now in the finale, he's back anchoring and it's like he never left. The writers obviously ignored the previous developments and rewrote his situation to facilitate putting him into the last episode. But it would have been easy if Skip could have just been visiting Beaver Falls, or like you said not included and we had Carl in his place instead.
At the wedding, I think we should have seen the woman who runs the donut shop and her daughter. Wasn't Belvedere still a part owner in the donut shop? That is just totally forgotten about when he moves away.
And of course, I do think the dog should have been in the finale. Like he should have been the ring-bearer, a short scene with the dog carrying the rings up to them as they are about to say 'I do.' Or maybe Wesley could have been holding Spot in the last scene the Owens have with Belvedere as he leaves.
So yeah, there are some continuity issues at the end.