• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Weird Stuff In Black and White TV Shows

O

Oscar Madison

Doctors smoke.

Drivers get into cars on the passenger side and slides across the front seat instead of walking around. Exception: A male driver with a female passenger. They both get in on the drivers' side. She gets in first but only slides halfway across.

Cops shoot fleeing unarmed suspects. If a civilian is shot during a pursuit, the cop doesn't bother stopping to render aid or call an ambulance; they keep chasing the suspect (of course, assumed to be guilty).

To make sure everyone knows his or her place, formal and familiar modes of address (and reference) are rigidly used.

Black people are always servants and servile (except on Amos 'n' Andy).

When "stuff" happens, women scream. A guy has to handle it for them.

Busy signals.

Convertibles with the top down in apparently cold weather (people bundled up or wearing heavy coats and hats).

Western marshals don't make arrests; they have duels with bad guys and given them the chance to draw and fire first. Cops aren't much better; they approach armed suspects without drawing a weapon, allowing the suspect fire at them so they can have a dramatic shoot-out.

Despite the fact that Roman Catholics are less than a quarter of the US population, about 90 per cent of TV clergy are priests.

You seldom see a TV in the homes of TV families.

It only takes a quick kiss or peck on the lips to make teenage boys happy.

TV homes have table radios with future technology (they don't need to warm up). And when turned on, a news story or announcement relevant to the plot is heard immediately.

Doctors make house calls. Nobody worries about the cost of health care.

Wives are younger and better looking than their husbands.

Women can't walk by themselves; guys must grab an elbow and steer them.

Bathrooms don't have toilets.

People drink coffee with every meal. (You'd think they'd need those toilets.)

Any others?
 
As far as getting in a car on the passenger side, I'll note that regular people used to do that too sometimes. American cars in those days typically had bench seats covered in "naugahyde" _(plastic made to look like leather), so car seats were slippery and sliding over was easy.
 
LKellerIII said:
As far as getting in a car on the passenger side, I'll note that regular people used to do that too sometimes. American cars in those days typically had bench seats covered in "naugahyde" _(plastic made to look like leather), so car seats were slippery and sliding over was easy.
Click to expand...

Not to mention that sliding over used to produce a huge static charge which could then be discharged behind your sister's ear to her great amusement. Even better were the cars taken down across the border to be stuffed with horsehair before being covered and thus, even a bigger charge of static electricity. Of course, you need relative humidity in the single digits to really get a blast going which occur with some regularity here in the dry desert. I think my sister was in her 20's before learning that naugahyde was not made of "naugies".
 
Doctors smoke. And not only do they smoke but they hand out cartons of cigs at holiday time colorfully wrapped.

To make sure everyone knows his or her place, formal and familiar modes of address (and reference) are rigidly used. Yes Miss Landers!

Busy signals. And party lines.

You seldom see a TV in the homes of TV families. Except in the upstairs apartment of George Burns whose magical TV camera could follow the subject around and around.

Women can't walk by themselves; guys must grab an elbow and steer them. And they all wore hats and gloves when downtown.

Cars wore two-tone paint (although you couldn't tell because the shows were all black and white).

Cars in any particular show were all from the same manufacturer.

Detectives all wore sport coats.

Cowboys were almost always clean shaven, despite living on the range for the past several months.

A car would almost always accelerate when approaching a curve with no guardrail.

The time it takes our hero to knock out the bad guy is inversely proportional to the length of the burning fuse.
 
Married couples slept in separate twin beds.
 
Not only did doctors smoke, so did almost every other adult on the show. And, through some strange miracle, they all smoked the same brand of cigarettes, conveniently the ones sponsoring the show.
 
TV shows actually had scripts, and sometimes stories worth telling, instead of pointing a camera at some hillbilly hot mess and waiting for them to self-destruct. How weird was that??
 
Early in the run, Lucy and Ricky slept in sort of a conjoined twin bed. If you didn't look too closely, it looked like a double bed but was actually two mattresses pushed together. Maybe standards and practices figured since they were really married, it was OK. Later the twin beds were separated. Maybe after Little Ricky came along, Lucy didn't want to be "enceinte" again. Or maybe Ricky was cut off because he wouldn't let Lucy be in the show at the Tropicana.
By the end of the run, Lucy and Desi weren't even speaking to each other, and probably not even sharing a room.

