In Don’t Bother to Knock, a movie I sometimes mix up with Niagara, insane babysitter Marilyn is in the hotel room and turns on the wall radio (high tech!) to hear the house band* in the hotel lounge. Where can you do that now?
Featuring vocalist Anne Bancroft in her movie debut!
Heh. The first thing I thought of was that Beavis and Butt-Head episode where the boys are trying to avoid showering after gym class but are foiled by Mr. Buzzcut.
Both Wayne and his protege (played by his RL son) eventually solve their uppity wife problems by spanking them with (fireplace) ash shovels. I realise that this movie was supposed to be light hearted. This gag, though, isn’t going to hold up well.
In the Hitchcock movie The 39 Steps, the hero is at one point chased across the Scottish heather by a (very fake-looking) autogyro. At the time, I’m sure it looked really cool.
There was an early Woody Allen movie in which Tony Roberts, playing a very Type-A egomaniac doctor, called his message service every five minutes to let them know where he was. Get a cellphone, buddy!
As to cigarettes, Allen spoofs them in Sleeper by having a doctor in the distant future encourage him to light up, saying something to the effect of, “The latest research has shown that there’s nothing better for you!”
Fred MacMurray leaves his dying statement in Double Indemnity on a desktop wax-cylinder recorder, which for its day would’ve been cutting-edge office technology.
Mulder and Scully were always yakking on their cellphones, of course, but a flashback X-Files episode, for laffs, showed Mulder toting around one of those giant early Motorola cellphones the size of a carton of milk.
IIRC, there were eight postal deliveries in Victorian central London; you could get a dinner invitation in the first delivery of the day and immediately respond, showing up that night to break bread. No one thought anything of it.
I was going to mention spanking. Women who didn’t “know their place” were often spanked or threatened with a good spanking. I think a few episodes of I Love Lucy even had some spanking scenes.
In Miracle on 34th street, lttle Suzy is in a bachelor’s apartment for several hours. When her mother comes home and finds her daughter in the home of a man she has never met, she thanks him for looking after her daughter.
Compared to today, when I went for a dip in the hotel pool. There was a mother and two young boys (under the age of 10 I think): Mom was in the hot tub, talking on her cell phone, the two kids were in the swimming pool.
One of the kids actually dared to talk to me, a strange man! His mom was so upset about it (and the fact that I had the temerity to respond) that she got out of the hot tub and pulled her kids from the pool, them yelling “But mom! We just got here!”, her glaring at me the whole time.
I would’ve been more miffed about it, but I wanted the hot tub and a neglible blow to my reputation from people who will never see me again was a small price to pay for immediate access.
Ancient history would be references on old sitcoms like Leave it to Beaver or The Lucy Show about the boys not needing a suit at the Y. Green Acres did an episode where a group of city children (3 boys & a girl) stayed with Oliver & Lisa on the farm. Oliver took the kids swimming, but the girl had to go back to house to Lisa. Why? Because the boys (& Oliver) were skinnydipping. A middle-aged childless man alone & with 3 unrelated pre-teen naked boys sounded alot less sinsister in the '60s* than it does now. The only joke (other than the girl not being able to join in) was that Oliver caught a cold from not wearing this bathing suit.
Yes it may have been the Sixties, but Green Acres was the safe family “establishmen” show that old people liked.
That’s what I mean. Ancient history to your generation is 50s references to skinny dipping as acceptable attire for swimming. By the 60s/70s, that kind of thing had went by the wayside. So today it seems odd.
Ancient history to my generation is 70s references to showering after gym class. By the 80s/90s, that requirement went by the wayside. So today it seems odd.