Here’s another
under-appreciated pleasure of classic television from the Comfort TV age: it
makes places you’d never want to visit seem less terrible.
I was in the hospital
recently and found nothing pleasurable about it. You’re away from your home and
your bed, in a big building full of monotonous hallways and colorless rooms.
You try to rest but are disturbed by the buzzes and beeps of strange machinery.
And the food is worse than what they serve on Delta’s red-eye from Minneapolis
to New Jersey.
But watch any popular
situation comedy from the 1950s to the 1970s, and there was probably an episode
featuring one of the main characters logging some hospital time. And for them,
it didn’t seem so bad.
What’s the difference?
Classic TV hospital stays typically begin with the patient safely ensconced in
their room, skipping past the multiple blood tests, book-length insurance
forms, questionnaires that ask male patients if they’ve ever been pregnant, and
being asked one’s height and weight by every doctor, nurse and administrator,
all of whom write down the responses but none of whom apparently share this
paperwork with anyone else in the building.
Of course, the best of part
of visiting a classic TV hospital is that everyone gets to leave. Healthy.
Do you have a favorite
hospital episode from a classic series? Here are some of mine.
“Lucy Plays Florence
Nightingale”
The Lucy Show
Lucy is a volunteer nurse
at the hospital where Mr. Mooney is recovering from a broken leg. From the
moment you see Mooney in his hospital bed, his injured leg suspended above him,
you know he’s about to be subjected to every form of comedic torture the
writers can devise. There’s also an inventively choreographed wheelchair chase
that plays like something out of a classic silent movie.
“Hi!”
The Mary Tyler Moore
Show
Mary has her tonsils out
and gets saddled with the roommate from hell, played by the wonderful Pat
Carroll. The episode is probably best remembered, at least among the show’s
male viewers, for the sexy nightgown Rhoda slips into Mary’s overnight bag
before she leaves for the hospital.
“That’s My Boy?”
The Dick Van Dyke Show
A flashback episode in
which Rob recalls how, after Ritchie was born, he became certain that the
hospital gave them the wrong baby. The final scene received the longest laugh
in the history of The Dick Van Dyke Show.
“The Candy Striper”
Family Affair
Cissy gets a candy striper
job and the head nurse provides only one warning – never give a patient food or
drink without consulting with a doctor. And just like Gremlins, you start counting the minutes until she forgets the rule. On the verge of quitting, she returns to the hospital after a pep
talk from Uncle Bill and finds a way to balance her compassion with
responsibility.
“Bob Has to Have His
Tonsils Out, So He Spends Christmas Eve in the Hospital”
The Bob Newhart Show
The title says it all. Bob
is subjected to the indignities of peekaboo hospital gowns, Howard’s hospital
horror stories, and an ancient nurse played by the veteran character actress
Merie Earle, who gets a laugh with every line she utters.
“Operation: Tonsils”
The Patty Duke Show
Classic sitcom
misunderstanding- Patty overhears her handsome doctor praising the trim lines
and beauty of his new boat, and thinks the compliments are all for her. The doctor is played by one-time
matinee idol Troy Donahue.
“And Then There Were Three”
Bewitched
Tabitha is born in this
milestone second season episode, that also features the first appearance of
Serena, the ever-acerbic Eve Arden as a confused nurse, and a rare moment in
which Darrin and Endora are actually kind to each other.
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