I came up with three suspects. I viewed these TV on TV encounters when I still measured my age with a single digit, so forgive me for not remembering which came first.
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The People’s Choice was a situation comedy starring Jackie Cooper and a basset hound named Cleo. The show ran from 1955 through 1958.
As a youngster, I saw many episodes in rerun, but only recall one. In that episode, titled “The Male Ego,” Sock, a realtor, played by Jackie Cooper, loses the sale of a house because the prospective buyer's wife dislikes a minor detail.
Convinced that women are beginning to take over the world, Sock goes to sleep and dreams about a future in which the women are taking over and are in the process of acclimating men to their rule. All the women wear pantsuits and are shown forcing reluctant men to enter a transformation booth, which “refines” their personalities and attire. When they exit the booth, the men act in a feminine manner and wear miniskirts.
As Sock enters the booth, he seeks help from Cleo, but she refuses to help him because Cleo is female and loyal to the distaff side of civilization rather than her owner. The dream ends as Sock exits the booth as a girly-guy in a girly outfit.
That is all I remember, but it left an indelible impression on my impressionable mind back then.
As a youngster, I saw many episodes in rerun, but only recall one. In that episode, titled “The Male Ego,” Sock, a realtor, played by Jackie Cooper, loses the sale of a house because the prospective buyer's wife dislikes a minor detail.
Convinced that women are beginning to take over the world, Sock goes to sleep and dreams about a future in which the women are taking over and are in the process of acclimating men to their rule. All the women wear pantsuits and are shown forcing reluctant men to enter a transformation booth, which “refines” their personalities and attire. When they exit the booth, the men act in a feminine manner and wear miniskirts.
As Sock enters the booth, he seeks help from Cleo, but she refuses to help him because Cleo is female and loyal to the distaff side of civilization rather than her owner. The dream ends as Sock exits the booth as a girly-guy in a girly outfit.
That is all I remember, but it left an indelible impression on my impressionable mind back then.
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I was a big fan of the Our Gang comedies. One silent Our Gang film, titled Crazy House, left a big impression on me.
In that film, Jean Darling is a rich girl who invites the gang to her elegant home for a party. The gang is allowed to go anywhere in the mansion since her parents and servants are not home and things get a little out of hand.
One of those little things is when the little rich girl convinces one of the male gang members, played by Harry Spear, to switch places with her. After they switch clothes, the girl became aggressive and fights with the boy in the dress and tries to start a fight with other gang members to prove her masculinity.
Needless to say, seeing the boy in the little girl's dress is something I will never forget.
In that film, Jean Darling is a rich girl who invites the gang to her elegant home for a party. The gang is allowed to go anywhere in the mansion since her parents and servants are not home and things get a little out of hand.
One of those little things is when the little rich girl convinces one of the male gang members, played by Harry Spear, to switch places with her. After they switch clothes, the girl became aggressive and fights with the boy in the dress and tries to start a fight with other gang members to prove her masculinity.
Needless to say, seeing the boy in the little girl's dress is something I will never forget.
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Our Miss Brooks was a situation comedy about high school teachers. Eve Arden played English teacher Miss Brooks and in one episode, she volunteered to help her boyfriend/biology teacher Mr. Boynton (played by Robert Rockwell) to dress as a woman for Halloween or some other costumed affair.
There was no actual crossdressing shown on TV, but just the discussion of dressing a man as a woman stuck in my memory.
There was no actual crossdressing shown on TV, but just the discussion of dressing a man as a woman stuck in my memory.
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Then there was the first television broadcast of Some Like It Hot and all hell broke loose in my little world!
And so it went.
And so it went.
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| Wearing Brahmin |
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| Harry Spear switched clothes with Jean Darling in the Our Gang film Crazy House. |
For me it was probably an episode of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. A tribal chief and 2 warriors arrive on the islan and want a woman to take back with them to their island (for whatever reason!) So the men try to disguise themselves as women to keep the ladies safe and possibly find an escape. Skipper, Professor and Mr Howell look like ugly men in dresses, but Gilligan was VERY convincing.
ReplyDeleteIt's a possible tie with this and an episode of Our Gang - MAIL AND FEMALE - Alfalfa visits Darla in spite of the He-Man Women Haters Club ban on girls. When Spanky and company arrive at Darla's house looking for Alfalfa, he disguises himself as Darla's cousin Amelia.
And yes, SOME LIKE IT HOT solidified it for me.
If you are 'Take a three hour tour', Perhaps you recall the episode where the castaways were kidnapped by the 'Mad Scientist' from an adjacent island. Mad Scientist's goal was to interchange minds with bodies....
DeleteGinger's mind is swapped with into the Mad Scientist's huge, burly assistant... After the mind swap, Ginger realizes her predicament: "I'm gonna cry.."
When Mad scientist looks for his assistant, his reply comes from Gingers body:
"In HERE(!), feels gooood!". (really?)
Velma
Images from that episode of Gilligan’s made the Femulator slot on two occasions:
DeleteThe Professor: http://www.femulate.org/2018/12/party-time.html
Gilligan: http://www.femulate.org/2018/12/mothers-and-daughters.html
Stanna
ReplyDeleteYou mention Jerry Seinfeld again
I think his comment is closer to the mark than he realises
I have close to being outed simply by showing interest in dresses and accessories
I would have bought them if I could
Lucy
I know what you mean, Lucy!
