Tell me about references in older media lost on modern audiences

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about references in older media lost on modern audiences

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Drop a dime on someone. A phrase often used.

To inform on them. Back when a public payphone cost 10c for a call.

E very cool James Bond analysis!

Shut up Meg fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Oct 4, 2019

# ¿ Oct 4, 2019 01:30

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 14:14

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Applewhite posted:

See also: the floppy disk �save� icon, the handset phone shaped �phone� symbol and TV icons with rabbit ear antennas.

'Cut and paste' - why not a more accurate 'cut and insert'?

Refers to the days of pre-DTP when magazine layouts were created on a piece of card and then photographed to create printing film. If you wanted to insert a line of text, you had to literally cut the paper into two parts and then glue in the additional text.

Now, because of that, 'paste' has become synonymous with 'add/insert', when actually it derives from 'pasta'

# ¿ Oct 7, 2019 21:33

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Colombo Negative Reaction 1974

Dick Van Dyke in a beard hates his wife so he sets up a fake kidnapping gone wrong and kills her.
To give himself an alibi, he takes a photo of her with a clock in the background then fakes throws it away so that the police will find it.

An instant photo from an old camera? That's not forgotten technology as even the worst instagrammer would recognise the concept of a Polaroid.

Except:
In the last scene, the denounement is all related to the finding of a negative inside that camera that proves what time is actually shown on the clock and whether Colombo accidentally reversed the image when copying the found print.

At this point, you may be confused as Polaroid cameras don't use negatives. The whole concept is that the print is produced instantly in the camera.

But, if you really know your Polaroid history, you may be aware that the earlier Polaroids used a film where you took the photo, pulled it out of the camera, waited a couple of mins and then pulled it apart into a print plus a negative:

Except...... that still doesn't help as the negative is pulled out of the body along with the print. So no smoking gun for Colombo to find.

So how does it make sense?

Polaroid 800 (1957-1962) uses the Type 40 film 1948-72. An instant roll film where the print is pulled out, but the negative remains on the roll inside the camera.

So, this last scene only makes sense if you happen to know of the existence of an old type of niche film that was actually obsolete when the episode was aired.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2019 18:28

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

DACK FAYDEN posted:

Why point out exactly one dated reference in Blazing Saddles and have that reference not be Hedley Lamarr's name and everyone getting it wrong?

(or do people still know who Hedy Lamarr is these days?)

quote:

George Randolph Scott (January 23, 1898 � March 2, 1987) was an American film actor whose career spanned the years from 1928 to 1962. As a leading man for all but the first three years of his cinematic career, Scott appeared in a variety of genres, including social dramas, crime dramas, comedies, musicals (albeit in non-singing and non-dancing roles), adventure tales, war films, and a few horror and fantasy films. However, his most enduring image is that of the tall-in-the-saddle Western hero. Out of his more than 100 film appearances over 60 were in Westerns; thus, "of all the major stars whose name was associated with the Western, Scott most closely identified with it."[1]

I had no idea who he was and I first watched BS pre-wikipedia

# ¿ Oct 11, 2019 21:42

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

DACK FAYDEN posted:

Why point out exactly one dated reference in Blazing Saddles and have that reference not be Hedley Lamarr's name and everyone getting it wrong?

(or do people still know who Hedy Lamarr is these days?)

I only know her as 'Hey, remember that actress referenced in Blazing Saddles? Here's an article about how she invented a guidance systems for torpedos in WWII'

My Lovely Horse posted:

A classic: Travis' mohawk in Taxi Driver is a Vietnam war thing. Special forces would cut their hair that way just before going on serious assignments. If you were a regular grunt and you saw a guy with a mohawk, you'd steer well clear cause that guy was about to get into some serious poo poo.

It's well documented and there's even a bit on the wikipedia page. Still, you'd probably think Travis gave himself a punk haircut.

I think that's a good reference and thanks for the explanation. I'd come to associate that haricut as a 'Travis Bickle' haircut and not get the reference to Vietnam,

And I don't think it matters whether he was actually SF or not. It's part of the uniform that he is dressing himself up in before the final scene and illustrates his mindset and how he is preparing for actual battle.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2019 14:01

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

My Lovely Horse posted:

Nevermind the actual phones on screen, is the whole thing about Superman changing in phone booths even still that much in the public conscious anymore?

The Deadpool 2 teaser referenced it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVJX7jTIPsc

# ¿ Oct 18, 2019 11:56

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

RagnarokAngel posted:

I saw WarGames as a kid and was confused by a scene where Matthew Broderick does a little payphone hack to make a call for free

https://youtu.be/zkMX4s6ZstQ

I had to ask my dad at the time because I had never heard of this trick but apparently it likely wouldn't have worked at the time the movie was made either.

Theres of course the added layer now that today payphones basically don't exist.

