MovieChat Forums > Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) Discussion > Some jokes many people won't get today.....

Some jokes many people won't get today...

posted 15 years ago by lewis-51
38 replies | jump to latest

.. that they would have in 1942. I can think of two:

1) As is mentioned on another thread: The world series would have been over by mid October, as there was no system of playoffs as there is today. Everyone would have known that. No way there would be a game on Holloween. Later on at some point, one of the characters remarks that "the bums", the Brooklyn Dodgers, just won the world series! That didn't happen finally in real life until much later (1955). That they were still playing on Halloween and the Dodgers won was a joke! Get it? They could only win on Halloween!

2) There are a couple references to "President Roosevelt" and "still president." Of course it's in the context of the crazy guy who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt, but in the early 1940s, lots of people were thinking two terms was enough for FRANKLIN Roosevelt. I think that quick little joke will be missed by a lot of people today.

- henry

[–] ghghghgt 8 years ago

I am pretty sure they said the Dodgers won the Pennant, and they did win it in 1941

and another joke was the Taft joke when Teddy mistoke Mr. Witherspoon for being William Taft ( Taft was very overweight)

[–] Eric-62-2 8 years ago

Remember the film was shot in late 1941 I think after the Dodgers had just won the pennant and held back from release until 1944.

The play has other topical gags that would be even more lost on viewers today. Mortimer Brewster was supposed to be a thinly disguised version of famed theater critic Brooks Atkinson and the play has references that were meant to let audiences know that it was Atkinson who was being satirized (at one point Mortimer says he's working on a book about Thoreau). In addition, instead of the "double blackout" line that Mortimer delivers in the film in the play he says his aunts look like Judith Anderson.

[–] TheArgentinian (7251) 2 years ago

i had to google Woodrow Wilson