Telephone Hour from Bye Bye Birdie (Part 2)

Thank you all for your findings.  I overlooked books and the activity of using them for research and study.  My list appears below:

TELEPHONE POLES

At one time, these devices fashioned from logs carried wires and cables which were the single most important form of communication in American society.  Everyone had a phone!  Now, eh, not so much.   Many people have forsaken their land lines for the hand-held devices that can be a blessing and a curse.  Its place in American culture is not what it once was. 

We should also mention the appearance of DIAL PHONES, PAY PHONES (in the swimming pool shower shots), TELEPHONE BOOTHS (at the back of the soda shop with each booth offering standing room for 40 American teenagers comfortably), PARTY LINES (the two barbell hoisting hunks ripping Hugo a new one), and TELEPHONE SWITHCBOARDS and the OPERATORS (all women at that time) who ran them!

LONG PLAY RECORDS…

…but their close friends called them LPs for short.  Also, the devices needed to play the records called, appropriately enough, RECORD PLAYERS.  No 8 tracks here, and don’t even ask about cassettes.  We should also note the strategic HANNA-BARBERA PRODUCT PLACEMENT of a Yogi Bear record in this shot.  And of course, we shan’t forget the shops which sold the records called RECORD STORES which at this time featured LISTENING BOOTHS where you could test spin your record prior to purchase.

I previously mentioned the SODA SHOP, a long-time staple of American teenage dating.  This goes back further than 1963.  I remember seeing an old film still showing Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland sharing a soda.  I think the scene was from a film called Andy Hardy Gets It On.  It’s interesting to note that, back then, relationships were expected to be chaste.  The boy would buy the soda for the girl when the whole time he just wanted a cherry.*

A JALOPY

This one came equipped with a phone and six chicks which reminds of something else that doesn’t exist anymore: 60s SEXIST VERNACULAR.  In any case, the guy is driving his posse around and obsessing about the relationship between Kim and Hugo.  The guy probably would done better if he was in one of those phone booths at the back of the soda shop. Then he could have fit 33 more young women in the booth with him.

GETTING PINNED

Another social custom which probably still happens, but we don’t hear much about it anymore.  At my high school, you gave your girlfriend your class ring so she could wear it like a necklace and flaunt it in front of her other girlfriends.

Again, thanks to all for playing.  We should do this again soon.

*Oh, come on!  We were all thinking it! 

 

(Thank you for reading. “Hiya Hugo!  Hello Stupid!”)