IN the entry on television shows from the 1950s, the reader Joe A. does not agree that it was an era of wholesome entertainment. Joe writes of “Lassie:”

The father is unquestioning to external authority. Be it the town mayor, military officers, policemen, “experts,” Hugh Reilly never fails to submit meekly and obediently. June Lockhart exemplifies a form of “Prairie” or perhaps “Heartland” feminism in which, while outwardly submissive to her husband, she is actually his numinous better and the font of wisdom and correct behavior. This is also one of the first examples of a television family in which the child Timmy, played by Tommy Rettig, often schooled his father and indirectly his mother, on the true importance of a child’s wishes and perspective. Weak father, elevated mother, and a twist on the Noble Savage is a good short description of the unrecognized basis to “Lassie.

— Comments —

Buck writes:

Joe A.’s critique of the 50s TV shows was impressive. I’ve not read anything quite like it.

The first year in which TV came into the American home in a big way was 1948. I was born that January. So, I’m probably consider the quintessential boob-tube baby. I doubt that I missed many episodes of the shows that Joe A. so thoroughly eviscerated. I certainly can’t offer such a studied critique. Joe’s take pretty much stunned me.

I went to Youtube just to check my memory on at least one show. I watched two episodes of Father Knows Best; Bud the Millionaire, and A Lesson In Citizenship. I couldn’t disagree more with Joe’s characterization of the father, at least in those two episodes. He’s the guy. He sets up the morality play. He sees a problem and he resolves it. He devises the solution and everyone ends up following his script. In both episodes the father clearly knows best. He teaches his son an important life lesson in the first, and in the second he teaches them all a lesson. He’s leads them, he’s the head of that family. He does nothing clownish or hair-brained and his schemes are a complete success.

There is no way that I can go back and review a decade of TV shows. But, I’m confident that the shows my parents left me to watch in the 50s are far superior and more wholesome than the crap that’s kids are left to watch today. The 50s TV shows weren’t perfect. They were made by humans, so there is no such thing. But, as I say often; to me the 1950s in America was the pinnacle of Western civilization. A good bit of that was depicted in many of those TV shows. Was modern liberalism creeping into everything? Absolutely. But, I think most young kids missed the dark side of those shows. I guess that I was one of them.

Laura writes:

I haven’t seen most of these shows in a long time, but I am also inclined to disagree strongly with Joe. I don’t see how characters such as June Lockhart or Aunt Mae in “Mayberry RFD,” women who were moral advisors, were depicted as superior to men or usurping their domestic authority. They actually illustrated quite well the role domestic women often played. Again, I haven’t seen the shows in a while.

Herman Munster was a bumbling father but there were others who were not, such as Andy Griffith. Fred MacMurray in “My Three Sons” was awkward but he possessed definite authority and good judgment.

I can’t imagine what kind of deadening humor will result someday from the men’s rights movement. Or I can imagine. No father will be laughed at or have any flaws.

Paul T. writes:

For a similarly dark view of a 1950’s television classic, here’s a link to an essay on “Donna Reed and the Castration of the Mid-Century Male.” It begins:

“In 1958, ABC lobbed an eight-year nightmare of emasculation onto the airwaves, cloaking it under an innocuous title: The Donna Reed Show.  Less blatantly Freudian than the same year’s Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, this domestic situation comedy nevertheless postulated its housewife protagonist as a superwoman capable of rendering the male of the species all but obsolete.”

It’s an amusing essay but it way overstates its case and reads the show very selectively — in fact, many episodes dealt with Donna’s own follies and vanities which were often keenly observed and commented on by her onscreen husband, Dr. Stone (Carl Betz). It’s true that if you comb the TV shows of, say, 1957-1964 you can find plenty of hints of the cultural revolution that was to come, but it’s important not to exaggerate – the fact is that the “Donna Reed” world is, by traditionalist standards, still incomparably superior to the one we live in now. How could it NOT be?

