Whenever someone in a movie or TV show reads a letter, nine times out of ten it'll be a prop with gibberish in it. Even if the letter appears on-screen, it normally goes by so quickly that you can't tell what was written on it. However, in today's day and age of TiVos and DVRs, you can freeze-frame anything and look for little easter eggs. Who thought there'd be one back in Leave it to Beaver?
Sharp-eyed Dave over on Shorpy was watching an episode recently where Ward got a letter from Beaver's principal, and paused it. Not only did he post the image, but he also typed out the entire letter. Head over there and check it out, because it's pretty funny. I'm sure this writer never had a clue that people 50 years after the fact would be reading this letter, but it adds an interesting level of humanity to Leave it to Beaver.
You can just imagine this writer sitting in a warm office somewhere, a desk fan blowing tepid air around the room. He has his shirtsleeves rolled up and a pencil behind one ear and is pounding this letter out on a typewriter to take to the set. The baseball game is playing on a radio in the corner, and for some reason I picture this all in black and white. Nowadays, they'll probably just have a PA punch something up using a Lorem Ipsum generator.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane, Dave!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-02-2007 @ 9:35PM
Sam McConnell said...
Now just how cool is this. . . enjoyably designed not to be enjoyed. That writer, well he had class. I can tell.
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5-03-2007 @ 8:58AM
Jameson said...
Actually, nowadays they're all-too-aware of the pause button. So they generally toil just as hard to make their text look real:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/posts.html?pg=3
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5-03-2007 @ 9:08AM
Vito said...
Arrested Development never used a generator. If you ever get a chance to see or read one of the background props from the show, they're quite funny.
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5-03-2007 @ 11:19AM
CaptKahunah said...
I've noticed that producers are putting in a great deal of detail on some things that were just 'babbling' props in the past, but they don't come out nearly as comical... In Star Trek TNG, there were a few call outs on the main engineering status boar that said things like "hamster and wheel" and "infinite improbability drive generation" now however, they're way more detailed. Most of the text on screens and such on star trek: enterprise is "factual" info pertaining to the item at hand. In one episode, (the mirror universe one I think) it shows Archer's service record, complete with which planets were later named in his honor.
Yes, I felt like a geek freeze framing and zooming in to read it.
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5-03-2007 @ 9:09PM
Edmond said...
That's fascinating, I was wondering what else was written in the letter sent to Mr. Gower in It's a Wonderful Life apart from the fact that his son is dead.
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