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Wonder Women of the ’80s

What do you get when you combine Donna Summer, Erma Bombeck, Cheryl Tiegs, Judy Blume, Gloria Vanderbilt, Carol Burnett, and Rose Kennedy? An absolute dream cast for The Vagina Monologues? Well, yes. But you also get the Wonder Women of the 80’s (sic), according to this book that School Book Fairs, Inc., published in 1980. Rather audacious of author Garnet Topper to pick the decade’s wonder women when the decade had barely begun. By the way, while Garnet Topper sounds like a Gay-Head-style pseudonym, my cursory research suggests that it’s a real name.

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Family Affair Friday: Episode 2, Jody and Cissy, 9/19/66

This is part of my weekly series about the classic CBS sitcom Family Affair

Episode 2, Jody and Cissy, 9/19/66.
Written by: Edmund Hartmann and Henry Garson. Directed by: William D. Russell.

Synopsis

When Uncle Bill calls home from Peru, he is surprised to learn that Cissy has joined the household. Upon his return, he make plans to send her back to Indiana. Overhearing him, Cissy pretends she wants to go. When she says she thinks it’s foolish, at her age, to “believe in the magic of people loving and caring,” Uncle Bill feels guilty and decides she should stay.

Real subtle, Cissy.

Fashion Note: Cissy wears a cute suit in this scene.

This almost leads to another departure–that of French, who believes the three children require a housekeeper/nanny (“a middle-aged, well upholstered, kindly and experience” housekeeper/nanny). When Buffy slips her beloved Mrs. Beasley in French’s suitcase to keep him company, French is touched and returns to the Davis household.

Real subtle, Buffy.

Seriously, these girls have man-management skills that would make Enid Haupt proud. Well, I guess an orphan’s gotta do what an orphan’s gotta do.

Random Thoughts

Buffy and Jody are adorable again–I especially like Buffy’s description of slippers as “hairy shoes.”

So much awww…..

I also like that the kids’ emotional troubles haven’t instantly disappeared. Jody has a nightmare and cries out for his mother, while Buffy mentions crying at night while Uncle Bill was gone. I’m glad that Uncle Bill relents and lets Jody sleep with him after the nightmare.

This green paint shows up everywhere on Family Affair. It goes especially well with the orange couch in Uncle Bill’s office. Speaking of color, what’s up with his hair.

Continuity Nod: Buffy mentions that Mrs. Beasley now has glasses. Actually, the doll’s whole face has changed since the pilot–thank goodness.

Real-Life Shout Out: Mr. French reads Winnie the Pooh to Buffy and Jody. Sebastian Cabot narrated several animated Winnie the Pooh stories, starting the same year this episode was made, 1966.

The perfect person to read Winnie the Pooh.

Guest Cast:

Hardcastle: Noel Drayton.

Miss Lee: Betty Lynn.  She played Thelma Lou on The Andy Griffith Show. She would return three times as Uncle Bill’s secretary.

Radio Operator: James Victor.

Fun Facts: Uncle Bill has done some big game hunting. Jody doesn’t care for baths, at least those given by women. Uncle Bill smokes. Jody has a turtle. Cissy is 15. Uncle Bill’s secretary, Miss Lee, makes her first appearance.

Vintage Sitcom Cliche: The bouncy instrumental “teenage music” Cissy plays.

This Week’s Bonus Feature: A photo story about Johnny Whitaker and Anissa Jones on the Family Affair set, from TV Guide, June 24, 1967.

TV Guide, June 24, 1967

Other Entries in this Series

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Old-Time Radio Episode Spotlight: A Snapped-Worthy 1920s True Story

Eve Rablen, the real-life model for Alma in this story. Newspaper crime reporters, showing the restraint they are known for, dubbed her “the Borgia of the Sierras.”

Calling All Cars, December 11, 1934

The story you are about to hear is true. Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Fortunately, producers didn’t bother to change the name of the town, the sheriff, or the star witness in this story, enabling us to uncover the details of a Snapped-worthy 1920s murder.

