Question of the Day - 03 October 2013

No, it's not just your imagination, and this was already an epic QoD back when we answered it in the summer of 2006. Since then, Las Vegas' has become established both as a media hub in its own right, and as a "real" city where people actually live, as opposed to merely being a cliched destination for series finales, or the go-to location when the producers want to boost ratings with the "wild-and-crazy" episode.

Hence, these days there are multiple highly successful television shows entirely based in Sin City, from the original "CSI," which struck on a formula so successful that it spawned spin-offs in Miami and New York, to the raft of so-called "reality" shows, like History Channel's "Pawn Stars."

Still, the old "anything goes" image has proven to be a tough stereotype to shed, and since we penned our first answer to a similar query more than a half-decade alone, plenty of other fictional shows have made that once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Las Vegas for the bachelor weekend/wedding party/get-rich-quick/creepy murder/general desperation episode. Hence, we've decided to run this one as two-parter, with a recap today of that original answer to be followed, tomorrow, with all the newbies that have popped up in the interim. As with our original take on this, we welcome any reader input should we have missed something obscure (or, indeed, glaringly obvious), so get your thinking cap on, QoD Nation!

• Topper "Cosmo Goes to Las Vegas" Season 1 Episode 29 Aired: 4/23/54 Topper is to go on a short trip with Henrietta sailing. The trip gets stopped because he needs for business reasons to go make a bid for a client on a hotel in Las Vegas. He takes Henrietta, George, and Marion with him to Las Vegas. Marion and George teach Topper to gamble.

• I Love Lucy Lucy & Desi Comedy Hour "Lucy Hunts Uranium" CBS Specials Episode 3 Aired: 1/03/58 Lucy, Ricky, Fred, and Ethyl drive from California to Las Vegas. Ethyl meets Fred MacMurray.

• Phil Silver's: SGT Bilko "Bilko Retires from Gambling" Season 3 Episode 101 Aired: 5/13/58 Colonel Hall hires a professional card player to beat Bilko at cards. He’s so upset at losing that he gives up gambling.

• Alfred Hitchcock Presents "The Man from the South" Series 3 Episode 3 Aired: 1/3/60 In Las Vegas, Carlos (Peter Lorre) bets a gambler (Steve McQueen) that he can't light his lighter successfully 10 times in a row. Carlos bets his new car against the gambler's left-hand pinky finger; the gambler, who's broke, accepts the proposition and manages to light his lighter 7 times when Carlos' wife intervenes...

• Twilight Zone "The Fever" Season 1 Episode 17 Aired: 1/29/60 Tight-fisted Franklin Gibbs is not pleased when his wife wins a trip for two to Las Vegas. But things change when he falls under the spell of a slot machine that calls his name.

• The Flintstones "The Rock Vegas Story" Season 2 Episode 56 Aired: 3/30/62 Fred and Barney run into old friend Sherman Cobblehead, owner of the Golden Cactus Hotel in Rock Vegas, at an eatery. Cobblehead's casual promise to "take care of" Fred should he ever come to Vegas is misinterpreted as a guarantee that Fred will be a big winner in the casino.

• The Beverly Hillbillies "Mr. Farguhar Stays On" Season 2 Episode 13 Aired: 12/08/65 Mrs. Drysdale's father, an aristocratic Bostonian, is coming to visit and invites Granny to accompany him to Vegas. She thinks he's trying to elope with her, rather than take her (and her money).

• Gomer Pyle USMC "Vacation in Vegas" Season 2 Episode 25 Aired: 3/11/66 Gomer wins a trip for two to Las Vegas, and he and Carter win a fortune gambling.

• Banacek "A Million The Hard Way" Episode 5 Aired: 1/11/72 A million dollars in cash sits under a glass dome in a crowded casino [Circus Circus], guards ever at the ready, while tourists have their picture taken. A few brief seconds of distraction, and the cash is gone. How can Banacek [George Peppard] "account" for the eccentric casino owner's lost funds?

