Vintage Television Comedies One Misses

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Maude
The Golden Girls...I love Bea Arthur!
Gimme A Break
Eight is Enough
One Day at a Time
Friday nights in the 80s had Dallas and Falcon Crest back to back.
 
Ultimate short-lived show

I remember seeing the one and only episode of "Turn-on", with guest star Tim Conway. Got yanked before it was even over on some stations I heard, One skit I remember was 2 people, one sneezes, the other says God bless you, and a voice from above says "Stop ordering me around"!
 
NIGHTTIME SOAPS

I love all those old nighttime soaps, Dallas, Knots Landing, Dynasty, Falcon Crest (especially Lorenzo Lamas, yummy). I also liked Steven on Dynasty. Patrick Duffy wasn't bad on the eyes either.
 
Patty Duke Show Lyrics:

There's Cathy who's lived most everywhere
From Zanzibar to Berkeley Square
But Patty's only seen the sights
A girl can see from Brooklyn Heights - what a crazy pair!

But they're cousins - identical cousins all the way!
One pair of matching bookends, different as night and day.

Where Cathy adores a minuet
The Ballet Russe and Crepes Suzette
Our Patty loves to rock and roll
A hot dog makes her lose control - what a wild duet!

But they're cousins - identical cousins and you'll find
They laugh alike, they walk alike
At times they even talk alike - you can lose your mind!
When cousins are two of a kind!


I've heard the controversy over whether the lyrics should be "hot dog" or "hot rod" before. My vote is for "hot dog", because they were considered a casual, sloppy "teen" food at the time, perfect for Patty's character. On the other hand, "hot rod" would have been a huge no-no in '63 (I was, uh, there), because to say one made Patty "lose control" would have sounded like she couldn't keep her knickers above her knees when she was in one. There's no way a TV network would have allowed a hint of that on the air back then!

I love the idea that a show pitched to teens should have a theme song with lyrics mentioning Zanzibar (an African nation now called Tanzania), Berkeley Square (the most expensive, exclusive residential area of London), the minuet (a dance favoured by the French royal court), the Ballet Russe (the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, meaning the Russian Ballet of Monte Carlo, descended from the original Ballets Russes founded by Sergei Diaghilev), and Crepes Suzette (an elegant dessert of crepes in an orange butter sauce). That's a lot of culture to pack into one TV show theme!

But of course, we were such perfect, well-behaved, well-educated little dears back then that we knew all about such things. And when we walked the ten miles to school, it was uphill both ways. ;-)
 
Did you ever read Patty Duke's Book?

In the book, Patty says that the show was written by middle-aged men who were deeply clueless about every facet of teen life. So the idea that one would "lose control" when presented with a hot dog should not be taken seriously. It probably scanned right when some geezer was composing the theme song.
 
The plot thickens

I checked IMDB, they say the line is "A heartthrob makes her lose control", this is turning into the dead sea scrolls!
 
I'm No Expert on Patty Duke Lyrics BUT

Think about them.

They are all about the two cousins being opposites.

Zanzibar/Brooklyn, minuet/rock 'n' roll, it only follows that the counterpart to crepes suzzette is a hot dog, no?

Just my take on what the lyricist was trying to convey.

I personally don't see the "hot rod" connection unless they had referred to Cathy preferring limousines or something.

Ralph
 
Wow, what a trip down memory lane this is. I can remember so many,

My Three Sons - with William Frawley as Bub
My Mother The Car - The Car was best character on the show
Its About Time - two astronauts in the stone age
I Love Lucy
Ernie Kovaks
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Benny Hill
Lost In Space
That Was The Week That Was
The Flip Wilson Show
Laugh In - I had to have alot of the jokes explained at the time, wish it was in reruns now
Fridays
The Muppet Show
The Flintsones
The Alvin Show
I Spy
Gilligan's Island
Hogan's Heros

This list could go on and on.

Lisa
 
nurdlinger:

"In the book, Patty says that the show was written by middle-aged men who were deeply clueless about every facet of teen life."

With all due respect to Ms. Duke, I think those deeply clueless middle-aged men were pretty fair guessers, because the show was quite popular with teens when it was new. Patty Duke's hairstyles and wardrobe were widely copied. It wasn't realistic, but then NO show was really realistic back then, and no one expected them to be. For all the reverence that The Dick Van Dyke Show gets (and deserves) today, we used to sit around and hoot at Laura Petrie's flawless hair and wardrobe after a day of housework, to say nothing of how chipper Rob was when he got home. It may have been someone's real life, but it sure as hell didn't resemble any we knew. Our moms wore housedresses, our dads came home beat up and cranky from work.

Just a different time.
 
