rogerc172

One of the refreshing features about Oklahoma! is that it can hardly be accused of making the villain(Judd Fry) a more interesting witty character than the protagonists. In fact, Judd Fry was pretty much a jerk Its characters were genuinely charming & the way they related was easilly believable, which made the way they dealt with potentially dangerous situations a great deal more instructive Good ole Aunt Eller sure knew how to diplomatically spin things to defuse a situation w/out letting on that one was developing in the 1st place. take ,for instance, the scene where Judd was about to trick Curly into stabbing himself with a hidden switchblade & she "scolded" Curly & talked him into dancing w/ her.Also, the lengths she went through during the box social to keep Laurie out of Judd Fry's clutches & the exchanges that went on b/n her & Judd. The way he was trying to play against an auction in which the proverbial deck was stacked against him without revieling anymore than he had to.How Curly would have to sell his gun to bid anymore against him & that he may be needing it...BAD. In general very brilliantly scripted. Some of the lyrics seemed surprisingly suggestive for a musical of its time, for instance Addo Annie's "Evry time I lose a Wrestling match I have a funny feelin that I WON!"! When listening to it as a teenager, I tried to read something more innocent into it & Will Parker's description of a stripper at a burlesque show in "Kansas City "because it didn't seem like the "wholesome" musicals of the 50's would "go there" One of several R & H musicals I grew up listening to & enjoying. I think there are very few if any of those musicals that most or all of us have not heard the tune or lyrics to . One I only heard of recently has been Flower Drum Song & even it had tunes that I remembered from the past "I enjoy being a Girl " for instanse sounded very familier & was made even more unforgettable by the fact that the woman doing the number was in a bath towel She said she was strictly a female female & a wrong slip of her garment would have laid to rest any doubt of it..LOL

One of the "shorts" this show had was one of the SH characters giving aviation tips to its (presumably) young viewers. Info on aviation weather, license ratings oxygen requirements at altitude ect. Seemed to assume its viewers aspired to become flyers.

A lot of airplane shows & movies seem to have been made by somebody who doesn't know an airplane from a roller skate.They sometimes have pseudo-technical jargon that's almost tatamount to jibberish. Almost like just an attempt to sound technical with enough jargon to indicate they heard some genuine terms, but using them in a way akin to Charlie Sheen/Ditch Brody's attempt at Russian in Terminal Velocity. I mean the part where Brody's being awarded by the Russians & saying "The busses don't work here I'm an @&$ h01e" I think there's some tendancy to assume genuine aeronautical terms would whiz over people's heads.

It was ironic to see a kid's cartoon seem to almost lead the way in bridging the gap between aviation & the viewers of a show about the same. A lead few aviation dramas seemed to have followed since.