Little morality plays

[johnbasalla]

I just saw an episode of "Father Knows Best" from the 1950s. In it the teenage boy accidentally catches a bank robber at the bank. He goes on to bragging to his friends, and gets a front page, headline story in the newspaper. Everyone is so proud. While the teen is bragging to his buddies, the Pastor from church shows up to encourage the boy to speak at church on Sunday about being a hero. The boy breaks down and admits that he's no hero. He fainted at the sight of the gun, and accidentally knocked the crook down. He couldn't lie like he had been while in church. This lead to a different kind of respect for him, and the Pastor still wanted him to speak at church about honesty and humbleness.

I don't watch much TV, and I don't have cable TV, so I was wondering if there are any modern shows that teach moral lessons such as this. I was thinking there might be some on The Family Channel, and such.

 

[searadiofreak]

I think we saw some episodes that preached morality well into the 70's with "The Brady Bunch" and "Little House On The Prairie", and others I'm sure. Perhaps "Cosby" in the 80's, but frankly can't think of much after that. Good topic, though.

 

[mbayus]

They don't make them like they use too.

 

[FreddyE1977]

The most recent series where I recall seeing something that may qualify was "Everybody Hates Chris".

Producers were working under the Television Code back then so they were almost forced to go
with these types of story lines.

 

[John-Summers]

"Father Knows Best," "Leave It to Beaver," even "The Donna Reed Show," family sitcoms at that time were all little morality plays to some degree. "Father Knows Best" was easily the most heavy-handed. "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" is often wrongly criticized for being so too, by people who obviously have never seen an episode. "Ozzie" pre-dated "Seinfeld" as a show "about nothing," but a funny show it was, especially the early episodes.

Speaking of "The Family Channel," a couple of years ago I surfed by there one afternoon about 3 and they were running some "family" sitcom that had at one time aired on UPN or WB, I don't know which, and I don't know the title. It was typical of today's "family" sitcoms: the dad was a fat lunkhead, the wife was blonde and beautiful and would never have married this guy in real life, they had a somewhat skanky teenage daughter and an obnoxious son about 10 or 11. The drift (I wouldn't call it a plot) was that the son had seen mom and dad "doing it" and had proceeded to tell everyone in town. The mom was mortified and was kicked out of the PTA or something. Near the end they had the obligatory moony-eyed part where the dad tells the kid "now Bobby, you know what you did was wrong, don't you?" I was appalled, and I'm no prude. This is what passes for afternoon entertainment on "The Family Channel?" Whose family...the Bundys? Man, I'd rather watch Ozzie..Nelson that is, not Osborne.

 

[Markxxx]

The thread reminds me of the "Little Rascal/Our Gang" shorts.

It's clear by the time the series was drawing to a close, every short was an unfunny morality play, where the gang learns a lesson.

While the "Our Gang" kids were never evil, they certainly were mischievous and weren't skiddish about bending rules to get away with kid stuff. But by the end I was cringing with Spanky giving Mickey a sermon about right and wrong. And I realize a lot was propaganda for WWII, but there are ways of doing it funny, like "Burns and Allen" and "Jack Benny" did.

Gracie is talking to announcer Bill Goodwin and her man hungry friend Tootsie about women joining the military during WWII

Gracie) And you know Bill every woman who enlists in the WACS frees up a man for combat
Tootsie) Well Bill, do you think I should join?
Bill) I don't think you'd qaulify
Tootsie) Why not?
Bill) Didn't Gracie say every woman frees a man for combat service
Tootise) Yes
Bill) Well Tootsie I can't see you ever setting any man free

 

[John-Summers]

The thread reminds me of the "Little Rascal/Our Gang" shorts.

It's clear by the time the series was drawing to a close, every short was an unfunny morality play, where the gang learns a lesson.

While the "Our Gang" kids were never evil, they certainly were mischievous and weren't skiddish about bending rules to get away with kid stuff. But by the end I was cringing with Spanky giving Mickey a sermon about right and wrong.

The other big difference between the Hal Roach "Our Gang" and the MGM version was that in the original films, they were poor kids who had to rely on their own imagination and ingenuity in order to have fun, sometimes leading to unintended consequences. The setting was also somewhat rural, not out in the country, but like a small town might have been in those days. The settings in the MGM films was just too clean and suburban, and the kids lost their scruffiness and charm. Some of the MGMs were dreadful.

 

[landtuna]

"Our Gang" began with directors assembling a group of kids with a very simple plot (building a wagon, selling lemonade etc.) and letting the kids improvise. As the series matured into the sound era they usually had some sort of storyline (Alfalfa and his "woman haters" club for instance). And, of course, they had to wind young love into the stories when Darla came along (and Jackie Cooper's obsession with his teacher). The kids were still pretty young by the time MGM took over the series but then they quickly aged out of being cute and innocent. The political climate at the time didn't help and filmed "shorts" were becoming too expensive to produce so not much effort was put into the latter releases. Before 1938 though most Our Gang shorts were just kids being kids and not much morality built in.

I would also not consider Ozzie & Harriett any sort of morality play. The storyline was primarily about the boys growing up but they never seemed to get into trouble as did Wally and The Beaver. When Rick began his singing career David sort of melted into the background and the stories focused on Rick.

