Sharing Work At Home (1949)

Summary: See how you can help Mother avoid a nervous collapse by picking up after yourself, you slob.

Open with Howard and his father, cleverly referred to as "Dad" (boy, those guys at Coronet Instructional are just too good sometimes!) slapping up hideous, floral wallpaper in the living room. As the excitement reaches its climax, i.e., will the next strip of wallpaper be straight?, in walks Big Sister, Martha with a tray of sandwiches. Lunch time, guys!

Mom, enters as well. "Who would have ever imagined that we could redecorate this room and do all the work ourselves," she gushes as she lays down a pot of coffee.

Man, this is intense!

Who would have ever imagined that we could pick wallpaper as ugly as this?

Why, everybody is so happy happy happy and "working well together" as the narrator explains. But wait! It hasn’t always been so. "Let’s take a look back last month,…"

Oh joy.

Fade to <cough>, "last month." Martha explains to the neighbor that her mother isn’t feeling so hot, so she’s trying to come up with some strategies where the whole family can pitch in and help with the housework.

"General cleaning is much easier if everyone picks up after himself," she reads aloud from her home economics book.

The camera pans across the messy living room and Martha has a fantastic insight: Why if they’d all just clean up their own mess, why, the house wouldn’t be so messy, and mom would feel better!

Huzzah!

Martha stands up to walk over and pick up a newspaper scattered across the floor and accidentally drags a lamp off a table and sends it crashing to the floor.

"Boy, a home sure is a lot of work!"

I quit.

Conclusion: Sorry, I could only make it halfway through this one. Even I have my limits.

1 comment to Sharing Work At Home (1949)

  • notmrjohn

    Luckily that wallpaper blinded me and I didn’t have to watch anymore.

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