Dream On

1990 - 1996

Martin Tupper is a neurotic book editor and divorced dad who's still in love with his ex-wife. This HBO "tit-com" follows Martin's daily life as he navigates dating, work, and his family while clips from old TV shows play in his head.

Stars: Brian Benben, Wendie Malick, Chris Demetral, Denny Dillon, Dorien Wilson, Michael McKean, Jeff Joseph, Renée Taylor, Paul Dooley
Created by: David Crane, Marta Kauffman
Tags: quirky, singles
See: "Dream On is basically Herman's Head with tits. Prove me wrong." on the Rerun Rewind Blog.

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Episode Tropes

Season 1

Hot for Teacher: Episode 3, "Sex and the Single Father" (1990). Jeremy's grades have been falling lately, and Judith discovers it's because he has a crush on his teacher.
Not with My Sister You Don't: Episode 4, "Sole Sister" (1990). Martin's sister, Susan comes to visit, and Martin has a meeting, so Susan goes to the movies with Eddie. When she doesn't come back to Martin's apartment, he freaks out, and Susan confesses that she and Eddie have been sleeping together whenever she visited for eight years.
Write What You Know: Episode 5, "Angst for the Memories" (1990). Martin decides to get back into writing, and he writes a play based on his life with Judith. When Judith reads it, she's offended by how she's portrayed, but it's nothing compared to her and Martin's embarrassment when a local theater agrees to put it on and turns it into a pretentious musical.
We Were Robbed: Episode 8, "Martin Gets Lucky" (1990). Martin's apartment gets robbed, and in the aftermath, he finds his long lost Sandy Koufax baseball card.
Dance Lessons: Episode 11, "Up the River" (1990). A girl asks Jeremy to a dance, but he's afraid to go because he doesn't know how to dance, so Martin and Eddie show him how by dancing together, and Eddie gets a little carried away.

Season 2

Limp Willy: Episode 6, "Futile Attraction" (1991). Despite being almost constantly in bed with various women, Martin is suddenly having trouble getting his engine started, and it's putting him in a nasty mood.
Giving Up the Gun: Episode 7, "No, I'm Just Happy to See You" (1991). After he and Eddie get mugged twice, Martin walks into a gun shop and asks for the biggest gun they have (then buys the second biggest). When he catches a man robbing his apartment, he holds him at gunpoint for hours waiting for the cops to arrive. When the robber finally tries to make a run for it, Martin accidentally shoots him in the arm, and he feels so badly about having hurt someone that he lets the cops take the gun and vows never to buy another one.
Stalker: Episode 9, "Play Melville for Me" (1991). Martin hosts a public access talkshow called "Book Beat," and an obsessed fan starts stalking him almost immediately.
Tax Audit: Episode 11, "Pants on Fire" (1991). Martin gets audited for the year he and Judith separated, so Judith helps him go through his receipts and discovers one for a hotel room Martin used to sleep with one of her colleagues while they were still married.
Surprise Porn Star: Episode 12, "The Charlotte Letter" (1991). Martin is deliriously happy with his new girlfriend, Charlotte, until Eddie shows him an old tape of a porno starring Charlotte under the alias "Malibu Canyon."
Poker Night: Episode 13, "The Name of the Game Is Five-Card Stud" (1991). Martin gets roped into a poker game with his co-workers, and when Carter tries to kiss up by inviting Gibby along, the "nickel and dime" game turns into a high stakes bloodbath.
Write What You Know: Episode 14, "So Funny I Forgot to Laugh" (1991). Martin's old friend, Bonnie, moves to New York to try to be a comedian, but she bombs at her first amateur night, so Martin tells her she should write about her real life, so she does a whole routine making fun of Martin, and everyone cracks up except him.

