WTF dialogue on the old "Room 222" show

Cafe Society
21

The *Mad *satire (“Room 222ZZZZZ…”) marveled that within the perfectly integrated student body, there were no interracial couples (the illustration showed white couples, black couples and an Eskimo couple).

This *really *reaching into the mists of obscurity…

Not long after “Room 222ZZZZ…”, Mad once included an insert that contained capsule-description satires of TV shows. It used photographs instead of the artwork *Mad *was known for. I’m almost certain it was done by someone other than the"usual gang of idiots" - it was edgier, more adult humor.

One of the satires was “Room 347”. A photo showed the principal’s office (with his name spelled, “Mr. Coughman”). The school was named, “Totally Integrated High School”. Spell the acronym backwards…

Unrelated to the OP:

Another satire in this insert described “The Even Newer Dick Van Dyke Show”, a comment on “The New Dick Van Dyke Show” which was less successful than “The Dick Van Dyke Show”. The capsule described how this would be the first Dick Van Dyke show that would be filmed without Dick Van Dyke: the plot would claim that the star was snowed in at a ski cabin somewhere for the first half of the season, hopefully until the series was renewed for a second season.

Mad were the masters of the cynical behind-the-curtain look at the motivations of big institutions like TV networks. But that insert seemed to take things further.

22

During the year of the show’s first season, I actually had a class (English) in Room 222.

23

Tangentally, they addressed a similar issue in their satire of Family Affair (titled Familiar Affair):

Jody (“Joky”), the nauseatingly adorable freckle-faced-and-redheaded little brother, is playing in Central Park when he encounters a little black boy:

JOKY: Hi! I’m Joky! Are you a Negro?

BLACK BOY: Actually, I belong to a different race altogether. I’m what you call a “TV Negro.” I’m what white people think a Negro should look like: dark-skinned with Caucasian features!

Along comes the English butler, Mr French (“Mr Stench”):

STENCH: Come along, Master Joky! I’d rather you didn’t play with that ahem person!

JOKY: But, Mr Stench! Only by living and **playing **together will children of different races come to **know **and **understand **each other!

STENCH: That’s what I’m afraid of! If he gets to know you, he’ll hate **all **white kids!

A few years back, I was telling a co-worker about all this, and found a picture of 222’s cast on the Internet. He took one look at Denise Nicholas (“School Counselor Liz McIntyre”) and said “Wow! She really is a ‘TV Negro’”!

As MAD pointed out, there were no ugly girls/women at Walt Whitman Senior High! (At least, not after Seymour and Pete physically ejected the one ugly girl who *was *there!)

24

I think there actually was an episode like this in TNDvDS. Dick spent most of the episode alone, musing Hawkeye Pierce–style about all the functions a can of peas can perform: “Food … water … salt, for use as a disinfectant… Boy, I’ve got a regular survival kit here!”

I don’t really remember much else about it, but I assume rescuers dug him out before the last commercial.

IIRC, his wife in that series was Hope Lange, who made it almost worth watching! :o

25

That’s the only episode I even slightly remember. At the end, he’s back home, but for some reason he has a mental impairment, I forget how that is supposed to have happened. At that point he thinks the peas are emeralds and gives them to his wife as a gift.

26

*Mr. Kaufman: *That girl student! She… she… she’s not beautiful!
(after throwing her out, Mr. Kaufman throws out a black girl)
Mr. Dixon: What are you doing?
Mr. Kaufman: I have to maintain our school’s perfect racial balance, don’t I?
Mr. Dixon: Sure you do!

27

This was easily explained: In the first panel, Pete says the kids at the school learn tolerance and “what democracy is all about.” When asked why there are no interracial couples at the school, he replies “Because this is TV, not the movies. And TV still isn’t ready to show what democracy is all about!”

In re the “X” rating, there’s a passage in*** Final Cut*** (about the making of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate) where United Artists executives are debating the release of (IIRC) Last Tango in Paris. While they had released other X-rated films in the past (e.g., Midnight Cowboy), there was a lot of opposition to it; not on moral grounds, but because it would severely limit the size of the potential audience.

28

So far as I recall, this was the only episode of the series I ever watched! :smiley:

Isn’t it amazing how total strangers hundreds or even thousands of miles apart can reminisce about something they both saw on the same evening more than 40 years ago?

The power of television!