• Rockford Files "Dexter Crisis" Season 1 Episode 10 Aired: 11/15/74 Jim meets Susan's roommate Louise Henderson, a law student, who demands to come along on the case. They go to Las Vegas and find Susan playing at the gambling tables.

• Kojak "A House of Prayer, a Den of Thieves" Season 3, Episode 13 Aired: 12/14/75 Former New York cop Vince LaGuardia (and old friend of Kojak) is now living in Las Vegas. When a wanted counterfeiter is murdered, LaGuardia's investigation involves the activities of a hood and an evangelist. (Pilot for an unsold series; unique in that Kojak is not the main cop.)

• Starsky and Hutch "Vegas Strangler 1 & 2" Season 2 Episodes 24 & 25 Aired: 9/25/76 Starsky and Hutch are loaned to the Las Vegas Police Department to snare a serial killer who has strangled a string of chorus girls.

• Charlie's Angels "The Vegas Connection" Season 1 Episode 17 Aired: 2/9/77 Charlie's Angels stage an elaborate con to hoist a Las Vegas blackmailer on his own petard. As part of the ruse, Sabrina poses as an investigator, Bosley a high-roller, and Kelly as an aspiring showgirl.

• Rockford Files "Dirty Money, Black Light" Season 3 Episode 67 Aired: 4/01/77 Something is delivering thousands of dollars in the mail to Rocky and someone is desperate to get it back.

• The Bionic Woman "Fembots in Las Vegas" Season 3, Episode 3 Aired: 9/24/77 Jaime discovers the existence of another group of Fembots in Las Vegas. Investigation leads her to Doctor Rod Kyler and America's first directed-energy-ray space weapon, which is about to be launched into orbit.

• The Incredible Hulk "The Hulk Breaks Las Vegas" Season 1 Episode 8 Aired: 4/21/78 While working in a casino, David helps a Las Vegas reporter with a gambling scandal, only to discover that the reporter is Jack McGee's partner.

• Charlie’s Angels "Angels in Vegas" Season 4 Episodes 49 & 50 Aired: 9/13/78 While undercover at the Tropicana Casino, the Angels must discover the culprit behind a series of mysterious murders before it's too late.

• "Rockford Files" "The Battle-ax and the Exploding Cigar" Season 5, Episode 103 Aired: 1/12/79 Jim is driving himself and a man named Potrankis in a car from Las Vegas, when they’re pulled over by the police and guns are discovered in the trunk of the car –- which happens to be stolen...

• "Alice" "Hello Vegas, Goodbye Diner" Season 5, Episode 3 Aired: 11/16/80 The TV version of the movie Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, in which Linda Lavin played Alice Hyatt, a widow who ends up working in a diner in Phoenix when her car breaks down on the way to Hollywood. In this episode, "the gang" follows Vera to Las Vegas after she wins a trip.

• "Crime Story" "The Battle of Las Vegas" Season 1, Episode 17 Aired: 2/6/87 A strike is threatening the casino industry, while a firebombing team is targeting both casinos and picket lines. Even with the task force hot on their trail, the arson team plants a bomb in a casino and it's up to Danny Krychek to disarm it alone...

• "Valerie" "Viva Las Vegas Season 4, Episode 15 Aired: 3/6/89 The big brother goes to Vegas with a fake ID, hits a jackpot, but gets in trouble with that ID...

• "Married With Children" "You Gotta Know When to Fold 'Em" Season 4, episodes 16 & 17 Aired: 2/11/90 and 2/18/90 A 2-parter in which Peggy and Marcy go to Vegas and lose $5,000 of Al's money. He finds out and takes off after them, with the kids in tow...

• "Roseanne" "Vegas" and "Vegas Vegas" Season 4, Episodes 7 & 8 Aired: 11/5/91 & 11/12/91 Nancy and Arnie tie the knot in a Las Vegas wedding chapel, with guest appearances by Wayne Newton and Danny Gans (impersonating Wayne Newton).