Possibly the only youtube comment that isn't utterly worthless:

quote:

Hicken65
1 month ago
It seems odd that a 1983 movie depicting events in that time frame would have utilized a 3-slot payphone. The Bell System spent the entire 1970�s decade replacing these with single slot phones. Odder still is the fact that the phone is arranged for prepay service (no dial tone until sufficient change has been deposited). Again the Bell System spent the 1970�s converting to Dial Tone First (DTF) to accommodate free emergency calling, which meant you could reach an operator by dialing zero (or 911 if available) without depositing a coin. What the actor (Matthew Broderick) did would have worked (and often did) in the 1950�s, but by the early 1960�s, the payphones were modified to prevent this type of fraud. It is highly unlikely that an unmodified phone would be in service in the 1980�s. The movie also depicts a PVC or neoprene coiled handset cord. This would have been replaced with an armored cord in the early 1960�s, especially in an isolated outside booth. The handset receiver and transmitter caps were cemented to the handsets, and in my experience would not be broken free by banging the cap on the payphone shelf. Even the Bell repair technicians couldn�t get them off. Their instructions were to replace the entire handset if they discovered a transmitter or receiver problem.

But lets suppose he was able to get the transmitter cap off. Would he be able to get dial tone using the method he did? The answer is yes. Here�s how dial tone is provided in a typical prepay setup. The payphone line is configured in a ground start arrangement. There are two wires connecting the payphone to the central office (CO). These are called the tip and ring. In the idle state, the tip wire is open (electrically dead) at the CO end. The ring wire is connected to one side of a relay winding. The other side of the winding is connected to negative 48-volt battery. This relay is called the line relay and each payphone has its own dedicated line relay. If the ring wire gets grounded at the payphone, the line relay will operate. The operated line relay initiates a sequence of events to occur in the CO that will connect dial tone to the payphone line. The ring wire is normally grounded by the depositing of a coin at the payphone. The coin drops down into the hopper (a coin storage bin) where it hits the hopper trigger, deflecting it downwards. The deflected trigger closes a pair of contacts. One of these contacts is connected to ground and the other contact is connected to the payphone circuitry, which provides a path to the ring wire. The grounded ring wire causes the line relay to operate and a dial tone request is initiated. Both the handset receiver and transmitter form part of the payphone circuit path that leads to the ring wire. By removing a cap and taking out the receiver or transmitter, the contacts for these devices are exposed. Grounding any of these contacts will result in that ground reaching the ring wire and operating the line relay. So grounding these contacts bypasses the normal ground path through the deflected trigger contacts. Broderick removes the transmitter unit to expose the two transmitter contacts. He finds a piece of metal, a pull-tab from a can, and connects one side to one of the transmitter contacts and the other side to the payphone housing security lock. The housings of all payphones are grounded. This is done to protect the payphone users from foreign voltages that reach the payphone via its tip and ring wires (this includes such things as crosses with electrical utilities or lightning strikes). The housing ground passes through the pull-tab, through the transmitter contact and on to the ring wire. The line relay operates and he hears dial tone through the handset receiver, replaces the transmitter unit, screws the transmitter cap back on and proceeds to dial his call.

Broderick would have been able to get dial tone, but would not have been able to use the rotary dial. Another fraud prevention mechanism built into these phones since the late 1950�s was a short circuit across the dial pulsing contacts. This was performed by a normally closed set of contacts associated with the hopper trigger. This short circuit was only removed when the hopper trigger was deflected by the deposit of a coin. So when Broderick started dialing, he wouldn�t be able to break dial tone and the call wouldn�t go through.

He could have tried �pulsing� by quickly tapping the handset�s switchhook up and down. However, this is nowhere near as easy as tapping the switchhook on a deskphone. It takes considerable practice to successfully dial a call this way.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2019 17:05

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

The SMS is coming from inside the house!

He's referring to the notification sound for text messages that were mfr specific: Nokia's default was a morse code of beeps.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2019 21:29

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

I don't think we'll ever have people confused by the concept of money in media for a very long time.

I do think that checks are going to cause some missed concepts- e.g, bouncing checks or waiting for them to clear.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2019 23:29

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

echopapa posted:

Morton Salt�s slogan, �When It Rains It Pours,� made sense at the time it was adopted. It was one of the first table salts to be treated so that it wouldn�t get clumpy in humid conditions.

Dafuq?
Mind blown.

One Nut Wonder posted:

Also, think about how many Young people have never heard a busy signal, or that sound the phone makes whens it's left off the hook too long.

Don't worry, Hollywood Sound FX departments continue to add those sounds to cellphones, VOIP and cranium implants.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2019 09:47

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Yup, that's it: tone and pulse dialling. Pulse being the old system that took a while to be upgraded out in the backwaters.

Fun fact: you could emulate pulse dialling by tapping on the receiver hook the same number of taps as the number you wanted to dial.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2019 00:39

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

"Candygram for Mongo! Candygram for Mondo!"

Me, then: "What the gently caress's a 'candygram'? "

Kids today "Oh, like an Uber Eats"

# ¿ Dec 1, 2019 13:44

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Animal-Mother posted:

"You'd do it for Randolph Scott."

