Word: ralph
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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This week's cover story about the new sexual conservatism is noteworthy for more than its examination of changing American mores. It marks another appearance (the twelfth, to be exact) in TIME'S pages of Ralph and Wanda, those conjugal commentators on the foibles and follies of our culture. Their scrappy discussion of the return to high monogamy in the U.S. accompanies and artfully augments the main narrative...
...contentious couple is the creation of Associate Editor John Leo, who also wrote the main story, with assistance from Reporter-Researcher Val Castronovo. Says Leo: "I first got the idea for Ralph and Wanda during the Me decade's deluge of weird therapies and odd self-realization manuals. The couple provides a way of dealing quickly and lightly with a lot of ephemera." Ralph and Wanda made their debut in 1977, when Ralph heard of several new books about the challenge of middle age. (Stanley, the friend who, as part of his "midolescent" crisis, ran off in that episode...
While not conceding for a minute that the male jingoist Ralph might be a vehicle for his own views, Leo admits that the original Wanda was a bit wan, serving as a foil for her splenetic spouse. "The characters have developed over the years," says their creator. "It used to be Ralph the triumphant curmudgeon teasing Wanda the trendy feminist. But Wanda has become a lot smarter. For one thing, the column worked better that way. Each of them could express sharper opinions and then get corrected or put down or yelled at by the other. Also...
...Henry Aaron, Darrell Evans, and Dave Johnson all hit 40 homers in 1973. Ralph Garr won the 1974 batting title by hitting .353, and Buzz Capra was the ERA champ in 1974 with a neat 2.210 mark...
...family of apes, he is rescued and restored to his patrimony by a passing explorer (Ian Holm, who symbolizes humanity at its best). Unfortunately, he fits as uneasily into English society as he did into simian society, despite the loving fuss made over him by his grandfather (the late Ralph Richardson in all his glorious eccentricity). The old man's death, when he attempts to break free of lordly constraint to celebrate his grandson's return, and the death of Tarzan's ape "father," at the hands of a panicky civilization, turn the noble savage into...