Posted on 06/19/2015 4:17:00 AM PDT by foreverfree
Doctors smoke.
Drivers get into cars on the passenger side and slides across the front seat instead of walking around. Exception: A male driver with a female passenger. They both get in on the drivers' side. She gets in first but only slides halfway across.
Cops shoot fleeing unarmed suspects. If a civilian is shot during a pursuit, the cop doesn't bother stopping to render aid or call an ambulance; they keep chasing the suspect (of course, assumed to be guilty).
To make sure everyone knows his or her place, formal and familiar modes of address (and reference) are rigidly used.
Black people are always servants and servile (except on Amos 'n' Andy).
When "stuff" happens, women scream. A guy has to handle it for them.
Busy signals.
Convertibles with the top down in apparently cold weather (people bundled up or wearing heavy coats and hats).
Western marshals don't make arrests; they have duels with bad guys and given them the chance to draw and fire first. Cops aren't much better; they approach armed suspects without drawing a weapon, allowing the suspect fire at them so they can have a dramatic shoot-out.
Despite the fact that Roman Catholics are less than a quarter of the US population, about 90 per cent of TV clergy are priests.
You seldom see a TV in the homes of TV families.
It only takes a quick kiss or peck on the lips to make teenage boys happy.
TV homes have table radios with future technology (they don't need to warm up). And when turned on, a news story or announcement relevant to the plot is heard immediately.
Doctors make house calls. Nobody worries about the cost of health care.
Wives are younger and better looking than their husbands.
Women can't walk by themselves; guys must grab an elbow and steer them.
Bathrooms don't have toilets.
People drink coffee with every meal. (You'd think they'd need those toilets.)
Any others?
Classical music in cartoon background.
My father was part of the local ambulance corps in the early 60s, all volunteer (Monday was his night to be on call). They drove a Cadillac station wagon with a few pieces of medical equipment. If someone had a heart attack at home, he was almost always DOA at the hospital. The last time I visited the old town about ten years ago, and I went to where the old ambulance garage had been: they had the latest ambulance/EMT/paramedic vehicles and equipment, and full-time paid personnel 24/7. I am sure that two things are true: more people survive because of the improvements, and the costs are MUCH higher, probably helping to bankrupt the community.
Good guys’ guns never run out of bullets, but bad guys’ guns always do.
Feminine (in a 1950s sense), yes, but more slender? I suspect even Twiggy was fatter than most women on most TV dramas. (Reality shows like The First 48 don't count.)
Gomer Pyle would often say, “Shame, shame, shame”...
Interesting. Never a big Star Trek fan but used to love the colors of the scenes.
The gifts appeared to be wrapped with ribbon and bow, but the recipient could always open the gift by lifting the lid on the box.
I wish my gifts from Mom were like that. Mom used about 50 yards of scotch tape to secure the wrapping. Would take me an hour of pulling and a pair of scissors to open her gifts.
Compare the world then and now and the word "weird" takes on a new meaning.
We are living in the age of mass delusions, which serves to make reality appear normal and the past appear weird.
You mean the days of solving the problems of polio and small pox, those days of drills that made us believe we would be kept safe in an emergency, and the days of the barriers of segregation being broken? The days when we believed in our futures and the future of the US? The days when the over-riding themes of TV shows were about decency and entertainment? The days when we'd come home from school and play with toy guns and ride bikes without helmets and climb trees and not have to have play dates and lessons take away all free creative time?
<^..^>
People are heavier in general. More food less physical work etc...
My grandparents lived in a small town where the funeral home hearse doubled as the ambulance. They live next door to the funeral home, and one Sunday an emergency call came in during a funeral, just as the were loading the casket into the hearse.
They pulled out the casket, and the hearse/ambulance went off to the call. This was late morning, and by Noon we'd learned that it was a very bad car accident and the ambulance would have to make multiple trips and wouldn't be back for another 2-3 hours.
Funerals in a small town are very much a social event, and some of the people had come a long way to be there. They weren't going to leave until the funeral was properly concluded, but they couldn't very well go back home for lunch. Grandma's big dining room table was carried out to the front yard, all the spare leaves put in, and all the chairs brought out. Grandma and 2-3 other women got busy in the kitchen, and people who lived nearby went home and soon came back with various food items and we had lunch for everybody right there in the front yard.
At least some things haven't changed.
There is a very good reason why and I'm pondering whether to tell you why or to let you discover it on your own.
Hint: Early television shows also used classical music for the same reason.
But her hair was always fixed & her makeup always done, with heavy eyeliner even in the middle of the night.
Or, the bad guys couldn’t hit the hero while using their lever action Winchesters.
But the hero could return fire and hit the bad guys hiding behind boulders with his Colt pistol.
"Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit!"
Public domain?
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