What's Wrong With This Picture?

[danemodsandy]

Weeeell....

I'll never say never, but I have never personally seen a gas line run to the point furthest from the house in a detached garage.

I would also call B.S. on the vinyl-covered Romex wiring visible here; braided cloth-covered cable was used up through the '50s at least, and the Draper manse in Ossining (actually a location in Pasadena) was not a new house when Betty and Don bought it. [this post was last edited: 11/17/2014-10:10]

 

[lamont]

All of AMC's set budget went to the Walking Dead......

 

[danemodsandy]

lamont:

Mad Men had a very substantial set budget, which got more substantial as time went on. The problem is, the set people were dealing with the trickiest period of all - the recent past.

It's comparatively easy to do Civil War or medieval stuff, because you're creating a world that is very different from our own - mistakes jump out at you.

But the '60s had so much in common with our own era that it's easy to forget to check every last little thing - it's hard to remember that traffic signs were often different than today's, Smokador urn-type ashtrays were seen in grocery stores, food cans had a top and a bottom seam, etc.

And it's easy to fall into the trap of assumptions. On Matlock, which is set in my native Atlanta but which was filmed mostly in L.A., all the cars have lovingly-replicated Georgia license plates, accurate in every detail. Except that the California prop guys didn't know that Georgia doesn't use front plates like their state does, so they put their handiwork on the front and rear bumpers of every vehicle, at least until Atlanta newspapers started razzing them about it. It probably never occurred to anyone to check, because front and rear plates are just "the way it is" in most places.

 

[dirtybuck]

I thought it was the case of Cokes on the shelf. They look larger than the standard 6 oz. size that was out at that time.

 

[whirlcool]

Storage Shed or Garage?

I noticed that with the refrigerator placed where it is you can't open the door all the way. The refrigerator blocks part of the door's swing. If you tried to open that door all the way the refrigerator would block the doors path.

If this were a storage shed, it would limit what you could put in the garage. Of course if it was a garage you would always be able to use the garage door. But we don't have enough information in this photo to make that determination.

 

[thor]

Grundig console

In an episode during the first season the Drapers get a brand new Grundig stereo console. When Betty turns it on the radio sound comes on instantly. Wrong! Grundig didn't have solid state consoles until the very late sixties, if not early seventies.

 

[combo52]

Servel Gas Refrigerator

Actually this is a good appliance placement for a 1960 workshop-garage. The 1948 Servel would have been about 12 years old, which was a pretty accurate time for a newer model to have replaced it because of features like a zero degree freezer, and because it was still working and refs were expensive so they hooked it up in the garage to keep his beer in.

This was also the perfect place for a stinky gas ref that ran you out of the kitchen with excess heat in the summer in this time before A/C was popular.

Sandy you would be very surprised at the number of garages in the Midwest that have natural gas run to them, if people are working on cars in them. Even around here this is very common, I know many people do it so they can have a gas furnace in the garage that comes on an hour or two before you have to go to work, this is the perfect way to warm up car.

White Romex wiring was also around in the 1950s, it is in my 1955 Sears catalog.

Overall on these two points at least the set designers deserve credit for keeping it real.

 

[danemodsandy]

John:

I just don't agree. The scenario you posit could happen, but I feel it's like the idea that Bigfoot could be out there; I'd want to see more information. I can say that I've never in all my life seen a gas fridge used as a garage fridge, and I've been all over this country and I'm 62 years old.

The Draper house is not, if you'll look at the show, a '50s house. It has features that make it appear to be right after the war, with updates.

We'll agree to disagree on this one.[this post was last edited: 11/17/2014-22:24]

 

[polkanut]

In my earlier post I mentioned the neighbor that has a gas line in his garage, what I forgot to mention is that he installed it himself to stay under the radar of our city inspections department.  He also ran a sewer line from the garage to the house line himself for the same reason.

 

[hydralique]

Installing a simple gas line extension usually requires a licensed plumber and an over-the-counter permit with subsequent inspection by Building and Safety, though of course plenty of homeowners, handymen and plumbers just do it unofficially.

