When they just get it wrong historically. (1 Viewer)

[Tony Bensley]

M*A*S*H* got historical details wrong frequently. At one point, when we see Radar's comic collection, there are a number of Marvel comics titles from the 60s. In another episode he tries to ask a nurse to come see the movie showing at the camp and its a Godzilla movie (there were none until 1956 in the US). Henry get his discharge under the points system which didn't exist in the Korean War.

Worse still, points system references came up A LOT, especially in the early M*A*S*H episodes. UGH!

Timeline references also eventually became a rather jumbled up mess, but I tend to collectively forgive those as an inevitable byproduct of an 11 season series covering a 3 year (Or thereabouts!) period.

CHEERS!

 

[jcroy]

Let's face it. Period pieces are very, very difficult whether it's TV or movies. There is always something that gets in there that isn't accurate. It's less noticeable with productions that try very hard to be accurate but even the best efforts can have a few mistakes.

...

So maybe there is no way to win. Be too accurate and it can just as distracting as being blatantly inaccurate.

Even worse are "time travel" type of shows.

Since there is no hard science behind time travel (yet), at minimum most of the tv/film scenarios featuring time travel will put some effort into the causality/chronology such that there some semblance of "continuity" (in a figurative sense). Rather frustrating when the continuity is all messed up and/or difficult to follow.

 

[Ron1973]

Even worse are "time travel" type of shows.

Since there is no hard science behind time travel (yet), at minimum most of the tv/film scenarios featuring time travel will put some effort into the causality/chronology such that there some semblance of "continuity" (in a figurative sense). Rather frustrating when the continuity is all messed up and/or difficult to follow.

Though I know you're getting at something different, you have to love 60's sci-fi shows that were set in the future such as Star Trek and Lost in Space. I love both shows to death, and they rank 1 and 2 specifically on my all time favorites for sci-fi, but they both got the "future" laughably wrong at times.

 

[TJPC]

I often see them wind up an old gramophone in the 1920s period and put any old 78 on it from the 1950s etc.

 

[Ron1973]

I often see them wind up an old gramophone in the 1920s period and put any old 78 on it from the 1950s etc.

On Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave (somebody was higher than a kite when they made that movie), they have 78's playing at 33 1/3. Ugh!

 

[LeoA]

If a railroad is involved in some way, you can usually count on it being all wrong like Union Pacific streamliners serving Mayberry North Carolina.

Back then, the steam locomotive was barely cold, mass branch line abandonments hadn't happened, there were still freight depots in every little town, many communities still had intercity passenger train service, and many people had friends and families that worked for a railroad.

Most young boys and many an adult just a few short years into the age of the jetliner, could've told you that Union Pacific didn't get closer to a fictitious little town in North Carolina than the Chicago and North Western Terminal in downtown Chicago.

Sometimes they get it right though, like the I Love Lucy episode that was set aboard Union Pacific's City of Los Angeles.

 

[Jack P]

Worse still, points system references came up A LOT, especially in the early M*A*S*H episodes. UGH!

Timeline references also eventually became a rather jumbled up mess, but I tend to collectively forgive those as an inevitable byproduct of an 11 season series covering a 3 year (Or thereabouts!) period.

CHEERS!

True, some of it you do have to give leeway for, and likewise with "Combat!" which keep in mind is a five year series set entirely after the events of D-Day when the European war had only ten months left to go!

That said, the one MASH episode that tried to compress the entire year of 1951 into a single episode in the post-Radar era was *really* weak.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

True, some of it you do have to give leeway for, and likewise with "Combat!" which keep in mind is a five year series set entirely after the events of D-Day when the European war had only ten months left to go!

That said, the one MASH episode that tried to compress the entire year of 1951 into a single episode in the post-Radar era was *really* weak.

Honestly, both solid points of reference we got turned out to be wrong.

Potter's introduction was given as September '52, but there's no way the next 7 years happened in 10 months. Likewise, there's no way the entirety of the Blake, Burns, and Radar years happened in two months.

So, repeat to yourself it's just a show, I should really just relax, and forget the dates.

 

[MatthewA]

Sometimes TV has trouble getting the present right, never mind the past. Sitcoms have used real game shows as plot devices for years, but they often fudge some of the details of the actual production process simply to move the plot forward. The least unbelievable was The Golden Girls where Dorothy blew her chance to be on Jeopardy! by gloating at every correct response at the audition.* The worst was The Simpsons when Marge went on Jeopardy! and was allowed to compete in Final Jeopardy despite being more than $5,000 in the hole!

*I probably would have watched Grab That Dough if it was real. Disney chose to make Win Lose or Draw instead. But they had Betty White on it once in awhile.

 

[Flashgear]

If I let a lot of the continuity and historical accuracy stuff effect me, I wouldn't enjoy all the classic tv that I've loved my whole life...but here's just a few observations of note...some of varying irritation...and most don't bother me at all...

