What shows do you know of that have an unusual naming scheme... Like Friends' "The One With ________".

Others I can think of are:

---Joey's "Joey and the _________"

--- Seinfeld's "The ________"

--- Still Standing's "Still _________"

--- 24's "Day #: ___ time ____"

--- All of the Alf episodes (sans the pilot) were song titles.


Any others?

Scrubs is "My _____________" - with the rare "His (or her) ___________"

Monk: Mr Monk and the _________

The O.C. = "The __________"

That 70's Show's later seasons have been song titles. For instance, the 5th season episode titles are all Led Zeppelin titles, the 6th season are all The Who songs, and the 7th season are all Rolling Stones songs.

The Amazing Race names its episodes after lines said during the episode.

Every episode of Smallville has a single-word title.

Many NewsRadio episodes were named after Led Zeppelin albums.

Some Freaks and Geeks episodes had a (word 1) and (word 2 which rhymes with word 1, but not all the time) scheme ("Tests and Breasts", "Beers and Weirs", "Discos and Dragons").

Every episode of Remington Steele had the word Steele in the title.

Every episode of The Man from UNCLE was titled "The _________ Affair".

All but one episode of Seinfeld were titled "The ________".
(The exception was the third episode "Male Unbonding")

Mr. Show did this too, but there was at least one that didn't have the line: "Eat Rotten Fruit From a Shitty Tree" in season 4

Previous to the internet, how did folks know episode titles of TV shows? The episode title doesn't appear during the broadcast, does it?

Many hour-long dramas showed the episode title as the show started after the post-credits commercial.

Sometimes the episode titles would be included in the TV GUide listings.

La Femme Nikita based the number of words in the title on what season it was.

season one - one word title
season two - two words and so on

That's kinda cool.

They used to. Just watch some older shows, like Perry Mason or the original Star Trek. Police Squad! actually made fun of titles with their show, they'd have a title on the screen, but then the announcer would read a completely different one:

Ring Of Fear (A Dangerous Assignment)

I loved those. It always coincided with the title of the show as well as what was the storyline of the show.

Beers for Freaks
Weirs for Geeks

Discos for Freaks
Dragons for Geeks

etc.

L&O:SVU started doing that in the second season (a few episodes in) and has only done more than one word once for a show since then.

Not really a trend, since they didn't always do it...but I will say that "The X-Files" was the one show that had me going to the dictionary the most often - trying to figure out what the name of the epsiode actually MEANT!

X-files wins the prize for best titles for me. Impressive stuff.
I like the idea of Le Femme Nikita mentioned above. That is kinda cool.

I think all the "Perry Mason" episodes were titled "The Case Of The ________."
And all episodes of "The Wild Wild West were titled "The Night Of The ________."

All the Boston Public episodes were named sequentially "Chapter XX" up to the final unaired "Chapter Eighty-One".

As far as "The O.C.", and "Seinfeld" go, does just putting the word THE in the beginning of the title really count as a recurring theme??

The season 1 eps of Dawson's Creek had titles named after films:

Season 1
Pilot (aka Emotions in Motion)
Dance (aka Dirty Dancing)
Kiss (aka A Prelude to a Kiss)
Discovery (aka Carnal Knowledge)
Hurricane (aka Blown Away)
Baby (aka Look Who's Talking)
Detention (aka The Breakfast Club)
Boyfriend (aka Escape From New York)
Roadtrip (aka In the Company of Men)
Double Date (aka Modern Romance)
The Scare (aka Friday the 13th)
Beauty Contest (aka Pretty Woman)
Decisions (aka Breaking Away)

If you watched the SEINFELD extra features for Season 1's Episode "Male Unbonding," you'll know that Jerry Seinfeld made his writers use the "The ______" pattern because he didn't want them waste time thinking of clever titles for his shows.

Season 1's "Male Unbonding" is the only exception to this rule.

Well, I had thought that Cowboy Bebop either used song types ("Ganymede Elegy") or titles ("Toys in the Attic") for all of their episode titles, but I see a couple that I can't place in that pattern: "Pierrot Le Fou" and "Brain Scratch".