Calling All Cars, which aired from 1933 to 1939, was an early police procedural show that focused on real California cases.

Tuttletown is the setting for this episode, and Tuolumne County Sheriff J.H. Dambacher opens the story of what he calls his most interesting case.

First, we hear a crotchety old man scolding his son “Herb” for corresponding with a woman named “Alma”–a woman Herb met through “that there matrimonial agency,” as Pap puts it.

Pap is comically over-the-top with his objections, which include his son’s young age (26) and Alma’s previous marriage (“God-fearing people don’t get dee-vorced!”). Herb doesn’t listen, though. He marries Alma and moves her and her young son in with him and his father.

What could possibly go wrong?

In real life, Herb and Alma were Carroll and Eva Rablen, and the radio drama presents an accurate picture of what happens next. At a school-house dance on April 27, 1929, Eva froliced on the dance floor while her husband waited in the car outside.  At one point, she brought him a cup of coffee. Shortly thereafter, he cried out in pain, told his father that his coffee had tasted bitter, and died.

Sheriff Dambacher tell listeners that the killer was “the last person one would logically suspect.”

That might be true–if one had never encountered a crime story before.

The police investigation nailed Eva pretty quickly. The prosecutor later doubted that he’d ever see such a strong circumstantial-evidence case again. The evidence included:

Post-mortem testing that showed strychnine poisoning killed Carroll.

The discovery of a bottle containing traces of strychnine near the spot where Carroll died.

A druggist’s positive identification of Eva as the woman who’d purchased the strychnine from him a few days before the murder.

Forensic testing that found strychnine present on the coffee-stained dress of another dance-goer. While Eva was taking Carroll his coffee, she bumped into this other woman and spilled some coffee on her.

Prosecutors’ star witness would be Edward O. Heinrich, a forensic science pioneer who earned the nickname “the Wizard of Berkeley.”

Newspapers had a field day with “mail-order bride” murder story, and local interest reached such a pitch that Eva’s arraignment was held outdoors to accommodate crowds.

How could a newspaper make its murder coverage even more disturbing? By using this picture to illustrate Eva Rablen’s “juvenile-minded” nature.

Ultimately, her defense attorneys focused on Eva’s supposedly arrested mental development.

As one expert told the media: “The response of the ductless glands to situations varies with their congenital capacity and acquired susceptibility. In the ability of one endocrine system to inhibit another we have the germ of the unconscious. Hence the modus operandi of the repressions and the supressions, compensations and dissociations, which may unite to integrate, or refuse to integrate, and so disintegrate and deteriorate a personality.”

Well, that makes sense.

I won’t spoil the outcome of this case for you, but you can read more about the case’s resolution and what happened to Eva later in newspaper accounts.

 

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Weird Words of Wisdom: Twin Sister Smackdown Edition

…or, Whose Vintage Advice to Teens is Weirder—Ann’s or Abby’s?

Dear Teen-Ager by Abigail Van Buren, 1959

Ann Landers Talks to Teen-Agers About Sex, 1963

“Just as ‘liquor is quiquor’ is a way to a neat little plot in the cemetery, it can also be a jet liner to sextra headaches.”—Abby

“You wouldn’t take a diamond and platinum brooch to try to pry open a jar of pickles with it, would you? Using sex in the wrong way adds up to the same thing.”—Ann

About the Authors: Identical twins Pauline and Esther Friedman, the children of Jewish immigrants, were inseparable as children. As Morningside College co-eds, they collaborated on an advice column for the school paper. They married in a double wedding. And they built matching careers—Esther became Ann Landers in 1955 at the Chicago Sun-Times; Pauline because the San Francisco Chronicle’s Dear Abby three months later.  Both their columns were hits in syndication. Ann Landers eventually reached 90 million readers, and Abby reached 80 million by 1995. Pauline’s daughter Jeanne Phillips started co-writing Dear Abby with her mother in 1987 and took over all writing duties by 2002, after Pauline was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. That was also the year Esther died, bringing the Ann Landers column an end.

