Mother Nature? Not nice to mess around with her.
That when I’m living with two really hot girls, there will inevitably be misunderstandings, from which wacky hijinks will ensue.
That, m’dear, was the Sixties.
Many of us didn’t watch it until the 70’s, I say give DtC a break.
Besides see Jthunder’s reply above.
Jim Go Boldy where noone has gone before
I saw it in the 70’s.
I learned to make it this world, you need a catch-phrase, like “Ayyyy,” “Dyn-o-Mite” or “Meathead.”
I learned what the “G” stands for a bunch of times.
I learned cops can always park right in front of buildings and shoot guns out of criminal’s hands and drive on two wheels without wrecking their car’s suspension and chase down criminals on foot single-handedly.
I learned proper apartment decor demands that all living room couches should be in the middle of your floor, facing sideways towards a wall between your front door and your kitchen, so that you can jump over it or trip over it or hide behind it or allow your roommates to walk up behind you; that you should absolutely let a short black man walk all over you to alleviate back pain because they’ll have magic feet; that you can get a good discount on food if you let your butcher slip your housekeeper some meat; that astroturf makes a great looking lawn; that Mom always said you should never bounce a ball in the house; that Hawaii is a great place to visit, but watch out for those little Tiki statues because they cause bad luck; that you can record a hit song even if your brother’s voice starts changing; you can make anything sound poignant if you repeat it three times, be it an expletive or your sister’s name; that a tall ugly skinny black dude with no car, money or job can be a successful ladies’ man in the ghetto; that a white person saying “You people” is justifiable cause to lose your cool; that if you mix whipped cream and Ripple you can call it Cripple; that it stands for the planet, not the flytrap; that high school students look about thirty; that high school teachers will allow you and the whole gang to come over to their houses and make wisecracks about their wives cooking; that there’s one black kid in the whole state of Wisconsin, and his name is “Sticks”; that one should never question too closely what happens if their older brother goes up the stairs one night with his basketball and never comes back down; that even fat black people dance great; that you can expect wacky hijinks with spies, miner’s gold, lost architectural plans on vacation; that Latinos make great hosts in out-of-the-way island resorts; the word is pronounced Sooooooooooooooooul Train; and that thing on that sportscaster’s head that looks like a dead rat is supposedly hair. Shhh.
Litter makes Native Americans cry.
I learned
– that Mikey will eat anything
– that teenagers in the 1950s had 1970s hair styles
– to look for the union label
– how to speak Ubbi Dubbi
– it’s perfectly safe to befriend a giant grizzly bear
– kids are people, too
– don’t ever sneak into a magician’s dressing room and mess around with his hat
– how to spell relief
– people would get away with a lot of things, if not for those pesky kids
– his name is NOT Toby, it is Kunta Kinte
– only I could prevent forest fires
I also learned to count via pinball machine:
One, two, three, FOUR, five, six, seven, eight, NINE, ten, eleven, tweeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllve!
That the members of any given family, no matter its size, will sit along only one side and the ends of their dining room table.
That American families all had those cars with wood panelling down the sides.
That creating a superpowerful cyborg costs under $10 mil.
Most of us didn’t watch it until the 70s. That’s why it only ran for 6 seasons.
Watching TV in the 70s, I learned that Milwaukee was the funniest place on earth besides New York, mainly because it was populated largely with expatriates from Brooklyn.
I learned that cartoons from the 60s were kinda OK, but that cartoons from the 40s and 50s were actually funny!, beautifully drawn and with great music. And cartoons from before that were plain weird, with great music but jiggly looking animation and lots of misspelled words everywhere.
I learned that monster was a genus consisting of talking Muppets covered in brightly colored shag carpeting, that New York was a “normal” place to live but Iowa wasn’t quite, and that everybody should learn Spanish because it’s good for you.
I learned that group therapy is a laugh and a half, and that your therapist will have you over to get really drunk and eat moo-goo-goo-goo.
I learned that you could earn money by wearing a big nametag, pushing giant plastic buttons that buzzed and made musical stingers, and jumping up and down and cheering a lot.
I learned that there was some guy named “Merv”, last name unknown, who sat in a dark set and talked to grownups who were not very interesting, and then some guys you couldn’t see played some music you didn’t get to hear, and then a commercial.
And that there were one, two, three, four, five - six, seven, eight, nine, ten - ELEVEN, TWELVE - ladybugs at the ladybug’s picnic.
I learned that…
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Murders are invariably committed by rich, white executives.
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Fortune 500 executives always keep a gun in the top drawer of their desks.
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Small towns are evil places where everyone is covering up a horrible secret. Anyone who stops in a small town for a cup of coffee is in peril.
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A quick blow to the back of the head from the butt of a gun will knock anybody out instantly and quietly. (Nobody just yells, “Owww!,” they just collapse without a sound.)
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Cars explode into huge balls of flame if you shoot at them.
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Getting shot is no big deal. You’ll have your arm in a sling at the end of the episode… and next week, you’ll be as good as new.
Ummm, three seasons?
That if I were ever a POW in Vietnam my life would be saved by a chimp who would bring me food, and then after I got home I could drive around the US with my chimp buddy in a cool 18 wheeler and meet lots of hot babes, as long as I evaded the stupid, corrupt, incompetent law enforcement.
(Nevermind that chimps aren’t found in the wild anywhere near Vietnam).
That any unattractive girl who takes off her eyeglasses and lets her hand down will suddenly be beautiful.
There are very, very, very few “gay people” and they only visit you once in a decade.
That child age magically from newborns to four years old in a year.
“Up your nose with a rubber hose” is a really clever insult, as is “Sit on it!”
I’m sure you meant “let’s her hair down,” but, my God, was it ever true.
Particularly for librarians and girls devoted to any form of laboratory activity. Also, there was Wonder Woman. Those glasses and bunned-up hair completely obscured the Olympian body and superb facial features upon which they resided.
This, of course, remains the truth to this day. And besides, they aren’t really gay. They’re just overly sensitive or haven’t found the right opposite sex partner as yet, maybe never will, at this point.
Happened all the time. It’s our own mollycoddling of them that has caused more recent delays in development.
A fact that remains true to this day.