# Retired tropes of yesteryear **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 23, 2022, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324 "2022-04-23T18:11:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**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 11, 2022, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/221 "2022-05-11T19:33:05Z")
And there’s the very similar one where someone is expecting or needs to make an important phone call, but someone (almost always the teenage daughter) is monopolizing the phone. > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > On the other hand, I bet the Simpsons still only have the one TV, and it is probably still a CRT. The Simpsons did get a flat panel TV at some point. It does seem like they still have just one, though. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2022, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/222 "2022-05-11T19:46:47Z")
Welll ACTUALLY… The Simpsons did have more than a single TV. \ Living Room TV that we see in the intro Bart’s portable TV in his room. Rumpus room TV (A room they only ever showed in three episodes) Marge and Homers TV (Very rarely seen but it’s there if they need a TV joke when they were in bed) ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/223 "2022-05-14T17:48:14Z")
Seems like the idiot husbands of the past always belonged to lodges, where they could get into shenanigans with their reprobate fellow lodge members. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/224 "2022-05-14T17:56:42Z")
Good observation. It seemed the wives always held these lodges in very low regard and an utter waste of time. Bonus points for the husbands scheming to cook up a cover that would allow them to go off to their annual convention for a weekend of carefree debauchery, only to get caught somehow and face their wives full wrath. Laurel & Hardy, The Flintstones, The Honeymooners come to mind. Edit: for some reason it wouldn’t let me quote your post, ‘Son\_of\_a-Rich’. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/225 "2022-05-14T17:58:00Z")
Do blue-collar husbands still team up to launch harebrained get-rich-quick schemes, like Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble or Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton? ---
**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 14, 2022, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/226 "2022-05-14T18:49:37Z")
I think lodges (and the like\*) really were much more popular back in the day, so more lodges on TV made a certain amount of sense. Howard Cunningham was in a lodge in “Happy Days” - but that took place in the 1950s, so that tracks. \*My dad spent a certain amount of time at the American Legion hall, which fulfilled the social functions of a lodge. TV couples don’t have bridge or bowling nights any more but that used to happen in real life and on TV back in the day. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/227 "2022-05-14T20:13:50Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Do blue-collar husbands still team up to launch harebrained get-rich-quick schemes I get the feeling today it would be husbands/boyfriends trying to get into some crypto/blockchain scheme… ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/228 "2022-05-14T21:58:10Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > TV couples don’t have bridge or bowling nights any more but that used to happen in real life and on TV back in the day. Are couples in the suburbs really best friends with their next-door neighbors, like the Petries and the Helpers? Do they even _know_ their next-door neighbors? What about aspiring actresses/occasional salesgirls like Ann Marie being able to afford an endless wardrobe from Cardinale and a four-room NYC apartment in a secure building with a concierge? ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/229 "2022-05-14T22:20:54Z")
Outrunning the police for comedic effect used to be a fairly standard trope, done by Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Laurel & Hardy, Snub Pollard, Charley Chase, etc. etc. Burt Reynolds’ last chase movie was in 1984, and five years later _Cops_ debuted with the tables turned and the audience rooting for the police and laughing at the pursued. I wonder at what went into that shift. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/230 "2022-05-14T22:26:03Z")
Interestingly, that’s around the same time that country and western music quit producing songs about the plight of prisoners. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2022, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/231 "2022-05-14T22:55:10Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > Sorry to disrupt the discussion of peeing into bottles, but getting back to the OP, what about the one where a character has to complete some long, difficult task, finally finishes, only to have someone say “Why didn’t you just [use some much easier/faster method]?” That one goes back to Laurel and Hardy’s famous “piano movers” sketch, if not earlier. But I can’t recall seeing that gag recently. Back when I was a teenager, my father offered to pay me $50 to till up most of our yard prior to planting some seeds for a new lawn. I turned the tiller on and brute forced that thing over the most the yard as instructed, and then I turned it over to him smarmily telling him he got to push it for the small part of the yard he said he’d take care of it. That son-of-a-bitch showed me that it was a self-propelled tiller and proceeded to easily finish the rest of the yard. Admittedly I thought it was a funny joke and wasn’t bitter about it. $50 was $50. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/232 "2022-05-15T00:17:00Z")
I think you’re looking WAY too into it. You’re forgetting at the same time you had a bunch of TV shows dedicated to showing police catch criminals as well. Hell, Simpsons and Family Guy still do comedic police chases. ---
**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 15, 2022, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/233 "2022-05-15T01:04:32Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Seems like the idiot husbands of the past always belonged to lodges… Ohhh, maaaan… we need those now more than ever! I grew up watching B&W sitcoms with those, and reading about the old clubs in London in P. G. Wodehouse. How I’d love to pop into “my club” where I could pull up a comfy leather armchair in front of a stone fireplace, and an attendant would bring me a pouch of pipe tobacco, today’s paper, and inform me that the bartender had just made a pitcher of Peychaud’s Aromatic Brandy Bumpers… Man, there’s a really retired trope! I’ve always wanted to be a Water Buffalo (wasn’t that Fred and Barney’‘s lodge?). And I’ve long toyed with the idea of joining something like the Odd Fellows Lodge or the Optimists’ Club… but I’d be so disappointed if they were just Rotary Clubs with fezzes. One of my students and her husband belong to the local Elks Club, and told me anyone can drop in for lunch or happy hour. Since it’s on a lake, with a beautiful view, I just might do that. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2022, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/234 "2022-05-16T06:48:02Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Man, there’s a really retired trope! They do still show up occasionally - there’s one shown in _Sherlock_ ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2022, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/235 "2022-05-16T08:02:25Z")
People thinking two characters are a couple because they were pretending to kiss for their school play of Romeo and Juliet. Or two students having severe anxiousness about potentially kissing their crush when cast in the leads of their school play Romeo and Juliet. In fact school plays of Romeo and Juliet in general. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2022, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/236 "2022-05-16T08:34:43Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > People thinking two characters are a couple because they were pretending to kiss for their school play of Romeo and Juliet. “I thought you were planning a murder!” “No, I was just rehearsing for a play.” ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2022, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/237 "2022-05-16T14:53:16Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > “I thought you were planning a murder!” > “No, I was just rehearsing for a play.” That’s pretty much every episode of _Three’s Company_. ---
**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 16, 2022, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/238 "2022-05-16T15:53:15Z")
I remember saying once (while _Three’s Company_ was on) that if a stupid character on a stupid sitcom ever asked “Wait, what are you talking about?”… the show would only be ten minutes long. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2022, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/239 "2022-05-16T15:59:10Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > > [@digs](#): > > > > Man, there’s a really retired trope! > > They do still show up occasionally - there’s one shown in _Sherlock_ Also in the recent _Around the World in 80 Days._ But those were period pieces set at a time when those sort of clubs were common. You don’t see it in contemporary shows. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2022, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324/240 "2022-05-16T16:05:23Z")
Sherlock was a BBC series that aired from 2010-17 and portrayed a contemporary Sherlock Holmes; i.e. one existing in the modern world and using modern technology. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retired-tropes-of-yesteryear/963324.md?page=13)