Thursday, November 11, 2010

Carry-On Camping

A coworker doing repairs on his house found a section of newspaper from 1971. He brought it in because of an article about Augusta Mental Health Institute's forensic unit, which in fact, was pretty interesting. AMHI is no longer a going concern, but the stories had similarity to my own experience starting at NH State Hospital in 1978.

Old newspapers have their own brief fascination. Michigan's Bo Schembechler was advocating for a college football playoff, The Patriots were improving under new QB Jim Plunkett and surprising rookie WR Randy Vataha. Prices in ads always elicit a chuckle, and long-closed restaurants come back in memory.

There were also movie ads. "Gone With The Wind" was playing. In those days movies were re-released infrequently, and in between you couldn't see them for any money. If you didn't catch GWTW this time around, you might wait five years or more. The Strand Theater, where my mother first had to pay adult price for me when I turned 12 and we went to see "The Sound of Music," now had a XXX feature with Platinum-something in the name. 1971...I turned 18 that April before leaving for college...X-rated theater right there on Hanover St, where I often walked...how had I missed this?

There was also an ad for an R-rated comedy I had never heard of. It was apparently one of more than two dozen "Carry-On" films, British comedies with similar casts each film.



They don't make 'em like that anymore, eh?

4 comments:

Ymar said...

Perhaps not in the West. Try the East.

Arakawa Under the Bridge.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=11188

Very funny show.

Paul_In_Houston said...

They don't make 'em like that anymore, eh?

They probably do.

A project director I worked under (who came from across the pond) told me that for every "Masterpiece Theater" production that we see from Britain, there are probably fifty "Benny Hills" back there.
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Retriever said...

You should see
"Carry on Up the Khyber"....(I think there were some wicked tribesmen in Afghanistan or Pakistan or somesuch place in it) we saw all of them as kids in England. Kids there are used to the double entendres...

I think I'll go try and find some. Enjoyed them a lot in my youth...

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I was waiting for you to weigh in, Retriever. I was going to call on you if you hadn't raised your hand.