MovieChat Forums > The Real McCoys (1957) Discussion > Grandpa 'Annoy'

Grandpa 'Annoy'

posted 10 years ago by rixrex
5 replies | jump to latest

That's what we always called him in our home when watching the show because my Dad hated the character and complained that he was annoying. I used to laugh at his childish ways.

But now that I see the show as an adult, I understand my Dad's opinion, which I also now share. It's a really hard character to like because he's arrogant, selfish, ignorant and generally a real grouch. I much prefer the Grandpa on both The Munsters and The Waltons.

Of course, finding out that Walter Brennan was overjoyed when M L King, Jr, was killed doesn't help any. I'll forever see him now as the despicable, arbitrary Judge Roy Bean

-----
The Eyes of the City are Mine! Mother Pressman / Anguish (1987)

[–] rikkirat 10 years ago

Yeah I agree - I watched and enjoyed the show when I was a little kid and have some rather fond memories of it from then as well. I haven't seen the show since then until the last couple of days when I discovered reruns on Cozi-TV and frankly its not nearly as good and endearing as I remembered it... except for Grampa the characters were quite weak and lifeless - but Grampa was an angry bitter man who wielded borderline abusive familial power over the others. I like Walter Brennan but the character Grampa Amos was not at all very likable. I had been DVRing the show but have since deleted it since I can't bear to watch it.

[–] rixrex 10 years ago

Glad to hear that I'm not the only one who doesn't like that character. As a kid, a Grandpa acting that way would seem funny, almost doing the things a kid would like to do but can't becuase of being a kid.

Even when Grandpa Amos realizes his errors, and seems to apologize, he then just goes right back to the old bad behavior that caused all the trouble, and the canned laughs are brought in.

I don't get it at all. A grandpa can be a curmudgeon and still be endearing. A great example of that is Gearge Cleveland as Gramps on Lassie, when it was called Jeff's Collie. He really knew how to make a grumpy grandpa somebody you could like.

All I can say now is we remember ML King for his good deeds and forgive him his faults, but I could never forgive Walter Brennan for wanting to dance an Irish jig when he heard King was murdered. I was in Jr High then in a rural school and had a math teacher that acted much the same way over that news. He was a digusting anachronism and never had much respect after that.

-----
The Eyes of the City are Mine! Mother Pressman / Anguish (1987)

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] deege-1 10 years ago

<<All I can say now is we remember ML King for his good deeds and forgive him his faults, but I could never forgive Walter Brennan for wanting to dance an Irish jig when he heard King was murdered.>>

Either prove this happened, or stop with your mud slinging. Your rhetoric is growing old.

[–] booboobunny-949-708435 10 years ago

The Grandpa character on McCoys was realistic to how farm families were back in the day. Dad, or grand dad if he was still around and owned the farm, ruled the roost. They expected their family members to work on the farm from dawn until sundown and would spank the kids if they didn't work the fields. The kids had no life, even after they grew up, if they stuck around the farm. Everything I've ever heard from older people who grew up on farms in rural areas is that they had to work in the field from the time they walked and would get browbeat or beaten if they didn't. Dads and grandads were strict and demanding. A lot of the kids never went to school to learn to read and write, or barely went to school. It's still that way, though now, it's mostly migrant farm workers from other countries doing that to their families instead of native born Americans who homesteaded family farms in the 19th and 20th centuries.