Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2015 November 28

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November 28[edit]

Why did they always muffle any adult voices on the Charlie Brown Peanuts TV shows?[edit]

Whenever an adult character speaks on any of the animated Charlie Brown Peanuts TV shows, their words are merely a garbled indecipherable "wah wah wah wah" or such. Has Charles M. Schultz ever explained what his reasoning was behind this? Or is there just speculation about it? Also, were any adults ever shown in the cartoons? Or were they always off screen? I believe, the latter. Did Schultz ever explain that, also? Thanks. 2602:252:D13:6D70:6CDA:3818:9566:48D4 (talk) 07:48, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

“I usually say that they [adults] do not appear because the daily strip is only an inch and a half high, and they wouldn’t have room to stand up. Actually, they have been left out because they would intrude in a world where they could only be uncomfortable. Adults are not needed in the Peanuts strip. In earlier days I experimented with off-stage voices, but soon abandoned this as it was not only impractical but actually clumsy. Instead, I have developed a cast of off-stage adults who are talked about but never seen or heard.” – Charles M. Schulz, 1975 [1] --Viennese Waltz 07:52, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. But, huh? Instead, I have developed a cast of off-stage adults who are talked about but never seen or heard. I distinctly remember adult character voices being the garbled "wah wah wah" sounds. No? 2602:252:D13:6D70:B1E6:724E:F659:80A9 (talk) 09:01, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The quote is obviously about the comic strip. When carried over to the screen, the "wah wah wah" sound is used. I think it was created with a muffled trumpet or something like that. However, in some later TV shows, there are actually adults seen and heard, like the man at the Daisy Hill, where Charlie Brown bought Snoopy. In some very early comic strips too, there are adults seen, but only like the legs of them and they do not talk. Snowsuit Wearer (talk|contribs) 09:57, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"wah wah wah" would fall under "not heard". We can't hear what they say. We can only hear what the children tell us they hear, and only after the children have filtered and interpreted it for us. We don't hear anything the children don't understand. We don't hear anything the children don't care about. We don't hear adult concerns, adult reasons, or adult explanations for anything. Adults are incidental aliens that occasionally intrude into their world.
We are forced to interpret the world through the children's eyes&ears. Alsee (talk) 19:37, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Alsee - Excellent points. We never "hear" what the adults say. But, rather, what the kids say that the adults say. (Hearsay?) So, yes, everything is filtered through the perspective of the kids. Intentionally so, of course. 2602:252:D13:6D70:A9B5:C9D6:AC6B:B57D (talk) 22:13, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And considering how obedient kids are (not!), the muffled trombone could be said to represent how the kids actually hear those adults! ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:26, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation" by Charles Solomon, p.53, quotes Lee Mendelson as saying "As there were no adults in the strip, Sparky [=Schulz] said 'How are you going to handle the teacher?' I asked Vince Guaraldi if there were some instrument that could sound like talking; he got the trombone out, which worked very effectively." -- BenRG (talk) 15:56, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. 2602:252:D13:6D70:9562:88E6:981C:9C76 (talk) 06:30, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Italian incest farce[edit]

(I suspect I may have asked this before, years ago, but got no answer.)

Looking for the title of an Italian (or just possibly French) movie that I saw probably thirty years ago. A wealthy young landowner (I'll arbitrarily call him Pietro for convenience) marries the daughter (whom I'll call Anna) of his father's favorite servant. On the day of the wedding, but too late to stop it, a priest(?) shows up and tells them, "You must not consummate the marriage!" Pietro's nominal father had been castrated by a lion in Africa, so he secretly deputized his servant to sire Pietro, in darkness; thus Pietro is Anna's half-brother. Pietro's mother knew the truth when, in daylight, she saw scratches on the servant's face that she had made in her passion.

The new couple announce that they are remaining chaste for spiritual reasons; but their frustration mounts. Eventually they agree to give in to lust and then take poison. In the nick of time, another priest appears, to warn them that (according to a deathbed confession) they are half-siblings: Anna was conceived in adultery with Pietro's (nominal) father. Pietro, absorbing this news, absent-mindedly drinks the "poisoned" wine; when Anna is horrified, he says, "This? A harmless aphrodisiac."

I remember no more. —Tamfang (talk) 08:31, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Incest in film has 259 pages. The closest to your description I find is Till Marriage Do Us Part (IMDB plot summary here), but it doesn't quite match. Accidental incest does not have an "In popular culture" section. -- ToE 22:20, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We do have Incest in popular culture, though I don't see anything promising there either. -- ToE 00:45, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The American comedy My Chauffeur also has two twists which first suggest then resolve a possible brother-sister romance, but both revelations deal with the paternity of the woman. -- ToE 00:06, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Another list to scan is TV Tropes' "Surprise Incest", though no obvious match in the film or literature section. ---Sluzzelin talk 10:50, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Arenas in Kazan[edit]

Are Trudovye Rezervy Stadium and Raketa Stadium different names for the same arena or are they different arenas? They are both used for bandy in Kazan, Russia, as it seems. Snowsuit Wearer (talk|contribs) 09:49, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Football at the 2013 Summer Universiade – Men's tournament lists them separately, as does this Swedish news article. Tevildo (talk) 16:16, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This Russian Wikipedia article on the 2011 bandy world championships says (if Google Translate has it right) that the tournament was held at both of these stadiums, and gives details of which games were played at each one. Apparently Trudovye Rezervy (Labor Reserves) Stadium is the smaller one, with only 5,000 seats. Combined with the Swedish article, I think that's sufficient evidence to close the suggestion that they are the same place. I'll do so. --70.49.170.168 (talk) 17:09, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]