 

[Markxxx]

"Our Gang" began with directors assembling a group of kids with a very simple plot (building a wagon, selling lemonade etc.) and letting the kids improvise. As the series matured into the sound era they usually had some sort of storyline (Alfalfa and his "woman haters" club for instance). And, of course, they had to wind young love into the stories when Darla came along (and Jackie Cooper's obsession with his teacher). The kids were still pretty young by the time MGM took over the series but then they quickly aged out of being cute and innocent. The political climate at the time didn't help and filmed "shorts" were becoming too expensive to produce so not much effort was put into the latter releases. Before 1938 though most Our Gang shorts were just kids being kids and not much morality built in.

I think there was always a lot morality in the "Our Gang" shorts, both the early and the later ones. And it's to their credit people don't remember even in the early years, the spoiled rich kid got what was coming to him. The evil head of the orphanage got his in the end and everything worked out well. But that was just it, it wasn't forced down your throat.

It wasn't like when Mickey was running for club president he was so vain he didn't even campaign. So Froggy runs against him and lies and makes false promises and the club divides in two camps only to have Buckwheat come and preach to everyone about the American Civil War and what happens to a house divided. That was so rammed down your throat.

I am watching the Lucy marathon on Me-TV and one thing I noticed is how the Ricky character is always so darn up on his high horse. I know Desi was very sensitive about Ricky doing anything wrong. I remember reading about how the writers wrote, how Ricky would cheat on his taxes and Desi refused to do it. He didn't want America to think Ricky would cheat against America, especially since he was an immigrant.

 

[Joey1986]

Family sitcoms from the 1980s were big on teaching lessons.

Small Wonder, for example, had quite a few such episodes. These two come to mind.

In the first-season episode, "The Lie", Jamie Lawson (Vicki the Robot's human "brother"), as it says on the cover of the DVD (yes, I bought the DVDs since I love this show so much, but that's another thread), "learns the value of consistent honesty when he can't convince his parents [Ted and Joan] that he's not responsible for breaking a teapot." For those who remember, it was actually the cousin of next-door neighbor Harriet Brindle (you know, the girl with the pigtails who thought that she was destined to marry Jamie) who actually broke the teapot. But because of all the previous things that Jamie lied to his parents about, they didn't believe him--that is, until Vicki bailed him out with her built in tape recorder. On that recording, was Harriet's cousin's confession. So Jamie got no further punishment from his parents for that offense.

In the second-season episode, "Victor Vicki-toria", Jamie is on a baseball team with his best friend Reggie Williams and Jamie asks the coach if Vicki can be on the team, but there is a "no girls allowed" policy. So Jamie comes up with a crafty plan--to dress Vicki up as a boy and pass her off as his cousin, Victor. (You may recall Vicki's superhuman strength seen in many episodes, such as lifting heavy objects with one hand, such as a bed or an easy chair or what have you. The superhuman strength was the reason for Jamie to do this, since his team was in last place.) Ted and Joan, of course, are against this idea, calling it cheating. So, Jamie decides that his parents are right, and on the field, Jamie then goes to the mound and verbally programs (she's not called a Voice Input Child Identicant for nothing) Vicki (still in drag as Victor) to imitate Ted throwing out a muscle after throwing his "Fernando ball" earlier in the episode

Full House is no stranger to morality plays, either.

There was one episode (along those same guilty-until-proven-innocent lines as the first SW episode I mentioned above; actually, the SW episode would probably be a combination of boy-who-cried-wolf and guilty-until-proven-innocent) where D.J. Tanner smells like alcohol after the stuff spilled on her clothes, Danny Tanner punishes her for underage drinking because he thought she was lying about it. It turns out she was telling the truth. Danny eventually apologizes to D.J. for not believing her. So in this case, parents can learn from this type of episode, as well. That lesson being to back up your accusations with facts and not try to trap someone in a lie if you don't know whether the person is telling one or not. Otherwise, you'll be the one who looks bad.

Do the above TV episodes count for this thread?

 

[EZway2go]

Do the above TV episodes count for this thread?

I don't know why those shows mentioned by Mastaclocksetta wouldn't count for this thread, but as I read that post, I thought of another show that was not a sitcom at all, but chock-full of morality plays... The Outer Limits. So many of the episodes warned of the consequences of man meddling where he has no business, or, better yet, the consequences to aliens from other worlds for coming into contact with us. But three episodes in particular come to mind...

"It Crawled Out Of The Woodwork" ends with the Control Voice summarizing the Conservation of Energy Law-- that energy can be changed in form but cannot be created or destroyed. That's true of all energy-- the energy of genius, of madness, of the heart, of the atom. It must be controlled and somehow lived with peaceably.

"Second Chance" offered a handful of unhappy and disillusioned people with little to lose by leaving Earth an opportunity to start a new life on another planet, but most of them don't want it.

"A Feasibility Study" demonstrated humanitarianism at its finest when the residents of an abducted neighborhood choose to infect themselves rather than allowing the rest of the earth's population to join them in slavery.

In fact, series creators Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stefano had a set of "canons" on which each episode had a theme that revealed something about the human condition.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

Family sitcoms from the 1980s were big on teaching lessons.

And that was the inspiration for the sign on the "Seinfeld" set..."No Hugging, No Learning".

 

[Dave]

"Arrested Development" had more than its share of little moral lessons. Case in point:

"And that's why you always leave a note."