The Naughty '40s

[bboswell]

I would like to take a quick rabbit trail from the thread Shimp Scrampi started about timelessness. Someone mentioned that the Bob Hope show -especially the monologs- tended to be dated, and therefore not as enjoyable. I love listening to all these older shows. It's like a puzzle with innumerable pieces scattered throughout "old time radio."
For example, when I listen to OTR I am fascinated by the "naughty" jokes that the writers dance around. There are words - not the famous 7 - that people did not say on radio. Not that you never hear them, but they were not "polite" words, so they were usually avoided. When they are said, they are the exception, and usually yield a tremendous (and nervous) response from the audience. I can't recall many Jack Benny shows that display this, but when you listen to Jack with 1940s ears that you have honed with, say, Fibber McGee & Molly, you can sometimes see why a joke gets a bigger laugh than one would think.
Some are words, like "belly," and "stink" (or stinks, stinker.) and some are just situations, or phrases. "Pants" are often laughed about, and often avoided (in an "oops, aren't we naughty?" or, "I'll bet you thought we were going to say..." manner) I can't get my mind around this.
Belly, Stink, Pants, Diapers, anything regarding pregnancy obviously...
Any comments?

[Gerry O.]

While at the public library, I read a microfilmed New York Times article which talked about the public objecting to the constant use of the term "lousy" by Ed "Archie" Gardner on radio's "Duffy's Tavern".

While Gardner used the term "lousy" as we now think of it (meaning "bad" or "terrible"), many listeners back in the 1940's were disgusted and offended by it, because THEY were taking it at its original meaning (meaning "infested with lice").

It seems strange to have a public outcry over the use of the word "lousy", but that's just what happened to the "Duffy's Tavern" program during the 1940's!

[bboswell]

I just remembered a joke from the Jack Benny show that qualifies for what I'm talking about. When Jack is checking out his new studio (Either for television, or when he switched to CBS, I don't remember,) he keeps finding cameras here and there. He steps into the men's room and says something like:

"Gosh, a camera in here too!"

[shimp scrampi]

He steps into the men's room and says something like:

"Gosh, a camera in here too!"

I think that's the same show where there is a buildup gag about Jack reading the names on the doors as he walks along, one after another, and the punchline is "Gentlemen".

The "Snow White and the 7 Gangsters" little bird that makes the "raspberry" at Mary is another example of risqueness...actually it is dirtier in radio because you can't see, for lack of a better phrase - which end of the bird that noise is coming out of!

Also they had to be creative in coming up with references to anyone's backside area, I remember one of the Christmas shopping shows where Jack is buying a gopher trap and is deciding between the "killing" kind and a live trap - Mary says, "what do you want, one that picks them up and pats them on the po-po?" I've never heard anyone use the expression "po-po" before or since, but that line has stuck with me for YEARS.

[Maxwell]

He steps into the men's room and says something like:

"Gosh, a camera in here too!"

I think that's the same show where there is a buildup gag about Jack reading the names on the doors as he walks along, one after another, and the punchline is "Gentlemen".

The "Snow White and the 7 Gangsters" little bird that makes the "raspberry" at Mary is another example of risqueness...actually it is dirtier in radio because you can't see, for lack of a better phrase - which end of the bird that noise is coming out of!

Also they had to be creative in coming up with references to anyone's backside area, I remember one of the Christmas shopping shows where Jack is buying a gopher trap and is deciding between the "killing" kind and a live trap - Mary says, "what do you want, one that picks them up and pats them on the po-po?" I've never heard anyone use the expression "po-po" before or since, but that line has stuck with me for YEARS.

I think po-po is an expression that used to be used exclusively with very young children in referring to the rear end. As in "I fell on my po-po."

