Girls, This Week We Have One Status Seeking Bitch!!!!!!!!

                              Now, first let me explain.  The two actresses pictured above are June Allyson, and Veronica Cartwright, sister of Angela.  Neither one is this week's Bitch Of The Week, but they both have to do with someone who is.  Once again, it is neither one of them, but a character June at one time played, opposite Veronica, who played her daughter!!!!!!!!!

                                The winner of this week's Raving Queen Bitch Of The Week Award is Joanne Robins, mother of Nancy,  who appeared in the "High On A Rainbow" episode of the TV series "The Name Of The Game," which was originally aired on December 6, 1968!!!!!!!!!!

                                  A period in my life when I was actually dealing with status seeking bitches myself, loves!!!!!!!!!!!  Which is whom Joanne and Nancy reminded me of!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                    This episode got a lot of hype before it was aired, because, also appearing on this segment was Van Johnson, and much was made of the fact that he was working once again with June Allyson for the first time since their MGM days.

                                      The way the story went was this--Veronica as Nancy was running around with a drug addled crowd, getting high herself.  She was dating a guy named Sonny, who was part of the crowd, but whom the mother thought was great, as he projected to her a squeaky clean image--like Sandy, played by Don Scardino, in "The People Next Door."  Well the kids are out one night, getting high, there is a shootout with the police, and one kid in the group is killed.  Joanne as June counsels her daughter to hang onto Sonny, who she sees as a choice catch.  But Nancy knows the truth, and, fed up with her mother's social hypocrisy, lashes out at her mother, in one of my favorite scenes, when she says--

                                            "Is that why you did it?  Is that why all the dances and
                                              parties, when I was ten?  And the padded bras and
                                              heavy eye make-up, when I was twelve?  And pushing
                                              me into going steady, when I was only fifteen??? What
                                              was I to you? Someone you could brag about to your
                                              friends as a--STATUS SYMBOL??????"

                                              Whereupon Joanne slaps Nancy in the face.

                                   The rest of the story pans out with Nancy letting her mother in on the fact that it was the seemingly clean cut Sonny, who got her darling little daughter high, turning her into a
druggie!!!!  And sold it to the other kids, too!!!!!!!!  Again, just like Sandy!!!!!!!!  After this, either
mother, daughter, or both, come to their senses, and there is a scene, where Nancy is to meet Sonny on the pretext of going off with him, only the cops show up, because she is turning him in!!
Sonny, by the way, was played by Kevin Coughlin!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                      I am telling you, that Joanne Robins was one status seeking bitch!!!!!!
Just like Mrs. Dykeman back in Highland Park,who put her twin daughters, the Misses Debra and Diane Dykeman, on fashion runways, when they were twelve!!!!!!! Shades of Patsy Ramsey!!!!!!!!!   Only with Debbie, from what I always heard, I doubt there were ever any padded bras; not with what she used to show the boys down at Donaldson Park in the summer of 1968, before we entered eighth grade!!!!!!!  At least, that is the way I heard it, sitting on the Millers' front porch!!!!!!!!!  No doubt that Mrs. Dykeman was a real life Joanne Robins, which is why this otherwise obscure moment from an otherwise obscure TV show remains one of my favorites!!!!!!  It was a metaphor for the Dykeman household!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                      And I may have wanted status myself back then, but I swear, I would NOT resort to padded bras or heavy eye make-up, which denoted one at that age as a tramp!!!!!
The only reason the Dykemans got away with it was they came from the most monied street in town--Harrsion Avenue!!!!!!!!!!

                                        Not to mention, I am all natural, darlings!!!!!!! Just some moisturizer!!!!!!!

                                       As actresses, June and Veronica were real pros; that scene, even the way I describe it, still crackles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And what a break from June's "Girl Next Door" image. She did not get too much opportunity to display such--this and the movie "The Shrike"--are all I can recall--but when she did, this shrike did not shirk her duties!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        Which is why I just love June as Joanne!!!!!!!!!  Congratulations on being named Bitch Of The Week!!!!!!!!!!!!  If there was an award for Bad Motherhood, with a ceramic head of Joan Crawford, Joanne would certainly get it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                           I just never know where I am going to find my next bitch!!!!!!!!!!!