Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[tonyb]

Show business idealization of small towns was rampant in radio and movies well before television came along. For a prime example, "The Great Gildersleeve" lived in a picture-perfect little town where the streets were always clean, the people were always happy, and the worst thing that could happen was an amusing case of mistaken identity. It was nothing like the real world of mid-1940s America, but it was what mid-1940s America wanted to believe it was like, and it sold an awful lot of Parkay.

The head writer for "Gildersleeve," a fellow by the name of John Whedon, was, twenty years later, a key member of the "Andy Griffith Show" staff, and brought much of that same flavor to his contributions. (Gildy had a character called "Floyd The Barber" to deal with two decades before Andy Taylor did.) Mr. Whedon's grandson Joss has given his own twist to the small-town formula, with his tales of Sunnydale, California on "Buffy The Vampire Slayer."

FWIW, the Andy Griffith Show had moments of true genius. The scripts were great when they weren't merely good. And some of the performances were just splendid.

 

[ChrisB]

FWIW, the Andy Griffith Show had moments of true genius. The scripts were great when they weren't merely good. And some of the performances were just splendid.

Don Knotts was was comic genius as Barney Fife.

 

[green papaya]

It isn't just the "respect for funeral processions" that is disappearing. Funeral motorcades themselves aren't what they were back in our salad days. No need to motor from the church house to the cemetery if the earthly remains of the dearly departed are on the living room mantle in a fancy little container about the size of a dictionary.

And funerals themselves appear to be going that way as well. I've been to a few in recent years, and I've known a few other people who requested no formal gathering in their memory at all -- no funeral, no "memorial service," no "celebration of life," no "home going."

The traditional funerals do seem to be on the decline? possibly because of the high costs of a funeral and burial, many are choosing no services and cremation, either way the remains are going back to the earth, except with cremation it's much faster and cheaper.

 

[LizzieMaine]

FWIW, the Andy Griffith Show had moments of true genius. The scripts were great when they weren't merely good. And some of the performances were just splendid.

It was probably the best show of the 1960s when it came to well-rounded, relatively realistic character types portrayed by great character actors. And I'd submit that one of the few modern shows that came close to meeting that standard was Mike Judge's underrated animated show "King Of The Hill."

The sixties were a very interesting time for television, in that you could have the two extremes of character comedy side by side: Andy Griffith on one, and "Green Acres" on the other. "Griffith" was small-town life as strained thru a filter of nostalgia, "Acres" was small-town life strained thru a filter of dementia.

 

[tonyb]

I found myself singing (much to the dewy-eyed bride's annoyance) the Green Acres theme just a couple days ago.

I remember the song word for word, and I remember most of the characters. But please don't ask me to recall a single episode's story line.

 

[tonyb]

Don Knotts was was comic genius as Barney Fife.

I recall Jim Nabors once saying that he didn't know if he could call himself an actor, seeing how he had ever played but one character.(Which isn't literally true, as it turns out. But his other roles were mostly Gomer by another name.)

I believe that he and Ron Howard are the last of the show's regulars still with us.

A young Jack Nicholson appeared in one episode I remember.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I found myself singing (much to the dewy-eyed bride's annoyance) the Green Acres theme just a couple days ago.

I remember the song word for word, and I remember most of the characters. But please don't ask me to recall a single episode's story line.

"Green Acres" was profoundly influential on my own sense of comedy -- there was nothing else like it on the air in the 1960s, and I was mesmerized by it. I'd watch it and I'd spend the rest of the week thinking about it -- it was funny, it made me laugh, but *why?* I thought about that more than was healthy for anyone, let alone a kid.

It took reality and bent it completely out of shape, and that sense of absurdity really appealed to me when I was young, and even more so now. I enjoy many programs, I love a few -- but there is only one television program in all the history of the medium of which I am genuinely in awe, and that's "Green Acres."

 

[2jakes]

Wish I had a photo of the one my uncle bought.
I can still recall the odor of "newness" in the interior!

