Anachronisms

[Braves2005]

Little House On The Prairie: In the episode "Wave Of The Future", Mrs. Oleson decides to turn Nellie's restaurant into sort of a fast food place complete with an imitator of Colonel Sanders. Colonel Sanders wasn't born during the time frame of Little House (1870's-1880's) and fast food wouldn't become popular until the 1950's at least.

Happy Days: The Cunninghams are watching an episode of The Untouchables in a first season episode which was set in 1955. The Untouchables didn't premiere until 1959.

Laverne and Shirley: In the episode where they send the nasty letter to the boss of the department store in Los Angeles in the first season in California (1980-1981) set in 1965, the background music is the theme of Mission: Impossible which didn't premiere until 1966.

You can also see mid and late 1970's products on both Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley.

 

[landtuna]

... and fast food wouldn't become popular until the 1950's at least.

Fast food in its own standalone building perhaps but both diners and full service lunch counters were around long before the 50's. Downtown department stores even featured restaurants inside which were both fast food and sit-down fancy places. And then there were the various automats which were coin-operated vending machines but in a restaurant setting.

 

[bpatrick]

I think the anachronism on that "Little House" episode is the idea of
finding somebody who looks like Colonel Sanders to be the symbol of
that restaurant. Sanders wasn't born until 1890 and began franchising
in the 1950s.

 

[FredLeonard]

... and fast food wouldn't become popular until the 1950's at least.

Fast food in its own standalone building perhaps but both diners and full service lunch counters were around long before the 50's. Downtown department stores even featured restaurants inside which were both fast food and sit-down fancy places. And then there were the various automats which were coin-operated vending machines but in a restaurant setting.

White Castle (and various rip-offs with similar names) were selling cheap burgers from their own buildings in the 50s and before. So were A&W (and other similar) root beer stands, which offered both car-hop and walk up service. McDonald's was already selling franchises around the Midwest (possibly including Milwaukee) when Happy Days took place. But drive-ins were the more common type of fast-food outlet at this time (Arnold's was shown as a drive-in in early episodes before the show switched to three-camera production with a studio audience). A popular drive-in in Milwaukee was Marc's Big Boy. In the Northeast, Hot Shoppe, Jrs. were operating. The Colonel was also franchising his walk-up chicken restaurants (originally sold for take-out, like another chain called Chicken Delight). New York and Philly had Automats. Cafeterias were still popular in many cities.

 

[harrisburgpatv]

You can also see mid and late 1970's products on both Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley.

Like the "Nip-It" pinball machine?

 

[radiorob2.0]

The ultimate anachronism-space-time continuum was the series "Blansky's Beauties". It was an impromptu spin off of "Happy Days" where Nancy Walker shows up at the end of an episode as Howard proclaims her his Cousin Nancy and she lives in Las Vegas. The show "Blansky's Beauties" took place in modern (late seventies) time. What added to the suspension of disbelief was the cameos of Happy Days stars on the new show that took place in the future when compared to "Happy Days".

 

[ixnay]

In the Northeast, Hot Shoppe, Jrs. were operating. The Colonel was also franchising his walk-up chicken restaurants (originally sold for take-out, like another chain called Chicken Delight). New York and Philly had Automats. Cafeterias were still popular in many cities.

My grade school class patronized a Hot Shoppes, Jr. for lunch one time during a field trip to a pest control place.

There was also a Hot Shoppes at the service plaza on Interstate 95 near Newark, DE.

Chicken Delight brings back memories of its jingle ("Don't cook tonight, call Chicken Delight"). Alas, I never set foot in one nor did my family order from them. Although there was a CD in the Upland Shopping Center in Upland, PA (suburb of Philly and Chester).

Back to the Happy Days family tree... it seemed to me that the singing of Anson Williams, Scott Baio, and Erin Moran and the accompanying music sounded more appropriate to the era in which HD, L&S, and JLC aired than the time setting (this was probably discussed previously on R-I/RD.

ixnay

 

[michael hagerty]

I noticed on a MASH re-run this weekend that Hot Lips has a early-mid 60s design clock radio in her tent...way too modern for the Korean War.

With Andy Griffith, I wonder how many of the obvious anachronisms were the writers subtly underscoring how behind the times Mayberry was...

 

[visaman]

I noticed on a MASH re-run this weekend that Hot Lips has a early-mid 60s design clock radio in her tent...way too modern for the Korean War.

With Andy Griffith, I wonder how many of the obvious anachronisms were the writers subtly underscoring how behind the times Mayberry was...

