Silver Spoons
Hot Shot
TV Flash files “Hot Shot” as hour 64 of 116 in the TV Flash guide — Silver Spoons (1982–1987) on NBC, season 3, episode 20, aired 1985-03-03, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S03E20: listed hour 64 of 116 in the Silver Spoons guide, hour 20 of 24 in season 3. It aired 1985-03-03 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “Trouble with Words” (S03E19). Next is “All the Principal's Men” (S03E21).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Rick unwittingly sells faulty cameras to his friends after falling prey to a scam set up by two scalawags (Paul Williams, Pat McCormick).
Viewer FAQ
Where does Hot Shot sit in the Silver Spoons guide?
S03E20 is listed hour 64 of 116 — hour 20 of 24 in season 3, season 3 episode 20.
When did Silver Spoons S03E20 air?
Hot Shot aired 1985-03-03 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Is this the Jason Bateman starter kit?
He is already practicing deadpan in the guest bedroom, alongside early Alfonso Ribeiro. Schroder is the lead; the mansion is the thesis. Future stars as inventory, like the train set.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Ricky Schroder as the rich kid in a toy-stuffed mansion, Joel Higgins as the boy-man dad, and Jason Bateman already practicing deadpan in the guest bedroom. Yuppie-adjacent family sitcom about wealth, custody, and early teen-idol machinery. The train set in the living room is the thesis: childhood as inventory.
Flash: the train set in the living room was a red carpet you could inventory. NBC, 1982–1987 — Ricky Schroder's post-Champ transition to sitcom prince, Joel Higgins as immature millionaire dad Edward Stratton III, Erin Gray in the mix, Jason Bateman already practicing deadpan in the guest bedroom, Alfonso Ribeiro in the guest-bedroom pipeline. Martin Cohan, Howard Leeds, and Ben Starr's yuppie-adjacent family sitcom is about wealth, custody, and early teen-idol machinery. Someone's publicist called it a rich-kid…
Filed against
- Ricky Schroder as Ricky Stratton
Ricky Schroder's Ricky Stratton parked Silver Spoons in a toy-stuffed mansion — Joel Higgins as the boy-man dad, Jason Bateman already practicing deadpan in the guest bedroom, yuppie-adjacent family sitcom about wealth, custody, and early…
- Joel Higgins as Edward Stratton III
Joel Higgins played Edward Stratton III on Silver Spoons — boy-man dad in a toy-stuffed mansion, Ricky Schroder as the rich kid, Jason Bateman already practicing deadpan in the guest bedroom. Yuppie-adjacent family sitcom about wealth,…
- Erin Gray as Kate Summers
Erin Gray’s Col. Wilma Deering made Buck Rogers in the 25th Century the actual command presence — 1970s catalog disco-era space, jumpsuits, a flyboy thawed into toyetic charm, then Silver Spoons stretching the steel into 1980s mansion…
- Jason Bateman as Derek Taylor
Jason Bateman’s straight-man Michael Bluth held Arrested Development’s callback circus together — a crossword sitcom whose only adult is also a punch line. Fox cult, Netflix revival, a family so densely incompetent that rewatch is a…
- Alfonso Ribeiro as Alfonso Spears
Alfonso Ribeiro’s Carlton Banks made The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air a dance-floor language — Tom Jones, khakis, and brotherly friction as sitcom soft power. The Carlton dance outlived the original run and still owns reunions. TV Flash files…