Sitcoms 65

From my look back at growing up in the 60s...

My allowance was $5.00 a week. Out of that largesse I bought records, movie passes, Clearasil, junk food, Stridex Medicated Pads, surf magazines – y’know, the essentials. In the mid 60s my g-g-g-g-generation would spend $11 billion on such items. By 1970 we would spend $70 billion. I guess they figured in drugs.

It was a banner year for television. MY MOTHER THE CAR premiered. (Has there ever been a more terrifying Oedipal concept for a teenage boy than his mother being his car? Short of MY MOTHER THE DICK I can’t think of anything worse.) Truth is the show was not as bad as its title.

More shows were being shown in color. We didn’t have a color TV but I knew more people who did so that was exciting.

Sitcoms for the most part were lame. PETTICOAT JUNCTION (which opens with the three starring girls bathing in the town’s water supply -- but I had a crush on the three girls), THE PATTY DUKE SHOW (she played identical cousins and wasn’t funny as either. But I had a crush on her), THE DONNA REED SHOW (I had a crush on Shelley Fabares), BEWITCHED (I had a crush on Elizabeth Montgomery), CAMP RUNAMUCK (I had a crush on Maureen McCormick), and GIDGET (I had a major crush on Sally Field). Most people watched sitcoms to laugh. I watched them to get off.

Teenage characters in 60s comedies were all written by 50 year old men. We were all portrayed as fun loving kooks who got into “jams” and were usually bailed out by our (coincidentally) 50 year old fathers. Boys were all oversexed, which meant we wanted to “go steady” before the girls were ready. Girls were oversexed too and were willing to “put out” for the right dreamy boy… and by “put out” I mean accept a double-date for miniature golf. It was a fairy world. Just once I wanted to see Gidget pass out not because Moondoggie invited her to the prom but because she had severe menstrual cramps.