Post #56496 by ikitnrev on Thu, Oct 23, 2003 8:56 AM

Half a century ago, being drunk was definitely considered more humorous than it is today. Comedians like W.C. Fields (in the 30's) and Foster Brooks (in the 60's) developed whole personas as drunkards, and even part of Dean Martin's mystique was that he always seemed to have a light buzz, with cocktail in hand. Several daily cartoon strips featured characters that were almost always drunk. It was considered cute back then to have a bar lamp, that featured a drunkard wrapped around a streetlamp, often with his nose represented by a red lightbulb.

Somewhat tied in with this were the 'pink elephants' that one would see after too many drinks. Those cartoon pink elephants were more cute and happy, rather than angry and vicious. Years ago I saw many more cartoons that featured a drunk wearing a lampshade over his head ... I haven't seen any of those recently.

The whole point of the above is to illustrate that being a 'comical drunk' was quite common back then. The Trader Vics cartoons were just the same type of humor, placed within a Polynesian setting. I doubt that they were intended as a slur to the Polynesian people

VErn