Andy Griffith has been quoted saying that Mayberry was stuck in the '30s :

 

[firepoint525]

"Happy Days" and "M*A*S*H" were full of them. During the last few seasons of "Happy Days", the clothing and hair styles the characters were wearing were from the early 80s, not the mid 60s, when the later seasons of "Happy Days'' were set. Howard Cunningham was wearing a digital watch (not available in 1965) and wire rimmed glasses (1965, black horned rimmed glasses would have been the norm for middle aged man) and the Fonz was wearing bell bottomed jeans (from the early 80s) when straight-legged jeans would have been the norm.

In the last few years of Happy Days, they just simply quit trying. Even on the very last episode when Joanie and Chachi (whose hair was always WAY too long for those days!) got married, Howard Cunningham commented on raising two wonderful children. That Chuck Cunningham just could not get any respect, could he? But that is more of a continuity issue, not an anachronism.
Were there any time-sensitive pop-culture references at all in the latter years of Happy Days, even if not placed in correct chronological order? I seem to recall that in the spinoff Laverne and Shirley, they at least celebrated the Beatles, but probably nothing to that effect in the later years of Happy Days.

There were a few; in one episode, Howard and Marian are watching TV, we hear a few bars of the Gilligan's Island theme, and Marion wonders why the Professor doesn't just build a boat. ;D
There was also an episode where Howard takes Potsie to see a Milwaukee Braves game, their last chance to watch the Braves before they move to Atlanta(the episode was set in 1964, which was supposed to be the team's last year in Milwaukee; in real life, they stayed one more year, and played their first game in Atlanta in '66...but it was established that HD was still in 1965 when the series ended).

I remember a civil-rights-themed episode, but since I saw it only as a rerun, I don't particularly remember in what season that that episode originally aired. Do you remember that one? Since civil rights was an ongoing struggle during the mid- and late-'50s to early-to-mid-'60s, that particular episode would have fit in almost anywhere during that show's timeframe, and thus, during its run. One of the few really serious issues that they took on. (I don't remember a JFK assassination episode, for instance.)

 

[cd637299]

Just yesterday, ME-TV showed a Wild Wild West episode in which the completed Statue of Liberty is part of a plot by Ed Begley. He quotes the Emma Lazarus poem ("Give me your tired, your poor," etc...) even though the show was set in the 1870's and the poem wasn't written until 1883.

"The Wild, Wild West" gets a pass here...That show was straight-up trippin' most of the time.

Amen. One episode had a foreign agent (Harvey Korman... I half expected him to call himself "Hedley") trying to blackmail President Grant with a movie of him taking a bribe. Motion pictures would not arrive for another 15-20 years.

An "Andy Griffith" episode had Barney reading the newspaper and chuckling at the comics: "oh, that Andy Gump." "The Gumps" ended in 1959, and the number of papers carrying it had declined during the '50s. (Its heyday was in the '20s and '30s.)

In the 1970 "Green Acres" episode The Beeping Rock (my all time fave ep of GA), it begins w/ Oliver coming back home from Pixley with the newspaper. Lisa wants to read the comics, and Eb the sports page.

Lisa: Happy Hooligan is funny today.
Oliver: They haven't made Happy Hooligan in---
Lisa: Oh, Mutt & Jeff are funny too.
Oliver: Mutt and---
Eb: Hey! Red Grange scored three touchdowns yesterday!
Oliver: Red Grange?!?

Not really an anachronism .....the Pixley paper was celebrating moments of the past in an anniversary issue, combing articles of the past with those of the present. Oh & I think "Mutt & Jeff" were still in the funnies in '70, but certainly not as popular as 50 years earlier.

cd --and yes, Wild Wild West was certainly out there!

 

[BD Sullivan]

"Happy Days" and "M*A*S*H" were full of them. During the last few seasons of "Happy Days", the clothing and hair styles the characters were wearing were from the early 80s, not the mid 60s, when the later seasons of "Happy Days'' were set. Howard Cunningham was wearing a digital watch (not available in 1965) and wire rimmed glasses (1965, black horned rimmed glasses would have been the norm for middle aged man) and the Fonz was wearing bell bottomed jeans (from the early 80s) when straight-legged jeans would have been the norm.

In the last few years of Happy Days, they just simply quit trying. Even on the very last episode when Joanie and Chachi (whose hair was always WAY too long for those days!) got married, Howard Cunningham commented on raising two wonderful children. That Chuck Cunningham just could not get any respect, could he? But that is more of a continuity issue, not an anachronism.
Were there any time-sensitive pop-culture references at all in the latter years of Happy Days, even if not placed in correct chronological order? I seem to recall that in the spinoff Laverne and Shirley, they at least celebrated the Beatles, but probably nothing to that effect in the later years of Happy Days.