The Ann-Abby Feud: Understandably, Esther resented Pauline’s decision to start a rival advice column. The sisters went through a period of estrangement that included the publication dates for both these books. In 2005, Esther’s daughter, Margo Howard, published a collection of letters she’d received from her mother through the years.  Complaints about “Popo” (Pauline’s family nickname) figure prominently. “I can’t cut her out of my life completely, no matter how loony she gets,” one letter from 1981 reads. “She is too much a part of me, but I must myself protect against her in some way. She is too unpredictable—and destructive.”  

From Abby’s book, a sensitive illustration of the problems facing overweight teens

About the Books: The books’ titles reflect their differing focuses. Abby’s book covers various teen topics, from dating to dealing with teachers, from grooming to smoking. Ann’s book takes dead aim at the sex stuff. (That’s probably what most teens skipped to in comprehensive advice books, anyway.)

Changes in society probably influenced the difference in focus. Although only four years separated the books, those four years saw rapid changes in sexual mores. “The pill” became available for contraceptive use in 1960, and by 1963, America was on the cusp of sexual revolution. Of girls who turned 15 between 1954 and 1963, 48 percent had premarital sex before age 20. For girls who turned 15 between 1964 and 1973, the figure rose to 65 percent (Source: The Alan Guttmacher Institute).  

Differences in Tone: Abby’s writing style is much cutesier, and her book includes cutesy illustrations, as well. Ann can get a bit sassy, but mostly adopts a down-to-earth style. This reflects a real difference in their early advice-giving styles. As Time wrote in 1957, “Abby’s replies are slicker, quicker, and flipper.”

Examples of this style in Dear Teen-Ager include:

“If you’re under 18 there are more reasons for not going steady than Elvis can shake a hip at.”

“Men who are older tend to be bolder.”

“Troubles are like photographs. They are developed in dark places.”

Contrast that with a typical piece of advice from Ann’s book:

“Housework, particularly floor-scrubbing, is not only great for the female figure, but it’s good for the soul. And it will help take the edge off your sex appetite. Cooking, baking, and sewing will prepare you for homemaking. Energy siphoned off into these constructive channels will leave less energy for preoccupation with erotic fantasies.”

Abby would have probably said, “Keep scrubbing the floor, and you’ll be lusty nevermore”….or something.

A Shared Moose Obsession? Abby’s book includes one of her most famous lines: “Girls need to ‘prove their love’ through illicit sex relations like a moose needs a hatrack.”

Ann’s book reprints a letter from a girl with a loser boyfriend, and Ann’s response concludes, “You need this infant like a moose needs a hat rack.”

I don’t know which sister used the expression first, but it didn’t originate with either of them. Jack Benny made the phrase a running joke on his radio show in 1947.

The Double Standard: Abby took the double standard for male and female behavior for granted in 1959, while Ann rejected it in 1963.

Abby: “When a decent boy gets serious about someone, and thinks of marrying someone…that someone will be someone he respects. All boys aren’t angels, but most of them are looking for one.”

Ann: “No man should insist on a white-flower girl unless he is able to bring to the marriage the same credentials of purity.”

Homosexuality: Abby doesn’t mention homosexuality at all, but Ann devotes a whole chapter to it. This distinguishes her book from the other teen advice books I have from this period—few go beyond advising teens to seek professional help if they don’t develop an attraction to the opposite sex.

Ann sounds genuinely distressed by the mail she receives from desperate gay young people. “About 70 percent of the letters come from boys,” she writes. “Most of the boys who write are tortured with guilt and self-hatred. They live on the razor’s edge, terrified that someone may learn they aren’t ‘like everybody else’…Many who write are so ashamed of their physical desires for members of their own sex that they speak of suicide.”

She accepts the psychiatric wisdom of the time that labeled homosexuality as a mental disorder, but she does encourage heterosexual teens to be understanding toward their gay peers, who are “twisted and sick, through no fault of their own.”

Abby’s and Ann’s approaches to homosexuality in their respective books carried over into their newspaper columns. Abby mostly ignored the subject, and Ann stuck by her belief that homosexuality was a disorder until 1992, nearly two decades after the American Psychiatric Association stopped labeling it as one.