• "Blossom" "Big Doings" Pts. 1 and 2) Aired: 11/22/93 and 11/29/93 Older brother Anthony falls off the wagon in Vegas and wakes up the next morning with a stranger, who had also gone on a bender. They discover they got married the night before. and the couple decides that instead of annulling the marriage, they'll stay together and get to know one another.

• "Beverly Hills, 90210" "And Did It... My Way" Season 4, Episode 10 Aired: 11/10/93 When their wedding plans become too much of a hassle, Stuart convinces Brenda that they should elope to Las Vegas. After Brandon finds out, he gets the rest of the gang to drop what they are doing and they all fly out to Vegas to try to discourage them...

• "X Files" "Three of a Kind" Season 6, episode 20 Aired: 5/2/99 Scully is tricked into coming to Las Vegas by the Lone Gunmen, who are at a defense contractors convention, trying to get inside information on military secrets.

• "Friends" "The One With Joey's Big Break," "The One in Vegas Part One" and "The One in Vegas Part Two" Season 5 Aired: 5/11/99 and 5/20/99 Season 5 ends with the triple bill in which Joey goes to Vegas to make a movie that's already wrapped by the time he gets there. He ends up working as a gladiator at Caesars and the rest of the cast comes out to join him for drunken high jinks and casino capering

• "Alias" - "The Coup" Season 1, Episode 14 Aired; 2/24/2002 Agent Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) is sent to Las Vegas on a mission that involved her posing as a casino cocktail waitress.

• "Lexx" "Viva Lexx Vegas" Season 4, Episode 21 Aired: 4/5/2002 Perhaps the most contrived and random use of Las Vegas as a staging post, this episode of the sci-fi series featured characters Kai, Xev, and Stan stopping off in Las Vegas while they waited for a space shuttle to take them back to the Lexx.

• "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" "Bridging the Gap" and "Heavy Metal" Season 3, Episodes 1 & 2 Aired: 4/28/02 and 5/5/02 This (dark) British comedy series about a group of construction workers featured a double bill set in Las Vegas and the Nevada desert, when the crew is hired to build a bridge across a canyon for a Native American tribe wanting better access to their casino.

• "Joey" "Joey and the Road Trip" Season 1, Episode 11 Aired: 12/2/04 In what can only have been a desperate bid for ratings, Season 1, episode 11 of this "Friends" spin-off, which we proudly confess to never having seen, apparently featured Matt LeBlanc being invited to be a celebrity judge at a Las Vegas beauty pageant and somehow learning to count cards. Um, yeah...

Tomorrow: Part II

• "I remember another Twilight Zone episode with Buddy Ebsen. He had the ability to control objects with his mind and his friend hatches an idea to take a bundle in Vegas through manipulating dice. Twilight Zone "The Prime Mover" Season 2, Episode 21 Aired: 3/24/61 A compulsive gambler cajoles his friend to use his telekinesis to affect the results of the gambling tables in Las Vegas.

• From another reader: The White Shadow Season 1, Episode 10 "We're in the Money" Air date: 2/10/79 Coach Reeves takes the team to a tournament in Las Vegas and the players, instead of resting for the games, decide to take money borrowed from schoolmates and hit the casinos."

• And another! "Missing from the list is an episode that aired in October 1961 on the Dick Powell Theatre, "Doyle Against The House," starring Milton Berle as a down-on-his-luck blackjack dealer. It caused quite a stir at the time, with comedian Berle earning an Emmy nomination for this dramatic role." "The Dick Powell Show - Doyle Against the House Season 1, Episode 5 Aired: 10/24/61 Blackjack dealer Eddie Doyle is good at his job, but his salary is a pittance compared to the sums that cross his table. Doyle needs five grand fast for an operation for his young daughter, so he and a pal named Victor cook up a plan. Victor plays the game while Eddie deals losing hands for the house."