SLV-Some Like it Vintage.com: happy days

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

These Happy Days Were Yours and Mine...

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I remember an old "Happy Days" episode (Season 2, Episode 18 to be exact). Ritchie, Ralph and Potsie needed some spending money, so they decided to look for odd jobs around the neighbourhood. They happened upon a very attractive divorcée who needed her fence repaired. When 2 of the boys got tired of this manual labour, Ritchie was left on his own to finish the work. To thank him, Mrs. Dorothy Kimber invited him to dinner. This simple gesture made all three boys' imaginations go into overdrive!

"Ralph: With a divorcée, all you gotta do is establish a relationship.

Richie: With a glass of water?

Ralph: It's a start, Rich, it's a start. It gets you inside the house. Then, you charm your way into her private quarters. From there, you're just one subtle move away from paradise.

Richie: You go from a glass of water to paradise?"

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The boys watched while Dorothy and Richie shared a kiss on her front porch swing. Richie wished that he was 10 years older. He never revealed the details of that evening.

It's funny to think now that being a divorced woman was such a scandalous thing back in those days. They were labelled as "gagging for it" as the Brits would say. What about the divorced men? Why weren't they fodder for the gossip mill? It really was a mad, mad men's world working its double standard.

I fear that we are getting too used to hearing about divorce. Just found out that another person I know has decided to end their marriage. It's a sad reality and there's certainly no romance in the notion of a couple breaking up. We're more jaded than ever before and there are those out there who no longer believe in true love or any of the other Utopian ideas from the past.

These happy days WERE yours and mine...

Carol

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Jumping The Shark

Photo Source: Wikipedia

When I was a teenager, one of my favourite television shows was Happy Days. This homage to the 1950’s was funny and cheesy and it produced a lot of iconic characters like “The Fonz” and “Potsie” and made famous the often-said expression – “Sit on it!”

“Jumping the shark” is an idiom, which originated from Happy Days. During one of its episodes, the Fonz actually water-skied on a ramp and jumped over a shark. This marked the climax or high point of the series. Now this phrase is used freely by the television industry to describe a show that has reached its peak and become desperate for a ratings boost.

The Fonz was at first forbidden to wear his leather jacket. The producers thought that it represented too much gang association for a squeaky clean family show. But the jacket became an integral part of the character’s persona and a sign of things to come. The 1950’s were “jumping the shark” because that decade marked the peak of conservatism and old style family values. The next 2 decades led the way to freer, more turbulent times of the sexual revolution, more revealing fashions and bohemian lifestyles.

Do we miss the sock hops, drive-in burger joints and poodle skirts? I think that a part of us will always long for that seemingly simpler way of life. And if we forget, we can always Leave it to Beaver to remind us of those times.

Vintage 1950s Wool Plaid Skirt with Floral Detail