"Everybody knows that" doesn't stay true

May 25, 2004 12:30



Last night I was listening to another CD in the Spike Jones box set I bought this past Saturday. There was a tune I heard on the Dr. Demento show, but had forgotten the title. This tune, Black Bottom has no vocal but it does have a joke of sorts in it. The joke depends on knowing one way that a record can fail or be damaged. There is a point where ( Read more... )

culture, music, technology, familiarity, history

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Comments 20

wordslinger May 25 2004, 09:30:59 UTC
We'd tell ya, but then we'd have to kill you, kiddo.

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vakkotaur May 25 2004, 09:38:29 UTC

I really, really, REALLY hate that stupid line. It's never been amusing. Not even the first time.

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melskunk May 25 2004, 09:50:29 UTC
S'like watching ol' WB cartoons, innit? Before they removed a lot of the content, I used to assume ending up with pointy-out hair, a black face and white lips was simply what happens when you smoke and exploding cigar or get a rifle shot in the face, had no idea until a few years ago that it was blackface.

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keeper1st May 25 2004, 11:49:04 UTC

Even stuff they didn't cut out is full of topical references. "Open the door, Richard!" for example, or references to ration cards, or any number of things.

Heck, even Animaniacs and Tiny Toons would come across as dated already. The former, especially, was full of topical humor -- where the celebrity "cameos" are concerned, most notably. In that regard, it gets dated more quickly than the classic cartoons' celebrity cameos. Stars who were famous then have remained famous, for the most part (OK so maybe one or two of the crooner singers, like Rudy Vallee, may not be household names anymore nor be recognized by sight), but today, fame is much more fleeting, and there's so much new entertainment out that things fade into obscurity quite easily, even when they were hugely popular at the time ( ... )

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crack POP! whiffert May 25 2004, 09:56:01 UTC
Well, the lightbulb thing in movies has always been a comic exageration. Still, you are right about the 'common experience' and changing times. I am old enough to know about skipping records, milkmen, bottlecaps that didn't twist off, dial telephones and a host of stuff that has gone by the wayside.

Its still possible to become literate in bygone culture... in fact it makes life a lot more fun. I have been listening to Old Time Radio for a few years now, and I have been amised to no end to hear the original gags that WB listed from radio to use in their Looney Tunes.

I don't hold so much with 'everyone knows that' even though I'm sometomes on the wrong side of a phrase. I just use.. 'that was before your time' instead. Sometimes I explain, but explaining sometimes just makes the situation more confusing ;)

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altivo May 25 2004, 10:53:03 UTC
Two examples that I still run into: dial telephones and analog clocks ( ... )

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vakkotaur May 25 2004, 11:15:28 UTC

My uncle has a story about his son asking if he could call someone. Permission was given and the son told he could use the phone in the basement, where they both were. He stared at it a moment, then asked it worked. Yep, it was a dial phone.

I recall the family being on a party line, but not for long. Either the folks didn't put up with it for long, or it was just replaced by the now-standard private line as the phone company phased out the party lines.

For a while the phone in the garage had a cracked dial that could catch a fingernail. Having listened to the click pattern, I decided to see if I could "dial" by keying the switch-hook. I was quite pleased to find that I could do that. I don't know if I can still do that, though. Maybe some line are DTMF only now.

I also remember my grandfather calling the fridge the "icebox" as well.

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pulse dial frequency altivo May 25 2004, 14:40:49 UTC
The standard rate for pulse dial is 10 pulses/sec., though there is some phone equipment that does double-speed dialing. The old Strowger switches probably only had some delay ceiling past which it figured you were dialing the next digit, though I don't know what that bound is, so on at least some (now ancient) phone switches you probably wouldn't have to keep up 10 hits/second on the switch hook.

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irpooh May 25 2004, 11:58:44 UTC
At the risk of sounding like my father... back in my day... I have a feeling that offspring produced in the 70's will be among the last to "get" the record joke. Of todays youth, only those with an interest in historical comedy will have an interest in the answer. I recall a conversation not long ago relating a reallllly funny plot they had seen on a TV sitcom (name escapes me now) and as the sweet youngster related the tale, I realized it was three Vaudeville sketches (two of which I had performed once in a musical review) expanded and pieced together. And as the tale progressed I started interjecting the punch line or slap stick bit. My youthful friend stopped midsentence and said, "I thought you said you didn't watch (whatever the show)" I replied that I didn't, and explained the plot had been around since 30 years before I was born. The look on their face was truly priceless.

So, I guess the way to not "miss" is to keep up on your history... which has made me think of something I want to go post in my journal... bye

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