You may not be old enough to remember but there was a time when kids used to sit on the floor and watch a test pattern on a black and white television set, waiting for the day's programming to start. Trust me, I was one of those eager kids.
We had maybe three or so television stations. You had your hand puppets. You had re-runs of Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges. You had dancing boxes of cigarettes. Cereals filled with sugar sponsored your favorite television shows, which had wonder dogs and wonder horses and lots of shoot-outs between good guys (in the white hats) and bad guys (in the black hats).
Then you had lots of old movies, which, now that I think about it, were only about 20 years old when we watched them but they seemed much older then -- and if you watch them today, they're ancient. As a kid in the 1950s you basically had four choices: westerns, war movies, gangster films, and horror flicks (with King Kong always a favorite, and Godzilla and Rodan not far behind). If the movie that was on when you came home from school was not from one of those four categories, you were in trouble. Sometimes it was one of those smoochy things, yuck! Sometimes there were a lot of folks smoking cigarettes and wearing dead animals around their necks -- okay, if it was a detective film, maybe someone would pull out a machine gun or something, otherwise, you had nothing else to do, so you watched whatever was on anyway.
You see, back then, once the television went on, it didn't go off. There were rules about these things. You just watched it, or at least it was on, in the background, sort of like a Cold War era night light. Wattya watchin'? Television. What's on? Something. What? I dunno, something about this guy and this woman and he put two cigarettes in his mouth. Isn't Godzilla on? Nah, not until later.
So, when it came to movies on television in the '50s, there were those that you watched and those that were on the tube but which you didn't actually watch that carefully -- it was background noise. Among the nuttier movies that I recall seeing in those early days of television was this oddball film about what they were calling the Great Depression, and there was lots of dancing, singing, and it moved quickly but was still weird. Recently, I found out that the movie was "Stand Up And Cheer" from 1934. According to Wikipedia, here's the plot:
The President of the United States decides that the true cause of the Great Depression (raging when the film was released) is a loss of "optimism" as a result of a plot by financiers and bankers who are getting rich from the Depression. The President then appoints Lawrence Cromwell as secretary for the newly created Department of Amusement. Cromwell creates an army of entertainers and sends them out across the country. Much of the action centers around Cromwell auditioning acts in his office (with interruptions from janitor "George Bernard Shaw" played by Steppin Fetchit). At the end, as a musical production number breaks forth, Cromwell looks out of his office window and sees the Depression literally, instantaneously lift.
Among the more memorable actors in Stand Up And Cheer were Warner Baxter, Shirley Temple, Nigel Bruce, and Steppin' Fetchit. Having recently watched the film, I can only tell you that there are some truly racist depictions -- so outrageous as to be painful. I mean, there's no way to sugar coat what is literally an "Aunt Jemima" musical scene.
Ultimately, all ends well because the Deparment of Amusement single-handedly combats the evil industrialists who are fighting to keep the USA in the icy grip of the Depression, and we tap dance our way back into prosperity. The film actually ends with trumpets blaring a fanfare on the streets of Washington, DC, and an excited fellow running into the Secretary of Entertainment's office with the thrilling news that the Depression is over and everyone is employed and credit is now flowing free.
Alas, they just don't make 'em like that anymore.
This morning, I hit the wall. There just wasn't anything that I could find to write about because the markets were somewhat drowsy with Friday's holiday and not much of note happened over the weekend -- but for the ongoing on again off again on again European he's in he's out but we don't want this other guy soap opera. All of which reminded me about Stand Up And Cheer. Hey, I can only tell you the thoughts that bubble to the surface of my warped mind; I can't necessarily explain it.
Still -- wouldn't it be nice if we could put on a musical extravaganza sponsored by both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street with guest appearances by Lady GaGa, Toby Keith, Beyonce, U2, the Rolling Stones -- and, okay, I'll toss in Andrea Bocelli and Susan Boyle. You want Yo Yo Ma -- fine, he's in. And then, just as the telethon ends, Paul McCartney runs on stage, maybe with Bruce Springsteen, and they announce that the Great Recession is over, the Euro crisis solved, and the world's economies are all back on track.
Not exactly sure how that will look in 2011 but here's how that scene looked in 1934:
