Category: TV

Boomers Were the “Peanut Gallery”

Recently, Mister Boomer was thinking about the idioms spoken by the parents of boomers, and how you don’t hear many of them any more. Boomer parents would say phrases such as, “that’s the cat’s meow,” or “keep your shirt on.” It makes sense that so many of these common idioms heard in the boomer years have disappeared since they originated in the 1930s and 40s, or even earlier; as children grow, they hear and internalize the slang and catchphrases spoken by their parents, until they reach their teens and adopt the phrases of their own generation. (Mister Boomer has explored two slang words of the Boomer Generation that have, to some extent, survived to the present: Boomers Knew What was Cool, Man)

The phrase that sprang to mind recently was, “no comments from the peanut gallery.” As Mister B swirled the words around in his skull, like examining aged wine in a glass, he immediately thought the phrase had to originate in the Boomer Era with the Howdy Doody Show (1947-60). This TV show combined live actors with puppets, including the show’s namesake, a puppet-boy dressed in cowboy garb. Each show had a live audience of kids who sat on school-style bleachers that was labeled as the “Peanut Gallery.” Since “peanut” was a common slang term for “small” (like “shrimp”), it seemed logical that the Peanut Gallery would seat the little ones.

In 1943, Howdy Doody was a children’s radio program. “Peanut Gallery” was a phrase used on the show to represent the listening audience of kids. When the program became a TV show in 1947, the term came with it, only then it was the literal representation of the kids in the audience. (Incidentally, Clarabell, one of the characters on the show, was a clown who spoke only by honking a horn. He was played by Bob Keeshan, who boomers will recall later became Captain Kangaroo [1955-1984].)

Mister Boomer’s earliest memories of watching TV was the Howdy Doody Show. The TV program, considered pioneering educational children’s programming at the time, was credited with helping sell more TVs in the 1950s than any previous program. As more boomer families bought TVs and watched, the show’s audience grew — and with it, their ability to sell advertising sponsorship to national brands like Kellogg’s cereal.

After a little investigation, however, Mister B found that “peanut gallery” did not originate with Howdy Doody. Au contraire, mon ami! “Peanut gallery” has been around for many decades. At the turn of the century, vaudeville theaters called the most affordable seats — usually the top rows of the upper balcony — the “peanut gallery” because the cheapest snack available for purchase there was peanuts. Since this echelon of theater-goers was considered the most uneducated and unruly, “comments from the peanut gallery” referred to their physically tossed peanuts and verbal heckling that were hurled to the stage to express disapproval with the performers. So, if boomers were riding in the car with their parents and one turned around to say, “Hey, I don’t want any comments from the peanut gallery,” they weren’t referring to the Howdy Doody Show, they were telling the kids to behave.

Howdy Doody’s Peanut Gallery did influence another player on the stage of boomer experience, though. The cartoonist Charles Schulz was about to syndicate his comic strip, Li’l Folks to newspapers in 1948. The comic syndicators thought the title of his comic strip would be confusing to readers since Little Folks and Li’l Abner already existed, so they suggested he change the strip’s title. Faced with a name change, Schulz chose Peanuts, a reference to both the Howdy Doody radio show and the unruly commenters of vaudeville. His characters would be kids who made their comments on the cultural stage of the Boomer Era, without any adults present.

On rare occasion the term still pops up on the national stage, but one has to wonder if Millennials and Gen Zers, let alone their kids, have any idea what it means.

Did your parents use the idiom on you and your siblings, boomers? What are your recollections about hearing the phrase, “peanut gallery?”

Please note: This is an edited version of a post first published by Mister Boomer on March 12, 2016.

Boomers Got Their Prime-Time Washed Out with Soap

There are many things that help to define the Boomer Generation, and certainly TV is among the top contenders. Boomers were infants at the same time as early TV, so you might say they grew up together. After the War, mothers were promptly thanked for “filling in” and dismissed from the factories, relegated to the urban expansion known as Suburbia. There, the Baby Boom took flight as they became domestic engineers, baby-makers and the prime targets of advertisers of daytime TV soap operas.

