# "Classic" movies or TV shows with situations or premises basically impossible today **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 16, 2020, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922 "2020-04-16T13:18:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/201 "2020-05-01T11:10:56Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > In one episode the milkman was still using a horse drawn wagon, until the dairy finally pressured him into switching to a truck. […] Even in the 1960s the idea was that the milkman was way behind the times, but back that it was’t quite so far behind the times as to be unbelievable. In the 1970’s my outer-suburban, city-edge suburb, still had a horse-drawn wagon delivering milk. The requirements are, milk delivery, somewhere for the horse to live, and somebody who is used to looking after horses. Since the dairy farm where I lived still used horses in the 1970’s, the last two weren’t that rare. As was well known, horse-drawn milk delivery worked really well, because the horse could handle moving the cart without input from the driver. It was an early version of the “self driving car”. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/202 "2020-05-01T12:19:10Z")
The farm might well have had horses, but a dairy farm is usually not a dairy. Usually, the farms ship milk in big tanks to a dairy, which gets milk from many farms, and then skims or enriches, pasteurizes, homogenizes, and bottles it. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/203 "2020-05-01T12:56:26Z")
> [@cormac262](#): > > So to the OP’s kids asking: > “How could they get so lost? Where’s their GPS?” > “Why are they walking in the desert when their car broke down instead of calling a tow truck on their cell phone?” > “Why would they have to wait 10 business days for a check to clear? They can’t pay with a credit card?!” > “OK, if he could only pay in cash, where’s the ATM?” > “WHAT? The place was CLOSED all along? Wouldn’t the website have said so before they left?” > > Apparently they missed some pretty obvious clues that would have indicated the time of the movie: > > - The video game Clark uses to map out their trip route. Those graphics, controls, and animations were the X-Box of the time > - There are plenty of scenes of the car on the road - yet there aren’t even any 90’s cars (no SUVs) > - The kids are rocking out to their Walkman in the backseat - no phone/MP3 player, and with wired headsets > - When they arrive at cousin Eddie’s place, Rusty asks “do you have Pacman ?”. But neither asks about wifi or a wifi password. > > I think a better question is “what context clues indicated that “Vacation” was set in the 80’s that the OP’s kids clearly did not pick up on ?” As I explained more later, it’s not that my kids didn’t know it was set in the 1980s, or that the 1980s lacked such things. They know. Their REACTION is what was telling. They weren’t SURPRISED that this was “ever a thing”, any more than being surprised that people used to mail paper checks around to send and receive payment that took “a week to ten days” to complete; it was HORROR. (Also about the check writing and mailing thing, FWIW.) HOW COULD YOU STAND LIVING LIKE THAT? (I realize now I phrased my OP as if they were saying “they didn’t have a website?!” or “where was the ATM?” as if that were the actual questions they asked, since I did put them in quotes, but that was inaccurate - rather, their eye-rolling / head-shaking non-laughter prompted me to ask why they weren’t laughing along, and that was their answer. “They didn’t have a website?” not in the sense of “I didn’t know that!” but in the sense of “…I assumed there’d have been some kind of slower analog equivalent, but apparently no, you just went somewhere and found out if it was open or not when you got there, unless you thought to pick up the phone and call and talk to a human first?”) ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/204 "2020-05-01T14:21:58Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > my school psychologist had a cell phone in her car that had its cradle built into the center and was corded she had it like 5 years but she only made 4 calls on it when she had car problems because it was like 5 bucks a call… about 5 years later the lady I worked for had a brick cell phone because she was in a wheelchair and drove … she said it was 1.00 a minute and that was for in or out calls and that was in 92 > > anyone remember when having a fake cellphone in your car was a fad ? around here that died after the 12th or so car was broken into in a month > and it was stolen … Before cell phones there were Mobile Radio Phones. Similar to what first responders use today. A handset/control head up front with a radio in the trunk. Pick up the handset and the mobile operator would come on. You’d tell her the number and she’d make the connection to the phone system. For incoming calls, the caller would call the mobile operator and she’d make the connection to your unit. [Mobile Radio Phone Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_radio_telephone) ---
**Author:** ![gonzoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@gonzoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzoron)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/205 "2020-05-01T15:35:23Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Hell, most _Buffy_ plots are ruined by cell phones. Instead of racing to save someone, today they would just text “It’s a trap!” and show’s over. Clearly, the Hellmouth blocks cell phone reception. Not a movie or TV show, but I’m saddened by how cell phones have ruined the book, _The Doomsday Book_ by Connie Willis. A significant part of the plot revolves around someone trying to catch a phone call by waiting around at a landline, but constantly being pulled away at the wrong time and missing it. Unfortunately, this takes place in the near-future, not the past, so it can’t be explained away easily unless something catastrophic happens to all the mobile networks between now and that near-future. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/206 "2020-05-01T17:19:49Z")
You could probably set some interesting stories in Green Bank, West Virginia, where no radio transmitters of any sort are allowed, due to the radio observatory. You’re not even allowed to have a car with spark plugs on the observatory grounds, as they produce too much interference. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/207 "2020-05-01T23:06:39Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The farm might well have had horses, but a dairy farm is usually not a dairy. Usually, the farms ship milk in big tanks to a dairy, which gets milk from many farms, and then skims or enriches, pasteurizes, homogenizes, and bottles it. I am aware of the distinction. > [@Melbourne](#): > > In the 1970’s my outer-suburban, city-edge suburb, still had a horse-drawn wagon delivering milk. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/208 "2020-05-01T23:23:47Z")
