Was anyone else disturbed by Shepherd's impressions?

"Your nicked, sunshine"

Never heard that one before. It's obviously British - where's it from?




I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

People have to remember that "sensitivities" were different in the early sixties than they are now. One of the scenes in this movie that absolutely appalls me is Vice President Johnson bringing out Sally Rand to "fan dance"-- in front of the Astronauts' wives!!!!! And watching the movie, I am always amazed that the wives-- except perhaps for John Glenn's "Annie"-- seemed to be enjoying the dancing too!

But I remember those times and I remember a lot of women just accepting blatant anti-female behavior from men-- I think because they felt they had to; many of us didn't and that's how the feminist movement got started.

I do remember being uncomfortable with Bill Dana's "Jose Jiminez" but everybody else was laughing, some of it was funny, and I just ignored the initial concerns when everybody else I knew was laughing. Every one of my white friends, at least. I had Spanish friends too but I never thought to ask them what they thought of "Jose Jiminez." Many years later, I heard an old routine of "Jose" Dana's and was quite shocked by it.

Flanagan

i thought he had the right stuff?



We're not soldiers and he's not the enemy. He's a pizza man.

Absolutely correct. Remember these "PC sensitivities" that so many people take for granted are a product of a much later era. People who laughed at these jokes 50 years ago weren't evil or prejudiced.

Bill Dana first started doing Jose Jimenez as one of the characters on the Steve Allen show, in a regular segment called "Man on the Street". The interviewees were regulars on the segment, but didn't appear on other parts of his show.

His career came into its own because of those appearances, in the early sixties, not fifties.

I think one of the objections to the astronaut portrayal was that he was so cowardly. But I know Hispanics who loved his act, and would say "My name..." themselves.

Incidentally, in those Steve Allen interviews, which always began with Steve asking the subject for his name, Dana would always say "My name Jose Jimenez" a little differently every time. It was one of those things you just waited for every Sunday night.

I came close to meeting him on two occasions. One was when he was a guest at a restaurant I was working at on Maui, and another time almost 20 years later, when he was touring the country with an actual astronaut -- Carpenter(?), talking on college campuses. He impressed me as a quiet kind of guy who'd rather let the other guy talk. He didn't seem like an extroverted clown at all.

OK, that makes sense. I don't think I really got how popular that character would have been at the time, and it probably made a lot more sense to the adults who were watching this movie at the time of its release because they would remember that time and those attitudes. As someone who wasn't born until the 1970s, it was really off-putting. But it makes sense now that you put it in its historical context. Thanks!

Not only that, but Bill Dana became friends with the 7 and became their mascot.

It is not a "hot water bottle." It is an enema bag. The bottle is attached to a balloon enema tube. The balloon is inflated to hold the barium enema in place. The astronaut candidates received x-rays in which their colons were inflated with a barium enema. The barium is an x-ray absorber commonly called a contrasting agent when used in this context. Where the barium enema finds a leak, or fills a distention it reveals an irregularity in the colon and that would wash the candidate out from the program.

@brude : It's all the more weird then. Why insert such a scene if the director knows it can "disturb" people. He should have just have avoided it completely.

Also, Shep plainly does a double-take when he notices Orderly Gonzalez towering over him and switches to an gruff, embarrassed "Buenos dias, Gonzalez."