......AND WOULD APPRECIATE SERVICE FROM Times gone by......
your not asking to bring back the theatrical elements, but the civility of the TV show?
There are two concepts to remember about the United States when Walton first aired on TV..... college students were being killed by US military forces and US military forces of 18 year olds were being killed in Vietnam. The Walton's success was a reminiscent view of what was lost and would never return to US social structure. Your observation is interesting, in that today, that TV offerings are about living today and not Yesterday and that perhaps you think that in the 1970s folks were living just like The Waltons or even your Happy Days. That is not true. All in the Family was perhaps the only drama true to 70s American life.
In the 1970s the rights of the individuals were beginning to be more important than the rights of society. Take high school for example in the 1970s. Strict dress codes, hair codes, body codes and even cafeteria food codes. I have come to understand that those codes protected us from James Dean, Marlon Brando, West Side story and yes, The Fonz, very scary images and best to keep that imagery at bay, by isolating their dress code, ethics and behavior. Legislate against their behavior to protect society. Hippies had not even been invented before the codes of education attire. But they became the target of the fight between students rights and school board rights
hence, customer service, crowd civility began its downward spiral...push button phones, credit cards, electric windows in cars, 8 track tapes , key board typewriters and McDonalds. Did you know that one time there was no waiting all at Mcdonalds. walk up to the counter, pay and your food was in your hand in less than 30 seconds.....fast food at its finest at peak dinning hours.
The one heart wrenching episode that sticks in my mind from the Waltons, was a drama about Nazi Germany and its relationship to US citizens that ate german, wore german and spoke german. Folks in the town begin to riot and tear apart a german libray and carry books to a huge bon-fire surround by all the citizens. John-Boy steps in and pulls out a book that was just beginning to burn and yelled that everyone stop to listen to the US german speaking woman, who was a target by the townsfolks to read a page from the book almost destroyed....she began in german and John-Boy said no, translate into English.....and verses from the Bible poured from her lips.
And that very hatred from WW 2 was seen everyday on the streets and TV in the 1970s, hatred toward hippies, college students, migrant workers, racial minorities, women wearing pants and men wearing long hair.
Lucky rabbit post is very insightful in how we need to see civility at
Disneyland. And we can all practice now...at our grocery store parking lots. Allow others to back out of spaces, park farther away from the front door if you are able minded and can walk, don't step out into moving traffic but wave the leaving shopper cars thru, return carts to proper holding areas and bring cloth handled bags from home and conserve on the use of plastic bags.....be in service for the person taking your position as the next shopper. The very reflection of our parking lot while shopping, is the same behavior displayed everywhere else we walk...so we need to become our own Disneyland visit imagineers