As for wifely deception in “The Flintstones,” “The Munsters” and indeed “Donna Reed,” well, it’s a great comic theme and there’s something awfully humourless in Joe A’s finger-wagging over it. As for “Superman” as Jewish supremacist propaganda, I am at a loss for words. That two ignorant teenage science-fiction fans were encoding Hebrew-based signals into their silly strip seems wildly improbable. That “Superman” simply reflects Jewish immigrant experience is a safer claim: after all, he changes his name when he comes to America and spends a lot of energy trying to ‘fit in’ and conceal his differences as the Kents’ (Gentile America’s) adopted son. This is not propaganda and it’s not subtle; it’s a case of ‘writing what you know.’ Long after Siegel and Shuster had been fired from their own strip, someone (possibly editor Mort Weisinger) thought up the bottled city of Kandor, a fragment of the planet Krypton (complete with living Kryptonians), which Superman conceals in his Fortress of Solitude. Kandor may well have been inspired by the State of Israel; when Superman goes back there he is ‘normalized’, losing his super-powers (his ‘difference’) and being known, if memory serves, by his original name of Kal-el. There, as nowhere else, he’s the same as other people. Again, this is kind of amusing as sociology, but you have to be pretty humourless to see it as any kind of sinister propaganda.

Laura writes:

Agreed.

Thank you for clarifying the “Superman” references.

Alan responds:

Buck and Paul T. make excellent points in their comments regarding Joe A.’s highly imaginative assessment of 1950s  TV shows like “Lassie” and “Father Knows Best”.  Joe’s characterization of Robert Young’s “Jim Anderson” character is absurd.  He was no buffoon, nor would Robert Young have agreed to portray a buffoonish character.  His character was that of a man, a species found far more often on American television in the 1950s than today.  Like all men, he was not always right.  He made occasional misjudgments, as did all the characters on all the programs named in this discussion.

Fathers like “Jim Anderson”, “Ward Cleaver”, and “Alex Stone” were not tyrants, and mothers like “Margaret Anderson”, “June Cleaver”, and “Donna Stone” were not Feminists.  Buck is correct in his reading of the Jim Anderson character, as I have noted from my own viewing of more than a hundred episodes of “Father Knows Best” in recent months.  And as Laura points out, fathers like Fred MacMurray and Andy Griffith acted with masculine authority – quite properly – as did the fathers in those other programs.

Joe asks whether my views involve an element of nostalgia and sentiment.  What if they do?  In no way does that invalidate what Paul, Buck, Paul T. and I have said about the virtues of certain TV programs produced for children and families in an entertainment industry that was vastly better in the 1950s than what it is today.

Buck suggests that the 1950s in the U.S. represented a high point of western civilization.  I agree.  Lawrence Auster expressed the same judgment.  All of us were there and know whereof we speak.

I agree with Laura’s remarks about television-as-hell-on-earth.  I reached that judgment about the time that “happy talk” became the trend on TV “news programs”, and the indescribable junk in the years that followed confirmed my judgment beyond all doubt.  At times I think it would be better for our nation if television had never been invented.

The “men’s rights movement” is just as ludicrous as any group of feminists.

FYI: The “Margaret Anderson” character was portrayed in the TV series by only one actress, Jane Wyatt, not “by several actresses”, as Joe writes.   In the “Lassie” series, “Timmy Martin” was portrayed by actor Jon Provost, not by Tommy Rettig, who portrayed the character “Jeff Miller” in the pre-Timmy years of “Lassie.”

Paul writes:

The fundamental theme of TV in the 1950s and 60s was the Ten Commandments.  In not a single one did the champion violate the Commandments without expressed regret, which is remarkable considering vengeance is like a black hole in that it is a juggernaut.  The characters turned over the evildoers to the proper authorities, or the clever writers forced the protagonist to defend himself and effect justice.

