|
Post by malaria on Feb 25, 2019 17:34:38 GMT -5
1. The cures for any malady, no matter how serious or obscure, were castor oil and goose grease, or, in certain limited instances, a quick twist of the neck;
2. The diet of the average kid during the depression consisted of 98% "mush", 2% sausages. "Otto Fries" was an actor, not a side dish;
3. If you had a cute blonde (-wig) schoolteacher in Culver City, CA, she was probably from, yes... Poughkeepsie, NY; 4. Roughly 60% of the workforce was composed of truant officers. 30% were dogcatchers; 10% were Evil Orphanage Administrators (tm);
5 "I ain't givin' my apples to nobody" was the prevailing school of economic analysis;
6. Times might have been bad, but the revelation of a terrible toupee or comb-over caused general hilarity no matter what;
7. Yeats and Kipling took a back seat to the deathless "High Up Grew The Daffydil/I couldn't Hardly Reach Her"
8. Every heavy in a 3-million-mile radius was played by Billy Gilbert;
9. "Oh you nathty man" and "D'oh!" entered the national vocabulary and dialogue, NEVER TO LEAVE!;
10. The stock market may have been bad, but Bonds Went Up.
|
|
|
Post by RJH on Feb 25, 2019 21:38:53 GMT -5
11. The most efficient way to remove outer clothes is to go through a hedge.
12. No matter how many curves and hills they encounter, unlicensed drivers on brakeless vehicles will never hit another vehicle.
13. If you play hooky, there will be a special event for schoolchildren that day only.
|
|
|
Post by myhomeo on Feb 27, 2019 13:45:54 GMT -5
14. The second most efficient way to remove clothing is to have it torn from your body through a small hole 15. You needed to avoid neglecting your dog because if you did, it might attempt suicide. 16. And don't get old ladies too excited or they will turn into stuntmen in long-shot and do cartwheels 17. And don't buy a house on Watt Street. It's just not worth it. 18. Every Christmas, kids in reform school received brand new sledge-hammers. 19. We should strive to be less optimistic and more pessimistic. 20. If you don't like your new baby, you may be able to trade it in for a goat. It's worth a shot, anyway.
|
|
|
Post by malaria on Feb 27, 2019 21:13:42 GMT -5
21. Fire engines were essential parts of any childhood, and any fire company worth its salt needed a "lookerout." 22. Policemen were genial, balding Irish guys who played with kids and excelled at the Slow Burn (tm). 23. There was protracted and serious debate about the nature, responsibilities and resonances of shipping-clerkdom. 24. In a possible nod to Einstein's legendary 1919 experiment, the decade's most important astronomical concept was When The Eclipse Totalizes. 25. Gaye "overexposed...oh AM I?" Seabrook was the decade's comic precursor to (g'night) Gracie Allen. 26. People of the era spoke a peculiar, proto-English patois marked by arcane/archaic terms such as "skinflint," "polecat," "gad," and "camisole." 27. Formal boxing matches among kids, replete with rings and refs, were common to the point of boredom. 28. Freckles were in and of themselves a rich source of humor. 29. Pirates played an important part in the average kid's everyday life. 30. Not Wanting To Be The President was a capital felony.
|
|
|
Post by tboneator64 on Feb 28, 2019 13:24:34 GMT -5
31. That the He-Men Woman Haters Club could be formed more than once, always by Spanky, with the rules inevitably almost immediately broken by Alfalfa, who had a thing for Darla!
32. That no matter how badly Alfalfa sang, it would always be well received by his audience. (With THE PINCH SINGER being a notable exception~INITIALLY!)
33. That the end of a long day for Mr. Hood would always end with a visit from the gang, who would either keep him up all night, or eat every scrap of his meal. (Only when Mr. Hood had a thin moustache, though!)
|
|
|
Post by RJH on Feb 28, 2019 23:29:44 GMT -5
[Maybe some from the '20s]