Season 3

Strange Bedfellows: Episode 1, "And Bimbo Was His Name-o" (1992). An attractive woman buys Martin a drink in a bar, they hit it off, and they go back to his place, but she runs out early the next morning and disappears. When Martin watches the news, he realizes he just slept with a congressman's wife, and when the press gets word of it, it blows up into a huge scandal.
Not-the-mafia: Episode 3, "Nightmare on Bleecker Street" (1992). Martin meets with a well-dressed elderly man named Mr. Monteleoni to discuss a book he wrote while he was in jail. He tells Martin to call him Don, and Martin calls him "Don Monteleoni," thinking he's a mafia don, but it turns out it's because his name is Donald.
Kidney Transplant: Episode 6, "For Richard or for Poorer" (1992). Richard gets shot, and the bullet destroys his only kidney (he lost the other one when he was a medic in Vietnam and saved his whole battalion). Unfortunately, he has an extremely rare blood type, so the chances of finding a donor seem slim, but it turns out Martin has the same blood type, and he reluctantly gives Richard a kidney.
Green Card: Episode 8, "Here Comes the Bribe" (1992). The INS is threatening to deport Gibby back to Australia, and to stay in the country he wants to marry an American citizen. He promises Martin Whitestone will publish his novel if he convinces Toby to marry Gibby. Toby agrees and has a ball planning a lavish wedding and negotiating a hefty fee.
The Plots Thicken: Episode 9, "May Divorce Be With You" (1992). Martin's parents announce that they're getting divorced, and they argue over who gets to be buried next to Martin, even though Martin and Judith already have their own plots.
Mi Casa Es Su Casa: Episode 16, "Theory of Relativity" (1992). Martin's cousin, Sarah, comes to visit, and she tells the family that she's staying at the Knickerbocker to a chorus of old people insisting she stay with them instead, then Martin's mother insists Sarah stay with Martin.
Jumper: Episode 17, "Up All Night" (1992). When a manuscript gets destroyed twice in one night, Martin stands on the ledge of the roof of the Whitestone building and threatens to jump.
Bachelor Party Gone Wrong: Episode 18, "The Guilty Party" (1992). Eddie's getting married, and Martin, his best man, insists on throwing him a bachelor party, even though Eddie doesn't want one. It starts all the guys turning down alcohol for various reasons, a porno tape that gets eaten by the VCR, and a stripper with a head cold, then it devolves into extremely awkward conversation and ends with Martin finding Eddie in bed with the sick stripper.
Baby Daddy: Episode 22, "No Deposit, No Return" (1992). A writer Martin works with asks him for his sperm so she can have a baby, but she doesn't want him to have anything to do with raising the child.

Season 4

See You in Court: Episode 1, "Oral Sex, Lies and Videotape" (1993). Martin accidentally records a former kids' show host called "Uncle Bouncy" getting a blow job from a hooker in an alley, and he sells the tape to Eddie for his show. Shortly after the segment airs, Uncle Bouncy jumps off a building and kills himself, and his daughter sues Martin in what becomes the trial of the century.
15 Minutes of Fame: Episode 8, "The Book, the Thief, Her Boss and His Lover" (1993). Martin needs to publish a book by a late famous author, but his widow doesn't want her dead husband's name on it, so Toby seizes the opportunity to cosplay as a writer. The book is a hit, and Toby gets so wrapped up in her ill-gotten fame that she re-records Martin's voicemail message to a message for "the Toby Pedalbee fan club."
Lamaze Class: Episode 12, "And Bobby Makes Three" (1993). Judith is pregnant, and of course, Richard is off saving lives or something, so she asks Martin to accompany her to Lamaze class, where he runs into an old flame from high school and asks her out.
No Room at the Inn: Episodes 12-13, "Silent Night, Holy Cow" (1993). It's Christmas Eve, and Judith talks Martin into joining her on a trip to Pennsylvania Dutch Country, but they get lost and end up in Bethlehem, and there's no room at the inn. As they're on their way to find somewhere else to spend the night, the car breaks down, and Judith suddenly goes to labor, so they seek shelter on a farm, and Judith has her baby in a barn.
Going My Way: Episode 13, "Silent Night, Holy Cow Part II" (1993). After Toby sees the Virgin Mary in a crack on Martin's office door, she decides God has a higher purpose for her, and tries to become a nun, but when she finds out she can't have pets in the convent, she changes her mind.
Going Your Way: Episode 18, "The Second Coming" (1994). Toby is head over heels in love with her new boyfriend, Sherman, but she's shocked to discover that he's a priest betraying his vows to be with her.
Role Reversal: Episode 19, "Martin Tupper in Magnum Farce" (1994). Martin sends a feuding couple of writers to Judith for therapy, and she starts by having them reverse roles, which just makes them bicker even more.
Plastic Fantastic: Episode 23, "A Face Worse Than Death" (1994). Martin's mother comes to New York to get a facelift without telling her boyfriend, Harry, but she has a heart attack on the table, and Martin has to tell Harry the truth.
Walt Disney: Episode 25, "Stone Cold" (1994). Richard drops dead due to the defective kidney Martin donated to him, and according to his wishes, his body is cryogenically frozen to be revived at a future date, if possible.

