I was going to ask about this a few days ago, but I forgot until I saw the thread about pop culture references in old Warner Brothers cartoons.
There’s a lot of references in Warner Brothers cartoons to getting stuck behind an elderly woman in line at a store, where she’ll pull out a small change purse and slowly count out each penny of a large purchase. “One … two … three …” and so on. I’ve seen this in other cartoons, too. Although I’ve observed a good number of stereotypical peevish actions in grocery store queues (women who take out their checkbook after everything is rung up, recent immigrants that attempt haggling with the cashier, etc.), I’ve never seen a little old lady count out change coin by coin. Is this a reference to something in 1950s pop culture, or was it mocking a trait of little old ladies of the day?
I’ve also seen Popeye cartoons where some characters would be in a house, and there would be separate men’s and women’s bathrooms. I know that, at least in the US, homes with more than one bathroom were rare until the 1950s. Still, were some hosues built with separate men’s and women’s bathrooms?
That’s the joke.