Have you had the opportunity to go back to your elementary school and walk the halls? If you have, you know that feeling that creeps over you ... "I remember this place being sooooooo much bigger! It's so tiny. What happened?"
You feel like a giantess as you walk through those classrooms. The bubblers look itsy-bitsy. The big, open spaces seem tight and cramped. The lunchroom and gym are so little you can't image how they actually held the throngs of kids you remember them holding.
I get this same feeling about "fat" people while watching vintage TV.
The people I thought were so big back in the day really don't look that big to me now. And it makes me think.
Remember Rerun from What's Happening? Or Archie Bunker himself? Or Mrs. Jefferson? I could go on. Al or Mr. Cunningham from Happy Days, Mr Edwards from Little House, Uncle Jesse or Boss Hogg on Dukes of Hazzard, Roy Clark on Hee Haw ... or even some versions of Rosanne?
I thought those people were HUGE.
And when I look at them now, they just don't seem that big.
I mean remember when LuLu on Hee Haw was obviously, ummm, copiously different than the norm? Now Honey Boo Boo and Mike & Molly and some other versions of Rosanne don't seem that much different.
So I wonder if it's because, as a whole, society has just gotten bigger and in comparison to what we see every day, these vintage characters just don't seem as large. Or does TV just now show a more accurate representation of the real world?
What do you think?
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