Without payphones, we wouldn’t get the moment in _Throw Momma from the Train_ where Owen describes his activities as "I don’t wanna say over the phone. All I can tell you is that I killed her last night.” ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/209 "2020-05-03T05:52:09Z")
Smokey and the Bandit – because nowadays why would anyone go through that much trouble for a truckload of Coors? ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/210 "2020-05-03T06:24:10Z")
heh my dad who tried Coors back in the 70s seen the movie and wondered who’d go through all that for Coors in the first place (he was a strohs man when he drank beer) ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/211 "2020-05-03T11:35:05Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > Smokey and the Bandit – because nowadays why would anyone go through that much trouble for a truckload of Coors? Iirc, Coors was only available on the west coast. > **[Sold only in the West, Coors beer is smuggled to the East. Henry Kissinger...](https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/28/archives/article-4-no-title-sold-only-in-the-west-coors-beer-is-smuggled-to.html)** Also, its taste was different back in the day. ---
**Author:** ![cormac262](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@cormac262](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cormac262)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/212 "2020-05-07T15:18:38Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > As I explained more later, it’s not that my kids didn’t know it was set in the 1980s, or that the 1980s lacked such things. They know. > > Their REACTION is what was telling. They weren’t SURPRISED that this was “ever a thing”, any more than being surprised that people used to mail paper checks around to send and receive payment that took “a week to ten days” to complete; it was HORROR. (Also about the check writing and mailing thing, FWIW.) > > HOW COULD YOU STAND LIVING LIKE THAT? > > (I realize now I phrased my OP as if they were saying “they didn’t have a website?!” or “where was the ATM?” as if that were the actual questions they asked, since I did put them in quotes, but that was inaccurate - rather, their eye-rolling / head-shaking non-laughter prompted me to ask why they weren’t laughing along, and that was their answer. “They didn’t have a website?” not in the sense of “I didn’t know that!” but in the sense of “…I assumed there’d have been some kind of slower analog equivalent, but apparently no, you just went somewhere and found out if it was open or not when you got there, unless you thought to pick up the phone and call and talk to a human first?”) Okay. Thanks for the clarification. I misunderstood your kids’ reactions. I think to put things in perspective you need to tell your kids that, in maybe 20-30 years from now, the generation of teens at that time will look back at 2020 and ask them the same question: how could you stand living like that ? ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/213 "2020-05-07T16:44:41Z")
> [@cormac262](#): > > Okay. Thanks for the clarification. I misunderstood your kids’ reactions. > > I think to put things in perspective you need to tell your kids that, in maybe 20-30 years from now, the generation of teens at that time will look back at 2020 and ask them the same question: how could you stand living like that ? No kidding, I mean, what’s with all the movie plots where people have to GO somewhere? (too soon?) ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/214 "2020-05-07T17:16:53Z")
There’s an episode of _Married… with Children_ in which Al spends the episode trying to locate a Beatles song. He doesn’t know the name of the song or the album, only a short refrain, and it truly is one of the more obscure Beatles songs. The lyrics he remembers are “go with him.” Anyway, as he seeks out someone who can tell him the name of this song so he can listen to it, hilarity ensures. That could never (or at least should never—the comedy would be lost amidst the audience’s frustration) as a quick google search for _beatles go with him_ or even just _go with him song_ yields not only the name of the song, but several places I can go to online and hear it. Without probably much additional effort, I suspect I could even find the name of the episode with that same information and then find a place to watch it online. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/215 "2020-05-07T17:57:27Z")
Working my way through the seasons of Magnum PI. Even starting with the pilot episode, he’d be imprisoned as a felon for his casual gun slinging. The police letting him walk after finding numerous dead bad guys is just too hard to swallow. I suspect that was true even in the 80s, but was just Hollywood storytelling. Secondly, about half the stories involve some long lost soldier/commander/special ops buddy from Vietnam. Usually someone he’s completely lost track of, and has no idea of their whereabouts. I assume these plots wouldn’t work well in the time of Facebook. Thirdly, the more I watch it, the more I realize Thomas is really just an asshole. I can’t imagine anyone putting up with his constantly using his friends and being in debt. I suspect T.C. would’ve kicked his ass and walked away in any modern version of these stories. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/216 "2020-05-07T17:59:32Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > “They didn’t have a website?” not in the sense of “I didn’t know that!” but in the sense of “…I assumed there’d have been some kind of slower analog equivalent, but apparently no, you just went somewhere and found out if it was open or not when you got there, unless you thought to pick up the phone and call and talk to a human first?”) In the 1980s probably the closest thing to an analog equivalent would have been TV/radio/newspapers, and as others mentioned in real life if a major tourist attraction was going to be closed when normally people would expect them to be open, there surely would have been ads and news stories in various media announcing this. > [@madsircool](#): > > Iirc, Coors was only available on the west coast. > > [https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/28/archives/article-4-no-title-sold-only-in-the-west-coors-beer-is-smuggled-to.