Most old films will prove that when blue screens were huge, most outdoor scenes didn’t offer great reality. Then, I remember Annette Funicello talking about making beach movies, some filmed on location were done in the cool months so directors could avoid having to deal with crowd control. It’s all very ironic and much of it just doesn’t fulfill anyone’s need for even a smidge of reality in what is supposed to bring us reality.
However, recently, I was watching a very old episode of “Father Knows Best” this past Christmas. It was a flashback in many ways, but there were some really interesting insights, and one was the reality factor of old television.
In the final scene of the old “Father Knows Best” show, the mother was serving the kids hot cocoa. It was total enlightenment. The kids held out their empty mugs and she poured, in the show, real cocoa from a simple pot. Now, no one can attest to its temperature, of course, and most likely it wasn’t hot at all, since it wouldn’t affect its appearance. Plus, the audience could never know and multiple takes would make it impossible, not to mention we wouldn’t want to scald the stars. Still, it was real hot cocoa and it could be seen as such showing the familiar striations. Oh, the feel of it!
Then, there are our famous Hallmark channel Christmas shows; I’m a moody fan. Some, I watch repeatedly. Some, I can’t tolerate. I don’t handle fake snow, excessively perfect timing, repeated storylines with slight changes, the obsequious tilt for the modern generation (as if they’re home watching this stuff), and the fake shivering of characters whose breath clearly isn’t breaking in the “frozen” air, because spring is in the air instead. It’s too distracting. There is boredom in the holiday movie that can’t whip up a little crunch and shiver for a snow scene.
In one such new movie, there was (and when isn’t there?) also hot cocoa involved. The actors raised their mugs for a toast in the closing scene. No pot or pouring here. The perfect stockings were hanging, the perfect gas fire was burning, and the perfect matching mugs were topped with perfectly fake whipped cream that wouldn’t have budged if Vesuvius erupted next door. These props would survive a nuclear frost.
Having such a dichotomous comparison in so short a time span made me realize just how much we have lost in the search for perfection and cookie cutter, cash-cow entertainment. I, personally, much preferred the old pot with the liquid swishing around unreliably. After all, that’s how it looks at real people’s houses and, although love stories under the bubble snow on location in April are far more practical and easier to shoot, there is much to be said for the realism that television movies are supposed to bring (we all know they never skimp on the blood and guts realism).
Join our readers whose generous donations are making it possible for you to read our news coverage. Help keep local journalism alive and our community strong. Donate today.
