Lou: You gonna order something, kid?
Marty McFly: Ah, yeah… Give me - Give me a Tab.
Lou: Tab? I can’t give you a tab unless you order something.
Marty McFly: All right, give me a Pepsi Free.
**Lou: **You want a Pepsi, PAL, you’re gonna pay for it.
I was watching Disney’s Aladdin last night, and Robin Williams (as the Genie) really dated the movie somewhat by some of his impressions. Jack Nicholson I guess would stand up for quite a while, as he’s still making films. But Williams’ impression of Ed Sullivan kinda threw me. As timeless as Disney’s animated films are supposed to be, how long until we have to explain to our children exactly who Ed Sullivan was?
I’d have an easier time explaining him (“He introduced the Beatles to America!”, etc.) than Arsenio Hall, whom the Genie also imitates.
Still happens all the time here.
I did that four times last week.
He introduced Bill Clinton to America!*
*adjusting for media fragmentation
Red LED Digital watches. These were prominent props in some thrillers and Sci-fi movies to show cutting edge tech. Even James Bond had one.
According to IMDB’s trivia, impressions cut from the movie included Dr. Ruth Westheimer.
I was watching a Three Stooges short from the mid40s the other day. At one point Moe lists several great inventors such as Edison, Bell, da Vinci and Don Ameche. This completely threw whoever did the closed captioning because they spelled the last one as “damichi”. My father used to say that around 1940 it was common to refer to a telephone as an “Ameche” because actor Don Ameche played Alexander Graham Bell in a movie.
I’ve done that as well, but post 9/11 I don’t bother since it’s a bit of a hassle to get through security. If all I’m doing it picking up a friend, I’ll just wait at baggage.
Prices. Nobody even mentions a price anymore–they always write it down.
Dustin Hoffman using a church-key to open his beer at the beginning of The Graduate. I’m old enough to remember when the original pop-top, foot-slicers came out - but I imagine that the younger generation would have a bit of a moment trying to figure out what he’s doing.
Funny, I just saw a story on the news how both of these were making huge comebacks!
This is a specific movie, but I loved the scene in North By Northwest where Cary Grant is dragging his mother and the police to the house where he was forced to get drunk and drvie away, almost killing himself.
After the fake housekeeper convinces the police and his mother that he really did drvie away drunk and no one was trying to kill him, the mother rolls her eyes and says to him “Pay the two dollars.”
I’m 33, never used a church key, but know what it is.
I travel a lot, and I still encounter that at smaller non-chain hotels and B&B’s. The hotel doesn’t want guests leaving with a key to get it duplicated, so they have you give it back to the front desk. They will maintain a couple dozen of key types, but only rekey the room doors sporadically all at once (once a month or so.)
For some it is deliberate quaintness at using neat old skeleton keys, but at others it is still just the old way of doing things.
That’s an awesome trailer - watch all the way through to see a very young James Brown busting some moves!
You’ve reminded me of another thing that dates movies - coffee and water. Coffee is always in Starbucks cups or travel thermoses now, and water is always in bottles (bottles with lids or sports bottles) - people rarely have a mug of coffee or glass of water now. One exception to that rule - someone having an emotional breakdown might be offered a glass of water.
I’m planning on buying one from Sears soon…the modern ones come with iPod docks, DVD players, and TV screens.
One thing that dates some older movies is, I’m not sure quite how to put this, women being almost wholly secondary characters, at least outside of romance plots. Men were the heroes, or came up with the important ideas & discoveries, or otherwise actively moved the plot along. Women were almost always just there for men to fight over, for the men to rescue, or to get captured by the villain/monster.
I do have images sometimes of an old-school villain menacing a modern action heroine and getting pistol whipped for his trouble…
<sighs in nostalgia>
<waves hand> I’ve got a phone with a built in answering machine and don’t see the need for anything fancier. For that matter, I’ve yet to get a cell phone.
Huh, I know I posted in this thread…well, here goes again:
One from Die Hard 2: there are non-passengers at the gates, which has already been mentioned. What bugged me even more, though, was the long “let’s learn to use a fax machine!” diversion. Silly.
Another one that occurred to me: drug use. Specifically, cocaine, being snorted in lines. No one does that anymore; you make more money turning the cocaine into crack. So, even Robocop isn’t exempt. I thought about this while watching Bachelor Party last week.
On cell phones: they’ve not only changed visibly in the movies, but they’ve changed movies, too. Every dang horror movie now has to have a character whip out a cell phone, say, “Dammit, no signal!”, and keep running away from the deranged killer. It’s like they exist only to be dismissed.
Thinking of cell phones, the 1990 movie L.A. Story, which is one of my all-time favorites, has a scene where Steve Martin gives a “Car Phone Report” on the news, telling everyone that interference is low, so go ahead and make that call. Not even cell phones yet, but car phones, as the symbol for yuppieness. There’s another great dated joke reference in the movie: Martin’s character’s car has a suction-cup Garfield in the rear window. Although, wacky guy that he is, it’s on the outside.
I’m 57 and I remember when drink cans were made of ? tin - certainly pre-aluminium. I have no idea what a church key is.