Ann’s Most WTF Comment about Homosexuality: “Some Lesbians who despise men enjoy arousing a male’s sexual appetite and then punishing him with rejection.”

Abby’s Least Helpful Advice: “…if everybody picks on you—well—don’t look now, but maybe something’s wrong with you!” (During my many years as a bullying victim, this would have cut me like a knife.)

Abby’s Most Surprising Advice, Which Follows Many Chapters Stressing Inner Beauty and the Need for Self-Acceptance: “Now maybe you’re one of those girls who were slightly short-changed above the equator. Hundreds of girls have written to me asking if it’s dishonest to get a little outside help (okay, ‘falsies!’) to put them out in front. To this I say, ‘Buy all the attachments you need!’”

On Smoking and Drinking: Both sisters advise against teenage drinking. Ann describes the decision she made at a young age—and maintained throughout her life—to abstain from alcohol. Interestingly, her daughter Margo writes that “I was considered ‘sophisticated’ even as a high school girl. I smoke and I drank scotch on the rocks.”

Ann has little to say about smoking; Abby raises several objections, which don’t include health effects. She even pulls out another double standard: “Even when a fellow happens to be a smoker himself, he prefers a girl who doesn’t smoke. It cheapens her appearance. It clouds the illusion of sweetness.”

Abby’s Most Ironic-in-Hindsight Use of a Celebrity to Make a Temperance Point: “Did Mickey Mantle tell Casey Stengel it’s old-fashioned to forbid smoking, drinking or late hours during baseball season? Of course not.”

Other Abby Quotes:

“A nice girl does not hand out a kiss—or kisses—on the first date, no matter how much she digs the boy. If he’s worth liking, he’ll respect you for it. Boys, hold your fire.”

“The bobby-soxer herself, Miss Junior Miss…is endowed by a mysterious but obviously prudent Nature with more slowly excitable sex responses.”

On handling a “mad lover” (21st century translation: a potential date rapist): “In an extreme case, where physical duress is involved, meet force with force. A right uppercut is unladylike, so you’d best settle for a stereophonic slap in lover boy’s fresh face…When he recovers from his chagrin, your best line is a brusque “Home James!” He won’t trouble you again.”

Other Ann Quotes:

“A girl who is called a make-out by her friends would do well to take stock of herself.”

“What am I saying? That a girl can be nice even though she goes all the way? Yes. The girl can be nice—but the girl is not very bright.”

Overall, I think Abby gets the Weirdness Trophy.

Other Entries in this Series

Weird Words of Wisdom: Prettily Bewildered Edition

Weird Words of Wisdom: Spanking New Edition

Weird Words of Wisdom: Chaperoned Edition

Weird Words of Wisdom: TMI, Dick Clark! Edition

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Mr. Blandings: A Lighthearted Movie for a Somber Day

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is a cute movie.

The opening narration, describing New Yorkers’ “carefree, orderly existence,” over traffic-jam footage, is cute.

The montage of Blandings family members arriving at their new home, with narrator Melvyn Douglas mimicking their responses, is cute.

The self-referential ending is downright adorable.

Some people use the word “cute” dismissively. Once, when I tried to wangle my seven-year-old daughter into a Gymboree outfit, she cried, “I don’t want to be cute; I want to be cool!” Personally, I have a higher-than-average cuteness tolerance (witness my devotion to Family Affair).

On a day like today, which holds so many somber memories, it’s comforting to escape into a lighthearted movie like Mr. Blandings.

A moment from the Blandings filming. Director H.C. Potter, left, was best known for his work on comedies.

Movie Impressions: The movie’s opening scenes, which depict a typical morning in the Blandings’ Manhattan apartment, are mostly quiet. A claustrophobic feeling builds as Jim Blandings (Cary Grant) negotiates overstuffed closets and a crowded bathroom. By the time Jim finds out that his wife Muriel (Myrna Loy) has been pricing renovations—and finds how just how pricy those renovations will be—he is ready to escape the city.