 

[EngProf]

"Green Acres" was profoundly influential on my own sense of comedy -- there was nothing else like it on the air in the 1960s, and I was mesmerized by it. I'd watch it and I'd spend the rest of the week thinking about it -- it was funny, it made me laugh, but *why?* I thought about that more than was healthy for anyone, let alone a kid.

It took reality and bent it completely out of shape, and that sense of absurdity really appealed to me when I was young, and even more so now. I enjoy many programs, I love a few -- but there is only one television program in all the history of the medium of which I am genuinely in awe, and that's "Green Acres."

Pavlovian response: All I have to do is think about "Green Acres" and I start laughing...

One example:
Lisa is in the kitchen wearing an apron and Oliver comes in and asks what's for dinner. Lisa tells him she's making "hot water soup" - put cold water in a pan and put in on the stove to heat up. Oliver goes into one of his stern lectures about how there's no such thing as "hot water soup". Just as he's finishing, Eb comes in the kitchen, lifts the pot lid, and exclaims, "Oh boy, hot water soup!"

Second example:
Hank Kimball, the county agent, escorts the Hooterville version of the 4-H club (consisting of Eb and Arnold Ziffle), to Washington for a field trip. While in Washington, Mr. Kimball goes to visit his big-boss, the Secretary of Agriculture. He goes up to the desk of the Secretary's secretary and asks for an appointment.
She asks: "Name please?
Hank: "Henry Kimball - Do you need my middle name?"
Secretary: "It's not necessary."
Hank: "Yes, it is - Henry Necessary Kimball."

Arnold Ziffle: an intelligent, articulate, TV-addicted pig !!

Lisa - seeing, and reading out loud, the closing credits...
"Who is Dick Chevillat?"
Oliver can't see them and doesn't know what she's talking about.

Lisa walks up to Hank: "Say, Mr. Kimball..."
Hank: "Mr. Kimball..."
(Yes, just like, "Say goodnight, Gracie...")

It is an amazing show...

 

[LizzieMaine]

Lisa: "All I can do is speak Hungarian and do imitations of Zsa Zsa Gabor!"

"Green Acres" was meta before anybody knew what meta was.

 

[tonyb]

The essential irony in it was that Lisa, in her furs and finery, who was dragged kicking and screaming from her Manhattan penthouse, was much more temperamentally suited to life among the Hootervillians than was putatively sober and rational Oliver, whose take on rural life was wholly romantic.

Not that Hooterville was a hotbed of rationality. Lisa got the joke. Oliver didn't.

 

[Fading Fast]

Lisa: "All I can do is speak Hungarian and do imitations of Zsa Zsa Gabor!"

"Green Acres" was meta before anybody knew what meta was.

Before you used in a post months ago and, then, explained it to me, I didn't know what meta meant.

I'm going to have to watch "Green Acres" now as my vague memory from when I was six or seven was I was unimpressed, but probably saw two or three episodes and haven't seen it since. Also, the Gabor sisters grated on my nerves. Unrelated to "Green Acres," I never got their appeal at all.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Before you used in a post months ago and, then, explained it to me, I didn't know what meta meant.

I'm going to have to watch "Green Acres" now as my vague memory from when I was six or seven was I was unimpressed, but probably saw two or three episodes and haven't seen it since. Also, the Gabor sisters grated on my nerves. Unrelated to "Green Acres," I never got their appeal at all.

They had actually been a singing team early in their careers, but by the sixties, they were among the foremost "celebrities for the sake of being celebrities." Eva, at least, seemed to have more of a sense of humor about it than Zsa Zsa did.