29

I remember one episode where a male student was being bullied because the other students thought he was “queer.” When the teachers and principal got together to discuss it, Kaufmann asked “Are we dealing with one problem or two here? Is the student a homosexual?”

In reruns, that scene is totally cut out.

30

Thanks for ruining another childhood memory… :smiley:

31

No shit!

What WAS it about Karen Valentine? She was just…something? But what was “it” that she was?

She was the perfect America’s Sweetheart. Not too beautiful, but most definitely not unattractive. Was it all personality? Or did we just like “cute” girls back then? She’s like Sally Field’s Gidget. Or Sandy Duncan.

She was everywhere for a long time, then just got replaced.

32

Karen Valentine in no way resembles Sarah Palin!! Such accusations should be a bannable offense!! How dare anyone say such a thing?!?! Take it back!!!

33

I used to watch R222, but the episode I remember is the one I didn’t get to watch, where an airplane crashes into the school. I read that description in our TV-Guide and could not wait… but something happened and I missed the ep, never to be seen.

It’s probably just as well that I didn’t see it because my minds eye had a Boeing 747 crashing into the school @ 200MPH, complete with explosions and bodies everywhere, when the tv-show reality was more likely that the plane was a small Cessna that crash landed in the parking lot. :smiley:

34

I conflated Karen Valentine in my preteen brain with Valerie Bertinelli - like KV was the older version of VB…

35

I just barely remember the show (though I can hum the theme song). When my brother and I we were kids (5 and 10) people with especially big afros had what we called “Room 222 Hair” - a reference to Eric Laneuville’s character.

36

Even worse!!! :mad:

37

I remember only one episode well: Fritz Weaver was a Czech immigrant/refugee who destroyed a student’s art project because he thought it desecrated the American flag. (This was soon after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.) After he made an Omega Glory–type speech about how great America was, the kids understood the reasons behind his action.

There was one other episode in which the weekly crisis was that one student had gotten another pregnant. According to Liz, “It happens because kids are people!” I forget how it was resolved, but nowadays the two would be handed over to pshrinks/psocial workers who would “help” them overcome their “emotional crisis,” and the boy would be branded a sex offender for the rest of his life.

How times have changed!

38

The last thing I remember seeing Karen in was Gidget Grows Up, where she landed a job as a UN tour guide and got engaged. This apparently was in 1969.

39

In the early 1970’s, I had a serious crush on Karen Valentine. Admitting that would have been like saying your favorite singers were The Carpenters and Wayne Newton.

40

Valentine was a regular for many years on Hollywood Squares, as well. She was in quite a few ABC Tuesday Night made for TV movies, too. I thought she was cute as well. She had something special about her.

One of the other regulars was Helen Loomis, played by Judy Strangis. She later played Dyna-Girl to Deidre Hall’s Electrawoman on a Sid and Marty Krofft live action Saturday morning kid’s show. Very attractive girl, she later left the business because of the number of stalkers she had.

Room 222 also had the first TV appearance of Chuck Norris, playing himself in an episode where the slightly nerdy overachieving black kid was getting bullied.

Lloyd Haines was a pretty classy presence. A Marine officer, Korean War vet, (and reservist while the TV series was being filmed), he refused to take any stereotypical parts and wouldn’t play roles that he thought were demeaning. He later appeared in an early Chuck Norris movie (Good Guys Wear Black) as a CIA officer but died way too young of lung cancer.

A lot of early appearances by young actors who later became more famous later - Cindy Williams, Teri Garr, Jamie Farr, Rob Reiner, Richard Dreyfuss, Kurt Russell, and Mark Hamill.

Some of the shows seemed kind of facile, but others still stick out in my memory - a poignant episode about an elderly teacher who was slipping into dementia, a mean teacher that none of the students or faculty liked (but whom Pete Dixon paradoxically supported), one with impressionist Rich Little as a substitute teacher who taught history while impersonating famous people (and becoming a brief love interest for Karen Valentine’s character), but wasn’t able to “turn it off” and be himself, and one with an overweight class clown who revealed his own deep, almost suicidal depression at the end. Also one where Helen Loomis made a suggestion that the school play (directed by Karen Valentine) would be more “relevant” if all the students took off their clothes at the end. All the students enthusiastically supported the idea, and Valentine was afraid to tell the kids (especially the very shy Helen) no, but when the time came to disrobe, none of them wanted to do it - which was actually pretty realistic for a bunch of self-conscious teens.