Little scenes that reveal a lot about the culture that spawned them

[saoirse]

One of the later epsodes of Father Knows Best has Kitten going to college, the same one as Bud.

Kitten: Do you think we’ll be in any of the same classes?
Bud: Not unless you’re majoring in Engineering.
Laugh track

[Duke_of_Rat]

“Just Imagine” was on Fox Movie Channel or Turner Classic Movies last weekend. A guy from the 30s ends up in 1980. It was pretty funny to see how the writers thought 1980 would be. Suffice to say they were not very close.

One scene, the guy from 1930 was marvelling that everybody flew planes instead of driving. The names of the planes were all Jewish, something like Rosenbaums and Goldfarbs. His response, “Somebody finally got even with Henry Ford” or something along those lines.

[SpoilerVirgin]

There is an episode of Quincy in which the killer intentionally murders somebody by running him over with a car, then secretly drinks a bunch of alcohol so that he can confess to hitting the victim, say, “I was drunk,” and get off. At the time, drunk driving accidents were considered accidents, not crimes, and were not punished. Of course the point of the episode was that this approach was wrong and should be changed, as indeed it was.

[BrainGlutton]

@Noel Prosequi

Another thread prompts me to nominate MAS*H, the TV series. Hawkeye is the principled hero, right? Yet his sexism and objectification of women jars when I watch it now. Cannot imagine anyone getting away with that level of harrassment now in RL, and I can’t imagine a positive comedy character being written to quite that level now either.

I beg your pardon. A man who sees women as sex objects is not necessarily a sexist.

[saoirse]

@SpoilerVirgin

There is an episode of Quincy in which the killer intentionally murders somebody by running him over with a car, then secretly drinks a bunch of alcohol so that he can confess to hitting the victim, say, “I was drunk,” and get off. At the time, drunk driving accidents were considered accidents, not crimes, and were not punished. Of course the point of the episode was that this approach was wrong and should be changed, as indeed it was.

I remember that episode. There was a woman who kept talking about a “Nickel-A-Drink” Law. She said about 20 times in 24 minutes. I have no idea what the law was supposed to do. I only know it involved nickels. And drinks.

[Nava]

@minlokwat

This one was mentioned in the Obsolete Joke Thread.

On an episode of All in the Family, Gloria asked a riddle about a doctor refusing to perform an operation on a patient because it is discovered that the patient is the doctor’s son – BUT! – the doctor isn’t the boy’s father. How could this be???

Well, Archie and the Meathead go over various scenarios and can’t figure it out for the life of them.

When Gloria reveals that the doctor is a woman and therefore the boy’s mother, Archie cries foul that this is too far beyond the realm of possibility.

I’m going purely on recall here but I remember thinking people couldn’t have been that backward thinking in the early 70’s. Could they? I also wondered if the viewing audience was equally perplexed with this brain teaser.

In '91 I did a short stint in the lab at the local hospital. I was in the lift and an old woman said “excuse me, nurse…”; another woman of a similar age jumped “hey, why are you so sure she’s a nurse? They can be doctors, you know! I’m coming to see a woman doctor, myself!” “Oh. Oh, my, so am I, actually! I’m sorry, are you a nurse or a doctor?” “A lab tech, actually, but if I can help you in any way?”

My SIL’s cousin (5’0" in heels) is a specialist in bone cancer; she does all kinds of bone work, though. She’s up to… uh… a height of 10’ or so… of people asking her “but when is the doctor going to come?”