34. Skunks are indistinguishable from kittens.
35. Every rich person has a pet monkey.
36. All football games end with a game-winning touchdown as the clock expires.
37. Any clothes that get wet quickly shrink to about half their original size.
|
|
|
Post by malaria on Mar 1, 2019 17:42:54 GMT -5
34. A birthday was an occasion involving a duck, a frog, and/or an obscenely bulging and apparently suffering square cake. 35. Poetically, Eliot's "In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo" had been replaced by the more cutting-edge "if he hollers let him go/eeny meeny miney moe." 36. After much confusion about the exact identity of "Jimmy", it was finally determined beyond cavil that he was the one with the nickel. 37. Even as dread polio raged through the land pre-Salk, kids faked up no illnesses more distressing than various forms of measles, though they did this 17 times a week. 38. "Swelegant" was an adjective in fairly common parlance, while donuts (a komedic koncept later picked up by "The Simpsons") were (horrifyingly) called... sinkers. 39. Though no one knows FDR's exact reaction upon learning of the 9/1/39 invasion of Poland by Germany, it is possible, even plausible, that he exclaimed "Oh, EMERSON!" 40. "Borneo" was apparently thought to be part of Africa, and was no seen as no more South Asian than, say, Denmark or Sweden. 41. Linguists disagreed violently about the communicative aptitudes of ham and eggs. 42. Events of the decade served to guarantee that no parent from 1937 forward would ever so much as consider naming a male baby "Waldo." 43. The Cobb/Chaney schism dangerously divided the nation, with Chubby partisans often messing up the Cobbites' hair to stir up unrest and ultimate anarchy
|
|
|
Post by myhomeo on Mar 5, 2019 14:11:26 GMT -5
44. Things are bad everyplace, but especially in Borneo 45. All Tarzan could do was go "Woo-ooo-ooo" just like a hillbilly on the radio 46. The primary amusement of elementary school children was organizing, performing in, and attending musical pageants staged in old barns and coal cellars 47. Mules were in search of a place for themselves 48. One should avoid being skimpy with jelly 49. There were daily talent shows for children on the radio, most of which could be entered via the phone without parental permission 50. The Tooth Fairy periodically visits small-town dentists to deliver football equipment to small boys
|
|
|
Post by malaria on Mar 5, 2019 16:58:43 GMT -5
10.0 51. Lest there be any lingering doubt, Sherwood Fell In The Well. 52. Culver City, CA was home to more pirates, giants, midgets/fidgets and evil skinflints with cheesy mustaches than any other municipality in the world. 53. When stuck for a line, have Chubby say "bring on the dancing girls." 54. The vid of "Hut Sut Rawlson" did not have a Little Grass Shack (from Kallakakoulee, etc.) in it, but it might as well have. 55. Football was a game involving only laterals and fleaflickers. 56. William Blake probably wrote the line "Dark Satanic Mills" after viewing the opening shots and mise-en-scene of "Pups Is Pups." 57. No one knew what "gay" was, but Franklin Pangborn/Otto Phocus was whatever that may have been. 58. Billy Gilbert never saw even a small bit of scenery that he did not rampantly chew up. 59. The 1930s godhead for kids was... ice cream. (How things have changed). 60. My dad, born in '26, magically knew what the "high sign" was, impressing me no end.
|
|
|
Post by myhomeo on Mar 6, 2019 13:44:26 GMT -5
61. The best way to become successful is to sit down and stop blubbering 62. One must be careful when making wishes aloud, because one never knows when a magic lamp is in the vicinity 63. Some clerks should be shipped to Siberia 64. Someone named Jimmy at one point had a nickel 65. One must be wary of infants and toddlers, especially if unaccompanied, because they may be midget criminals in disguise 66. One can always earn a little extra spending money organizing a stage production in the barn or, failing that, by entering a radio contest 67. Given some rope, a few boards, some boxes, a hammer, some nails, and a goat, the average child could whip up a perpetual motion machine to rival Tesla 68. If one is embarrassed about having to walk around in one's jockey shorts and there aren't any barrels or grain sacks available because your friends took the last ones, just pin a few leaves to the shorts and that will do nicely 69. Never keep mothballs near the stove 70. Going along with Spanky's plans is generally risky
|
|
|
Post by malaria on Mar 7, 2019 9:44:13 GMT -5
These get better, I'm lovin' it! 71. In the early part of the decade, certain lions, perhaps under contract to great studios, could roar without making a sound. 72. Dogs could transform magically into some disturbing form of salami. 73. When one was in doubt as to what to name a short, it was wise just put "Inc." after it, as if the kiddies watching it would be hip to the notion of insulation from personal liability. 74. Proviso to #73: if you wanted to hold in the amusing madman from "Moan & Groan, Inc.," you could probably pierce the corporate veil. 9th Circuit, even then, would affirm. 75. A pretty reliable indicator of an impending weep-wah cake was a stove which emitted "wubb-bubba-bubba/bwaaaaah"-type noises and random whistles 76. You absolutely could not keep quadruped mammals out of one-room schoolhouses back then. 77. Kiddie talent shows were run then at a rate of approximately 5 per minute. However, there was NO HOCKEY, and little baseball or hoops. Sing, or play faux-football in a mudpuddle. 78. The Rascalite alphabet was quite analogous to the Roman, but all S's had to be written backwards. 79. Black women back then and there were loving and kid-friendly, but generally corpulent, and no strangers to the do-rag. 80. Holden Caulfield would have hated Marvin Hatley's piano playing ("showoffy ripples") bu it may well have been the best thing about "Mike Fright", apart from the "us"/"not us" dichotomy.
