Happy Wonder Wednesday Everyone,
Angela Bowen here, the host of Looking Back On My Wonder Years: A Wonder Years Podcast.
Today, I covered The Wonder Years S1E18: Goose Grease, which aired on April 6, 2022.
In this episode when Dean comes down with chickenpox on his way to a hunting trip with Bill and Grandaddy Clisby, Lillian forces the three of them to quarantine together; Clisby pushes homemade remedies on them out of his mistrust of doctors.
Going into this episode, my expectations were low, thinking it was just going to be a "meh" episode, but it surprised me by bringing up a topic I had only just learned more about. The rest of the episode was good and funny and heartwarming to and leaves on a cliffhanger.
Here's The Trivia for this episode that goes into more detail about what Grandaddy Clisby was referring to when he mentioned Bill's cousin who was enduring some medical experiment in Tuskegee.
When Granddaddy Clisby (Richard Gant) expresses his mistrust of doctors, one of the reasons he gives is: "you remember your cousin Darnell? Well, he's being treated by some doctors over at Tuskegee in some special studies. But I'm telling you: the man is only getting worse!" This is a reference to what was originally called the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male" and is now referred to as the "U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee." Lasting from 1932 to 1972, the so-called "study" observed hundreds of Black men both with and without syphilis, always withholding syphilis treatment from them (even after syphilis became completely curable with penicillin) and in come cases never even informing them that they had a communicable disease. Not only did many of the men die avoidable deaths due to advanced, untreated syphilis, in many cases they also inadvertently infected their wives and in-utero children. The "study" is now considered one of the most notorious ethical travesties in the history of American medicine, and it is the basis for many African Americans' mistrust of the medical establishment into the present day (many articles in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic brought up the difficulties that the lingering fear and mistrust fomented by the "study" still posed to public health educators trying to reach Black communities). This show is set in Montgomery, which is only about 40 miles west of Tuskegee, Alabama.; showrunner Saladin K. Patterson spent some of his childhood in Tuskegee.
Join me next month when I cover S1E19: Love & War, which aired on April 13, 2022.
In this episode when Bruce returns home from Vietnam, the family is shocked to find out he is dating, and eager to share his life with, an older woman with a son; when they learn more about Bruce's last deployment, they come together to support him.
Have a great rest of July everyone and I'll be back in August.
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