Reverend Mother Superior Placido

Check out the episode "The Return of Father Lundigan" on The Flying Nun -Season 2 - Disc 1 (1967)

Late 60s TV saw Sally Field make the transformation from surfer Gidget Lawrence to a nun whose diminutive frame and starched habit headgear enabled her to fly. Where sensitive Gidget needed the shoulder of her understanding college professor Dad to occasionally lean on, Sister Bertrille (Field) receives firm guidance in the Puerto Rican Convent San Tanco from Mother Superior. This episode uses the stellar 60s standard sitcom plot which sees characters hypnotised. Father Lundigan makes a return visit to the nuns, unaware that Sister Bertrille and Mother Superior assume each others’ personality whenever they hear the word ‘red’. Iconic cameos come from Paul Lynde as the Father (in between roles as Uncle Arthur in “Bewitched” and Mildew Wolf in the classic cartoon “It’s The Wolf”) and Bernie Kopell (Siegfried in “Get Smart”) as Dr Paredes.

Ria Parkinson – pre-“American Beauty”/“Desperate Housewives” middle-class malaise

Check out Butterflies-Series 1 - Disc 1 (1978)

Ria Parkinson is THE original emotionally vulnerable, almost nihilistic, TV housewife/mum. Husband Ben, the dull butterfly collecting dentist (Geoffrey Palmer from “As Time Goes By”), and sons, the usually unemployed Russell and Adam (Nicholas Lyndhurst from “Only Fools and Horses”), barely notice Ria’s decent into mid-life crisis. Her life becomes further complicated when she meets the charming, recently divorced Leonard on her lunchtime walks in the park. With her lack of domestic training and those stark echoing voiceover musings, it’s not hard to think of Wendy Craig playing Ria as a 1970s London Carrie Bradshaw (“Sex And The City”) – although one decked out in Marks and Spencer rather than Christian Dior. I guess this makes her would-be-beau Leonard a somewhat drearier suburban London version of Carrie’s Big – except Leonard has a chauffeur who is played by a Hammer horror film veteran in Michael Ripper!

Nellie Boswell – Liverpudlian matriarch

Check out Bread-Series 1 and 2 - Disc 1 (1986)

In her follow up to “Butterflies”, writer Carla Lane calls on her Merseyside working class roots to bring the struggling staunchly Catholic Boswell family to the small screen. Nellie, whose husband Freddy has left her for a floosie named “Lilo Lil”, is surrounded by her brood of five. None of the kids have left home, and all of them survive on the dole and by selling dodgy gear. Very much a reflection of Thatcher’s Britain in the 1980s, fans of “Bread” include Paul and Linda McCartney, both of whom make a cameo appearance in a later series. Look for the trademark scene involving Nellie passing around the chicken-shaped collection bowl before serving dinner – and try to guess how much dosh, if any, each sibling will place in it this time.

Barbara Royle – part-time bakery worker, full-time domestic dogsbody

‘Have you had yer tea yet Dave? Oooh, what d’ya have?’

Check out Episode One on The Royle Family - Season 1 (1998)

In the 80s, Sue Johnston and Ricky Tomlinson played husband and wife Sheila and Bobby Grant in the Liverpudlian soap “Brookside”. Here they team up again, this time as Barbara and Jim Royle, heads of the Mancunian Royle family; a tribe who seems permanently camped in their lounge room watching TV (as Jim notes: “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” – ‘the best thing on television, bar none’). Barb occasionally gets to lounge on the couch, only to have to shove over when daughter Denise and son-in-law Dave arrive for their nightly post-tea chats. At least Barb gets to ask Dave what he had for tea (‘corned beef hash’, Dairy Lea on toast’, or ‘nothing’, depending on what Denise could be fagged cooking) – and son Antony occasionally helps out, either getting a brew on or by heading down to the shop for a pack of fags. Check out the first ever episode, when Jim is apoplectic about a huge phone bill largely made up of calls Barb has made to next door neighbour Mary.

Jo Frost – Supernanny!

‘It is basic expectations, Marianne, you do not punch your mother!’

Check out the episode "The Weston Family" on Supernanny (US) - Season 1 - Disc 2 (2005)

Is Jo Frost the best substitute mother/disciplinarian since retired master sergeant Emma arrived from the Wacs to fill in as maid for her cousin Alice in “The Brady Bunch”? Supernanny’s task is to tame four year old Andrew, a real little angel who delights in picking on his eleven month old brother and calling his Mum ‘poo poo’. He can demand warm chocolate milk as much as he likes, but you get the feeling the little swine has met his match here. The British have always done a fine line in canine dominatrix – think Barbara ‘walkies’ Woodhouse in the 80s and Victoria Stilwell in the recent “It’s Me or the Dog” – so introducing Americans to ‘the naughty chair’ of the Supernanny seems the next logical step.. Pity Jo doesn’t do a celeb version and start by strapping Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly to it!

