Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Even a Worm's Ill Turn

First the newscasts scare people about Bird Flu. Now these same LA newscasts are striking fear in their viewers about bubonic plague. I'm always amazed that viewer fear so often appears to be the objective of news stories.

All of this talk about disease made me think about new medical conditions that TV writers dream up. One thing led to another; so here's a list of TV ep titles that refer to some kind of new -itis or -phobia:
  • Acute Bussophobia (''The Bob Crane Show,'' 4/24/1975)
  • Crystallitis (''Far Out Space Nuts,'' 9/13/1975)
  • Mork Gets Mindy-itis (''Mork & Mindy,'' 10/21/1979)
  • Santaclaustraphobia (''Hill Street Blues,'' 12/16/1982)
  • Snorkitis Is Nothing To Sneeze At (''The Snorks'')
  • Aduckyphobia (''Darkwing Duck,'' 10/7/1991)
  • Oboe Phobia (''Civil Wars,'' 10/7/1992)
  • Witchitis (''Sabrina, the Animated Series,'' 10/9/1999)
  • Santa Claustrophobia (''The King of Queens,'' 12/17/2003)
  • Rhinoceritis (''Rugrats'')
  • Blackaphobia (''Ego Trip's Race-O-Rama,'' 2/22/2005)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bird flu has become a serious matter for South Asia. The
farmers are losing their chickens in thousands without receiving any
compensation.   Suffering huge losses,
several farmers in India have
committed suicide if the situation becomes
worse then most probably we will see more deaths from India and other South
Asian countries. Now, we have to hope that the problem does not become too much for Africa.