Season 5

Hostage Situation: Episode 1, "The Taking of Pablum 1-2-3" (1994). Two struggling writers hold Martin and baby Richard hostage as part of a bizarre plan to sell their screenplay.
Surprise Prostitute: Episode 3, "Tis Pity She's a Neighbor" (1994). When Martin knocks on his neighbor's door to complain about the noise, he meets a beautiful woman, so of course, he invites he over for coffee. She spends the night, and in the morning she tries to charge him $540 for her "services."
School Reunion: Episode 6, "The Homecoming Queen" (1994). Martin and Eddie attend their high school reunion in White Plains.
Pretend We're a Couple: Episode 6, "The Homecoming Queen" (1994). At their high school reunion, Martin rekindles an old flame, which pisses off her cop ex-husband, who holds him at gunpoint and threatens to shoot, so Eddie tells the cop that they're a gay couple, and Martin plays along to save his life.
IQ Controversy: Episode 7, "I'm with Stupid" (1994). Martin finds out his girlfriend has an IQ of 167, and it makes him feel threatened, so he tries to compete with her smarts.
The Magician: Episode 9, "Those Who Can't, Edit" (1994). Toby gets interested in magic and keeps interrupting Martin at work to attempt (and fail at) tricks.
One and Done: Episode 9, "Those Who Can't, Edit" (1994). Jeremy writes a novel, and Martin is excited to help him with his writing career, but after Jeremy's book gets published by Random House, he decides he's "done with the writing thing."

Season 6

Clip Show: Episode 7, "Take Two Tablets, and Get Me to Mt. Sinai" (1995). Martin almost chokes to death, and in the afterlife, he's judged based on clips from previous episodes.
Going Co-op: Episode 10, "Tie Me Sister Lu Down, Sport" (1995). Martin's building is going co-op, and he can't afford the outrageous price to buy his apartment, so he has to ask Gibby for a raise.
One and Done: Episode 12, "Flight of the Pedalbee" (1995). After listening to a series of self-help tapes, Toby decides to make her dream a reality by staging her one-woman show. It's a big success, but Toby has no plans for a career in show business. She tells Martin it's not about being a star, "it's about doing it."
Surprise, You're Adopted!: Episode 15, "Little Orphan Eddie" (1995). At Martin's ill-conceived surprise party for Eddie culminates in Eddie accidentally finding out he was adopted.

Character Tropes

Frenemy: Eddie Charles - Played by Dorien Wilson & Jeff Joseph.
Swinging Bachelor: Eddie Charles - Played by Dorien Wilson & Jeff Joseph.
Hard-to-please Father: Mickey Tupper - Played by Paul Dooley.
Fallen Childhood Hero: Uncle Bouncy - Played by Tom Poston in season 4, episode 1, "Oral Sex, Lies and Videotape" (1993).