Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Here Come the Huggets

A different age, an alternative set of technological gizmos exalting newfound creative freedoms, a family's first concocted telephone begetting recourse grand undisciplined. 

Could it have been that there was once such a time when the queue breathtakingly persisted, and excited peeps tantalizingly awaited the heartfelt call of a friendly admirer?

Imagine the profits made in recent decades with the advent of the cellular phone, whereas families used to have one monthly bill per household they may now have one for each individual family member!

Back in the eighties (or 40s in the Huggett's case), there was usually one bill per household anyways, and if you used your minutes and long distance wisely, it wouldn't wind up costing too much.

But now if you have two or three children along with trusted cells for you and your spouse, you could be paying for many a bill indeed perhaps 5 times as much as used to be spent!

That equals astronomically higher profits for reliable service providers, throw in the requisite internet as well and the resultant sums seem theoretically absurd.

Nevertheless, Meet the Huggetts takes us back to a less interconnected day, wherein which people weren't immersed in the cheshire panopticon, assuming not everyone vigilantly kept track of the comings and scandalous goings of their surrounding inquisitive neighbours back then.

'Twas a time endearing indeed when the pressures of work and play abounded, but with jolly good resilient cheer inherent progression was outfitted accordingly.

However, one had to pay strict attention to the robust means through which incomes were generated, and toe the line with saccharine candour while at times sharing contradictory advice.

Without doing any research I'd wager Meet the Huggetts caused quite a stir in its day, and was indeed known as pervasively popular throughout what has come to be known as Great Britain.

In fact the couple, the titular Mr. Joe (Jack Warner) and Mrs. (Kathleen Harrison) Huggett both found themselves roles in Brian Desmond Hurst's A Christmas Carol (1951) shortly thereafter, and there's even a unique scene where Mrs. Harrison shares a bundle with a character named Joe. 

Back in the film, Mr. Huggett's forced to take debilitating lumps after having stuck his neck out for distant relations, the resonant injustice of determinate blame countermanding innate and temperate self-sacrifice.

An able couple notwithstanding the fluid tribulations of athletic life.

Sometimes it's fun to see cultural codes in action.

Transmitted by a film that never sought preservation.  

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