Of course, Homer, Marge and the whole Simpson's clan have been transposed from the first timelines that were established in the early '90s episodes...originally, Homer graduated from High School in '74 (just as I did)...but I don't care how they've handled it since then, just that the show maintains at least a reasonable fraction of the brilliance it once had in it's prime, and there's been a few good episodes lately...I really loved the Banacek take off...

Combat! kind of upends the timeline with those great season 3 episodes filmed at snowy Squaw Valley...leading you to believe we are now in the hard and brutal winter war of the "Bulge" in late '44 to early '45...then the series reverted to filming at high summer at Korbel winery and Franklin Canyon in season 4 and 5...apparently back to July-August 1944 Normandy...still, no problem, as Combat! is one of my absolute top 5 classic series...it doesn't kill me that California National Guard M-41 Bulldog tanks are passed off as German Tiger tanks...

M.A.S.H. is a truly great show. And yes, obviously colored by the Vietnam era counter culture cynicism of the times it was produced in. But I know it drove some Korean War Veterans crazy at times, and many didn't watch it beyond one sampling. My Uncle, who was there in early '51 in the furious and desperate battles to hold the line at the Imjin river and save Seoul from being re-taken by the enemy for the third time, hated M.A.S.H.... I myself watched nearly the whole series, and one thing that did anger me was the persistent depiction of North Korean soldier prisoners as being placid, artistic and reluctant pacifists...downright cuddly, rather than the murderous fanatics that they often were in the first year of the war...the many murdered American POW's that were found at Taejon, Yongbong and Hadong with their hands bound in barbed wire and shot in the head belies that fantasy...at least when they cast someone like Soon Tek-Oh to play these guys it was a real Korean getting the work...M.A.S.H. was a show that was quite funny and succeeded in getting the laughs. But when the Vietnam era cynical edge was sharpened to make a contemporary political point using the Korean War only as the pretext, it sometimes went off the rails as entertainment for me. After all, the case can be made that the savagery and ruination of the Korean War exceeded the Vietnam debacle, as bad as that was too. Certainly, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps never faced the existential and severe crisis in Vietnam that they had in Korea in 1950 to '51..."stand or die" orders to the men, generals killed and captured in combat, complete encirclement by the enemy followed by desperate breakout amid swarms of enemy attacking in human waves...

 

[Vic Pardo]

Hollywood used to do films set in the ancient world where they write signs in English. See THE PRODIGAL (1955), for one example.

Hong Kong kung fu films were often heavy on anachronisms. In RIVALS OF KUNG FU, set in the late 1800s, they've got an ambulance and motorcycle from decades later.

 

[jcroy]

The one place where I'm not distracted at all by historical inaccuracies and continuity, is in video games.

One series which is heavily plagued by historical inaccuracies and continuity (to a lesser extent), is the Grand Theft Auto franchise.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

I never really look for that type of stuff. I'm bothered enough by general continuity issues...

Very much agree with the above. I tend to not notice that kind of stuff, unless it's really egregious. I'm much more bothered by character or plot inconsistencies.

As an example of my lack of awareness of these things, there's an apparently infamous scene in the classic 70s sci-fi flick The Omega Man, where in a wide shot of a supposedly-deserted downtown Los Angeles, you can see some cars pass by waaaaaaaaay in the background of the shot. I must have watched that movie (a favorite of mine since my early teens) ten times or more and never caught that production mistake. But I once showed the movie to a friend who had never seen it before, and he noticed it right away. Some people just have an eye for that kind of thing.

Similarly with the famous car chase in Bullitt...it wasn't until about my fifth time watching the film that I noticed that it's the same green Volkswagen Beetle tootling along various San Francisco streets in multiple shots, while Steve McQueen pursues the bad guys.

Basically, if I'm gripped by the story, I'm not likely to notice such continuity mistakes.

 

[Mr. Handley]

There's an episode of MASH that mentions both "Bo Diddley" by Bo Diddley (from 1955) and "The Wayward Wind" by Gogi Grant (from 1956). Another one, Radar does a John Wayne impression with a classic line from the 1963 movie McClintock!

 

[Tony Bensley]

There's an episode of MASH that mentions both "Bo Diddley" by Bo Diddley (from 1955) and "The Wayward Wind" by Gogi Grant (from 1956). Another one, Radar does a John Wayne impression with a classic line from the 1963 movie McClintock!

Despite my KNOWING the first two are didn't happen yet errors, I can almost forgive those, but that quoted line from McCLINTOCK (1963) has come to really stick out like a sore thumb for me!

CHEERS!

 

[Vic Pardo]

As an example of my lack of awareness of these things, there's an apparently infamous scene in the classic 70s sci-fi flick The Omega Man, where in a wide shot of a supposedly-deserted downtown Los Angeles, you can see some cars pass by waaaaaaaaay in the background of the shot. I must have watched that movie (a favorite of mine since my early teens) ten times or more and never caught that production mistake. But I once showed the movie to a friend who had never seen it before, and he noticed it right away. Some people just have an eye for that kind of thing.