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/28/archives/article-4-no-title-sold-only-in-the-west-coors-beer-is-smuggled-to.html) > > Also, its taste was different back in the day. I was being a bit flippant in my last post, but that was kind of the reason I was thinking it wouldn’t work now. Maybe in the 1970s, before they changed their recipe, Coors was considered a good beer that people back east sought out. But I don’t know anyone today who would do that. And it’s available nationwide now, so there’s no longer a reason to transport it from Texarkana. Also, IIRC laws regarding alcohol were stricter back then, weren’t they? Even if it were about some craft beer that’s only sold regionally today, would it actually be illegal to transport it to Georgia? At least if it was for their own consumption and not to sell? Although I can’t really see some good ol’ boys from the South running some fancy craft brew being believable, either. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/217 "2020-05-07T18:34:35Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > In the 1980s probably the closest thing to an analog equivalent would have been TV/radio/newspapers, and as others mentioned in real life if a major tourist attraction was going to be closed when normally people would expect them to be open, there surely would have been ads and news stories in various media announcing this. I suppose the kids were a little too old for “The Wallyford World of Wally” where the ads would be most likely to be shown (Clark’s nostalgia for when the kids were younger was one reason he picked Wally World). It occurs to me that if Clark had decided to fly instead of drive, he might have run into someone at the airline or travel agent who would have told him that WallyWorld was closed. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/218 "2020-05-07T19:04:18Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > I suppose the kids were a little too old for “The Wallyford World of Wally” where the ads would be most likely to be shown (Clark’s nostalgia for when the kids were younger was one reason he picked Wally World). > > It occurs to me that if Clark had decided to fly instead of drive, he might have run into someone at the airline or travel agent who would have told him that WallyWorld was closed. THANK YOU! That’s what always bugged me. Even though there’s no website, and maybe they always miss the current news, but on their trip, they tell everybody where they’re going. Even before that. The car salesman, front desk person, etc. So it appears NOBODY knew it was closed or everybody didn’t just feel like telling them. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/219 "2020-05-07T23:02:03Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > THANK YOU! That’s what always bugged me. Even though there’s no website, and maybe they always miss the current news, but on their trip, they tell everybody where they’re going. Even before that. The car salesman, front desk person, etc. > > So it appears NOBODY knew it was closed or everybody didn’t just feel like telling them. It was about the journey, not the destination. And anyway, just because the premise cited in the film was poor even for the time or would not translate well today, anything which causes their intended destination to be unexpectedly unavailable would do. For instance, one could easily remake _American Vacation_ for the digital age by setting the film in the very early stages of, say, a pandemic. The family arrives at Wally World the day after the park has closed due to social distancing measures. At the risk of editorializing (and perhaps also undermining my earlier contribution to this thread), one must be careful not to be too pedantic in envisioning how a movie idea may or may not be translatable to the present day. I’d argue a great many of the movie ideas lampooned here could actually still work in basically the same context (no wholesale alterations to circumstances or personality, for instance no making the Griswolds Amish to explain why they don’t use the internet) with minimal tweaking to the script. Prolonged stretches of paved road with no cell phone coverage could be difficult to hand-wave, for instance, but going into the woods and finding one’s cellphone has died due to, say, dropping it into the water or not taking into account the effect the cold can have on battery life is entirely plausible (The latter sort of happened to me, once, but I planned enough beforehand to know how to find my way back to my car without it). In fact, it’s even more plausible to me that someone could get lost in the woods, Blair Witch style, if they were planning on using cell phones to navigate and so didn’t bring any sort of paper map or compass. As someone mentioned I think on page one “death by GPS” could become its own thing as otherwise conscientious people trust too much to technology to extricate them from whatever situation they might find themselves in, realizing too late that their technology is not as reliable as they thought. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922/220 "2020-05-07T23:21:35Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > There’s an episode of _Married… with Children_ in which Al spends the episode trying to locate a Beatles song. He doesn’t know the name of the song or the album, only a short refrain, and it truly is one of the more obscure Beatles songs. > > The lyrics he remembers are “go with him.” Anyway, as he seeks out someone who can tell him the name of this song so he can listen to it, hilarity ensures. > … > Without probably much additional effort, I suspect I could even find the name of the episode with that same information and then find a place to watch it online. [Except that he only remembered “mmm mmm him”](http://www.albundy.net/marriedaniac/ate/script/0518t.html), he didn’t think it was a Beatles song, and it _wasn’t_ a Beatles song but [_Anna_ aka “Go to Him” by Arthur Alexander](https://marriedwithchildren.fandom.com/wiki/Anna_(Go_to_Him)). So–ironicly–you might have had trouble finding it based on what you remembered it to be. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-movies-or-tv-shows-with-situations-or-premises-basically-impossible-today/851922.md?page=12)