Since this is about television, I’ll move this thread to Cafe Society.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Well there was a “News Radio” which centered on the city dictat of a No Somoking office.
Having grown up in the 50’s; everybody smoked.
I was in a commercial for Kent cigarettes, (for TV), when I was 12 yrs. old. I wasn’t smoking in it; me and a friend were kids on a merry-go-round, as a young handsome couple enjoyed a local Fair, while smoking Kents.
Every TV show had smokers. Everybodys house had the smoking lamp lit, even folks who did not smoke. We smoked as teenagers at Church.
Different era.
If you have a tape of the one with the “Godless Tornados” watch it for me. That’s the episode I remember best. WKRP was an incredible show. Wish it was in syndication around here…
Actually, I remember some scenes from Kojak wherein Telly Savalas would switch from cigarette to lollipop depending on who he was talking to (e.g., he’d interrogate a suspect while smoking a cigarette, then go back to his office, unwrap a Tootsie-Pop, and smooth his captain’s ruffled feathers).
The thing I remember about Johnnie Fever was that he was always drinking coffee.
Mmmm…Bailey…
Nitpick: The sleazeball didn’t even “con” her into posing. He hired her to wear a very modest swimsuit for a travel ad, then took photos through a one-way mirror in her dressing room.
Andy Griffith used to smoke once in a while. I think he even rolled his own. At least I think he was rolling cigarettes.
Bailey was smokin’!
In the old “Perry Mason” shows, just about everyone smoked…but these are OLD shows. And damn, Raymond Burr was hot! Both as a young man and as an older gent.
Raymond Burr? Eh. He was no Bailey.
William B. Davis quit smoking prior to being cast on “The X-Files” so a substitute had to be used for CSM. There is no tobacco in those cigarettes.
On “Match Game”, Richard Dawson sometimes had a cigarette and Charles Nelson Reilly was usually seen with a pipe.
What about the king of smoking on tv - Tom Snyder of The Tomorrow Show.
Hah! Edward R. Murrow could chain smoke Snyder under the table.
Tobacco-free herbal cigarettes are frequently used on TV, in movies, and on stage for the sake of not only the smoker but of the other cast and crew (and audience, in the case of live theater). Even a casual smoker can get a little tired of inhaling tobacco smoke take after take after take, and I’ve seen at least one non-smoker throw up after taking a few puffs for the sake of a scene - a big, burly guy too.
There’s another option for theater: a fake cigarette that’s basically a plastic tube filled with talcum powder. One end is red and glittery and from several feet away looks like it’s glowing. The tricky part is remembering to blow instead of suck (shut up). One advantage is that you don’t have risk scaring away any audience members by warning them that there will be smoke during the performance.
I Love Lucy, like many other old shows, frequently had characters light up and smoke. One famous gag involved Lucy wearing a fake nose and accidentally lighting it instead of her cigarette. A Philip Morris ad appears prominently in the background of at least one scene. (I don’t remember the episode, but Ricky and Fred were seated at a lunch counter.)
Speaking of Freds, Winston sponsored the Flintstones.
We just bought an old cigarette holder and lighter combination as a decoration (we don’t smoke). These were common in the 50’s and 60’s - a little vase-like china ornament designed to hold a bunch of cigarettes, and a matching lighter. People had these on their coffee tables so they could reach out and grab a smoke at any time (as could guests). As you say, it was a different era. We bought the ornaments just to remind us of a world long gone.
What’s a smoking lamp?
I couldn’t track down the I Love Lucy episode I was thinking of (yes, I have been working on other things in the last 3 1/2 hours too), but I did find these vintage opening titles and end credits.
Wow. That’s not the way I remember them.
Before matches were invented, the smoking lamp on a ship was the device (something like a lantern) where sailors could light their pipes. During stormy weather the smoking light would be extinguished for safety, hence the announcements “the smoking lamp is out” and “the smoking lamp is lit” which persisted in the USN right up to the point when it was extinguished permanently.