(Reviewing the movie, Time took issue with the unrealistically large set that represents a New York apartment: “You could encamp a platoon of homeless veterans in the parlor alone.” This seems to be a perennial complaint about Hollywood depictions of Manhattanites’ homes.)

Once Jim makes up his mind to buy a country house, he lets nothing stand in his way, including reason, caution, or good advice from his lawyer and best friend, Bill. He pays well over the going rate for run-down house and 50 acres of land, fails to notice a clause in the contract that reduces the property size to 35 acres, refuses to let his lawyer renegotiate the price, and then balks at having a structural engineer examine the house.

“Why is he acting so stupid?” my husband asked at this point.

I didn’t have an answer, but I do find it interesting that in the Blandings’ marriage, the husband is the emotional, impulsive one. Grant’s ebullient screen persona and Loy’s placid one work perfectly for this twist on traditional gender roles.

The Blandings end up tearing down the dilapidated house and building a new one (of course, Jim authorizes the demolition before considering the mortgage implications). The mishaps that ensue will resonate with any homeowner. (The guy who digs their well reminds me of every contractor I’ve ever known.) Loy’s paint scene is a highlight—she requests such colors as an apple red “somewhere between a healthy Winesap and an unripened Jonathan.” To the painter, this means “red.”

Adding to Jim’s distress is his growing suspicion that Bill and Muriel have feelings for each other. Critics hated this plot element, which wasn’t present in the popular novel this movie is based on.

“Eric Hodgins’ bestselling Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House was a quietly hilarious account of a man’s troubles with a new house,” Time wrote in 1951. “Though Blandings was short on sex appeal, it sold more than 300,000 copies and was bought by the movies. Then Hollywood, which thinks sex is so important that it created a Production Code to keep sex out, added a triangle to the plot. The Cary Grant-Myrna Loy movie was advertised with leering posters: ‘Does Cary suspect the wolf at the door is his best friend?’”

This part of the movie does feel unnecessary. The saving grace is that it occurs late in the movie and doesn’t amount to much—Jim quickly realizes that he’s being silly. (And the scene in which a neighbor gets the wrong idea about Muriel and Bill, who are alone at the new house on a rainy night, is somewhat amusing.)

Historical Context: In 1948, American were starting to embark for the suburbs en masse. According to David Ames, professor of urban affairs and public policy and geography at the University of Delaware, “Post-World War II suburban growth was indeed monumental. From 1918 to 1940, suburbanites grew modestly from seventeen to twenty percent of the nation’s population. By 1960, however, they had doubled to account for forty percent of the nation’s total and far more than doubled in absolute numbers.”

The Blandings’ House: The Blandings built a Colonial-style house. As Douglas Brenner wrote in the New York Times Magazine last year, “(the Blandings) relationship with early-American style personified the hopes and struggles of moviegoers from coast to coast. The Blandings’ country home became so popular that Kellogg’s cereal boxes offered a cardboard cutout model, and Manhattan charity fund-raisers oversaw the construction of a full-scale Dream House knockoff on a vacant lot in Midtown.” In fact, RKO built 73 replica houses around the country and raffled them off to promote the movie.

Jim Blandings, Ad Man: On the spectrum of fictional ad men, Jim stands closer to Darrin Stephens than Don Draper. Distracted by domestic strife, he almost loses his job, until a woman comes up with the slogan that saves his bacon (or ham, in this case).

Supporting Cast Notes: Lurene Tuttle, who plays Jim’s secretary, appeared in character roles across the TV dial from the 1950s through the 1980s. She was also a prolific and talented radio performer. Her most famous radio role was another secretary—Sam Spade’s Effie. Lex Barker, who played a small role in Mr. Blandings, would break through the next year when he made his first of five Tarzan movies. Louise Beavers plays the maid in this movie; unfortunately, she rarely got the chance to play anything else.

