I remember the first time I watched an episode of Benson where the daughter got a spanking from her father the governor. The spanking was for lying. When I saw it I didn't figure she would get in any trouble at all, but then her father tells Benson that he spanked her. I was surprised she got a spanking. It was 1979, and things have changed I guess. The governor said his only problem was knowing WHEN to spank, not IF to spank. So he thought spanking was a fine disciplinary method. The governor seemed so gentle and loving with her. Of course he said he did cry when he gave her the spanking. And then the next morning Katie walks into the kitchen and starts eating breakfast and has no bad feelings towards her father. For those who are familiar with Benson, did you find it hard to picture the dear ole governor spanking cute little Katie? I guess to an audience in 1979 it was nothing. They probably agreed with the governor that she deserved it.

I'm not sure this is going to warrant its own thread, but I'll go with the Andy Griffith show. Not Opie, but some brat that was picking on him. Andy told the kid's father with a big ol' smile on his face that there was a woodshed out back. Then the father dragged the kid back there.

Of course, this is the same show that showed Andy with the same big ol' smile telling Barney about some townsperson beating his wife.

I come from a "spare the rod, spoil the child" background so spankings on TV never really shocked me because 99 out of 100 the kid deserved it (unless he didn't do it and was taking the rap for someone else). Some families that spank may or may not do it when a kid lies to them; I can imagine a punishment involving "no activities" or "extra chores" or something to penalize their trangression.

What shocked me (punishment wise) was a punishment on the Brady Bunch. When Marsha screwed up but leaving home (via the trellis outside her bedroom) in her PJs so she could mail a letter for the "Father of the Year Aaward", the family had been planning a vacation. When Carol & Mike found out about what Marsha did (not knowing about the award) they told her she wouldn't go on vacation with them, and would stay with Grandma & Gandpa while the family had fun. I thought that was harsh.






I liked this ep because the father of the brat realized what a monster his kid was becoming and it wasn't a good influence on Opie either. For some reason (can't remember specifics) the father spoiled his son and would buy him cool stuff to placate his tantrums. Best of all the father was going to sell the bike the kid had been given earlier in the episode . A whoopin' would have been the perfect way to shut the kid up with his annoying tantrums. The dad grew a pair right before my eyes!

Back in the early 80's on One Day at a Time, Glenn Scarpelli's character was addicted to video games (Pac-Man, for one) and kept skipping school. Anne Romano finds out about this, and the episode ended on a freeze-frame of her taking a paddle to his behind. It was even weirder than it sounded. Glenn Scarpelli was kind of perched on the living room coffee table, bent over, holding onto his knees with his rear in the air. Bonnie Franklin is kind of a short lady, so she was standing up behind the table with the paddle almost up to her shoulder.

Oh, and Little House on the Prairie, after seeing a classmate being disciplined by his father, Albert ASKS Charles why they don't spank in their house. Charles asks if that is the way he wants things. Albert says yes, and...well he gets spanked. (Kind of creeped me out then, and now actually, that a kid would ask to be spanked.) Also, I think either Nellie or Willie Oleson got spanked on the show.

ETA: a couple of odd details about the "One Day At a Time" spanking.

Yes magicdog. I agree sincerely about the Brady Bunch episode. What they did to Marcia was way worse than a spanking even. I remember she was watching Alice and the other girls practicing skiing, and she started crying. That was way too cruel a punishment. Mike and Carol really annoyed me at times. They could be way over-the-top strict. Remember when Peter broke the vase and didn't get to go on his camping trip? Sure, he deserved some kind of punishment, but to take away something a kid has been looking forward to for months is just wrong. And the way they made him punish the other kids to get him to confess was just plain stupid.

I feel like this topic fits into the thread about "My, How Time Changes Things."

I'm reminded of the "Off To See The Wretched" episode of the Cosby Show. No spanking actually occurred but between Cliff having to do a jump test to determine how far he needed to be from Vanessa and Claire coming thisclose to whooping her ass, I think Bill Cosby was trying to send a not so subtle message that although they were upstanding, good-mannered folks, the Huxtables don't play!

In the Mad Men episode, Marriage of Figaro about Sally's birthday party. This boy in the house was running around and carousing and suddenly this guy slaps the kid across the face for running around inside. Another guy comes over and takes this as okay for the man to slap a little boy who he doesn't know and isn't related to for running around at a birthday party. I don't know whether the moral of the story is "Child-rearing was really different in the early 1960s" or "Even nameless characters on Mad Men can be assholes".