A form of serial narrative called the soap opera had been broadcast on radio since the 1930s, but now, in the age of TV, the genre was transformed to the still relatively new medium. The term “soap opera” was coined by the media in the 1930s to describe the fifteen-minute serialized dramas that were sponsored by the manufacturers of household products. Since the 1930s, Proctor and Gamble was among the biggest sponsors, establishing a soap opera ad division exclusively for the purpose. Radio had the distinct advantage in that members of a household — especially homemakers — could listen while doing other things, like household chores. With the advent of regular TV broadcasts in the late 1940s, producers had to put a visual face on stories that would appeal to women who may or may not have had the time or inclination to stop what they were doing and watch. Though the genre began in uncertainty, TV executives’ concerns were quickly allayed as soaps caught on.

As the 1950s progressed into the 1960s, soap operas became the staple of daytime TV, expanding from radio’s fifteen-minute format to half-hour TV programs. It seemed only natural, then, that big advertisers of daytime soaps would want a bigger piece of the prime-time viewing pie as well (the hours of 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.). By this time, radio soap operas had disappeared, replaced by the daytime TV soaps. It was ABC that fired the first salvo by introducing a prime-time soap opera in 1964. Called Peyton Place, it was a half-hour program that was based on a 1956 novel of the same name, by author Grace Metalious. It was aired twice a week.

The buzz around Peyton Place spread across the country like wildfire since it was among the first to deal with sex, infidelity, teen pregnancy, the draft, riots and God in a frank manner; in other words, all the subjects that are de rigueur for today’s soaps. Since its storylines were peppered with very adult subjects, ABC aired the show at 9:30 p.m., a time when we boomers were supposed to be in bed. Buoyed by the show’s popularity, the network switched to airing the show three times a week in 1965. Viewers didn’t care for the change of being forced to follow a serialized narrative over the course of three times per week, and ratings dropped. The network reluctantly switched it back to two episodes a week, but the damage had been done as Peyton Place never regained its Top 20 ranking.

Despite a gradual decline in viewership, ABC continued to air the show twice a week. By the fall of 1968, the show was losing more viewers every week, so it was moved to an 8:30 p.m. time slot in a last-ditch effort to bolster its ratings. Ultimately Peyton Place was cancelled in June of 1969. It had paved the way for future prime-time soaps, and like many of its daytime counterparts, helped to launch the careers of many actors, including Mia Farrow, Ryan O’Neal, George Clooney, Mariette Hartley and Lana Wood.

Mister Boomer’s mom was a huge daytime soap fan, tuning into one after another all afternoon — her favorites included As the World Turns (1956-2010), All My Children (1970 to present) and General Hospital (1963 to present). Yet after giving Peyton Place a try once or twice, TV variety shows remained king of the Boomer household prime-time viewing, much to Mister B’s preference. Whenever Mister B was home from school for whatever reason, he tried to make himself scarce when his mother’s soaps came on; he never had the stomach for the overacted melodrama. The same was true of Peyton Place. Though it was talked about among Mister B’s peers in the schoolyard (as taboo subjects were), Mister B was completely uninterested, so he was pleasantly surprised when his mother passed on a nighttime soap addiction.

Mister B’s parents continued to avoid prime-time soaps even after the immensely popular Dallas hit the airwaves in 1978. That record was shattered one evening a few years later when Mister B paid his parents a visit. As he entered the house, his father was on the couch, beer in hand, watching Dynasty (1981-89), but no sound was emanating from the TV. “Is your TV broken?” asked Mister B. “No, I turned off the sound,” answered his father. Alexis (Joan Collins) was pulling Krystal’s (Linda Evans) hair as the two started fighting, their shoulder pads poised like the battle-ready edges of suits of armor. “See?” he continued, “you don’t need the sound to enjoy watching this show.”

What experiences did you have with prime-time soaps, boomers?

Please note: This post is an edited version on one first published by Mister Boomer on February 26, 2012.