Sure this is an unachievable standard to almost all.  Perhaps cartoons and comedy series such as Laugh In violated the Commandments, but they were known farces and not to be taken seriously.  If I am in error, the writers committed a rare error.

Joe A. writes:

After hours of searching, I found suitable Internet citations for benefit of those that share my opinion but don’t dare voice it, lest they rouse the gendarmerie.

If you want to defend the rest of these productions that’s your affair.  Like ’em or lump ’em, here they are:

FATHER KNOWS BEST:  The Art of Salesmanship. When you’re done cringing, come back and tell us about it.

DRAGNET:  I found two episodes – one is a bonus I did not actually watch but is apparently legendary on the Gun Control Left.  Oh and they hate Jack Webb and anyone that looks like him. Paul T will be right at home with their anti-racist, “America is the Club for Everyone!” White Guilt:  discussed here, here, here, here, here, HERE and HERE.

LASSIE:  Dad lets Junior humiliate himself before the whole town after forcing the fair to break its own strict and obvious rules to indulge his sense of “specialness.”   And then there is this blatant piece of Thomas Dewey fly-over state socialism.  Don’t watch this if you’re an Objectivist.  Or a taxpayer.

SUPERMAN:  Let the Rabbi explain it to you.  I’m Episcopalian so what would I know about Jewish psychology?

THE LONE RANGER: I noticed no one cared to examine the multicultural “Pale Face is Evil” and vaguely hoplophobic production code for The Lone Ranger so I’ll link to it again.  Perhaps someone will think it’s worth two minutes to read it and say, “Wow.  Now I know where they get it from!”

CONFESSION: I am glad the Lone Ranger isn’t like today’s cops who will face-plant grandma into the sidewalk for looking at them sideways or fill Dad full of lead because he made a false move after SWAT broke down the wrong door and flash-banged the kids.  But I digress.

Buck writes:

I don’t understand Joe A.’s purpose. Clearly he is sticking to his guns, and seems well prepared to use the ones he has studiously selected. I, for one, won’t dare to meet him in front of the saloon at high noon. (I won’t be paying to watch any of those shows either) I’m not sure what the fight is about.

Joe seems to be making the claim that he alone knows and understands the “true nature” of 50s TV and what that must mean for and about all of us. If, as many of us think and believe, the 50s was the last American decade that could actually make a living claim to being American in the traditionalist conservative understanding that we seem to share about what that means, then we are profoundly wrong about that, at least in the sense that many of us were obviously brainwashed and manipulated by our sinister and much smarter betters in the media. Was our reality just as dark? Were we never actually what we think we were? How far back is Joe A. pushing us?

Mary writes:

Joe A. wrote: “This is also one of the first examples of a television family in which the child Timmy, played by Tommy Rettig, often schooled his father and indirectly his mother, on the true importance of a child’s wishes and perspective.”

I believe the episode I mentioned was from the first season, if not the first episode itself, of Lassie. I was astonished when Jeff, who was supposed to be 11, guilted his mother into allowing him to ride his bike five miles one way to the vet’s house at one 0’clock in the morning. I laughed out loud at his manipulations. This seems to support Joe’s above statement.

I don’t doubt that Joe Friday had influence upon audiences because he had a certain aura of moral authority, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers were tempted to guide the messages of the show in a given direction. I remember well only one episode of Dragnet, one in which a woman was arrested for child abuse. Her crime was especially cruel – I can’t bring myself to retell it – but it stole a piece of my innocence, and just one more reason why I look back at earlier TV with a cold eye.

Paul wrote: “Perhaps cartoons and comedy series such as Laugh In violated the Commandments, but they were known farces and not to be taken seriously.”

