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Post by kims on Apr 11, 2023 20:00:52 GMT
I'm not a fan of Joe McDoaks shorts. One aired today DO YOU THINK YOU'RE ALLERGIC? (1945) I paid attention to this one because (horrors) husband and wife were sleeping in the same bed! Not just one scene but twice. I thought one had to have a foot on the floor if not in twin beds. Censors didn't look at short films? Good grief, in the fifties Lucy and Desi had to have twin beds.
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Post by jlewis on Apr 22, 2023 2:45:04 GMT
I am the opposite of you. I actually love those Warner Bros. one-reelers but will admit that DO YOU THINK YOU'RE ALLERGIC? is among the weaker titles. Humor is very personal. What makes me laugh will certainly not make others laugh and vice versa. In addition, comedies of all kinds are the types of films that date the most, thanks to the ever changing times. What is considered innocent for those with a sense of humor today will quite likely be considered highly offensive to somebody in the future.
Interesting note about the sharing of beds. It was very hit and miss on screens with much cracking down just after the Production Code in the mid 1930s but there was some casual not-noticing-so-much later on. Short films were just as rigidly forced by production codes just like the features and, in most cases, fewer battles were fought in their defense since they didn't generate the same kind of profits at the box-office, being "extras" on the program. However, I think a lot depended on what else was happening in that particular film to sidetrack audiences. Plus network television in the 1950s tended to be more prudish in that regard due to all of the Madison Avenue advertising influence than the movies that were more easily condemned but still available to those who wanted to pay to see them.
The McDoakes shorts certainly were quite ground breaking during the 1940s and '50s with the sharing of beds, much like BEWITCHED and other marital small-screen sitcoms a decade later, but curiously nothing seems to be mentioned about it in old periodicals that I have read. I guess they often showed it but were also quite subtle and matter-of-fact about it (i.e. many kids had parents who did not use twin beds). I would have to go back through all of the titles and do an inventory, but a few stand out in my memory. SO YOU THINK YOU CAN'T SLEEP (made in 1953 just after Lucy got pregnant and had Little Ricky on TV) depicts Joe starting out sharing the bed with Alice but, due to the plot indicated by the title, ends up in his own room watching late night movies so she can sleep solo. The most provocative of all McDoakes... and also one of the funniest FOR ME at least... is SO YOU WANT TO HOLD YOUR HUSBAND (1950) in which the marriage counselor encourages Alice to get one double-size bed for them to share and improve their relationship. Only Joe decides they should use it for guests since he favors sleeping with their Great Dane instead! This was, in fact, one of TWO titles showing Joe sleeping with his canine buddy, the other being SO YOU LOVE YOUR DOG and poor Alice in her one bed... again! However, SO YOU WANT TO HOLD YOUR HUSBAND does end with Joe and Alice having triplet babies to suggest that she finally succeeded with the double bed in the end, despite one of the tykes resembling the counselor himself! Yes, there is a LOT to discuss there!
Particularly interesting among the McDoakes is SO YOU WANT AN APARTMENT, made in 1948, which shows Joe visiting somebody else's apartment and this one featuring two guys together under the covers looking quite adorable and affectionate, if also fully clothed and eating messy snacks as well! Did anybody make a fuss about it back then? Probably not. After all, Alfred Hitchcock in THE LADY VANISHES even went the next level by having one of the guys partially naked (shirtless above the covers); that was a full decade earlier (1938) and I highly doubt that the scene was cut when it was shown in the U.S. since only us modern day viewers would make much of a deal about it. |
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