DeleteMy most significant TV 'Femulation Revealation' was from the original Star Trek, where Captain Kirk's old flame, Janet Lester, gains control of an ancient alien device, which allows her to swap her body with that of James Kirk.
ReplyDeleteSomeone should catalog these type 'gender swap' television episodes, into a REAL TEE-VEE (and we DO mean T-V!) Guide ;-)
Velma
There are three such “catalogs” listed under my Cultural Links sidebar. Wikipedia has two, one for crossdressing in film and TV and one for transgender in film and TV. The third, Tiffany’s film guide, was very comprehensive up to about 2005, when it seems that she stopped updating the catalog.
DeleteYou weren't affected by Bugs Bunny's many femulations? Or the cartoon where, in a dream sequence, Bugs transforms Elmer into a pretty convincing sexy girl?
ReplyDeleteI did not like Bugs, so whenever his cartoon came on TV, I changed the channel. On the other hand, I loved Daffy Duck.
DeleteI remember watching the game show Truth or Consequences in the sixties, and many of the pranks involved cross dressing. In one instance a wife is shown three models wearing mod tights and heels, you could only see them from the tops of their legs down. She was supposed to pick one she liked the best, the gag was , one of the models was her husband.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stirring up another memory. In grammar school, we walked home for lunch and walked back to school for 1 PM classes. Truth or Consequences aired in the 12:30 to 1 PM time slot. I’ll never forget the episode where they were going to dress some guys as gals, but they did not reveal the results until the end of the show. By then, I was on my way walking back to school and missing the results bugged me for weeks!
DeleteOMG, I saw that episode with Gilligan and still I wanted to be Ginger.
ReplyDeleteI think SLiH opened up my eyes that it was OK to dress up and was actually normal
Brenda
Seems that there is a distinct division in the femulator community: the femulators who wanted to be Ginger and the femulators who wanted to be Mary Ann. (Nobody wanted to be Mrs. Howell!) I myself am in the Ginger group.
DeleteStana, Ginger always wore high heels
DeleteBack in the early days of television there were a ton of variety shows and someone in drag would pop up on rare occasions. Of course there was Milton Berle who donned female clothes regularly.There were also the occasional voice impersonators and drag queens. George Kirby did amazing female voices and T.C. Jones showed up several times. I can remember a "sister act" that was on Dinah Shore at least twice. There were these two gorgeous blonde "showgirls", not actually sisters but were striking and similar enough to pull it off. They did a great dance routine, and if they were in a chorus line you wouldn't be able to pick them out. T.C. Jones would always reveal his bald head, but the "sisters" stayed en femme and only used their "sort of" male voices when they talked to Dinah. I recognized the "sisters" straight away because I'd seen photos of them in a Confidential Magazine article about Transvestites. I felt my eyes almost pop out of my head when I saw them on TV!
ReplyDeleteI have seen Uncle Miltie crossdressed on many occasions in both film and TV, but not the other folks you mentioned. I am familiar with T.C. Jones, but draw a blank regarding the sister act.
Deletewearinging brahimn is the best outfit you've ever featured!
ReplyDeleteOf course, "Bugs Bunny in Drag" got 'artistically hypersexualized' in parody to Jessica Rabbit in the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?". There are references to individuals having sexual impulse to cartoon images.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.askmen.com/sex/sex_tips/what-is-kink-shaming-and-why-you-should-avoid-doing-it.html
Does anyone recall "Cops" episode involving a vehicle chase caused by nothing more than a tail light problem. The cops 'light him up' and 'the perp' takes off to avoid a confrontation while driving a mangy, beat-up old import pickup truck. Soon the chase ends badly, only to find the driver in full 'gurl' mode....
ReplyDeleteIt always pays to 'pretrip' your vehicle BEFORE 'Driving En-Femulated'.
Velma
There was a Mission Impossible where they were to guard a boy king (or something) and did it by dressing him as a girl so the bad guys wouldn't know where he was.
ReplyDeleteI used to watch Truth or Consequences just because once a year maybe they'd do something like remove a couple of couples from the audience and separate the men from women. They'd dress the men, put them back, and give the wives pictures of the 'women' (each other's husbands) and see who could find the woman in the picture first. Of course, the joke was, each brought back each other's husband.
I believe the young actor on Mission Impossible was Barry Williams, he went on to play Greg Brady on the Brady Bunch!
DeleteAnd then there is this from Mad magazine: https://tinyurl.com/yfahe9so
DeleteBarry Williams femulating in Mission Impossible on youtube
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcXxmbmrmh4
Thanks for writing about the Our Gang film. I searched for that for years, as I was not sure it was Our Gang or something else, since I believe it was silent. They actually showed that film at my high school, and I was dumb-struck! I'll never forget the scene where she "force feminizes" him by putting him into her "dolly clothes."
ReplyDeleteA current show with a lot of femulating going on is Family Guy. I am currently writing a paper on it for an academic conference.
I would love to read the paper if you are willing to share it.
Delete