By the time color came in, sitcoms didn't have couples any more. Just single parents with a dead spouse. First time I recall seeing a couple sharing a bed was Meathead and Gloria on All In The Family. Then Bob and Emily (athough that may have changed when Emily found out Bob was dreaming about Joanna, a blonde who wore sweaters).
 
Oscar Madison said:
By the time color came in, sitcoms didn't have couples any more. Just single parents with a dead spouse. First time I recall seeing a couple sharing a bed was Meathead and Gloria on All In The Family. Then Bob and Emily (athough that may have changed when Emily found out Bob was dreaming about Joanna, a blonde who wore sweaters).
Click to expand...

I think the first show with a real double bed was Green Acres.
 
RE: "Doctor's smoke."

In 1974, I was in a car accident late at night. Though not seriously hurt, I need some stitches, so I was taken to the nearest Emergency Room, and the doctor examined and treated me while smoking a cigar. I don't mean an unlit cigar stuck in his gob - I mean a fired up, smoking and stinking cigar. Even for the time, it was gross.
 
Corporal punishment was good. Bratty kid. Overwhelmed or clueless parent "whups" kid. Kid becomes a model sitcom kid and is grateful for the "whupping" because it proves daddy loves him.
Sheriff Andy Taylor recommended it to other fathers but was never seen employing it himself.
Ward Cleaver was never seen employing it either but somehow his kids were always afraid that he would for the smallest infraction.

Tomboy was a mental illness but fortunately could be cured by donning a dress, acting dumb and submissive and getting the guy. Except for Zelda who got Dobie anyway.

Washing behind the ears is somehow essential to proper hygiene. Don't ask me why.

Danny Thomas drinks a lot of coffee but never swallows. Instead he sprays it (but never hits anyone else with the spray). Maybe not swallowing is important because sitcom people never go to the bathroom and bathrooms don't have toilets.

Danny Thomas did not hire Mary Tyler Moore when he recast the role of his eldest daughter, Terry, because he thought with her nose nobody would believe she was his daughter. Then Marlo got a nose job (and a boob job) and ended up with nose a lot like Mar's.

People never have trouble lighting matches (and then cigarettes) outdoors.

In addition to busy signals and party lines, phones keep ringing without being answered. (I always thought they called it "Bell Telephone" because the phone actually had a bell inside, which rang when you got a call.)

Today TV phone numbers always start with 555. Back then they started with something like KLondike-5.

When Hazel was going out on a formal date, she'd always go upstairs to borrow some of Missy's perfume (and make an entrance). She'd come down the stairs and everybody told her how gorgeous she was. I wonder what was in that perfume.

Apparently Broderick Crawford was the only member of the Highway Patrol who was able to do more than give out speeding tickets. Apparently, the state didn't pay its rent because they had to keep moving the Highway Patrol offices. And the purchasing department never figured out they could get patrol cars more cheaply if they bought all one kind of car at the fleet rate.

Paladin had a Western Union "address" on his business card but people either showed up in person (the card did not give the name of his hotel) or he solicited their business by clipping a newspaper article and mailing a copy of it with his card.

Poker games often have two or more players with very low probability pat hands.
 
anotherguy said:
Concerning doctors smoking it used to be that there were ads in that "More doctors smoke Camels!!!" :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Here's how that happened: The ad agency sent some chickies to the AMA convention to hand out free packs of Camels (docs can't resist freebies). Then they sent some clean-cut young guys with clip boards to follow up and ask the MDs what they were smoking. Sure enough, most said "Camels." In ads, health claims for cigs were common. Settles your stomach. Calms you; settles your nerves. Helps you loose weight. Soothing to the throat.

__________________________
Meanwhile, in 50s shows kids were told to stand up to bullies. Bullies, no matter how big or athletic, always folded.

Following that same logic, 50s guys stood up to armed criminals and got themselves shot.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom