You’ve all seen it: Snoopy old Gladys Kravitz gets a glimpse of some of the genuine witch-craft being practiced across the street at the Stevens-es house. But by the time she can persuade her exasperated husband to get out of his easy chair and look, everything has been put back the way it was. Abner says “Take your medicine, Gladys.”
Once or twice, Gladys sees everything has been set right, and before her husband can say anything she seizes the bottle and chugs from it, usually while mugging at the camera. At least once, Abner had a split second glimpse of something supernatural going on, and took the medication himself.
Soooo, just what WAS that medication anyway? It was in a liquid form and came in the typecast ‘prescription medicine’ bottle shape. Had Gladys been diagnosed with acute schizophrenia and on some kind of ‘anti-hallucinogen’? Gladys must have been the only person in America in the 1960s to be taking a drug to prevent hallucinations from occurring!
Just curious if anybody had a thought on the subject.
Antipsychotic medications go back to long before the 1960s. Lithium salts were being used to treat mania in the late 1940s, for example. But the important point, I think, is that we’re talking about a joke on a sitcom, not medical science.
Pretty clearly she was taking a patent medicine of the kind often satirized in movies and T.V. shows, whose primary ingredient was alcohol. It’s the same idea behind a scene in which someone would see something that appeared to be a hallucination and say, “I need a drink! [to calm me down/make this thing go away]”
Probably the most famous use of this type of patent medicine in a sitcom is the vegameatavitamin episode of I Love Lucy.
Hm. I recall an episode of Good Times where Florida was tapped to act in a commercial for a tonic called “Vita-Brite,” but backed out in the end when it turned out that the stuff had a high alcohol content. (“James! Vita-Brite is Vita-Booze!” And then Michael, who has been innocently sipping the stuff, suddenly breaks out singing “Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree!”) Never realized the plot had such Classical antecedents . . .
Another Bewitched question. Was it the usual thing in the 50’s and 60’s to have the boss over for dinner? It seemed like Larry Tate was having dinner at the Stevens’ every other night. I know it’s a sitcom schtick, (Oh no! Endora’s left a fire breathing dragon in the kitchen, and the boss is due any minute!!) but were up and coming executives apt to invite their bosses home back then? It just seems weird now.
What I think is even weirder is how everybody casually offers hard liquor and nobody objects or even thinks its strange. Personally I’d quit before I’d ever touch a gin and tonic. Is this really a widespread business practice?
It was in certain professions like sales or advertising (Mad-Men is full of temporal culture shock like this). What’s really strange is that Abner never had Gladys commited despite hall of her “delusions”. She must’ve been really, really, exotic Oriental hooker, good in bed.
Yes, I can remember my parents having my father’s boss over to dinner several times. Granted that may be a little out of the ordinary, because the boss was out of town and only came in a few times a year, but my parents certainly didn’t think it was odd.
And yes, people drank a lot more in that era (and especially a lot more hard liquor and mixed drinks.)
sigh