[bboswell]

That's true, I had never heard "po-po" before and it shocked me to hear someone refer to a rear end so "bluntly." Usually you'll hear a double entendre about "seat" or something like that. "po-po" pops up several times in Jack's show.
One time (Again, I forget the particulars,) a very dignified guest star says it when he's quoting someone else. "Reach up, pat him on the po-po" I think he was a big Hollywood executive. A fine example of how much funnier it is when you know the mores of the time period. It's also funnier when it comes from a socially elite person.

In one episode, Jack is reading a complaint from a professor about Phil's music:

Jack: " 'Dear Mr. Benny, I am a professor of English and Literature at Harvard, and for years and years I have consistently listend to your Sunday presentations. I have found your construction and continuity compact and concise. Your dialogue singularly free of cliches and ponderosity. But Mr. Harris' musical ensemble STINKS!' (huge laugh) And Phil, this proves he's a high-class professor, he spelled stinks with a 'Y' "

[LLeff]

"Po-po" may be a midwestern thing...I remember having heard that from sources outside the Benny show. However, I can only theorize on its origins.

I was recently talking with a friend (who was born Jewish...I converted) and he recalled that in his youth they called the rear end both "tushie" and "tussie". However, it seems that the latter reference has died out and no one seems to remember it any more.

To firmly tie this in with Jack, one of Jack's favorite expressions was the Yiddishism "Kish mir im tuchas" (kiss my ass, or literally, kiss me on the ass). He and Mel Blanc enjoyed saying that to each other, and Blanc finally got a license plate with "KMIT" on it. Suitable response from Jack. But it wasn't easy for him to get it. The DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) initially said, "You can't advertise a radio station on your license plate."

Mel responded, "Oh, it's not a radio station."

DMV says, "Well, what is it?"

Mel says, "It's my mantra."

DMV says, "Which is?"

Quick-thinking Mel says, "Know Me In Truth."

DMV says, "OK, here you go!"

From then until the day he died, the car behind Mel was always subtlely invited to kiss Mel on the po-po.

[Brad from Georgia]

Just today I was listening to a broadcast from spring of 1942 in which Mary reads one of her poems, this one about a bombadier who drops a bomb "on Hitler's ear / And when he turns to see what got 'im, / Drop another on his--"

And Jack interrupted: "We get it, Mary, we get it!"

On the same show, Jack's sponsor had asked to speak with Jack, and he was worried that the whole ensemble was about to be fired. Don tries to cheer him up: "Don't worry, Jack! Why, he couldn't possibly want to fire you. You're a fine comedian."

And Jack wailed, "I stink, and you know it!"

Both very mild off-color jokes got a great reaction.

BTW, I notice in those military-base broadcasts that the cast member who invariably gets the most enthusiastic applause on entrance isn't Jack, or even Mary, but Rochester. He seems to have been very popular with the GIs.

[LLeff]

Both very mild off-color jokes got a great reaction.

Maybe it's just me, but in listening to a May 1945 show for Yesterday USA, I noticed what seemed to sound like a dirty laugh. Jack is on the Yhtpamys Program and says that he used to be so weak, but after taking Sympathy Soothing Syrup he can now "brush my teeth without having to change hands." The implications of the line went by me at first, but as I listened to the length and tone of the laugh, it suddenly dawned on me. It may even be that it was a reference to a current dirty joke (ala the take-off on the guy who died while having sex and it took the undertaker two weeks to wipe the smile off his face), or that the band had heard it in rehearsal and decided to have it be a double-entendre.

Was that sufficiently vague yet comprehensible?

[bboswell]

I just remembered two more no-no words...

"Guts" and "Nuts"! (as in the phrase Nuts to you!)

Remember the Christmas shopping episode when Jack decided on buying dates for Don? His poem was a little "daring" for the times...

"This Christmas I'm giving you something to chew,
These delicious dates, and 'nuts to you'."

that got quite a laugh, and then Jack says..."Hmmm, that doesn't sound right!"

[Maxwell]

I just remembered two more no-no words...

"Guts" and "Nuts"! (as in the phrase Nuts to you!)

