MovieChat Forums > Car 54, Where Are You? (1961) Discussion > Big Annoyance about old tv including Car...

Big Annoyance about old tv including Car 54


I enjoy some of the older tv shows without question. One huge pet peeve I have about it, is the blatant exageration of age. Lucille Tootie is only supposed to be 40 yrs old. It is obvious she is much older. Sure enough finding the actress name , she is 17 yrs older. This is ridiculous and I have seen this way too much in Hollywood. Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, James Mason.... I can go on and on. I find this to be an insult to the intelligence of the audience. Vainness should not trump acting. I want acting to be realistic.

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...and "teenagers" who are sometimes as old as their late 20s or early 30s!

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Yep that too lol. I think the good thing about the internet age is that they can not get away with this or at least should not even try. Age of any actor/actresss is very easily attainable now.

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bronxriza: i agree w/ you. It's called ACTING for a reason.


Does anyone watch Leave it to Beaver? Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers were only 3 years apart; yet their characters were 6 years apart (when the show started, The BEAV was in 2nd grade and Wally was in 8th). By the time the show ended they'd closed their age gap by 3 years, yet no one's complaining about that.

Really.

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I never liked how quickly babies grew up on TV shows. They would be four or five years old the season after the one in which they had been born.

The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.

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So you think modern movie stars have realistic ages to the parts they play? The average age of Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt is about 52 -- and they all act stupid enough on screen to be in their teens. And the violence in old cartoons like "Bugs Bunny" and "Roadrunner" is more realistic than what these guys go through every movie and still get up and walk away.

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Don't forget "Blackboard Jungle" 1955, Sidney Poitier is playing a high school kid at age 28!?

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Don't forget that people aged more rapidly, even "just" 50 years ago.

I watched "Prairie Wolfer" yesterday, the Gunsmoke episode in which Festus Haggen (Ken Curtis) comes on as a "regular". Curtis is shaved throughout most of the episode, with no facial hair to hide his physiognomic topography, and we see him in several close-ups. Though he was only 46 when this episode was filmed, he could easily pass for a well-preserved 66. * **

Acting ability has to take precedence over age. I'm not insulted to see twenty-somethings playing teenagers.

* Three months earlier, he played a womanizer in "Lover Boy". If I recall correctly, there were no close-ups.

** I'm a very youthful 68, and sometimes asked to show my driver's license to prove I'm old enough for a senior discount. Hell, I'd like to look like Gabby Hayes (with teeth, of course)! Life is not fair.

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I just saw the episode where Lucille is lamenting her "40th birthday." Who were they trying to kid??? BTW, many times at a movie theater, the cashier automatically gives me a senior citizen discount ticket. Who am I to dispute the fact if I can pay $3-$ less for a ticket? Oh, it only happens when I haven't shaved and my gray-flecked "Gabby Hayes" whiskers are showing!

May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?

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