|
|
|
Post by myhomeo on Mar 7, 2019 13:23:56 GMT -5
81. People would occasionally contract a 'peddling craze' and wander the streets selling doorknobs 82. The majority of African-American children were female until they reached a certain age, upon which a goodly percentage would turn male 83. Virtually every large house had at least one hidden sliding panel 84. People should keep their money in good, strong banks and spend some of it on their family 85. Hooligans who wanted to avoid drawing attention to criminal activities would frequently try to drive away curious children by dressing in gorilla suits and chasing them around 86. Orphanage maintenance was generally entrusted to the evil 87. We're just friends, but not like before 88. Children were at the forefront of alternate fuel technology with dog-on-treadmill motors 89. If one wrestler is chasing another around the ring and the one being chased opts to crawl into a large rip in the canvas, it's only sporting for the pursuer to run in place until he's completely inside 90. Girls ain't nothin' but trouble
|
|
|
Post by malaria on Mar 7, 2019 17:12:24 GMT -5
91. Tommy/Butch had 3729 names on the series, many of them Irish surnames like Rafferty and McGann. He also morphed from Regular Rascal to Villainous Bully with great ease. 92. "In the beginning (of the talkies) was the Word; the Word was with Roach, and the Word was McGowan. 93. Wannabe Rascals who didn't make the screen: Groats, Kasha, Couscous, Bulgur Wheat, Beansprout, Tabouleh and Quinoa. 94. Of all possible plot motifs, the one which could never be overdone was The Poor Little Rich Girl. 95. Schoolmasters were prissy old barf-mats who unironically said things like "let joy be unconfined!" 96. Firefighters were apparently far lower on the social scale then than cops, Edgar Kennedy notwithstanding. 97. The komic katchphrase, "'tain't enough, call later" was a motive force in the later careers of almost all successful sports agents. 98. Stymie entered the annals of orthopedic medicine by getting Dickie out of that medieval-looking body brace, and into a makeshift taxi with a drunk donkey. 99. One of the major hazards of the decade was getting stuck in reducing machines. 100. There was some sort of substantive distinction between dwarves (Olive & George Brasno) and "fidgets" ("hey, you flatfoot... call your sh-shots!"). But no hard-and-fast rules applied.
|
|
|
Post by mtw12055 on Mar 7, 2019 19:14:18 GMT -5
101. You could go from having a crush on the girl next door to becoming her brother in less than a year. 102. You could jump back and forth between parents and an orphanage easily. 103. Black boys with bald heads or pigtails were totally in. 104. Instead of using a telephone, you could just go over to your friend's house and alert them with a fake Indian cry. 105. Sometimes a few seconds of time could randomly skip during the day (see the first shot of Stymie in "Readin' and Writin'" as an example) 106. California was filled with barns. 107. You could get run over by a train without being injured not once, but twice; you could also somehow forget about the first incident. 108. During rides in makeshift vehicles down big hills, the world around you starts to look phony. 109. Beanies. Beanies everywhere. 110. Mush is terrible.
|
|
|
Post by tboneator64 on Mar 7, 2019 22:15:23 GMT -5
111. Back pensions meant that old men could permanently spring all of the children from an entire orphanage, and go on endless Amusement Park rides, and attend Circuses. Ironically, Mush still couldn't be entirely avoided. 112. One dollar and twenty five cents was a lot of money! 113. Games were always won by a single point with no time remaining. 114. Ill gotten gains never do anyone any good. 115. You only get to keep your brother's knife if he gets killed in a duel. 116. When you realize you're about to get a tanning, be sure to shove a book down the back of your trousers. 117. Giving silly answers in Classroom Quizzes won't endear you to any School Teachers, but they may provoke some serious laughter. 118. Little boys expressing undying love for their beautiful grown up School Teachers was considered perfectly acceptable behavior in 1930! 119. A man and his Toupee will always soon be "parted!" 120. Attempting to retrieve a "note" excusing you and your friends from School will probably lead to the lot of you getting sick and having to miss the Circus, or whatever other random Field Trip your Teacher decided to surprise the Class with!
|
|