Final Fun Fact: Blandings author Eric Hodgins wrote a long article for Life about his experiences on the movie set. Much discussion, he notes, went into determining Jim Blanding’s salary. Hodgins advocated $25,000; producers objected that “to the average moviegoer the man earning that amount has no troubles.” They pushed for $10,000, but ultimately changed it to $15,000. (For context, the average New York City family earned $5,105 in 1950.)

Other Posts About Classic Movies:

A Love Affair with Words: His Girl Friday

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Spin Again Sunday: Emily Post Popularity Game

Today’s Game: Emily Post Popularity Game

Copyright Date: 1970

Object: “Players learn of the rewards that come from good manners while going to parties, sports events, dinners and other activities with their friends.”

Game Board: Wispy cartoons show wholesome scenes of teenage life.

An all-too-typical teen problem

Game Pieces: Players move regular colored pegs and draw “Emily Post says…” cards that give points for good manners and issue penalties for etiquette violations.

This nice young lesbian couple uses good manners while gathering psychedelic mushrooms.

Recommended Ages: “For girls 8 to 14.” I guess boys don’t need “the rewards that come from good manners.”

Game Play: Players compete to attract the largest circle of friends. You can’t

win if you’re holding the dog card in your hand. Personally, I’d rather befriend the dog than these humans. I mean, Cathy looks like a smug know-it-all, and Tony is clearly up to no good.

I hope this boy and girl can find a polite way to deal with the blonde girl who’s stalking them.

Final Fun Facts: Elizabeth Post, addressing players from the inside of the box lid, makes no pretense that fine inner qualities create social success. “What is it that makes a person popular?” she asks. “Is it good looks, smart clothes, or attractive manners? It is, of course, a combination of all three, but the last is surely the most important.”

The dog is the undesirable one? Really?

Elizabeth Post, the wife of Emily Post’s only grandson, assumed leadership of the Emily Post Institute after the original etiquette maven died. Several Post descendants still write about etiquette, including her great-great-grandaughter Lizzie Post.

Previous Entries in this Series:

Charlie’s Angels

Laverne & Shirley

H.R. Pufnstuf

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Old Time Radio Episode Spotlight: CSI, 1940s Style

It’s always freaky when several of my interests collide. Crime, old-time radio, and classic movies–it all comes together in this photo of the FBI photographing Margaret O’Brien.

“The 91 million prints we have on file here at the FBI are the biggest man trap ever devised.”

Adventure Ahead, August 26, 1944

This is not a great radio show. In my experience, the cheese factor in old-time radio correlates directly with the number of organ flourishes a show contains. But this show’s subject–how the FBI lab helped police solve crimes in the 1940s–intrigues me.

Adventure Ahead was a Saturday morning show aimed at young boys. In this episode, a boy tours the FBI crime lab and learns how agents help solve crimes through blood and hair analysis, ballistics, and fingerprint identification.

(This show uses what TV Tropes calls the Little Jimmy trope: “Little Jimmy is a young character without any distinguishable traits other than complete ignorance related to the subject at hand. Most likely found in educational films, commercials, and public service announcements. Their only job is to represent the young and stupid viewers of the film who know nothing about common sense and would very well get into a car with a stranger offering candy unless some superhero or other fictional character comes along and tells them that it’s wrong. He’s typically young, white and freckled.” Here, our Little Jimmy is named Tommy.)

Because I live near America’s largest fingerprint database, I paid special attention to the information about FBI fingerprint files. After listening to the show, I couldn’t resist doing some research on the history of fingerprint identification and how the FBI collection has changed over the years.

Soon after J. Edgar Hoover became FBI director in 1924, the Bureau established an Identification Division.
Within nine years, it contained 5 million cards. By 1944, when this radio show aired, these numbers had soared to 91 million. Actress Margaret O’Brien provided the Bureau’s 100 millionth set of fingerprints two years later.

This radio show describes a fingerprint matching system that involved punched cards and “steel fingers.” The FBI first used computers to search fingerprint files in 1980, but didn’t establish a fully computerized system, the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, until 1999.

The FBI is now building a huge database of other biometric information, from iris scans to tattoos.