The fact of Laugh-In’s not being taken seriously is exactly why it was so dangerous –same with Love, American Style, mentioned by Laura. Who feels threatened by something they don’t take seriously, that makes them laugh? Comedy could be the easiest of all methods used to make us absorb bad ideas. I remember Laugh-In very well. Without looking it up on Wikipedia to refresh my memory (I was around 11-ish when it was on) here’s what I recall: two middle aged men, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin – with drinks in hand? – making risqué-sounding jokes that I knew were loaded but didn’t understand (you bet your sweet bippy, look it up in your Funk and Wagnalls, etc.); Goldy Hawn, body painted from head to foot, gyrating in a tiny bikini; a dirty old man accosting women on a park bench; the middle-aged host hitting on a very young and giggly Goldie Hawn – typical joke: Hey, Goldie, what’s your favorite drink? Goldie: giggle giggle, scotch and wah wah (I had to ask my mother what that meant and she told me wah wah was baby talk for water); etc etc. Love, American Style was beyond the pale and on later at night; it was filled with sexual innuendo – think airline pilots and stewardesses type of thing – it was disgraceful and I wish I could say that we were not allowed to watch it but we were. Both of these shows helped steal American’s innocence and the fact that no one took them seriously was one of the reasons they succeeded.

Paul T. writes:

I did follow the link Joe A. provided to the rabbi’s essay, and it provides no support for the proposition that Superman was Jewish supremacist propaganda. Also, Joe A’s assertion that I hold an ‘”anti-racist, ‘America is the Club for Everyone!'” philosophy couldn’t be further off the mark.

Mary mentions Laugh-In but in my view it’s not relevant to the discussion as it was part of the new revolutionary culture that displaced the earlier shows we were discussing – Father Knows Best, Donna Reed, etc. If memory serves, Love American Style was also part of the revolutionary tide. The cultural differences between 1955-1963 and, say, 1968-1969 are of course huge.

Also, in a period of cultural transition such as the 1960’s-1970’s, the same TV show (or movie or whatever) can point both ways at once. As I mentioned earlier, you can find little adumbrations and hints of liberalism and feminism in certain Donna Reed episodes, and you can find residual conservatism even in a broadly cultural-Marxist product like All In the Family (I am thinking of the way that Archie Bunker’s son-in-law “Meathead” is sometimes shown as a shrill and frankly ridiculous liberal). In fact, Norman Lear may have slyly had it both ways with All In the Family, since Archie Bunker developed quite a fan following and it’s hard to believe that Lear didn’t foresee this.

Buck writes:

There is a good bit of confusing of shows and decades in these two entries. We need to keep them straight if we are to make better sense of the shows and culture of these wildly different and defining decades.

These are the 50s shows being discussed: Lassie, with the original Miller Family, ran from 1954 to 1957, after which came wholesale changes. The Lone Ranger ran from 1949 to 1957. Superman from 1952 to 1958. Father Knows Best ran on television from 1954 to 1960. The original Dragnet ran from 1952 to 1959. The Honeymooners ran from 1951 to 1955.

The other shows mentioned are from the “sixties” decade: The Flintstones ran from 1960 to 1966. The Munsters and the Addams Family ran from 1964 to 1966. Laugh-In, the quintessential “sixties” show ran from 1967 to 1973, capturing and holding the sweet spot of the “sixties”. Star Trek ran from 1966 to 1969. The “sixties” is typically defined as the period from 1963 to 1974.

Not keeping the 50s and the “sixties” separate and distinct is missing the huge arc of modern liberalism’s surge into the intellectual and social power vacuum created by the aftermath of World War II. Modern liberalism existed in the 50s, but it was still largely constrained by a confused and increasingly skeptical generation of parents that had know idea what was upon them. They still had a loyalty and fealty to a state that was turning rapidly global and to an academia that was mostly traditional. The “sixties” blew the doors off the 50s and every whim and desire was let loose on an unconstrained America that lost its grip and was being wracked with guilt and doubt and by a full on attack of the natural order of being. America set out to prove something to the world.

Laura writes:

I think I started the confusion of eras, or the error of eras, when I was talking about television-watching in general in the previous entry and mentioned some of the shows from the 1960s.

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