There were a few; in one episode, Howard and Marian are watching TV, we hear a few bars of the Gilligan's Island theme, and Marion wonders why the Professor doesn't just build a boat. ;D
There was also an episode where Howard takes Potsie to see a Milwaukee Braves game, their last chance to watch the Braves before they move to Atlanta(the episode was set in 1964, which was supposed to be the team's last year in Milwaukee; in real life, they stayed one more year, and played their first game in Atlanta in '66...but it was established that HD was still in 1965 when the series ended).

I remember a civil-rights-themed episode, but since I saw it only as a rerun, I don't particularly remember in what season that that episode originally aired. Do you remember that one? Since civil rights was an ongoing struggle during the mid- and late-'50s to early-to-mid-'60s, that particular episode would have fit in almost anywhere during that show's timeframe, and thus, during its run.

During the first season, there was an episode entitled "The Best Man," which had this plot: "Howard lets a black army buddy have his wedding at the Cunningham home, and faces prejudice from their neighbors."

 

[rwells2265]

While they may have stretched it to late April '67 (when Casino Royale was released), producer Matthew Weiner has talked about how they are very careful to avoid anachronisms, lest they get trashed by some of the show's very particular fans.

"Mad Men" is very, very good about continuity. However, nothing and no one - even Mr. Weiner - is perfect; I have picked up on a couple of very minor oversights: in one of the earlier seasons, when Peggy is talking to an old boyfriend -- in one shot the camera is looking over his desk at Peggy, and in a mail holder is an envelope with the first U.S. Postal Service emblem .... which did not come into being until 1970! At the time, it was the Post Office Department.

Another one -- unless I'm wrong -- involved those push-button hand dryers. In a recent episode, one showed up in the bathroom. Maybe New York got those *really early*, but I didn't start seeing those until the very late '70s.

Again, very minor stuff ... but "Mad Men" is true to the era. And I consider myself rather persnickety about that kind of thing; it's not difficult to have somebody review period continuity.

--Russell

 

[LKellerIII]

Cars are a big problem in movies and TV shows. I recall a World War II drama with a 1955 Chevy army car.

Many period shows that shoot on real streets will strategically park old period cars on the street, but not bother (or can't afford) to close off real traffic in the background - so you'll see modern cars driving down the street in back of the action.

The new CBS TV series Vegas takes place in 1960, but the police cars are all 1963 Fords, and the period cars on the sets range from the late 50s to the late 60s.

 

[johnbasalla]

Playing up the backwardsness of "Hooterville" was apparently great sport on "Petticoat Junction". They often refer to things that were way-old hat by the 1960s. In fact there is a complete episode around the town being excited about having a special showing of the silent film "Wings" at a local area theater. In fact, the two actual stars of that 1928 feature appear as themselves in the episode.

 

[KeithE4]

Playing up the backwardsness of "Hooterville" was apparently great sport on "Petticoat Junction". They often refer to things that were way-old hat by the 1960s. In fact there is a complete episode around the town being excited about having a special showing of the silent film "Wings" at a local area theater. In fact, the two actual stars of that 1928 feature appear as themselves in the episode.

What year did that episode air? Clara Bow got top billing in that movie, and her last film appearance as herself was in 1949, per IMDB. She died on 9/27/1965, so she could have conceivably appeared on Petticoat Junction during its first two seasons, but I don't see her listed.

 

[cd637299]

Sounds more like a Green Acres episode than a PJ!----I can't recall all the circumstances, but there was one Acres ep where some old forgotten law was enacted, where a local airport was supposed to get a fleet of "Jennies" (WWI planes).

That would be a consistent kinda plot with a showing of "Wings," but then again, I think I'd remember one like that, with actual stars of the movie.

cd

 

[michael hagerty]

It was PJ...November 9, 1968.

The WINGS co-stars were Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen.

 

[BD Sullivan]

It was PJ...November 9, 1968.

The WINGS co-stars were Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen.

The following week, June Lockhart introduced her character to essentially replace Bea Benaderet, who had died a month earlier.

 

[michael hagerty]

Another one -- unless I'm wrong -- involved those push-button hand dryers. In a recent episode, one showed up in the bathroom. Maybe New York got those *really early*, but I didn't start seeing those until the very late '70s.


--Russell

Russell:

The push button hand dryer was introduced in 1948. I don't ever remember a time without them and my memory goes back to 1960 (McDonald's had them even then).

There's a scene in HELP! (1965) in which the bad guys use a hand dryer in a washroom to try to suck the sacred ring off Ringo's hand.

So Mad Men's solid on this...and New York (at least in the 60s) wouldn't have been "really early".