Remember the Christmas shopping episode when Jack decided on buying dates for Don? His poem was a little "daring" for the times...

"This Christmas I'm giving you something to chew,
These delicious dates, and 'nuts to you'."

that got quite a laugh, and then Jack says..."Hmmm, that doesn't sound right!"

Was the movie production code in effect in 1933 when the Marx Bros. made "Duck Soup"? If it was, then it was far less strict than apparently radio was since in it Chico sings, "Pea-nuuuuuuts...to you!"

I've always found the expression, "Nuts" in some usage to be puzzling, perhaps because I came along about 5 years after WWII ended, so Gen. McAuliffe's reply to the Germans asking him to surrender just sounded incongruous. "Nuts"? Apparently the Germans who were to return the message were told it meant, "Go to hell." I don't remember "Nuts" ever meaning that in my circle.

[LLeff]

Was the movie production code in effect in 1933 when the Marx Bros. made "Duck Soup"? If it was, then it was far less strict than apparently radio was since in it Chico sings, "Pea-nuuuuuuts...to you!"

I was just thinking the other day that if the Hays Code had been in effect when "Horse Feathers" was made, I'm sure they wouldn't have allowed a very important scene to take place in a speakeasy!

[bboswell]

Was the movie production code in effect in 1933 when the Marx Bros. made "Duck Soup"? If it was, then it was far less strict than apparently radio was since in it Chico sings, "Pea-nuuuuuuts...to you!"

I was just thinking the other day that if the Hays Code had been in effect when "Horse Feathers" was made, I'm sure they wouldn't have allowed a very important scene to take place in a speakeasy!

The Production code officially went into effect in 1930, which predates both of those movies, oddly enough. The Marx Brothers line that gets me is one that you can barely hear... Groucho is asking Margaret Dumont about her rather large butler...
"How do you pay him, by the hour or by the pound?" and then very quietly as they're walking away he says... "or by the fire?"

One phrase that I find interesting is "silly ass." That must have been a common phrase back then, it shows up in the 1947 Chaplin movie "Monsieur Verdoux" where he is examining "diamonds" his wife bought and proclaims them: "Glass, you silly ass, glass!"

I am shocked to hear that in a Hays Code period movie, but there it is in black and white! (pun intended.)

In a Fibber McGee program I heard McGee call Dr Gamble a "silly astigmatic ox," and that got quite a shocked laugh from the crowd, who were apparently familiar with the phrase "silly ass."

Was this still referring only to the farm animal? (I have also heard "jackass" in OTR, although it is extremey rare.) Is "silly" a precurser to the current "dumb-" or "smart-"?? If so, I can't imagine a 1940s public letting it be said in a Charlie Chaplin film. Was that perhaps a word that got "dirtier" (once it became associated with the human anatomy,) while others like "Guts" and "Belly" got more widely accepted?

[David47Jens]

Some asides related to this thread:

There was a Guy Mitchell song from (I believe) 1952, "Feet Up (Pat Him on the Po-Po)".

In the original book version of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, Tinkerbell often calls Peter "you silly ass."

I recall when Lucille Ball's "Here's Lucy" show was in the habit of pushing what was then the proverbial "envelope" for TV. Gale Gordon's character, Harry, was riding a donkey, and was told (by Lucie Arnaz, IIRC) "Get off your... donkey." That got a big laugh for obvious reasons. So did a line from a NASA-themed episode, "Nobody likes a smart astronaut."

Any other observations I could make right now would be pushing this thread too firmly into the PG-13 realm. So I'll just show an uncharacteristic bit of restraint and shut the... heck... up.

[LLeff]

Any other observations I could make right now would be pushing this thread too firmly into the PG-13 realm. So I'll just show an uncharacteristic bit of restraint and shut the... heck... up.

Which reminds me of Jack saying that he went to see Olsen and Johnson's show "Heckzapoppin".