TV TV

My previous post about Jerry Seinfeld’s fear of trying on a dress got me thinking about TV on TV and me. Whereas crossdressing is very common on TV these days, during my formative years, TV on TV was rare and I tried to recall my first encounter with crossdressing on the boob tube.

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. 

📺 📺 📺

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.

📺 📺 📺

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.

📺 📺 📺

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. 

📺 📺 📺

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.

Wearing Brahmin

Harry Spear switched clothes with Jean Darling in the Our Gang film Crazy House.

Our Gangster in a Dress

Harry Spear and Jean Darling switch genders
in “Crazy House,” a 1928 Our Gang comedy.

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of the Our Gang/Little Rascals comedies. Would you believe that I am so old that I saw my first Our Gang comedy, "Hook and Ladder," in a movie theater as a short inserted between the newsreel, cartoons, coming attractions, second feature and main feature?

Anyway, after my first taste of Spanky and his gang on the big screen, I sought out the series on television and over the years, I probably viewed every episode including the early silent episodes.

One silent episode left a big impression on me. I only saw it two or three times, but I will never forget it. For years, I tried to track it down without much success. Even the Internet was not much help.
Now that a lot of Our Gang episodes are on YouTube, I decided to renew my search and, Eureka! --- I found what I was looking for.

The episode I sought was titled "Crazy House," a silent two-reeler from 1928. Here is the plot description from Matinee Classics:

"In this Our Gang 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. Little do they know her father has set traps throughout the mansion for an April Fool’s Day party which scares off the gang. The police end up coming to the house with a surprise at the end of the movie."

That sounds innocuous: just your typical Our Gang plot, but there was a sub-plot that made an impact on my very impressionable pre-teen mind.

The rich girl wants to be a boy. After the gang arrives, she convinces one of the male gang members (Harry Spear) to switch places with her and they crossdress in each other's clothes. After the girl and boy 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.

I will always remember seeing the boy in the little girl's short dress and thinking that he looked just like a little girl with short hair. Also, I will always remember how the girl in drag pushed around the boy in drag.

I identified with the boy in drag. As a kid, I was not aggressive and other kids (boys and girls) bullied me and pushed me around. I was a poster child for a sissy and it was inevitable that I would wear a dress.

And so it goes.

("Crazy House" is on YouTube here is in two parts on YouTube. You can view Part 1 here and Part 2 here, but note that the crossdressing scenes only occur in Part 2.)

 

Artist Steven Arnold and beat poet Ruth Weiss switch genders for Halloween in 1965.

Actress Joan Crawford in 1932.