Estelle Costanza – The Shame of the Mother

‘I don't understand you. I really don't. You have nothing better to do at 3:00 in the afternoon? Too bad you can't do that for a living. You'd be very successful at it. You could sell out Madison Square Garden. Thousands of people could watch you! You could be a big star!’

Check out the episode "The Contest" on Seinfeld - Season 4 - Disc 2 (1990)

Perhaps if George Costanza hadn’t stayed living with his parents for so long into his adult life he wouldn’t have felt so insecure and paranoid around his bellowing, overbearing mother Estelle. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so obsessed about the uncanny likeness between his mother and his fiancé Susan’s toy doll; or got found out having left a condom wrapper on his parent’s matrimonial bed when he used it to have sex while they were away on holiday; or caused his Mum to wind up in hospital with a bad back after collapsing when she walked in on George ‘treating his body like it was an amusement park!’

Edina 'Eddy' Monsoon

‘If you could look a little less like a Christian missionary then maybe we could get along a little better’

Check out the episode "Morocco" on Absolutely Fabulous-Series 2 (1992)

It’s the classic sitcom generation gap: Mother Eddy’s desperate desire for wealth and fame versus daughter Saffy’s intellectual snobbery. In this episode, Eddy’s PR firm has been enlisted to promote “Pop-Specs”. When Eddy’s friend Patsy agrees to feature the hideous things in a fashion shoot in her magazine, it’s off to Marrakech, Morocco. Saffy wants to tag along to study ‘the natives’ for her uni course, but this time it’s Patsy who objects to her presence on the trip. With Saffy suffering the hazy after-effects from indulging in the Moroccan hookah, it’s no surprise when Patsy manages to sell off ‘the bitch troll daughter from Hell’ to slave traders. Of course Eddy hardly notices her daughter is missing. On her eventual return, Saffy gets no help from Mum when her dirty old friend ‘Uncle Humphrey’ declares his perverted intentions towards Saffy

“Mum” (Jeanette) Brooks –Wentworth Detention Centre’s mother hen

Check out Prisoner Cell Block H -Vol. 1 - Disc 1 (1978)

The opening episode of the long running drama sees Mum Brooks having served fifteen years after euthanising her terminally ill husband. About to be released on parole from Wentworth, we see her struggle to leave behind the ‘security’ of life inside, say goodbye to the small vegie patch she lovingly tendered over the years, and attempt to reconcile with an indifferent daughter still coming to terms with the crime that saw Mum incarcerated in the first place. Look out for Val Jellay who lets Mum a room in a boarding house hovel. When Mum falls while retrieving her suitcase from the top of a wardrobe, the landlord goes straight for Mum’s purse to get what she’s owed in rent. Also check out Mum gently but firmly warning Lynn Warner (Kerry Armstrong) not to endanger Top Dog Bea Smith’s parole by lagging – it follows that memorable scene in which Bea slams Lynn’s hand in the laundry’s steaming iron press.

Sophia Petrillo

Dorothy: Hi, ma. Where are you going?

Sophia: To the boardwalk. I like to watch the old guys rearrange themselves when they come out of the water.

Check out the episode "Ladies of the Evening" on The Golden Girls- Season 2 - Disc 1 (1985)

Before the indignity of playing Sylvester Stallone’s mother in “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot” came this classic sitcom. Estelle Getty plays Sophia Petrillo, who joins her daughter Dorothy in her Miami home after Sophia’s former residence, the “Shady Pines” nursing home, burns down. Add Rose the naïve one, and Blanche the promiscuous one, and you have the housemates that become “The Golden Girls”. In this episode, Blanche wins (just) three tickets to the premiere and after-party of Burt Reynolds’ new movie – and it’s Sophia who misses out on going. So when the others end up in jail after being mistakenly nabbed as prostitutes on their way to the night out, Sophia is the one who can bail them out … or not.

Spike (Christine Nelson) – Degrassi Junior High single teenage mum

Spike: (going into labour): ‘Call my mom ……. QUICK!!!”

Check out the episode "Pass Tense" on Degrassi Junior High -Season 2 - Disc 2 (1986)

The Degrassi Junior High graduation dance goes into TV folklore not only for the debut of Joey, Wheels and Snake’s band “The Zit Remedy”, but also as the event where Spike went into labour with daughter Emma. Named for her spiked blonde hair, Spike was your classic 80s punk outsider; she later dated a guy who was also into Irish punk-folkers “The Pogues”! Teen pregnancy isn’t easy for Spike; one of Degrassi’s Farrell twins, Erica, tells her it’s impossible to get pregnant the first time you have sex; the parents of the baby’s father Shane are busy trying to ship him off to another school; and the Degrassi PTA get her suspended for the ‘bad example’ she’s setting the other students. At least her mum, once a single teen mum herself, supports her.