When I think about it, an awful lot of the references and attitudes are very dated and unrelatable to today, with the exception of the racism. Which kind of depresses me a bit.

Oh, apart from the farting. I feel a bit better now.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2019 23:33

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

RC and Moon Pie posted:

Another Blazing Saddles one:

You might notice Mongo's steed has 'yes' and 'no' on its butt. It's a reference to the proper way to pass a school bus.

I've always wondered about that.

I thought it was some kind of magic 8ball thing or similar. Thanks for clearing that up.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2019 12:54

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

JcDent posted:

I'm 30 and I'm perplexed by it to some degree

You might find this helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pujXTj4X_I4&t=3s

# ¿ Jan 22, 2020 11:18

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Flipperwaldt posted:

A whole load of non-SD flash-based cards.

I've had bowel movements that have lasted longer than some flash media formats.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2020 16:49

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Cheques?

# ¿ Jan 23, 2020 15:46

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

grillster posted:

Called AAA out for a roof metal screw in a tire on a modern vehicle that doesn't have run flats or a spare. Asked him, why not plug the tire? He refused to and he left frustrated. Still billed $70 for the service call. It wasn't even a bad leak, so we aired it up good, drove it home through the country at night, and I plugged it the next day.

Don't you have any of that goop that comes with an inflator?

# ¿ Jan 24, 2020 19:23

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Jeza posted:

I can do better than that, I discovered that the parents of somebody who went to my school had a life-size bronze statue made of their son placed their garden. Like, 10's of thousands of dollars kind of statue. His body is Adonis like and mid sprint with a rugby ball.

When I found out about this years later, I refused to believe it until I was shown a photo. I've never been more speechless in my entire life than seeing that photo. Also fun bonus, he is now totally fat and out of shape, and his parents own this forever reminder of him at his sporting prime to taunt him whenever he comes home. Every time I remember that drat statue I loving crack up.

That's amazing.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2020 15:40

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Blue Moonlight posted:

At least back when I was in high school (2000-2004), letterman�s jackets and class rings were really expensive for most people - I want to say around $500 to get both. At my high school, it was possible for sophomores to get jackets, so you could at least amortize the value over a few years, but a class ring? Basically outdated the day you got it.

Huh, there's a thing.

quote:

Rachel: I mean why, of all people would you want to go out with Chip?!
Monica: Look, you and I went to different high schools...
Rachel: Okay, that doesn�t help me, because we went to the same high school.
Monica: You went to one where you were popular, and you got to ride off Chip�s motorcycle, and wear his letterman jacket. I went to one where I wore a band uniform they had to have specially made.
Rachel: (shocked) They had to have that specially made?!
Monica: It was a project for one of the Home Ec classes.
Rachel: (stunned) Oh my God, they told us that was for the mascot!

I always thought that the line was supposed to be 'leather jacket' (cause of the motocycle) and Courtney Cox fluffed the line as 'leatherman' - perhaps she'd just been talking about pocket knives - and I always wondered why they left that in.

'references in older media lost on foreign audiences'

# ¿ Feb 2, 2020 14:22

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

My Lovely Horse posted:

There's at least one strip that says outright she gave up her job after Calvin was born.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2020 12:20

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Lead out in cuffs posted:

80s, and even the early 90s.

Which themselves were 30-40 years ago.

I hate you for this.

It's bad enough seeing 'classic' albums in the stores, when I still have an original pressing that I bought when it was first released.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2020 01:31

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

I don't think I encounter analogue clocks anywhere these days. Trains and airports use digital on their notice boards and in the office, I have a little digital clock in the corner of my screen, so I don't look at the wallclock anymore.

If it weren't for my wristwatch, I don't think I'd ever look at one. I'm struggling to remember the last one I saw in the wild.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2020 01:22

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

I don't think this is a slapfight: I found the views in the posts all genuinely interesting and thought -provoking.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2020 02:15

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

JacquelineDempsey posted:

Oh, agreed, there have been some good posts. I was just all "wtf?" when PHIZ decided to mock the poo poo out of me for having the audacity to, y'know, posting things the thread is about. Three times in a row.

Oh, I didn't get that because I 'ignored' a handful of whitenoise posters a long time ago and it vastly improves the place.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2020 09:46

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Midjack posted:

Yes, though the porn magazines that they are most commonly associated with have been taking a beating there will always be pull out posters, maps, and art in all sorts of magazines.

Magazines?

# ¿ Feb 29, 2020 18:34

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

Cemetry Gator posted:

Have we all just accepted that Magic Eyes are just a prank. I have never been able to see one, and I am convinced that the issue is that other people around me think it's funny to lie to me. It all must be a social experiment. There's no loving sailboat.

Can you see this? (It's a sailboat, if that helps)

# ¿ Mar 26, 2020 20:22

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 14:14

Shut up Meg: Jan 8, 2019; You're safe here.

When characters get on a plane.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2020 00:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about references in older media lost on modern audiences