MovieChat Forums > Car 54, Where Are You? (1961) Discussion > 'Pretzel Mary'

'Pretzel Mary'

posted 17 years ago by antpaste
8 replies | jump to latest

"Car 54, Where Are You?" was one of the few shows that could make me laugh out loud. I laughed the loudest at the "Pretzel Mary" episode. Pretzel Mary was a mean, ragged old lady who made a living selling stale pretzels to passers-by in Central Park. She would try to cajole them into buying one of her unpalatable pretzels. When they did, she would coo, "Bless you, sir (or madam,) bless you." When they didn't, she would scream, "Aah, ya cheap bum!"

It turned out that Pretzel Mary was actually an extraordinarily rich woman who hid all the cash from her pretzel sales under her mattress in her Greenwich Village hovel.

[–] mcfaddensflats 17 years ago

The "Pretzel Mary" character may have been based on the nineteenth/early twentieth century New York eccentric Hetty Green, the "witch of Wall street", who was worth millions and yet lived like a pauper.

[–] antpaste 17 years ago

Wasn't she the woman who let her own son die when she tried to find a free clinic when he was struck down with a severe fever?

I also seem to recall that she used to line her tattered, pungent-smelling dress with old newspapers to keep out the cold.

[–] mcfaddensflats 17 years ago

"Green was mainly interested in business, and there are many tales (of various degrees of accuracy) about her stinginess. She never turned on the heat nor used hot water. She wore one old black dress and undergarments that she changed only after they had been worn out. She did not wash her hands and rode an old carriage. She ate mostly pies that cost fifteen cents. One tale claims that she spent a night looking around her home for a lost stamp worth two cents.

Her frugality extended to family life. Her son Ned broke his leg as a child, but Hetty took him away from the hospital when she was recognized. She tried to treat him at home, but the leg contracted gangrene and had to be amputated – he ended up with a cork prosthesis".

-Wiki

[–] antpaste 17 years ago

Let us not forget the Collier Brothers, who were the "collectors" of all time. They had, in their rambling mansion, literally thousands of shoe boxes containing shoelaces, used postage stamps, newspapers clippings, empty matchbooks, etc. After they had died, investigators found a shoebox containing many small pieces of string. The box was labeled, "Pieces of String Too Small to Be Saved."

[–] nateba 16 years ago

Let us not forget the Collier Brothers

Believe me, I won't. They lived (if that's the word for it) about 30 blocks north of me. And every time I think of several of my stranger than average friends, the name 'Collier brothers' pops into my mind.

cinefreak

[–] einsteinfile 17 years ago

Yeah, probably so! But, I was sure that it was based on one of my aunts, who does have millions and, yup, lives, literally, like a rag-picker!

[–] dancing_star 16 years ago

I thought of this episode yesterday! I read an article in a magazine suggesting unusual places to hide your cash. Two of the examples were an empty tin can and an old vacuum cleaner. I know the day I did that some helpful Hannah would decide to recycle my cans and trash my vacuum cleaner. :p

[–] antpaste 16 years ago

LOL

"First the worst. Second the same. Last the best of all the game."