One of the bizarre bits in Green Acres was that Lisa Douglas was supposed to have been a member of the Hungarian Underground during the war, and they even did a flashback where her cell rescued a downed AAF pilot who turned out to be Oliver. But apparently the censors at CBS weren't aware of the fact that the Hungarian Underground was made up almost entirely of Communists, and that thus the female lead of one of their most popular shows was likely a Red. This lends a whole 'nother dimension to Lisa's apparently-effortless infiltration of Hooterville society -- she was in fact the leader of the town's CP cell, conspiring with Newt Kiley, Floyd Smoot, Uncle Joe Carson, Ralph Monroe, and Arnold Ziffel to overthrow the merciless autocratic rule of Sam Drucker. Oh how I wish I could have written that episode.

 

[vitanola]

They had actually been a singing team early in their careers, but by the sixties, they were among the foremost "celebrities for the sake of being celebrities." Eva, at least, seemed to have more of a sense of humor about it than Zsa Zsa did.

One of the bizarre bits in Green Acres was that Lisa Douglas was supposed to have been a member of the Hungarian Underground during the war, and they even did a flashback where her cell rescued a downed AAF pilot who turned out to be Oliver. But apparently the censors at CBS weren't aware of the fact that the Hungarian Underground was made up almost entirely of Communists, and that thus the female lead of one of their most popular shows was likely a Red. This lends a whole 'nother dimension to Lisa's apparently-effortless infiltration of Hooterville society -- she was in fact the leader of the town's CP cell, conspiring with Newt Kiley, Floyd Smoot, Uncle Joe Carson, Ralph Monroe, and Arnold Ziffel to overthrow the merciless autocratic rule of Sam Drucker. Oh how I wish I could have written that episode.

Yes. In the twisted world of Anti-Communist politics the Magyar Front was bad and the Arrow Cross (heaven forfend!) was good. Sort of like the recent attempts in the American media to rehabilitate the Vitezites.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Good bye dandelion yellow, hello something blue:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/crayola-dandelion-dropped-1.4049587

A number of years ago, Binney & Smith, makers of Crayola, were obliged to eliminate their color Indian Red, because it was thought to be offensive to Native Americans (I'm willing to bet money that it wasn't actual Indians who objected. There re people in the world whose life's passion is being offended on other people's behalf). Actually, it was a deep cinnamon color about like the third from the left in the bottom row above, and the reason it was called "Indian" red was that the pigment used was imported from India. But reality means little in the court of ethnic sensitivity and the color had to go. Or at least the name.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On the other hand, there's also people who get offended over the fact that people get offended, ad infinitum. And endless barrels of ink and pixels get spilled over such things specifically to distract us all from the fact that we're all dancing on the edge of a very deep precipice. When the last hungry kid is fed, when the last sick person has the care they need, when everyone has a job, a home, and a sense that getting out of bed in the morning is not just one more miserable, dragging step toward the cold and lonely embrace of the grave, then, and only then, will I have a F. to give about crayons.

Besides, we always peeled the labels off ours anyway, the better to melt them into our own color preferences in a double-boiler.

 

[belfastboy]

On the other hand, there's also people who get offended over the fact that people get offended, ad infinitum. And endless barrels of ink and pixels get spilled over such things specifically to distract us all from the fact that we're all dancing on the edge of a very deep precipice. When the last hungry kid is fed, when the last sick person has the care they need, when everyone has a job, a home, and a sense that getting out of bed in the morning is not just one more miserable, dragging step toward the cold and lonely embrace of the grave, then, and only then, will I have a F. to give about crayons.

Besides, we always peeled the labels off ours anyway, the better to melt them into our own color preferences in a double-boiler.

Geez and I thought this was just a fun and frivolous thread to reflect on the things that have disappeared in our lifetimes. I guess politics is always lurking somewhere and fun, in and of itself, is frivolous when one contemplates the Sisyphusian nature of our existence.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's the first of April, and it's snowing. Who can speak of fun?

 

[2jakes]

Happy April 1st!

 

[belfastboy]

It's the first of April, and it's snowing. Who can speak of fun?

I know as a Canadian living in the Great White North I have been in a funk ever since Al Gore promised me palm trees and water front property and has failed to deliver. We had our snowiest winter/latest spring in a very long time.