Speaking of Three’s Company, the show also had what was possibly the most iconic TV example of the “Dumb Blonde” ever: Suzanne Somers as Chrissy Snow.
It was also, I think, one of the last representations of the TV dumb blonde trope. When Somers left she was briefly replaced with a character that was supposed to be her cousin Cindy, also dumb and clumsy to boot. But she didn’t last long and was replaced with Terrie, a character who was a nurse and not at all dumb, ditzy, or clumsy. I think changing attitudes led to the retirement of the ‘dumb blonde’ trope, though there were still dumb characters like Joey on Friends. Phoebe on friends was close to reviving the dumb blonde trope, but I think they walked a fine line by portraying her as more “eccentric” or “quirky” than straight-up dumb.
Not quite a trope, but I’ve noticed watching old movies (pre-60’s) how much information would be delivered with just shots of text. Like, instead of a character saying “Hey, we got invited to Steve’s wedding”, the character would say “Look what we got”; cut to a static shot of the wedding invitation for 5 seconds with no voice-over or anything.
I always just thought of her as ‘normal’, as opposed to the others. She had a couple character flaws, like she wasn’t great with money and she was a bit of a slob, but she often showed more everyday common sense than the brainiacs on the show.
Easy: 1971, the year of The French Connection(with its famous chase) and Dirty Harry, was the watershed year, at least when it came to urban cops and criminals.
I mean, it is and it isn’t. It’s a 19th-Century character copied and pasted into the modern day. You can’t deny that it has the occasional anachronism baked into its premise.
Although I have virtually no experience with either, my impression is that lodges of the type depicted in US sitcoms and men’s clubs of the kind often found in British literature are A) rather different creatures, 2) not entirely extinct, and incidentally, iii) not exclusive to either county.
Although they may have certain common characteristics, e.g., a physical location, membership by invitation, socializing among the membership as a significant component, etc., ISTM that what we’re calling lodges are generically known as fraternal orders, like the Freemasons, Shriners, Odd Fellows, Elk, Moose, etc.
A fraternal order is a fraternity organised as an order, with traits alluding to religious, chivalric or pseudo-chivalric orders, guilds, or secret societies. Contemporary fraternal orders typically have secular purposes, including social, cultural and mutually beneficial or charitable aims.
Although all of those and many others still exist, their heyday was roughly from the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th. Their numbers and membership levels have dropped significantly in the last 50 years.
On the other hand, clubs (not to be confused with "gentlemen’s clubs, " aka strip clubs), were, and still are, primarily social and sectarian, with no “mission” as such, other than to provide members a place to gather, dine, drink, and perhaps reside temporarily. Fictional examples include Holmes’ Diogenes Club and Bertie Wooster’s Drones Club. Extant real-world clubs I happen to know about include Harvard Clubs in various cities, the Army-Navy Club, and the Cosmos Club. Presumably some still exist in Britain and other countries.
I get the point you’re making, but it should be noted that, lots of clubs are themed or dedicated to particular intellectual pursuits, like the Alpine Club, the Arts Club, the Athenaeum, the Authors’ club, and the various sports-related ones, as opposed to being just generally social.
An episode of the Dollop podcast made that claim the reason why bowling leagues disappeared was entirely because of a shrinking middle class, in the 50s to 70s every single middle class family to afford to go bowling every week and buy their own bowling balls, but the shrinking middle class now means there’s less people who can afford to bowl.
Which I find complete bullshit but it’s one theory I’ve heard in the wild.
Private Clubs (of the sort Sherlock Holmes might frequent) do very much still exist, and while
(fortunately) they’re no (generally) longer a place for rich men to smoke and avoid their wife nagging them for the evening, they still have an important role in some sectors of society.
They also exist outside the UK; we have them in Australia.
My friends in the 80s used to refer to bowling as “The sport of thousandaires”, which implies you have at least a few thousands of dollars in the bank. That does seem be generally less common these days.
Another thing that used to be true in real life and reflected in TV. Back in the 1970s, my mother was very close friends with several neighbors, including some she keeps in touch with now (45 years after we moved away).