How accurate was the television portrayal of American life in the 1950s?
The brilliant soul's name was Newton Minnow, an FCC commissioner. He referred to TV as a vast wasteland, and about the only thing he saw that was redeeming about it was Playhouse 90 on CBS. I was born in 1954, so I don't remember much about the way things actually were in the fifties. I do know that they were presenting entertainment, there was no effort to try and represent the way life actually was. There were situations that were similar to what families would encounter, but no one was expected to believe that something as serious as Lucy juggling the money back and forth between her club treasury and her household accounts could be resolved in 22 minutes, as far as the club funds were concerned this was a criminal offense. In none of the popular TV shows did they explore the threat, both real and imagined, of Communist influences in American Life. Nobody ever mentioned a bomb, of any kind, and only vague references were made to the war, even though it was something everyone's parents could remember pretty well. When you think of it, Ricky Ricardo was Cuban, and even though the Lucy Desi Comedy Hour ended in 1960, nobody even mentioned the name Fidel. Such things were in the domain of Ed Murrow, and other journalists.