Favorite Sitcoms:

Too many to name, but a few that come first to mind are:

1. All In The Family. Awesome show which launched other greats, such as The Jeffersons, Maude, and from that show Good Times. There were a couple of episodes with laundromat scenes, featuring coin op Maytags. There was one episode where no washers were shown, but it was about Archie overloading a 12 pound washer with 17 pounds of laundry, and because of this the washer "busted wide open", as Archie described. Archie insisted he weighed the clothes on the bathroom scale to make sure the load was not too heavy, but the laundromat owner insisted the load was 5 pounds over the 12 pound capacity limit. Finally Edith remembered she rolled the scale back 5 pounds, to prevent Archie from getting angry at it for showing he was overweight. The matter of the busted washer was dropped. With all of the fuss over Archie's alleged mishandling of the washer, I wonder how many viewers stopped to realize ARCHIE BUNKER WAS DOING LAUNDRY!

2. Married...With Children. Ed O'Neill had great comic delivery as Al Bundy. The other reason I loved that show was the 1972 Lady Kenmore set that was always in full view. There was one episode in the 2nd season where Al and Peg went on a game show, pretending to be their next door neighbors, who had won an appearance. They went on the show because their washer had broken, and they saw this as an opportunity to win a new one. Although they won big, the LK set remained on the show until 1997 when it ended.

3. The Brady Bunch. Who could resist falling in love with those Whirlpools. The Bobby incident was the best.

4. Rhoda. They had several laundromat scenes in the basement of the NYC apartment house where she lived. Each time they had different machines. Two that stand out were a 1962 Kenmore model 60, and in another episode, was a solid tub Speed Queen from a similar vintage. There was also a Hotpoint Silhouette, also from that period standing next to the Speed Queen.

Have a good one,
James
 
Ralph

Following your logic, wouldn't the opposite of crepes suzette be a banana split or some other all-American dessert item?
 
Laura Petrie

Dresseed pretty much like Samantha Stephens for housework, that is mostly petal pushers, ballet flats and some sort of top, usually the sleevless sort that were in fashion. Or, there was the popular jeans and an old men's shirt for really grimy work. On the whole have to say it seems Mrs. Stephens did more housework (with or without witchcraft),the ever recall Mrs. Petrie doing. The later seemed to spend her days running around after little Richie, and getting dinner/drinks ready for "Rob" when he got home,that is if they weren't going out for dinner.

Yes, the commute via car or rail from Manhattan to New Rochelle today certianly would take it out you. Certianly wouldn't look down upon a nice gin T, or martini at the other end! *LOL*

When one thinks of it, don't remember many sitcom moms doing much if any housework. At least Peg Bundy was honest about it, but cannot imagine anyone doing any sort of hard work in a starched shirtwaist, girdle, high heels and pearls.

Married With Children:

Was a HOOT! Finally a sitcom that told how family life really was like for so many people. The dad was a has been, who peaked in high school as a football player. The wife, well what could one say about Peg Bundy? Gold digger won't fit as Al never had nor was to have major money. The daughter, much like the other mid-western blonde from "The 70's Show" is the local bike, but unlike Red Foreman, Al Bundy harbours no illusions about his daughter.

Unlike some modern sitcoms, such as "Every Body Loves Raymond", where the husband is always begging for relations with his wife, Al Bundy was good where he was, that is his copies of "BigUns", and fantasy world dreaming of the beautiful women that would never come true. Oh, there was that one time Al could have had Jessica Hahn, but chose to be true to Peggy (akd "Big Red").
 
Hey Mike, yes--a sweet treat would be the best counterpart to crepes suzette, but I guess the lyricist couldn't come up with anything or felt "doughnut" didn't sound right. Continuing along with my same logic though, I still feel a hot dog comes a lot closer to getting the job done on expressing the opposite of crepes suzette than a hot rod does.
 
Frankfurter

I always believed it was hot dog too, I didn't say I thought it was hot rod, but it would be easier to imagine Miss Lane losing control over a vehicle than a processed meat product....
 
So many to choose from....

I still loved "Father Knows Best" (Season 2 coming out on Nov. 11th, 2008)and I just recently found out that "The Donna Reed Show" (Season 1) is coming out on October 28th, 2008. "The Partridge Family" (Season 3) being released on October 14th, 2008. Looks like a lot of favorites being released just in time for the holidays!

Mike
 
Edsel Bermuda

Donna Reed, season 1...how cool! Dr. and Mrs. Stone drive the Edsel Bermuda station wagon in 1958! right up there with the movie "Girls Town" where the nuns rescue Mamie VanDoren from the evil Mel Torme in a Bermuda....
 
I remember as a kid on Friday nights it would be Batman, Green Hornet, Time Tunnel and the Hogans Heros. I sat and didn't move for 2 hours, parents were happy about that. Then on Saturday nights was Carol Burnett, Petty Coat Junction, Wild Wild West then Saturday Night at the Movies. Great times and entertainment back then.
Jon
 
Wow, I don't remember seeing any Edsels. I'm going to have to watch for DRS season 1 now. I know the Cleavers were a MoPar family but am not sure about the rest like the Andersons and Nelsons. I think one of them switched makes at some point. Mayberry bought their cruisers from the Ford dealer, IIRC.

I liked Sky King's big Dodge station wagon. There was also a show called "Guestward Ho" where the local native American drove a nice Caddy convertible.

Perry Mason is worth watching just for the cars.
 

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