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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
    Intellectual Girl, and to win                It was actually
    her over, he starts dressing the             a little more
    part: jacket, pipe (I think),                complicated,
    and so on, including (of course)             since he was
    a set of glasses he doesn't                  also interested
    particularly 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, mostly 
    we just hear most of the performance.     
    The camera stays focused on Dick van      
    Dyke and his reactions, squirming     
    around in his chair in disgust,          
    muttering to himself, gradually               Are watermelons
    beginning to exclaim out loud.  They          a sure fire
    have an actor trot up the isle next to        site gag?
    him, holding a watermelon: he intones               
    "Shall I stay or shall I go?"  To                Note:           
    which van Dyke responds "Go! Go!" --             Buckaroo
    and the laugh track roars.                       Banzai  
                                                                 
                                                               
                                                           
                
                
    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              FAKING_SCENES
    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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