Every year we watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” and every year Sally’s request for Santa to bring her “tens and twenties”—intended at the time to be a ridiculous sum, to show how commercialized Christmas is—becomes less unreasonable.
Actually, I think a year or two ago it flipped, and started to seem like a comically low amount. I’m just waiting for my kids to ask why Charlie Brown is so disgusted by such a small request.
That aired in 1965. Using $50 as a sort of reasonable base, that is worth $500.78 today.
Whoa. I hadn’t done the calculation to see what it should have been, but yikes.
And flipped the other way, listening to “how about tens and twenties?” feels to the modern ear like “how about singles and twos?”
I mean, it’s an odd request, but hardly extravagant in those denominations.
My fist experience with peanuts was the school forcing us to watch the special “why charlie Brown, why”
So I’ve always considered it to be kinda of depressing. Also I’m not sure why exactly they needed all students to see that special… Was there alot of leukemia bullying going on back then? Was i supposed to be checking myself for leukemia? What message was I supposed to be taking from that beyond “life kinda sucks sometimes”
No idea. It’s the second most confusing inspirational story we were subjected to at that school.
Edit: off topic but if anyone is curious about the #1 confusing story: Local rich guy on career day. All is kids in the auditorium. He tells us a story about growing up poor but admiring a rich man’s Rolex. He worked and saved for several summers. He bought a Rolex and showed his father. His father smashed it and tossed into the fire. Now he’s rich but never bought another Rolex. No clue what the point was. If you work hard you can achieve your dream? That people will try to smash your dreams? Spend money wisely? Sometimes father’s are dicks? No clue. Someone thought it was important enough to bus all three middle schools over to hear it. Again all I learned was that life can be kinda shitty. I’m nearly 40 now. Never forgot that story, never figured out the point. If you’re out there local small town rich dude… The fuck was the point of that story? What message were you trying to drive home? Over 25 years …always remembered it, never figured it out. What was the idea you were trying to pass on to over 1,000 kids because you certainly didn’t foster change, only a lot of confusion.
sadfasfsadfd
Unlimited XKCD scrolling started.
Inflation isn’t linear, it follows an exponential curve. Come on, this is Econ 101.
Yes, so if you look closer, the y axis is a logarithmic scale, indicating that straight lines are actually exponential growth.
Oh alright then. My mistake.
Arrested Development aired from 2003 through 2008. The average price of bananas during that time was around $0.62/lb. The average price currently is still $0.62/lb.
So…. No. Not “good old days.” Is more like same old days- if all we are using is a banana for scale.
Yeah, bananas are a singularly bad example to show inflation because, for some reason, they became so associated with the idea of “cheap” that when supermarkets increase their price any way it makes the entire supermarket be considered as expensive, so supermarket chains are locked in a standoff over its price.
Unfortunately, this is being subsided by the workers that aren’t getting paid a living wage to produce the bananas, and it seems we are close to a breaking point, so there might be a price realignment soon.
This was always wrong as a meme though. They weren’t talking about price of bananas at the store. It was a frozen chocolate banana dessert stand in LA on the beach. 10 dollars isn’t an unreasonable price for basically a food truck item, her guess was higher than the actual price listed but it’s not unreasonable like the quote suggests.
In an early episode where they’re taking money from the till, and George Michael says his dad checks the banana inventory to make sure the money matches up, it’s $1 per banana. Pretty cheap price in that context, but that’s the in-universe price.
I stopped watching when they were mocking one of the characters for having an anxiety disorder. The writing and structure are clever, but that show punches down way too much.
The show is about terrible people. You’re not supposed to think what they do is acceptable. If they only did acceptable things, you’d have a hard time believing they were the terrible people that the show is supposed be about.
It seems you missed the entire point of the show
It’s not like I prefer not to enjoy things. I’d rather enjoy more things.
Have a cookie for enjoying the show I guess.
That’s the point. Just like with the price of bananas, the show pokes fun at how old money families can be so disconnected from reality.
We were invited to laugh along at the guy collapsed and hyperventilating on the floor, no thanks.
