Below is a table of the broadcast history of Platypus Man on the United Paramount Network. “DOFB” is the date of first broadcast.
| # | R? | DOFB | Date | Episode | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 January 1995 to 13 March 1995: 9:00pm Mondays | |||||
| 1 | 23 Jan 95 | 23 Jan 95 | “Episode One” | ||
| 2 | 30 Jan 95 | 30 Jan 95 | “9 1/2 Days” | ||
| 3 | 6 Feb 95 | 6 Feb 95 | “The Apartment Show” | ||
| 4 | 13 Feb 95 | 13 Feb 95 | “NYPD Nude” | ||
| 5 | 20 Feb 95 | 20 Feb 95 | “Sweet Denial” | ||
| 6 | 27 Feb 95 | 27 Feb 95 | “New York on $2,000 a Day” | ||
| 7 | 6 Mar 95 | 6 Mar 95 | “Lou’s the Boss” | ||
| 8 | 13 Mar 95 | 13 Mar 95 | “The Crush” | ||
| 20 March 1995 to 24 July 1995: 9:30pm Mondays | |||||
| 9 | 20 Mar 95 | 20 Mar 95 | “Both Sides Now” | ||
| 2 | R | 30 Jan 95 | 27 Mar 95 | “9 1/2 Days” | |
| 3 | R | 6 Feb 95 | 3 Apr 95 | “The Apartment Show” | |
| 10 | 10 Apr 95 | 10 Apr 95 | “Without a Hitch” | ||
| 4 | R | 13 Feb 95 | 17 Apr 95 | “NYPD Nude” | |
| 5 | R | 20 Feb 95 | 24 Apr 95 | “Sweet Denial” | |
| 11 | 1 May 95 | 1 May 95 | “Lower East Side Story” | ||
| 12 | 8 May 95 | 8 May 95 | “Out of the Mouths of Babes” | ||
| 13 | 15 May 95 | 15 May 95 | “Dying to Live” | ||
| 22 May 95 | Pre-empted by The Secret Of… Part I | ||||
| 6 | R | 27 Feb 95 | 29 May 95 | “New York on $2,000 a Day” | |
| 7 | R | 6 Mar 95 | 5 Jun 95 | “Lou’s the Boss” | |
| 12 Jun 95 | Pre-empted by Legend | ||||
| 8 | R | 13 Mar 95 | 13 Jun 95 | “The Crush” | 9:00pm Tuesday |
| 9 | R | 20 Mar 95 | 13 Jun 95 | “Both Sides Now” | 9:30pm Tuesday |
| 10 | R | 10 Apr 95 | 19 Jun 95 | “Without a Hitch” | |
| 11 | R | 1 May 95 | 26 Jun 95 | “Lower East Side Story” | |
| 12 | R | 8 May 95 | 3 Jul 95 | “Out of the Mouths of Babes” | |
| 13 | R | 15 May 95 | 10 Jul 95 | “Dying to Live” | |
| 3 | R | 6 Feb 95 | 17 Jul 95 | “The Apartment Show” | |
| 4 | R | 13 Feb 95 | 24 Jul 95 | “NYPD Nude” | |
| 31 Jul 95 | Pre-empted by Legend | ||||
| 7 Aug 95 | Pre-empted by Legend | ||||
| 14 Aug 95 | Pre-empted by Legend | ||||
| 21 Aug 95 | Pre-empted by Star Trek: Voyager | ||||
Richard hurts himself by falling off the treadmill while he is admiring the women at the health club. He calls a therapeutic masseuse, Wendy, whose number he finds on a flyer at the club, to help heal from his accident. Wendy has just moved to New York from Seattle, and Richard falls for her and shows her around the city. Tommy wants Richard to go on a double date with him and twin dental hygienists, but ends up going alone and pulls his shoulder when they tie him down with unwaxed cinnamon dental floss. Paige gets set up on a blind date (with a married man) by a fellow sportswriter. Rich gets jealous and over reacts when his friends start getting massages from Wendy. The problem is resolved when Wendy moves back to Seattle because she does not like the NY coffee. Richard makes pasta primavera on his show.
Ethan Phillips, who plays Nelix on Star Trek: Voyager, guests as Vern Tuttle, the organist for Richard’s show. At one point Richard quips, “Hope you didn’t miss one of your Star Trek conventions.”
Lou sets up Richard with his son’s (Lou Junior) second grade teacher, Beth Garland. Beth says their sex (which involved fruit and a pigeon that landed on the balcony) is too conventional. Paige’s parents come to visit her, and Paige tells her parents that she is engaged to Richard in order to stop them from harassing her about marriage. Lou, Tommy, and a Priest all agree that Richard is too conventional, and he wants Beth to help him become more uninhibited. Beth and Richard do many wild and crazy things. Paige’s parents keep running in to Richard with Beth, including finding Richard in the lavatory on their flight home, after Beth ditches him for the pilot when Richard wants to go on real dates with Beth instead of just having sex. Richard makes steak and potatoes on his show.