 

There is no prohibition to installing a gas line in a garage; for small to medium size postwar homes an attached garage is the most common place for washers, dryers and water heaters since builders didn't want to commit any interior space to a separate laundry room. In the past few decades it has become common to require steel pipe bollards in front of gas appliances in a garage to prevent a car from hitting them. This can require a little creativity with a front load washer and would likewise affect a Servel installation today but back in 1960 I don't think any codes required this.

 

 

[danemodsandy]

Hydraulique:

"In the past few decades it has become common to require steel pipe bollards in front of gas appliances in a garage to prevent a car from hitting them."

And people wonder why electric appliances get my vote over gas, every time....

 

[NYCWriter]

What do you expect...

... from a man whose secretaries in 1961 were pounding away on an IBM Selectric model that wouldn't be developed and brought to market until 1978?

 

[cadman]

To that point, it's much more likely the set people knew it was a gas fridge (the gas flame emblem is a little tough to overlook), but it had the age and styling of what you'd expect as a second fridge, so they made the deliberate concession.

You'll also recall they made the same decision with the typewriters. They knew they weren't correct, but they couldn't find enough Model C and D's in reliably working condition and went with the Selectrics.

I haven't watched it yet, but there's a 'behind the scenes' extra on the last Mad Men disc set that's all about the set design and props. Might explain a few things.

 

[circlew]

My house was built in 1952, and originally had the wax coated woven fabric electrical cable (brand name was Paranite, in an off-white color) that Sandy mentioned - except in one place. There was a plastic insulated cable going from a junction box on the basement ceiling out to the post light in the front yard. I'm sure that type was more expensive than the woven kind, so wasn't used for the rest of the house.

 

[danemodsandy]

Cory:

Ben and I recently had a discussion about the infamous Selectrics on Mad Men. I know what the "party line" was about the "choice" to use them, but as an old film buff, I have to wonder how everyone on Mad Men managed to forget how these things are supposed to be done.

If you need an office full of Model Cs, you actually only need a couple - those closest to the camera. Any decent prop shop can make non-working replicas for the rest. These don't even have to be all that detailed, since the camera can only "read" so far back. Actors can pantomime typing, no problem. The sound people can add the noise.

If you need to go back farther in the office for a shot, you switch real ones from the front to the back for that shot.

This is such established practice for film-making that it makes me suspect the explanation that the Selectrics appeared because no Cs or Ds could be found.

One other slightly bothersome thing about that '48 Servel appearing as the Draper garage fridge - look below to see what's in the Draper kitchen. Pretty much the same vintage as the "retired" Servel....

 

[vintagekitchen]

2 percolators?

I'm wondering why in that picture of the kitchen there is a chrome percolator and a corningware percolator within about a foot of each other..

 

[danemodsandy]

Kevin:

I think that's because of the Brady Bunch precedent, LOL.

On that show, there was a handsome chrome electric percolator (a GE, I think) on the rear counter, near the Avocado Lincoln Beautyware breadbox. However, whenever Alice poured coffee, it was usually out of a scruffy aluminum stove-top model, or sometimes, an Avocado graniteware stove-top model.

Here's a photo with the Avocado one on the burner, and the chrome one on the counter behind it:

 

[supersuds]

I agree with you about the Draper's kitchen GE, Sandy. My folks were the same age as the fictional Drapers and not as prosperous but they had a GE Combo by 1960. That old low end single door doesn't strike the right note to me.

 

[combo52]

Draper Kitchen, etc.

I does seem a little out of place to have that old single-door GE in the kitchen that is other wise quite modern, DW and all, but I am sure given the choice of that GE and the Servel I would have moved the Servel to the garage also, and the fact that the house has gas service is further proof that having a gas refrigerator in the garage is not at all incorrect.

There are several possibly more troubling things in the kitchen.

Good eye Kevin on the Corning percolator, these were only introduced in 1960, close ?.

I would like a better look at that DW, to me it looks like a doctored much newer D&M machine.

 

[whirlaway]

Fridge not that strange!

I remember my aunt bought a new 2story Colonial home in 63,she had her 1950 GE 2dr painted at the local auto-body shop coppertone and it was beautiful.She was waiting to get her new Maytag laundry set paid for,before she bought a new fridge.That was a common practice then,people didnt like to go into debt,and they would wait,not purchase everything at once.Remember that fridge at the Drapers could have come new when the house was also new.So they didnt think it was time to replace it.