I saw this on the big screen when it came out and noticed that right away. But I figured even Warner Bros. didn't have the clout to close off distant L.A. freeways during production, so I gave it a pass.

 

[MatthewA]

M.A.S.H. is a truly great show. And yes, obviously colored by the Vietnam era counter culture cynicism of the times it was produced in. But I know it drove some Korean War Veterans crazy at times, and many didn't watch it beyond one sampling. My Uncle, who was there in early '51 in the furious and desperate battles to hold the line at the Imjin river and save Seoul from being re-taken by the enemy for the third time, hated M.A.S.H.... I myself watched nearly the whole series, and one thing that did anger me was the persistent depiction of North Korean soldier prisoners as being placid, artistic and reluctant pacifists...downright cuddly, rather than the murderous fanatics that they often were in the first year of the war...the many murdered American POW's that were found at Taejon, Yongbong and Hadong with their hands bound in barbed wire and shot in the head belies that fantasy...at least when they cast someone like Soon Tek-Oh to play these guys it was a real Korean getting the work...M.A.S.H. was a show that was quite funny and succeeded in getting the laughs. But when the Vietnam era cynical edge was sharpened to make a contemporary political point using the Korean War only as the pretext, it sometimes went off the rails as entertainment for me. After all, the case can be made that the savagery and ruination of the Korean War exceeded the Vietnam debacle, as bad as that was too. Certainly, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps never faced the existential and severe crisis in Vietnam that they had in Korea in 1950 to '51..."stand or die" orders to the men, generals killed and captured in combat, complete encirclement by the enemy followed by desperate breakout amid swarms of enemy attacking in human waves...

And Loretta Swit still had basically the same hairdo as Farrah Fawcett.

 

[Vic Pardo]

In DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY (1993), a student walks into Bruce Lee's martial arts class in 1964 Oakland and declares that he's watched some "chopsocky flicks" and wants to learn. "Chopsocky" was coined in 1973 to describe Bruce's films and the Hong Kong kung fu films that came to the U.S. that year. It was a genre that was completely unknown in the U.S. in 1964.

Donald Sutherland’s hippie tank sergeant in WWII Europe in KELLY’S HEROES (1970) is quite an anachronism.

In WONDER WOMAN (2017), set during WWI, Chris Pine’s character uses “intel” instead of “intelligence.” That abbreviated term wasn’t used until the 1960s.

 

[Bert Greene]

In general, minor historical inaccuracies never bothered me too much, although I'm quite apt to notice them, often with amusement. I think it's because I never quite 'buy into' period pieces as historical records, no matter how hard they try. I'm always observing films from the perspective in which they reflect the era in which they were produced, as opposed to what they are depicting. That's always at the forefront of my mind, along with the necessary suspension of disbelief to enjoy the proceedings. Westerns, costume dramas, period pieces... I love them to death, but I just never really equate them to historical reality. It's all fantasy-hokum to me, so little flubs generally don't get under my skin. On the other hand, I admit things like "Happy Days" or "MASH" were so blatantly ludicrous to me in their presentation of the past that I could never even remotely view them in those terms.

If I do isolate a couple of things that grate on me, I'll have to mention films of recent decades that try to recreate the 1950s/60s/70s. They drive me a bit batty, because they'll take place in a certain year, and the set-decoration for backdrops will always be so overdone. Like everything in sight, from home interiors to office spaces to diners, will always be cutting-edge from that specific year, stylistically speaking. Reality, as I always experienced it, was always more of a composite of past and present... more mixture, more mundane. Hence, when I run across these modern films depicting those earlier eras, I find them too distractingly cartoonish to take seriously. Like a baby-boomer fever dream. They become strangely irritating and unpalatable to me.

In a slightly related way, I also occasionally have a problem with modern actors in pre-1950s period stories, who invariably bring with them certain elements of contemporary comportment that seem jarringly out-of-place. Much of this has its origins in clothing, but due to vintage fashions from mens' vest/suits and ladies' foundations, people back then had a different gait, a different stand. Modern actors might be accurately fitted for clothing for a vintage time-period, but they still have a kind of hang-dog slouch, and even certain facial expressions more indicative of that postmodern 'detached irony' look. It bugs me when I see this. Eh, I know few people probably even notice such things, as this is the everyday soup we live in, but for me it can actually undercut a lot of those otherwise solid efforts filmmakers go to while trying to recreate a past era.

 

[TJPC]

There is a scene in Barbra Streisand’s Funny Lady, where she is dressed in vintage 1930’s clothing and flies off in a vintage open cockpit plane. At one point you can clearly see a Volkswagen bug go down the highway.