Richard’s landlord wants to evict him from his rent-controlled $427/month apartment because the apartment is in the name of Gina, on old ex-girlfriend’s of his. Paige feels her biological clock ticking when yet another one of her friends has a baby. She wants to go to a spermbank, but then realizes that the donors could be lying about their characteristics. Gina tells the landlord that she and Richard still live in the apartment together. In exchange, Richard lets her and her new boyfriend use it for sex (she is about to be evicted from her apartment because of the noise). Paige decides to have Lou, Richard, and Tommy give donations and have the spermbank randomly pick one to use. They all set a new record of two minutes. It turns out that Tommy turned in an empty cup because he was wearing a condom, Lou had a vasectomy after Lou Junior was born, and that Richard has sperm that will not survive insemination (he blames it on the summer that he lived next door to a power plant). Paige and Richard think about having sex instead, but Paige comes to the conclusion that what she really wants is the happy married life of her friend, and not just the child. Richard makes turkey on his show.
Richard is in a rut and hasn’t had a date in a long time. Paige gets tickets (Floor seats next to the Knicks bench) to cover the last three games of the basketball playoffs for the paper. Lou goes to the game with her while Richard gets a CD player installed in his car. Richard gets pulled over because Owen, who installed the CD player, is causing him to drive erratically. The police officer turns out to be Mindy Parsens (from the “Ladies in Blue” issue of Playboy, November 1994, page 52), and she hooks up with Richard because she is impressed by a man who can cook. Lou gets the fans at the game excited helping the Knicks to win. When Richard introduces Mindy to his friends, they are disappointed with her in person, which causes Richard to get disappointed. Mindy breaks up with him when she catches him looking at her pictorial. Lou helps to get the fans excited during the second night and is written up in the paper. Richard tries to explain himself to Mindy while she and her partner Joe are being filmed by a Cops-like show. The third night the Knicks lose, and it’s Lou’s fault because the other team banded together in hatred of him. Richard makes shrimp flambe on his show.
There was not a “Ladies in Blue” pictorial in the November 1994 issue of Playboy. There was, however, a pictorial of NYC police officer Carol Shaya in the August 1994 issue, and a follow up in the July 1995 issue. The issue shown in this episode is the November 1994 issue.
Richard tells his friends that he is in love with Caroline, and they all tell him that he falls in love to easily. Tommy teaches Lou “the look,” which causes women to stop dead in their tracks. Paige is dating Doug Monroe, a dumb pro-football player. Caroline takes Richard to what turns out to be a recycling party, where women try to dump their boyfriends onto their friends, and Richard meets Stella. Richard invited Lou, Tommy, and Paige. Lou tries “the look” and catches a woman who becomes obsessed with him. Richard goes back to Stella’s apartment, who then sends him to buy ice cream and toppings. The doorman won’t let him back into the building because he doesn’t know her last name or apartment number. Paige dumps Doug because he is too stupid. Richard Makes Single Man Leftover Stew: “Very easy to make, and best of all you get to clean out your refrigerator.”
Richard’s twin brother Vince, a sleazy real estate developer, comes to visit on a business trip, and steals his girlfriend, Candice. Paige goes out on a date with Bobby, who covers the Jets games from a blimp, and doesn’t have a good time. Bobby starts to follow Paige around the city in his blimp. When Vince introduces everybody to his companion, Luciana, and then gets called to Philly, Richard steals Luciana. Richard falls for her, and when Vince returns discovers that she is a “world class, four star, dating and escort professional” to whom he owes $17,000. He has to become a male escort in order to work off the bill, until Vince’s deal comes through and he pays off the debt.
Richard is excited because it’s his six month (since they met) anniversary with Joanne, who is into tantric yogic sex. When she loses her job, Richard hires her to work on his show. Lou doesn’t want her on the show, and quits because Richard is being childish. Guys keep coming to the bar and asking Paige sports trivia questions, and Tommy starts a contest: stump the chick, win a data. Lou gets a job producing lingerie infomercials. Paige eventually throws a question so that she can get a date with this cute guy who keeps asking her trivia. After a huge foodfight, Lou comes back to Richard’s show. After almost making lobster on the show, Richard makes pasta instead to demonstrate how guys can show their sensitive side.
