Anne Nichols : Funny in the 1950s
In the beginning Anne Nichols was into eating healthy. History in the strip of For Better or For Worse has shown us that this was just a trend Anne was following and that within a short period of time, she was no long into eating healthy, and don’t believe it was ever mentioned again. After all, Anne was the one who provided the infamous prime rib used to determine that Grandpa Jim actually had a stroke and was not pretending to be asleep. Anne also provided the food for the Caine / Patterson wedding.
In today’s For Better or For Worse, you see Elly playing a role very common for her in the early strips. She sits and doesn’t say a word, but you are to read her opinion from her reactions. She has her hand over her mouth in surprise at the book “ Fun with Wheat Germ.” She looks concerned at Anne while holding the book, “The Victorious Vitamin.” She stares in disbelief at the giant loaf of bread in Anne’s hands, and from this we derive the punch line. The viewer can tell why Anne cannot lose weight, and empathizes with Elly’s position as she resists telling Anne why it is that she cannot lose weight.
Elly is supposed to represent the every-woman, and she was to be surrounded by persons more extreme in their viewpoints. In this way, Lynn could make fun of the health nut housewife with Anne, and make fun of the women’s liberation movement with Connie Poirier. As I have mentioned before in this blog, this setup is identical to that which Cathy Guisewite had for her comic strip Cathy. In the early days, Lynn Johnston shamelessly ripped off other comic strips.
More interesting at this time is Lynn Johnston’s very old-fashioned view about health nuts. I remember seeing an episode of My Little Margie, years ago, where Margie and her dad are trying to get along with a health nut for their own nefarious purposes; and the humour of the situation is the long series of unpleasant things the health nut inflicts on them, like eating plain white yogurt out of a giant jar, or having to do impromptu exercises. At that time, people who tried to eat natural or organic foods were ridiculed.
When the strip was originally published in 1980, this was time near the beginning of Jane Fonda’s video workout, and Olivia Newton-John’s Let’s Get Physical. The health craze was beginning and where was Lynn Johnston? She was mocking Anne Nichols as a health nut, using a style of humour that was 20-30 years old when she started. This is a trademark of For Better or For Worse, i.e. old-style humour. For example, much of the humour for John Patterson relied on his sexist remarks and his male chauvinism, a type of humour which was popular in the early-to-mid 1970s and had faded by the time 1980 rolled around.
As I see these kinds of jokes repeated in 2008, I am reminded of when I saw those episodes of My Little Margie. Nickelodeon had started doing its segment called Nick-at-Nite, which specialized in rerunning old TV programs. When they first started doing it, there was this whole pile of TV shows they used I have never seen before. I Love Joan, Bachelor Father, the Burns and Allen Show appeared almost every night. It was fascinating to see shows from the very early years of TV. I would notice things like how much the characters would smoke or drink or say outrageously racist or sexist things as points of humour. Modern humour was so much more politically correct in its sensibility.
This is what makes For Better or For Worse interesting with its reprints. The jokes and the forms of humour Lynn Johnston was using in 1980 were, even at that time, hopelessly outdated. Seeing them reprinted almost requires that you have a little guide to go along with it. For example, with today’s reprint, you would need a little sign that says, “Before the fitness craze of the early 1980s, it was considered to be funny to make fun of people who ate healthy foods. This strip should be considered an artifact of its day, and should not be construed to assume that Lynn Johnston has a negative viewpoint towards the immensely popular organic food movement.”
In today’s For Better or For Worse, you see Elly playing a role very common for her in the early strips. She sits and doesn’t say a word, but you are to read her opinion from her reactions. She has her hand over her mouth in surprise at the book “ Fun with Wheat Germ.” She looks concerned at Anne while holding the book, “The Victorious Vitamin.” She stares in disbelief at the giant loaf of bread in Anne’s hands, and from this we derive the punch line. The viewer can tell why Anne cannot lose weight, and empathizes with Elly’s position as she resists telling Anne why it is that she cannot lose weight.
Elly is supposed to represent the every-woman, and she was to be surrounded by persons more extreme in their viewpoints. In this way, Lynn could make fun of the health nut housewife with Anne, and make fun of the women’s liberation movement with Connie Poirier. As I have mentioned before in this blog, this setup is identical to that which Cathy Guisewite had for her comic strip Cathy. In the early days, Lynn Johnston shamelessly ripped off other comic strips.
More interesting at this time is Lynn Johnston’s very old-fashioned view about health nuts. I remember seeing an episode of My Little Margie, years ago, where Margie and her dad are trying to get along with a health nut for their own nefarious purposes; and the humour of the situation is the long series of unpleasant things the health nut inflicts on them, like eating plain white yogurt out of a giant jar, or having to do impromptu exercises. At that time, people who tried to eat natural or organic foods were ridiculed.
When the strip was originally published in 1980, this was time near the beginning of Jane Fonda’s video workout, and Olivia Newton-John’s Let’s Get Physical. The health craze was beginning and where was Lynn Johnston? She was mocking Anne Nichols as a health nut, using a style of humour that was 20-30 years old when she started. This is a trademark of For Better or For Worse, i.e. old-style humour. For example, much of the humour for John Patterson relied on his sexist remarks and his male chauvinism, a type of humour which was popular in the early-to-mid 1970s and had faded by the time 1980 rolled around.
As I see these kinds of jokes repeated in 2008, I am reminded of when I saw those episodes of My Little Margie. Nickelodeon had started doing its segment called Nick-at-Nite, which specialized in rerunning old TV programs. When they first started doing it, there was this whole pile of TV shows they used I have never seen before. I Love Joan, Bachelor Father, the Burns and Allen Show appeared almost every night. It was fascinating to see shows from the very early years of TV. I would notice things like how much the characters would smoke or drink or say outrageously racist or sexist things as points of humour. Modern humour was so much more politically correct in its sensibility.
This is what makes For Better or For Worse interesting with its reprints. The jokes and the forms of humour Lynn Johnston was using in 1980 were, even at that time, hopelessly outdated. Seeing them reprinted almost requires that you have a little guide to go along with it. For example, with today’s reprint, you would need a little sign that says, “Before the fitness craze of the early 1980s, it was considered to be funny to make fun of people who ate healthy foods. This strip should be considered an artifact of its day, and should not be construed to assume that Lynn Johnston has a negative viewpoint towards the immensely popular organic food movement.”
posted by howard at 10:38 PM
4 Comments:
howard,
The jokes and the forms of humour Lynn Johnston was using in 1980 were, even at that time, hopelessly outdated. Seeing them reprinted almost requires that you have a little guide to go along with it.
It seems to me that she did know that there was a mass of people who did hold the archaic views you mentioned and pandered to them shamelessly. Even back then, she knew to hunt where the ducks were. You just know when this strip first came out that she got snail-mail that said she must have a camera in somebody's house.
howtheduck, I think Mt. Foob ought to hire you to write disclaimers for the old strips. They'd be better than the strips themselves. :)
DreadedCandiru2,
It seems to me that she did know that there was a mass of people who did hold the archaic views you mentioned and pandered to them shamelessly.
That could be. I wonder how many of them are left 29 years later. After all, most of the people claiming cameras in their house, were referring to the modern strips and not the archaic strips. If something was funny to you in 1950, then you are talking about someone who is at least in their 70s today.
aprilp_katje,
I think Mt. Foob ought to hire you to write disclaimers for the old strips.
That would be a nice side job and I am sure I could get some nice experience with copyright law when I got to things like, “This joke was stolen from Charles Schulz, who did it better.”
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