About 25 years later, 2 characters get locked in the attic of the Martin home. In the background, there is a skeleton (the Martins are a married DR and Nurse), with a pair of skis propped beside it, wearing a hat with the name Bobby on it.

But it does not pertain only to WW characters, folks in the business have used this moniker widely.

Other famous instances of “going to Mandyville” are as follows (from factbug):

All in the Family: At the start of the 1976-77 season the Bunkers took in a Puerto Rican boarder named Teresa Betancourt. She was featured in several episodes, but did not return the following season. No explanation was ever given regarding her departure.

# The Facts of Life: Originally the show centered around Mrs. Garrett and seven young girls. After the first season, most of the girls, including Nancy, Cindy, Sue Ann and Molly (played by Molly Ringwald), were dropped from the show. They appeared in a few subsequent Season 2 episodes, but were not seen or mentioned again until Season 8.

# M*A*S*H: Spearchucker Jones appeared during the first season as a doctor at the 4077th and the fourth tent mate in the Swamp. He quietly disappeared during the first season when the producers were made aware that in fact, there were no Black surgeons in United States Army M*A*S*H units during the Korean War.

Later on in the first season, the anesthesiologist Ugly John Black, who played a rather prominent role in the series, also dissappeared. No explanation was ever given for his departure. However,the character of BJ Hunnicut was scripted to reference Ugly John in a much later episode, but the line was cut out of the final cut. BJ was scripted to write a letter to home, in which he told his wife that “It seems like they’re all leaving us. Even Ugly John got shipped home.”

# The Simpsons:

* The therapist Dr. Marvin Monroe was dropped from the series with no explanation because the cast all hated the sound of his voice (Harry Shearer has also said it was hurting his throat). The first reference to the character’s departure was the appearance of “Marvin Monroe Memorial Hospital” in one episode. In an episode about the show’s anniversary, it claimed that Marvin Monroe was one of two characters that died at the time (the other character was Bleeding Gums Murphy). However, he reappeared in a later episode claiming he had been “very sick” during the time he was missing.
* After guest voice actor Phil Hartman was murdered in 1998, his 2 characters, Lionel Hutz & Troy McClure were dropped from regular appearances, without explanation. They both have made appearances in clip shows and in crowd scenes, but never in major roles. As a tribute to Hartman, 2 pages in the Simpsons episode guide Simpsons Forever! were used as a tribute to McClure’s career in entertainment, but nothing is explicitly said about his fate.

Star Trek: During the first season, Janice Rand was a regular, serving in the capacity as the captain’s yeoman and potential love interest for Captain Kirk. She mysteriously disappeared halfway through the season and, although she has appeared in four of the Star Trek movies and an episode of since, no explanation has ever been given for her departure (William Shatner claims that Grace Lee Whitney was let go because of serious drug and alcohol problems; while that was true, the producers have said that they just didn’t think it was a good idea for Kirk to have a love interest on the ship).