When Richard takes viewer calls on his show and does a “shock jock” routine, he angers a prisoner who gets paroled the next day. Paige wants to meet a guy, Kent, who is in a stop smoking seminar, so she starts smoking. Lou hires Richard a bodyguard, Bernice, after he receives a threatening letter. Bernice’s presence chases away ten dates during the week. After Richard complements Bernice on her work, she becomes romantically interested in him. The stalker gives himself up, and Bernice gets someone to pretend to stalk him so that Richard will need her. Kent dumps Paige because of her smoking, and she goes nuts looking for a cigarette after throwing all of hers down the incinerator. Bernice lures Richard camping in the woods, and he eventually figures out what is going on and runs like hell. Makes chocolate souffle on his show, which amazingly survives an assassination attempt.
Richard goes to see the doctor (Dr. Nancy Minker) because he thinks that he has a hernia. He ends up dating her, and as usual falls head over heals for her. Nancy is busy every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday night, and his friends think that she is cheating on him. Richard does not want to believe them but eventually visits her when it isn’t his night and discovers that she has a women lover as well (Bob Hamond wins the bar pool). It turns out that she sees one man and one women. Richard can not deal with the competition and exposes his feminine side to try and get Nancy to himself, but eventually breaks up with her because he does not want to share her. The beverage in the spotlight is Clamato Juice.
Lou and Tommy are excited because they are going to a Star Trek convention, and enter an essay contest to win a speaking part on Star Trek: Voyager. Lou wins with an essay about how the Magic Shore Leave episode touched him as a child, which he stole from Tommy. Tommy is mad, and Lou gets Tommy declared the winner. He is allowed to bring Lou with him, but when Lou protests that the Klingons that they are to play wouldn’t say the lines they are given, they are thrown out of the studio.
Tommy’s Poem:
There once was a captain named Kirk,
Who knows where the spacechicks all lurk.
He takes them to Venus,
And shows them his…
Richard gets a call from Eileen Rubenstein, his high school sweetheart. He went steady with Eileen for three years, and she wouldn’t sleep with him until they were married. He was going to marry her, but left her at the alter. Richard never stopped loving her, and it turns out that she never stopped loving him. Paige realizes that she is wasting her time with Roger, a know-it-all that she is dating, and breaks up with him over the phone. He happens to be in the Harlem Tunnel at the time and crashes his car. Eileen and Richard decide to get married immediately. Roger hit his head in the accident and doesn’t remember that Paige broke up with him. Richard gets scared again, and runs away, and Lou talks him back into it. Richard is about to say “I do” when Ben, her ex-boyfriend whom she still loves, comes to the wedding and proposes to her. Richard makes mealoaf on his show.
Richard’s girlfriend Leah wants him to convert to Judaism. He gets Lou to take him to his Temple so that he can get more information, and gets the hots for Rabbi Rachel Shulman. Leah breaks up with him because he goes overboard on the Jewishness. He tells Rachel how he feels about her, and finds out that she has feelings for him too, but that she is leaving for Israel the next day. Rabbi Rosenbaum tracks down Lou, and wants him to finish his Bar Mitzvah training. Richard decides to go to Israel to find Rachel and tell her that he loves her. She ends up ejecting him out of a fighter plane. Richard makes Bagel Pizzas as part of his Football Watching Snacks series.
Richard is dating Karen, who has a 13 year old son Rusty. While Rusty interviews Richard for a school project, Monica stops by Richard’s apartment. Richard attempts to get rid of her, but she kisses him and Rusty takes a photo. He wants $1,000 in goods from Richard, or he will show the picture to his mother. After a shopping trip, Rusty says he will give Richard the picture if Paige goes out with him. Paige agrees so that she can teach the little twerp a lesson. Tommy has to go the dentist to have his wisdom teeth removed, and leaves Lou in charge of the bar. He ends up have a near-death experience due to his allergy to Penicillian, and has to be convinced by an Angel that he is still needed on Earth. Richard makes baked Alaska.
Paige takes Richard, Tommy, Lou to see a psychic. He tells Lou that he will have a windfall, Paige that she will marry the next guy she dates, Tommy that he is going to medical school, and Richard that he will die on Tuesday after being kissed by a Greek man. On the bright side, he will be reincarnated as a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model (Kathy Ireland gets the cover). He also tells Richard that all their fates are intertwined, all must come true for one to come true. Tommy hires a Chinese chef and ends up delivering food to a med school. Lou wins $5,000 in the lottery, and Paige’s boyfriend asks her to marry him. Richard starts to panic, and after talking to Mr. Lou makes piece with all the women he has ever angered. Richard has everyone over at his place on Tuesday night too see if he dies. Stavlos comes in to tell him that there is a plumbing emergency, and ends up kissing Richard, who gets everyone to agree to give up their good fortune so that he doesn’t get killed in the remaining minute before Wednesday.
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