Or maybe it could just be renamed: "Child Rearing/Punishment on TV"

Back on topic, I only recall two instances of spanking/whoopin' on TV, one on Good Times and the other on South Central (short-lived Fox-com). Other than that, I remember growing up thinking it weird that no kid got spanked. I was spanked, my siblings were spanked, my friends were spanked. Of all races, black, white, latino, asian, whatever.

I remember Punky Brewster and her friends being threatened with a spanking sometimes.

I remember the Andy Griffith episode. I've only seen maybe a dozen episodes of that show front-to-back, and that was one of 'em.

It's been a few years since I've seen it, but as I recall, Andy was going to arrest the brat's father after a heated arguement (I think it had something to do with the kid's bike, maybe it was stolen and the dad didn't believe it or something), and the brat was goading him on, saying something like "Yeah, Dad, go to jail! That'll show 'im!" That's when the dad (and Opie, who'd picked up some of the kid's bad habits) realized how much of a brat the kid had become, and that's when Andy mentioned the woodshed.

*****

My mistake. The bike wasn't stolen, the kid was riding it on the sidewalk. Here's the scene.

I think Child rearing/punishment on tv is good topic title too.

I watched a few episodes of the George Lopez show, and I am suprised at what gets through on there. On one episode in particular, George's mom hauled off and slapped George's kid in the face- on screen (I think he called her a b**** or something). My memory is fuzzy, but I think a bruhaha ensued because George felt his mother shouldn't be doing the disciplining, and he told som pretty nasty stories of how his mom beat him as a kid. I have mixed views on corporal punishment, but again I was just suprised that they showed the slap on screen, in this day and age.

Cliff had to hold her back! That is one of my all-time favorite episodes of The Cosby Show. Vanessa was too old to be spanked by then (she was 16-ish because they drove to the concert "ALL the WAY to BAL-timore!"), but the way Claire just tore into her rang so true to me. My brother and I got spankings as kids (we're children of the 80s; we usually got one or two swats on the clothed butt with an open hand while we were standing up), and our parents were both yellers, so we were both the recipients of some Claire-esque rants as teens.

On Friday Night Lights, Julie told her mom to go to hell after her mom caught her parked making out in front of the house with a gross older guy (she literally dragged Julie out of the car when Julie refused to get out) after she missed curfew, and Tami slapped her in the face. I was surprised by that, but I also thought it was deserved. There wasn't much fallout on Julie's end but Tami cried about it, so you got the impression that Julie hadn't been hit before (although that may have been because she hadn't given them trouble before).

I think I remember a vague reference to Samantha spanking Tabitha on Bewitched. This was after Tabitha ran away to Storybook land in a jealous fit after baby Adam was born. I don't know that I was surprised though, as it seemed a major pain in the ass to locate somebody in storybook land.

"Brady Bunch" really did come up with harsh punishments within this supposedly ideal blended family. I remember when Marcia got the lead role in the school production of "Romeo and Juliet", and Carol is involved with the production somehow, and when Marcia gets a swelled head, Carol has her removed from the role and her understudy put in. As a would-be actress myself at the time, I was devastated for Marcia, who then of course showed she 'learned her lesson' by volunteering for the far smaller role of Lady Capulet when that actress was taken ill.

I often thought Mike and Carol could both be really hard on their kids.

On Good Times, James spanked a kid that Michael had brought home from school. I think the kid was rude one too many times and James grabbed him and dragged him back into his bedroom. There was a shot (sometimes cut in syndication) of the kid attempting to run from the room and James yanking him back in. While that was going on, JJ, Michael, and Thelma stood in the kitchen discussing which spanking James was giving: the regular, the super, or...the BIG MAC. I think the kid got the BIG MAC.

In another episode, Florida slapped Michael across the face, although that was more about Florida being under a lot of stress and losing it than anything Michael did.

In an episode of What's Happening, Raj got spanked by his mother after Dee the brat squealed that he had been gambling with dice. The spanking took place off screen, but a later scene had Raj lying on his bed, rubbing his sore butt.

As I recall, even The Mary Tyler Moore Show had a child receive a spanking. Ted's brilliant adopted son was mouthing off to Georgette and had to be punished.
Ted asked Lou if he could borrow a hairbrush to conduct the corrective measure. The wisecracking kid (who had had Lou's sympathy up til then), asked his father "What would he be doing with a hairbrush?"
I remember at the time (1976) being somewhat surprised that on that particular series a child was to be spanked. The use of corporal punishment was becoming controversial by then and other penalties for misbehaviour more common.

This is a bit too specific a topic for a thread. Please don't start a topic for subjects that could be covered in other existing topics. There's a thread about children on TV here in Potluck, and in Superlatives there's a "Best/Worst TV Parents" thread.