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WEAK_REEDS

                                               December 11, 2005

From memory, a triptych of
three sitcoms, all from the       (I watched all these things in
late 50s/early 60s:               black and white, and often as
                                  re-runs, so the vintage of them
                                  is hard for me to judge.)




    The eldest of "My Three Sons"
    begins chasing after an                      It was actually
    Intellectual Girl, and to win                a little more
    her over, he starts dressing the             complicated,
    part: jacket and pipe and so on,             since he was
    including (of course) a set of               also interested
    glasses he doesn't need.                     in a Regular Teen
                                                 at the same time,
    The conclusion: not only is she not          so he was doing a
    fooled by this transformation, she           lot of quick
    comes to the conclusion that he's            changes.
    been satirizing her shallow posing.
    Chastened, she suggests they both                 (Compare to the
    drop it.                                          Patty Duke show,
                                                      perhaps?)


    Dick van Dyke somehow ends up in the
    front row of an Avant Garde theater.
    We don't see the stage, we largely
    just hear the performance.  The camera
    stays focused on Dick van Dyke: he
    squirms in his chair in disgust,
    muttering to himself, gradually
    beginning to exclaim out loud.  They          Are watermelons
    have an actor trot up the isle next to        a sure fire
    him, holding a watermelon: he intones         sight gag?
    "Shall I stay or shall I go?"  To
    which van Dyke responds "Go! Go!" --             Buckaroo Banzai
    and the laugh track roars.
                                                     Horsefeathers


    Donna Reed falls in with a bad lot:
    a group of suburban women off on an
    intellectual self-improvement kick,
    the ring leader being an affected
    snob in glasses who has them all
    reading -- gasp -- "War and Peace".
                                                 WAR_AND_PEACE
    The conclusion: Reed challenges the
    ring leader with "What's your favorite
    scene from 'War and Peace'?", and in             
    this woman's answer she accidentally
    starts referring to the characters by
    the names of the actors who played
    them in the movie.

    Everyone laughs, Donna Reed saves the
    situation with a "Let's go play Bridge!",      Bridge?  That's a
    and they run off laughing together, and        pretty difficult
    we can infer that they'll never touch          game, really.  These
    this awful Russian Literature stuff ever       days a clutch of
    again.                                         suburban housewives
                                                   wouldn't even be
                                                   expected to know
                                                   how to play it.




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